....And Burnt The Topless Towers Of Illium?

After a good month or two back in school, I have come to the conclusion that I am much, much smarter than all of my classmates - the speech class in particular is eye-gougingly painful. Here is a questionnaire I was required to create to see what they know.

My informative speech will revolve around the Transhumanism school of thought – a concept that has generated multiple confused looks in class whenever I talk about it. In order to “help me help you” understand what it is, and how I should formulate my Info speech, I’ve put together some questions of a serious and professional nature. Please answer them to the best of your ability.

1.How Cool Do You Think Robots Are?(1 = Not Cool At All, 5 = I Am Unsure, 10 = Robots Are Crazy Cool)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2. How Long Have You Lived?(What Is Your Age) _____
4. How Long Do You Think You Will Live?(How Old Do You Plan On Being) _____

3. Please List Any And All Science Fiction Books/Movies You’ve Read/Seen. (The Matrix Totally Counts)



5. How Proficient Are You With General Technology/Electronics?
(1= I Got To Class Via Horse & Buggy, 5= I Have A Cellphone/Personal Computer, 10=Jacked In To Matrix)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
6. Should That Runner-Athlete-Guy With Two Prosthetic Legs Be Allowed To Compete In The Olympics?
(Circle One) if YES then 6a) / if NO then 6b)
6a)Should Steroids Be Legal In Athletics? 6b)Why Not?

7. Can Your Cell Phone….(Check All Applicable)
___Take Pictures? ___Play Music? ____Connect To The Internet?
___Receive/Send Email? ___React To Touch? ____Make A Phone Call? ___Whiten Your Teeth?

8. Have You Ever Been Defeated By Technology? (VCR Flashing Lights/Clocks That Can’t Be Set/No Cell Coverage/Blue Screen Of Death/Etc.) YES / YES / YES (Circle One Or More)

9. Do You Ever Think We Will Be Able To Bring Walt Disney’s Frozen Body Back To Life?
YES NO I Was Not Aware Walt Disney Was Frozen That Is An Urban Legend, He Is Not

11. Do You Know Who Dolly The Sheep Was? How About Herman The Bull?
YES / NO YES / NO
10. Based On This Questionnaire, What Do You Think Transhumanism Actually Is?

Thank you for filling this out honestly – Your answers will be much more helpful than you think.

