I felt a quick update was in order. Things are going well at this end. I completed the first Swedish class and are now on with the second course.

I’m understanding a fair amount of whats going on, though there’s still a little way to go before I’m confident enough to talk much beyond the essentials, which can be missinterepted that I don’t understand.. /sigh

I’ve been crafting and so maybe expect some photo’s of that soon!

So as promised a bit of a low down on the fun that we got up to in Turkey.

First things have to be my most stupid of Plane Journeys – it makes travelling to Northrend at level 10 seem like cake.  I flew on 4 flights to get from the UK to Sweden then Sweden to Turkey. Phase one of the Turkey Trip, beach holiday!

Looking out to Bodrum

Bodrum was where I met the majority of the Turkish players that had been in Closed Circle- Estergon, Herak, Didi and Laz.  It was incredible to meet up with them and their families and understand that this was where they were warning me they would be going later in the year (if we had raided for that long as a guild).  The place is beautiful, food incredible but the company was just…. awesome.  Putting faces to voices is something I always find so interesting with World of Warcraft.  It really feels when you’ve raided with people for so long that you know people really well even though you’ve never met.

The first few days were spent on the beach.

The beach

Enjoying the tastiest Draeni on evenings and also indulging in sunsets….

Squid... tastes just like chicken

Looking out to Greece

Along with an evening in Bodrum itself with its thrashing nightlife.

Laz and Haydari enjoying some music and shots

We also went out on a boat from Bodrum to a little cove for some swimming with the little fish (even if Haydari is scared of those).

Boat to the cove

Haydari being scared by a little fish... or an Emanee....

Almost over before it started it was then time to move out to Istanbul to sample some of the delicacies and to attempt the kebab achievement, and so we waved goodbye to Didi, Celin, Laz and the little fish and started to move out.

And so in Istanbul it was time for a little differing kind of action, from kebab to waterpipes and waiters.  Its unfortunate really that I kept forgetting my camera, no pictures of the square I was scared by, of masses of kebab and awesome burgers or Ester’s/Hera’s raid zones.

Estergon and his enormous... tobacco!

Emanee and Haydari and their pipe, 2 Apple + mint

We also managed to catch up with Seramana and Orko in Istanbul, indulging in an incredible breakfast (already Haydari is demanding eggs benedict for his breakfast daily).  Again awesome to put names to faces.

All in all just an incredible week with friendly and incredible people, so here’s to skiing in a few months!

Yes today is the day, and yes I’m more nervous than my first Zul’Gurub run.

Needless to say Turkey was amazing and I will post more on that once the photographs are uploaded. I always find it amazing to spend time with the people I’ve raided with- spending so much time with them you find that you know them so well, and get on so well too.

I’ll leave you with a quote from a death knight with perhaps the most awesome sense of humour ever.

‘Do you know how you get the good shit? Well you go into a field and there are all the shits on the floor, and you start to taste each one. You’ll know when you are eating the good shit.’

And so tomorrow I begin my journey to Sweden (though I’m also going on holiday to Turkey so there are 4 flights tomorrow Uk->Copenhagen->Stockholm->Istanbul->Bodrum. I’m looking forwards to meeting my Turkish friends, though looking forwards to spending 3 months with my boyfriend finally. Long distance relationships are fine, don’t get me wrong – but short distance is oh so much more maintainable.

The flat pack up went really well once I disconnected my computer and thus couldn’t be upping my Bejewelled score any further on facebook. /sigh.

Been considering WoW a little more, though I’m not sure that I really should go back to it- not when I have intentions of doing lots of differing things with my time. It comes down to knowing that I can achieve much more in a day when I’m not playing a computer game.

Anyways once I’m back in the world of the living I’ll post on the week in the sun and how the language course is going.

See you on the other side!

And I’m sat here looking at WoW forums, Facebook, Livejournal. Anything and everything I can to avoid packing things into boxes to take down to the car.

The 10 man raiding guild looks (perhaps thankfully) less likely, though the urge to herb is still strong. I may allow a little next week on my laptop.

Must get back to doing some putting things in boxes… damn achievement. >.<

Its bad when you’re supposed to be packing the car for another trip to remove stuff….that I’m considering the importance of making a 10 man raiding guild- right down to the players I would have in it, the roles they would take etc.

Oh well, maybe its that the filling boxes with copious amounts of stuff is finally (?!) getting boring, or that I just still want to play quite badly.

Its perhaps something to discuss with friends in Istanbul next week at least- perhaps we could make something of it.

Damn you tree bark jacket!

