So I told the Gm..

I told my new GM about my blog. 

I figured my old Gm knew about it – and all these people I had no idea knew about it keep popping up.  It’s no longer the big secret it used to be, and it’s been ok. I haven’t felt the need to express my unhappiness about a guild for a while now – so less drama if it does get made public. 

I feel a little more honest I guess – and I guess a little censored – I have been a little PC the last 12 months  knowing I am not as anonymous anymore, but mindless ranting without taking ownership of your opinions defeats the purpose, well my purpose of self expression anyway.

 Theres always a slight ‘fear’ that something said ends up on Drama Lama’s or Linked on a realm forum. Or Trolled severely.

So no new guildys you don’t get to decide what I write about 😛   Though you might get used as inspiration.  I don’t really name people anyway when I write about them so I am not going to make you E famous.  *looks pointedly at a particular crab*

Every time you wipe on Ignis, a Kitten dies.

Dath’remar scored Ignis as the raid weekly this week.

I managed to grab a group Tuesday night before shutdown on my Holy Priest   – I’ve found previously that no matter the realm  – no matter the over gearing  Ignis has been an Ulduar Pug breaker.

My Tuesday night 10 man pug managed to kill him with only 4 dead, and considering one of those dead was the other healer I think we did pretty good.

Come Wednesday and the start of a new raiding week,  the 10 man guild that have adopted me as their healer  were going to do the Ignis weekly.  Because there had been the weekly raid ID reset I was no longer locked   – so I got to heal them through all our wipes on Ignis.

This retro wiping is a little frustrating,   we were 2 healing it again,  we should have been over geared for it.  But no the Dps warrior was wearing a level 61 gun still.  Some people were missing every gem.  Some had inappropriately gemed,   missing enchants,  funny talent trees, no previous kill experience of Ignis ect, no DBM to warn when to stop dps so u don’t get spell locked.  The list went on. 

Welcome to Casual raiding.

Yes you can be a casual raider,   but when your guild are all casual raiders,  there is no one to carry you through – you still need to work at it.  Given them their due they were there,  trying, wiping,  getting back off the floor and doing it all again.

I’ve still got the taste of Ulduar dirt in my mouth – my broken bones have littered the floors before, and it cuts me a little to be doing it all again.

After giving up wiping on Ignis,  we did kill Razor and XT  – with me coaching them through parts of it – I pointed out a few more things to the RL – it’s up to them if they attempt to fix it. I pointed out a few things to the shadow priest, told her/him it was completely up to them if they were interested in getting better –  trying to offer advice,  but no pressure.

I’m trying not to take over the raid – trying not to scare them by being an elitist  – even on the Boss mod issue,  I explained – that it will make their playing easier – and will help them be more aware of things like flame jets,  or blue fire, and will increase their success. 

 I don’t want to do an Audit – or suggested improvements on every player. But So much though is fixable  cheaply or at least made better – which increases dps / tanking/healing  improves performance,  things die easier – everyone is happy.   I would have been content if they even had, had the cheaper gems,  or the cheaper enchants – it shows care  still

So why do it – if it’s so very hard?  I can’t explain it completely –  I like feeling like a big fish in a small ocean – I know more than they do – I can use my knowledge  / healing abilities to help them,  and I just can’t do  4 days raiding again.  I’ve been out too long.  I like the flexibility of not having to come home early – to walk away from the Pc – read,  talk to a friend on the phone,  not come home,  go out, watch a dvd, go to sunday family dinner.

A Single Gender Guild

Twisted Nether Blogcast interviewed Tristan from The Elitists Podcast   who while is accomplished in many things.  He  is also a member of a male only progression based guild.  He explains in the interview that the main reason, for the existance of this guild ‘s “Men only ” policy seems to be that it’s the men who cannot behave clear headed when women are involved, and it ‘protects’ women from the behaviour of the males in the guild.

Firstly as a disclaimer – I am not judging his decision to be in it, and also acknowledge that the guild is currently server first – and thus means that it does not seem to affect their performance in progression,  this isn’t so much a discussion of Tristan – but more so the existance and the performance of a guild with a clearly defined gender biased rule.

