On Analytics

Posted on April 9, 2010 by

At recently put his web guru hat on for me and made a few changes around here. Two of my favorites are having Intense Debate for the comments and having the Google Analytics tracking code properly installed.

How many other people out there have Analytics and are endlessly captivated by the map overlay feature? I am always fighting the urge to say things like, “So, whoever is swinging by from the London area, can I come visit you some time? That would be awesome.”

I also get a kick out of seeing more and more of that world map shaded in green. If only someone from Russia would show up! Talk about getting a lot (visitors from Canada also do a lot to fill things out) of landmass covered all at once!

Lastly, I wonder about visitors that come from both my home state and my current place of residence. Is it nice in Utah right now? Do I know everyone who has shown up from Springfield?

Ah, Analytics. So many answers. So many more questions.

Note of possible interest: I had intended to react to mage Cata changes today but mages get no love – or at least no NA primetime. I am a sad and purposeless panda.

Posted in Senseless Blah Blah | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Roundup and more re-writes

Posted on April 8, 2010 by

Some stuff that me laugh recently

Bug Comic is usually very funny, but this one really got me, which is why I share it despite it having nothing to do with World of Warcraft! Read them all if you have a few minutes. The archives aren’t extensive.

A video a co-worker sent me a while back. I had forgotten it, but Mrs. Bennet talking about being leet was a reminder.

I’m sure no one has missed it, but in case you have, get over to Righteous Orbs and read about Gerald, the articulate kobald. This is brilliant stuff, people!

The pictures here are hilarious! Corporate Raider, forsooth!

Other things

First, welcome back to the artist formerly known as Cranky Healer. I am so glad to see you back! Get over there and join your voice to the Murloc Parliament if you haven’t already! Mrgrllgrlll!

Pride and Prejudice and World of Warcraft is too much of a mouthful. It needs a name as I will be re-writing pretty much the whole thing assuming it continues to be funny. Otherwise I might hop around a bit and just hit the key scenes, such as the proposal scene and seeing Pemberly. Any and all ideas for characters are welcome (ie: Lady Catherine shall be a hunTARD, I think, with Mr Collins being her beloved pet). Is Mr Wickham a rogue or a DK? You tell me.

Back to the main point, tell me what this should be called. At has submitted ePride and Peenrejudice, which made me giggle. Does anyone have anything better?

Lastly, because I was so positively overwhelmed with the response I got from all of you, my mind was stuck in the P&P + WoW rut and so I present you all with a gift of the next two chapters. Enjoy!

Chapter 2

Mr. Bennet was among the earliest of those who sent a tell to Mr. Bingley. He had always intended to speak to him, though to the last always assuring his wife that he should not; and till the evening after the conversation was had she had no knowledge of it. It was then disclosed in the following manner. Observing his favorite dps employed in gemming and enchanting a helm, he suddenly addressed her with:

“I hope Mr. Bingley will like it, Lizzy.”

“We are not in a way to know what Mr. Bingley likes,” said her mother resentfully, “since we are not to raid with him.”

“But you forget,” said Elizabeth, “that we shall meet him at the 25-man raids, and that Mrs. Long promised to introduce him.”

“I do not believe Mrs. Long will do any such thing. She has two 10 man raids of her own. She is a selfish, hypocritical woman, and I have no opinion of her.”

“No more have I,” said Mr. Bennet; “and I am glad to find that you do not depend on her serving you.”

Mrs. Bennet deigned not to make any reply, but, unable to contain herself, began scolding one of the dps.

“Don’t keep spamming guild chat so, Kitty, for Heaven’s sake! Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.”

“Kitty has no discretion in her spam,” said her father; “she times it ill.”

“I dun no wut u mean,” replied Kitty fretfully. “When is ur next raid, Lizzy?”

“To-morrow fortnight.”

“Aye, so it is,” cried her mother, “and Mrs. Long does not come back till the day before; so it will be impossible for her to introduce him, for she will not have raided with him herself.”

“Then, my dear, you may have the advantage of your friend, and introduce Mr. Bingley to her.”

“Impossible, Mr. Bennet, impossible, when I have not raided with him myself; how can you be so teasing?”

“I honour your circumspection. A fortnight’s acquaintance is certainly very little. One cannot know what a man really is by the end of a fortnight. But if we do not venture somebody else will; and after all, Mrs. Long and her dps must stand their chance; and, therefore, as she will think it an act of kindness, if you decline the office, I will take it on myself.”

The guildies stared blankly at the words of their GM. Mrs. Bennet said only, “Nonsense, nonsense!”

“What can be the meaning of that emphatic exclamation?” cried he. “Do you consider the forms of introduction, and the stress that is laid on them, as nonsense? I cannot quite agree with you there. What say you, Mary? For you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know, and read great books and make extracts.”

Mary would have wished to say something sensible, but was AFK.

“While Mary is adjusting her ideas,” he continued, “let us return to Mr. Bingley.”

“I am sick of Mr. Bingley,” cried his wife.

“I am sorry to hear that; but why did not you tell me that before? If I had known as much this morning I certainly would not have sent him a tell. It is very unlucky; but as I have actually invited him to our raids, we cannot escape the acquaintance now.”

