The One Where I Took The Plunge

Yesterday I wrote an unplanned post about how I just don’t seem to be too focused when I’m logged into WoW. It was prompted by hearing patch 5.2 will be dropping very soon and I just jotted it all down in about 5 minutes based off the emotions the patch news triggered with me. The post got a bit more attention than my posts normally do and I just wanted to take a quick moment to assure everyone, I do enjoy this game and I do have a hell of a lot of fun even when I’m not accomplishing anything. It wasn’t intended to be a complaint, just sort of a “lol, seriously where does the time go” realization. The problem is not that I don’t have fun or that I feel I must be somehow progressing to validate even bothering to play. The problem is I want to do all of the things. I have always been this way in all areas of my life. If you put any faith into astrology, you could chalk it up to the fact that I’m a Virgo.

I am 100% just like that (minus the whole working out thing… while I do have a storehouse of information about diet and health I haven’t quite gotten myself to use it on me). I am a perfectionist. I am a worrywart. I LIVE to serve. That doesn’t mean in the menial sense of fetching you drinks while you lounge on the couch (though I absolutely do tend to wait on people hand and foot to the point of annoying them) but more in a “whatever you may need, I will do my best to provide you with it” kind of way. I believe I can solve everyone’s problem by applying my logic to it and I want to solve problems for people. Except math problems. Get the fuck away from me with your math. Ugh.

The servitude thing is why I spend a lot of time picking shiny flowers to send to friends for flasks, or put in the guild bank for raid flasks even though I’m not on the raiding team. The perfectionist thing is why I jump from one activity to another one every 15 minutes, because I want to be good at pet battles, transmogs, gold-making, dps’ing, etc. all at once. When I am struggling a bit being good at something, like dps’ing, it really hurts my feelings and I tend to begin to worry about it. Yep, I’m a worrywart. Ask Alas, she can tell you. This worrying will build up and frustrate me and if I don’t feel like I’m resolving the issue then I will simply start to avoid it. Which is why I am so hesitant to actually run heroics and had avoided LFR while desperately wanting to jump in there all at the same time.

Luckily I have people in my life who know me well enough to understand I don’t act this way to be a pain in their ass, but because it’s who I am and no matter how badly I want to, I can’t control it. Which is exactly why after Kimber read yesterday’s post she was the first to leave a comment and tell me she was dragging my ass through LFR. And she totally did. We did Mogu’shan Vaults 1 & 2 and Heart of Fear 1 & 2. I would have loved to do Terrace of Endless Spring as well, but unfortunately I ran out of time and had to get ready for work. It was awesome. Kim hopped into Skype with me so she could give me some helpful hints or answer my questions without either of us bothering with push to talk. In our first group, the raid wiped once on Gara’jal the Spiritbinder but that was my only death the entire night. We one shot everyone else. It was bloody brilliant. I am assuming from all the bad things I hear about LFR groups that we just happened to get very lucky with some good runs. I’m glad we did, because my confidence needed it. I didn’t top the meters by any stretch of the imagination but I also didn’t come in at the bottom. Most importantly, not once did anyone call me a douchebag, or yell at me to do something different, or anything of the sort. I had sort of expected to witness general trolling and asshattery from everyone towards everyone, but really all 4 groups were very quiet and did their shit right. We did have 1 guy get kicked for needing on a blue trinket, but I didn’t vote to kick him so it was out of my control.

All in all it was a brilliant night. I had a lot more fun than I expected, the fights weren’t as hard as I expected, and douchebaggery wasn’t as evident as I expected. Plus I got to spend a few hours making as much fun of Kim as I could. I even got a few good drops and my ilvl is now at 180 so I am actually able to get into the new, upcoming LFR as soon as it’s enabled. BONUS! The drops I got last night were Spaulders of the Divided Mind, Fragment of Fear Made Flesh, and Light of the Cosmos.

All in all yesterday was excellent. Big thanks to my friend, Kim for helping me realize I actually can do LFR and big thanks to everyone who read yesterday’s post and left comments for me and retweeted it. You guys all rock!

