Into a New Land: Part One: The Scout

It's a near-certainty that I'm going to transfer servers. It's not a common experience for me, so I figure I'll write about it. Who knows what strange things I might encounter. Maybe they'll all use a different set of acronyms or have slightly different AH prices.

I log in. I log out to disable my pile of addons, many of which I do not ever use and did not realize even stil existed.

I log in. I pick frost specialization. I no longer have a 'finisher', since Blood Strike is supposedly replaced by Death Strike or Obliviate, not available until 56 and 58, respectively.

I get a guild invite. While I write this I get another one. The first was at least for my own server.

Auto-loot is off. This is the first thing that frustrates me with all alts. At least I didn't spent ten minutes grinding mobs and wondering why I wasn't getting quest drops.

Instructor Razuvious does not use Oxford commas when he talks. I regret that his words are allowed to appear on my screen.

I receive the second invite for a guild on Galakrond. He asks that I press Accept. I decline to inform him that the options are "Join Guild" and "Decline Invitation".

As I run through the DK starting area I find myself torn between being eager to run through Outland and eager to run through Northrend. I end up picking the fourth guild invite I got, a level 2 that, of course, has big plans. In the meantime I am getting 5% more xp and someone gets some free guild leveling. Their invite macro seems to be working well, with equal parts Blackhand and Galakrond.

It all looks promising, but I still have that nagging question, "Would I be better off spending my $25 on a flying mount?" And then a voice says, "No, that's a stupid question. One of these will improve your playing experience while the other is a flashy thing that you'd never use, just like every other flashy mount you own."

Great guilds are more important than great raids

Not too long ago, Doone made his list of the top five raids in WoW. I tried to make my own little list, but I was hindered by a few things. First, while I've seen and finished all but one pre-Cataclysm raid, I'd done many of those during the next expansion and therefore with a different experience. Naxx at 70 is not the same as Naxx at 60, and of course neither are like new Naxx at 80.

Why wasn't I in those raids? Because I wasn't in guilds that were doing them. In Cataclysm I was almost never in a guild and consequently did almost no raiding. Ditto for Pandaria. LFR was raiding in visuals only.

If asked about the greatest raid ever, of all time, I will answer Karazhan. Why? Well it certainly was a great raid. The bosses were varied. Some were made-up for the raid, but many were straight out of the stories we'd hastily clicked past to get our quest reward or the games that made Warcraft a title that could sell millions of copies of a game in a completely different genre. Kara introduced many innovations such as tokens that reduced the tendency to get completely screwed by the RNG; a small, accessible raid; and polite ghosts.

Yet, why don't I say Ulduar? That was a place with a nifty story, varied bosses, and all manner of neat new tricks such as getting to punch a tank. It was perfectly tied into Storm Peaks and if there is one thing I love it is when instances are tied to their locations. The short reason is that I was in a different guild. I still enjoyed their company and stuck with them for a while after, but it wasn't the guild that I ran Kara with. I ran Kara with my guild, founded by my friends and me, filled with people of a similar mindset. Ulduar was someone else's guild that I was let into. Though in retrospect, when I took another shot at playing again in Cataclysm they were the ones I ran with, even giving up playing my paladin (it was on another server, this wasn't one of those "I quit my main to get into a raiding guild" stories). Just writing that was enough to make me start looking for them again. This is a dark road. :)

Anyway, there's the general trend: While Ulduar was on par with Karazhan, even a little difference in guild attachment can dramatically tip the scales. There is another issue though: I never finished Ulduar. We were stuck so close to the end, and I think slowly getting there and I would have gladly fought it out. Then someone set up a circus in Icecrown and we were off for some of the most forgettable bosses since Molten Core. My WoW experience was downhill from there, struggling through ICC, with Ulduar still bugging me, all because Blizzard yanked guilds away.

That brings me to my happiest time in Cataclysm. It wasn't a long time, but for a few brief moments I was back raiding with them again. I wasn't on my paladin. I don't think Dragon Soul was all that great of a raid. But I was with friends. About a week and a half ago I went looking for them, eventually going with the straightforward method of resubbing. Sadly, many of them are inactive now (not gquit), but a few are around and maybe more will come back. In the meantime, some low-key MoP is fun.

But about my top five raids...
Molten Core
Karazhan
Zul'Gurub
Gruul's Lair
Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj (20-man)
These are in no particular order. Nor do I suffer from the delusion that these are the Top Five Raids. They are only mine and are almost entirely due to my situation at the time.

Molten Core was my first raid. I have fond memories of fighting Garr, a fight which required many warlocks, and during which I demonstrated my creativity, figuring out, in a time before many guides were around, a better way to banish. Perhaps it was a small thing, but it was fun. While it was an amateurish raid design, it was also perfectly integrated into Blackrock Mountain, a place filled with instances and raids, all connected in one way or another, making it a prime destination for players 50-60. That made it a fun, or frustrating, place on a PvP server.

Karazhan was a hard-earned victory, fought through with my own guild of friends. It was there that my paladin went from alt to main, a position that would only be lost because of The Great Betrayal. There was such variety, such strange things to find.

Zul'Gurub was strange place. There are multiple optional bosses. One boss was different depending on the week, and somewhat difficult to summon, needing an alchemist and some odd ingredients. Another boss was fished up. Where MC was dull, ZG was bizarre and outlandish. Players could loot voodoo piles for a chance at voodoo dolls, needed for trinkets, a rare thing in those days, but they'd be mind-controlled for a while. The 'correct' response was to CC them, but why not kill them instead? In an era of 40-man raids, ZG only needed 20. Its loot was an unusual mix of purples and oddly-powerful blues, seemingly scattered at random. Even that long ago Blizzard was doing strange things with its raiding.