The feminist in me wants to scream out – that’s sexism! And app just to show them,  but really why would a girl want to be in a guild like that anyway – its already assumed that they would be entering a guild of immature males with an inability to handle interacting with women. Or just perhaps just no desire to interact with the female of the species while participating in WOW.

Most recreational activities like Sports teams are very much gender divided.  In tennis,  in basketball, in soccer.   Sure there are ‘mixed’ teams  but not many  ( if any at all) at a professional level. These however are usually physically demanding sports – and the idea of the gender divide is to allow for equal competition.  Women are physically weaker than men – it’s not sexism to say so.

However we can look at other non physical challenges

Chess – The European Team Chess Championships have  separate tournaments for men and women.  However according to Wikipedia  the World Chess Championship allows  both men and women –  and of note has not been won by a woman. Though there is a separate Women’s World Championship event. 

Poker championships are not as gender restrictive  as are creative pursuits such as Art awards,  or even commercial talent shows like Idol/Britain’s got talent  – men compete with women.

Most of those activities though are solo pursuits. I actually cannot think of  world recognised competition when a team of  mixed genders compete against each other  ( unless you bring the business world  or financial market into it)

What you want from your game will influence how you feel about male,  or female only guilds.   ( because yes girl only guilds exist as well and I would be remiss in not mentioning them)  I have not heard of a girl only decently placed progression guild though. 

We freely discriminate against younger players in guilds  placing age restrictions on guilds memberships, because we do not want to play with  ‘kids’

If you do not want to play Wow with girls  or boys then that its your choice.   ” Whats your game…”   Maybe they get their social interaction needs with females outside of the game, maybe they don’t need the interaction at all. 

I would like to  argue that it really doesn’t matter anyway because it’s really only on vent that real gender becomes clear, and I know as many quite guys on vent as there are quite girls. There has been no suggestion that boys are better at gaming.    

I will conclude with that if you are deliberately chosing to not to raid with girls then you are missing out.   Girls are just as smart and funny  as any boy, and if you can’t game with a girl  because of lack of self control,  how are you expected to function in the real world.  ( opps that may have been slightly judgemental – and completely dependant on your wish to actually be in the real world)

Ice Crown Here I come.. uh wait.. wait for me

I wrote ages ago when Ulduar come out about how grateful I was to be in a guild that was ready and able to walk into new content  on the day it came out, and also that I was part of the raiding team that would be stepping into that experience.

 I am guilded now,  not as a raider though, yes I am getting most of the runs I want be it – trade pugs – GDKP runs,   or guild/pug halfsies  – but as much fun as I am having  keeping myself occupied with them,  dailys,   Pvp and more Pvp I am feeling a little lost – What is the point in chasing that offset piece, that gear with the haste for 3.3  – saving for the 19k odd Im am likely to have to spend on Anub’s much wanted trinket on a Gdkp when I am not raiding – when I will be lucky to see Icecrown in my current position.   At this point,  I won’t be stepping in, finally using all those stupid icecrown rune bonus’ from the Ebonhold dailys, and the bones I collected.

I would like to think I have taken pride in my gear – I was congratulated on one app before I left my old server to for having the best enchants and gems.   Congratulated.  Like I would do anything less. I have taken care.  I do care about my gear.

If I can use gearscore as a rough comparison  to the other people I see running around,  the top tiered raiders are 5200-5300 Gearscore,  and I am sitting at just over 5100 – I’ve done pugs where they spam the GS and I’m normally at the top, or near the top.   Most of the rest of the non top raiders are around 4900  so I’m not in a bad position, but all this means squat if I am not going to use it – and depends on how many people take their Shadow Priests out of the closet and if we are going to scale better as to how much demand there will be for more than one of us in a guild.

Sure I could top TOC  10 man for the rest of my days.

So hear that longing in my words.  I miss organised raiding.  What am I going to do about that? – Not sure yet – but the seed has been planted – and I will be watching it grow.

Shut the F*&ck up Lady.

I don’t think I have ever been spoken to like that before on vent.

