World of Warcraft Classic

So, what are my plans and expectations for World of Warcraft Classic? First of all, I am not going to start a raiding guild or become a hardcore raider. I just want to experience the dungeons that I love, and the raids that I didn’t see back then, with the friends I used to play with in those early days. Sadly, not all of them will be playing Classic, but some are, and I really look forward to it. For those of you that are interested, I will play Holy Priest as Flax@Gandling.

Finally, I would like to say thank you to everyone that I have played with over the years. Even the people that were a pain in the ass. Without you, my experience of the game wouldn’t be the same. I would especially like to thank the following persons:

Agonashra Alayon Alexvoid Anah Angerforge Aofin Arnljot Boul Bx Caninen Cascada Celas  Cowycowcow Darkkadaj Dingus Drahloss Dreamevil Driada Eilistrae Fjoder Furthak Galinda  Gatecrasher Gator Gjoralv Hakuteiken Hasselhoff Healion Helior Humongos Illardeen Imothep Incenerator Jagielka Jlbird Joddy Johnnydrama Kali Keelhauled Klemens Kuhammer Kuturi Ledga Leffe Lunaful Lyonea Marlen Mazus Memory Mettis Mizilca Mnewer Moheffa Myrsith Niobe Notoriuss Nubble Oneisvangil Orcyah Orzolek Pilulkin Plaap Placebo Quixilver Ráyzer Rittlez Rodragil Rssd Ryk Shaderoth Shadowmouth Spasi Spooky Stassegrass Staump Taurenboss Tolbuchkin Tylania Ulquiorra Urrk Valghor Wallem Vegetar Wilfire Volrath Zalost Zelgadiss Zlaya Zurhak

If your name is not on that list – in the true words of Spasi – you can piss off!

A special thanks to Memory for fact checking everything I have written, and filling in the gaps. Your in-game name surely suits you. And thanks for sending me the photo I posted on the Salvation forums. I haven’t seen it since 2007.

Caninen and Flax in Salvation. Thanks Memory, for keeping it on your hard drive for 12 years.

Present Day

I don’t know whether or not most returning players have played retail recently. I would imagine most old schoolers are not actively playing retail, but in order to be eligible for the beta, I activated my subscription for the first time since 2011. I didn’t even plan on playing retail, but I’ve been playing casually with Johnnydrama and Dingus during the summer. While I do understand why hardcore players dislike the current game for the very same reasons I disliked Wrath of the Lich King back in 2009, it is a pretty good game for casual players. And I would assume most of us that were hardcore players back in Vanilla and The Burning Crusade consider themselves casual players today. Some may hate me for saying this, and myself in 2009 would have done so too, but there are some things I really like about retail. Most prominently, the talent system and the Mythic+ system. There are of course things I dislike about the game, even as a casual player. For example, that abilities have been spread out over so many classes that the uniqueness of most classes has been lost. Back in the day, only Shamans had Bloodlust, only Paladins had bubble, only Druids had battle resurrection, etc. This has annoyed me for ten years.

Running Mythic+ Dungeons with Johnnydrama (on his tank) and Dingus.

There is one thing that I believe most people think is better in retail, though. The dungeon bosses are way more complex than in Vanilla and The Burning Crusade. Most dungeon bosses are as complex as many of the raid bosses were back then. This, more than anything, shows that the player base of today is way more experienced than in 2006.

In regards to Darkspear, what is the realm like today? Our beloved Darkspear has merged (or connected, using Blizzard terminology) with two other realms and is nowadays called Darkspear-Saurfang-Terokkar. And I can say one thing for sure. It’s pretty dead on the Horde side. After about two months of casual playing, I have the highest Mythic+ rank among healing Priests on the Horde side. Of the top-20 healing priests on the realm, 19 are Alliance. Likewise, Johnnydrama is the 5^th highest Deathknight, and Dingus the 3^rd highest Rogue. After a few weeks of very casual playing. The Horde players make up 28.8 % of the population, and there seems to be very little raiding going on.

