Saludos

El otro día conversábamos un grupo de personan sobre el destino de  la guild, para quienes no lo sepan como grupo podemos hacer muuuchas cosas, entre ellas dedicarnos a hacer pvp o en español JcJ(Jugador contra Jugador).

¿Pero que hace una guild pvp?

Si como grupo optamos por esta opción nos inclinaremos por hacer arenas(2vs2,3vs3,5vs5), battleGronud (campos de batalla) , atacar ciudades horda o cualquier otra cosa que implique enfrentarnos a otros jugadores.

Por otra parte podemos optar por ser una guild PvE o en español JcE (Jugador contra Entorno), en pocas palabras andar matando dragoncitos y hacer todo lo que implica beneficio en ello.

Por el momento concluimos como guild, que lo mejor es optar por un equilibrio entre ambas, es decir hacer ambas cosas sin dar extrema prioridad a una sobre la otra.

What can I say? Blame my friend who sent me Dragon Age: Origins. Blame work, for asking me to do some overtime. And blame me, for being a self-proclaimed slacker.

Am enjoying Dragon Age so far, but I only started it yesterday and am taking it quite slow. It’s also the EU Welcome Back week for LotRO so I’m showing Spinks round some of Moria she hasn’t seen yet and Lothlorien too. Next week is the launch of Siege of Mirkwood and that will definitely take up some of my time, though considering many of my ’stable-ish’ group are away or starting new jobs/settling into new jobs, I’m sure I’ll be able to spare some time for Dragon Age. I’m definitely going to try to (for variety, if nothing else). I intend to add it to the very few computer games I’ve played through to the end.

In the meantime, I’ve been organising a sweet/chocolate-only Secret Santa for the kin in LotRO. I heartily recommend it, it wasn’t half as hard to organise as I thought. Get some interest, get people to send you their addresses, and then pair people up so that everyone gets sent something. I’ve set a £3 suggested spending limit, with posting that should take it to around £5, and I’ve tried to mix up the mainland EU/Scandinavia and UK players. I don’t normally get that involved in the social organising side. I used to do a bit of instance leading, but recently I’ve been more of a wallflower kin-wise. But while we were all discussing favourite local sweets, I thought it’d be a nice way of showing off one of the most important sides of ourselves (our favourite sweeties, of course). If it goes well, I’m going to suggest a chocolate-based one for Easter. And we’ll see how it goes. Do it! It’s been a lot less hassle than I thought.

More soon, honestly.

Congratulations are in order to all that attended our clear of Obsidian Sanctum with three drakes up!  Toty was the lucky winner of the Reins of the Twilight Drake.  The encounter was cleared after only four or five attempts through the use of a zerging (rush) strategy.  A special shout out to the healers and the raid leader for making it happen. 

One of the key things about this strategy is that absolutely no DPS can die to flame walls or void zones.  A crucial moment is the first flame wall as the first void zone comes at nearly the same time.  Melee classes need to be especially cautious as the first void zone seemingly targets them first every time.  The void zone can be very difficult to spot in the midst of all the spell effects flashing on the screen.  As long as the healers can keep the main tank up and the DPS play flawlessly with their movements while maximizing their damage output, then this strategy is pure win.

This was a great decision for the guild to attempt this encounter.  The achievement earned for clearing this is a major accomplishment as it is one of the toughest fights in the game.  So kick back, relax, and enjoy the holiday week, Mythology.  Let the celebrations begin!

Today is World of Warcraft’s fifth birthday! Though there are often in-game events, Blizzard parties and hilarious meme images to accompany games’ birthdays, to commemorate the anniversary of this time-and-CPU-eating behemoth I will share with you the best WoW-themed birthday (and event) cakes Google Images has to offer. Behold:

Via ArsTechnica, a roommate’s girlfriend’s creation

Amazing airbrushing, via Erisana’s deviantart

Inspired by the Horde cake above, this thing is truly magnificent

Tons more, after the jump.

Two-tiered birthday cake – formal!

Nothing says, “Happy Birthday!” like a scowling green orc

Via geekologie and WoW insider, source unknown (though click through for a TON of additional themed cakes

A groom’s cake by Swank Cake Design

Fondant topping skillfully crafted by by Lori F. (Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England)

Really cute gnome cake by Clever Cake Studio; click through to see the amazing marbled inside!

WoW wedding cake by Art Eats Bakery. For the Horde!

Guild photo on a sheet cake (for the poster’s boss…the company that plays together, stays together!)

Happy Birthday, World of Warcraft!

As we announced some time ago we are running the series about  instances on Crogges Server. The first episode tells about dungeon from Hellfire Citadel – Hellfire Ramparts, the first instance situated in Outland.

Trash mobs

As soon as we started the Fel Orc massacre on Citadel walls, we were positively surprised that the mobs actually used some basic skills like shouts or disarming. They also tried to run away in fear when low on health. That didn’t help them much though. The first-mob-impression was nice, but then it fell apart while fighting Bonechewer Beastmaster. As soon as you aggro the guy, he spawns 4 hounds in the first 4 seconds of the fight – sure, it’s not a problem for a group of 70s, but basically Ramparts are tuned for 60s, and that means it’s a killer script for the group. The mob should spawn the dogs after a certain amount of time, giving a chance to kill him without additional difficulties. Beside these redskins the trash killing looks pretty nice throughout the whole instance.

Now let us look at the boss encounters..

The abilites of the boss himself seem nice, he does a knockback and debuffs the tank, not sure about charging players. The biggest (and funniest) issue with this guy is when his hp reaches 50%. Then he shouts for his 2 adds to heal him, but guess what – his adds are on a break! They stand at the end of the road, not even thinking about following their master. Instead of yelling ‘Heal me! QUICKLY!’, Gargolmar should scream ‘WTF?!~!’. This fight should be easy, but without the adds it’s an encounter you manage to do while sleeping. The adds could at least patrol the same way behind the boss.

This seems like the best scripted boss in the dungeon, casting shadow bolts at the players, summoning felhounds and casting dots at his victims. The only thing we didn’t notice here was his ability to throw people up and hang them in mid-air, but that does not make the fight tedious. Nice work done here!

This boss is a synonym of a scripting failure! The fight should start with aggroing the 2 mobs that stand at the bridge to the ramp, it did not aggro the boss. Shared aggro doesn’t need commenting – we just killed them and got ready for the boss. First thing you can say about Vazruden is that he must have cloned himself – one stands in the center of the platform, another one is riding Nazan in the air.. Then we noticed the Reinforced Fel Iron Chest that contains the boss loot after killing him, it was lootable without even starting the fight. But we are happy that it contains loot that wasn’t accessible in the past after opening the chest. We killed Vazruden standing on the ground, so it was time to take down the royal air force. As soon as we aggroed Nazan, we found out that he spawns a copy of his master every 2 seconds – FAIL, FAIL, FAIL, FAIL, FAIL, FAIL, each ‘fail’ responsible for each multiplication of the boss. Those 2 are clearly really hard, if not impossible to kill for a group of 60s.

