Self vs. Whole - What WoW Means to Me

Edit: Now that the poll is complete, I'm editing in the results and posting the next one.

Question: Who are you for?
FOR THE HORDE! (4 votes, 33%)
FOR THE ALLIANCE! (3 votes, 25%)
Can't I stay on the fence like Thrall & Jaina? (5 votes, 41%)
Neither! DEATH TO ALL! FOR THE SCOURGE! (0 votes, 0%)

Good to know there's no active traitors in the midst. D= But really, what's with all you peace mongers? Don't you know this is World of WARcraft? ;)

I was originally going to post the next segment of my story here - and in novella form, as that seems to be the general consensus. However, I couldn't find the time to convert my script to story form, and another topic's been clawing at my mind lately, so I thought I'd share.

I'm always surprised with what people do and don't know about me. I generally try to keep my personal life separate from my forum life, and only the guildmates that I talk to on a regular basis know the kinds of things that really go on with me. But to put this topic in full perspective, I have to share a few things about who the person really is behind Eseten.

Eseten is played by a, at the time of this writing, 22 year old female who lives in Hollywood. I graduated college about a year ago, and decided to pursue my then-dream of being a voice actor by moving out here from the midwest. I made some progress, but ultimately decided that my passions did not lie in being an actor of any sort. The only things that thrill me these days are writing and, well, raiding. I play WoW as much as I do because there is little else I do with my life at the moment. I more or less lost my job a few weeks ago, my hours scaled down to such a miniscule amount that I cannot afford to live off of it. I have been spending nearly every day of the last two weeks searching for interviews, revising my resumes, doing everything I can to find something to put food on the table.

I live in a hell hole. My apartment is disgusting - I rent a room from a somewhat dubious middle aged man who works as a paparazzi. The rent is cheap and I really only have to share the shower, but when you feel arguably dirtier from using it than when you stepped in... well, there's something wrong. I would never dream of cooking in that kitchen, as whatever grossness is lurking in there would probably kill me. So I stay holed up in a 13x13 foot room in the dim glow of my computer, just trying to lose myself in the virtual world I know and love.

I have lived here for one year, almost to the day now, and in all that time, I have remained mostly alone. While I have some distant relatives in the area, I'm somewhat of the black sheep. I don't really get along with anyone, and I'm not terribly sociable. I've made few friends - in fact, of the ones I've made, the only ones I've really kept in touch with I actually know because of WoW. I rather fit the "socially awkward" stereotype of most WoW players. All I'm missing is the stack of Hot Pockets boxes, uncontrollable acne, and about 200 lbs worth of weight.

The summary of my sob story is that I'm essentially a single, lonely female with little to no social life, no job, and a lot of things that should really only depress me. But instead, I tend to make silly forum posts, write creatively, and, above all, play WoW in as helpful a way as possible. That is, I'm the schmuck who goes and fishes for the Fish Feasts we plop down every boss pull. I'm the sickeningly sweet weirdo who says, "Guys, that may have been a wipe, but we're progressing! Keep it up!" I'm the nerd who finishes the Noblegarden event early, then starts setting out spare eggs for others for no reason than to know I made someone's day.

Lately, I've had some issues with my guild. We have had poor attendence, and this week was particularly bad (due to one unforeseen sickness and a previously planned vacation that just happened to be ill-timed). However, due to a lack of communication, this has projected poorly on the organizers of our raids, and our morale has been low. There's a lot of upset people, and I worry that our attendence is only going to drop further. It's difficult to recruit new, good, geared people when you have no evidence to show them that being part of your guild is worth it.

It doesn't matter if certain, logical decisions were made - unless those kinds of things are explained to the rest of the guild, they won't know any better and will only be led to believe the situation is getting worse. When people make assumptions, that's when things go downhill. And there's been a whole lot of assuming going around.

It makes me sad, for more than one reason. One, because I love this game, and this guild. There's a lot of really awesome people in it that I have fun raiding with. There are people who make me smile and laugh, people I've had the honor of hanging out in person with, people that I consider not just my guildmates, but my friends. Two, it's because... well, this is kind of all I have. It may be sad in one way, but in another, it gives me hope.

WoW means a lot to me. I can't afford to go out and meet new people. I can't afford to pay the gas to go to the local game store every weekend and hang out and spend money. So I spend fifteen bucks a month to have access to 13 million other players who often share my enthusiasm and my interests. I personally think that's a pretty good investment, or at least a good bang for my buck. So when things go sour, and I watch 10-14 people sit around and be left in the dust due to unfortunate circumstances and misunderstandings... My heart actually hurts. It aches because it's not fair. Maybe I'm just still naive, but I feel like something can be done, and if no one else is going to do it, I'll do it myself.

