Archive for the “ruminations” Category

A little story time. I swear it relates to the rest of this post, or at least it does in my head. Bear with me.

Back when I was in high school, I was in marching band (yes I was a band geek, feel free to mock. I was also an art geek and math geek, triply damned). Through a bizarre series of events, I ended up having to be a substitute marcher in 11th grade, and got moved around week to week, depending on who was sick. I learned the routines anew every week, half the time on the fly. As a result, I ended up being a student trainer my senior year, because of all the moving around, fast learning, and quietly doing what was my “job”: marching and not screwing up while being directed by a excellent but demanding director who actually scared the hell out of most of the university band directors in the southeast. It made me a better marcher and I got to see a side of certain sections of the band I hadn’t before, since instruments tend to clique together (at least in high school they did). Yey for pointless experience! (”Why yes, sir, if you need something marched to a jazz version of ‘My Favorite Things’ with 5 instant tempo and time changes, while keeping up with 249 other people and wearing a wool uniform in 90 degree weather, I’m yer woman!” “Um, we just need these ads made.” “Damn, there goes my big chance! /sob”)

In WoW, lately, I’ve been raiding as a guest on another guild’s raids. Why don’t I join their guild? Kinda attached to mine, and really, don’t wanna switch guilds. Right now, I’m getting my raid fix in and having fun. I have other friends that are also guest raiding with other guilds on other servers. It’s the summer slowdown/pre-expansion ennui that’s hitting so many guilds right now, so there’s spots open for more and more people on other guilds’ raids.

But there’s something that I’ve noticed, something that once again is pretty common with “casual” raiding guilds. Most of the things that I’ve muttered over with over in my “When raids go bad” post crop up again and again. But this time, it’s different. This time, it’s another guild, one that does things differently from the way you’ve done it with your guild or other groups you’ve been with. Even “better”, it’s a group of people that all know each other (whether they like each other or not), and are used to the way they all work together. And here you come, into a raid with a different setup and mindset than what you’re used to. What’s a guest to do?

Well first, actually be prepared. Being a guest is a weird situation: sometimes, you feel you almost have to be better than everyone else in the raid so you don’t have that “why the hell did we bring THEM?!” feeling (Hey, this may be my own paranoia talking, YMMV ). And while you might not have to be “better” than everyone else, you at least owe it to these strangers to show up on time, prepped, repaired, having read all the strats/watch the movies for any new bosses, with consumables ready and ammo to spare. Did I mention on time? Oh raid leaders loooove that.

Learn who the raid leaders and/or class leaders are. Ask if you need to be in a special channel, like a healer channel if you’re there to heal.

Be polite. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with who’s an alt of who, even in your own guild. When dealing with other guilds, it gets even dicier. That ‘lock you just called a “noob” could actually be the usual healing lead stepping out for some DPS action.

Keep any bitching and whining to other channels. The other guild doesn’t care that you’d waited for months for that upgrade and some “scrub” from their guild just got the Shiny Pony Idol of Uberness. Guess what? They’re there to gear their guildies. The good raids will actually consider those guests that come regularly and really assist the group in their gearing decisions, but don’t count on it. Bottom line: being a whiny loot whore doesn’t win you friends, or spots in the next raid with them.

Finger-pointing isn’t your job. It’s the raid leader/guildmaster of the other guild’s job, unless you’ve been asked to specifically do that. See: “being polite”.

Do your job. Don’t try to tell everyone else theirs. If you think something could be done another way, offer suggestions in /tells to class leads or the raid leader. That’s suggestions, not orders or demands.

Be situationally aware, awake, and ready to switch what you’re doing at a moment’s notice. You’re a hunter that’s being cruising along DPSing away while the other hunter MD’s everything, but they suddenly get disconnected? Be ready to MD in their place. The nature resist tank for Hydross has a sudden family emergency and you’re on your rogue instead of your awesome tank? Be ready to switch characters. In short, be ready for anything that might happen.

So be polite, friendly, prepared, on time, read up on new bosses, and ready to turn on a dime mentally. Sounds like a lot, but it’s really not.

But what about the other guild? Don’t they have any responsibilities to you? Me, I’d say yes, but keep in mind this is just me talking, after listening to friends vent at me on their experiences.

1. Don’t air your guild’s dirty laundry in raid chat or on Vent. Nothing like having your guests feel uncomfortable and not want to come back, or even better, warn others from guesting with you.

