The Wait is a Mistake.

I know, lot's of awesomeness from Blizzcon today.

     Blizzard and Activision starting their own film and Television company.  They are starting with a Skylanders T.V. show, and mention was made of a Call of Duty treatment.  This is perfect as anyone who has seen Blizzard's cinematics has seen the awesome talent that Blizzard has hired on.  I'm excited to see where they take this.

      The Warcraft movie cinematic was released as well.  I enjoyed it and I look forward to that movie more than I do Star Wars.   I don't feel the trailer gave a ton away other than the idea of the main conflict.  The few shots of Garona made me wish she looked a little more orc like, but really I had no complaints.

      The opening Cinematic for Legion was released as well.  I felt it was VERY Alliance heavy, and that is coming from someone who mainly plays Alliance.  I thought the tone was interesting and I am wondering if they are foreshadowing Varian's doom, or if they are trying to fool us on the direction the expansion will go.  The moment between Sylvanas and Varian before the fight breaks out was something I never thought I would see in a Warcraft game... and anything else I say will be way too spoiler filled for those who haven't watched it.

      And here is where I get a little negative.  They announced, last night actually, that Legion will be released on or before September 21, 2016.

      Really Blizzard? You are focusing on getting content out quicker and it's likely to be well over a year of Hellfire Citadel?  This is going to be a mistake on their part, and I would be surprised if there aren't folks at Blizzard working to make sure they beat that September deadline by a bit.  If they wait that long, I am betting the subscribers who plan on returning will be less than if they dropped it in June, or so.

      The honest part is that the date says BY.  That means there is a chance that the expansion could drop well before September if things work out right.   But with Blizzards standards of perfection and track record, if they do get the game out before September, I wouldn't bet on it being a lot sooner.  They could prove me wrong here however.

      Once again however, this wait could have been alleviated by one or two things.

      Blizzard could have slowed down how quickly they released content by a little.  I'm not saying a lot, but if each of the major patches had been delayed by an extra month or month and a half that could have bought Blizzard 3-5 less months of waiting for the next expansion.  Yes, in reality we would have been waiting just as long, but it would feel as long since the last bit of content was much closer.

      A third raid tier.  I won't lie that I felt it was a mistake for Blizzard to up the price on expansions at the same time they released a two tier expansion.  We had taken it for granted that the previous expansions from Wrath to Pandaria all had three raid tiers.  Yes I know they were saying that the third raid tier was sacrificed for Garrisons, but had they done something, anything, to at least give us a midway raid that would have bought them more time as well.  Instead if feels like we paid more for less content.  That feeling is never good for a player.  It probably won't cost Blizzard my subscription, but I'll be severely dissapointed if Legion only had two raid tiers.  It's just not a direction I think Blizzard should go.

      I'm sure there are other things I could think of.  They could release a patch of just extended quests, make some timewalking raids available, etc... There are things they can, and may do to alleviate this time.  However, remember. Anything Blizzard does at this time is essentially development time they are taking away from Legion, so it becomes a double edged sword if they throw a lot of resources our way to help get past this down time.

    I'm honestly surprised they didn't offer another annual pass deal, because while I don't think this is by any means the death of wow, I thinks it's a major loss of revenue they could have had if things had been planned better.  I honestly hope next time around they do figure this out.  The less people playing World of Warcraft does effect the gaming experience, and I have a right to worry about the future of the game I love.  But enough about that.

What has been your favorite bit of information dropped from Blizzcon so far?

My Open Letter To Deathknight Joe

Here we go again.

     I won't lie, Saturday we had a rough go at it.  Ended up pulling in a few folks to get running, and it turned into an uncomfortable mess.  Yes we got the first two bosses down.  It was rough but we did it.  However, the folks we pulled in criticized our DPS and brought a negative vibe to the raid.  Nto fun but we eeked through.
 
     Sunday didn't happen, not enough folks and I didn't have the heart to pull folks in again after the previous night.  So a couple folks hung out on ventrillo and we did some dailies and chatted.  Not a bad way to spend an evening, but it wasn't raiding.

     No, I'm going to address the Deathknight Joes out there.  Not there is nothing wrong with Deathknights... I enjoy playing mine.  But this is my imaginary douchebag character.  Deathknight Joe...

    So Joe, if I may call you that.  There is something called common courtesy.  If you are queued up in the looking for raid tool I know that there is no promise that any group you land in is going to be great, or good.  I know that you sit there at your keyboard hoping that when you get an invite it's not going to be to a bunch of hosers that  call you names and treat you like crap.  Or maybe you are a masochist and you do want that, but I digress....

    Being nice people, if we extend that invite to you DK Joe, we are then you hosts.  By the laws of hospitality you are our guests.  It puts in place a mutual respect that means, if there is something you don't like about us, rather then be an asshat, just politely bow out.  Tell us your cat is on fire, or there is a nail polish sale at your local Walgreens.  I won't be offended.

