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.

The Fall of Salvation

While the rest of our initial team was in Salvation, Dingus was left out of all of this. Persistently playing on, he made a reputation for himself as a reliable Rogue, even among the Salvation members. When he finally applied once again, a vast amount of Salvation members vouched for him, and Orzolek had to budge. For the first time, all of my original friends were in the same raiding guild. This didn't last long, though.

Excerpts from the ex-TDC channel (Beauty is Marlen's alt).

One day when I logged on, Leffe told me that something fishy was going on. The guild leader and the officers were emptying the guild bank. Leffe was the only one among us that was part of the in-group in Salvation. He had been a core raider for a long time in Thousand Souls and soon got asked if he wanted to transfer to another server along with some of the founding members of Salvation (and the contents of the guild bank). Having all his friends on Darkspear led him to decline, and he told us all about it in confidence. I think their intention was to transfer to a more populated realm, with a larger roster of experienced players. Since the chosen realm was Magtheridon, rumors soon spread that the guild they joined there was just a stepping stone in order to join Nihilum (for those that don’t know, Nihilum was the highest ranked guild in the world at the time).

The situation leading up to this was rather complex. The guild leader wanted the guild to be as progressed as possible, sometimes bordering stupidity according to some. If you raided in Salvation at the time, you could get the impression that we would rush a raid together and wipe all night on a boss, just so we could say we were working on that boss. We could wipe countless times with an undermanned raid, instead of just calling it a day.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, there were people that were not core raiders, that didn’t have the DKP to get any tier 6 gear for a very long time. They didn’t get any gear from Serpentshrine Cavern or Tempest Keep either, since we had stopped doing them. Back then, there were no gear resets every content patch. When a new raid tier was released, you still had to gear up, starting in Karazhan. Very few of those intent on progression raids were interested in going to farm raids they had already done countless times to gear up people they didn’t know or care about. This may have been interpreted as elitists stubbornly refusing to do the old raids. We were a Black Temple guild now, and were simply too good for the lesser raids. But I am not sure everyone wanted to wipe for three hours in Black Temple with a 17-man raid either.

The workings behind the scenes of what happened next is still to this day not entirely clear. During the days leading up to the officers transferring, a lot of posts from disgruntled members were posted on the guild forum. This led to a lot of speeches and discussions, and the guild was reformed. We would stop with the pointless raids, and schedule at least one organized farm raid every reset. This wasn’t what everyone had been looking for, and it didn’t settle the issue, but at least it seemed to halt the escalation. Everything seemed to calm down. The next few raids went well, and we didn’t have to do the pointless wipes in Black Temple. Then, a few days later, a post was made on the forum that a member was trying to take over the guild. The person would be kicked from the guild, a lot of people would be upset, and many would leave the guild. The person turned out to be Galinda, our Priest class leader. And sure enough, a lot of core members did leave, among them Nubble, our Paladin class leader, and Memory. If these accusations were just a smoke screen ahead of the already planned transfer is anyone’s guess. From the information I managed to gather at the time, it seems to me that Orzolek recognized that the clique around Galinda had grown too powerful, especially in regards to loot distribution since it included several class leaders. There may have been some truth to that, but the reason why the whole conspiracy theory about the hostile takeover was concocted doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I don’t think anyone believed it, so it only served to spread confusion among the members. And Galinda making sure loot went to his friends isn’t worse than how many of the other officers handled loot. The final result of it all was that we were missing a lot of healers for progression raids, since the people that left were the best healers on the server.

In order to be able to raid at all, Spasi, Johnnydrama, and I changed roles to healers, and Alexvoid started raiding as a Holy Paladin. Still, we couldn’t possibly hope to progress in Black Temple, so we were back to farming. After a few days of failing to get a decent raid together, the events described above occurred. As soon as we got word of the guild leader and officers leaving the guild, we quickly got a group together to get ready for what would happen next. As soon as the news broke, everyone in the guild was distraught that the leaders had betrayed the guild. Spasi, Memory, and I quickly formed a new guild with Memory as guild master. We soon made Leffe and Dingus officers as well, and invited pretty much all Salvation members to our new guild, Play Out. Funny how Thousand Souls finally ended up in the hands of a splinter group from TDC.

