A bonfire has gone out.

Last night I was once again in the forest.

It was cold and forbidding but for the lights of the campfires.

The campfires were tended by storytellers, and their guests listened intently.

As before some were brighter than others, some were barely embers.

I made my way from one circle of light to the next, enjoying the company of friends.

Suddenly at the brightest of the fires there was a collective gasp, then all grew silent as the storyteller spun one last tale.

He told of a journey of self discovery, of looking at where he had been and where he was going.

He told of looking back in a new light and not really liking what he sees.

He told of a young son and a beautiful wife waiting for him to finish his tale, and how he missed them.

With that he bid his audience goodbye, turned, and took his leave.

Home was calling, it was time to go.

The forest grew darker still as the bonfire went out, but the home fires burned all the brighter.

In the end that is what matters.

Who, Me?

I have been a little out of the loop for the last several weeks. I came back today and started sifting through my feed reader.  If I recall correctly it is sitting at about 350 items left to read, but I am getting there. Imagine my surprise when I found Larisa of the Pink Pigtail Inn had nominated yours truly for a blogging award!

An award?

Me?

I fail at blogging!

Have you ever heard the saying that 10,000 monkeys with typewriters could, given infinite time, eventually recreate the entire works of Shakespeare? How do I compare myself to that?

five monkeys, twenty minutes.

With a coffee (or banana) break in there somewhere as well.

Reading further I discover that not only is there an award, but there are rules. The fine print, as it were. We all know that the world would come unglued without fine print. If you look far enough into it fine print is what actually makes up all the things that people claim hold the universe together. Including, but not limited to: Dark matter, the glue on duct tape, and The Force(tm).

Da Rulz:

1. When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real

2. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon. (Icon? I received no icon! I call shenanigans!)

3. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!

Well, after looking back I think I already hit number one pretty good. Keeping in mind that I am nearly a week behind on my blog reading (and so have no idea who may already have been gifted with an award) I am just going send out a few of my own, secure in the knowledge that I will goof it up.

Hey, at least I have a plan….

Da Awardz:

Atoholics R Us Gets tagged as the best new old blog. Written by longtime friends and guildmates Andrea and Garen, this is one of the blogs I check first every day. No, not just because my reader is in alphabetical order either. If you are a reader like me, take note that they went self hosted today (hence the new old blog), please update your bookmarks. If you are not a reader yet, head on over. You will become one…

Diaries of a Marksman Hunter Well written and well researched. As I bounce back and forth from spec to spec, Nassira is one of those (un)fortunate enough to get peppered with questions about how to play a Marksman Hunter. She was also kind enough to create an awesome how to set up WWS guide that I use pretty frequently. (once again I fail, I just realised I never linked it before)

Temerity Jane  Plays Wow, but rarely writes about it. Sometimes serious, sometimes silly, Always worth the read. If I was trapped on a desert island with only a ten title feed reader hers would most certainly be one of the ten I would be reading. (Les Stroud’s Survivorman  would probably be on the list as well, for obvious reasons)

The Greedy Goblin is a tale of one goblins adventures in finance. He plows through Wow (hey, that rhymes) making piles of money while dodging and ducking the morons and slackers (his words, not mine) of the world. Informative and well written, I have used his tips to gather a small fortune of my own.

Mania’s Arcania  is the home of the blogger who unwittingly steered my towards Hunters in the first place. You see, the synergy between Hunter and pet has always been a big part of why I love the class so much. Mania also happens to be the author/data compiler/chief cook and bottle washer of Petopia. Without her telling me where to find the skills to train my pets I would have never known they existed.

The last three I am going to list I will list together. You see, all three of these outstanding blogs have something very much in common. All of them have closed their doors. Priestly Endevors, Resto 4 life, and The Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick all had a big part to play in me starting up a blog of my own. Some of them knew that, some did not. I suppose if they find this they all will.

Da Truth:

1:  I am in fact a carbon based life form.

2:  Contrary to popular belief my blog was not created by an energetic yet easily distracted three year old trying to pretend he knows what he is talking about.

3:  My greatest accomplishment so far was watching my oldest daughter do something I never managed. She graduated high school. In the early days of the blog it was even featured in it’s own post.

4:  When I am having a bad day I like to share it with others. Like for instance intentionally getting 11 items at the store and going through the “10 items or less” isle, just to piss people off. If that does not work I pay with a check, or possibly all change.