     Don't sit there and crap on our DPS because some of them are low.  I am aware of the situation and we are working to fix it.  I can vouch for one in particular who has been working on rotation, looking stuff up on Icy-veins, and pushing for gear in Tanaan.  She has also tapped a couple of folks to work with her on her class.  I guarantee you next time her dps will be higher.  Do I think it's going to break the charts? Not without practice and some more work.  But she's getting there.

    The thing is Joe, you don't know our situation.  You don't know we just changed to weekends and that means we are building a couple of folks up.  If it's a situation that you don't like, I understand that.  I am fine with you leaving.  I am not fine with you building your ego by criticizing my raid team.  Because I guarantee you Joe, that when you started raiding and playing, you where not better.  Hell, with that ego you where probably worse.

      Here we are though.  We will be working on building our raid team back to proper.  With a little work maybe it can be stronger then it's been in the past.  We don't know yet, but we are working on it.

     So do me a favor Joe, give the next group your in a bit of consideration.  As for me, I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing and being polite and happy to everyone I raid with.  I don't care if they show up in level one grays.  I will politely ask them to get their real gear if I notice, but hey, I will be polite about it.

Lag, Lazyeye

Kids and Flying Banned in Draenor.

This last week had no raids.  I had stuff going on both nights so..... let's get to it.

      First of all in the news of new experiences I have let my two daughters start playing Wow a bit.  This should be interesting to see how they learn to play and whether or not they enjoy this virtual world.  At 12, and 13 they are old enough to experience a game like this and I'm looking forward to watching and teaching them.  Don't expect them to be online a lot, but here and there.  When asked when they get their own account? I answered when they can pay for it.  So, They won't be at raid anytime soon.  I'm just mean like that.

      When your kids are old enough I recommend trying this.  It's fun to see what your kids choose.  Right now we have a Human Mage and a Draenei Hunter.  (I forced them to start Alliance because I'm more familiar with the leveling and story lines should they need help.)

      In other news there will not likely be any Flying added to Draenor.  Here is a link to one o Blizzards forums talking about it Forums/Flying.  Obviously this is a hot button topic and I recommend giving some thought to this before going crazy.  This choice could still get reversed if Blizzard gets enough constructive (notice I didn't say negative) feedback as they have with other choices in the past.  Remember when to post on forums you were going to have to show your real name? I do.  Here is a link to the actual interview where Hazzikostas gave the now flying news. Introducing Tanaan Jungle: six things to know about World of Warcraft's newest zone

       I really want to push the constructive feedback aspect of talking to Blizzard if you want to post or comment about this or anything else.  If you go in screaming and saying things suck, your just going to get lost in the forest of idiots who have nothing to base their opinion off of other then emotion.  If you go in and give facts and act like a decent human being, you are more likely to be heard.  Every time.

      This does mean that my opinion on the Runesaber from last post is strengthened by this choice.  I think it was a bad move to release it with flying and now with this interview it's just going to feed the people angry about no flying.  I just see this as a bigger and bigger mess that people will still be arguing about several expansions from now.  Because you know, most people who are pissed won't unsubscribe and we will have to listen to them go on and on about the mistake removing flying was.  Rather they will stick around and complain.

     For the records, I think they should return flying (and I've said as much) but not at the time of release.  I think it should be introduced after the expansion(s) have been thoroughly explored by people leveling.  However, I'm not going to rant, rave or talk about unsubscribing.  I understand and respect the choice even if I don't agree with it.

       Other new I am still doing raids on Tuesday and Wednesday for the next couple of weeks, but everyone who voted on the website voted for them to shift to Saturday/Sunday night.  I will give warning in raid before they shift, and will still watch for feedback but that decision seems done.

Have a great week
Lag/Lazyeye

Support Classes Wouldn't Work in World of Warcraft.

But we will get into that in a moment.

      Tuesday was a little rough.  One of our regular tanks couldn't make it so Lag, myself ended up hanging up his two handed axe for the good old sword and board.  Of course I was a little rusty and it took us all night to kill Gruul, but kill him we did.  And much happiness followed.

      Wednesday we ended up being a little short and I ended up hitting the raid finder feature to get our last person.  We managed to snag a hunter and hopped in starting about half an hour late.  We went to work on Hanz and Franz and got them down after a couple of attempts.  (Partially because I wasn't tanking.  If I was it might have taken a bit longer...)  We then went on to Oregorger and promptly got destroyed a bit.  By the end of the night we were making progress, but he has a bit of work to go yet.

      Now, Blizzards April fools jokes actually got me a little this year.  In particular the T.I.N.D.R. add. I had forgotten what day it was, and after adding the selfie to the game, I didn't find this to be much of a stretch as an area for Blizzard to Foray into.  The thought of playing a love match game with your followers seemed like what one might have for a legitimate idea to get one more attached to those characters.

