My Background in WoW

My Background In WoW

I am a geek! There is no denying it and no valid argument which can be presented against it. The important thing is I embrace it.

So where should I start …. Well I first found out about WoW way back when my friends and I were playing Diablo 2. My friends and I had been into RPG’s for years… FFVII, Diablo, Baulder’s Gate, Icewind Dale, the list goes on and on …. Hell we even played pen and paper RPG’s for long enough. The only problem with P&P RPG’s was getting a group of people together to play, so MMO’s seemed like the solution to that problem. Diablo 2 – Battle.Net was my first foray into MMO’s and I loved it. I didn’t profess to be the best player and I can pretty much confess that compared to my friends I was a Nub. Hell one of my mates could tell me the stats and properties of any item in the game just by giving him the name of the item.

Anyway, this was my main introduction into Blizzard as a games developer and after seeing a brief glimpse of the trailer for WoW I knew I had to play it. I did everything in my power to get into the beta but the powers that be deemed me unworthy . At this point in my life I had a fair bit going on university, exams, etc etc so it wasn’t until the game had been out for a good few months that I really got into the game.

As you will no doubt become aware if you continue to read my blog I am a planner. Before making any real decisions about anything including games I need to look into everything. I spent about 4 weeks prior to playing the game looking into the different classes and trying to decide which one was for me. I had it down to either a paladin, hunter, druid, warlock, mage or priest. Did I mention I tend to be a little indecisive.

It took me a while to get into WoW properly. I would choose a server roll a new character. Always a Human…. Always a Paladin …. As a matter of fact always a Human Paladin called Consadine. Weird and compulsive I know. I’d level the character get to 60 play for a bit then find a new server and repeat the process over again. I never really got into the whole guild / social aspect of the game until towards the end of Vanilla. I found myself a server and began my process … this was the rebirth of Consadine. It wasn’t long until I was playing the game the way it was meant to be played with other people. It was in Westfall I meant my 1st GM. We were both waiting for the Defias Messenger for our quests and we grouped up to both get the quest. After that it was into Deadmines together. I had played WoW for ages by this point and I had discovered a new game. I added him to my friends list and from then on whenever we logged on we would see how one another was doing. A few nights went past and before I knew it we were both in Lakeshire questing together again. I knew this was for me.

From this point on I was a proper WoW player, and with it a raider. From this point I was in a few guilds on a few servers (Laughing Skull, Burning Steppes, and Haomarush):

1. Cowboys From Hell
2. SAINTS
3. Raise the Knife
4. Carpe Diem
5. Abandon All Hope
6. The Great Council
7. New Order
8. Excesse (for 2 weeks after NewOrder died  )
9. And my current home Contingency

During this time span my Paladin pretty much remained my main but in Carpe Diem it got to the point where we had a lack of specific classes and roles at various points, which led me to rolling other classes as needed to fill the gaps as and when required. I went Bear Tank when we were short on Tanks …. Then we got a tank so I went back to my paladin for a bit then we got another paladin and then we needed DPS and not having a DPS shaman in the guild I decided to try Elemental out …. And I liked it. Problem was the DPS from Elemental Shamans wasn’t the best in the world and I missed my life as a healer, but not enough to go back to my paladin, so I switched to Resto. Restoration shamans rocked. Unfortunately, the guild needed my Paladin after several of our Holy Paladins left the guild. I hadn’t played my paladin for a while so it was a nice change of pace. We went from Kara, to Grull, to TK, to Maggie, to SSC life was good. Then it happened Vash ….

Carpe Diem was a proper hardcore guild. The most hardcore I have ever been part of, and life was good. We had been progressing nicely through BC but then the problems started. It became apparent rather quickly that our realm was dying. Recruitment was all but dead, and finding a PuG was also proving difficult. Then we hit the issue that stopped me playing for a little while. We hit Vash and we failed … week after week we would clear the content to there then BANG! We would hit the wall. We tried week after week to get her down but it wasn’t happening. Then it happened people started suggesting transferring realms,

“We will be able to recruit new players on another realm”

The logic was sound and after a few weeks the Officers spoke to a few of us asking how we felt and whether or not we would transfer etc. etc. I thought about it for a week or so and I told Knobo (GM) and Vinyard (RL) that while I enjoyed raiding with them I wouldn’t be paying to transfer all of my characters over to Trollbane. They said they understood and I wished them all the best of luck, and told them I would pop in on them on occasions to say “Hello” and what not.