There Is A Part 4 To This Part 5

THE AGE OF RENAISSANCE -Walking Among The Titans
I was now in possession of a Season Four Arena Geared Druid. I named him Firenz. People called me Fire. I was okay with that.
PvP Gear operates on a completely different mechanic than Raid Gear – In a raid, your job is highly specialized – if you are a warlock, you are always going to be in the back of the raid lobbing gigantic bolts of shadow. I.E. you only need to focus on your Spell Damage, your Spell Hit, and your Spell Crit. Nothing – and I truly mean nothing – else matters. Any other job is taken up by another person.
In PvP, you’re fighting not only against smarter, human opponents, but they can be any combination of any of the nine classes. Stamina is the key stat, with Resilience following. Hit is important up to a point, and THEN you focus on the damage.
For a while, I mourned Malachi. I can’t really properly explain the raw power-surge of playing a fully geared Destro lock – and I wasn’t even in Sunwell gear. During the time that I raided, a Destruction Warlock was THE HIGHEST POTENTIAL DPS in the game, save for certain highly specific encounters (say, a Glaive-rogue on Brutallus with a Demon elixir doing lol8kdps). My shadowbolt crit for 6k. To emphasize – I myself only had 11k health.
But I had to stop – raiding takes a lot of effort. It isn’t a game, it’s a hobby. It isn’t a hobby, it’s a job. Doesn’t mean it isn’t fun, you can have fun at your job, but in videogames, mmorpgs specifically, the more effort/time (the two are interchangeable) you put in, the greater your reward/character (also interchangeable) will be. Actually, this applies to pretty much all things in life, but somehow it loses meaning when you talk about slaying dragons.
So I got this druid, who was currently in possession of the Gladiator title.
What this meant was, whoever had previously played this druid before I had gotten it was one of the top PvPers on the entire server – so good, in fact, that Blizzard had gifted them with a GIANT FUCKING ARMORED DRAGON THAT GOES FASTER THAN ANY OTHER MOUNT.
The other thing was that he had gear for all three specs of a druid – four, really. He had S4 healing gear, S3 Feral gear, S2/3 Boomkin gear, and SSC-TK level tanking gear. I had two bags entirely full of shit to wear, depending on the situation. After having one job for a year, the concept of playing a druid was remarkably refreshing. You can pretty much accomplish anything by yourself as a druid. Flight form is insta-cast, so you can transform in midair. Cat form for stealth, Seal form for underwater breathing, Bear form for tanking, and lolBoomkin for when you get tired of that. Oh, and at any time, you can shift out and heal yourself, because your mana regenerates no matter what form you’re in!
The problem is you can’t do anything of those things as good as a class specifically designed to do them – or at least, when I played in the days leading up to WotLK, you couldn’t. Some things have changed by now.
So, to set the scene, I mainly just sort of flew around on my big dragon and did whatever the hell I wanted. I was truly retired – I had experience in every goddamn instance in the game, like some grizzled veteran. I could sit around and shoot the shit with the highest raiding guilds on the server, discussing encounters (like that one time I kept putting Roses on Supremus and the guild officers swore if they found out who, they’d kick them immediately), or I could flail madly among the morons in Alterac Valley – and since I was in S4 Arena gear, I was un-fucking-stoppable. So I turned to Arena Combat, considering that“Well, hey, I’m geared, surely I must win everything”.
Turns out I suck at PvP. At least, at PvP Resto Healing with a Random Partner. Arenas sucked hard.
Not that I had any idea what the hell I was doing.
I decided I was going to lrn2drood, or at least figure out how the class worked – it took me hours to set up every form’s stancebar. So, I decided to run a few instances.
Imagine, if you will, the experience of running almost exclusively in a highly competitive, focused and professional End-Game Raiding Guild…..and then returning back to the world of PUG daily instances and morons in green.
I had forgotten, having been royalty, that the general populace of WoW was retarded as shit.
So I joined Neurotic – not to raid, but to be in their club. When anyone needed to run a particular instance, or get something done, a Neurotic member was far more appealing than some random moron.
It was during this stage that I saw the vast difference between the wide, milling herd of idiots, and the few/proud/exquisitely masterful. This applies to the rest of life, but quite honestly – The people of Neurotic were some of the best goddamn players I’ve ever ran with, and it wasn’t entirely due to their orgasm-inducing Sunwell gear. They enjoyed the game for the games sake –and from that, skill came.
It’s very Confucian – the “Love of Learning”, the “haoxue”, that is required for true perfection.
It’s like this: I learned this adage during my Golden Age on Tich, when Dire Maul came out on my Hunter – I was marksman, and at that stage in WoW hunters quite honestly could get by without their pet just fine – I didn’t even have one. The point is they were unnecessary, especially as MM, and if you didn’t control them, they could easily agro a patrol pack and wipe you -
The line goes: “Bad hunters use their pets in instances. Good hunters don’t use their pets in instances. Great hunters use their pets in instances.”
The concept is solid, and it still applies three years later – albeit not particularly to hunters, who rely on their pets far too much in my opinion. It’s one of the reasons I’ve yet to return to the class. One of the reasons I didn’t assume the mantle of Djinn when his fallen shield spun gently to a stop at my feet.
The point is, the 5 man instances and group quests and general day to day play that I experienced with Neurotic was on a play style far above anything I’d experienced before.
These guys were on the second to last boss of the last instance in the game at the time that I joined them – Mu’ru, in Sunwell.
They weren't "Great hunters". They were Phenomenal, Grand Master, Amazing hunters.
In short, they did not fuck around.
Except they did. It was remarkable. They were….playful in their perfection. Like some sort of lesser god visiting the mortals, crystalizing everything he touches.
The only connection I can make is, like, improvisational jazz. You need such a deep and complex understanding of your instrument, your group, and the music itself in order to play a song on the spot.
Which is what these players did. They made song out of gameplay mechanics, and I just sort of tagged along for the ride.
Any preconceived notion of how to “do” WoW went out the window when you ran with Neurotic. You think you need 5 players to do a 5 man instance? We 4 manned heroics. We 3 manned heroics. We killed bosses with any number of players. Sometimes Dominus killed the boss himself.
You think you need a tank to do an instance? We used a hunter pet. We used a shaman. Sometimes nobody tanked, and we just played tag with all the enemies at once, bouncing them back and forth between all players in a ballet of death. On the rare chance that we actually needed a specific character, one of them would log on to their alt – nearly all of them had multiple 70’s, just to have – and we’d summon them in again and keep going. It didn’t matter that the alt wasn’t as well geared – skill overrode gear. The tricks I saw pulled were ridiculous – it was as educational as any internship. The technical definitions are unnecessary. (A pally used Bless. o/Sacrifice on a lock during a boss fight that sheeped so that whenever the lock Life Tapped, the pally took damage, which popped him out of sheep….A lock recasting Curse of Recklessness on a feared target at timed intervals to make it run in circles….etc).
During this time, in no particular urgent fashion, I acquired Epidemikz the priest, who I found boring and repetitive. So I traded her away for my biggest catch yet – not in terms of quality, but quantity. A BE Paladin, an UD Warlock, and an orc rogue female that I ignored completely all fell under my control. The paladin became Anrai, the warlock Michaeli. I never decided how to pronounce it.
I transferred the Paladin and Lock to Tich to join in the fun – they weren’t particularly geared, but it didn’t matter. They just went through the Neurotic Function and came out glorious. It helped that they were my two best classes – like I said, I learned a lot.
It was a calm time – I was very much still in retirement. Most late night events, I was just a spectator. Djinn experienced it all first-hand – by now he had been a Council member for months – the man was scary-high dps. And so the days passed. Sometimes we raided the alliance. Sometimes we just held dance parties.
Until, slowly at first, then at a quickening pace, until one day it loomed above us, imminent, Wrath of the Lich King snuck up upon us. Soon it was a little more than a month away, and time was running out. Oh, not for me, I was content to ride around on my big fucking dragon and enjoy my retirement – but Neurotic had to kill Kil’jaeden before WotLK. Without a doubt the hardest boss in the game, he was the LAST boss in the game. Entirely. Guilds that killed Kil’jaeden on Tich numbered about…uh…four. Maybe six. Triad and The Core were the only ones horde-side.
And Neurotic fuckin’, just….did it. Like they just went in one day, and decided “okay, let’s end this”, and then they did, and then they stood around afterwards shaking hands going “job well done, lads, capitol work.”
Then they killed him again next week, and again, straight up until the last week of The Burning Crusade before Wrath. At some time in between the two, Djinn finally got Thoridal, the Star’s Fury – the legendary bow, of which there were….four, server-wide. Any previous amount of fawning over his tremendous arsenal was null and void – a proper showing of deference was required during any prolonged exposure to his radiant awesomitude. The fucking bow shot fucking arrows made of light. It didn’t even use, like, regular arrows. You no longer needed to buy arrows. You just conjured them out of the Nether and sent them ripping through space into your current targets chest cavity – emphasis on the “cavity” aspect.
So the game was fully completed, and so Djinn retired, having put to rest the raging energies of the broken sunwell. Any further appearances of Djinn are merely Force Ghosts of his previous amazingness.
And all of a sudden it was Wrath of the Lich King time, which meant one thing only for me – DEATHKNIGHTS. Sure, I had four lvl 70’s to get to 80 in the harsh ice of Northrend, but that could wait!
So I created Nemain, my Frost Deathknight, my hand of the Morrigan, my frozen champion of the wastes, and quite honestly she kicked the shit out of anything that came across her path. It was wicked awesome, because it was an entirely new game mechanic –an all melee spellcaster that could tank in any spec, self-heal, used two unheard of ability resources, and could dual wield – all while wearing plate.
So I began to level her from 55 – which meant playing through Outland again, even though that was where I had just come from. I didn’t really care, things were still interesting and new.