Gruul's Lair consisted of one incredibly hard pull and a somewhat pushover final boss. The Council was based on a good pull: get the mobs where they needed to be, attacking the right people, and things could go fairly smoothly. Screw it up and it's a horrible mess of everyone dying. The final boss, Gruul, was a fight about spreading out: he'd slowly turn players to stone, then shatter them, hurting those nearby, so spreading out 25 people just right was sometimes difficult. I'd recently joined a new guild, merging our fading one with another that needed a boost. They reluctantly let me tank Gruul, but called for a lot of misdirects, because "paladins have trouble with aggro." I proceeded to double everyone else, at a time when aggro wasn't a matter of sneezing with righteous fury on. That was a source of endless amusement for me. Even beside that, those were still days when paladin tanking was still in doubt, it wasn't that long ago that paladins were mostly just exceptionally mana-efficient healbots. Of course we were recognized as good trash and five-man tanks, with our mechanics perfectly suited to holding aggro on unlimited enemies, but handling just one was apparently in doubt. And, of course, I always pulled with my goblin rocket launcher, because if you're going to make a tank, why not do it in style?

Sapped Men Can't Say No

I can't believe this guild doesn't exist.

By my count on warcraftrealms.com, there are 92 guild names including the phrase "sapped girls" and another three of "sapped women can't say no". Just searching "sapped" yields a strangely high number of EU guilds called "sapped cows cant say moo". "Sap" results in a variety of names such as "sap girls cant say no", since apparently sapped was already taken and who wants to join someone else's rape joke guild? Ew. There are a dozen or so variants of "sap it before you tap it".

But c'mon, guys, rape is hilarious! Why isn't there a gay guild called "sapped men cant say no"? or a straight guild that recognizes that this would be funny, right? I mean, a woman can join a guild about female rape, why don't men join one about male rape?

It's almost as if men don't like the idea of men getting raped and neither do women.

[edit] Today my warrior got an invite from Sapped Gurls Cant Say No

Guilds, Servers, Communities

Community used to be based on servers. We had our server and that was where we were, so all our actions were in our own back yard. Or to better fit my next analogy, our servers were our homes. Only a desperate, or awfully trained, dog will shit in the house.

Before battlegrounds PvP was based on the actual open realm. Then we had battlegrounds which put the same population in a box of some sort, which pushed out some of the world PvP types, but in general did not radically alter the composition of the group by excluding large parts or adding outsiders. People knew the other people on their server, including in the battlegrounds. Then came cross-realm BGs and areas which diluted the population and shifted a lot of focus away from battlegrounds. Battlegrounds ceased to be *ahem*, serious business.

PvE was still based on the server. Then came cross-realm LFD which pushed heroics and regular instances off the server. As with BGs, one can still make server-only groups, but they come at a significant cost of time and the loss of the 5% damage/healing/health buff.

The importance of the server as a foundation for community has been further eroded by easier and easier server transfers, name changes, and faction changes. Location and identity mean less.

In essence we're all in the public part and dogs are shitting all over the place. There are no owners with old newspaper bags in their pockets, so it just gets left there. The community stinks.

Blizzard seems to be trying to fix this by expanding guilds. With guild levels and reputation we are encouraged to stay in guilds. Nice thought, but nonsense.

With this change guilds cease to be a convenience for the sake of communication with a selected group. Once upon a time being unguilded wasn't a stupid idea. It was a choice with no major incentive one way or another. Now guilds are reputation, experience, and gold boosters. Now being guildless is stupid.

Is this going to improve the community? I doubt it. Utilitarian structures, which is what guilds are now, do not improve community. Instead they put players in a bad position: join a guild, any guild, just get in a guild, or you're hurting yourself. Oh and if you don't like the guild, you'd better find a new one before you leave, but that's okay, you can easily find a guild that just wants bodies to help cap their daily rep.

Notice how in this scenario no one cares about who is in the guild or who you are? They don't even care if you're skilled, just if you're playing.

This is not a way to build a strong community.

But let's be optimistic and pretend that we will all care for our guild and its members. We all huddle in and shut the door and stay in there. Why would we ever leave? PUGs are just a source of frustration. Thanks to cross-realm LFD they aren't a place to find new members. We're definitely not going to try making a server-only group, since it's probably just filled with people who can't get their own guild runs, and who wants those sort of people?

So we put up our walls and fences and keep the riff-raff out. It'll be like our own virtual Brazil, complete with segregation and unusually sexualized women.

Nothing is free. All the convenience we demanded of shorter queues and automated group formation, they came at a price. As I will suggest tomorrow, this price can be reduced, but we cannot rely on automatic anonymous groups and expect to have any server community and with no server community things will only get progressively worse.

I can't help wonder how many new players were tricked. Did they join WoW expecting to find a world to explore and a community to join? Or did they join expecting a hamster wheel of loot and a whole lot of dog shit?

After I write posts like this I ask myself why I still play. It's the friends. A very few of us who have been together for years. Does that contradict my entire post? No. Not at all. I think it confirms it. It confirms that people need social ties. But a handful of friends are not a community; it's a clique. Is that the future of WoW, a giant mass of cliques who cannot bear to interact with others?

What would WoW be with no raids?

Tobold seems to be suggesting that raids are not as profitable as quests and heroics, due to drawing in a much smaller audience. As my own observation, on top of that raids, since they are intended to be challenging, not just bigger, balance is much more important, requiring that much more effort. Does your average solo questing player care much about class balance? Probably not. But your average raider, they are going to care, they must care.

What would WoW be with no raids?

I have to admit, I can't quite imagine it. Would we have progressively more difficulty 5-mans and heroics? We've never quite seen that. Magister's Terrace and the three sneak attacks on Icecrown Citadel bumped things up but a tier or two, but even Halls of Reflection didn't exactly strike me as content that people would spend much time on. The gear requirements were a bit higher, but only a bit.

On the other hand, it does fit the trend. Raids have gotten progressively smaller. BC took them down to 25. LK made 10 man raids almost an alternative path to 25. Now Cataclysm has made 10 into a small version of the 25, with the same gear and shared lockouts. Could we see raids gone altogether, or dropped down to 10 man and 5 man?

Maybe not. Maybe Cataclysm and the focus on strengthening guilds is an attempt to rebuild the focus on raiding and raid sizes and challenges could even climb again.

On the other hand*, beside changes to raiding there has been the trend of progressive casualization or accessibilityization or whatever other made-up word you can think up to express a poorly-defined concept. This suggests that the trend could continue and that the emphasis on guilds is only to offset the negative side-effects of teaching us to be asocial bastards, with no actual goal.

