Looking Back At Raiding

It's been a while since the front page got an update; not like anybody reads these things anyway. Besides, we are a disbanded guild, what updates could we possibly offer? WoW guilds that disband often simply disappear into the void; whatever community they may have thrived on when they played WoW quickly disappears as the members go their seperate ways. That has happened to us to a certain extent, but when you have a group of people who spent 40+ hours a week together attempting to have fun for well over 2 years, it only takes a little bit of effort to keep the community together. Thankfully many of our members still frequent our forums and some still play games together.

I was thinking about how much of our time went into playing WoW and I wondered how everyone else felt about the time we spent playing together. I thought it would be interesting if I asked everyone a handful of questions about their time in Pacifist and posted the responses on the home page. Partly as a way to reminice about the fun times we had, and partly as a way to give others with an inside look at our guild. I mean, we did alright in our prime before TBC. Always at the top of the server, consistently in the top 30 or so guilds in the US with occasional top 10 kills, pretty good PVP reputation, and a decent showing in TBC until everything fell apart. Not your average scrub guild but admittedly not all that well known of a guild outside of Kel'Thuzad either.

Almost all of the responses are positive, but a few people regret the amount of time they sunk into WoW. It seems that not very many people expected WoW to be such a big part of their lives for a prolonged amount of time. And it also seems that the general consensus is that WoW is going downhill, but then again we aren't in a very objective setting.

So, without further ado, here are ex-Pacifist member's responses to the following questions:

1. When you first started playing WoW, did you have any idea that you'd be sinking tons of time into end game content? What did you originally expect from WoW?
2. What are some of your most memorable moments while raiding with Pacifist?
3. For those of you who quit before we formally disbanded, what were your reasons for quitting?
4. Looking back, do you regret the time you spent raiding, farming, and otherwise doing all the things you have to do to be successful in a raiding guild?
5. What are you doing now game-wise and real life wise? Still raiding somewhere? Playing something else hardcore? Still playing WoW or other games casually? Reentered the real world and don't play anything much?
6. For those who still play at least casually, what are your thoughts on WoW in its current state?
7. Any other thoughts or anything to share? Screenshots, pictures, links, information about what you do in the real world - anything at all.

Before each reply I have given a little bit of background on the person who is posting. Most of it is just my general opinion of them!

Quick links:

Plumpy aka Spoon - top

Joined as a Mage, rerolled Rogue shortly after.

One of our original raiding members, almost kicked out for pulling the imps before Lucifron on our 2nd MC raid, quit a couple months before disband.

During about late MC time we were heavily against people rerolling their character since their mains had really good gear. I knew that Spoon wanted to make his Rogue alt his main but I couldn't let him do it. He solved this problem by doing some David Copperfield shit - disappearing for about 3 months and when he came back he simply acted like his Mage never existed; I think his Mage was dead in a cave in Winterspring for like 6 months. Rejoined as a Rogue and went on to be one of our best members.

1) I rolled on KT originally to kill Violent Sin guys, I played a lot of Counterstrike with them. I had never played an MMO before so I wasn't really sure what to expect, but a bunch of buddies of mine convinced me to download and try the beta and I thought it was pretty fun.

2) Any time Ntume was on the raid was a good raid. Also Slims getting banned for calling a dragon a nigger was pretty funny, though that wasn't really Pacifist stuff or whatever. Twin emps was probably the most fun/rewarding/exciting/challenging fight I can recall. Pretty much everything after that was really heavily influenced by videos and strats posted everywhere you look.

3) Raid leaders that were grumpy (Hocken) or wouldn't listen and only read bosskillers (Kuraa)

4) I never thought farming and stuff was that bad, I guess blindly and luckily picking Alchemy/Herbalism before anyone knew how massive consumables for raids were didn't hurt.

5) Horde Gorefiend represent

also DotA

6) Stuff has really changed since the expansion. Just about everyone who cares mildly about the game has full honor gear and a few pieces of arena gear. Not that thats a bad thing but between arena stuff and badge stuff and whathaveyou theres not a huge gear curve that there was pre-TBC. Arena is pretty fun, besides the bitch of a reroll->gear up portion (unless you are in an all robot guild).

Nexous - top

Was the original leader of Pacifist and probably the main person behind getting the guild created. Nexous and I led the guild for the most part and we rarely agreed with each other. I was too nice, he was too mean; together, it worked out well.

Probably the most useful raider since he could write a script for anything. The vast majority of our pre-Naxx kills were aided by mods written by Nexous.

1) I bought the game because seriously, a Blizzard MMO, how could that be bad. I didn't know I'd be raiding, didn't even know it existed when I bought the game.

2) BWL gate bypassing, hearing Anniebonz or whatever say "45% we got this next try" about Huhuran, C'Thun, Four Horsemen, "lets just do this one run on Sapphiron, no potions or anything"

3) Quit the first time cause of a girl

Quit the second time cause of work

4) I never farmed, raiding was fun up until I quit, no regrets.

5) Casual (if you can call it that)

6) Going downhill.

Pastortroy - top

We stole PT from like High Caliber around AQ40 time and what a good decision that was. One of our best Priests and always in a good mood.

When I met him in Vegas I had no idea he was going to be there and I was really excited since he is a fellow Dwarf Priest buddy. We played blackjack and lost money.

1) I bought and installed WoW less than 2 weeks after swearing up and down that I would NEVER play an MMO after watching my fatass, dorito-munching-at-6:30am-to-kill-a-dragon-in-EQ friend told me that I should, and his advice is always bad. Then he convinced my roommate to try it, and he stopped playing UT with me so I bought it. I had no idea I'd spend this kind of time on it.

2) I joined Pacifist at the end of AQ40 raiding. 40-flasking and 3 druiding Viscidus was really pretty fun, a lot of Naxx was pretty fun, too. 8% gruul wipe to ogre respawns and killing Kael'thas were fun if you want to include TBC stuff.

3) I didn't actually quit but I pretty much stopped raiding because I moved to the west coast and after a while my real job got tired of me leaving early to raid.

4) No, I met a lot of cool people (rip pacicon) and saved a lot of money that I could have spent on dates with girls I'd never call back anyway.

5) I raid with Insomnia on Tichondrius and do some decently competitive arena, too. I still think WoW is fun, but in a very different way than it used to be.

Mikey aka Mikec - top

Mikey was like the original Pacifist member. I'm pretty sure he was the first person we recruited who wasn't affiliated with Goon Squad in some way. Raided extremely consistently from start to finish and was one of the few people we let switch mains pre-TBC. We didn't "let" him as much as it was him telling us he was a Warrior now and he knew that we couldn't live without him. Plus he had purposefully not spent any DKP what so ever throughout like most of MC/BWL and his Paladin had relatively bad gear.

Notorious for having tons of DKP because he never missed a raid. If Mikey wanted something, it was his.

1) It fun was and unlike any game I had ever played. I always played games pretty hardcore so playing WoW didn't influence that.

2) First night that BWL came out.

3) I hated the guild leaders. My impression of vanstrider and kuraa: ALRIGHT GUYS NEW MOB/BOSS READ GUIDES AND WATCH VIDEOS WE ARE TOO FUCKING STUPID TO FIGURE IT OUT CHING CHINK CHONG.

4) No, it was fun. Otherwise why do it? When I made my warrior I raped everything and everybody in sight it was pretty fun cruising around on a ram charging people.

5) Get my work on cause I need that paper.

6) BC was awful when it first came out. They fixed a lot of it, but flying mounts killed world pvp. It's not as good. It's still the best and there is nothing better atm. When diablo 3 and starcraft 2 come out there will be no reason to play any other game again.

7) Guild would still be successful if guild leaders and officers were bigger jerks. Putting up with noobs and girls because you want to be internet nice guy and somehow think an e-girlfriend is cool is why the guild was shitty. It was carried on the back by a few select good players. But w/e it's not that big of a deal it's not like it ruined anyones life.

Wuzzle - top

Another member from the beginning. Did a TBC reroll as a Warrior (and would have done it earlier if we let him) but quit pretty soon into TBC if I recall correctly. Always a good raider but he is a little angry. Pretty funny guy.

Spent 2 years listening to us on Vent without saying a single goddamn word and he had a mic. Finally started talking to us just like a couple months ago.

World of Warcraft was the first MMO I had ever played. I had been a huge fan of all Blizzard games from Diablo and Starcraft onwards and knew just from looking at the screenshots that the game was going to be absolutely amazing, and honestly it was. Sure it has lost it’s “WoWness” within the past four years but for some reason I keep coming back to it. I remember day one of beta, it was probably the most amazing time I’ve ever had playing a video game. Myself and two friends all created humans and ventured off into the world of Azeroth, flying a gryphon for the first time, swimming to STV at level ten with 100 other people, the game was so fresh and pure – everything was new and the world was there for us to conquer. I had no idea that I’d be playing end game so much, honestly I had no idea what “end game” was. Pacifist was the first guild I joined that wasn’t my own, and I still remember talking to Redstar in Felwood about joining. It often amazes me that these little insignificant moments pop back into my head from time to time. Hell, in Social class I called the Pacific Ocean the Pacifist Ocean; and even now whenever I type it I often type Pacifist instead.

There are so many moments that I’ll never forget while raiding with Pacifist. Our first attempts at Onyxia and finally the kill was an amazing feeling, and you could really tell that people were truly excited about being able to kill the first 40 man raid boss – it was our initiation into 40 mans, and a memorable one to say the least.

Running UBRS with full raid groups before they put a cap on the number of people, and farming that instance non-stop for DKP was also very enjoyable.

Our first Ragnaros kill was totally rad. Having to pull together and everyone get Fire Resist really brought the guild together and showed who was willing to put the effort into continuing our success.

Day 1 of BWL, and our one hour long Razorgore fight due to extreme amounts of lag in which everyone stuck to it... one boss for a WHOLE HOUR of 20 second lag – it really shows who the true champs are.

http://pacifistguild.org/media/upload/Blackwing Lair Lag (Small).avi

Getting kicked out of the instance by a GM for bypassing their buggy content and using deviate fish to get through the locked door, another fine moment.

Overall, everything PRE-TBC was memorable compared to after it was release. The instances pre BC are, in my opinion, unrivalled today. I really feel flying mounts ruined a lot of interacting the horde and alliance had with each other. It’s very rare you’ll see another person flying around and even if you do... who stops to wave or say hello anymore? World PVP is gone because of flying mounts, and I see no reason why they couldn’t add 280% riding mounts instead. After the joining of horde and alliance into one city it almost felt as though the servers “togetherness” got torn apart even though we were all of the sudden right next to each other. There was no common meeting place such as Blackrock Mountain, which undeniably was the best zone IN THE GAME.

Overall I’ll keep playing WoW as there just isn’t anything better on the market, but there’s no way I’d spend the time I did pre BC on the content that is available now.

Sitizen - top

Another long time member, but he quit so early - around the start of Naxx. We didn't have any NE Priests for like a year after him.

I was sad when Sitizen quit because he was a really good player to have around. Always stayed in touch through DotA and the forums and just recently started playing again on Gorefiend.

Probably in the top 5% of smartest and most mature people in the guild.

The moments of WoW raiding I enjoyed the most were:

1) The week leading up to our Rag kill.

2) The night we got through the gate in BWL and had a show down with a GM.

3) The raids leading up to and including our first Twin Emps kill.

By the time we had AQ40 on farm status I was pretty disillusioned with raiding. At the time I was really sick of playing a priest and ready to try something else. Video Card overheating brought my WoW raiding career to an end. I got my computer up and running again after a few weeks and no longer had any interest in the game. The last raid I clearly remember was the first Patchwerk kill.

