So most everyone knows the history of Steel Legion, but I thought I would do a recap of the early years, so early even before WoW started. Before MMO was a popular term, two of my close friends played a little game called Ever-Crack, some people referred to it as EQ or Everquest. Anyways these two guys would always be talking about raids, epic loots, levels, quests, and the rest of us sitting around the Pizza Hut buffet would be like “Huh” or “Nerd-Alert”. Granted we were all pretty nerdy as we played D&D, Magic, and a few other ”Nerd-Alert” type games. (I got Jazira to play one time, but she got bored and spent all her gold on a rain proof cloak that really did nothing–Look up Dead Alwives D&D-Part 2 Mp3). While the rest of us talked about college, sports, girls, these two guys talked about backstabbing an Orc. Needless to say we made just a little fun of them, what are friends for.
Well then in the summer of 2003 the rest of my friends jumped on the MMO bandwagon with the release of Star Wars Galaxies. I know it might seem hypocritcal (since we made fun of the EQ players), but what can I say, I am 33 years old, so naturally a Star Wars fan. In typical good guy persona, we of course choose the Rebels. At the time it was exciting to play in the Star Wars universe with 9 planets to explore, but empty exploring empty planets could only last so long. We created a huge town within the game and one of the largest rebel guilds on the server (I believe Gorath was the server). Our Guild name was ”The Raging Storm”, and we mostly just fought Imperials. Soon the game just got boring as there was not really anything to do, it lacked a lot of end game content or any for that matter. About the only thing that you could do was grind out levels to unlock the Jedi class, and that didn’t seem fun, although I did it (hence why I hate leveling).
As the intial hype of Star Wars was winding down, three annoucements came fairly close to each other. First Everquest 2 was in the works. Next in efforts to help it’s waning popularity, Star Wars Galaxies had an expansion coming out (Jump to Lightspeed), and last but not least Blizzard was coming out with WoW. The EQ boys made up there minds and heading to EQ2, although one of them stayed in Galaxies as well. The rest of us were a little MMO shy because os the disappoint the Galaxies had been, so much potential, yet so much fail. Anyways all my friend slowly left the MMO world but two of us picked up the Galaxies expanison (it was kind of fun due to the flight combat). The original two EQ boys picked up EQ2. So there I was playing the Galaxies expansion with my friend Kevin, who was also playing EQ2 (so he had to split his time) and I started reading this reviews and articles about how awesome WoW beta was, and how it was a must have. So in November 2004 as an acid Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, anything Blizzard fan, I picked up WoW and began playing a Hunter named Malatov.
So here it is November 2004, I just started a new job that same month and also found out my wife need a new kidney (at the time she already had one kidney transplant). Needless to say I didn’t have much time to play any game let only two MMO (Galaxies and WoW). Well Christmass rolled around and I began to spread the word and eventually all my friends started playing WoW (Blizzard you owe me), giving up EQ2 and coming back to the MMO genre. The game seemed a little cartoony, but the quest were fun and the visuals were amazing.
As with many of us with signifcant others, sometimes our spouses can complain about our playing an MMO for long periods of time. I was no exception, my wife would be playing the Sims while I was on WoW and Galaxies, but I would still play longer, and she would always say I played to much. So in February 2005, I got her and her girlfriend to play together on my account and an friend’s account. Over that weekend, they were hooked, and on Valentine’s Day, one of my wife’s gift was her own WoW account (cause she wouldn’t stop playing on mine). So there we were a bunch of friends leveling in a virtual world, so we decided to start our own guild mainly to share a communal chat channel. Hence Steel Legion was born, Malatov is an original signing member.
We all know some people just level faster than others, and I suck ass at leveling, so soon everyone was at 60 but me, even Jazira beat me. So I was first one to play WoW and last one to 60 (total time played to get to level 60 for Malatov around 21 days, remember leveling back in Vanilla was a lot harder). This led me to the real fact that I just can’t play two MMO, so I decided to give up Galaxies and focus on WoW. At 60 there wasn’t much to do but raid, and we didn’t have enough to raid the 40 man instance Molten Core. Most of my friends (who I got to play WoW) left Steel Legion and joined a guild called In For Blood, a progression guild raiding MC. Jazira’s friend went to a different server for a man she met online. Jazira was getting Horde ganked alot with no one to help her (I wasn’t 60, and everyone else went to In For Blood), so she rerolled another druid on a PVE server called Pernolde and began raiding with a guild called Easy as Pie.
So there I was the only real active member of Steel Legion stuck at leve 59, PVPing in Southshore was all I was really doing, yet for some reason I was still haveing fun. About this time raiders were using teamspeak, so even though I was playing by myself, my friends and I still could be in contact while they were raiding and I was doing my own thing. And it occured to me that the game itself, while fun, was not the most interesting thing about game. It was many times more interesting to talk with people around the world and share stupid jokes and stories. It was like going to the bar with friends for entertainment, but it was cheaper and I didn’t have to dress up. So I was content in playing by myself.
Well now it is January 2006, and we have all being playing this game for about a year, and my friends said that they think they can run a guild better than the GM of In For Blood at the time. Apparently the GM would sometimes pass out or something of that nature. Everyone who left came back to Steel Legion, although it took some to convince for Jazira to come back as she really liked those Easy as Pie guys. This became the birth of the first recruitment into Steel Legion and the birth of Steel Legion as a raiding guild.
Well this post went on longer than I thought, sorry about that. I think more history can be found on the forums some where.
-Malatov, GM of Steel Legion