Going almost full circle.

Gather round everybody, it's story time.

Stormwind City

When I started playing WoW I started as Alliance because a friend who already played was Alliance. That was back before all this fangled cross realm, cross faction friends whom you could actually talk to so it made sense for us to be in the same place. The server I started on, Quel'Thalas was recommended for new players and that's why we started there. During Vanilla I pretty much stuck to just one character, my Warrior who was my first level sixty. Only taking a little bit of time off from her to level a Mage and Hunter however only the Hunter reached max level before The Burning Crusade expansion. 

During TBC I was well and truly bitten by the Alt bug, I finished off leveling my Mage to the new max level of seventy along with my Warrior, and Hunter. I later leveled a Priest, Druid and Paladin to accompany them, Only the Paladin didn't make it to seventy in time for the next expansion. I remained loyal to the Alliance only straying once to level a Blood Elf Priest because I thought they were super pretty but she never got very far before returning to my "real" characters. 

During Wrath of The Lich King I added even more characters to my ranks! A Death Knight, Warlock, Shaman and Rogue. All of them reaching level eighty. 

During a bit of a lull after raiding Naxxramus for so long, while waiting for Ulduar to show up some friends and I started leveling Horde characters. It was really fun doing the Horde quests, some of the zones felt completely different. Again, it didn't last long before I started to feel guilty about not spending time with my main and what I continued to refer to as my "real" characters.

About a month after patch 3.2 landed, Call of the Crusade, Blizzard introduced a new fancy micro-transaction. The ability to faction change! 

I was all over that shit. My guild had cleared ToC and there wasn't much else happening in game so my boyfriend and I decided to faction change to Horde. It was a pretty easy decision to make. I wouldn't be leaving all of Korla's cool mounts, achievements and vanity items behind as I would if I'd just decided to reroll the character. I also transferred my Druid over as at the time she was my most played alt.

Not long after the faction change however an ex guildy asked my boyfriend and I to faction change back to Alliance. He was starting his own guild and really wanted us to be a part of it. Having not had much luck guild wise as Horde we decided to take him up on it. 

At some point during ICC the entire guild transferred to Horde, This time I took my Priest and my Mage across to rejoin my Druid. A few months into Cataclysm however our guild leader had to leave the game and the rest of the raid team began dropping like flies. My boyfriend and I found another guild and began raiding 25's with them along with two real life friends, although I always preferred 10 man raiding.

For one reason or another during the Firelands patch My boyfriend and I decided to move off of the server. By this point it wasn't very lively, there were few options in terms of guilds who were progressing. Two friends we'd gotten close to though the guild also wanted to move server with us but they wanted to change to Alliance. I was completely fine with going back to the Alliance (again!) but the majority wanted to try out a PvP server. We ended up on Sylvanas as they had pretty good raid progression. I went along with it but I regretted it pretty quickly. 

When I moved server I only moved my Priest, my main. Throughout Cataclysm I'd gotten my Shaman, Warrior, Hunter, Druid and Mage to 85 along with my Priest. All of which I left behind when I transferred. I also left behind my namesake Soco, a Death knight at level 82 and a Paladin who was 83. I felt pretty bad leaving them behind but once I moved my main away from them they essentially died. I completely stopped logging into that server.

Vault of Light

Once we all moved to Sylvanas we joined a guild and continued to raid. I stayed with the guild until after we'd cleared normal Dragon Soul. I just didn't have it in me to continue on to do Heroic Dragon Soul and my hatred for being on a PvP server grew and I decided to transfer yet again. I actually posted a blog post about it back in May last year Time for a change.

I moved my Priest to Silvermoon which is one of the largest population realms in the EU and almost exclusively Alliance. I bought a second account and with recruit a friend I leveled one of every class apart from Rogue to level 80. I'm unemployed so while I lack in money I have an abundance of time. I just couldn't justify paying to faction change and server transfer all of the 85's I'd left behind on Quel'Thalas. Sadly that server was also short lived, with the release of Mists of Pandaria the server was crazy busy. I hated the queue time to play, I hated the vast amount of people standing on quest npc's, I couldn't play when I wanted to play I'd sometimes have to wait an hour or more. 