I want everyone to have fun. I want us to be together as a guild. I want us to grow as a guild. I want us to progress as a guild. I want the best for the people who I consider friends. I often shoot myself in the foot, putting others before what I want or need. I know it's not the best quality to have because, more often than not, I suffer more than anything else. But I've always been that way, and really, at this point, even if I wanted to change, I don't think I could. Not fully, anyhow.

Just the same... if people don't share my sentiments, I can't stand by and let myself waste away. To use a cliche, there is no "I" in team - and there's really two meanings to that. While a single person can't outshine the rest to stand on their own, it also means you can't wait for a single person to pull everyone along. I can give, and give, and give some more... but if others aren't willing to use what I give to its full potential, then it's really all a waste of everyone's time.

I don't think of myself as the end-all-be-all anything. I'm good at DPS, I used to be a very good tank... And I'm more than willing to admit I'm terribly rusty (or perhaps just re-learning everything after the entire mechanics of my class have changed and I now have easily twice as many, if not more, buttons to push). The only things I am confident in saying about myself is that I care about the guild and that I work hard to improve myself whenever I can. Tonight, I unbound my A and D keys, because I know I'll be a better player in the end by doing so. I tried to PuG some 25 man heroics to get better tank gear, because I know there's a need for it. I want to make myself available to others, and I want to be good at my hobby. I want to be known as one of the best guilds on the server, and I want to show people that I rock at this - that I love it and work hard at it.

It might be silly to everyone else. But to me, well, I guess it's a way to keep me going. I might not have a job, and I might not have a boyfriend or even a group to go out drinking with. But I have a guild full of pretty cool people that I care about very much. I have fun when I'm with them... and I want to make sure they have fun too.

P.S. Rabble Rabble Rabble. This is now an official rant. /salute Dim

Moving On - Changing Servers

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. =)

Feelan Thehealin - To Those We've Lost

Cross-Posted from Gathering Gamers.

There are some things in the world that when I see them happening, I find myself crying out of the joy from knowing there are good, amazing people in the world.

On Sunday evening, as I was browsing the WoW Suggestion forums, I stumbled upon a very interesting thread. A very old guild called lost an incredibly powerful, kind, and good-hearted individual named Feelan back in December. I didn't know Feelan. I don't even know the guild, or play on their server. But the passionate and loving way the guild spoke out about their fallen comrade was so genuine I couldn't help but be touched.

Feelan died of a very rare cancer of the heart, so rare it gets little funding and there's not a lot of knowledge about it out there. He had been fighting it for years, and even so, did nothing more but bring smiles and laughter to his guild mates. That's an amazing individual, and the world is a slightly bleaker place without his presences. In the same right, the world is a better place for having had Feelan among us, whether or not we knew he was there.

I'd like everyone who sees this that has a World of Warcraft account to go to this thread and support his memory. You don't have to say anything more than /sign. Do this not just for Feelan or his guild mates, but for that loved one that *you* have lost, or for that guild mate who disappeared and you'll never know what happened to them.

What this is about is supporting in-game memorials. My personal suggestion is to have an instanced graveyard or memoriam. And hey, why not have Feelan standing there to greet those who come and thank them for taking the time to visit. Allow guilds to purchase lots for their lost companions. And make it just enough of a pain in the ass that it will keep the jerks from abusing it for stupid inappropriate commentary, but just easy enough for a guild to work together to complete it.

I know it's a lot to ask. But it would be a beautiful gesture on Blizzard's part, and with 9 million players, there are bound to be a lot of them who would appreciate this. I, for one, hope they hear us out.

Guilds and Families

Cross posted from : Gathering Gamers

Well, with Christmas quite literally around the corner (and my next blog in fact falling on Christmas itself), I wanted to write some relatively Christmas-y things for the next couple. Helps me out a bit, especially since I'm now out of state with my family, and want to spend limited time on the internet (for instance, haven't played any WoW, and not really intending to log on unless I have absolutely nothing else to do while I'm here). So, next time I'll actually cover Winter Veil. For today, I want to talk about Guilds and the community that exists within WoW.

I have to say that the main reason I play an MMO is to get away from real life. I think that's the reason most people do. The best part, in my opinion, of any MMO is the community it breeds. Yes, occasionally that community sucks, but when you find a nice, warm, friendly one to make a home of, there's simply nothing in the world like it.

The guild I am in right now, Merciless, is currently my biggest online home. There are people who annoy me, sure, but there are people who are border-line my best friends. I've only been a member since early August, and only been an active raider for perhaps the last month or two, but everyone means something to me. Whether I consider them the mean old uncle I don't talk to very often, or that one awesome cousin who I would happily spend most of my time with, there's one of each. There are mother like figures, who give and take, and father like figures who spoil and punish. And I love each and every one of them, if for no other reason than that they make life interesting. XD

When I think about being with my family, too, I think about my guild a lot too. My guild is part of my life now. I have just as fond of memories with them as I do with any of my other friend, or even with my family! I find it an awesome thing that a game can bring people together that way.

