WoWGrrl's World

Hmm, okay.

Well, yesterday I put a post up and a couple of back-dated sales pages for a couple of the guides I've released recently, and then I must have done something else because my blog then spun out of control and I got my hosting account suspended for using too many CPU resources and probably crashing one of their Database servers.

Oops.

Whatever I did, the friendly support staff helped me get the site back up and working and fixed up after all that, but in doing so they had to roll me back to a previous version and therefore my most recent blog entry was nuked.

So, sorry if you've come to the site from one of the Twitter links out there, only to find the entry doesn't exist.

Recent Updates To WoWGrrl's Play

The biggest recent update to my personal play on World of Warcraft is that just over a month ago, the guild I've been in since 6wks before the release of WoTLK underwent a merger with a slightly higher-progressed guild that was experiencing some of the same problems as us: Namely, low attendance on H.ToTC25 nights that stymied progression for a few weeks before the merger was debated and then finalized.

Yay For Rocket Packs!

Most of the core group from our guild came across in the merger, but we did lose a percentage of the rest of the team - those who had lower attendance or had issues with the new guild or were too nervous about the merger and how they'd fare in this new group, left on their own accord and found new homes, mostly without complaint.

I'm sure there were other reasons as well - I know one of my ex-guildmates took a break from the game for familial reasons as well, but I expect when he comes back he'll get rave reviews on his app and will have little problem getting in.

The Guild Chosen For Merger

I don't remember how it all came down - being a member and not part of the Officer core of my previous guild, I wasn't part of the discussions until it was time for the membership to place a vote on the issue.

(Yes, we had a guild meeting about the topic and had discussions posted up on our forums for people to air their concerns in advance of the merger being finalized. My vote was "Yay! Let's do it", I'm with ya 100%")

However, the hilarious part of the merger is that the entire Officer core of our guild was once in that guild, pre-BC and perhaps during part of BC as well. The Guild Charter was *written* by a couple of the Officers from our guild, and our rules had been very very similar with just a few differences.

So, in other words, the cultural expectation of behavior in the guild and in the raids were so near to identical that the merger itself went very smoothly, at least from my perspective.

In terms of the new Leadership, the Officer core is now 50/50 Ours/Theirs, although as time passes of course, it all melts into one big "us", at least in theory.

First Raid With The Merged Guild

The first raid night was very interesting. About 37 raiders showed up on time, at the door of ToTC, completely repaired and stocked up for a night's worth of raiding.

With the transition, two of our main leaders (probably the ones who wrote the Charters of both guilds and have been in Leadership positions for a long time in-game) decided now would be an awesome time to step down leadership and be one of the members. The first raid night must have been a huge relief to them as a result.

"Aren't you glad you don't have to decide who gets to go and who doesn't?" - I asked on the old guild's social/alts line.

"YES!" was the response from one, and "It feels weird to not be involved" was the response from the other. I think they both probably felt the same mixed feelings but both were obviously relieved about their new positions within the team.

After Six Weeks

It's now been about six weeks since the merger took place, and believe it or not, we STILL have 30-35 raiders show up for each raid. One night we actually had FOURTY-TWO raiders show up - attendance had to be taken in two snapshots since they couldn't fit everyone in.

Some people who came across with the original merger decided the raid team wasn't for them anymore for various reasons - generally because of pre-existing bad blood with one of the other guild's members, or unfortunately, because some people don't like the thought of being put on Raid Overflow... taking it personally or otherwise feeling like their joy of playing is being threatened.

In terms of progression, this merger was FANTASTIC for the regular raiders coming from our guild. As a guild our progression fight was Heroic Northrend Beasts in ToTC25, and due to attendance or raid balance issues it wasn't very often that we were able to make proper progression on the fight from week to week. People had stopped showing up for Progression Night and after a while of that, others started to leave, looking for a guild that was still actively able to suit up for Progression Night.

The other guild was having the same problem after an internal clique left en masse.

The first raid night with the new team, which was about 50/50 in mix between the two groups that were merging, the group took down the first three sets of bosses in Heroic ToTC25, stopping to struggle for the end of the evening only on the Twins fight.

Right now, we're still working on downing Anub'arak in H.ToTC25, but from what I heard the last set of attempts had him down to 2% (I was on overflow), so it's just about there!

Shammy And Racial Totems

Working On Changing Mains

This merger did put a bit of a damper on me at one point, but I'm a pretty undampable person overall - there are simply too many paths I could take in my life to beat myself up by continuing down the dampered one while it's actively being dampened for some reason.

In my case, I was working on advancing my Shaman to 80 and getting her geared up for the possibility of a Main Change.

Mainly, because I have tried Shadow a number of times and don't really enjoy it all that much, and as a result I'm a Discipline Priest with a PvP Disc offspec, and that's pretty restrictive in terms of being able to actually flex and bend like I believe a good raider should be able to do.

There are times, after all, where the guild needs a whole mess of healers. But then there are times later on in progression when the guild needs less healers and more DPS. I wanted to be able to contribute properly during both, while enjoying the whole experience.

So, I powered my Shammy from 72 to 80 then got into Heroics and Raids and geared her up as quickly as I could. Then the merger happened, so while I continued to advance the Shaman, I put her on the back burner until things settled down a bit in the new guild and I could see whether the Ele/Resto Shaman would be welcomed.

Since 3.3 came out, I've pounded through the Heroics and gotten enough Triumph badges to buy all the Elemental gear I could, plus a few pieces of Resto gear as well, and my gear is on par with the lesser-geared raiders on our team. I posted my app over a week ago but I'm not really sure what's happening with it quite yet.

I'll let you know once I find out what's going on! :)

How's Your Playing Going?

I'm sure there have been a lot of changes that have gone on in your play over the last couple of months - guild changes, guild splits, guild mergers, new toons to 80, trying of new roles... I'd love to hear how things are going in your world!

Tell me what you think about the new Dungeon Tool now that it's a few weeks old - is it working okay from your perspective, or is it annoying?

I'll write about my experiences in an upcoming entry!

Related posts:

1. Looking Back: From Social Guild To Raiding Guild
2. Applying For A Raiding Guild: What To Ponder
3. Why My Raiding Guild Rocks, Part One