On a roll; won’t shut up

Posted on January 26, 2012 by

I had an epiphany last night. Not the toilet kind.

I was thinking over the events of the day as I mindlessly pew pew pewed some random things into oblivion when it occurred to me. That’s not terribly relevant to the story, but I like to demonstrate that this site does still have just a little bit to do with gaming.

Anyhow, those who follow me on Twitter and who were paying attention saw that I was considering a drama post. The vague circumstances are that there are still little rumblings of leftover angst and emo from events that happened more than a year ago. It’s mildly irritating but not the end of the world – though my protective side came out with a roar on the behalf of a friend.

In the end, I decided the post wasn’t a good or mature decision and I didn’t write it. Well, I wrote it. Twice. And then deleted it. It’s a cathartic process.

“WHY CAN’T PEOPLE LET GO?” I demanded, talking to Amber about it via gchat.

Pot, meet kettle

But the truth is that letting go isn’t something I am very good at. Take last July when I wrote:

…I’ve been blogging and twittering for all the wrong reasons lately, trying to prove something to someone who left my life a while ago and who would probably laugh if he knew how much I let him win. Except the contest only exists in my head and honestly, how pathetic is that?

There’s a prime example of my inability to just let go and move on. I’ll have contests of will against imaginary opponents. And then I usually end up losing. Sigh.

But now I think I’m on the other side of it. I think a few someones have imagined a contest with me and the recent events have been evidence that they are in that dark and unhealthy place where they can’t let go and move on.

Honestly? It makes me partly sad for them, because I know what it’s like to be in that place and I know how self-destructive that behavior can be.

(The part of me that is an absolute, raging asshole is gleefully dancing around in a bizarre victory dance, thinking about tiger’s blood and #winning)

So I guess for as long as they can’t let go, then they can’t let go. The best and healthiest thing for me to do is to just ignore them and keep going where I’m going.

Oh. And the end of my own story about not being able to let go? I confronted that situation and that person. I wouldn’t categorize the current relationship as being much of a real relationship, but in that casual acquaintances sort of way, all is at peace.

What more could a person ask for?

Posted in Real Life, Teh Dramas, Thoughts and Ideas | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Two things

Posted on January 25, 2012 by

One: Look at my awesome Geek Decor!

Mirror, mirror on the wall, you were hard to make! Please don't fall.

 

And two:

Some people have been asking, even though I thought I made it abundantly clear in earlier posts. I’m going to assume you’re not hanging on my every word because… well… why would you?

Yes, I am playing SWTOR. Yes, I am enjoying it.

Yes, I am still playing WoW on a more casual basis. Yes, the Effers are fine and going strong.

And yes, I am blogging about SWTOR elsewhere. No, I’m not going to publish that information. I have my reasons. No, you will not find me by searching for “Alas SWTOR” because, well, duh. You can ask and I might tell you in secret sort of way, but I also might not. I’m practicing being capricious.

That is all.

Posted in Acts of Lameness, Eff the Ineffable, Real Life | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off

Alas, former GM

Posted on January 23, 2012 by

As I may have mentioned one or two million times before, I’m no longer the GM of Eff the Ineffable. Last Friday was the first time I spent any real amount of time in the game when other people in the guild were online and I had a few concerns going into it.

I haven’t been just a member in an MMO since about 4.5 years ago, so in many ways, I have no idea how to go about it. I recall being a wide-eyed noob in my first guild, feeling as though I had been spoken to by a minor deity when an officer chatted with me and offered At and me a run-through of ZF. Since then, I’ve learned that being in leadership can be just a title or it can be indicative of a person genuinely wanting to do something to make their guild a better place.

I also learned what I thought were really good traits to have in guild members and which annoyed me. So when I log in now, I log in wanting to be a valuable member, but also knowing that I’ve made a shift to not giving anywhere near the time my most valuable members gave me when I was a GM.

With that in mind, I fished up a storm a few days prior to the raids I had signed up for. I wanted to have two full stacks of feasts. I also ran a heroic, intending to wake up my muscle memory. I gave my gear a good, long look and fiddled with a few things to see if there was any room for improvement. And I studied up on the boss fights, even giving a cursory overview to the two I’d already killed before.

When raid time came around, I got my own damn self out to the instance and logged into Vent, where I sat quietly, waiting for the group to form. I sent a tell to the RL, offering to drop the fish feasts and cauldrons for the night.

A few minutes later, I was introduced to the new people in the raid. Some of them weren’t in the guild at all, but were a small group of people that the Effers have an alliance with, and it was about then that it sunk in just how bizarre the whole experience was to me. It may have also been when I started drinking. You can’t prove anything.