One day I came home and the account was gone. It’s that simple. I have no idea whether the cause, although of course some assumptions can be made. The Dark Trading Magic always wins in the end anyway. It’s very Faustian in that regard. I had put Firenz into semi-retirement – he was not being played anymore, and all of his resources had been transferred to Nemain in preparation for the great trek towards the Wrath Gate. Everything imaginable was lost in an instant.
So I uninstalled WoW and took up flair bartending, and never looked back.
So the final age of WoW came to an end.

God Dammit France Stop Being Better Than Me

Todays post is a break from the story. Todays post will be entirely about rollerblading.
THIS

PLUS THIS

PRODUCES THIS

ROLLERBLADES ARE COOL

There Is A Part 3 To This Part 4

THE IRON AGE - The Time Of The Sword
I, like everyone else, joined Conversation Over as a Trial Raider.
Back in those days, there were these things called "Attunements" that every single character needed to do in order to raid - your character physically could not enter the raid instance unless you were attuned. By the time I was in Oblivion, the attuments for SSC/TK had been dropped - any group of 25 shmucks could try for it (read the last post). However, BT and Hyjal (That is, the Black Fucking Temple, previously known as the Temple of Karabor before Illidan Fucking Stormrage made it his fortress) still had attunements - To get into Hyjal, you had to kill the last boss of SSC and TK. To get into BT, you had to - after a hellacious quest chain - kill the first bosses of TK and Hyjal.
I'm telling you this because, unbeknownst to me, ConOver had actually progressed far further than I anticipated. I just applied to all the guilds that were, before christmas break, successfully working through SSC/TK. Turns out by the time they accepted me, they were planning on transitioning to BT/Hyjal.
I say transition because the way the game was at the time, the final bosses of TK and SSC were SUCH BITCHES that killing them was more of an achievement than the first three bosses in BT or Hyjal. Guilds took MONTHS killing Vashj and Kael, especially. Kael'thas made guilds FALL APART out of frustration. So, once 25 people killed Kael once, they never fucking killed him again except to attune other people. They're some of the least downed bosses in the entire game, just because they're such bitches. Kael drops the Phoenix Mount. Conversation Over got one.
SO. Imagine my surprise when I logged on the week after joining to get told "Head to SSC, we're running you through for attunment". Oh. Oh my, okay. "What do I do?" "Stand in that corner while we kill this guy. Don't die." "Okay."
Conversation Over was a fucking professional group way before I joined it. I just happened to show up at the time when Vikingodin went "lets get some more fuckin' warlocks!" and they picked me up. Me, being somewhat well geared for, like, a Leotheras fight, doing VASHJ.
Conversation Over was a well oiled machine. Our guild leader, Likeahorse, didn't take any shit from anyone, told you what to do, and expected you to do it. Oh, he was cheerful and there was joking around as long as you didn't fuck up. There were Healing, Ranged, and Melee dps officers. There was a forum, and there were strategies on boss fights. There was DKP and a Loot Council. We raided from 6 to 10, 4 days a week, and you showed up or Trombone called you a nigger and didn't invite you to the raid. 25 people can raid at a time - we had 30 people online every night. 5+ people would sit, online, waiting in reserve. If we needed a healer for the next fight? Someone was dropped, and the healer outside was told to zone in.
Shit. Got. Done. It was a lot like....joining the army. If it sounds weirdly strict, weirdly serious for a videogame, not.....fun...Well, it was fun. It was satisfying, it was thrilling. It was new content, and it was just a fascinating experience.
So we started doing BT and Hyjal. I was able to say "Hey Djinn LOL I'M IN UR INSTANCE" (And he'd respond by linking me another one of his fucking amazing weapons. Fucking Djinn.).
I was new, which meant other people got loot before me. I was in CO for a month before I got a piece of gear - and I saw it drop three times beforehand. I was the guild Affliction bitch - Warlocks in a raid environment almost unanimously spec(ced) 0/21/40 for the tremendous sustained dps (Sac-Destro). I was 41/0/20, and sometimes 44/0/17. This meant that, no matter what, (not to mention my gear [and probably skill] handicap) my damage was lower. But I provided a constant boost to the entire raid. It was the perfect job for learning how shit worked, which was exactly what I needed to do. If something new needed to be done, Vikingodin would yell in my ear until I did it.
And, slowly, we moved forward. There was some drama, and people left. We got new ones. There were some...extracurricular activities as a guild, besides raiding. I rolled a rogue twink to pass the downtime when I didn't get picked.

