WoW'ers stand up and be counted!!!

[The_Dude 1,142]

We met on WoW early last year,

Me, as Voyeurist (it's an inside joke) a level 80 hunter on Jaedenar and him as Madmagician, a level 80 shaman, on the same server. We met in a guild merger between our original guilds, who were both progression guilds but both lacked the numbers for 25s.

We got to know each other casually with everyone else and the guild actually went pretty well for awhile - we had a lot of talent, but the problems came with the GM having bad priorities and a mixture of casual raiders and more hardcore raiders not seeing eye to eye on things like loot, schedule, content and how much effort they were willing to put in. After a lot of turbulence and misunderstandings, Andy xferred off to another server and the rest of the guild slowly started to break down even more. We were barely getting to know each other but I knew he was smart, knew how we could fix some problems, knew a lot of people wanted him to come back and I generally enjoyed his company in raids so I chased him down on our guild website, messaged him a long-winded plea to come back and start a new guild with our like-minded raiders and leave the BS behind. He was hesitant but myself and some others I had gotten in on trying to get him to come back noticed him hanging out on bank alts on our server so we knew he missed us.

Long story short, he did come back, started a new guild and we actually were quite successful, given that we were having TERRIBLE luck getting things stabilized (just as we were getting our 25s group stabilized, we got hit with the ToC patch, which threw things off a bit, then once we got back there again we got hit with Ony, which while it isn't huge still was a patch day and still meant a lot of people were in 'zomgletzdoitnao' mode, and then we hit the end of summer/beginning of fall when the player-base shifts a bit with people returning to school/work, etc) and towards the beginning of fall, after running the guild together and getting to know each other even more we began talking on the phone and the idea of having a relationship became possible in our minds (we admitted to having mutual crushes for a little while but I think it's safe to say neither of us ever expected to be here today, ) and so we decided to meet for the first time in October.

Needless to say, things are going wonderfully. The long-winded, potentially-creepy message I sent him when he left was probably the best decision I ever made.

The guild ended up dwindling due to things like guild hoppers, people who feel entitled to every piece of loot that drops, lack of showing up at raid time along with the server-wide issue of too many people trying to run guilds with too small of a population - and it sucked more because 90% of those guilds were run by people who thought it was the easy road to free lootz (which, btw, it's not. With him as the GM and myself as a senior officer, we Loot Council'd way more loot to our regular raiders than to ourselves) In November, progression hit a standstill because of the aforementioned problems (which is mega frustrating, especially when the people you do have are brimming with talent and it isn't enough) and we decided to end things quickly and on good terms. In looking at other potential servers to xfer to, we quickly learned that our guild would have been more successful on just about any other server, as most of the websites for guilds were nearly identical to ours in terms of schedule, loot system and policies, where some of the rampant problems on Jaedenar were less-so.

We ended up on Cho'Gall, as Voye and Drmadmag now but we haven't been able to raid for over two months. It's just been too busy of a time with the visits and the holiday season and now with him getting ready to move and my evening job back home. We haven't even seen ICC, which disappoints us greatly because we're big nerds and we especially enjoy the lore.

We were sad to end our guild but if all we were meant to get out of it was each other then we're happy.

I do really, really miss our original guild though, before the drama got too big. There were some great people and great times.

It's always funny when you think back to those seminal points in a relationship.

I'm really leaning towards a server and possibly a faction change. My guild asked me to go demonology spec for the raid buff, then bitches because my DPS is lower. #######, it's not a high DPS spec. Oh well. I'm just tired of all the melodrama. I love the game, but when it becomes like a job, or when there is drama, I usually just move on. Does anyone here or has anyone played on Azuremyst or Proudmoore realms? Those are two realms I was looking at, but you can only glean so much off of reading their realm forums and hanging out in trade chat.

[Andy and Kayla 45]

It's always funny when you think back to those seminal points in a relationship.

I'm really leaning towards a server and possibly a faction change. My guild asked me to go demonology spec for the raid buff, then bitches because my DPS is lower. #######, it's not a high DPS spec. Oh well. I'm just tired of all the melodrama. I love the game, but when it becomes like a job, or when there is drama, I usually just move on. Does anyone here or has anyone played on Azuremyst or Proudmoore realms? Those are two realms I was looking at, but you can only glean so much off of reading their realm forums and hanging out in trade chat.

