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.