Posts Tagged ‘ drama ’

Just Say NO!

Disclaimer: I am going to rant, I am going to do it here, and I am going to do it now, you have been warned.

I would love nothing more than to be reporting to you all this fine Monday Morning that, as of Patch 3.02s imminence, I am now Tigerfeet, Champion of the Naaru. Sadly this is not the case. I had been bemoaning the desert that has been the <Unemployed> raiding sign-ups, thus severely curtailing my raiding activity, to the venerable Mr. Tigerfeet. He told me that he was slotted to run Magtheridon’s Lair with his guild and a partner guild on Saturday night. Now, they’ve killed him a few times before, so I figured hey, why the hell not! This will probably be my last shot at it and, since he doesn’t need anything from that fight and I’m better geared than him (he didn’t really want to go anyway) it would be win-win for all.

Oh hindsight, how do I love thee and thy ways to see things clearly. Would that you warn me of my folly before I commit to such heinous acts?

Now, I’m a rather self-centered person. When I can do something, do it well, and I know I can do it well, I’m going to be damned frustrated if you don’t let me do it, and you’d better believe I’m going to let everyone know. Alright, I’m wandering, let me try to take this from the top so that it may make sense to those who were not involved.

I stepped into this Mag group thinking it would be a dual-guild run. A 25-man instance with Exiles supplying the DPS because, well, that’s what they’re awesome at (seriously, they get through instances on pure muscle most of the time). I had assumed, seeing as these two guilds had been teaming up for a month or two now that such wonderful things would exist like discipline and focus.

My first hint that there was something wrong was when we all zoned in (half an hour later than their projected start time) and I saw a few Exiles members, some from their guild, but quite a few other random guilds peppered among the ‘regulars’. This was no longer a dual-guild run with me being the odd-man out simply because I didn’t happen to be guilded with <Exiles>. This was a PuG, a 25-man PuG.

Well, ok, I’ve never run with these people, there’s quite a few of my friends from <Exiles> in there, I’ll trust their judgement, see how things are going. It wasn’t that bad, clearing trash was a little bit messy but then they shuffled around tanking assignments and things went more smoothly.

It wasn’t until we got to the boss and the raid leader began explaining the encounter that I started having misgivings. The fight was explained, and explained, and re-explained, and… I timed it. There was 30 solid minutes of explanation. Now, I’m all for people knowing what they’re doing, but the last time I saw a fight explanation go longer than 15 minutes was when <Unemployed> took our first stab at Vasj. Anyone who’s fought Vasj knows what a crazy fight that is and how many moving parts there are. Magtheridon is a tank and spank in comparison.

Despite our Raid Leader’s long-windedness, I found their approach to be a novel one. The summoners would be tanked, and the dps would stay by the door and then the tanks would rotate the kill targets to the DPS. I’ve never done it that way, but it worked pretty well. (Mr. Tigerfeet later informed me this is a tactic first perfected by Death and Taxes)

Then we got to the business of killing Magtheridon and my heart turned cold. There were three healers assigned to the Main Tank, and the other druid was dpsing in bear mode in order to pick up the slack when (not if, when) the MT went down.

I went and checked Be.Imba, this warrior MT was rated up as high as me. Granted, all his gear was badge and PvP gear so he had no tier bonuses, but if you’re muscling around stats that high you should be able to do your job properly, shouldn’t you? Well, apparently not.

This problem was compounded by the OT. That other druid.

Defense: 376

Dodge: 24.8%

Do we see a problem here? Dodge is way too low, and his defense isn’t even high enough to insure that when he does take a hit to the face he won’t get hit by a critical. I started whispering said druid after our third wipe. He couldn’t tell me what his defense was, something about his interface not showing it.

Now, excuse me for being an elitest b*tch, but if you’re going to be tanking I think you had BETTER know what the hell your stats look like. Fully buffed, mine look something like this:

Armor: 30,000+ / Health: 18,000 / 20,000 with imp / Defense: 418 (yea, I’m a little overcapped) / Dodge: 47.38%

Now, am I an idiot, or should I have been Main Tanking? If not main tanking then I sure as hell should have been dpsing in BEAR form, ready to pick up slack when the MT did go down. Because he did die. Every single time he died. With three healers on him, he died.

How hard does Magtheridon hit on plate? Anyone know offhand? I’m pretty damn sure it’s not as hard as Tidalvess hits, and I’ve tanked him with two, count ‘em, TWO heaers on me. I remember that fight well, I was eating 3-4k PER SWING. My health was a yo-yo on that fight but dammit if I didn’t tank the snot out of him.