So now what? University had just finished for the summer and the plan had been to spend a decent amount of time playing WoW. A new realm was in order.

Now as people will no doubt be aware WoW players tend to have a “Grass is always Greener mentality” when it comes to our factions. To this point I was and had always been an Alliance character and all the Alliance players would bitch and moan that:

“Alliance are full of little kids” … “they just do for the cool looking characters” …. “All the hardcore players play Horde”

BULLSHIT!!! There are morons and kids on both side. I saw a similar argument recently where someone argued that kids play undead and orcs because they thing they look badass and that the more mature gamer plays Alliance because they don’t care how their characters look. Again I repeat BULLSHIT!!! Its all personal preference.

Anyway where was I …. Oh yes ….. It was time for a new sever and I had grown a little tired of all the Alliance leveling zones and quests so I decided to give Horde a try…. I left it to the Gods of fate which realm I would end up on and in a matter of seconds I had my new home …. Haomarush – EU.

Haomarush - EU

With my realm sorted and my mind made up that I wanted a completely new experience it was decided that I would play Horde. Now the question became what class / race combo??? I had no idea … I wanted to roll Paladin as this was my normal process and would let me get a feel for the server. There was just one small problem which I am sure many others faced …. I HATE BLOODELVES …. They just looked so camp! I couldn’t bring myself to play a blood elf, so I started looking elsewhere. I remembered the fun I had had playing my ele/resto shaman for the short time in Carpe Diem so I decided I would go for that again. Thus Tarik was born.

Ok two more side notes which I should probaly tell you about myself.

1. I rarely make short posts. In fact several of my guildies make fun of the fact that my posts are always on the long side. In fact I don’t think Skittle has ever read a whole post of mine. And …
2. When I decide which character I am playing and how I want him to perform at end game I will level as that spec until I reach end game. That’s right lvling as healing specs, and not choosing the fastest leveling spec.

So I had already decided that Tarik would be Restoration. I spent a short time deciding what my end game spec would look like and I set off leveling. It was great the Horde experience was completely different from the Alliance experience and although it would take me a while to get to grips with the new capital cities, and vendors etc. It was brilliant and I was leveling relatively quickly. It got to the point where I was seeing the same names now and again and I ended up grouped with the same few people every so often for group quests or dungeon runs and eventually I was offered a spot in the guild Abandon All Hope. It was a small leveling guild run by the GM – Galeena, his aim was for everyone to help one another level and then start raiding together. This strategy appealed to me so I decided to join. I was easily the lowest level character / main in the guild others were leveling alts to help guildies out or finishing off the last 10 levels or so before starting to gear up. It was clear that I had a fair bit to go before I would be anywhere near the lvl70. Luckily for me I had always been a really fast leveler.

I hit 70 quickly and before I knew it I was grinding rep, farming HC’s and helping recruit a few more players for our Kara runs. It was at this point that I came across a fellow Scot by the name of Dan (a.k.a Dan the Man). At first I thought he was a bit of a cock but after a few run ins with him it became clear he knew his shit and that we worked well together. Dan joined me in Abandon All Hope and before long we were both promoted to Officers in the guild. Galeena and the two of us recruited new players and put together Kara runs to help gear one another. Before too long we had 2 Kara groups clearing the raid each week. It appeared that this small leveling guild had legs. We started looking forward to Grull. We managed to clear Grull for a few weeks, and the players were more than happy to pick up their Teir gear and trinkets. But something went wrong…. Can’t say what for sure but people just stopped showing up to raids. The guild was dying.

The question became what do we do now? We tried more recruiting but most weren’t interested. Our smallish guild was relatively unknown to the majority of the player base and drumming up interest proved difficult. There were 2 main options open to us:

1. Galeena’s option : which was a merger with another similar situation guild. And…
2. Dan’s option : which was join Horizon or New Order.

At this point Horizon and New Order were two of the top guilds on our realm and while many wanted to join these guilds, I was a realist. There was no way I could hope for raid spots with either of these guilds with my current gear level. That being said I didn’t like the idea of merging either.

