"Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution."

Well, the application to the guild was accepted and we joined and then a day and half later - quit. It started so promising but disagreeing twice in the space of less than 24 hours meant that something was seriously wrong. What the guild had advertised was not how they were in reality. We decided to move on.

I saw an advert on the forums, and in trade chat for a new guild - and by new I mean it is only level 2. They are purely PvP. They also advertised that they required a minimum of 2k rating in Arenas and Battlegrounds to get an invitation. Nevertheless, I thought cheekily that the fact they are only a level 2 guild and brand new, they'd be perhaps more lenient on their entry requirements than say a fully established level 25 guild.

The only thing that stopped us from immediately jumping at the offer to join was that we were only prepared to join if our real life friend could also join. Now, she is in almost full season 10 gear but has never experienced Rateds or Arenas, but we were assured she could join as a Social member and so, welcomed we were.

Now we joined the guild at about 6.45pm server time, and at 7pm invitations for the evening Rated Battlegrounds were going out. I got invited which meant that dinner had to go by the wayside, but it was worth it to make a good impression.

I got the vent details, and log in. Say 'Hello' and suddenly Vent springs to life..."omg who is that?" "is that a girl?" I've had that sort of reception before, but in every rated battleground I've taken part in, there has been at least one other female, but from what I gather - me and my real life friend are the only females in the guild.
Which leads to comments like this....

"When Nilaa (Woman) is with us we get 'Presence of a Female Buff' which increases hormones by 20%"

"but we get -50% intelligence."

So the team gets over the initial shock of being joined by a girl playing a Death Knight and we join the queue. We did 4 battlegrounds, and lost only one of them...but it was very close.

It was interesting because we used rather different tactics to how I've done RBGs in the past. It could have been that the situation was just different but in the past we've always avoided killing the healers out right and just keeping them CC'd and out of mana with the idea being that with no mana they cant do anything and we can keep them occupied, but if they die they come back with full health and mana and can create issues. However, we did things differently. We kept the healers CC'd and Interrupted whilst we killed off the DPS and then finished off the healers...just before all the opposition were dead a group of us would then go fast to complete the objective. We worked much closer as a team. We had targets called out and we often switched between targets. If for example in Twin Peaks we died we would then resurrect and help defend our flag carrier and then once we had disposed of the group attempting to attack our carrier we would rush to the EFC and get the flag back whilst they were stuck resurrecting at the graveyard.

In Warsong Gulch we would meet the opposition and attack right in the middle to prevent them from reaching our flag, meanwhile we would send a tank and healer to go and ninja their flag. Once we had killed the group we would help escort our flag carrier and then regroup up and send a rogue to identify exactly where the EFC was hiding and then attack as a big group leaving our tank flag carrier, a healer and possibly one DPS. (depending on the situation)

In Battle for Gilneas, we identified a DPS and Healer to stay at Lighthouse, and the rest of the group went to attack Waterworks, we then arranged on a DPS and Healer to remain at Waterworks whilst the rest of the group including one healer would stand in between the two bases and react according to what the situation required. It was a tactic that worked so well for us that the Horde opposition actually ran back to their original starting position and went AFK. We were only about 350 points ahead when they realised that they just couldn't compete...so we headed down to the boat and lined up for a screenshot...

We decided to be graceful in our victory and as the Horde stood on to watch us...we didn't attack, instead we went and danced with them. 

So all in all, had a really good and productive evening with the new guild. We all communicated well on vent, and worked as an intelligent team. I even managed to get my RBG rating up to 1100 in one night earning me the title of 'Private.' However, my real life friend decided this wasn't the guild for her and after we saw discussions on the official forum about the reputation of the guild - we too decided it was time to cut our losses.

Finding a guild is hard work, but i'm sure we will get there eventually!

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In other WoW related news,  decided it is high time I see more of the old raids. I've seen Karazhan, so when my real life friend told me she wanted to tame a pet from the Molten Core, I jumped at the chance to experience the instance. I roped the husband into healing (although he worked more as a DPS) and the three of us set off. We completed it really quickly, as you would expect for a level 60 instance but seeing Ragnaros close up and personal was very very cool.

“Sometimes, the winner is the one who is able to let go and move on. Wise people know when to do so.”