The Dungeon Finder Tool At It’s Most Useful

Since the Dungeon Finder Tool was introduced in patch 3.3 it has been surrounded by mixed emotions. From excitement during the pre-launch as we daydreamed about all the emblems and gear we could easily farm, to anger and disgust at the atrocity that is the pug, to the hilariousness and atrocity that is the pug. And I have ridden that roller coaster of emotion the whole way, though it does seem to have more downhills than loopty-loops. But surely we can all agree that when it comes to holidays in Azeroth, the dungeon finder tool is just about the best damn thing in the game. I remember desperately trying to complete holiday achievements back in 2008 when I first started playing and just being so upset that there were so many days I wasn’t able to do the holiday boss. Usually it was because I always seemed to be 30 minutes late to the party and everyone in my guild who was currently online had already completed it for that day. So I’d hang around and do some random questing, waiting for new blood to log in. It usually didn’t work out for me. It was so frustrating.

Now I’m so spoiled I log in every day, queue up and have Coren Direbrew dead before I even finish saying hi to my guildies. It’s the most amazing thing ever. Dare I say it? I’m gonna say it – it makes all of those horrible, horrible pugs we’ve endured for 2 years now completely worth it. Or maybe I’m just high from spending 5 minutes a day during Brewfest earning gold, justice points and a Swift Brewfest Ram.

The One With The Circle Of Healing Meme

Let me start by apologizing to Zelmaru for my delay in posting this after she tagged me last week. Zel, your email actually went into my Spam folder. Oops. And then this morning Zinn tagged me too. So of course I’m going to oblige.

Now let me say that I appreciate being tagged, but I must admit I never expected to be filling one of these questionnaires out. I certainly don’t consider myself an expert. I’m not someone who has years of raiding experience. I have never been a permanent member of a raiding team. I’m more of the “once you guys have that on farm, take me through there so I can get achievements” kind of player. And that’s not because I’m lazy or believe I deserve to be carried. It’s because my schedule didn’t comply with the raiding schedule my guild was on and because I tend to doubt myself and my abilities so I didn’t want to go in and mess things up on a progression run. So keep these things in mind as you read the answers below.

1. What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?

Elfindale, Druid, Resto

2. What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

5 mans – though I must be honest and admit I seem to run most of them as a dps laser chicken these days. Partly because of lag and partly because pugging as a healer is brutal.

3. What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?

It used to be wild growth, but since Cata I’ve gotta say it’s swiftmend. And the reason is simply because with swiftmend I can proc efflorescence. I know most aren’t of this opinion, but I love efflorescence. I’ll tell you why… it’s the easiest way for me to watch my own ass. I am one of those healers that never remembers to look at my own health so when I finally notice I’m getting low I just setup swiftmend to proc efflorescence on the tank and then I run up and bear hug him so I can soak up all the healing.

4. What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?

For me it’s healing touch. The high mana cost and the slightly long cast time just make it unappealing to me. I know a lot of people still like to use it because it’s a big heal in a desperate situation, but it’s just never on my radar.

5. What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

Mobility. Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, Swiftmend, and Wildgrowth are all instant cast spells and with 2 of those being AOE spells, I can HoT up everyone while running blindly in hectic, confused circles … like I do.

6. What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?

This may just be something I’m doing wrong, but I’m gonna have to say it seems like we draw a huge amount of healing aggro and we don’t have any way of reducing it other than shadowmeld. And if any poison or fire or whatever hits you, it breaks shadowmeld and you have a 2 minute cooldown. I actually used to have a macro I could key that would yell something along the lines of “the tree is being attacked – help!” because it seems like no one really ever notices when the healer’s getting beat on. But I had to do away with that macro because I seemed to accidentally hit it a lot (me smash buttons to heal all the things) and not only was it distracting the dps, it was causing everyone to think of me as the druid who cried wolf.

7. In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?

I’ve only done one or two 25’s and they’ve been fun runs where we weren’t in too much danger. Each time I was assigned to raid heals but I actually prefer tank healing. And that’s mainly because I get so tunnel-visioned while healing that if I’m assigned to watching 5 or 6 of the general masses, I can’t keep up with where they’ve moved to. I can easily track their health by watching Vuh Do where I’ve grouped them all together. But that doesn’t help me know where they are on screen. Following the tank and only watching him is much easier.

8. What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

Well I’m obviously going to say resto druid here since I haven’t really experienced any others. But I honestly feel like my answer will never change. I just love the versatility and the shape shift of the druid. And not too long ago I would have said one of the main reasons is that I love being a tree while healing. I’m sad that I can no longer spend the entire time in tree form, but such is life.

9. What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

I’ve never healed with any other class (other than healing myself while questing on a low level Paladin I created this year). Elfi is my one and only high level character.