Summary

Hellfire Ramparts is the very first Outland instance that levels 60 will visit after running through Dark Portal. Hungry for loot players may have serious problems with last boss which makes this instance difficult if you don’t have 70s friends ready for help. The whole impression from the dungeon is nice: running in fear and sometimes yelling thrash mobs, bosses using skills and ‘nearly’ all fair encounters. However some serious mistakes have been done – last boss should be rescripted to give some more chances for early 60s players.

Last night my 10-man-only guild, the Fancy Hat Club, finally killed Anub’arak in Trial of the Grand Crusader and Algalon in Ulduar (grats on being months behind!).  It was precisely encounters like these for which I have been so careful to always keep my dear elemental shaman so close to the bleeding edge of her DPS capacity, spending thousands of gold on gear and many hours on theorycraft, playtesting, encounter strategy and staying “in practice” so that I can be the best asset I can be.

It’s therefore rather ironic that, when we got these kills, I was playing my feral druid.  As a tank.

Now for various reasons I’ve not been very keen on my dear old druid this expansion, but a couple of months back I did put some effort into getting him a bit geared up in case we needed the extra tank.  There were no spreadsheets or even napkins involved – though I did use Rawr for one or two tricky decisions, it was mostly just rule-of-thumb head maths and vague intuition.  I was familiar with the tanking strategies partly because I helped to devise them for our guild and partly because I’m usually the designated go-between for the RL (when it’s not me) and the tanks and healers.  I’d never tanked either boss before.  I’d only been to ToGC once on my druid, and Ulduar only up to Iron Council with a PUG.

How many tanks am I holding up

When we started 10-man raiding, we had two “main tanks” and two “off-tanks” – that is, two guys who just wanted to MT and were fully focused and geared to that, and two other guys who were playing DPS toons but didn’t mind being the second tank if either of the mains couldn’t make it.  Unfortunately over the summer one of our MTs had to call it quits, and we’ve since been relying on our one remaining off-spec tank to pick up the slack.  With University semesters starting back, workloads increasing and availability of raiders decreasing, we started using more folks’ offspecs and even some “alts” – such as most recently, my own.

Again with the irony.  When we started Ulduar, we had two main tanks but many of the most difficult encounters in the instance required only one (Heartbreaker, Freya+3, Hodir, Firefighter, Vezax/Animus, One Light); our 2nd MT was often relegated to DPSing.  When we started ToC, we had only one main tank but every fight in the instance required two.  Our poor DPS warrior found himself tanking every single boss of every single raid and feeling like he couldn’t roll on either tank loot (as he wasn’t the MT) or DPS loot (as he never seemed to DPS anymore).

Unnecessarily flamboyant headgear

Fancy Hats are a very casual guild, in the sense that we’re not focused on progression or amassing phat lewts – for us, raiding is about enjoying the WoW endgame.  We chose the 10-man format because it was more intimate and fun, and put much less pressure on the group (especially its leaders).  However, most of us also come from quite a hardcore 25-man raiding background and are elitist minmaxer types, so we’re able to accomplish quite a lot in our limited raiding time even though we don’t generally race after progression.  Though we just killed Algalon and Anub’arak, it was only our fourth night on Algalon (and each time we’d had a different group and an offspec OT) and we spent less than 80 attempts on Anub’arak, again with constantly varying raid configurations.

What I’m saying is, the rest of the group had absolutely put in the effort to have their best gear (even for offspecs) and skill and knowledge of the fights and whatnot.  The DPS were pumping out high numbers and controlling their targets and timings perfectly.  The healers were performing amazing feats of proactive and reactive healing, cooldown usage, and mana management.  On Anub, our MT was quickly grabbing and holding all his targets, placing them perfectly, and using cooldowns – such as locking them out of shadowstrikes – flawlessly.  On Algalon he helped keep me alive by taunting and intercepting and whatnot, while closing black holes and stuff.

It’s nice to be not needed

In my past raiding career, there were many times that I felt “if only I was DPSing, we would’ve had that”.  Sometimes in PUGs or semi-PUGs I’ve even thought, “it’d make a big difference if I switched to healing for this”.  But last night I didn’t have to contribute my heavily min-maxed DPS or my vastly-improved healing skills.  I just had to sit in front of the boss and soak up its attention while the rest of the raid got on with all the hard work which they had prepared for so thoroughly.

Now, I won’t indulge in false modesty by claiming that I did nothing.  I had after all geared up my druid as best I could given my limited time and energy.  I’d prepared special consumables and alternative gear options for each fight, and I co-ordinated with our healers and MT to reduce the gear disadvantage I had as much as possible through careful use of cooldowns, taunts and whatnot.

But I still did much less than everyone else – not much more than turning up, really – and that makes me strangely happy.  In the “Why I DPS” post I explained how crucial the DPS role was, and how it was a realisation of precisely that pivotal importance which led me to fill that role in a raid.  To see the other guys you raid with perform their roles so well that you aren’t needed in those same roles is just brilliant.  To see them fill their roles well enough that they make up for your own lack of gear/experience/whatever is extremely gratifying.

With that in place, all we needed to get our first kills was a second tank – and I was able to fill that role, the one that was needed.  I’m not hugely fond of WotLK feral tanking, and my shaman is by far my favourite character.  But it was more fun to fill the actual gap than to try and shoehorn myself into a role in which I frankly wasn’t necessary while the raid failed due to lack of a tank.

That almost makes up for the fact that I finally got those achievements on my all but abandoned alt while my shaman, who’s put in all that time and effort, still lacks them!

It is a sad story.

When my boyfriend and I raided in our old guild we met another couple.
They were very funny and I liked the other girl a lot – so we spent much time together. In 25 man raids we had amusement with funny whispers while fighting and my bf did get along very well with the other guy either. We started a 10 man ToC raid together and had a lots of fun! We also talked about propably meeting in real life though they live in another country. After a couple of weeks my bf and I discussed about moving into their country as the financial income is a lot higher than in Germany – a plus would be living close to our new favorite couple

Unfortunately we lost contact after our raid guild broke apart after our guild leader quit playing. My bf and I started playing AION and were playing for a couple of weeks when finally a phone-message arrived from our friends. They told us that they faction changed and are finally happy and want to raid again!
Of course we wanted to play with them again and instantly started playing WoW again! We also faction changed to be able to play with them and I had sooo much fun whispering with the girl like in old times and everything was great! We planned to arrange our own raiding guild and have lots of fun together!

And then everything changed.

When I logged in one morning I realized that my character was guildless.
I was a little confused and recognized that my bf also had no guild tag under his name.
Our guild has been silently disbanded and when I /who’d our friends I saw they were in an another guild.
I asked my friend what happened and she said that her boyfriend and she found a new raid guild because they finally want to do 25 mans again and don’t want to spend so much time to build their own raid guild. She was sorry that they left us behind but we could also write an application and MAYBE we’d also be accepted.

That was hard.

I thought they were real friends. We only faction changed for THEM, to play with them again! Create our own sweet raid guild and have fun times! And they disbanded our guild without letting us know and are raiding with other people.

I haven’t heard any word from them after that happened.
I’m just sad. I don’t know ANYBODY on Horde side and feel pretty much left alone.

