Well, I don't normally post in this forum. I am a pet collector!
But minipets and mounts are something I've been working on recently; got my fawn and was sitting at 75 mounts last I checked. But there's one I've always wanted, not to collect, but to HAVE--a black drake! I'm not a raid leader type, my guild is not a raiding guild per se, and I have terribly bad luck with rolls. I've lost the roll on the black drake many times. 
But I love the whole story of the black dragonflight, I'd love one for a pet if I could have one but a mount would ofc be amazing. And the fact that the upcoming expansion has so much to do with the blacks... It made me sad that the patch was coming tomorrow, I have no idea how much longer they will be available... In short, a black drake was my dream mount.
My guildmate kept urging me to make a guild run, but most of my guildies have been away recently--burned out by WoW I guess. Not to mention the fact that I really wouldn't feel right asking them all to come along and not give them a chance for the mount... I finally mentioned in /g chat that I was considering running this and paying people to join--and a couple people said they could lend a hand. I figured it resets tonight anyway, so it was a quick way for people to make gold--I didn't have to feel bad about reserving something, which I'm normally iffy about.
So off I went into /2, with an ad along the lines of "LF DPS, Tank + Healer for OS3D 10, Drake -reserved,- paying 250g per person." After sorting out the clueless people ("that's Malygos right?")--or so I thought--I managed to make what looked like a half-decent raid.
Fast forward 6 wipes later. "Why can't we just kill all the drakes?" "WHY are we clearing the trash?!" "Oops, I buffed as you reset him." "Oh, you wanted Bloodlust?" (after myriad /rw BLOODLUST PLEASE), "Lol, these fire tornadoes throw me!" (this last one midfight...) and various people afk'ing, dc'ing... It was unbelievably stressful. Most of the people were good sports about it, though. In the end, I doubt the gold I paid out covered the repair bills of some, and I offered more, although it wasn't taken. AND of course there was one "WHAT'S UP WITH THE NINJA" question, despite having reiterated 3-4 times via /raid, /rw etc that the drake was reserved and gold would be paid out...
/shudder.
But in the end, my solid guildmates, their friends and these few randoms managed. I was out some gold and a lot of composure, but up one drake!
I hope I NEVER have to do this again.
