A week and almost a half ago, I was recruited into a progression raiding guild. I was so happy to at last be raiding every night of the week (sans Friday and Saturday) and to have a schedule that actually occurred.. to be in a guild that had people who seemed just as motivated to raid, or could at least show up on time. Anxious about the future, I gave up any plan I had to transfer servers.

Last night, my guild's Ventrilo went down. I thought nothing of it. When I woke up this morning, it was still down. I still thought nothing of it. I went out, had some coffee, got my fifteen minutes of sun then semi-rushed home for my scheduled raid at 4PM, excited about rounding off my Tier 4 set with Gruul's tokens. While waiting for WoW to load, I check the server forums only to find a thread posted that my GM/raid leader has packed his bags and left the server for greener pastures.. abandoning everyone in the guild and giving no notice whatsoever.

The minute I log in, I get flooded with whispers that pretty much all say the same thing: "omgomgomgomgomgomg."

Two dozen of us sitting in guild channel, pure textual anarchy. People pointing fingers, people QQ'ing, people trying to pull things together and plan for the future. Like after a family member's death, we all progressed through the 12 steps of coping differently.

Naturally me and a few others had our spirits broken. Lost and confused, it was hard to pull myself through even the most rudimentary tasks of healing. A lot of the time I wanted to blame other people for things that were so obviously my fault. And while others are hopeful about my guild's future, I can't help but sit and wonder if any other server will take me into their progression guild.

My heart is broken and there's nothing left on this server for me.. but I haven't enough cards on the table to transfer somewhere where I can be of more use. Things are tough right now because the lynch pin of the guild is gone and my only excuse for tolerating the other people that surround me has gone up and left us all. And while I know for a fact that he didn't leave because of me (due to unmentionable confirmation), I can't help but feel like it's my fault anyway.

I'm hoping tomorrow I'll feel better but I know tomorrow when I wake up, I won't be raiding at 4PM. I'll be too morose to PVP. And I'll probably just sit in a capital city sulking.

After being drunk for three days straight and an unceremonious /gquit, I am searching for servers to transfer to for the purpose of raiding and PVP. The process happened like so:

What I want:
- decent battleground and arena action
- emphasis on mid-Karazhan and motivation to progress
- generally friendly people and proper economy

Step #1: I figured the easiest way I could narrow the field of servers was by looking at Battlegroup forums. Sifting through twink posts, I got a general feeling for how the battlegrounds and arena teams were. Once I had gone through the list of Battlegroups, I came up with three that were acceptable. From this list, I compiled 20 PVE servers I would evaluate for transfer to.

Step #2: I rated the 20 servers by first forum page results, guild progression, and amount of guilds (Y/N). The forums and progression were graded from 1 to 10, 1 being absolutely drab and depressing, and 10 being an exact fit for me. None of them ranked 10, and actually the highest ranked one came up at a 15 (adding progression score with forum score.) I picked the top four graded servers from my list and continued..

Step #3: For the last four servers, I checked their realm census and the first five pages of their forums. Forum results were graded 1-10, and the realm census either garnered a yes or no. Going through the first five pages gives a good idea of what guilds are/were recruiting, what the forum posters said to most people wondering if they should transfer, and the general attitude of the most active people on the server. After marking off one server, I'm left with three.

Step #4: Perhaps one of the most time consuming, it involves creating a throw away character to troll the capital cities of these servers. I haven't completed my tour yet, but the last three servers are: Aerie Peak, Dalaran, and Khaz Modan.

My boyfriend laughed at my process, and keeps on telling me to "transfer to Turalyon" or whatever, even though that was one of the lowest scored servers on my second step. I think I'm being thorough. :( I had to do this for me, since my guild recruitment post basically got laughed at because I'm a mid-Karazhan healer decked out in non-heroic (read: 70 PVP blues & purples) gear. My feelings are hurt.. but I'll just kill people to make myself feel better.

My boyfriend's WoW account was hacked. We had an inkling when he signed on a few weeks ago (he doesn't play WoW anymore but still has an active account) and signed off quickly before I could whisper sexy greetings to him. I called him up on the telephone and was like, "sups?" to which he said he was napping and couldn't possibly have signed on. That should have raised a big red flag and he should have changed his password right then but he was probably too busy and didn't pay much mind.

So today, I saw him logged on while I was on the phone with him. I asked him what he was doing and of course, it wasn't him. I tracked down his doppelganger in the Auction House and emote poked and greeted him. This person on my boyfriend's account actually had the gall to whisper me and I figured this the best time to talk it up. He had put all of my boyfriend's banked herbs up on the Auction House, at actually surprisingly unreasonable prices!

