There has been some guild drama recently in World of Warcraft. I realize some readers might not know what a guild is in World of Warcraft. Simply put it is a collection of players who frequently play a game together and while they are not a necessity, having a guild helps players organize and complete content which requires a lot of people. Some of the more successful guilds become a community of like minded people who are interested in achieving the same set of goals and can end up being good friends. Guilds are in a variety of different games, often MMOs (massively multiplayer online games) and might be called a clan, corporation or something else along those lines. In World of Warcraft I joined a guild called Inspire which was later renamed to Inspired.

I joined Inspire in December 2019 just as I was reaching level 60 with my rogue, Mithril. Since then I have been a fairly active member of the guild, with the exception of about 7 months when real life problems needed fixing and I felt I could no longer find the time to play the game the way I wanted. When I joined Inspire I quickly came to believe that everyone was really nice, helpful and understanding. I was given a lot of help from people and I tried to return the favour whenever I could. The organized raids were fun, people appeared to be happy and for the most part the guild succeeded at whatever goals it set itself which is largely thanks to the leadership of guild officers and the dedication of many of the players. Since December 2019 the guild has changed leadership, changed officers, members have decided to leave and others have joined. I have however never been given cause to think the guild had changed for the worse. Until maybe now.

I first started to notice guild drama just after my last World of Warcraft post. A prominent member was removed from the guild for a variety of reasons. At the time from my point of view it was a sudden move which I did not understand. To help me understand I was given a list of reasons which were discussed by the officers. I didn’t really agree with any of the reasons for removal from the guild without notice with the exception that the member was ‘harassing females in the guild with private messages’. If true this does sounds unacceptable as long as the officers understand the definition of harassment and that the messages weren’t reciprocated in some way. I decided to leave it and move on accepting the decision, I wasn’t even going to write about it until more happened in following weeks.

On the 13th November 4 members decided to leave voluntarily from the guild. Some of the reasons given were they ‘don’t feel appreciated anymore in the guild’ and that they have been a raider for several years in the guild but feel like they can’t perform to the high standards that’s required, adding that ‘loyalty has no value’ and when they log in to the game they feel ‘sad and disappointed’. The person that wrote those reasons happens to be an excellent player (far better than I am) and are among the best that Inspired had to offer, not just in terms of skill but commitment, reliability, resourcefulness and friendliness. I think some of these people felt like Inspired had changed into a guild which didn’t like any aspect of casual, easy going raiding and have become more and more elitist. These people leaving was significant enough for the officers to hold a pre-raid meeting which tried to put everyone at ease that the guild wasn’t taking an elitist path and that there would be better communication. Incidentally nothing discussed in this meeting was shared with anyone who wasn’t there to raid that day.

For a while I hoped that would be the end of it but on the 22nd November another guild member, who had been in the guild since before the launch of the game decided to leave. They didn’t publicly share their reasons for leaving but the following day the officers wanted to explain why this person wanted to leave before a scheduled raid. I attended and heard the officers accuse this person of privately messaging a female guild member inappropriately and decided to leave Inspired because of it. This doesn’t make much sense to me and I really don’t understand what the officers set out to achieve. Later the guild member who left spoke to me after they had learned of the accusation through someone else. They were shocked and upset and explained they had an entirely different reason for leaving but didn’t want to rock the boat or cause upset. I don’t want to publicly share their reason for leaving because they chose not to go public. Suffice to say their reasons are completely different and actually makes much more sense.

Honestly, I don’t know what this means for Inspired, or my place in it. My confidence in at least some of the guild officers has been rattled, not just with what has been written here, but on other things as well. I find myself wondering if more people will be removed from the guild at a moments notice. I feel like I can’t disagree or have a frank conversation without running the risk of being removed from the guild, excluded from guild events or possibly defamed. I no longer believe that there are many people within the guild who are like minded with me. Perhaps there never was, perhaps I am naive. For now at least I will try to enjoy the game and stick to myself, as I did before.

It has been more than a month since my last WoW update and the launch of Wrath of the Lich King Classic. A lot has happened, I should start by mentioning that I reached level 80 with Mithril, my rogue, on the 9th October which was really slow, especially after a promising start on launch day. I think staying up so late that night reminded me that I just don’t have the stamina to play games that way anymore and I thought it would be better for me to play through the levels on my own at my own pace, which happens to be very slow. When I finally reached level 80 I counted that 32 people in my guild had beat me to it, making me one of the last.

