Holy Crap! Yay and What if ....

So, somehow I have made it into the last round of Mog Madness.  This has been so much fun, I'm very sad that it's almost over.  I'm working on something but I can't talk about it, of course.  So you'll see when I do!

In other news, I managed to gain quite a few levels this past week.  I got my blood elf warrior to 65 via a combo of leveling and having my husband take me through instances.  I'm too shy to do things on my own and my guildies with toons my level have been on vacation for the past week.  I also managed to get my undead hunter to level 53 and a half (as of this writing).  And lastly, I got my goblin warlock to level 13 so she can get matched up with the husband's new undead priest.

That puts my total levels up to 1955, so I'm almost there!  Only 57 more to go!

And that brings me to what I wanted to write about today.  I'm sure some of you have seen that Amateur Azerothian is quitting the game.  And I want to point out that I truly, truly am 100% behind his reason(s).  Now, before I say anything further, I want to say a couple of things.  What follows is MY story.  It's MY plan for MY life.  This is not me saying ANYTHING about what you should or should not do.

I am the granddaughter of alcoholics.  (Stay with me here, it goes somewhere.)  My mother and father, seeing in themselves the potential to become alcoholics themselves, did not drink AT ALL while I was a young child.  It was only until I was 13 that I ever saw a glass of wine in my father's hand.  It was only after I moved out, that I ever saw my mother with a glass of wine in HER hand.  They had decided, before they had children, that in order to raise my siblings and I the best way they knew how, no alcohol would be allowed in the house and they would only drink a little on their date nights.

My parents (being my parents) seemed to me to be normal.  I know now that what I experienced in my early years was not normal.  My grandparents, well, I thought that everyone had grandparents who started drinking at 8am and passed out after dinner.  As I grew, I found myself having issues similar to my grandparents, except not with alcohol, with other things.

When I met my husband, he ran a BBS.  He taught me to type on the computer, he taught me to 'surf' the BBS's, he gave me my own forum (called the Peanut Gallery since he had nicknamed me Peanut).  I was hooked.  When we moved out, we got DSL.  Which back in the late 1990's was impressive.  A 'fat pipe to the net' is what I believe he called it once.

I met this guy through work (I worked a computer repair shop) who got me and my husband into a MUD called Xyllomer.  (This guy became, and is still, one of my best friends.)  I got into IRC and ICQ.  I would wake up first thing in the morning to see who was online in the MUD/IRC/ICQ.  I was constantly chatting with people.  There are pictures of me at family gatherings scowling because OMG THIS IS MY COMPUTER TIME JUST LET ME LEAVE!!

Then WoW came out.  I started to play and it was very apparent to me that this game is my alcohol.  I can not put it down.  I think about it all the time, I talk about it all the time EVEN TO PEOPLE WHO DON'T PLAY!!!!  I didn't realize how bad it got until my husband started to play.  I realized then that if he and I ever were to have children, WoW would have to go away.  Note, I did not say video gaming, I said WoW.  And honestly probably any other MMO.

I am happy here and at the moment, I am not hurting anyone (other then myself), neglecting anyone (other then my husband), or whatnot.  However, I know myself and I know how people with this disease (for I believe just like alcoholism, gambling addiction, drug addiction and eating disorders, this is a disease) lie to themselves that you can do it just a little.  No one will notice.  (To have full disclaimer, I am in a 12 step program myself.  However, I won't tell you which one.  But it is helping me.)

However, as I said in a comment to Mr. Amateur, the husband and I have always agreed that if I got pregnant, we would stop playing.  All for the above reasons I've mentioned.  I remember being snapped at by my drunken Grandmother, I don't want to be the mother that snaps at you while she's raiding/leveling/farming or the mother whose face you only see when she turns around to scowl at you because ZOMG you are disturbing her raiding.

Now, this being said, I have played in the past and currently play with parents whose first duties have always been to their children.  I know that I have never, in the past 7 years ever thought to myself "Geez, where are those kids and who is taking care of them?"  This is not about that.  We've all seen the bloggers retiring from WoW because they are having children or their children are growing up.  That is not about that either.

