If anyone still reads this blog or is interested in my life after WoW, I am blogging about motorbiking and karate and soon to be snowboarding as well

Drop past if you want to  http://carpebm.wordpress.com

This time feels more final to me.

I honestly don’t have the time to play anymore, and my life only seems to get more busy as each week goes along.

I will still be around the internet though – you can find me on twitter @dragonray as I will likely delete my @azerothianlife twitter.  You can also find me at Facebook – message me if you want to add me and I will send you the profile link.  I will leave this blog here, so you can contact me via the methods available here.

There are some people – I am sure you know who you are – that mean the world to me and I appreciate everything you have done for me!

Good luck fighting the beasties guys!!!  Have a great time in game and remember life is always more important than a virtual world.

/ farewell

Since I last posted my world has been turned upside down again, and so I have basically not been able to get online – nor have I even had the inclination in all honesty.

This is a very long post but I wanted it here as a reminder of my WoW life.  Feel free to have a gander.

The guild, had our first raid ..last week? or the week before?  I can’t remember now – all the days blur into one.  Sadly, it was the straw that broke the camels back for the GM and I to keep our delicate balance happening.

We had been trying so hard to get this guild up and hoping everyone would be ready for our first raid (which kept being moved – 3 weeks in fact), a couple of members weren’t due to their time splitting between alliance and horde and their own personal lives.  That is a long story as well, suffice it to say, I felt they should have been dedicating more time to horde side with us and honoring their commitment that they wanted to raid with us.  We also had someone else late that night, which meant I had to pug 3 people – one of each role.  This annoyed me because well, 7/10 is not a guild run and we had to take pugs which are always an unknown quality.

When we finally get in there and are ready to start, I ask who has read the fights/watched videos – and only one person says they watched a video and one person said they had absolutely no idea.

This of course meant the entire group decided they all had to speak up at once.  I called for quite on vents…in fact…  I think I said “everyone shut up so i can explain…stop stop stop talking!!!”  The GM backed me up and asked for quiet as well, calling out specific people – more because he could recognize their voices than for any other reason.

Well that one line caused me more heartache than I can even begin to explain, suffice it to say tour tank (and friend) told the GM to eat a dick and then refused to talk on vents or respond to the GM for the rest of the night.  As anyone who has done the 3 dogs knows, you need to be talking through the swaps, everyone has to be communicating and helping.

We wiped all night.  We got Cobalt, Jasper and Amethyst.  We didn’t ever last much past the first overload.  I called it at 9.30pm because the more I tried to get our tank to talk the worse our attempts got.

In the end I could not muster up enough energy to give a flying rats arse about raiding. Or the guild.

After an hour long argument after the raid, between hubby and tank, they decided to just agree to disagree.  But I think the damage had been done.  The next day, the GM advised me the 2 who were already behind in gear, were not going to be able to raid with us anyway, so we needed to recruit over them.

That was it.  GM cancelled raiding and told everyone this was no longer a raiding guild and to leave if they wanted.  I apologised profusely to everyone as well.

Neither of us have been online since because we just can’t find the energy to give a shit about the online world right now.

There are a few reasons behind this, the first major one being my depression stemming from being unable to find another job.  Not just find another job though, I can’t even get interviews – I was told I can’t get interviewed because  I don’t have a degree or certification in anything (to cut a long story short).  So this search for a new job has been going for over 6 years – before I left my previous employer and then since then when I moved to my current position to help my family out.

The point being this depression made me blurt out to my hubby recently that I wanted to to die.  Not suicide – I am too chicken, but I would like to have something happen to me that is instant death.  Clearly, this mindset is not a healthy one.  This was not a good place for me to caring about other people’s needs in a game that – for all intents and purposes, will not really amount to real friendships.