5:  As much as my friends have extolled its virtues over the years I simply cannot make myself like the taste of beer. To me it tastes like water that has been filtered through old lawn clippings.

6:  My motorcycle is the perfect size, despite having only a 600 cc engine. It has already shown me that I run out of guts before it runs out of power. (somewhere slightly above 100mph, I was not taking my eyes off the road to look)

7:  When I was younger I used to take things apart “to see how they worked”. My mom was upset, but dad let me do it as long as it worked when I put it back together. Thanks dad =)

8:  In boot camp there was a large chart of medals, listing all of them and their order of seniority. A group of guys would gather there during their free time talking about which ones they would like to earn. One day I started at the top and told them which ones I did not want to have to earn, and why. They never looked at the chart the same way again.

9:  I fix things for a living. My kids used to have it in their heads that I could fix anything, unfortunately not so much. One of the saddest days I have ever had was explaining to my daughter (I think she was about 7 at the time) that I had not gone down to Florida to “fix” her grandpas cancer, I had gone down to say goodbye to my dad.

10:  My wedding (shifting gears to one of the happiest days in my life) including the hotel stay and reception cost under $700. This may seem cheap, but that was a lot of money to a nineteen year old E-2. I think I made a total of $300 every two weeks or so. Oddly, I am still married to the same wonderful woman coming up on twenty years later. I guess the cost of the party does not matter nearly as much as some people think. 

11:  I find it Ironic that the spell checkers dictionary for wordpress.com (my host) does not include the words “Blog” or “Blogger”.

Where I rant about addons

I use addons.

Not many mind you, but I do use a few. If the functions that I wanted were built into the game I would happily not use any at all, but such is life. I don’t use them to make the game more automated, I use them to make it more fun.

I use Auctioneer. Yes I could sit down with a ledger and plot the average prices of the items I commonly buy or sell, but it would be a time consuming chore that would greatly decrease the fun I have playing. I can do math and I can keep records, but that’s not why I play Wow.

I use Possesions and WhoHas. I play alts. Lots of alts. Logging into 10 different banks to find that stack of knothide leather I saved for a rainy day is a bit of a waste of time. Once again I could keep a ledger, but I play Wow to have fun not to do paperwork.

I use X-pearl unit frames. Well I kind of do. I use it only on my priest and only for raid frames. If Blizzard gave me the option of resizing and controlling the transparency of the standard ones I would not bother. I kind of like to be able to see through my raid frames and make them smaller, all the better to see things like lava waves and void circles. Situational awareness FTW.

I have Omen’s threat meter. I use it for raiding, but honestly if I am hitting feign death on its cooldown there is no way I am going to out threat the tank. None. If I had to do without it I would, but it is a nice visual on those occasions that I do need it. Lately that has mostly been when leveling a new pet.

I have Recount. Then again it is disabled across all my characters unless I am pounding on a target dummy. I use it as a tool to test out different gear selections and shot rotations not as a way to show off.

I have Deadly Boss Mods. It has been a required addon in every raid guild I have ever been in. I think the reason for that is that a lot of the boss fights are gimmick fights. In fact, I think Blizzard has designed some fights with boss mods in mind. Otherwise the “special attack of doom” for any particular boss would be  more random and less of a timed event. 

I use Cartographer. Mostly because once again I can adjust the transparency of my map. For the longest time I had a mod that just put a set of “here you are” coordinates under my mini map. Then the clock came and I got rid of it (yes I know I can turn it off, but I like the feature).  

Lastly I also use Questhelper. I did not use any mod of any kind as I leveled my first character to the level cap (70 at the time). Nor did I use one on my second for that matter. That first 70 is sitting retired in the lower city tavern now, and I run Alliance side. My first time from 70 to 80 I did not use anything, preferring to read the quests and get involved in the story lines.

Now however we come back to my alts. I have run through the same low level content so many damn times that I have begun to hate it. If Blizzard could come up with another option for folks with multiple level capped toons to start at a higher level (without going Death Knight) I would be all for it. For now however I am just interested in leveling my way through tired old content as efficently as possible.

I don’t consider that to be cheating, I have beaten every one of those quests before. Several times. I have done it using databases like wowhead  and wowwiki and a notebook.

Ok, that part of my little rant is over.