What else are you looking at? For example, when we xferred, we also were looking at progression realms - we never wanted to be in a mega hardcore guild out of not having the time needed but we did want to find somewhere that didn't just offer 2-3 guilds that are able to progress and 5-7 guilds that didn't have the people for progression like Jaedenar, so we checked cross-referenced progression data from wow-heroes.com and guildox.com to find something that offered a good amount of guilds progressing at different speeds.

[The_Dude 1,142]

What else are you looking at? For example, when we xferred, we also were looking at progression realms - we never wanted to be in a mega hardcore guild out of not having the time needed but we did want to find somewhere that didn't just offer 2-3 guilds that are able to progress and 5-7 guilds that didn't have the people for progression like Jaedenar, so we checked cross-referenced progression data from wow-heroes.com and guildox.com to find something that offered a good amount of guilds progressing at different speeds.

I'm only looking at Pacific Time Standard realms at the moment. I play on a Central Time Standard realm, and there are only 2 guilds that I can raid with because I don't get home until 6:30-7:00 my time which is 8:30-9:00 server time. I am currently in one of the top 10 guilds (top 5 after this weeks progression updates) on our realm (blackhand). But my guild has taken a turn towards being a hardcore guild and I really hate having to sit out on some fights for the optimal makeup on the fight. I don't want to join another hardcore guild that requires you to spend x amount of hours on the PTR prior to new content being released, or ones that raid until 4-5 a.m.. But I do want to see some progression, beyond the blood princes etc. I was basically looking down a list of all the pacific time zone realms and looking them up one by one off of wowwiki to see the synopsis of each realm, then checking their progression on guildox, and then checking out their realm forums to see how things are. I really kind of don't want to do another super high population realm like blackhand, but i'm not going to rule one out.

[Malrothien 6]

Rob, Kilrogg is a good server if you want to raid. Had two top 25 guilds on it. Only one left now that Conquest broke up.

[Calli 2]

lol I am rather new to VJ and reading through all of the many posts etc I was also thinking the same thing that a lot of people have met in WoWland. My fiance and myself are no different. I was the GM of a progression guild and I recruited him as a tank. We hit it off immediately and the rest is history...

I just faction changed and server changed mid January and I'm really missing my Troll mon! /cry

But here our our characters(80s only):

Server: Stormrage

Guild: Progression

My toons:

Callialilly: 80 Human Rogue

Babybear: 80 Night Elf Druid

His toons:

Mystic: 80 Night Elf Druid

Mystic: 80 Dranei Priest

I think it is so encouraging and awesome that so many of us WoW nerds are on this site and there are so many successful stories from all of you.

Thank you so much for sharing!

Edited February 10, 2010 by Calli

[Kimbear 53]

so like i feel bad lol. i xfered servers to go back to my fav guild and do icc progression, and well since i've been down in chicago with David, both of us can't be bothered to even log in half the time

truth be told..for me its only cuz for some reason i'm not allowed to tank anything..they always want me kitty dps..and well blah..i dont like dps. i LOVE tanking on my druid..it's what i'm best at and what i love doing. i kept askign if they wanted me to change spec blah blah..they are like nah..stay tank..we may need you..umm ok but ya know..dps is gimped if all have is tank gear..regardless of spec..i'm st ill missing a few k of dps there ppl../sigh

i dunno, its' like now that i'm with david (well for this month anyway before i go back for interview etc) i would rather just snuggle up and watch some supernatural etc. lol. is this what happens when you meet on wow get engaged go through the stress and hell of a k1 visa? Feel like i'm becomming boring lol. well we take the puppies out for walks now, and cuddle with them too!

maybe i'm just bored of wow as we have been playing so many years. shrug. he gave me an eq2 trial, and well i like my dark elf shadowknight it's all fun and new and interesting. a real nice change from wiping for 5 hours on icc raids lol.

ah well c'est la vie eh?

[AdamNewfoundland 0]

I have 3 80s on Doomhammer. (Along with a bunch of 30s and single-digits on DH and scattered across different realms

Alessan - Human Paladin

Obiady - Gnomelock

Dorå - Dwarf DK (yes, she has the Explorer title, and yes it's hilarious, and I get whispers all the time about how awesome she is)

I'm currently on a WoW break, but I'm planning on going back to the trough in the next couple of months. My lovely fiancee isn't a gamer at all (she likes Cooking Mama and Nintendogs, though), but she permits me my small addiction.