The astonishment of the guild was just what he wished; that of Mrs. Bennet perhaps surpassing the rest; though, when the first tumult of joy was over, she began to declare that it was what she had expected all the while.

“How good it was of you, my dear Mr. Bennet! But I knew I should persuade you at last. I was sure you loved your guild too well to neglect such an acquaintance. Well, how pleased I am! and it is such a good joke, too, that you should have talked to him this morning and never said a word about it till now.”

“Now, Kitty, you may spam guild chat as much as you choose,” said Mr. Bennet; and, after he spoke, he logged off the server, fatigued with the raptures of his wife.

“What an excellent GM you have!” said she, when he had logged off the Vent server also. “I do not know how you will ever make him amends for his kindness; or me, either, for that matter. At our time of life it is not so pleasant, I can tell you, to be making new acquaintances every day; but for your sakes, we would do anything. Lydia, though you are the lowest geared, I dare say Mr. Bingley will want you to heal him at the next raid.”

“Oh!” said Lydia stoutly, “I am not afraid; for though I am the least geared, I play the most OP class.”

The rest of the evening was spent in conjecturing how soon he would send Mr. Bennet a tell and determining what instance they should ask him to tank.

Chapter 3

Not all that Mrs. Bennet, however, with the assistance the rest of the guild, could ask on the subject, was sufficient to draw from the GM any satisfactory description of Mr. Bingley. They attacked him in various ways—with barefaced questions, ingenious suppositions, and distant surmises; but he eluded the skill of them all, and they were at last obliged to accept the second-hand intelligence of someone from their friends list, Lady Lucas. Her report was highly favourable. Sir William had been delighted with him. He was quite young, wonderfully geared, extremely agreeable, and, to crown the whole, he meant to be at the next raid with a large party. Nothing could be more delightful! To be fond of raiding was a certain step towards apping to a raiding guild; and very lively hopes of Mr. Bingley’s GearScore were entertained.

“If I can but see one of my guildies happily raiding with Mr. Bingley full time,” said Mrs. Bennet to her husband, “and all the others equally able to get raid invites, I shall have nothing to wish for.”

In a few days Mr. Bingley sent Mr. Bennet a tell and chatted about ten minutes with him while idling in Dalaran. He had entertained hopes of being asked to tank a random heroic for Mr. Bennet’s guildies, of whose ability he had heard much; but he spoke only to the GM. The guildies were somewhat more fortunate, for they had the advantage of ascertaining from inspections on the armory that he wore a tier 10 breastplate and rode an epic mount.

An invitation to instance was soon afterwards dispatched; and already had Mrs. Bennet planned the instances that were to do credit to her guildies and their abilities, when an answer arrived which deferred it all. Mr. Bingley was obliged to be offline for Real Life stuff, and, consequently, unable to accept the honour of their invitation, etc. Mrs. Bennet was quite disconcerted. She could not imagine what business he could have in RL so soon after his arrival on the server; and she began to fear that he might be always flying about from one place to another, and never settled down to raid as he ought to be. Lady Lucas quieted her fears a little by starting the idea of his being gone for Real Life only to get a large party of his RL friends to server transfer; and a report soon followed that Mr. Bingley was to bring twelve dps and seven healers with him to the raid. The guildies grieved over such a number of dps, but were comforted the day before the ball by hearing, that instead of twelve he brought only six with him from Uther —and they were mostly family who had no skills to speak of. And when the party entered the raid it consisted of only five altogether—Mr. Bingley, three dps and another tank.

Mr. Bingley was well geared and able to type out full thoughts with proper grammar; he had a pleasant Night Elf character, and easy, unaffected manners. His dps were all clothies, with an air of decided fashion. The tank, Mr. Darcy, soon drew the attention of the raid by his fine, tall Draenei Paladin’s handsome features, noble mien, and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having a GearScore of ten thousand. The off tank pronounced him to be completely overpowered, the dps and healers declared he was much better geared than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud; to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large GearScore could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable reputation, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.

Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal people in the raid; he was lively and unreserved, marked every pull, was angry that the instance was defeated so early, and talked of taking a raid into ICC. Such amiable qualities must speak for themselves. What a contrast between him and his friend! Mr. Darcy tanked without marking, declined being sociable in Vent or in chat, and spent the rest of the evening in sullenly chain pulling whole rooms, speaking occasionally to one of his own party. His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable tank on the server, and everybody hoped that he would never raid with them again. Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike of his general behaviour was sharpened into particular resentment by his having slighted one of her dps.

Elizabeth had been obliged, by the plethora of dps needing this or that drop from a certain boss, to cycle out for two boss fights; and during part of that time, Mr. Darcy had been having a conversation with Mr. Bingley, who took a brief AFK to press his friend to tank the next boss.

“Come, Darcy,” said he, “I must have you raid. I hate to see you standing about by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better raid.”

“I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it, unless I am facing challenging content. At such a raid as this it would be insupportable. We’ve downed this content too many times before for it to pose any challenge, except that this dps is incapable of pulling any decent numbers and the healers are just barely managing to keep anyone alive.”

“I would not be so fastidious as you are,” cried Mr. Bingley, “for a kingdom! Upon my honour, I never raided with as many pleasant people in my life! And the healers are doing a fine job.”