 

If you have not yet read the posts Gevlon put up about this subject head on over to the Greedy Goblin and check out Gevlons post about Blizzards decision to ban the request for donations (or outright fees) from use by addon developers. He has written several good posts on this subject lately. The rest of this will make more sense that way.

Go ahead, I’ll be here when you get back.

Back? good. 

While I agree with him about cheating being a bad thing that is really not what this is about.

It is about money pure and simple. Blizzard does not want any other entity to receive profits from their service. I understand and agree with this. It is their product and they should be allowed to claim the profits from their work. The again so should the addon developers.

What I would suggest from strictly a business standpoint is that Blizzard tap into this  market themselves. Not with in game donation spam of any type but by giving the developers other options.

Option one: (already in place) Make your addon, don’t violate the eula with its functions, and give it away for free.

Option two: Create a Blizzard approved addon store. Those who want to charge are free for downloading their addon are able to do so, but only through that store. A portion of the profits get to go to Blizzard.

Option three: The freelance addon writer creates an addon and sells the rights to it to Blizzard. It gets marketed in the Blizzard store from option two and Voila everyone gets to make money.

If the addon is good enough that people are willing to pay money for it as opposed to using a free version then both the developer and Blizzard profit from this. If it not then the developer can either lower the price, give it for free, or rewrite it so that it is more appealing. Make a good product, get paid. Make a product no one wants, don’t get paid. I think overall it would improve the game.

At no time would this encourage cheating, since all addons both then and now are monitored for eula violations and shut down if needed.

I see this less as an issue of cheating and more of an issue of Blizzard failing to cash in on a market that is standing there waiting to give them money.

Lastly to those who would say “But then Blizzard is allowing you to pay real world money for an in game advantage, they said they would never do that!” I have but three words for you.

Recruit a Friend

Lesson learned (I hope)

Hey folks, it’s been a while.

A week since I last posted to be exact.

Well, the reasons why have nothing to do with the content of this post so I will keep it brief. Both work and home had a lot going on that demanded my attention. Nothing horrible, just very busy. Suffice it to say that things are calming down and I plan to return to posting a couple times a week as I had been. Now on to today’s post.

 

I’m a Navy brat. Which is to say that I moved when I was younger.

Lots.

Perhaps every two years or so I would pack my stuff and relocate to a new town. I actually got pretty good at it, to the point that I could pack my entire room (minus the furniture, dad handled that) in just a few hours.

Hell, I could properly pack for moving in less time than my son takes to clean his room.

I learned a few lessons when I was on the move like that. I have been the new kid in the school enough times to start getting a pretty good grip on figuring out how to find my place with a new group of people. This helped me out a lot later on. Both during my own time in the service (Navy ftw) and as I moved to new towns, new jobs, and even online as I have switched servers and guilds from time to time.

That is why the behavior of someone who just recently joined the guild really irritated me yesterday. Not only was (s)he being inconsiderate to others but really going about the whole “I’m new here, lets make a decent impression” thing poorly.

Enough of my babbling, I’ll just tell the story already.

 

I had just logged in last evening and had about an hour and a half to actually try and do something. I was hoping to grab a VOA run on my hunter Drupadi, mostly hoping for a second piece of tier 7 to drop to give me the 5% pet damage set bonus. I figured it might help on Thaddius, since we seem to be having a week or two of enrage wipes at 3-5%. Anything I can do to squeeze out a few more dps I am down with.

Low and behold someone hits guild chat with the idea of putting together an OS 10 run. It’s an unfamiliar name, but guilded. An alt perhaps?  Well, it’s a short raid and I had a while so I signed up. Within a few minutes  we had put together eight or nine guildies. Within a few more minutes we had filled the last slot or two with folks from other guilds and headed off.

Not everyone is in full epics. Actually, although I did not inspect anyone other than the other hunter, I doubt anyone was in full epics. Trust me I understand that to a degree gear matters, but it’s not everything. If you try to run an instance in unenchanted “of the whale” greens you got for cheap in the auction house you will likely have problems, even if you are good. Then again I have seen folks in nearly full epics in pugs not out Dps my pet.

* side note* there should be an achievement called “Whale of a good time” for completing a raid where all the players are completely outfitted with “of the whale ” gear.

Anyhoo we went in and gathered up for buffs. About half of us had not been there before so we were looking around a bit, getting our bearings in a way. The raid leader (and same person who built the group) marked up the first pull. Sounds pretty common right? That little time before the action starts is kind of like the calm before the storm.

