So long and thanks for all the fish

As I mentioned in my last post I've been thinking about a realm transfer and it's now official. I'm planning on migrating my Priest to Magtheridon. This decision was not one that was made lightly, over the last two years I've developed a strong attachment to my current server Bladefist. I made a lot of good friends here but unfortunately they have now mostly all gone, migrating away to different servers over the last 3-4 months. My decision to move to to Magtheridon was quite an easy one to make, not only is it one of the best pve realms in Europe (mostly thanks to Nihilum) but also due to one of best WOW mates Krakemake has just started his own raiding guild there. They had there first raids this week, the first instance they went to was Mount Hyjal, completely skipping SSC and TK! This seems crazy to me as that kind of thing could never be done on Bladefist!

This post is really gonna be about me saying goodbye to Bladefist I've grown very attached to the place and it's actually surprisingly difficult for me to leave, even though now it's an awful realm to play on. I first arrived on Bladefist when my guild British Beef transferred from Agamaggan in early 2006. We merged with two guilds to form United Legions soon after the move and started progressing through ZG and eventually started raiding 40 MC and BWL. By the time TBC was released we had renamed the guild again to Final Formation cleared ZG, AQ20, MC and were 7/8 BWL. Many of the core members of the guild leveled to 70 when the expansion hit faster than others causing problems with early TBC progression, after struggling to get Karazhan on farm the guild disbanded a few months after the release of TBC. After spending a few months in other guilds I went back to leading British Beef and we got Karazhan on farm but struggled with 25 man progression despite having several guilds join with us. We merged with a guild around Christmas 2007 to from Mental Warfare. In this guild we saw fast progression through 25 man tier 5 instances getting 6/6 in SSC and 3/4 in TK in about after about 4 months of raiding. The guild however was victim of several corrupt officers who stole everything in the guild bank and migrated away, this combined with my 2 month break from WOW to focus on University resulted in the death of the guild.

The rest of my WOW history on Bladefist (the last month) has been told in previous posts on this blog which brings me back full circle. I'm now back in British Beef and preparing to transfer selling as much as possible before the jump. I'll certainly miss this place but I'm hoping that I'll come to enjoy playing on Magtheridon as much as I enjoyed playing on Bladefist. I want to take some time to say thanks to all the people that made my time on Bladefist such fun and share some screenshots from my time here.

In no particular order:

Mattmpg, Pearshaped, Mortiis, Rembo, Deadrood, Demonfly, Czakky/Ticktick, Garaina, Toots/Toofly, Grimpy, Nilmos, Krakemake, Sunstorm, Althulurs, Oomootwo, Eb, Skaythn, Undeadmage/Starcraft, Boogyman, Darkstorn, Flos, Brumdar, Heidegger, Psyaxe, Miquel, Elderpowah, Gael, Amagaad, Azu, Banamano, Blagdor/Hubie, Cryss, Didz, Hexor, Padington, Schism, Smoken, Marn, Icyone, Ironlung, Sharpeye, Thetroll, Narshe, Smeg, Skemtar, Rozal, Mooncalf, Arem, Aten, Dion, Thugcoolio, Rimos, Mogard, Morogh, Nekronis, Nadir, Spiritto, Bloodash, Galvatron, Corann, Yourepwned, Bloodyfist, Zeloth, Ukar, Vandrake, Sizer, Orit, Jerpa, Walish, Shadowknife, Solfk, Tseng, Hanzi, Darel, Darknessorc, Vitriol, Pog, Doggydogg, Comunero, Urthaz, Fashia, Purepwnage, Loobooja, Exu and my apologies to anyone I missed!

Thanks to all the members who were ever in any of my guilds British Beef, United Beef, United Legions, Final Formation and Mental Warfare.

Thanks to Bad News for leading those Naxx raids because of you I can say I've cleared 13/15 in old school Naxx and Cleared AQ40, good luck to you guys. Also thanks to everyone in Khaos Dragons, Megiddo for the raids this past month.

ZG Cleared 16/8/06

Onyxia Down 30/9/06

AQ20 Cleared 1/10/06

MC Cleared (20/10/06)

Good luck to everyone that I'm leaving behind and to all those that have moved to different servers, it's been emotional, so long and thanks for all the fish!

Mattous (level 375 fishing, among other things)

Whats been keeping me busy

Well my first two weeks of being back on WOW have been fairly eventful! I haven't had much time to blog however as I've also started a new job as a web developer for a company in Stockton called TeesWeb!

So here's a bit of an update of my recent goings on in WOW:

Loot:
My Badge Loot Comparison post came in handy as I've managed to save up 100 badges and brought my Adorned Supernal Legwraps. When fully buffed this pushes my healing to over 2000 which is a pretty big margin! The best bit of loot I got though was my new Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat from the fishing daily quest! I really do love this thing! The next day I got an Eye of the Sea which sold for a very respectable 350g!

Guild:
The guild I applied for a few weeks ago Khaos Dragons was a bit of a disappointment. During my 2 weeks of belonging to the guild I only got to see one 25 man progression raid which really wasn't what I was expecting. So I've left and joined the guild Megiddo who are at about the same level of progression (if not a bit further) and raiding 4 nights a week without any attendance troubles.

Downings:
There was a new first for me this week dowing Rage Winterchill for my first time! The fight was fairly easy once we managed to get the waves of trash under control. Manged to reach friendly with The Scale of the Sands not a lot of use to me until I get my, now optional, attunement quest done though. The one progression raid I was in with Khaos Dragons was actually very successful getting two first kills for the guild in one night on. We killed The Lurker Below and Morogrim Tidewalker without too many problems. Shame after that there were no more 25 man progression raids, and still haven't been any.

Exploration:
I decided to get back into a bit of Azeroth exploration this week as dailies were getting boring. I managed to beat the fatigue debuff for long enough to reach the edge of the world and stay there for a bit until I went out of mana (OOM). Also took a look at whats behind the mountain range south of Tanaris, Ungoro and Silithus. Checked out Ironforge airport and the farm that sits in the mountains in southern Wetlands. I'm thinking up some posts for my WOW exploration discoveries even if there not really breaking news exploring is still one of my most favorite things to do in WOW.

Reputation:
I finally made it to exalted with Thrallmar and Lower City after doing a string of heroics! Not much useful loot there for me but it's another few exalted's to add to my collection! My Shattered Sun Offensive reputation is about half way through revered at the moment but has slowed down a bit these past few days due to daily boredom and exploring fun!

Others:
I finally reached 375 fishing, what can I say the new daily quests really gave me more of a reason to get into fishing again and it's a new way to relax after a hard nights wiping. I also got my first PvE title Mattous, Champion of the Naaru and completed my Black Temple attunement (not that it's needed anymore) getting my Medallion of Karabor.

On another note a lot of my long term friends on my current server Bladefist have been moving to different servers due to a lack of hardcore raiding opportunities. When I say a lot I really mean it, practically all of them have left now and they were pretty much the only reason for me sticking with this realm. I'm strongly considering moving server, but there will be a full post about that sometime soon!

So that's all I've been up to (quite a lot really in two weeks) and a bit of a taste of things to come!

Screenshots in order of appearance:
Me in my new fishing hat, Rage Winterchill down, The edge of the World, The farm in the Wetlands Mountains, In the mountains south of Silithus.