After reaching level 80 things took off, the phase 1 raids for Wrath of the Lich King did not open until 6th October which meant I was just in time to attend my guild’s first 25 player raid in Naxxramas on the 10th. We cleared the raid with ease but it did take the full 3 hours we set aside for raiding. Here is a recording of us defeating the final boss, Kel’Thuzad.

Since then my guild and I have consistently cleared all of the phase 1 raid content. Last week we were able to clear 25 player Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum (with all 3 dragons alive), Eye of Eternity and Vault of Archavon in 1 evening and have multiple groups doing the same for the 10 player version of these raids. I have to say I am quite disappointed at how easy this content has been. Hopefully phase 2 will provide more of a challenge.

I have been lucky enough to have been awarded quite a bit of loot. For a while it was embarrassing just how many items I was getting and, to be honest, it’s too much to list all of it. Here are the BiS (Best in Slot) items I have been given so far.

Calamity’s Grasp
Drape of the Deadly Foe
Valorous Bonescythe Pauldrons
Sinner’s Bindings
Dawnwalkers

I was also lucky to get Surge Needle Ring with a good roll of the dice and bought Mirror of Truth for 40 Emblems of Heroism. All of my items from The Burning Crusade have been replaced and with the exception of 1 item they all have an item level of at least 200.

On the 28th October I reached level 80 with Copper, my warrior tank. Being an alternate character and not my main one, it is unlikely that Copper will ever attend guild 25 player raids right now, but I am hopeful that my guild will allow Copper to attend some 10 player raids from time to time.

Moving forward there is still a lot for me to do. There are factions to get exalted, professions to level and more items to gather, especially for my warrior. I hope to continue to be invited to the guild raids and will be trying to improve the damage output of my rogue and perfect the playstyle so that I can prove myself a valuable member of my guild and hopefully be part of the core raid team.

This is my first 2 monthly Snooker Nation post, which is just as well because for 3 out of 4 potential matches in October I have been unable to play. I have decided that reducing my Snooker Nation posts from once a month to once every 2 months will be better for my blog. I have ended October with a decent 6-3 lead, but there is still much to play for with a potential of 9 more matches ahead.

02/09/2022 – Match 177

While it is true I won this match 6 frames to 3, it’s hard to be pleased about it. I think both Jason and I played terribly, especially at the start. The one century break I got of 104 in frame 4 which ended with me missing the final colour before clearing up, denying myself a potential break of 138. In fairness to Jason, he was at one stage 5-0 down but he managed to win 3 frames which include a really nice 143 in frame 7 and a respectable 136 in frame 8. Honestly, I don’t know if it was because I was tired or because of how badly I was playing, but I was relieved when the match was over.

09/09/2022 – Match 178

My performance improved quite a bit when compared to the match last week. I won 6 frames to 1 and scored 3 century breaks, 128 in frame 2, 140 in frame 3 and 101 in frame 6 but missed the final red, denying myself a potential break of 136. I was on track to score a maximum break of 147 in frame 1 but missed the black with 3 reds on the table. Despite the score line I don’t think Jason played particularly badly other than some questionable safety shots. I think I just played well and didn’t give many opportunities.

16/09/2022 – Match 179

For a while Jason wasn’t missing anything and I thought I might lose, but as luck would have it I was saved by a burger and won 6 frames to 4. Around half way in to the match Jason’s wife gave him a burger which I believed provided sufficient distraction to be the cause of some poor shots, allowing me to win 2 or 3 frames I might not have ordinarily won. Jason scored 3 century breaks, 137 in frame 1 and 139 in frame 3 which could have been 146 if he hadn’t of missed the final black. Then his burger showed up and he didn’t score another century until frame 9 (after he had consumed it). During burger consumption I managed 2 centuries of my own, 116 in frame 4 and 108 in frame 8.

23/09/2022 – Match 180

Finally Jason has broken my win streak winning 6 frames to 3. For the most part Jason was playing really well and wasn’t missing many pots. The result could easily have been 6-1 but I managed to pinch frame 7 and 8 which were pretty scrappy to say the least. There were 4 century breaks in total, I scored 105 in frame 1 where as Jason scored 127 in frame 2, 114 in frame 3 and 107 in frame 6 which could have been 134 if he didn’t miss the final yellow. The one thing which stands out for me in this match is that in frame 2 the black ball somehow flew off the table. With over 500 hours play time I didn’t know this was even possible in Snooker Nation.