Longer story slightly less long, the raid leader was an idiot, the MT was an idiot, the other druid at least had the grace to let me guilt him into letting me take his spot, but by that time it was 3 1/2 hours later, trash had respawned and the rest of <Unemployed> (who I’d dragged into this mess due to the highest group turn-over rate I’ve ever seen) were having none of this mess.

It was 10:30 on a Saturday night, most of my consummables were gone, I was hopping mad, and I had no Magtheridon kill. Needless to say, I am never ever going to run with that guild ever ever again. I didn’t think it was too much to expect that the only person in the raid geared to raid T6 should be asked to MT, but no. I tanked trash, that’s about it. Mr. Tigerfeet was also pretty livid, I believe his quote was “I gave you gold, she should’ve been MT, instead you substituted slag-filled brass”. Grrrr.

Well, after that fiasco Pilsner asked me if we wanted to make our own Mag pug, I said sure, invited her to group, the couple others who had followed me into that ill-fated venture, then she put out a call to guild “LF21M for Mag!” There were crickets followed by laughter then someone suggested we run kara instead. That was met by joy and, in an astonishingly short order we had a full kara group!

It was a chain-pulling fun-filled step away from a wipe-fest but, we were having fun. Wipes were mostly because, by that time it was pushing midnight and we were all tired. Some highlights of the night were killing attumen with only 8 people (I think tanking assignments were a little confused), maiden requiring three attempts before she went down, Despair dropping from the Opera event, followed by a smooth as silk 1-shot on Nightbane.

We got to Curator, took him down (no T4 gloves for me boo), then the sleepiness really began to set in. By popular consent we skipped both Illhoof and Shade, opting instead to head to the Chess event then call it a night. It took us two or three wipes to get there but we all finished the night in high spirits with a few extra badges to pad our pockets.

EDIT: I felt that if you stayed with me through the whole rant I should probably reward you with something. Out of the Guild Kara run came some great halloween costume ideas, namely:

For the Gents:

Tie a string around a potato and hang it from your zipper. Congratulations, now you’re a dick-tater.

For the Ladies:

Same thing as the Gents except use a lemon instead. Now you’re a Sour-Puss.

Ba-dum-tsh!

2008
10/13
CATEGORY
Instancing
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Where Was I?

There’s been a list floating around and, while I was too young or too wrapped up in myself to remember all but one of the incidents I did want to put in my two copper on one of the topics.

September 11th, 2001

I was a senior in High School, just started my last year and ready to graduate in 2002 (hoo-dee-hoo two-oh-two)

Anyway, the first plane hit right before my sister and I were off to school, the second hit while we were in transit. I saw my mom watching the news and thought it was an accident. Something happened and the plane crashed in a horrible spot, that was all. Tragic, yes, but not nearly the same impact as what really had happened.

Like Drotara the full effect of what happened didn’t hit me until I was actually at school. That was where I heard about the second plane and that this had been an actual attack and not just a horrible accident.

That day was one of the scariest days in my life. Students were confined to their classrooms, all of the televisions were on, all playing the same channel. I remember I had to go somewhere during one of the class periods. I got my pass (usually not needed) and headed out. The hallways were absolutely barren.

As my numb feet paced the lenolium tiles off-sync reports of the devastation came to my ears, louder and softer as I passed classroom after classroom. Occasionally I’d look in and see every student, every single student riveted to the screen.

That was the part that struck me the most. Every student, from those wrapped up in social maneuverings to the die-hard sports fans, from the aloof artists to the deadbeat druggies, from the teenage mothers to the scholastic elites, every last one was riveted to what was happening that day in America’s eastern states.

What only struck me later, and sobered me even more, was the fact that I’d predicted something like this would happen. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one with this idea, but as I was growing up and learning of history I saw stories of “where were you when…” just like this one. I also knew that I hadn’t lived through anything like that. I had long cradled the pet theory that, while I was still young something terrible would happen to define my generation, and I am very sad that I was right.

When I graduated High School later that year 30% of my graduating class had chosen to go into the armed service. Many of these men and women had been the ones who skated through classes without drive or purpose. I’m not sure what point I’m trying to make, I’m sure there’s a moral in there somewhere be it bitter-sweet or not. Dredging up those memories brought me close enough to tears for one day.