“You have the only decent healer in the raid,” said Mr. Darcy, looking at Jane.

“Oh! She is the best healer I ever beheld! But there is one of her guildies sitting out for this fight, who is very able, and I dare say very agreeable.”

“Which do you mean?” and at Bingley’s direction was soon inspecting Elizabeth, till seeing that she also had him selected, he clicked away  and coldly said: “She is tolerable, but not geared enough to raid with me; I am in no humour at present to give consequence to dps who are cycled out of a raid so frequently. You had better return to the raid and enjoy it if you can, for you are wasting your time with me.”

Mr. Bingley followed his advice. Mr. Darcy AFK’ed; and Elizabeth remained with no very cordial feelings toward him. She told the story, however, with great spirit among the guild; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous.

The evening altogether passed off pleasantly to the whole guild. Mrs. Bennet had seen her best healer much admired by the new party. Mr. Bingley had complimented her twice, and she had been distinguished by his clothies posting her Recount numbers. Jane was as much gratified by this as Mrs. Bennet could be, though in a quieter way. Elizabeth felt Jane’s pleasure. Mary had heard herself mentioned to some of the new transfers as the most accomplished hybrid in the guild; and Catherine and Lydia had been fortunate enough never to get cycled out of the raid, which was all that they had yet learnt to care for at a raid. They were, therefore, in good spirits in guild chat. Mr. Bennet logged on soon after the raid had ended and on the present occasion he had a good deal of curiosity as to the events of an evening which had raised such splendid expectations. He had rather hoped that his wife’s views on the stranger would be disappointed; but he soon found out that he had a different story to hear.

“Oh! my dear Mr. Bennet,” as soon as he was in Vent, “we have had a most delightful evening, a most excellent raid. I wish you had been there. Jane was so admired, nothing could be like it. Everybody said how well she healed; and Mr. Bingley thought her quite leet, and complimented her twice! Only think of that, my dear; he actually complimented her twice! and she was the only creature in the raid that he complimented a second time. First of all, he said something nice about Charlotte. I was so vexed to see him stand up for her! But, however, he did not admire her much at all; indeed, nobody can, you know; and he seemed quite struck with Jane as she was healing the raid. So he inquired what spec she was, and asked her to heal him for the next two fights. Then he asked Miss King, before asking Maria Lucas, and then it was Jane again, and on Saph—”

“If he had had any compassion for me,” cried her husband impatiently, “he would not have asked for different healers half so much! For God’s sake, say no more of his healers. O that he had been disconnected on the first boss!”

“Oh! my dear, I am quite delighted with him. He is so excessively well geared! And his friends are charming dps. I never in my life saw anything more elegant than their t10 robes. I dare say the gems upon Mrs. Hurst’s robe—”

Here she was interrupted again. Mr. Bennet protested against any description of finery. She was therefore obliged to seek another branch of the subject, and related, with much bitterness of spirit and some exaggeration, the shocking rudeness of Mr. Darcy.

“But I can assure you,” she added, “that Lizzy does not lose much by not suiting his fancy; for he is a most disagreeable, horrid tank, not at all worth pleasing. So high and so conceited that there was no enduring him! He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very great! Not good enough to raid with! I wish you had been there, my dear, to have given him one of your set-downs. I quite detest the man.”

Posted in Pride and Prejudice, Writing | Tagged , , , , , | 16 Comments

Pride and Prejudice and World of Warcraft

Posted on April 7, 2010 by

Oh Lord. I’m pretty sure I should be taken out back and shot for this, although I am also relatively certain that it’s nowhere near as bad as that wretched zombies book.

Some disclaimers:

  1. I’m sorry
  2. I respect Jane Austen and her genius. Always have, always will
  3. At encouraged me in this harebrained idea
  4. Said harebrained idea was concocted while under the influence of Benadryl
  5. I am really so very, very sorry
  6. You don’t want to read further
  7. No, really. Stop right here
  8. I’m sorry

Chapter One

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single tank in possession of a good GearScore, must be in want of a raid team.

However little known the feelings or views of such a tank may be on his first entering a server, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding guilds, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their raiding teams.

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that our server was selected for free incoming transfers?”

Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.

“But it is,” returned she; “for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.”

Mr. Bennet made no answer.

“Do you not want to know which servers were offered the transfers?” cried his wife impatiently.

“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”

This was invitation enough.

“Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Uther was one of the servers offered the transfer and a good tank of large GearScore rating may be interested in transferring; that he rolled an alt on Monday to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he and some of his friends are to make the transfer by the end of next week.”

“What is his name?”

“Bingley.”

“Does he come with or without a healer?”

“Oh! Without a healer, my dear, to be sure! A single tank of large GearScore; four or five thousand. What a fine thing for our healers and dps!”

“How so? How can it affect them?”

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” replied his wife, “how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his tanking for one of them.”

“Is that his design in transferring here?”

“Design! Nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he may app to our guild, and therefore you must send him a tell as soon as he comes.”

“I see no occasion for that. You and the dps may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as well geared as any of them, Mr. Bingley may like you the best of the party.”