10. What is your worst habit as a healer?

Overhealing. I just roll lifebloom and wildgrowth and rejuv constantly. I can’t stop myself from clicking.

11. What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

Keep in mind I mostly do 5 mans so I am the only one doing the tank healing and the group healing, which is totally doable… unless the tank charges a pack of mobs and runs full speed to the other side of the area while the ranged dps never move from their original pre-attack spot. In other words, I hate it when I have people out of range of my heals. Obviously the tank is the priority; but that ranged dps is gonna yell at me if he dies even though he could have saved himself by moving towards me a bit.

12. Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?

I think so, but as I admitted earlier I’m not a huge expert on this … or anything really. 🙂 But yes, I feel like resto druids are well balanced with other healers I’ve watched. The positives make up for the negatives. In my opinion the mobility increases the value of the spells we have.

13. What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

I don’t actually use any tools for evaluation. I keep track of how many deaths there may have been, how many mana potions I may have sipped on and how many times I had to use innervate and those things give me a general feel for how I’m doing compared to the last time I did the same instance. I know I should crunch numbers and use some colored pencils to make designs across some graph paper… but I just don’t like math. Never have, never will.

14. What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

I honestly don’t know. I guess I would say that people tend to believe because druids are a hybrid class they aren’t really great at any one thing and that is just not true.

15. What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

I’m gonna say it would be how to tweak your talent tree to make it work for you. I think our spells are fairly basic and there aren’t a huge number of them. But knowing how to work the talent tree is extremely important. Are you going to be raid healing and need maximum mana regen? Or are you going to be tank healing and need huge heals? Or are you doing mostly 5 mans and need to balance both of those things?

16. If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?

Definitely overhealing. On both the tank and the rest of the group. I am pretty good at staying caught up on removing poisons, so you’ll see that also.
Now I don’t use recount (yep, numbers are gross) so I don’t really know what type of stats can be seen there but I will say if someone was evaluating my healing they would notice there are 3 things I do not use often enough – barkskin, innervate and tree form. And fyi, although it has nothing to do with stats, I completely suck at using a soulstone also.

17. Haste or Crit and why?

Haste. Having a couple of instant cast spells that can tick away for several seconds each, I don’t need something with a big crit in order to save someone. I just need to toss a regrowth or nourish as quickly as possible just to get someone out of the red and then I can start spamming the instant casts.

18. What healing class do you feel you understand least?

Priest. Obviously since I’ve never healed with another class I don’t understand much about any of them, but I’d definitely say Priest is the one that’s the most vague for me.

19. What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?

I use Vuh Do for most of my spells. I also have a 5 button mouse to give me some additional flexibility. But I am one of those idiots who moves with my mouse and not the keyboard, so I actually have my left hand on the keyboard in a specific pattern and in between clicking and running with my mouse, I use the keyboard to cast also.

20. Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

I would say my stats are basically balanced. What I would not say is that I strive for balance. It’s more like I just don’t really spend enough time crunching numbers and studying stats to change it up. Remember – math is the suck. Instead I use Google Reader to follow some of the major Resto Druid bloggers out there and when 2 or 3 of them agree on a talent tree or specific gear or reforging, etc., I just copy them.

And in closing, I will not be tagging anyone else to complete this mainly because I don’t know of anyone who hasn’t already been tagged. True story.

Screenshot Saturday

That’s right, my healing is LEET.

The One Where Elfi Raps

I apologize in advance for what you are about to hear.

Dear Mr. Bipolar Dude

Dear Mr. Bipolar Dude,

My guild is fairly small and with all of us living in different time zones and working different hours, it can be difficult to gather up an “all guild” heroic run. But you are a friend of one of my fellow officers so when I logged in and got an immediate invite from you and 3 of my guildies who were partied up and ready to queue for a heroic, I was very excited.

My main spec is Resto but because of the difficulty of heroics combined with the asshattery of most players in a pug, I generally queue as dps. But of course I agreed to heal for you guys, it’s basically an all-guild run. You aren’t in the guild, but we hear about you all the time from the mutual friend we have; we have even ran a few of the classic raids with you lately. So while I haven’t actually spoken to you much, I feel like I can trust you to not be an asshat.

Clearly I didn’t read you right. Or did I? The heroic was not fun, thanks mainly to you. But while you were completely pissing me off with your behavior and the way you were talking in party chat, you were also whispering me and being nice and funny and offering me advice. What. The. Hell. Dude? I’m going to guess it’s because I’m female that you were trying to charm me privately; or maybe because our mutual friend told you to be nice to me. It was bizarre and I still honestly don’t know if I like you or not.