Well, those of you on Twitter have been kept up to date with the goings on in my current guild. I wasn't involved in any of the drama that went on, so I won't be talking about the details. In a nutshell, the guild almost died. The Ex-GM himself wrote that it was dead, and closed down the website.

When we discovered that it happened, it was incredibly sad. I actually feel like for a couple of days I mourned. It was sad that so many people had left, and it was sad that the guild which had worked so hard to get to the top, was taking a massive tumble.

Originally our plans were to stay with the guild. It was taken over by an Officer and I fully expected it to recover after everyone was over the initial shock. However, there were a couple of days that I logged on to see only a few people online and no chat and as is human nature we began to wonder what else was around in the big wide world of Azeroth.

We wondered if we should move to another guild on the server, that way we would still see familiar faces, we wondered if we should even give Alliance a try, we thought about moving to the realm that Sister-in-Law plays on (but she has just got a brand new job so won't be playing much, if at all) We had an offer from a friend on Twitter which seemed like a good possibility until I realised that he is on the American servers. We discussed our options for a few days, but we decided that the major issue, and one of the reasons why the guild was so affected when people left is because Blade's Edge EU - is really really quiet.

So then we decided maybe we should do something really radical, maybe we should move realms and factions! So we created a level one character on a number of possible destinations and headed to the city to check out the feel of the place and the population, and the atmosphere. We had to really ask ourselves why we wanted to move. Is it because we are falling out of interest with the game and we have 'grass is greener' mentality, and we are trying to inject life and interest back into WoW? If that was the reason, moving would certainly have made matters worse. I've seen a few players who have moved realms, but because it was for the wrong reasons, they have gone back after a short stay, or just left WoW completely.

We are moving, because it's time to move on. It is time for me to experience WoW from another aspect. It is good to change things around and the fact that I'll miss players from our guild and realm means its a good time to move. We can look fondly on the time we spent on the realm, and I'll always be appreciative of the fact that <Drama> took me in when I was a complete newbie, and I feel like because of them I've grown into a much better player. I'm fond of everyone in Drama, and want to extend a massive Thank You to everyone.

We had got the feel of a server we liked...a PvP server - Sylvanas EU and we decided to go Alliance aswell. Just as we were finalising when we should transfer, we discovered that the Guild was going to be rebuilt. Old players were coming back and they are currently in the process of putting it back together, to something similar to what it always set out to be - before it lost its way. This made us stop for a moment,what were our plans? Should we stay? Or should we go?

It didn't take us long to come to our decision. We had gotten itchy feet. I wanted to move. The guild I'm sure will get back to it's former glory, especially in the hands of some very experienced and dedicated players - but it doesn't alter the status of the realm. It is not, nor ever was <Drama> that was dead. It's the realm. With that in mind, we emptied our mailboxes, cancelled our auctions and said farewells. (I would just like to point out, we didn't announce in guild chat that we were leaving because we left the same day the guild was taken over by Viene and we didn't want to seem like we left because of that. On the contrary, he knows I think he is an awesome guy who will get the guild on  its feet in no time at all!)

Comparing Orgrimmar on Blade's Edge with Stormwind on Sylvanas:

 (Photos taken just a couple of minutes apart)

The main areas in each city.

The sky above the cities.

The Innkeepers.

Transfer complete, I created my new Draenei Death Knight, called her Nilaa which is a variation of the name 'Nila' which means blue in Indian. Apt I thought for a race that is coloured blue. Husband has also gone Draenei (what a copy cat) and called Tolian. We also took with us my real life friend, who now has a Night Elf called Janya. We have an application for a guild currently pending...fingers crossed!

Whilst it will take a while to get used to the busyness of new realm, the new faction, and the fact that its a PvP realm, I know I have made the right decision. Leaving now means I remember my time on Blade's Edge as a truly awesome experience.

For those of you in Drama who read this: Thank you for everything, you are all brilliant and friendly players and I'll remember you all. I still have Churel around, so I'll pop by now and then to say Hi, and please don't hesitate to keep in touch via here or twitter :)

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So finally, it brings me round to why I've been MIA for the last couple of days. Husband and I went up to my old home town in Scotland for the Wedding of a school friend of mine. We had a great time. The weather was absolutely stunning (don't think we ever saw weather as good as that when we lived there) and the Bride and Groom make an amazing couple...

Couple of photos from our trip across the border!