News: A Legend isnt Born (World of Warcraft)

Saturday, February 20, 2021

[The following is a spoof of a post I made YEARS ago, written to help blow off some steam.]

Last week after a year of effort, a couple long grueling months of trying to find a raid group, and several mental break downs, my raid group "40 Man PUG" and I finally didn't get got me my Legendary item done. The Legendary staff "Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian" for my Priest. It's amazing for me as seeing all I had to go through, and the extraordinary amount of effort I had put in along the way in order to get this all done.

I started my quest for this staff in the winter of last year, when was able to start playing WoW Classic again. Before that, I wasn't even playing WoW Classic past the launch, and didn't even really plan to. Part of me wished it wasn't purely for that staff but it was, and the fact that probably the thing I miss the most from WoW retail was doing my Rogues legendary quest for a great weapon and the experience shared with the amazing people I did it with (or other events shared with people who cared about me). WoW Classic didn't have that for most of the time so far, and even when it did, my main class was excluded. I could talk about the difference of Atiesh and Thunderfury, mostly stating how I put in countless hours helping countless other people farm their Thunderfury. But in the end, no one returns the favor for me!

I had to stop playing after a month because originally I just wanted to see if I was interested in playing WoW Classic at all. I killed some time until I got level 30, but I needed some self maintenance so bad I had to stop for a ridiculous 2+ month period until things were so much worse for my stability that I had to be a friend to myself and talk myself back into playing WoW Classic again. A month or so later I was 60 and still guildless, but hoped to find one to raid with soon and start working on my standing to later get my Legendary. I quickly got pre-raid BIS gear. After trying for over a month I finally found a group of weekly PUG raiders that in function resembled a guild, only to start this stage of my quest busting my ass to learn how to raid heal, perform my absolute best, attend every raid I could, both in the sense of never missing a weekly raid, and using all my lockouts every week regardless if I even personally dont need the raid anymore, spending every last minute I could helping others. I gave my 100%, while others were giving their 50%. I come to find out later that I was perceived to be giving basically 0% as they just ignored all my effort without ever discussing it with me one bit. Obviously I'm pissed as I on my main later get passed over for the guys alt, and about how poorly communication with me was handled on their part. They wasted nearly a year of my time and effort by not communicating and ignoring my effort. When all was said in done, I soon quit the game after my last raid (I was fucked over, but I still didn't want to fuck over people on my own leaving them down a healer). A couple days later, only due to my desire to both intelligently and considerately explore my options, along with having learned not to leave bridges burned, I contacted the raid leader personally to help find myself some closure on the situation. As a Caster, one seeking his Legendary, this was a horrible time to find out I wasted a year and try looking for a new raid to help me, as the odds were BEYOND dismal. Yet I had no choice but to try taking a chance on my talking skills help myself. After a long grueling night waiting for a response to begin a conversation, I spent countable hours trying to hold a civil conversation against a barrage of dismissals and insults with this person. I finally gave up. With TALKING. He exchanged one message, and perfectly derailed the entire conversation there-after. He was an all around tool, more so than anyone I have ever raided with. I'm afraid there was no way to make progress with the conversation because he was a hardcore idiot. He never appreciated me, my experience and ability to produce quality healing, as if I were lucky to have a raid at all. Sadly, after even so much as the first week, it was a forgone conclusion that I wouldn't achieve my goal, only I didn't know then. I gave 1 more long message as a last ditch effort, simply to part ways on good terms. And since I did that, of course he threw it all back in my face permanently cementing himself as a unredeemable douche bag in my eyes. Short tempered, 2nd tier, dagger in the back douche bag.

From there the drama and ordeal was behind me, my anger was mostly gone, and it was somehow just a relief to finally be done subjecting myself to such harsh unnoticed effort. At this point I'm now again retired, not playing a character on that server, sick of the friction, he's a #2 in my view. My friends are basically 0 on the server, with maybe 3 people remotely otherwise. Soon TBC will be out, reducing odds of seeing that legendary to 0 times more. The Legendary quest will go away after TBC, and attaining it before that will be harder than cement, placing me at the top of the list of embarrassing failures.

Oh, and OMG! Here's where my Atiesh would be... if I had one!!!

[Writing this spoof was a therapeutic way of blowing off steam from the situation. It is sadly, only slightly embellished at points to fit and contrast the original post.

In the end, I realize I made some mistakes in my journey, and that some of the people chosen over me were actually more deserving. Should I have earned 1 of the 4 possible Atieshes that would be available before TBC:C comes out? Yes. I should have been 3rd/4th in line in my view, as all the next best people in line had going for them was simply having had their foot in the door a little earlier, while I myself made effort to contribute MUCH more. Such criteria was given WAY to much value, while my effort was given way to little value. I may be wrong on some things, and maybe I would agree I didn't do as much as 4 other people did. That would suck, but I'd understand.