But mainly we raided, and with each boss kill a few new pieces of loot made us better. Not me, exactly - My DPS was still pretty low. In fact, I was often around 15th on the DPS charts - In a group of 25, with 4 tanks and 5 healers.....But I didn't CARE. It wasn't my job to do damage, and the bosses died, and thats all that mattered.
And steadily we kept going. Djinn's guild, of course, was consistently 5 bosses and one night ahead of us, the fuckers. They downed Archimonde while we were struggling at Gorefiend. They killed Illidan while we were on RoS/Bloodboil. Djinn got his Black Bow while we were on Archimonde. The fucker.
But we were on ARCHIMONDE!
The amount of screenshots I could put up could be gargantuan, but they still wouldn't convey the concept of seeing fucking....Archimonde, waiting for you at the bottom of the valley, looking mad as hell and about four stories high. My RA in my dorm would come in and watch me sometimes - His guild was still in SSC.
And then Djinn's guild was done with BT and Hyjal and started selling ZG bears, and we were ON ILLIDAN. Here are two screenshots from Djinn's perspective that will tell you all you need to know about Illidan. First he does this.(see below left) Then, he does this. (see below right)
It took us more than a month of attempting him. Each try took 10 minutes to set up, and 10 minutes to play out, and we'd all die and everyone would stop and look at what went wrong. God forbid it was your fault. God help you if you stepped in the green fire. God help you if you took aggro off the warlock tank in phase 3/5. God help me if the warlock tank, one day, decides to start some drama and ragequits the guild, and they go "Malachi! You can tank him, right?"
Did I mention the above pictures? DAH BAH MAH FAH Sure, guys, sure thing. Hearthing to get some shadow resist, brb.
If this was a Disney TV movie, this would have been my time to shine and we would've killed him and I would've gotten all the loot. But it wasn't and I died, and the other lock came back next week and then we killed him. And I didn't get any loot.
And it was still the most exciting thing to ever happen in my dorm room. And that isn't bad. It's a fucking accomplishment.
Fast forward another month. By now, we're elite. We're commandos. We've got a set of Warglaives on our rogue. Enough warlock gear has dropped that I get the 4piece set bonus from T6, and get to spec Destro. A new lock joins and becomes the Afflic bitch. I start looking like this on the damage charts (Butter, Nirah, Viking, and I are all Warlocks. What does this tell you.) Patch drops. Sunwell opens. Kil'jaeden attemps to rip a hole in the universe.
We are not prepared. Neurotic is prepared. Djinn's guild rips Sunwell a new asshole. I am forced to kiss his ring on daily basis. And by ring I mean Golden Bow of Quel'Thalas.
We try Sunwell, and crash and burn. 7th best on the server is not good enough for Sunwell. I cannot fully express how difficult it is. The first boss is harder than Illidan. Illidan took us 1+ month.

I take a break to go live in a hotel room for a week. Some things are more important than WoW.

I come back, and I can see the signs. Trombone is being meaner than necessary to teach us. Likeahorse sounds tired, all the time. Vikingodin might have gotten killed by his wife, or maybe he had another kid, I have no idea honestly. We lose a few core players. Our shaman, our strongest class, start to fall apart. Seriousmoj is MIA. Tuurgan is burning out. We get a few new players. Some of them, like Drstevebro, are amazing. Some of them, like....that one fucking druid, are pieces of shit. We rally, and kill the first boss of Sunwell once - The furthest we've ever gotten.
On May 23rd, the killing blow is struck. My laptop, faithfully overheating for a solid six months of raiding with CO, sets itself on fire. Metaphorically. Graphics card is fried, and oh, whoops, it's finals week and I cant be shitted. Its my birthday tomorrow, and some things are more important than WoW. But not many.
Oh yeah, and I get kicked out of college, but thats another blog post that is, I remain truly convinced, mostly unrelated to my Warcraft escapades.
By summer, I'm back on Maui, my laptop is fixed and I get this thing called a "job", where, apparently, you just...work, until someone tells you to stop, and gives you some money.
Then I spend all that money on Ketel One and reminisce with my friends about.....The Golden Age of WoW.
By the time I log back on, I'm guildless. Conversation Over merged with Bloodshot - 5th best. They kept the name Bloodshot. Any CO members who want to join, retain their rank.
I lose heart. Back at home, guildless, and drunker than any man has ever been, I turn once more to those Dark Magics that plagued me a year go.
So The Third Age of Warcraft came to an end. With wild and reckless abandon, I retire Malachi forever. I trade him - 4pcT6 Destro lock, 1333 unbuffed/1800 raidbuffed - The man could 2 shot anyone if he crit, for chrissakes! .
So I say "To Hell with raiding!" and trade him for sometime completely different - A Tauren Druid, equally "good" in terms of raw numbers, but focused on the other side of the WoW spectrum entirely - PvP.
Oh yeah, and he Looked Like This.