30/09/2022 – Match 181

Because of good conversation our game started rather late today. I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to win 6 frames to 3. Just as well really, if we played the full 11 frames we might have finished around 4am. What didn’t help was my connection to steam briefly cut out twice during the 6th frame. After the second time I couldn’t get steam to work and needed to restart my computer. There were 3 century breaks in total, Jason scored 131 in frame 4 and I scored 106 in frame 5 and 135 in our twice belated frame 6. I don’t think Jason will mind me saying that his safety game wasn’t very good in this match, giving me numerous opportunities to score. Hopefully it will be better next time.

07/10/2022 – Match 182

Winning 6 frames to 1, this is a result Jason needed. I scored 107 in frame 1 but missed the final brown, from then on I just couldn’t win another frame. Jason scored 3 century breaks, 115 in frame 3, 110 in frame 6 and 105 in frame 7. The other frames were pretty scrappy, we both made quite a few mistakes but Jason managed to secure them. It’s interesting to note in frame 6 before Jason cleared the table to win, he successfully snookered me behind the yellow ball which was pretty close to the baulk cushion. What’s worse is that he used 2 cushions to do it which is quite unusual in our games and meant that there was no clear escape for me and it took several tries for me to hit a red without fouling.

Season 7 (August – December 2022) statistics

Blizzard Entertainment, the creators of World of Warcraft, have come under a lot of scrutiny over the years, usually quite rightly so. I myself have written about how disappointed I was during the 2018 Blizzcon announcements and how heartbroken I was when I learned there were accusations of rife sexual harassment and discrimination within their organisation. On this occasion however, I want to share my experience of the launch of Wrath of the Lich king for classic World of Warcraft, and give some praise.

As I write this it has been 24 hours since the launch and I have to say it went incredibly well. The launch was scheduled at 00:00 server time, which is 23:00 in the UK (GMT+1) on the 27th September. Before that however Stormwind City (and I presume Orgrimmar for the horde) came under attack from the Lich King’s scourge, creating a unique and exciting atmosphere which is unlikely to happen again. In the lead up to launch I noticed no latency and as far as I could tell there was no queue to enter the Mirage Raceway realm (server) which is ‘full’. Less than 2 hours before launch, King Varian Wrynn yelled ‘Take your flying fortresses back to Northrend, before I crush them with my bare hands!‘ to which the Herald of the Lich King replied ‘ARGH! THIS SMALL VICTORY WILL AVAIL YOU NOTHING! COME! COME TO NORTHREND. MY MINIONS ARE WAITING, AND THEY ARE HUNGRY…‘

People began to gather at Stormwind Harbour to catch the first ship to Valiance Keep in Borean Tundra, Northrend while others, including my pre arranged guild party consisting of Pallydude, Kyra, Tsun, Lineofsight and myself decided to wait at Menethil Harbour for the first ship to Valgarde in Howling Fjord, Northrend. If you look closely at the below screenshot you can see Pallydude contribute to a line of paladins waiting.

At this time there was some latency, but it wasn’t bad and I found the game playable. The ship arrived a few minutes early and everyone embarked on their adventure to Northrend.

To be honest, I fully expected there to be a problem. I thought that the game might crash or that we would find ourselves stuck on a loading screen but, to my surprise, everything went very smoothly. The loading screen was brief and we arrived in Howling Fjord with minimal latency and started to play immediately. I later found out that the ship from Stormwind Harbour to Borean Tundra wasn’t so successful and the passengers were teleported back to Stormwind, however, within minutes there was an in-game announcement that players could speak to the harbour master and teleport to Borean Tundra instead, indicating that Blizzard Entertainment was watching and prepared.

So far I have only reached level 72 but have ended the day about three quarters of the way to level 73. Some of my fellow guild members have reached level 75/76 but a few people have already managed to reach level 80. It’s not how I enjoy playing World of Warcraft, but all credit to those able to rush through the levels. I should mention a player with a warrior called ‘Unlikely’ was the first to reach level 80 on the Mirage Raceway realm at around 13:25 server time. Congratulations to them.

