WoW Journal - 19-April-2006

I only played about 1 hour of WoW yesterday, but for that small amount of time it was rather intensive. First I logged on my paladin and finished his quest for the Verigan's Fist, still at level 24. The last part I needed for the quest was in Blackfathom Deeps, but unlike the wood and the hammer that came from inside of the instances of Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep, the Kor gem drops in the outer part of BFD. As the mobs there are level 20 to 21 elite, and can be pulled one by one, I was able to solo that part. All in all a very nice quest, good xp, makes you see lots of places, and the mace does awesome damage for a level 24. Now I just need to find a decent 1-handed weapon, for when I am tanking with my shield. I smithed myself a Mighty Iron Hammer, useable from level 25, but of course I would prefer a blue 1-hand weapon.

After that I switched to Runetotem and looked how my guild there was doing, digesting our plans to split the guild in a casual and a raiding half. The mood seems to be good, and I think the split can help to eliminate the tensions we had in the past between the raiders and the casual players. Raiding is a serious business, and not everybody wants to have serious business as a hobby. As most of our current officers are raid leaders and will move to the raiding half, I volunteered for an officer position in the casual half of the guild. Last night I got promoted to "lieutenant". That is the first time I accept an officers position since having had far too much stress a guild master in Dark Age of Camelot. But I felt responsible for the casual half of the guild, which was in danger of being neglected.

I hope this will work out. Much of the frustration in a game comes from unfulfilled ambitions, of goals that aren't reached as fast as one would have thought. So I'd rather be an officer in the "less ambitious" half of a guild. I gave raiding a honest trial, and found that it wasn't for me. If I would believe that WoW would stay as it is for a long time to come, I'd probably be heading for the exit. But I still have high hopes that in about half a year the expansion set will give the casual players a lot more things to do, liberating them from the current "stuck at 60" syndrome. And who knows, maybe Blizzard will allow us to kick Ragnaros' behind with a raid of 40 level 70 players, which would be fun and a lot less stressful.