When Cataclysm hit the store shelves, I found myself picking the game up on day one, once again. I was pretty engaged with Nerv (which has now transferred to Blackrock) on Ainx, but remained in Still Life on my Paladin and raided with the small, more casual 10-man crew on Kilrogg. Although Cataclysm was initially pretty fun and Nerv did reasonably well at progressing through content, it didn't have the same feel as prior expansions. On February 8th 2011 I had to make a week-long trip out of the country and when I came back, Still Life 10-man fell apart due to lack of interest. Almost everyone cancelled their subscription and went to play other games. Nerv was still together, but only for another week - just enough time to get me a Nefarian kill. I lost interest in WoW as well and sure enough my subscription followed.
Over the next few months I played some more Rift, delved into Star Wars: The Old Republic for a month, played some non-MMOs like Starcraft 2, Deus Ex and more recently Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2 an Torchlight 2. Most of all, 2010-2012 were two years which I dedicated to getting all my university coursework finished and finally graduating which happened just this summer.
I am now also, once again, LFG and ready to raid.
The End
Friday, October 5, 2012
Ainx, Part 8
Chalae messaged me inquiring whether I would be interested in participating in a hardcore 10-man aiming to progress quickly through Icecrown Citadel. I'm pretty sure she knew that was a rhetorical question. The catch was that we would only be raiding two nights a week, 4 hours a night - Friday and Saturday. I could do that! I quickly dropped everything else I was doing (except raiding with Nerv) and finished gearing my Paladin up the best I could before Icecrown Citadel (ICC) opened on December 8th.
With this raid dungeon's release, Blizzard thought it was a smart idea to artificially block progress by locking the four different wings of the dungeon up and opening them one per week. This, of course, enraged a lot of raiders, but it gave my hardcore 10-man group to pick up extra gear from Heroic Trial of the Crusader to fill out any gaps we might have had since half the raid was alts. We cleared one wing a week until finally killing the Lich King on February 14th. Yes, Valentines day, who cares... We cleared the Heroic modes of ICC (except Lich King) on March 26th. Although competition on Kilrogg was scarce at the time, Temporary Insanity was running their own 10-man which was much more progressed than their 25-man. TI actually ended up getting the Meta achievement for ICC done the same evening as us! Surprisingly, nobody else came even close. Without Conquest to compete, Kilrogg felt deflated.
ICC was a great feeling. The fact we raided merely two nights a week and managed to achieve so much made me feel alive again, not to mention stuck a needle in my heart and pumped adrenaline all throughout the race to the finish. And what a glorious race that was...
Meanwhile, I finished Heroic ICC10 and Regular ICC25 with Nerv on Vek'Nilash slightly after my Still Life group did the same on Kilrogg. In fact, Nerv managed to get deep into Heroic ICC 25 and clear all the way up to Heroic Lich King, but never did kill him as far as I can remember. I don't think I've killed him to this day on Heroic mode.
End, Part 8
With this raid dungeon's release, Blizzard thought it was a smart idea to artificially block progress by locking the four different wings of the dungeon up and opening them one per week. This, of course, enraged a lot of raiders, but it gave my hardcore 10-man group to pick up extra gear from Heroic Trial of the Crusader to fill out any gaps we might have had since half the raid was alts. We cleared one wing a week until finally killing the Lich King on February 14th. Yes, Valentines day, who cares... We cleared the Heroic modes of ICC (except Lich King) on March 26th. Although competition on Kilrogg was scarce at the time, Temporary Insanity was running their own 10-man which was much more progressed than their 25-man. TI actually ended up getting the Meta achievement for ICC done the same evening as us! Surprisingly, nobody else came even close. Without Conquest to compete, Kilrogg felt deflated.
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| This awful, awful achievement... | Still Life and TI on Frostwyrms |
Meanwhile, I finished Heroic ICC10 and Regular ICC25 with Nerv on Vek'Nilash slightly after my Still Life group did the same on Kilrogg. In fact, Nerv managed to get deep into Heroic ICC 25 and clear all the way up to Heroic Lich King, but never did kill him as far as I can remember. I don't think I've killed him to this day on Heroic mode.