Of course, whether I like you or not has nothing to do with the fact that I will not allow you to be in a group with me again and speak to my guildies the way you did. The tank that night was one of Azzah’s alts and Azzah is one of the most knowledgeable players you will find in-game. He plays both factions, he’s an altoholic, he loves to theorycraft, the guy is a damn genius. As the tank, he was more than capable of guiding us through the instance and making any pertinent decisions. But he’s also a nice guy and when it became instantly obvious that you were going to be in charge of things, he kept his mouth shut and just tanked his ass off. He did not need you to tell him when to pull and where to pull, etc. but he let you do so.

The hunter we had with us is new to level 85, new to heroics and likes our guild because we support him and help him learn without feeling like a failure. Like all toons in WoW, his character has a name. We all call him by his name when we speak to him. It’s the way decent human beings talk to other human beings. When you started out saying things like “hunter, trap blue” and “hunter, stand here”, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you were just typing in shorthand to be more efficient. But you never stopped calling him hunter, you never once used his name, and when I started seeing things like “HUNTER DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW TO USE YOUR TRAPS?” and “HUNTER!!! Why don’t you have a better pet?” I became more than a little pissed off. The usually quiet Elfi who hates to stir the pot or cause any bad feelings in any way found herself typing “Pel has a name and we would all appreciate it if you would call him by his name” into party chat. I was shocked I did it, but it was important to me to call you out on this. You actually ignored my statement, didn’t respond to it in any way. However, a few minutes later you initiated a vote to kick Pel from our group and the reason you entered was “jerk”. The vote didn’t pass…. did you forget that everyone but you was from the same guild? Poor little Pel was doing nothing more than trying to learn the fights and having you yell at him repeatedly. How exactly does that make him the jerk? We were only a little over halfway through the instance when Pel told us he needed to log off. I haven’t had the chance to talk to him since, but I have a sneaking feeling he left because he couldn’t take anymore of your abuse.

As for me, one of the first things I said as we zoned in was “I’ve only dps’d this heroic once and I’ve never healed it. You will have to tell me if there’s any special mechanics on boss fights”. I thought I was talking to the tank, my buddy, because I hadn’t yet realized you were gonna take over. Either way, it’s a pretty simple statement to understand. No, I do not spend time studying boss fights for heroics. You can judge me for that if you want to, but I have too much other stuff going on in my life. I do read up on gear and enchants and class changes, etc. and I read a whole list of WoW blogs and WoW Insider on a daily basis, so I’m not a complete moron who needs my hand held through everything. Maybe if I were pugging every day I would consider studying boss fights but when I’m with guildmates it’s just a quick “this guy casts flaming cocktails, you will need to jump over them and then run back to the bar” and off we go. (Mmmm… flaming cocktails. Now I want a drink. I’m pretty sure if someone was throwing flaming cocktails at me, I would not avoid them.) But you just ran up to each boss and yelled “PULL NOW” at the tank and didn’t bother to find out if the rest of us knew the fight or not.

We got pretty lucky through the first few that there wasn’t anything too difficult about the encounters; but eventually we got to a few bosses where a bit of instruction was necessary. After the first wipe you said “YOU HAVE TO JUMP WHEN HE CASTS FLAMING COCKTAILS” and so we all jumped at the right time… and then wiped again after jumping. You got mad and said “AFTER YOU JUMP YOU HAVE TO RUN BACK TO THE BAR”, so we all jumped and ran to the bar, jumped and ran to the bar, jumped and ran to the bar and killed the boss. Thanks for wasting our time asshole. You could have said both sentences before the fight or at least both of them after the first wipe. Also, you need to see about fixing your caps lock button before I rip mine off of my keyboard, track you down irl and shove it up your nose.

Two hours later and we finally get it done. I’ve never been so eager to disband a group in my life. I can’t even explain to you how absolutely enraged you made me. Being disrespectful of people, going batshit insane on everyone for every tiny little mistake. You even yelled at me to “heal faster and get that poison off of everyone”… have I mentioned yet that you are a Boomkin and can abolish poison with the exact same effing spell I use? And all the while you had been whispering me and being friendly. I’ve never experienced anything like it. You even continued whispering me after the game and we had a nice little chat. Part of my brain was chuckling at the jokes you were whispering while the other part of my brain was picturing me stabbing you in the eye. Worst part is, since we are both really good friends with a mutual person I am quite sure I will be seeing you around more and more. I sure wish I knew whether I liked you or not.