Darkspear Mythic+ Priest healer ranks. Alliance aren't exactly impressive either.

Change-of-Generation

Leffe, Dingus, and I had decided a long time ago that we would stop raiding, and Spasi and Memory had already done so. We were all completely burnt out, but felt responsible for the future of the guild. From the very beginning, the group of officers had been very exclusive. Except for Johnnydrama's interlude, and the first few weeks before Dingus became an officer, it had been the same five persons since the creation of the guild – almost one and a half years. In the gap before Ulduar was released, Dingus took over as guild master for a short period before leadership was handed over to Shadowmouth, Jagielka and maybe Dreamevil, though I can’t recall who became guild master.

Back with the old crew.

I stayed in the guild until the change-of-generation was sorted out in a satisfying way. This meant that I got to clear Ulduar, though I didn’t raid much at all. When I quit, I stopped my subscription and didn’t log in for a long time. When Cataclysm was released we got the old group from Vanilla together again. We leveled our characters to 85 and did some dungeons. We weren’t members of Play Out, but I joined them for a few raids when they were short on healers. I was happily surprised that I recognized pretty much everyone. And Spasi was back as raid leader. However, I was pretty determined not to begin hardcore raiding again, and after having seen enough of the raids, I quit the game. I didn’t pick up the game when Mists of Pandaria was released, nor did I when any of the other expansions came.

Beginning of The End

Taking the guild from the best guild on a forgotten backwards realm to a guild that seemed on the verge of being an actual high-end guild brought us new problems. I personally never wanted to take the step to a true bleeding-edge guild, and neither did any of the other officers except Spasi. For starters, that would have required a server transfer. Also, it would have required a huge increase in terms of commitment. I had a full time job, and already raided 5-7 days every week, on top of spending several hours every day organizing raids, handling applications, recording loot, sorting drama etc. Taking weeks off work to play on test realms and raid 16+ hours/day every content patch was out of the question for me.

One of the benefits of being Guild Master, people write poems in your honor.

Being server first just wasn't enough for us anymore, we had to perform well compared to top guilds on other realms. Being months behind the top guilds in the world wasn’t an option anymore. The best players would have transferred as soon as they realized we didn’t cut it. During the limbo before the first content patch in Wrath of the Lich King, this was the major issue for us. If we didn’t perform well in Ulduar, we feared the guild would disintegrate. We had been stuck on M’uru for ages, but we never feared that the guild would fall apart because of it. In the late stages of The Burning Crusade we were still expanding - recruiting and gearing up new members - and I believe most people were content that we were by far the best guild on the realm. It was these low activity periods in between content patches that caused the biggest problems. For a regular member, perhaps this was the glory days of the guild, but for us it was already the beginning of the end.

Pic or it didn’t happen!

It was in the early stages of Wrath of the Lich King that Memory decided to focus a little more on what happened outside the game, and quit playing. Spasi had also stepped down, but was crucial to us in an advisory role. Johnnydrama, that had been an officer for a while, also quit playing after we had cleared all available content. Though I was guild leader for quite a long time, I knew from this time that I would quit playing, as did Leffe and Dingus. Our main concern during this period, besides keeping up as a progressed guild, was to ensure that the guild would thrive after we had left.

Johnnydrama doing his thing.

It was during this time that we pushed for The Immortal – clearing the entirety of Naxxramas without a single death. Going for The Immortal was a hard decision for us, and it put some major strain on the guild. Many of the more experienced players really despised the thought of farming Naxxramas for the 20^th time, while more recent members couldn’t care less about The Immortal, and just wanted to raid. Obviously we couldn’t do both, since going for The Immortal meant that the best players would be locked out from raiding. After endless discussions, we ended up going for the achievement, and we came pretty close. Spasi was on a whole different level than the other officers when it came to raid leading, and the rest of us would only lead raids when he wasn't available, or when we were farming. We didn't have anyone that could fill the gap, although Dingus did a pretty decent job. On one of those occasions, we made it all the way to Kel’Thuzad without any deaths. We started the fight, and I would imagine everyone was extremely tense, even more so than back in the days of Lady Vashj and Illidan. Then, about 20 seconds into the fight, someone gets killed because of a very stupid mistake. The atmosphere in the guild after the failure was extremely strained, the blame game started, and several people left the guild.