Suddenly here comes the first pull.

I jump up from where my not at full health or mana self was sitting eating buff food to pick up Dps on the skull. This is all assuming it’s the first kill target, nothing was ever said. As always when things don’t go as planned everyone reacts and tries to improvise, to salvage the situation. Well within a few seconds the off tank went down, followed shortly thereafter by both of the healers. Not really sure what the mobs kill order for us was after that, but it did not really matter.

It was a wipe.

A Bad pull. 

A Miscommunication (or in the raid leaders case, no communication)

It happens. 

Rez, dust yourself off, and go back to it. You don’t learn from successes, you learn from failures. Well. we know not to do that again.

 

Thats where this took a turn for the surreal. The main tank, the person who had build the group, was a newcomer to our little community. I don’t know where he came from, or if in fact he will be with us long, but his first impression to me will always and forever be about his reaction to this one pull.

You see after we all ran back he proceeded to tell the rest of the group that we simply could not cut it . Our gear sucked and he was not going to “waste his time” with folks who did not meet whatever standards he decided to set. So after taking the time to build a group from within the guild he had only recently joined he dropped raid and went along about his business.

Honestly, I was floored.

Not only did he make himself look like an asshat, he made himself look like and asshat in front of the guild he supposedly wants to raid with.

Well, I have a news flash. If I am building anything more difficult than a group quest (s)he is the last tank on my list. If I am setting up a heroic or a 10 man of some sort, I will pug a tank (or anyone else) before I will take one that bails after the first wipe. Particularly when one of the causes of the wipe was pulling before the group was ready. If I pug a tank I might get an asshat, if I drop an invite towards this person I know I am getting one. 

The ironic part is that we grabbed another guildie who came and tanked for us and managed to clear the place without another wipe.

Not one.

I would have paid to see the look on his face when the achievement spam went rolling past. I think 5 or 6 of us were completing it for the first time. His only comment in chat was “Amazing”.  Hopefully he learned a bit from what he saw. I doubt it, but I can hope.

Icing on the cake (at least for me) came when we checked to loot. There sat the token for my tier 7 gloves, and the only other person who could use it already had them.

I guess it was a good night after all.

Something is missing

Empty.

That’s a good word for it. It does not quite fit, but it’s a good word.

Have you ever picked up a favorite treat and somehow it just tasted wrong? Not like “eww, this was left out in the sun too long”  Just Wrong?

It still tastes good, but whatever it was that made it “the thing” that special connection was just gone.

Have you ever gone back after a time and watched a show you thought was the greatest thing ever? I have learned not to, it just won’t be the same. it might still be good, but something is missing.

 

Lately something is missing from Wow as well.

 

I think my biggest problem is time. By the time I come on at night most of the guild is already either in a raid or a heroic if they plan to run anything at all. Needless to say I don’t often go. 

When I do get an invite I often have to turn it down because  I have to pick up my daughter from work right in the middle of my couple hours of playtime. Forcing four, nine, or twenty four others to wait around for 15 to 20 minutes during prime raid time is simply unfair to them.

Of course when I do raid in my crafted gear and quest blues I don’t do nearly as well as someone with more practice. Someone with better gear and more time actually running with others will generally do a better job, that’s just the way it works. Practice makes you better.

That does not mean that when I spend half my time laying on the floor dead it makes me happy about it. Or when the damage/healing meters need a new rank for me called <you suck> that it makes it any easier to swallow.

Before you go thinking this is a pity poor me post or an attack on my guild it is not. I am having fun puttering around doing solo things and making piles of money in the auction house with Inscription. I tag along on the occasional raid on those occasions where all the stars line up just right and I can commit a block of time to raiding when a raid is actually happening. 

As I said, I am still having fun. On the other hand it’s like something is missing.

The last few weeks I have spent a lot of time logged in with no real goals.

Get the Hunter to 80, level professions, get the best quested/crafted gear you can find…. done.

Get the Priest to 80 (10 levels as shadow made my eyes bleed), level professions, good quested/crafted gear… done.

Get the other Hunter from 65 to 80…. with dual specs going live soon there is no real point of having a second 80 Hunter on the same server.

Get the Death Knight leveled. Not really going to happen I don’t think. I just can’t seem to get into him. Probably going to end up as a level 58 bank toon.

