Still Hanging in there after Ten Years

Still Hanging in there after Ten Years

I'm running late on the annual review of the Wild Family. In recent years there have been less to tell, and the gaps in playing time have grown larger. The year of 2014 may have been one of the quietest of Wild's playing days, but there was still many things to record and remember.

One amazing accomplishment is that the Wild family, along with the whole Blizzard community, is celebrating TEN YEARS of World of Warcraft. As one of those original players who've played all ten years, I received a really cool statue of a mounted orc. No charge, just a thank you for being there. The pic should be here:

In the first half of 2014 there were only 5 posts in total. Most of those posts revolved around the speculation of when the next expansion, Warlords of Draenor (WoD) would be released. Most of the Wild clan were off the radar, leaving only Happyface to carry on. Given the lack of activity, Happy made the most of it. He bought himself a dragon. Here is his description: "The Iron Skyreaver is a two-headed dragon. It's a sweet ride with a set of afterburners that light up when airborne. The dragon has a menacing roar and can do loops and rolls in the air. Truly cool. JB also took it out for some herb farming and had a blast."

There were two issues in April that, while not directly connected to the Wild family, caused an even larger slow down of game activity. First, I decided to build a new website to support my novel aspirations. That took a great deal of time. Second, I had promised to play League of Legends while WoW was more or less on hold, but I wound up too busy even to keep that much of a promise. My apologies.

That led to what some in the family feel is the biggest news of this year, which is the coming of age of Jocelyn. Jocy was a level 27 paladin lost in the far north of Azeroth. She hung out in Silvermoon City in Eversong Woods. It was a bland, boring life for the feisty pally and she wished for much more.

Her dreams came true when the magic of Boosting was introduced. Wild gave his blessing for Jocy to take that ride. On April 4th Jocy ascended the ranks from level 27 to level 90 in one fell swoop. She would start as a retribution paladin with a courtesy set of i483 gear, and enhanced that gear with i496 gear from the Timeless Isles that Wild and family had saved for her. The only drawback to that process was that Jocy lost all of her professions. She wasn't very far along, anyway, so it was no great loss.  Jocy was ready and anxious to see the world.

After Jocy's coming out, the family disappeared from the radar for the next six months. They finally resurfaced in October. It wasn't a splashy comeback, beginning with this announcement: "I am going to restart this blog again. Somewhat paradoxically, the first thing I’m going to talk about is why I’ll be playing WoW even less than usual for a few weeks, even though a new patch is coming out in just three days." The post goes on to describe in great detail the changes that are coming with WoD, and the imminent release of the Pre-WoD patch, 6.0.

Jocy was the first of the Wild Family to jump into Patch 6.0 and participate in the battle that would open up the world of Draenor of 35 years in the past. She was the first to earn the Iron Horde title for completing that world opening. Both Wild and Fist would later also complete and receive the title. But Jocy was the first.

In November the Wild family began taking a look at the new Garrison, which is a special fort built specifically for a single character. Wild, Jocy, and Fist all have Garrisons now, in varying states of completion. Along with the Garrison there are Followers who are available to help out with the work of the Garrison. I'm still mostly in the dark about to make the best use of Garrisons and followers. Maybe the new year will bring Wild new insight, but . . .

Finally, I wanted to post some numbers on the Wild Family threesome that have settled in Draenor.
Name    Level        Gear    Followers
Wild     98+65%        i591    16
Fist       93+33%        i544    6
Jocy      93+13%        i547    6

Last year (2013) I didn't even attempt to address the raiding guild status as I usually do. I am bringing that report back even though Wild has not been raiding for a good long time. I still want to see how Wild's current and past guilds are doing and, who knows, Wild may eventually decide to join the raiding ranks again. Stranger things have happened.

So here is the Wild Family Tenth Year (17 Jan 2015) - 2015 New Year's Report

(1) Wild remains a long standing member of the Meitha guild. The guild is active and there are many familiar names popping up in guild chat. The two mainstays, Bloodknuckle and Talatiana, are still running things, though, officially, Porkkchop is the Guild Leader. There has been no guild drama that Wild is aware of, but then Wild does not participate in guild events yet. That could change when Wild reaches level 100 and the guild starts to get serious about raiding. So far there is only talk. JB is also a member of Meitha. Wild was not apart of any raid in the Pandaria expansion. That's the first time Wild had totally bowed out.

(2) The rest of the Wild family has gone off the radar. Beyond those already mentioned, Tiphaine has been about cleaning up her bags and helping Happy sell off a lot of ancient stuff that Happy had Tiphaine storing for him. Such mundane tasks don't sit too well with Tiphaine, but she has certainly mellowed and seems relatively content at level 72. No one else has seen any significant action this past year.

(3) The Annual (Sort of) Raiding Guilds Review:
* Meitha (MM2)- Prokkchop Guild Leader, Grrbaby 2nd
    - Members: 486 (2014) [386 (2011), 487 (2012)]
    - Total 100s: 76 (2014) [209 (2011), 85 (2012)]
Raids - The Siege of Orgrimmar (SOO) was the only raid of note in Pandaria. The guild did only the LFR, so there were no Normal, Heroic, or Mythic raids. They did kill all fourteen bosses. They have not started on WoD raids, either.

* Mayhem (MM) - The two guild leaders of Mayhem, Wightblade and Kira, are now in separate guilds. There is another Mayhem guild that is composed of no one I know. I have to conclude that the original MM guild is no more.That's sad.

* Fate Sealed (FS) - Ramux Guild Leader, Frohgurt 2nd. It's also nice to see that the original guild leader is still listed on the roster and even has a level 90 toon: Jomamma/Serenite.
    - Members: 176
    - Total 100s: 36
    Raids: SOO 14/14 LFR only, Highmaul (7/7) LFR AND 1/7 Normal. This guild is still actively raiding. Lots of familiar faces, too. Kikz is still going strong based on his raiding.

* Warchild (WC) - Grymshot Guild Leader (aka Rhonna), Amevia 2nd
    - Members: 69
    - Total 100s: 18
    Raids: SOO 14/14 LFR , SOO 6/14 Normal, Highmaul 7/7 LFR, HM 6/7 Normal. Rhonna still runs things and his guild is doing great.

Finally, here is Wild's raiding history - Wildshard has not raided since May 10th, 2012, more than two-and-a-half years.