End, Part 8
Ainx, Part 7
With Mun having now stepped down as leader (sometime through Naxxramas), I was charged with leading Still Life. So... I led. Outside of Glory of the Raider, we ventured into Ulduar and within two weeks cleared the entire instance, setting ourselves in third place on the server right behind Conquest and another Horde guild (not TI). It's worth noting that Wrath of the Lich King saw our raid time diminished from 5x4hr to 4x4hr, while the two guilds ahead of us continued with relentless progression. I really don't feel bad about coming in third given the amount of effort we put in at the time. Although I don't remember when exactly (oh wait, I do) we killed Yogg'saron, I do remember that his defeat was also essentially the beginning of the end of Still Life as a World of Warcraft raiding guild.
The reason was simple. Blizzard instituted a new mode for 25-man dungeons called "Heroic" which was essentially a rehash of the same boss encounter, just more difficult. Bosses had new gimmicks which needed to be conquered in order to be able to say you conquered the "Heroic" version of the boss. This did not sit well with a bunch of people, including me. Shortly after our third or 4th Yogg'saron kill and several hours spent on working on a few Ulduar achievements (screw you, Lumberjacked), Still Life stopped raiding. Many of the members went on to join other guilds, some stopped raiding and played casually and others quit WoW entirely. I belonged in the latter group.
Through the second half of 2009 I opted to play Rift instead and leveled a Rogue to level 50. I also hit up FFXI one last time before putting it down forever. Although Blizzard released another raid - Trial of the Crusader - in August '09, it did not initially pull me in. Towards '09 I learned that Conquest stopped raiding and TI was a shadow of its former glory. What was Kilrogg without CQ and TI?
I came back to World of Warcraft to play in a guild called Nerv run by an ex-Still Life member. This guild was on the server Vek'nilash. I came back in November of '09 and aside from raiding with Nerv I decided to level a Paladin on Kilrogg as well. Just so happened that as I hit level 80 an old friend of mine, Chalae, sent me a very exciting in-game mail. No, not nudes.
End, Part 7
The reason was simple. Blizzard instituted a new mode for 25-man dungeons called "Heroic" which was essentially a rehash of the same boss encounter, just more difficult. Bosses had new gimmicks which needed to be conquered in order to be able to say you conquered the "Heroic" version of the boss. This did not sit well with a bunch of people, including me. Shortly after our third or 4th Yogg'saron kill and several hours spent on working on a few Ulduar achievements (screw you, Lumberjacked), Still Life stopped raiding. Many of the members went on to join other guilds, some stopped raiding and played casually and others quit WoW entirely. I belonged in the latter group.
Through the second half of 2009 I opted to play Rift instead and leveled a Rogue to level 50. I also hit up FFXI one last time before putting it down forever. Although Blizzard released another raid - Trial of the Crusader - in August '09, it did not initially pull me in. Towards '09 I learned that Conquest stopped raiding and TI was a shadow of its former glory. What was Kilrogg without CQ and TI?
I came back to World of Warcraft to play in a guild called Nerv run by an ex-Still Life member. This guild was on the server Vek'nilash. I came back in November of '09 and aside from raiding with Nerv I decided to level a Paladin on Kilrogg as well. Just so happened that as I hit level 80 an old friend of mine, Chalae, sent me a very exciting in-game mail. No, not nudes.
End, Part 7
Ainx, Part 6
Still Life killed Illidan sometime in November of 2007. After farming the instance for 5 months straight a lot of the members became disillusioned with the game. Through this huge pause in content some famous guilds quit playing altogether (Death and Taxes, Deus Vox). Still Life managed to persevere until Sunwell, but despite our best efforts to continue playing, we simply could not. In the prior months our roster dwindled and we replaced a lot of core members with newcomers. We raided on the PTR but only twice and did not get much practice in on Kalecgos before Sunwell went live. The week that Sunwell went live, two of our priests and a healing shaman dropped off the face of the planet. At this point Mun, rightfully so, simply called it. Still Life's amazing run had come to a halt in the Burning Crusade.
Ainx and Itada were put away - stored in a safe place for future endeavors. We promised to come back stronger than ever for Wrath of the Lich King. In the meantime, a lot of us tried out Age of Conan, hopped back into Final Fantasy XI (as I found out a few people had actually played it before WoW as well!) and played other non-MMOs. Overall nothing notable happened here.
In late 2008 Wrath of the Lich King beta was just about to wrap up. I was playing my shaman, Pneu, on the beta servers at the time. One evening Kody (of Conquest) messaged me asking if I were interested in healing a Naxxramas 10 run (Naxx was repurposed from a 40-man to a 10 and 25man in Wotlk). Naturally I agreed, hungry for content to destroy. We cleared a bunch of bosses which gave me a pretty good base of strategy for SL's planned resurgence (though the new Naxx felt so easy that strategy was hardly necessary). Towards the end of 2008, Wrath of the Lich King dropped on the store shelves and like a fat kid in a candy store I jumped on it and leveled to 80 as fast as I could.