The Rise of Salvation

Raiding in Salvation was a whole different experience compared to TDC. This was in large part due to the guild master and many of the core members being native English speakers (TDC had a Dutch core), and the guild using voice chat extensively, not only while raiding, but also socially. Also, the favoritism was gone, or at least wasn't as apparent. You didn't get a raid spot just because you had been in the guild since the beginning, you actually had to perform. And most of all, the discipline was on a whole different level. You couldn't show up late or unprepared to raid, and if you screwed up repeatedly you would be removed from the raid – or even the guild – immediately. Even though Orzolek had been an influential person in Thousand Souls, it was a guild run by several people. Salvation, on the other hand, was a one man show. The Orzolek Show.

One incident in particular, shows the raiding environment in Salvation more than anything. This particular incident is surely remembered to this day by everyone that was there to experience it. The guild was trying to bring down Kael’thas Sunstrider, the final boss of Tempest Keep. At the time (i.e. before the release of Sunwell Plateau), this was perhaps the most complex boss fight in the game, arguably even more complicated than Illidan himself. One of our long time raiders, a holy paladin called Gatecrasher, had died repeatedly in the same way during our attempts, when Orzolek called out and asked him to leave the guild. Leave the guild? Gatecrasher responded in a surprising tone. Yes, leave the guild. The raidleader asking people that didn’t pull their weight to leave the raid happened every day. This had never happened before and the silence on the voice chat was unsettling. It wasn’t long before things were back to normal, and soon enough we killed Kael’thas. But the memory of the in-raid guild kick lingered in our minds.

Marlen being inconspicuous about his past.

Our group of ex-TDC players soon established ourselves as core raiders with high attendance that consistently performed well, and Leffe was the obvious main tank of the guild. We plowed through the content and racked up a lot of Horde first kills, including Lady Vasjh, Kael'thas, and Archimonde. To this day, those are among the most epic fights I've been a part of in this game. Those that were there will forever remember the voice chat exploding when Lady Vasjh finally went down. Most raiders have moments like this, and for me the Lady Vasjh kill definitely stands out. Once again, there was no question about which the number one Horde guild on the server was.

The Decline of TDC

One day when I logged on as usual, I was immediately invited to a group containing Memory, Spasi, Marlen, and Helior. Memory was by a wide margin the best healer in TDC, and the rest of us, I do believe, were the top four damage dealers in the guild. They told me they had been waiting for me to log on since they were going to leave TDC and join Salvation as a group. I told them I wasn’t leaving without Dingus, and they said they expected me to say that. Dingus joined the group and we sealed the deal with Orzolek. We would all join Salvation.

We quit TDC, and one after the other we were invited to Salvation. Everyone except Dingus. He was still in bad standing for having left the guild ages ago. What actually happened has never been entirely uncovered. Some believe it was a scam from Orzolek’s part that he didn't want to lose out on the deal, so he straight up lied to us about letting Dingus in. Another version of the story is that whoever bargained with us about the guild change, didn’t tell Orzolek about either Dingus or me since we joined the negotiations so late, so he was genuinely surprised when we asked to join the guild. Apparently he had no problem accepting me, while Dingus was still in bad standing. What actually happened is anyone’s guess, but personally I’m leaning towards the latter explanation.

The mastermind that destroyed the best Horde guild on the realm.

The welcome we received in Salvation was completely amazing. As mentioned earlier, Aftermath had been known for their great tanks. Likewise, Thousand Souls was known for their exceptional healers and TDC for their damage dealers. I don't know how much credence there was to this, but that's what people believed at the time. Now, the best tanks, healers, and damage dealers on Darkspear were all brought together in one guild. Everyone in Salvation seemed to be overwhelmed with joy. For me it was bittersweet, though, since Dingus was left behind despite my best efforts. I felt pretty bad about being in the guild, but leaving wouldn’t have changed anything so I stayed. A few days after we joined Salvation, an Enhancement Shaman by the name of Sarcasm (later Johnnydrama) had become fed up with TDC and also left for Salvation. Soon more would follow, and TDC would cease to exist.