One night after Dan and I failed to get even 1 Kara raid going he whispered me. Asking if I were interested in a SSC run? I loved SSC but pugging was never my thing. Turned out there was a guild who were in need of a good resto shaman for SSC and Dan had managed to get us both a spot. This was a one off thing though. So I grabbed my flasks and headed off to SSC.

The Great Council

“The Great Council” Never heard of them. Once at SSC a few guildies questioned my gear level but several members recognized me from HC farming, and soon spread the word that I knew what I was doing. The GM was also a Resto shaman (Full T6 by the name of Morundar). So I knew that if I didn’t meet his standards id be out on my ass. Off we went and what doubts the guild had in my skills were soon gone. I was kicking ass … almost beating the T6 GM on the meters with my healing and having been in the situation before with my Paladin I knew all the tactics and was able to help out with a few tactics here and there. Oh how did we progress I hear you ask ….. well not very well lol. This was the guilds 2nd week in SSC and they were still struggling with Lurker …. We wiped over and over again that night but it reminded me how much I loved raiding. I was hooked again I needed a raiding guild. The GM (Morundar) asked me if I wanted to join TGC and I so did but I didn’t want to leave Dan or Galeena behind so I asked if there were any spots for them and he assured me if they wanted to come along as well he would be more than happy to take a few other players to fill their ranks. I talked it over with Dan and he wanted in. Galeena on the other hand didn’t he decided to step away from WoW for a little while. I understood where he was coming from. We all have moments like this where we decide that we need a break from the game to recharge our batteries.

The next night I joined TGC and began my life with them. It was a great guild and before long I had made many many new friends. The Guild all got on well together and began to progress nicely through SSC, TK, ZA and the beginning of BT. It wasn’t long before I was smoking all the other healers on the meters and it felt amazing. By the time we reached BT I was extatic it was my chance to get my hands on that glorious T6 which Morundar had been flaunting in front of me for months now. Unfortunately, while we were progressing through BT Blizzard brought in the nerf bat and gimped all the instances a little. It wasn’t exactly a huge nerf but it was noticeable. Some of the more challenging fights became easy as pie and we started blazing through the content clearing BT in a matter of weeks. By the time we got Illidan down on week 2 of the nerf I was in full T6. The expansion was just round the corner and we still had Sunwell to clear. We farmed BT for another week or two and then moved on to Sunwell.

Unfortunately, at this point in the game we only managed to get to one boss in Sunwell. With the expansion so close the majority of the players decided to take a step back from the game and recharge for WotLK, and it was decided we would take a break until the expansion was released in a few weeks.

Wrath of the Lich King

The expansion was released and the guildies all started lvling like mad men ….. well all except me. It was 3 days after the release of the expansion before I managed to get a copy and log on. I set off leveling (again as Resto I would like to add). If there is one thing which I do better than the majority of WoW players its level I can blaze through quests lines in no time. At this point in the game my “Clique” if you will of players I played with regularly: Dan the Man, Jamie, Daadi, Skittle, Fotjobfrank, and Eae were all leveling as well. We all blazed through content and I managed to make up my 3 days lost play in no time and in the end managed to hit 80 as a resto shaman faster than the majority of the guild.

AAAhhhhhh Naxxramas – I had always kicked myself for not getting into raiding back in Vanilla. The old school raids held a certain appeal for me and I was happy that Naxx had been recycled and retuned for lvl80’s as like the majority I missed out on it at lvl60. We managed to clear Naxx with relatively few problems. We were by no means the fasts on the server New Order were still kicking everyone’s asses.

Now the true end game began. We progressed on Malaygos a little bit then went to OS and played about with it. It soon became clear that the hardest encounter at this point was / would be OS 3 Drakes up. We did the logical thing and we cleared with none up then progressed with 1 then 2 and finally 3. We were amongst the 1st on the server to get this and everyone was exstatic we were amongst the best guilds on the server. Once again the darkness began to creep in, players became loot hungry, hardcore players who I had progressed with through BC started leaving the game. It was slow and not really noticeable by the majority but I felt it. Fotjob started putting together OS 3 drake 10mans together. This was the hardest encounter in the game at the time and no guild had managed to do it. We had a shot at being the 1st. For several weeks we went in and there was wipe after wipe. In the end we managed to get her down. We were the 1st guild on the Horde side to do it, and marginally lost out to the server 1st. The darkness grew closer. One of the guilds top Officers and Healers Leonteus had decided that he would be leaving the guild in the near future and one night out of the blue Morundar /gquit my mind was made up while the drama was going on in gchat about Morundar leaving I started talking to other GMs looking for guilds I spoke to the GM of New Order (Idcb) and Horizon (Molac) to see if they had a spot for me. I told the guild that I had been thinking about it for a little while with the loss of several of the old school players and now Morundar and that I to would leave the guild. Before I knew it Morundar was whispering me asking what was going on and why I was leaving etc etc ….. Apparently his gquit had been all some kind of practical joke. Needless to say neither I nor several others saw the funny side. The drama in gchat that night opened my eyes to several players in the guild and I didn’t like what I saw. I still had many friends there so stayed with them for a while.