Through the next couple months we went through Naxxramas in an effort to gear up. At this point, Mun was still playing, and I was playing my warrior now. We recruited a large amount of people to fill the gaps left by between-expansion attrition. Some key additions to our roster were ex-members of Vengeance/Abandon - Horo, Chalae, Tabooman - as well as some other excellent players such as Ayume, Shalanna, Peemp, Rousse, Kaija, Drakkoniz and Tarlinras. With this extremely solid crew, after a less-than-hilarious Immortal mishap on the spider boss Maexxna, we managed to complete the Glory of the Raider meta achievement and gain the Immortal title in the process. Only about 120 people got the Black Drake on Kilrogg (Conquest, TI, Still Life, Clout Mace?, Last Call and another flash-in-the-pan Horde guild), a reward for completing the GotR meta achievement.
With Naxxramas out of the way, our next target was Ulduar, though not without destroying Sartharion 10+3 first...
We also slew Malygos really fast. I think that was an achievement too - required for the meta? I don't remember now.
We also slew Malygos really fast. I think that was an achievement too - required for the meta? I don't remember now.
End, Part 6
Ainx, Part 5
In April of 2007 I joined a guild called Still Life. They were a new crew of up-and-comers, mostly composed of members of a casual raiding guild called Adrenaline who split off and several transfers from other servers. The guild was led by Mun and there were no officers, class leaders or any of that nonsense that most guilds model themselves after. Mun took care of everything, but he also relied on people to come prepared and knowledgeable about encounters. There was no DKP, EPGP or any other means of measuring player attendance, but there was no reason to have it. Each and every player in Still Life was there to kill bosses. While the roster was only around 30 people, you could expect all 30 to be online and in front of the entrance to the raid zone before the raid started, each with their own flasks, food and potions.
When I joined SL, they were still working on Gruul and had just gotten keyed for Magtheridon. I was already keyed to these thanks to running many dungeon instances with a crew in Abandon, my previous guild. I do recall dominating Maulgar and Gruul DPS meters again, resulting in my acquiring a permanent raider spot pretty fast. Still Life's raiding schedule was 5 nights a week (tue, wed, thu, sun, mon), 4 hours a night. At 20 hours a week we were able to not only learn and beat encounters quickly, but also catch up to and ultimately beat Conquest who at the time was the leading king of progression on the Kilrogg server.
Throughout the Burning Crusade up until Sunwell there were three guilds on Kilrogg which battled for dominance of the top crop. Itzlegend's Conquest, the de-facto leader in PVE content was one. The other was Temporary Insanity, which was a Horde guild led by Gilora. The newcomer was Still Life. We devoured content quickly enough to catch up to CQ and TI, eventually overtake TI and go toe to toe with CQ for the claim to server-first kills in Hyjal and Black Temple. Though the exact dates escape me, at one point both Mun and Itzlegend had to make a choice. Conquest had cleared 4/5 Hyjal through Azgalor and took down the Illidari Council in Black Temple putting them at 8/9. Still Life also cleared 4/5 in Hyjal, but we were stuck on Mother Shahraz in BT due to lack of a complete set of shadow resist gear required to beat her. Both Itz and Mun had to make a call on which content to tackle. Fortunately, that same week, Blizzard nerfed the amount of shadow damage dealt out by Mother Shahraz which gave us a free hand at continuing through Black Temple.
Hypotheticals aside, Itzlegend took Conquest through Black Temple and decided to work on Illidan while leaving Archimonde in Hyjal alone. Mun, then, opted to go for Archimonde. The end result was Still Life's first server-first kill - Archimonde. Conquest got the first Illidan kill, but not until Still Life, for a brief moment, dominated the Wowjutsu rankings (old school wowprogress) for Kilrogg. Unfortunately, Illidan proved to be Still Life's weak point due to a faulty tank unable to kite Flames of Azzinoth on the encounter. We were effectively set back an entire week and ended up killing Illidan two weeks after Conquest with two druid tanks in full fire resist gear (Fredi and Yumari iirc). As if the earlier setback wasn't enough, Fredi had a real-life issue come up which prevented him from continuing playing. This left us with the faulty tank of the past to try and kill Illidan with. But wait... there was an alternative!
