"We're not friends. We're just online acquaintances."
This phrase, spat out over Vent in a mad GM rage, was one of the first hard lessons I learned playing WoW. It came from the mouth of the GM of what had been a fun friends and family guild that had some success with 10 man BC raiding, but was at loggerheads over an elephant in the room that went by the name of Our Main Tank Who Is Terrible But Since She is a Girl Our GM Has a Sort of Crush On We All Have to Compensate For It. For brevity, let's just call her Bad Tank. And in case you think I am being harsh, said tank could not stance dance (even after we all showed her how to do so via macro) so I did not get a Nightbane kill in Kara until I changed guilds. But I digress.
Our GM put us all in our place the night he flipped out. He made it clear that our roles in his life, as far as he was concerned, were interchangeable/replaceable cogs that allowed him to complete heroics and facilitate raiding. We would do as we were told or we could gtfo. We were not to confuse ourselves with having such an exalted status as that of friend. He did not give a crap about our opinions or feelings unless they were along the lines of how great a GM he was. And in this specific instance, he cared more about not hurting Bad Tank's feelings by replacing her with a more able tank on that fight than he cared about frustrating the rest of the guild. He lost three of his most competent raiders, but he was happier that way. Well, until Bad Tank stopped playing a week later to go horde with her new boyfriend. Cough.
His venomous assertion that we guildies were not his friends took me by surprise, to be frank. After our months of raiding together, hearing his tales of woe both job and girl related, I had started to think of him as a friend, not just some avatar I visited at my convenience when I wanted some new loot. Yes, I'd had fallings out with friends IRL before, but I'd never had someone say to me "we're not friends" with an undercurrent of superiority and arrogance.
The big lesson here of course is my perception of reality does not equal your or anyone else's perception of the same situation or place in time. And until someone gets a BFF tattoo with your name on it or mails you a gaily wrapped dragonling as a present, don't make any assumptions about your relationships with other people. Like my mom's smart ass boyfriend always said "You know what happens when you assume, right? You make an Ass out of U and Me." I have to remind myself of this unpleasant experience whenever the "but I thought we were friends..." phrase pops into my head in light of an interaction gone awry.
The crappy thing about this particular lesson is I've had to repeat it more than once, because it just never sinks in for me. I'm hard-headed and soft-hearted that way. If only the armory had a friend stat or achievement so you could more accurately gauge your friend faction with your online acquaintances. Maybe they'll add that to the guild functionality in the expansion.
;)
Until then, I'll keep on fighting the good fight, and keep on treating as friends the folks who make my online experience a fun way to spend my time. And as for those that turn out not to be friends after all? Well that is what ignore's for, and I've got a full 25 free spots I can fill, with 25 more after 3.3. You can't be on the same page with everyone all the time. All you can do is be true to yourself.
cheers.
I'm sort of in-between goals at the moment.
I got the mage to 80.
I faction changed the shaman, brought her to my horde server and got her a few upgrades plus a Black War bear.
We've cleared all the available regular raid instances, and the guild is now working on hard modes in the search for Algalon.
My shadow priest has her motorcycle, and finally got the Lil' Game hunter achievement.
So now what?
Yes, I have the wee druid in the wings, but I'm meh about leveling at the moment and have to give concentrated questing a time out to avoid burn out. Unless I have other crazy levelers willing to go 3-man at level instances. THAT is something I can never pass up (and something I always wayyy underestimate how much time to allot for.)
I wonder why it is so hard to stop and smell the roses in WoW? Instead of just reveling in the moment, all too often I see folks in a similar mind set to where I am at right now saying "I'm bored." And find myself restless without a new goal to pursue. In retrospect, isn't it absurd for any of us to be bored with an MMO that has literally thousands of activities in which we could participate if only we motivated ourselves to think outside of our slef-defined box?
Luckily, those moments, for me, pass quickly. And soon enough I have a new list of things I want to do. And for the most part, what I want to do is piddle around with the folks in my guild whose company makes me happy, piddling around, doing whatever, biding my time until we get to pay a visit on the Lich King. I'm ready and waiting.
Things got a little Spooky in the World of Warcraft in the wee hours of the morning today. It's the start of the annual Hallow's End celebrations, marking the break of the Foresaken from the Lich King.
The peeps at WoWHead put together a comprehensive guide to all the fun and merry making in store for those in pursuit of the Hallowed achievement.
I got off to a good start, including scoring a Sinister Squashling from the Horseman, 3-manned with my usual hit squad. I was somewhat surprised I hadn't done more of these achievements last year on the shadow priest, but then again, I was still raiding Alliance-side at that point, so I guess there wasn't enough time to do everything. Unfortunately, RL calls so no additional time for trick-or-treating or achievement crawling today.
Fun fact: Dalaran has 3 candy buckets available to you: your faction Inn, Ledgermain Lounge and the Cantrips and Crows Inn at the Sewer.
More festive screenshots after the jump.