(P.S. - Readers! Would you like to know why my guild was named Conversation Over? The story is amazing. Ask me and I will tell you.)

There Is A Part 2 To This Part 3

THE IRON AGE - The Time of Ore
For quite some time, I was content to simply play WoW again – It was something to do out of boredom. Even in-game, there was a lull. It had been months since a patch, and the server was calm. Kanoa and I did dailies….daily, ground out gear piece by piece. I became pleasantly involved in my new character, this warlock. Affliction spec was fun, you could Immolate/Corruption/Unstable Affliction/Curse of Agony/Siphon Life/Fear/Drain Life ANYTHING down. Just sic your pet of choice on the target and load 5 DoTs on it. Pick a new target, load 5 DoTs on it, and fear it. Pick a third target, load five DoTs on it, and drain tank it. You end up with full health (and, being a warlock, the complete control over mana via sacrificing health) and three targets dead. Those were the glory days.
I started to actively take an interest in my character, a certain pride in the Warlock class as a whole, an affiliation with the Blood Elf community, and of course the secure knowledge that Tichondrius was the few, the proud, the 4chan of Warcraft. I began looking up specific things that would further advance my power – which instances offered caster loot, what stats I wanted, etc. The finer points of ranged caster dps, which was an entirely different world from any previous character I had played.
I leveled tailoring to 375 and ground out my Frozen Shadoweave set in a matter of weeks – I was actually improving, getting more out of the game. I could notice a direct correlation between every new upgrade and my damage output.
Also, it was winter in the pacific northwest, which meant the sun set at around 4:30 pm, and my roommate was….grating.
So I began consolidating my assets, and I joined a guild.
Nobody plays a face-melting solo the first time they pick up a guitar.
I joined a trade-chat guild – some entry –level grouping that spammed the chat channels looking for enough members to attempt an actual raid. Know now that these are doomed to fail from the beginning (Usually. But I digress.) This guild immediately, like some bizarre flavor of Katamari, accumulated the gutter trash of Tich – So many, in fact, that we had to actually get organized. The leader of this guild, whos name (and the name of the guild) I have forgotten, was ineffectual at leading, or organizing, or actually understanding the boss fights. So we were left to scrabble together a group of 10 to try Karazhan, the mythical first raid dungeon of TBC. Blah Blah wizard’s tower, Lore Blah Blah. The point is you need two tanks, three healers, and at least one mage, shaman, and (tadaa) warlock. We had two healers, one decently geared tank, and the rest of us in blues and crafted epics.
It was a multiple-hour long travesty, a gaggle of retards joined at the waist frantically waving swords in every direction. A stupid rogue caused drama, people gquit, people hearthed, I tried to take charge only to realize that you cannot, in fact, herd cats, and in the end I walked away with a hardened heart and a shiny dagger I kept for the rest of my game.
(Authors Note: An important think to keep in mind is, raids in WoW use a process of “saving” and “locking” and “resetting” on a weekly basis – essentially, if somebody fucks up your raid, you can’t try again until next Tuesday.)
So I joined another guild: Pandora – they, too, were advertising in Trade, but I talked with the guy and he seemed less retarded. Pandora was exactly one step above my previous guild – We were still doing Karazhan, but since there were 30+ people in the guild, it was divided into 3 groups of 10 who ran simultaneously. I was taught the basics of raiding – Voice chat on Vent, watching my generated threat on the meters, when to shut up and listen to someone tell you what to do. I got things wrong, and then I didn’t. I got some loot, and then I didn’t. It was exciting because it was new content, and I was learning.

Pandora fell apart for stupid reasons that I forget. Maybe people stopped showing because they had better things to do (highly probable) and because they weren’t getting invited to raids (also probable).
The point was I was if not sad to see it go, it affected me. The nasty trick of end-game content is, you cannot do it alone. You need a guild to raid, and you need to raid to progress. But I digress.

Then I, an eager rookie with Karazhan under my belt, was approached by a guy I ran with, Kromidus, and joined his guild, Oblivion.
This was my first real “guild” – in fact, it was the first for all of us. Oblivion was made up of the best of the worst guilds that fell apart. Krom would watch trade chat guilds rise, party with a few of them, and scout out those of us who were quickly frustrated by the limitations that rose. When our guilds inevitably fell apart, he would invite us to his guild. He was actually much smarter than I realized at the time, and Oblivion is a top-tier end game guild in WotLK currently. He still leads. But I digress.
My team was the last to join – With us, our numbers grew to a size that we could attempt 25-man raids – Coilfang Resevoir and Tempest Keep.
Just because we could attempt them, doesn’t mean we should have.

