Time to hang up the shield

You heard me right, it is time to hang up my shield.


It looks nice on the wall. The good old Royal Crest of Lordaeron

It would be nice to have a guild house or a person house to display old armor and stuff. It waits in the bank for that day Blizz may do that.

Now I have the ugliest non paladin looking shield in the game....

Wall of Terror


But it is nice to have upgrades. :-)

Happy Tanking Everyone

Pleasant Surprises

Well, as many know, me and Gruul have a love hate relationship.

I have attempted numerous times to kill that guy on my main character. (I did do it on my alt).

This past Monday, we made another attempt.... for 20 minutes we banged our head on the instance portal, getting the message that no new instances could be launched.

Well, one of my officers decided to fly over to the Eye of Eternity and try that one.... what do know, bam, he was in...

So we gave up on Gruul (I will kill you someday Gruul and get my achievement!!!) and went of to the Eye to have some fun. We had a couple of lower levels mixed with the 80s that were able to get some good gear.

And we were able to kill Kael Thalas Sunstrider!!!!

Overall, it was a very fun instance. I can see that it would have been hard back in the BC days.

Now, remember how the summer can be hard to get people to raid because of schedules?

We went to Nax last night and by the end of it, we had a full 25 people.

It was a nice pleasant surprise.

Hopefully tonight we can get the priests we need so we can do the Military wing.

Summer Time Challenges

Many guilds face the summer time challenges of trying to raid with the lure of the glorious outdoors taking their raiders away.

The Summer is a great time and a great time to spend out doors in real life. Being that I am in the Great Lake State, God's creation offers many fun things to do during these months. On top of that, it seems that many camps are available or even now required for some of the teens to go to for their school activities.

Vacations abound and outdoor activities are a plenty.

Where does this leave a guild that is trying to raid?

It leaves them with a smaller pool of consistent raiders, but a larger pool of raiders overall.
Smaller in that many people are taking vacations, etc.
Larger in that you have all the school kids available.

This was very evident this past week. I and my wife took some time off because our boys were home from school and I was on call. The guild went on and did Nax 25, but had to pug many individuals in, in key spots such as healers and tanks. They were able to clear everything up to Thadius. Then they hit the brick wall.

Well, we went back in there last night and again, we had the hardest time filling the raid with people from our guild or even friend guilds. We had to dip in the dreaded PUG area deeper than ever. At the end, we just didn't have the people to do it. We got him down to 18% consistently, but it was not good enough.

So what are guilds to do this summer?

First, don't give up. You may be stuck doing Nax and bringing in Pugs, but it gives a great opportunity to recruit new blood.

Second, cut back. Do the 10 man stuff and work with those that have given a commitment.

Over at Eternity Matters, we will be doing a bit of both.

Happy Gaming!

Time Out

Wow, I have not blogged in a while.

Sorry about that.

Lets see, what has been going on....

First, I have been really busy with work, giving me less time to play.

In fact, I was on call this week, covering any emergencies that may have come up.

I was backup the previous week. So real life took a chunk of play time.

In addition, the boys started summer vacation, so things are more crazy around the house.

But enough with real life, what about gaming?

Um, I have a silly admission to make.....

I like Sims.

I like growing a family up that is different than mine, seeing how they react.

Sims 3 came out and well, that is where I have been playing. So I took a Time Out from wow this week to play with some Sims.

It has been a nice break, no guild to worry about, just my happy little Sims.

You can learn alot from that game about time management.

Well, my Time Out is done and it is now time for me to pick up my sword and board be there for my guild once more.

For the most part, they made it through the week drama free and did ok, but it is nice to know that I was missed.