World of Warcraft is a great game - I’m sure I’m preaching to the converted here… even those who have been disillusioned and left for some reason can still likely say that the game is pretty great, but some of the game’s aspects or followers, perhaps, weren’t.

At any rate, despite holing myself up in a Guild of One recently, I want to say that Yes, I still think World of Warcraft is a pretty great game, and I have no real intention of being completely devoid of social contact in this Massively Multiplayer Online game.

But I can definitely say that what I looked forward to a month ago is different than what I look forward to today, and today I feel much happier about the future than I did a month ago.

Looking Towards The Future

I’ve always enjoyed the life of a Casual player, so getting into Raiding was an interestying foray, but not ultimately what I’ve wanted to do with my time.

Now that I have my free time back, I’m looking towards the future and making some plans.

I’m kind of, but not really, looking at setting some goals that I can have done by the time The Lich King expansion pack comes out, whenever that may be. I haven’t clearly defined my goals yet, however, nor do I keep up on the latest of when it’s coming out.

Heck, I’m still entertained plenty in the Azeroth areas and dungeons - getting the expansion pack isn’t a huge goal of its own, other than the fact that everyone will have it and I might as well get it too.

Some Goals For Before LK Releases

Priest
My first Toon Family goal is to get my 63 Priest to 70 through a combination of reputation-specific quests and healing in PUGs.

As a Jewelcrafter, I’ll be focusing on The Consortium reputation for this toon, and will probably dive into the Shattered Sun dailies once I hit 70 so I can get all of those recipes as well.

While I’m levelling through dungeons or questing for specific reputation gain, I plan to be making recordings with the intent of making various videos. I’d really love feedback on these things once I start posting them, to help me improve both in my healing and in my video-making.

Like my thoughts, I’m sure the topics will range far and wide, venturing even into the ridiculous.

Druid
I’ve got a level 30 Druid who has been level 30 for a number of months. I’d like to get her to at least 60, because I’m sure with the expansion pack there’ll be a large number of Death Knights looking to party their way through the Outland instances even when Northrend is up and going.

I’m looking forward to putting some real time and love into the Druid - it’ll be my first truly Hybrid toon of any level, and I intend to practice all of its aspects so I’m good at switching around between DPS, Healing and Tanking as the group requires.

And I’m sure a lot of PUGs will give me a lot of opportunity to hone and improve those skills… only to have “what works and what’s needed” change all around when the expansion comes out ;)

Shaman and Paladin

I have teen-level Shaman and Paladin characters that have been sitting for a bit while I got caught up in raiding - I’m thinking if I can get them both to 58 or so for the expansion and situate the Shaman as a healer and the Pally as a tank, these in combination with the Druid will give me awesome angles of others playing their DeathKnights when the expansion hits. (can you tell I don’t plan to roll one right away?)

Mage
I love my Mage but would rather advance up my plethora of other toons because with the gear level my Mage is at, raiding and heroics are the only “real” challenges, and I don’t want to get back into raiding. I ponder on PUGging Karazhan for the badges, hoping to find a group each week that can accomplish a fast run (ie: under 3 hours would be nifty), but know that would just lead to invites to other things on my Mage, who I largely don’t want to invest time in anymore.

I’ll probably mainly bring him out to run my lowbie Shaman and Pally through quests or dungeons once in a while, and to help out friends who I trade favors with.

Hunter
No real goals, aside from respec’ing to a solid pet-centric solo spec and using this toon to help my friends and lower toons (on the other WoW account) complete quests or obtain gear from Azeroth dungeons.

But For Now…

But for now, it’s time to head outside into the sunshine and take advantage of the warmth that is springtime.

Yet another wonderful thing I can do with my time, less committed!

Tags: burning crusade, casual gamer, druid, gruul's lair, healing in dungeons, holy priest, hunter, jewelcrafter, jewelcrafting, karazhan, lich king, mage, mage tank, magtheridon, paladin, playing goals, priest, protection paladin, pug raids, PUGs, pvp, resto shaman, rogue, shaman, shattered sun, tanking in dungeons, the consortium, world of warcraft, wow pvp

I didn’t really mention it before, but I figured I’d go ahead and outline some guild-related changes that my characters have undergone in the past few months.

Mage, Hunter, Priest Make A Move

I’ve been raiding with a decent group since the beginning of January, and finally decided to make the official guild change-over on my raiding toon, the 70 Frost Mage, on February 21.

