Le sigh

Posted on December 14, 2009 by
No sooner do I get done enumerating some of the good qualities of my guildies and then I have to be the bad guy. In truth, I might have acted a bit precipitously, but I think the end result was going to be the same and so perhaps I have only saved myself some headache down the road. Not much point in speculating, I suppose, as there will never be a way to know.
Without going into specifics, I ended up stripping someone of their raider rank. So far as I know, they have not logged on since. The conversation we’ll have whenever that does happen is one of those talks I mentioned that I do not like having.
Ugh.
On the heels of that, I was minding my own business, fiddling with the calendar and I noticed that there was suddenly a person missing from every scheduled raid. I combed through the calendar and then the guild roster and then poked at the officers to double check and make sure I hadn’t missed something.
And, sure enough, another one of my snowflakes was just… gone. There were no /gquits in the log (which has suddenly filled with “Alas has demoted” messages, most of them playful demotions because an officer was making fun of me) and so I went to Armory and…. nothing.
All we can do is speculate on what happened. Did she delete her character? Change names and servers? Was she hacked? All her alts were demoted for safety’s sake and it gave me one more thing to sigh about, because she was a healer, even if not the most reliable person in the world.
Between those two aforementioned things and the fact that one of my husband/wife healing teams may not be able to afford their subscription fees until he can find work, we are looking very, very slim. I don’t particularly want to pug and I hate recruiting and most of the healers we have currently are… not raiding. Or playing.
I am trying not to stress over it too much and might need to just gracefully accept that raiding is going to be spotty at best as we head into the holiday season. Once I make it to the new year, I’ll be sure to reevaluate where we seem to stand and then do whatever needs to be done. Even if that means clubbing my real life friends over their heads come New Years and tell them that I have resolved that they get back to the game and their mains and not flake out on me within three weeks like they’ve done the last few times. Or, you know, recruiting.
Posted in Leadership | Tagged , , | Comments Off

A step away from QQ

Posted on December 12, 2009 by
Looking over my past several posts, I am realizing that I’ve spent quite a bit of time talking about problems and hardships that come along with the whole leadership thing, whether that’s on the guild front or the raid front.
Part of the reason is that I do tend to put my problems out there “on paper” to keep them from taking up too much of my mental processes. A purge, if you will, of emotions and thoughts so that they don’t become my main focus. I love this game and my guild mates too much to want a repeat of last August, which is when I took a break from WoW for a month, cold turkey, and in the midst of quite the emo hissy fit – one that had been building for months and me with no outlet for it as the pressure increased.

So, yes, this is a place for me to blow off steam and that’s valuable and good.

But it should also be a place for me to catalog all the good and wonderful and fantastic times I have nearly every day with this group of people who has become a second family to me. Sure, there’s the occasional bratty cousin that needs to have his nose punched in, but by and large, these are great people and I wouldn’t trade most of them for all the shiny gold and titles and achievement points in the game. Here are some reasons they are so great:

They’re generous. With their time, with their assistance, with their listening ears and sympathy. I’ve even seen many of them be generous with their gold.

They’re funny. I seriously need to get better at capturing screenshots of some of the hilarious crap they come up with in chat. And perhaps start recording them in Vent?

They’re genuine. There’s really not a whole lot of tip-toeing around the bush with these people. If they think I am acting like a snob, they’ll ask me what I’ve got stuck up my butt. I’ve returned the favor a few times. There’s no pretense in their concern that our relationship is intact and they’ve been honest when I’ve approached them over similar issues.

They’re smart. Really smart. Many of them work in IT or IT-related fields. Since I fell into the same area by some stupid fluke (I honestly don’t know much about computers and their mysterious inner workings), they have patiently put up with my “Hey, stupid question…” pokes in the middle of our workdays. I have also learned a lot about managing people and being more effective in my communication from folks who do those things for a living.

They care. We’ve talked about everything from bad dates to family issues to jobs we hate and people who have insulted us. These conversations will often get referenced back to at some point or another, proving that they remember and they care enough to ask how a specific situation is going.