My bf (tank) and I (healer) have decent gear (232 – 245 item level) and we cannot find any guild to raid with again.
It feels weird because I used to be a priest officer in the past and I know how to play my class, I know what I am doing and I also felt quite important!
Now we can only find random raids with unfriendly people and everything feels strange.

In the name of Christ.

(I wish I could link you all back to the original post that the Christ line is from but Megs seems to have shut off her archives. /pout)

Just an average weekend for us in Shadow Rising.

Run a few heroics.

Do some dailies.

Kill a mother fucking dragon.

Note the snazzy new title?

I know, I know, we took forever to get around to doing it.

What’s hilarious is it looks like I’ve missed every other Sarth-with-drakes-up run with the guild.

Now that’s efficiency.

Screw getting each individual achievement one at a time and work my way up to 3 drakes.

Pfffft.

So how did it go down?

Egads, painfully.

The new guy (and I’m going to have to come up with something else to call him) volunteered to lead the raid.

I’ll be honest, I’ve been getting a little burnt out on organizing and leading just about every raid we do so I was more than happy to let someone else call the shots for an evening.

Not to mention, he’s done this on other toons and knows all the ins and outs to this achievement.

We were short having enough people logged in so grabbed a shaman out of LFG so we could have Bloodlust.

(That’s BLOODLUST, not heroism or whatever it’s called on the other side. BLOODLUST. RAWR.)

Grabbed a pally tank out of guild and plunked him down in front of the dragon.

The guy did great, for what he could do. Someone will be speaking with him shortly and walking him through why it’s best not to have all 71 points in the protection tree.

So after about an hour, the pally gives up.

We swap him out and have one of the DPS switch to his warrior tank and replaced the DPS spot with a guildmate that logged on.

Another hour goes by.

We’re swapping people around as they log in, but just can’t get a decent composition together and we’re stuck with this lame shaman.

The shaman wasn’t pulling in any DPS to be writing home about and *he* was the one complaining the DPS wasn’t high enough…

Boom!

Two guildmates log in.

Both have shamans.

Um, pug shaman guy?

Yeah, so we’ve been here two hours… think it’s just time to call it. But it was great of you to come out and fail with us.

/disband

/reform group with all SR members

Took another hour to get the tweaks in the method down pat and to get lucky breaks on the flame walls.

We were running a caster/melee split which was not making anything easier so it required even more effort to get the planets to align with the flame walls and void zones.

Oh, and we had to talk the holy pally into actually moving out of the way of flame walls so his bubble would be available to use in the bubble/divine sacrifice combo after the tank’s cooldowns were blown. L2 dodge flame walls. =P

Now, we’ve dropped bosses in the past.

And I’m sure that collectively, we’ve spent more than 3 hours on some bosses. (Hodir comes to mind…)

And when they die there is always the rush of “Yay! Dead boss! Lootz? What’s next?”

And then we just move on. No one lingers at the corpse. No one cheers.

But this one was different.

I’m hoping Icecrown is like this. That when we finally get a boss down we are so elated about it that the loot is forgotten until we’ve all gathered around for a photo. I hope our guild forums get filled with these.

Just in case anyone was curious, here’s the damage for the kill:

4 piece Tier 9 for DKs. Nerf it nao. kkthxbai

(Army of the dead was cheating, too.)

Loot is being handed out and it’s time for the drake roll.

One of the guys said when we started that he didn’t care about the drake.

I was a little surprised that he rolled on it.

He beat my 3.

(God my raid rolls suck, this is why I’m glad we are on loot council or I would NEVER get a drop.)

We asked him to show us the drake in Dal but he just logged off.

Then the next time he was on, he was saying how ugly it was.

If you win something that you know half the raid was drooling over after you state that you could care less about the item, don’t make disparaging remarks about said item. It takes that knife and twists it so slowly… “I have something that you wanted and I don’t even like it. Neener neener. I’m banging a supermodel but going to complain that her left tit is slightly larger than her right. Neener neener.”

I would have loved it and hugged it and called it George.

Along with many other blogs, websites, or other publications, I decided to give my own little remembrance of the past five years of addiction WoW.  There’s been high points, low points, in between points, and many points that I’m not sure where they belong.  However, the fact that I’m still playing and logging on daily after five years has to mean something.

Oh, and the 9+ million subscribers.  But that’s just pocket change, right?

I’ve been a Blizzard fanboy for a while.  I started with Warcraft 2, enjoyed it so much that I bought the battlechest with Warcraft 1 and Warcraft 2 expansion, and haven’t looked back.  I’ve played every single Blizzard game for the PC, and am eagerly waiting for the future releases.  (It doesn’t hurt that I have a Starcraft 2 beta signup from BlizzCon ‘08)

As for WoW though, my first experience was actually unintentional.  I was playing Diablo 2, looked around the Blizzard website, and noticed the WoW page.  I took a peek around, and noticed that it was in open beta phase for server stress tests.  Eager to check out this new product, I happily downloaded it and wondered what was in store.  I wasn’t dissapointed, that’s for sure.

My very first character, the first Corath in all of WoW, was a Night Elf priest.  I played him until level 6-8ish, but got very frustrated with the quest that leads you to the Barrow Dens – a quest that’s still a pain.  After that, I decided to try a Night Elf druid, and loved it.  Open beta ended a short time later, but it left its impression on me – after my first day of playing, I went to the local EB Games and pre-ordered the game for when it came out.

Because of how much fun I had with it, I contacted a good friend of mine that I knew in real life but had moved away, who I played many games with over the years (SNES and upwards).  I told him about this awesome new game, and he decided to give it a try.  To this day, Zirath and I are still great friends and in the same guild.

So, release day comes around.  Fortunately, I didn’t start work until one o’clock, so I was able to get to EB at opening and head home to install.  Zirath had to phone me to create a new account, as he didn’t have a credit card, and the signup process needed one.  I gave him my credit card number, then we deleted it from his account immediately so he could buy game cards.  We decided to roll on a random server, and chose Doomhammer because the name was good.

I ended up rolling the second Corath, my very first character in live WoW, a Night Elf druid.  Zirath rolled a Night Elf hunter, a character he still uses from time to time today.  Unfortunately I can’t say the same about mine… he’s stuck at level 26 in the Lakeshire inn.

We ended up in our first (and somewhat only) guild by using the guild recruitment forums on the WoW forums.  Since then, I’ve never had to apply for a guild again.  Legends of Valor on Doomhammer became Forever Legends on Perenolde after a free transfer to alleviate server population.  Forever Legends decided to do a horde reroll on Vek’nilash and became Legends of Intoxication, which then merged with The Crimson Guard & Platinum Syndicate to form Band of Thorns, which I continue to be in today.

I can’t say the same about my characters.  Corath the Night Elf druid, as I mentioned, has been mothballed.  At the time, back in vanilla, to say that druids were a pain to level was an incredible understatement.  Combine that with the fact that I wasn’t very good at the class at the time, and you get me rerolling Rocque, the Human mage.  I stuck with him until we decided to do our reroll, but didn’t get him much raiding experience – something I regret to this day.