Wanna See More Of Vegas?

Trust me when I say I’m as tired as you are of hearing me talk about my vacation. But sadly, I am still using it as an excuse for being way behind. I have now gotten the wedding photos I mentioned in my last post edited and printed and I have 90% of my vacation pictures edited. I have all my laundry done and nothing left to do to the house other than mopping the kitchen floor and pretending to dust the furniture. So I am almost back to normal.

My playtime, however, is not back up to speed at all. I did log in to Elfi the other day and ran a painful random through Grim Batol so that I could get the last of the points I needed for a belt upgrade. It was worth it once it was all over with and I had a shiny new belt around my waist; but I wasn’t so sure it was worth it while I was following a Worgen warrior tank on speed through the instance and wasting mana potions because he never stopped to allow me to drink. I know what you’re thinking and yes, I did tell him in party chat that he needed to give me more time to drink. He immediately replied that he was not a noob and he was watching my mana for me. Well, thank you so much… and by the way, do you know what the hell mana is? Because if you were watching my mana you would see that it has been non-existant for quite some time now. I know what you’re thinking this time too and yes, on the next super fast pull where not only myself but 2 of the 3 dps were still out of range, I let someone die. Ha, that’ll prove my point. You don’t give me enough time to be prepared before you pull then this dungeon is gonna get a bit harder. Except that backfired when the mage (who immediately started yelling for a battle rez on a trash fight) got pissed off that she was not rezzed to rejoin the fight so she released and then dropped group. Awesome. But like I said, we got through it and I didn’t let anyone else die (since that didn’t prove anything anyway) and now I have better gear. Yay me!

Oh and here’s another good Elfi story. I rarely do the Tol Borad dailies because, well, mostly because it’s easier not to do them. But I wanted to rebuild a bit of gold, I could definitely use the rep AND there are good herbs there. So off I go. I pick up all the quests and wander down the road with the intent of killing 14 villagers. But the first guy almost whips my ass. I have to break moonkin form twice to heal myself. Weird. So I sit down and drink, eat some buff food just for fun, make sure my Mark of the Wild is all fresh and new and then amble over to exact my revenge on the next hapless villager. And then I got my ass almost kicked again. Again I had to heal myself. What in the hell? I guess I haven’t done these quests in so long I forgot how hard these fools hit. So I continue on and I have to keep healing myself through every fight when finally, forever later, I got 14 of the buggers down and the quest was complete. That is when I noticed I was wearing my fishing shoes and my chef hat. /facepalm. Yep, still noobing it up just like always.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got for now about WoW… wait, I wanted to say that I’m hella-excited about the upcoming Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms.

Now I leave you with some more pictures from my vacation because some of you have requested to see more.

Cadillac Ranch, old Route 66 – Amarillo, Texas

A picture of my shoe as I stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon

The hotel I stayed in on Fremont Street, Las Vegas

Walking down Fremont Street at night, Las Vegas

New York, New York Casino on the Las Vegas strip

Lady Gaga

The One Where… Ah Screw It

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this, but the title of this blog is Elfi’s World yet there rarely seems to be any posts about game play information specific to Elfi. You may have also noticed that the ‘About’ section has said “coming soon” since the very first day. Neither one of these two things are like this intentionally; but this weekend I believe I realized they may be subconsciously related to each other. I don’t have anything to write about me because I’m just not sure where I’m at or where I want to be. On Saturday I finally began to realize just how not happy I am. That doesn’t necessarily mean I am unhappy or miserable… I just am not as happy as I was hoping to be at this point in the expansion. I had been excited about having a weekend where I had the time to stay at home and play as much as I wanted both Saturday and Sunday. The problem was, when I got up and logged in Saturday morning, I was all alone. No one in guild chat. Just like it had been Friday morning when I logged in. Just like it is a lot. And yes, since I work the midnight to 08:00am shift, my hours don’t quit match up as conveniently with others as they used to. But this isn’t about my hours. It’s about a broken guild.

