So my regular updating schedule of Tuesdays and Saturdays has pretty much been thrown out the window at this point. I'm still going to try to post twice a week, but I can't say when exactly that'll be. Hopefully separate enough that you guys don't get too much of my blathering all at once. ;)
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I only bring this topic up because it's something I'm going through at the moment. As of this morning, I officially changed servers with Prettyboi. Therefore, he technically no longer exists (as the name wasn't available on my new server). So I just want to talk about all the issues I had with my guild folding and how I dealt with it, since I feel it's a very prominent subject lately with the coming of Wrath of the Lich King.
When I first started playing, I was but a lowly level 30-something Warrior, guilded only because my friends knew me and were hoping to make a tank out of me one day. I never managed to level to 60 before Burning Crusade, but it ended up being just as well - my guild fell apart and stopped raiding shortly before the expansion hit. It seems that a similar trend is happening at the moment. Many guilds are folding and disbanding, giving up their progression or finding further progressed guilds to hop on for the ride before Wrath hits the shelves. Some people say they're quitting so they can have some of their lives back before they devote it all over again with Wrath (and there's something intrinsically wrong with that statement to begin with, but I won't get into that). Others say they don't like the new changes and are going to go play another MMO instead. Either way, right now, a lot of devoted raiders are disappearing, and it's making it very difficult for those of us who still want to play and still haven't gotten to see everything get our chance.
Ever since I moved across the country, I had been unable to raid with my guild any longer. Having a two-hour time zone difference with my guild meant a lot, especially when I got a job that took later hours. The only times I could raid were Sundays, and even then, it was at such an inconvenient time for me that it would eat up my entire Sunday, rather than just the afternoon like it used to. I had eventually come to terms that, rather than finding a new job relatively soon (which I realized wasn't going to happen), I'd be better off finding new guild that raided at my new availability.
I wanted to stay on Mug'Thol, but since the server itself didn't match my times, I couldn't find anyone who would raid late. Can't say I didn't try. So I started looking around on other servers. Initially, I was willing to take anything. But finally, a group of friends talked me out of transferring to any PvE servers. I may have had an easier time finding a guild that way, but it would devaluate all the work I had done on my PvP server. It's really more of a mentality thing than anything else, though. That, and if I screwed up and wanted to come back, I wouldn't be able to.
So the months pass and I still hadn't found anything, and I find out that the guild I'm still a part of is falling apart. I can't say I didn't see it coming - there were certain officers of our guild who had a tendency to instigate arguments, or at the very least, not quell them when they started, which should be a primary function of an officer. In addition, we had a group of raiders who all lived together and when one of them didn't show up, none of them did - so we basically lost 3-4 core raiders every time someone was gone or had an event (it didn't help that most of them were healers or tanks). So between the animosity that was building and the attendence issues, we fell apart.
A couple of guys from my guild whom I am very good friends with approached me and asked me if I'd found a new guild yet. I hadn't, so they asked if they could tag along to find one. I figured there wasn't much harm in it, and I do enjoy raiding with them, so why not? It ended up being a group of four of us looking - which in all honesty was much harder than simply being a lone Prot/Ret pally looking for a guild.
Eventually, between a mix of posting on the WoW forums, posting on Guild Recruitment websites, and making level 1 BEs to run to Silvermoon and spam in Trade channel, we found a guild (just this week, actually). We finalized things in the last couple of nights, and two of us have made the transfer so far. It was really a stroke of luck - we found a newly formed guild whose progression was only slightly beyond our previous progression, and looking for our exact make-up of classes/specs. The only one of us four they didn't "need" was our best geared guy with SWP experience... who I don't think they're really going to turn away. =P
It's a tough decision. Even through I have some friends transferring with me, it will never be the same. I won't be Prettyboi anymore (the name was taken, so I've been forced to rename - and no similar names were available either), and I have to make friends all over again. I had to say goodbye to a lot of people. And there are many I will miss.
But if I wanted to raid and see end-game before the release of Wrath (which I do), I needed to move somewhere new. I don't want to be in the same place I was before with WoW - missing out on the whole end of the game. It was rough, and it took a while, and I don't know yet how it'll turn out in the end.
But I have a good feeling about it. =)
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