A bunch of people from our guild on Perenolde decided to reroll Horde, something that I’m incredibly glad that we did – and probably the best thing I’ve done in my WoW career.  It let me meet new people, make new friends, and finally find things that I enjoy.  My first new Horde character was Gushue, the Orc warlock.  I got him to 60 (after a while), and raided with him all the way through vanilla – we ended up clearing Molten Core up to Lucifron (with only 28-30 people at most, I might add), all of Zul’Gurub, and all of Ahn’Qiraj 20.

Then Burning Crusade hit, and I volunteered to reroll a paladin for the guild, and Fandarel the Blood Elf was born.  I healed through most of BC, going up to Serpentshrine Cavern.  At the time, my wife decided to start playing the game as well, so I rolled a druid to level with her shaman the she had started, thus Asok was born.  He was an alt for a long time until he hit 70, but then I realized something that has never happened to me in any MMO or other game – I was enjoying a melee class.  Being able to tank and just shift forms and dps was a different feeling for me.  It was actually really fun.

Once Asok hit 70, I got him geared up, and ended up being able to main tank all of Karazhan/Gruul’s/Magtheridon, and able to off-tank SSC and Tempest Keep.  For the first time in my WoW career, I found a main character that I really enjoyed playing.  Of course, I’m still an altaholic.  I have a level 80 paladin (Fandarel), 80 shaman, 74 warlock (Gushue), 70 death knight, 68 hunter, and many others below that.  Rocque is sitting at level 61 in Honor Hold, and I doubt he’ll do much for a while.

I went from being a backbencher in the guild to being an officer for a while, and now back to just being a regular guy.  I’ve had five main characters, countless alts, and I’ve made a fair amount of gold – along with three characters having epic flying.  All in all, I’ve invested a ton of time into this game, and I don’t regret any of it.  If anything, I regret that it took so long for me to find a main character that I enjoyed so much.  It’s kind of funny that I’m starting to level Gushue up again, and finding that I’m having fun with him.  It goes in cycles, I suppose.

WoW has been out for five years, and has gone through a great number of changes.  I remember that I had at one point bought a strategy guide for it when it first came out, shortly after release.  It truly is too bad that I can’t find it anymore, just to see what the game was like back then.  When I started the game, I was single.  In the time that I’ve played, I’ve gotten married and had a kid.

My best memory of the game is still one run through Karazhan when I was on my paladin healing, I got to talking to a recent recruit to the guild, an Orc hunter.  I found out that we lived in the same city, were close in ages, and through more talking, found out that we went to junior high together.  Amazingly enough, her and I were great friends – and she happened to find our guild by mistake.  We’ve since reconnected, and are still great friends.

Thank you, Blizzard, for making a great game.  I can’t wait to see what’s still to come.

Saludos.

Solo recordar tanto a los últimos miembros que se han integrado a la guild como a los que ya tienen algún tiempo mas, que el subir de rango como el bajar, no son consecuencia del nivel de un personaje, Mas bien tiene relación con desempeño de un miembro dentro de la guild, Si subir de rango es lo que quieres solo basta destacarse en algo tan simple como ser un jugador activo y de algún u otro modo ser un aporte en el desarrollo de un grato ambiente de la guild.

I’ve never created a guild before.

• I have been a member of many.
• Officer in at least one and that was pretty big 300-400 members)
• One of my alts was even promoted to Guild Master of one (ok, it is a bank guild, but hey I’ve held the position before right…)

But I have never started one from scratch, not even one like Armaggedon’s Coming which has no purpose beyond appearing in screenshots.

So how was the process?

The Blizzard “paperwork” part was pretty painless. It would have been more painless if I didn’t adopt the “male DIY read the instructions as a last resort” method of guild creation.

Sure I checked where the Guild Masters were located… ie: somewhere in Stormwind (and the other major cities)… In the Visitors Centers… Like I had ever been there before in 4.5 years!

But read the guild charter, or even the icon to work out how people sign it…?

Pffff Hahaha… That’s for lesser mortals!

I knew the basics. You get the charter, then run toa starting area and spam your

Signature please

request at the hundreds of newbies in the zone.

I would never stoop slow low as to do blind charter signings… I don’t like blind dates, surprise birthday parties, blind group invites or blind charter signings.

So I went to the trouble of crafting a polite request for signatures, then I slammed it in /say

Then I spammed it in /yell

Then I added 1 gold to the offer and repeated the process.

It soon occurred to me that the one or two people in the zone (where is all the fresh blood) must be complete newbies that couldn’t even move their characters or work out how to chat, because no one responded.

Last Resort

I then resorted to /whisper.

I actually got someone to sign!

Sure I chased him down the road… But he gave in eventually… Almost willingly!

This is where my male DIY failed me and I had to read the instructions.

On my way back after my initial success I managed to score another signature.

This guy even wanted to know the name of the guild and it’s purpose… Don’t know if you are reading this, but if you are… Hi and thanks!

Then there was the guy that turned up and just stood in front of me… Finally he asked:

10 gold?

Being the kind of Gnome I am, I immediately opened my trade window, deposited 15 gold and went and got a beer, watched some TV, watered the lemon tree and when a group invite appeared from my mate, accepted the summon and disappeared…

Whoops… Sorry, I was just making you earn your 10g… Which I forgot to pay you…

Once the party disbanded I took the portal again. Ran around Stormwind for a while, but only got one signature out of the dozen or so unguilded toons (no I won’t hassle guilded folk).

Mr. Tree offered me the soul of his baby lock before he logged for the night (it was getting late by this point), but I decided I needed to troll new and more fertile grounds.

My hearth and Astral Recall were both still on cooldown, so I was forced to take public transport of the Gnomish variety, something I try to avoid.

Ironforge was a little better and soon (ha!) I was only 3 signatures short.

The rest of my whispers fell on deaf ears, so I mounted up and headed to the Gnome/Dwarf starting zone.

I nearly made it before I got a whisper from Ironforge. It was a long way back for one signature, but one signature on the charter was worth two in the starting zone.

This is where total strangers made my day. I was invited to a party with not one, but two total strangers… Both of whom not only signed up, but offered me best wishes!

Yes I am prepared to beg!

Mmmm one short, only one thing to do, totally abase myself and beg Mr. Offspec…

I love you Mr. Offspec. I can’t believe I have ever said a bad word about you (Ohhh that’s right, it’s Gnomer that’s got issues… Not Squidly).

He not only signed up, but patiently waited for me to Port to SW to create the guild, hearth back to Dalaran, hand over guild leadership, waited while Squidly logged off, Gnomeaggedon logged on, invited Gnomeaggedon to the Guild and promoted Gnomeaggedon to GM.

We Haz Tabbard kk

So job done… Oh hang on, no self respecting two-bit vanity guild is complete without a tabbard…

Now it was getting late, around 3.30am, but Gnomeaggedon would rest until he was properly attired.

It took a long time before I found that garden gnome. Once found, there were no difficulties with the color scheme. Gnomeaggedon is “green” and he lays waste with fire!

Green Gnome on a Red field… Perfect!

Momentary Regret

There is a little bit of me that feels guilty about dropping my guild, even though they didn’t know who I was. Even though I haven’t run with them since April.

