Unfortunately, sometimes the demands of real world life cause us to neglect other parts of our life. For me, it’s my gaming and this blog. I hope to get more time to write soon, and perhaps play more once I’m done with the cycle I’m about to start. (Stupid damned privates… ugh)

If you need any more proof that WoW is casual-friendly these days, take a gander at my armory page. I have Tier 8.5 chest and helm. Ilvl 226 pieces all over, and my T9 shoulders. The emblem changes have allowed me to pick up the chest, helm, a neck, a belt, and some sick shoulders. Currently, my game priority is to experience and collect some of the old-school stuff that I won’t be able to get once cataclysm revamps the world.

Namely, [Rhok'delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers]

My guild was nice enough to help me with a Molten Core run on Sunday, but alas! The leaf did not drop. It’s a 50 percent drop rate, so hopefully tonight will be more fortunate.  I already have the Sinew that I need, so the Leaf will allow me to do the quest that gets me the bow that used to be a symbol of a hunter who knew what the hell he was doing. Granted, the quest will probably be trivial now, but it is my hope that I can obtain it before it is either removed or revamped. I also have 8/8 Beastmaster and 4/8 Giantstalker (The latter obtained during my last two Molten Core runs), and a [Zin'rokh, Destroyer of Worlds] that i like to use while posing on the bank steps.

I posted a while back about guild disinterest, and the problem has gotten both better and worse, depending on your perspective. A few members have moved their mains to more hardcore raiding guilds, and AUO is still raiding, but people are primarily bringing alts to 10 man Naxx runs and whatnot. Unfortunately, that means that those of us who can’t commit to a truly hardcore raiding guild are still with AUO, and can’t seem to convince the other members to raid the higher level content. And, given that some members of AUO have taken to pugging, we KNOW for a fact that the current raid content, hard modes notwithstanding, is not too hard for a casual guild to run. So unfortunately, the guild is not doing what we set out to do with Wrath’s release: namely, raiding all current content as it’s released, in at least 10 man mode. I look back with a bit of sadness at our early days in Wrath, when we were clearing 25 man Naxx, OS, and eventually EoE, which was the highest level raid at the time. Now, we are relegated to clearing out 10 man naxx for people’s alts, which would be fine with me, but I wish we would at least clear out 10 man ulduar and start working on ToC. It’s frustrating, and can be attributed to a few factors.

First, many guildies left. A few left for greener pastures, a few had real life committments and I understand that. Our guild leader left and rerolled on another server, which bothered for mostly selfish reasons, although I understand painfully how real life can stack up on you. Mostly, I identified her as the face of the guild, and any soldier knows that the loss of a leader can be demoralizing on a few levels, and we forget sometimes that people have lives outside of WoW. When a particular person and her hunter-blog are the reason you joined a guild, having both the blog and the person go *poof* can introduce some shakiness into you. Dagr (also Edreus) had moved one of his toons to another raiding guild so he could raid the higher level content, and was asked to leave the guild altogether as a result. Yet somehow, this behavior is OK now. Once he left, many others moved their mains as well, and I attribute this to the reason we lost so much raiding momentum so quickly. I feel that some people thought raiding with AUO was making the content too difficult, as we had to put some effort into EoE and naxx 25, whereas raiding with a hardcore guild could potentially make it easier. I thought that was part of the appeal of raiding with AUO, that we had to WORK and EARN the full clears we got. With the new raid lockout extensions, we wouldn’t even have to worry about clearing the whole place in a week if we wanted to, so the time limit isn’t even an issue.

I guess what it boils down to is this: we lost some people who really just USED AUO as a stepping stone. One raider in particular stayed in AUO long enough to get naxx geared in multiple specs, then bailed out because we “weren’t raiding enough.” Hell, if we weren’t raiding enough, how the fuck did you get all that gear!?

Pisses me off. I was and continue to be loyal to the guild, whom I consider friends. I put in the time in Kara, and spent countless hours in heroics when wrath released helping some of these people gear up. It chaps my ass that we’re struggling to do 10 man Naxx nowadays because of the exodus.

I haven’t completely decided what I’m going to do about it. My hope is that, with the release of Icecrown and cataclysm, there will be a new interest in doing what we set out to do: be a casual guild that can kill the biggest “baddies” (in normal mode) the same as the big no-life guilds. It’s possible. Hell, Ulduar can be cleared in blues if you’re skilled enough.

/endrant