History

“Solipsis” is the philosophical idea that only one’s own mind is sure to exist.  The guild name came to me some time ago, not really sure how. Originally formed in 2008, Solipsis has had quite a long history. At the start of Wrath of the Lich King, myself and several other players fragmented from our long time guild on Stormrage, Rageborn. The idea was to create a fresh new guild with different ideals from those around us. This proved to be much more difficult than anticipated, though.

The overall raiding paradigm, and player attitude, has changed a lot since WoW first came out.  Many progression points became achievement-centric.  Most baseline content became highly puggable.  The concept of a guild as a whole did not feel as important as it used to.  Despite this, we were highly successful as a guild, clearing all Wrath of the Lich King content within a reasonable time frame.  We had some internal issues though.  Mostly due to an inexperienced guild master and some dramatic members, shortly before the launch of Ulduar, Solipsis retried from raiding, the guild bank was split, and we all went our separate ways.

After a brief break from the game, and a brief time in a guild called Overclocked on Stormrage – the original founders of Solipsis, as well as some other friends we made while in Overclocked, formed Afterlife.  Afterlife had problems from day one.  Our GM ninja transferred servers with one of our other officers within the first week of forming the guild.  He realized too late that leading a guild in the middle of the expansion was nothing something he wanted to do.  Despite this, I decided to continue leading it.  I did not want to lead another guild after my experience in Solipsis, but I felt it was my responsibility.

I lead Afterlife for about 6 months.  In that time we cleared 11/12 ICC 25 with <5% buff.  12/12 ICC 10 with 8/12 Heroics, again with less than 5% buff.  We also went back and obtained both the 10 and 25 player versions of the Glory of the Ulduar raider drakes and Algalon kills.  I made some of the best in-game friends a guy could make while in Afterlife, but leading the guild with my fiancée as one of the officers was taking its toll on my relationship.  After a few weeks with making no progress on Lich King, the drama started to take hold.

After a long night of drama, I snapped, and passed GM off to one of our most respected officers, Keltai.  This decision is probably the single worst decision I have made with respect to World of Warcraft.  The damage was done, though, and Keltai decided not to pursue leading the guild any further.

After all of this, my only goal for the rest of the expansion was to kill all of the bosses.  So I went full retard.  I spent 4 months in a top 50 US guild on Uldum called Poor Play, which now ceases to exist, as well as 3 months in a top world guild, Forlorn Legacy.  I got the kills I wanted, but they felt shallow without having any friends to share them with.  This gave me some much needed perspective, the perspective I needed to return to people I truly enjoy playing with, the players I know back on Stormrage.

In the Wrath of the Lich King expansion alone, I was personally been in 6 different guilds.  Having been in the same guild since the day I started playing wow at release, until the end of The Burning Crusade, this has been a very difficult. Solipsis will hopefully be the last guild I, and many of our members are ever tagged in.  You know what they say, third times a charm!

- Akashi