The Road To Ruin Is Paved With Good Intentions

Another Laid Back Raid tonight.  Was finally going to take Saintvache into ICC.  More importantly I wanted to get Arvash some of those final achievements he needs for his mount, Yuush’s first 25-man LK, AND get my good friend Flagsworth his first LK kill (along with a friend of his).  You know, like back at the beginning when all the folks took me to Arthas and we got my first kill.  That night was awesome.  This night…something(s) went horribly wrong.

Coolidge was having major lag issues due to a storm, to the point where he tagged along as dps because he couldn’t do much else.  Pretty Fly Draenei was along for her first night, but she was disconnecting for half the night.  Actually, most of the night.  I should have known when we thought everything was lined up for Full House, and it didn’t go off, that the night would be…out of sorts.  Still, we made it work.  I had a bit of an open door for people to join because I wanted to help Arv get those achievements and I figured increased power meant increased chances.  It got to the point where I only knew half the raid.  It’s not a big deal, but we just had a tonne of pauses before each boss and that really slowed things down.  So several folk, including Repgrind, had to call it a night just after 10pm and we were just hitting the Vampire Council ( I think).

We pushed on, and I know for a fact the later it got, the more some folks were just hanging in there to help Arv and to get those first kills for the people that hadn’t done it.  As we closed in on 11 o’clock, we were atop the Frozen Throne.  We’re discussing the phases…and four of us are gone.  Yuush, Flagsworth, our friend, and I.

Same server and it crashes.  We log back in and we’re not grouped with the raid, despite it saying we are on their end.  They invite me back and before I can invite anyone else…it crashes again.  Eye twitch starts and I log back in.  Same thing.  So the four of us are doing this, people not on my Real ID have no idea what’s going on…and it finally seems to sort out as all four of us are reinvited.  I ponder whether I’m going to be summoned in at some point, when that thought is once again interrupted by the screen above.  It continued for half an hour and then some.  I gave up, because I couldn’t even login to a character on Blade’s Edge anymore.  I just threw up my hands.  If not for housekeeping, I probably would’ve actually just shut everything down and gone to bed.

Instead, I tried to sort the mess out as best I could.  We made it clear we were calling it a night.  At least, I did with the raid because I had gone to another server.  The others just DC’d a final time and never came back for the evening and can’t say that I blame them.  I felt terrible on so many levels.  Arv didn’t get any of the four achievements he needed -though at least I know he’s going with a group again tomorrow.  Yuush didn’t get the 25-man, while Flagsworth and company were a fight away from completing it.  That says nothing about Cymre, Tyledres, Navimie, Draynee and the others who stuck it out just to try and help with these things as well.  It was just…deflating as hell and there was nothing we could do about it.

Aside from getting to hang with (mostly) friends for the night, the bright spot was finding out Draynee got her last achievement for Glory of the Icecrown Raider (25-man), so she can collect her new Icebound Proto…presuming her server stays up long enough to do so.  While there is no blue post that I’ve seen on the matter, the discussion in the Forums is that it’s actually a hack that is crashing the servers.   Either way, I cannot hide my overall disappointment and try to follow through on the promises for those involved tonight.