      But it got me to thinking about their past April fools jokes.  My favorite to this day was the addition of the Bard class.  They had taken some screenshots and married them with the interface from guitar hero to make it look like an interactive music type of class.  It was well done and since bard was a fun class to play elsewhere, as well as a common fantasy archetype.  It was obviously fake but a fun idea.  Since then I will not lie, I've kind of wanted to see a bard class in Wow.  However, I don't believe it will ever happen.

      Traditionally bards are support classes.  This means that they enhance the abilities of those around them, rather than dealing damage or healing themselves.  That isn't to say they can't fight, or couldn't heal if Blizzard had the notion but their strength is in helping the group over themselves.

       This does appeal to me.  I see a class that has three sets of spells to move to through the fight.  One set that makes the group deal more damage during light healing phases, one set to enhance healing when needed, and one to diminish the damage coming in from the enemies.  It could be fun to figure out when the best time to balance during a fight when the bard should focus on which of these three areas to focus.  Think of it this way, you're the bard and the tank pulls.  For the first few moments of the fight you enhance the damage going out.  Then, the boss does an ability that puts out a lot of damage so you swap to damage reduction rotation.  Then after the boss deals that damage you swap again to help the healers top of the life bars and then back and forth as needed during the encounter. 

       Alas, this will never happen because of one thing.  The trinity of Tank, Heals, and DPS is completely ingrained in the player base.

      If a Bard where part of a group where he increased the damage going out by 100k overall, there would still be someone who called him out for not topping DPS in his personal numbers.  Same with heals.  People would not understand that this character could help everyone else at the expense of personal statistics.  To many people would turn into rage machines that would ruin the experience for all.  Even if this was a minority of people it would poison the pool of those who wanted to play such a class.  Let's be honest too, as Monks have shown us, being introduced this late in the game doesn't bode well for player numbers.  Because while Monks are versatile and fun to play, they still are one of the lowest played classes in the game, if not the lowest.

     But how do you feel? Would you play a Bard? Or a similar class?  Is this a complete pipe dream or do you think Blizzard would consider something like this?  Or do the classes buff and support each other enough to make this a moot point?  If they were to do this what class would you like to play?

Lag/Lazyeye 

Smacked right in the Kisser! (raid update week of 01/04/2014)

So... been a week of raiding.

     Tuesday was a little rough.  We went in and managed to down Kargath, Twin Ogron, and The Butcher again.  We did have a few wipes which made the fights last pretty much the whole night.  It was a little frustrating but it just seemed a rougher night.

     Wednesday was equally frustrating.  We started on Brackenspore and worked on him for a while before giving up and switching to Tectus.  We made some progress on Tectus but eventually raid ended and we called it for the night with no new bosses downed this week.

      I am going to openly say I am frustrated at this moment.  Not with our progress, there are nights where no new bosses or downed or we spend time working on one boss and that is raiding.  It happens a lot for some teams and you get used to the idea that there are some nights you may spend and hour or two just trying to make some progress against a baddie.  This I can live with.

    However, if anyone noticed I grew very quiet in Vent this week.  Why? You may ask, well I will tell you.

     I am tired of grown ass men not being able to put on their big boy pants and bringing down the team.  Not just one person too.  In a moment where we should have been focusing on working together and figuring out how to down a boss there was loud whining, and whispers and lots of other frustrating things that almost made me go off in a rant on vent.  Instead I decided to keep my mouth shut rather then end raid halfway through because the raid leader had an emotional melt down.  Emotional melt downs don't fix anything.  But neither does silence.  This is a problem that may need fixing.  In a raid where we were discussing that the youngest member is about twenty five years old, I should feel like I'm playing with a couple of Kindergartners. Seriously.

     So here is my warning shot.  I will have people muted on vent.  I will ask people to shut their cake hole if they can't contribute anything positive.  Failing that, I will start cutting people.  I don't want to, the majority of people playing with us have been here a couple years and while I have been entertained by antics between a couple of players, it turned pretty damn toxic this week.

     The thing that kills me is that in a world of adults we should be able to take and give some good natured ribbing.  We should be thicker skinned and give each other the benefit of the doubt when someone speaks to us.  Instead I feel I am babysitting a bunch of children.  If I wanted that I would just work the nights we raid.

    Either way, it's been building, and soon something is going to have to give.

Lag.

Relax man, it's not that bad.

I need to put in a little interjection here if I may.

      When I have gotten online I have been bombarded at times with people asking about why their DPS sucks, and if I feel X class is doing better then Y class.  People are worried that their class is not hitting hard enough, or they are worried about their new rotations and lack of abilities that they loved.  (I have really felt this, playing a mage without living bomb feels wrong somehow) or many other things that have come out after the patch.  Let me tell you now...

     Just take a deep breath and don't make any snap judgments.

