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.)