Adam

[The_Dude 1,142]

Nintendodogs? I had to look that up

Kimbear - I see a lot of burnout from people who have been playing wow since day 1. As to your question about how things are when you move down to the u.s., no, it's not always like that. You've got to remember that you're not going to be able to work for an extended period of time. WoW is one of the best time vaccuums out there. I remember in the month before Mel's interview last March, I kept saying that we were probably going to quit wow to spend more time with each other. But as it turns out, we are broke, and wow is cheap entertainment, except when you have a wife who faction changes all her toons and every other month wants to change their names or race (Just kidding sweetheart, if you're reading this).

I was doing my realm research last night, while sitting out a raid, and my wife joins in. I don't think she thought I was serious about changing realms before. So while I'm doin my reading about each realm, she was going to each realm and seeing if her favorite names are available. :lol:She's not going to transfer any toons, probably because she has like 8 lvl 80 toons. I really am undecided about what to do. I'm leaning towards a more laidback, lower progression realm. But I'm going to have to do my homework first. I'm not going to transfer and end up joining a guild that wipes on Saurfang regular mode. That would just piss me off. One funny thing I noticed last night, most west coast realms seem to be heavily slanted alliance. Some realms were like 70-80% alliance.

[Andy and Kayla 45]

I'm leaning towards a more laidback, lower progression realm. But I'm going to have to do my homework first. I'm not going to transfer and end up joining a guild that wipes on Saurfang regular mode. That would just piss me off. One funny thing I noticed last night, most west coast realms seem to be heavily slanted alliance. Some realms were like 70-80% alliance.

Definitely be careful with lower progression realms - I would recommend taking extra care to look at the population and how many guilds exists for that population. Our old server was lower progression but it had a low population and too many people trying to run their own guilds, which resulted in two-three higher-end, good but overpopulated and very demanding guilds and a whooooole bunch of guilds with some really talented players but not enough people showing up to raids/staying in the same guild to get anything better than progression at a snail's pace. When we looked at xferring, we noticed this trend on a few servers with that population level.

Just something to watch out for,

[The_Dude 1,142]

Definitely be careful with lower progression realms - I would recommend taking extra care to look at the population and how many guilds exists for that population. Our old server was lower progression but it had a low population and too many people trying to run their own guilds, which resulted in two-three higher-end, good but overpopulated and very demanding guilds and a whooooole bunch of guilds with some really talented players but not enough people showing up to raids/staying in the same guild to get anything better than progression at a snail's pace. When we looked at xferring, we noticed this trend on a few servers with that population level.

Just something to watch out for,

I really don't want to go to a high population realm, and I'm not willing to be in one of those hardcore guilds that requires PTR time, late night raids etc. anymore I understand that the higher population realms are going to have a lot more options, and a much deeper group of progression guilds. I guess, the more I read, the more I'm not really sure what I want. Maybe i'm beeing too picky, but more than likely, I just need to do more research and try things out. I guess initially, I wanted to join a medium population, medium progression realm and be in one of the top guilds. Big fish, little pond syndrome. Now, i'm not so sure. Guess i've got more research to do

[Udella&Wiz 325]

Nintendodogs? I had to look that up

Kimbear - I see a lot of burnout from people who have been playing wow since day 1. As to your question about how things are when you move down to the u.s., no, it's not always like that. You've got to remember that you're not going to be able to work for an extended period of time. WoW is one of the best time vaccuums out there. I remember in the month before Mel's interview last March, I kept saying that we were probably going to quit wow to spend more time with each other. But as it turns out, we are broke, and wow is cheap entertainment, except when you have a wife who faction changes all her toons and every other month wants to change their names or race (Just kidding sweetheart, if you're reading this).

I was doing my realm research last night, while sitting out a raid, and my wife joins in. I don't think she thought I was serious about changing realms before. So while I'm doin my reading about each realm, she was going to each realm and seeing if her favorite names are available. :lol:She's not going to transfer any toons, probably because she has like 8 lvl 80 toons. I really am undecided about what to do. I'm leaning towards a more laidback, lower progression realm. But I'm going to have to do my homework first. I'm not going to transfer and end up joining a guild that wipes on Saurfang regular mode. That would just piss me off. One funny thing I noticed last night, most west coast realms seem to be heavily slanted alliance. Some realms were like 70-80% alliance.

Some of the best raiding I did was during the time I was off work for 4 months... in the 2 years I've been back at work I haven't had nearly as much time to play.