With Ulduar on the horizon people lost their drive for the game once again. People wouldn’t show for raids and a few members got off the sinking ship and headed for New Order. New Order had been the best guild on the server for as long as I could remember and once a few people had left they would come back and tell us how great it was. With TGC slowly going down hill a few of my friends had decided they would leave the guild for New Order and the idea appealed to me as well. I spoke to Idcb and he said they had an opening for a good geared resto shaman and would be happy to have me join them. The problem now was how do I break this to Morundar? I told Idcb that I would stay in TGC until the GM was on have a chat with him and then leave. I felt that I owed it to Morundar after all he had been a great GM and RL throughout BC. Then as soon as I mentioned anything about it to Morundar /gkick /gkick /gkick all the people who had been considering it, even those who hadn’t decided one way or the other were out on our asses banned from vent and out the guild. Our minds had been made up for us. We were all pissed off with how we were treated and all joined New Order. Moments later there was fits of hilarity on New Orders vent as the New Order officers went into fits of laughter and Morundar started having a go at New Order. Accusing them of poaching players and being responsible for the downfall of several guilds on the server. Needless to say the laughter on vent made all the new players relax into the new guild. We soon realised that while there had been great times in TGC something had changed and we had all seen a badside of Morundar and by the end of the night the bad feelings we had for leaving the guild and him were gone.

New Order

New Order was much like Carpe Diem. A hard core guild who lived for progress. From the 1st day on the server it was clear that they were the best. In BC the entire guild would walk about Shattrath on their ZA mounts and I would look on with jealousy, dreaming of the day when I too would be a member. We managed to get a few Naxx runs with New Order before Ulduar came out and off we went progressing through new content and competing for server 1st’s. It was what I had always wanted to do and took me back to my days raiding with Carpe Diem. Unfortunately, Eae and Fotjobfrank weren’t happy with New Order. They would not get consistent raid spots and were more or less the back ups. It was sad and I knew that if they were given the chance that their skills would shine through and they would be given a consistent spot, Eae and Fotjobfrank thanked the guild for their hospitality and went on their way. Luckily they still hung around and came on vent and we would all do casual stuff together so although they weren’t raiding with us we all still played together when we could. New Order blazed through all the Ulduar content in no time. We managed to get the Epic Healing mace for one of the best priests I have ever had the joy of playing with Heiroglypic and started getting another one for Procne – one of our trees ;)

Hardmodes were overcome with relative ease. With only Mimiron 25man and Yogg 25man standing in our way. Unfortunately, the new raid instance was on its way so we took on the new content while still doing Ulduar HM’s. The problem was many players would show for the new content and skip the days where they were needed for Ulduar. Luckily Idcb was a devious bastard and one week instead of going ToTC on reset day got everyone to the Tournament Grounds then told them all to head to Ulduar. It certainly fixed the issue of people not showing for Ulduar nights. As we cleared the new content players started becoming less and less reliable, and many had RL commitments which frankly were more important. Once again the guild started looking to ways of fixing the problem. It was decided that New Order was dead and Bobomer one of the Offficers had arranged for about 9 players from New Order to join Excesse.

Excesse

Excesse were a guild who had for months been snapping at the heals of New Order in progression and had recently over took us. Bobomer informed me that he and the other Officers had discussed it and they wanted me to come with them to Excesse. I spoke to the GM of Excesse (Matija – another resto shaman) and after discussing the conflict of raiding times and a few other queries I decided to join them and see what happened.

