Brain Calgonated but who am I now?

Good morning musers!

I don't have words for the lack of blogging over the last month. I seriously underestimated what the tutoring schedule would do to my brain. Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets, but I think that I needed to be more honest with myself. If I can't play WOW then I can't blog about WOW. Blogging requires a minimum commitment of WOW time in order to aggregate enough events to make a decent post.

So you may be asking wth is up with the Title for this post? Well this weekend, which was absolutely lovely if I may say so, I spent with my loving wife & just relaxed and let my brain soak, no major thinking no students just mental calgon. It was just lovely. To top it off, my honey went to the gym after Sunday's festivities. Which gave me some uninterrupted WOW time. After banging out some dailies, I see on guild chat someone looking for an arena partner & I find myself saying on gchat, " I'd love to get a 2x2 or 3x3 team"

This leads to my first major change since I did a Major Post. I LOVE PVP! I dunno maybe it was all the stress of the last month, but I found BG's WG & now arena fun & relaxing.

But this is so odd for me, I was so anti-pvp for so long that my friend Doug busted my boomkin balls for wanting to do a 2x2 with him. He ripped into me how he had begged me to be in his 3x3 back in the BC days I had snubbed him. This was of course when he was scoring the Green Trophy Tabard of the Illdari, on Sat afternoon but I digress.

Onto other items of note

Guild dramarama: I'm still in Knights of the Blade, but I may be looking to leave, there has been guild leadership issues over the last month which have lead to progression issues & other items. I do like all of the people in the guild, but with the summer coming I may look to greener pastures. Still I may stick around & see if they're able to shake this off. Stay tuned for more dramarama

On the state of cowardice: This has to do with VOA 25 & Mr. Emalon. I've noticed a level of cowardice towards Emmy that makes me shake my head & wish for the good old days when I got yelled at for being a boomkin. Here is what I've seen since his arrival on the scene

1.) VOA 25 Pug gets organized

2.) People wipe on 1st Emalon mob due to n00bishness

3.) Players whine that we should do the easier boss 1st

4.) if easier boss is done 1st, whiners leave raid after scoring gear\badges.

5.) If Emalon is done 1st whiners leave raid.

Hopefully as players get better geared etc, this pattern will VOT, but it is leading to gear check's as a response to players asking to be invited then bailing on emalon.

That's it for today

Until another day

The Musing Moonkin

Taking a break from your worries...

As of right now. Neren is sitting in hibernation. Sleeping in the emerald dream, while my shammy sit's in IF gaining rest state. I haven't logged onto Neren since Monday & I don't think I'll touch him for a while. I need a vacation from WOW, or more specifically the end game obligations that I had.

But then again that all went up in smoke over memorial day weekend when my guild disbanded.

(Anyone who wants to read greymantle's dry statement can go on the Fenris Forum)

I wish I could lie but this left me devastated, and depressed. I was left in a very tough place because there was no where for me to go..so to speak. We were at #3/#4 in guild progression on the server. The top raiding guild was horde. The Top Alliance Guild has a no moonkin need apply policy. The other alliance guild @ our progression was selecting which ex-guildies they wanted. I joined up w my friend Brian's guild, but they were so low on the progression that I wasn't an asset but a liabilty, since my dps over shot the tank's threat, even when I used a SF only rotation.

Yet in darkness there's is light. And from my experience in both the real & the virtual worlds, it's always in the oddest places. The Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend. I had decided that I wanted to roll a horde toon for shit's and giggles. So I rolled a orc hunter, (with a sweet handle) transferred myself about 425 gold through the ah & a friend helping me, and went over to the other side. I didn't like the hunter (I will admit hunters are so boring.) But it sparked an idea, the kind that bugged me until I had to do it.

I rolled a tauren druid.

And the Universe smiled on me, and Lo I got a good handle. I struck platnium with my toon's name. I mean a really good toonname. One that has sparked envy in other players. One that actually urges me on to level the character. It's one thing to be Neren, Champion of the Naaru. It'll be another to be Greathoof, champion of the Naaru

I told you it was good.

But the best thing about leveling this toon, is there is no stress on me from guild obligations, It's just fun & fairly new. I had tried leveling a horde toon before, but I never got past level 12 since I didn't have the alt gold. to make the process easy.

Now it's easy and relaxing.

On the flip side. I sometimes feel like I'm a crippled toon. since I've been up to Sunwell trash, having the lowbie abilities is rather odd. Also no one knows me. so I can say what my toon is etc. But it could be just BS. And lord knows WOW has a lot of that. And lastly, there are still new players in WOW, so you can mark like you would in a heroic & you may have never seen those marks before.

Still though It is a breath of fresh air. But I know I can't hide from neren forever

Maybe another week.