Can;t help on the whole change realm thing.....it's tough finding the right guild on a new server and then having to leave old friends

[The_Dude 1,142]

Some of the best raiding I did was during the time I was off work for 4 months... in the 2 years I've been back at work I haven't had nearly as much time to play.

Can;t help on the whole change realm thing.....it's tough finding the right guild on a new server and then having to leave old friends

Yeah, the leaving friends is tough. I've mentioned it to a couple of friends and they get all hysterical. I just hate the guilt trips that I have got so far. But at the end of the day, it's a game that you pay to play to have fun. And if you're not having fun, what is the point.

[Andy and Kayla 45]

That was one of the reasons we put off xferring for so long - we knew the server was bad, longtime members were xferring off left and right but we had so many friends there. It definitely sucks in that way.

The server we're on now is technically medium population, but it's 93% Horde so it definitely seems like a high pop realm when we've looked for guilds/raids. We haven't apped to anything yet, even though we've been there for a few months now, we've just been too busy to put the time in to any guild right now, but there looks like there are a lot of options when we do. We aren't big on the super hardcore guilds either, they can burn you out pretty quickly and it loses a lot of fun, we just like progression, we like the content and it looks like when we do have time we'll be able to find something. In the meantime, I guess we could pug some raids but the problem is we haven't raided since before 3.3 so all the pug leaders want ICC achievements that we don't have, even though we've watched the videos and are both smart players and wouldn't have a lot of problems catching on and in a way it really sucks when you know some of the people that do have the achievements were carried and are worse players, but I guess for a pug leader the achievement (and gear score, which is a rant I won't even get started with) is all you have to go on.

[The_Dude 1,142]

That was one of the reasons we put off xferring for so long - we knew the server was bad, longtime members were xferring off left and right but we had so many friends there. It definitely sucks in that way.

The server we're on now is technically medium population, but it's 93% Horde so it definitely seems like a high pop realm when we've looked for guilds/raids. We haven't apped to anything yet, even though we've been there for a few months now, we've just been too busy to put the time in to any guild right now, but there looks like there are a lot of options when we do. We aren't big on the super hardcore guilds either, they can burn you out pretty quickly and it loses a lot of fun, we just like progression, we like the content and it looks like when we do have time we'll be able to find something. In the meantime, I guess we could pug some raids but the problem is we haven't raided since before 3.3 so all the pug leaders want ICC achievements that we don't have, even though we've watched the videos and are both smart players and wouldn't have a lot of problems catching on and in a way it really sucks when you know some of the people that do have the achievements were carried and are worse players, but I guess for a pug leader the achievement (and gear score, which is a rant I won't even get started with) is all you have to go on.

I hear you about gear scores. It tells you nothing more than a person has good raid attendance, or that they have been lucky on rolls. LoL, i found an addon that actually fakes achievements. My current situation is that my guild sees affliction (and destruction) warlocks as sub-par to mages. In long fights, locks are better, but in a lot of the ICC fights where you have a lot of movement, and adds, mages blow us out. So they really just want a bunch of mages and a demonology lock for the demonic pact raid buff. There are some fights where you need DoTs and so I get in on those fights, but It leaves me in the predicament that I'm saved for 25 man ICC and only get to do maybe 2-3 boss. I'm tired of it, and just want to actually see content, even if it is with a lesser skilled guild. I just feel trapped on my realm. There are only 2 guilds that raid at the time I can, I'm in one of them, and the other is terribad

[trailmix 77]

I hear you about gear scores. It tells you nothing more than a person has good raid attendance, or that they have been lucky on rolls. LoL, i found an addon that actually fakes achievements. My current situation is that my guild sees affliction (and destruction) warlocks as sub-par to mages. In long fights, locks are better, but in a lot of the ICC fights where you have a lot of movement, and adds, mages blow us out. So they really just want a bunch of mages and a demonology lock for the demonic pact raid buff. There are some fights where you need DoTs and so I get in on those fights, but It leaves me in the predicament that I'm saved for 25 man ICC and only get to do maybe 2-3 boss. I'm tired of it, and just want to actually see content, even if it is with a lesser skilled guild. I just feel trapped on my realm. There are only 2 guilds that raid at the time I can, I'm in one of them, and the other is terribad

When I read this - about this microscopic raiding plan, where you are only allowed to participate in a few fights where it will be to everyones advantage - I just shake my head.

How can you stand it!?

Well I guess you can't - which is why you are guild shopping - the first time that happened I would have quit the guild.