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)

I am not a Raid healer.

They made me heal a ICC 10  on my main –  it was a pug run,  being run by a guildy alt.

Well,  no one made me .I did protest  something a long the lines of  ” You serious – I’ve only raid healed Ony – the rest has all been 5 mans and pvp.”

I had my eyes on 3 more bars to a new Ashen ring with a proc!  ( Squee) 2 badges to a piece of Tier ( Squee) so I was easily convinced.  I said yes ( with massive disclaimers)

I healed,  and hotted, and mended, and circled and did all the stuff a healer is supposed to do.    We killed the first 4 bosses easy – I had some difficulty with the next wing.

When we got to the two doggies,  and the decimate the shammy healer was having a go at me for not dispelling  something.  I’m like.  the doggies don’t do stuff u need to dispel,  and besides my VuhDo wasn’t showing anything.     I even linked him the recount for dispels/decurses/cleanses  for the run so far,  showing me  3 times as high as him, and the Resto druid,   She said instead of trying to prove something I should “f’ning do my job, because she had spent the last fight as a slime.

Oh..  a Slime.

“Can we kill the scientist before we kill the dog?”  I ask.  ( see I did know what I was doing?)   we had been pulling a scientist and one of the dogs at the same time, so at a decimate and my healing mod had everyone at red meaning ” heal heal heal  which overides the purple dispel prompt.  So I did fail, and probably have earned the animosity of the shammy for life,  especially since I pointed out to the shammy that I wasn’t the only dispel capable healer in the raid, so I hoped that they were having a go at the tree as well.

We killed Rotgut,  and called it on Fester, and considering I had only killed Rot in a pug, and tried Fester in a pug at Dps,  I am somewhat happy, and besides a new ring,  and Tier gloves I got new shoulders and a new offhand.   I did ok loot wise.   Still find it silly I need to heal to get upgrades for my DPS set, but what ever works right?

The experience also  made me realise how much more I need to learn about raid healing,   some of its mana regen,  some of it’s trying to determine the pace of steady and spike damage which is not as predictable as 5 man healing has become.  Knowing the fights as a healer rather than as a dps, not getting health bar fever,  and getting one shot because I was staring at other peoples healthbars,   it’s an adjustment in mentality.

I did ok,  I was 2nd on heals,  slaughtered by a resto druid,  but I know numbers don’t necessarily mean anything,   ( esp when the druid was at 67% over heal) and there was no wws to properly evaluation my performance.

The Dps player in me was ok with the healing when it was easy, but when it got harder,  and there were slimes, and spores to worry about – then I didn’t like it so much.   

I hesitate in caring, and it’s hard,  I found an area I need to improve in,  and the achiever in me  wants to challenge myself again,  and throw myself to the wolves,  sure!  I’ll heal – but then my shadow self,   the skin I feel most comfortable in  – says Nay don’t go there. 

Even my 2nd priest in all her holy glory ( and now 4.3k GS ) cringes a little at never do more than a 5 man.  However what else is there to do,  but challenge oneself?  (  or level yet another alt..  )

Itsy fish – Big Ocean.

On my server I’m an Itsy fish in a big ocean of better geared and skilled players, add to that everyone seems to have bought their shadow priests out of the closet with the 3.3 changes.

But this is a boast  dps post.  I guess because feeling good about my damage is more important to me now since I’m not raiding regularly,  and can’t compare often.  I think I am going to hit a hurdle once everyone gets their Icc gear, and I will be another ‘casual’  in ok gear – but not even close enough to what is available.  unless I join a guild with free raiding spots.  Following your friends only works if you get to play with them.

I grabbed a Voa pug,   and you can see from the numbers that there were huge gearing/skill gaps  – and I had some awesome competition by way of another shadow priest who made me work for it, but yeah probably my best effort yet. 

Being Picked on In Faction Champs

Thats 10 seconds of damage on Faction Champs in  TOGC 25 being done to me.

and the things that picked on me

 

It wasn’t just once,   we did it 3 times where I was dead in the 1st minute or so. 

What was I doing to cause such agro?- dotting up the Skull.   Mass dispelling, and running.  Yet I got picked on by 3 faction champs, and a cat.     I couldn’t work out why I was being picked on.  Yes I was dotting up the main target, but my damage as per below graph on a filter of the top dps for that attempt and me ( the little while line)   wasn’t peaking higher then anyone else,  or being sustained high,

I even looked at my healing done,  and Im down the bottom as that almost invisible grey line ( the white line was a healing priest)

When the raid leader is asking you in whispers “Why do you keep dying?”   and I am practically bashing my keyboard in frustration because I haven’t done anything to get that much attention   – Sniveling and saying ” They are picking on me”  Is not a good enough reason. 

