Did I kill raiding?

Not your raiding of course, just mine.

Brief history lesson: A while back there was a troll shaman who had a strange attraction to paladins. He got into a lot of conversations on the WoW paladin forums and eventually developed a few friendships. One day that shaman rerolled with a trio of them. Stuff happened and one day they were on Zul'jin, making their own guild: Word of Redemption. I was an officer in said guild, though I must admit that I was not big on exercising power, in other words I was a glorified member, albeit a member with an unusual level of respect from the GM and other officers.

I loved this guild and the people who founded it. I don't mean loved as in "I loved that movie." I mean loved as in, these were friends who I respected and depended on and who I felt a connection to. The guild was our home; our treehouse, our fort, our sanctuary.

I doubt anything can match that, ever. I doubt I will ever again start a guild with a few friends and built it up into something. I doubt I can get anything close to that feeling in any guild that I join. People will have their cliques and habits and rules already. I will always be an add-on and will always be separate.

We didn't get especially far. Time just didn't work out for us. Christmas break took me out of the raids as my schedule shifted by an hour. Many others were reduced in attendance as well. This was while we were trying to push new content, TK I believe (we formed pretty late). Missing people while trying to advance leads to stagnation, and so it slowed and eventually stopped. People hopped off the epic train and eventually we were back to our core and left to pick between the slow process of rebuilding or merging. The merger killed off the guild and we ended up as an isolated clique.

I think this has left me with two problems: excessive expectations and a nagging thought of "we could have done it, it's not over yet."

I won't let myself settle for loyalty to any old guild that I happen to be in. I can't sacrifice for a bunch of strangers. I can't devote as much time and energy when it's not my guild advancing, but just some guild that I happen to be in. No guild culture is ever perfect because none of them are the ones I helped create. No loot system will ever be quite right and no officer will have quite as much trust from me, or the reverse.

And there's still that nagging thought that maybe it's not over yet. I could jump back and start recruiting and get it going again. I know this is ridiculous. The other founding members are gone. I'm still friends with two people who joined later and who I felt became part of the central group. We've been following each other from guild to guild (mostly me following them) and now we've been in the current one for... a while, over a year. We couldn't be the core of a reborn guild.

Maybe someday I'll move on to another game and be able to start over, but I suspect any attempt at raiding in WoW will be plagued by memory. I'll always remember my small town.

Part Two: The Joke
I'm sure we were all disappointed to see the worst blogger ever attack gold guides. Then to make it worse, he brought with his alternate personality. The result was a conspiracy to shoot down a brave entrepreneur. Well I say enough is enough. In a show of solidarity, I am making my own guide.

Unfortunately, I lack marketable skills in WoW. I don't make a thousand gold from five minutes in the AH. I can't get you to 80 in two days. My raiding skills leave something to be desired.

Well you know what I say: If there's no market, make one. With that in mind, for only $5 I can teach you how to live in eternal wistful nostalgia, yearning for days lost and irreclaimable. You can just stuff the money in an e-nvelope and send it here.

Here's a sample to whet your appetite:

There are two routes to take. The hard route involves being awesome and missing those days. But the Fast EZ-Nostalgia Path is faster and easier. The fundamental principle is unfinished business. You must be a mediocre raider with higher aspirations who is cut off from progression by the untimely arrival of an expansion. Forever after you will know that you're not done, that something was stolen from you. Over time you will 'remember' how much better the old days were.

Buy now, only $5 to ruin raiding and PvP forever after!

P.S. This is meant to be a joke, as the title indicates. Tobold is not the worst blogger ever; he's somewhere high up on the "Good Blogger" list.