———————————–

Ok, I lied, I’d like to blurb a bit about where I was and what I was doing when Katrina hit.

First of all, I live in the midwest. We get tornados. Tornados are fantastically destructive but last for only minutes at most. A storm will sweep in, we’ll get a tornado warning for our county then keep an ear open for the siren and an eye on the sky.

A hurricane, however, is something that’s a little hard for me to fathom. It’s an actual storm, that swirls like a tornado,  only exponentially larger and lasting for quite some time, long enough to be named. The thought of weathering such a storm frightens the holy bejezus out of me and visions of LA in the movie Day After Tomorrow dance through my head.

That’s where I’m coming from when I tell you that a week before Katrina hit I finally managed to get back in touch with a very dear High School friend of mine. When Katrina hit I had either just graduated college or was very near to doing so and we had been out of touch for a number of years.

All I remember from those days and weeks was hoping fervently that my friend (who was in southern Mississippi) and her family were allright and wondering why our president was still on vacation.

———————————–

Would you like some hapiness injection? In WoW-land we downed Rage Winterchill last night! We’re only partially officially in t6! I say only partially because we’re still working on Kael and Vasj, though we do have every intention of downing them.

2008
09/05
CATEGORY
WoW Blogging
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Tally HO! and stuff…

I got my very first taste of progression, 25-man raiding last night. When the raid was called early without a single boss downed I walked away with much food for thought.

For those of you who are veterans at 25-man content much of what I say might be second-nature. I’m not, however, writing this blog to be a guide so much as I’m writing it to chronicle what I’ve seen and what I’ve learned.

Back to the raid last night. We weren’t able to fell a single boss.

That ^ right there is a loaded statement. There is much lost when words are converted into text, but no matter how blandly it is said you can feel emotion behind it. Some will be angry and frustrated, some will be disgusted or ashamed. Some few, like me, will be simply thoughtful.

We went in and spent the bulk of the night trying to down Al’ar, the phoenix. It was stated repeatedly that night that this fight is a test of raid cohesiveness. Heading in to this fight I only had one goal. Perform to the best of my ability, and don’t wipe the raid.

I’m pretty sure I only failed at this once. On our last attempt at big and feathery I was afk when the fight began. I’d called it in vent, but it wasn’t an issue. I was back at my computer when I was needed. Al’ar flew up to pelt us with his flame quill attack and I ran to the ramp leading up to platform 4. He flew to platform 4 and I ran (slow, frustrating bear run) up, spamming my feral charge key that for some reason wouldn’t charge me. Once there I tried to gain aggro (despite the fact I didn’t need to) and as a result didn’t get to the edge of the platform. I’m sure you know what comes next.

I was out of line of sight of the healers. So I went down, quickly. I popped my trinket and frenzied regeneration and got to the edge but it was too late. I took a dirt nap and Al’ar proceeded to lay waste to everything around me.

/sigh

The most amazing thing happened. We picked ourselves back up and without very many words moved on for an attempt at the Void Reaver. I didn’t get a single angry growl from vent or snappish tell, nothing. Afterwards I was talking with the other feral tank that went with us about my gear and he did tell me that on that last try it was all me who single-handedly wiped the raid. But, this was said with a laugh and he assured me that everyone does it at least once. While not ok, I was learning, and nobody’s going to rip my face off for it.

Raiding is a commitment. People must make amends to their schedules and be emotionally prepared to tackle these obstacles. When things don’t go as planed, repeatedly, it’s very easy to become frustrated, bitter, and snarky. I saw none of this.

The day after a raid the stats are posted and members are encouraged to discuss. In the short time I’ve been here I haven’t seen the discussions turn nasty once. There’s very little finger pointing and quite a lot of civil, constructive criticism.

I feel like I’m watching a surgeon at work. -> An example, and not descriptive of any particurlar raid:

He sees a sick patient, there is something wrong: the raid keeps wiping.

The patient is coughing, hacking up something yellow: the tanks are going down too fast

The problem is in the lungs or the throat? Are the tanks staying in range of the healers, is their gear not good enough, are the healers slacking?

Once the problem is identified the discussion turns to ways to fix it. Practice runs are set up and the raid is run the next day. Sometimes it’s an individual person causing the problem but I didn’t see much of that last night (apart from my /dur moment on the platform)

This morning my husband asked me how far we got. I told him and he hit me with an ‘aww that sucks’. I asked him why and he replied, ‘you didn’t get any loot!’