I more than willingly passed on leadership of the guild to someone that I believe will do a great job with it. She has been nothing but proactive and has given really clear communication. I then made a decision not to log in and not to raid and not to be a part of things for a month. Not in so many words, but no one forced me to take such a big step away. I wanted to. I don’t regret it.

But that doesn’t change that it was really fucking weird to be introduced to all these new people as “Alas, the former GM.”

I am the former GM, that’s indisputable. But dammit, it feels like my whole identity in WoW is summed up and dismissed in those few words. For the record, I don’t believe for a second that it was intended as a dismissive thing. It’s an accurate explanation. But it was also unnecessary. Why can’t I just be Alas? Or, if I require more description, Alas, arcane mage, slightly behind the curve on gearing?

But it was Alas, former GM.

And I’m not sure I can stay in a guild where I’m Alas, former GM.

It’s not an ego thing. I’m actually more shocked than anything that I had any sort of visceral reaction to those words.

The bigger piece of it is the more difficult one to to try to write about, because I think it will sound critical of people I don’t actually intend to criticize. The best way I can think to put it is that I am trying to be a model peon to people who aren’t anything like me and who very likely don’t have the same view of what a model peon even is. There’s just too much of a disconnect there for me to feel comfortable trying to be something that won’t be appreciated or understood.

Again, I’m not trying to pick on anyone here. It’s just a personality and preferences sort of difference, and I don’t know if I could be happy trying to be a valuable member to people who value different things than those which are the most important ones to me.

Obviously, I am working off of limited data here and I have no plans to just make a hasty decision to up and quit. It’s just that even though I went into Friday with some slight reservations, I didn’t expect a lot of the strain that was there to be there. And in true Alas fashion, I’ve thought about it all weekend and am now attempting a mind dump to see if it makes any more sense to me when I’ve written it all out.

So that leaves me with two questions for you guys:

1. Have you stepped down as a GM/Officer and been able to stay happily in your former guild?

2. Should I invest in a notebook so all my self-discovery sort of rambling isn’t inflicted on you?

Posted in Eff the Ineffable, Leadership, Raiding | Tagged , , , | 31 Comments

You gotta leave to come back

Posted on January 17, 2012 by

I logged into WoW today. It’s not the first time I’ve been logged in since before the new year, but it’s the first time I’ve stayed logged in for longer than the time it took to deal with calendar invites and check my mail.

There seemed to be some sort of cosmic conspiracy to remind me of many of the reasons I have loved WoW as much as I have.

There were presents in my mailbox, some of them of a decidedly fishy bent:

Waitasec... I didn't sign up for this!

 

They do seem to know what they're talking about...

 

At MY table it would sit there forever. Fish are gross.

 

I guess it put me in the mood, though. Because I strapped my fishing pole to my back and headed out into the wider world to gather up some materials for fish feasts. Because when dealing with calendar invites today, I actually accepted some and am hoping to make my first raid in just over a month some time this weekend.

Since another of my mailbox presents was a new pony, I just had to ride it around while I fished up everything a mage needs to become 90 points smarter.

It was all very soothing. I know this isn’t groundbreaking news or probably even terribly interesting. But I was in WoW, I was enjoying all the little things and I am actually excited about raiding. And, strangely, a little afraid.

I’ve only been out of the game for a month and while I can sit at a practice dummy and do just fine, I found myself unable to remember things that should be second nature after five years. Not anything pertaining to play-style, really, but I had a devil of a time trying to recall which buttons were hot keyed to which UI panes.

On the other hand, I didn’t have to think at all about which button to hit to cast my line when I started fishing, so maybe it’ll all come back in the moment when I need it.

Still, I am going to find a few hours some night this week to run a few heroics and knock some of the rust off. It’s shocking to see how much accumulated in so short a time. While I am at it, I suppose I had better read up on boss fights again. After all, they’re out there killing things I haven’t ever seen.

It’s so bizarre to be the last one to the party after years and years of making sure I was on top of things on a daily basis. If this is being a peon, I like it!

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

Resolutions and pride and Alas is still neurotic

Posted on January 12, 2012 by

I woke up earlier this morning than I usually do. My alarm was set to shrill and had been strategically placed far enough away that I had to really come close to rolling out of bed to make it shut up. It’s the New Year and I’ve made a resolution for the month of January.