The second major thing being my step-mother is relapsing into her anxiety issues and potentially having another breakdown.  This has placed a huge amount of pressure on me at work as I am now having to try and placate both her and my father and some how keep the business afloat without being able to actually have any input into how it is done.  I may have to come back to work full time, yet I can’t even pay myself because of the financial cock ups.  I had one pay delayed a week ago because they couldn’t afford to pay me, and the next week she requested to pay me by the hour because she doesn’t trust that I am working the hours she is paying me for.  I am now keeping a time sheet.  In fact, I can’t even get paid today.

The third major thing – my hubby was potentially going to be made redundant from work.  He is safe until early next year at this stage, but we spent a week not knowing if he was still employed.  This was a huge weight and not really something we needed to deal with all in the same week as everything else.  We have only a few more months now, but we have tough decisions to make between now and then because of the impending changes to his company.

Of course to add to all that we have had all the little things that come with the big things, balancing a budget without a pay for the week, hubby changing buildings at work, me doing some certification for working behind in a pub/club/hotel, hubby being on call for the week…blah blah blah.

Yes that is life and everyone has different things going on, but everyone has their limits and we had reached ours.

So basically, WoW is the farthest thing from my mind right now.  I have been reading blogs and enjoying all the updates and cool things happening, completely insanely jealous!!

As it stands though, I have 2 more people that need to start getting focused on their gear, with another 2 at just below the 460 point and the rest of us in full 463 gear.

Not too bad, however I had hoped that we would have been raiding by now.  The plan is now hopeful for Wednesday and at that point, I will start recruiting over those not ready.  It has been well and truly long enough for everyone to get geared and ready, if the GM can level an entirely new toon and be ready I will not believe that other people cannot do 5 levels and gear in the same amount of time.  To me that shows a distinct lack of dedication to the progression focus we want to have.

I don’t want to be server first and beating other guilds etc, but I don’t want to be waiting around for months before we set foot in there either.  I do want us to be ready so go in, do well and lay some smackdown.  A friend GM from another guild was telling me about their attempts in MV and I was amazed – they have a raid tested and proven raid team and they are dealing with laziness, how in hell will we do.  We have a largely untested raid team – all seemingly good players in heroics and in LFR – aside from me – so how will we go as a group.

This is one of the reasons I want to get in there ASAP, if people can’t handle it, I want to know sooner rather than later.  I want to make sure we get the best group we can. I want to be like the Frosties (who i miss immensely) and be getting heroic final boss kills for mounts and achievements. I don’t want to be scraping for kills an xpac later.

Small things weighing on my mind huh ?!??

In other news though, the guild is a smidge off getting to level 25!!  When I logged off last night it was 82% through level 24, so it may even happen today if we are lucky.

I have done no pet battles, in fact the idea of having to level my actual pets makes me want to cry.  As far as I can tell, and I have been so focused on raiding plans I have ignored reading everything else, I have to move my pets to areas of the same level…but really…effort – not something I have at the moment with that

Dailies.  Yes I have been Mrs Slack when it comes to those little buggers!  I was diligent the first few days and did ALL of them, but now…I am just not even doing any – mainly because I am trying to get heroics happening to get people gear, and doing runs for people as well.  I spent a couple of hours last night chasing the Lorewalkers thing instead of doing “important” dailies :p  But I now have a cloud to fly around on!!  I shall probably seriously start my dailies again this week.  Maybe.  …  possibly.

I also got over my fear of starting a PUG group and organised one for Sha of Anger.  Well really i just invited a bunch of people who then took over and I really couldn’t be bothered arguing.  But hey, I started it instead of not…so kudos to me   I was a little mortified when they started booted everyone below 90 and abusing them for being moochers and they should be leveling instead of trying to get loot off raid bosses.

Sorry for the long post and no pictures but wrap your arms around yourself and have a free hug from me – if you made it this far you deserve it!

Life sometimes beats you down so much that you can barely find the will to stand, we have all experienced it at some point.  We all deal with (or not as the case may be) it differently and have very different coping starts.  However I am way beyond the ability to cope with everything at the moment.