Thing is, it’s not always about the loot. For me, gear is only a means to an end. Last night’s run was immeasurably valuable to me. I learned what it feels like to be a part of a 25-man team. I’ve experienced the heady yet treacherous feeling of being trusted in my role without anybody there to hold my hand. I’ve single-handedly killed 24 other people and stood amazed as the expected finger-pointing and lambasting didn’t come. Most of all, though, I think I’ve seen one of the more frustrating sides of raiding and come out with more knowledge, more experience, and more ready than ever to give it my all.

2008
07/30
CATEGORY
Instancing
3 comments

/Lick

Is it Wenesday already? Looks like it.

I think I’m starting to settle into a little bit of a routine with my new guild. While easy to manage and comforting, routines can lead to monotony at best, and a sickening lurch as panic grips my insides when the routine is broken.

I am a creature of habit, and when my routine is broken… well. I have a very bad day.

My WoW-centric life routine for the past week or two has run something like this: Wake up, log in, check mail, get harassed by our ‘token black guy friend’, scarf down some breakfast (sometimes), drive to work.. At work I’ll, well… work, most of the time. Breaks I check blogs, ponder a new entry, and generally spam the dickens out of the Unemployed shoutbox.

If I don’t put up a new post while I’m at work it generally won’t get done at all. When I get home, after my overtime I’ve generally got enough time to help my husband fix dinner, fill a plate and go hop on my computer where I merrily while away the rest of my evening.

“Hey!” you may think, “This chick has no life!”

Well, yeah, you’re probably right, but I’m pretty much content and happy so what else do I need?

WELL… says I. Let me tell you about Monday…. I can see the font with the dripping blood now.

I woke up after a difficult weekend, it was difficult for medical reasons I’d rather not get in to here. Additionally, I spent my customary commute to work mildly fretting about the state of our internet connection. The night previous it was quite windy here, windy enough to cause our epic rural DSL to perform with less than stable reliability. It was almost reliable in it’s unreliability, seriously, I was tanking heroic Ramparts and started timing the pulls off of my disconnects and lag spikes.

But anyway, I was fretting because I was rostered for Zul’Aman that night. Let me elaborate a touch. I’ve been to Zul’Aman once. I learned two things.

1. Zul’Aman has a gauntlet, don’t fight at the bottom of the stairs, try to make your way up.

and

2. Dirt trampled by troll’s feet doesn’t taste the best.

And so, I’m rostered for ZA on Monday, as a tank, with very little experience and absolutely no practical experience. But, I’ve never let that stop me before which is why my connection issues of the day were at the forefront of my worries as opposed to the patch of moistness still clinging behind my ears.

Let’s continue. I got to work. My first thought was “Are we having a BBQ?” My second thought was “Crap” and my third thought was, “Please let me go home.”

Did I mention the previous night had been windy? Well, power was out, from my work town all the way to the capitol, something about a station going down and surging the lines. Well, I didn’t get to go home, instead I stayed outside and sorted random papers, and got sunburned doing it.

Remember how I feel about my schedule? This day was starting bad. So when I got home I was irritated and in pain. I had rushed home to get ready to run ZA, buy my consumables and read up on boss fights so that I wouldn’t be a complete embarrassment.

I log in and check the guild roster, nobody is congregated in ZA, so the run hasn’t started yet, good. It’s 6:30 though and I see nobody congregated in the ghostlands… odd. Late start? Must be. So, I start pestering people in guild chat, asking if the raid is still happening, putting it together, when invites are going out, etc etc. I am ready.

I get a whisper from the fellow organizing the raid asking about the status of my gear, the conversation went a little something like this.

Him: How’s your gear?

Me: Um… Kara-ready?

Him: No, your stats

Me: *rattle off armor, defense, dodge%, health, all unbuffed”

Him: We don’t need a tank.

Me: oh…

Well crap. My first instinct was to scream, my second was to cry*, my third was to shoot back an angry whisper asking why he asked me in the first place, didn’t he check the raid roster that I signed up for?

EDIT: Now I’m DOUBLY glad I didn’t shoot back that first angry thought, I just learned there’s more to our roster than I had known /dur xD /open mouth insert foot.

Thankfully for my own sanity, I did none of these, I took a deep breath, whispered him that I would be on standby if one of the other tanks needed to leave, made myself available in the ventrillo lobby, and flew out to Nagrand to farm clefthoofs.

