The first few months playing on Gordunni were incredibly eventful. The game was at its peak, and storming Icecrown Citadel, where the Lich King himself resided, felt like the culmination of a storyline that began way back in Warcraft III. After Patch 3.3 dropped, the influx of players surged – many who had taken a break for whatever reason came back.
Previous: WoW Player Diary. Part 11. Transfer to Gordunni realm and path 3.3 release
Escaping from Gordunni
To handle this fresh wave, Blizzard opened the Galakrond server back in December 2009. Despite this, some top guilds decided to play it safe and transfer off Gordunni to avoid potential lag and queue problems.
Guilds like “Quantum,” “Fixed,” “Omniscience,” “Nolifers,” “Excellence,” “CrashTest,” and others made the move. “Shenanigans” not only left but also rerolled to the Horde. Others followed suit. As one inhabitant of the Razuvious server caustically remarked, “Thank you very much for allowing the ‘wagons’ [followers/lesser guilds] to move after their favorite ‘locomotives’ [top guilds] and drag the queues with them >.<” This outflow of players quickly made itself felt. Gordunni’s position in the European top rankings on Wowprogress plummeted from a stable 1st or 2nd place to around 20th for ICC25 progression and 6th for ICC10. Correspondingly, Razuvious climbed to 5th or 6th place in ICC25 progress.
Just yesterday in guild chat, the guys were talking about how a randoms wiped three times on Ignis in Ulduar. Sure, Ignis isn’t exactly a pushover, but he’s generally zergable. The assumed reason? The player drain from Gordunni, initially sparked by the top guilds transferring, was starting to show its “results.”
Another funny quote from that same discussion thread: “Enjoy. Gordunni isn’t one server, but a bunch of people who will wander around the servers and cause a ‘lagodrome’ and queues! Razuvious is now infected with the ‘Gordunni’ infection, and Gordunni is clean. Yesterday, no queues, no lags. They’re even inviting randoms. Wonderful!”
However, this didn’t completely solve the server population issues, and by February, Blizzard launched two more new servers.
In early February, they opened “Howling Fjord,” initially allowing only transfers in. Hoping for a lag-free environment, many hardcore guilds and their “wagons” of followers moved there. Within a couple of weeks, the server was packed. Because “Exorsus” got the RuWoW (Russian WoW) first kill of the Lich King there, and other hardcore guilds weren’t “yawning either” (slacking off), Howling Fjord quickly shot to the top spots on WoWProgress among all European realms in February. True to form, this was accompanied by everything a top server “should have” – massive queues and significant lag.
On February 26th, at 5 PM, another PvP server, “Black Scar” (Chernyi Shram), was opened for the Russian player base, also accepting transfers. Reading the forums in those days was particularly entertaining. Besides discussions about world firsts, players on “Howling Fjord” were begging for free transfers to “Black Scar.” I remember one particular exchange:
Player from “Fjord”: “What the hell!!! On our server after 8 PM the ping is 1500+, queues are 500+ and there’s NO transfer option!!”
Player from “Gordunni”: “You still haven’t packed up yet? +))) YOU’RE OK!!! +))))) PACK TIGHTER )) IT WILL WARM YOU UP =)))”
With all this reshuffling, things on “Gordunni” actually became easier. The queues disappeared, and so did the lag. And there were no problems finding players for PUGs either, despite what the “ill-wishers” had predicted.
Battered Hilt
Besides raiding on Gordunni, I started to actively engage in crafting. Back in the summer of 2009, my crafting experience was limited to Engineering, Fishing, and Cooking. On Gordunni, I finally “matured” to the point of creating an alt purely for professions.
Since the thought of leveling a character from scratch filled me with dread, I chose a Death Knight for this purpose, as they started at level 58. To reach Northrend and fully dive into crafting, I needed to hit level 68. This is how Sehara, my Draenei DK, was created. I initially leveled her with Herbalism and Alchemy.
A bit later, I dropped Herbalism and leveled up Jewelcrafting, eventually collecting all the WotLK gem cut designs. Anyone who was a Jewelcrafter back then probably remembers how much effort (and gold) that took. The designs were bought with Dalaran tokens earned from daily quests, meaning weeks of consistent daily grinding. Sehara has been my main crafting alt ever since, and I’ve never dropped those two professions.