Farm up a raptor mount from Zul-Gerub for Drupadi…. Soloing the boss twice a week, it’s just a matter of time before it drops. Then again it only takes maybe an hour a week to do the two runs, including travel time.

Now I am working on leveling yet another alt. I am having fun on my Druid, but how many times can I rescue a picnic basket and kill the same murlocs for the same quest givers. I have leveled seven toons to 40 or above now. Four of them have seen Northrend and two are at level cap. Even the leveling part of the game is getting a little old.

So once again tonight I will log in. I am not sure weather I will work on my druid or just run around Dalaran chatting with friends. One thing I am almost sure of though, when I log in and look around…

Something will be missing.

What’s My Job Description?

This will come as no surprise to you folks, but it’s once again Monday. I am once again sitting in my office in a horribly tired not yet caffeinated state of mind. As I listen to the coffee pot make burbling hissing noises I started thinking (of all things) about job descriptions.

Just like real life there are job descriptions within Warcraft. When you are running solo questing your way to 80 you are pretty much a one man band. Anything that needs done is kind of up to you. That is why Hunters in particular are very strong at leveling, they have from as early as level 12 the ability to tank with a pet, heal the pet in combat, and do damage (hopefully from range) at the same time. Once you start grouping though, things change up a bit.

At the risk of gross oversimplification the way I see it there are four different jobs within a group. 

Tanking

Pretty much the art of pissing things off and keeping their attention without dying, buying the group time to kill the mobs and the healer time to keep everyone alive.

Feral Druids, Protection Warriors, Protection Paladins, and Death Knights of any tree when properly specced are generally called upon for these duties. They are designed to handle the pounding and keep things pissed off at them, there by keeping the rest of the party from getting their heads caved in.

Healing

The fine are of pouring more health into the party than the bad guys are taking away. In an ideal world they should only ever have to heal the tank, but its not an ideal world.

Holy and Discipline Priests, Restoration Shamen, Restoration Druids, and Holy Paladin are the ones most equipped to handle this.

Ranged Damage Dealers (DPS)

Kind of like their name suggests they stand at range while the tanks keeps things occupied and the healer keeps everyone alive and try to make sure that the bad guy runs out of health before the healer runs out of mana. Some use magic and some use physical damage to get the job done. One, the Hunter, even kind of combines ranged DPS with melee DPS in the form of their pet. However the actual damage is done the job is similar, kill bad guys.

Mages of all specs fit this bill, as do Balance Druids, Elemental Shamen, Shadow Priests, Warlocks of all flavors, and Hunters of all specs have the tools to handle this job.

Melee Damage Dealers (DPS)

Melee Damage dealers have pretty much the same job as ranged Dps. The method of going about it is a bit different though. Instead of staying back they are up close and personal with the bad guys.  The way they go about it may be a bit different but the end result is the same. Make the bad guys run out of health before the healer runs out of mana.

Death Knights of all specs, Retribution Paladin, Arms and Fury Warriors, Feral Druids, and Enchantment Shamen all do this job. Edit: somehow my decalffinated noob self forgot to put Rogues here. Not quite sure How I managed to do that .*shakes head at self*

 

As I was thinking about this I realised that with the new dual spec feature and the latest alt that I have been leveling I will have all four bases covered.  As it sits right now I have a healer in Morham, my holy priest and a ranged Dps in Drupadi, my Hunter. The last piece of the puzzle is my Druid, Giligan, who put five more levels on this weekend and is now happily melee Dpsing his way along.

Assuming three things, Giligan makes it to 80, dual specs have been implemented, and i don’t get bored and quit playing, It will look like this.

Morham, my priest. Healer (Holy) and Ranged Dps (Shadow)

Drupadi, my Hunter. Ranged Dps (Beastmastery) and Ranged Dps (Survival)

Giligan, my Druid. Tanking (Feral) and melee Dps (Feral)

 

I have read a lot lately about the dual spec feature and how it will either be a non-issue or the end of the world. My thoughts on the matter are that it will be not be game destroying. It will be game changing. There is a paradigm shift coming, and it’s coming on fast. Where it goes from here remains to be seen.

I can tell you from where I sit though I plan to put most of my effort into Morham and Giligan. Between the two of them I will be able to do pretty much any job in the game. Maybe not as well as someone who specialises, but such is life.