As for the rest, I moved my 70 Hunter over shortly afterwards and a few days later, brought the 51 Priest/Jewelcrafter over, but have left my “parked” 61 Warrior in my social/levelling guild along with my 58 Rogue, 30 Druid and a bank toon.

Why The Switch?

There’s many reasons why I made the switch with my best-geared toon… the new guild is larger, more active, and since they are raiding regularly at the 25-man level (currently working on Al’ar), there are more players who are geared for heroics. The first day I was guilded, we went through 4 Heroics!

So, my badge count has gone through the roof, and my need to turn to the LFG line has toned way down. Most of the time I don’t even have to look around for a party, because the limited times I’m available to run something, there’s a guild group forming, and they love my Magely skills! It’s awesome.

And as a bonus, because I had been raiding with these guys for nearly 2 months already, I only stayed as an “initiate” in the guild a couple of days - until I could get to the next 25-man raid at which point, at the end of another great raiding night, I was promoted to Member by the GM/RL and received many nice comments and welcomes from everyone present.

Oh, and I moved the Hunter across because our guild is actually LOW on quality Hunters - recruits with attitudes as big as their DPS (and we all know some Hunters can dish out the major DPS) have come and gone, and a lot of our members are on casual raiding schedules, only making 1 or 2 on a week that they can actually make it to any. So, I brought my keyed-but-not-really-geared-for-Karazhan Hunter across and have been on 4 or so Karazhan runs so far, after the Mage is already locked out with a different group.

And the Priest, I moved mainly because she’s now a 375 Jewelcrafter with a mess of rare gem cuts, and I felt the raiding guild environment could make better use of that Professional skill than a social/levelling guild with less than a handful of people who pay enough attention to their characters to even gem up.

What About The Old Guild?

One of my old guildmates applied to the same raiding guild I’m in, and was accepted, and he occasionally attends raids when his schedule permits, but I haven’t had a real chance to talk to him lately since my gaming schedule has been strained for time.

As for the rest of the folks, I still have some of my characters in that guild, and since I log into my bank toon every day, I tend to still chat with the folks and see how they’re doing. I’ve also continued to trade favors with friends from the old guild, running through their lowbies in exchange for BRD run-throughs for my 50s Priest and the occasional rest-bonus-burnoff run for my 30 Druid.

And of course, some of us hung out on Ventrilo while we played, and I still do that regularly.

Was The Move A Good One?

In short, yes it was definitely a good one. I was getting frustrated with having to turn to strangers in the LFG line all the time, and doing a /who [guildname] to find folks from that guild I had been raiding with for two months. My levelling guild was indeed just a social/levelling guild and had no aspirations towards organized recruitment or coordinated efforts except on rare occasions (ie: 1-3 guildie dungeon runs a week, most below Outland level), and I really did want to do more, experience more, challenge myself more.

Of course, I wouldn’t have made the switch if this new guild didn’t also show some very good qualities in terms of behavior during raids, dealing with mouthy players, having equipment requirements, encouraging each individual to do their best to help the team, scheduling raids on a website with sign-ups… all sorts of great things. Sure, there’s some crap that goes on too, and it’s clear the GM/RL is a key part to holding the guild together cohesively, but all in all, I’ve really enjoyed the environment and lucky been able to remain distant from any potential drama.

I am quite surprised I was able to find a cool raiding guild like this so soon… Before Christmas I went on a couple of Karazhan raids with an ex-guildie’s raiding guild only to find that the ranged DPS tended to attack from up-close (and subsequently die a lot), that the Raid Leader swore in all-caps on the Raid line (I don’t recall him freaking on Vent tho) when yet another wipe occurred, and that I was the top damage of all three mages despite only being at +450 frost damage and them being better-geared. When I wasn’t re-invited to their raid groups, I wasn’t disappointed. I kind of expected to run into more of those before I hit the guild I’m now raiding with!

Tags: casual raiding guild, good raid leaders, heroics dungeons, heroics pugs, how to find a raid guild, jewelcrafting, joining a raiding guild, karazhan, level 70 hunter gear, level 70 mage gear, LFG tool, LFM Tool, pick up group, pugging, pugging strategy, raiding as a mage, raiding frost mage, raiding hunter, should i leave my guild, warcraft raiding, world of warcraft, wowgrrl