'Ware. Here there be rambling.

I could have gone with The post wherein I muse about the cyclical nature of life, the universe, and everything but I thought it might be too long.

Today is, in fact, my blogoversary. Its hard to believe that its been a full year since I first starting posting in my tiny corner of the blogosphere. OP was a little different then. A bit more... orange. I went purple in October. At that time I was raiding mostly on my priest and orange is just not a priestly color. I think purple suits both priests and warlocks, which is why I kept it for my links when I went black in December.

A year ago, OP stood as much for "over powered" (which warlocks always are, of course) as it did for opportunity. I like to play up to the stereotypical things said about warlocks. Most importantly, we hate rogues. I learned that ages ago on Arthas, a PVP server. Secondly, we do not get along with mages. We view them as weaklings - glass canons who have no way to escape a beating if something gets close enough to them. They view us as power-hungry and sloppy - snatching at any glimmer of power and prestige. We fight over gear - especially now that mages and warlocks are the only classes that need +hit cloth armor.

Finally, we are the unquestioned gods of caster dps. Even when we're not.

More recently, I have tried to lessen the focus on warlocks. I plan to raid on my priest and, while my warlock will still have plenty to do, OP is about all of my experiences and opportunities in WoW. See wat i did ther?

Even though Cataclysm has been out for nearly a month now, I think everyone is still adapting to the changes. The dungeons are harder. Crowd Control is a requirement, rather than a nice bonus or a neat trick. AOE has all but disappeared in the standard dungeon environment.

This being the New Year, we are surrounded on all sides by change. Perversely, I am flummoxed by the things that haven't changed.

A full year has passed since I was celebrating reaching level 80 on my warlock. Now level 80 is only a milestone in the sense that, after you reach it, you only have 5 more levels to go. I didn't have a lot of spare gold floating around, so I was carefully searching out each drop from the dungeons and trying to get enough emblems of triumph together for any new pieces. I was trying to make sure I leveled my Enchanting high enough to be useful for a raider and I had some help getting enough Dream Shards to collect the high-level patterns.

We took an extremely ragtag pug into Naxxramas and, while it wasn't a complete fiasco, it certainly had its moments of terrible noobness.

Now, I do have some spare gold floating around but it usually gets spent on leveling my Jewelcrafting. I am still carefully searching out each drop I can get from the normal dungeons. I am herding together all the justice points I can for other items. I am rep-grinding with Therazane and Hyjal. I am doing everything I was a year ago.

Our bouts of noobness currently occur in dungeons, but we may get up to some raids in the near future. One can only hope.

A year ago I was getting started on a new project. The "Mara will has a Healer" project. I leveled a dwarf priest, spending most of my time after level 40 in a Random Dungeon learning the fine art of Disco.

Now I'm considering a new project... perhaps several new projects. I haven't ruled out a "Mara will has a Tank" project, though I'm not sure its in the best interest of my blood pressure. I'm still warming up A. D. Temple's Azeroth. Its a struggle to determine where to start, but I think I've got a handle on that now. It will be... an interesting trip to say the least.

A year ago we were fumbling with the idea of a raiding guild. That hasn't changed at all. We gained and lost members. We made great progress at the end. Our triumphs as a guild are a great treasure. Memento is due for that guild-wide meeting to discuss our future plans tomorrow. There's plenty to improve upon, I think. I believe (hope?) we will continue to fight the good fight.

Here's to another year! May all your mobs be weak and all your drops be epic.