My new friend Foreluney wants me to write about him.  This is sort of challenging since I’ve known him for all of 3 days.  But I like the guy, and I like challenges, so… what to say about Foreluney?   There’s something about the way that we met that seems important to me, so let’s talk about that.

I knew OF Foreluney for a month or two before I knew Foreluney.  I think the first time I became aware of him was when I was helping out with guild recruitment for my guild and ran across this post on the Khadgar forum, which asked people to list who they thought was the best alliance player on the realm for each class.  More than one person tossed out Foreluney’s name as the best alliance resto druid on Khadgar, a topic which piqued my interest.  Apparently, I filed his name away in my head, because a week or so later I took a look at WOW-heroes and ran across this:

I immediately remembered having seen Foreluney mentioned as “da best” on the Khadgar forum thread, and registered in my head that he was certainly the best geared of us.  /nod nod.

And so, as will happen with me from time to time, I began to develop a touch of reverence for Foreluney, whoever he may be.  Mind you, I had no idea what kind of person he was, had never seen him play, did not remember ever seeing him chatting in trade, etc.  The only things I knew about him were that he was very geared, was in the most progressed alliance guild on my server, and that many people agreed that he was a very good restoration druid.  But still… these things are enough to impress me on some level, although I’m squirming a bit when it comes down to admitting it.

See… I’ve never been much good at video games.  That makes me laugh to write it, but it’s true.  I’ve always been interested in them to some degree, and I’ve always liked to play them, but I’m not the type who picks up the controller and instinctually maneuvers through games like they are an extension of myself.  Most games I’ve played, unless they were pretty basic, I’ve either not been able to finish, or have remained a pretty average player despite hours of practice.  I’m ok with this, generally speaking.  I leave the XBox to the good players in my house, like my husband and my 4 year old daughter.  Never touch the thing.  But I’ve always had this sort of envious awe of the people who can just step into games and master them.

Now, I would argue, albeit humbly, that for the most part I have risen above my innate luddite tendencies when it comes to World of Warcraft.  I may not set the world on fire, but I can hold my own as a raid healer.  I’ve helped my guild to defeat a lot of content, including some hard modes (although we’re not at ICC hard modes yet), and I do a pretty good job most of the time.  But I’m much stronger after I’m comfortable in an encounter, and will never be a cutting edge raider in progressive content.  I do ok, but I’m usually flustered to some extent and not at the top of my healing game until I’ve worked through the encounter several times.   And so for those players who excel at progression, who are at the top of the raiding game, I still feel that twinge of impressed respect.  And that feeling pretty much sums up how I felt about Foreluney when we met. (Why do I get the feeling he’s going to tease me about this mercilessly?)

I also should add here that I’ve only been on my server for nine months, so I’m still learning about the communities there.  And Foreluney’s guild has something of a harsh reputation from what I’ve picked up.  What I’ve heard about them is that they are “hard core” raiders with a punishing raid schedule and rather large egos.  This image of them, which may or may not be true, has been reinforced for me on a couple of occassions when I have pugged with members of the guild who have been merciless in vent to people who made mistakes or were not the strongest of players.  Now, I get as frustrated as the next person by outright stupidity, but I tend to be pretty forgiving of ignorance and never like to hear people being called out in a cruel or callous manner, which is one of the many reasons I truly love my current guild.  We will do everything we can to help people raise up their raiding game, and we will try to handle it behind the scenes without embarrassing anyone.  Does our tolerance hold us back from server first epic awesomeness?  Of course it does.  But we are sympatico, we are peaceful, we are family.  So, in addition to having this touch of awe in regard to all things Foretluney, I also had an idea that he might, in fact, be a total dick.  lol…

Anyway!  I finally got my hunter, Harmonie, geared enough that she wouldn’t be insta-kicked from an ICC pug, and joined one this week to get her a bit more geared up and experienced.  We had 9 people and were short a healer, when someone said that they knew a resto shammy who had healed up through hard modes on his druid and could come.  The shaman’s name was Forey.  “Hmm…” says I, “Forey… Foreluney?  Could it be the same person?”  So I asked in raid chat if this was, indeed, Foreluney, and my guess was confirmed.  Forey/Foreluney joined the raid.

