It would be rude not to....

.... so i naturally re subbed to checkout the Cataclysm expansion as it promised to change so much of the established game we had all come to love and know. Did i regret going back? No not really and for about 7 months it was nice to soak up all the nostalgia again with some familiar and new faces.

Level85 came and went with my newly prepared Draenei Priest to help fill the crucial healer role in any team which would ensure me being always needed. After some weeks of gearing up with the welfare epic items that came from the easily farmable 5man heroic dungeons we stepped it up a gear and began raiding, that's what World of Warcraft is all about after all.

We experienced mixed success with the guild to begin with, of the initial 3 raids when Cataclysm started we managed to beat Throne of the Four Winds (ToT4W) and cleared the first 4 bosses inside Blackwing Descent after alot of effort, frustration and of course drama! Something about MMOs seems to attract a variety of personalities and individuals meaning alot of time was spent of training up members only to have them leave shortly afterwards and the cycle restart with someone different. Eventually a "core" group was carved of friends/colleagues that allowed us to advance. A major update updated added the Firelands raid to the game before we had chance to finish these so our focus changed and the process restarted of learning the new tactics and encounters that Firelands had to offer.

For what seemed like an eternity we would hit mental blocks on some bosses, Beth'talic is one that immediately comes to mind writing this post. The encounter was designed as a gear check (failure to kill the minions quick enough would soon mean you were over run) by Blizzard and this proved to be the case.

Eventually Firelands was cleared just in time before the next major update was added, DragonSoul in patch 4.3. However this was where my interest started to run out again and World of Warcraft had once again served its purpose in passing the time. The new feature "Raid Finder" undermining the purpose of guilds that allowed a bunch of strangers to be put together via a match making system and have access to all the content previously reserved for guilds..

As i mentioned at the start i didnt regret going back and i encorage anyone else who used to play to do the same even if for nothing else than to be able to experience first hand what has changed for the better and in some cases, the worse. Who knows, i may do the same during the upcoming Mists of Pandaria.

Until next time.