I know that this is going to make it impossible to join another guild… but the reality is I have been unguilded most of my 80 levels, whether I wore a tabbard or not.

Wanna join my exclusive club?

So now I have my own guild I can start strutting my stuff in trade chat!

We are a non-friendly, non-family,uninhabited, non-raiding, non-progression guild on the Aman’Thul Server playing at times that suit no one. We don’t have a guild bank…

But we do have a tabbard!

Seriously, who wouldn’t want to be a member of this exclusive guild, with all it’s benefits, that only asks for one thing in return from it’s members. I mean, come on, what’s a 20,000 gold annual membership fee between friends?

What, you thought I was a silly Goblin. I’m far too lazy for that. I’m a smart Gnome!

Don’t worry the 20,000 fee gets redistributed amongst the share holders… All two of me!

Guild Master Gnomeaggedon and Out, Raid Leader Squidly and Stout!

PS: I am not specifically promoting Swagdogs gear.. it just seemed like a great way to capture some images, but as I grabbed them from their site, well if you click on them, you will go to Swagdogs.. Of course if they want to give me something out of the generosity of their hearts… well they can click on the link too

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/11/24/creating-the-guild-armaggedons-coming/

Today I had a chance to sit down and talk with Benjamin Foley, who is more commonly known as Foghladha in WAR. He invited me earlier this month to check out his Order guild on Phoenix Throne. I was very impressed at their level of organization, both in-game and out, which Foghladha described in the interview.

You can visit their Web site at www.gaisciochnaanu.com. (Pronounced Gosh-kia)

What is the name of your guild, and what is its background?

Well, first we do not consider ourselves a “Guild.” We are the Gaiscioch Family, a group of casual, family based players who hold community above all else. Guilds tend to be more about skill, rank, and a chain of command, while families are more free and organic. We have no requirements, no commitments, and nobody to tell you how or when to play. We take you as you are, when you are, how you are.

Now the word Gaiscioch comes from a very old book, Lebor Gabala Erenn, or in plain English, the Book of Invasions. The word literally translates to “Warrior,” however in the context they were 300 warriors chosen by the Celtic gods “Tuatha de Danann” to defend them against 300 of the Firbolg’s finest.

Each was hand selected by the gods, and thus Gaiscioch became more than just a warrior, it was a divine warrior.

In this battle the Gaiscioch realized they were far more technologically and skillfully ahead of the Firbolg, so they chose to teach the Firbolg their technologies and how to use them to make the battle fair. The day before the battle they all sat and drank together, then the 600 soldiers fought and the Gaiscioch were victorious. The Firbolg were then welcomed into the Tuatha’s civilization and from then on were united.

So in a nutshell, that’s where the name comes from.

Is there a reason why you chose Celtic mythology over any others?

Well, I grew up with two Irish grandparents, one from Cork, and one from Belfast. As I was a child they used to tell me stories of the Tuatha de Danann and the Irish mythical adventures.

I fell in love with them and as I grew older fell in love with the Celtic way of life. The things they were persecuted for are common things in modern society: treating everyone as equals, men, women, children, black, white, brown, no matter who you are you were part of the tribe

They followed 1 rule, “blades out, not in,” which means you never turn on your tribe. Attacks were grounds for banishment.

We use this rule in our Gaiscioch Family today and hold all members to it. So far this has eliminated drama from our family and has made us strong as a community.

When Dark Age of Camelot came out I couldn’t help but bring what I knew of Celtic folklore to the game. So I subscribed and, with the help of Bondon, Caelliu, Breel, and a few others who left immediately after helping me form it, the Gaiscioch na Anu (our first version) was born.

Anu being the southern Irish version of Danann. Of course we were Hibernian

By looking at your Web site, I can tell that your family is very widespread. How is your family, and extended family, organized?

Well, one of the challenges we faced very early was that Warhammer Online limits guilds to 500 characters. At about the time we hit 400 we spawned off the Gaiscioch na Anu from the Gaiscioch, filling it with half of our characters. Between the 2 rooms in our house we have 625 characters, 192 registered members.

The Gaiscioch Family also leads the Treubh Alliance, Treubh meaning “Family,” and also the Tuatha Extended Alliance, Tuatha meaning “Tribe.”

Our alliance contains 10 of the families, we also have two additional alliances which are entirely part of our alliance: The WAR Alliance, and the Tuatha de Treubh.

The WAR Alliance is entirely made up of role-players, while the Tuatha de Treubh is a lot like the Treubh Alliance. We use it as a fallover for all the Families that don’t fit into the Treubh Alliance.

Now to tie the families together I have built an internal use only mod that gives us the ability to chat across multiple alliances, thus allowing our alliance to grow past the 10 Guild limit.

Currently there are 27 participating guilds, families, and clans in our Tuatha, with more joining every week. We work diligently to unite the people on the server who are casual, family based, or role-players so that they aren’t outcast and left out of the fun.

Unlike most guilds, which progress is dictated by a Guild Leader or Officers, the Gaiscioch Family is entirely based off participation. The more Family Honor Points a player earns the higher their rank becomes, until they mature to the rank of Gaisgeach (singular for Warrior).

Once they hit that rank they are capped out of promotions until they start leading events. They originally master the Wolf Pack which is what we call our 6 man group, then the Hound which is our full war band. Once they have mastered the Hound they advance to the Trinity, which controls multiple war bands.

Through their leadership, players ranked below them can give them a Token of Valor. By collecting 10 Tokens of Valor a member can become a Ardtiarna or High Lord.

This in a sense flips the traditional guild hierarchy on its head. Leadership of the family is dictated by people of lower rank than yourself nominating you as one.

Thus being said the Guild Leader has no say in whether a person becomes a Ardtiarna or not. It is entirely up to that player’s leadership skills that earns them the rank.

The same is true with the Maithean or Noblemen, Teagasgar or Mentor, and Draoi or Druid. The Druids are actually the true power of the family and govern the Ceannard or Chieftain. They are the ones who pass or fail any major family decision.

I believe how we are structured is one of the more unique features of our family. It holds true to leadership is earned by leading your peers not given by dictatorship. This has really kept the people who should lead in leadership positions over the years and the people who demand to lead out of leadership positions.

Are there any other mods you’ve built for your Family?

Currently no, the Tuatha Mod is the only one I have built. However, I did make the Foghladha skin for Pure, which is officially distributed.

With such a large family and alliance, do you have a system in place for helping to gear out and level members?

We have a unique system that rewards participation with the family. By participating on our forums, adding discoveries to our site for fellow Tuatha to find, or by participating in taking objectives with 4 or more family members you earn Family Honor Points. These points go toward your promotions and towards earning Family Vault Credits or FVC. You can also earn FVC by donating to the Family Vault.

For every 100 Family Honor Points you earn, you gain 1 Family Vault Credit. For every 50 Donation points you earn, you earn 1 Family Vault Credit.

Items in the Family Vault are broken into levels: Majestic being Supreme Warded Equipment, Fabled being Excelsior Warded Equipment, Legendary being Superior Warded Equipment and Flawless Talismans, Epic being Greater Warded Equipment or +22-23 talismans, Elite being lesser warded, and Pristine being non-warded gold equipment.