Ultema - top

Joined pretty early - I think originally found through Jalia's AB PVP team when AB came out. Raided until the end off and on a little bit.

Sold his character and totally regretted it. Ended up buying like 3 NE Hunters each with slightly better gear than the last but eventually turned into a Mage.

Ultema was just one of those guys who is better than you and there's nothing you can do about it. A professional Hunter who rarely said anything that wasn't correct.

1) I played everquest for almost two years so I expected a time sink, although I never thought the majority of it would be to human error as it is now. Although I did expect to me more of a "pulling class" ie. everquest monks

2) Memorable moments include, anything involving sneakifist tactics, raping random ass people in blues while waiting for a raid spot, jalia / trailmix GM grind of death, fearing through the gate in bwl, and killing that "vending machine of a boss" chromag P.S. Katithra Deep Breaths on vent. EDIT: Getting raped by the meteor on the way to twin emps 2 feet in front of the raid,

3) Horrible computer problems, bored with hunter, rerolled mage, all while pacifist deteriorated from the guild that wrote strats to the guild that read them and wiped alot. I think for alot of us pacifist died when tbc came out. By the time there was actually a raiding spot for me Pacifist was long gone. We are excellent at finding a strat and tailoring encounters to fit our raid make-up. We lost that ability some time in Naxx, and we became average who carried people to free purpz.

4) Absolutely not, at least for me I felt I was part of something more exceptional than the average raid guild, that mixed with the friendships and our ability to play well together I'd say it was worth it. (Maybe I would have stopped at Naxx =/ )

5) I am currently raiding full time in Vulgar on Dragonmaw. I have some of the best gear possible in the game, but I swear to god if I could find something better to do I would do it in a heart beat. Unfortunately the time sink has gone from learning and creating new strategies to simply trying to recreate the accomplishments of superior guilds/players. In my current guild 15 people are literally carrying the rest two boss kills and free epics, and the 10 people being carried are two retarded to realize that if you're playing this game and raiding for gear you are wasting a very very large amount of time.

6) I think WoW has become too casual in every aspect including the mentality of its "hardcore" raiders. I'd rather sit the bench in a guild like old school pacifist w/ nexous telling people to shut the fuck up than raid full time with scrubs loot whores and people who are too stupid to figure out boss encounters for themselves.

7)

fuckin mikec, still the man.

Sophitia - top

Another person we stole from High Caliber (I think). Raided very consistently all the way to the end and was our defaulted-loot MT for a significant amount of TBC.

Can't say enough good things about Soph. MTs can make a guild and he was always very consistently a good player. Not to mention a completely relaxed guy with a good attitude.

So before he joined Pacifist he came seemingly out of nowhere to be HC's main tank. This was right around the time the Emerald Dragons (Taerar, etc) were introduced and AQ40 hadn't come out yet. There was a time when he had much better gear than our MT and this pissed me off so I decided we simply had to steal him. I did a ton of outdoor bosses with him and plotted a way to steal him but coudn't see a way to do it; HC treated him alright (they got him a Thunderfury) and I thought he'd stay there. Then one day out of nowhere he magically joined us.

1) I've been a Blizzard fanatic since Warcraft 2 hit the shelves. I was extremely pleased with the flawlessness and the beautiful graphics of their games. War3 really got me into the lore of warcraft with their epic cinematics and the captivating single player campaign. When I got into Diablo 2, I came down with a sickness called power hunger. Mowing down 7000 cows with huge ass frozen orbs was extremely addictive. The extreme variety and versatility of item bonuses and the rarity and outrageously epic quality of uniques and item sets made the game that much more addictive. There were some seriously fatal flaws to the game though; You couldn't have more than 8 people in one game, it was still just a limited RPG dispite the multiplayer aspect, and pvp was like having a firefight with M134 Miniguns in a small half-acre yard.

When I heard about WoW, I was thrilled with the idea of a level-grinding adventure done the right way and with stunning graphics to boot. I was quick to jump into the open beta and leveled up despite the intense lag --often times waiting 5 minutes for an npc to respond.

I didn't even know you could form a raid until like level 40. The reason to play was to make just a single powerful character that could take on the world. I didn't care about raiding to begin with, but once I got into it, I couldn't get enough.

2) The first raid I went on with Pacifist was a BWL raid. It was alot different from my old guild's routine. It seemed to be so perfectly synchronized like an orchestra. It was beautiful. Killing C'thun the first time was an amazing performance that many guilds could not pull off as easily.

THE most epic moment of WoW was Clouser's Azuregos grief. Here we are in this remote craphole at 4 a.m... Azuregos was very messily nuked down to .001% by random pugs when, out of nowhere, he sprints off into the distance and resets. I was lucky enough to be apart of the many victims teleported off the side of a 300 ft cliff, with a 10 minute run back to shore. Meanwhile, HC steals the kill.

3) Bad Players/Annoying players were not gkicked/replaced in raids for better players. Making endless amounts of attempts with an encounter with mass consumables without making any real strategic improvements whatsoever. There was absolutely no reason to play the game outside of raiding. Once that fell through, there was nothing left. World PVP was non existent, and arena wasn't the slightest bit fun for a prot warrior with subpar damage gear.

4) I don't regret any of it. I did exactly what I set out to do before the game even came out and alot more.

5) Not playing WoW. I might come back for the second expansion for more lore and the world pvp zones sound closer to what pvp always should have been.

I've been taking some college classes and I've developed an interest in astronomy in particular and I recently paid for another month of EVE. It's a pretty interesting game to be honest. It's definately not as fast-paced and life-threateningly addictive as WoW, but it's satisfyingly idiot-proof and has stunningly beautiful graphics.

6) Why oh god do they keep adding shit that makes this game look more and more like a god damn cartoon show? Giant hummer sized bear mounts, elven loli-pop land, actual carnival elephants, and ambiguously gay cities that look like the inside of a jewelry box. When this game came out, we had iron swords and wooden shields with chain armor and savage 9th century town settings. Now the game somehow evolved into a science fiction space rpg where we wield lightsabers and wear slutty vampire costumes.

They should have never changed Alterac Valley from it's original form. That was the best way to play PvP in WoW. Epic battles that lasted hours were alot of fun. It's like when you're having sex, you can't just blow it all in 5 minutes, it's alot more fun to drag it out (insert troll comment about virgins here). This is why Arena is complete failure. Fast games in a very small space is counter-intuitive to the point of having pvp in an mmo in the first place

Pillin - top

An original member but off and on a little bit and quit sometime in Naxx I think.

We always had a problem retaining Druids but Pillin was always a good one. Remained very active in our little community even when he rerolled Horde on KT. One of our token Asians and a really funny guy. Occasionally annoying because he likes to debate a little and he's good at it.

One of our more normal-people players who would put real life before WoW. Probably a good decision!

1) When I first heard about WoW, I was mostly ambivalent. Even though RTS skills are obviously in my genes, I was/am much more a fan of FPS games (counterstrike). So when I was introduced to the game in the betas, I was scared of the whole MMORPG concept even though I liked Blizzard games. I knew MMOs could suck up a lot of time, but I guess I never knew to what extent. But one thing I did know was that I'm fairly competitive and I wouldn't settle for some scrub guild.

2) I think what I enjoyed the most was seeing the early stages of the guild as it grew into a raiding machine. Countless runs through Scholomance, Stratholme, and UBRS really sort of set the foundation of things to come. I can remember the popularity of Pacifist even before we started MC. Members would receive numerous tells about guild recruitment, of which, we all directed towards Nexous cause he wouldn't hesitate to say no. I remember "trying out" Rithriaem in Scholomance, having him tank the skeletal mobs that used to hit so hard (and the subsequent "man" build that is 51 prot). I remember having one tank for most of the time - Basileus and Jalia with one coming back and the other going on break. I remember Mikey calling everyone pussies then jumping off the bridge in UBRS. Team couch. Ninja Pirate Monkeys - Rend runs for Genji's felstriker. I remember the first 5-man Scholo, pre nerf. All these sorts of things are some of my fondest memories because it changed the game from something that I did to kill time to something where I got to hang out with my e-friends and learned how to "do it big" before the term was even coined.

The start of Onyxia was one of the most exciting moments - it was one of the pinnacles of raiding as it was the start of 40 mans, and it was a complete paradigm shift in thinking. We laugh at Onyxia now, but when you are raiding every night and even GM's are watching and cheering you on, it's something special. From there it was MC. The race to bosses against fortis, Sneakifist, fire protection pots, Eileen our beloved chinese farmer in MC, the DND message chain of 6-7 people that told wannabe recruits to message someone else (leading to an infinite loop), 40 man raids through BRD, bong hits over ventrilo (smoky, bubbly helicopters), leet EJ / conquest strats, etc. First time we spawned Ragnaros... Hocken reading what the Majordomo had to say over vent, a rather epic moment. Kicking caitlin the loot whore - "I don't want to go just to wipe." Killing the "Big elementa hed" , nerd explosions in vent, moutain, etc.

BWL, as people mentioned, first night, epic stuff. Rogues excited for being useful aside from DPS in broodlord's room, etc. It was the next step of raiding, but unfortunately, my last with Paci.

p.s. test realm, AQ40, ballkoklol | Epic RP journey courtesy of Rith/Redstar | 2v2 tournament in DM arena | Being able to say "yeah, I'm mentioned in the dungeon companion guide" | DOTA sessions

3) Mostly school reasons. It's hard to do homework when there are purpz to win or noobs to slay.

4) I never regretted anything in the moment. Looking back, I'm sure I could have played a little less and still accomplished the same things in the game, but it's not something that bothers me. I think the community is what made the game as enjoyable as it is, and I never regretted any of the epic moments.

5) Game wise - still playing wow and trying to do well in arenas, working out kinks in my gameplay to achieve higher and higher ratings. Essentially, PvP is what interested me most at heart, and that is pretty much the only enjoyable thing left in the game for me.

Real life - Still working towards a BS in Computer Science, and just trying to manage my time a little better, though it's hard when there are so many things I'd like to do, but have little time for.

6) We all knew as time went on, WoW was a vastly different game every couple of patches. Few things or classes have stayed mostly unchanged. I think I've noticed that the game seems to be more fast paced. Now it's about min/maxing, huge crits, and doing things either first or faster or more leet, etc. PvP, what I care about, has always had a tenuous balance, and it's interesting to find out that every class and no class is simultaneously OP and underpowered. Blizzard has a tough job of fixing real problems with viable solutions - when addressing an issue, the "fix" often needs to be tweaked in subsequent patches. I guess it's good that they try, but often times annoying in implementation.

Overall, still enjoyable for me in regards to the PvP aspects of the game.

7)

http://pacifistguild.org/media/index.cgi?id=493

http://pacifistguild.org/media/index.cgi?id=496

http://pacifistguild.org/media/index.cgi?id=498

http://pacifistguild.org/media/index.cgi?id=501

Some of these things are what made the game go from pretty cool, to epic. In the end, it's the people that made the difference.

One of the coolest things about being in Paci was the funny dichotomy between the casuals that didn't know they were casuals, the wannabe hard core, and the actual hard core. As WoW grew in popularity, I'd overhear more and more conversations in RL about people getting their first 60 while we had been farming MC for months, and I couldn't help thinking, "heh, noobs"

freestyle rap battle, hyphy and boy genius.... KT had good times

Vanstrider - top

Joined during TBC when we were having trouble. Eventually was gleadered by myself and led the guild into the ground - I mean to the end!