At this point, my alternate character named Ainx had already been raiding. Given Still Life's superb progression, its members gained prestige on the server and that included me. Having had the benefit of Conquest experience and a long history on the server, I was able to put together pickup raids which went into Gruul's Lair, Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern. Since I couldn't do those with Itada, I opted to level Ainx as my alt which I then took to those raids. Ainx got geared up pretty quickly and eventually proceeded to...
When I joined SL, they were still working on Gruul and had just gotten keyed for Magtheridon. I was already keyed to these thanks to running many dungeon instances with a crew in Abandon, my previous guild. I do recall dominating Maulgar and Gruul DPS meters again, resulting in my acquiring a permanent raider spot pretty fast. Still Life's raiding schedule was 5 nights a week (tue, wed, thu, sun, mon), 4 hours a night. At 20 hours a week we were able to not only learn and beat encounters quickly, but also catch up to and ultimately beat Conquest who at the time was the leading king of progression on the Kilrogg server.
Throughout the Burning Crusade up until Sunwell there were three guilds on Kilrogg which battled for dominance of the top crop. Itzlegend's Conquest, the de-facto leader in PVE content was one. The other was Temporary Insanity, which was a Horde guild led by Gilora. The newcomer was Still Life. We devoured content quickly enough to catch up to CQ and TI, eventually overtake TI and go toe to toe with CQ for the claim to server-first kills in Hyjal and Black Temple. Though the exact dates escape me, at one point both Mun and Itzlegend had to make a choice. Conquest had cleared 4/5 Hyjal through Azgalor and took down the Illidari Council in Black Temple putting them at 8/9. Still Life also cleared 4/5 in Hyjal, but we were stuck on Mother Shahraz in BT due to lack of a complete set of shadow resist gear required to beat her. Both Itz and Mun had to make a call on which content to tackle. Fortunately, that same week, Blizzard nerfed the amount of shadow damage dealt out by Mother Shahraz which gave us a free hand at continuing through Black Temple.
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| Kael'Thas dead. Huge landmark kill. | On our way to Illidan. |
Hypotheticals aside, Itzlegend took Conquest through Black Temple and decided to work on Illidan while leaving Archimonde in Hyjal alone. Mun, then, opted to go for Archimonde. The end result was Still Life's first server-first kill - Archimonde. Conquest got the first Illidan kill, but not until Still Life, for a brief moment, dominated the Wowjutsu rankings (old school wowprogress) for Kilrogg. Unfortunately, Illidan proved to be Still Life's weak point due to a faulty tank unable to kite Flames of Azzinoth on the encounter. We were effectively set back an entire week and ended up killing Illidan two weeks after Conquest with two druid tanks in full fire resist gear (Fredi and Yumari iirc). As if the earlier setback wasn't enough, Fredi had a real-life issue come up which prevented him from continuing playing. This left us with the faulty tank of the past to try and kill Illidan with. But wait... there was an alternative!
At this point, my alternate character named Ainx had already been raiding. Given Still Life's superb progression, its members gained prestige on the server and that included me. Having had the benefit of Conquest experience and a long history on the server, I was able to put together pickup raids which went into Gruul's Lair, Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern. Since I couldn't do those with Itada, I opted to level Ainx as my alt which I then took to those raids. Ainx got geared up pretty quickly and eventually proceeded to...
This is approximately the time where Itada the Priest got phased out and Ainx the Warrior took the wheel.
End, Part 5
End, Part 5
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Ainx, Part 4
Being in Conquest had its benefits. Since the guild was world ranked, they were invited to the Burning Crusade beta. I got a beta key and went on to level to 70 over a couple months. Since betas are excellent scouting tools, we were able to check out Karazhan all the way up to Shade of Aran and achieve a world first (beta) Maulgar kill in conjunction with several other top-ranked guilds also playing. Although we tried Gruul, he was simply too strong for our beta crew to defeat.
Once The Burning Crusade hit the shelves, I quickly leveled to 70 and started on the dungeon gearing process. A week before we were meant to go into Karazhan for the first time, groups were posted on the guild forums and I noticed that I wasn't in any. I posted on the pertinent thread that my name was omitted from the list, but before Zav (or Thep) had a chance to fix it, a couple of the guild assholes (namely Windir and Svif) jumped on my case that I'm a whiny bitch. Since I don't take shit from lowlifes, I told them to fuck right off. The issue escalated within hours and ultimately resulted with my telling Itzlegend that I'm done with Conquest and him telling me that it's probably better that I leave. By the time I got home from work, I was already de-guilded. In retrospect, this turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me.