Now any time we have a surplus of 3 or more of an item the price gets slashed in half, so most of the time you can snag warlord boots for 1 FVC. Essentially by attending one of our raid nights you usually can earn 1 FVC.

This system makes Vault Raiders a non-threat as they are rampant on Phoenix Throne.

Vault Raiders?

Vault Raiders being people on a server who guild hop looking for exposed vaults to clean out and then leave the guild.

There are a couple pretty well known Vault Raiders on our server who only want to join your guild to steal your vault. They sometimes stick around until they get promoted high enough, but then wham, you go to claim a keep and see insufficient funds.

With our system, if you don’t take the time and initiative to register and claim what you’ve participated in, you will never earn anything out of the vault.

How do you keep track of who has earned what?

That is all tracked on the Web site. As we take objectives, the leaders of the parties or war bands log their objectives in our leadership console, then the participants mark what they participated in.

One of the other benefits is you get to see what objectives you have taken and earn marks of valor for taking them. Every member has a profile page to list their achievements and awards.

This system is open to all Tuatha members not just the Gaiscioch Family, so our entire vault is shared across all 27 families. When a person buys something off our site using their FVC, I simply mail it to them.

Believe it or not I have both guild vaults, Gaiscioch na Anu using 2 pages of the vault, Gaiscioch using 2 pages of the vault, and then 6 Character vaults full of gear. I just started using my 7th alt.

Gear donations are never a problem, and players never seem to run out of FVC. This system allows us to get the active participants the best gear possible without having to look on the AH.

Well, on the topic of gear, the Gaiscioch family regularly runs events called Trinity Raids and Open PuG Nights. Could you explain what these are and how they operate?

Well both of these raids are weekly events we hold on our server. The Trinity refers to a formation our family developed which pre-defines 3 raid leaders and sometimes 3 backups to form up 3 different war bands.

Even if these war bands are just 2 groups in each, we use the little green dots on the map to be able to take multiple objectives at the same time. One of the weaknesses we realized early on is that if we were to control a single war band and had 2 supporting war bands, the war band leaders often times would not play along or leave us hanging when we needed them the most.

We developed the Trinity to retain control over all 3 of our war bands so that it can be unified as a force without the risk of counteraction.

In its prime, pre-Aion days, we sometimes would even break off a 4th war band and be able to do some pretty fun ambushing and flanking tactics using nothing more than your local PuG or Public Group.

The Open PuG Nights, came into play recently. With the Mac launch I wanted to give the new members a proper introduction to Phoenix Throne.

When Aion was released we lost all of our day-to-day raid leaders on Order. I am not on nearly enough to keep action going in all tiers every day. Restricted to 3 hours a day 3 times a week, my schedule is pretty tight.

With this loss, a lot of players left our server for Iron Rock, or Gorfang. I was not ready to let this server die, so I started letting Destruction know when and where I would attack once per week.

These became the Open PuG Night, a night that public war bands can shine and have fun. While most of the rest of the week is controlled by Alliance-only war bands and professional gamer groups, we try to give the regular everyday militia some good times at least 3 times a week.

We currently run 1 Open PuG Night a week, which starting in December is every Tuesday night at 6 p.m. PST, rotating between Tier 2 and 3.

Our Trinity nights rotate on a schedule as well, however we do not let the forces of Destruction know when and where on those days.

One other fun fact to realize is that on any given night in Tier 2 and 3 there are a maximum of 15 players. However on Trinity raid nights we sometimes see in excess of 70 to 80.

On our public raid nights where we invite Destruction to join us both sides come alive and an epic battle commences. This weekly activity has become a Phoenix Throne community event.

We also have received a lot of praise on both sides of the ball regarding both the Trinity Raids and the Open PuG Nights. We often times start with a couple groups and by the end of the night have the better part of 3 war bands. It’s one of the reasons why we claim the first keep we take. A lot players see the claim and come to play.

Are the Gaiscioch active in any way outside of WAR?

Well, we also have a bunch of us playing Aion Online, Allods Online, and Free Realms. We are also looking to reform our Flag Football team in Eugene, Oregon, to try to win back our title. We should be playing again in the summer.

We also use Ventrilo throughout the day, even while some of us are at work. It’s our general socializing source.

We’re also planning a cruise for our 10 year anniversary.

For real?

Yup. Gonna plan a 3 day cruise for 2011, probably Mexico.

If there was one thing you could tell players considering Phoenix Throne, what would it be?

I would like to tell them that, like any server, we have our share of people who do more harm than good, but if you know where to look there are a lot of people who really do care. The majority of us are like a big family, not only just Order with Order, but also Order with Destruction.

Many of the players on the opposite side love seeing you out there fighting the good fight and the overall community on Phoenix Throne is unmatched. Both sides care about each other and try their best to involve everyone.

I’d also like to mention that just because we are a role-play server doesn’t mean we’re just a bunch of LARP gone digital. While I’d say about 1/3 of the player population actively role-plays, at least a third more will role-play if someone starts it.

The role-play server generally attracts an older, more mature crowd. We actually have 7 members in our family that are over 50. A lot of us play with our children, some even with our grand children. We are not the typical “if you’re not pro go home” type of server. We welcome everyone from computer novice to professional gamer.

And also if they ever need any help with something, please don’t hesitate to ask. If I don’t know how to answer your questions, I’ll know someone who can. I also am very good and helping people find a Guild or Family that’s a good fit for their play-style.

I believe having the right family is the most important thing to keeping players on our server. A pro-gamer won’t be happy with a casual family, thus we point them to the pro-gamer guilds.

Everyone from mom and dad to world champion Quake players have a home here somewhere. We like to help them find it.

Il Trailer 1° Trailer ufficiale di Guild Wars 2! Dispobibile anche sul sito ufficiale.

guildwars2.com

OMG!!!  I can’t believe it.  My account was hacked.  Apparently this happened 7 days ago.  I had no idea.  I’ve been leveling a druid off and on for a while now.  This past week I didn’t even play that much.  Today I log in really excited to try out my new toy, Logitech G13 Gamepad, and get asked to do a Mana Tombs run.  When I get there they ask me to tank.  Well, as I’ve only done cat DPS and as mentioned in my previous post I don’t really know all the tools available to me and as I just got and set up this new toy I really don’t know what I’m doing.  I let them know hey, I have a paladin of the same level that I can tank on.

I log into my paladin only to find ALL my GOLD is gone!  All the stuff in my bags (potions, bandages, quest items), all my bank inventory, all my crafting items (ore, herbs), all my armor items (I had two other sets, one for tanking and one for healing since I wasn’t sure which spec I was going with)…all GONE!!!!  WTF!

They even left the guild I was in.  Why would you do that?  I thought something was wrong or maybe I had been booted for not being on recently so I asked but we checked the log and 7 days ago I left the guild?!  LOL..I would never have left the guild since they are the only people I know in WOW.  I’m so angry my whole body is shaking.  And to think, last Thursday I ordered an authenticator.  It’s in the mail now.  Go figure something would happen right after I order it.