“My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have had my share of leet pwnage, but I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has helped to gear five other players, she ought to give over thinking of her own leetness.”

“In such cases, a woman has not often much leetness to think of.”

“But, my dear, you must indeed send a tell to Mr. Bingley when he comes into the server.”

“It is more than I engage for, I assure you.”

“But consider your guildies. Only think what an establishment it would be for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to talk to him, merely on that account, for in general, you know, they think they are too uber. Indeed you must talk to him, for it will be impossible for us to send him tells if you do not.”

“You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will be very glad to hear from you; and I will send an in-game mail to assure him of my hearty consent to his tanking for whichever he chooses of the guild; though I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy.”

“I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the others; and I am sure she is not half so leet as Jane, nor half so good-humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving her the preference.”

“They have none of them much to recommend them,” replied he; “they are all silly and ignorant like other casuals; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than the rest.”

“Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own guildies in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor nerves.”

“You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these last twenty years at least.”

“Ah, you do not know what I suffer.”

“But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young tanks of four thousand GearScore points come into the server.”

“It will be no use to us, if twenty such should come, since you will not send them tells.”

“Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty, I will send tells to them all.”

Posted in Acts of Lameness, Pride and Prejudice, Senseless Blah Blah, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 39 Comments

10,000 words or more

Posted on April 6, 2010 by

10,000 words with blessedly little chatter from me (note, they’re best viewed by clicking to embiggen – they look a bit squashed otherwise):

I even love saying the word team!

Which is your favorite and why? I’m torn between the otherworldly beauty of ‘Serenity’ and the this-worldly beauty of ‘Boundless.’ (Perhaps not those formations, but I have a fondness for red rock country.) Better yet, which would you re-caption and to what? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Posted in Screenshots | Tagged , | 13 Comments

Be.mused

Posted on April 5, 2010 by

As pretty much anyone who blogs about WoW or reads other blogs that are about WoW likely knows, Windsoar over at JadedAlt kindly offered to take on the role of muse as a celebration of 6 months of blogging. So, grats and many thanks to Windsoar. Here was my muse:

/cast Muse
We know you’re an angry raid leader at heart: list your top pet peeves when walking into a raid.

I love that this is when walking into a raid. I really had to stop and think about that, since I tend to end up ranting here more about stuff that goes on mid-raid, when tempers might be shorter and the men might be manlier and the women might be womanlier or we might be more tired and thus making silly mistakes.

So my top pet peeves when walking into a raid are thus:

Needing to get the children settled.

I feel that if someone is going to be raiding at all, never mind end game content, they ought to have some notion of what is expected of a raider come raid time. As raid leader, I don’t think I should have to say things like “Get in there and start buffing,” or, “Get in Vent if you’re not.” Yet I end up having to say these things about every week.

More than that, with a smaller group like ours, we tend to have the same people do the same things every week and I rather expect that it should be second nature for, say, At to set up pally power before someone else is asking whether he has or not. By the same token, I don’t get why any other pally couldn’t do it. We’re all used to working together, surely even the paladin that doesn’t usually set it up, could?

Along with the buffing frenzy (or lack thereof as the case may be), we often get a few people a bit overeager with their fish feasts. It makes me cringe to see two or three go down at a time. I’ve done it, too, and I want to kick myself (or the other person, because clearly, it’s all their fault!) every time.

Ready? Set? Oh, false start!

It’s always someone in either the healing or tanking group that does this. I think it’s because they know that, between their roles, they control the pace of the group. I can fire off as many ready checks as I want and have everyone come back as ready but then someone in one of these two groups will usually say, “Oh, wait, I have to _____.” By the time they usually share this information, however, the pull has already been made and so we’re starting our raid off with a bang. And sometimes some cursing.

The babbler

This sort of thing sort of gets my back up no matter where we are in the instance, but prepping to pull and trying to briefly talk over basic strategy (we use CC on some of the trash in ICC, true story) does not need to be overlaid with lols and descriptions of food one is eating and how cute the kid/animal/spouse was just now. By all means, tell me…. after we’re engaged with the mob(s) and they seem to be under control.

Finding my wine glass empty

This is the worst. It means that I’m already so stressed at the prospect of leading the night’s foray that I’ve gone and polished off an entire glass of wine without even noticing. Fortunately, I can always dispatch At to fetch me another. Hi, my name is Alas, and I’m a functioning raid leader.

The call to mark tanks

I get that tanks need to be marked so it’s easier for healers to find them and heal them. I also get that tanks need to have the ability to mark targets. What no one else seems to get is that I don’t have time to do it between the summoning stone and the instance door. I mean, really, I just got everyone invited, sent out another invite to that one guy who almost never gets the first one, helped to summon about 7/10ths of the raid in, including summoning that At guy something like three times because he’s always dicking around in the bank with something or other, and then on my way in the door, it’s invariably: “Mark tanks please!” I know. I know. Give me a minute.