I'm probably looking at this all wrong, to suggest that with no raids WoW would go on the path of challenging 5-mans. More likely with no raids we'd just see trivial 5-mans, slightly less trivial 5-mans, and a whole lot of very slow grinds, with only the smallest shred of an economy or player community. In other words, pretty much just the current WoW but with no raids.

* This is why President Truman infamously cut off one hand from every economist he hired. The man was brutal.

I have three posts titled "what's a casual raiding guild?"

Those are my most recent failed attempts. They are not the first set either. Casual raiding guilds are damn hard to define. And that's precisely why I think so many fail to progress or even not collapse.

Guilds need common goals and expectations. Without these they're just a glorified chat channel. But so often casual raiding guilds fail to set these goals and expectations. Well, they might get the goal part in a generic or distant way, such as "raid" or "kill Arthas", but what's next week and how are we getting there? Expectations are the real killer. What gear should people have? DPS? How much attention should they pay? How about preparation: gems, enchants, consumables, strats?

The person who does more feels like the rest are dragging him down, while the people who do less may feel pushed too hard. These players can play together, but they need to know what they expect of each other and reach a compromise. More likely, they'll split away to other guilds or form useless cliques within the guild. Either way, the guild fails.

I'd define my current guild as casual. We raid a few nights for a few hours. No one is screaming on vent. No one rage quits. But we all sit down and kill internet dragons. We chat and joke and laugh, until we need vent clear to coordinate the killing of internet dragons. We're not amazing players and we're not terrible players. We're just people who expect each other to learn quickly, pay attention, and enjoy killing internet dragons. It's a friendly, helpful ass-kicking social guild.

Fun! Boring. Fun!

Acceptable Losses (the guild I made with some awesome friends from an old guild) formed up again for another crack at ICC, since the previous run was cut short by sleep requirements. A few PUGs filled up the 10 man (though they were with us earlier, so they're really only half-PUG people at this point), since we don't have 10 people yet. We're small. So off we went to finish up what we could.

We found ourselves on Blood Council. Somehow dying. The juggler kept running out of health. So I figured, why not try some stupid things? This was the same logic used by FDR and it got us out of the Depression, so who am I to be too good for stupid ideas? And so we dropped our second tank (me) and just had the warrior hold Valanar and Taldaram. Then we stuck me on juggling duty. I tended to have 4, but sometimes got up to 6. I can't say it's especially hard, but it was fun to move around in something other than a Mario dance. Paladins are definitely not ideal for this, but it worked well enough. The elves died. Again. Deaded.

So a fun fight for me.

Then we went to Blood Queen. The good news was that we one-shotted her. The bad news was that I have never tanked something so incredibly boring since... well never. That is a really boring fight to tank.

Onward to Sindragosa. 5% on our first attempt. Things went downhill from there. We did somehow pull out a kill on our fifth attempt with the raid nearly dead. A few achievements popped up for the few people who had never been there at all.

The PUG druid got loads of loot, same as last time. I got shoulders that are a bit better for tanking. We didn't do anything much brag-worthy, considering it's 10 man with a few people overgeared and a 30% buff.

But it was fun.

For the hell of it

For the f-word!

I'm now in the rebirth of Word of Redemption, known as Acceptable Losses of Zer'zhul. We hit the ground running with raiding, taking down Nefarian, C'thun, Ragnaros, and that guy in AQ20 with the funny head. Yes, old raids. We only have 6 people or so, what do you expect?

So we run and joke around on vent and generally have a good time. Why are we running these places? For the hell of it. Strange phrase, implying no reason at all, just going and doing it. No real rewards. I mean, I have all my rep from those places, I have my judgement set, what else would I want? Just for the hell of it.

Ah, the f-word.

Fu

We queued for some randoms to do achievements that we came across. Knocked out a few. Apparently I'd never ridden a bronze drake before. I think my groups always failed so I took over the red. Less-rabi somehow happened. Considering that's what I'd call the hardest achievement, sounds good to me!

They were running BRD to attune someone for MC. They wondered why I didn't go with. Don't I love that place? Of course. I said I was always with them, always watching. Sounded creepy. And I was nowhere in sight. So I waited. Waited. And as they ran toward Incendius and were wondering why I would skip BRD, I jumped. My cloak wooshed out above me and I slowly landed among them, wondering what had taken so long.

 We reminisced about lava hopping and the rhythm we had once known but lost.  I speculated that MC would have made a good five-man if sped up.  And we all agreed, there's something magical about Ragnaros.  No matter what level you are, go see him.  See him yell IN ALL CAPS about INSECTS running rampant in the hallowed CORE and being led to HIS LAIR, resulting in JUSTICE BEING MET INDEED.

Weapons look so much better on humans than blood elves, probably because they're big enough to properly see the detailing.

People who want to be in hardcore guilds but aren't

These people are full of fail. I see three ways to categorize them: fail, unsure, and social. People can fall into more than one category.

What's so bad about them? Their behavior and attitude are entirely the opposite of what is needed for the non-hardcore guild. They expect everything to have been dead last week and cannot handle the idea that some people learn more slowly than others. They lash out. They ragequit. They blame everyone except themselves, because they think they are awesome and aren't quite sure why they're hanging out with these losers.

I believe that most community problems can be attributed to these sort of people. They're the ones making poorly-run PUGs demanding 5k GS for regular ToC 10. They're running trash DPS meters in randoms. They're screaming about how everyone sucks, whether it's in a BG, raid, or just trade chat. They're often the ninjas, since you're so awful compared to them that they deserve it all, and maybe it's your fault that they are in this stupid random instead of fighting HM Arthas.

They are that grouchy guy at work who hates his job but isn't quitting it any time soon. That guy needs to shut up, doesn't he?

The three categories have different patterns of negative behavior, so not all of what I said earlier in universal to them.

Fail
In the simplest terms: this person isn't skilled enough to be in a hardcore guild. Maybe he was in one and got kicked or driven out. Maybe he applied a bunch of times to a bunch of guilds and got into none. Maybe he was in a casual guild which changed and he lost his spot. Whatever it was, the world has been bluntly telling him that he's bad. He didn't listen and is certain that he is amazing and the rest of the world just sucks, especially his current, non-hardcore guild.