2. State the loot policies up front and follow them. If you make any changes on the fly, explain why.

3. If a guest offers, politely, a suggestion on a situation that the raid is having trouble with, either listen politely or ask them (again, politely) to post it on any website/message board you may have or discuss it after raid. It may be worthless advice, but it might also be something you can use to help everyone get more phat lewtz at a faster pace.

4. Treat the guests as you’d like to be treated if you were guesting with their guild. I’m not saying suck up to them. Just treat them with some respect, especially after they’ve been with you on a couple of runs and prove themselves to have a braincell or two. If they’re not up to where you think they should be, then fine, tell them you don’t think they’re a good fit for your raids, but don’t be a jackass about it. Word does get out when you’re an asshole and it can taint an entire guild’s reputation.

It’s amazing how much all of this boils down to politeness. No, you don’t have to be sitting around a table, drinking tea (mm tea), and inquiring after each other’s family between pulls. No, no heartwarming stories need to be shared, no bonding needs to be performed. But a simple “Hey, thanks for coming!” and a “thanks for having me!”, neither delivered with a snarky attitude to each other, along with some trust that the person you brought just -might- know what they’re doing, goes a long way into building better guest/raid relationships.

And I tested it out the other day. I can still SO do that one-beat 180 degree spin-turn I had to learn in marching band. That’s gonna get me far in life! I just know it!

Yeah, I know. I announce “I’m back!” then promptly not post anymore. What can I say? We’re still in the midst of unpacking and getting set up in a new town/state, and now I’m off for training for the new job. But there’s been another reason I’ve been kinda quiet, and it’s not one that I’m fond of.

See, I joined the guild I’m in just over a year and a half ago. It was a move made with my boyfriend and another friend of ours from our original guild. Most of the people in our original guild had wandered off from WoW or just weren’t interested in what we were interested in: raiding. The Boyfriend knew a guild that ran his raid group that was prepping for the switch from “classic” WoW to TBC WoW by taking in new members that they knew and liked to run the 25 man raids. I liked them, they liked us, and since our old guild was more or less dying, we announced we were leaving to go raid with the new guild. Everyone (mostly) understood and we went off to play with the new guild.

Cut to about 4 months ago. Raiding’s starting to get a bit shaky, with everyone winding down on end-of-school, new jobs, losing jobs, new babies, etc. You know: Life. Then the burnout started to show: burnout from raiding and from WoW itself. So raiding got more or less postponed. Again, totally understandable.

We now have something that’s made me want to not log into WoW cos, well, it hurts. A bunch of the core group all decided to try out Age of Conan. While I’m sure it’s a lovely game, I have two problems with it:
1. I’m on a Mac. Yes, I have Boot Camp, but still, come on.
2. I’ve never had any urge to explore the Conan universe. At all. Ever. (Really big problem. Movies were okay, but play there? Nooooo thank you.)

Add in a budget that’s really tight at the moment and yeah, trying AoC is towards the bottom of the list of things I’m interested in. Way at the bottom.

So a lot of the core group left for the new shiny that is AoC, more of the raiders went to a raiding guild or two, and we’re left with a gutted guild. The Boyfriend is now Guild Leader, and we’re both depressed over the whole thing. Yes there are still people in the guild that are happy where they are. Yes, we still have people playing. Are they the ones that we’ve grown used to playing with? Having the fun and insanity with? No.

Yes, guilds burn down like this all the time. It’s pretty common actually. Doesn’t mean I have to like it though. What hurts the most is this all happened pretty much in days. AoC came out, core group left, raid group left, and then the weekend came around and we surveyed what was left and winced. There’s hurt feelings, anger, rolled eyes, and every other emotion possible from just about everyone. I hate crap like this, so I’ve avoided logging in. Add in a move and new job and yes, things have gotten more than a bit disjointed on our side of life.

Am I moving to another guild? Who knows. I know I’m not right now. Do I want to keep raiding? Yep. Do I have any urge to log in these days? Yep, cos a friend of mine came back to WoW just in time to see an implosion. I love playing with him, and that’s giving me some much needed fun in my WoW-life right now. I have at least two if not three guilds on the server that I feel reasonable comfortable offering my “need a warm dps body?” services to. But it’s still not -our- guild and -our- friends. Will they come back with the expansion? Some will. Some won’t. We’ll see.

Breaking up is hard, whether it’s a face-to-face relationship or one born in pixels. It’s the ones that blindside you, the phone calls, text messages or board postings of “I don’t think we should see each other anymore” that hurt the most. So for now, or this week at least, I’m going to be quiet again while I try to absorb this latest kick in the teeth from WoW and try to concentrate on a new job in my “real” life.