But the absolute worst thing

I hate it when someone doesn’t show up. Or they show up late and you had seriously just replaced them and there’s a flurry of conversations in tells and in officer chat and in the raid with the one person who just got in offering to step out for the person who was late and the late person apologizing or giving excuses and everyone looking to me for a decision. I hate that more than anything.  I hate being the cold-eyed bitch who has to enforce the rules with my, “Well, sorry man, but you were late.” (I’m as forceful as a drifting snowflake) And then to go into the loot lists and suicide the person who didn’t show up. I just had to do that last week and it was a lot harder than one would think. I’m seriously something like 95% bark and not much interest in actually biting. I’ll do it, but oh God, I do not like the taste it leaves in my mouth. (/Perpetuate the stereotype that gamers don’t bathe regularly)

Those are my pet peeves. What are yours, whether you’re a raid leader or not?

Thanks again to Windsoar for being my muse!  

Posted in Raiding, rant | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

In defense of online relationships

Posted on April 2, 2010 by

So, the other week I was actually feeling bold enough to blather a bit in Twitter and ended up falling into casual conversation with someone I know only from the WoW blogging community. I mentioned something about wanting to get home and raid and he came back with, “Really? You raid on Friday nights?”

With only 140 characters, there’s not a lot of room to get into the whole thing about time zones and Canadians and so I simply said that we raided Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The response was a question about my social life and whether I had one. He sounded sympathetic to my supposed plight, so I joked back that I didn’t know what a social life was and then admitted that mine is small – but that’s how I like it. Besides, I added, my guild members are my friends and family.

That is and has been more literally true than it sounds.

The conversation ended with the guy saying something to the effect of “To each their own.”

I take no offense at this, but it did strike me as an odd thing to say. I suppose I should be more in touch with the notion that not everyone out there has been with one guild and only one guild for, like, the whole of their WoW-playing lives (and mine started in Vanilla, so I have some years invested in my guild) – but I am still surprised by people who guild hop, apparently at random.

My guild history, let me bore you with it yet again

Chapter One: I am born

At and I were invited to play WoW by a friend – Azzah of the missing totems, in fact, back before he was Azzah. At was more than willing to be a convert, but I, remembering playing Warcraft II and III back in the day, and not being a huge fan of RTS-type games, resisted mightily. In a senseless turn of events (because I am, as you might know, a rather senseless sort of person), I ended up getting sucked back into Warcraft II… and then III. And I suppose I had never made it to the end or played the bit at the end where you run around doing quests for Thrall and whatnot. But I loved that.

“I love this,” said I, to At. “No cities to worry about defending. No silly building buildings and repairing them and micromanaging everything!”

“Uh, you know that WoW is like that, right?”

I did not. In addition to being senseless, I also prefer to remain ignorant.

Anyhow, that was enough for me to try it. In short order we had our 10 day trials and, as soon as we had bought into the game, were plunging headlong into a style of play that involved rolling as many character as possible and trying them all out. Somewhere in the early days, the citizens of Uther were offered a free server transfer to Azuremyst. Shortly after arriving there, bags in hand to despoil a whole new server economy, we were invited to a guild that Azzah had managed to get invited to as a raider. That guild was WWAB.

How I got sold on WWAB

I distinctly remember where I was when an emergency guild meeting was called following the gquit of the prior guild leader a few days before. At and I were hanging out in Felwood, staying near the quest givers to be relatively free from distractions as the fate of the guild was discussed. None of the existing officers were keen on staying. All the people who were on during every spare moment were laboring under the impression that WWAB was a social/casual guild. The officers wanted to raid. Why they didn’t boot us and build a proper raiding guild, I still have no idea – but I am grateful. At and some punk kid ended up being co-GM’s and nearly everyone who had been in the guild from the old days back on their old server (Kil’Rogg) left to… go… form.. a new raiding guild?

Suddenly, I was an officer and one with opinions. Not to mention the co-GM’s ear and then, as the other co-GM realized that he was too uber to be casual or social and wanted to raid, the GM’s ear. We caught the raiding bug eventually, spent way too much time running Kara and periodically had huge amounts of drama that pared off those who were less committed to the guild. There were more than a few times I thought we ought to throw in the towel and join a raiding guild that actually had more than 12 70′s, but we stuck with it and through multiple trials by fire, made it through BC and into Wrath where we were baptized in brimstone once again.

I say all that to illustrate, in as few words as possible without it sounding trite as hell, that we have spent a lot of time and effort and even passion on this guild. I’ve gotten angry over it, cried over it and rejoiced over it. The people that have stuck with us over the years are more precious to me than I can properly express. We’ve been through a lot of time and shit together and have, through that, established some real bonds. WoW might be “just a game” but my guild mates are not “just guild mates” to me. They are people I love and care about.

Once upon a time, I met a boy online

Back in 1998, I met a boy online. We were in a chat room. I was looking for an argument. He was looking for a friend. I said a bunch of stuff and he sent me a message saying that he had never agreed with anyone as much as he agreed with me. We chatted a bit and exchanged emails. I promptly tossed his into a heap and lost it for several months. He never emailed me back either, so I suppose he wasn’t all that into the fact that we shared so many of the same viewpoints.

A few months later, looking to blow off some more steam, I went looking for another argument. It was a little more challenging that second time and I ended up wondering what that boy would think of it. I scrambled around, found what I thought was his email address and sent off my query. He replied, thoughtfully, and once again, our opinions lined up. We soon emailed fairly regularly and then moved to exchanging long distance phone calls. A lot of teenage angst and parental concern later, I decided I was in love with this boy. We never once exchanged pictures.