Expect excessive aggression, blaming, and little patience. This player may also try to convert the guild.

Unsure
This player really wants to go hardcore and kill Arthas HM and dreams of someday doing a 40-man raid on GM Island. Rawr says his DPS should be at around 9.7k in his gear, but he's struggling for 9.4k and thinks that's terrible. Every wipe crushes his spirit as he runs through the ten thousand mistakes he made. This doesn't mean he truly made ten thousand mistakes, but he is certain that he should have been half an inch in that direction at that time and that would have saved the raid.

Expect a lot of emo, self-deprecating apologies. Beware, may start to ask why the rest of the raid isn't fixing their ten thousand mistakes and become angry.

Social
This player likes the people he raids with and doesn't want to lose them. Fails to realize that he only cares about a small portion of the guild anyway and will still be able to whisper them or talk in custom channels. Hasn't fully grasped the notion that he had friends before the guild, made friends in the guild, and probably could make new friends after the guild.

Expect a lot of chatter and attempts to keep the raid motivated. Warning: May suddenly realize he secretly hates half the raid. Don't worry, he's too afraid to hurt the other half to say anything.

These can all overlap, with increasingly obnoxious results. For example, the social fail combination may form a clique which blames the rest of the raid. The fail unsure combination might leave to go cry in the middle of the raid because not only does he make ten thousand trivial mistakes, he also makes ten thousand significant mistakes, and he knows it. The social unsure has no mic and worries that he might have been wearing a pirate hat this whole time.

Sunday Suggestion Thread

If I sue Tobold for using one of my topic ideas, can he counter-sue because I used his post concept?

That was supposed to be funny. See because it's like I said and then he reacts like and... so yes.

What do you want to see me write about?

Last time I made this I received the following suggestions:
Hating on Blizzard
I'm awesome
Arenas
New guild mechanics

I talked about arenas and have generally spread the word that I am awesome, but the other two were untouched. I try to avoid hating, with mixed success. As for the new mechanics, frankly I'm reluctant to jump into trying to form opinions at this stage. There's too much speculation, misinformation, and incomplete designs and mechanics that, well, I remember my thoughts for WotLK and a good deal of what I said didn't pan out. The unfortunate truth is that we cannot say much based on combining what we know about the current game with what we know about the future game. I mean, we saw how that went in Jurassic Park.

I do have some thoughts about the changes coming, but I have no coherent picture of what I expect or even want to see.
Legendaries and obligation to guilds
Bind on Guild recipes and perception of property
Speculation about Bind of Guild recipes

I look forward to stealing your ideas.

Let's Kill Sindragosa

Since sometime in BC I've been a member of the guild Collective Conscious on US Zul'jin. We've had our ups and downs. Frankly we're in a bit of a down, but I see an upcoming up. Cause we're going to murder Sindragosa and take her stuff and use it to kill Arthas.



Here's our boring forum recruitment ad. Part of it, because the whole thing is spammy.

Collective Conscious is a hybrid raiding and casual guild representing the honorable Horde of Zul'jin. For our raiders, who are dedicated to high end guild progression, we partake in 25-man content. For our casual players, our members who don't wish to or can't meet the raid requirements, we offer a place to make new friends and find groups. Our casual members will also have the opportunity to still see some of the high end content they'd miss in regular casual guilds if they find the time or desire to do so. The members of Collective Conscious are more like a family then a guild and we strive to make this game enjoyable for all those who play, whatever their individual goals.

We are currently looking to add to our raiding ranks; and therefore are opening applications for all classes, however we are more specifically looking for more caster dps, primarily Mages

We are looking for Quality players with at least 2/3 Raid Attendance available. We Raid Sunday, Monday & Tuesday nights Invites start at 8:00PM Server first pull at ~8:30 Server, and we raid until 12:00AM Sever.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wasn't that fun?

Here's my own recruitment: We're one boss away from Arthas, and on that boss, Sindragosa, we're making solid progress. We're not a top guild and we don't aspire to be. If that's what you want, there are many other guilds. But we are a guild that kills bosses and has fun doing it.

We're a social guild. That tends to mean an isolated, loot-whoring clique, and incessant drama. Well not at all. We run DKP based on tangible things like attendance and killing bosses, spending based on fixed prices with none of the manipulation that comes with a bidding system (though I must admit, I loved the time I was pretty much the only warlock back in MC with a guild that used bidding). The last drama I saw was indirectly caused by me, Iapetes, a paladin friend, and a whole lot of happy fun rocks. I bet you'd love to have your only drama consist of the sky being filled with happy fun rocks. They're happy and fun!

I won't lie to you and say we're the next big guild or the happiest time in the world, because you'd know that's a lie. But I will honestly say that we kill bosses and have a fun time doing it. We have fun in gchat and fun in raids and ... GNOMES WITH THUNDERFURY MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER, SO FUCKING JOIN.


More seriously, if you're looking for a good shot at killing Sindragosa and Arthas, this is it. No, I lied. This is not a good shot. That is an understatement. Sindragosa will die whether you join or not, so wouldn't you rather be there to see it? Then we will kill Arthas and laugh as Tirion is told to never let anyone know what happened and then builds a monument to it in Dalaran.

If you're curious about our server, it's east coast time, whatever that is. The population isn't tiny or gigantic, and I suspect a GM recently started murdering anyone who types anal in trade, because that seems to be dying down. Our economy works pretty well: you can buy what you need, or sell it can get rich as hell. If you are thinking of transferring and bringing materials, I'd compare prices first.

Back to the guild, we have crafters for just about anything. They're friendly helpful people. By friendly I mean sarcastic. But they can still make stuff. For my own part, I have a small army of alts which I use as a managed economy, meaning that I can make any glyph, quite a few gems, and anything except those elitist enchants that come from raids. However my enchanter wields a Finkle's Lava Dredger, so you know he does good stuff. And he is the troll shaman, Klepsacovic.

Other benefits of joining my server include being on my server and being on the same server as me.

So come to Zul'jin and join Collective Conscious. It's a way better value than a pony.