He was the second leader of Banana Syndicate that I stole. There was some time during AQ40 when we needed some sort of favor from BS and he wouldn't accomidate us so I hated him. But even though he had a rep as sort of an asshole I thought this was unfounded and happily recruited him when we needed him.

It was obvious from day 1 that he was officer material so he quickly became an officer. As Kuraa began to get burnt out on running the show, Vanstrider stepped in and did it. By this point I was almost quit so I leadered him since he was running things. It wasn't his fault things fell apart.

1) I didn't purchase WoW on launch but my roommate did and we spent all kinds of time on his Dwarf Hunter. At first I was hesistant about the game because I heard about Everquest and its ridiclous time -> reward factor involved. But WoW looked different, it had LORE I knew about from Warcraft games so I thought I would give it a shot. I bought the game and installed it shortly after launch.

I had no idea what to expect from WoW, I know it was an online game based around RPG mechanics. Sounded good to me, so I started leveling my paladin and from there began to love the game. What made the game so attractive was the fact I leveled with a large group of individuals from Goon Squad. Having recently rerolled and having no one to level with, I look back and see that leveling with a large group of people at the same time is essential to me having fun with this game.

After Goon Squad has similar moment that Hocken explained in his post that he wanted to raid all the talent from Goon Squad (psst i wasn't 60 yet, you missed me nerd). Goon Squad splintered off and became Banana Syndicate where we gave Pacifist a run for their money for the first Rag kill. The debacle that was BWL made me quit for the first time after repeated nights of raiding just ended up being gigantic lag fests with retarded guilds trying to raid Razorgore and get a cheap kill through lag.

I came back to BS just in time for them to kill Nefarion. I was egged on by people to re-take a leadership position and lead AQ40. I did, we got respectable kills up until Twin Emps which took quite a bit of time to learn but we got them down after about three weeks of trying. At this time it became incredibly evident that if you didn't have 40 people all on the same page, you would suffer through an incredible amount of wipes and time wasted, some fights we would bring 14 healers with myself doing 25-30% of the entire healing! We knew this wouldn't bode well for C'thun and it didn't.

We spent a ridiclous amount of time on C'thun and could not kill him. Like many other guilds including Pacifist, Banana Syndicate had about 25-30 people who carried the guild while 10-15 others fucked us over with their lack of skill and basic common sense. We had a sub 20% wipe on C'thun that broke the guild's back and we never really tried again, we went on to Ouro which we dominated for some reason and got plenty of kills out of him before Naxx came out.

Naxx was coming going smoothly, we had a fair share of difficulties on the end of Spider Wing and Instructor Razuivous (we had retarded priests in our guild) which ended up in our Main Tank, myself and others logging on to priest accounts to play them because they had no concept of mind control/tanking. We worked on Patchwerk for a week straight, at the time I was exclusively running the guild bank and supplying EVERYTHING for raids, Mana potions, flasks, elixirs, etc. Very few of the 40 people would bring their own stuff and the guild bank had to supply it. Well after a week of tweaking our strategy and what not, one night on our first attempt we just killed him with only our tanks flasked from the start. About half way through I told everyone to pop whatever they had, we got a kill in about 7 minutes 10 seconds. It was a huge morale boost for the guild.

We got to Gluth which we used an amazing priest kiting strategy on all the mobs. Since it was the only way we learned the fight and because only one of our priests wasn't retarded (SIDEKICK WAS AWESOME), if he didn't show up we would wipe endlessly on this boss. But when he was there, it was pretty much a one shot everytime.

We got to Thaddius and after discussing with the "skilled" members and leadership of the guild, we came to the conclusion that with Christmas approaching and the sheer individual play needed for Thaddius we would not beat this boss and trying to push through him during the Christmas holidays was a dumb idea so many of us opted to go to Pacifist where they had a roster struggle of their own or go back to Goon Squad or other guilds.

I disbanded Banana Syndicate, gave some gold to people who deserved it and would continue playing (in retrospect maybe I should've given more but whatever I think I earned it).

2) I missed out on the special Naxx moments and I am not old school like the rest of the guild. But killing Sapph and Kel Thuzad for the first time was amazing. For me though, killing Kael'Thas was really a cool moment from what I think is still one of the best fights in the game (Confession - after yelling at everyone during the fight not to fucking die, I ended up dying sometime in Phase 4-5, boy I was glad we killed him during that attempt). Doing Karazhan while everyone else on the server was still leveling was equally awesome. I loved a lot of the boss fights in TBC, not gonna lie. Leotheras the Nerd was a great fight, so was Vashj and the Lurker Below. I actually like High Astromancer Solarian and A'lar but they got nerfed into the ground before we spent too much time with them. Gurgtogg Bloodboil was one of my favorite fights as a healer but BT overall was a disappointment for fights.

Leveling and doing Heroics with Spoon, Mikec, Sophitia, Kuraa, Dyno and others was a lot of fun. Probably the most fun I had in the game. If anybody who I leveled with in TBC want to do the same thing in WolTK I would come back and do it.

3) Let me just say that like many other guilds who have disbanded, we had the exact same problems. Lack of quality recruits, too many people quitting and jumping ship and the game's lack of 25 man content getting updated fast enough to keep people interested. It still was the right thing to do, can you imagine doing Black Temple for another 4 months straight with no new content? That alone would've probably killed Paci.

Pacifist was on life support after the cock block that was Archimonde, much like Banana Syndicate, we got to a fight where 25 individuals weren't on the same page and skill level that needed to be to beat the fight. It was painfully obivious no matter who we brought to the fight to replace bad individuals, they couldn't figure out what the fuck to do with flames. We had a one shot of him right after a hotfix but it was a fluke because we couldn't repeat it.

Reliquary of souls really broke my spirit because of all the sub 5% wipes, it wasn't a hard fight at all, but wiping because someone died on Phase 1 everytime really made a lot of people bitter.

4) Why farm when you can just steal? (KIDDING). Sometimes finding the right balance of raiding and other things was key. For me personally it took a toll since I was leading raids and the guild at a time when other quality leadership for raids was practically non-existent. So I had a much bigger burden of responsbility than others.

5) I have rerolled to Horde Kel Thuzad and started leveling a Blood Elf Paladin. I am now in Exodus our former main rivial. I am not raiding and have no plans to raid at this moment. I also have a Druid on Gorefiend that I have stopped leveling because I found him to be boring zzzz. I don't have the time to level hardcore and speed leveling is really difficult by yourself so I just play casually.

I work as an event planner (concerts, hall of fame ceremonies, award shows) so I work a lot of evenings for various events so the real world is eating up most of my time. I also have a lot of other interests (SPORTS, big surprise to everyone in the guild who probably hated me talking about sports all the time) and currently don't want to spend all night playing a video game when I got other shit to do.

6) WoW is dissappointing now compared to what it was Pre-TBC at least. TBC did a lot of things right, I loved the requirements to get into instances (especially for 25 people, for 40 some of these requirements would've been too difficult to coordinate), heroic mode was awesome although I found normal mode an incredible waste for the highly skilled players. What the fuck is the point of running normal mode for most level 70 based dungeons (shadow labyrnth, shattered halls, etc.) when you can just dominate them as is with a decent group comp with your guild members.

PvP I still haven't been a big fan of since day one and is the number one reason for terrible players getting gear they shouldn't deserve. You could lose every game you have ever played but still end up with a purple piece of gear? Just brutal.

Now looking to the future with Wrath of the Lich King, every 25 man dungeon including a 10 man version so that so called "casuals" don't miss out on content makes sense from a business prespective. But really, how many of these casuals really gives a shit about the lore and the content associated with X dungeon or Y boss. Blizzard stated that the quality and quantity of items will make 25 man dungeons worth doing but I fail to see that happening. Just look at the differences between the best PvP gear and some pieces of PvE gear or Black Temple vs Zul'Aman. Knowing what you know now, would you continue to raid 25 man content for gear alone? No you would just go to the 10 man content to save time and energy. The only reason to do 25 man content will be for the challenge of a boss fight but I fail to see how much different a boss with 25 will be versus a boss with 10 people.

WoW will be fine and the hardcore niche will always exist, but the point, the allure, the main reason to be a huge fucking nerd and not go out at night, means incredibly less now then it ever did. Because some 30 something year old father of two has an epic from pvp that is only 3 dps less then what you have from some boss in the Sunwell. Big. Fucking. Deal. It was cool when you could stand in Ironforge and show off Tier 3 when you knew no one else on the server other than your competition and friends had this gear.

7) I deleted everything to do with WoW in terms of screenshots. But I had a lot of great memories and was incredibly proud of leading Pacifist after the great leadership before it went on to other things. If we could all get back together and level for WotLK I would welcome that in a second.

Later this month I am running an event that features a lot of "Miss" City/Country/Region girls, so maybe I will post some pictures so you got some eye candy to look at instead of my ugly mug.

I might update this some more when I have other thoughts about WoW's current state but I think that's all I have to say now.

Clouser - top

Clouser was one of our very few long time raiders that lived on the other side of the world - Moscow. He joined kind of late but was a complete pro all the way until the end. All of our Hunters were always really good.

I think in hindsight we should have listened to Clouser more. He was usually right about things but his message got through the static not as often as it should have. I would often talk to Clouser to get an idea of what he was thinking then try to incorperate that into the raid itself.

1) I started playing WoW in beta. Then created a char on the Laughing Skull server because it sounded cool. I have been playing a troll mage. I didn’t plan to play hardcore but at level 50 I joined guild named End Game and found a lot of friends there. There even were several russians. I started raiding since LBRS where in first couple days we couldn’t get past fucking blue spiders with 40 man raid lol I have been raiding with them till a lot of our core raiders quit and guild could not kill Nef.

I hated alts but situation in the guild pissed me off and I created one on the new pvp server Azshara. Leveled him to 60 and that NE Hunter became my main. I joined uber hard core guild Letalis. We were only one raiding guild on the server so we had to farm all AQ shit on our own. Half of the guild had to take leatherworking to farm Light Leather…

After opening gates we were rushing through content so fast..raiding 7-8 hours a day we killed 4 bosses in first day, then Huhu in second day. Twin Emps were dead on the same week. This made me want to play even more. But in mid Naxx we got same problems as Pacifist. Guild has lost a lot of quality players and could not raid any more.

And I transferred to KT to join Pacifist… In first day on KT I wiped 40 ppl in Azshara on Azuregos lol.

2) Getting that crossbow of Kel’Thuzad over Kuraa. Arguments with Fagstrider ( I still love you bud).

3) I was upset because Van did not listen to me. I have never died on Archimonde (even in new guild, Promethean) and my advises would help. I felt myself like a stranger in american guild and I partially can understand you guys.

4) No, I don’t regret at all. Raiding with End Game, Letalis and Pacifist was fun. I played ~1 year in each guild and got to know a lot of good ppl.

5) I quit my job where I could play wow. Right now I am preparing for my wedding which is in 7 days =)

6) I liked the uniqueness my gear had back in the Naxx days when dozens of ppl in AV were inspecting me and asking “where did I get that ?” Now its all gone. PvP gear has almost same stats and design as PvE sets.

7) Thanks for everything. Hope I will visit US sometime and meet somebody of you. P.s. Sorry for my English, its 11:55 am here, didn’t have time to check with dictionary..

Hazardous - top

Haz was another "perfect guild member" - the type that showed up to everything (and with Haz I really mean everything). He joined us very early and raided consistently until the end. Him and Mikec were probably the most consistent and long term members we had.