The first time I met him, my mother and I flew a thousand miles for a visit. This was still before 9/11, so we met at the gate, having no idea what the other looked like. Unplanned between us, each of us carried a white rose. We spent most of the ensuing visit being far too shy to look at each other, but when I did peek, I wished fervently that he didn’t have a mustache. That disappeared a few days into my visit and I reckoned that I had been rather lucky after all, to find someone online who I loved for who he was and then found that he was attractive from a physical standpoint. We held hands a few times. It was amazing.

I married him a few years later, when at least one of us was old enough to buy alcohol.

Why do I tell that story? I hope it’s obvious, but in case it’s not… I met my husband online. I fostered a relationship with him online. I grew to love him online. We carried out our romance online, for a very large part of it. It’s not groundbreaking to hear a story like that these days either (although it was more rare over a decade ago), so why is there still the perception that online relationships are still somehow less meaningful than those formed in the flesh?

The point I am getting at

For my part, I believe there is a collective need to throw away the old perception that relationships have to be in “real life” for them to be valuable or real. My own stories (yes, plural) prove that well enough for my satisfaction. I have now met several people from my guild who I knew before only by their screen names. We’ve had such fantastic times meeting up and hardly any awkwardness because, after all, we know these people and they know us. We don’t log on to our characters and suddenly start acting or talking like anyone other than who we are. We’ve shared our real lives over the course of time and can talk as fluently about how someone’s dad is doing as we can about strats for the next raid night that we want to try.

So, do I have a social life with raiding on Fridays and Saturdays? Yes, yes I do. And let me tell you, the people I raid with are the hell of a lot more interesting to me than the ones I happen to be geographically close to. I mean, really, engineers? /shudder

Posted in Real Life | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Thanks for all the fish!

Posted on April 1, 2010 by

Well, I never thought that a mere few months after starting to write anything again it would get to the point where I am so discouraged by it that I’m just throwing it all away.

I’m perhaps not cut out for it. I might need the solitude of novel writing and, honestly, that should be my main focus anyhow.

There’s a lot influencing this decision, not the least of which is that I’m just tired… of WoW… of being a gamer. I’ll likely be turning the reins of WWAB over to someone else here in the next few days. The biggest obstacle is not knowing who.

Anyhow, it’s been a fun – if short – ride and I’ve really enjoyed meeting the people I met along the way. I might poke around as I have the time, but for now, adieu.

Love,

Alas

Posted in Real Life, Teh Dramas | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

The ICC Pity Buff

Posted on March 31, 2010 by

With the ICC pity buff having been increased from 5% up to 10%, chatter about it has started up on the guild forums again. Is it a good thing? It is a bad thing? Why or why not? My own guild mates have opined everything from “It feels like cheating” to “Eh, I’m not wild about it but I’ll take it” to “Yes, please!”

I like the pity buff and here’s why

Back in BC, when we decided to raid and be a casual raiding guild and were sick unto death of Kara but hadn’t nearly the numbers to see any other content because it was all 25-mans until ZA came out, we were way the hell behind the raiding curve. It wasn’t until really late in the expansion that we had a solid alliance going and were able to see TK: The Eye, SSC, Hyjal and bits of Black Temple. Post-nerf late. Forget Sunwell. We farmed trash in there twice.

So I stood up and cheered when Blizz announced that Wrath would have both 10 and 25-man versions of all the raids. That alone has salvaged so much of this expansion for us as a guild since our raiding alliance fell apart and huge amounts of drama split the guild (we had grown to a point where we could field our own 25′s for a few glorious months there).

In fact, we’ve been a small guild for the past year and our focus has been only on 10-man raiding. If Blizzard was still following their model from the prior flavors of raiding play, I don’t know that our guild would exist as anything other than an alt repository. And that would frankly be tragic because I want to be able to play with the people I like and play the game how I want to play and see the content I want to see with those very same people that I like.

It seems fair to me, then, that my guild as a casual raiding guild (and our core does take raiding seriously) should be able to see content at some point in the expansion despite the fact that we’ve chosen to raid with people we like, rather than raid with people we probably hate but who are skilled players with giant egos.

No one in my guild had any sort of problem with seeing BT post-nerf, so it makes very little sense to me that this buff is being viewed in a different light. As I recently read over at Righteous Orbs, a nerf is not a nerf when it’s a buff – but the outcome is precisely the same.

So to me, no, the pity buff doesn’t feel like cheating. Will it be ridiculous when it’s ramped all the way up to 35% and we’re facerolling the content that even our casual selves managed to have on farm status prior to the buff coming out? Yes. But it would probably be ridiculous anyway as our gear and knowledge of the fights improves. That’s how the game works. Something starts out being really difficult and then it gradually becomes easier and a few months later, as you’re breezing through for the 50th time, you marvel that it ever seemed hard in the first place.