     Blizzard is hot fixing bugs and issues daily.  This includes different abilities on the classes.  This also includes damaging abilities from bosses, raid adjustments etc...  Also you have to keep in mind right now Blizzard is starting to look at the end game as level 100, not level 90.  You may not feel a balance for your class until you hit that next level cap after the expansion drops.

      There was also a lot of talk of Blizzard cutting abilities from classes.  We knew it was coming.  Learn and practice your new rotations before you decide you don't like them.  Right now you are fighting the muscle memory you have spent an expansion building up, now it's time to adjust and get used to everything before the expansion drops.  Then, some other abilities will change and you will have to relearn things after you hit 100.  So, the moral of the story here....

    Expect change.

    Change is good.  I can't imagine playing the content now with all the nuances that Vanilla Wow had.  (Yes, I'm going against the rose tinted glasses assumption that everything was better back in the day.)  Change is what brought us to where we are today.  Without it, I firmly believe that there would be a whole lot less people still playing Wow.  This is what keeps the game alive.  This is part of what keeps it from becoming too boring.  Plus, we have all been through this before.  Every expansion things have changed.

    So quick recap, take a breath, don't panic, wait before you freak out.  I would hate for someone the change what they are doing over a problem that might not exist a month from now.

Lag/Lazyeye

Quicker, Faster, Stronger. (Raid Update 9/22/2014)

So, we are getting there

     Tuesday was fantastic.  We managed to one shot Blackfuse for the first time, and then went on to one shot Paragons.  It was a great feeling and I can't complain at all.  We managed to get to Garrosh, but someone's computer blew so we ended up 9 man pulling him a few times just to get a feel for the beginning of the fight.

     Wednesday we spent the whole day on Garrosh.  We were missing one main raider due to a family emergency, and our prayers are with him and his family.  We did manage to get some good progress and things were starting to come together, then near the end focus was gone and we could feel it.  I went ahead and called things a few minutes early and told people to run LFR and to study the video for the fight again before next week.  I want to get him down.

    Now, we are at the door of 6.0.  I am betting on it dropping this Tuesday, though every one else whom I've talked to thinks it will be a week later then that.  Either way time to get things wrapped up is quickly evaporating, and this brings me to a complaint I am starting to have about the next expansion.

     Here is the thing that really is bothering me.  Warlords of Draenor is rumored to be an expansion with only two raid tiers.  That means not only is the expansion ten bucks more this time rounds, but we are getting one less tier of raids then we traditionally have.  I understand the desire to get more content out quicker and that the goal is to have an expansion yearly, but this seems a little small fry to me.

    Now, I understand this might not mean less content overall.  Class systems are being overhauled, we get a whole new world/continent to explore.  There will be ten levels of quests, and apparently each zone will have new content once you hit 100 to explore.   The raid system is revised and updated really for the first time since Burning Crusade.  (Yes flex was added the last patch of Panderia, but now we are seeing the fruits of that labor.)  There is the new space savers, (Toy box etc..,) and I'm sure lots of other things that I can't remember to post here.  So, saying two raid tiers is less is very subjective.

     Of course you have to balance that out against the Cataclysm backlash.  A lot of effort was put into revamping the 1-60 experience and because of it the end leveling experience felt short and was mostly put together out of existing resources.  I enjoyed  leveling through this, but a lot of people where very unhappy with it.  Let's be realistic though, no matter what Blizzard does there will be backlash.  They can't make any decision without someone complaining.  I'm convinced that if they gave one million dollars to feed the homeless of California, they would have people complaining the money should have been donated elsewhere.  But hey that's people.

    How do you all feel about it?  Does ten levels of leveling trump that 3rd raid tier, or do you think they should stick with the three tier model for the expansion.  Personally I am happy with an expansion about every other year, or year in a half as long as we are getting some sort of content and attention.  But what I think doesn't matter at the end of the day.  What is your opinion?

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.

Go On a Trip They Said... See The World They Said..... (Priorities)

So... as far as things go this week....

      On Tuesday night we cleared all of Flex Siege of Ogrimmar in about an hour.  Things fell quickly and we moved like a well oiled machine.  We then conquered Siege on normal mode in the time we had left.  Once again everything was a one shot and we smacked things down with brutal efficiency.

    O.k., you got me.  We didn't raid this week because someone decided to go on vacation and visit another state for his nieces wedding.  It's my first trip to Arizona and i'm loving it here in Mesa.  The scenery here is beautiful and it's nice and warm at about 80+ degrees daily.  The kid's are going swimming each day and I'm getting lot's of reading done.  (I finished Brandon Sanderson's "The Way of Kings" again, and I'm half way through "Word's of Radiance" the second book in that series.   Might sound like a little reading, but each book is 1,000+ pages.)  In a different world I could live here.  I would happily trade the snows of Utah for 115 degree summer days.

