Man, my luck never changes. It had been a quite agreeable World of Warcraft session so far, working out of Cenarion Hold in Silithus. Killed a few bugs, gathered a few knick-nacks, visited a few sights, even grabbed a bit of Silithyst and delivered it to the Horde base.

It was a short run and no Alliance even saw me, but I like to feel I’m helping. Something of a doomed task really, given Horde/Alliance populations – the counters were 22/200, 95/200 respectively, and it’s been that far apart every time I’ve been there. I got 6k xp for doing it though, as it was my first go, so not all bad.

I even managed to team up with a passing hunter and tick off an (Elite) quest – a rarity for me indeed. Usually these (Elite) entries in the journal just sit there, go orange, then yellow, then green, then grey, and eventually I boot them out to make room for higher level soloable quests instead. But no, despite dying in the attempt, we took out Deathclasp, a very angry scorpion thing with a childish fixation with flinging Troll Warriors off mountain-tops. The requisite bit of monster gunk was still there when we got back to the scene though, so job done. If only it was one of the (Elite) quests that gives out something I can use. I took the bow in the end – a reasonable upgrade from the one I was using before, although I only use it to pull when I’m in Berserker or Defensive Stance and can’t be bothered to change to Battle Stance for a Charge, or when wandering mob spacing dictates that they should come to me, rather than the other way around.

I think the complacency set in at that point, some woefully misguided and naive assumption, based on shaky evidence at best, that ‘Teamwork = Success!’ Thinking about it in hindsight, it was a team of two, and both of us died, technically giving the monster a 2-1 win. Compared to my not dying once in about four hours, while soloing.

A Bringer Of Pain And Misery whispers to you, “wanna go to ST?”

I swear, at any other time, I’d have told them succinctly, but with graphic verbal flair, exactly where he/she could go, and precisely what ‘raid strategy’ and ‘resistance gear’ to use when they got there, but I was weak, slightly giddy, not paying attention…

For those not in the know, Silithus is about as far away from the Sunken Temple as the Plaguelands was, instead of being the entire north-south length of the world, the entire west-east width. I set off, mostly expecting the whole thing to be called off before I even got of the zeppelin really, but wanting to take a break from the sands and do a bit of fishing and flower-picking.

To my dismay, I actually made it to the temple and the group was still intact. We waited for the leader to get there, but the group seemed to be surprisingly patient, with only minimal jumping around in circles, and no ‘gogogogogo!!!1!’ at all! It might actually work this time! We had a Priest AND a Druid, two Warlocks, and myself (Warrior). A back-up assist-tank mail-wearing class would have been nice, but it looked good on paper at least. Then the leader, one of the Warlocks, went link-dead, and the fun began…

We waited a little more – some good fishing just inside the lobby bit, and the others seemed quite patient people – always a good sign. Then the druid says that it’s okay, and that they have a friend coming. Now, this is clearly a new definition of the term ‘friend’, because L60 Hunter who stepped out of the summoning portal - The Expert - has to be one of the most obnoxious people I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet in an online environment, including a year on Rallos Zek.

Almost immediately, The Expert gets into an argument over who has skinning rights on the corpses of the creatures we slay, stating flatly that if they don’t, they’re leaving, as it’s the only reason they came. We at Van Hemlock do not condone giving into to ransom demands, and the alarm bells start ringing, but we kept going. I'm a Herbalist anyway...not my problem.

The Expert, who seems to know my class much better than I do, then has a go at me for not applying all five Sunder Armours to each mob. I was sort of aware that this is pretty much the main way to ‘tank’ prior to this, but found this new and unexpected Tutorial fascinating. I was somewhat surprised that The Expert didn’t quite understand that using special abilities costs the Warrior ‘Rage Points’, which in turn are generated by monsters hitting me, and me hitting them. I mention the lack of rage to The Expert, and mention that insanely aggressive DPS rogue-type big-cat pet is basically acting as main tank, and almost impossible to out-aggro.

The Expert, clearly annoyed at my inability to pull Rage out of my arse, (Am I missing a Talent for this? Must check Protection Tree.) just tells me to Sunder five times, and then moves on to have a massive argument with the Warlock and Druid about where in the dungeon we are going. We are not going, as it turns out, to grapple with any of the bosses who drop things we all need for quests. We are in fact going to some remote corner of the place to farm Dragon Leather. I’m so happy to have a decisive leader for a change.

We get a few, chaotic, fights in, most of which I spend desperately tying to Taunt, Bloodrage, Challenging Shout, etc in vain attempts to get the monsters to notice anything other than the hunter pet, which seems to be operating like some kind of berserk DPS Rogue angry-bomb with more suicidal tendencies than is typical of the class, just so I can get enough Rage to maybe afford two Sunders per mob. The Expert is not happy and tells me off again, then proceeds to decimate most of the mobs with three or four shots from his rifle, the likes of which I am more accustomed to seeing mounted on tank chasis in Planetside.

