Guild going inactive until MoP

At the end of January this year I decided to stop raiding for this expansion at least. I've possibly logged in two or three times since then and maybe done a cooking or fishing daily. Instead I've tried some casual SWTOR, playing some alts there instead of pursuing a main character so I've been spread a bit thin and maybe that's why the game hasn't really got a strong grip on me.

I'd say being on a break has been good to me so far, health and work is great though the same was true while raiding seriously. It's just sort of nice to discover the amount of time that you suddenly have available once you stop with something you've been doing a lot for so long that you've almost forgotten what it was like without it. I did commit to the deal about free Diablo 3, MoP beta access for WoW subscription so I haven't really made good use of that if I look at hours spent logged in but it doesn't bother me. I'm fairly confident that I will return for MoP to check things out, even if I strongly suspect that the immersion and comradery I felt in Vanilla and TBC will never return in the game. The people that made the world come alive have moved on and the mindset is lost. It was a shared experience in a perfect environment that is hard to explain if you weren't there.

Anyway, my guild had struggled with raiding numbers for a while and it had to turn into a 10 man guild. Having been an epic full scale raiding guild since 2006, this was a sad turn of events of course. It just wasn't the same in a 10 man raid and looking back I haven't really enjoyed any raiding this expansion. I think the last fight I enjoyed was heroic Halion back in Wrath when it was topical.

I browsed the guild forum today as I do from time to time as I like to stay updated with what's happening and found the post below. As it has been posted on the public part of our forum I think it should be fine if I post it here as well:

Hello guys,

It saddens me to have to write this, but unfortunately this time there is no way to avoid it :(
Never in my 5 years since I have started calling Anarchy a home did I think this time will come or that I would be the one having to do this.

Anarchy has reached a point of no return for this expansion. Due to our slow progress and 10 man raiding not providing the same enjoyment as 25man raiding we have lost a lot of key players in the past months which at this stage prevent us from being able to do any kind of progress raiding.
Taking this decision was the hardest thing we've had to do in what WoW is concerned: as of today Anarchy will stop progress raiding and step down to a casual raiding style until MoP.

The current plan is the following
- We will be only raiding once per week, and then depending on raid setups see what bosses we can try to do on heroic and which on normal, but without banging our heads against a wall if a boss just won't die (see Hagara the past two weeks). The day for this raid will be set according to the day most of you remaining in here with either the mains or just with alts will vote as the best to try to make the raid.
- We will not be kicking any of the alts of the people who wish to leave the guild with their mains. We appreciate you guys sticking with us until the very end and really hope to be able to raid again together (see the next point).
- Two months before the release of MoP we will try to restart the guild and do mass recruiting in order to try to have a 25 man squad ready for MoP raids, even if at the start it won't have the same level of raiding quality as most of us have grown accustomed to.

Once again - thank you all who stuck around until this point, and many apologies for not being able to any longer provide that which we all want from a guild - nice steady progress and a friendly environment.
We are totally aware that even more people will leave now, but while you do so please keep in mind that the friendly environment isn't gone and you will always have a home to return to back in Anarchy should you decide to try with us to restart Anarchy before MoP.

Just so there is no misreading - all current members will get into the guild instantly without an application, should you decide to re-unite with us for MoP. We rely on you for this to happen.

Signing:
A sad Evil, a sad Pharaoh, a sad Dast and a sad Karja

Anarchy, I thank you for the moments we had and hope that you will manage to be reborn for MoP!

Pre heroic outfit

Having reached 85 last night, it's now time to sort out gear with gems and enchants. There's a helpful guide at Elitist Jerks to aid with this.

I've done all of the new normal instances at least once and they're all great I think. The first instances had me drinking Starfire Espresso between every trash pull and boss fights ending with 0,1% mana left and potions and Innervate on CD. I finally got into the new mindset where you don't toss a rejuv as soon as someone takes any kind of damage but the new gear also helped a lot. I'll see if my opinion changes when I try the heroic versions.

By now I have got mostly 333 blue items, the lowest items being a green chest and epic bracers from Halion 25H. I can't say that I miss the Outlandish clown gear! I've also never been a fan of tight pants on my druid so I really like these current ones I'm sporting!

My character plans for Cataclysm

My first focus will be to level my druid to 85. I want to explore all the new zones, rediscover the old world, do all the quests I can find, level my alchemy and herbalism and finally get to know all the new 5 mans. After that the raiding can commence! Main spec will always be resto but I'll likely level as Feral and then probably go Resto/Balance at 85.

Unless I'm mistaken there will be four new starting zones in Cataclysm. One each for Gnomes, Goblins, Trolls and Worgen. When my druid is raid ready I'm going to check out these new zones fully before getting other alts to 85. I'm currently missing a hunter and a priest so I'm planning a female worgen hunter that will probably go for Beast Mastery. A gnome female priest sounds cute and she'll probably go dual spec Shadow/Disc.

After having seen the awesomeness of the troll druid cat form I'll likely roll one just for fun that will be Feral. I've thought a bit about what class I'd like to play as a goblin and I think I've decided upon a shaman! I already have a low level Draenei one but I'm not sure about that one. How can I resist those mechanical totems? The goblin starting zone is by far the one I'm looking forward to the most, it just looks amazing! I haven't decided on a male or female goblin yet but it will be Elemental for sure!

When I'm happy about the new zones I'm guessing my mage will go second as fire spec to 85 and I want to level enchanting and tailoring for new bags and enchants. After that it's likely my DK that's next as Unholy. He's sort of my casual raiding character and I'd like to alternate between him as melee dps and the mage as caster dps when doing instances if I'm bored with druid healing.

My rogue is hibernating at level 70 and I might level him through Northrend when I'm done with the other classes but that's going to be a long while.

When not raiding my interest lies right now in my lvl 47 paladin and lvl 40 warlock. Those are a lot of fun to play and I'm guessing I'll level them and gear them up now until Cataclysm hits.

That should keep me busy for a while :D