I approve of the way Blizzard is making end game content more accessible to even the casuals. It’s not as though all content is necessarily so easy that our server’s top guilds are downing it Ensidia-style (and I think it’s really unfair to look at a guild like Ensidia and make the argument that all raid content is too easy, because how many guilds are there like that in the world?). It’s not as if it’s so easy that a relatively laid back guild such as ourselves has each new wing on farm by the time the next one comes out. And we’re getting a gradual buff, which isn’t that much different than us all gradually acquiring better gear except that it applies to all of us and gives us a shot at getting past the challenges sometime well before the next expansion comes out, not like last time where we saw bits and pieces about a month prior to Wrath.

I’m sure there are those out there who are going to feel some degree of anger that Blizz is, like, totally catering to the casuals, man. Well, why shouldn’t they? I think it’s great that they took a look at the end game experience in BC and said, “Wow, only 4% of the player base got to see this content. We need to make it more accessible for the 96% in the next expansion and come up with other ways to challenge that 4%.” That’s just smart business. Discounting those who have no interest in raiding because I have no idea what the numbers there are, 96% of the player base now doesn’t have to feel that they must sacrifice everything that makes the game enjoyable to them personally in order to get the full experience of seeing end game content.

I’m 100% okay with that.

Posted in Raiding | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Alas reviews "Stormrage"

Posted on March 30, 2010 by

I’m not sure why I like to keep to hurting myself this way, but I keep reading the official WoW books o’ lore. I think it’s because At keeps buying them. Some of them are certainly better than others, although each author who has written a part of it has their defining  quirks that make me want to stab out my eyes with hot forks. This is usually due to an inability to come up with alternate descriptions of their main characters. Rhonin, for example, is always described as a “fiery-tressed mage.” Something about that image – likely the word “tressed” – makes me think of nothing so much as a rather effeminate man who likely has a lisp and a limp wrist. Perhaps also a pimp hat.

Arthas also fell prey to this in the book about him. What color are his eyes, you say? Sea-green? Oh, yes, here we have it repeated a billion times, they’re not just green. They’re sea-green. Also, his hair is blonde and by golly, he loves his pony. I mean, the whole book is him treating Jaina like a prop and his moping about over his damned pony. How we get from that to him becoming the Lich King, I have no idea. I might have glazed over for a while.

I very likely went numb many times while trying to slog my way through Stormrage as well. (Please follow that link, look at the cover art and tell me that you understand why I originally thought it was about Illidan. I’ll wait. Why is Malfurion scowling so fiercely?) Mr. Knaak thinks he is so abominably clever a writer and I don’t know care to look up who they had editing for him, but his editor also seems to be laboring under this belief. The whole thing, cover to cover, is far less about the characters that live inside the pages and far more about the author writing in completely unnecessary bits that have nothing to do with the story line but are meant to make the reader stop and go “Woah, I didn’t see that coming.”

Except that the average reader can and will see ‘that’ coming. Every. Damn. Time.

I should note here that there are some spoilers ahead for anyone who might want to read the book despite this rather unimpressed review.

Ahem, so there are quite a few characters in this book, all of whom are running about doing their own things and bumping into each other randomly and without much of a sense of direction. There are a fair number of druids, as the book centers around the Emerald Dream, or, as it’s becoming (*queue suspenseful music*)  – The Emerald Nightmare. Malfurion Stormrage is trapped inside the Dream (or, as Mr. Knaak insists on referring to it, the Dream / Nightmare. Because, you know, we need that constant reminder. That it was a Dream and it was glorious and beautiful, la la la, but now it’s a Nightmare, which is like the bad version but still technically the same place) by some Nightmare Lord who is going to take over the world by ensnaring all living beings into his nightmare and uh, tormenting them for eternity, I suppose. It seems a short-sighted evil plan, although an effective one. People need to sleep, so it stands to reason that you’ll eventually get ‘em all.

So naturally Tyrande gets exceedingly concerned for dear, sweet Malfurion and trots off to Moonglade to see his body – making sure to take a gathering of druids with her. Hey, they just happened to be there, okay? Sorrow and snappishness ensue and she sends for Shandris Feathermoon to go on a mission for her. Only, of course Tyrande is not going to leave the welfare of her beloved up to her general who is theoretically going to be a far better fighter than any priestess could ever be. That would be ridiculous. So she puts Shandris in charge of Darnassus and sets off with a druid who, by the way, is defying Arch Druid Fandral Staghelm in not showing up to the Heal the World Tree Party the druids are having. The druid, Broll, also makes off with the Idol of Remulos after stealing it from the Arch Druid’s quarters.

They set off and run into a crazed human, by name of Lucan Foxblood, who claims to be a cartographer. They fall in together at complete random and then, oh teh noes, there is a black dragon overhead! Flee! Wait! There’s a cave! I bet it went in there! We should go look! It was at this point that I nearly chucked the book across the room because if they were about to make Deathwing the central point of yet another lore book after he had been defeated something like a dozen times already, I was going to quit. If there is any story-telling device I hate more than jumping around randomly through time and perspective, it’s the unkillable bad guy.

