Secrets of Shadowbolting

I never realized how lucky I was to have a guild of RL friends until recently. While Blizzard of Oz still existed as a raiding guild, we had fun, we did things and then we went out for lunch and chatted about it later on in the week.

Shadow Syndicate was the WotLK rebirth of BoO with new management. It just wasn’t the same and I wanted to go a little more serious in raiding so I went to Ömen. I sort of knew a couple of the officers but didn’t really know the GM. The GM’s style and mine didn’t match and while it was fun to raid with competent players, the attitude was not what I wanted in a raiding guild. I got a little excitable over the weekend, said some things I shouldn’t have (bad timing) but meant anyway and decided it was better to /gquit than stay in a guild whose raiding style did not fit my personality.

Do I like raiding? yes. Do I like a lot of the BS that goes along with it? No. Do I think I have found a place yet that really fits me as a raider (and my crazy travel schedule) no. Am I actively looking? Right now? no. I’m going to take a week or 2 away from raiding – work on some alts that need some love (shadow priest,frost fire mage, elem shammy and my hordies) and just chill out. Vuur doesn’t need much more gear. Sel could use more gear but there’s no real rush and Pru still needs heroics to get out of the last few greens. When I actively want to run something, there’s always plenty of pugs happening.

I’m a little disillusioned with raiding at the moment, it seems to bring out a lot of the worst in people. In some ways I want to find a nw server and start again, in others I do like my server and some of the people on it. I spent 2.5 hours in Naxx last night on KT with a guild who hasn’t downed him yet. Both my main raiding toons have cleared him multiple times. The people were nice, chilled and laid back and the only reason we were having issues is the dps was low (top dps was 2k, lowest was 1100 in a 10 man). I stayed up a little too late helping them and we didn’t get him down but I enjoyed the no cursing on vent, no foul language and people being dedicated to stick it through and keep trying without whining and massive amounts of complaining. It was a nice change and I didn’t mind the repair bill that came of it.

Basically my summary of experiences is such:
RL friends will make a fun environment but not always the best progression guild
In game friends are in game friends – you should still do your research before jumping headlong into a guild.

ok ok, I know I haven’t posted in almost a month and it’s due to a couple things:
1. spending time outside of the game – it’s ski season, deal with it
2. working – I know this is a tough concept but occasionally I need to do something to get paid so I can keep shelling out my $30/month
3. traveling – my job involves travel and there has been some of that recently
4. death of a pet and subsequent adopting of a new one (or 2) – guinea pigs are cute but when they decide to die it can still make for an unhappy vuur

so anyway, I apologize and hope to get back to regular posting soon.

While collecting rats in Naxx may be fun, collecting farm animals in strat is even more entertaining