How was your 2008?

2008 was a big year for WoW, but who cares about that? I'm more interested in how everyone was affected personally this year.

2008 was an overall very positive year for me.

First of all, finally working things out to play off and on some weeknights was a huge win. My alts made some serious progress these last few months.

Samodean, my Warlock sat on the shelf for most of the year. As my main, he was the first character I "completed" in Burning Crusade. However, with the release of Wrath, he's been by far my most played. Northrend is an absolute blast. Honestly, I can't remember why I liked BC after clearing a few zones out there. Level 80 may not have been achieved this year, but it's not too far off. Gotta stop and smell the roses along the way. He dropped Skinning in favor of Inscription, which is a ton of fun. With Tarmr rapidly approaching Northrend, I should soon be able to level it past 360. Tailoring is slowly coming along, as well.

Ralken, my Hunter had an... odd... year. After my account got hacked a couple years ago, Ral was completely wiped out. No gear, not even a pet. I lost all motivation to play him. However, after much convincing, I finally managed to pry my other half off Final Fantasy XI for an extended stay in Azeroth. Helping her shape her Hunter got me back into the groove and I started leveling him again. He got to level 70 and had a little fun, but never really accomplished much. It's a bit sad to see my first character get left behind, but, honestly, he'll probably be the LAST of my characters to reach 80. The others are just much more fun to play.

(Thankfully nobody reads this thing, or BRK would smite me on the spot and revoke my Hunter License.)

Ullic, my Paladin is very confused. Leveling as Protection in Outland is a chore. Too many casters and ranged attackers to effectively AOE. Once I found out Death Knights were a tanking class, I decided to respec him to Retribution. However, once I replaced all my Prot gear, I realized that Ret was no fun at all, so I went back to Prot. Thankfully, the rest of his Outland experience will be fairly easy. He's currently sitting in Terokkar, waiting for his turn.

Haddar. Haddar, Haddar, Haddar. Shaman is so insanely fun, it makes me sad that I didn't initially roll Horde. While Sam and Ral were capable of pumping out some serious damage, they're built more for survivability and efficiency. Haddar, on the other hand, is my first character capable of DESTROYING anything he comes across. He carves a path of devastation, leaving enemies in his wake. I can't wait until Sam reaches a point where I can start playing Haddar again. Hell, I ALMOST jumped straight into Northrend with him. Jewelcrafting is still a pain to level, though.

Of course, the big story of 2008 was the launch of Wrath. Death Knights, Inscription, Northrend... all fantastic additions to the game. I love leveling Tarmr and making a complete joke out of Outland and quests that used to give me trouble. Of course, my adventures in Northrend have been chronicled in my Weekend Warrior series.

Unfortunately, not everything was rosy this year. My guild completely imploded.

No, that's not right.

It EXPLODED.

Catastrophically.

The top players decided we weren't progressing quickly enough for our CASUAL guild and decided to stage a coup. People were kicked, half the roster left for greener pastures, close friends started over on other servers. It wasn't pretty. After a while, I tried to take control of the guild, but the stewards that were left in charge were all MIA, so I started up Denarian.

And so, one of the oldest guilds on one of the oldest servers faded into oblivion.

Denarian is stagnant, recruitment is nonexistent, and I fear for it's future. However, I remain hopefully optimistic for what 2009 holds.

The brightest spot of 2008, by far, was the decision I made back in October to start up this blog. It's so nice to have a creative outlet. Even if nobody outside of my coworkers and guildmates read this, it's worth all the time and effort.