A few weeks later, Spasi came back for a final showing. Spasi was a truly incredible player. Not only was he an exceptional elemental shaman. That would have been impressive in its own right, but it wouldn’t have made him unique. We had a handful of extraordinary players in the guild. What I can’t comprehend, is how someone can be so good at leading raids. He always seemed to know the exact role of every single person in every single fight. He told people of all classes what they should do different. After a wipe he could tell two persons to switch positions, and then we would kill the boss. No one I have played with comes even close to his raid leading abilities. When he came back, we took our best team and went after The Immortal. And we finally made it. Perhaps this was what convinced some people to remain in the guild for Ulduar. For me it was a final accomplishment before I quit the game.

The Worst Expansion Ever

When the next expansion was released the guild was still stronger than ever. After several months without any new content, everyone was eager to beat the new raids as quickly as possible. We had a great setup and quickly cleared all available content. As I mentioned before, this was when Play Out reached its peak during my time in the guild. Our kills started to show up on the EU guild rankings, although in the 200’s and 300’s (and once in the 100’s). But for me, and many others, this was the end of hardcore World of Warcraft. Basically, it comes down to three things:

Most importantly, the “casualization” of the game. Many of the changes made in The Burning Crusade were motivated, since some aspects of Vanilla were pretty insane. Even so, I thought they took it a bit too far already in The Burning Crusade. Wrath of the Lich King was a whole different story, though. So many things made the game cater more for casuals than hardcore raiders. To begin with, the contrast between Sunwell Plateau and Naxxramas was just too big. On most of the bosses in Sunwell Plateau pre-patch, one player making one mistake could wipe the entire raid. And classes actually made a difference. You couldn’t just go with any tanks, any healers and any DPS. But the main thing was the introduction of Normal Mode and Heroic Mode raids. This, and the fact that even Heroic Mode raids weren’t difficult at all, so you had to resort to achievements to distinguish yourself as a successful guild. In The Burning Crusade, everyone knew we were the only guild to kill Illidan for a very long time. Who the hell knew we had the Glory of the Raider and The Immortal achievements in Wrath of the Lich King? This may seem strange to some people, but a strong driving force in games like this is not only to progress in the game, but to be better than others. When the lines between our guild and the less successful guilds got blurred, it wasn’t as fun to raid five to six times every week anymore.

The cookie cutter solution for boring farm raids.

Second, Wrath of the Lich King took the streamlining of the classes too far. Already in The Burning Crusade, we were joking that every class could do everything and soon Warriors would get heals and Paladins would get Stealth. The glaring weaknesses most classes had were part of the game and overcoming them made the game interesting. For me personally, the uniqueness of the Shadow Priest was removed completely when the spec went from a unique utility class to a regular DPS class, and I started to raid more and more as Holy.

Third, flying mounts, easy summons, looking for group tools, etc. all made game play more comfortable. But the feeling of being in a living world was removed. The entire world felt completely unnecessary when all you did was fly around and queue up for things.

Illidan and Beyond

With Spasi being the obvious raid leader among us, and Leffe being submerged in tank duties, Memory and I took care of the day-to-day organizing and social aspects, including all the drama. And trust me, there was a lot of that. As with most raiding guilds, we too had our share of eccentric personalities and influential, often national, groups. I’d like to think that my major contribution to the guild was holding it together for so long. A typical day consisted of some shit storm emerging, Spasi wanting to handle it by saying “he can fuck off/piss off”, and me convincing him to let me sort it out. As with most guilds, typical issues concerned loot, not being picked for raids, having to raid with noobs, conflicts that emerged between guild members outside of raiding, and people or groups of people just hating each other.