To anyone reading this who is interested in playing Classic World of Warcraft, perhaps for the first time, this really is an excellent time to start. Wrath of the Lich King is perhaps the most iconic and successful era of World of Warcraft.

Well done Blizzard Entertainment for getting the launch of Wrath of the Lich King classic right. True, the game earns the business a fortune on a monthly basis and true this is the second time you have done it. But it shows the company on this occasion was prepared to invest resources at the cost of some of the profits and it has learnt lessons from past failures. A step in the right direction.

It has been about 7 weeks since my previous WoW update and once again I have a lot to report. In my last update I said that I was considering commissioning some artwork and creating a RP (role-play) blog post for my rogue named Mithril. I went ahead with the idea and a few weeks later the art work was complete and I created my Mithril RP blog post. I am delighted with how well it turned out and I am thinking of trying to expand on Mithril’s story so far in addition to what she is doing right now. What I might do is isolate a segment of her life and dedicate a blog post about it, perhaps even commission some additional artwork.

Some legendary items have dropped for my guild while I was present, including an off-hand Warglaive of Azzinoth which was awarded to fellow rogue Afficium to complete the set. Luckily this happened just before the Wrath of the Lich King pre-patch. I recorded the encounter with Illidan Stormrage and the priceless reaction of my fellow guild mates once we defeated him.

Not long after the pre-patch Thori’dal, the Stars’ Fury bow dropped from Kil’jaeden, the last boss of Sunwell Plateau and was awarded to Aboreal. Luckily I remembered to record the encounter and reaction. It was a real pleasure to have been there.

When I wrote my last WoW update I wasn’t sure if I was going to be playing the next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Now I am certain that I will be playing and I have made some commitments with my guild mates when it launches later tonight. What I am still not sure about is whether I will still consider my rogue to be my main character or my new warrior tank my main. Before the pre-patch for Wrath of the Lich King, I found that my rogue was consistently benched for raiding and I thought that I missed opportunities to raid with my guild because I wasn’t as transversal as some of my guild mates who have worked on multiple characters. Some guild members were and still are able to heal, deal damage or tank with consistent results, where as all I could do is play rogue which is in low demand. I thought that if I had a warrior tank, something I enjoyed playing in Wrath of the Lich king 14 years ago, I would be more transversal. As it turns out I made the wrong decision, the guild has a lot of tanks and it might have been better if I had played a paladin or druid which can perform multiple roles.

Unfortunately my friend did not respond to me 7 weeks ago so I decided to use a character boost to instantly level my warrior to level 70 at the beginning of the pre-patch roughly 4 weeks ago. A lot of people frown on people doing this, but with a lot of preparation, effort and help from my guild, my warrior is is now reasonably geared and I have started to play it quite well. With the exception of fishing I have even leveled her professions to 375 (the maximum until tomorrow). This is predominantly what I have spent my time doing these last 4 weeks and I feel well prepared with both my rogue and warrior for Wrath of the Lich King.

With today being the official end of The Burning Crusade, my next WoW update will focus on getting my characters to level 80, completing dungeons, acquiring new sets of items and perhaps clearing some raids. I don’t really want to set myself any goals other than to try and be a valued member of my guild and to reach level 80 to avail myself for the guild raiding schedule.

This post is different to anything I have written for my blog. I want to try and give my World of Warcraft character, Mithril, some meaning other than being just another Night Elf. I thought I would create a legend for Mithril and create this RP (Role-Play) post. I also had an image in mind to feature this post of Mithril sitting outside of Sunwell Plateau carving her name in a bench. I commissioned an artist, explained what I had in mind and provided in-game screenshots of Mithril and the setting. I hope anyone reading this will agree that if nothing else the artist, who goes by the name of Lorkhan, has done a spectacular job. Here is their Instagram account showing off more amazing pieces.

Born in Auberdine a few years before the first war, Mithril is the youngest of 2 sisters. Her father, the captain of a modest cargo ship the Mooncrest and her mother a botanist. Mithril was never content exploring Darkshore and Ashenvale with her mother and sister who were busy searching for herbs to make salves. Instead Mithril would daydream she was at sea with her father. Mithril’s family and the other Night Elves were completely oblivious of the Eastern Kingdoms continent and of the Alliance and the horde at war there. Towards the end of the second war however, Mithril’s father decided he and the Mooncrest crew would set sail and explore the east. Mithril begged her father to join him on his voyage, she had heard rumours of strange sightings in the east and wanted to join him on an adventure. Despite the refusal of her father, during the night Mithril snuck aboard his ship and concealed herself among the supplies.