They make sure we all stay humble. Honestly, I sometimes think they have done more to keep my massive ego in check than what is really needful. There is a daily exchange of good-natured jabs and pokes that we can all laugh about. I’ll go out of my way to share ‘nub moments’ with them just because it’s so much more fun to laugh at myself with someone else.

They are patient. Duuuude, are they patient. They let me talk, lead raids, boss people around, fail tank, fail heal, and occasionally fail dps (I like to think I don’t normally fail at dps, but I’m sure I’ve had my moments). They wade through the mountains of crap I post to the forums and several of them even wade through this and comment here and in gchat and in game. I fail and flail a lot – more so when I’ve had a bit to drink, which may or may not happen often – and they put up with it all and even, sometimes, tell me I’m doing a good job.

Those are just a few reasons I love them. I might have to do this again after another string of “But leadering is haaaaaard work! Why doesn’t anyone get that?” self-indulgent crap. Because I’m pretty sure that they do get it and will continue to be awesome about it.

Posted in Leadership | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

In which I show my gooey center

Posted on December 11, 2009 by
I really dislike confrontation.
Oh, I’ll rage at other people on the road all day long (I have to, living here) and will occasionally get so worked up that I might shoot someone the bird and/or honk at them and gesture as wildly as though I, like At, were three parts Italian. I’ll also keep up a running commentary out of Vent while raiding. So far, I don’t think I’ve tripped up and hit that PTT key while doing so (unlike certain other people). We haven’t yet begun to scratch the surface of the scathing venting I might pour out here, depending on whether or not I get pushed into it.
But when it comes to putting on my Co-GM hat and actually having to sit down with someone to discuss issues? Oh, I loath it. I will put it off as long as I possibly can, all the while knowing that it probably won’t be so bad and I should just do it. Usually, I am correct, and it’s not that bad.
I do end up with a bad taste in my mouth though, nearly every time. Because when it comes to that sit down, I aim for firm but not mean and end up waffling right on over to soft. I am so eager to not be a jerk that I will often say my piece half-apologetically. And honestly, why? The person I am talking to screwed up and should be able to take a correction. If they can’t and get huffy about it – well, why should I want that person in my guild to begin with?
This is all stuff I know and understand from a logical standpoint but the follow-through is decidedly lacking. I am sure I will have plenty of opportunities to practice delivering my piece without coming across as forcefully as a snowflake though.
And in the meantime, dear guildies who read this: If I ever have to sit down and talk to you and I end up sounding like I am sorry for calling you on your shit, please know that somewhere even deeper inside my gooey center, I really mean to shape the fuck up or go DIAF. And if you don’t, I will kick you out of my guild and tell every GM of every guild you subsequently join that you are a douche bag who cannot be trusted to follow even the simplest of instructions and they will rue the day they ever picked you up, etc. etc.
Okay, maybe not that exactly, but I really do want everyone to shape the fuck up. Or go die in a fire made up of my burning rage.
Posted in Leadership | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Open letter to rule breakers

Posted on December 9, 2009 by
Maybe it’s me. I am pretty anal. But, seriously, guys, c’mon… is it that hard?
You know what I’m talking about. I mean, I’m going to have to work my way around ranks and spend another how many minutes of my life pissing around with moving people up and down and why? Because you’re either too damn stupid to have comprehended the raiding rules (rules that YOU signed and agreed to) that said, “only sign up on your main and we’ll bring alts in if we need them,” or you are so stupid you already forgot about that or, and most likely in my opinion as far as a few of you go, you think that if you sign up on your alt and decline on your main I’ll just somehow forget that I wrote those damn rules and have those rules in place for a reason and won’t enforce them.
Well, you’re wrong. And I’m pissed off because I can’t help but see this as pure selfishness on your part. Oh, your one character already got all the loot you can get off this fight? So what? I’m supposed to agree that it’s fair for nine other people to have to carry you? Or rearrange what other people can bring based off your different role you think you can just assume? I’m supposed to pat you on the head and give you gear at the expense of someone else’s main just because you think, in your mind, that you can have two mains? Or three? Or four?
I don’t think so. I really do not.
So now you don’t even get the option. Enjoy that.
Posted in Leadership, Raiding | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Patch 3.3

Posted on December 8, 2009 by

So, here are some highlights and lowlights -

Icecrown Citadel
All three wings of the 5-player dungeon are currently available for testing.
Select encounters in the 10- and 25-player raid dungeon are available for limited testing.
Quel’Delar Quest Chain: The Battered Hilt, the item needed to start this quest line, can now be purchased from all glyph vendors on the public test realms.