Blizzard occasionally offer free character transfers off of servers which are over populated. I was given two server choices Chamber of Aspects and Doomhammer. I decided on CoA because Nev from AH Addict played on that server. I also knew the name Korla was available because it belonged to a level 70 Priest of mine where as Doomhammer the name was already taken. I enjoyed Chamber for the first few months and leveled all of my RaF characters from 80 to 90 pretty quickly but something was lacking. I was pretty lonely on the server. 

During the summer of last year Blizzard knocked 50% off of the price of some of their services and that included server changing. I took them up on that offer and moved Korla to Emerald Dream where I became much happier!

All of my level 90's on Chamber of Aspects suffered the same fate as those left at 85 of Quel'Thalas. They were again left abandoned, never to see the light of day again. Or were they?

As part of an Alt Appreciation event I've been taking part in I began playing my Horde Shaman on Quel'Thalas during Shaman week. That poor abandoned litle gobbo Shaman back on my original server! I already had a level 90 Alliance Shaman but I wanted to level a Horde to experience the Horde side of Pandaria and for the achievement Double Agent. I haven't stopped playing her since! I tested out the leveling to 90 on The Timeless Isle method (which by the way is amazing!). I've began leveling Soco as well as a Horde Mage I had also left on the server, She's almost 88 now! This however has given me that itch, the itch to transfer my Priest back to Horde to where she belongs! If this is the case I'll also most likely transfer her back to Quel'Thalas to join my other Horde characters.

For the moment though I'm leveling my Horde characters on Quel'Thalas in the hope that eventually the server will get connected with a few others. I wouldn't return to it in it's current state. The auction house is dire which is funny because I hit gold cap on the server back in Cata before all of my moving around. If the server never gets merged with others then I'm not really sure what I'll do or where I'll go, all I know is that Korla makes a really pretty Blood Elf and I'm stoked to see the new models, as much as I love Draenei I prefer being a Blood Elf. 

If by some miracle you've actually read this then you're amazeballs and go and help yourself to some cookies! Which faction do you belong to?

Time for a change

Since I started playing Wow something I've always struggled with is the ability to play on multiple servers. I like to stay within my own little bubble surrounded by all of my alts. Alts I have on other servers which I don't consider my main server are often left lonely, sad and abandoned.

Having played on the same server since I started playing just before patch 4.3 was released I transferred my main along with some friends hoping to find a new home on a new server.  The server was busy, crowded even - compared to our previous old, dying server. It was great to begin with so many new faces, guilds we'd never heard of. Trade chat was constantly moving with the daily hustle and bustle, achievement runs, transmogrification gear runs, Battleground premades nothing like where we'd came from. The novelty soon wore off for me as we'd decided on a PvP server. Something I hadn't quite prepared myself for. When discussing which new server we were going to chose I thought I could handle being on a PvP server but I soon found out that I was sorely mistaken. For the past few months I've felt trapped, confined within the wall of Stormwind. I hated leveling, questing for reputation, farming with what felt like the constant threat of someone hanging over me just waiting for that free honor kill.

So I'm transferring.

You jelly of my paint skills bro?

Goodbye PvP server, hello new welcoming, friendly PvE server. I've missed being able to AFK randomly without fear of coming back to my cold, lifeless goat face buried deep into the ground.

Over the past month or two I've taken steps to securing myself a new home on this server. I've leveled a Druid, Mage and Shaman to 85 with several others waiting in the wings. I've amassed multiple professions and two guild banks. Which means I can now start preparing for Mists of Pandaria with both characters and from a gold making standpoint.

I'm really looking forward to getting back into my grove, back into my bubble.

I won't miss you.

I've had to drop myself down to under 50,000g as that is the maximum amount you can transfer with. The easiest way for me to do this was with several Vial of the Sands and many stacks of gems.

I'm excited about moving. Really excited!

What kind of server do you play on? Would you ever change server? Leave a comment or you can find me on Twitter @SocoWow