After a full day and night at sea, Mooncrest and her escort were attacked by 2 Orc destroyers. The crew did their best to evade the destroyers however Mooncrest was struck by cannon fire and was boarded. The Orcs massacred the crew, including Mithril’s father as she watched between the wooden deck planks in the ships hold, hidden from view. Realizing Mooncrest was taking on water, the Orcs quickly disembarked back to their own ship and set off to continue their hunt for Alliance warships. It couldn’t have been more than 10 or 15 minutes before the ship began to tilt and list, forcing Mithril into the water, clinging to a wooden plank. For no less than 2 days Mithril drifted helplessly until a sympathetic Kul Tiran fisherman found her starving and exhausted.

Mithril was taken to Freehold and spent years surviving on the streets, avoiding brawls, pickpocketing drunken pirates and hiding in the shadows during times of danger. It was a hard life but Mithril eventually saved enough gold to acquire transportation back to Auberdine. Mithril, no longer a little girl but a woman, found that over the years everything had changed, not only through war with the Horde to the south but also The Burning Legion in the third war. She had even learned that the Night Elves had joined an Alliance consisting of humans, dwarves and gnomes that had armies away in the North. Mithril had also changed and the people of Auberdine no longer recognised her. Her Darnassian was poor and she didn’t fit in with her nefarious set of skills. Searching for her mother and sister, Mithril travelled to Teldrassil and the city of Darnassus where she met Syurna who convinced Mithril that she could use her skills for good and that if she were to travel the continents, helping people along the way, she might find clues about what might have happened to her family.

While travelling the roads of Kalimdor and The Eastern Kingdoms Mithril found friends and helped them overcome many threats to Azeroth, including the Qiraji and the Scourge. When she learned about the Dark Portal and that it had reopened, she joined the Alliance and Horde coalition with her friends to repel the invaders and gain control of the portal in Outland. For a while Mithril explored what remained of outland until one day she received an Alliance missive about her mother being buried in Astranaar, Ashenvale. After visiting her mothers grave Mithril learned from the quartermaster of the Silverwing Sentinels, Illiyana Moonblaze, that Mithril’s mother was killed by Warsong Outriders when they invaded Warsong Gulch but there was no knowledge of the whereabouts of Mithril’s sister.

Beset with grief, Mithril spent 6 months in seclusion and searched for her long lost sister. She eventually gave up and returned to Outland to rejoin her friends in order to free Outland from Illidan Stormrage and repel Kil’jaeden. While in Outland rumours had started about the continent of Northrend and the armies that were sent there. There was now a new frontier with new threats to Azeroth and mysterious death knights started to arrive, completely free of the scourge. Could it be possible her sister is a death knight? Might there be clues to her whereabouts in Northrend? One thing is for sure, Mithril will be joining the next expedition.

I hope anyone who reads this enjoys the story of Mithril so far, but to be honest it is written as if the reader is familiar with World of Warcraft. It might not make much sense to some readers. I am not a very creative person and I found this post difficult to write. I think the hardest part for me was trying to make sure that the story was easy to fit within World of Warcraft lore and canon. But with some help from Kyra, a member of my World of Warcraft guild, I think I got there without any major infractions.

Ordinarily each Snooker Nation season between Jason and I will last 6 months and run from January – June then July – December. Because I was still in a semi state of recovery in July however, we decided that for this season we will start in August and finish in December.

Having won 2 out 3 of the matches we played this month I am quite pleased with how season 7 has started, especially with the final match of the month winning 6-1. But I think the highlight this month has been me reciting a very odd and vivid dream I had, potentially putting both Jason and I off our game in match 175.

05/08/2022 – Match 174

Being the first official match of season 7 this is a really good start for Jason winning 6 frames to 3. I am finding hard to decide whether we played well or badly, about half of the frames were scrappy with both of us missing relatively easy shots or running out of position. I also made 2 or 3 really bad decisions which probably cost me the match in the end. On the other hand we got 4 century breaks between us, Jason scored a respectable 131 in frame 9 and 119 in frame 7. I scored 109 in frame 4 after an incredibly fluky shot on the second to last red. After I had failed to split the remaining reds and effectively ran out of position I tried the old hit and hope shot, miraculously it worked. I also scored 105 in frame 5 but missed the final green, denying me a potential break of 130.