Literally the same day, I joined a guild called Abandon led by some of the ex-Vengeance fellows Chalae and Coeus. It's worth noting that at the time I was still playing Itada, but this time no longer as a healer but as shadow DPS. Likely due to my status as ex-Conquest, I got a spot in their first ever Gruul's Lair spot. Right off the bat, Rizzen proceeded to talk shit to me, because I was just a recruit and they had sat some of their raider-status players in favor of me. Rizzen gave me a huge amount of attitude whilst I was in Abandon for no apparent reason other than just to be an asshole. Admittedly, he might've had a reason to be angry since I absolutely obliterated him (and the rest of the raid) in DPS on Maulgar and eventually also Gruul. Not to diminish my skillz, but I should also mention that shadow priests were extremely strong early on in TBC, because the base values of their spells were higher than the rest of the classes. This did not translate well into late TBC due to lack of scaling, but that's a different matter. Tack on the fact I already had experience in both of the fights from beta and it's no wonder that I did so well and Rizzen didn't like it!
Unfortunately, Abandon did not last beyond the first two months of its existence. Like many other guilds to this day, Abandon simply suffered from "friends" and thus the overall skill level was lower than required to conquer raid encounters in early TBC. When Chalae officially declared Abandon abandoned, I had once again set out on a journey to find a new home. This time, however, my new home would become one which to this day I champion in every MMO I play.
End, Part 4
Once The Burning Crusade hit the shelves, I quickly leveled to 70 and started on the dungeon gearing process. A week before we were meant to go into Karazhan for the first time, groups were posted on the guild forums and I noticed that I wasn't in any. I posted on the pertinent thread that my name was omitted from the list, but before Zav (or Thep) had a chance to fix it, a couple of the guild assholes (namely Windir and Svif) jumped on my case that I'm a whiny bitch. Since I don't take shit from lowlifes, I told them to fuck right off. The issue escalated within hours and ultimately resulted with my telling Itzlegend that I'm done with Conquest and him telling me that it's probably better that I leave. By the time I got home from work, I was already de-guilded. In retrospect, this turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me.
Literally the same day, I joined a guild called Abandon led by some of the ex-Vengeance fellows Chalae and Coeus. It's worth noting that at the time I was still playing Itada, but this time no longer as a healer but as shadow DPS. Likely due to my status as ex-Conquest, I got a spot in their first ever Gruul's Lair spot. Right off the bat, Rizzen proceeded to talk shit to me, because I was just a recruit and they had sat some of their raider-status players in favor of me. Rizzen gave me a huge amount of attitude whilst I was in Abandon for no apparent reason other than just to be an asshole. Admittedly, he might've had a reason to be angry since I absolutely obliterated him (and the rest of the raid) in DPS on Maulgar and eventually also Gruul. Not to diminish my skillz, but I should also mention that shadow priests were extremely strong early on in TBC, because the base values of their spells were higher than the rest of the classes. This did not translate well into late TBC due to lack of scaling, but that's a different matter. Tack on the fact I already had experience in both of the fights from beta and it's no wonder that I did so well and Rizzen didn't like it!
Unfortunately, Abandon did not last beyond the first two months of its existence. Like many other guilds to this day, Abandon simply suffered from "friends" and thus the overall skill level was lower than required to conquer raid encounters in early TBC. When Chalae officially declared Abandon abandoned, I had once again set out on a journey to find a new home. This time, however, my new home would become one which to this day I champion in every MMO I play.
End, Part 4
Ainx, Part 3
In late 2005 and early 2006 I started PvPing a lot more. Being a healer gave me the advantage of being wanted in premade groups running on Kilrogg. Specifically in early 2006 I became acquainted with a large group of players from Domus Fulminata, Ascension and Conquest. Lots of these guys PvPed together in Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin and they would toss me an invite whenever they needed a healer. In time, I would also be able to bring my rogue to these premades as I made a name for myself as a competent and sought-after player. Some of the best games I had were between Conquest's and TI's premades in Warsong Gulch. As it happened, eventually I got on so well with these guys that Nimloth recruited me and in April of 2006 I joined Conquest.
At this point, CQ had already beaten Ahn'Qiraj and I believe I left Tempest just after killing Princess Huhuran, so theoretically I skipped three fights ahead. Despite that, I was one of the better geared people in CQ mostly due to the fact that a bunch of them had just come back from a hiatus. Conquest was a famous guild in Everquest - one of the top in the world - and the pioneers of raiding in Molten Core. Many guilds used Conquest's MC guide to defeat the encounters for the first time. Helped that CQ folks were friends with Blizzard employees, too. In any case, having joined Conquest, and in anticipation of the next raid dungeon - Naxxramas - I spent many nights farming ingredients for potions, flasks and food.