Unfortunately, for the 1st week in Excesse I was saved to the raids we had done in New Order so all I could do was sit back get to know people and listen to the raids on vent. Learning their tactics and methods. My first week of raiding came and I was benched. This did not bother me as I knew that I couldn’t expect to join a guild as well established as Excesse and assume that I will get a primary spot 1st week. The problem was there were about 15 other people benched. I could see a problem here. Week 2 came and again I was benched. Matija said that next week I would be given my chance to shine as he would be testing me out so I had better bring my A game and be as good as people said I was. For the 1st time in weeks I was excited again. I relished the opportunity to prove myself and show my new guildies that I could play. I think this opportunity came about from my volunteering for anything and everything when anyone needed a healer. Week 3 came round and I was in. I logged in for TotC 25man Normal and everything went swimmingly. My healing had been good and I had made no mistakes. I was happy with my performance as were a few other players who had /w me letting me know that I had done a good job. Next boss incoming …….. wait what? I was asked to step out so another healer should get a spot. I wasn’t pissed as such, I knew that with the amount of players in Excesse that there would be an element of rotation involved. I sat outside the instance all night waiting to be rotated in again …… there was no rotation.

I lived for raiding and after thinking it over decided I had to find a guild where I would be given the opportunity to raid. I talked it over with Eae and Fotjob and after them telling me I shouldn’t transfer server I decided to stay. I talked it over with Skittle, seeking some advise from him. Skittle is one my friends from back in TGC who had then came to NO with me had elected not to join Excesse. Instead, Skittle went with a few other NO players to a new guild comprising several old members from Horizon. I had a chat with a few old friends about this newish guild “Contingency” and started chatting with a few old NO players who were now officers in Contingency.

Contingency

After chatting with Nos (the GM) and a few old friends on vent it became clear that this was a rather good guild. Progressing through HM’s farming normal runs, and multiple runs for alts. Everyone in the guild seemed to have 3+ well geared alts and after clearing the content on mains would continue to log alts and clear it again. I thanked Matija for the chance he had given me in Excesse and thanked Idcb and Bobomer for thinking of me when deciding to join Excesse, said goodbye to the guys in Excesse I had become friends with, and went to Contingency.

What can I say about Contingency. It was clear from the 1st day here that this was a social guild. Everyone got on well together joking and playing with one another, while still managing to clear content. The guild was serious when needed and would push themselves to the limit on progress fights. It was clear that Contingency was somewhat of an underdog in the beginning. Other members I had known from Excesse, NO, TGC etc etc were here and with many players from the old school Horizon there as well we had somewhat of a dream team going on. Some of the best players I had had the joy of playing with throughout the game were here. Other than seeing the guild tag here and there in Dalaran I didn’t know much about them. If I had known there was a set up like this I would probably have joined when NO went under.

It soon became clear that we had the skills, players, and ability necessary to progress and compete for server 1st. Luckily, Contingency unlike some other guilds has managed to retain the social aspect necessary to keep a guild together and alive. We only raid for a few nights each week for only 3-4h normally, each night. These tend to be the times which suit guildies best and allow us down time to fuck about on alts and have fun together.

Unfortunately, disaster struck just as I was finding my stride in Contingency and computer and internet issues meant that for a few weeks in Oct / Nov 09 I was unable to properly raid with Contingency. This was very frustrating for both me and the guild. I felt that I had let the guild down. To pass the time I decided to level an alt.

When I had first joined Contingency Nos had said to me that they were looking for a good disc priest but they would be willing to take my shaman as several members had vouched for me (thanks Wildbill, Skittle, Crazy…. To name but a few). I told Nos that while I awaited my new comp and my internet to get fixed I would lvl a priest so he would be there if needed.

Panzee :)

Although I am a healer at heart, I had never played a priest before. I had always choosen the hybrid classes Shamans, Paladins, Druids…. But after my time in New Order and Excesse I had seen the skill and abilities of Heiroglyphic and Sarcophilius in playing priests, and I decided to try it. While I was in Excesse Sarco’s skill as a disc priest really caught my eye, and the concept of a disc priest began to appeal to me. By this point my shaman was basically a chain heal bot and I wanted something more. With this in mind I decided to roll my priest.