12/08/2022 – Match 175

Winning 6 frames to 5 gives me my first win of the season. This match largely reminds me of last week, where some frames we played quite well but others quite badly. I scored 3 century breaks, 100 in frame 1 but missed the final yellow, 111 in frame 7 but ran out of position on the final yellow and 133 in frame 11. Jason only scored 1 century break but it is a superior one of 138 in frame 5 and is the new highest break of the season. For frames 2, 3 and 4 I think we were both distracted when I was telling Jason about a dream I had which featured him as a sentient self drinking pint of beer.

19/08/2022 – Match 176

This has turned out to be a very convincing win for me, winning 6 frames to 1. Of the 6 frames I won I scored 4 century breaks, 118 in frame 1, 138 in frame 3, 118 in frame 4 but missed the final blue and 100 in frame 5, missing the final red. I am sure Jason will not mind me saying that he really didn’t play well, having said that Jason was on track to score a maximum break of 147 in frame 6, but ran out of position with 3 reds remaining and couldn’t quite secure a century. I on the other hand probably played one of my best Snooker Nation matches so far which I hope to replicate in the weeks and months ahead.

Season 7 (August – December 2022) statistics

I find it hard to believe, but it has been 4 years since I started blogging. Time for my year 4 review. In this review I am going to consider some lessons learned but as part of that I don’t think I am going to set myself any goals moving forward.

This has become a yearly mantra but I would like to remind any readers of a ‘disclaimer’ in that I do not consider myself a ‘content provider’. Yes I am technically creating content, but this blog has always been a platform for me to write about and enhance my gaming experiences. A way to document my gaming achievements and share them with whoever is interested. I have only made a minimal effort to share my blog with others and I have no intentions of changing.

Lessons learned

I have learned that I am not very good at meeting my own set goals. Last year I set myself the goal of creating a high quality YouTube video which I would be proud of. Since then I do not think I have created any videos to speak of and certainly none which required any effort on my part. Another goal was to play through some of my favourite Final Fantasy games, I made a pretty good start with Final Fantasy IX in February and wrote Final Fantasy IX Part 1, but haven’t completed the second half of the game for part 2. It’s not all doom and gloom, I am pleased to have played through a few new games such as Aliens: Fireteam Elite and Terminator: Resistance. I also made time to finish playing through one of my all time favourite games Front Mission 3. I have to say that Terminator: Resistance and the expansion Terminator: Resistance Annihilation Line are easily the best ‘new’ games I have played in a long time.

In October last year I felt I needed to quit playing Classic World of Warcraft. At the time there were a lot of real life issues needing my attention and I found myself struggling to find the time to play. Around 6 months later some real life issues had improved and I had more time on my hands. I decided to return and have been trying to catch up on the content I have missed ever since. I don’t think I will provide monthly World of Warcraft updates like I used to but will provide an update as and when I feel like a lot has happened.

Moving forward

Rather than setting goals in this year review I think I will try and go with the flow for a while and see where my gaming takes me. One thing I would like to do however is complete my Final Fantasy IX project by completing the second half of the game and writing part 2, for now this will be my only goal and should be easy to achieve, even with real life issues.

There is no need for a website reskin or change of ‘branding’. Right now I have no intentions of evolving the website or adding new pages, plugins / features. Maybe someday I will, it has been something I have thought about from time to time, but right now I am happy with the basic functionality it has. It’s easy to use and allows me to better focus on gaming and having fun.

The most important thing I need to do is consider healthier gaming habits. There are many games designed to combine fun with exercise, which is a possibility for me, but I am more so considering ways of avoiding what happened to me in June, where I could have died from a pulmonary embolism, more commonly known as a blood clot. Right now I am more conscious of how long I have been sitting and make an effort to get up and move around, even if I have no other purpose to do so. I also plan ahead and move around prior to gaming sessions and meetings.

What do you think?

If anyone would like to provide feedback and/or suggestions for my year 4 review, please feel free to do so. You could leave a comment or contact me by any means.