Well, yay. I’m so tired of all the old dungeons and I am not even a hardcore badge farmer by any stretch of any imagination. Also, since we made it through ToC at least the one time, that means we’re totally ready for Icecrown, right? RIGHT?

Meeting Stones: To use any Meeting Stone, it is only required that the character’s minimum level be 15. There is no maximum character level requirement for any Meeting Stone.

IT’S ABOUT TIME.

Area-of-Effect Damage Caps: We’ve redesigned the way area damage is capped when hitting many targets. Instead of a hard cap on total damage done, the game now caps the total damage done at a value equal to the damage the spell would do if it hit 10 targets. In other words, if a spell does 1000 damage to each target, it would hit up to 10 targets for 1000 each, but with more than 10 targets, each target would take 1000 damage divided by the number of targets. 20 targets would be hit for 500 damage each in that example.

NOES. How will I artificially inflate my dps now? Dammit.

Players no longer need to kill the final bosses in all four wings of this dungeon in order to teleport to Sapphiron. Teleportation orbs have been added to allow players access back and forth from Sapphiron’s lair.

Oh, like it was that hard. Geeze. I’m a casual and this is too damn easy for my liking.

Arcane changes for Mages
Arcane Empowerment: This talent now also grants 1/2/3% increased damage done by the mage’s party or raid for 10 seconds after the mage gets a critical strike with Arcane Explosion, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage, or Arcane Blast. This effect is exclusive with Ferocious Inspiration and Sanctified Retribution.

….wtf? This is what I get? I get to help the rest of the raid do damage? Do you think that’s going to encourage anyone to give me all the pretty +crit loots? Because it is not. So there is no profit for arcane mages in 3.3. Eff you, Blizz. When are you going to give mages something they can sink their teeth into?

Tentative status added for calendar responses.

Well, glory-glory, hallelujah! That wasn’t so hard now, was it? When did I suggest that? Oh right, forever ago.

Ignore list expanded to 50 to match the friends list.

Oh, Blizz – that’s adorable! Seriously, make it more like 500 people to ignore. There are so many idiots and I really don’t have any patience for them. At all. Ever.

The following reputations have been sped up by roughly 30%:
Argent Crusade
Alliance Vanguard
Horde Expedition
Kirin Tor
Knights of the Ebon Blade
Sons of Hodir
Wyrmrest Accord
Sons of Hodir quests now give more reputation overall.

…I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. FUCK YOU TOO.

Top-level helm and shoulder faction-related enchants are now available as Bind-on-Account items that do not require any faction to use once purchased (they still require the appropriate faction level to purchase).

Never mind. All is forgiven. Are we cool?

I am not even going to touch on the changes to the heroics and looking for raids and all of that. It has been discussed unto death and my only thought about it currently is that it’s going to make for some terribad server stability tonight.

Posted in Mage Related, Patch Notes, Raiding | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Pwned a noob!

Posted on December 6, 2009 by
We just one-shot Anub’Arak and it was most of the guild’s first time seeing him. It took a little more to work through the faction champions (three tries) and the twins (like, 6 or 7 tries?). I walked away with two upgrades and then went a bit nuts spending badges. So, that’s four things to get enchanted and gemmed tomorrow. For now, I am tired and euphoric and hoping I can get some sleep.
Grats to everyone who was there!
Posted in Raiding | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

How to properly gkick someone

Posted on December 4, 2009 by
I got to gkick a douche bag last night, always a fun event. In all actuality, I’m sort of grateful to the guy because it coincided so nicely with the fact that I wanted to talk about gkicking and how to properly do so.
Here’s the lead-up to the events of last night. Everyone is hanging about, minding their own business. There’s talk about 3.3 and what people plan on doing as soon as it hits and, honestly, I’m not paying too much attention to guild chat because I somehow got suckered into helping out some priest in Nagrand with all their group quests when all I was trying to do was get exalted with the Kurenai. (See prior post re: Whoring, Me)

But then this one guy leaps into the conversation, which is odd in and of itself since he never really says anything to anyone, and hasn’t for something like a year. He’s been one of those people you wonder why is even in the guild because he gains nothing and contributes nothing, but since he also harms nothing you don’t boot him. So to have him suddenly asking whether the next patch was when we were going to get goblins and worgen was… odd, but just brushed it off as him being stupid.