Handing out gems and enchants after a successful raid. "Form a line. We're not in Italy."

Though I didn’t realize it until much later, this was when World of Warcraft started to become more reminiscent of a job than a game for me. Even so, some of my best memories are from this time. Nothing comes close to our server first kill of Illidan. After the scheduled raid was over, we did one more try and failed. Then we held a vote and 23 persons wanted to keep going. Two tries later he was dead. On top of that, he dropped the shield, the staff and a glaive, i.e. basically the jackpot. We refused to just hand the loot to ourselves and instead of using the typical approach with the loot council, for this occasion we rolled off. Leffe won a two way roll, Dingus also won a two way roll, and I won a three way roll, so everything ended up in our hands anyway. Of course, there was a lot of drama surrounding the glaive anyway, since some people that thought they deserved to roll didn’t get to.

Longest roll win streak on Darkspear.

It seemed like the entire population of Darkspear was greeting us in Shattrath City when we returned after the kill. In a way, I think we contributed to making Darkspear less of a dark backwater among the World of Warcraft realms, although more so in Wrath of the Lich King than in The Burning Crusade. We reached M’uru before the final nerf, a boss that most guilds except the very best in the world got stuck on. Thus, technically Darkspear was just as progressed as many of the most advanced realms in the world. This would continue in Wrath of the Lich King, where we reached our high point in terms of global guild ranking. At least during my time in the guild.

Members waiting in Sunwell Plateau while officers are discussing.

Shortly after the Illidan kill, Memory stepped down and I became guild leader, a position I held from the beginning of Sunwell Plateau until right before I quit after clearing Ulduar. The endless drama I had to deal with under the surface took its toll. I constantly had the feeling that the guild was on the verge of collapse due to all the tension between different groups. I had to deal with all of this in between raids, but the actual raids themselves also felt like work. However, I still loved the progression fights, and that somehow motivated me to do all the farm raids that were necessary.

The Creation of Play Out

This whole debacle happened while Salvation was working on Reliquary of Souls in Black Temple. We picked up where Salvation had left us, and quickly killed Reliquary of Souls. Thus the era began, when Play Out would get every server first kill until I quit playing, and a while after that, though I don't know the details about what happened on the server after I quit.

Reliquary of Souls down by Play Out.

We reformed the guild, much thanks to Spasi, who was the most ambitious of us when it came to transforming to a high end raiding guild. Spasi streamlined a lot of things using all kinds of different tools I had no idea even existed. On my insistence we also ditched the DKP system and moved over to a loot council. We started focusing recruitment on classes we were in direct need of, not just anyone that seemed good enough, and people that had low raid attendance were kicked from the guild. We were truly the only competitive guild on the Horde side, so we could pick and choose among the good players on the realm. And we put a lot of work into planning ahead. Personally, I also think the whole atmosphere in the guild changed to the better, but clearly I am biased about that. All in all, we professionalized the guild and brought it even further than Salvation in the hardcore direction.

Illidari Council down, one step closer to Illidan.

Still, Darkspear has always been a bit of a backwater realm, and even though we were by far the top guild on the realm for a very long time, we were never a top guild in the grand scheme of things. I believe we had one kill in the first EU-200, and a few slightly slower, so by no means were we ever a high end raiding guild by global standards. This was a constant source of tension throughout Play Out’s existence. We never had enough really excellent players to fill all 25 raid slots. We had lots of great players, but not enough of those genuinely exceptional players, and there were constant pressure from people considering transferring to more advanced realms. Spasi suggested transferring the whole guild from time to time, but even though the rest of us were pretty serious about raiding, we never wanted to leave Darkspear.