I’ve mentioned before how I was excited and ready for Cataclysm and had high hopes for myself and my improvements in game play. But shortly after the expansion launched, my guild was consumed by drama. I remained cool and fairly optimistic. After all, it’s only a game, right? Unfortunately, less than a week later, it hit too close to home for me to remain cool and optimistic. For the first time ever, I was upset, stressed out, and depressed about the World of Warcraft. Now for the record, I remain friends with the GM I mentioned in that last post and shortly after this particular post was published we talked about it. She was upset that I was upset and she felt a bit misrepresented. Which I freely admitted was probably true. I also admitted I had written that post just an hour or two after everything went down and I allowed my hurt feelings to rule the pen more than I should have. But I decided not to alter the post in any way because that’s a reflection of a moment in time for me. That’s exactly how I felt and it sucked.

Fast forward a couple of months and you’ll find me still upset. How ridiculous is that? Not badly upset, just a touch. I get a tinge of jealousy when I hear about how the people who left me are having such a good time. I know I shouldn’t take it personally and I know they aren’t trying to make me feel bad at all. But knowing those things doesn’t make it suck any less. Some people might say I should just break contact and then I won’t know how much fun they are having. But I don’t want to. I enjoy the small conversations I get to have with the people I miss so badly. So I guess I actually am torturing myself. Now I just have to figure out what to do about it. Somewhere lost in the midst of all this is the fact that I really REALLY wanted to concentrate on raiding more than I ever have. Guild runs were basically out the window, so I pugged my way through enough randoms to get geared up for heroics. I survived my first pugged heroic with only a slight problem with an asshole dpser after we made it through the final boss. The next pugged heroic didn’t go as well. We lost 2 tanks and 1 dps and then wiped repeatedly before we finally all agreed we didn’t even want to do it anymore. I did get a few good heroics in with a former guild officer and her husband who keeps in touch with me and invited me along for a few runs. But then heroics just sort of came to a standstill for me. I’m too nervous as a resto druid to pug them, so I’ve essentially just quit. It’s not like I’m going to have a chance to do any raiding anyway. Now Elfi just farms herbs and does some dailies.

I know what you’re thinking, why am I spending $15 a month to be not happy? Well like I said at the beginning, it sort of just now donned on me this weekend how I was feeling. And like I also said, I’m not necessarily unhappy. When there are a few people logged into the guild we have some good chats… while I’m standing in SW not doing anything and not running any 5mans. You have to understand, none of this has anything to do with any of my guildmates. They have done nothing wrong, we’ve been scraping ourselves up off the ground and we’re actually standing quite tall. It’s just that there’s not very many of us. I’m afraid there may not be enough of us for me to get what I want from the game.

So why don’t I join another guild? Maybe the guild where I know some people and keep hearing about how awesome it is? Well, because I have a lot of thinking to do. There’s one little hitch there that is like a splinter in my mind and I have to decide if it’s going to remain a splinter or not. Also, I’m one of the most fiercely loyal people you will ever meet. I always have been. No matter where I work or what type of group I’m in, I am proud of it til the very end. So I really have to weigh things out. Problem in this situation is I am fiercely loyal to my guild… but it was partially based on my fierce loyalty to my GM and even though she’s now gone, if I’m being truthful, I still feel some loyalty towards her.

At this point I should probably say that I know there is at least one of my guildmates who reads this blog. Kimber, I love you babe. I want to assure you I have not made a decision to leave the guild. Nor have I made a decision to roll a new toon in another guild on our server. I am thinking about possibly doing one of those two things. But if it happens you guys will get advanced notice, I will not discuss it here until I’ve discussed it with the guild, and I will provide lengthy explanations. Right now there’s nothing for you guys to worry about. I’ve just got a lot on my mind.

So that’s the current state of Elfi’s World. The shit ain’t pretty right now. I was so emo about it this weekend (also blaming hormones) that because I had planned to play the whole weekend and then realized I kind of didn’t want to talk to anyone, I actually rolled a Goblin Hunter on a different server and just enjoyed having fun and not watching guild chat or looking for old friends in SW. It was relaxing. The Goblin starting area is the most fun I’ve ever had while leveling a baby toon. But I’m a social person and that’s not gonna cut it as a permanent solution. Although I did talk Kimber into rolling a Goblin over there with me and the two of us had our own little personal leveling party all weekend and had a total blast. I thought briefly about how it might be nice to just never go back to my home server and instead stay here in this new place and make new friends and start over. But I could NEVER do that. Azuremyst is my home. And I am way too addicted to Elfindale and my other toons (even though I suck at leveling them) to ever abandon them. So for now I guess I’m just taking a small break from the norm. I will continue working on the Goblin until something clicks in my head and I finally sort this mess out.