It turned out not to be Deathwing, so I kept reading. It was, instead, Eranikus, a corrupted green dragon and former mate to Ysera, She of the Dreaming. They all fall to talking and in several pages of pointless conversation with a lot of roaring and theatrics from Eranikus, we discover that Lucan was born in the Emerald Dream and for some reason that still makes not a lot of damn sense to me, Ysera had Eranikus give some portion of himself to Lucan. It was probably so Lucan could walk in and out of the Dream at will, because that’s pretty much what he spends the whole rest of the book doing. In fact, he wanders away while the other three are engaged in further pointless conversation and ends up in the clutches of an orc, Thura, who is on a mission to get into the Dream and kill Malfurion’s dream self.

Naturally, he does what the orc and her axe want and takes her into the dream.

That accounts for about the first quarter of the book.

This is where I stop with the blow-by-blow account of the book because it’s right about there that the whole thing completely disintegrated into a chaotic jumble of events which are only passingly tied to each other by virtue of them having the same characters in them. We see Stormwind and King Wrynn helplessly staring down some sort of misty army that is comprised of his dead wife and sleeping son. We see Malfurion, trapped and tortured in the Nightmare, working out his plans to escape. We see a brief shot of the Undercity where even the undead have succumbed to dreams, never mind that they don’t sleep. Most of all, we see Broll and Lucan and Thura and Tyrande all darting willy-nilly in and out of the Dream with or without Eranikus and Eranikus being mightily pissed off whenever they happen to all run into each other.

The best and kindest way to describe the behavior of all the characters from this point on is as bumbling. They randomly and arbitrarily come up with things to do to try to fix something or save someone and everything only becomes worse and worse. Meanwhile, Lucan is walking people in and out of the Dream like some sort of mentally deficient mage giving free ports to all comers. Oh, we’re in trouble here, wot, wot? I daresay, we should pop on over to Stormwind and see what’s going on there. Tally ho!

I… I don’t know why he just took that voice on. I think it’s because his last name is Foxblood, which reminds me of fox hunts, which in my tiny American mind is equivalent to ridiculous and likely offensive British caricatures. I’m terribly sorry.

It might also be because I’ve been spending a lot of time over at Tam’s place. You know, virtually.

Then, of course, Broll the druid, comes up with some plan to save the whole day and arranges all the different pieces of the puzzle to work in some sort of concert to further his clever plan. His plan, which is so clever he dares not speak of it aloud to anyone. So just trust me! Trust me!

Somewhere towards the end of the mishmash, it transpires that the Nightmare is related to the sickness that is spreading in Teldrassil and that Staghelm’s efforts to cleanse the tree aren’t really efforts to cleanse it at all. Well, no shit. Is that why Broll the Good Druid had a bad feeling about what they were doing way back in the first chapters? In a another non-surprising turn of events, it turns out that Staghelm is being influenced by a little demon on his shoulder that he thinks is his son. Who, you know, is dead. Has been for some time.

Never trust a dead person to tell you what to do. That’s the moral I took away from the whole book.

Fisticuffs break out with more regularity and eventually all is restored to peace and subliminal happiness and Tyrande and Malfurion get hitched. It’s special because Dragon Aspects show up and bless the union and Teldrassil. *nods emphatically*

Yes, the ending really was that underwhelming.

Oh, and all the times that Knaak thought he was being terribly clever? Those were all the dream sequences that he threw in there. One or two of these are horrible all on their own, but with a whole book that is about the Emerald Dream, he couldn’t stop himself from throwing in like 50 of them. Forget what I said earlier about jumping through time and villains that won’t die, the absolute worst plot device is a gratuitous dream sequence. I want to punch myself in the face whenever I catch myself doing it. As it turns out, when I see someone else doing it, I tend to want to punch them in the face also. Repeatedly.

Mr. Knaak better hope that he and I never meet. I might not be able to hold myself back.

Posted in rant, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

On men, women, words and emotions

Posted on March 29, 2010 by

Noxy and I are often perplexed by the other when we have conversations carried out over Google chat during the long and dull workdays. We usually talk about something that happened in WoW the night before and it’ll go something like:

Alas: I can’t believe we had three people show up 5 minutes after raid start time and ask what was going on.

Noxy: it happens

Alas: I mean, c’mon, can’t any of these people look at the raid calendar or the guild tab? Not that effing hard. /anger! /rage!

Noxy: Here is a pic of a lolcat to cheer you up

Alas: Hah!

Noxy: Izzat better?

Alas: Yeah, but I’m still going to murder the next idiot who asks a retarded question.

Half an hour later:

Noxy: So, uh, I hope this isn’t a retarded question, but are we going to try using that new addon in tomorrow night’s raid?
*ducks from fireball*

Alas: lol! What are you even talking about?

And so it goes from there. The point is, he usually thinks that while I am making idle death threats and complaining about stupid questions that I am really and truly on a killing tangent. We’ve also had more than one misfire where I will say something about being “irritated” and he will take that to mean “Alas is frothing at the mouth and will just as soon stab me as look at me.”

To that end, here are two helpful charts (I was going have them be mapped out for men vs. women, but I know a number of freakishly even-keeled women and a number of freakishly turbulent men, so it didn’t really work. Still, feel free to apply them to whichever dramatic or non-dramatic persons you might constantly be misunderstanding.):

This post has been brought to you by a lack of sleep and a general inability to pay attention to anything for more than a minute at a time.

Posted in Acts of Lameness, Senseless Blah Blah | Tagged , | 2 Comments