Mal'Ganis to Anetheron, server transfer complete.

So it finally happened and things are off to a great start. Let us take a look back at the server we left and the server which we now call our home.

Mal'Ganis, the most progressed server in North America.

Without going into too much of our guild history, I'll begin by answering two questions, both of which have the same answer. Why did we reform on Mal'Ganis in the first place, and who would voluntarily quit a guild as well respected as Elitist Jerks to join a less progressed guild that very few people have even heard of?

Ariastrasza (now Arilyn), a death knight, and Tsiksun, a paladin; both very talented people. While Tsiksun raided heavily with EJ in Sunwell, he cut back on raiding with them during WotLK. Ariastrasza however was still going strong, and was well known at the time to be pulling some of the highest dps numbers in the EJ community. Some of the Mal'Ganis natives would know Ariastrasza better as his warrior, Toned, who he raided with in Sunwell. They left EJ on good terms and still talk very highly of the guild's leadership and some of its talented membership to this day.

Due to their toons already being well situated on Mal'Ganis, they were partial to playing on the server that they knew best, and there began the formation of Riot Act on Mal'Ganis. An interesting tidbit is that both of these individuals not only helped found Riot Act with me, but also this extensive site.

Mal'Ganis is known to the general realm population to be the server with an extremely large population, nightly queue times, high lag during primetime, a booming economy, and some of the most talented raiders in the world. When PuGs on Mal'Ganis are able to clear content that top guilds on other servers can't, it speaks volumes.

Although the population on Mal'Ganis has been mostly indifferent to us, the situation itself has been kind. Several of our most talented players came to Mal'Ganis because they knew the raiding scene was the best in the US, and we in turn picked up several individual players and package deals that more progressed guilds at the time couldn't make room for.

Throughout our entire time on Mal'Ganis, we have felt like outsiders. We have no real history on a server that is very rich in its own history. There is also a general feeling of indifference on the server that you don't always find on other servers. There are so many amazing players and guilds on Mal'Ganis that your accomplishments don't draw much attention or fame. You're just another talented raider in a sea of skilled players and whatever you did, has already been done, or will be done again.

The main reason for Riot Act wanting to leave Mal'Ganis simply came down to us not being able to raid when we wanted to. Many of us raid together in a very tight 4 hour time frame due to a couple of reasons. One reason being that most of us work a standard job or attend college, and the other being that we have players who play on the far west coast as well as the east coast. When you have someone on the west coast come home with only a few minutes to spare before raid invites go out, it becomes a major problem when they run into an hour long queue of 800 people. Add in the nearly unplayable lag on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and you have a recipe for disaster. Even the general lag during prime time every other day makes trying the limited attempt encounters very risky and a self-imposed handicap. Sure, we were still able to kill bosses like Putricide the first week of release with the lag we had to deal with, but it's not something we want to have to continue to do.

Anetheron, greener pastures.

So why pick Anetheron? As a guild, we made the final decision to transfer off around the time when the arena season would finish so that those who cared for arena would still get their gladiator titles and mounts. We were lucky that around the same time frame, Blizzard made 3 free server transfer options available for Mal'Ganis; and after doing our research, Anetheron seemed to be everything that we were looking for. The leadership gave an announcement to the entire guild, and we found most of the guild, outside of those wanting to wait on titles, over on Anetheron in very short order. The transfer was a great success and we were able to pick up right where we left off. We raided on Tuesday, this time with very little lag, and scored a world top 14 Blood-Queen Lana'thel kill. No transfer remorse here.

Anetheron has no queues and is mostly lag free when compared to a server like Mal'Ganis. When we idle in major cities, we get waved at by strangers. It's been a very feel good affair so far, so here's to hoping it continues. The one major issue with Anetheron right now is the broken economy. We will have to find other means to supply our raid with consumables and gold for guild repairs, and that's definitely something most of the guild members have taken for granted when playing on Mal'Ganis. Additionally, there isn't nearly as large a population here that seems interested in buying the raiding loot from us. We have an individual in the guild, Glidax a holy paladin, who will be attempting a gold run in the near future on Anetheron. He was extremely successful in running gold runs on Mal'Ganis, so if it fails, it most likely won't be from a lack of effort or experience.

Parting words.

Do we have any regrets for playing on Mal'Ganis through all of Ulduar and ToC? Not at all. Our roster would not be what it is today if we never played there, and that alone is a big enough reason for us to be thankful we began there. Here's to hoping that Anetheron treats us even better.