Another guy who is too nice and too mature to be playing WoW, we were lucky to find him. Also he can bench press a car, has a supermodel girlfriend, and makes millions of dollars every day just by looking good.

It was funny when Haz and Ezorah and myself went to the TBC launch at EBGames in downtown Seattle. He was so out of place amongst all the nerds. I have so much faith in Haz at one point he had keys to my apartment and fed my cat for a weekend!

2) Rith and Redstar switching accounts and rith running redstar right into Garr.

Group dances and gnome walks in MC (genji not dancing cause hes to cool for us)

Learning ragnaros and ntume screaming at raid bosses.

tankin nefarian in AQ dps gear, ashkandi, and a santa hat. (with the help of hella pro healers of course!)

Learning new content with the guild was always the most pleasurable and exciting experience in wow for me.

4) No regrets. Nearly every raid day was a blast. Learning new content and hanging out online with yall was a great way to unwind.

5) picked up an xbox360 and get to play it real casually. Its dynamite being able to just pick it up and drop it at a moments notice. No internet time schedule to meet yaknow?

working 50h a week for fleet of washington state building police interceptors and other vehicles for motorpool. moving to chicago in 2 months to start medschool and really excited to contribute something more to society than cop cars.

7) I miss gaming with most of you!! And ill never forget all those boring MC runs to Garr yall did just to get one tiny gnome his thunderfury! GNOME HUG! XOxoXOxoxoxo!

Ezorah - top

LOOKOUT IT'S A GIRL. Ezorah was a long time member who somehow put up with all of us. It was made worse by the fact that she played a Warlock and we liked to give the Warlocks a lot of shit.

She did a good job on raids and was very much part of the tight knit community of Warlocks and the general girls in Pacifist group.

She could also probably outdrink you without even trying.

1) I got bullied into playing wow by a bunch of real life friends who were ignoring me for it basically. So I figured what the hell if you cant beat them join them right.

I never imagined I would be allowed to experience the end game content that I was able to with pacifist. Molten Core back in those days seemed like just a fleeting dream to a young noob like myself. Anyway, raiding became addictive and then I was hooked.

2) -Doing gnomeregan with Jallynia and getting the awesome hat at the end.

-Twin emps

-Listening to Roirraw's D&B while raping strat over and over at 4 in the morning.

3) Work started to take up a lot of my time. I was saving up to move to Seattle and just didn't have the time to play WoW and be a reliable raider with Pacifist.

Also, petty fucking drama about stupid imaginary objects and damage meters. It was retarded that people cared that much about silly things like that and made it cause to harass perfectly decent people about it.

4) Nah. No regrets. I met a lot of awesome people through this game and overall it was entertaining for the time it lasted.

5) I work 50 hours a week and manage a restaurant. My off time is spent singing karaoke, going out with friends, and drinking guinness.

Don't really have much time for gaming. I do enjoy a session of Sims2 every once in awhile, but overall haven't been doing any sort of regular gaming since wow.

7) I have a couple that have been saved. Don't know how useful they were be but I think they are ok shots. Sorry if they are huge or something I don't really care too much to edit them.

Yes I'm a girl, no I'm not "with" every boy I talk to.

I <3 Jlock

We gots big swords

Sneaking into CoT

I dunno this just looks cool

Forbin and Shrade are fags (its true I know them both in real life)

Our mighty guild leader in a rare candid

Yeah thats it. I love you pacifist- even you, plumpy.

Mythological - top

Myth was stolen from the goons after we knew he was a pro from AB.

He made the mistake of letting WoW dominate his life and his raiding career came to a premature and quick end. Then I think he made the mistake of selling his account which everyone eventually regrets.

1) I was looking for a time waster. I was a full time student with no job, had played a couple mmorpgs before, and picked up WoW. I actually played on Malganis for a bit, quit after the EJ drama, and rerolled on KT. Somewhere along the line the original mythological gave me his account and I started to learn and play a Druid. I became pro, raided with GS, BS, and eventually got into Pacifist sometime in BWL.

2) Raiding Naxx was pretty stressful at times, but it was really fun. We had a huge instance to beat and tons of fights to learn and do. Beating shit like Patchwerk and that dancing guy for the first time was always nice. But the best times were when we were bullshiting in the battlegrounds or a farm and just talking shit constantly.

3) I actually flunked out of college partly because of Wow, but also the time requirement was getting too rough. Raids started late and I had a habit of falling asleep at the wheel. It was just affecting my real life too much. I tried to get back in it after TBC, but it really wasn't doing much for me anymore.

4) I kinda regret flunking out but everything else was awesome. Still nothing compares to the flawless precision of 40 people doing their jobs like pros.

5) I ended up playing Eve pretty heavily once my life was back in track, now I've pretty much stopped playing MMO's entirely. I do research for a military contractor on really cool stuff while going to school full time, so I don't have much free time. I play mtg pretty seriously as well, and I'm trying to get better at it.

7) I can't really talk about what I work on since it's classified, but I did go to japan last year. I was lazy and only uploaded 3 out of the 10 days or so, but the album is here: http://picasaweb.google.com/randy.williams

Danger - top

Ehrgeiz, I mean Caitsith, I mean Danger is one of those hardcore gamer types. He was one of the few people I actively recruited on an individual basis because I had ton a lot of Strat runs with him and I knew he was good at WoW. He joined very early and was with us for a very long time, and was one of the few people we let reroll pre-TBC. He also tested the name changing method of deleting your character, creating an alt with your old name, and asking for a restore. It worked.

Since he was a pro he often came up with weird ideas that worked well and even spent his time as our MT. Definitely someone you'd want to have in your guild.

1) I started playing WoW semi-late in the closed beta. I got extremely addicted and was very pleased at how solo-friendly it was and bought it as soon as it was released. I planned on spending a lot of time playing. I didn't expect a lot from WoW because all I had played before it was Anarchy Online, which has to this day (imo) cooler classes, but suffered from major lag issues and only semi-solo-friendly zones. I was curious to see how much fun 5 man groups and later raids would be in WoW. I started on Kel'Thuzad because the only people I knew who were playing WoW were starting here(just some acquaintances from local lan parties).

I had an idea of what dungeons were harder than others and would constantly /who them to see which players/guilds were ahead of the rest. I'd usually pester these people to group with me. I did the elite stromgarde quests with a gnome mage in named Riddik.

Because I was able level at a decent speed I grouped with Nexous and Mark for a few uldaman runs. When I hit 60 I met Hocken, Jalia, Rincewind, Mikey, and Taliababa and did pacifist dkp runs through LBRS and UBRS. We also tried stratholme with like 25 people and got slaughtered. After grouping with pacifist for many instances I talked to Hocken about joining and got invited.

2) The first Onyxia kill (I had become pro at ressing people midfight) was the most excited I ever got about killing a boss in WoW. After that I changed my main to my warrior and didn't really see any guild first kills until BWL.

BWL was a lot of fun, and probably the closest point Pacifist ever came to being the farthest guild in PvE content in WoW (I think we were 3rd in the world to kill post-buff Vael). A bit into BWL was when I think the declining quality of players in the guild really started to become noticable.

Killing bosses after they had been killed by a huge number of guilds really never felt that epic to me, so all the good memories I have of post-BWL would be the antics of guildmates. Ntume insulting raid bosses always made me laugh, and the epic fights between redstar and other guilds in general chat were great.

4) Nope, no regrets, the gear from pve made pvp awesome, 2 years of horde anger from being completely dominated in pvp and pve made for some excellent grief.

5) Playing casually and getting pvp epics on KT and Gorefiend. I have one more year till I get my degree. I've also been playing every high-rated game that comes out for PC and consoles but find most of them to only be good single player games. I think the competitive gaming scene now is hurting more than it has in 8 years for good games that lots of people can agree are fun.

6) Blizzard's crusade to make WoW an eSport could not be a bigger joke. PvE design seems to going great, arenas need a lot of balance work but are still fun. Also it's extremely easy for anyone to get gear they probably do not even come close to deserving through arena points and honor.

7) Argh, I had some pictures of dreadlords turning everyone within 30 yards into chickens and just infernals walking around IF from the end of closed beta event, but then I formatted my hard drive

Redstar - top

Redstar was sometimes a complete pain in the ass but you can't deny the fact that he was a good player.

He sort of single handedly built our reputation of being a bunch of jerks when in reality I wanted our reputation to be a pretty nice guild. Eventually, as the game went on, and in hindsight, I think being a bunch of jerks is probably more condusive to the general climate of WoW.

1) I had never played an MMO before, just years and years of CS. Played the open beta and had a pretty fun time. I was amazed out how big the world was and I only got to explore a few zones in beta but it just seemed so massive.

2) Having fun times with Rithriaem, Taliababa, Faedia, Jallinya and Plumpy. The first time we killed Ragnaros was epic, especially spamming in /1. Later, the MC speed runs would come to be pretty fun (a little over 2.5 hours I think) The first night of BWL when we exploited the gate. Another one of the first nights where we had 38 people still raiding at 4 in the morning. When we killed the hard version of Vael by being ridiculously pro, like the 2nd or 3rd guild worldwide to kill that one. All of BWL was pretty fun, AQ was mediocre, until we got to the Twin Emps. One of the hardest fights in the game and when we beat it we had 40 people being pro.

One of funnest things ever was griefing Ministry one night at the Hinterlands dragon. Me, Hocken, Mikey, Spoon and a few others just constantly running into the raid group, ganking people then vanishing. Then I infiltrated Ministrys ventrilo, and was broadcasting it onto ours. The things we heard them yelling were some of the funniest things ever. "Forbin, that's motherfuckin Hocken. RAM HIS ASS."

Also, Eillen.

3) Got a fairly good job and got off at the time we started raiding, but at that point I had already grown tired of the game. Still doing the same thing, just with a different company.

4) I got to play one of the funnest multiplayer games ever with some of the most pro people to play it, so no I don't really regret it. Sometimes farming sucked, but then I would just get someone like Rith to farm with me and that made it all the more fun.

5) Working and playing hockey, with a little bit of xbox sprinkled in. GTA IV is the funnest singleplayer game ever and the multiplayer is pretty fun as well. Don't really play any PC games any more but I did just build a bad ass computer.

7) I used to have a ton of pictures and stuff but lost the hard drive, I'll look through the media page for some interesting stuff though.

Forgot to include this originally, but I really enjoyed pissing people off, not in this guild, just other people in general. Just because it's hilarious seeing people type things to you and be serious about wanting to kick my ass or something, especially when it was the one troll mage that was in Ministry (shit I forgot his name). I apologize to anyone in the guild who I pissed off while raiding, especially Hocken, because I know you wanted to kick me out many times, and Rithriaem sometimes too. Thanks for putting up with me for all that time

Also 5 manning UBRS to almost Drakk back in the day with Me, Rithriaem, Hocken, Mikey and Barudin.

Actually thinking back there were a ton of fun times, I wish the game was still this fun.

Buckey - top

Buckey was such an important member but he'll never admit it because he's so damn modest. I forget exactly when he joined us but it was pretty early and heavily influenced by the fact that he was real life friends with some current members who were real life friends of mine.

I don't even know what to say about Buckey. He's the perfect member: showed up to absolutely everything, was always beyond prepared often supplying other people with consumables, always had a good attitude, and could always be 100% relied on to do his job.

Buckey is simply too nice and too mature to play this game.