Then real stupid happened. He started to talk about how his account had been ‘haked’ and he was naked. Several people who had also been hacked before started to give him advice on what to do. His response?

“u all need to give me ur ore so I can make stuff 2nite.”

No one hesitated to jump all over that and tell him no. Then someone in officer chat said that he had taken stuff from the guild bank – random crap that no warrior would ever want. I demoted him and sent him a tell, basically telling him that his attitude was not going to fly and he better shape up if he ever wanted to have privileges in the guild again.

“sry” he said.

A few moments later, he sent me another tell, “it wouldn’t make me made if you kicked me frm the guild”

I typed out, “It wouldn’t make me sad to kick you, either.” Then deleted it. No need to be a jerk.

Then one of the other officers had a good idea. It took a few tries but he finally snagged this guy’s meandering attention and asked him which character was his main.

“This is,” he said.

Which was not true. So, figuring he had been hacked or sold, and not liking his attitude and theft, no matter if it was petty, I kicked him. (names fuzzed because no one in the guild has really given me overt permission to write about them, ha)

(Clicky to embiggen, but the gist of it is there.)
No one exactly cried to see him go.

And for me, I had to contain myself just a little because gkicking is such a fun and heady experience. In fact, it was so fun I had to ask if there was anyone else on who wanted to say something stupid. Everyone jumped at that chance and bam, we were off on politics and Climategate.

How many other people employ the SPARTA method for kicking?

And how many weeks will I have guildies logging in and instantly demanding everyone give them all “ur ore”? Since we still have one officer spamming “anyone wanna run SM” about three months after THAT beggar annoyed the piss outta us, I have the feeling it could be a while.

Posted in Acts of Lameness, Leadership | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

He crapped his thong, I'm pretty sure

Posted on December 2, 2009 by
My husband and I have been dabbling with “the dark side” in recent months. It came from a desire of wanting to see how the other side lives, I guess. Having been Alliance for the whole of our WoW careers, the lure of easier-than-anything transportation coupled with the knowledge that leveling horde side can be like playing a whole new game, we started a handful of alts on another server.
One of the pairs we’ve started is a Shaman/Druid team. I’m the Shaman, he’s the Druid. After ever so slowly trying to make it through what I affectionately refer to as the “shitty levels between 15 and 20,” (not to be confused with the “shitty levels between 50-58″) we took a break from them for the day, out of rested XP and out of patience (at least on my side) with the crummy dps and the utter laughingstock that Druid “tanking” is at that level.
Faced with a another hour or so of play time before we would have to call it for the night, I asked At what he would like to do. He suggested either our Horde side Death Knights, who are currently slogging their way through Hellfire, or our Alliance side Death Knight and Shaman combo. I am also the Shaman in that combo. Not being much of a fan of playing the Death Knight class, I opted for playing the Shaman.
We’re both around level 75 on that pair and running around Grizzly Hills, despite my opinion that it has some of the most painful of any Northrend quests. Of course, a lot of that has been mitigated by having the ability to fly so I’m trying not to whine too much. While out questing, we ended up slaughtering the hell out of some furbolgs (don’t get twitchy on me now, Noxy) and in my warped mind (I may have compared LotR to a pug raid once) that ended up translating into something like this:
Random Furlbog: It’s a lovely day for a stroll, out here in the snow and the cold mountain air, while I wear nothing other than my handy loincloth/thong. Wait – what’s going on just up the hill?
At and Alas: Slaughter! Death grip! Earth shock! Die furlbogs, die! Why is this drop rate so crappy?
Random Furlbog: Oh crap. This again.
At and Alas: *Target the furlbog*
Furlbog vainly attempts to defend himself and the sanctity of his thong. Dies within seconds. Begins the corpse run back from the nearest furlbog graveyard.
Random Furlbog: Stupid Blizz, putting me in this place where I am constantly murdered although I do nothing more than go about my own business. All these stupid elites coming through all the time and tearing through me like I’m no more than a level 25 stuck out in Ashenvale! And then there’s my stupid NPC mates. They’re all here, they can all see the slaughter whenever it happens. But instead of banding together and giving us a fighting chance, they just pretend they can’t see what’s happening no more than 10 yards away from them. Unless some level 70 rolls through. Then all of a sudden they’re hiding balls under those loincloths! Then all of a sudden you can get a Shaman to throw a heal! Ah, here’s my body. No one seems to be around…
At: Death grips the furlbog through a narrow hole in the rickety fence, nearly breaking the furlbog’s neck in the process.
Random Furlbog: Aw, shit.
Posted in Acts of Lameness, Senseless Blah Blah | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Hello December