I'd like to do something for my Guild just like I do for my family. There are some members I'd like to repay for all their kindness, those who really helped me get to where I am today.

I do things for my guildies whenever I can; I try to, anyway. Sure, there are nights where I feel selfish and just want to be left alone too. Sometimes I'm only on to do my dailies and then I log off to go live life. I can't dedicate myself 24/7.

Much like I can't do the same for my own family. It's a little harder for me to do so for them anyway, though; I live very far away from pretty much all my blood relatives - at least, the ones I know well.

The hardest part about having a Guild and a Family is learning to balance the two. You can only give so much time to one or the other. It is honestly unhealthy to spend all your time doing one thing, no matter how "good" that one thing may be to you. Some would argue that spending all your time with your family is a good thing... But then, if you were to do that, what would you accomplish? You're still not going to get much further than you would if you were spending all your time with your guild.

I'm not saying spending time with one or the other is a bad thing. They are both good things; it's just about balancing the good so that you're not getting too much of it. There's that proverb in there somewhere. And with the holidays here, I think it's important to spend more time with one if you have been neglecting them as of late. I've been spending my time with my family this week, and will continue to, since I only get to see them once a year. And I love it. It's refreshing.

Once I get back, I'll try to balance my real friends and my online ones a little better. That's my new year's resolution. After all, once I graduate, there are some of these friends that I may never see again.

But don't think I'm going to forget about anyone! Not a single one! Everyone I know has a place in my heart, even if it may not be large dedicated part of it. Everyone will get their gift some way or another, even if it's just a Merry Christmas or an AH item they've been watching for or a run through some instance with their alt. Something for everyone.

Because it's the spirit of the season of giving, and of love. And far be it from me to break tradition.

Breakin' It In: A Short History

(Crossposted at http://myworld.creativegamingevents.com/blogs_view.php?id=583 )

First off, I want to say hello to everyone who finds their way here. I hope you find some interesting information here that gets you to keep coming, and I hope you're willing to respond to some of the things I post, give me positive feedback, and help me become a better player. And I hope in return I can give you a different point of view and give you some different advice than you hear elsewhere that is neither better nor worse than others, but simply from another perspective.

Now that I've finished all that cheesey introduction stuff, let's get started. I promised this first post would be a short history as to where I'm at now, so here we go.

I started playing World of Warcraft sometime early in 2005. A friend of mine played with all his buddies on some server which name is now lost to me. It was a general server, and they played Horde. Finally convinced that I should join in the fun, I rolled an Undead Mage named Teristya.

I've always been big on the spellcasters, at least in MMOs. I came from the world of Shadowbane, where I played an Aelfborne (read: Half-elf) Summoner (read: Sorceress; no, they don't actually summon creatures), and really had some fun with it when my Dad started playing with me. He rolled a Dwarf Decon (battle priest) and we had many a fun time blasting others into oblivion.

I figured I'd try to emulate the same thing when I came over to WoW. However, stuff didn't last long for me. I tired of leveling by myself, since my friend and his buddies were in the 30-40's range and only increasing the gap day-by-day, and eventually they all quit the game, leaving me entirely alone. I was going to give up WoW too, but by this time my Dad had joined in as well as a lot of friends from home, so instead I rolled alliance on their server. My dad, after all, wanted to re-make his dwarf character. I ended up rolling both a Dwarf Paladin and a Gnome Warlock to futz around with on the Hyjal server.

I ended up having the same symptom, though. All my friend leveled quicker than I did, and my dad lost interest with it much quicker since I was away at college and we couldn't play side-by-side like we used to with Shadowbane. By this time (only about 6 months later than when I started, really), though, I'd made a lot of new friends at college, and found out they not only all played WoW, but had their own guild, too! So, I moved to my now-home of Mug'Thol, and rolled what they asked me to; an orc warrior by the name of Melna.

They asked me to roll a warrior because they said they needed an end-game tank. Okay, guess I'll go level that. I was having a lot of fun with it, but I was also working hard at school and trying to get good grades. Naturally, I ended up taking a couple of long breaks from WoW, mostly around mid-terms and finals. I was only in my 30's when the guild (Havok) came to me and asked me to re-roll a priest. "You're not that high anyway, and we could really use a healer," they said. "Well, okay. Sounds interesting, I've never played a healer," were my thoughts, and so the next character became Nishta, a troll priestess.

