Server:Illidan US

Server Information
Illidan, along with a few other notables (Arthas, Archimonde, Stormreaver, and Sargeras), belonged to a batch of "Original Servers," meaning it was one of the few servers that were available the same day that World of Warcraft went live on November 23, 2004.

Many of its guilds are very accomplished. Most succeeded in roaring through Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, Ahn Qiraj, and Naxxramas before the expansion, and many cleared Hyjal and Black Temple in the Burning Crusade. More recent achievements include the defeat of The Lich King Heroic, the final boss of the Icecrown Citadel and end bad guy for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Some of the more notable guilds that exist today are Blood Legion, Raiding Rainbows, Excessive Gaming, and Angry on Horde as well as Warpath on Alliance.

The term "Illidown" originated from the horrendous amount of lag the server experienced early in its life during the busiest times of the day, which often resulted in a server crash. The queues during peak playing hours were also abominable, often reaching 500+ or even the 4-digit range; this occurred both immediately after release and later in the server's lifetime. Blizzard decided to open up transfers to specific servers to try and alleviate the high population problem (Stonemaul was one of the first server transfers ever offered, then Ursin more recently). Though this did help with the queue times, Illidan still frequently experienced high queue times during peak evening hours. Many of the smaller guilds evacuated due to the server lag and Illidan's high population. With the advent of paid server transfers, along with a year-overdue hardware upgrade, many of the lag problems have gone away making Illidan a better server.

Illidan is also the breeding ground for some of the most famous as well as the most notorious players. Most are quite noted to have very big egos, the greatest players, forum trolls, and the most famous players you've seen in Warcraft movies. Illidrama - An Alternate to the Official World of Warcraft realm forum.

Famous Events
As with all servers, Illidan had several momentous occasions that will forever be part of it.

The Blacklist (No longer being used.) - A list of Alliance individuals and guilds that DIE members and applicants were not permitted to interact with. The three major Alliance guilds on the list were Saga, Serenity Now, and Warpath. Some individuals on the list included the legendary ROAMER Silcroat. Through accusations of 'x-teaming', exploits, or general attitude towards a DIE member, these guilds and individuals were placed on the list. The origin of The Blacklist is in question, but many agree that during a Kazzak incident, DIE would create it to punish those deemed as instrumental in that controversy. Many Illidan players would agree that The Blacklist hurt DIE more than any of the guilds or individuals on it. The three guilds would work together, while DIE would continue its Blacklist policy. Another side-effect was that many DIE members were not able to hit the cap without grouping with Blacklisted individuals. The Blacklist slowly faded from use and by the departure of Grayrage and Lisa, was as useless as Gudran's PvP skills.

The Gong Affair - When the AQ Gate event was introduced by Blizzard, many of the 'top' guilds banded together to work towards it. Blood Legion, Team Ice, Angry, and others on the Horde side lead the way with a lottery system. Individuals who contributed to the AQ gate would receive chances at certain items. Before the patch, a few individuals in the end-game Horde guilds, and some on Alliance, were working towards the necessary reputation required to be the person who would 'ring the gong' to start the whole gate opening sequence. Two notables, Piccalo and Zxtreme of Team Ice and Blood Legion respectively, were both gathering rep required for this. Soon many Horde guilds threw in their support behind Zxtreme of Blood Legion and would assist him, in getting the necessary reputation and such, to get the AQ gate open. Piccalo would also be working hard to get the rep, as he had tirelessly been at it for a while. As more and more time was put into getting the gate open, some hostilities sprung up on both sides. Accusations were made, including that of cross-faction teaming to hinder the progress of the other group. Regardless, cooler heads prevailed and it was agreed that on a certain day and time (February 20, 2006 at 6PM EST to be exact), Zxtreme would 'ring' the AQ gong to begin the event. Though details are hazy to this day, Rombus, guild leader of Team Ice has maintained that,

"''I'll post what I posted (or tried to) on the official boards here...

''I am sorry to the Horde and the Alliance that missed out of this event, I myself was one of them. As far as I knew we were waiting until 6pm EST for the gong to be rung and our plans for AQ reflected this on our forums. I've spoken to Piccalo and from what he tells me both Horde and Alliance members were pushing him to ring it (including members of BL) early due to the "problems" made during the farming process. He decided to ring it.