Posted on December 1, 2009 by

Well, it’s likely a good thing that I don’t have an audience to speak of, aside from (I think?) some guildies who know how much I love the comments and yet do not leave them (/eyes Noxy). Still. Bad blogger for leaving a lame ass picture post and then disappearing for a week. I know.

In my defense, it was the holiday and I did have my family over and when I wasn’t busy trying not to commit murder I was very busy trying to kill some turkeys. And shoot rogues.

Aside from holiday festivities both in and out of Azeroth, I managed to see New Moon with two dudes, both of whom went willingly. Hell, it wasn’t even my idea. Apparently, my friend forgot that the book is pretty much all about Bella hurting and moping and hurting some more and there’s not really just a whole lot in the way of action sequences. He spent most of the movie bitching about that and then we all went out to dinner and bitched about the crappy makeup jobs and whatshisname’s inability to convey any emotion other than constipated. “I love you, Bella.” [/looks constipated] “You’re not good for me.” [/looks constipated] “You’re really alive. I’m so happy.” [/looks constipated]

I so did not mean to get off on that tangent.

I meant to talk about my baby toons and what progress they’ve made. But I find that it bores me to even think about it and surely no one gives a crap that I made it to 10, 20, 33, 40 and 55, plus some headway into 75.  Surely no one cares about how my baby huntard made it through three levels before I realized that the heirloom gear was on my shaman and I was running around essentially half-naked except for the useless shirt. And I was out of rested so it was quitting time on that toon anyway.

/looks around

/realizes it’s true – no one cares

/quietly leaves

Posted in Acts of Lameness, Real Life, Senseless Blah Blah | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Lazy Wednesday

Posted on November 25, 2009 by

Yep, it’s Wednesday and the day before Thanksgiving. I stayed up a bit later than I meant to last night, competing with half the damn server for turkeys so I could level cooking on my priesty, who went from 0-320 in about half an hour. Maybe someday she’ll be able to help contribute fish feasts at raids!
Anyway, in the spirit of “I am somewhat tired and not feeling at all creative,” here are some random screen shots for your viewing pleasure.

When I die, which I am grateful to say is less often these days, I tend to take pictures of whoever is nearby, which is often the healers. I love me some splash AoE healing. What’s sad about this picture is it’s from when the exploit still existed for Mr. Unclean and I still died anyway.

I am easily amused, which is why I snapped this shot of Thorim drumming his fingertips in midair. You’re not on your chair anymore, silly! Oh, and just so you know, we will kill you soon, you big jerk.

I love cool GMs! And yes, my husband really did catch his turtle mount on his first cast. I sort of hate him. A little. Maybe more than that. Look, I’m still working through it, okay?

I have no idea what’s going on here, but it looked pretty cool.

This is me being a dork, a not uncommon event. I may have started singing “I can shoooow you the wooorld! Shiiining, shimmmmering, splendid!” My husband may or may not have rolled his eyes at me and started praying furiously that I wouldn’t launch into the “Gaston” song from Beauty and the Beast. He really hates that song.

In other news, blogger + pics stinketh greatly and I don’t really feel that this ended up being lazy in terms of fiddling with layout efforts. Still totally lazy in the coming up with words department though.

Posted in Acts of Lameness, Raiding, Screenshots, Senseless Blah Blah | Tagged , , , | Comments Off