Memories of the Fire Festival

Happy Friday everyone! So normally this is the time of the week where I throw out a Reader Post, but I thought I would do something different. I was reminded the other day that it is the Fire Festival in WoW once again. A time that always used to be great fun for me defending the Thunder Bluff flame from the Alliance for countless hours. I used to boast that no one could grab the flame while I was guarding it. I was also reminded by Gimmlette that one day one night that wasn't the case. Have a read.

Dear Gauss,

Well, it's the Fire Festival again. Spectacular Death did our annual "running about stealing the horde flames" event. We started in Orgrimmar, which is a shadow of its former self, and then headed to Thunder Bluff. We circled the fire on our flying mounts, waiting for everyone to catch up. Inevitably, this brings back memories of a time, I think it was in 2009, when you issued a challenge on the WOW Llane forum that we happily took. SD has a large number of new members, members who don't know much of the guild history, so we told them this story; a story which helps them understand who we are. 

In case you don't remember, you challenged any Alliance group on the server to come steal Thunder Bluff's flame. I think you said you were going to be "on duty" so to speak, on the first Saturday of the Fire Festival. We already had an event where we were taking people around to either desecrate to honor flames on Kalimdor on that night. I just added "Steal Thunder Bluff's Flame" to the evening's entertainment. I seem to remember posting to the forum "We'll see you then."

We teamed up with 3 members of another guild and brought 6 members of SD. I remember we had a paladin, a guy who no longer plays, who hated, just hated, PvP, but this sounded like a fun time.

Back then, there was no blimp dock and you had to fight your way from the elevators to the flame. I remember there was a warrior in the group and he and the paladin decided to run in first. I remember mounting on the, is it west side (?), elevators and riding off. I'm lousy at negotiating tight spaces and I got stuck going in the door of the building to the left which is attached to the bridge that takes you to the rise where the flame is. (You'd think, because I have a tauren, I'd remember names, directions and locations, but you'd be wrong. "That'a way" is how I describe things.)

I remember it took us 3-4 tries to get across the bridge and up the ramp to the location of the flame. You had, probably, 6 people from Three Score waiting for us, as well as a handful of other horde. I remember trying really hard to simply kill enough people to get close to the flame. I remember later, you said the shaman (?) spec'ed into hurricane, specifically to blast us off the bluff. I remember how it took 2-3 seconds for me to hit the ground when blown off the cliff. I'd fallen off a lot of places by then, but this fall was something different. Then, I would run back and easily get my body but I'd have to get back to the fire location, which involved another 3-4 deaths. 

The challenge had been to steal it while you were there. I remember how we all died and then, in raid chat, discussed how we just needed to get one person over to the flame, steal it and take a screenshot of the event. People who didn't PvP were getting annoyed with all the dying. We were something like 90 minutes into this attempt. It was late, maybe near midnight, but none of your guild showed any inclination to leave. We had two, maybe three, tries left in us. 

We let our PvP flag run off, knowing that it would come back the instant we rezzed. But we were counting on that one-two second lag. I ran around in front of you. The pally and the warrior would attack the shaman and a priest. (Oh man, his name began with a "V". I remember riding with him and he jumped off Thunder Bluff. Cows fall at the same rate as dwarves.) Our rogue, Minaithelan, would sneak behind you to the flame and try to steal it. He didn't have to live. He just had to get a screenshot that proved he stole the flame. The strategy worked. I know we all paid for that attempt by dying but it worked. 

This story was relayed to the "new" members of Spectacular Death as we landed next to the flame in Thunder Bluff. The only resistance we encountered on a Monday night, was the guards. There was no horde. We did encounter resistance in, of all places, Silvermoon. We determined that it's because you can't fly to land directly on top of the flame, as you can with the other capitals. We had a blast on Sunday defending the flame in Exodar. Neither it nor the one in Silvermoon are in convenient locations, either, so defending there is rather fun. 

People liked the story. We have a running joke about us being a "hard-core PvP guild" so this fits with the mythology we've created. Mina and I really miss that kind of give and take; having an adversary in guild form and the challenges that presented. World PvP, to put it bluntly, sucks. People aren't attached to defending a capital as they used to be. Horde rarely attack any place other than when there's some holiday that requires them to get something, like honoring an elder in the pool in the Mystic Ward in Ironforge. It's really too bad. 

So, dear Gauss, we miss you. We miss the challenge. We miss the fun. We have a lot more people in SD who, had they been a part of the guild then, would have given you a real challenge. We were kind of like mosquitos, but we loved doing that. 

Yours,

Gimmlette

They were good times and I wouldn't replaced them for anything. Even if I don't play as much as I used to doesn't mean the people who made it fun to log in and play everyday are forgotten. /cheers

Enjoy your weekend!