A last thought on dual specs. If I were to start over somewhere new once they go live I really think it would effect the character I chose. I could roll a Mage, Hunter, Warlock, or Rogue, but why? I simply would not want to limit myself down the road. That’s kind of sad really.

Shh…. this is a stealth post.

Last night I actually found a few minutes to play that were not already consumed with another task. So in the interest of getting absolutely nothing accomplished I was just kind of running circles around Dalaran occasionally hitting trade chat with “[enchanting] Looking for work. My skill, your mats, i’ll pay you 10g if I skill up”. I mostly leveled enchanting to be able to do the ring self enchants and disenchant for the mats, but I am more than willing to pay out 200g for the last 20 points just to have it done.

My son was hanging out with me watching me goof around and asking questions about the game. He plans to pick up a copy and start playing this summer when he hits 13 years old, since he is not allowed to play before that. (that’s another story however, it’s much more than just his uptight parents). Anyhow, he was asking about the various play styles in the game.

I was already on my priest so I scooted out of town for a minute and healed someone I don’t even know through a group quest in dragonblight to show how healing worked. Then I pro ceded to kill a mob or two just to show how slow it was in comparison to the next toon.

Logging into my hunter I proceded to tear up some iron dwarves. Normally I would have just stayed there and finished leveling my bear. (named “Bare” by the way, “Poops in Woods” was too long.) I played around with trapping a bit, just generally showed what ranged dps looked like.

I logged into my druid next to show him a ranged caster and a (laughably misgeared and untalented) bear trying to tank. Since I am all of level 16 and all may talents and gear have been put towards balance it was interesting to say the least.

After a brief jump over to my old troll priest to show how different a shadow priest could be compared to my holy priest (he seemed to prefer shadow) I had answered all his questions except one.

He wanted to see how stealth worked, to see it in action.

My only character that is stealth capable is my druid, and he does not get the skill for 4 more levels. This left me with a choice of telling him to come back this weekend and see it or rolling a rogue and having it with about 15 minutes of running around the starting area.

To any who don’t know the first toon I ever rolled was a rogue. I think he made it to level 6 before getting parked in Orgrimmar as a banker for my other toons. He was squishy, he couldn’t kill anything, he had the confusing cool downs and combo points to remember, and worst of all everything I tried to sneak up on saw through my stealth! I found myself hating him, so as I said he got parked and later deleted.

So, in the interest of showing my son how it worked I rolled a rogue. I figured if nothing else she can take over being the “stands in Ironforge selling glyphs” duties from my death knight when his turn to get leveled comes. Whatever happens with the toon it’s time with my son, and that takes priority over my dislike of the rogue play style.

This time I knew a bit more than I did when my highest level toon had never left the starting area. Took a few minutes to read the tool tips on my shiny new skills and set up my toolbars, then started killing those pesky wolves and kobolds. “You no take candle!” is my sons new favorite phrase /sigh.

I got stealth somewhere around level 3 or 4 and proceeded to answer his questions about how it works. Going up to mobs of different levels to show how higher level mobs saw through more often. Just generally running around poking defias people in the back and taking their stuff. Then their was this funny sound.

I realised that I was almost done with the starting zone and had not died once.

I had not even come close.

Things were dying crazy fast and I had virtually no downtime.

I was playing a rogue and having fun doing it.

Lots of fun.

The noise was a paradigm shifting without a clutch.

 

By then it was time for Zac to go to bed. I did the unexpected (especially by me). Instead of deleting the toon I ran her to goldshire and parked her in the inn.

Then I logged my banker and sent her some bags, a couple level 3 healing pots I had laying about, and a few gold for odds and ends.

Looks like I managed to pick up yet another alt, and to break a misunderstanding of a class I had carried with me for years. Glad I took the time to come up with a halfway decent name and appearance for what was planned as a throwaway toon.

Now this would be some drama….

I had a thought this morning, probably as the result of too much coffee in a quiet basement office. I was thinking back to a couple years back. Something that happened to a friends guild.

They were running SSC pretty regularly and had two teams going through Kara every week, usually single night clears. Things were chugging along nicely, and then came to a screeching halt.

I was not there to see it (I was guilded elsewhere), but apparently one of the healers got into a nasty argument with one of the raid leaders while running heroics. A little bit of looking around later the healer found himself a new guild to run with.

That’s when the drama hit. That healer was close friends with two other healers and one of the tanks. You can see where this is going. All four of them left to go to the new guild.