Plot: Do not let this person know who I am, be specific yet vague, and force them to either admit something that is a lie and trip them up or talk them up so much that they cannot stand the pressure and log off. After the sick mother angle failed, I decided to go the college detail route with this as I could be utterly specific while not giving everything away. This whole time I was tracking this fellow, making him so uncomfortable in Ironforge that he actually FLEW and boated it to Darnassus to finish up his Auction House work, then went to Azshara to pick herbs. I have an add-on that logs ALL of my whisper chats so I was able to copy and paste WORD FOR WORD. Enjoy!

Doppelganger: hey
Me: What's up? :) I haven't seen you on in a while.
DG: :)
Me: Is your mother doing okay? :/
DG: no  im  lvler only
Me: What? Well, either way, I hope your mother gets well soon.
DG: I am his friend  oh  tyvm
Me: I'm bored, you need any help running instances?
DG: no ty
Me: It's a pretty tempting deal. :) Besides, it's the least I can do considering all the help Geir's given me.
DG: :) ty
Me: We could run Uldaman.
DG: no i wanna lvling only
Me: You could level in Uldaman! Quests! Surely you have some quests there. Or I suppose we could drudge through Dire Maul.
DG: it is low  lvl
Me: Dire Maul, too low! You're kidding me! .. For you?
DG: its uldaman  :)
DG: im farming omly now
Me: Good, I need herbs for Flasks of Mighty Restoration!

- after a few minutes -
Me: So how do you know Geir? You go to school with him?
DG: yes
Me: What's your major? Because I was trying to get some things going.
DG: English
DG: waht do u need?
Me: I don't know, was thinking about getting together to collab on a script at Franz Hall.
( I at this point looked up a map of UCLA and am just making stuff up based on that.)
DG: :)
Me: What professor you have for English this semester? Is it Mott? :( Because I feel bad for you if it is. I had her my first year and gave me nothing but trouble.
DG: :0
DG: :)
Me: Have you met Mott before?
DG: no
Me: That's surprising, she usually emails everyone before class. :/
Me: What dorm are you staying in? We might be dorm neighbours!
Me: Hello?

- a few more minutes pass -
Me: Oh! So I forgot to mention, Sandra from Geir's class, you know her right? She got knocked up!
DG: yes :)
Me: Has she talked to you at all?
Me: You're Richard right?
( I'm totally making everything up. )
Me: I know Richard plays WoW sometimes.
Me: Knowing how things turn out, we could meet up at Sandra's baby shower. It's like, August 14 or something.
Me: Small world around here, ya know.

At this point, he logs off the account. I check my boyfriend's alts. A kind friend from back in ye olden days, who actually use to quest with me and my boyfriend and was in my guild, helped conjure up more whisper-based stories. When all was said and done, and the guy logged off, my friend declared me the Nancy Drew of WoW. And just in case you were wondering, my boyfriend changed his password while I was keeping the WoW leech busy.

Later I logged onto my boyfriend's account with his knowledge and new password, looking to see how much damage was done. This gold farmer had emptied out my boyfriend's bags, filled them completely with ammo and only left space for the herbs he was picking. His bank account was emptied as well, the few things remaining were the Ungoro Crater power crystals I had sent him so long ago, and the single white kitten I had bought for him. However the recipes I had sent to him were gone (placed up on the Auction House) as well as the higher level herbs I had received as drops. The doppelganger had also placed all the cloth my boyfriend was saving for bandages up on Auction House and all the potions that were being saved for a later time. And of course, all of my boyfriend's gold was gone, all being left was 2 gold to be used for listing things to be bid on.

When things like this happen to the ones I love, it really frustrates me. I preach computer security on a regular basis. Have a strong password and change it regularly, don't surf weird sites, check links before clicking (go as far as you need to before you make that commitment depending on the website), don't install suspicious things, have a router and software firewall, never log into your OS as admin and ideally have two anti-virus/anti-spyware programmes. It's not hard. :( Hopefully this has been a lesson to my boyfriend and he will shape up. I wish he was bringing his laptop up with him on this visit, as I could look around and find the keylogger programme. I'm dreadfully curious.

Grace-Monday: I'm wondering if I should really go on this armor buying binge.
Grace-Monday: I figure why not since I make so much money and have no real overhead.
Roy: yeah but at the same time
Roy: you'll be getting better armor around lvl55
Roy: which isnt too far away
Grace-Monday: yeah
Grace-Monday: but
Grace-Monday: my outfit won't match
Grace-Monday: and that's just stupid.
Roy: lol
Roy: sorry
Roy: i keep forgetting

Grace-Monday: omg
Grace-Monday: If I had a WoW wedding, everyone would bring pie
Grace-Monday: from that guy who walks around IF trying to sell pies.
Roy: oh man
Roy: that would be awesome
Roy: and would they go to the wine galleria?
Grace-Monday: Yes.
Grace-Monday: Wine and pies, all around.
Grace-Monday: Everyone would get trashed after the ceremony.
Roy: wine and pie party sounds nice right now
Grace-Monday: I should plan WoW weddings for a living.