NuGen History in Words & Pictures
A few people now have asked me about the guild’s history; the page briefly outlining it doesn’t cover it. So, sit back, relax…and enjoy this journey through the EPIC adventure through to guilddom…and beyond!
It all started in January 2008…Riande, being a friend in real-life, was telling me all about this online game called World of Warcraft, whereby we could play a game together without needing to be together to do it. Surely, this must be witchcraft, I thought to myself, but alas no, it was just an MMORPG.
So I went out and bought a copy of the game (and then went out again to buy Burning Crusade, because Riande was at my house and couldn’t log onto her account from there because she had BC and I didn’t). I created a character on the Aggramar server, which I had nervously selected after Riande had told me that was the server she was playing on, and I thought that once you’d picked a server, you were forced to play there and nowhere else.
So I rolled a rogue (in hindsight, a TERRIBLE choice for a first character) and began to play.
My obsession with non-combat pets started early…
Anyway, let’s move on before this descends into a history of Cat…
Riande and I at a rare in-game encounter.
Riande and I didn’t actually play all that much together during those initial months. I dropped the rogue before level 20 and started the Draenei toon that is now Catrinna of Darkspear, the character I (and I think most others who know the guild from NuGen Alliance onwards) still consider my real main.
My old forum sig, complete with Winston, Bigwig and my little one-eyed Willy.
I joined a social guild for a short time, before Riande and I rerolled horde on the same server (probably because we hadn’t figured out that we could switch servers yet), and got to level 70 a piece (another Catrinna here too, and another hunter; she’s now the hunter in the NuGen Horde of Hellfire) all without really speaking to anyone else at all.
It was here that we made our first guild, called The NuGen, which was basically a place for us to sit with all our alts without being disturbed by guild invites or other such nonsense.
At this point, we thought that once you’d levelled to 70, it was the end of the game, so other than grinding Netherwing reputation to get the dragon mount, there really wasn’t much else I logged on for. In around June 2008, I took a break from the game, thinking I was finished, and that was it.
Then, in October 2008, we decided it was about time we integrated ourselves into the rest of the community, and I picked up the game again, this time wanting to . Kicking and screaming, we started a fresh batch of characters on Darkspear, I faffed about for longer than is always necessary scraping signatures together for the guild charter, and THE NUGEN ALLIANCE was born.
Ye Olde NuGen Webe Bannere
The guild grew very large in a relatively short time. The now-veterans of the guild such as Fuzzyfelt, Dreanie, and the strong, silent Tzix came to us relatively early, and have remained with us through the various guild rerolls and refreshes. And there are many others that have remained, too many to mention, but I know you’re all there!
So eventually we all levelled together, reached 80 and wondered as a group “what now?” The majority of us, leaders included, had never been involved in raiding, even instances were an alien concept to some.
We lost some members at max level, as they wanted more raiding experience than we could offer. So when a guildie amongst us who had previously run a raiding guild suggested we made the NuGen Alliance into a raiding guild, the cogs got to turning.
Now, obviously, I’m not that big on raiding. Yes, I did (and still do) enjoy doing it, but I’ve always been a chronic leveller at heart, and I worried that the levelling/social side would suffer as a result. We compromised, and The NuGen Continues was born, a guild for the raiders to join without having to worry about leaving us.
Both guilds were run by Riande and myself, until the time came that I’d had my fill of alliance and decided it was time for a change. After lengthy discussions with other guildies and officers, I handed the Continues guild to the same person who had the raid experience and left the alliance, ready to start a new guild journey on the Hellfire server.
And then The NuGen Horde came along! Again, it became a pretty big guild without much effort from us; organic growth. Many of the alliance players came along, even if some didn’t stay long-term. In the meantime, a crisis exploded over in the Continues guild, with the in-charge GM overcome with a serious case of douchebaggery, emptying the guild bank of its content and wealth, leaving the server to boot.
Those who remained in the raiding guild were mostly prevalent though, re-creating the guild as Compromised (an appropriate name?), which is still going today.
I took a break from the game in March this year to focus my attention on real life things, but since that didn’t actually get me concentrating on anything important and instead just gave me a bigger excuse to watch Internet reviews and comedy sketches, I came back. But of course, I wanted to start afresh again…
And now here we are! Many of the Alliance, Horde and Continues people have all come back together to level once more on Mazrigos, and while some of them aren’t around as much as I’d like, it’s still nice to have everyone old and new together.
Stop! Picture Time!
Levelling and instancing with guildies.
The first real guild meet up was going for the Leeeeeeeeeeeeroy achievement.
Wearing the hideous wonderful Valentine’s Day tabard.
Going into raids when we were vastly overlevelled and geared for it didn’t stop us from dying all the time.
Playing chicken with Sapphiron.
Dreanie, on a level 3 character, in Northrend, insisting I, on a level 58, had to find him in order to get the final signature for the NuGen Horde’s guild charter.
Fishing adventures usually led to someone (read: me) suggesting we fish in Orgrimmar. We did it once.
Healing through ICC on Disotto with EGBERT!!!!!!
Cat wearing the NuGen Horde’s Christmas tabard
While the NuGen Horde’s first venture into ICC didn’t go completely successfully, but we did hang around long enough to mock the Lich King.
In that raid with the bugs. On bugs.
Early NuGen heroics involved a LOT of rezzing, mostly of Bigwig
Bringing down the monolithic Onyxia *cough*level60version*cough*
The NuGen Conga in Stormwind, shortly after a game of hide-n-seek
Nugena, my bank alt on Aggramar, waits patiently for the NuGen’s return to the server…
What Does the Future Hold?
The NuGen Reloaded is now building up a steady levelling pace, with many of its players reaching the late 50s and 60s; the guild will continue to be a social/levelling guild and in no way a raid guild (from my perspective, at least; I don’t have enough raid experience to have the skills needed to manage a raid guild). We may venture for fun into the old school raid settings like Karazhan or the like, but we’ll see how the wind takes us; basically what I’m saying is that if you’re looking to raid hardcore style, we probably won’t be able to accommodate you once you reach max level. But again, you never know, and change is what keeps life interesting!
Finally, concerning any potential “abandonment issues” struck up from the history lesson, I’d like to say the following:
Yes, it’s possible that there will come a time when Riande/myself will choose to migrate or start again on another server; it’s just the way we are. It’s not likely to happen any time in the near future, we have cataclysm to prepare for, after all. Just remember, we are only two people, and between us we’ve created and successfully managed four guilds now (five if you include Riande’s hand in Compromised), so if in a year or so’s time you wouldn’t want to join us on a move, consider making your own guild.
See you back in game!
~ Cat
