Congrats!

We all promptly went to the Park District Inn to party, with Sal providing drinks. “We” = Xxyn, Ursi, Asirael, Sallonia, Tourist, Audell and me. (missed you bally).

Got smashed. Getting everyone stand properly to take nice photos was tough. Especially Ursi. Bears don’t hold drinks well it seems.

Here are the snaps.

I used to play an online text-based strategy game called Utopia. Played it for a long time with Daishan, and he got me into a kingdom called Predators.

Predators was an excellent kingdom at that time, and I made some good friends there. In IRC chat one day, Dai finally forced me to download the trial version of WoW. I loved it, and we both influenced Nyx (another predator) and Quellefeaion (a Preds fanboi) to try it as well.

Time went on, and we all bought the game. Dai was a very patient and understanding guy, and took my through the starting parts by hand. I still remember the first time I went into Stormwind as a Human Warrior, and I was like “woooooooow this is huge!!! OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!”

We started our own guild called Utopian Predators. Dai paid a few people to sign the charter, and we met our first outside member turned friend – Stuffuser. Stuffy also got his brother to join – I still remember his character’s name – Kysosklizi. (I recently logged onto my old warrior Prataap, and saw that neither Stuff or Kys had logged on for a few months /sadpanda).

While laboring through the unknown quests in Redridge Mountains, I met a white beared, balding dwarf named Balwick. He struck me as extremely helpful, funny and very knowledgeable about the game. I was at the stage where I had no idea about the Auction House and had yet to see a number other than 0 in the ‘gold’ section of my money-thingie.

I remember seeing him mine stuff, and asked him if I could buy some copper from him so that I could use it for my Blacksmithing. He said sure, the going rate is 2.5 gold for 20 bars. I was thinking it was some 20s or so (vendor price), and I literally guffawed. He later sent me about 4 stacks and about 4g as a gift, and I was literally jumping for joy after seeing 5 gold in my bags! He then told me about selling all my greens etc on the AH and advised me to pick up mining and skinning to make gold. Also taught me a lot of other small things about the game.

We quested together in Wetlands, Redridge etc. While questing one day in Duskwood, I asked him whether he would like to join our guild, and he agreed.We flew to Westfall to meet Nyx, and both of us (humans) had a great laugh repeatedly jumping over the stout Dwarf. Since then, he has become a great friend, and we dearly love him!

We kept playing, I played a lot more than the others, but abandoned my warrior at 43 because everyone wanted me to tank. I started a mage called Sorcera, and got her to 58 and headed to outland. We were paying on the Scarshield Legion Realm (EU), and the Horde there is notoriously well-played. I was already sick of being ganked, and Outland was really really bad. I got really fed up, and I told Dai I wanted to move to a non-PvP server. Dai said he would move with me if Nyx, Quelle and Bal moved as well.

Bless their hearts, they all agreed unanimously. None of them was as bothered with ganking, but they wanted to stick together. Bal had a few characters and friends on Argent Dawn, and so we chose that realm. Both Dai and I started Night Elf hunters, and Nyx started a Dwarven Hunter. We had Drazy (a RL friend of Bal’s) equip us with bags and cash, and we were ready to brave the World of Warcraft again! Thus, our current guild – Scarshield Predators was formed.

Since then, we have been really lucky in finding gems of people like Asirael, Sallonia, Drazy (if I forgot to mention someone, you are free to kick me and add your name here ) Unfortunately, Dai has moved on to AoC, but I hope he will come back sometime. He is my oldest link to this and a lot of other games, and I would dearly like to stay in touch with him. Dai, if you ever read this, pop me an email!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

The baby’s first wail, we live!