At this point in my life, I am looking at a life of no children (seriously, who would want to pass on my genetic code?).  So this is a moot point.  But, I love children (not for lunch/dinner) and I like to day dream sometimes.  "What if ...."  I don't play it alot anymore since the outlook is pretty bleak for that.

Now, if you are a parent who plays WoW or any other MMO, I am NOT calling you neglectful or lazy or stupid or whatever you think I'm saying.  I honestly don't even have an opinion on what the average parent does with their spare time.  I know that being a parent is a really hard job and I want to thank you for taking it on.  Earthmother knows I can't do it right now!  This is just what I would do, as I know myself.

So, thank you for reading.  And have a good night.

Witty Title Here

This is mostly just an update on how things are going in my WoW life.  So, be warned.

On Friday, we had our usual "Farming" guild meeting.  Except that I had farmed up a f-ton of herbs over the past week and filled up our potions and flasks.  Plus, the week before, we'd farmed up a ton of fishies.  So, we farmed exp for the guild by chain running heroics.  So, we got into Vent and chatted while running the HoT dungeons over and over.  My little mage now only has to get rid of all her spirit pieces.  (They were so so so much better than what I had, I took them!)

Then, I spent Saturday at a real life event that kept me out of the house until around 5pm Pacific Time.  Our raid is at 6pm, so I logged on and got ready for raid.  We ended up taking two hours of shots at Heroic Morchok.  We were 3 healing me with me on one side with our pally tank (aka husband), our shadow priest, our rogue and our warlock.  It was difficult but I really feel like we can do this.  I think we got some bad RNG sometimes but overall, I think if we just get things under control, we'll be okay.

After 2 hours, we flipped it back to normal (as we did want to do a full clear) and proceeded to one shot all the bosses.  I want to say that the only deaths we had were on Ultraxion.  Pretty proud of us there.  We finished up DS early (even when with 2 hours of wipes we had) and grabbed a couple people and headed to ICC 10 man.  (I got to take my mage!)  And went through there on Heroic, getting a couple of the acheesements too.  We started with the Frost Wing and then ended with the Frost Wing, since 2 or 3 of us were falling asleep.

Then it was Sunday.  Husband and I woke up, got some breakfast and logged on, only to get asked if we wanted to go do Northrend Heroic dungeons for guild achievements.  So, we headed to ToC and worked our way around.  We managed to do almost all the achievements (except for the achievements were it's "Do X or do Y but not both").  And I got my red proto drake.  (I was 3 achievements away.)

I ended up having to go lay down with a headache before raid but when it was raid time, we started out trying to do some of the achievements.  We almost had the Beth one but we killed one of the drones on the bottom on accident.  Then we went and tried to kill Shannox on Heroic, that didn't work so we flipped it back to normal, and moved on to Lord Rhyolith.  We killed him on Heroic and moved onto Bird lady.  We didn't get any achievements or Heroics from her or Baleroc (but other's got 'Share the Pain', I think?)  But then we downed Staghelm on Heroic.  Then it was off to Rag and we downed him in a couple shots.  And, husband and I got our Avengers of Hyjal.  (Which puts me 1 shy of the Exalted title.)

Anyway.  That was my weekend.  I don't feel like I got a lot of WoW time, since I was really busy outside of the game.  But it was so much fun to do all that.  And the best part?  The guild got level 10 yesterday!  Gonna see if I can round up people to do the BC dungeons tonight.  Those level the guild nicely too.

Also, I am doing this for a guildie, and I figure I'll ask you guys too.  I live very close to an AM/PM.  If you want the WoW cups, please let me know and we'll work out a way to get them to you!

The End is Also the Beginning

Six and a half years ago, I installed a video game.  I walked into it with no idea what to expect, with only a single friend (that I knew from a forum) to guide me through it.  That was a beginning.

Tonight, I sit here, looking at my monitor, watching the accumulated horde of crap that I have saved since Vanilla sell on the Auction House.  I flip between my two bank toons and my main, then my main alt.  Each flip gives me more gold and each minute brings me closer to the time I will log off.  I've hunted down my heirloom pieces, I've gathered mats for bags.  I wrote the single in game mail that I will send to the single person who this will probably surprise.  This is an ending.

