After months of painstaking agony, my World of Warcraft guild (Synergy) has finally defeated Ragnaros. It was a long hard road, full of heartbreak, disappointment and fun.
Our raiding experience in Molten Core started in November of 2005 with a group of misfit guilds spliced together to try and progress in the game. That led into a guild merger of my old guild, Furia Eterna, with Criminal Element to form Synergy. There was a lot of drama back in those days. Out of the 9 bosses in MC, we couldn’t even beat the first one for weeks.
Then slowly we beat them one by one. Each week we went back and proved that once we had a boss down, we could do it again… and again. But the last boss in MC is no slouch. He’s tough, and requires the total concentration of 40 people working in unison. People who don’t know each other in real life, people from all walks of life, even people from different continents.
It took 6 months for a ragtag bunch of players to learn2play well enough to down Ragnaros. It was a hard road. We lost some good people along the way and we gained some great people too. It’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it, but its like a family. Some of them are extended family who you only see on family reunions (Molten Core) and others are those that you hang out with literally every day. Some of them are those siblings you love to hate, while others are the people you cherish and trust your [virtual] life with.
I’ve never been one to play sports, but I imagine that this is how it feels to win a championship. All those months of work, all those hours, all the drama, all the heartache, the loss, the pain. All of it culminating into one final push of 40 people working in unison, putting aside whatever differences they may have to play Warcraft like gods.
For me, its especially huge because I’m an officer in Synergy and was in Furia Eterna. I’m not just a member of this team, I’m a team captain. I was there in times when we thought it was all going to fall apart. I was there when we tried for hours on things we just couldn’t do. But I got to be there when 40 people rejoiced in success for a job well done.
Saturday night, 40 people banded together in perfect synergy, living up to the name that we’ve all come to cherish so much. I may not know where all 39 others live or work. I may not know their lot in life, or what they’re doing tomorrow morning. But we’re a team, and I’m so proud that we’ve gotten where we have.
Congrats!