Did I do enough in those 10 secs to survive – I tried.    Blowing all my cool downs is silly, and I didn’t have time.  I did use fear,  I had a shield debuff at some point in that 10 seconds,  and may not have been able to recast due to weakened soul – and there was these left Pot/HS/Fear/Fade/Meld/Disperse   Maybe if I had used one more additional  break  I would have lived.  

However what I did do was fear Gorin – he stopped hitting me, and I thought I was ok.   4 seconds  later I am getting crited for 10k by the rogue. and 2 seconds after that I am dead.   I really don’t think I was capable of reacting with anything that would have saved me from the damage I was taking. Unless I got more than an earth shield, a shield, and my own VE  for healing, running from the rogue is not as easy as it is the Dk – I could blame healers for not healing me enough,  or the CC for not controling their targets  – or who ever was supposed to be controlling the people doing the damage to me – but I’m not.  I just don’t think blaming me  is appropriate either.

So I thought I would try something different – I mean it couldn’t get any worse right?

So I swapped sides of the room.  I went Right instead of Left,  I also didn’t put up my VE buff untill half way through.  I survived, and when we killed them I was alive right to the end.  So Yeah for me!

Was I doing my job?   I cast mass dispel 41 times during the fight – Did ok on damage.  Healed using Divine Hymn twice ( thats how long it went)  used Hymn of Hope  when the healers were low on mana – feared – faded, dispersed, ran away  more times then I can count.   I lived though!  I lived!  I was an affective tool!  Rather then a rotting corpse on the floor.

Premade- X realm Av’s: Resistance is futile

While waiting for a friend to finish a fail Toc 25 Run I logged into the vent of the premade AV group that we are seeing being organised a fair bit in trade channel.  Getting people from our Battlegroup, Bloodlust into a vent, and organising a premade by all getting into the same AV Queue.

I had never done it before,  and I was getting a little confused.

“If it doesnt pop for you get into  vent chat”  ?  Huh ?  Why?  and I see some peoples  name change on vent to ( C) in front..    Oh 

“Afk Check – Change your note to   ”

“Que in 1, 2, 3”

I managed to follow them for one BG – and then failed by not understanding the bit about not entering untill we checked how many people didnt get it,  and  me  hitting enter BG when the wrong number popped for most people. So I left the vent, and  spent the next half hour in a fail AV.

I had another go later and it all made so much more sence.  I now knew what standing on the lamp post meant  ( to identify how many in the BG were pugs)  The strat was getting familiar and the premade raid leader shooting off commands like a machine gun.  The best leader was a Woman who I swear had the battle map engraved in her brain in real time.

These people were professionals.

    “Groups 1 & 2 go..   Recallers go now…   Get back on the choke point.  Don’t stand on fail hill  ( you know that hill outside drek that people always bounce around on while waiting to go into Drek – well that is fail hill and I will never stand on it again)   “Go left of Belinda its the fastest way Do not stop for anyone,  do not help anyone,  do not stand near the edge of a tower you will get pulled off and die ect.  ”

It wasn’t about achievements, it was about maximizing honor, and was still a lot of fun  ( it’s always fun to win)

Does the fun of a BG change when it’s organised? – It was awesome to be involved in such a well orchestrated premade of that scale, and yes by being ‘lead’  we succeeded in every BG we went into,  firstly because we had firm leadership or more so a ‘leader’  that didn’t just post a strat on start up, and then not maintain control and also  that everyone in that channel was there to win, and willing and open to being lead.   If you didn’t do what you were told,  there was the threat of being kicked, and rightly so.  You are doing this premade to take instructions and contribute to the success of the group.    Any  gung ho – I’m gonna do what I want thing is a threat to that sucess.

On the down side the premade was imposing itself on the randoms that managed to slip in with us, and the sheer number of us,  meant that we were really playing our own game and they could either go along for the ride and win,  or they could try and fight against the maelstrom of our army.  Might this affect the enjoyment of their game?  It could.  Did we care?   Nope.

 

 

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.

 

 

My 1st GDKP run & Gearscore

A TOC 25 Run was in LFG looking for one more Dps for a hosted Gold DKP run.  I didn’t have a lot of gold on my main,  but I wanted to see what it was all about,  get a handle on how it worked – even if I didn’t end up bidding on anything.  I’m the type of GDKP person you definitely don’t want on the run – they want people to spend gold so people get a decent share of the pot,   but in my defence I told them –

“Shadow Priest 2882 Sp 5108 Gs  – Just after badges. ”

They didn’t have a shadow Priest on the run, so I was welcomed, and it was relatively simple  – someone got hit by Icehowl ( noob!)  but it was tranq shotted by a on the ball hunter, and we wiped once on Anub.

I made over 1k gold on that run on the splitting of  the loot pot. Which was a poor pot but still free gold, and got easy badges.  No caster trinkets dropped, which would have driven up the bidding, and I would have emptied my coffers trying to get,  but it looks like they go for a lot of gold, so I better get saving.  Most of the gold came from people bidding on the trophies for just over 2.5k,  Orbs sold for 300 which could be resold on the AH for round 380-400  – There wasn’t even loot that dropped I could roll for cheaply for offspec.  We needed less geared cashed up people on that run.