*Note: I make it a priority that I not take the game too seriously, I’ve seen what it does when taken too seriously and it’s not pretty. Keep in mind that I’d just spent the entire day outside, in the heat, getting sunburned, with medical issues and it was that time… yes, you know the time I mean.

So I farm clefthoof for a while when someone random whispers me, begging me to tank heroic Black Morass. Black Morass is one of my very favorite dungeons, but I’d just bought a raid and a half’s worth of consumables for a raid I very much wanted to attend, was broke, was sunburned, was cranky, and just wanted to run around ripping faces and not having to think for a while.

But he was persistent and promised me that if my spot opened up I could jump out at any time, and if the Hourglass dropped, it was all mine. So I agreed, and by the time the run was completed, flawlessly, and almost effortlessly, my spirits had risen a bit.

We ran heroic Ramparts too, didn’t do as well but managed to complete it before the rest of the group had to split for the night. I took myself off back to Nagrand to continue farming leather. At one point I open up the Guild Roster and notice everyone is no longer clustered in Zul’Aman. The run is over, I wasn’t needed.

So I quietly take my leave of ventrilo, log off of my druid, log into my mage and onto my husband’s ventrilo. I don’t remember what I talked about or what I said, but my general crabbiness must have been apparent. You see, Tuesday morning, I logged in, checked my mail, and found a letter encouraging me to have a better day. Enclosed in the letter was a stack of 5 Tigule and Foror’s Strawberry Ice Cream.

Somebody heard me on vent, heard me having a really crummy day for reasons it was clear I didn’t want to talk about (despite my disspointment and disproportionately emotional reaction *see that time* I didn’t want to spend too much time whining and moaning. I KNOW I won’t be included on every run, this was just the first of such occurences)

Anway, this guy saw me having a bad day and took the time to go, seek out, and buy that fun little item and mail it to me. Yeah, it’s a video game, it’s stupid to get worked up over it, but when I see small, thoughtful gestures like that, it just makes everything worthwhile.

So, thanks man, for thinking of me, and for the ice cream.

/Lick

2008
07/23
CATEGORY
WoW General
2 comments

Of Dancing Seals

Twice in one day? Perposterous! No, not quite, I’m just feeling more ‘inspired’ now that my brain has had a chance to boot up. I don’t drink coffee or soda because I don’t like the taste. But on to better things.

I mentioned before that I play WoW as a hobby. It’s entertainment, yes, but the community and camraderie I get out of interacting with other people and working towards a common goal (even if said goal is ripping pixel faces that aren’t real) is priceless.

Unfortunately, as wonderful as it is to make friends and influence people *ahem whut?* not everybody is going to get along and this leads inevitably to…. *drumroll* DRAMA!

Oh no! You say. Drama could never happen here! We’re all happy fun-loving bunnies that would rather frolic happily and… (insert overly haughty and obnoxiously innocent attitude here)

I hate dealing with drama, I’m sure everybody else does as well. But I’m not trying to talk about drama, but what it leaves behind. Sadness, dissapointment, hurt, and general feelings of unease. I could preach to you until I was blue in the face about how this is just a game and you’re meant to have fun. When the loot council chooses the other mage over you for that piece of tier, when you’re banned from ventrilo for no good reason, when nobody wants to group with you for that heroic, it all feels bad and the knowledge that this is just a game is cold comfort.

When I play I try to keep my attitude aloof and fun-loving. If I get too involved and find myself hurt I’ll put the game down and walk away. I didn’t do that last night, unfortunately. I kept PvPing until I got my shoulders and then put the game down. It led to a difficult night with more drama spawned when I should have just gone to read a book.

Last night was normally the exception for me. Normally it’s me off in Nagrand farming Clefthoof Leather when one of my friends finds her feelings hurt. Sometimes it’s something in-game, sometimes it’s a real-life debacle. Either way I try to be there to offer my shoulder and do my best to lighten the load and cheer her up.

Enter the Dancing Seals.

I found this stupid little video a year or so ago while I was searching for leaked dance animations pre-Burning Crusade. I couldn’t stop laughing for a solid five minutes.

I’ve sent the video to all my friends and now, whenever one of them is feeling down I’ll remind them of it. We’ll be running along doing whatever and as soon as I spot a patch of water I’ll dive in, transform to seal, and proceed to make an idiot out of myself over vent. It’s fun, it’s lighthearted, but most of all…

It makes my friends smile.

This is what playing a game is all about isn’t it? Being able to smile and have fun!

2008
07/17
CATEGORY
WoW General
2 comments
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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