When Naxxramas came out, we hit it hardcore. Raids started at 4pm and ended at 9pm. This was on weekdays, and then on Saturdays we raided for 8 hours straight with a 30 minute dinner break. Sundays were a day off, but we went to Ahn'Qiraj to keep finding upgrades for people who were still in blues. Essentially our raid schedule approached 40 hours every week which essentially meant that raiding had become another job. This was not without an impressive result though, as Conquest ended up ranking in the world top 10 on many of the encounters in Naxx, sweeping up a couple world firsts (most famously Heigan the Unclean which was hotly contended by Death and Taxes who claimed we exploited the encounter by standing in a "safe spot" behind Heigan's platform). During Conquest's reign in Naxxramas, its useful mod called RDX got leaked by the brother of one of its members. Suddenly, RDX and all its boss mods enabled guilds to catch up to Conquest, but hilariously only to the encounters for which the leaked copy had the developed boss timers. As Conquest's scripter continued developing boss mods for Thaddius, Loatheb, Four Horsemen and beyond, guilds without the updated RDX addon again fell behind.
Ultimately, Conquest ended up clearing the entirety of Naxxramas. They were the only guild on Kilrogg to do so. Although I was able to complete entire Tier 3 armor set on Itada, the experience I gained raiding Naxx with CQ would make me question my dedication to the guild and the game when the first WoW expansion pack hit the shelves.
End, Part 3
At this point, CQ had already beaten Ahn'Qiraj and I believe I left Tempest just after killing Princess Huhuran, so theoretically I skipped three fights ahead. Despite that, I was one of the better geared people in CQ mostly due to the fact that a bunch of them had just come back from a hiatus. Conquest was a famous guild in Everquest - one of the top in the world - and the pioneers of raiding in Molten Core. Many guilds used Conquest's MC guide to defeat the encounters for the first time. Helped that CQ folks were friends with Blizzard employees, too. In any case, having joined Conquest, and in anticipation of the next raid dungeon - Naxxramas - I spent many nights farming ingredients for potions, flasks and food.
When Naxxramas came out, we hit it hardcore. Raids started at 4pm and ended at 9pm. This was on weekdays, and then on Saturdays we raided for 8 hours straight with a 30 minute dinner break. Sundays were a day off, but we went to Ahn'Qiraj to keep finding upgrades for people who were still in blues. Essentially our raid schedule approached 40 hours every week which essentially meant that raiding had become another job. This was not without an impressive result though, as Conquest ended up ranking in the world top 10 on many of the encounters in Naxx, sweeping up a couple world firsts (most famously Heigan the Unclean which was hotly contended by Death and Taxes who claimed we exploited the encounter by standing in a "safe spot" behind Heigan's platform). During Conquest's reign in Naxxramas, its useful mod called RDX got leaked by the brother of one of its members. Suddenly, RDX and all its boss mods enabled guilds to catch up to Conquest, but hilariously only to the encounters for which the leaked copy had the developed boss timers. As Conquest's scripter continued developing boss mods for Thaddius, Loatheb, Four Horsemen and beyond, guilds without the updated RDX addon again fell behind.
Ultimately, Conquest ended up clearing the entirety of Naxxramas. They were the only guild on Kilrogg to do so. Although I was able to complete entire Tier 3 armor set on Itada, the experience I gained raiding Naxx with CQ would make me question my dedication to the guild and the game when the first WoW expansion pack hit the shelves.
End, Part 3
Ainx, Part 2
During my escapades in Blackrock Spire, I became acquainted with several fellows whom I deemed to be "on the level." Since my friends from FFXI almost all started flaking, I went ahead and joined a new guild called... Silvermoon Crusaders. In its early stages, SMC was pretty cool. I have fond memories of Lexia and Innovindil, though I hazily remember some drama happening between us after I had parted ways. I didn't stay in SMC too long, because they were not interested in raiding which was the next big thing on my radar. My priest hit level 60, which at the time was max level, and I geared up in UBRS and Dire Maul - a new dungeon released just about the time raiding was getting popular. Shortly after becoming somewhat raid-ready, I left SMC and joined IMB which stood for I'M Bored.