See what I did there? I know myself. I know I’m going to procrastinate if I give myself a whole year to meet a goal and then by the time November rolls around, I’ll realize my goal is completely unobtainable and will sigh to myself and say maybe next year. And then I’ll fail all over again.

So when I rolled out of bed this morning, got dressed and got my ass on the treadmill, it was only a little step but I am all kinds of ridiculously proud that I did it.

My goal for January is pretty small and I’m playing a bit fast and loose with it since I made the resolution more than a few days into the month. It’s less of a “lose this many pounds this month” and more of a “get into this nearby range by the end of the month” sort of thing.

As I was on the treadmill, not bothering to try to boot up the computer for anything so I could carry my hand weights, I couldn’t help but think that every time I make a choice for a healthier me, I am fighting my personal twin demons. The demon that says I’m unattractive because I gained so much weight in the past several years, and the demon that says I had better get used to it because I’m just not disciplined enough to stick with a exercise plan and healthier diet for anything longer than a week.

No one beats on me as much as I beat on myself.

I never talked about specifics much before (because honestly, how does one even go about admitting to the world at large that they feel like they’re failing at life? And not just parts of it but ALL OF IT?), but I have been a pretty miserable person for the past few years. Even now, most days, I feel as though I am still working my way out of the pit I either fell or dug myself into.

A lot of things are better. I remember I used to get up for work and would be so worn out by the very thought of it that I wouldn’t bother to get fully dressed for it. I’d swap out pajama pants for jeans and throw a hoodie over whatever shirt I’d slept in. It seemed like more than enough effort at the time. (If anyone is wondering, yes, I’m completely freaked out that I ever thought that was okay or normal.)

And, you know, it wasn’t like I was neglecting personal hygiene or anything, but I did keep my hair very short and it was because I got out of bed feeling as though I had already given all I had for the day, simply because I was forcing myself to go to work. The idea of having to do more than shampoo my hair made me feel exhausted. Because, you know, brushing one’s hair is so demanding.

I’m no expert, but I think they call that depression.

But I put on my happy face most of the time and cut my little capers here and spent every other day feeling either as though this community was the best and most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me or as though everyone here really hated me and thought I was a big, fucking downer to have around.

And the very fact that I even did that was indicative of how effed up I’d become. I know. I don’t want to meet my own eyes sometimes.

The good news is that things are better. Over the past year (I’m looking back not because of the New Year, but because I’ve been back home in Utah for a year now), I have lost some weight. Not as much as I would have liked and apparently not enough for any of At’s family to comment on it, but I have the satisfaction of knowing I went down a size.

And I still slip up quite a lot, but I have gotten a great deal better at not giving a fuck, and allowing myself to be me without fear holding me back because someone might judge me for it.

So maybe my progress is slow. And maybe, to some people, I seem like I keep getting all hung up on the same things over and over. Well, I do. However slowly I go and however tired anyone else might get of hearing about it, at least there is forward momentum.

And I’ll be proud of myself if I want to be.

This post brought to you by my neurosis and my willingness to allow Cynwise to boss me with wise words.

Posted in Real Life | Tagged , | 6 Comments

I know you haven’t played WoW very much…

Posted on January 5, 2012 by

Hello all. I’m back. Back from meeting guildies and from meeting up with old friends. Back from a land of warmth and freaking amazing Tex Mex (duh) and being able to purchase wine from regular grocery stores again. I miss being able to do that.

I spent a lot of time around the Azzah clan and had quite a few instances of being wildly amused at some of the things the middle child, Squishy, had to say. He’s recently started playing WoW, you see, and is so damn proud of his characters and his mount collection that I can’t even stand it. And like most younger people, he’s pretty sure he knows pretty much all there is to know about the game. I had knowledge about hunter abilities and which zones are the most awesome dropped on me by someone who is less than 10 years of age and doesn’t have a single level 85 character.

Like I said, it was completely amusing. And totally adorable.

The best part was when Squishy piped up from the backseat: “Hey, Alas? Um, I know you haven’t played WoW very much-” and was interrupted right about there as At, Azzah and I all burst out laughing, but continued on once the hilarity had died down, nothing impaired: “-but I was wondering. What is your favorite part of the game?”

“I’d have to say it’s raiding,” I replied.

“Oh,” said Squishy. He thought about it for a moment and then asked. “Do you like to collect mounts?”

“Well, I have over 100 of them.”

“Oh.” And then he was off again, happily chattering away about his own achievements.

