Shadow Run

a stealth-orientated guild on the Feenix pirate WoW server

Blizzard's World of Warcraft pioneered the MMORPG genre much like Dune 2 pioneered RTS and Marathon pioneered "rocket jumping" (although we called it "grenade hopping" in those days).

Power creep is good for business. Blizzard initially introduced class sets such as Valor, Wildheart etc. as end-game top-tier stuff. So people farmed for and obtained them... then they stagnated. To fix this, Blizzard generated new goals to keep dedicated players hooked: they nerfed those armour sets down to generic, and providing upgrade quests to restore some usefulness... and slightly more usefulness than the initial release in order to motivate people to do the upgrade quest chain rather than grumble. There was a time when a level 60 dressed in all greens and blue was top-notch. Then blues were considered minimal, and a level 70 dressed in all purples was the de-facto status-quo. Then raise the level cap again. And again. Each time introducing more content, more goals, obsoleting old achievements people spent months working towards or farming reputation to obtain. cf Carrot on a stick.

Blizzard isn't the only business doing this. Think of Operating System giants who market their products with versions that highlight just how old the product you bought has become. It doesn't matter that the latest version has no added functionality and a highly confusing GUI paradigm. The version you bought is four years old and well past its use-by date!

Some customers don't appreciate this power-creep to the same extent that the corporations do.

However, as long as the majority of the customer base is happy to get more, bigger, faster, for a fraction of the effort and brainpower expended, there will be a paying market making it financially viable for corporations to invest in power creep carrots on sticks.

Many of us would happily pay for access to a Blizzard-run vanilla classic World of Warcraft realm. However, they claim that they had never heard of backup systems, revision control, or any such industrial standard practices back in the days when vanilla classic dominated the market. When challenged on this, they delivered The Wall Of No.

Where there's a will, there's a way. Demand will find supply. Many WoW customers are computer literate, able to program, and so have delivered a solution where Blizzard refused (failed) to do so.

The Feenix Project raises WoW vanilla classic to new life from the ashes.

The Warsong realm is WoW vanilla classic on easy mode. Here:

• XP rewards from quests and kills are magnified x12! Even casual players can get from level 1 to level 60 in 2-3 days of /played (ie 48-36 hours) rather than the 30+ days that was typical in retail vanilla classic (excepting gosu such as Joana/Mancow).
• Crafting skills earn two advancements every step, not just one, saving a lot of time and materials.
• End-game blue-quality dungeon gear can be obtained via voting for the server from the website, rather than having to farm instances endlessly for luck to smile on you.
• Herb resource nodes visuals are huge! Perhaps five times the scale of the models used originally.
• Creeps don't chain-aggress, so you can use Fear in instances with impunity, and don't have to snare runners.

Despite vanilla classic being the very bottom rung of the power-creep ladder, there are still players who strive to be at the very top of that bottom rung. For some, it's not good enough until it's a full epic outfit with faction/instance mounts, etc.

For others, the game-play is the source of entertainment.

One form of game-play is using the Stealth mechanic to bypass "trash" creeps, fast-lane it to the "boss" creeps, and run instances time efficiently. Rather than the constant clash of battle, these stealth runs are eerily calm, smooth, relaxing -- and ultimately rewarding.

The Shadow Run guild exists to bring together players who enjoy this experience.

Typically runs are exclusive to Rogues and Druids, as those are the classes with access to the Stealth mechanic. Alchemists and Engineers have access to invisibility, however the long cooldowns involved hinder this usefulness. Hunters with Feign Death, Shadowmeld and Mail armour might be viable, but that's an experiment we haven't run yet. For now, we're focussed on Rogues and Druids.

Of course, many guild members will want to party, run dungeons and raid with others -- either other guild activities or pickup groups (PUGs). That's totally fine with us.

Of course, many guild members will want to have many other characters, of other classes, in other guilds, or even on the opposite faction. That's totally fine with us too.

Not every instance is suited to stealth runs, as many are "gated" requiring all creeps in a certain stage to be cleared before a door opens and the group can progress -- a layout that benefits little from a stealth approach. The dungeons suited to stealth, we run together and enjoy. The dungeons or raids not suited to stealth, anyone can run the normal way. We just relish an aspect of the game that isn't available or even visible to everyone.

The Shaman, Paladin and Druid are hybrid classes. The Druid got a lot more attention from Blizzard in the healing role, and far less in the beastform or offensive spellcasting roles. As a result, the community often sidelines or dismisses characters whose players want to explore those aspects of their class in the game.

We hope your character finds a home here.