I hit the internet and started researching the Priest class and the different specs, ablilties and spells that would be available for me. With a game plan set all I had to do now was choose a race and name. I decided to try Bloodelf … I had avoided them thus far and although I still thought they were camp as hell there was something about them that appealed to me. Their racial would be handy for me and I wasn’t as repulsed by them as I had once been. Thus Panzee was born. Panzee is a name I used only once previously when I was playing Diablo 2, when I decided to play an Amazon this was the name I choose and for some reason it seemed to fit my priest which was a bit of a weakling and a pansy.

I blazed through the lvls in no time. The guild and even friends who had seem me level before were astounded by the speed in which I managed to level all the way to 80. Once I hit 80 I set out gearing up. At this point my GM Nos took me to the side and asked if I was serious about my priest? and if I would consider raiding with him? I loved the priest, the variety of heals in my repetiou and the skill required to play the class optimuly really appealed to me. I told Nos that although I was new to the class and didn’t know how I would feel once I was in a raiding situation with him that I would like to give him a try.

Everyone seemed happy with the situation …. Except Skittle who has a deep seeded and dark hatred for Priests …. I think he was molested by one as a small child. I got a handful of epics off the AH to start me off headed into HC’s and Naxx and picked up a few other pieces here and there. By the end of the week my gear was coming together. The next TotC alt run which was put together were nice enough to take me along. They knew that my priest would need the gear to raid at 25man lvl and were more and willing to give me a go. I told them that if it got too difficult just switch me out I didn’t mind.

In we went… this was ideal I managed to pick up a few pieces, and it gave me my first proper opportunity to see how the class would perform in a real raid. My research into the class mechanics had paid off and I was able to perform at a level sufficient for progress. The following week I was in TotC and TotGC 10man and managed to finish off my gearing to a level which would at least let me help out in 25mans.

25mans came and in I went. I managed to hold my own and before long was back raiding as a core member on a new main and it had only taken me a few weeks to obtain. Contingency had one other Disc Priest at this time Phooenix. I couldn’t stand this guy. He would make crazy comments about things he or other old guildies had done which were just plain lies, or he would make up some crazy justification for something without any proof whatsoever. Needless to say I didn’t like him. In fact not many people like him. He tended to be very unreliable and thought he was better than everyone else. The main reason Nos asked me to play my priest in the first place was so we would have a reliable disc priest in raids.

Needless to say after 2weeks at 80 I knew the priest class better than he did. This may sound big headed and to a certain extent it is but it is true. On a couple of occasions we came to loggerheads. The 1st was when he told our resident Holy Priest that with her lowish lvl TotC gear that she should have 900+haste and 29000+mana ….. this was crazy talk and I told him so. I explained the formula needed for haste calculations and tried to give reasoned arguments and proof of optimal stats and gear for a priest of her level. He was having none of it. The following day I made a post on the forums outlining everything providing examples for haste issues, basically reiterating everything I had said the night before. Then it kicked off. Oh the drama …… everything seemed civil enough then all of a sudden he took it personal. “I know how to play my class” “I have been playing longer than you have” ….. as if those are valid arguments. At this point I poked the bear and suggested a few changes he could / should make to his gear to make it more optimal. My priest was still rocking a lot of Naxx and HC gear and I had almost the same Spellpower he had and although I had nowhere near the 32k+ mana pool he had. I had no need for it. He didn’t exactly take my suggestions well and after a few other incidents in guild with a few other guildies he was gone. So these days I am my guilds resident Disc Priest …. Like any good healing priest my off spec is Holy and I enjoy busting that out on certain fights and topping the meters. Nothing better than showing those pesky trees that they aint always sitting at the top.

That is it …..

Everything up to date pretty much. Contingency has grown and grown and now has so many talented players that we currently have 2 x25man teams in ICC competing with one another and the other guilds on the server for those server 1sts. The guild has changed a little in recent times, as any good guild must, to suit its members. We are looking strong and have no doubt that in the near future Contingency will be a guild people talk about …. Preferably in a good way. For those out there who know the guild or are interested in our progress take a look at www.contingencyeu.wowstead.com , if you are on Haomarush feel free to say “Hi” and hopefully this 10 page background won’t have bored you too much. My posts which I shall try and post regularly will be a mixture of whats happening in guild, funny moments, gear decisions, gear questions which hopefully the community will be willing to assist with, and generally a what’s happening blog.

REMEMBER!! – I did say at the beginning that my posts tend to be long lol and I know if Skittle does come across this that he will NEVER!! Read it all.