Get Vibrant

Much thanks from the Guild Alliance to Namaya and Ginsengsmurai of the Thottbot Legends guild for contributing this fitting message as well as to Asperwind of the Mystic Misfits for posting her lovely message to Richards Legacy.com condolences page.

From reading the online tributes to Richard he was a good friend to many and a compassionate person with a great sense of humour. If you would like to read or perhaps write your own message on Richard’s Condolences page please follow this link to legacy.com

Our thoughts go out to his family and friends and to our guild-mate Mel who has been friends with Rich for over 20 years.

For our Star Wars, The Old Republic: Infinite Jedi Order members, you can visit our permanent Aurthree memorial at our Coruscant Stronghold.

We are the explorers . . . .

Rich is off to that next adventure and eventually all of us will follow him. I’m glad to know there will be someone there to show me how to get that XP and where the best loot is.

Until then, farewell Rich.

-Plasma,
Chairman of the Guild Alliance Committee.

To conclude I would like to re-post Richards last entry on our Guild Alliance forums.

My name is … Richard E. Ruiz III, information that should make it obvious where the “R3″ comes from, but since the game doesn’t allow for numbers in your name and they require a minimum number of letters that exceeds “2”… I decided to write it out as “Aurthree”…

My RLF “Mel”, tried to get me to play WoW back when she started in “vanilla”, but not having the internet, made the task difficult to say the least. I didn’t have an internet connection, until the weekend that ICC was released in the stores. So, the first day I ever experienced being online, was also my first day in Azeroth. “Aurthree” was my very first toon, and started out on a trial account. I was running around clueless doing the starter quests, when I got my first “group invite”. Level 17 doing “Deadmines” was my first taste of “group content”… Now “Mel” had explained the meaning of the different roles, and “why” the tank was in “plate” armor. Just by coincidence, just before I got the “group invite”, I was getting tired of chasing after my pet, so I figured out how to turn “growl” off and take it off of “aggressive”. As soon as we zoned into the run, the tank asked how long I had been playing, I told him, “2 weeks”. Part way through the run the tank says “BS 2 weeks”… I didn’t understand “why” he didn’t believe me, until some time later. Hunters at that time had a bad reputation for “pulling before the tank” and for “not keeping their pets under control”… two things that with the information “Mel” gave me and some dumb luck, I got through that dungeon looking like I knew what I was doing. But that was my only “group invite” until much later. So anyway, I went back to leveling by doing quests, and by level 28, I already hated doing them… then like a miracle from a higher power, about the time I was level 33-35 Blizzard decided to try something new and started giving XP for doing PvP … I was so damn happy! I jumped into doing battlegrounds and didn’t come out until I capped at 80. That’s when a friend I had made asked me to join a dungeon group with him, using the new “finder” feature. I hadn’t done a dungeon since level 17, and I think I probably did more DPS then… we didn’t even reached the first boss, and someone complained saying, “I can do more DPS playing with my ass!” It didn’t take long for me to figure out that he was talking about me, but I had no idea how he knew what kind of damage I was doing. I stuck it out for the full run, and got my first dragon mount, the “Bronze Drake”, which I was unable to be excited about, because I was already way too offended by this guy who was still giving me shit about my DPS. I told my buddy, I was going to be quitting the game, and he said, “whoa, slow down… have you ever heard of Thottbot?”

I went to the site which at the time was the premiere WoW information site. I read all the “Hunter” posts, old and new, but still had questions. Took me a couple of weeks to get up the nerve to post a question, but the next day, there was my answer… Awesome! So, I posted another question, got another answer. After about the fifth question, I logged onto Thottbot to get my answer, and there was a new thread… “Chatting up DPS for Aurthree”… OO I was completely overwhelmed. It started out telling me about add ons. Then they went over food buffs. They explained what “specs” were and went over “stats”, “rotation”, “CC”, etc. … my DPS went from 700 to 2500 in a few days… took many hours on the dummies, but I decided I wasn’t going to give anyone a reason to talk down my DPS ever again. The thread got moved to “sticky” after about a week… by the time it was done, it ended up being 7 pages long, and it covered my step by step progress from 700 DPS to my first time in ICC as a RL, where my “pug” group cleared the first wing… Then something interesting happened… all those way cool veteran Hunters, that took me under their wings… “POOF!” they were gone… I spent the next couple years answering questions and writing guides for the hunter section of Thottbot. I had people from time to time, whisper me “Are you Aurthree from the forum?” … “I just want to thank you, you helped out my hunter so much…” I can’t even explain how amazing that felt,… knowing, not only were my posts being read, but people were appreciative of what I had to say… Incredible! Eventually WoWhead took over Thottbot, and GS one of the main moderators started a horde guild… “Thottbot Legends”! A number of us, who only knew each other from our posts in the forum got together on Nordrassil, started toons and leveled together… it was a deeply enriching experience, that is just part of who I am now! =)

Thank you to all those that visit this memorial and please feel free to post a comment.

Welcome to the Hall of Heroes Aurthree