Tomorrow, I transfer my main from Madoran to Blade's Edge.

I've left a lot of servers over the years.  My first Alliance server, where my friends had pretty much all stopped playing or transfered off.  My first Horde server, where my guild all took the free realm transfer (and thus brought me to Madoran).  My second Alliance server, where the guild drama drove my husband and myself back to Madoran.  But, as you can see, it was to Madoran that we came and to Madoran that we built ourselves a home.

I have history here.  And while it wasn't always good, it was my history.  I learned to play here.  Karegina was raised here (however, she was born on Aggramar) and my husband's first Horde toons were created here.

Over the evening, both my husband and I have started typing things into guild chat.  But neither of us can tell the remaining guild that we're leaving.  The words just won't come.  I don't know what I would say to these people.  "So long and thanks for all the fish"?  And we're not completely leaving, we're only taking our mains out.  However, since those are our babies, we are taking our hearts away.

Tomorrow, I will log on my bank alts, transfer what gold I have left to my druid and then server transfer her away.  And it will be a beginning.

"You're doing it wrong!!"

I want to start off this blog by sharing a story from back during BC.

At the time, I was bouncing back and forth between a tree and a bear.  I'm sure I wasn't a very good bear, nor a very good tree.  I was very newbish and though I tried my hardest, I always felt like I was 'doing it wrong' in some way.

I ended up leaving the guild I'd been in since I started because I wanted to see the raiding side of the game.  The guild I joined to raid with fell apart after I'd been in exactly 1 raid.  So I went to a big name guild as a tree.  At this point in time, I didn't know about any resto druid blogs, I didn't know about Elitist Jerks.  I choose my talents based on what made sense to me.  I healed by the seat of my pants and if no one died, I was content. 

I don't remember a lot of my raiding from that time.  We mostly ran Kara with some forays into Mag's Lair and Gruul's lair.  We never got into SSC or anything higher, but I remember one specific Gruul's Lair run that we did vividly.  I was running around, throwing around rejuv's as much as I could and spot healing with regrowth.  However, it got to the point people were taking so much damage that I was basically spamming regrowth over and over and over. 

It was at this point that I got a whisper from a hunter who had died.  While I don't remember exactly what was said, the basic conversation went like this:

Hunter: "What are you doing? You're spamming regrowth over and over again.  You're a noob.  You're doing it wrong."
Me (after we downed the boss): "I'm doing the best I can to keep people up when they're taking massive damage.  Sometimes I just can't wait for a rejuv and I need something with more oomph."
Hunter: "I'm going to tell the raid leader that you're a fail druid and you'll never be invited to raid again."

It was at this point that the raid disbanded and I logged off in shame.  I was thoughtful, more then a little upset, and confused.  If I was doing it 'wrong', what was the 'right' way to heal that fight? 

Shortly afterwards, I brought up the hunter's accusations with my best friends and my husband.  Was I doing it wrong?  Should I delete my toon and never heal on her again?  My husband told me to play the game the way that I wanted to and not to worry about what other people thought.  My best friend (who plays a resto shaman) told me I was a wonderful healer and that she wished I was her healing partner. 

I ended up leaving the big name guild to join a guild that all my real life friends were in.  I became their resto druid and part time bear tank.  I went to Kara, ZA, SSC, Gruul's Lair, and Mag's with them. 

I slowly came to the conclusion that I was doing something right.  People kept wanting me to heal for them.  However, in the back of my head, I still have that hunter telling me I'm doing it wrong. 

During Wrath, when every resto druid blog I read said "We're raid healers", I gritted my teeth and showed my guild that I could do tank healing.  I refused to be regulated to rejuv and wild growth spam.  I would throw nourishes around as needed, and I would demand tank healing assignments. 

So, Internet world, this blog is my chance to show people that no matter what popular opinion is, you can still do things your own way.  And honestly, in my opinion, as long as you are succeeding and having fun, you are NOT doing it wrong.