Giving the blogging thing a real try

Here we are on a late Sunday night and I have the urge to actually talk about my interests.  There's an egotistical side of me that hopes this will draw some attention and wind up being more than just me talking at the Internet and hoping someone cares.  That last sentence sounds angstier read back than I expected; but in a nutshell I've had a fair share of experience on the raiding scene and I'd like to talk about my observations and learning experiences.

Currently I have four level 80's:
80 Hunter (Naxx geared, SV)
80 DK (Unholy Dps/Blood Tank) Geared for ICC10/Entry ICC10
80 Warrior (Prot/Arms) Geared for ICC10/Uld10
80 Holy Paladin (Holy/Prot) Geared for ToC10/Heroics

Below the cut is a long ramble about most of my history as a player.  I've glossed over more recent months as I will be dedicating full posts to those topics.  More to come in the upcoming days.  Comments are always welcome.

To begin I should probably list my relevant credentials as a Blogger with regards to WoW.  I've been playing just before Pre-BC, I did not raid Molten Core, nor BWL, nor Ony during that time.  I tried the game out and was initially disenchanted with what I saw.  Later, when BC launched I gave it a second go, rolled a Hunter and went to work.  I hit 70, and with the help of a few experienced friends got myself started in the Raiding doing Karazhan, ZA, and occassionally SSC/TK runs that were doomed to failure.

My guild tried to make a legitimate step into semi-serious raiding.  We lacked the talent to consistently clear much beyond Karazhan.  As things began to stagnate and membership started to wane, I was passed the reigns of leadership.  More or less, I was handed the wheel of a sinking ship and told 'Good luck! Make us into something great.'  It failed, miserably I might add, lots of feelings were hurt, friendships broken, etc.   It came to the point where logging on was something I dreaded to do, at this point I decided to transfer away from Blackhand and begin anew on Sisters of Elune.

Around this time I had also begun leveling a Warrior Alt because I saw a tank shortage and thought I could fill it.  My friends and I were big fish in a small pond on this server compared to the average raiding populace.  We got into a raiding guild and started raiding Karazhan regularly.  Also got some solid ZA runs in, while working up my Hunter.  By the end of BC our guild was fairly reputable and we formed the core of many other raiding guilds 25m endeavors.  When Wrath launched history repeated itself. The guild stagnated, no common goals were made and eventually it split apart.  At this point I had switched over fulltime to playing a Death Knight Tank.

At this time I joined what would end up being the top progression guild of the server (as of this writing).  I learned more about WoW in the few months with them than I had probably for the rest of my WoW Career.  Raiding was good, I was doing well, the guild prospered around me.  Unfortunately around the time of ToC, some shifting of the political winds put the RL in a position to act on his personal dislike for me.  Without any prior warning I was pulled aside one night, told I 'didn't cut it anymore.' and was told to either /gquit or I would /gkicked shortly.  My last words were, "I guess the cut comes later than you'd think, catch you all later."

In the coming weeks I discovered that I did still have many friends in the Guild who were not pleased about how it all played out.  I've kept in touch with a few, including the Officer who was decent enough to be straight with me about my removal.  I've since drifted around, raiding more casually but I've run through a decent number of guilds since then.  I've learned a lot about the different walks of life and I'd like to make the focus of this Blog be about my observations and learnings.