Suddenly the guild that was knocking on finishing SSC was having a hell of a time fielding a single 10 man for Kara, much less putting together a 25. 

The guild did some recruiting and recevered nicely. The thing that sticks in my mind though is how much disruption even a small group can be within a guild.

Then my mind started to wander (if you see it tell it to be home before the streetlights come on) and I came up with this scenario.

 

Picture this. You are a guild leader, a raid leader, or in some other form or fashion in a leadership position within your guild.

Officers chat, which is normally pretty quiet, starts rolling. The things being said make little sense, you can tell you are only getting part of the conversation.

Messaging one of those talking, you are told that you really should be in vent.

Like right now.

Logging into vent you see most of the officers corps gathered in a private channel, along with all four of your guilds tanks. You hop in and drop right into the middle of a firestorm.

The tanks are demanding the guild cover all the costs of their raid related consumables and repairs. Their leverage? if you don’t pay up, they won’t tank for you.

They seem to have well reasoned arguments that show how much higher their bills are in relation to others, and claim this is unfair treatment.

You don’t pay, they claim they will go on strike. They will shut down your raid.

You have until raid time on tomorrows fresh reset to make you decision.

 

Sitting there thinking about it you realise it could have just as easily been you healing corps that decided to do this, in fact it likely will be them next if you give in to the tanks. Probably followed soon after by some of your highest output dps. Soon the guild will be expected to pay every ones way, and that simply can’t happen.

Putting together a mental checklist you look at your options.

1. Give in, give them what they want so the raid goes off this week. Hope they don’t ask for more, and hope nobody else decides to try the same thing.

2. Tell them that that will not fly, they pay their own way like everyone else. If they are bluffing you’ll know soon enough. After all, you can always kick them if they are not bluffing.

3. Drop a /gkick at each one of them and start looking for more tanks. If needs be you can always call off raiding for a week or two, surely the guild will understand.

4. Give in for the time being. Start actively recruiting tanks to replace them, planning to stop the deal once you have enough tanks to go without them.

There is a call for an officers meeting the next day, giving everyone time to sleep on it and see if anything else presents itself before decision time.

After sleeping on it you have decided what to do. What would it be?

Yet another Wow Meme

I has been tagged!

Asara from Asara’s Mental Meanderings  (love the title by the way) sent this one my way.

Seems to me that these are meant to be RP-style questions asked to your WoW character. Since I don’t really RP much (read at all) the only character I ever managed to come up with any backstory at all for is my now semi-retired Troll hunter Dekado, I will be trying to answer from his point of view.

This should be amusing….

1. What is your name, and where did it come from?
Dekado be my name. I’s not sure whereabouts it came from. I was found abandoned as a child, was raised up in the orphanage in Orgrimmar before starting my journeys through the world. Probably explains why I don’t care much for people.

2. How old are you, and when is your birthday?
Not really sure when I was born, so I just figure my age from the day I ran away from the orphanage and started making my way in the world. On August 28th of 2005 I found myself in the valley of trials and that’s where I count from, so I be a solid 3 and a half years old.

3. Are you in love, and with whom?
Never have gotten into the company of others, much. Even if I had I would always have been an outsider. Love now mon, that can mean many things. I love my companion, Fluffy the undead Boar. I loves me my rifle. I loves me some wide open spaces. I spent way too much time in crowded places as a young-un, I don’t sleep well indoors anymore.

4. What is your favorite mount, and why?
I really like my raptor. No particular reason, other than him being faster than my last raptor.

5. Do you prefer a certain type of Azerothian meal, and where do you get it from?
I love to fish, it is so relaxing. I also I cook all of my own food. I prefer Blackened Dragonfin or Poached Northern Sculpin, Fluffy on the other hand will eat just about anything.

6. You know those giant mushrooms in Zangarmarsh? What is your theory on how they came to be, and why are they so huge?
I heard a rumor that those big pump looking things were really injectors pumping something called “Miracle-grow” into the ground there. True or not, if she would have put more effort into keeping the good guys out of her lair and less into gardening I would not be wearing her teeth as a necklace.

7. If you saw the Lich King walking toward you, what would you do?
I would likely stop everything I was doing, start a cooking fire, and sit warming myself while he rattled on about how important he is. Possibly even throwing in a bit about saving my killing for later. I suppose I am like a fine wine, I get better with age.