I hate Mondays

These are the nights that all the easy bosses are dead. These are the nights that we can get somewhere. These are the nights that the raid doesn't fill.

Sindragosa will die... if we ever fight her.

Are guilds communist collectives?

A guildy recently asked "want to sell me 2 crusader enchants at better then your ah price?" I replied sensibly: "I am always willing to charge more." I offered to make it if he brought mats. He decided to just buy a scroll. This might have been related to my having recently bought all the orbs. They were at a good price!

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
Sounds like a decent guild concept. We all work together to get somewhere better together and try to build each other up so we can do better.

I believe the most successful guilds will be someone collectivist: sharing materials and professions. Why? Because the enchant I give my guildy helps me. I lose gold, oh noes. But I make my guildy better able to kill the same thing I want to kill. I could demand a fee, but what do I gain? A bit of gold that I don't need, and he's more likely to have to farm or run dailies, making him just a little bit less happy with the game. Dailies are boring as shit.

I am not a nice person. I am selfish to the core. As are all people. I just think about my selfishness more. Within a guild I can see how I am not a self-made man, but am instead part of a collective* which kills the boss together or not at all. If it doesn't work I can either build them up or go elsewhere. I prefer to not run at the slightest challenge and throw blame to cover my cowardice.

So why didn't I make scrolls for him? His alts do nothing for me. They are luxuries and those are not my responsibility. I do not demand free anything for my alts, nor do I expect it. If I get it, that's great.

Did I lose gold by not selling him a scroll? Of course not. I never lose gold. Only idiots lose gold. My gold is always right where I left it.

* Literally: The guild name is Collective Conscious.

Too many dicks on the dance floor

Last night we had another thrilling round of Wipe on Putricide. It's similar to Killing Putricide, which I understand is popular with some guilds, but with this twist we die instead of him. It's not really for everyone, but that's how niche guilds work.

If you've done him, you might have noticed that in phase two he drops two beakers which reduce your hit by a lot if you step in the clouds they create. In 10-man we (other people in the guild, I get bored enough with only one ICC run per week) have the tank move and the melee follows. This gets them away from the orange miss gas.

Last night I made a small suggestion: that melee watch for these. That was the totality of the suggestion. Okay I technically said to watch the ground so they can notice them sooner. Notice how this has no bearing on what the tank does. Or what the melee does. Or really anything except reacting faster to something which would wreck their DPS.

I pointed out that a process of [tank notices] and then [melee notices tank move] is slower than [melee notices]. Or more accurately, since melee aren't watching the tank, since they're rarely trying to stab him, the process would be [tank notices] [boss moves to catch up to tank] [melee notices boss move].

I know, how RUDE and OUT OF ROLE of me to make this ENORMOUS change to the strat. The very idea of suggesting that melee pay attention and possibly even react to their environment without the delayed orders of someone else is... unthinkable.

Some jackass raider [in the original post I'd mistakenly refereed to him as an officer, so some comments may seem off] decided to give me shit about this. He was in a harcore guild (or so I've heard) and in raid chat it was all figured out (they barely say shit in raid chat, it's mostly on vent, where they hadn't much either) and in tank chat too ( because I was totally privy to that, thanks for expecting me to know) and something about how I talk a lot but don't take much action. What the fuck that would even mean I don't know. Am I supposed to be a unthinking bot?

The whisper from him started with "we all know you have a blog" and then something about theorycraft vs. practicecraft. I explained that I had no idea what he was talking about. What does having a blog have to do with anything? I got the answer I sought: and it made no fucking sense. Apparently bloggers are part of a group which can only theorycraft pretty numbers and never actually play. This was new to me. He didn't seem to get my point when I explained that if he thought my blog has anything to do with theorycraft, he's never read it. I left out any mention of how so many unplaying theorycraft bloggers aren't formerly in hardcore guilds, they are currently in them, killing Arthas or hardmodes or hardmode Arthas, while we're wiping on Putricide.

Supposedly there was offense taken by my comment that there were "too many dicks on the dance floor". This raider decided to give me shit about that. If you knew me in game, you'd know I make jokes a lot, but I don't just randomly insult the entire raid. A person who is attempting to not jump to conclusions like a power-tripping douchebag will think "maybe that's some reference that I didn't get." In this case, it is. He had not taken a survey (I asked) but had heard comments in channels. An officer could not verify any cases of offense.

Eventually I ended the discussion with a polite (I'm lying) promise (lying) that I would not (lying) do any more thinking or suggesting (lying) no matter how much it did not affect the strat. Then I ignored him and spit on him on my way out. Perhaps not the most mature of responses, but when someone harasses me with no justification or provocation, I get pissed. The ignore did seem to shut him up though, so that's a plus.

I'm going to do a bit of rare theorycraft here. By theorycraft I mean insult people.

Former hardcore raiders who try to push a casual guild towards hardcore raiding and/or who constantly bring up their former status: Are worthless players. They are arrogant and lack the skills to match their egos.

They could not have voluntarily left hardcore raiding and voluntarily stayed out. They must have been called out for being not quite so great. Or for being egotistical douchebags. In other words, they were kicked out. And they can't get back in. If they could, they would. The fact that they try to change a casual guild indicates that they are not good enough to get into a pre-existing one or are socially incapable of creating their own. Despite their arrogance and sense of superiority, they effectively want the guild to carry them, to do what they cannot.

They are the "link achievement" person in trade chat, who does not have the achievement. They are the gearscore whores in blues. They are the people who whine that "WoW is too easy because Arthas died in X days after the patch" when they're still on fucking putricide. If even that.

I've run into some former hardcore raiders who got burnt out and didn't want to do that anymore. You know what? They were nice, good players. They knew their stuff and knew what they wanted. They didn't flaunt it except as a slight "yea, back in the day..." kinda thing to give cred without seeming to be bragging (or at least not too much bragging).

Then there are the ones who are out and want back in, but suck too much as players or people to do so.

This probably reflects poorly on my guild. That's too bad. I don't mean anything against the guild as a whole. Certainly there are all sorts of things which annoy me, but that's what happens with groups: nothing is perfect for anyone. This post is about the particular officer and his dickishness.