    Here is the big thing, I have internet on vacation.  Decent connection etc... but I still haven't been playing a lot of World of Warcraft.  Why?  Because I'm on vacation.  I'm in a space with my family, and my mother and father in law and I'm spending time torturing kid's and family as a good man should.  That doesn't mean there aren't a lot of times where we are off doing out own thing.  But it means that my priority is to be available to go out and take the kid's swimming, or run to the store again for the 15th thing we need for dinner tonight.

     I get the feeling this will be my last vacation for a long while too, so I'm trying to enjoy it.  Due to job switching I don't have a lot of excess time or money.  As a matter of fact, if we hadn't already planned this trip I would have probably opted to sit it out and stay home working, rather then taking a week off and stretching finances a little.

    So what does this post have to do with world of Warcraft?

     The fact it's all about priorities.

     In and out of game we have a lot of priorities putting pressure on us.  I have known several people who have left game because they didn't have jobs or had strained finances.  I applaud those folks for taking care of what's important before game time.  I have also known several people who have played without holding a job, running up credit cards etc... that should have put their focus elsewhere.  While I think it's important to keep some sort of entertainment budget even in tight circumstances, I also acknowledge that Wow is a time sink that can eat up time that people could be using to job hunt or otherwise better their situation.  It's not the fifteen bucks a month that seems wasteful to me for these people.  It's the time they spend online, often several hours at a time, that could be better spent elsewhere.

     Even more Wow related is the time spent in game.  When asked about whether or not you prepared for raid, the question should not just be, do you have your flasks, food, etc....   The question also allows for, have you worked to improve you ability to DPS, Tank, or Heal?  If there are still upgrades in LFR have you run it?  Have you looked up the boss fights so you know what is going on when you step in?  Have you looked at your rotation, reforges, and gems recently?  There is several things you can do to prepare for a raid, and it's not just the obvious things.

     Same goes for PVP or any other part of the game.  As far as preparation do you know the battlegrounds/arenas? Have you looked up strategies, or learned them yet.  Have you studied your class?  Most people just step in and learn here, and that means the moment you are in the BG or arena, you often become a liability for your team.  Please give people the respect to at least have an idea of what you are doing.

     This of course is not an all inclusive list, and there are always shifting and changing priorities for people.  Our lives change as we get older and we find our selves stretched  in new ways every day.  The game we play is almost ten years old now, meaning that if you have been in from the beginning your life probably looks different from the day you sat  down and rolled your first character.  As a person this means you need to occasionally step back and look at how you have arranged the priorities in your life.

Edited, but might still be offensive to a couple of peeps

So I guess the question is, How do you prioritize things?

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

 



   

Making Folks Work For It! Another Rant from Me! Yay! (Raid Update week of 3/23/2014)

Hi, this is your ornery raid leader....

      This week Tuesday was very good.  We managed to get through the second wing of SoO in one night for the first time.  The bonus to this is that we one shot every boss with the exception of Shamans.  Shamans took two shots.  But we huffed, and puffed and blew that house down in a way we haven't achieved before tonight.  I was very happy with our performance.

      Wednesday night was a little more rough.  I almost didn't make raid and was close to having to stay and close at work.  I managed to still get off, but was about ten minutes late.  Magilla and Gwyn had managed to get things started though, and we were in and raiding shortly.  Malkorak took us a few attempts, but we got him down and moved on to Spoils of Pandaria.  Spoils beat us but it also showcased the problem I have been hitting the raid team with.  We Need More Deeps!

      I threw down and Ultimatum.  I want everybody to be at a minimum of 125k dps by the end of two weeks.  If a dps shows up and can't pull that 125k floor, or close to it, they will be asked not to raid with us until they can hit it.

      We are more then a year into this expansion.  People have been hitting these numbers since Mogu'shan vaults in many cases and we are a lot of gear levels above that point.  There are too many resources in this game to not be able to make such numbers.  I put the effort into my hunter to get to 200k average dps on my hunter as my goal.  I have made that.  On fights where I just pew, pew, and I don't have a lot of swapping, moving, and dps stops I hit that 200k consistently.  As a matter of fact I am setting a new goal of 225k.  To do this I am actually going to start working on some key binds/macros I can use to up my deeps.  I wan to make sure I'm not getting complacent in what I'm doing.

      Now you may say "Lag? Why do we need to be able to hit 125k dps?"  And I will say, "Because you owe it to everyone else who shows up for raid to come in and not expect to be carried."   Let's be honest here.  If you are not working to improve, if you are showing up every week pulling substandard dps and dying constantly they your are not part of the team.  You are a detriment.

     That't right.  If you are not pulling the dps to justify being along in raid you are just one more boss that we have to beat.  Not only that, you are a boss we have to beat on top of the regular bosses every time we walk into a fight.  You can look at yourself and know that you are one of the reasons we have to fight so hard to clear every single boss.  You are one of the enemy.  I happily invite you along to help destroy the raid.