1) I played EQ up to and including the first expansion so I had a fairly good idea how things would end up with warcraft. My expectations were quickly surpassed when I stepped into the deadmines for the first time. I was blown away by the level of detail put into such a low level instance. I remember sitting at the flight master in Redridge with my cursor above Stormwind and glancing down at my cash flow. After some quick math I realized that I needed to run back if I wanted to train all my new abilities. Trying to convince myself that running back while picking up all the herbs would make me a rich gnome did little to make the trip tolerable. It was then I knew I was hooked.

2) * LBRS runs to get “shadowcrap” bracers with Redstar, Guru, and the living weapon himself Khulshalkrum.

* The still much debated “Who pulled the fucking imps?” Plampy or Naffer.

* Chain sapping Anger while he tried to farm elemental fires for rag attempts.

* Double pulling core hound packs to show off for Relg and Anger.

* Warlock recruitment video posted on the warcraft general forums of Hocken disenchanting 3 pieces of Fel-whatever it was.

* Hocken’s interview with ntume:

Hocken: “We just need someone to banish stuff, can you manage that?”

Ntume: “Banish? Yeah I pressed that button yesterday.”

* Everyone making a farmer’s outfit and walking about Ironforge in a line. I still have my pants made by: in the bank.

* Varlock screaming: “G fucking G fade, I hit it and I still died.”

* The release of the pvp system and the “Hillsbrad shuffle” with Pillin and others.

* Zoning into Alterac Valley, opening the scoreboard and seeing Nexous 112-0.

* Having Hocken tell me I need to be MA in UBRS because Nexous sucked at it while trying to heal.

* Getting hate tells from Nexous when I targeted the wrong shit.

3) After hitting 70 the groups that leveled at or near the same speed as I did seemed rather cliquey. I spent a fare amount of time doing nothing (farming) or begging for a group. After seeing how kara groups (the ubrs of tbc) were formed I bailed and rolled horde.

4) No, hell no. It was worth it to gather herbs in winterspring just to stop by the yeti cave and check if plampy’s corpse was still there.

5) School, which I have been neglecting to play video games. Working on a transfer to UW or EWU once I finish up computer forensics. I was playing “casually” with some pro pacifist people but recent events have forced me to stop playing. In hindsight I’m happy I was forced to stop playing. The only reason I continued to play for this length of time was the quality of people I was able to play with and how fun they made the game for me. Thanks fellas.

6) The arena system needs a serious revamp to move away from this whole eSport theme. The massive gear disparity that was a common gap for casual players through most of the pre-tbc content is non-existent with the implementation of badge vendor loot. Dare I say “Casual virus”?

7) Browsing the forums and this post made me think back to Barus and Gilliam standing around in Ironforge spitting on every Pacifist member they ran across.

(Edit) I forgot about being the king of dancing. Proof

I spend my time creating forensic cases to keep up-to-date on the latest methods for digital evidence gathering. I also buy hard drives from yard sales and pawn shops to see what I can find with my forensic tools. Fuck, I’m a nerd.

Lexil - top

Oh Lexil, he got a lot of shit and always took it so well. But in reality he was one of my favorite officers simply because he was willing to do anything I told him to do without complaint, and then he could handle my abuse when he did something wrong. This was a constant problem for officers in Pacifist, they would do something then be told all the ways they did it wrong by me.

He was part of a real life crew of Canadians that included one of our original members Kilranin and his brother Varlock. The 3 of them were a key part of raiding for a long time, but Varlock quit too soon.

Lexil is a fun guy to hang out with, we had a good time playing Pai-Gow in Vegas at 6 in the morning. Totally could be friends with him in the real world.

1) I had played all of blizzards games up to WoW, I was more of a Final Fantasy fan and picked up FF11 and tried playing for a while and just hated how leveling worked and decided not to play an MMO again. I then took a friend out for breakfast one morning a couple weeks after release and paid for it, he then gave me WoW since he bought it and everquest 2 because he couldn't decide in the store which to play. The next day I went to a lan get together with a few friends including Varlock (30 at the time) and Kilranin. They convinced me to join, so I rolled my beautiful blue haired hunter Lexil that day and played WoW instead of CS. I thought hey this is something colourful and fun I can spend sometime playing for a while, holy crap did that turn into a giant use of my time. Thankfully for the first 2 years I was working back home with most of my friends moved away so I didnt lose out at all on RL stuff.

2) Anytime listening to Varlock flip out on vent or in chat about anything. Flying through Strath with BW. Blowing up IF Auction house with a warlock pet with gheddons debuff. Playing chess (horribly on my part - though I still swear I just wanted to sacrifice Xivia who unfortunately was my queen) in BWL while waiting for some peeps. Any of those really amazing nights where we all just clicked and got shit done. There was just so many wonderful people that Im terrible at keeping in contact with but I do love you guys, and the funny thing is quite a few that I swore didn't like me, I didn't like, or even scared me (Nexous, etc) turned out to be pretty awesome people. Oh and always somehow managing to pull one more pack than the last time I pulled more than one pack!

3) I was back in school, dropped pretty casual when TBC came out, then pretty much quit altogether. Girls, H/W, became a CA or RA in my res building, and a lot of the people I really enjoyed playing with had left already. There were some wonderful people that came in but the only reason I had kept playing so long was for the company of Pacifist in the MC -> BWL days.

4) I regret very little time I spent prepping and in game to be ready for everything. I may have regretted a few times, bugging Hocken one night about changing the GMotD for the next ZG run I was helping organize when he made me an officer. (thankfully though most people didn't expect much more of me in that roll other than attendance and points which I was more than happy to do!)

5) I recently started back into WoW for the summer. I'm playing a BE Pally with some friends from back home to pass the time. Zattack on Gorgonnash! I hit 70 2 weeks ago and am pretty epic'ed out from Kara which is pretty much all they raid, so Im just casual to chat with them. Come september ill be going into my third year of Pure Math, Ill be finally able to take a lot more cryptography classes! Finally found a decent girl too, though she is slightly crazy!

6) Compared to back in the day its ridiculous, if it wasn't for the friends I have I wouldn't play, my new char with 10 days is better in almost everyway than my hunter with 250 days, and just how easy it is to do so much is ridiculous.

7) Due to a hard drive malfunction I lost 99% of my screens, hopefully Ill dig some up to post soonish.

Vargtimmen - top

Varg is probably the reason I ended up as the leader of Pacifist. He was too much of a wuss to lead the Onyxia raids by himself so I ended up doing quite a bit of it and found out that I kind of liked it.

A total pro, completely reliable, but also smart enough to quit very early on. We tried to talk him into coming back for a long time to no avail, but he's still around.

Also pretty metrosexual.

1) I had no idea what a raid even was until I was level 60. My first raid was a pickup Molten Core raid with 40 random people. I was invited just because I was one of the few level 60s online. I had to google "Molten Core" to figure out what the hell it was, where it was located, and what we were doing. Eventually that group would mostly become Pacifist. I originally started playing in the stress test just because it was the new Blizzard game.

2) The first Onyxia kill, although I didn't have a Pacifist tag then. A week of solid raiding culminating in a server-first 40-man raid kill; it was a ton of fun. I don't know if any video game will ever be able to top that for me. Besides that, probably Nefarian, it was a late night kill we had worked a lot for. Exploiting Chromaggus for easy loot was fun too.

Non-raiding but Pacifist: Stratholme with Roirraw was always great. AV with Jalia or Mikey, healing them while we took on the entire opposing force mostly by ourselves was a good time too. Any time our massive gear and/or skill differences came out was enjoyable, I liked feeling like I was an "elite" player in the little world of Kel'Thuzad.

3) My life had been getting progressively worse as I played WoW. To fix this I made some major changes in my life: getting a new job, changing my major, starting to volunteer at a hospital, and a new girlfriend. I didn't have any time for the game anymore and I was happy.

4) I mostly look back fondly on all the memories I had playing the game but there are definitely moments I regret, such as passing up real-life social events to raid.

5) After I quit WoW I swore off games entirely and only recently started to game again, but only on the consoles. I've graduated college and have recently accepted an offer for a programmer position with a large company. I am thinking about building a new PC and playing Age of Conan.

7) I don't have any screens anymore, but Google Video and Youtube still have some of my favorite moments.

Onyxia: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6369068110117180815&hl=en

Thrall Kill (not with Pacifist): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViFq7cvgxkk

Easily my 2 favorite moments in WoW captured on video. I can't watch them with audio anymore because it's so nerdy I cannot even stand it, but I can't wipe the smile off my face when watching. Awesome memories.

Andromanche - top

Andro was with us for a very long time but is the type of guy who will put real life before video games (aka he's smarter than most of us).

Always a very level headed raider, it was nice to have him around on raids and is still nice to play casually with him. Definitely a person I could see being friends with in the real world.

1) A short number of months after TFT came out, Blizzard announced its MMORPG project World of Warcraft. I didn't really know what an MMORPG was, but I had loved everything Blizzard had given me, so I waited to hear more. Half a year later, the first screenshots were released, some small blocky figures with swords swinging at a terribly designed ogre model. I thought, wow, this looks pretty dumb, but as more and more information came out over the next couple years, I became much more interested. Fast forward, and my friend and I apply for the open beta and I roll a NE druid and he a dwarf pally. The world was massive, I couldn't believe the size of the continents when I was goggling at how long it took to run across a city the size of Darnassus. I got to about L20 during the open beta and very much enjoyed the apocalypse prior to the close of that. Of course, my friend and I went to the midnight release a couple days after and rolled the same characters on KT simply because it was one of four or five MST zones.

I was playing a ridiculous amount. I was in my senior year of high school, Utah county public education is a joke, the friends I used to spend tons of time with I no longer did after things got awkward after dating one of them for awhile, so I found other friends who I for the most part despised, and my dad had basically given up on parenting so I was unrestrained on how I chose to use my time. I had always invested spare time in games for hours since I didn't (and still don't) find TV that interesting. I, like many others in Pacifist at the game's release, was logging anywhere between 5 and 7 hours a day, a part time job.

While leveling, I ran into a druid named Redxii in Duskwood. We ran quests together and after some conversation he invited me to join his guild, HOOD. Redxii never made it to 60--with how poor dps was on a druid, especially a feral at the time, he didn't have the patience, so he rolled a paladin named EvilDeeds. Evildeeds, Zebrin, Saucy and I--Zebrin reached 60 first, Evildeeds quickly surpassed me at about L54, a couple days after he and I did a ridiculous 26 hours of logged playtime straight, breaking for food and bathroom and such, then Saucy and I hit 60 at about the same time. Top of the guild, we were made officers and began helping the guild--a new time sink for the game. To our dismay, people were reaching 60 and leaving us for instance running guilds, so we couldn't field a single instance. Zebrin left us for a new guild of fucking elitists named Pacifist. The negative sentiment from Goon Squad toward Pacifist spread to almost every guild on that server, so we were pretty bitter with Zebrin. Things weren't getting better for HOOD, though, so we needed to make a decision. Evildeeds decided that the GL didn't care about the guild and neither did the members and if we wanted to play anymore of the game like he did, then we'd follow Zebrin's lead. Our options were Force, NPM and begrudgingly Pacifist: they might be jerks, but it looks like they know their shit.

We really didn't know which to decide, and we had been discussing it for hours outside of Ironforge while dueling when, suddenly, a druid runs out of IF with the Pacifist tag and starts challenging people to duels. Pillin and I had a duel that lasted about 10 minutes as all druid-druid and druid-priest duels did those days, and I felt I had made a good enough impression by my duely ways since duels matter so much, so we sparked some casual conversation and talked about getting into Pacifist. We hopped into the pacifist recruitment channel, Saucy and I applied, but Evildeeds hesitated: Nexous is an officer in there, I beat him in a duel and pissed him off pretty bad, I don't think I'd get in. Within 2 and 1/2 weeks, Evildeeds had rerolled Roirraw and entered Pacifist with us.

