#atlasguild

[xenorraandherworld]

Reliving Old Memories, Glyph of Stars and Swapping Recipes

Easter weekend has been a long weekend and I’m sad to say that it ended badly. I feel like I had a WoW nervous breakdown. You know that feeling when you leave something behind, you fear you will miss it so very badly. I thought I was like that, and yesterday I got to find out whether it’s true.

I statused on my BTag that I was in the mood for an adventure, meaning that I was bored and wanted company while doing something interesting. My mentor caught me up on it, and we went looking for a lore quest in Outland Shadowmoon Valley. It was incredibly interesting, I will not lie. Didn’t take us very long, and we *cough* I *cough* learnt very quickly that the green lava there is shit OP. I died. That Lava Boss :O But, what’s an adventure without me dying, huh? My mentor then had to head off to do some errands, and when he returned, invited me to do Mogushan Vaults for the title. I already had it since FA did all these runs a while back, but I thought, “What the hell? It’ll be a laugh!” He then asked me to join his guild’s TS. Now, my mentor is in my old guild. I asked him in my own way if he would follow me, but he felt needed as a raider (and later, a councillor) at Atlas. Which is fine. We have each other on Skype and BTag, so we can chat whenever. But, that’s fine, I joined, and found two other people there from Atlas that were also joining us. One I knew from raiding in prepatch, one I didn’t know at all. That’s fine. It’s me. I make friends easily. 

From there, we moved onto the bug raid in Dread Wastes (another name that eludes me) where we kept struggling, and then to ToES. While we were here, an old raider friend person popped in, seemed surprised to see me there, said hi and then went and hid in the AFK channel. Some things don’t change. As we were deciding where to go next, so another person logged in. This one was someone that was in the raid team I joined when I first started raiding. I knew him well enough, and he seemed interested in the fact that I was around. We all then decided to do some Siege achievements, because I was running around on my Galakras mount, and this guy joined us. 

As we were entering Siege, someone logged onto TS that I was excited to speak to, my confidant and friend, Cal. But, that excitement was incredibly short lived. His first words in the room were, “Oh. What is she doing here?” I wasn’t Xeno as he’s always fondly called me and he didn’t have that animated voice as he had when he joined my guild’s TS to discuss logs with me and my shadow. My heart sank. I barely had the ability to say that I had been invited to the TS channel to join on some old raid achievement runs. The one person I didn’t expect that from. I almost left. The rest of the raid, I spoke only when they really didn’t know what to do, and I was mostly ignored anyway. We missed two achievements because people didn’t listen to me and wiped multiple times on bosses that were in fact super easy to get the achievement on. It was like I was back in an Atlas raid, ignored and belittled. And afterwards, when I was chatting to my mentor about it, I realised that this is why I left. I didn’t fit in. I didn’t like the uptight atmosphere that’s supposed to be a casual VoIP. I didn’t like being looked down upon. I told my mentor that, without being offensive, I didn’t enjoy being on his guild’s TS. It was cold and stuckup. Nothing like FA’s TS. Ours has a warm atmosphere, no matter who’s online. People laugh at each other, we tell stories and jokes and make each other feel welcome, even the strangers (this happens all the time, random people just decide to log in as they please). And I realised that FA really and truly is a home away from home. As I said to one of the other guildies (who was a bit concerned, seeing my stream of Nerd points come in), "I’m not going anywhere. My house has been built on top of yours, Mate.”

On a happier note, Nako has been part of two progression BrF bosses this week! I’m still struggling to get the timing down on my casts and alignment shifts, but attempting LFR on the Hunter convinced me that I have done the right thing - I didn’t enjoy it at all! The Boomkin is still a challenge I am very much enjoying, and I’m pretty close to what I should be able to put out DPS wise. I made a new friend in our raid on Sunday (I shall discuss this shortly), and he Simcrafted me at 24k DPS (I’m currently 664). On the dummies, I managed 17k over 9 minutes, but no more. Thankfully, my shadow was still on TS, and made my evening even sweeter by mentioning that I got 22k stable on Iron Maidens. Whoop! Heading in the right direction! 

And, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve made a new friend! A whole bunch, actually! The weirdest way ever, though. We didn’t have a full guild team on Sunday, so we had to list ourselves. It’s not uncommon that people don’t read that we are still on Nm (mostly because we fuck around on TS and we wipe often). A few people signed up, found one person that was overgeared, kindly sent them on their way, and I was just about to delist when a group of four players signed up. 688, 687, 68-what what and what what. I /w the leader of the group, saying that they have signed up for a Nm, and are probably looking for an HC, judging by their gear. Nah, they’re looking for a Nm run, but looking for some fun while doing it. Ok, I discuss this with the team, they all seem fine with a larger than usual group since at least two of the players can heal. I invite them into the team, and ask them to join TS. I run through the motions, loot rules, how far we’ve progressed and what not, and we head on up on our way. 