I was leveling my priestess at a much slower pace; after all, she didn't really have the firepower to grind well. I was only 22 when suddenly Burning Crusade was looming around the corner. Immediately my guild ran back to me, declaring, "Burning Crusade is coming out! We're going to need some paladins. You're not that high level yet, do you want to reroll?" I rolled my eyes, but agreed anyway. 'Why not?' I thought. 'I liked being a warrior, I liked being a priest, isn't a paladin just the best of both worlds?'

Despite my initial irritation with being asked to roll a character a third time, I got over it rather quickly. One of my newer friends, both in WoW and at college, who we shall call Kaitou, camped out with me at a Gamestop for our copies of Burning Crusade. I remember being one of three women at the release; and the only one who was actually buying a copy of the game for herself and not her boyfriend or son. I took an odd level of pride in that; I'm a professionally trained actor, I take pride in a lot of silly things. =P

As soon as we got back to my friend's place, I immediately rolled my paladin. I had been talking to Kaitou about it and had definitively decided to roll a male Blood Elf paladin. My reasoning had been "Well, hey, if all you guys can roll females so that you 'have something to look at,' then why can't I?" I wanted to name him as stereotypically objectified as possible. Prettyboy was already taken by an Undead Priest on our server, so Prettyboi it became.

I immediately loved the entire Silvermoon City area and the 1-20 Blood Elf leveling areas. After having been through The Barrens and Durotar three full times, it was a nice change of pace. I was also enjoying a lot of the more creative quests. Learning how to master your mana tap racial ability, for instance. I was actually one of the highest level Horde paladins on our server for a while... basically until I decided it was late enough and had to go to sleep. I would never be close to that high spot ever again.

Levelling went slowly. It took me about two-thirds a year to reach 70. In fact, I only reached 70 in August of this year. But I was still proud of myself. Prettyboi had become the single character I'd stuck with, the single character I never lost interest in, and the single character everyone always wanted in a party. It was nice having the utility of both a healer and a tank, though in all honesty, I truly enjoyed tanking far more than I ever would healing. As I breached 50 and plowed through 60, I had realized this, and decided that I was going to dedicate my efforts to becoming a tank. I had no idea at the time how difficult it would be or how few people on my server in particular hated the idea of a paladin tank, thinking them weak or even entirely useless.

Despite the hardships that were coming, I still don't ever regret my decision.

By the time I had reached Outlands, my former guild, Havok, had fallen apart. Our guild leader had grown out of WoW and was close to graduation, and no one was willing to step up to take over the job. We bid him good luck and farewell, and Havok disbanded. It was a shame; we were actually one of the most advanced guilds on our server for a short time... It would have been nice to have been a part of that.

Finding myself guild-less and almost 70, I needed to figure out what I was going to do with myself. Kaitou's former guild (he hadn't been in Havok with me) had also disbanded, so we were both kind of floating around with no direction other than getting me to 70. While tanking through a run of Slave Pens, the group I was with was massively impressed with my skills, and invited me to their guild, Sinister Sacrament. They seemed like nice enough and enjoyable people, and I'd had a lot of fun jerking their chain around on being male (they honestly had no idea; it was rather amusing, at least to me), so I joined up. I got Kaitou an invitation shortly later, and just before I hit 70, they invited everyone to go Zul'Gurub to test out their raiding skills.

Unfortunately, it didn't really go well.

See, Kaitou was actually the only person who had actually DONE Zul'Gurub. No one in the raid, in particular the raid leader, would listen to him about it. A group of 15 67-70's WIPED in Zul'Gurub because of the lack of organization and other general stupidity.

I did rather enjoy /gquitting the next day, though. Kaitou stuck around about 5 minutes after I caps locked announced "I'M A GIRL!" and /gquit. Apparently the responses were hilarious.

Kaitou and I had already found a new guild when we quit Sinister Sacrament. A lot of his buddies from his old guild had reformed into a newer one, and thus, we both applied and got accepted into Merciless. I am proud that I am still a member of Merciless. =) We are a primarily raiding guild that, at this time, is just starting SSC, and I hope some day I can march beside my fellow guildmates into these high-end 25-mans.

My next hurdle, which I have made a lot of progress in, is being able to stay a Tankadin through and through. If I never have to respec Holy... Then I might be a server first in that regard. To my knowledge, I don't know of another dedicated Tankadin on Mug'Thol. Please, if you know one or are one, contact me. I want to learn from you. I want the advice.

If not... Well, I hope I can be an inspiration to other future Tankadins on my server. Or other future Tankadins in general. I've been learning as much as I can, and I'll be relaying that knowledge here.

I still have a lot of history and stories to tell. But those are for another day. I hope you guys stick around. I think I'm going to enjoy doing this.

**EDIT** Edited Zul'Farrak to Zul'Gurub because I mixed up my names. But yes, it would have been much funnier if it had actually been Zul'Farrak. XD Also fixed a couple inconsistencies in statements. Now they're accurate and correct.