IMB was led by a fellow named Latent. While I don't exactly remember how the guild was structured, this was the first guild that I stepped into Molten core with. Through the next few months we cleared Molten Core all through to Ragnaros, the final boss. We spent a month on Ragnaros, but just as we were ready to down him, Latent straight up quit. He took the guild website down, took the forums down and disbanded the guild in the game. Itada was now guildless, though, for just a day. From the ashes of IMB rose Tempest of which I was one of the founding members (as in, I signed the charter)! Other charter members were Luwingo, Maw, Devoid, Naakt, Oni and some others I no longer remember. To inaugurate Tempest's creation, we went into Molten Core and 1-shot Ragnaros. The joy of killing him was quite possibly the biggest and most exhilarating experience I have ever had in World of Warcraft. With Tempest, I cleared Zul'Gurub, went on to clear Blackwing Lair and finally break into Ahn'Qiraj. Not much to say there other than we had an excellent run. I learned a lot about raiding, about being a priest in a raid and about how awful melee classes were in raids. From time to time I would bring Medea in to raid if there were too many healers online and not enough DPS, but only if I absolutely had to!
Throughout my journey with Itada, I made friends on Horde side with some of the folks in Temporary Insanity, the leading Horde guild on Kilrogg. I leveled up a mage named Lem and played with TI's alt crew in Zul'Gurub.
End, Part 2
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| Molten Core with IMB | Onyxia with IMB |
IMB was led by a fellow named Latent. While I don't exactly remember how the guild was structured, this was the first guild that I stepped into Molten core with. Through the next few months we cleared Molten Core all through to Ragnaros, the final boss. We spent a month on Ragnaros, but just as we were ready to down him, Latent straight up quit. He took the guild website down, took the forums down and disbanded the guild in the game. Itada was now guildless, though, for just a day. From the ashes of IMB rose Tempest of which I was one of the founding members (as in, I signed the charter)! Other charter members were Luwingo, Maw, Devoid, Naakt, Oni and some others I no longer remember. To inaugurate Tempest's creation, we went into Molten Core and 1-shot Ragnaros. The joy of killing him was quite possibly the biggest and most exhilarating experience I have ever had in World of Warcraft. With Tempest, I cleared Zul'Gurub, went on to clear Blackwing Lair and finally break into Ahn'Qiraj. Not much to say there other than we had an excellent run. I learned a lot about raiding, about being a priest in a raid and about how awful melee classes were in raids. From time to time I would bring Medea in to raid if there were too many healers online and not enough DPS, but only if I absolutely had to!
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| Ragnaros down! Tempest. | Nefarian down! Tempest. |
Throughout my journey with Itada, I made friends on Horde side with some of the folks in Temporary Insanity, the leading Horde guild on Kilrogg. I leveled up a mage named Lem and played with TI's alt crew in Zul'Gurub.
End, Part 2
Ainx, Part 1
Though Ainx the Warrior's journey began in late 2005, my history with MMOs goes a couple years back. I initially started with MMOs in late 2003 when Final Fantasy XI came out. As it was my first MMO, I had no clue what to expect and there was no standard to relate to. I played FFXI for about a year. There was a lot to do in that game. I vividly remember my first run to Jeuno on my Thief with no subjob. I remember having to zone Goblin Leechers in Selbina, some idiot calling /help on Kirin and completing my Zilart missions. Though I started with a Thief, I actually played a Ranger and later a Ninja - both funded by my level 65 Thf/Whm camping Castle Oztroja's Astral Ring coffers. I remember doing Dynamis and forming a raid group for Sky with a very rudimentary DKP system. This awakening experience came to a close shortly after Chains of Promathia came out. During CoP, I was already playing World of Warcraft closed beta and spending time learning the ropes of that game. CoP wasn't really even finished, as we beat all the missions up to a point where the plot just dropped off a cliff only to be added in later (after I had already quit).