After a very long work day, I came home to find the Pirates taking down the city leaders. We've become quite proficient at it, and count many war bears amongst our members. I had planned to do my dailies and sit it out, but then a new shiny carrot was dangled in front of me...
Why was everyone headed to Dustwallow Marsh?
To pay Jaina a visit?
Invite, please!
I'll admit, I felt a little bad about raiding Jaina in her ivory tower. After all, all she wanted to do was to study. But then, all of a sudden, she cast her eyes on me...and PORTED ME INTO THE OCEAN.
Oh wait, I remember why I don't like you, Jaina. You stopped me from giving Wrynn a good stomping in the Battle for Undercity. And you seem to be leading Thrall on while you still carry some sort of a torch for your lost Arthas. And whenever something doesn't go your way you port on out.
I made my way past the Alliance 80s that were camped in the ocean (surprisingly all 4 of them ran away from me, a poor little soggy shadow priest), back up the ramp, and helped finish Jaina off. She was a much tougher fight, with more casualties and difficulty than Tyrande.
Sorry my dear, you will have to study another day.
Grats to the Pirates for this additional pillaging!
My mage finally made it to 80 this weekend. But I feel a little sorry for her. Because after spending all this time and energy leveling, I am a bit burnt out on what comes next. You see, she's 80 number four for me. And at this point, I am more than a little tired of the gear-up-the-alt grind, to be frank. So she is going to have to suffice for now with the entry-level gear kit I assembled for her. Everything she's wearing I was able to craft or purchase cheaply on the AH, with the exception of the trinkets, which were courtesy of our Brewfest boss farming.
Crafted
Cheap AH Purchase/Lucky Drop
She still needs level 80 rings, but it's not a bad start. I won't be embarrassed to bring her on headless horseman farm runs, and guild heroics. Which is good since realistically, given my work schedule + our raid schedule + having another alt ahead of her for gearing out, this is as good as it is going to get for a while.
I assembled the gear over the course of about a month, with the most expensive item being the Spellblade (tho I mined all the ore and used my + guildies' titansteel cooldowns), and only bought the Sash of Jordan because it was up in the AH for under 150g. That was too good a price to pass up. The shoulders were a lucky drop in Naxx some time ago which I held on to as incentive to get her to level cap.
Thanks to a little help from a certain DK, I got my Lil' Game Hunter achievement today. Second time getting it, but still just as sweet.
Although I would like her to hurry up and get to 80 already, I am still pleased with my mage's progress over the past few weeks. Our raiding schedule has picked up considerably (more on this later in the week), so it has not left as much time to play lowbies as I would like. But still, progress has been made. She is now sitting midway through 78, with Sholazar Basin fairly complete and plans to do the Hodir chain in Storm Peaks next.
The screenshot above shows my SO and I on our Brewfest mounts. Through some RNG miracle, we each got one as did Sawyer, our frequent partner in WoW crime and 3-man Brewfest boss farming partner. This scratched "get a presentable mount" off my to-do list for the mage.
In case you don't recognize the location of this scenic shot, it's inside the Black Morass Caverns of Time instance. We did this baby twice (after completing the Escape from Durnholde) to farm up the infinite essences for my alchemy specialization quest. I am now elixir spec'd, and sitting at 446 alchemy, waiting for frost lotus to be available for less than 50g each to get those last 4 points, and thus start on the epic gem transmutes. Overall though, I am pleased with getting her crafting profession mostly squared away.
The other big project was amassing a set of level 80 blues and craftables to ease her into heroics once she dings 80. Ideally, it's nice to do some regular 8 instances first, but this far into the expansion, it's near impossible to get a regular ToC 5man, let alone anything else. Thanks to our previously mentioned Brewfest farming, she has two epic trinkets squirreled away, I had the epic dagger crafted, and I have shiny new gear for ever slot waiting, except for a second ring, which my JC will craft once I have the titanium.
It's going to feel good to reclaim all that bank space, and to be presentable right out of the starting gate.
I don't have plans to alt raid with her, so she's likely a pretty close to finished project. That means the baby druid will get to be played finally. The help of the BoA chest, trinket, shoulders and mace should make her go even quicker than my other ladies. I can't wait. It's always fun to have an alt project to work on...
Have a good maintenance day.
Shadow Priest + Chopper + Boomkin = SHADOWKIN.
Who knew?
Happy Monday.
For those of you who are fanatical Alliance players, you may want to skip this post. Because it is about how my formerly Alliance shaman got her For the Horde achievement today.
No, I didn't get a haircut.
And I haven't lost any weight.
But there is a strange change in my appearance...I am rocking a staff! For serious! Not like that time when we would have DEd the bat on a stick so I took it for dress up.
Illumination dropped for us in ToC the other night, and after looking it over, I realized that despite the Twins dropping my shiny OH a few weeks back, the staff, with its 2 gem slots and ability to use the big ass enchant of staff spellpower made it a nice upgrade. It was about time I gave my Torch of Holy Fire a rest.
For the record, this is the first time I have worn a staff on a toon since Karazhan. Back then, my mage, druid and shadow priest each had the Curator staff for a solid chunk of time.