It has been well over 2 months since my return to Classic World of Warcraft and although for about 4 weeks I couldn’t play too much, I feel like I have achieved quite a bit. I reached exalted with Netherwing which is something I didn’t do when I played WoW retail and was awarded a Netherwing drake. To be honest, I never did like the look of these drakes so will more than likely never use it. I also got lucky and have been given an Amani War Bear by completing the Zul’Aman timed event with my guild. Being a bit of a ‘completionist’ I am happy to have also reach exalted with the following factions.

Keepers of Time
Sha’tari Skyguard
Shattered Sun Offensive
Darnassus
Exodar

Here are some screenshots of my two new mounts. They’re not really special in that most people have them, but I am pleased to have got them before the launch of Wrath of the Lich King.

This leaves Ogri’la which I am just not interested in even starting, Ashtongue Deathsworn with which I am currently revered but I am reliant on being able to attend Black Temple raids and The Scale of the Sands with which I am only honoured and relies on me being able to attend Mount Hyjal raids. I get the impression that a lot of guild members don’t really want to attend Mount Hyjal raids, which makes it very unlikely I will be able to achieve exalted before the launch of Wrath of the Lich King. There is still some appetite for raiding Black Temple, which is why I have reached revered, but a lot of the time I find myself on the bench and unable to attend. I can’t say I blame anyone, having not helped with the progression of these raids it’s hardly right that I should expect to go, not that I ever did expect to raid.

From the raiding I have been able to do, I have been lucky enough to be awarded the following loot.

Slayer’s Helm
Slayer’s Chestguard
Slayer’s Handguards
Shadow-walker’s Cord
Blade of Life’s Inevitability
Blade of Savagery

While it is great that I picked up Blade of Savagery as an off-hand sword, until I get a good main hand sword I decided to acquire Vanir’s Right First of Brutality and Vanir’s Left Fist of Savagery for 150 Badge of Justice. This also caused me to change my talent points to be a fist weapon rogue. This isn’t a good thing for a rogue player, but considering how old my swords were, I thought it might be better this way until I am lucky enough to get something better.

It’s worth mentioning that I have finally completed levelling my fishing skill to 375/375 and have also reached maximum 350/350 in guns skill. These things are no big deal, but were causing me OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) problems.

For a few weeks I have been thinking about what I want to do moving forward with Classic World of Warcraft. Wrath of the Lich King will go live mid to late September but I am not sure if I should play and whether or not if I do play I should carry on with my Rogue or try my hand at tanking. Years ago when I played Wrath of the Lich king I had a Paladin and Warrior tank, they were fun to play and I was pretty good at tanking back then. Between now and launch everyone can take advantage of a +50% experience buff, so if I want to tank I should start levelling a warrior soon. I have reached out to a friend who played a lot of WoW with me in the past, I doubt they will respond, but if they do I will try and encourage them to level a character with me. Another thing I have been considering is creating a sort of RP (role-play) biography for my rogue and have some art work commissioned, just for a bit of fun and to give her some character and purpose.

As before with my previous Snooker Nation post, this is very much delayed but I will be up to date from here on. Jason and I only played 1 of a potential 4 matches in June, the other 3 were skipped because I fell seriously ill and required more than a month to recover. Although Jason has been very understanding, it is a disappointing way to end season 6, especially as there was still a chance Jason could win the season if he had won all 3 remaining matches. You could argue that since it was I who defaulted, Jason should be given the win for all 3 matches, but considering my reasons I know that Jason would hate to take advantage of the situation and win this way. As would I if it was the other way around. What is pleasing however is that between us we have scored 3 maximum breaks of 147 this season, that’s 10 maximum breaks since June 2019.

03/06/2022 – Match 173

I wasn’t feeling well but I still managed to win 6 frames to 2 giving me a 2 match lead with only 3 left to play for the reason the season. For the most part this was a scrappy match with both Jason and I running out of position a lot and missing some easy shots. There were however 3 century breaks, Jason scored 116 in frame 3 but missed the final brown where as I scored 112 in frame 6 and 134 in frame 7. It’s not the worst match of Snooker Nation we have played, but we are capable of playing a lot better.

Season 6 (January – June 2022) statistics

Seasons 1 – 6 (June 2019 – June 2022) lifetime statistics