I started a ticket with the GM (which I had to ask a guild mate how to do).  I don’t know if I have to stay logged in, or how long a response will take, or what they will be able to do for me.  I wanna know why this happened 7 days ago, and I finally log into WoW today to play a toon and that toon still has all the stuff on it.  WTF?

GRRRR…what happens now and what am I supposed to do?

Per generazioni, la guerra e il caos regnarono su tutte le terre di Tyria. Cinque grandi razze si sono scontrate per far pendere la nilancia del potere a loro favore.

Poi i draghi si svegliarono.

Questi esseri potenti uscirono dal loro sonno millenario dalle viscere della terra o dai fondali marini. Con l’aiuto del loro soffio magico, hanno portato distruzione e caos creando legioni di schiavi perversi. Il drago immortale Zhaitan ha riportato la nazione di Orr che era stata inghiottita alla superficie, provocando maremoti e terremoti che hanno distrutti intere citta sul Mare dei Lamenti.

Le armate dei morti viventi Zhaitan usciti dal mare sono desiderosi di distruggere le cinque grandi razze di Tyria:

I Charr, una razza di feroci guerrieri felini; gli Asura, inventori e maghi di piccola statura ma di grande intelletto; i Norn, mutanti ed originari delle terre del nord; i Sylvari, razza giovane, misteriosa e visionaria, discendente dalle piante; e gli esseri umani, una razza dura, ma in declino.

Traduzione by Fabio

Fonti: http://www.guildwars2.com/

My daughter is thirteen, and she plays WoW.  She has a toon on my account, so her playtime is severely limited.  She can’t raid with the guild because I’m online during the raids.  She only plays during off-hours, so she sees very little guild chat as few players are online with her.

For her birthday this week, a family member bought her a WoW account and is paying for it for a year.  I’ll transfer her level 80 DK from my account to her own account, and she’ll be able to play alongside me, maybe even do runs with my guild, etc…

I have no concerns about bringing her into our runs.  As the GM, I have molded the guild in a way that appeals to me.  Since I am a parent with young kids , their presence has influenced my thoughts on the guild’s culture.  A lot of the policies and playstyle that I have established previously are working in my favor here.

1. My guild has a strict no-swearing policy.  Its been this way since I have been GM, and it has nothing to do with children.  I hate being around people who use swearing as a substitute for actual vocabulary.   I can understand people sometimes swearing in an emotional outburst.  But within the game you have to make a conscious effort to type it or press the push-to-talk button in order to share your vulgar language.  That’s not an emotional outburst – its a specific action taken to demonstrate to the other people that you know swear words.  Its inane and serves no purpose.  Since it has no purpose, all it can do is offend people or make them uncomfortable.  Therefore its prohibited.
2. We actually enforce the profanity rule.  Lots of guilds have such rules, but officers are often reluctant to enforce them.  We make sure that every new recruit is told about it, and if there is a transgression all of the officers are serious about addressing it.
3. Her account has the profanity filter activated (found in the game Settings).  It replaces vulgarities in chat with cartoonish symbols like &*$(*%.  It has a pretty expansive list of words that it will filter out.
4. Communication with officers is important.  In my guild, every officer is aware of the children in the guild (we have a family guild, and several members let their kids play on occasion).  If a child is online, and the conversation starts to stray into more adult themes, then the officers can rein it in before it crosses a line.
5. We’ve all been subjected to the “anal ___” and other moronic exchanges in the Trade channel.  My daughter’s account has Trade and General chat turned off.  To do that, type “/leave #” where # is the number of the channel you want to shut off.
6. I am very aware of the people in the guild who like to talk about off-color topics.  Some people like to intentionally say things that are borderline offensive, just to get reactions.  This is especially true with some high school and college students (and immature adults, as well) who bring up sex or sexual innuendo frequently.  They know better than to do that while my kids are online.  If your guild has many people like that, it may not be an appropriate environment for your kids.  Either you have to find a way to control that, or don’t bring your kids into the guild.
7. Vent (or any other voice chat application) is the hardest part of the game to monitor.  Some guilds use their vent for many different purposes, not limited to raiding.  There are people who hang out in vent all day and talk, there are people who flirt in vent or even carry out virtual affairs.  Remember that you have no idea what kind of person is behind the voice that your child is chatting with.  I wouldn’t let my daughter use vent at all at any time unless someone I trust is in the channel with her, preferably me or my wife.  We are just as strict about curtailing swearing in vent as we are in guild chat.

Not every guild wants to be like that.  Some will object, saying that they should be free to say what they want in chat and children don’t belong.  That is, of course, ridiculous.  First of all, swearing in chat is against the Blizzard ToS.  Second, its a game.  Certainly there are children in the game and its almost impossible to avoid all contact with them.

The key phrase here, that I used earlier, is guild culture.  In my guild I am the GM so I steer the culture myself.  If you are not an officer in your guild, you need to carefully gauge this before you ask to bring in your kids.  Don’t assume that people will want to change to accommodate your kids.  If your guild’s culture doesn’t support the measures I have listed, then bringing your kids in would only cause stress and resentment among the members who feel inconvenienced.

Many of the officers in my guild are parents themselves, so they don’t shy away from the responsibility of safeguarding the kids.  That’s part of my guild’s culture.  Will your guild’s officers want to police the tone of the chat when kids are online?

There are plenty of adult-only guilds out there that are made to avoid the issues that come with children.  If I were in one of those, I would not try and disrupt the guild culture by bringing in my kids.  I’d either leave the guild myself or make an alt guild where my daughter and I could play together.

Making a separate guild may be the simplest option.  If I were in a guild where children would not be tolerated, I would make a new guild, put my kids in it with some of my alts, and also invite the alts of some friends.  It would be a small, self-contained, and most importantly safe community where you and your child can play the game together.

As much as I like the fact tha Blizzard gives us sneak peeks at what’s to come for the future, it’s also very frustrating at times.  It also makes me glad that I’m not an officer anymore.  Why?  The usual pre-patch or pre-expansion raid atrophy.

There have been a number of people in my guild, officers included, who have decided they won’t raid until 3.3 comes out.  They haven’t said why, but just that they won’t be raiding.  A few have said the usual, that they’re bored, seen the same instance time and time again, and so on and so forth.  Once again, they care more about themselves than the guild as a whole.

I say this, as most of the people who don’t want to raid anymore are the ones who have near or full T9 sets, and most other pieces that they could ever want, along with enough extra badges to buy two other people full tier sets.  We have one specific person who won’t help anyone – anyone at all, whether it’s a raid, part, etc – if there’s any competition for loot.  So not only does he not want to raid, but he’ll only help people out if it’s convenient for him.

Now, I know that people do get bored of things after running them many times.  People who weren’t uber enough to get keyed for Serpentshrine Cavern or Tempest Keep before they removed the keying requirements got extremely bored of Karazhan, Gruul’s, and Magtheridon’s Lair.  Good loot, but very boring after running it a bazillion times.