The End of Thousand Souls

This was still in the early days of World of Warcraft, and most guilds, even the top ones on the server, had a core of friends that had been playing together since the beginning. Thousand Souls and TDC were no exceptions. Being friends is not a bad thing, but in a guild based on friendship, and not a common goal in the game, people tend to have different goals. Some want to raid hardcore, some want to play socially, and some in the latter category have been in the guild since day one, and some may even be officers. This was a massive problem for our guilds, even more so on a young realm such as Darkspear, that had a comparatively low population of actual old timers that raided hardcore in Vanilla. When Darkspear opened, the game had already been out for 18 months, and groups of friends that started playing when the realm opened were still playing the game together.

I never was a member of Thousand Souls, but from what I understand this was the case even more so in Thousand Souls than in TDC. The founding members of the guild, Saally and Angreyna being the most important ones, were still formally in charge of the guild. However, they were not interested in leading raids or even participating in them unless they wanted some loot. Loot was distributed in a very selfish manner that didn’t benefit the guild. On one occasion, Saally did outbid the main tank on the Tier 4 leggings. This wouldn’t have been so bad, if it wasn’t for the fact that she was on one of her alts and the main tank was still having some quest blues. In practice, though, the guild was led by Orzolek, who administered the guild and led the raids. During one raid, Angreyna apparently had a different view on the tactics, and presented it in a blunt way. Orzolek told him to leave the raid, which he promptly did. That was the turning point and after the raid Orzolek held a speech where he spoke about everything wrong about Thousand Souls. He left the guild and formed Salvation, and invited the players that weren’t part of the problem.

This changed the playing field completely. Salvation started racking up kills in Serpentshrine Cavern like crazy. I believe they even threatened Random Violence's position as the top guild on the realm before they collapsed (I have no insight in what happened on the Alliance side, so excuse me if you know more about what happened at the time). TDC was shamefully left behind, and the whole atmosphere in the guild took a turn for the worse, at least it did from my point of view.

For timeline purposes, I believe Thousand Souls were working on Magtheridon, Void Reaver (both of which TDC had killed, while they had killed The Lurker Below, which we hadn’t) and possibly some other boss in Serpentshrine Cavern (Karathress?). I could be wrong about the specific bosses, though.

Personal Rivalry

As I previously mentioned, TDC was a rather unstable guild. This combined with the fact that Leffe and Caninen were in Thousand Souls, made me feel that TDC wasn't the guild I would stay in forever. I was quite content for the time being, having become one of the core raiders of the guild, but I knew that down the road I wanted to raid with my friends. Unbeknownst to me, I had made myself a reputation as being some kind of tyrannical madman in pick up groups, kicking people left and right. While it is true that I had kicked a large number of people from my groups, this was just the way it had always been for us. While leveling we were usually four people, looking for a DPS class to fill the fifth spot. We soon found out that clueless Hunters could easily be replaced, so I developed a very low tolerance for rude, lazy, selfish and unskilled players. Typing “HEAL FFS” would often be enough to get yourself kicked from our group. This was the way it had always been for us.

Back then, there were no looking for group tools or cross server dungeons, so you had to put in some work to get a group going. As long as you had a tank and a healer, this was usually done quickly, but if you didn’t, it could take a long time. And people actually talked to each other in groups. If you were a nice and reliable person, other players on the realm would invite you back. If, on the other hand, you were unskilled and annoying, that perception would spread as well.

On one of those occasions, I don't even remember the specific situation since it didn't stand out in any way, but I believe it was during one of the many attunement runs for Karazhan, I kicked some guy that turned out to be a close friend to the most active and influential officer of Thousand Souls. Much later, it turned out I was in bad standing with the whole guild, and if I someday would apply to become a member, I could just forget about it. I had treated one of their guild members poorly, and now they all hated me. So, it seemed I was stuck in TDC.

The race between the guilds went on. This situation remained for months. Then one day, my friend and now core member of Thousand Souls, Leffe, got ill and was brought to the hospital. He had no way of informing his guild that he wouldn't be able to make it to the raid (telling his guild he couldn't make it to the raid while he was at the hospital was obviously the highest priority for him at the time, and it would have been for me too). So he called me and asked me to tell Orzolek about the situation. I have to admit I wasn't completely comfortable with the situation, but I whispered Orzolek and told him about Leffe's situation at the hospital. Orzolek was genuinely concerned about Leffe, and we talked for a little while. Somehow, this turned things around completely and it seemed to convince Orzolek that I wasn’t that bad after all. We even became friendly, and jokingly whispered each other from time to time.