Mary Sands

World of Warcraft: wind, fire, all that kind of thing!

(July 13th, 2007)

Update: I ended the old article when I canceled my account. But here is an updated article about WoW, since I have renewed my account. This article will include some more pictures from the time my friends and I began playing Burning Crusade content.

I had canceled my account at the end of last year, but renewed it when my husband did earlier this year. Also, three of our real-life friends, who we'd leveled with before on two other servers, were unhappy with their guild. We decided to once again roll new characters and level up together.

This time we started out as alliance. We rolled on Undermine, which is a dead server, pretty much! We got to level 30-ish and switched to horde because some of our old friends from Goondock Saints (GDS) on Maelstrom decided to make characters with us but wanted to play horde.

A word about our old guild on Maelstrom, GDS. There was a time a couple years ago when we were doing ZG, AQ, MC, and having an okay time. We were pretty much still a close-knit bunch of people who had met from the Something Awful forums. But, as time went on, we had to invite dreaded pubbies to fill out larger raids. For some reason our guild leader didn't want to recruit people from SA. Pubbies led to disaster. Basically, unless you have like-minded people who want to sort of commit to playing together, you'll just get people who come and go, using your guild as a way to gear up so that they can move to the next biggest raiding guild. That is what happened. We also had such a mix of people, and this is back when you had to raid with 39 others, that senses of humor clashed and it was overall dreadful. Our guild leader was a great raid leader and had a wonderful sense of getting along, but he really had no vision when it came to keeping our guild close to our origins. The guild pretty much fell apart eventually. Even some people we like very much lost their perspective about How To Get Along and somehow got buried in incredibly lame drama in the guild.

My second experience with goon guilds was with Deepwater Pirates, but we didn't play there long because we were sort of tied to our real-life friends and they wanted to play alliance. Back then the Pirates were also an all-goon guild, but these days I don't think they are.

My third experience was and is with Ol Dirty Blunderbuss, Duskwood horde. I joined up with them back in March of 2006, and was part of the formative group, all of us still officers pretty much.

I had stopped playing last year when I canceled my account, but when my friends and I switched to horde on Undermine, I eventually transferred my sedentary priest off Duskwood to help us with the healing we needed in our five-mans once we got to the Outland. We'd all leveled new characters, and I had played a shaman to 60, and then respecced to restoration when our one priest stopped playing so much. I did fine healing most of the time, but really wanted to play my priest again at that point. She already had an epic mount, and so on.

We got to 70 on Undermine, and then all transferred over to Ol Dirty Blunderbuss again. I missed the core group of people I'd leveled up with. They were mostly all still there except for Buckette. Damn you, Buckette! Come back! Anyway, the guild leader Manzanito/Bollicao is really the best leader any guild could possibly have. He is not a pushover, but has a really even-tempered, fair outlook and has always worked hard to do what's good for the guild. In the time I'd left, we had gone from having barely enough 60s to run parts of Zul'Gurub to now starting Karazhan. Manz pushed for progression. In the day and age of Burning Crusade, it's much easier to deal with not losing people to larger raiding guilds--but now we had a definite and growing number of 70s to raid in BC content.

As of now, we're trying to get a second raid going to Kara, and doing our first Gruul run tomorrow.

Anyway, we've had some good times playing new characters and coming back to Duskwood to rejoin old friends. And to even sort of combine what I believe were the best raiders from old GDS days with Ol Dirty Blunderbuss. We're still awaiting Sion to finish being busy this summer and come join us too! And for Snifter to get home from Europe and come and play with us.

So here below are some pictures of newer experiences.

One of my favorite quests in the newbie blood elf (new race) area.

 

Funny titles are Blizzard's forte.

 

Our friend Mo-Mo from GDS started this gimmick guild on Maelstrom, and we went over to join him and wear some silly outfits one day.

 

Land shark! This is an elite shark who hangs around Theramore. We were out hunting turtles, and he tried to agro on us, but the poor thing didn't get very far.

 

Back on Undermine, my husband and I in animal form. No, we are not furries, you pervert. We just happened to choose classes where we could run fast!
Dead Pirates Society was our little guild on Undermine. When we transferred to Duskwood, we changed our names. My shaman is now Lory, and Tooblathe (reference to Princess Bride) is now Aduck (reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

 

This is my rogue Cherrydarlin (reference to Planet Terror) on Duskwood. I originally made her so that I could farm things easily, because my shaman is pretty much retired, and my priest is specced holy and all that fun stuff. But I really love the playing the rogue, and hope our guild finds more healers so that i can eventually raid with her.

 

Our gang before transfer, and in human disguise, on our first run through the old battle of Hillsbrad.

 

My priest Caye in her gearing up days. I like this colorful look more than my current one.

 

One night they were short on healers for Illhoof, Netherspite, and Prince. I'd never been to Kara before. Guess who got pulled in?

 

Another picture from that night. I'm second to last on the right.

 

Not long ago, there was this wonderful bug and you could pick locks on anything!

 

Getting my chocobo.

 

This is our arena team: Comedy of Errors. This particular night we played naked and paraded around doing /train.

 

Another time we put on our rocket helmets, except for Hobo (stealthed), who wore his piratey hat of stamina.

 

My husband and I really like Grindhouse. Here are some alts we made but hardly ever play.

 

I love this picture of a mage named Dropsy spell-stealing from a zealot in Shadow Labyrinth and subsequently turning into a big green core hound.

 

My rogue dancing with an NPC in the Hinterlands.

 

Yeah, I don't think it'll work either, Mister Ogre.

 

Fun times with some guildies, attacking Honor Hold.

 

Umm, what.

 

It's nice having higher-level characters to go beat up big guys who drop nice fist weapons for you!

 

A real pro-shot, eh? I wasn't going to settle for being a rogue without fist weapons!

 

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