I guess there really were too many dicks on the dance floor.

The dick on the dance floor

I have a handy addon called Cellular. Most often I use it to separate conversations from chat log spam. It also logs them, which has been a huge help a few times when I've gotten whispers from people, thought "who is this person and why re they talking to me?", and then a scroll up show "oh, I bought herbs from them a few weeks ago". It's also easier than taking a lot of screenshots and resizing my chat log on the fly. Sorry if it looks odd, that's the formatting it uses. Be thankful blogger is ignoring the two dozen spaces before each line (or so the preview appears to be).

"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] we all know you run a blog. practicecraft is better than theorycraft, imo", -- [33]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] huh?", -- [34]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] you've got me all confused now", -- [35]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] I mean, what does blog have to dow ith practicecraft?", -- [36]
"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] what we've discussed in tank and raid channel works. I read a lot of theorycraft on a lot of blogs. a lot of folks who like to look at the numbers and come up with strats don't seem to know how to do the actual work when playing the game.", -- [37]
"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] if the tank moves, melee moves. it works in 10 man and it should work in 25.", -- [38]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] I'm not saying to not move him, I'm saying melee need to pay attenttion too", -- [39]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] besides, I somehow doubt you've read my blog if you associate it with theorycraft", -- [40]
"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] you're one of several who talks more than acts. you're not the only one, and not the only one who broadcasts it on the net. the thing is, when the raid leader says \"we've got it\", and the tanks say \"we've got it\" -- we've got it. both of us have been i", -- [41]
"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] in harder core raiding guilds. we both know when to talk and when it's enough.", -- [42]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] do me a favor and drop the damn superiority act and actually read wtf I said", -- [43]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] it didn't have a damn thing to do with the strat", -- [44]
"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] I did. you told the raid what to do, and then called the raid a bunch of dicks. it wasn't appreciated, even as a joke.", -- [45]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] it was a reference to a show", -- [46]
"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] that's fine. to more than a few people it sounded like \"you jackasses don't know what you're doing\"", -- [47]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] you took a survey?", -- [48]
"<02-28-10>[Hornwood] it was brought up in a few class/role channels", -- [49]
"<02-28-10>[Kelpsacovic] alright, in the future I will make an effort to never try to think about anything or offer any suggestions, no matter how much they don't affect the strat the slightest bit", -- [50]
},


Keep in mind this was while we were wiping, and not to an enrage or "oops I cleansed the abomination" or something that can be blamed on mere luck or a mistake. No, these were the wipes where you should be looking at what happened and figure out what to do about it. Maybe that's me thinking too much and the solution is to mindlessly zerg the boss without attempting to correct any problems. Of course there's also the little thing of my suggestion being directed at melee DPS, not at the tanks or the raid leader, so it doesn't matter the slightest bit how they're doing.

Don't worry, this isn't going to be a regular post type. I'm not a fan of negative posts. But sometimes I get a little too irritated.

DKP vs. loot council

My guild switched to DKP a few months back in reaction to constant whining about loot council decisions. I'd have attempted to make the decisions more open and understandable, but that has limits. So I might have just kicked the whiners instead.

Psychologically, DKP isn't the same as loot council. It has some benefits, some things which are the antonym of benefits. Costs! Losses?

Aw, nothing dropped :(
On the plus side, it gives you something to gain even when the boss doesn't die or nothing drops for you. Even better, if nothing drops that I want, it increases the chances that I'll win it in when it does drop.

On the downside, if I happen to be lucky with drops, there goes my DKP. This can end up feeling terrible especially when drops are uncontested. That was the case of most of my gear recently. I'd have preferred if uncontested drops were cheaper, except that encourages people making deals to cheat the system. So I did get a bunch of upgrades, but I now have no chance of getting any more. I know, it's kinda dumb, that I'd have gotten those upgrades over time anyway and burned the same DKP; so really all that happened was I got everything sooner rather than later.

BRB, cat's on fire
Loot councils can be more understanding of emergencies. They can accept that things happen and they don't mentally downrank you because something happened out of your control. DKP doesn't care, it only tracks if you're there or not. Leadership could grant points still, but once there's one exception, the floodgates are opened for all sorts of nonsense.

Social manipulation and guild benefit
On the other hand, loot councils can be influenced by sucking up or social manipulation. I'm not referring to the nice person getting loot over the jerk, since I'd have just kicked the jerk anyway. Instead I mean the person who is friends with the loot council, shows up regularly enough to not be obvious, but isn't there as much as other people, but due to social aspects ends up with priority. DKP is objective.

Or is it? A loot council can see that the somewhat equally geared people with a significant DPS gap, well who is it better to give the loot to? I'm not saying only the highest DPS (healing/tanking) should get loot, but it doesn't make much sense to throw away gear on bad players. Though if they're really bad, maybe they shouldn't be in the guild. DKP just rewards attendance. There can be more DKP for kills vs. learning vs. farming, but if the less skilled player is consistent, they're going to be getting the full DKP anyway. Perhaps that's still objective, but it's not practical.

See the Driven Draenei for a different take on individual accomplishment and DKP gain. It's about GDKP runs, but the idea translates well enough.

Choice and Understanding
DKP does have the big benefit of being choice. If you're low on DKP, it's because you chose to spend it. A council can be confusing. Why didn't I get that drop? I don't think I've gotten something recently, so what's going on? People hate confusion. To temper my earlier "kick the whiners" statement, I acknowledge that a lot of what is perceived as whining is really just confusion. Why did loot get handed out that way?

Tortilla Wrap
I prefer loot councils to DKP. They're just more human. But this depends a lot on trust in the council, both your own and that of your fellow guild members. My guild's council ended due to lack of trust from other members. I didn't like every decision, and frankly some were outright confusing, but overall I was happy with it.

Would you join a female-only guild?

It's okay, men, you can read today's post. You can even answer, you just have to pretend to be female. No, I did not pretend to be female to write this. I don't have to answer the questions I ask. Now, on with the show.

Now and then I hear of guilds which don't recruit females. They claim it's not sexist, but instead practical, that their mere presence can cause drama. At risk of exposing myself as a sexist pig, I don't think this is so ridiculous. Some people just cannot function properly around females.

