Transfer Thoughts

*I started typing this post and instead of a few quick thoughts on my new server it sort of became this back and forth tug of war on whether I made the right choice to transfer , so I apologize for the rambling and all the scattered thoughts* I transferred to Blackwing layer which is one of the “newer” high population PVP servers that I could find. The idea behind going to a high population server is more guilds in 25 man content which means I will hopefully have a better shot of getting into a hard core raiding guild with a level of progression close to what Mal Katai was at. I wanted to find a guild that was around the same level of progression because I still want the thrill of downing a boss together as a guild for the first time. Being run through an instance that a guild has been farming for weeks is just not fun to me. There were basically three guilds on Blackwing Layer which were close to what I was looking for. BlackWing Layer Progression After asking around for a guild that would take a Prot Warrior, Resto Druid, and holy paladin we were accepted into the guild “Strips for Silver” (Strips for Silver/). “Strips for Silver” has cleared HKM, Gruul, Mag, Hydross, Lurker, and Void Reaver which is roughly where “Mal katai” is so it was a good match. Originally we were talking to the officers in the guild “Bleach” (Farthest progressed alliance guild on Blackwing layer) and I think we would have been accepted but then I would have been in the “Farming Run through” scenario, and I just don’t think I would have had as much fun with that. Granted I am a loot whore, but walking around in gear that I didn’t really earn isn’t rewarding. If I wanted that I might as well ebay a character. My transfer went through Tuesday night so I logged onto my new server and was in awe at how many people were standing around Iron Forge (side note: Logging into a server with your main and having no one on your friends list sucks nuts). The server is seriously packed. I checked prices on the auction house and they were similar to Altar of Storms so I tossed up a few blacksmithing items to see if I could get them to sell. I had these items up for more than a week on Altar of Storms with no luck, but in under an hour I had sold everything I had crafted. The economy is strong on Blackwing so hopefully I will have an easier time of making some cash to handle all my repair bills and weekly respec fee’s. Blackwing is also in the same Battle group that Altar of Storms is in so it’s possible I will end up in some BG’s with some of my old friends at some point, or end up getting my ass handed to me in Arena’s by these same guys. I have to admit it might have been nice to go to a less competitive battle group to get a higher arena team ranking, but I guess that’s the easy way out and if I did end up with a higher arena ranking I would have always thought about how I couldn’t cut it in a harder battle group. What I was totally unprepared for and kinda disappointed in was the number of people that can be found in each guild. Tuesday was a raid night for “Strips for Silver”, being my first night and logging in after the raid had started I obviously wasn’t invited but I wasn’t the only one….. At raid time there were 70 level 70’s logged on and many of them in queue waiting for a raid spot. What does that mean for me being the new guy? I’m not sure yet, the GM had said that their core group was in need of good tanks, so I’m hoping that means I won’t be one of the normal guys sitting in queue riding the bench while others raid. Being totally freaked out by how many people trying to get a raid spot I started rethinking my choice in guilds so I started doing a “/who Bleach”, “/who Bear Cav”, etc. All the guilds were packed like this! That’s why I’m saying I think this server is bloated. There is not enough guilds to support this large of a population. If I cannot get into the main core group of raiders (The GM said that me and the Dirty’s would get spots but this is me being paranoid because I wasn’t even really sure I wanted to transfer in the first place) then I’m not sure what exactly I’m going to do. Side Note: Tuesday night the guild ran HKM, Gruul, and Mag all in one night and in like 2 hours which I was very happy to see that they utilize their time as much as possible. Wednesday and Thursday are “off” nights for the guild, which kinda sucks I would rather see Friday and Saturday as nights off. For instance I’ll have to miss out on a TK raid this Saturday because I’ll be over at Dirty’s house watching the MMA fight (Brock Lesnar is fighting, which is going to be awesome). I figure I should be able to raid most Friday’s and Saturdays though since I don’t get out much after having a kid. Last night being an “off” night I was invited to run in a Kara group. By now you guys know how much I hate Kara but I have to start integrating myself into this guild somehow so I figured this was a good place to start since one of the raid officers was in the group. Later I found out that I was invited so they could just check up on me and Dirty to make sure we weren’t retarded and possibly ruin their raids. I’m happy to say the run went smooth, we did a full Kara clear, and I collected my badges as normal. The thought is now in the back of my mind that if I cannot be a core member of a guild then I might just possibly have to form my own guild. I have been a GM before and seriously it’s kind of a nightmare, but I’d be willing to do it over not raiding. Then I guess I would have no one but myself to bitch at if the raiding wasn’t going as planned. Anyways, that’s a thought but I’m not sure if it’s one to pursue just yet. As a recap: Was transferring the right thing to do? Not sure yet, im still 50/50. I found a guild with a good raiding schedule, good dkp system, and with basically the same level of progression as Mal Katai, so that’s good. The economy seems to be extremely strong so I might be able to actually make a little bit of gold, also good. I had to leave behind some really good friends, which sucks ass. There is also the problem of for such a huge population there seems to be a limited amount of good raiding guilds so the number of members per guild is huge, which may mean I might not get to raid as much as I want, that’s bad. For now I guess I’ll see how many raids I get invites to and how the guild does as a whole. If it doesn’t work out I can always guild hop or even form my own guild, which I’m pretty confident I could easily find the members and be up and going in 25 mans in a very short about of time, so that’s always an option. Until then though I guess I’ll get some team spirit with “Strips for Silver” and see where that takes me.