I still love blogging, and I love my WoW, I love my readers and my commenters and everything the blogosphere has brought into my life this year, but unfortunately it does not solve the real life issues that crop up and so my focus is now on other aspects of my life. What is pathetically horrible is that all it boils down to is my inability to find a job.  I am not unemployed at the moment, but I am not in a job that suits – aside from me travelling for just over 2.5 hours to get to work each way, I am working with my parents which brings a whole swag of issues, plus the huge pay cut I took doing it to help out when my mum had her nervous breakdown thinking – stupidly as it turns out – that I could get another job with a snap of the fingers, I spend most days bored out of my mind because I complete things 3 times faster than my mum does.

Anyone who has been job hunting or constantly rejected knows how horrible it can feel, and after 18 months of not even having one interview and redesigning my resume over 5 times, I am in a very bad mental place where I cannot hope to even be a good blogger – not that I was ever good per se.  I do not want my feelings to spill over into my wow life and so I will still be reading your posts and looking up blogs, but you will not likely see me comment much because I just don’t have the capacity right now.  Job hunting in NSW as well as VIC is going to take its toll on me and I cannot think of anything worse than making harsh or snippy comments and risking friendships because I am grumpy.

I am not sure when I will be back blogging again, it may never happen, but for those who want to add me and chat in game Dragonray 1445  is my battle tag.  I am still in game fairly often so more than happy to have a chinwag with people.

I wasn’t balling like a baby, but this really moved me. (Behind a cut as some people may consider it spoilerish – piccies only)

Cutest baby tauren ever seen on national tv if you ask me!

He makes comment in here that he couldn’t save her with all his powers, and it just broke me.  I was devastated for him.

Oh god! The tears!

Watching others in pain is the worst

My very quick reasons for this – is the maps are confusing and quests are spread out all over the place.  I have felt as if I have spent all day running back and forth for like 2 quests, or you find a random in a forest who has 3 quests but had you not walked past him you wouldn’t have known they were there.  I would prefer you have a map with one city in the middle and some dude hands you out 50 quests all at once, then I can just go around the map and do them in some semblence of order.  Yes – I want order!

The second issue I am having is being unable to find ways to get into quest hubs, yesterday I spent 30 minutes riding around an entire map to find an entrance that was on my map, but not when I got there. It has happened multiple times.  Yes I know it is not Blizz’s fault because I get lost, but if we sued the above solution, I wouldn’t be annoyed about it !  :p

See, very quick negatives, onto the other things!

I have run both available dungeons :

First time I ran it I got locked out of one of the boss fights because the tank ran in like a looney – although that seemed to be a theme with the runs I went on today (5 – if memory severs me correctly). I didn’t get a chance to enjoy my time in there so I really cannot comment,  I hate the first boss who requires you spend the entire fight running in a circle….what a stupid fight for people that need actually cast….stupid….

The last boss in this place, I SWEAR!!  did different things when I went in…so I am assuming there is a random element to it..it may help if I actually read the dungeon journal – I might do that tonight :p  I liked this instance, the litle elemental things are in it They are awesome! Bad image but you know which creatures I am talking about.

I have been taking great care to read things and just enjoy the small things that are always in the game but generally missed out on.

A guildie also found one later that said something along the lines of scratching their botom they sniffed their finger and will never do it again.  I must try and track it down, it was funny   I liked the Hozen, not as annoying as JaJa binks but almost!

