http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/archfiend/ en Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:01:20 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.tankspot.com/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/archfiend/ http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/archfiend/894-starting-over-s-good-thing.html Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:34:13 GMT It's amazing how much one's life can change over the course of just a few short months.

I gave up a guild that I had been part of for two years at about the same time that I lost my fiance of six years. Happily the two events were completely unrelated, or else I don't think I'd be able to continue playing.

Now I'm not going to sugar-coat this: it sucks. This was the girl with whom I was planning to spend the rest of my life, and we'd been actively making plans almost up to the end. Only somewhat less disappointing, I'd made a number of good friends in my old guild and was cultivating a fairly talented raid team. On both fronts, I see little things that remind me of them... random pictures or screenshots, talk about the old days. Moving on is hard.

But I also think I'm in a better place than I was six months ago. Hauling oneself out of a rut is a difficult and potentially painful process, but you can't really see the progress you've made until you can see look back at where you started. It would have been a disaster for me to stay in the relationship that I was in. In WoW, I was getting frustrated with our lack of progression, and that frustration wasn't helping anyone.

Do we ever really start over? To some degree, it's impossible - you carry your experiences with you, but I think it's entirely possible to separate yourself from those experiences, sort the good from the bad, and decide what to take with you when you try it all again. In life, I won't make the same mistakes I made with my ex... I'm looking forward to making an entirely new set of mistakes with the next one ;) In my new guild, I'm still the main tank and raid leader, and I'd like to think that I've learned a lot about fulfilling both roles.

So am I advocating dropping what you're doing so that you can start over yourself? Not at all - I think that you can get perspective on your playing and on life in general without 'quitting.' Its the perspective that's important, not how you come to it. In that respect, I do advocate starting over every single time you start playing, even every single time you wipe on a boss. You can learn from your past failures, or you can dwell on them - I don't think I need to tell you which way you'll be more likely to succeed in the future. ]]> Archfiend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/archfiend/894-starting-over-s-good-thing.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/archfiend/113-meet-cyndril.html Fri, 11 Jan 2008 02:16:48 GMT Hey all - as my first blog entry, I feel it's appropriate to introduce myself.

I'm best known as Cyndril of Elune, officer and main tank of the Emerald Dragons. I rolled Cyndril as a fury warrior in the spring of '06 (has it been that long already??) and respec'd to prot toward the end of the year when it became apparent that ED was in serious need of tanks. My WoW career started with the closed beta, however, and my first character was a warrior on Silver Hand. I've been arms, fury, prot, and several combinations thereof. I've tried other character classes, but nothing gives me as much of a thrill as charging head-first into an opponent and smashing them in the face with my sword/shield/etc.

The server change came when a good friend persuaded me to join his guild on Elune. Despite my initial hesitation to switch realms, I found a home in Emerald Dragons, and I've enjoyed the time I've spent here... for the most part.

ED isn't what you might call a progression-based guild. We started raiding Karazhan in June of '07 and only managed to down Prince this past weekend. It's not a matter of us lacking skill or gear - some of my guild mates are extraordinarily geared and/or skilled for their level of progression. More to point, I've raided with other guilds on occasion that deal far less dps, but manage to see more success than ED. To put it simply, there's a strong faction within ED that resists becoming organized enough to accomplish more difficult content. The reason is that they want to avoid the stigma of becoming a "raiding" guild. ED is very family oriented and casual - elements that I want in a guild, and which I don't think need to be sacrificed in order to be successful in a raid... but there are those who don't share my opinion.

Why not leave in search of another guild? Friendship. Loyalty. Familiarity. The enduring hope that one day I might be able to lead the guildmates that I've formed relationships with over the last couple of years into Gruul's and beyond... (hopefully before WotLK.)

While I'm waiting for that to become a possibility, what do I do with myself? I've discovered that I smash faces fairly well in pvp, so that can hold my attention when nothing else is happening. I need another 1k gold for my swift flying mount - won't be long now! New recruits are always looking for runs (of course, that's another post waiting to happen). There's the never-ending struggle to keep fellow officers' tempers from flaring while trying to push for more organization... I know I'm forgetting something.

Oh, real life.

Now I remember why the problems in WoW don't seem so bad. ]]> Archfiend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/archfiend/113-meet-cyndril.html