Venturing Beyond Elune's Alliance, On To Lightbringer's Horde

While others were working up the Raid progression Tree, defeating Mag's Lair, Gruul's Lair, SSC, the Eye, Mount Hyjal and finally Black Temple, I was happily bouncing between alts and progressing slowly up to SSC.  I found that the guild was stalling as their push into 25 man raiding required more and more commitment to raid schedules and performance.  As more pressure was applied to push further, people would fall to the wayside and move into different areas of the game.  It was also in the waning months of The Burning Crusade, when burnout typically starts to rear its head, and people who have been playing for months suddenly stop showing up.

I became one of those, dropping my toons out of TWC, and venturing out on my own.  After a short time, I found myself wondering what the Horde side of the game was like.  I'd done a bit of levelling some Toons on a PVP Horde Server, Burning Hollow.  I'd get a toon up to around level 25, enter into the contested areas, and find myself getting stomped by any Alliance level 60 toon that happened to come across my path.  I found it frustrating, and quickly abandoned hope of levelling any more toons there.

Lightbringer

I wish I could remember how I ended up on Lightbringer, perhaps it was a server that was up during one of Elune's down times.  I used to create a Toon on a different server while waiting for Elune to get back in operation.  Once I decided to try the Horde side of things, I started creating and levelling Toons there.  I was pretty quick with it, even in the days before Heirloom gear.  I soon found myself sitting on another group of max level Toons, and venturing into the Raiding path as I'd done on Elune.  Guilds were very happy to take on people, anyone who showed interest, and especially if you had experience raiding already.  One guild I joined with had been running Karazahn for about a month, late bloomers, people who were exceptionally casual.  I'd joined a run on my Holy Priest, and was able to help the GM to lead the Raid.  She was quite happy to have someone who knew what they were doing take the reins, and I led that happy bunch through their first clear of Kara.  The same reactions over Vent that I'd heard months before on Elune were exploding in my ears once again.

My timing worked well... again I was able to bring just about any class, any role, but this time on the Horde side.  I found myself going through the same content, but with different people, different attitudes.  I was once again in my prime, having Toons to level as well as Raiding on a bunch more.  It seemed to be an equitable tradeoff for me, one that exists even to today in MoP.  The pattern of Raiding through the first Tier or two of an expansion, then levelling more toons, then returning to Raiding at the end of an expansion.

I'd found a fun crew to hang out with, people who accepted my Altoholism without complaint.  Casual guilds that comprised themselves of everything from social players, to newbie Raiders, to Medium Raiders, to Hardcore wannabe's that just didn't have the time or drive to compete at the highest levels of Raiding.  I fit somewhere in there, never wanting to be Hardcore about anything but the time I'd spend playing, yet never wanting to be completely inept and just spend my time picking flowers or fishing while on Azeroth.  I truly enjoyed becoming proficient at any role that was required for Raiding, learning enough and practicing enough to be a valuable Raid member.

My Elune Toons sat pretty much where I'd left them, while I worked away at my new Horde Toons.  Eventually I'd have the same as I did on Elune, 9 level 70 toons, with a non-levelled bank toon.