Of Dead Motherboards and New Guilds

R.I.P, my motherboard
After spending a lovely week down in Southern Virginia with my boyfriend, I came back home to put my old Dell XPS 410 back together. Sadly, my LANPARTY DK motherboard was pronounced dead last Sunday when I arrived at Sauder's house. When I got it back in December, it already appeared to have issues when I put more than 4GB of ram into it, and after we tried new ram just a week ago the motherboard said 'Hey, screw you', flipped me the bird, and refused to boot up my computer.

Luckily my older rig isn't so terrible. It still runs WoW at close-to-max settings and runs rather well. Ideally, DFI will get back to me soon and fix my motherboard in a timely manner so I can get back into the beautiful world that is max-graphics!

New Guild First Impressions
If you've been reading my blog at all, you'll see I've had guild issues in the past and I was very lucky to be accpted into Blur, one of the top Horde raiding guilds on Tichondrius. I'm always nervous when entering a new guild; I'm careful to make the best first impressions I can to prove that I'm dedicated and focused.

I've been in pretty much each of the top raiding guilds Horde side and ultimately left because of the guild dying, personal conflicts (school, work, etc.), or because of differences with the leadership, and I had essentially lost all hope in finding a guild that I really enjoyed. Luckily I was plesantly surprised at how much I loved the guild right after I joined. Everyone is very supportive; no one goes 'you suck l2p noob' or gives you harsh criticism with no help. Guildies/raid members point out possible weaknesses in a nice, helpful manner and give you possible tips for improving.

One specific instance is the guild's holy paladin, Eviver (whom I found out reads my blog >_<, but this isn't a suck up!). I had been reading extensively on druid gemming, enchanting, healing rotations, ANYTHING I could find to improve my performance. He was very helpful in suggesting a better way to gem, and also pointed out that I had the wrong enchant on my helmet (I had gone boomkin a while back and forgotten to re-enchant it)! Other members have been very helpful, offering me a spot in their Naxx25 run to help me get the last few upgrades I need (IE: off-hand and rings). Thanks to everyone's suggestions, I've seen a HUGE improvement in my performance, which I'm ecstatic about. A few of the higher-ranked members have told me I've been doing a good job, which just makes me feel great. I'm so happy to be an asset to the raid, rather than a detriment (which is how I'd been feeling for a while).

The environment has also been very friendly as well. Everyone was very warm and welcoming and I felt accepted instantly; different from that feeling of alienation that I felt in other guilds (read: Martyrdom). Needless to say I'm finally very happy in my guild and could certainly see myself staying here for the long haul (if I make it past my trial, that is!).

Well, I'm off to go laze about and do who knows what... until next time!