I was left with a distinct impression that Squishy doesn’t really think that I have played WoW very much, despite my telling him that I have played for five years and have 5 level 85′s (not to mention the 6 more characters I could get there without too much trouble if only I could be arsed to put myself through Cataclysm content again), have been a GM, a raid leader and am enjoying peon-ship. In fact, I think the only one of my “stats” that ended up making any sort of impression on him is that I have the Over 9,000 achievement for achievement points. I think that he believes that girls just don’t play WoW seriously.

Part of it is that Mrs. Azzah is very much not a gamer herself, so it’s really just the guys in the household that play. I hope I made a a bit of an impact on Squishy during the time we spent chatting about gaming. Because there’s no way he isn’t going to grow up gaming and I’d like to think that the next generation of gamers will accept female gamers even more than this one does.

And I sort of want to have my own mini-gamer. They’re just so enthusiastic about everything and it’s nice to see Azeroth being such a place of magic and wonder that I suspect it would eclipse even Disney Land.

Posted in Real Life, Senseless Blah Blah | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Wishing for mage portals again

Posted on December 25, 2011 by

I often wish for the sort of ease of travel that is so abundant in WoW. Today, those wishes are going to multiply many times over. I hate airports. I hate airplanes. But I do love those former guildmates of mine and I do love Mrs. Azzah. The things we’ll do for love, eh?

So I’m jaunting off to Texas and hoping that everyone else has a merry Christmas and an awesome New Year. I’ll be back home and back to my regular routine of not-posting all that frequently a few days into 2012.

In the meantime, enjoy another installment of the WoW Illiad.

WoW Iliad – Book 1, part 7

Meanwhile Odysseus reached Chryse with the bribe. Chryseis left the ship, and Odysseus led her to the altar to deliver her into the hands of her Guild Leader. “Chryses,” said he, “Guild Leader Agamemnon has sent me to bring you back your guildie, and to offer a bribe to GM-Apollo on behalf of our guild, that we may propitiate the GM, who has now brought sorrow upon our faction.”

So saying he gave the girl over to her Guild Leader, Chrises, who received her gladly, saying “Kek”, and they ranged the fish feasts all orderly round the meeting stone. Chryses lifted up his hands and prayed aloud on their behalf. “Hear me,” he cried, “O GM of the silver text, that protectest Chryse and rulest this server with thy might. Even as thou didst hear me aforetime when I prayed, and didst press hardly upon the Alliance, so hear me yet again, and stay this fearful pestilence from that faction.”

Thus did he submit a ticket, and GM-Apollo received it.   All day long the players brownnosed the GM with song, hymning him and chaunting the joyous paean, and the GM took pleasure in their sycophancy.  Then when the boat returned, they again set sail for Ratchet. GM-Apollo hastened the loading screen.   When they reached the port, they went their ways to their own dailies and other pursuits.

But Achilles nursed his anger. He went not to the server meeting, and did not sign up for raids, but gnawed at his own heart, pining for combat and the accompanying sound files.

Posted in Guest posts, Mage Related, Real Life | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off

Not dead

Posted on December 22, 2011 by

But it’s been…. I don’t even know how long since I last logged into WoW. I feel like an ass, which is maybe fitting. But having divested myself of the GM title, there’s pretty much nothing that makes me feel like I ought to log in. I occasionally get a pang to see Alas and wander around Stormwind and perhaps finish taking those screenshots I’ve been meaning to take, but then I remember Alas isn’t a human and I’ve seen Stormwind thousands of times and I have until April to get those screenshots taken.

Real Life Blah Blah

The new job is going well. I’ve been at it for a bit over a month now and despite the fact that I dislike people in general and have never cared much for the smell of coffee, I’m quite content here. Most days see me putting in about 10-15 minutes of effort for every hour I’m here, with the rest of my time being spent dicking around on my laptop. Because I have so much downtime, I finally replaced the 6-year old laptop and now have an incredibly sweet, incredibly fast and incredibly monstrous gaming laptop.

So I game between everything else, whether it’s checking the coffee levels on all five floors or setting up the nightly boozefest or reading blogs. I also write when the mood strikes, just typically not here. I am indulging in my shameful love of FanFic.

Confession

Which brings me to a confession. Not the FanFic thing. The bit where I am writing elsewhere. I’m playing SWTOR now and enjoying the change of pace and scenery. And like so many Effers before me, I have switched to a new blog for that. I’ve been trying to decide what to say about that here. And there it is, I suppose. I’m not advertising more than that, though I do know it wouldn’t take a genius to find me.