And I had a conundrum.  Did I want to out myself as a semi- fan girl and meet this person, or did I want to melt from their memory as soon as the raid ended (if, indeed, I ever registered on his consciousness as more than a health bar?  I think the fact that I have actually made a couple acquaintances in his guild that were actually fun to talk to tipped the scales.  Don’t get me wrong here… I didn’t agonize over whether to introduce myself or consciously weigh out any of what I’ve written here.  But the idea of whispering came to me, and in a second or two I decided that of course I wanted to say hello.  I adore making Resto Druid friends to chat with, and this was a person that, should he respond positively to my whisper, might be able to teach me more about the game and the class that I love. 

So, I whispered to him that my main was a resto druid and that I had heard of his druid on the forums.  He responded very warmly to me and we chatted back and forth all the way through the raid.  I put him on my friends list, he put me on his, and we’ve chatted a couple of times since.  I find him to be warm, friendly, charming, and very funny.  And so there it is.  I have a new friend. 

Is he the best resto druid on the server?  I don’t know.  I suppose that the answer to that question depends very much on how you, personally, define “the best.”  But he strikes me as being very down to earth, which I did not expect.  I like him.  I’m convinced he must put his pants on one leg at a time.  We have chatted a bit about our class, and I look forward to many more discussions on the topic. And any friend who makes me laugh as much as he has in 3 days is a good friend to have, no doubt about it.  It has been a good lesson for me about making assumptions, and a good reward to me for reaching out and hoping for the best.  Not the best player, the best possible result for taking a chance on someone as a person and being rewarded with something worthwhile and good.

This morning I was picking up the fishing and cooking dailies in Dalaran when I saw someone looking for a healer for HVH.  Although I generally only run the daily heroic unless a guildie or friend needs help with something else, HVH I’ll sometimes make an exception for since it’s easy, quick, nets me a ton of leather, and I don’t have to travel anywhere to do it.  So I decided to throw my hat in. 

A hunter and I were the first ones there, but when we entered the instance, I got the warning that I was entering a saved instance and that, should I not want to be saved to that empty instance myself, I should leave lickety split.  The hunter, as it turned out, was saved and left the group.  I said I could ask in guild if anyone wanted to come and was promoted to party leader.  My guildies, however, were busy with other things, so I hopped on trade chat to look for DPS.  A druid responded, and there’s never too many druids in a party (evah!), so I picked him up and we headed in. 

As we were waiting for the final party member to arrive, the druid I had recruited for the run started to ask me about my guild and our raids.  I provided him with information because, based upon his gear, it seemed safe to assume that he had some raiding xp at at least tier 8, which would be needed to raid with Apatheia right now.  At some point in the middle of this conversation and before the other druid arrived on the scene, my sister called me from out of state.  (love hearing from mah people!)  Since it was heroic Violet Hold which I could pretty much heal in a party dress at this point, I just chatted away with her while we cleared the instance, and although the whispered conversation with the druid continued, it pretty much slipped into the back of my consciousness.  I answered questions, but the conversation took a far back seat in my awareness to a) talking to my sister and b) healing the heroic. 

When the run was over, I was still chatting away with my sister.  The fact that I was no longer healing, however, opened up more of my awareness to the conversation the druid kept pushing forward with me and I got… uncomfortable.  We weren’t 5 steps outside of HVH when he said, “it’s too late now, I’m stalking you.  ha ha!”  This statement had NO contextual place in the conversation we were having, and although my conversation with my sister was still getting the lion’s share of my attention, a little bell went off somewhere for me.  I’m not a big fan of being told by a total stranger that they are stalking me.  Nope.  Not at all.

He wanted me to run a heroic with him, but I wasn’t interested.  He wanted to run a raid together, but I told him that I was saved everywhere that might drop anything I needed.  He joined a group for the Headless Horseman, then told me he was going to drop it so we could do something together.  This bugged me a lot.  You don’t ditch a group to hang out with me if you’re trying to impress me.  I told him not to do it.  He told me he was going to ditch the group and log onto his main to hang out with me, that I should put his main on my friends list and when he logged on to invite him.  I told him again not to do it.  In the midst of all of this he told me again that he was stalking me.  He logged off his druid.  I did not put his priest on my friends list, and I did not invite him to a group if and when he logged on.  Instead, I put the druid on ignore and told my guildies how creeped out I was.  At the advice of a guildie, I opened a ticket, which is still pending.