All I said was that if he stopped swearing so much then people may not be leaving his raid group.

It was a GDKP Ulduar run,  and I was going to see if I could pick up some healing offset gear cheaply because I had been rather slack at even having a basic set. ( am slowly fixing)   We wiped on Leviathon,  and I knew it was going to go bad when I tried to explain  ( over vent)  that I needed pyrite because a Pst didnt get a response.   So I tried to explain ” See this blue thing on our left.  I need you to pick that up with I think its a 4 or a 5 ” No response.  So Leviathon comes out in hard mode and no one has pyrite,  so no stacks.  Fun.  More people leave.

I am noticing in my pug runs that I am doing, the distinct lack of females vocal in any form on vent.   Come to think of it,  I have probably pugged 5 or 6 raids that used vent, and I have been the only girl who even says boo.  Pugging has been fun to see who and what is out there,  but it can’t be all rainbows and lollypops all the time. .

 

The Sad Side of Server Firsts…

An ex guildy that stayed on my home server logged into the vent channel we were  hanging out in to share the news that he and his new guild just got a server first. “Death’s Demise : Participated in the realm  first defeat of Yogg- Saron without the assistance of any Keepers in 25 -player mode”

Regardless of how many other guilds on however many other servers already have it, it was still an awesome achievement for them.   With a realm first comes the World Spam – and thus the entire realm knows that a server first had just occurred.

He said after the spam came the whispers and the congratulations,   and then the ‘haters’ came, not just publically attacking their achievement in trade channels,  but personal whispers at the members of the guild saying that ” they had no life.  That they didn’t deserve it  Ect.   It wasn’t just one person, it was a few. 

He was so happy to be part of this achievement,  and then to get so many people trying to belittle it, and bring them down, made it a real bummer,  souring the accomplishment.   We have the phrase  Tall poppy Syndrome  here in Australia and used elsewhere and taken directly from Wikipedia I think  it can apply to this.   

” in which people of genuine merit are criticised or resented because their talents or achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their peers.”

 It can be hard to see people achieve when you do not.  “It’s just a game”  gets shoved down our throat often enough,   but most people will agree, that’s  it’s a little more then a game to a lot of people – as people get different things from the game.  An achievement in game can be worthy of genuine celebration,  and   I find it horrendous that these ‘haters’ took the time to go out of their way and whisper personally the members of the guild who reached that achievement negative remarks. 

Moan in public – still bad form,  but that they thought their opinion was valid enough to try and ‘cut them down’ personally.  That really reeks to me  – it’s bad sportsmanship – and makes you a really nasty person.

 

 

GDKP trend

Apparently GDPK  ( Gold DKP) has been around for a little while now,  basic idea is you have a base amount of money to spend on gear you get inspected by a trade window check to make sure you have it,  you go on a run organised by a respected guild/person, and people bid on the gear they want,  the money goes into the pot and gets split at the end of the run.  So you can make a profit if you don’t want/need any gear.   It sounds like a good way of getting upgrades and most BIS or close to it gear can be bought for less than it costs to make a craftable item, and having just just purchased off the AH for 9850 Gold Merlins robe,  and I already have the crafted bracers this crafted item business is getting expensive.   ( orbs are still 800-900 each so add the cost and the cool down requirements for the cloth  ect ect  It was going to work out to be the same,  and besides the person had already put one spellpower gem, and +10 stats on it,  so I was saving money on that anyway.    It was the 3rd best in slot according to the  Shadowpriest.com 3.2 Gear list  . 

This trend has crossed over from the PVP oceanic realms and popped up on my realm the other day – maybe because we are losing a lot of our raiders to Pvp realms where the raiding is harder, and better  – but we are still talking to these people and they are dropping new traditions onto the normal realms, and if this sticks around,  it will be even easier for people to get gear, and you won’t be as reliant on being in a good guild to get the gear you need.

