Category Archives: Elsen

Once I started writing this I realised it was just too long to fit in one post, so I’m doing it in installments. This is part 1 – day 1 on Warcraft -> Respice Finem.

When I first saw the “then and now” meme circulating, I got my grumpy face on. This is because during the transfer of my data from my old PC to my new wonderful PC, I lost 3 years worth of screenshots. Pretty god damn disheartening to be honest, I’ve had a lot of history in this game. So I backed out from doing it and looked at Elsen as she is now, happy with where she is right now.

But then this afternoon I read this post by O and decided that you know…I really liked that interpretation of it. And I would do my own. I don’t know if I can be quite as open and honest as she was because there are some things that still a) massively hurt and b) I’m not sure if I want people to know because I’m…not necessarily “ashamed” of them but I know I regret some of the mistakes I’ve made, especially when I look at myself now. I suppose what my mistakes have taught me more than anything is how weak I am at times.

So, how did Elsen begin? The Christmas holidays of 2007 I had a lot of free time. I used to be really quite heavily involved in the rock music scene in Manchester – I wrote for 3 different music websites at one point and was either reviewing CDs or out at gigs the majority of nights. And on one of the forums (which I believe is still creaking along vvvvvvery slowly although I don’t know) someone had an off topic thread, about World of Warcraft. So I downloaded the trial version. I started a mage, a human mage, called Sophierach (I’d never ever played an MMO before, or even anything similar to this. I was an N64/Wii girl and that was it) and I set off. It was night time when it was day time for me (some of you may have clocked what took me 5 days to already) and day time when it was night for me. I loved the game, although I had no idea what I was doing. I remember standing in Goldshire and thinking it was so RUDE of this person sat on the floor with <AFK> above his head to not respond to me. I remember asking in /say how I saved the game, because I wanted to stop. The whole idea of my data living on some server somewhere just puzzled me. I remember Elwynn forest, barely, and I remember Westfall. I think I reached level 16, although I can’t 100% remember.

A few days after deciding that this trial version made me want more, I went off to the PC shop (Curry’s, to be precise) and bought myself the Battlechest. I went home, and tried to input my CD key. But I couldn’t. Because I had somehow ended up downloading the American trial version and had spent the past 5 days playing on an American server. No word of a lie. What a tool. So, I grumpily removed that account and that copy of WoW and started the long install, burying myself in the companion guide in order to pick my next character.

The Horde? Well they were out. They were all so UGLY! Undead? Trolls? Tauren??? Good lord no. Humans – they were out. I’d just done the starting zone once and thought I might get bored doing it again so quickly. Gnomes and Dwarves – well they’re both short, and …well I’m tall. I wanted to play someone tall. What did that leave me with? The night elves. Although Burning Crusade was out I thought I had to start with just one of the original races and didn’t actually install TBC until a few months after. I looked at each of the available classes. Druid jumped out at me straight away. I could shapeshift and be a CAT?? I could be a TREE?? What was this MAGIC. So a night elf druid it was. Impatiently awaiting the final install I logged on and started to design my character. Elsen, long silver hair and “don’t fuck with me” face was born. I entered the world on the realm Terenas, as it was “recommended”. I just…clicked the top of the list. That sort of thing meant nothing to me at this point.

And into the world I went. I don’t remember my first guild but I remember it being massive and I remember a level 70 came and helped me in a quest in Darkshore. *insert old woman with stick here* – When Darkshore was a horrendously long thin zone, there were harpies round every corner and you didn’t get a mount until level 40. When I was in the 20s, I bumped in to another druid – named Balthuris. I had chosen to level “balance”, so wrath spammed my way through most things. He was playing a feral cat and was with another druid, called Tyrest. They invited me to join their guild and we completed the quest line around the Tower of…Azora? Something like that. We stuck together, the three of us, and I remember I used to pass on loot, because I healed them as we took on groups and I remember thinking – it wasn’t right for me to get a share of the loot or the silver or the gear when all I did was heal. They obviously insisted the opposite. I carried on, pottering up through the levels until I was about 50-something. I remember Balthuris raced ahead me and Tyrest and he ended up with this AMAZING spell called Hurricane that did damage to SEVERAL ENEMIES AT ONCE. That cleared out the Charred Vale in Stonetalon for me. Fuck that place was diabolical! There were harpies and elementals and treants and basilisks and EVERYTHING was in the aggro range of something else. I stopped playing for 3 months – I moved in to a flat in town and had no internet for three months. I genuinely have no idea how I survived. But survive I did. I watched a LOT of NCIS.

Getting back in to WoW was ace, and I dinged 58 or so sometime in the September. I remember Balthuris taking me through the Dark Portal and once in Shattrath my FPS shuddered down to about 2 or 3. I dinged 70 a few weeks later – I’d moved quicker then – and I had this surreal experience of healing for the first time. I’d been collecting “+ healing” gear throughout my levelling process, and I stuck it all on, mismatched leather and cloth and all sorts. I became a tree, and we went into what I *think* was Shadow Labyrinth normal. Me, a wonderful rogue friend called Baruch, Balthuris on his then feral tank, me, our hunter GL Xenathia and a warlock called Rosiah. Our guild was called Knights of the Crusade. You know, I don’t think it went all that badly either. I stayed in the guild until just before Wrath of the Lich King. Rosiah left us to join a “big guild” (there were only about 10 of us in Knights) called Justice League. They raided! I had no idea what raiding was, but somehow I ended up helping out healing in Karazhan, once. I remember grinding out a LOT of battlegrounds to get my favourite mace (which I still transmog in to today) as it was the best pre-raid weapon for healing druids. The whole experience was surreal. I remember the maiden of grief encounter, and curator. The whole thing was just utterly eye opening and I was bewildered and confused throughout.