Here’s the thing… this all could have been very innocent.  He could have been someone who felt like they had made a new friend in the game and was just joking around about the whole stalking thing.  I may have misinterpreted the joke, which led me to incorrectly color all subsequent actions on his part as offputting and vaguely threatening.  He may have lacked social skills in some way, or it’s possible that he was completely normal and I was just reading the situation wrong.  Hard to know in a typed medium and blah blah blah.  But on the other hand, and as my guildie correctly pointed out, joking around about stalking a stranger falls into the category of the completely unacceptable.  It’s not cute, it’s not endearing, and it’s not funny.  He should know better.  Hopefully a GM will help to teach him the lesson.  If the GM doesn’t, perhaps the fact that he will have no chance in hell of getting into my guild, in which he showed great interest, will.  I suppose that there is probably a much greater chance that he was just an idiot than there is that he was in some way sinister or obsessive.  But I’m not interested in playing those odds.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you know, how much experience you have, how skilled or talented or team oriented or fan-freakin-tastic.  There are times when you just do something so goofy that no one can save you from yourself.  /sigh.  So let me tell you about my day.

Today in WOW was a day much like any other for me.  I had hopped on to do a couple dailies during a break from some other things that needed done around my house, etc.  I was working through the Argent Tournament dailies when I got a whisper from a guildie. 

“Hey there!  What’s shakin’?” says I.

“Has anyone talked to you about Wild Growth?” he asked.

Alarm Bells.

“Nope.”

“Do you use a macro to cast Wild Growth?”

More alarm bells

“Nope.”

Here comes the embarrassing part… brace yourselves for me.  It isn’t pretty.

He says to me, “Well, I think you are using Rank 2 instead of 4.  Could you check?”

I, in a fit of brilliant eloquence replied, “lol shut up.”

“Not kidding,” says my guildmate.

“That’s just embarrassing,” was my next response, “hold on, gotta respec.  I only have two ranks.  Period.  /facepalm.  I don’t know how or why.”

“Uh,” says the poor guildie charged with approaching the idiot tree with her lolfail, “that’s easy to fix.”

“What an ass I am,” I replied.

/sigh.

I can tell you with perfect certainty that I HAD trained all levels of Wild Growth at one point.  I still do not know how or when I lost two of them.  I don’t know if it happened during one of the patches when we had our talent trees wiped over and over again, or whether (dear God I hope not) I’ve been casting this spell at half level since the last time I specc’ed boomkin and went back to resto before dual specs became available, but it could be that I’ve been doing this for a very, very long time and had no idea.

/long, protracted, wilting, defeated sigh.

I sure wish I would have noticed.  Then I could have a) spared myself the embarrassment of having my guildies know and discuss my stupidity (they’re totally sweet and supportive, but GAWD how embarrassing!), and b) not been gimping my raid for… who knows how long?  That’s the worst part.  We’ve been knocking our heads against the same encounter for a couple weeks looking for any edge and here am I… doo de doo de doo strolling along oblivious to the fact that I could be doing a hell of a lot more healing than I am.

It does, however, explain a lot.  lol.  You betcha.  I could NOT figure out how the other druid I heal with was outperforming me so consistently when my gear is actually a bit better than his.  mmhmm.  Now I have an idea why that was.  It was because every time I cast my group heal HOT it was healing at about half of what it should have been healing… on six people at a time.

I think I may have to retire and go play Hello Kitty Online.  I might be more prepared for that one.  lol!

On the other hand, at least the Innkeeper in Dalaran coughed up a toothpick for me today.  Sylly the Hallowed at your service.  Also, Sylly the Jackass.  /facepalm

I have this little hunter alt.   Although it’s hard to admit this here,  it’s true, I’m not a druid through and through.  Sometimes I get my huntard on.  I’ve actually twinked her out with heirlooms, which is something I’ve never done for any of my alts.  I’m having a grreat time playing her because it’s new and the quests send her all over the place doing different things, plus she’s always learning new abilities that shakes up the rotation.  This is a great contrast to playing Sylly, who I know like the back of my hand.  She’s also fun because she’s all tricked out and such, but she does the same things all the time.  It’s all dailies and raiding for her. 