“…how can I help you today?”

That’s right! I R BACK! /dies

Moving sucks, no matter what. I still have stuff in boxes all over the place and the computer equipment is also in complete disarray. BUT… I have internet again, and managed to indulge in a nice wallow in WoW.

The guild is in disarray as well, with some of the guild going to try Age of Conan (which while I’m sure is a lovely game, that universe has never held much appeal for me), while others have moved on to other guilds. Such is the life cycle of guilds and games. But that didn’t matter too much today. Today, I got to rampage around on my mage, finish out more Netherstorm quests I never did on her, and then help a friend out that’s recently returned to WoW do some group quests in Hellfire and Zangermarsh. All in all, a good time.

Later on tonight, I’ll be logging back into WoW to see if a second friend that had contacted me logs in like he was talking about. I’m hoping so, as it’s been ages since I’ve had a chance to commit mayhem with him. That’s one of the things that I honestly love about MMOs: the friends that you meet and keep over the years, no matter what games you all go to or what happens in everyone’s lives. I’ve had friends from just about every background you can think of, one that passed away way too soon, and a bunch of weddings and babies to welcome. And that’s something I’ll always treasure.

One thing that I haven’t written about is a change that happened recently. Due to a sudden influx for Real Life vacations, moves, midterms, new jobs, illnesses, as well as good ol’ burnout, the guild got hit hard for getting a full group of 5 people online to do 25 man content. The officers all talked then gave the guild a heads up that we were going to hold off on raiding til further notice. There was just too much going on in everyone’s lives for us to actually make any progress on 25 man content, and it wasn’t fair to those that came out week after week to keep putting other things on hold, only to find we would have to cancel that night’s raid because we lacked people.

Pretty much, the whole guild agreed this was a good idea. I think everyone’s been getting frustrated at the brick wall we seem to have hit in progression. There an ebb and flow to MMOs: you’re either making progression or you’re not. You losing members or you’re not. And a lot of times, we see that those two flow hand in hand. As soon as a guild stops raiding, there are some that feel they have to move on to guilds that are still raiding. For our guild, I don’t think we’d hold it against them.

I know that I’m actually happy about the no raids other than the guild members throwing together Kara runs or 5man content. See, I’m about to do a Big Thing: a “life reboot”. I’m quitting my current job as a graphic designer, moving two states away (lucky Boyfriend, he gets to not fully unpack, then pack up what he didunpack and move all over again in less than two months), and starting a new life as an art store/teacher resource/bookstore manager for a brand new store opening in a town I’ve never lived in, only visited. I’d already known I’d have to put raiding on hold til the move was done and we were settled, but this way, I don’t feel guilty for not being there to help and (I’ll admit it) jealous at the Phat Lewt others are getting.

Of course, knowing my luck, they’ll start raids back up two nights before we leave Atlanta. :;sigh::

So what do the non-raiding folk do? For my part, it’s heroics, Kara on those nights people have it and I get picked, rep grinds, dailies (oh god lots of dailies), and… well… yeah. Oh and alts. Don’t forget about alts. Now I have the alts on my main server, and then there’s the ones on the About Last Night’s server. And then there’s the shiny PS3 that keeps singing it’s siren song at me from downstairs. Hmm, maybe I do have quite a bit to do.

(Bonus points to anyone who figures out where I bastardized my post title from.)

In real life, I’ve been preparing a house to sell. Yeah I know, crappy timing with the market being what it is, but I have a nice job change waiting for me in another state 5 hours away. That kinda necessitates selling my house. It’s also becoming spring where I live, which means Spring Cleaning in all it’s insane glory. So I’ve been cleaning out the house of old things I don’t want/use, visiting home improvement stores practically daily, and talking to installation people about appointments to come to the house. It’s more than a little hectic over here.

I’ve found that the “change everything!” mindset has invaded my WoW-space as well. In my collection of alts, I had a human rogue named Duvesa, that I’d gotten to level 57. She was my first major alt, and until I got off my butt and leveled my mage up, she was my highest level alt for the longest time. However, she was permanently stuck at 57. Why? I just couldn’t get into her anymore. I’d loved playing her, but somewhere along the way, I fell out of love. It just wasn’t fun for me any more. I could not find anything that made me interested in playing her anymore. So yesterday, after not playing her (other than hopping onto her and unlocking a low level lockbox for a friend) for almost 2 years, I sold all of her equipment and items, mailed the proceeds to my bank toon, and deleted Duvesa.