Gruul goes down like a whore on a client. Oregorger was a bad (read TERRIBLE) pull, but somehow I actually survived the kill. Sadly, the mage that joined didn’t, but we forgave her with cute puppy dog eyes because she has the sweetest voice EVA! We then moved along to Hans and Franz, killed them and we laughed and made pulling Hunter jokes as I pull almost everything I can find. TS was loud with the sound of random giggles as Lee and I are having phat discussions. It’s around this point that the Rogue starts messaging me, telling me that him and his group are enjoying themselves, that they were in a group before, but the group was full of rude people, and they decided to leave. Flamebender is a breeze, and then we give a few goes on Kromog. A boss we haven’t defeated, and sadly, didn’t defeat either. However, the Rogue in the group of four makes a few suggestions, ones that makes so much sense, I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it. (If you’ve raided with me, you’ll know I like to mark everything and its dog.) Definitely something we can build on! 

We take a few breaths, and on to Darmac. Once he’s dead, we’re all standing around, people go pee, and someone had to leave. We’re discussing going back to Kromog, since Furnace is not an option, and we’ve not done Thogar or Iron Maidens yet. “Let’s go Thogar!” someone yells, and as we decide on this, so the other main tank logs in, though a bit grumpy after his long day at work. We all wait for him to join, and I hide in a corner with the Rogue :D Now, I’m not going to lie, it’s a common occurance that I don’t see what’s going on in half the chats in guild or raid, etc, and I normally ask people to ping me if they need my attention since ElvUI makes a noise when my name is typed out in a message. But, oddly, I was a bit more aware of what was going on. Might’ve been because of the large group. I don’t normally take in more than 12 or 13 people into a raid. We were at least 15. I had bad experiences leading 25 man in SoO. But, anyway, and I keep seeing double messages. One to myself, which I know is Big Brother, the other in /raid. So, I message the guy, and ask him, “Are you a RL?” “Yea. How could you tell?” “The addon.” “What addon?” “The one spamming /raid :P” “Oh. Should I switch it off?” “Nah, it’s ok.” And BOEM! New friend ^_^

I log in yesterday morning, and spam spam SPAM spam. This is how we live. Not even guildies, it’s of these four (which I’ve added three on BTag), all enquiring when our next raid will be and if they could possibly join. < This. This is what makes my day. 

Also, here is my first recipe, Law :D It’s my beloved Beef and Baby Marrow Lasagna. Now your turn.

K, luf yew, bai bai~

[xenorraandherworld]

Priests Priesting, AH Whores and The MM Faceroller

A few weeks ago, I dinged on my beautiful Undead Priest, Xhylo, mostly because I have a wonderful person that wants to play alongside me all the time. She has done a few Nm dungeons, but the both of us got bored with the same old fights over and over because of the lack of options. We also tried some Hc dungeons, but after people just screwing up on Rukhran's stupid Solar Flares, and me not being able to heal through two of the explosions, we gave up. Looking beyond this failure, I am rather loving the Disc Priest, and even prefer to DPS in the spec while doing old content. Shadow is just not for me.... I did find a very nice mog :D Got a bit daring with large shoulders and a head piece that covers most of her face, something I wouldn't think of with the Belf. The Conqueror Priest Tier set is really pretty :D Okay, not the gloves, but the rest of it!

My friend and I also have another guildie, whom we both rather enjoy the company of, who has showed us the error of our ways, and brought us to the light: Auctionator! I'm a proud hoarder, I will not lie, and the both of us have a ton of shit that we keep on bank toons. So, we each have our multiple banks, and then two guild banks for storage. When we were introduced to Auctionator, we both went mental, dumping everything we could find on the AH and doing old content to farm goodies as much as we could carry. And with the profits of this lucrative business venture, we were each able to purchase the one mount in the game that I would give my soul for: the Sapphire Panther! Oh. My. God! It's the most beautiful thing EVER! 

There has, as per usual, been drama in the raiding of the guild. There were apparently some issues with certain people, and the roster was condensed. People are no longer getting raid invites, and I'm personally disappointed in how the whole situation has been handled.

Having said this, I've been invited to, and joined, a raid with my old guild. Was really nice to see that people *cough* found their big boy panties, and have dealt with the Exodus. I was welcomed into the raid, even though I was a pug, and my opinion on boss tacts was taken quite well. In fact, I was asked more than once how I've done the fights previously. It's rather flattering. However, the group didn't get particularly far, and after just under two hours, I was on my way. Straight into a raid of my friend's friends. 

So, I am used to raiding with a little bit of a uptight raid vibe, went to one that is more local (geographically and linguistically) but the players are unsure what to do, to one where it's lead by fun British women that curse and laugh and joke, but want to get Butcher down. The last group gave me more of a sense of how I would like to feel while raiding. I want a more comfortable vibe, more trusting and less of this aggressive competition. Lighthearted conversation when the time calls for it. With elements like this, progression will come. Though, it does sound more like a casual group than a hardcore progression group. Hmmmmmm *drifts in thought*

Okay, well, that's it from me for now~

X

[xenorraandherworld]

So, we one shotted Kargath and Bladefist, and then hung around with Brackenspore and his moss for a while till we killed him and then we got stuck at Tectus.