Anywho, the biggest drawback to playing the hunter vs. playing Sylly is that Sylly has a huge group of friends and guildies at her level to do things with, whereas the hunter is almost always a solo act (with the exception of Baloo, who’s been her bear companion since whatever level it was that she was able to tame a pet).  There are only a handful of alts in my guild at level 40ish in any case, and the chances of people being on them to do things with me are generally slim.  Add to this the fact that the lower zones are often eerily similar to ghost towns, and you basically have a one man show.  This is generally quite alright with me.  Often the reason I opt to play the hunter is because I actually want to get into that zone of solo questing, setting and meeting little personal goals, exploring new zones at whatever pace I feel like setting. 

But there are times when I need a little help, you know?  One orange quest is not the same level of difficulty as another, as I’m sure you all are aware.  Sometimes a quest that would be a breeze for a warlock is desperately frustrating for a hunter.  Etc. etc. etc.

So today I was in Tanaris and I had all those quests having to do with the pirates on the shore there.  Kill 10 each of assorted piratical baddies, collect their fabulous hats, recover the booze they swiped, and take down their leader while you’re at it, kthxbai.  These are not easily soloable quests.  The respawn rate is high, especially with those dock workers, and there are groups that pull all at once rather than in manageable ones or twos.  Also, I was 3 levels lower than the pirates, so I was at a bit of a disadvantage.  I went on general to see if anyone was needing the quests, but got nothing.  I decided to head out there anyway.  Even if I just picked of pirates outside of the enclosed encampment, eventually I’d get enough hats for that quest, and I’d gain XP along the way.  So that’s what I started doing, when something awesome happened.

As I hunted down these rapscallion pirates, I noticed there was an undead shadow priest out there doing the same thing.  I watched his progress with the same interested detachment that I always have when something similar happens.  I wait to gauge where they range on the dick meter, from totally benign to humongous, pull camping, dual challenging, aggro dumping king dick of the universe.  But this guy, he seemed pretty cool.  After about five minutes of harmonious tangential pirate slaughter, I saw him get ganged up on by 3 pirates at once, and decided to help him get them down.  Because it was more fun at the moment than working solo, the next pirate he pulled, this one a single, I again stuck it full of arrows while Baloo ripped its face off.  Then I pulled one of my own and the shadow priest nodded at me and helped me kill it.  Synergy!  =)

It ended up that with no communication at all other than emotes, we moved through all of the quests in the area together, trading off pulls so that the other would get the same amount of drops and XP.  We had some crazy moments when my pet pulled about 6 pirates at once (see?  huntard), but neither of us ever died and when these moments of crisis passed there was much celebration and cheering each other on.  I have to tell you, I had SO much fun not quite questing with my cross faction friend.  I had a huge smile on my face as we figured out how to communicate without communicating and helped one another through. 

I have to say that it was with deep regret that I had to log off to make dinner, knowing that I wouldn’t have any way in game of contacting this new friend again.  I made sure to /hug /love /wave aplenty before I left, and I hope that my exuberance communicated to this mystery player just how much I enjoyed the experience of playing with them.  As much as I benefit from the help and companionship of my many friends in the game (and I do benefit, greatly from this), that old-comfy-shoe-ness of running in my pack is an altogether different kind of experience from this random meeting of two like minded people who had no access to most of the normal means of communication used in an MMO, but found a way to let good will and companionship ascend, regardless.  And although I never got to express to him how enjoyable I found his company today, I send out my thanks to him for the affirmation of goodwill anyway.  For him, for the first time, perhaps the last, I say it loud, say it proud… For the Horde!