     No more.  I want to see improvement, and I want to see it consistently.  I know that our tanks and heals all work hard to keep things going.  Hell, my wife just started playing again 2 weeks ago after a 6+ month hiatus and she has fought tooth and nail to get her heals up to a point where she is feeling competitive again.  She was the one when she quit that dominated the heals charts the majority of the time.  I can tell you right now, she won't stop until she hits that point again.  Why? Because she wants to do her best.  She doesn't want to be dead weight.  She wants to compete on a level that shows that she gives a damn about how our raid team is doing.

      I may not even live religiously to that 125k minimum and I admit that now.  If you have been pulling 60-70k dps for 2 months now, not naming names, and you show up in two weeks pulling 100k.  I may say, "I see you have been working to improve.  Come next week."  Because this isn't about the numbers at the end of the day.

     It's about doing your part to support and build the team.   You are either building the team, or you are tearing it down.  Piece by piece.  I am already loosing one good raider because of this.  I am determined not to lose anymore.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.

   

Selling the Drama.... (Raid update week of 2/20/2014)

Because that's what we do.  Sometimes.

      Tuesday was an O.K. day.  We were short a couple of major players and hopped into second wing anyway.  Galakras and Iron Juggernaut went down quickly as normal.  As I was tanking this night however, we had to pick a third tank who hadn't tanked the fight before to help finish Dark Shamans.  We got close but never got them down.

      Wednesday was not a great Raid night.  Once again a few people didn't make it leaving use with just ten peeps.  We decided to push third wing anyway and never got past Malkorak.  The biggest problem is the other times we have fought him we have had 14-15 people, and with just ten we didn't have the coverage on the room we were used to.  Mechanics just killed us when people missed the purple circles or we didn't move quickly enough.  I look forward to shrugging this week off and moving forward.

      Now, World of Warcraft is about the dramatic.  We follow story lines, and immersed in the lore whether we pay attention to it or not, and everything we do has a consequence somewhere down the line withing the the story arc.  All the characters we run into seem to be having minor emergencies which means the characters we interact with tend to be very dramatic as well.

     But you, yes you, the player.... you are not that dramatic.  Most of the scenes with your characters show them calmly watching what is going on around you.  Your not overly verbal, and you don't tend to jump around and freak out just because an angry dragon is smashing through a wall.

    So why would you fill guild chat with drama?

     The easy answer is that we are not our characters.  Guild chat is the one place where we get to be actual people who can talk to our guild mates and connect on a level that goes above a video game if we so choose to.  The obvious exception of course is a RP guild.  (RP realms don't actually equal RP all that often.)  The problem with this is sometimes people over share, or try to over connect, or flat out decide to troll everyone in sight.  This creates drama.

     Before you start talking in guild, or even in trade for that matter you should consider the impact of your words when you allow people into your life.  Are you saying something that is not going to project the image of you that you want people to see?  Is what your saying meant to stir up a fight?  Is it lewd, sweary, or in any way offensive?  When all people get of you is some typing and a virtual figure this matters.

     The best way to build guild drama is to not care about any of these things.  When you come off as abrupt or mean it can bring a guild down.  People do not want to hang out in a cesspool of negativity with a few notable exceptions.  When you create guild drama it effects everyone in the guild to at least a small degree.  I can be in how they feel to be part of the guild, to how other people treat them when they see our guild tag above their heads.  If the realm has a negative view of your guild from what one or two yahoos say in guild chat, then it effects every single person.

     People also say things to get a specific re-action in guild.  If you enter guild chat talking about causing physical harm to yourself or others sometimes people don't know how to react.  I would wager normally when someone does this it's because they want attention and for some people negative attention is better then no attention.  In this case no one is sure whether to take the speaker seriously or not, and in a MMO we are very limited on our ability to react to such things from our side of the keyboard.  If we don't know anything other then an avatar and fake name, there is no recourse your guild mates can take if they do thing you are serious.  At best we can put in a ticket to Blizzard and hope that they are willing to call people like the cops etc... to check things out.   I'm not sure Blizzard would be likely to do this as well, because they take legal responsibility for releasing someones contact information for what might just be someone crying for attention.

     In short if you having a rough time in your life or situation, don't pull the guild into it.  If it becomes a problem we will have to cut you loose, and I would hate to cut off the sense of community from someone who may benefit from it in a positive manner.  I would love to have a happy place for you to come, chat and interact if you life otherwise sucks, so you can have some happiness in your life.

     The guild is a place that should be kept drama free... please do your part to help make it so.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye
   

How Much Is Your Integrity Worth? Yes, I'm ranting again. (Raid update week of 02/13/2014)

It's a basic question, but first lets review the raiding this week.