So I’ve missed WoW in and among- taking my ‘fix’ harassing people on msn to let me know how things are going on. Two of my friends from Echoes moved to another server to a top 100 guild, and so I’ve been chatting with them about how things are.

I’ve come to the opinion that with the way my game play evolved when I was raid leading, there’s no way I could fit into a guild like that without some serious theorycrafting, and playing to get back on form…. but well it doesnt matter any way.

In one week I’m moving out of my flat. There are boxes everywhere and I have to take them all down to the car and drive them back to my mum’s where there going to be stored.

And in two weeks today I’m on a plane…. well four to be factually correct. I’m flying to Copenhagen, then to Stockholm, then to Istanbul, then to Bodrum. We’re going on a holiday before my course starts to meet some people we’ve played with for the past 3 or so years and to catch some sunshine and party hard.

Seems so far away while I’m sat here letting the tinted moisturiser to hide my pale WoW skin soak in.

Oh and I forgot the biscuits…. damn.

Much has happened since I last posted here.

We got “Of the Nightfall” though it was a very bittersweet night- we had to not take any of our melee – set up was

2 Paladin healers
Druid healer

Warrior tank (drakes)
Pala tank (adds)
Druid tank (on Sarth)

Ele Shammie
Mage
Mage
Shadow Priest

I was sad about the set up we had to use, and as a result didn’t raid lead the attempts, but we got it down – and that was the important thing.

The week after we worked on 6 min malygos, with me solo healing – we were in the end around a minute too late (unfortunatly the strongest dps wasnt available), but solo healing still felt sweet.

The next day it was Ulduar time.

We had some awesome initial progress, but then started to quickly hit our heads against a brick wall – players stopped signing up after 2 weeks of raiding there, and the furthest we got was to Iron Council.

It was at this point I decided to take the guild to inactive status. We’ve been through this situation before- recruiting more people to fill peoples gaps because they couldnt be arsed to wipe. And to be honest I don’t spend half my life in a game or checking tactics and idea’s for people to just not care.

2 members of the council decided to try keep the guild going after I stepped down, but they suffered the same problems and after 2 weeks they transferred to other guilds. rerolled.

I personally at this point reduced my play-time significantly. Transferred to my original home on Scarshield Legion and planned to rejoin a guild I’d played with in TBC towards the end – Echoes. However. I’m taking a sabbatical from my RL job this summer to go to Sweden, learn swedish and attempt to get a job. There’s a lot to do, and if I’m playing WoW I’m not going to do it.

So as of Monday this week I’ve completely stopped playing.

I don’t regret this, it was time for me and its taken so very much of my life over the past few years.

But then without WoW I wouldn’t have met so many amazing people and visited them. I wouldn’t have met Toomaj. I would’t be moving to Sweden.

From a very real point of view, raid leading over the past 6 or so months has also helped in the real world. I’m more assertive and can take better control of a situation than I ever could before. I can tell what motivates people more easily (true in the real world it isnt achievement points, epics, progression or playing with friends) and I actually find it easier to approach and talk to people than I did before I played.

But it was time.

This blog will go on, though I will probably change the skin/etc to reflect that I’m real not a tree anymore.

So about 2 weeks ago or so we finally nailed it, after repeated brickwalling on Shadron, it seemed in the end that it was simply switching the heroism to Shadron from Vesperon, and creative resto druid/Shaman useage.

We used a Druid tank in Fire/Frost gear, with a shaking of nightmare seeds, various resistance flasks and stuffs, a warrior on the drakes and 2 DK’s on the adds.

Healer wise we used the 7 healer tactic, with 3 paladins, 1 Disc priest, 2 Resto Shaman, 1 Resto druid.

DPS wise we took a broad range of casters/melee including Shadow priests and Ele shammies.

We’ve since done the fight once more, and I’m pretty happy with repeatability.

10 man though… oh what a challenge in terms of dragging the right set up >.< more on that another day!

Not long to go I presume until we finally get some new content. Currently still fighting with 3D, though its more a fight to get the optimal set-up online at the same time. Think should I manage that for a couple of days then we should take him down with ‘relative’ ease.

Achievements are something I’m not convinced on. While it gives new content, in a way… it also divides player base. I must admit I don’t really care for some title or another, but harder content and harder fights- yes please.

With the information that Uldar is going to have 10 or so bosses with an additional hard mode, it doesnt exactly fill me with glee, but the fun to begin with is going to be actually clearing the content.

Reading around on the upcoming nerf, it makes me wonder how in practice healing set-ups will actually change, but I’ll think over that and maybe post something later- really hoping I can read some PTR Literature, or get on there myself.