Crafting orders – paying it forward

I gave up on the crafting order system early on. I was slow at getting the in demand enchanting and tailoring orders and when I could craft them I didn’t have on hand all the rarer mats needed.

I picked up all the new green pvp crafted gear just to add to my collection and get the first craft bonuses and while I was at the loom checked on the tailoring public orders and someone had posted what could be called as dummy orders for multiple items, stuff I had materials for with a minimal tip. Reading the crafting note the instructions included “crafting request for your weekly quest”It was a public order and I got to actually craft my first public order.

What a great idea to help people meet the weekly quest requirements/ monthly quest requirement. Inspired I posted a number of basic bolt/thread items that didn’t need any special or rare items.

In my excitement I forgot to untick the provide materials boxes so not only did I lose my mats ( not a great impact) but I still tipped 10 gold, AND paid the crafters fee. The person who picked those up actually got a pretty good deal out of it. Hopefully it was someone who needed it.

I got some of my value back when I got the items and was able to Disenchant them for shards which will help after that nasty Loamm Niffen quest that wanted 75 silver level Vibrant Wildercloth which required both shards and bolts to make.

My next set of orders I wasn’t so generous with my own mats, but I wish more people did this to help people out, and liked that someone out there did it for a stranger ( me) and also inspired this post. I feel the crafting order system needs further work, while it does make it easier to connect to people who have the recipes you need/want or even a skill level you need. It also assists to co-ordinate with guildies who have mats, and doesn’t require you to spam or sit in trade chat, its still highly competitive and the weekly trade orders, or even the achievements of 500 and 1000 orders just seem a long way off obtaining without having an exclusive recipe or really helpful friends.

Is Pvping supposed to be about winning.

I met this random person a BG. Sorta. I don’t remember their name, but we were babysitting Lumbermill  and I was sleeping  at the foot of the node in boredom and got to talking about the state of Alliance on each others realms,  and they mentioned that they had just recently changed to Alliance because they were

“Sick of horde….  they care more about K’b’s than tactics to win bgs”

I didn’t get to tell them ” Honey..  we are the same on this side too” because we got distracted by a hordie trying to cap the node.

I’ve been a big fan of playing to Win in Pvp,  but that’s not all there is to Pvp in Bg’s anymore.

It’s about Hk’s it’s about K’B’s, it’s about Faction Rep,  Guild Rep, getting achievements  and sometimes its just about being a D*ck because it’s a Bg full of strangers.

Even I have conflicting motivations right now,  I don’t really care about honor,  I’ve been buying chanting mats for weeks so I’m not wasting my cap, and I am So close to my 100k kills –

Which means I should not be babysitting nodes.  I should be chaining AV’s and dotting up everything,  instead I end up baby sitting Lumbermill,  I think I was born with this ‘must take responsibility’ gene. So when the person who capped it runs off,  and my pleas of ” you cap it you keep it” is falling on deaf ears I still feel obligated to stay and guard.  Cause we are playing to win first right?

But does anyone actually care if we win  or lose anymore?  When a loss means that you can still satisfy your need to top Hk’s, K’b’s or get, or get closer to what ever achievement your working on now.

The only thing winning does is give you more honor,  so if most of the BG doesn’t give a crap about honor – why would they give a crap about winning.

And besides,  isn’t it more fun to run a muck… doing what you want zerging bases

The simple motivation to want to win isn’t enough anymore.  We are more ok with losing because we get closer to some other goal, when it could all be so simple,  the single desire to win.

I have that  objective sitting on my screen.  I watch it ticking over. I’m not sure what will happen when I get it.

I want to wear the ” Of the Alliance” title, and then I shall faction change and wear
Of the horde just for the Irony that I got it killing horde. ( kind of kidding)

Us v Us : The Real battle in a BG

It’s been coming all the more clearer with the amount of Pvping I am doing,  that the biggest battle in a BG is not with the opposite faction,  it’s with your own team.

It’s not just the people who are unsure what they are doing, don’t know how to play.  It’s the semi premades   doing their own thing,  the afkers,  the whiners,  the hecklers.    I have been all of the above except the Afker.  It’s a battle to find that synergy between your needs and wants and that of the BG, and this can be more so seen in a 10 man per side WSG then the other Bg’s

There was a semi premade in a Bg this weekend – afking in the enemy flag room – I get there to see them all standing round,  doing nothing.  Sighing I grab the flag and try and run back failing – I die. Rez and go back again.   Pick up the flag amongst a group of three still standing there and start running again.

“Bring it back” – I get a whisper from one of the afkers.
“Huh?”
“The flag bring it back – we are doing achievement”
“Tough” I say and keep running
“F&*^K you”

The little group of premades started abusing us – the rest of the Bg for not helping them in doing their achievement. At no time did they ask or inform us of their plan, or try and get the rest of the Bg in on it – Co-operation would have been better. They didn’t even try.

“It’s my thing” said one when we quizzed him how his self interest was helping the bg – and that affectively they were being as bad as the Afker we had already reported, and was a red dot following random people all over WSG
“Making sure you fail is going to be my thing” I say.

Well they failed, and we lost the BG. I didn’t feel satisfied. I wasted a BG – no rep – bare honor. I was being snarky – My goal is 19k more rep. My Armory may not show it, but I’m into the Revered bracket, and now 19k away from exalted. ( yeah for WSG holiday weekend) My goal is my ultimate thing. My thing goes along with the general consensus of the BG thing. Win. We win – we get rep – I am happy.
Their thing went against the general consensus of the BG thing. They interfered with the goals of the 7 other players in the Bg, and there was enough of them to affectively throw the match in the pursuit of their goal. If there were 8 or 9 of them going after the achievement – sucks to be the other players – majority rules – but when they weren’t a signficant part of the group I think they were unfairly affecting the goals and purpose of the other players.