Chain LBRS/UBRS runs for points were amazing, although I had the hardest time accumulating druid loot. We'd run 4 or more runs in one evening. Those were good times. Once the 40-man raiding began, the time sink was crazy, but worth it. Up until Nef, I showed 4 for 5 almost every week, with few exceptions. After that, I flip-flopped my way through AQ after I picked up a girlfriend and tried to split my time 50/50 with her and raiding. Once I moved out for college, I was about 3 for 5 for raiding for Naxx--we had more druids then, especially a certain pro named Jazz, so I didn't feel too bad not committing like Katithra. We lost a couple not great druids (Pyne), so I tried my best to show up as much as possible all the way up until Sapph, who I only saw once, and then finals hit, and I never saw the rest of Naxx.

TBC came out shortly after and my semi-casual semi-not raid time was ok levelling and doing heroics. We started doing Kara, and that's only the second time I remember my girlfriend being agitated with playtime (the first being in AQ--I'd often leave around 9:30 p.m. because of this). My attendance was shaky all the way through Gruul as my relationship with my girlfriend had grown really shaky so I was trying to fix that--I never saw a kill. By the time he was nerfed, I hadn't the time anymore. I was there for Magtheridon, my last raid boss, although the university server crashed me at 20% of our first kill.

Other people at the time were finding issues with time commitment as well as the general cock-blockery of the game, and we had already lost a few very memorable players for good because of our raiding stance. To avoid losing cool players to talk to outside of raiding in favor of annoying jerkoffs we were forced to recruit to fill raids, Hocken made the casual rank. I told Hocken finals were hitting soon (it was about April) and I wouldn't be able to show up for more than a couple raids for the next couple weeks, and he told me to just take the casual rank till I felt like I could raid solidly again. I obliged, but never turned back. I got my first solid job (as in kept for over 3 months), I got an apartment (I had been living in the dorms), and I cancelled my WoW account for the first time in 3 years that summer. When the next semester started, I started taking actually interesting classes. Pacifist died without me really in it, but it was still sad to see a titan finally fall. Winter hit, and I thought about playing my druid semi-casually, then Xivia mentioned to me that people were playing on gorefiend so I rolled over there, leveled to 70 within a month, been playing pretty casually since!

Did I see this coming? No. But, I know that if WoW hadn't filled my time sink, something else would've. I knew little about each new part of WoW I went to, so I never expected each new aspect of it, and so I was never really disappointed either.

2) Onyxia, of course, but not just Onyxia. It was the first ride out of Theramore that was the first really epic moment of WoW, it was finally getting the kill and screaming like idiots on vent, it was the subsequent raid on Thunderbluff and the stupid motherfucker hunter who reset it, it was the fame of the video and the guide, and being in Joink's group in the video, and being out on the internet. It was googling Onyxia and having the first hit be pacifistguild.org. It was phrases like, "This is Saucy. We've got welps," "Battle res Arcus," "FUCKING KILL IT!!!!!" and "Dragon? What dragon?" "It's just a dragon." Cause yea, it was just a dragon. It was the people and the momentum we all gave each other that made it so memorable. How we used that momentum to catapult ourselves into and through MC, blowing through and then past every other guild in such a fashion that made us feel as if even though we weren't top in the world, we were doing things our way, and so we were the first and last to experience everything we were the way we were. 40 minute Razorgore, that dragon ditching us right after, taking an hour to get some fish and glitch through the door, battling it out with a GM. Hocken: "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid we're going to have to kill this dragon." Nexous calling him a nigger dick or something equally offensive and getting death touched. Figuring out Chromaggus. BWL really was the most entertaining, most fun instance we ever learned.

AQ wasn't. AQ was what it was supposed to be. It brought the game to the next level. It was about serious business and serious gaming. We had to commit, and it was extremely rewarding, which is what got us through it--the reward. Not the playing. This is when we started losing players. Everyone hated the slime, there was so much anger about shit like Ouro, and there were "dramatic dramatastic drama bombs" that Hocken had to for the first time in my memory make a post about attitude and raiding. Twin Emps was an awesome time, C'thun was an epic fight, but the seed was sewn that started splitting the guild. It took a damn long time to crack through our players, long enough to dominate Naxx, but I really feel like that's the point in the game where the raiding drama began. Sure, we had some issues before, but they were fleeting, like frustration over figuring out a fight. Hocken: "We should try this next run without buffing anyone." Not frustration over random (and not so random) factors fucking up five hours of raiding. Naxx was even more serious, but we had successfully changed our mindset about raiding, so it wasn't surprising anymore to find that we could spend 2 days on an encounter and not make any progress. Things didn't feel that rewarding there, though--just relieving--with the exception of Four Horsemen and Sapphiron. Four horsemen were amazing, by the way, I did enjoy that a lot.

Outside of raiding, also plenty of great memories. Camping the canyon outside Kargath with rithriaem shadowmelded. The assembled STV tournament for 1000 gold held by Immo and Ov, which I'm convinced inspired many others to do the same and probably influenced the decision to start a pvp concept later in WoW. Also, watching mikey and rith rape Immo and Ov after they were so damn confident they were going to win. Horde friends like Relg and Dyno. WSG premades with Paci vs. Ministry lasting an hour, then the subsequent ones being decided by duels won by Jalia. Being the first nature mage on the server only to be subsequently blown away a month later by Jhaz. Chaining Kazzak. Opening a Bradygames guide to a friend and pointing proudly at a screenshot to say THAT'S US. Ice and fire reflectors. Eillen. Davie looting the sunblade in BRS. Seeing our tanks get their first legendaries. Griefing people like Arcus, Riddik, Li, Femaleelf, as often as we could. Timing a raid on Undercity with Fortis' boss pull only to have them portal out mid fight and wipe our Sylvannis attempt. DotA with Hocken, Mikey, Danger, Jallinya and/or Brutus till 9 a.m. in the morning. Cliff walking into Hyjal, to the top of Ironforge, and the like. After parties in Ironforge. Pacicon. Smokey, bubbly helicopters. Listening to Grateful Dead and Belle and Sebastian in Hocken's music channel at 10 in the morning. Wiping Xivia's Benediction quest. 40v40 green dragon attempts. The AQ gate opening.

These are probably just a few. Any of us could probably document a short novel on Pacifist's Greatest Moments.

3) I think I stated this earlier, sort of, or at least implied. School, getting life on track, a girl, and to an extent, the game not being as good. I wonder how many people would've quit for these similar reasons if the game was as good as it was pre-TBC or as enjoyable as pre-AQ.

4) I was a terrible farmer. Always. It took me forever to get an epic mount and I never got an epic flying mount on Andromanche. Now, it's ridiculously easy to farm.

As for raiding, you know, while I used so much time raiding, I really think I would've equally sunk it into something, and probably something less enjoyable and satisfying instead of WoW. I met hands down the best gaming community I have ever found on the internet in Pacifist. I hope our members move from game to game together, because I don't think any game will be as fun as it could be played with Pacifists. So no. No regrets. I managed somehow to balance things with life and WoW. I could've made a lot more money, maybe, but I've always been ok with making enough to get by till I graduate.

5) A little of this, a little of that. I'm "playing" Veldt on Gorefiend with what few Pacifist still play there, but it looks like that is starting to wither as well. I finished farming the S1 gear, and we don't have enough people to have more than one arena team so that looks like the end of Veldt. My girlfriend and best friend are in the guild as well and the three of us are very slowly and casually leveling paladins together. I played Andromanche last week for the first time in about 8 months, healing in pve blues and kara purps made of cloth in a bg. It makes me sad to think that even with that kind of gear, it makes such a huge difference, and you almost never see that in pug BGs on Gorefiend, so I might pvp on Andro a bit more since Veldt seems stagnant and who knows, might increase the net worth of the account for if I sell when we move to a new MMO.

Playing dota sparingly, but not with any Pacifist. I usually log onto Bnet around 1 a.m., so I never see anyone on. Playing Wii games, sometimes PS3 at a friend's house, not really interested in Xbox anymore. For how riveting the NextGen started, it seems to already be dying out, leaving gamers wanting. GTAIV is cool and all, but I really wonder if they couldn't have done more with the character models considering the system. I don't think we'll see anymore good games from the console manufacturers--just third parties--till an upgrade. Halo Wars may be a cool concept, but I always cringe at the idea of console RTS. Hoping Warhammer satisfies, but I must admit I'm not nearly as stoked as I once was.

As for real life, I am plowing my way through a film major at the U of U. Working with a documentary group in Salt Lake City called SLC Random that covers the underground scene (not things like punk emo shit, more like art things such as Butoh groups or Conscientia green effort events, etc), showing a documentary at the Salt Lake Arts Festival this summer, so that's exciting. Working as an Online Editor for a newspaper developing the multimedia content. Living with my girlfriend and a gun-crazy room mate. Just returned from my first trip to Europe. Pretty good point in my life, I'd say.

6) Meh. Everyone has the same sentiments. Raiding is not as cool, not as epic. PvP is too easy with a good group and too hard without one. Everything is about big numbers close together and whoring points for a month without actually doing anything. The only problem is, somehow, no one can develop a better idea. All these other MMOs come out bragging a new concept that WoW doesn't have, but they never develop the concept to its full potential and they usually ignore other elements of the game in lieu of their fancy concept. So, WoW still reigns, on and on.

7) I never thought I could so memorably enjoy a video game or meet such unique, competent people on the internet and so many. It's been great being a Pacifist, and I still refer to "the people I game with" as "Pacifists," because it means that much more. I DO have screenshots, epic ones, of the run out to Onyxia for the first time, the first time seeing Emps, the first day of BWL, hundreds and hundreds, backed up on a dvd that's in a car not here right now. I will have it tonight, though, so expect it. I think I also have some good videos of things like that tournament Immo held and Rith raping Immo. I'll load them up tonight. Not a lot of screenshots in this thread, so they'll be neat.

Also, I read everyone's posts in this thread and thoroughly enjoyed reminiscing. Good times.

Jalia - top

Well, well, well, if it isn't Jalia. He's just better than me at every video game possible and I always had a lot of respect for him. He was with Pacifist from the start to the end raiding pretty consistently.

Jalia didn't talk much on Vent but when he did he would simply interrupt and talk over anyone who was currently speaking and say something that was profound and correct; whenever he spoke, everybody listened.

Very lucky to have known the guy because he's the type of person that can carry an entire guild on his back if he chose to.

1) My only experience with mmos prior to wow was FXI, so I didnt really know what to expect. I played up to level 20 something during the open beta and was hooked. I had no idea what end content even was when I started. I normally spent a lot of time playing games, but not as much as I did with WOW.

2) The first night in BWL when we feared past the gate was probably the greatest night of raiding, killing ragnaros was second to that for me because it was my first major boss in any game. Nax was a lot of fun for me also I enjoyed the competition of being top dps as much if not more than tanking, I probably should have been a rogue. The middle part of my GM grind was the most fun I had in WOW, we had all the alliance pros on the server doing AB and we would go undefeated all day long. Towards the end of the grind I was to burnt out to have fun and it was just about honor and not pvp. WOW has more good memories than I can probably list. Late night Strath run with Roirraw. The early days of farming UBRS for dkp. Some days I would spend the whole day outside of IF just dueling and trash talking. Camping that town in badlands with Mikec. Tons of good times in Warsong Gulch. Having three or four people win an entire AV was pretty entertaining too.