Week after week, we struggled with the first boss of each. Trash was murder, and we weren’t nearly organized as we needed to be. It wasn’t any specific, targetable thing – if it had been, Krom or one of us would’ve spotted it and taken care of it. Instead, it was just the nasty truth that most of us were below average, and when you stacked our flaws 25 times, we couldn’t cut it.
We killed Hydross a few times, and that gave us hope, but we couldn’t repeat it. It was luck that got us as far as Lurker, and we Just. Hit. A Wall there.
Christmas came and went, and I took a break from WoW since I actually had friends.
By the time I came back, spirits were low.
So I started sleeping around – I had since learned that real guilds didn’t ask you to join, you submitted an application. I formulated a resume and surreptitiously applied to several guilds as a Decent Affliction Lock. Looking back, I think I applied to Cult of Reason (they were full on Locks), Bloodshot (they were too good), Foundation (they died), Martyrdom (accepted), and Conversation Over, among other ones I forget.
The point was, I was at that awkward stage – my gear was too good for Kara, maybe the first half of SSC, but I couldn’t handle Vashj or Kael.
Meanwhile, fucking Djinn's guild Neurotic was competing with Pagan Spiral for 3rd Best Horde Guild (#1 and 2 are, and forever will be, respectively The Core and Triad. They are gods.), and he continually taunted me with his constant victories and conquests and shiny fucking shiny weapons.
I actually submitted these applications BEFORE Christmas, and checked up on them afterwards – the consensus was, “Get some better gear, and reapply”.
So I did. I blew my cash on a second crafted tailoring set, and braved the world of PuG’s to milk Kara for all it had.
All while smashing my head against the bricks with the rest of Oblivion.
Until one fateful night, when I was contacted by a character I’d eventually learn to salute – Vikingodin, Warlock Class Leader of Conversation Over.
The conversation went something like this:
Him: You’re in. Get on vent and get to SSC, we’re doing a trial/attunement run
Me: Uh, slight hangup there. I’m actually in SSC right now with my current guild
Him: You’re either in or your out.
Me: Done.
So, in a blaze of glory, I – during another failed Lurker attempt –, hearthed out, joined CO’s raid, zoned back in, and killed the first boss before anybody went “Wait, where the fuck is Malachi?” “Says he’s still in SSC...” “Well he damn sure wasn’t at his station” “Malachi, what the fuck are you doing”. To which I responded with “FOLLLLOOOOOWIIIIIIIING. MYYYYYYYY. DESSSSSSTINNNNEEEEYY!”.
Kromidus, who immediately realized my betrayal, said “You know, you could have just told me”.
He understood.
And so, my basic training in Raiding completed, I joined Conversation Over – with absolutely zero knowledge of what I was getting myself in to.

There Is A Part 1 To This Part 2

THE SHADOW PATH - Myriad Servers
My thoughts became pensive...and dark. There was more content out there, but I could not reach it in my current crippled state.
So I turned to the only available option at the time - the dark, risky magics of the Online Account Trading industry. I pawned off Luiseach heartlessly - I had grown tired of her - for a new, shinily-geared Human Rogue. The lack of connection I had with these and future characters will be symbolized by their lack of given names.
For a while I was content to smash talbuks with my giant fucking flaming mace shaped like a dragon skull, because to be honest, it was pretty fucking awesome. This guy shredded shit - Combat Rogues were at their peak. But my short dabble in forbidden magic had left me suffused with wicked energies, and my satisfaction was short lived. The resources of Rogue#1 were bled dry - I desired MORE!
Quickly I pawned off Human Rouge for Night Elf Rogue! He was laden with new pleasures - a swift dragon, a tiger for a steed, twin daggers for quick and dirty work. What's more, he was located on the server where Ev & Co had taken up residence. Reunion was pleasant, but it was not meant to be.
I learned of the Faustian cost of trusting too deeply the capricious and venomous words of the Trading Forum. My account was snatched back from me in the dead of the night, and I was left without the proverbial Pot To Paddle Up Shit Creek In.
For the first time in two and a half years, I was without a direct link to WoW. Emotions were mixed.
But I was too ensnared to simply call it at this point. Having just barely tasted the raw power of End-Game Content, I vowed to keep a wary guard up from now on when I reentered the swirling world of Trade.
The severance of all personal connection was, in some aspects, highly liberating. I was now free to choose my own way. Would I play Alliance, or Horde? What Class? Did I plan to raid, or PvP?
I had no idea, and more importantly, it was moot - I had no starting bargaining chip on which to build my empire.
So I called in a favor. Friskykitty got transferred to me, and I immediately hawked him for a series of quick fix characters - BE Hunter to Troll Rogue to Orc Shaman, all over the course of one summer. And yet, in the end, once again, I got careless, and paid the price. One day I logged on to find my account put up on cinderblocks with the windows broken in.
At the same time this misadventure was occurring, Rankour had returned - to a certain extent. A bug had been found in the Mechanaar wing of TK - There was a treasure chest that would spawn in three locations, and through the right amount of trickery and no small amount of skill, a rogue could reach and loot it by himself - a feat typically requiring five players.
So Kanoa and I took shifts. We turned Rankour into a treasure-hunting machine - the stealthiest, sneakiest most perfectly tuned rogue looter for the task - and we milked that bug until it got fixed. We made 6000 gold in a month.
And then we fell back into the vicious cycle. Rankour was traded for Epidemikz, the BE Spriest with every bell and whistle Kanoa could dream of. I don't know how he did it. I assume it has something to do with his limitless francophone power.
And I was left with nothing, again. So I called in another favor, and through some small demonic sacrifice I obtained a minuscule troll rogue.
And so, set back to the very first step on the road of WoW with only a tiny green-machine of a rogue, I shuffled off to rainy Seattle.
Thus, depending on your viewpoint, I completed the Shadow Path, and was the better for it.

