Carried through Garrosh

Strange Days

Of all of the things that I had planned to do yesterday, the events that unfolded were completely unforeseen.  As it was Veterans day yesterday, I was off and took care of a few things around the house.  Namely considering the extreme dip in temperature I wanted to get the heating and air guys out to do our winter check up.  We have an air conditioning unit from 1980 the year our house was built, and it continues to limp along valiantly.  At one point we had discussed getting a new unit, but the good folks from our heating and air company informed us that we were simply better off to just keep limping along with the one we had.  Apparently they do not make units quite like the one we have any longer.  So as a result we have paid for a yearly maintenance contract that mostly involves a winter and spring checkup.  When things break, and they have in the past we get deep discounted parts and labor while under contract.  The cool thing is that there have been a lot of little things that they simply did not charge us for, so I feel like overall it is a good plan.

While waiting on the heating and air guy to show up, I spent a good deal of time running dungeons and raids in Final Fantasy XIV.  Since Rae was off as well we managed to get her a Sunken Temple of Qarn run and would have gotten Snowcloak but she had still not done the Ramuh fight, so at last check was still catching up to the main storyline.  Since I had been kicking around the notion of playing some World of Warcraft with the launch of Warlords of Draenor, I decided I should probably poke around in game and at the very least do the precursor quest out in the blasted lands.  The quest chain itself was rather enjoyable, as you assist Murad in staving back the tide of Iron Horde that have come through the portal.  I think Murad is going to be the character we get the closest to during the course of this expansion.  Essentially I feel he is going to be this expansions Chen Stormstout as it were, and I am okay with this notion especially after seeing the motivation behind why he acts he way he does.

Carried through Garrosh

While fiddling around in game I bumped into so many people that were shocked to see me online.  I joked that they were just seeing a shadow, and that I wasn’t really playing World of Warcraft.  Mostly I don’t want people to think I am “back” because the last two times I have showed up in game… it didn’t last for terribly long.  I was just there long enough for folks to get accustomed to relying on me for things again, and I really don’t want to disappoint them once more.  Damai has done an awesome job of holding things together in the guild.  In the time since the launch of Warlords of Draenor he has fallen into the role of General, keeping the raid group moving forward and organizing weekly flex raids to help pull up folks that didn’t quite have the gear to do larger things.  He popped into the game while I was roaming about and said “you should really come get your Garrosh weapon tonight.”  I of course protested, saying I was unprepared and undergeared…  but he waved away all of this notions and said that I just needed to show up.

I figured what the hell did I have to lose.  I knew the Siege of Orgrimmar raid at least somewhat form doing the LFR incarnation, and I had no firm plans for that evening.  Last night was to be their final time running Garrosh, and one of the final times available to get the heirloom weapons from it.  So after not having played WoW for at least six months I found myself getting pulled into the final raid of this current expansion.  To make matters even more interesting, apparently we were doing Heroic Siege of Orgrimmar.  In Damai’s words “Heroic is the new Normal” and as we got underway it certainly seemed as such…  that is until I actually attempted to dps anything.  Essentially it was through a combination of skill and gear that they were able to make everything look this easy, and clearly I had neither.  In fact I brought Belghast, one of the last characters I had managed to push up to 90 organically and had not really geared much.  He was sitting at 496 ilevel before walking into the instance, and through the course of the evening that improved to 540.  I quite literally soaked up almost a full set of gear, and now he is in a far better place for the purpose of leveling in the expansion.

Rift Repaired

I’ve talked some about the Rift that existed when I returned to the game last time.  I fought hard to try and mend it, but ultimately failed.  What I did do apparently however was start to break down the walls between the factions within.  It seems that once the two warring captains had moved on to other things…  one of them to a mythic raid, and another to move on to his own guild…  things seem to have repaired themselves.  It seems as though there has been somewhat of a “Pax Stalwartia” as folks have flourished once the drama went  away.  I would like to think it was the forcing of sides to talk that helped this along, but really I think I was more of a hinderance than a help.  I actively tried to keep the pieces of the puzzle together, when I should have surgically cut the damage limb from the guild.  I have a problem with never quite wanting to give up on someone, that I keep seeing the best intentioned version of them buried deep under the bullshit.

Maybe if I had never shown back up, we would have reached a state of peace faster, or maybe the guild would have quite literally cleaved in two…  I will never actually know.  That is the fate that the guild seemed to be heading towards when I returned… two factions, one of which would win the guild, and the other would be exiled.  Instead now we have the bulk of the guild cooperating together, and only a few ended up leaving.  In any case I was extremely proud last night to see everything going so amazingly smoothly.  It was a supremely odd sensation to be carried to victory on the backs of the guild that I founded ten years ago.  I can’t take responsibility for last night, other than that long ago I set the wheels in motion and caused these people to meet each other.  More or less I have been gone since the beginning of Cataclysm, and in that time they have really done amazing things as a team.

Pax Stalwartia

Maybe last night was what I needed to see.  For some time Rylacus had told me that things had improved in the guild, but I didn’t want to believe it.  I have talked many times about never being able to go back.  If I could teleport to  those days in Late Night Raiders, or Duranub Raiding Company…  or even No Such Raid…  I would have.  Last night felt like a mix of all of these rolled together.  Folks were jovial and happy, and not a single person got grumpy when we wiped.  They enjoyed the presence of one another, and enjoyed what they were doing.  There was so much excited talk about what was to come in the expansion, and tentative plans to raid come December 2nd when the raid opens.  It did my soul good to see this happening.  I feel like they deserve me going into this with an open mind, because maybe home does still exist after you leave it.

All of this said, my heart still belongs to Eorzea, and the amazing community that I have found on Cactuar.  I have so many goals that I want to accomplish there, and we have this amazing mass of folks gathered.  I am never going to play just one game, it isn’t in my nature.  So while I am “playing” Rift, and by that I mean logging in every single day to run my minions on missions… I am not really “playing” the game.  Nor am I really playing most of the games I log into periodically.  For the time being I think I am going to be playing Final Fantasy XIV and allowing myself to also play some World of Warcraft at the same time.  I find it comforting that both House Stalwart and Greysky Armada exist… and both are completely different guilds.  I’ve left my mark permanently on both, and I think both are really amazing places to play.  What I find the most comforting however is that in both cases I am not responsible for their destiny.  That in both cases the guilds are taking care of themselves.

Old Friends

Last night was this strange trip down memory lane as I experienced folks in a way that I have not since the beginning of Cataclysm.  So many of my friendships from World or Warcraft were forged in battle, and in a way it took battle once again for me to really remember why we were friends in the first place.  I am thankful to have a group of friends that are still out there, keeping on without me.  That seem to be willing to accept me for whatever I happen to be at the moment, and welcome me back time and time again with open arms.  I am extremely lucky to have lots of pools of these kinds of friends scattered from game to game, that are happy to see me show up, and don’t hold a grudge against me when I ultimately leave.  It is comforting to know that the universe is just fine in the absence of your presence.

I realize that might sound like a strange thing, that I am happy to not be needed.  You have to realize however that all I ever wanted was for House Stalwart to give them a framework upon which to do awesome things.  So much of my time in Vanilla, Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King was spent being a catalyst, and enabling things that didn’t happen when I wasn’t around.  The guild was absolutely a cult of personality, and when the personality went away…  people didn’t interact at all.  So to see this guild that functions entirely without me being around, makes me happier than anyone would really know.  I am thankful to have all these awesome people step up and take over the mantle of leadership.  I have never been happier to be obsolete in my life, and it is my hope that I can continue to be so for a very long time.