3) I quit and came back too many times. I would play to much and burn myself out. I didn't expect the expansion to be such a reset button making pretty much everything I had done worthless, that is what ruined my taste for WOW I think. We also lost to many of our best people to be the same level of raiding guild we were prior to TBC.

4) I regret grinding gm a little should have stopped at about 12 or 13, but I don't really regret the raiding I enjoyed it even when it was just farming old content. I also regret some things like getting exalted timbermaw, no idea why I thought that was a good idea.

5) Ive tried to come back a few times, but it is just not same. Real life wise I'm working on a masters degree.

7) Actually my favorite part of wow was spamming my macros that asked for blessings. Also hellsting being main assist was good times.

Slims - top

Slims is the slimiest goon you could possibly know and for a very long time I would immediately ban him from Vent the second I saw him. But he was too good at evading the bans (although I bet I got him to put the power cord for his modem within arms reach).

Honestly he grew on me a little bit and I even like the guy now a days.

1) I had no idea I would spend so much time in WoW, whether it was ordering pizzas from Jalia or listening to MikeC go on racist tirades there was nothing funner then playing WoW with the pacifist guild of goons.

2) When we did da boss with da thing and he dropped da uh perditions hahahah thats my hellsting impression did you like it????

3) I quit because I called a dragon a nigger. But actually blizz made me quit by banning me and my mom wouldnt pay for my 15 a month anymore also thanks alot MOM

4) I regret farming rep becasue I didnt pick human

5) im jackin it right now

6) wow sucks right now arena is gay this thread is gay you are gay lets have sex

7) i dont have anypictures because if you havent figured out by now i was actually not in pacifistsorry for wasting your time and have anice day love slims

Shaleia - top

Shaleia joined us a little late but was part of a group of real life friends that for a while were a strong part of our raiding backbone.

I always got the impression that he was one of our more "normal people" players that didn't dedicate their life to WoW for extended periods of time. But he was like our only Druid for a while and eventually turned into a Rogue.

1) No. I wasn't even gonna buy this game. I had played DAoC and had decided that MMOs were stupid. I got convinced to play by two friends, one was a priest named Ehrgeiz, the other went on to roll a mage named Emongeno. I was torn between rolling a rogue or a druid. I wanted to roll a rogue but I was afraid noone would want to group with me at higher levels because that always happens with rogues. Ehrgeiz convinced me that wouldn't happen.

I got started a couple weeks late but I was hooked from the opening cinematic. I loved War 3 and have always been lore fag and this game pulled me in. I rolled on KT because that's where my friends were. I started in a guild called, "The Alliance," which broke up while I was still leveling. Ehrgeiz went on to join Pacifist but I wasn't 60 and I found some old friends from a CS clan (a#) so I joined their clan.

Things were good for the 5/10/15 person groups. They made me an officer and we recruited a ton and did some MC. Eventually I realized they were too casual for me. I was playing the, "Show up, be prepared, play your balls off," version of WoW and they were playing the, "roll in when it's convenient, don't bother with potions because they are too expensive, and be sure you can see the TV from where you raid," version of WoW. I wanted to join Paci but rogue recruitment was a little... tight.

My first memories of Paci were watching the Ony kill party in IF and running a ZA trinket pug for Schwa.

I had a friend who had quit his druid while leveling so I picked that up and started gearing it out. Emo left for Paci and he and Danger informed me that a druid spot was open. I joined up right after you guys had dropped Emps and it was like night and day. People came wanting to play and knowing how to do it. I was scared to shit someone was going to find out just how little I had played my druid. I asked this one druid named Jhaz if there was a channel I should join. He said there was but he didn't know what it was because he had a fight with someone in there.

What I wanted out of WoW was to play at the top end. To see everything there was to see in the game, and to prove I could hack it with the best players. I had gotten that a little in past guilds but it wasn't until I got to Pacifist that I really felt I had, "made it." The time I was in Paci I never felt I was in the company of equals. I felt I was being allowed to play with my betters. That I managed to earn their respect enough to not be kicked was what I was looking for.

2) -Running into Naxx with world buffs and trying to dodge the naked Ministry priest squads. Especially when I didn't have an epic mount.

-Pacicon (???2008???). The drunken run down the strip, the minikeg chug contest.

-Rolling 80 Fortis/Ministry outside AQ40.

-This one time I healed Tmix/Soph outside LHC while they rapped like 8 noobs.

-Racing Force to C'Thun. I had a RL friend in Force and he sent me a tell as the weaken expired at 1% asking if we had made any progress. Just then someone (I think Hocken) says, "C'Thun, 1%" in general and he sent me another tell flipping out.

3) I quit at the end of Naxx to once again try to make my old CS buddy guild into a serious raiding guild. I came back when it clearly wasn't going to happen.

4) Not really. I have some RL friends I kinda lost touch with because of WoW and I do regret that but I have made a huge number of other friends through WoW that have become RL friends.

I do have a few regrets of other things. Mostly I regret that I didn't work on getting in to Paci sooner and I regret I left after Naxx. I regret that I never got to kill Visc, I was around for all the wipes but missed the kill. And I regret the time I had to be cut from learning Kael because I wasn't playing up to par.

I kind of regret liking our Loatheb kill so much because I know it made Nexous hate WoW.

5) Gamewise I'm in Flavour Country and still raiding. We raid 4 times a week and are 4/6 Sunwell. I like raiding less often but it means We don't go back to BT so I'll never get glaives, which kinda irks me a bit. I also picked up AoC and am playing that casually. Who knows if I will decide to do that more hardcore.

RL wise I working for the U of Utah which I've done for a while now. I'm trying to get good enough at poker that I can quit my job. That's coming along slowly but I've got high hopes. If that fails me I'm also just started going back to school for a 2nd degree in Computer Science.

6) Fuck Casuals.

7) Quote: Originally Posted by Hocken

By far the worst fight in Naxx for us was Gothik; we wiped to him over a thousand times I'm sure.

Say what you want about tbc, Gothik was the biggest nail in the coffin. The burnout that fight started was the single worst thing that happened to Paci. I've raided every fight in TBC other than KJ and nothing has come close to fucking Gothik. I've been back to Naxx a few times at 70 and I still projectile vomit every time I hear his intro.

Other than that, I'm glad to have met you all, I'm glad to have been given the chances I was given by the guild and I miss many of you and I love all of you like a fat kid loves cake.

Roirraw - top

Roirraw, aka backwards warrior, eventually just dropped to backwards was known for a long time as "the guild backbone." This guy would play WoW all day and always be 100% up for anything. He created what was then known as the trifecta run: UBRS, then Strat, then Scholo in succession. This took like 4 hours to do but was the best farming time could buy back when MC was the only instance available to farm.

He was also the main reason Jhaz got introduced to Pacifist. Jhaz would go on those trifecta runs all the time and we all got to know him very well before he joined us.

Now a days Roirraw is kicking some ass in Iraq.

1) No, I first started playing WOW in beta with a RL friend. We both made Tauren Druids and stopped leveling around 30 or so. I was pretty bad at the game then, didn't really have any direction, or know how to play. Spent most of my time in the barrens getting owned by warlocks 3 day fears and DOTs. When the real game came out, I rolled a NE Druid, with Clan HOOD on Kel'Thuzad. That was the server they picked, so I went with them. I brought some RL friends to the server, but they were extremely casual. I ended up carrying the Clan HOOD on my shoulders for a few months, running all the members thru instances, farming for them and trying to get people leveled up. One after another got to a higher level ( around 40 ) and some drama would erupt and people would leave. Very few of them would stick around long enough to make something out of the work. I met Andromanche in Astrannar one day, and we started questing. Then I met Zebrin/Souldius/Zephra and we had a pretty solid 5 man team. About the next day I rolled a Human Paladin, Evildeeds. Seal of the Crusader was broken at the time, so I powered thru the levels. Reached 60 in about 1-2 weeks max. Thats when I met Hocken, broadcasting for a raid to Strathlome. We did a few runs, and the Eyes raped the entire group time after time. No one knew what they were doing, and it was so much fun. That's when Zebrin and Andro left for Pacifist, I went on a trial run with my Paladin to UBRS, told if I could beat nexous in a duel I could get in, I beat him, he denied me and I secretly rolled a Warrior to fill a position in the Guild. With the help of Zebrin and Andro, I made it happen in record time. Hit 60 in under a week on Roirraw, and was in MC a week later. That's when it all started..........

2) Blightcaller raids ( 90% of the people would die ), Plaguelands PVP, Southshore Raids ( pre bg ), Trifectas, Latenight Farming Sessions, Killing Fireguard before it spawned more, Speed run MC's, Twin Emps, Mothers Day Rag Kill, Waking up in the middle of the night and thinking "the green dragons are up", logging on, calling the phone tree and owning dragons at anytime of the morning/night, everything in BWL ( points competitions, learning the fights, 2h tanking the death pulls, waiting for the drakefang talisman I never got ), PVPing with the best ( UJ, Mikec, Jalia, Jhaz, Davie, Barudin, and so many others I can't even start to name ), DOTA games during raiding. So many memories and good times I can't recall on right now. Pacifist was one of the things I will miss.

3) Needed a job, life change and some other direction. Being a hardcore WOW raider and DOTA player really didn't pay the bills.

4) No, I made some good friends, I think. I would only regret the time spent if this community didn't stay together. The few core people who made the guild last as long as it did, were able to put up with eachother on a nightly basis. I see no reason why something good, like what pacifist used to be, should dissolve.

5) Gaming is pretty much stuck to single player, old games, and some RTS vs Comp players due to my depolyment to Bagdad, Iraq. Sunday 8 June, 2008 is the day my gaming ends for at least 1 1/2 years.

6) Couldn't tell you, I didn't like the expansion that much.

7) I wish I still had some of the screenshots and videos that we took while raiding. Those times we're so much fun, and there is little, if anything, to show for it. I hope you guys all take care and keep the community together, it will be nice to come back and enjoy some new games after the tour.

Hocken - top

And finally here is my wall of text that is essentially a history of the guild from my perspective.

1) Well I played EQ for a while when it came out (Rodcet Nife represent) but I always felt like I played a shitty class (Druid) and didn't get the chance to do much real raiding until my last few months of it. I rolled a Priest with the sole intention of raiding. From my experience with EQ (keep in mind I quit a few weeks before Luclin), healers and Enchanters were always needed, so I'd be a healer since WoW didn't seem to have any sort of Enchanter-esque class to me. I chose a Dwarf because I thought "Fear Ward" would summon me a totem and that would be cool; I was thinking about Healing Wards from War3. And the fact that they had massive beards.

I played open beta and started up on Kel'thuzad about a week after the game came out - I was out of town during release. KT because of Ye Olde Goon Squad. A couple of my RL friends who were goons decided to play with them so I followed. Shortly after turning 60 all of the powergamers in Goon Squad quit because goons are in general a bunch of trolling idiots. I was not one of these people who left; I think I was about level 50 when Pacifist was created by Nexous. But I was inspired and thought that they had more potential to be the hardcore guild I was interested in. At level 58 or so I did a "trial" with Pacifist in LBRS where Taliababa got like 3 pieces of BM and became by far the best equipped Hunter Alliance-side.

I joined Pacifist mostly due to the pestering of Pacifist's then-leader Pink (who was a hot Asian girl). Then I did some Scholo and Jalia told me I sucked at healing right outside of Ras's room because I kept letting him get way low (not dead though!). I was hurt but inspired to get better.