      Tuesday went very well.  Kedec was taking a break for the first bit of the night so I was tanking on Lag.  (And being bitter about not being able to show off my deeps with my hunter's new cloak.  I admit it.)  Despite the fact I hadn't tanked any of the second wing before both Galakras and Iron Juggernaut went down in a one shot.  Then, thanks to Orheim guild tripping, Kedec came in and we three tanked, one shot Dark Shaman.  Nazgrim took two shot but he went down as well.  At that point there was only 13 minutes or so left, so we went ahead and called raid.  Wednesday night we would start on Malkorak.

      Wednesday turned out better then I thought it would.  We were down a couple of folks who were sick or otherwise incapacitated.  That being said, Old Malkorak went down on the third pull.  We then moved on to treasures of Pandaria.  This fight was rough due to some low deeps but we managed to get to 2% before we wiped.  I foresee a downing of this boss in the near future.  It, to me, was a very good raid week.

      I have been thinking since Monday on integrity.  We had a situation where at work one of the employees decided not to park where the designated parking was set, but instead decided to park in an area we try to keep open for customers during lunch.  When he had come in my boss had asked him where he was parked and the employee initially lied.  Then after a little bit of badgering he admitted he was in the wrong place but claimed not to know that he couldn't park there.  He went out to move his car, begrudgingly, and the day went on.

     My boss however, looked at me after the exchange and asked quietly, how much is your integrity worth? 75 feet?  He then went on to bagging the food for the customers and I've been stewing the thought in my head ever since.

     That employee was willing to lie for the sake of not walking that extra 75 feet.  That is about 30 extra second to walk into work.  It also is a small bit of walking for how much we move around the restaurant during and through out the day.  It should have been a minor thing, but to this employee it was worth evading and lying not to walk that 75 feet.

     There are people that say that everyone has their price.  I don't like parking down in the employee parking either but I do it anyway.  It cost me four hundred dollars to park down there when some kids from the neighboring elementary school threw rocks over the fence and smashed out my side window.  Even so, I still park down in the area designated for employee parking.  I even park further away then most of the employees as I don't feel the need to be extra close to the restaurant.  My price is much higher then this employees, as a matter of fact it is much higher then $400 apparently.

      That is not to say I'm not perfect.  I have told my own white lies to make people feel better or to try and spare feelings.  Should I do it? No.  But I'm not better then anyone else.  Do I do it often? Not really.  I try to avoid being dishonest, but at times I fall into the same trap as other people.  I feel the ends justify the means if it means keeping the peace or not offending people etc...

      Being back at my job at Chick-fil-A means that a lot of time when I'm raiding now, I have woken up at 5 am or earlier, and I'm tired.  Or that I've worked a ten to twelve hour day, and I come home and get ready to raid with folks on our team.  This means, that while tired I still and putting my time and effort into making sure things get together for everyone else.  I know people have different levels of tolerance, but sometimes I question it when people say "I'm too tired tonight." or "Well, I know it's fifteen minutes to raid, and I've been on petbattling for the last 2 hours, but hey I didn't have time to watch the raid encounter video."  Sometimes I want to call B.S.  It is O.K. to not feel like raiding and to take a night off here and there.  Stuff happens I get it.  I don't need smoke blown up my arse to spare my feelings.  Now if someone is consistently missing raid nights then we may need to talk.  If you are in a critical position such as heals or tanking this is twice as true.  Every time you don't show it effects everyone else on the team.

      This goes for people who just drop off the earth as well.  If you don't want to raid with us you can tell me.  I'm a big boy and I can take it.  I know we  are laid back and not pushing insanely hard content and that is fine for us.  It might not be fine for you and I understand if you want more of a challenge etc...  I get that.  However, if you don't have the courtesy to tell me and I have to hear things second hand that shows a lack of respect to me and everyone on the team.  For the record this isn't going to anyone in particular, but we have had lots of people of the years just suddenly stop with no explanation.   That bothers me more then if someone wants to PM me and tell me that they refuse to raid because I'm and a________.  Really, I do my best to show everyone some level of respect, and I feel that respect should be returned.

     What is your integrity worth?  Is it worth the time to make sure you are as prepared as possible when you show up for raid?  Is it worth letting the team know when and if you are going separate ways?  Is it worth the extra ten minutes it would take to look up your class on Noxxic.com or Icy-veins.com and do some work to improve your performance?  Is it worth asking for help if you can't figure out how to make your class better?

     Most of all, is it worth showing your fellow player the respect they deserve, and doing your best to be part of a team.  To me the biggest sign of integrity is just taking responsibility for what little bit of ownership you have invested in this team.  If you play like you want to be better, and help others out, that speaks more for you then any words ever can.

     Show us your integrity.

     Be part of the team.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.

I am not a Kindergarten Teacher.... (The Raid Leader Rants Again!)

Seriously... Brace for a rant.

