Severed Foot

I did something I never thought I’d do kids. I transferred all my often played characters in World of Warcraft to the bloodthirsty Horde from the glorious Alliance. Why would I do such a thing? Well, I’ll tell you. This my friends, is my last ditch effort at enjoying the game before I flat out quit, either until Cataclysm or permanently.

Let’s go back a few weeks to the start of spring. I started back at my old job with a local line painting / sign installation / street sweeping company. I was still raiding on my rogue, Nediah, with , happily chipping away at (read: wipe-fest) the Lich King on 25 man difficulty. I was also PuG-ing (Pick-up-Group) on my shadow priest Nashyn, and also half heartedly trying to get some gear on my former main, a resto shaman named Astriid (all on Ner’Zhul if you felt the need to armory me).

Then… the night shifts began. Night after night after endless night of street sweeping, getting home at 6 am covered in dirt, irate, and in no mood to play World of Warcraft. After a couple weeks of frequent, if not all encompassing sign-outs from my raiding schedule I finally gave up and resigned. This led to recruiting two new rogues to fill the gap. There had been some internal shifts in the management as well but we will cover that later. Fast forward to six weeks of non-raiding and my desire to play the game was wearing down to the point of no return. One night while intoxicated I absent-mindedly paid to transfer Astriid over to the Horde, as an experiment of sorts to see how the other side lives. I was about ready to start hitting the delete button on the character selection screen so I wasn’t that upset when I woke up the next morning to find my beloved Draenei shaman was now a Troll. That’s right, a motherfucking troll. Logically it was the only choice, their haste racial is great for tense moments of intense chain heal tossing, and my offspec is Enhance which needs no shortage of haste to lay a classy beating on some bitches. Secretly though, had I done it sober, I might’ve gone Tauren.

No sense worrying about it now though, I’m sure as hell not going to pay another thirty bucks to look at the back of an angry walking steak rather than a smelly cannibal woman. Back on topic, I spent a couple days taking part in some PuG’s and let me tell you, the grass may not be greener on the Horde-side, but it sure is different in a positive way. I ended up in a 2.5 hour PuG Icecrown Citadel (25 man) group that went 8/12 bosses with two hardmodes. I was astounded. Alliance PuGs so rarely make it past Deathbringer Saurfang that I had become accustomed to hour-long runs before being able to go do something else.

It opened up my eyes to the glory that is the Horde. Morning ICC10s after working a night shift, mid afternoon ICC25s, Late Night Ulduar achieve runs, ToGC25 PuGs that go 4/5… un-fucking-believable. My priest quickly followed suit, also becoming a troll for the Haste racial, but aesthetically I’d have preferred a Blood Elf.

Then came the hard part, the issue I had been avoiding like the plague. How does one leave a Guild you have grown to love, and become accustomed to environmentally? We had lost a great raid leader, and gained another one, but in the process a new Melee class (which sadly my rogue falls under categorically) leader had been selected. He was logistically the only real choice the guild could possibly make, but I can tell you I wasn’t happy. His skill level is exactly what is required to competently lead a group of people, however his personality was as abrasive as a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. This likely had something to do with his age (late-teens), but in reality he and I had NEVER got along. Oil and water would be the simplest analogy. I’ll tell you why.

I’m a joker at heart, but everyone has a threshold at which they break. This kid pushed me to the edge (but never over), repeatedly, and humorously enough is still attempting to get under my skin despite my rogue now being happily a Hordie. He has no capability to keep his mouth shut, a complete inability to let anything happen without chipping in his (usually useless) two cents… all of these were issues. Not to mention a serious lack of respect for women, adults, sexual identity, children (despite him being one), and any viewpoint which may oppose or differ from his own. It got to the point where I never said anything in guild, or took part in any guild conversations just so I didn’t have to see / hear him chime in with his mindless babbling.

There is no possible way I could have contently raided under his command. The rest of the officer core in the guild is solid as all hell, but I knew it wouldn’t work for me after raiding under him only once. I don’t have any serious personal issues with the kid, but I knew I couldn’t take direction from an immature ego-maniac. I had to find a way out, respectfully, while trying to maintain the few friendships I still had within the guild.

So I drafted a solid letter of resignation and a thank you to all the individuals who made my stay in that guild by far the best experience I have ever had within a guild I didn’t personally create and maintain, and quietly converted my rogue to a Blood Elf. There was still one issue left that I am still trying to figure out.

In the game I have a friend, Canedom, who I have been playing with the entire duration of my return to the game (I played for 2 months at launch 5 years ago). Our friendship started while he was a druid mainly. The issue here being this, despite his intense love for the Horde, he is now an officer, and the main tank for <Conquest>. The only reason he’d fully convert to Horde is if a) he could no longer raid with the guild for whatever reason, or b) the guild fell apart. Neither of which I foresee happening, or would want to happen.

He has a couple Horde alts, but the chances of us ever raiding together are slim to nil unless I ever transferred back to Alliance. Which I don’t think will ever happen, and even so I seriously doubt would take me back. I guess it all depends on what happens in the eagerly anticipated Cataclysm expansion. It sucks but I know he is doing what he wants and I’m doing what I need to in order to enjoy the game again.

My next issue however is a tough one. How do I get my Lich King kill achievement on my Rogue when I can’t afford to or mange to maintain any sort of raiding schedule. I’ve been cruising the Ner’Zhul Horde forums to try and find a guild I can pay to take part in a LK kill, but all I can really find are guilds who want 20 – 30k gold for an achieve run. So either I have to devote an obscene amount of time to farming gold to pay to get something I should have had months ago [that <Conquest> JUST completed (congrats again guys!)], or not do the one thing I set out to do at the beginning of the expansion. It’s a big dilemma man, I need thoughts / suggestions if anyone actually reads this.

I guess that’s enough said for the time being. No sense in really sweating the small stuff, it is just a video game (albeit one I have a vested interest in). I’ll leave you guys with this tidbit. I’m glad I transferred to the Horde, if nothing else for one simple reason. Rather than some wussified war cry I get to shout this when marching onto the battlefield….

LOK’TAR OGAR! FOR THE HORDE!

See you on the flip side,
Jeffricus