Ideally those cannot function in mixed environments are the people who don't get recruited, since they're the true problem. But it's harder to screen them than to discriminate against a large and obvious portion of the player base. Or to put it in other terms, it's easier to not hire black people than to not hire racists. When I put it that way, I take back my "not so ridiculous" claim: this is very ridiculous. Or worse. Maybe this is mere moral outrage at the cost of practicality. Then again, practicality and efficiency are not ends in themselves, but are merely the processes of good or evil goals. What the hell does this have to do with my topic?

Are there all-female guilds which do the same (exclude the opposite sex)? They don't invite males because sometimes they cannot handle being in a mixed guilds. This would reverse the discrimination; some males can't handle females so remove the males vs. some males can't handle females so remove the females. That leads to a whole new kind of looking like bad people. The all-male guilds are saying girls cause drama (sexist) while the female guild is saying guys can't handle them (sounds like some arrogant high school cheerleader).

I hope I managed to make clear that I don't think either of these are good, since both fail to address the true problem, but they may be practical and easier than trying to screen candidates:
"Can you handle the thought of breasts?"
"Of course."
"Then why are you taking so long to respond? These aren't hard questions."
"Um."
"You're tabbed out watching porn, aren't you?"
Of course that's also a blanket generalization that people who tab out to watch porn are automatically drawn into female-induced drama. But it certainly doesn't help their application.

I wonder if there would be any sort of husband exception to the exclusion of males. It might just be my guild or my flawed perception, but it seems like most of the women in the guild play with their husbands. Maybe they just talk more. Could husbands be less susceptible to drama? I imagine in general, yes, but I'd expect a much higher susceptibility to wife-induced drama or the reverse for husbands adding drama that drags in their wives. Maybe an all-female guild would have to be truly all female, no exceptions. Of course then it's either splitting up couples or only having single women, odds are mostly the latter, and that's asking for a lot of drama aimed at the guild that isn't caused within it.

Would you join an all-female guild? Or would you join an all-male guild? I can't join the former and wouldn't join the latter. Somehow groups made entirely of men seem to end up being jackasses.

P.S. While writing this I had to keep removing references to Nazis.
P.P.S. Rotface is finally dead and I have an ugly new axe from Marrowgarr.

Bind on Guild Recipes

In yesterday's thread comments the idea came up of patterns being bound to guilds rather than players. This has all sorts of implications.

Drop rate
Would it go up or down? I have no clue! It probably comes down to the intended level of accessibility and how Blizzard expects BoG recipes to change it. I imagine the drop rate would be lower since the schematic is effectively unlimited, being able to enable many crafters per guild. It might get dropped even further if Blizzard found that all guilds were commonly getting all schematics.

Who can get the crafted goods?
It isn't unlikely that guild schematics would only make BoG items. It would be similar to profession-specific BoPs: they're a bonus intended to be only for those which are in the profession/guild.

If the creations were BoE, then guilds might attempt to control their production in order to maximize profits or to reduce the gear available to competing guilds.

Guild control of crafting
Would this cause crafted goods to be more or less accessible? It could be that this causes a single drop to enable dozens of crafters. That would cause prices to drop as they compete. Or it could be that where before a crafter owned his schematics and could use them however he wished, that power would be gone. Guild control could have all sorts of effects depending on how the mechanic of guild crafting works.

The schematic could be learned by the guild, meaning that any person in the guild with the profession skill can make it. This gives the guild no control of crafting except to remove those who they don't want to craft anymore. That's not a very good level of control. Even worse, for the guild, is that it could be nearly impossible to spot offenses, to spot people breaking any rules the guild tries to make for crafting.

Alternatively the crafting could taught through a non-consumed BoG recipe. This allows the guild to control who learns it but nothing past that.

The item could not teach the craft, but instead only grant the ability. That would allow the guild to control the location of the item and therefore who can craft and when. Guilds might just stick them in the bank and let them be traded and and moved in and out as people want to craft. More restrictive guilds might have one person control access to the item, trading it only for individual crafts approved by the guild. This would be pretty overbearing and most likely any guild that tried this would collapse. With a possible exception of guilds created purely for crafting.


Crafting guilds
If crafting is done with the non-consumable, guild-bound item which grants crafting, then guilds could potentially form entirely for crafting. Players would pay to get into the guild; perhaps a monthly amount to stay in or they might only rent the BoG crafting. These fees might be used to pay for raid runs to farm the schematics within.

Depending on the rarity of the drops, we might see the rise of cartels as players use guilds to monitor and control the crafting of others. Crafting alts will not be in the main's guild for familiarity but instead in the crafting guild for profit.

Are BoG recipes a step backward?
Dungeon finder helps to separate the guild from small group PvE. It makes it so guilds are not required for readily available heroics. This means guilds can exist more out of social connection, rather than the necessities of game mechanics. Presumably this would mean tighter-knit guilds. BoG recipes might reverse this. The low drop rate and guild necessity would tie people to guilds again, this time for crafting.

Would Bind on Guild change our concept of ownership?

Currently everything you have is yours. If you have it, you control it. With the exception of your professions which are controlled by the group you're in if you're an enchanter. This promotes a strong concept of ownership. There is little which is truly owned by a group.

Guild banks have some gold or mats or a few BoEs, but they don't control all that much. They don't control anything that anyone uses. By that I mean, someone can use items from banks, but once used they are no longer in bank control. They either soulbind or are consumed.

WoW has almost 100% private property. Individual property.

What would happen if there were items controlled by guilds? Yesterday I briefly, and unfairly negatively, suggested that legendaries be Bind on Guild. They are made by guilds, so it makes some sense that they are controlled by guilds. I thought it would force the player who was given the item to be stuck with the guild or lose it.

I didn't consider that the concept of item ownership might change. If legendaries were BoG, then no single person could feel ownership. They would think about them differently. I suspect the item might come to be viewed less as an item rather than as a buff. By that I mean people would have their normal weapons and the guild might decide to temporarily provide the legendary to a player similar to a single-person buff, such as vigilance, but much more powerful. The weapon would be only temporary to the person, so they could not develop such an attachment.