New guild – this is getting to be a broken record…

I have been in a new guild now for three whole days. I got to listen to a 4 hour wipe fest on H 25 Twins on monday night on vent after I was accepted – they were not successful, but were making good progress

Last night, the 1st night of new week raiding for us, I ran Normal 25 Toc and Heroic 25 Toc up to the Twins last night with them where they booted me for an extra healer ( I did get to see their twins strat when we did it on normal) Their practise from their attempts on Monday paid off because they got the twins in a couple of tries.

I was told I did fine – I don’t think I am going to make within the top ten on the Dps anytime soon, I did 10th on 25 Normal Beasts, ( don’t forget to reapply SWP after that wall smack!) and no log because they only started logging after champs on Normal, but 11th on that fight on Heroic 25 Beasts I scaled around 11-15th depending on the fight for the rest. I haven’t shamed me, or my class but it’s a little discerning to be so far down the bottom all the time. It does however mean that everyone else is doing so much better, and if anything should push me harder to be better.

I’ve had never successfully done H 25 Beasts, Jaxx and Faction champs. So I was a little thrilled to see that 25 H is really not that much different to 10 H so except dying on H 25 Faction champs because I just kept getting beat upon and fade, fear, meld, dispersion, shield, healthstone ( all my oh crap buttons.. ) could no longer save me

I am a little concern about long term stability – on the monday raid 9 of the 27 raid able were trials – we had 30 people in raid last night – and had lost two raiders the half an hour before raid because one recent app had a life change, and the other person didn’t want to raid with out them. The core officer group seems steady though.

No major issues, a little bit of a later start, and end to what I’m used to, and no sunday raiding, but it seems ok so far.

Under the Microscope.

There is nothing like scrutiny to push you to new limits,  wanting to be better, and being asked questions of your application to another guild opens your eyes to flaws or things you may not have considered.  You start thinking that you got too comfy in your fishbowl.  A few of us have had to switch mentality a little for the  guild we have app’d to – how flexible are we with specs – our gears and talents under the microscope.   Not that we would expect anything less –  it’s part of the application process at least at the higher end guilds.

Why I was in a weird Shadow offspec?, do I have a  healing set?  Having to justify my gear choices, explain why I use a particular trinket,  answer would I be willing to heal ? Why I am so over hit cap?  ( that question annoyed me a little. ) Explaining some of my gear planning.

Gear planning becomes a little different when your not guaranteed an ‘income’ of badges and gear.  I was running all the 25’s in a week,  at least a full 10 man Toc clear and I had been doing a few 10 Heroic Toc bosses,  plus a daily occasionally – I was eligible to roll on Loot, and I was getting Badges, getting my turn to get trophies, and  that stopped.  This week has been left over guild member run 10’s and we run 25 Toc last night and pugged half the Dps so I have been getting some Badges, and even a trophy. 

We are expecting a reply back from the raiding guild some of us app’d to this week.  Even then,  they need to trial us,  so find a run for us to fit into, which may not even be a full raid,  so we lose a raid id for a week.   Then if we do get accepted wait an official trial period of three weeks before we are eligible for loot.  So realistically that means I’m looking at another month of raiding before I get any on the books upgrades, unless of course no one else wants something, and then it depends on their policy on that.

That means I need to do as much as possible out of raids to get upgrades.  Currently am planning  for Merlins Robe,  fluctuating mat prices means that it will possibly be cheaper to buy it already crafted.  They are going for under 12k for now,  I might do some trade spamage to see if anyone needs to offload one badly for cheaper, but I should have it by next weekend.  I upgraded to a T9 chest this weekend but Merlins robe is still a bigger upgrade,   I’m only 2 piece T9.5  so If I lose the chest  only a T9  ( the 3rd piece)  then I won’t mind,  if I had waited I could have used the trophy I got in a run last night for T9.5 but I had the badges,  and it was better then what I was wearing and when your application is under a microscope,  any upgrade looks better then not trying at all

Apping to stay on server was a bit of a knee jerk reaction – and probably best explained in my reason ” Why do you want apply for … . Blah.. ” . 

I want to do 25 raiding, its disappointing to be needing to leave ……, but I like 25’s. Your recruiting a Shadow priest, and seem to be in the position to be able to deliver 25′ raiding. As a guild you have been around the server for a long time, and hopefully will continue to be stable……

I don’t actually  sound like I want to be there do I ?