=P

Last night after 3 attempts I was finally able to log into Warcraft for a while.  I wasn’t feeling particularly patient with the snail’s pace that it took for me to get online, nor was I amused that in Zul Drak  in the middle of the night I had lag issues like it was launch day in Borean Tundra.  But I was happy to finally get on for a little while and my guildies were happy to see me.  One asked me if I was on my new computer yet.  /sob!  Nope.  Not yet.  I mentioned something about how I was having to look for ways to enjoy the mundane aspects of the game for the time being, but that it was hard to do.  When I had indulged in a bit of personal wound licking and under breath cursing at Dell for their delay in shipping my new system, I decided that it actually was time to enjoy an aspect of WOW that didn’t require a high frame rate or reliable connection or to log off and quit bitching.  I had a loot card for a picnic basket laying around from a contest, so I decided to go to Booty Bay and redeem it, find a nice view somewhere, and enjoy the simple life for a while.  I’m so glad I chose this path, as it led me to a new, and very refreshing, friend!

It was sort of an epic journey, actually.  God forbid that I should hearth to Dalaran these days.  I might be stuck there until my new computer comes.  It’s nearly impossible for me to log on there.  So I decided to travel to Booty Bay by way of the Howling Fjord/Menethil Harbor boat.  I just love the scenery of that boat trip, so it fit right into my agenda of enjoying the simpler things about being in game.  Unfortunately, I lagged out during the boat trip and it took me three more tries to get back in game.  I nearly gave up, but the last time I tried to get back on I was able to, so I continued on my journey.

During the long flight from Menethil to Booty Bay I rearranged my bags for a while, then remembered that I was there to enjoy myself and soaked up some of the scenery that used to fascinate me as a low level character.  I still remember flying over the Burning Steppes and seeing lava spiders and dragons(!) and being somewhat awestruck thinking at some point I would be badass enough to fight those things down there.  So I was in a pretty happy and relaxed mood when I cruised into Booty Bay.  I was appreciative of the fact that I could ride around that Disney ride of a town on my mount.  I was quietly thankful that I found the npc to get my picnic basket easily.  I cruised on down to the beach and popped up my picnic basket and was settling in to watch the vista when, over general chat, came this:

“Is there anybody out there?”

Biting back the urge to respond with some witticism about Pink Floyd’s The Wall (I rarely share the responses I come up with for discussions going on in public channels), I decided to check out who was out there evoking my Pink Floyd memory channel and found it was a level 34 druid.  Had it been any other class, I might have responded, but it is far less likely.  The druid, however, evoked an offer of assistance.

She didn’t know where to find Elder Stranglethorn Tigers.  Hmmm.  This led me to several conclusions quickly.  She had not played through STV before, so this may very well be her first alliance toon.  But she also did not know about resources like Thottbot or WOWHead or wowwiki.  Could it be… rarest of rare wonders… a real life new player?  It turned out to be true!  Although it was 2:00 in the morning, I invited her to group together.

Over the course of about an hour, I helped her race through several quests.  I found out that she wasn’t totally sure about whether she wanted to heal, dps, or tank, but she was specced balance and was leaning toward moonkin.  Her gear was this wonderful stat hodgepodge of random awful.  ha!  So I took the time to explain to her what stats balance druids should stack and how each of them would help her.  I also counseled her to build multiple sets if she sometimes did her questing as a kitty, as much of her current gear had agi and so forth on it.  She was very receptive to the information and I definitely hope that it serves her well.

I also showered a little financial love on her.  I gave her 100 gold and cleared the auction house out of the best gear available for a balance druid of her level.  I crafted a Big Voodoo Robe that she could put on in a couple of levels.  I bought the enchant scrolls that were on the AH (not many) that had helpful enchants for her level and gave them to her.  Everything I could think of that would help her out whether or not I happened to be online I did for her.

I hope that I didn’t come off as creepy in my unbridled generosity, but I don’t think I could explain to her how much she did for me.  It brought back so many memories for me to inspect her gear and realize that she was throwing on anything leather that came her way.  It was wonderful to hear that she couldn’t meet up with me by Gurubashi Arena because she didn’t know where that was.  It made me giggle when she oooo’ed and aaaaahed over me wiping out everything in my path with spells like Insect Swarm just to save cast time in my huge swath of destruction.  It was so refreshing meeting her, hearing about the game from her perspective, and I enjoyed helping her more than I have enjoyed anything in Warcraft in weeks and weeks.