THE AGE OF IRON - Tichondrius Again
After setting foot on sweet Seattlian soil and rapidly having any preconceptions or hopes of College Life dashed to the ground by the stark realization that life is, in fact, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short, I turned inwards.
Determined to end this vicious cycle, I went into the fray one last time and traded my little rogue for an equally little Blood Elf Warlock, by the name of Shadowspade. He was freshly levelled to 70, and I decided to keep him. I transferred him over to Tichondrius because Caleb had lured me over with tales of his BE Hunter, Djinn, and the life of luxury and excitement he currently possessed. So I returned to my home realm, and named my character Malachi. His story alone is long, but he started here.

I Found Him Inside A Birthday Cake!

THE GOLDEN AGE - Tichondrious
I borrowed Caleb's WoW discs to see if it would run on my toaster computer. Troll rogue test character - I was immediately ensnared.
I created Shahjahan, troll hunter, to join Caleb's UD rogue Underhanded and Kana's Spriest Xolotol. Kanoa had a tauren hunter, but he stopped playing. Hana was also on Tich for a few dozen levels as Somyrast, but he died. Everett's crew was about 20 levels ahead of us at all times - Ev ran me through SFK on his lock and 'Doomed every fucking rat we passed just to fuck with me. I didnt understand the concept of BoP items and accidentally looted some crap staff. Oh well. Shahjahan and Xolotol hit 60 - Underhanded veered off to the seamy underbelly of another server. Guilds passed through included Femina Ac Gloria (i.e. Women and Glory i.e. F.A.G.) and From Chaos.
Memories of the Golden Age are blurry at best, like early childhood. A few crystal occurrences stand out among fuzzy months of general good feelings. It was fun, and naive, and we learned something new every day.
The Golden Age came to an end when Kana quit and Ev's crew switched to Eve. Caleb returned in the end (after I think actually doing the nasty with 1(+?) people from that server? We'll never know, and none of us can read the language his tattoo is in) and started rolling his Tauren Warrior who we will return to later. I rolled a druid to play alongside him, Seraglio.
So the Golden Age came to an end.

THE SILVER AGE Part 1- Blackrock
Fast forward to next year. Kana turns up one day spouting gibberish about Reid. Reid confirms the drunken mumblings - A new world awaits us, but it is nothing like the last. We were to join Reid & Co on Blackrock - on Alliance! After an agonizing date with the internet regarding a million dead languages, I created Luiseach, the squat little dumpling of a female dwarf paladin. Oh god, I was a retard and/or awesome. Kana made Ardal the druid, Kanoa, Rankour the rogue. Reid had some bullshit female NE warrior I never saw, because he was straight China and hit 60/got his mount before any of us. Soon to join us was William as Sealgaire - NE hunter. HE actually caught up with us scary-fast like, and we all hit 60 within the same few days. When we got tired of our guild, Emiquispactiumurgy (A pastiche of the five top guilds on the server - Eminence, Inquisition, Six Pack, No MAAM, Elementium, and the last one I forget.), we rolled twinks led by Caleb's Mutation in the top twink guild on the BG - One Speed, started by us.
Sadly, one by one, we fell victim to our own malaise. A dozen weeks were wasted screwing around in ZG with the australians. I neglected my friends and held out for Hakkar only to be fucked twice. Caleb went back to his Tauren on Tich and achieved greatness twice over.
Then CAME THE BURNING CRUSADE
So the First Silver Age came to an end, and with it all trace of the Old World of Azeroth.

THE SILVER AGE - Part 2
After several months of languor, we were invigorated by the news of an expansion. An alien world had opened, and with it a million new changes. Paladins were worth something again. Druids could fly. There was this thing called "Silencing Shot" at 60 that....we don't talk about that.
TBC dropped, and we were hooked. Every single aspect of the game was updated, revisited, and changed. Even thinking back to the Old World now requires a lot of effort just to remember what it was like. We experienced at lightning speed. "Straight China" was the term used. I was the first to reach 70, at which time I purchased my first flying mount.
I cannot....accurately describe the concept to you. We'd been playing this game for ±2 years now, content with our epic land mounts speed. Going from place to place was a decent ride.
Imagine the mind-breaking concept of, after two years of this, you suddenly gain the power of limitless flight. No Plato-Cave metaphor can make this clear enough. We were enlightened.
But soon it outgrew us, in our current state. Or perhaps we outgrew it. It continued to expand, unfurling long chains of time-sink glory, but we had fish of a different sort to fry. Ardal dropped off first, cashing in his chips and transferring ownership to Caleb, who - and I will never forgive him for this - renamed him Friskykitty. Sealgaire ran out of money and/or testicles. Rankour had turned promiscuous - who knew who was playing him at this time. Caleb retreated to his dank lair and began work on an innocuous-looking Blood Elf Hunter.
I was left alone to roam the vast wastes of Outland. Things got weird.

So the Silver Age came to an end. But the next age was not immediately forthcoming, nay. There was a period of....shadow, in which our confused hero commits many previously renounced atrocities.

He Came Out The Back Of A Glitter Truck!

