What happened to you!

When we last left our intrepid adventure, Honorshammer, his guild had broken up and he was headed for new realms to conquer. I really had no conception how much the guild breakup would impact me. The game just wasn't the same without my old crew. That is to take nothing away from the new guild I joined. It was a great group of guys, but something was off.

I was really torn about how I was spending my time online. Though the blog and Blizzard Short Story contests, I had a rekindled a love of writing, and there was a huge tension between time spent writing and time spent playing. My son was also getting to an age where sudden afks (away from keyboard) were real possibilities.

No Pressure

What I needed was a 'no-pressure toon.' A group needs their tanks to be bedrock members.I needed more flexibility to play when I wanted, some weeks a little and some weeks a lot. I don't think you can really do that as a tank.

The most fun I was having at the time were the nights I played my Hunter. He was my 'no-pressure' toon. I decided to switch to playing him full time and put the Paladin into semi-retirement. I enjoyed the Hunter for a while, found a raid group and started working on Throne. I was constantly near the bottom of the meters. I'm not a huge ego guy but I hate to be pulling the rear. I don't feel like I'm contributing. When we wiped all night on the Council of Elders (N) because we couldn't burst down the Spirit Beasts adds, I felt like it was my fault.

New Start

I decided to reroll a new toon on a new server. No raiding, no expectations, no pressure. That worked out well and I got the new toon (Dwarf Shaman) up to 90 and completed the "Eternally in Vale" achievement just before it closed.

I did a couple of LFRs as both DPS and healer and didn't completely embarrass myself. But the guild I was in was a 'leveling' guild. I hadn't managed to make many (any) new friends. It seems like its tougher to make friends in game these days than it was during my leveling time in Burning Crusade. I think it helped back then that I was tank. People wanted to make friends with me.

Greener Pastures

It was about this time that several of my old guildmates had gotten together in a new game call Final Fantasy XIV : A Realm Reborn. They were trying to reform the guild there. I was really excited about the idea of playing with them again. I cancelled my WoW subscription and bought the game. It was fun enough, but with my limited playtime, I was too far behind to do much with them.

Then SWTOR announced their Galactic Starfighter expansion. The decision day was approaching where I would need to subscript to FFXIV. I decided to switch subs over to check it out. While I waited for GS to come out, I leveled a Smuggler and played some Hearthstone Beta.

Galactic Starfighter has been okay, but now that early access is over, its not worth the subscription. My sub is up on January 15th.

There and Back Again

My plan right now is to go back to WoW and start playing my shaman again. I might try to find a family friendly casual guild to do Flex raiding in Warlords of Draenor.

Flex raiding is the best innovation to the raid game I've seen in a long time. If I can't make it one night because I'm working on something or just don't have the time, Flex takes care of it. I'm no longer responsible for holding up 9 or 24 other people because my kid wants a 3rd (of 4th or 5th) bedtime story or I need to work on some writing.

So that's my story. What's been up with you guys??