However a big problem remains: guilds are dictatorships. Ultimately everything is owned by the GM unless people can grab it if they open up bank permissions. This means that no one would own a legendary, except the GM. I don't know how this would turn out, but it could get ugly if a guild seems items as belonging to the guild while the GM thinks they belong to him.

Would guild legendaries lead to a sort of pseudo-socialist dictatorship in which the government (GM) controls all in the name of the populace? I doubt this will happen commonly. A state can enslave and imprison and restrict its people. People can more out of guilds that are undesirable. Attachment to BoG items may encourage people to stay, but if the handling of BoGs is not acceptable to them, that attachment may be insufficient.

Moving forward in Cataclysm, I think BoGs would be an excellent addition.

Maybe if I glue a feather there and add a marble and...

What? Oh sorry, I'm trying to make an Atiesh.

My favorite gnome was taunted by the presence of a legendary and I thought I'd try to help. Alas, there don't seem to be any more splinters dropping, so I'm forced to improvise. Oh sure, she said she's happy to see her guild get a pretty hammer, but we all know there's a loot whore in all of us.

Hold this would you?

Legendaries are strange things, aren't they? They take a guild to make. At least if you make them when they're supposed to be made and not four years late like someone who shall remain unnamed. So a guild makes it and then a person gets it. That's quite a bit to put on one person.

It's not just a reward. It's also a burden. Such a big investment by the guild carries some obligations. Some would disagree, but those people are sociopaths, so fuck their opinions. The player owes something to the guild. But what?

Certainly they shouldn't quit the next day or switch guilds or that sort of thing. And they should remain active and help out. But are they a slave to the guild, shackled to it forever? That's unreasonable.

And what about their role? Sure, the mage gets Atiesh and will use it for a long time and the rogue gets warglaives and stays swords. But what about the healing priest with a hammer who wants to melt faces? Or the paladin with a shadowmourne who really wants to get hit in the face repeatedly for hours on end. Does the legendary tie their spec too, and for how long? Perhaps until it is no longer the greatest thing imaginable. But that could be a very long time; they are legendaries after all.

Don't even think about switching mains...

Perhaps legendaries are an ideal candidate for being guild-bound. But for the person who is given main use of the weapon, it still ties them. Leave the guild and the weapon is out of reach. While the guild played a role, I doubt the individual player just sat around waiting for the guild bank to dole out expensive mats. They invested in it as well, but they don't own any of the weapon.

Divorce is messy, isn't it?

Can I borrow a hand here? Yep, hold that. Okay now I can twist that around there and loop and tighten that and

*crack*

So um, how about a legendary wand and held in offhand?

Did I kill raiding?

Not your raiding of course, just mine.

Brief history lesson: A while back there was a troll shaman who had a strange attraction to paladins. He got into a lot of conversations on the WoW paladin forums and eventually developed a few friendships. One day that shaman rerolled with a trio of them. Stuff happened and one day they were on Zul'jin, making their own guild: Word of Redemption. I was an officer in said guild, though I must admit that I was not big on exercising power, in other words I was a glorified member, albeit a member with an unusual level of respect from the GM and other officers.

I loved this guild and the people who founded it. I don't mean loved as in "I loved that movie." I mean loved as in, these were friends who I respected and depended on and who I felt a connection to. The guild was our home; our treehouse, our fort, our sanctuary.

I doubt anything can match that, ever. I doubt I will ever again start a guild with a few friends and built it up into something. I doubt I can get anything close to that feeling in any guild that I join. People will have their cliques and habits and rules already. I will always be an add-on and will always be separate.

We didn't get especially far. Time just didn't work out for us. Christmas break took me out of the raids as my schedule shifted by an hour. Many others were reduced in attendance as well. This was while we were trying to push new content, TK I believe (we formed pretty late). Missing people while trying to advance leads to stagnation, and so it slowed and eventually stopped. People hopped off the epic train and eventually we were back to our core and left to pick between the slow process of rebuilding or merging. The merger killed off the guild and we ended up as an isolated clique.

I think this has left me with two problems: excessive expectations and a nagging thought of "we could have done it, it's not over yet."

I won't let myself settle for loyalty to any old guild that I happen to be in. I can't sacrifice for a bunch of strangers. I can't devote as much time and energy when it's not my guild advancing, but just some guild that I happen to be in. No guild culture is ever perfect because none of them are the ones I helped create. No loot system will ever be quite right and no officer will have quite as much trust from me, or the reverse.

And there's still that nagging thought that maybe it's not over yet. I could jump back and start recruiting and get it going again. I know this is ridiculous. The other founding members are gone. I'm still friends with two people who joined later and who I felt became part of the central group. We've been following each other from guild to guild (mostly me following them) and now we've been in the current one for... a while, over a year. We couldn't be the core of a reborn guild.

Maybe someday I'll move on to another game and be able to start over, but I suspect any attempt at raiding in WoW will be plagued by memory. I'll always remember my small town.

Part Two: The Joke
I'm sure we were all disappointed to see the worst blogger ever attack gold guides. Then to make it worse, he brought with his alternate personality. The result was a conspiracy to shoot down a brave entrepreneur. Well I say enough is enough. In a show of solidarity, I am making my own guide.

Unfortunately, I lack marketable skills in WoW. I don't make a thousand gold from five minutes in the AH. I can't get you to 80 in two days. My raiding skills leave something to be desired.

Well you know what I say: If there's no market, make one. With that in mind, for only $5 I can teach you how to live in eternal wistful nostalgia, yearning for days lost and irreclaimable. You can just stuff the money in an e-nvelope and send it here.

Here's a sample to whet your appetite:

There are two routes to take. The hard route involves being awesome and missing those days. But the Fast EZ-Nostalgia Path is faster and easier. The fundamental principle is unfinished business. You must be a mediocre raider with higher aspirations who is cut off from progression by the untimely arrival of an expansion. Forever after you will know that you're not done, that something was stolen from you. Over time you will 'remember' how much better the old days were.

Buy now, only $5 to ruin raiding and PvP forever after!

P.S. This is meant to be a joke, as the title indicates. Tobold is not the worst blogger ever; he's somewhere high up on the "Good Blogger" list.