So I was thinking about playing WoW again....The other two who stopped are back up again, albeit more casually then before. The triumvirate could be reborn.
"...The disorder of addiction involves the progression of acute drug use to the development of drug-seeking behavior, the vulnerability to relapse, and the decreased, slowed ability to respond to naturally rewarding stimuli....
....categorized three stages of addiction: preoccupation/anticipation, binge/intoxication, and withdrawal/negative affect. These stages are characterized, respectively, everywhere by constant cravings and preoccupation with obtaining the substance; using more of the substance than necessary to experience the intoxicating effects; and experiencing tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, and decreased motivation for normal life activities...."
Using an old friend's account - there are new customization techniques, I could have a Pally/Lock again like old times. Oh, I'd still practically be starting from scratch: No epic flyer, fresh lvl 70 gear, zero gold.
House:"I'm an addict."
Wilson: "Uh, okay."
House: "I'm not stopping."
Wilson: "There are programs. Cuddy would give you the time. You could get on a different pain management regimen."
House: "I don't need to stop."
Wilson: "You just said."
House: "I said I was an addict. I didn't say I had a problem. I pay my bills, I make my meals. I function."
Wilson: "Is that all you want? You have no relationships."
House: "I don't want any relationships."
Wilson: "You alienate people."
House: "I've been alienating people since I was three."
Wilson: "Oh, come on! Drop it! You don't think you've changed in the last few years?"
House: "Well, of, of course I have. I've, I've gotten older. My hair's gotten thinner. Sometimes I'm bored, sometimes I'm lonely, sometimes I wonder what it all means."
Wilson: "No, I was there! You are not just a regular guy who's getting older, you've changed! You're miserable, and you're afraid to face yourself."
House: "Of course I've changed!"
Wilson: "And everything's the leg? Nothing's the pills? They haven't done a thing to you?"
House: "They let me do my job, and they take away my pain."
It wouldn't be the same as my old account, and I'm coming to terms with that slowly. By no means have I made a decision. I'm just rolling the thought around for a while, seeing how it tastes.
When I first lost my account(s) I was too dumbstruck to really comprehend the magnitude of the event. It just....occurred, one day while I was at work. The day after hitting 70 on my new Deathknight, somehow my info was compromised and four characters got transferred/deleted/junkyarded. I have no idea what happened to any of them; they were never seen again. Total damages were four high-geared 70's - two with epic flyers, a grand total of 13,000 gold, a combined max of every gathering and crafting professions sans blacksmithing, and a thousand unmentionable achievements, RP items, pretty mounts, event rewards, and neat stuff clogging a span of five capped banks. Oh, and four elite twinks on a different server.
And I accepted it as a force of nature - I was working and going to school, and I had no desire to raid.
I dropped everything, canceled my other account, said "fuck it forever" and left without setting foot on Northrend.
And except for when I review my screenshots, I can get by without particularly missing it. But...

The truth of the matter is, I had been playing World of Warcraft almost steadily since the end of my freshman year of highschool - which is nearly five years ago. My....experience, my journey, my story within the game spanned six full characters and dozens of filler alts.
And that has weight, mass, meaning. Cutting through the nerdy bullshit, WoW was something I spent my time on at least a little every day. It was a giant interactive world in which cool shit happened. It was, IS, full of some of the most ridiculously ridiculous fantasy lore - I lapped it up. I could, without having ever read a book or seen a movie, regale you with multiple hours worth of history for a dozen fake civilizations. The origin stories, the pantheons, the countless wars and quests, the influential powers. Fucking DRAGONS!
I've gone through five years of content, and I have no doubt it's shaped my personality as much as anything else. If you stand in the sun, you get tanned (and, eventually, burned). I stood in Azeroth all day, and I....well, I'm not a fat load, at least. I could repel women at fifty paces if I really wanted to, but the point is those girls are dumb whores anyway.
I can....with confidence (and some lies)....say I've experienced a good 90% of the game's content. I've played (not just "played a friends for a day") every class but mage.
I've played Horde, then Alliance, then Horde, then Horde, then Alliance, then HordeHordeHorde.
Reputations were maxed. Items were ground for, back in the day when that actually meant something. PvP ranks were achieved back when that meant something. I was there when AV came out and the IBS was the only weapon you'd use from 51 to 60.
I was there when the druid ran around wearing Sulfuras and a million men cried tears of blood.
I've experienced every major raid of TBC, and several from Old World. Okay, well, I didnt kill Kil'jaeden, BUT I WAS THERE. Rag died Nelth died C'Thun died. Gruul/Mag/Vashj/Kael/Archi/Illidan ALL DEAD.

I cannot begin to explain how much plain stuff there has been that has gone in to and come out of WoW.

It must be told in episodes, and I haven't decided which way to say it. Rest assured, this isnt for you, readers. I spare no acronyms or names.
First, I need to specify there were Four Ages of Warcraft throughout my life so far. Stay tuned for further posts - I'm feeling nostalgic.
(PS - For those of you who dont...actually..play WoW? Take a break. I'll be talking continually about this until I reach a decision. For those of you who do know me, feel free to weigh in.)
(PPS - This is what has dominated my ears for the week)

I miss it.



(Edit: I cannot stop laughing at the voices)


(Edit Edit:New Lily Allennnnnn. Less happy, more whoomp-wheeerp.)