Seriously though, if you have your enemies in your grasp and just continue to mock them while they get more powerful you are a dumbass. He really needs to go read the 47 rules for the evil overlord paying particular attention to numbers 6 and 13, because he fails at it.

**Bonus Questions from Syrana’s page!**

8. Be honest, how many times have you used the Grizzly Hills outhouse without any real reason?
Actually, I am semi retired now. While you folks are off softening up Northrend for me, I am sitting in worlds end tavern taking it easy. I have never made it to the Grizzly Hills, although it is on my list of things to do. Right after this beer, honest.

9. Would you steal ice cream from a Human child?
Given the opportunity, probably. They are pretty safe from me though. Not only am I not welcome in Stormwind, I don’t like city’s at all.

I’m going to tag Ratters from Need More Rage and Andrea from Altaholics R Us. Purely for selfish reasons, since I like reading thier posts.

A rambling post that has a little to do with warcraft.

Today I am talking more about character than about Wow, although it certainly applies. This has been bouncing around in my head after reading several posts about group dynamics and what it means to be a greedy asshat. While I agree to some extent with points made in both of all those posts, along with dozens of others I have read on similar topics,  I think it comes down to more than just honesty.

 Lets look at a few examples, shall we?

A person is doing a bit of shopping, going to the store to pick up a few small things and one rather expensive one. he realises that he left his wallet at home and only has the cash to cover the small things. Does he put the expensive thing back on the shelf, or try to sneak it past the register on the bottom of his cart?

That same person, who would never dream of shoplifting, leaves a department store after paying for his purchases. When he reaches the car he person discovers that the rather expensive item was forgotten on the bottom shelf of the cart.

Does this person go back into the store, inform them of the error, and pay for the item? Does he just dump it in the trunk and count himself lucky?

 

Another person is standing at the teller window cashing his paycheck. The teller walks away from the window to grab more deposit slips and her cash drawer is not latched. He sees hundreds of dollars sitting there within easy reach. Grab some “free cash”? Stand there and wait?

That same person goes through the drive up window at the bank. He sends in a deposit slip and his paycheck. When the teller returns both a receipt for the deposit being successfully made andthe uncashed paycheck he sends the check back in.

The teller, seeing the check asks weather it is for deposit or cash. What does he do? take the cash? Inform the teller that it has already been deposited?

 

Yet another person is playing Wow.  Week after week she raids the current end boss of the game with her guild. Three times the legendary “OP Weapon of Uberness” drops (+299 to all stats, on use: doubles size of epeen).  Three times the loot council decided it should go elsewhere.It drops for the fourth time tonight.

Twenty-four guildies have passed while the loot council debates. Need or pass?

 

That same player comes on knowing that she is transferring servers that Friday once she gets paid. Since she cannot commit to all the raid days for the week she bows out of raiding with her guild, she says her goodbyes and leaves the guild. Thursday night the now unguilded player is on finishing up “packing her bags” for the transfer when she gets invited to another guilds raid.

The “OP Weapon of Uberness” drops yet again. The raid has no master looter, 24 people have passed while the loot council debates, it’s up to her…….  need or pass?

 

Some people would look at those examples and  see a difference.

They are all the same.

The difference is not in how honest the person is, and the end result would be the same in all three examples.

Some people are simply wired to act in what I would call and honest manner. Some people act honestly simply because the consequences of being dishonest are not worth the gains from the dishonest behavior.

I think the point I am trying to make is a simple one. The reason there seems to be more dishonest folks on the internet (in my opinion) is due to the lack of real consequences to their actions.

An asshat might not lie, cheat, and steal, in the real world out of fear of the punishments that might happen. That same hidden asshat would have much less of a problem behaving that way online where the chance of real punishment is slim to none.

It is said that the anonymity of the internet brings out the asshat in people. I say it was already there, but out of fear of punishment they were just too cowardly to show it. The internet just gives them a forum to show it in with no fear of reprisal.

None of this was a question of honesty, it was a question of integrity.

Do you treat people the same when you are in a pug?

On an unguilded alt?

On a random Death Knight you rolled on a server where you are a stranger?

Do you still treat people well when no one else is looking?

 

Note: Sorry for the unpolished rambling. Due to family obligations and an unexpected, unwanted, road trip I will be offline until at least this weekend. I wanted to clean this up a bit before I released it, but I also wanted to post it before I left. Simply put I ran out of time.