Monday, December 27, 2010

The Dread of the Transfer

An ode to the gamble of moving your toon...

I’m using my Blog to vent about something I truly enjoy doing, playing WoW. Why has it been so rough? Please read on.

Today was a horrible day in my WoW life. My confidence is shaken a bit and not having to much fun. Oh…and I haven’t even started raiding yet. Really, I haven’t raided yet.

As much looking around as you do and as much research as you put into moving guilds, you don’t know what’s coming to you get there.

As Wrath was coming to a close, my guild I was in Jinx was going in a different direction or so I thought. Icecrown’s talent was drying up a bit as the number 3 guild left for the alliance. I like Jinx a lot, good raiders but it felt like a job with them. You logged on to raid and jumped on vent and after the raids were over everyone logged off and vent was silent. It was odd for a group that got along like they did, communication was almost non existent.

I did some research, no other guilds on Icecrown were looking for tanks. I wanted to tank and Jinx didn’t have a solid spot for me. I didn’t get demoted but they were unsure of the 10/25 thing. I chose Hyjal for a home. PST server, big Horde population, decent raiding population and PVE. For months everywhere I looked was a guild named Macabre of Hyjal looking for players. They stated they were unique in that there was no drama and the offered multi 10 man teams. I seen many, many recruitment posts looking for people. I gave them my time and here is what happened.

I applied to Macabre, talked to two officers and was accepted. Both were looking for a tank and I told them when I xfered over I’d talk with them more and seeing as they weren’t raiding there was no big hurry to pick the team. I xfered a few toons to Hyjal. Why a few? Well Cata was rolling around and I wanted a few farmers as well as my main on the same server. So I spent my RL money to do this. Yes I’ll say it again, I spent money with the understanding I was getting into a “drama free and different type guild”.

About five days after I arrived, there was also about six others who xfered over to Macabre of Hyjal. Not with me but just coming for the “uniqueness of Macabre” that we were all told existed.

I logged on one day and the guild I spent money for fell apart. But not in a way that normal guilds fall apart. See the “hard core” teams, ya know the ones who still raided after 4.0 to get their “Light of Dawn” title didn’t feel comfortable being in Macabre any longer. The took the 50 “best” players and made a new guild called . The biggest excuse for the mass exodus was that the ’leet players were no longer having fun playing with people they didn’t know.

Can I understand that? Sure. I want to know those I play with but the kicker is the new people that just xfered weren’t offered those spots. You see, all the recruiting that Macabre did for the individual teams wasn’t known. Everyone was just recruiting and no one really had control of it. So yes the guild did grow fast.

As the guild split over the next few days, I found out that the lady they left Macabre with “casual” and didn’t really want the lead but stayed for the better of the guild. The forums light up with bickering back and forth. As the Dread people had access to Macabres’ web but not the other way around.

Those that left made it know to those of us left behind there was plenty of talent to start new teams for raiding, that the comments that were made were childish and that we now had a casual atmosphere and they could go play with like minded people.

I get all that, I do. The problem lies with those of us who were caught in transition. I know of 3 tanks who came to tank for this guild. Two have xfered off server due to lack of core tanking spots right now in game.

I’m kind of stuck at this point. I’m in a good guild with decent talent. Very friendly but again. Its not progression, its very “friendly” and I’m the new tank looking in to get a spot. I have been told I have a tank spot, I’m tanking heroics and I’m going to do Ret as an off spec in Cata.

Here is where the rough day part comes in, where my confidence has taken a hit. I guess this is over a few days really. I’m new so when I ask to run a heroic I usually get asked if I want to DPS *my dps set is SOOOOO bad* or no response when I ask. I’ve had a few REALLY horrible pugs lately too. We did the 1st boss in SKF today for 18 minutes and never got him below 50%. I DPS’d ToT today and pulled an amazing 3800DPS on the final boss *never downed him* cause I wasn’t the worst dps in there. The healer just kept saying over and over in G chat how bad that run was, how horrible the DPS did and how it hurt his ego that he even healed such a place. I was in another run (tanking) where we wiped 3 times and one of the DPS was tired of beating his head against wall and was not really into wiping and rage left. I’ve had another DPS from my current guild tell me he isn’t going to glyph fear for CC as he is tired of CC’n already.

The kicker to all this was was in trade recruiting for two tanks. Yes I said two tanks. Must have ilvl blah and loads of experience. This is the second team from I have seen looking for a tank.

The whole xfer to Hyjal has just been bad for me so far. I’m in a “friendly” guild that has a glut of “OS” tanks, at the start of an expansion where many guilds aren’t yet looking for tanks, and if they are, they are start up guild who are RL friends looking to be server 3rd as raiders and have no clue on what it takes to raid at a decent level after coming out of wrath of the free epic xpac that just past.

I’m not the greatest tank in the world. Maybe about top 1000 quality, I’ve done that. I’m not the most dedicated person. I have a RL with a family and things that take priority over WoW. I’m good at what I do, I make sure I fix my errors, know fights, set a good pace and let what is supposed to beat on me, beat on me. Why can’t I find a guild that I can fit into, be happy and get bosses down?

I don’t want to be with people like the guild I’m pissed that they didn’t give me the opportunity to go there thou. They talked about ‘leet and good they were and yet I was better geared than any of the tanks when I arrived and if I hadn’t halted my raiding when I did for school I’d have been more progressed than any of the teams they had. Sure a few were 12/12 HM but it was post 4.0 or very close to that when gearing became the nerf of HMLK in 10 man. Nor do I want to be told “grow up” when I say I think its shitty I spent real money to come tank for a guild that blows up because the tag you have isn’t as prestigious as the one you think will be.
 
I'm stuck right now.

3 comments:

  1. Awww Chasey that sounds like a horrible experience. :-(

    I would invite you to Darkspear to play with < Vytis > but we already have 4 people who are gung-ho to tank. We will only have two teams maximum (one casual Wednesday and one raider Thursday) but our two pally tanks are pretty solid. On top of that we only raid once a week and have no intention to do HM's so we're probably not what you're looking for :-(

    Don't listen to what they think. Most of the people who are bashing on your current guild are kids with nothing better to do. Real adults keep out of those types of fights. The ones that join in are still living in the basement.

    If you cannot find a good home on Hyjal, my suggestion would be to transfer to a smaller server. Smaller servers tend to be more friendly, close-knit, and not overwhelmed. Trade chat is actually nice.

    But, from that guild healer bashing on your run publicly IN guild chat...I would get out of that guild fast. No matter how bad some of our runs are that I heal, I keep the bitching and moaning confined to our 5 man channel in vent. Most of it is frustration vented at the encounter and blizzard until we get the fight down. Then we celebrate.

    Try peeking around at a small server, stick an alt in the guild, level it to about 10 or so, and see how the guild runs and works. Listen in on their 5 mans. Etc, etc. Test them out before you spend that much money again!

    In the end, it is going to hurt and be a big expenditure but if it returns you to your previous happy state, then it is always worth it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is rotten luck. Hopefully as the holidays finishing soon and more guild get into raiding there will be some spots opening up to make the Transfer worth it for you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the kind comments! I hope things work out. Somehow they will. Its a game and well I'll find a way to have fun. So far I'm really enjoying Cata. I'm still however pretty bitter with the guild Dread for the way they handled us new xfers and "friends" from Macabre.

    Happy new year to you both and to everyone out there. Hope its a safe and happy one.

    ReplyDelete