I ended up getting kicked out of Knights when I had a blazing row with Bar, who had become a close friend. He was (is) a psychiatrist and he was an officer. The GL was only a 19 year old girl and she was “dating” one of the lads in the guild. Me and him got close as friends – nothing more – and she took offense. She gave me shit on a daily basis but only in whisper et al. I had no idea what to do about it so took issue with Bar – which was unfair. He told me if I had such a problem with it, I should find somewhere else to be, and booted me. A few players left with me, and the guild died. I applied to Justice League on Rosiah’s recommendation and was taken in, because I wanted to heal. Apparently they were in short supply.

Wrath of the Lich King came out and I was a couple of weeks late to the party. I was in a relationship with a chap called Mike at the time, and he didn’t like me playing WoW. In fact he didn’t *really* like me doing anything. He was exceptionally needy and I remember getting to the point where I had to write in my diary – “having *on my own* time tonight” – like I needed an excuse. Because if I wasn’t round at his, or we weren’t together, it’d be – why aren’t you here, what’s going on, etc etc. We didn’t last very long at I broke it off with him on NYE after I woke up and found him on my computer, going through my browser history, my received files and my MSN chat history. Which…well it wasn’t on really.

I dinged 80 a week later and somehow, the day after, rocking a 0/0/70 (or however many points it was) talent spec, entered Naxxramas in a 25 man raid. Oh. My. God. It was both the most exhilarating and amazing and frightening experience of my entire life. That first raid…I had no addons, no raid frames, no keybinds, no nothing. I started from scratch. The day after I just remember sitting at my desk and thinking – I really need to learn. So learn I did. Research became the name of the game, I was learning how to heal from people like Bells at 4 Healz and Phaelia. I learnt so much and just became this sponge for druid and healing information. And it showed. I went from not having a fucking CLUE to…actually being quite good. A couple of months into the year (2009) we had a guild meet up. Drank a LOT of alcohol, had a marvellously good time and partied our arses off. Eventually I stole Baruch away from whereever he’d gone with Xen and he joined Justice League too, and it was almost like all my friends were back together again. After raiding with Justice League for four months, I became the unofficial healing lead, sorting assignments and doing all the cooldown management and position management and god knows what else for our 25 man team. On our first kill of Kel’thuzad, the “Torch of Holy Fire” dropped. I was unanimously awarded it by the loot council despite pretty much -every- healer rolling on it. That right there was one of my happiest ever moments in WoW. I knew I was worth something – my hard work and my abilities and my EFFORT was paying off. A couple of days later there was an officer shakeup and they decided to appoint an official healing lead. It wasn’t me, it was a shaman who was married to one of the other officers. I was, to put it lightly, devastated. I didn’t know what to do though, so I carried on trying to do my job. I remember whispering him on one of the Sartharion attempts we were on with issues with one of the other healers and their low numbers. I was swiftly told that it was none of my business and that I should shut up.

That was it. I was gobsmacked. I remember being devastated. I sat on my computer chair utterly devastated. I felt like I’d given so much and just had it thrown back in my face. At this point in time I was in a relationship with a man called Stephen. I tried to talk to him about how upset I was. He told me I was being ridiculous, stupid, and that it was a computer game. I remember getting upset again, and that was the first time he hit me. It certainly wasn’t the last. I left Justice League, and name changed Elsen. She became Espreya (which was supposed to be a sort of bastardisation of “Freya” – flowers n greenery n all that shit). I wanted to forget everything that had happened and start afresh. I just surfed the tide of trade chat for a few days, briefly joining a social, pretty empty guild a RL friend of mine was in. And then one night, when I was stood alone in Dalaran, a call went out for a “For The Alliance” raid. I jumped at the chance – I was already a total achievement junkie and thought this was an ideal chance to do more. So I set off with them and joined them on Vent.

They were led by a lady, Meylenne, and seemed to have the most amazing amount of fun. I quickly logged on to their website and, because this is what I’m like, wrote a ridiculously long application form and was accepted straight away, before the raid had even finished. I joined Flames of the Phoenix as a non-raider, a social player, because that was all I was allowed to do. I was quite happy there, pottering around and doing what was needed of me when it was needed, helping out if I could. But unfortunately it didn’t last very long. In the May of 2009 I was told that Justice League, where I’d raided, had split in two. The “good” half of the officers had moved elsewhere, and formed a little guild called Respice Finem. They missed me and wanted me to come and heal for them. One night a week was all it was, just starting on Ulduar. I thought…if Stephen didn’t know, it’d be OK. I just had to remember not to talk about it and it’d be OK. I wouldn’t get in trouble then. I was enticed away by nice words basically – we need you to heal, you’re a good healer, we’re missing a druid, etc etc. I know now they just needed a warm body to fill a spot. So I, with a sad farewell – because I was very happy there – left Flames. I joined Respice Finem and started Ulduar.

The officer team in Respice Finem consisted of one man, his wife, her sister, HER husband, and their other close friend. Nepotism doesn’t even begin to cover it. I did what I always do though and threw myself into the job, trying to do the best that I could. At that time I started my own little blog, called “Sof and Tree”, and through there I started to chat to the other healer in our guild – this holy paladin called Zalduun.

Later (or tomorrow) – Part 2, Respice Finem onwards.