      First of all, I want to say I  love my fellow guildies.  I know I'm not always the most personable person, I prefer to do a large portion of my game solo and have some characters I play on when I don't want to be bothered.  However, I do spend a good bit of my time looking at boss strategies, and making sure I am doing the best I can to help out the raid from a gearing/preparation standpoint.  I have helped several people get prepared for raiding, whether they hadn't raided before or just needed some advice to tweak their characters.

     That being said, I expect a certain decorum from people inside the guild.  The issue on my mind dealing with this is not something I would kick some one from the guild for.  Nor would I keep them off the raid team for said issue. Its something that plagues the game here and there and I know you have all experienced it.  Yesterday I got a rather annoying reminder of this issue.

     It's the expectation that A.Things are always as YOU see them, and B.  The expectation that I'm going to step in, or say anything over misunderstandings.

     We play in a digital environment where a lot of what people say is typed and communicated without the luxuries of body language and vocal intonation to help us understand what people mean.  That means at times someone might type something to you and you won't get the full understanding of what they are communicating.  This can lead to misunderstandings on jokes, sarcasm, and even on how you plan things with said person.  Misunderstandings do, and will happen so from the bottom of my heart I ask....

    Do not get butt hurt if you misunderstand someone, or things don't go the way you plan.

    You can control exactly one person in WoW.  That is yourself.  Due to the limitations on most of communication in the game you should give people the benefit of the doubt.  Don't assume everyone in game is out to get you, because in all likely hood they are not.   The assumption that everyone lives and dies by our personal experience is destructive to friendships and interactions in general.  Not to mention a self absorbed attitude that shows a lack of character in one's personality.

      There are people who feel they are slighted at every turn.  They assume that if someone won't wait for them to run something or if they won't drop everything to help them, that it's because that person is out for number one, and doesn't care.  Sometimes these people feel used if they have recently helped that person out, and they get left behind or ignored.  These feelings are normal, however you don't know what is going on at the other side of anyone else's keyboard.

     I know if I'm playing during the day, normally it's in spurts and I'm not doing anything I can't step away from.  I have three kids, and if they are over playing the Wii or watching T.V. I have no problem plopping down and doing some quests, leveling, or LFR.  What do these things have in common? If I have to step away or drop its not going to effect anyone else's game play to a large degree.  I DPS 90% of the time in LFR so I'm replaced almost as soon as I drop, before anyone attacks me on that point.  My point being, I know if someone whispers me or needs me to do something during this time, and one of my kids need something, my kids comes first.  I will disappear mid-conversation etc... if I need to.  I normally will apologize when I get back and let you know what happened, but I am a father first and a gamer second.  If that is not your priorities, do yourself a favor and revisit them.

      This leads to my next point.  If someone has made you feel like your being ignored, insulted, or they are breaking commitments to you, DO NOT COME WHINING TO ME!  First of all, give the other person the benefit of the doubt.  In most cases you will find that you didn't understand what they meant when they typed you, etc...  Second of all, we are all adults here.  If someone is threatening you, or abusing you let me or an officer know.  If your butt hurt because you thought someone was going to wait for you before queuing for a Heroic Scenerio or LFR put on your big boy pants and GET OVER IT!

      If you approach me with a complaint that could be a misunderstanding, then I'm going to do a lot of smiling and nodding.  After that smiling and nodding I'm going to mourn the time of my day you have wasted and will go do my own thing.  I am not going to step into pointless arguments.  I am not going to  police interactions in the guild which probably are just broken communication that could be resolved if you took two seconds and asked the other person what happened.  If you do this and the answer isn't what you wanted to hear, I still don't want to talk to you about it unless said threats/abuse happen to you when your answered.

     If you end up ignoring someone in the guild, I will get over it.  If you end up deciding you won't run LFRs, scenarios, and Randoms with someone.  That is your call.  As a matter of fact if you are constantly feeling someone is making promises and not keeping them, that is my advice.  Stop doing stuff with them.  If they ask what happened politely tell them why.  Don't make accusations, just simply state that they never seemed available so you stopped asking etc...  Here is a secret to being a grown up.  It's fine to disagree with people, or to stop doing stuff with them if it impacts you in a negative way.

     The one caveat to this, if you show up and you tell me that you won't raid if the other person is in the raid, don't expect to raid with us.  I am not going to pick sides or get into squabbles.  When you hand me an ultimatum then I'm going to simply tell you that I will let you know when they aren't raiding so you can join.  I am not catering to anyone who decides they can't raid with another member of the guild.  If you don't want to raid with that person, and they are in the raid, then don't join.  This hasn't happened for a while, but it bears mentioning as it has happened before.

    Folks, This is a long winded rant, and what it breaks down to  is just simply respect you fellow man.  Give him the consideration you would want and that is all that's needed.  No one is responsible for you own happiness but you.  You can either hold on to grudges, be angry, and assume the worst, or you can shrug it off and move forward without the negativity.  Your choice, I know what mine is.

Lay/Dizzty/Lazyeye