''I can't say I'm thrilled at the moment, nor can I say that I can control everyone's actions and what they decide to do. As guild leader it is my duty to claim responsibility for my member's actions though, and I shall do just that. I am very sorry to all involved that feel as if they were robbed, and like I said - I am one of those people.

''Oh and no, this was not pre-meditated in any way, shape or form. I am just as surprised as everyone else.''"

Whatever the reason or motives, tensions seemed to almost blow into full-blown hostility between several Horde guilds and Team Ice. Over time though, these were mended and relations between the Horde guilds improved, however Bver of Blood Legion still holds a grudge against Team Ice to this day. He currently keeps a blacklist against Team Ice, deeming that any other horde guild he allies with or helps out, such as Murder Inc, must not allow any of their members ever join Team Ice.

The Funeral Bombing

One of the Horde guilds faced a devastating blow. An officer from this guild passed away in real life and, out of respect, the Horde posted on the Illidan forums that they would be holding an in game funeral for her at her favorite spot in the game, the hot springs of Winterspring.

Being on the Illidan realm forums, Alliance also had access to view the thread. A guild called Serenity Now secretly organized a funeral crashing, to be video taped and shown across the world. Led by Azshira, all of Serenity Now stormed through the Timbermaw Cave into Winterspring, and fought with approximately 100 Horde who had showed up for the funeral service.

The Dalaran Fountain

Blood Legionsucceeded in killing Arthas (The Lich King), world first in 10 man normal difficulty, and changed the way the fountain looked in Dalaran. Tirion now rests on top of the fountain.

Guild Rankings Tier 11 25

 * 1. Blood Legion
 * 2. Excessive Gaming
 * 3. Raiding Rainbows
 * 4. Angry
 * 5. Mind Games
 * 6. Warpath
 * 7. Carnage
 * 8. Crystal Forever
 * 9. R E D
 * 10. Tang Dynasty

Updated: April 15, 2011

Alliance

 * Argent (website)
 * Clan Imbrium (website)
 * Critical Error (website)
 * Defiant (website)
 * Derelict (website)
 * Desolation (website)
 * DIE (website, disbanded)
 * Evolution (website)
 * Explicit (website)
 * G O D S
 * Hateforge [(http://www.hateforge.com])
 * Letum Turmalis (website)
 * Midnight Raiders (website)
 * Mujahideen
 * Nocturnal (website)
 * PoBD (website)
 * Resurrection (website)
 * Saga (website, transferred to Haomarush in January '09)
 * Serenity Now (website)
 * Shards of Existence (website, transferred to Drak'Tharon in January '09)
 * The Alliance Brotherhood (website)
 * The Guardians (website)
 * USBP (website)
 * vVv (website)
 * Warpath (website)
 * We Have Jobs (website)

Horde

 * Angry (website)
 * Age of Aggression (website)
 * Backrage (website, transferred to The Forgotten Coast in December 2008, then to Bleeding Hollow in July 2010)
 * Black Cell (website)
 * Black Sky (website, disbanded October 2006)
 * Blood Legion (website)
 * BOB (website)
 * Celerity (disbanded late summer '06)
 * Darkside (disbanded unknown when)
 * Excessive Gaming (website)
 * Encore (website)
 * Fallen Faith (disbanded unknown when)
 * Forbidden Sin (disbanded unknown when)
 * Good Riddance (website)
 * Gurbrage (disbanded at end of TBC)
 * Hazardous
 * HG Razor Ramon Fuu Club (website)
 * Honor
 * Hysteria (disbanded)
 * Law (disbanded)
 * Mischievous Fury (disbanded)
 * OCG (disbanded)
 * Paranoia (website)
 * Perdition (website)
 * Primus Interpares (disbanded)
 * Purple Penguins (website, disbanded Aug. '08)
 * Rampage (website)
 * Silent Redemption (disbanded)
 * Team Ice ([http://www.teamice.org website)
 * The Black Company (website, disbanded)
 * The Unemployed (website, disbanded)
 * The Vindicators (website, disbanded, returned on release of WOTLK)
 * Torment (website, disbanded late summer '07, returned on release of WOTLK)
 * Unison (website)
 * Unknown Level Raid Boss (website, disbanded)