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.