She was very enthusiastic about this game of ours.  I hope that meeting a random stranger who did everything they could to help her will be a factor to keep her coming back and exploring the wide world created by the game.  I hope that she will love the journey as much as I have.  And I hope that I remember the lesson I learned about seeing the game with fresh eyes.  I certainly did not need my uber computer for that.  I just needed a brush up against innocence.

Not only did I join a new guild yesterday, I had my first raid with them in Heroic Ulduar.  Wow!  I had such a great time!  But over the course of the 3 and a half hours that we raided, I was incredibly humbled in two very different ways.

The raid was very organized, it started right on the dot, and everyone was very aware of what they should be doing and got it done like clockwork.  Everyone but me that is!  lol!  I didn’t actually expect to be tearing up all these Ulduar bosses I’d never seen before 12 hours after my guild invite.  It was a busy day and, although I read up on some of the bosses, I did not have time to study them all as I would normally have done.  Even so, the GM was great at giving rundowns of what we would be seeing on each boss and I managed to have a decent showing in terms of my healing despite my Naxx 25 gear.  We downed Flame Leviathan with 3 towers, XT002, Kologarn, Auriaya, Hodir, Thorim, Iron Council, and Ignis last night.  I got 6 achievements and a new necklace.  The guild was incredibly organized and paced.  It was a pleasure to be along for the ride.

But I died in a pancake.  I stood in some fire.  I was flash frozen on Hodir several times.  Overall, I was rather embarrassed by some of my missteps.  Don’t get me wrong.  The guild was exceptionally welcoming and kind.  They were extremely gracious about my mistakes and took it in stride that this was my first time seeing much of the content.  But I was still pretty hyper aware of my mistakes. Pretty humbled.

In my defense, however, not all of my clumsiness was due to the newness of all of this… new guild, new server, new addons, new raidmates, new strategies, new bosses, new voices, new names.  (Sylly, please rez so-and-so?  um…  can’t find him on my grid because I don’t know what color I’m looking for!  What class is he?  What class?  lol!).  While my awkwardness was certainly cause for humility and resolution to do better, there was a much deeper reason for me to be humbled last night than the surface details of the raid I was in.

While we raided, independently of one another and without knowledge that anyone else was doing the same thing, three of my friends from my old server came to my new realm and rolled alts, just so that they could whisper me to tell me that they loved me and that I would be missed.  One even named his alt “Lostnosyll.”  It was the sweetest, most touching, most unexpected and humbling thing I could imagine.  I honestly had not expected to get a whisper from a friend for weeks or months, until I actually made some new friends on my new server.  Yet here were three of the people I hold dear to my heart taking the time and making the effort to come and find me, just to make sure that I knew I was loved.  One of them actually farmed copper on his alt until he had enough that he could send me a letter in the mail telling me that I was important to him.

So the larger reason for my faltering performance, which had been pretty respectable up to Auriaya, was that it was at that point I started getting whispers from my old friends letting me know that I was loved and would be missed.  So when I was flash frozen in Hodir, it was because I was crying.

I have received such an incredible outpouring of affection from my friends and guildmates from my old guild that I am absolutely overwhelmed.  They have been here, posting on my blog.  They have emailed me.  They have called me and texted me.  They have come to roll new characters in a strange world in order to reach out to me.  I tell you honestly that this is so far beyond the scope of what I expected that I am truly, truly humbled.  Thanks to all of you.  I love you all and will make sure to come onto my alts on Duskwood to see you and make sure that you, too, know that you are loved.  My cup runneth over.

Leaving the guild was not a decision I had consciously mulled over for weeks or even days.  Instead, I kind of had this slow burn thing going on in the background under the radar.  I was frustrated and was feeling ineffectual in terms of being able to make changes that would make me feel better.  I began to stress quite a bit over something that is supposed to be an enjoyable thing to do in my free time.  This is no good!  So yesterday, sort of all at once, it occurred to me that it was time for me to go while I could still do so on the very best terms possible.  I typed up a message to the other officers explaining my decision, logged on, and left the guild.  With no plan.  Whatsoever.