Maybe I should set my sights higher – I’m geared,  I have been tweaking rotations and trying to push out as much Dps as possible no matter the competition or class expectation – should I aim for a real raiding guild attempting firsts and real hardmodes,  and that would mean server transferring, might take me a little longer to find a home ,  but 3.3 is a little way off – I’m looking at another month anyway for any guild I get into  to consider me as a ‘raider’   so maybe it’s worth throwing caution to the wind and do something daring ( for me at least)

Being  being ripped to shreds by ‘elitests’  to become a better player could be fun…  I only have had my current fishbowl to be measured against –  lets see how I measure up to the real world of raiders

I should really stop thinking  – and “Just do it!”

Otherwise Occupied.

I have been ‘otherwise’ occupied.

Aion

I started playing Aion a couple of weeks ago,  and after an initial frenzy of oh this is cool – look at all the pretty graphics ( full settings on new Pc)  I have now settled into an uneasy compromise between Wow and Aion time. 

I even started an Aion blog with a whole 2 entries and the very bad banner.  I need to get my Gimp out and concoct  a much better banner before it becomes fit for public consumption, and my interest in Aion has waned a little.

At first I was avoiding Wow like the plague, logging only for raids because I wanted to play with my shiny new toy, then gradually  the slight grindishness of Aion and my aversion at trying to find a group for long group quests when I didn’t want to be forced to sit at a pc for another stretch of time after a raid made me log back into Wow again, and be reminded of all the fun.  Mostly time  spent running round in circles.  

10 mans

It seems to be a slight growing trend,  a couple of guilds on server have started focusing a lot more on 10 man groups,  we now have 2 10 man groups with plenty of reserves in each that are raiding  in our 25 man raid times.

 It’s a funny situation in that they aren’t official  guild raids really – if you are already in a group that does a 10 man in your own time, you are free to keep doing it.  So the two groups have a mix of people who are already saved – and those who have never done a 10 man before.   I don’t mind,  it doesn’t mean I am raiding more, in fact it means I am raiding less,   It means I don’t pug or do an out of raid time 10 man Toc.    More free time to do other stuff like log off…   Unless we want to spent 2 nights a week wiping on hardmodes there really was no other option, we are officially bored of Ulduar,  and will be using  last weeks raid Id to work on Thorim Hard modes this week

Good deed for the week

I was in Stormwind gemming some new Pvp gear and someone sends me a tell asking me to run the stockades. I say yes,  but only once.  He is grateful,  I start killing everything, and he says ” but I don’t need these ones.. ”  I tell him I am just going to decimate the place, and we get through it rather quickly. Well I do,  I just went all zombie dot dot dot “>dot “>dot  dot disperse when I ran out of mana dot dot dot dot.  Done!

I thought doing something nice for a random would make me feel nice – but I just felt empty.  I think I had hoped that by doing something meaningful for someone else it would make my experience more meaningful. Nope. Didn’t work.   Probably why I ignored the request from some guildys for run through lobie dungeons   a little later on.  I had hoped I would never see “Can someone please run me through Deadmines” ever again in the green guild chat.  Alas other peoples bordems seem to have encouraged them to re roll.

Secret places.

This inability to easily access my screenshots is annoying me.  ( I even did a search for recent files and found no wow screenshots – I will work it out!) 

I spent some time with a friend trying to get into the Horde Inn in Dalaran, we ended up dying on the roof ( had to get the right spot by falling from high above)  and rezing inside the inn.   Running around,  reading the horde books that for some strange reason were still in Common, flirting with their waitresses, and dancing on their tables.    Eventually we just sat there  at the table, pretty much ignored by the hordies even though we were trespassing in their inn.  It was funny as we were trying to get into the inn a couple of other allies  saw what we were doing, and had a go.  They gave up.  We improvised.   We had to make sure we didn’t get too close to the door or we get teleported out into the main street of Dalaran. 

How come theHorde get their own exclusive zone  in Dalaran?