It’s a long time coming, but I’m finally taking the guild to a PVE server.
I only set up on a PVP server because that is what my wife was on when I first met her and started playing. We had a golden opportunity back then on US-Drak’Thul-PVP, because for some reason Blizzard turned US-Drak’Thul to a PVE server, and offered free realm transfers off to keep the PVP status for those players interested.
Foolishly, I didn’t understand any of this at the time, and decided to take the free realm transfer to US-Dalvengyr-PVP. We landed there mainly because a guildie had an alt guild there, and he offered it up as a destination so we could continue raiding together.
Realm-first Shannox kill on Dalvengyr
Well, part-way through Firelands, that server started to die, and it became nearly impossible to find people who weren’t already in a guild, and weren’t already raiding, to help fill out openings in or raid roster, and we had another decision to make: disband, or transfer.
We chose to transfer again, but this time, Blizzard had added the Guild Transfer tool. The officers and I scouted out some high-pop servers with active trade chats and a decent sized auction house, and we narrowed our options down to US-Stormreaver-PVP. This choice lasted from the end of Firelands, up until Horridon in Throne of Thunder, Pandaria.
After 6 weeks of being stuck on the same boss, the guild disband. We had some really good players, and some really novice players, and we couldn’t get the damage we needed or the gear we needed to move past this boss. We came back to it after a few weeks of working on something else and downed it once, but never again.
We finally killed it, 9 weeks later
The guild disband, and I decided I’d see what it was like to join a guild where you had to prove yourself, instead of inheriting a guild and trying to run it, having never actually been in a guild before. The first guild I joined was with a former guildmate and officer (Frostybuds) after the disband: Playground Legends. And they were doing pretty well, except the raid leader was a dick and compared his attempts with us, on what was apparently his Warlock alt, to his far more geared Paladin that he ran with another guild. They eventually got stuck on the midpoint boss in Siege of Orgrimmar. Tensions ran high, so I decided I’d try to pug when we couldn’t get anything going.
The first guild I joined that wasn’t my own.
I ended up going a couple of times with another guild who had another former guildmate and officer (Schnigle) called “Eastbound & Down”…after the ridiculous HBO Series. We progressed further and smoother than was happening in Playground Legends. So after a few pugs with this group I offered to join them and fill in their Mage slot. We managed to get about half way through the heroic modes before getting tired of the Siege content. Seeing what I’d seen all too often before, I offered up the vote (as a raid lead/officer sort of role) that we put raiding on a hiatus, since many were getting tired of the grind, myself included.
The last freelance guild I joined: Eastbound & Down
A few weeks into the hiatus, I went back to join my original guild, and booted everyone from it except my alts, and my wife’s alts. I sent them all an in-game mail and let them know they were welcome back if they came back on in time for this mail to still be in their inbox (they had all been inactive for over 30 days) and used my wife’s account to invite myself back into the guild. I consolidated my characters into one guild (The Spot) and gave another guild I brought over (Planet Express Crew) to one of Frostybuds’ alts.
In Warlords of Draenor, I decided I would not host a guild of people anymore, and now it is entirely composed of the characters of my wife and I. While leveling up in Draenor, I found the first couple days to be the most enjoyable because I rarely had to worry about being ganked. No one had the gear to challenge anyone else, and everyone was trying to level their main so they could get on with raid content.
I sit alone with my NPC friend, Yazigo.
However, as soon as some hit 100, they turned back to the 2nd zone in the world quest chains, and started ganking people trying to level their alts, or even their mains with a late start. This lead to me having 2 level 100s, that leveled simultaneously on different servers and with different factions. Every other horde character I tried to level on my more progressed server, I could only get through the first zone before the ganking started in the second. So I stopped all my alts at 93 after completing the first zone.
Today, I went to run an Apexis Crystal quest, and in Blizzard’s infinite wisdom, they don’t have faction-neutral guards near the flight masters. So as I land, a warrior is waiting to gank anyone who comes in on the flight path. I attempt to defend myself, since he’s already brought me into combat before my spell bar shows up, and I manage to only do 20% damage to him before I die.
So, fuck PVP servers, and fuck people who run world PVP for no reason. In the real world, if you killed someone for no reason, there would be a price to pay. I’m just trying to play this game to relax, and not to fuck around with people trying to get their shit done just because they’re a different race.
My alts are going to have a better time.
Now, I transfer the guild to US-Dalaran-PVE; a medium-pop server (according to the Choose a Server screen) but with a far more plentiful auction house, and a friendly trade chat. I look forward to leveling my alts in complete relaxation knowing that I will never have to worry about getting ganked again.