But what really made this situation terrible was how the person running the raids handled and ended it. He diminished every effort I made, insulted me while pretending he was being reasonable, twisted damn near everything I said into a claim of me saying the opposite... all while I was trying to simply repair our relationship before I exited the picture, by complimenting him, showing understanding, and trying to let him know I appreciated him. It was utterly mind boggling when he came out of left field and went all scorched earth with responding to that, presumably as if I was laying on heavy sarcasm or something. Sarcasm does not always translate, but not by any stretch of the imagination should any sane person think I was being sarcastic in that situation. And yes. It was this douche bag who gave his ALT one of the first Atieshes, while his main already got another Legendary. I don't believe it was out of greed, but instead complete and utter stupidity. Which is kind of worse.

Given how things were given out, I think its safe to say that his giving it to himself fucked over my chances directly. The 3 other people are very deserving, though I could only argue for myself over 1 of them. Since he stole one for him, I should have been on the 5th/6th round... but he insulted me by proclaiming... I'd being around 12th in line... 12th...

Had TBC:C not been announced meer days later, I was thinking of holding out until the 5th/6th round where I should be at the absolute lowest in priority, but that hope wouldn't have come. So in the end, he directly and 100% screwed me over in multiple ways. He bumped his ALT to the top of the list, and actively ignored and diminished my efforts to elevate others he personally cared more about. You deal with clique minded people in MMOs. It always sucks. He's just another one of those scumbags.

I'm going to investigate trying to attain it in TBC:C. To see how easy doing so might be. Like, how few people are needed to kill the bosses each week. The more needed, the harder it will be to find people. I may have to do some sort of you scratch my back I scratch yours exchange by helping others farm it with my alts. But for now, I need some distance from that hell I put myself through for a year. I learned years ago after I got my Rogues legendary that I wasn't cut out for serious raiding anymore, mentally. I went full casual since and only reverted last year purely to achieve this one goal. I have never pushed myself this hard, ever when I was in the top raiding guild of my server or pushing heroics around when I got my rogue his daggers. Both of those previous serious raiding periods overloaded me and caused me to quit, to put what I put myself through this year into perspective.

But shockingly, I don't want to leave the game for years at a time now like I did then. This hurt more, but the damage is lower. I can and probably will play retail soon if I want. I'd like to do Karazhan again in TBC:C, though this time with better people and enjoy it more. Sadly, I just wont have a portal clicky to get there.

A lesson to be learned from this is that, even the seemingly most respectable people can be two-faced scumbags who are perfectly fine using you for 6-10+ hours a week, only to act like you did nothing while their alt and friends that just stood there a fraction of that time are more important. I'd like to use hindsight to say how I'd do things differently, but I just don't see a way of achieving the goal no matter what I did. Is my character his alt? No. Did I have the option to be the loot-master like 1 person who earned it? No. Was I able to be a summoner to raids... as a Priest? No. Was I able to apparently farm a ton of mats for consumables for the raid (People were required to bring their own) like a Mage? No. Those were distinct deeds of those who got chosen. If I had run my own event's/raids, something also claimed to be in their favor, I don't believe for a second that would have helped. Besides, if I was able to handle doing that I wouldn't have needed to devote myself to these raids like I did, and instead run my own.

What did I do that some of these others did not? I used my lockouts on all my max level characters each week, despite not needing the raid... simply to support others. I never missed a single raid via no-show or otherwise. I was always on time, and among the last to leave. I constantly pushed myself to be better to be a very reliable healer despite the starting point of knowing basically nothing about it. I used my unique class abilities for extra stuff like FR buffing in UBRS when I could. I spent extra hours of my days creating music playlists to make boring monotonous grinds of older raids for other peoples legendaries more fun. I managed the annoying task of skinning the dogs in MC, I constantly offered myself up for advice, farming help, and advice, I sacrificed my health and fun for others, and finally... for a long time I passed on gear that I needed simply because others needed/wanted it more, before I started passing on 100% of the gear so that other healers who already out geared me could keep up or be that much better. My entire time in Naxx, I didn't get a single thing to benefit myself, but instead sacrificed my own gold reserves (heal priest, not the best money maker) to farm other peoples gear. And I'm probably still forgetting things.

Anyway, now that I vented, I hope now I can put this failure and exploitation behind me. I regret leaving the gameplan that worked for so many years and let me have fun in WoW on my own for the first time, for a goal that I was never allowed to have a chance at. If/when I come back to Classic or retail, it will be with a new perspective and gameplan thats more considerate to myself since I cant rely on others to be.]