From a performance point, I was sitting 5-9th for the 1st 4 bosses, and 11th on Anub.  Which was a much better place to be in comparison to the 10 man Toc I pugged and got top dps/damage the night before.

~~~~~~

I worked out why I got rejected from an a run I tried to get into the night before last,   everyone wants you to link your achievement,  stats, and gearscore.   

“Shadow Priest 2882 Sp  2727 GS”

The catch phrase on some of the LFM messages are No reply = No thankyou.

I didn’t get a reply.  I was a little confused.  According to Wow – Heroes  and their Gearscore by class and realm  I was around 13th Alliance side ( 42nd Horde and Alliance    /cry)  so given most of the people higher then me where in raiding guilds I couldnt understand why I was rejected for a pug.

I asked one of my ex guildys that had transferred  ”  What do they use to work out their gearscores?”  

“It’s an add on?”
“Ahhhh” 

So I downloaded Gearscore from Curse to find out my gearscore was  5108 – a massive difference to the 2727 Score I was quoting – So no wonder  I was rejected.  ( and that score is with 2 ilevel 200 trinkets)

Loot dealing and Wheeling.

Onyxia 25 was forming – I joined,  we were doing well untill the 2nd phase of whelps.   Raid wiped  – raid leader Dc’s  people start leaving,  someone starts to reform.  Thinking I might be able to salvage it, I stick around.  The raid leader of the reform then whispers me wanting  to know what loot I’m after – I tell him helm,  he says he wants the cloak.    

 He was checking to see if I was going to roll on the cloak before we had even got 25 people in the raid.  My brain ticks.  Guildless raidleader, with master looter wanting loot bad enough to check with a dps that they don’t want it before we even formed.  Ninja warning ! went off in my head.

Maybe I was being overtly paranoid – I didn’t know this person from squat – it’s just purple pixels blah blah , what do you expect from pugs ect.    I was getting a clear impression that he wanted me to say ” I will not roll on that cloak”

We still see people in pugs though not wanting to stack the raid with more than one of their class/spec so as to get better loot chances,  what was going to stop him from kicking me if he thought I was a threat to his loot, even if he was a boomkin.  Didn’t want to risk it, and so I left the raid with a . ” “I don’t do loot deals sorry”  If I told him I didn’t want the cloak if it dropped and I rolled on it then he would loot it to himself because I said I didn’t want it, and if I said I wanted the cloak then he had the power to remove me – as I owed nothing to him,  he owed nothing to me

It’s early in the raid week – I don’t think I will have many issues picking up at least the base of the 10’s and 25’s – the TOGC’s because I haven’t fully cleared them look to be a problem  4/5 for TOGC 10 and  3/5 for TOGC 25  – the Pst achievements seem to be essential to get an invite.

What I love about Blackrock so far.

Trade channel is full of people looking for more –  for runs for everything.

A LFM Ony25  Pst stats, GS, and achievement  popped up in trade last night while I was standing in Dalaran contemplating what time the dailys were ticking over ( different server time then I am used to)   So I grabbed it – In the run I found out my recount wasn’t working, so I couldnt measure myself against the rest of the peeps,  but I was riding the tanks butt on threat on Phase 3.

The guy running it was  from a guild that I had looked at their site of for  as a potential app, untill I saw the quality they were accepting,  and maybe they will grow up into better geared/skilled raiders,   but some looked like fresh 80’s with AH bought blues.

The run was easy – loot was fair,   they did things a little differently but that was more with placement of Ony and it wasn’t too hard to catch on.  I lost the roll on the Cloth helm I have been gagging for.  ( story of my dice)    its a funny helm,  it’s not really a shadow helm as it has no hit,  but its not a healing helm,  but I’ve lost it to healing priests every single time it’s dropped by the roll of a dice.

Spent the rest of the night doing premade EOS with my ex guildys on the server, and a little herbing on my Herbing alt.  Got ganked once by a rogue, he was after the herb node.   My mage may not be geared,  but she at least annoyed him a little, sheep, nova, blast and in fairness he ganked me and didn’t camp me – I waited an extra min on my rez in case, but he was long gone.  

The herbing market seems somewhat healthy so what doesn’t get turned into flasks for my main I am selling, and I’ve made about 400-500 gold already selling some stuff I bought over and the herbs. It’s well worth transmuting the lifes into fires which are going for 30g each at the moment. 

So it’s been ok so far – maybe also because I like this idea of a break from have to be on at this time raiding,   I want to do at least a week of raid Id’s to try ‘feel’ it out.  I feel a bit nakid without a tag, but I am feeling a lot better about being ‘here’ then I was back on Dath – if only for the thrill of  running past flagged people  – and not knowing if they are going to try and gank me.

 

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.