The gold I earned went primarily towards gearing up my main. So, in that same February, I bought the Battered Hilt, a quest item that started the chain to obtain the epic sword Quel’Delar. I bought it directly from another player for 11,500 gold, saving myself about 1,000-2,000 gold, as auction house prices rarely dipped below 12,500. When some guy started spamming “Selling!” in trade chat, I messaged him, heard the price, and thought, why not? I was planning to buy it eventually anyway, and the price was more than acceptable.
Of course, it stung a bit to spend such a large sum, but the rate at which I was selling arrows and other goods at the time (food, Titansteel bars, gems, engineering parts, etc.) allowed for such expenditures. In the three days leading up to the purchase, my total profit from sales was around 2,000 gold.
Quel’Delar wasn’t necessarily a Best-in-Slot (BiS) item, but the hunter version was quite well itemized for the Marksmanship spec. Truthfully, I wasn’t desperate for an upgrade; the Archon’s Glaive I’d gotten from ToC25 was a pretty decent polearm that I could have replaced with something from Icecrown Citadel. But I bought the hilt not just for the stats. The quest chain itself turned out to be quite interesting, and I screenshotted almost all of its key stages. I was especially pleased with the “excursion” to the Sunwell Plateau. For a “virtual tourist” like me, who hadn’t progressed further than the Twin Eredar in Sunwell when it was current, visiting the place where the battle with Kil’jaeden took place was a small personal highlight. And the guide I later wrote with pictures on how to obtain Quel’Delar as an Alliance character became one of the most popular posts on my blog.
Interview with the Guild “Exorsus”
In February 2010, another significant event occurred – I managed to get an interview with the guild “Exorsus.” The blog was popular then; people recognized me on the server and in cross-server PUGs for five-man instances. Before this, I had interviewed the guild “Quantum,” and this time, the guild master at the time, Viksh, and Alveona, who was one of the leading officers, answered my questions.
The guild “Exorsus” from the Howling Fjord server became the first guild on RuWoW to kill the Lich King in both 10-player and 25-player (likely meant 25, not 20) versions. After the heroic mode of Icecrown Citadel opened, they surged ahead, securing world firsts on bosses like Blood-Queen Lana’thel, Professor Putricide, and Sindragosa in 10-player heroic. One of the guild’s latest achievements was being the first in the world to complete the “Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10 player)” meta-achievement, which even got them featured on the popular news site MMO-Champion.com. As of February 2010, Exorsus was the 12th guild globally to kill Sindragosa in 25-player heroic. This was certainly a significant achievement for a Russian guild, catapulting them into the world’s top ranks, especially considering the significant lag issues on “Howling Fjord” at the time.
Some excerpts from this interview you can find in a text article on my blog “WoW Player Diary”.
What follows are excerpts from that interview:
1. How did the “Exorsus” guild come about? There’s very little about the guild’s history on your website, aside from raid progression achievements. Could you tell us how the guild was created and who formed its core?
Viksh: If we start from the very beginning, it would be a long story. In short, “Exorsus” was formed from the remnants of the “Initium” guild, though no one from that original lineup remains in our current roster. When I started getting serious about WoW’s PvE, I joined the top Horde guild at the time, “Untamed.” The Raid Leader (RL) there was a wonderful person named Jimson (also known as cmapyxa), who later created the guild “Guess Who,” where I also played (I cleared Black Temple with them). During our Black Temple progression, Jimson moved to “Initium” on the Shadowmoon server, where he also became RL. He later invited me to join him when I returned to WoW after a long break. The history of “Exorsus” itself is quite different from many guilds that either played at a high level for a long time (like many foreign guilds such as Black Division, or Russian ones like Fixed) or were formed from the core members of several different guilds (like our Sintez, GKD, OO Gaming, or the foreign Ensidia). “Exorsus” has been developing since the Ulduar era (which is when I became GM), evolving more organically, gradually recruiting good players and shifting its focus from a “guild of friends” towards achieving progression. Currently, the guild’s core primarily consists of players with significant experience in WoW and/or other MMORPGs; for example, we have people from the old “Untamed.”