With all the progress our casual guild has made over the past few months, it was inevitable we would have some growing pains. If you've ever been a part of a guild that was slowly but surely progressing into uncharted territory raiding-wise you've probably been through something similar:
A guild that lacks strong leadership or vision often crumbles in the midst of these sort of growing pains. Luckily for us, our thoughtful and inclusive officer team talked out these frustrations, and allowed us all as a guild to transform our vision of the guild's approach to end game raiding.
The officers, after taking in guild discussion, came back to the forums with proposals -- not mandates-- that they received additional feedback on. A primary issue they addressed was we were leaning heavily upon three guildies for all our raid leading and strategy. In addition to burning them ut, it gave some less frequent raiders a sense they could show up, go through the motions, loot, and profit. We needed more raiding team involvement in making the raids happen and to thus lead to better engagement (and ultimately, have a strong end game raid team ready for Icecrown Citadel, and to be fielding a strong 25 man raid of some sort in house.)
Not All Raiders Are Created Equal
The first major task that was undertaken was to evaluate the raiding performance of all our frequent raiders over the past few months. From that evaluation, we came up with 2 separate lists of raiders -- those ready for hard modes and the top tier of raiding instances, and those better suited for Ulduar and our "farm" raiding. These two lists also came with updated performance standards, which I am sharing here as I realize how much time it took to get a good SWAG going for them (and in some cases, we are still trying to nail down the numbers).
These numbers seem pretty readily attainable for anyone willing to put in the time. My newly faction-transferred elemental/resto shaman, who sat in some Naxx gear, unplayed, since January, is Ulduar ready after a few weeks of badges and ToC 5-man drops. And with her totems down she meets the ToC 10 healing minimums, which means that is within reach soon as well, were she to have been my raiding toon.
Get a Job
The second major component of our raiding revamp was to actively solicit more raid member involvement in planning and running the raids. Our initial list of proposed roles for the two tiers of raiding included:
The final component of our changes is the introduction in the end game raids of EPGP points accrual and loot bidding. Taking into account compensating those heading into uncharted territory for a night of wiping, and making it less frequently possible that an occasional raider would attend a raid and scoop up the one item for which a core raider had been waiting.
Our approach isn't a cure-all for these issues, and won't work in a guild with officers whose sense of self-worth is tied to wielding their power over the raids. But for our passionate, engaged raiders, it's going to be a welcome change. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
Not only did the mage ding 76 tonight, she won the Brewfest Kodo in our 3-manned Coren Direbrew group tonight! Whoo-hoo!
P.S. those 2 kegs on either side should totally allow me to transport passengers. passengers who would get drunk while we traveled...
;p
Get a couple of levels on the mage. She is stuck at 4 bars from 76. She deserves some attention.
Given my past experiences with progression raiding, I found that to be surprising. When you have raid members who go above and beyond in fulfilling raid assistant roles, if they do not have an official rank that gives them some sort of authority, they are put in the position too many of us are put in at work -- trying to persuade others over whom we have no real influence to see things our way. And that can have limited success.
In my most progression-focused guild, in vanilla, we probably had what seemed like too many officers. There was the GL, the class officers, the raid officers,, and guild crafters for each profession. Additionally the main raid and the secondary raid had their own guild bank alts. But then again, that guild fronted 1 progression raid, 2-3 MC raids per week, 2 Ony runs per week, and often had 100+ members logged on at any one point over the weekend. They needed the officers just to keep things moving smoothly from an administrative perspective. The RL didn't want to be scheduling the 5-6 druids each week in addition to everything else he was doing.
I've been a class leader, in charge of picking druids for raids and coaching them on gear and their rotations. I've been the guild enchanter, tapped to DE (and usually ML) in every raid for 2 years. I've been a plain old Officer, in charge of recruiting ad raid readiness. And I've been an enforcer in a recurring ad hoc raid, inviting folks, helping keep things moving, and doling out potty break time.
Throughout my 4 years of playing WoW, has my Officer title affected how I play, or how much energy I put into improving myself and helping my guild? No. However, when I have worked my tushy off for my guild, and have just been expected to do so and seen Officers whose official duties seem to extend only to chatting in O, inviting people to the guild and shooting down any new idea brought to the officer council because it wasn't their own, that *has* made me unhappy, and even caused me to /gquit.
Then there was the guild that had class officers and a swath of general officers. The class officers included a tree druid who outgeared me and healed, I kid you not, 50% of what I did as an officially (per armory) hybrid spec druid. A few months after I joined, they announced they were consolidating officers since the 25-man raid size didn't merit having so many officers. That's great, right? Except that it meant is the GL kept all his buddy officers and cut the rest of the slate free. And the really bad tree? She got to stay. Cronyism is the way of the world, including in guild officer politics, but it's still a disappointment no matter how you slice it.
So what's the right balance between enough officers and not enough? Should officers have clearly defined roles and responsibilities or just be responsible for broad governance? What's worked the best for your guild?
