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I used to have a guildmate named Hana – she is an awesome player of immense talent and ability.  A bit on the quiet side — but when she talked, what she said was usually golden.  When the folks in that guild eventually went their own ways, Hanah quietly started a new guild full of win.  The goal of her new guild was to do 10-man progression at a time when everyone was focused on 25-man and, tbh, looked-down on 10-mans.  She took a lot of the top players with her and they proceeded to tear-up 10-man instances when a lot of guilds were still struggling through 25′s.  I got a thrill of seeing them running around Dalaran with consistently mounting gear-scores, gear, and titles!  She’s personally achieved not only the Kingslayer title but, as of 7-31-10, she achieved Glory of the Icecrown Raider!

Hana built her guild on knowing how to play your character to the best of it’s ability, and to mesh those abilities seamlessly with those playing with you.  Hana is the ideal of someone who’s stayed true to the game, her class, and her role but, most importantly, herself.  This is the ethos on which she founded her guild and she’s done incredibly well adhering to that ideal.  In acknowledgment of her recent achievement, and out of respect to her, I dedicate this post.

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There’s a recurring discussion, or argument if you will, that I have with the s/o:  that the time I spend online, the people I interact with, the things that I do, are simply not real and they don’t exist.

orly?

In her mind, if you cannot hold it, see them in-person, taste it, touch it, or hear it, then it’s not real.  In other words, she holds the virtual world in complete contempt, telling me that she’s ready and able, at any time, to walk away from not only the game, but the internet in-general, and will happily replace all virtual interaction with real-world socializing.

Because, in her mind, what happens on the internet isn’t real.

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I can’t wait for Fridays!

Friday is raid day.  I literally wait all week for Friday.

Work is work and there’s more of work than there are hours in a work week.  Including the time I spend working on the train to-and-from work, I put in 10-12 hour days every day.  I’m mentally exhausted when I get home and I try to log-in to purge mail, update auctions, and maybe even run a quick instance or two on a selected character.

But Friday comes, I shove my ever-present exhaustion into the back of my wilted brain, gird-up my virtual loins, and wade into the current week’s battle attempt at downing Arthas in ICC-10 with my team, my guildmates.

See, we have our scheduled raid for Friday and Saturday nights.  Sunday, late afternoon, is the alt run into ICC-10.

The only thing I look forward to, more than Friday, is Sunday night…

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Professions.

Can’t even say the word without thinking: So what?

The main reason behind my transformation into an altoholic was all about the Professions.  I had to have one of everything (Blacksmith, Jewelcrafter, Scribe, etc.) because I hate having sex everytime I go to the auction house to purchase either a crafted item, or a crafted enhancement for an item.

As of now, I have maxed-out all the professions on my 80′s.  I even have TWO Scribes with all glyphs.  (I made my DK a scribe because I wasn’t going to push one more toon through Sons of Hodir rep grinding just for the damn shoulder ‘chants.)  I have TWO 450 leatherworkers.  One’s a dragon and the other an elemental leatherworker.  Not that THAT means anything anymore.  Enchanter … check.  Engineer … check.  Jewelcrafter … check.  Tailor … check.  Blacksmith … check.   Alchemist … Check and check.

Two checks?

Yah.  Two checks.  Forgot – I have two alchemists … one for flasks and one for transformations.

I have several toons with 450 cooking – I own hundreds of cooking badges across my toons, but only one has the chef’s hat.  That toon is also my only 450-fisher who has also fished-up the giant rat, and the Dalaran fountain cheeve.  All of my toons are maxed in first-aid except, of course, for the healer toons.

So, as you can see, Professions is something I’m heavily committed to, and engaged in.  So why am I not more excited about being a “professional craftsman”?

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Posted here at 9:47 am today, Blizzard CEO and L80ETC Bassist Mike Morhaime announced on the forum today that Blizzard would no longer require r/l names when posting in the forums!

So, can we all go back to playing now?

Copy of the post after the jump…

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