I am having massive bag space issues as the gear I am getting all looks so awesome, I am wanting to keep it, but my void storage is completely full, so is my bank and my only options now are to go through and delete any double ups of gear – like for my tier 13 stuff I have duplicate LFR pieces that I was using for PVP etc…I can get rid of them now and that may free up some space, but for the few pieces that will get rid of, I have already gotten quite a few novelty items from quests that I can’t bear to part with like my puntable marmot.  So transmog is an issue.  I am a fully fledged addict.  I want to enter more competitions! LOL

I am having issues with my mage – my damage seems to be crap.  I tried frost with no luck – I was struggling to get the hang of it, and am now trying fire.  I seem to spend far too long killing one mob, my normal spells are hitting for less than 20k (they used to hit for almost 30k and up to 50k for a crit) - I have to investigate what changes were made, was the damage output reduced for everyone or are the mobs just that much harder to kill? I am feeling quite distraught about it.  Fire is still RNG, although I enjoy the playstyle, I was barely doing 14k on some fights and others I was hitting just over 23k….which in my mind is pathetic.  If I get a chance over the next couple of nights I will start my investigations, this will be an easy fix once I figure it out I am sure.

Overall, I am enjoying myself!  I can’t wait to get to 90!

I am just amazed at how wonderful the artwork is!

I was tempted NOT to hand in the quest in which you have to collect the 4 little dragons, just so I could have them wth me all the time, but I figured they wouldn’t last out of the area or even if I logged out…I didn’t want to tempt fate…but  I loved having four of them trailing around!!

This is also being added to my headers because it is pure win!

Here are some more that I got to ride on or past or around!

Seriously, I will stop here, I know it is only 4, but I would bore you all to death with just more dragons!  LOL

I am in heaven!!  DRAGON HEAVEN  TELL YOU!!

I had heard mixed reports, and as usual I had no complaints I can’t wait to see more of them as thy will be quite enjoyable o do when you just want iTunes with a couple of mates though some quick things.

I liked that I could blow stuff away and not worry about aggro or threat or healing etc. Obviously having a healer does make a difference if you are grabbing bundles and bundles of pats, but if exercising caution, you could survive quite easily without.

Anyway when I came out of my scenario, I landed on top of someone. Just another person until the name registered in my brain and I actually squealed. Hubby thought I was mental. I then proceeded to jump like a maniac because Akabeko was standing right in front of me!

Akabeko! THE AKABEKO!!

After a moment of complete speechlessness, we had a quick chat and swapped battletags. Of course, I was too chicken to actually talk to her after that, but small steps ok? I also have to thank another special Druid for helping that connection

I did the scenario on a couple of toons, did some healing on my pally in PVP and then decided to call it a night!

But, immense night tonight!

I have barely been online this past week due to things..just random things, but things nonetheless.

Our guild got to level 10, I missed it sadly, but I was there for our level 11 ding!  YAY!

I also discovered, stupidly slow again, that there is no cap on the dailies anymore. I knew it was happening but didn’t think to check as I thought it was a MoP thing.  So I spent one day going nuts with the dailies and then haven’t done them since. I must get another couple of days done, on a couple of different toons, I want to have more money saved up for MoP.

My shammy managed to beg a couple of runs with the guild and now has enough gear to get into the twilight heroics, however, I am a little meh about playing her as enhancement…I shall see how it goes though, I am missing totems, it was what I played the class for. Apparently Elemental is the way to go!

I am certain my levelling experience through MoP will be my mage, druid, paladin, warrior.  The last two being interchangable depending on time factors etc.  In previous expacs I went nuts with my mage doing everything possible before worrying about the next, however there is no demand for that this time so I will just get them to 90 and spend time alternating on them.  Aside from raiding requirements on my mage of course

I will probably level a monk with the frosties so I have a healer/tanking toon over there, rather than just a tank.

I am going away this weekend as well, so will be MIA a little bit, hopefully will get online tonight for a run of some kind, and a scenario or two   I can’t wait to see it!!!

This is the last week in cataclysm, and I am sad and happy and excited and nervous and so many emotions.  As alway,s I get emotional when it comes to this game. I love it.  I love the world and I love the story.  I am amazed that people have created this just for my pleasure   I could think of nothing better than spending my days playing this game and just chilling out with my pets and dragons and oomkins

I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I have never had a problem with the changes or things that Blizzard do to this game.  So far, each time has been better with awesome changes and more fun.  I can’t wait for Pandaria and I am just excited to be blogging through another xpac!!