So if you care about my gaming adventures and don’t want to track me down, you can ask and I might tell you the new blog site. For adventures of the derp that is Alas IRL, you can hang out here and get all the details on just how often I start to make a pot of coffee only to realize that I didn’t put any grounds in and am brewing hot water through an empty filter. Or the number of times I forget to put the pot underneath first. My daily life, it is scintillating.

But if you were here for WoW-related nonsense, that ship has more or less sailed. And I don’t blame you one bit for leaving along with it.

 

Posted in Real Life, Senseless Blah Blah | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

5 tips for new bloggers. Sort of

Posted on December 9, 2011 by

I was talking with a friend the other day and he was bemoaning the stats to his (fairly new) website. Traffic was plummeting from what it was the first time he posted and it seemed that with every new post, it got cut in half again. Was it the content? Should he be posting more often?

Alas’ advice to new bloggers

I am far from being any sort of expert on how to drive up traffic, but in the two plus years I’ve been blogging here, I have made note of a few pretty basic things. So if you’re a new blogger and you’re agonizing over your Analytics, here are a few thoughts:

1. Stats aren’t everything. In fact, I have more or less stopped paying attention to my Analytics (search terms are the main reason I look these days and only because I like to laugh at them) because it served no real purpose and it had a tendency to drag me down and help me lose sight of why I was even blogging in the first place. I’m not saying no one should make traffic a priority, but if you’re writing for any other reason at all, I advise to try to keep that reason the main one. If Analytics is taking away from your joy, then turn it off or don’t look at it. You’ll feel a million times better.

Also, many people use feed readers. They might be out there reading and not coming to your site. If you insist on tracking these numbers for added self-torture, check out Feedburner.

2. It takes time to build a following. Unless you have already been out there interacting with your target audience in some way, no one is going to know who you are or why they should read what you have to say. The closest you’re going to get to instant fame is if you have something linking back to you from a bigger/more popular site and you have written something just completely fantastic. Even then, you’ll need to have quantity and quality to sustain interest. Most blogs are going to grow in popularity just a little bit at a time, so check those dreams of instant Internet fame at the door.

3. Pimp yourself. No one else is likely to do this for you. A key to this tactic is to do it with a degree of class. Go comment on posts by other bloggers who are reaching your target audience already and make sure to leave a good, relevant and interesting comment. If people are interested enough in what you’re saying or how you’re saying it, they’ll be more likely to click that hyperlink. Do not ever pull a stunt where you’re commenting just to say “I wrote about this the other day and it was pretty awesome. Everyone should check it out.” That’s a huge turnoff.

You should also leverage social media. Get on Twitter or Facebook. Cross-link all your Internet presences. Be open. Be friendly. Start conversations. I’m not sure how other blogging communities interact, but I can vouch for the WoW community being highly social. And a little bit frightening in their collective insanity.

4. Be responsive. This goes along with number three, but I think a lot of bloggers fail to recognize the impact that responding to comments made on their posts can have. I always appreciate when a blogger takes the time to reply to what I had to say. It feels a lot more like a conversation and like they do care that I took the time to make a reply. I don’t think there’s any set rule where you have to reply to every comment ever, but trying to make it a general practice can’t hurt.

5. I don’t actually have a number five, I just think five is a better place to end than four is. I could probably think of something, but to tell the truth, I feel a bit stupid writing this post at all. So I’m not going to stretch for something sorta related and pretend it’s a real thing that’ll help a new blogger get established. I guess I could mention Blog Azeroth. I did say hi there when I was pretty new and lurked about for a few weeks before I got distracted by something shiny and apparently never managed to look back. Everyone was nice and I think it is a great resource for WoW bloggers, if it’s something they want to get involved in.

Bloggers who actually know less obvious things a new blogger could do to feel successful in their endeavor? Chime in any time. I’m going to go blush in a corner for being such a poser and writing this post.

Posted in Acts of Lameness | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

Relief

Posted on December 8, 2011 by

After what felt like an eternity of waiting, the Effers finally had someone step up and declare themselves for taking over as GM. I’m so relieved that someone is willing and that I can feel comfortable in believing she will be capable. More than capable.

Nothing is finalized yet, but I can’t see a vote going against her. I just can’t.

Do other former or current GM’s feel like the idea of passing off the guild to someone else to lead is a bit like kicking the baby bird out of the nest? You sure hope they’ll be able to fly that thing, but until it gets to the very edge you just have no way of knowing. I wasn’t sure I could believe that anyone else would be “good enough” (whatever the fuck that even means) to take over, but when it is down to the line, I see that someone else is.

And I’m so damn relieved.

Posted in Eff the Ineffable, Leadership | Tagged , , | 2 Comments