How I got to be leader is a story that can be told surprisingly quickly: Slink (Pink's manslave) got a Deathstriker and eBayed, Pink quit with him, Nexous got gleader. This guy Aegon who was an officer caused constant bullshit drama and Nexous decided to kick him out. This caused more drama and everyone was in "fuck this guild" mode. Nexous was angry one night and randomly gleadered me saying, "You're the only one who seems to want improve the guild so here ya go." Thus it began. At this point we had maybe 10 active level 60 players and a handful of people still levelling.

Goon Squad hated Pacifist for abandoning them; they had the impression we thought we were so much better than them. I knew we weren't big enough to do what I really wanted to do - kill Onyxia - so I talked to Vargtimmen (then a psuedo-leader of Goon Squad) and we organized a very successful string of Onyxia raids that resulted in her death on the 4th night. Remember, this is 3 months after release, nobody knew anything about anything, our only plan on the first pull was "evens go left, odds go right." We wiped over and over and over for probably 36 hours total learning each phase and finally killed her. Now people were interested.

But I had my goal: steal all the talent from Goon Squad. I knew who they were - the guys who didn't suck at Onyxia. Pacifist was fielding maybe 40% of the Onyxia raids; Goon Squad still had the majority. I reasoned that if I stole 10-15 good players, we'd be on our way to being a real raiding guild. But, unfortunately, it didn't work. The filthy goons were too loyal to their guild and I think they correctly figured that they'd be able to do Onyxia on their own with a little patience; remember they were a gigantic guild with like 400 accounts.

I was sort of in panic mode trying to figure out how I was going to get 40 people together on a consistent basis when I learned about a little guild called . In the strangest of coincidences, NPM's guild leader was a guy named Jeter who I happened to know as a guy named Jake from Utah. We were acquainted from when I lived there and had tons of mutual real life friends. NPM was a group of unusually talented WoW players; some of our best recruits came from that guild. Eventually, after a little bit of joint raiding in UBRS, Onyxia, and MC, I stole pretty much the entire guild. I had the players now.

From there for a very long time we didn't have to do shit but raid. No drama, no loot issues, no recruiting, no anything but raiding MC. It was the easiest guild to run in the world. We simply showed up, dominated shit, and had fun. We quickly overtook all of the Horde guilds in MC and began our string of server firsts with like Garr or maybe it was Majordomo - one of those MC bosses. We would get 99.9% of 40man server firsts from then until TBC (only exceptions: Lethon (Ministry), Kazzak (HC), and the scarab boss in Naxx (HC) - only because we went to DK wing first night and killed Noth).

The first major drama bombs happened around mid-BWL. What was going on is that we had our core raiders - about like 42 people literally; we had really consistently good attendance. And we had our "Friend" (aka casual) rank - they weren't allowed to raid even though many of them wanted to; we simply didn't have the room. But occasionally, as our core raider pool began to fluctuate slightly, one or two "Friends" were getting into raids on a regular basis. This caused a whole "Friends vs. Raiders" drama battle that ended with me, mostly on Nexous's advice, kicking out most of the Friends, kicking out semi-active or shitty raiders, and promoting any useful Friends to raiders. In addition it was the first time we had to recruit a very small number of people. I think it was the right decision.

Overall the guild remained on cruise control through BWL and into AQ40. We had one or two key members quit but nothing major to deal with. AQ40 was feeling really easy until we hit Twin Emps. That is the boss in WoW that changed the game completely. All of a sudden small errors were catastrophic; it was a fight that required absolute perfection. Due to this some mild drama erupted around this time as we were forced to shed some players that we carried and try to find some new ones that were pro. Once we hit C'thun some more drama erupted because we couldn't kill him (prefix - nobody could) and this was the first time that we had really been cockblocked. But we got him down the day they fixed him and all was well overall.

The momentum of the guild noticeably slowed when Naxx arrived. Too many key members were getting sick of raiding. Or they wanted to reroll new classes when their mains were in the best gear in the game. We did alright in Naxx from an outside perspective but inside the glue was becoming undone. We knew about painful nights of raiding from Twin Emps/Ouro/Cthun but we were feeling pain more consistently in Naxx and it wasn't making anyone happy. By far the worst fight in Naxx for us was Gothik; we wiped to him over a thousand times I'm sure.

Along with more painful raiding than we were used to, another major thing that was changing was how we approached bosses. Starting with about Ouro the whole raiding world began to really mature and strategies/videos became widely available. I'd say Twin Emps is the last fight we actually figured out ourselves from start to finish. In Naxx this was especially bad, and since our performance wasn't as good as it used to be we were consistently behind the bleeding edge of raiding thus leaving strategies available to use. And they were used excessively much to the dismay of many of our key members who had spent 1.5 years learning shit themselves and loved it.

And, of course, I take a large chunk of responsibility for the slowdown we experienced during Naxx. I had spent a long time leading shit and being marginally successful pawning off leader type duties on other people. WoW was feeling too much like a job. All I wanted to do was show up and raid but if I even tried to do that I would be unable to resist the urge to assume my normal leadership role. As Naxx rolled on I cared less and less. Trailmix/Jallinya killed Sapphiron for us - I didn't lead a single raid to him.

We got through Naxx but believe me I breathed a gigantic sigh of relief when we killed Kel'thuzad 3 or 4 weeks before TBC. Many people, including myself, were not sure we would pull it off.

TBC came out and what a giant fucking mess that was. Levelling to 70 wasn't bad and Karazhan wasn't bad but Gruul was a total clusterfuck. Ministry got the server first on him and this caused the members of Pacifist to collectively shit more of a brick than they might want to admit. Eventually, somehow which totally escapes me, we killed pre-nerf Gruul after about a month of trying. I think we dropped Magtheridon first which was good for morale, but Ministry had the lead going into SSC and got most of the firsts in there - maybe all of them but Vashj who we got, I forget.

Things were okay but far from great. Key, key, key players quit during early TBC. Like the most important players we had: Jalia, Nexous, Trailmix, Jhaz for a while, and more who I can't remember right now. Server transfers were in full swing and the pool of available talent all of a sudden became gigantic and full of shitty player static. Our talent level dropped to new lows but we stayed afloat by finding about 1 amazing player for every 4 we recruited and scored most firsts in TK including Kael'thas by a good couple weeks.

The Horde competition slowed down because Ministry and Fortis - the two big Horde guilds - were falling apart slowly. They ended up disbanding right around this time and forming Exodus which went on to completely dominate starting with about end-Hyjal, mid-BT. It was kind of a perfect storm for them that worked out very well. On the other hand, we were having trouble attracting talent, keeping talent, and rapidly losing key members to burnout.

Very, very few people ever quit Pacifist to play with another guild. In fact, I'd say about 0% of our pre-TBC members quit to raid with someone else. All of our quitting members stopped playing the game entirely, went way casual, or focused entirely on PVP.

Right around this time it became apparent to everyone that I was a shitty leader. I was showing up to maybe 60-70% of raids and usually declaring myself on vacation while attending them. Kuraa was running the guild more or less and he did a fine job but it's rough to do everything for extended periods of time and he was burning out and believe me you do not want an angry Korean leading your raids. Then Vanstrider came along and between him and Kuraa shit was getting done. Towards the end of TK I decided to gleader Vanstrider and this seemed to be a well received move - I think it was the right move even now.

Hyjal went okay until Archimonde who totally raped us for a long time. BT went okay but not great. By this point we had maybe 5 original members actively raiding and a good 30% of our raid group was a revolving door of shitty players and good players who quickly quit after transferring to us as a last ditch effort to find enjoyment in WoW. I had pretty much quit raiding, dropping to the level of "sometimes available emergency replacement." The last BT boss I killed was Teron and I never was at an Archimonde kill.

When we were cockblocked on Archimonde and barely farming Teron every week for like a month a significant amount of people dropped off over the course of a couple days. After this point we couldn't field good progression raids. We could farm SSC/TK and the first bosses in Hyjal/BT, but that was about it. It was sort of a mutual decision amongst all officers that we were done. I think a subpar raiding guild could have been salvaged but we had no leadership for it. Vanstrider was totally burnt out, Kuraa was deported to North Korea for being a communist, I was totally done with WoW.

It was over and that was that for Pacifist.

Did I expect to drop this much time into WoW when I started? Honestly, yeah. Did I expect to lead anything? Hell no.

2) Onyxia kill #1 moment for me in WoW by far. 40v40 PVP sessions at world bosses and outside instances was always fun. Standing outside of Four Horsemen with every possible buff in the game before we killed them for the first time. The Sapphiron kill were we just oneshot him without any real consumables, "Let's just give this one try and call it a night. Oops, he's dead." Atiesh was an alright moment but I never played the game for loot in the slightest. Although honestly I was pissed that I didn't get the first Benediction so this just made up for that. Nothing will make up for not being the guy who rang the AQ40 gong though; that sucked tbqh. Fucking Lokasenna, fucking Katithra, fucking Redstar.

My favorite times in the game were anytime that we just did shit properly. No mistakes, no idiots, no incompetence, just 100% pro. It happened occasionally as a group but I was always happy to have people in the raid who I could 100% rely on to do their job perfectly. And occasionally, I could rely on all 40 people. Those were the best times in WoW for me.

3) Totally burnt out as explained in the wall of text above.

4) Yeah, honestly, I regret some of it. I neglected a lot of real life shit to play WoW way too much. I didn't like fuck up my life or anything - never failed any classes or ruined my credit playing WoW, but I definitely spent waaaay too much time playing it. One thing that was a blessing in disguise was that about a month before WoW came out I almost died and spent a full year recovering from some physical shit (aka playing WoW 80 hours a week). I'm fine now, but if that hadn't of happened, I might have fucked up my life a little.

After reentering the real world you look back and think about how pointless it all was really. I mean what are you going to do, walk up to a girl and say, "I've killed Muru baby." Endgame raiders are like 0.1% of the population of WoW and nobody gives a fuck about it outside of the game itself. Sometimes it can be so insulating that you lose important real world perspective. This certainly doesn't happen to everyone though; we had several good, longtime members who had their shit together in the real world and just happened to spend all their free time playing WoW.

But there are several things I don't regret at all like all of the cool people I met playing. Some of which became and remain good friends.

And no I certainly don't regret getting paid to write strategy guides for Bradygames. Like I'm so fond of saying, Kel'thuzad bought my couch. That was a great experience.

5) Being a pretty good student and slacking off a little too much. Off and on with WoW - playing casually on Gorefiend. Golfing a lot. Playing way too much Rock Band/GH. Enjoying Seattle because it's the greatest place to live.

I was never much of a gamer so I'm slipping back into my usual routine of playing something a lot for 2 days then not playing anything for a month.

6) WoW is pretty friendly to the casual gamer which I like since I am one. The PVP system is decent but honestly I'm annoyed by the rating requirements and the whole e-sport focus they seem to have going. It only hurts the game to try to balance it for PVP and PVE at the same time.

Honestly I can't say much about raiding. I don't really keep up on the bosses or anything. I hear Muru is hard and there's some adds involved? I don't even know the names of the bosses in Sunwell. Overall though, I'm very glad to not have every single evening conquered by an unbreakable commitment to WoW.

7) Overall the whole experience was great and now I am totally content with MMOs. When I played EQ I wanted to be a known, hardcore player, but I never was. My next MMO was Anarchy Online which was too big of a mess to do anything in but still really fun (le