2. Where did you start playing? What were your first vivid impressions that you’ll never forget? What do you consider your most significant gaming achievement?
Viksh: I started playing on the Shadowmoon-EU server about six months after WoW’s European release. Before that, like many, I played on a pirated server for a while. My first truly vivid impression was probably seeing the Warlord PvP set with its burning shoulders and, in my opinion, awesome design. Consequently, the first goal I set for myself in the game was to reach the rank of Warlord just to get that set. That achievement is the most memorable for me.
Alveona: I started playing when the Russian servers launched. Before WoW, I played another MMORPG, EverQuest 2. I began in a “guild of friends,” which eventually grew into a decent PvE guild called “Surreal” on the “Thermoplug” (Termoshtepsel) server. It still exists today and shows quite respectable progress, in my view. I often chat with friends from that guild. I was the RL there until about midway through Patch 3.1. The first thing I vividly remember in WoW is Karazhan. It probably sounds funny now, given how simple that content was even then, but our entire raid was new to WoW at the time, so I had a lot of fun. Regarding achievements, I think it’s incorrect to talk about one person achieving a goal, as progress in WoW is made by the entire guild. Of course, the leadership does a lot, but teamwork and the raid’s overall strength are decisive.
6. There’s an opinion that “WoW is no cake” (getting too easy) and that the “pixels were greener before.” Many are nostalgic for the “pre-BC” times and criticize casualization. On the other hand, some say vanilla WoW had many flaws and the game is improving. What’s your opinion? What’s better overall, and how was vanilla worse than WoW 3.x.x? What serious shortcomings did vanilla have, in your view?
Viksh: Vanilla was terrible. It had a huge number of shortcomings, catastrophically few good players, and many had too little raiding experience. But it was there that the foundation of all (or almost all) of today’s hardcore guilds was “forged.” The most serious shortcomings, I would say, were the massive raid sizes (40 people is just too much), the lack of class and especially faction balance (even the appearance of it), and the terrible farming requirements (which sometimes took more time than raiding itself). It was bad. What’s bad now is that it’s very difficult for hardcore raiders to stand out from the crowd – everyone wears the same gear, rides the same mounts; some just get them earlier, some later. In my opinion, this is wrong, although from a business perspective (and WoW is made to make money), it’s completely reasonable, as it attracts more people who are interested in this kind of game.
12. What do you mean by the term “high-class player”? What’s important besides knowledge of class mechanics? Quick reaction and decision-making? The ability to see the battlefield? Knowledge of the enemy (boss or another player)? Properly configured controls, macros, interface?
Viksh: This is a very good question, but quite difficult to answer. I would say all of the above are necessary requirements for any player. A “high-class player” possesses all of that plus the ability to improvise and make the right decisions in situations not covered by pre-defined tactics. It’s hard to describe, but unfortunately, I know very few such players.
Alveona: If everyone perfectly mastered all the qualities you listed, I think all bosses would be simple. In reality, all raiders make mistakes sometimes. So, I’ll answer this way: a high-class player is someone who moderately possesses these qualities, adapts quickly to new encounters, and, of course, is stress-resistant.
13. A hardcore guild focused on progress – what is it? As I understand it, a high level of play from each individual team member and the raid as a whole is a necessary condition for success. What else? What in the guild’s organization and planning is key to success?
Viksh: It’s quite difficult for me to give an unambiguous answer, since in the full sense, we aren’t that kind of guild (I’ve already described the reasons above). It requires a high level of play, plus a certain number of “high-class” players, plus a good raid leader. To reach the world top level, in turn, it’s necessary for 100% of the raid to consist of such “high-class” players. I don’t know of any such guilds among the Russian ones, although, of course, everyone strives for that.
Alveona: From my point of view, even if you gather 25 excellent players in a guild but don’t find someone capable of leading them correctly, the guild will achieve good, but not top-tier, results. You need someone capable of motivating the guild, managing the raid, devising the simplest effective tactics for your specific raid composition (it’s no secret that tactics can vary greatly depending on a raid’s strengths), and much more.
Next: WoW Player Diary. Part 13. Stranger in a stranger land