If everyone did their own thing in a BG – there is no team work – and a massive decrease in the chances of winning.

If your going to do achievements that involve ruining the game of the other players.  Stop and consider going to the effort of getting up a proper premade group to do it. 

Cheers to the people who read this – and who suffered through some of those WSG’s with me this weekend.

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.

 

 

Been there – Done that.

It doesn’t seem like we are disbanding – and we moved forward in a leap, getting  “I Could say that this cache was Rare” last night, the Hodir hard mode speed kill.

We were off it by 1 sec last week,  but this week  on our 3rd attempt for the night,  minutes before yet another shutdown we got it.  I was getting about 9k Dps on the kill and the 2nd attempt. On the first attempt, we didn’t get as many stormclouds on the casters so dps was too low.  My dots and flays seem to scale pretty well with Stormcloud, so as long as I am running around chasing anyone who has the stormcloud – trying to get it rubbed off onto me I do well. Its been extremely helpful now that I have no screen freezes.

We also did Onyixia 10 and 25, and even managed to get the kill in less then 5 min achieve, and the no deepbreath one too on 10 without trying.  It takes longer to get to her lair, then it does to do the fight. 

 I have decided I am not pursuing the 4 set bonus for Tier 9.   Its crap. So I have orbs for my badges and I will get the crafted  Bejeweled Wizard’s Bracers  , and at this point try and keep the 2 set bonus’s from T8 and T9. Besides the new bracers and a 620+ spellpower weapon I am just after new trinkets, I think I have every caster trinket except the ones I ‘need’. I will post a pic at some point of my small collection.

I am still trying to participate in as many ‘off the books’ 10 mans as possible because thats where I am getting half my upgrades, and it doesn’t count towards raid loot.  

My new Pc is ready to be picked up, but I will have the pc power if all goes well to be able to run around Dalaran without crashing.  To take better screen shots, and enjoy the game at higher settings.

Why Achievements are like playing the pokies ( or slots)

Lots of little victories take on the pain
It takes so long to earn
You can double up or you can burn, you can burn
– Whitlams “Blow up the Pokies”

One of the things we looked at when I was doing Psychology at Uni  ( Never finished..    full time work to pay rent called and the idea of doing 2 years unpaid placement hurt my pocket) was the importance of positive reinforcement that gamblers got while playing the Poker machines/pokies/slots. 

You win 5 cents – it goes ding and text along the lines of  “Your fabulous”  appear on your screen.  ” Great work!”  ” Awesome”  You now feel really good about winning 5 cents.  You want to win another 5 cents.  The colours and sounds  all played their part in reinforcing that good feeling  you had about your small win. Makes you want more.

Like Pokies when you get an achievement  your screen Dings! an achievement plate appears – and unless you have turned off the settings it gets announced to those close enough to you to see it  and then announced  in guild chat. In addition, like the pokies, the sounds,  your visualisations and messages are positively reinforcing your sense of accomplishment, announcing the smallest victory and treating as it were a large one.  Appealing to your ego.

You have done something special.  You have spent how many hours wandering around the pixelated plains of  Azeroth exploring every nook and cranny  – and you get an achievement.

“Ding!” 

The guild reads your accomplishments and ” Well done, grats,  wow,  ect ect..  ” fill the channel” Furthermore reinforcing that you have done something great!

We have been brainwashed into thinking that the tinyist  in game achievements are special and we are reinforcing this belief and  each others addictions  by the nature in which we are approaching the importance of achievements by the positive reinforcement messages we get, from Blizzard and from our own guildys.

Dinging 80 is special.  Killing 100 players in a courtyard  carrying seaforium charges is not. ( Its not like I even knew that they were carrying them.. )

I agree with the 1st to 80 achievements, or even clearing a instance, and even the undying achievements are pretty cool.  Others are fun to do  – hugging squirrels, and killing rodents, but really they are just time wasters, things to distract , and keep us occupied. 

Furthermore particular achievements or series of achievements have titles.  We can display to the world our title.   Even I have a Jenkins title.  “Wow..  did you see such and such a guild has the Undying title.. ”  ( I want that one )

However,  do we need an achievement for each quarter of naxx, on normal and heroic? – Do we need an achievement for 1 Coin of Ancestry, for 5 coins,  for 10, for 25?

Weekends are now spent with achievement after achievement  being announced to the guild.  We have people writing congratulatory macros that randomise the response.

Each achievement done is one more step closer to having a bigger epeen.  You can now rank your guildys in the Armory by achievement points.  Who has the most time to waste?

Are achievements distractions to keep us from wanting new content?   They have me doing things I’ve already done before, and have to redo because the achievement didn’t register.  ( Blizzard conspiracy to get us back into old dungeons) – I am spending more time on and gold on  repair bills because people have to kill a boss a particular way for a 10 point achievement.

How do we stop this madness?

Next time your guildy gets a unimportant achievement  because they caught 25 fish ( 25! wow )  Ignore them.  Do not congratulate them. Do not encourage them to get the 50 fish one, or the 1oo fish one.. or the 250 fish one.. ect ect ect.

Save your congrats for the ones that do require effort, or the whole system becomes meaningless.

Because I play wow to play wow, not to have my time wasted, measured in achievement points.

 

 

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