An Optimist whispers: “hi want to go ST? we ready to go”

I blink, almost crashing my Velociraptor 2000 GT, (which I call ‘Cherie’ on account of its unsettling grin) into a passing plague-frenzied bear, who looked as surprised as I was. I was galloping back through the Eastern Plaguelands to the Bluwark, carrying a particularly worrying flask of grim-looking liquid plague for the inspection of those nice Argent Dawn folks. Undead are all pretty much the same to me, but apparently there are Bad Undead, and Even Worse Undead, and these Argent Dawn folks pay well for various interesting guerrilla attacks on the latter kind. Cherie gets hungry a lot and as a Warrior, I tend to need to keep up to date on the latest in fashionable plate-wear, so keeping in gainful employment is always good, and in this case, a good way to remember 'how2play' in a reasonable controlled setting.

Regular readers will know by now, that I tend to prefer my gainful employment given to me by card-carrying, yellow-exclamation marked, bona fide NPCs, rather than the more unpredictable and fickle Lv50-60 /who list scavengers looking to Instance For Great Victory! My time away from World of Warcraft had made me forget however, that as an unattacthed, single-blue L54 Warrior, I’m starting to become something of a commodity.

I thought about the request a moment. I’d been back a total of three hours, and although just about remembered how to fight solo-mobs (Battle Shout, Demoralising Shout, Sunder Sunder Sunder Sunder…), and had good enough gear from the last time around to provide a fair margin of error, I’d not done instance main-tanking in a fair few months, and had never been to the Sunken Temple before. The quest book showed that I had some unfinished business in there however, including one Warrior Specific Quest, which I always like to do if I can…makes me feel a little bit special.

I agreed to sign up for the crawl, fearing the worst, but keeping my reservations to myself, well aware of the effects on morale that a Main Tank who hasn’t Main Tanked for a long time might have on the rest of the group, but turns out I needn’t have worried. The journey from Undercity – the nearest town to where I was, to the Swamp of Sorrows, the jumping off point for the temple, is near enough the entire length of the world map, from north to south, so off I go, winging my way down there by Giant Bat Taxi. There wasn’t much to do on the trip, apart form try to work out where I put my shield after the last time I used it, try and remember what all these strange hot-bar icons on the ‘Defensive Stance’ toolbar were for again, and listen in on the inevitable bickering that was going on in Party chat.

Undercity to Taren Mill:
Group leader, The Optimist, now has a full party and is keen to get started. I have no idea how long they’d been waiting about before I joined. Party line-up seems to be: Hunter, Rogue, Shaman, Druid, and me – Warrior, all between L50 and L56. It’s a little less than optimal, but I see no reason why we couldn’t, if not complete it, then certainly make a decent trip of it. Several other members disagree, and indeed seem to believe that we're just going to die horribly within the first few fights. I've never been, so am in no position to differ, so just keep quiet and enjoy the scenery while they go through the seven stages of grief in party-chat. Personally, I don't worry that much, safe in the knowledge that good, or bad, it's still an annecdote!

Taren Mill to The Wetlands:
Two of the Pessimists, reinforcing each others doubts, are now calling for a Priest. Assuming the Druid hasn’t specced himself in some bizarre set-up designed purely around turning into badgers or something, I’d imagine he could probably cover the bulk of the healing, especially with the Shaman on backup. Group leader – the Hunter I think – acquiesces and starts scouring the /who list for a L55 Priest with time on his hands, whom I imagine are much harder to find that tanks like me.

The Wetlands to Loch Modan:
It now occurs to the group that adding a Priest will make us a group of Six. Various bickering entails over who should leave. I keep quiet and enjoy the scenery, knowing at I’m probably the member needed the most at this point, but am starting to feel anxious about the whole trip now.

Loch Modan to Kagarth:
The Druid volunteers to leave. Both I, and my character, slap hand over eyes. I can even hear my Giant Bat Taxi giggling at this point. Eventually, after much bickering, the Rogue seems to get the hint, swears at us all for a bit, and then vanishes. I’m sure Rogues are useful and all, and great for DPS, but only after the main jobs are taken care of – healer, tank, crowd control. I grumble, picturing in my mind already, the thousands of locked doors that are probably in this Sunken Temple place, waiting to be Smug at us.

Kagarth to Redridge Mountains:
I lose interest a bit, as I’ve always enjoyed watching the little monsters and heroes fighting away in the Burning Steppes and Searing Gorge. I amuse myself by pretending to bomb them indiscriminately with copper pieces and trollish heckling. The Bat is telling me that he had “that Warcheif Thrall” on his back the other day, and expounding his quite frankly abusive racist views on Tauren, explaining that we should ‘send them all back’, wherever that might be.

Redridge to Deadwind Pass:
Group Leader reports back his complete failure to find an interested, free, and willing Priest of the appropriate level, including within his own guild, which somewhat defeats the point of being in a guild at all, I remark to the Bat, who nods and tells me that Unions are a much more sensible choice. This leaves us at four members, and rather solves the ‘Sixth Member’ dilemma quite neatly. My Bat is shaking its head frantically at this point, and I’m beginning to be inclined to agree with it. At this point, I’ve downgraded my expecations from “Epic Quest for Great Justice!” to “It’ll Do As Slow-Blog-News-Day Material.”

Deadwind Pass to Stonard:>
The Shaman is the first to break, executing a perfect full-point ‘to slow c u’ double axle group-quit, and the group leader, seeing how ungrateful we’re all being toward his monumental organisational skills, follows soon after. My long-distance haulage Bat lands at Stonard International Wyverndrome, I tip him generously, pass through immigration with minor incident, (“It’s cause I is blue!”), and collect my bags, just in time for the remaining druid to go ‘:(’ and suddenly, I’m soloing again, 12 silver out of pocket, and about eight zones from where my currently active quest line is.

Welcome back, World of Warcraft…nice game, shame about the people...