Yet, 3.2 hasn’t been out that long – it came out August 4th, and the bosses of ToC were released in stages.  Even the best guilds in the world couldn’t kill Anub’arak until 5 weeks in.  So, that leaves us with just over two months with ToC, with Onyxia coming back as well.  We had about 5-6 months worth of Kara.  Are we just that much more impatient?

I guess all I can do is hope that people will still help people like me who can’t spend every minute on WoW.  We’ll see.

Bang! So in a twist of the segment, I decided what I’ve got planned for Warcraft for this upcoming weekend.  Lots of exciting stuff, at lease for me that is… Mining & Fishing to get my gold stash back up to a reasonable level… and I’ve given myself a sort of challenge…

I am going to test to see how much gold I can make in 1 month from Mining, Fishing, and the Cooking/Fishing daily in Dalaran.  That’s it… no other dailies… nothing else… what ever I Mine and Fish will be sold on the AH periodically and we will see… My ultimate goal… I think I’ve given myself is 20k, I was going to make it 10k but I’ve made 5k in a week depending on the market on the AH…  We will see in a few days I’ve made back almost 2k of the gold I spent to level Engineering.

In other news, I’ll be raiding tonight (Friday)… yahoo!!! I think this is the first weekend I don’t really have to worry about a paper to write or an exam I have to study for… which is really nice… so I will be all into the game tonight…

Log on to Velen – US and say Hi!!! <3

Giggidee of Velen

Gnomendagger@gmail.com

When you think of the word Master, what comes up?

• Master & pupil in gilds
• Jedi Masters Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker from Star Wars
• Mastermind
• Master plan
• Bachelor & Master Education
• Master of Ceremony
• Toastmaster
• Master of Trinity
• Master and Commander
• The Guild of Master Craftsmen
• Masters of Material Arts
• Master Chef
• Old Master drawings and paintings
• Master and Servant
• Slide Master in Powerpoint
• Golf Master Tournament
• NLP Master Practitioner
• Masterclass
• Puppet Master
• Reiki Master
• Grand Master
• Zen, Buddhist or Yoga Master

Out of these I propose to focus on the following ones to discover what it means to be a Master.

1. Master & pupil in gilds (The Guild of Master Craftsmen)
2. Jedi Masters Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker from Star Wars
3. Masters of Material Arts
4. Old Master drawings and paintings
5. Master and Servant
6. Masterclass
7. Puppet Master
8. NLP Master Practioner
9. Reiki Master
10. Zen, Buddhist or Yoga Master

Where is Mastery expressed to you most?

Join the poll on the right and give your opinion! You can choose upto 5.

I’m not sure I have to preface this with anything. So this is all you get.

Well it’s been a bit since our guild has had to contend with a rumor mill… but it’s reared it’s ugly head again.  I hate it, but it’s a part of life I suppose.  People love to talk and love to talk about other people.  It’s an old tired manipulation game that isn’t going to work any better this time than it did the last 15-20 times.  In fact, I’d speculate that the guild will be a lot less tolerant of it because of our history, at least those of us that have been there before.

We’ve been through worse times… this guild has had it’s share of ups and down in my 4 year history with them.  Yup, you read that right, I’ve been in this guild for four years…  The guild itself is about 4.5 years old and several of the signature members are still around too.  Despite any issues we have had, any problems we’ve been through, we’ve made it work and sorted it out.  We’ve lost members [spawned at least 3 other guilds because people wanted something different] gained members, and yet, we’re still here, doing our best to down 10 AND 25 man content!  Talk about an achievement!

Do yourself and your guild a favor if you start to hear rumors – go to the person who can answer the question.  Whether it be supposed “secret ToC runs” or supposed massive changes to 25 mans to exclude guildies, or supposed satanic rituals, go the person who can clear it up for you if you are really concerned it may be an issue.  If it sounds dumb, it may very well be a consequence of the telephone syndrome or the rumor mill or even simple misunderstanding.  Don’t support the rumor mill and spread it about – because that does a lot more damage to the guild than a raiding slump.

So here’s a cheer and shout out to my guild, for overcoming the obstacles that have taken out other guilds.  Let’s keep doing what we do!

The nomination period is over, but here is your chance to vote for who and what you think has been influential on the web this year. You can vote on your favorite tweet, the best political use of social media, best web-series (we chose The Guild) what on the web is best for journalists, and much more. You can also vote for @FeliciaDay for the best actress to follow!

Just visit this page and start voting! http://mashable.com/owa/categories

(ss of my favorite mount, the OS+3 10 man drake, to cheer myself up)

We’ve been getting through TOC pretty reliably. One-shot the whole place in like 45 minutes last week. I figured we had this place covered.

Last night, ’twas not to be.  Faction Champs whooped us and whooped us good. We gave up after five wipes and called it a night.

Combat logs reveal problem areas were mainly interrupts – we weren’t interrupting enough heals. DPS was lower than usual, so the whole encounter was just taking too long. I know there’s got to be more to it though because they kicked our ass really, really hard.

A particularly frustrating fight for me because I go ret. I still feel very uncomfortable in ret. Used to being up front and in charge, after all… and in control. I just feel so helpless sometimes when we hit a progression fight and I’m in my offspec – at least as tank I have a great deal of control over how the encounter is progressing. I like control.

Well, anyways, it’s really sad when the lack of 2 top DPS suddenly moves our raid from “Clears TOC25 in 45 minutes” to “fails hard at faction champs.”

Edit: Interesting post on Maintankadin about Faction Champs AI: http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/index.php?f=36&t=26639&rb_v=viewtopic

Like anyone, I try to keep as much of a healthy balance as I can between WoW and real life. Sometimes I get too absorbed in the game and slip out of this balance, other times I get involved with events out of game and unable to put in the time I would like to. Now is one of these times.

I have started working.

Now this may not seem terrible, I mean, lots of people play WoW and work too! Unfortunately my work is scheduled at strange hours: 6am – 2:30pm. This means that I usually get to bed fairly early so I can wake up early too. Thus, I am no longer able to raid with my guilds in regular 25-man runs.

This leaves me in a bit of a dilemma. For a while now, I’ve considered myself a raider. Even in slumps where I have had trouble motivating myself to play WoW for anything else apart from raiding, I still enjoyed logging on to take part in a challenge with 24 other Guildmates for a couple of hours. Now that’s no longer possible.

This means it’s time for me to rediscover the other aspects of WoW that I may have been overlooking while I’ve been focused on raiding. For example, I’ve started leveling my Rogue, Spex, again who was sitting at level 60 for a long time. Also, I’ve started to PvP a bit more with Boize, and am currently trying to find a partner to do some 2v2 arena with. I found that PvP is something that I quite enjoy, and it’s something I can do on a flexible time schedule as well.

Another thing that I could work towards are gearing up my Death Knight, Yogg, who is level 80 but very poorly geared. It’d be nice to have a character that I can bring to alt runs and actually do decent DPS (or be geared enough to tank), or even sub in if something specific is needed in a main guild run. Additionally, I could start working towards some more non-raided achievements to push up my achievment points a bit further.

Oh, or I could just sit around all day and laugh at looking like this:

So, I’m pretty much out of my element at the moment. Have you experienced this before? What are some suggestions you have for me to do to have fun in WoW, without raiding?