My next move, after being overcome with loneliness and hesitation over the decision I had already made and executed, was to visit my realm forum and see who might be recruiting.  Unfortunately, the alliance guilds who were recruiting were not good fits for me in one way or another.  Too hardcore.  To asshat infested.  Wrong raid times.  Not raiding the content I was wanting to raid.  Too small.  Too big.  It was then that I really became nervous.  Clearly I hadn’t thought this whole thing through terribly well.  Oy vey.

My next step, however, was the best decision I could have made, I think.  I took a big gulp and started to look on the general alliance recruitment forum to see if there might be a guild on another server that would work for me.  I’ve been on Duskwood since I started playing, and it was disconcerting to think about leaving.  However, many of my friends have transferred off already, play very little, or aren’t playing at all any more (dammit, Hummy!  You know I’m talking about you!).  The majority of the people who I was friends with and played regularly with were all in the guild that I had just walked away from.  I wouldn’t feel comfortable going on guild runs I didn’t think, and I wasn’t at all sure that any of them would want me to.  So… a transfer?  maybe?

I read several recruitment threads and had very much the same sinking feeling I had had on my own realm forum.  Not geared enough for this one.  This one doesn’t need trees.  Oh my god, this poster is such an asshat!  Sure as hell wouldn’t want to run with his guild!  Etc. Etc.

But then I read a post by a resto druid who was looking for a new guild also.  In the responses to his post I found something that appealed to me completely.  A guild filled with adult professionals with families, just like me.  They raided 3 nights per week at the hours I am accustomed to raiding in.  They listed ideals that resonated with me very much.  I must have read that post 5 times before rolling an alt on their server and chatting with a couple of people in their guild.  They were generous, helpful, supportive, and enthusiastic.  I really became hopeful and excited (although still very nervous!) about applying with them and transferring Syll off my server to join them.

I took a deep breath and started on the application.  I spent a good deal of time on it, answering everything thoroughly and honestly.  I sent it off.

I got a reply right away that they were going to review it and get back to me around midnight.  I fell asleep on the couch and woke up around 3 a.m.  I logged on and found that I was accepted!  Yay!  and also… holy crap!  and finally, jeez they are organized!  so again… yay!  I took another deep breath and logged onto Syll and opened up all her mail, stripped down my poor bank alt and sent his tux and gold to Syll so that I can make another bank alt on the new server (so cruel, right?  There is now a nekked gnome warrior on Duskwood without a single piece of gold named Moneybaggins!  So very, very wrong!), logged out and started the server transfer.  It said it might take several days.  It took less than an hour. I had to change my name, as Syll was unavailble but Sylly was (yay!).  So by about 4:00 a.m. I was Sylly, Resto Druid of Khadgar.  That was enough for one night.  I went back to bed for a couple of hours and had very, very strange dreams about the World of Warcraft!

In the (later) morning I logged on to my new server and whispered one of my new guildies to be.  It turned out I had chosen to whisper the person who has been in the guild longer than anyone, for 3 and a half years.  We had a great time chit chatting until an officer came online and sent me my guild invite. 

So… yesterday I was Syll of Legio Vici, Duskwood server.  24 hours later I am Sylly of Apatheia, Khadgar server!  I’ve been asked to be on tonight for a raid with my new guildies, and I have a ton of homework to do as they are progressed quite a bit further into Ulduar than my old guild was. 

I’m still nervous.  I’m still pretty surprised at my lighting fast turn around.  I’m still sad about leaving my old guild and guildies behind.  But, on the other side of the coin, I’m VERY excited about my new guild, my new guildies, and the new adventure that is in front of me.

Wish me luck putting down my roots in my new home turf!

It’s happened.  I’ve become Elder Noble Ambassador Crusader Syll Jenkins the Explorer, Champion of the Naaru, the Frozen Wastes, Darnassus, Gnomeregan, Ironforge, Stormwind, and the Exodar.  Even though I swore this day would never come, it has arrived.