Suffice to say, we've all been sent home to revise the mechanics, and learn which way is left, and which way is right

=D

I missed raiding!

[xenorraandherworld]

The floating druid in Skyreach (recorded 19 Nov 2014)

Much silliness indeed =D

[xenorraandherworld]

Mass Exodus

The newest developments in Xen's World of WoW...

The past few hours, the same Nelly Furtado song has been resounding in my head, which is a whole load of scary, since I'm not really a fan of hers. "All good things come to an end." These are some very true words, and I can somewhat apply meaning to this in the events that have unfolded recently in the guild that I joined just under 10 months ago. For those that have not been following my blog for that long, on the 26th of December last year, I was forced out of the guild I was in because I had supposedly spoken out of line to the GM, let's call him K. I was truly heart broken because him and I built up that guild from the ground, and we made it a family, a place where social players could feel at home. I guess you could say that it was like a horrible divorce, many horrible things were said that I wish I could take back, and a lot of the members followed me when I took refuge at Stars. Today, that guild no longer has anything happening, and as far as I can tell, the GM hasn't logged into the game for about three months. 

Moving onto the "refuge" part, when I left KI, I was lucky enough to find that Stars' GM was online and around, and after telling him all that had happened, I asked if I could find a place in his guild where I could carry on being the friendly, happy player that I was, and he welcomed me with open arms, along with all my friends from KI. For the first three or so months, I still often bumped into K, and my new GM, let's call him T, would often go head to head with K, protecting me against the horrible attacks he continued to make on me, even though all I wanted was to make peace. That only happened a few months later, but I will discuss this another time. Suffice to say, T's protective behaviour quickly changed as the guild got bigger and more activities took place, and my friend, Kinzoku (I've mentioned her a fair number of times) said to me over many months that it felt like T was just becoming more like K was just before I caused the collapse of KI. I swore to myself that I would not say anything. When he did speak to me, I was polite back, but I never asked anything of him, and I was careful to say things that would not be taken in the wrong way, as with K. There were times when I felt like I didn't belong in the guild anymore, that I had outgrown it, or it had outgrown me, and I had even made a list of guilds on the realm that I would attempt to join to progress my game and playing style. But, I stayed, mostly because of two or three people that got excited when I came online, or that went out of their way to greet me, or check in with me. I also felt like I belonged when I did leave the guild for a short while in the attempt to join a guild that was closer to home (demographically, at least) and multiple people begged me to return to Stars. And I won't lie, I have caused my fair share, perhaps even more, of drama at Stars. I am a drama magnet, even if my intentions are so good at the time. I am a girl, after all, and our emotions get the better of us in the decisions that we make, but I always did my best to try to sort it out. I was brought up to take responsibility for my actions, and I often paid the price for that, very costly prices. 

On my return from the "failed" attempt at that guild, I took on more responsibilities. And it led to a lot of things that I didn't particularly enjoy, even though I encouraged it from the members because I wanted everyone to be the best they were, and if it meant it'd cost my happiness, well, I was fine with that. Mostly. I endured a long trail of the personal tribulations a number of guildies were suffering in their own lives, things such as loss of loved ones and strict parents to confusion of sexuality or lack of direction. I listened whenever I could, and I would give advice if they asked me for it, but these conversations weighed me down a lot. It was very rare that anyone in the guild ever asked me about my tribulations. In fact, I could count the number of people that took that any interest on my two hands, and I'd still have a few fingers to spare. But, these were the people that made it worth it.

As time went on, and T got less and less involved, things started taking place around the guild that he was not aware of, or that he didn't seem interested in participating in. People started to get angry about this, and the Mass Exodus plans started forming in a few minds. I do not know when exactly the conception of the plan came about, but the origin, in my own opinion, was someone whom I could trust, who didn't have an ulterior motive. It was someone who really looked out for the guild, though made it seem they always had their sleeves down to their fingertips. Important ears and minds were included into the plan, and this plan was taken into careful consideration for execution. We did not want to destroy SoD - for many of us, it was a home for a very long time - but only because we made it so. It was decided that we make a peaceful exit, and that the raid team that'd been set up for WoD would be moving over in a week's time. Of the core people involved, one was tasked with approaching T, and informing him of this, this someone being able to make almost any situation friendly and comfortable. But, that's not how things go when large groups of people intend to leave a guild, regardless of the reasons for it. It was not made easier when T was not available in game due to personal reasons, so social media had to be the point of contact. We were given the evening to be gone. 

And here is where Atlas was born.

My final words for this saga are: a guild is not like a house that a family lives in or a bunch of events that are attended, but is made by the group of people in it. We will become whatever it is that we want, and achieve whatever we aim for if we work together and make it so. It has to be a decision that we all make together, and that we all agree on, but mostly, a way of living that we do for each other. 

Lok'tar ogar! For Atlas, may you hold high the noble and may we reach our goals together! May this new adventure be one to remember for many years to come!