On November 23, 2004 I stood outside Gamestop awaiting the midnight release of what was to become the next several years of my life. Box in hand, I rushed back home to install and start playing. Having already had a small amount of experience from the beta, I wanted to jump in and experience the whole game. My first character was Medea, a human rogue. I chose the name, because, well, I like how it sounds, and I thought a tragic Greek character would fit a rogue well (especially since there was poison involved). Several of my friends from FFXI also swapped to WoW and we decided to roll on the server Kilrogg. Later I found out that some of my real life friends were also playing on Kilrogg and we created a guild called Zenmetsu (jp: annihilation). Upon reaching level 60 and completing a few of the instances, I found out there was an even bigger dungeon called Blackrock Spire which allowed up to 40 people inside! Blackrock Spire was divided into Upper and Lower sections, with Upper being locked unless one of the group members had a special ring obtained through a quest which would open the gate. I found my way into a few of these LBRS and UBRS runs on my rogue, but quickly realized that playing a melee class such as a rogue would be detrimental to my enjoyment of WoW. For those uninitiated, melee-range classes in vanilla WoW were basically shafted on a lot of encounters due to stupid amounts of incoming damage (this trend continued into expansion packs unfortunately). I also learned that healers were in great demand and almost always guaranteed spots in raids. I promptly logged out to the character creation screen and shortly after Itada the Priest was born.
End, Part 1
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| Pneumatic THF/WHM, Oztroja coffer hunting | Pneumatic RNG/NIN, slaying Kirin |
On November 23, 2004 I stood outside Gamestop awaiting the midnight release of what was to become the next several years of my life. Box in hand, I rushed back home to install and start playing. Having already had a small amount of experience from the beta, I wanted to jump in and experience the whole game. My first character was Medea, a human rogue. I chose the name, because, well, I like how it sounds, and I thought a tragic Greek character would fit a rogue well (especially since there was poison involved). Several of my friends from FFXI also swapped to WoW and we decided to roll on the server Kilrogg. Later I found out that some of my real life friends were also playing on Kilrogg and we created a guild called Zenmetsu (jp: annihilation). Upon reaching level 60 and completing a few of the instances, I found out there was an even bigger dungeon called Blackrock Spire which allowed up to 40 people inside! Blackrock Spire was divided into Upper and Lower sections, with Upper being locked unless one of the group members had a special ring obtained through a quest which would open the gate. I found my way into a few of these LBRS and UBRS runs on my rogue, but quickly realized that playing a melee class such as a rogue would be detrimental to my enjoyment of WoW. For those uninitiated, melee-range classes in vanilla WoW were basically shafted on a lot of encounters due to stupid amounts of incoming damage (this trend continued into expansion packs unfortunately). I also learned that healers were in great demand and almost always guaranteed spots in raids. I promptly logged out to the character creation screen and shortly after Itada the Priest was born.
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| Pneumatic the Paladin, WoW Beta | Medea the Rogue, my first character |
End, Part 1
Saturday, March 3, 2012
MMO Rant
Ever since quitting World of Warcraft over a year ago, I always ask myself this; Will I ever be able to play MMOs again? I had a fantastic time leveling, raiding and even the little bit of PvP I did was pretty fun. In retrospect, WoW was a time well spent. But now...
I've been playing Rift over the past few weeks. To those uninitiated, Rift is an MMO much like WoW - in fact basically the same thing, just different world and prettier graphics. I leveled to 50 on a warrior, I ran some dungeons, closed a few rifts, got some achievements... and today I raided for the first time. Few of you that know about my WoW raiding history likely also know that I have a very short temper. The raid I participated in was absolutely awful. We killed what we set out to kill but it took us 5x as long as it would take my old guild, Still Life.
Unfortunately, raiding is the end game of every game. To get to the pinnacle of awesomeness, you gotta raid, because that's where all the best gear is. This is true for every MMO, not just Rift or WoW. You raid, you are the best. But this past week I actually came to a realization that hardcore MMO players actually have no life no matter how much they claim they do. When I raided with Conquest and Still Life and we did 20 hours a week every week or more during progression, I literally had no life. After content was put on farm (meaning we got so good at it, we would ace it every week), we'd raid two maybe three days tops, but then we would be logging on anyway to do other stuff like run daily dungeons, do daily quests, play the AH, PvP, etc... you don't just log off and do other stuff with your life, because you would fall behind in the game. Hell, when I raided with CQ, I was basically sleeping, raiding and working with food done on the fly. Fortunately I had a job where I got to move around a bit so I didn't become a lardass like the stereotypical MMOer.
In retrospect, those were good days. Not a care in the world, just raid. But as I grew up and got older, I suddenly found that I had a lot of other things to do. I found and befriended the mythical creatures known as women, I went back to school and suddenly was drowning in pointless homework, and I started being proactive about my career and my future. This leaves little time for MMOs. Even now, as I have some time to burn, I keep thinking that my time would be better spent elsewhere.
All in all, I think I'm done here. I can't raid, because I'm intolerant of idiots, and without raiding, I can't be the best, so I should just stop playing MMOs altogether. Diablo III, where art thou...
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