There are two portions of that… long… title that I never thought would come to pass.  You may remember my early post about the Argent Tournament, the post in which we saw Sylly stage a full on hissy fit because it was so haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard to dooooooooooooo.  /blush.  However, never underestimate the alure of a Teldrassil Sproutling and the 75 pet achievement (I’m so close!  71 pets at the time of writing).  I found the fortitude to cowboy up and learn to joust.  I thought I could not do it.  I said I could not do it.  I believed I could not do it.  Then I learned to do it and now am successful at it almost every day.

The other title that I had given up on completely was Champion of the Frozen Wastes.  I truly thought I would never have this title because I had decided after about 3 very frustrating, long, and unsuccessful groups that I was never, ever, ever going to try Occulus again, even should the world collapse around me.  I had such bad experiences there that I was fully prepared to walk away forever, and did walk away for about 6 months.  Then, for no apparent reason whatsoever, this week I got a wild hair and put together an Occulus group on my own.  So wierd.  I didn’t end up there because someone begged me.  I initiated the group.  And with 3 guildies and a pugged warrior, we one shotted that silly dungeon and lo, I became the Champ of the Ice Pops.

Certainly, I hear my mother whisper in my subconscious, there is a lesson to be learned here.  Both times I let go of my stubbornness and reengaged content that I had swore I would never take on again, I can report that it was just more fun than you should be able to have with your clothes on to finally beat that content.  And both times I was able to beat the content as soon as I relaxed about it and came at it from a perspective of fun and relaxation.

So I’m just wondering if anyone out there has similar stories?  Have you all ever put your foot down about content, only to realize down the road that not only were you not standing firm on that decision, you were tap dancing all over it?

Keredria at Tree of Life picked up on a meme started by Averna at Nerf This Druid inspired by the question posed by Miss Elf, “What do you remember about being a newbie?” In a sort of six degrees of Kevin Bacon way, Keredria then reached out her leafy fingers and tapped me to join the conversation.  So join me now for a little trip into the way back yonder for a look at the silliness of Sylly’s early days…

• I saved up all of my money to buy the full set of HAWT grey leather gear sold in Darnassus.
• Syll started life as a male toon and, for a while, I got quite a kick out of people thinking I was a guy.  I actually played it up to some degree and was amused endlessly at how good I was at being “one of the boys.”  The jig was up, of course, when Blizz introduced voice chat into the game.  The topic of guild conversation for weeks was that OMG SYLL’S A CHICK???
• I had zero clue about gear itemization and generally just went for whatever had the most armor because I thought that it would surely protect me better from death than any other stat.
• I remember dinging and getting tree form in Sunken Temple and saying something like, “omg you guys I got tree form!  It is supposed to just make my healing so uber leet!  woot!” And then we all wiped on the next pull.
• I certainly remember learning that kitty stealth form didn’t work around higher level mobs.  Nothing stealthy about a dead cat.  Dead cat is dead.
• I remember some kind soul taking me on a run to Iron Forge from Menethil Harbor when I was about level 15 or so to get me the FPs.  Damn Wetlands crocs still probably have burps that smell faintly of my butt.
• My favorite early memory of all is how I met one of my dearest WOW friends of all, Bricco.  I was going for my water form quest (old school rulez!) and we were doing the part out byDarkshore.  I had looked up the quest on Thottbot because I couldn’t find what I was looking for.  I had no coordinates mod, so I was just trying to follow some directions someone had given.  I kept dying, and dying, and dying.  Finally I asked in guild chat if someone could come help me.  Bricco volunteered (he was a very impressive level 23 or something like that!)  He came all the way out where I was and stayed there with me while I died, and died, and died some more.  This was my first introduction to fatigue when swimming off the map but I had no clue what was going on.  I had missed my mark by about a bazillion miles and was just bloodying my head against the same brick wall over and over again.  Bricco was just as sweet to me as the day is long, though.  I distinctly remember starting my dozenth or so corpse run and him saying, “Imma go smoke.”  LOL!  Priceless.  Priceless, soggy memory.

Thanks for the tag, Ker!  I’m all nostalgic now and have a goofy smile on my face! 

I’d love to hear from some readers some of your favorite, silliest, newbiest memories, too!  I’ll also spread the love to a couple other bloggers out there… Bellweather @ 4 Haelz, Leafy @ Leafshine, Llanion @ Mad Cow Chronicles, this meme’s for you!  =)