The Great Experiment

In case you haven't been following things in the World of Warcraft Blogosphere, Tamarind of Righteous Orbs made a proposal last week that sounds very interesting: All bloggers unite on one Server, and play in the same guild.

The reaction has been not unsurprisingly tremendous. The original idea of setting up the guild on the European servers has now even spawned a sister chapter house in the US set up by Miss Medicina, and I am a member.

The name of the guild is [Single Abstract Noun] and is available as Horde on Argent Dawn-EU or Alliance on Argent Dawn-US, and its a great guild so far. Plenty of chats in peak US time, plenty of insight and discussion in late Singaporean time.

Unfortunately, Crucifer was taken. I had briefly thought of playing as Icara or Keltash, but I decided to go with *wait for it* a male toon with the name of Istarian *yes, I know shocking!*.

Then it was the choice of class. So far I have played:

Hunter - Al'Akir
Druid - Eonar
Warrior - Eonar
Paladin - Caelestrasz
Mage - Caelestrasz
Warlock - Caelestrasz
Shaman - Caelestrasz
Death Knight - Caelestrasz

There are two classes missing there.

I once played the Rogue back in the US beta and I hated it. I remember getting as far as Westfall and then being ganked over and over by mobs. I dropped the class and went Druid. It was much less painful.

Priest, I'm reserving for Cataclysm. I hope I can play a Goblin Priest. From a character concept its an interesting one. The reject Goblin, kicked out of the Guild because he wanted to *help* people.

So, I have a Hunter by the name of Istarian. I decided Hunter because they're incredibly fast to level up and given that I have huge timesinks in my real life, not including raiding on a different server on set days, a hunter was the logical choice. So far, I have got him to level 18 and I'm having real fun. One thing I have noticed is as an Alliance Hunter, I've not yet run into anything that has the potential to kill me. Ah well, I'm sure that will change.

The only problem - the only issue - I have noticed is that people are racing to get up to the end game as fast as possible. Guys, its not a race. Explore the game, do stuff you wouldn't normally do. Revel in the moment, chat with people, offer help wherever possible.

This is a great experiment but it is not proof against the same fate that every other guild had that started sociably and eventually went hardcore.