The druid, during this fight, accidentally loots, causing a need/greed popup to show on everyone’s screen. It’s easily done in the hectic clicking of multi-mob furballs, but The Expert goes berserk. They degenerate, mid-fight, into ‘f*ck off!’, ‘no, u f*ck off!’, and finally, the mobs are all noticing me at last. The need-greed pop-up is Plate Glove, something only I can use, but I’m so annoyed and preoccupied, I just click Pass, so I can concentrate on not dying, but luckily, the Priest - ominously silent throughout The Expert’s master-classes, and the Warlock, who only piped up once, in my defence and inviting themselves into their own massive argument with The Expert for their trouble, are on the ball, and we manage to survive the encounter. (I was very dissapointed not to hear The Expert bellow 'HUNTER WEAPON!!!1!' at this point and click Need - that would have made my day I think, at least adding an element of ironic humour to the proceedings...)

It’s weird. It’s a text-based medium, in which they typed almost nothing, and with avatars with practically no self-expression, and yet I could still pick up a ‘vibe’ – neither of these two seemed that happy, and when the Priest just left the group and started Hearthstoning (Teleports to the home city), I wasn’t surprised in the least. And if WoW has taught me anything, it’s that when the Priest leaves, so do you.

Later, in the relative peace and quiet of Stonard, The Druid sends me a tell, saying that The Expert has gone, and can we try again? I politely decline, wishing them well, but having learned an important lesson here.

At first, I thought the lesson was that I desperately need to respec my talents to Protection. I’m most of the way to an Arms/Fury Mortal Strike build, which is ideal for soloing PvE and some PvP, but in the Temple, I had a glimpse of how completely inadequate my ability to hold aggro is. I’m only four levels from the top, and although my gear could be a lot better, I’m not likely to grow in ability much further. Perhaps some massive investment into the Protection (read ‘Tanking’) talent tree might help?

Regardless, I am Not Up To The Job, and indeed was showing alarming early signs of turning into a textbook Emo Tank. Maybe I should join a guild so I can gush at people about my inadequacies on a regular basis, although saying that, I do have a blog... ;)

But then I had a revelation. The lesson here is in fact, that Other People Suck, and that I don’t need this crap during my precious and much-valued recreational time. I work, I commute a fair distance every day, I have family commitments, and anyway am usually interested in at least two other MMOs with equal fascination. Screw that. Hot on the heels of this epiphany was the realisation of what happens at L60. Answer, nothing – your xp bar is merely replaced with your various Faction Standing bars. (The UI even adds then as proper xp bars now...neat!) Looking over the various faction rewards on the Official Site, and the PvP rank rewards, and the Auction House ‘Valor’ set items, and associated T0.5 upgrade quests - and of course the upcoming Burning Crusade – I realised that I never need to step foot in an Instance with a merry band of four other sociopathic f*ckwits ever again!

So I miss out on any Bind-on-Pick-Up T1, 2 ,3 , etc Epix…big deal – it seems the only thing those are good for is being better able to raid, and ZOMGWTFPWNing people in PvP – but that doesn’t bother me so much – happens many times a night in Planetside, and they’ve ostensibly got the same gear as me! Having an excuse just makes it easier! (And anyway, Tobold’s continuing examinations of the usual ‘DKP’ system employed to govern distribution of these top-end trophy items, and Foton’s stories of the kinds of drama one needs to endure to get DKPs, are less than encouraging. See links on left.)

I see people say that the T0.5 quests are just massive cash sinks and that it’s easier just to raid. I would disagree, pointing out that I’d happily pay any amount of gold just so I don’t have to go through crap like the above, three or four times a week for the next six months. Your mileage may vary, however…

When did it become this? When did ‘Adventuring’ fall from epic stories of plucky and personable heroes overcoming vast odds to vanquish ancient and powerful evils, to this bitter parody of heroism, more akin to a pissed-off motorist being forced to ask random passers-by for grudging help to push the car to the petrol station? When did it turn from swashbuckling to shopping? When did it become less about the experience, and more about the xp? I’d consider an RP server, but then again, I’ve been drained and broken by it all myself for a long time now, and the kindest thing I can do for those few, rare, lucky players who still carry the torch, who give a shit, and believe, is to stay the hell away from their servers, lest my own jadedness taints them somehow.

Nope, as far as I can see, World of Warcraft still has plenty of solo mileage in it yet. No more Swirleys for me, unless of course they’re the Red variety.

There is a reason WoW has seven million players, and the raid calendar is not it…

(Note: This might all seem a rather petty over-reaction to some of you, and you might be right, but do bear in mind that I only write about the really special grouping encounters here. Mostly it’s like the above, only less memorable, less successful, more numerous and more disorganised. I spare you those…aren’t I good to you?)