Maintain connections

Since I dinged 80 on my little warrior I've put quite alot of effort into gearing it. At least alot in my standards. And that made me realize what a huge difference it makes whether you know or don't know someone on the server you're on. Since most 80's I've got are on the same server as my main I haven't had much trouble with this before, but now every gear piece is a struggle to get. A friend of mine has also recently dinged a warrior 80 on a server other than his mains, but he at least has some friends on that server, I have none at all. Let's look at all the things I have to struggle with on a daily basis!

The crafteds
Since I can only have one profession, and it happens to be alchemy, I have to ask strangers for help with every single craft that I need - gear, gems, enchants etc. Fortunately, most people actually are rather nice and helpful when it comes to this, and don't try to abuse their power situation. There is always someone who tries to overprice, but they're generally a minority. I often find people who not only do items for free, but sometimes even throw in extras for free, thank you! Well needed for a poor girl like me. Sometimes I have to resort to AH, which can either turn out to be really expensive or really cheap. If I'm lucky I can find complete bargains like 20 Scroll of Enchant Shield: Defense for 5g each (I am now selling them off for 50g each and earning a nice buck from that), other times I have to accept that I have to pay 200g for some leg armor. Since my warrior is a side project, a hobby really, I don't often have to buy what I need right away though. I can wait until another day and see if the prices are more reasonable then, instead of making that desperate buy.

Hmm... no.

The flying
Epic flying mount... It can either be your best investment ever or your worst buy ever. Many people think that since you can fly around grinding mats faster, it will soon repay itself. If you want to spend the next coming week grinding mats then be my guest, I don't and therefore I put those 5000g on gear instead. The point is that if you're all alone on a server with no other char or profession to earn you money, 5k g on a flying mount is a -huge- investment that has to be thought through carefully. My friend borrowed money from one of his friends so he could buy it and has now had to spend the last week grinding money to repay it. Was it worth it? Maybe in the long run, the very long run. To me, 5k g just is too much money yet, and I want to spend it on something else that will get me into raids faster.

The raids
Speaking of raiding, and this is the real bitch, since I don't have achievements for anything on this char, trying to get into a raid is really difficult. And that means I can't get the achievement! Or the gear. This means I really have to convince every damn raidleader that I know the tacs very well, I have done the instance one trillion times, so please please give me a chance to prove it. I have succeeded sometimes. Since I am a tank it happens that people become desperate enough to let me join even if I am udnergeared. But I will stay undergeared until people let me join, and gearing really takes time since no one will let me join because of my bad gear... and so on.

The money
If I could just, like my friend, borrow some money from someone to buy nice gear, I could start doing raids and maybe earn some more money. It's just like in the "real world", if you have money and connections, you'll get more money and connections. If you have nothing like me, you're in the shit.

The guild

This is a tricky one. If you're all alone on a server like me, trying to get into a nice guild with the same goals as you is probably the best way to go about getting started. Since my warrior is just a hobby project and not something I want or can put too much time into (I have other chars who need love too), I have decided to stay out of guilds. The only guilds I can join right now are the social guilds, and social isn't really what I lack - it's power! The power to get myself into raids to get gear to get money. Well gear doesn't automatically equal money, but the more gear I get from raids, the less money do I have to put into buying it instead.

This will work!

My warrior currently has about 4800gs and I have real problems getting into VoA10, even with the achievement. Don't even think about ICC or even ToC. Most weeklys are out of the question as well. I have to haggle my way into the raid but quite frankly I don't have that much to offer. Without the connections I am at the hands of nice peoples mercy, people who bring me along either because I am their last hope or because they want a challenge or because they feel like doing a nice deed for they day so they can sleep well at night. How often does that happen? Not often I can tell you (more people should have trouble sleeping). And then I read about Manda writing in her blog that her newly dinged druid, 3300 gs gets to tag along into ICC25 (!), just because her guild says so. That is so not fair, I would sell my undead soul for such an opportunity (any takers btw?). And my friend just recently dinged his warrior 80 but is already closing in on me on gear because he has friends on the server who can help him out. It shows what a schmuck I was to choose a server where I knew no one. It also greatly illustrates the power in having the right connections. So I better start making some...