Did it hurt? A little. But I’d found myself with no connection at all to her, and was starting to hate the fact she was in the second slot on my list, right behind Siana. Why have her there if I was never going to play her? So I deleted her and once the faint pangs of character deletion were over, it felt as if a weight had been lifted. To celebrate, I did the next obvious thing: I deleted another character. This time it was a Night Elf warrior, Ravaria, that I’d had wandering around. Only level 27, but she’d been a NE priest, a human pally, and then a NE warrior before getting deleted yet one more time. That name is one that I’ve had in previous MMOs and I have sentimental attachments to it, so I created a placeholder character with it. Will I ever play it? Who knows.

So after deleting two characters, I decided since the house feels weird with all the new paint and what not going up, I needed to change up Siana a little. So I did something that made several friends fall over into shock: I respec’d. Right now, she’s the “standard” 41/20 BM spec after being heavy MM spec (my usual choice). I raided last night with it and said I’d give it a couple more days of playing around with it. But once the time is over, I’ll be respec’ing again, this time to one of the MM/SV builds.

Why am I doing this? I’m trying to shake my mind out of any hunter ruts it’s gotten itself into. Specs are always a polarizing element in WoW, with this build or that build being held up as the Holy Grail for whatever your attempting to do, whether it’s PvP, leveling or raiding. But it’s not that simple. There’s not really one “perfect” build for each class/situation. There’s always something that affects the end result: latency, gear, random chaos, and most importantly, the person actually playing the character. It’s that human element that makes two identically geared, identically spec’d hunters have different DPS. It’s what each person brings to the table in personal experience and gaming style that affects the end results.

So I’m playing with specs, rediscovering what does and doesn’t work for me, and having a grand time doing it. I have a feeling I’ll be going back to my usual spec, but it’s always good to shake things up.

Tomorrow? I’ll be watching guys install new flooring into my house and trying to minimize the destruction to my belongings. I’ll get some daily quests done, maybe even work on some quests with my mage, or over on Moon Guard with the About Last Night group over there. Or I could say to hell with it all and hide in the bedroom with the two freaked out cats.

Hi, my name is Nightravyn and I cheat on WoW. No, not cheat AT WoW. Read that again. And you know? I know I’m not the only one here that does it.

You’ve played WoW for 36 months straight. You’ve raided everything, including Hogger, at least 50 times. The devs call YOU for game input. What do you do now on those slow nights when you’re tired of 5-man runs against Black Temple? You quietly not log in and turn on… your XBox. Or PS3. Or Wii. Or, dare I say it, a different MMO. /faint

/fanning self Wooo okay that was a little freaky there, but it’s all good now.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: every so often, even the most hard core player will find a distraction that will make them at least consider not logging into WoW. For a lot of people, that can mean anything such as family obligations, work/school, or other real life Important Things. Those I don’t consider “cheating on WoW”. But then there are those other distractions: the PS3 your roommate just bought, the brand new Guitar Hero pack someone gave you for your birthday, and, yes, other MMOs. There’s everything out there from free MMOs and worlds like Second Life to WoW’s competitors (EQ2, LotRO). There’s a lot of shiny distractions out there in the world and new games are candy to the easily distracted.

I’ve had a couple of rough weeks with Real Life (gag), timing, and WoW. As a result, my WoW time’s been horribly limited, and in the case of last week, non-existent. At the same time, I wanted to get in even just 30 minutes of some sort of gaming. So out comes the PSP. After a while, the PSP wasn’t doing it, so out came the PS2 and the Katamari series. Then I was feeling better but not wanting to run into WoW just yet cos I have this laundry list of things that Must Be Done in WoW and, well, no time to do them if I’m falling asleep every 30 minutes. So out comes the demos of other MMOs and then some wandering around in Second Life. Yes, I kept my raiding going (when I wasn’t sick), but it wasn’t a “break” per se. I didn’t make a post to the guild saying “Hey guys, I’m taking a break for a bit!” I kept playing and enjoying my WoW time, but I wasn’t completely invested in it for a while. I was seeing other games on the side and keeping it very quiet.

Now I’m all better: rested, healthy and ready to get back into a deeper WoW “commitment”. All that, just in time for family to come into town this weekend and blow any daily quest grinding plans I had to hell. ::grin::

So, do you admit to cheating on WoW? Hmmmmm?