A nice two week vacation

Guild Drama: Stopping it before it happens

This will be a frank post, that is to say I will speak my mind, share what happened, & expect the nuclear strike from readers who will be enraged by my observations. Others may agree with me but will lack the courage to speak their minds. I'm talking about the silent killer in WOW: Guild Drama.
Originally this post was going to be about my success in stopping it from occurring in my current guild, I began to think about Guild Drama with a clearer mind. Specifically how does it relate to real world interpersonal conflicts? Can you identify the types of Guild Drama & the Real World counter part. Because after all WOW is an MMO & what makes it special isn't the story as much as the players & how they interact w the virtual environment. Also I've noticed that WOW seems to have built in filters to resolve guild drama. The further you progress in end-game content, the less guild drama can exist since the instances require 100% co-operation. A guild that is cliquey & full of catty members cannot progress to the Eye, they will not have the cohesion and teamwork to handle the boss fights.
So Far I've identified the following types of guild drama:

1.) Nepotism\Cronyism: This type of guild drama occurs when guild members give preferential treatment to their real world family or real world friends. They get first pick @ gear & loot. The downside of this Guild Drama is that it's prevalent with the 5 man instances & 10 man raids (I recall on guild on Fenris 'since-disbanded' that was leading the progression through Kara. It's leaders were all brothers & their friends, so they got their tier tokens before anyone else. This however cannot progress past the 5 man \ 10 man instances since the requirements of the 25 man raids demand some system be put in place to distribute loot fairly.

2.) Cliquishness\Exclusion: This guild drama occurs when specific members of the guild become a clique & determine who can come to guild runs & who can't because of interpersonal differences, not because of requirements. Ergo, your one of the best healers in the guild, we're running gruul's but since you & I don't like each other, I had the raid leader who's a buddy of mine not invite you. This drama can progress to the 25man content, but it gets stopped @ Tier 4 content since you need specific classes for the Tier 5 & 6 boss fights.
This occured to me in my current guild about a month ago (it's been resolved since!) One of the raid leaders felt my character offered nothing to the raids so if he was doing the invites he'd never invite me. This climaxed with a Gruul's pug run where I didn't tank ziggler the crazed, Which raised the attention of three other guild officers & the guild master. He was summarily told to start inviting classes that he had dismissed as ineffective, or he would be gkicked.

3.) Sex\Cattiness: In other words Vaginal Aggro.
This was the topic that I was most concerned writing about because I never know if someone is going to flame me about my opinion. In general I find that women cause the most time consuming drama in the game. Since playing wow I've seen the following.
Women using sex (real-life or chat) to
get gear\gold
dominate guild politics
Get preferential treatment with guild runs
(we can't run until she's back from the grocery sorry ppl!)
Have guild members kicked\stripped of rank
Have gear that guild members found through grinding\non-guild runs be given to them through intimidation.
- This one strikes a chord w me, In my previous guild I found a BOE 280 JC recipe & was told to give it to WomanX since she was a JC. However the alchemy world drop that she found was put on AH & I was told that she didn't know I was a Elixir master & that she really needed the money for her epic mount.

So there's the Sex Aspect. On top of that they're the cattiness between women. As I've mentioned before about my pet chinchilla's, we like to joke in my house how female chins act like human females, plotting scheming & willing to kill a woman who's not in the tribe.
This also extends to WOW. If all the women in the guild get along, I heartily recommend that you never ever leave that guild. This means they're all friends & the rank structure has been hammered out. If you get a women who decides that she wants to be queen bee, flee that guild! unless the GM steps in (and mark my words it takes a tough GM to be willing to go into that fray.) it will turn ugly & nasty & no guild progression will occur until the other woman nip her back into place.

This leads me to the title of my post stopping guild drama before it happens. Last week I noticed on of my ex-guildies (specifically the one who caused all the vaginal aggro in my old guild) on my guild vent. I asked the guy running the 10 man kara run & he said yes, she's running w us tonight. Faced w the possibility of her joining my guild I proceeded to inform every female guild member who she was & what she did in my old guild. I also made it clear to the female guild officer that I would gquit on the spot if she was accepted. I then contacted another old guildie, who was a woman & had to deal w her antic's. She informed me that she was blacklisted from the top raiding guilds (except ours) because she would pull her vaginal aggro during 25man's.
Since this occurred I haven't seen her sniffing around.
Thank God

Guild Drama it never ends

Over the last couple weeks I've been slacking on the blogging, it started in late march when I went on an epic quest of my own design to bag the greatest of wow lewt, My wife. I spent a week farming for the blue dragon whelpling in azshara & in the process I offered one to my night elf queen, she who rivals Azshara in Beauty, as a simple lure to get her to play WOW, it failed, she dismissed it as simple male tom-foolery. Although it did grace her mind breifly that if she played wow I would have to give my gold & gear (just like real-life) but she went back to her own machinations.
The 2.4 came out & I committed any free time to grinding rep with the SSO & the new daily quests (fishing anyone?) While this was going on I noticed that I wasn't being called for raids. Which was making me ancy since I had left my home to join w my new guild. In fact I almost left & went Ronin, but @ the last moment I was saved by the casuals...AKA they in the guild who have a life besides wow.
I realized quickly that my guild was split into two factions, those who only wanted to progress & would only play w players of the same 'caliber' & those who understood that to complete the end game you needed more that a L337 Tank. You needed the right groups with the right makeup & the right skills. Our leadership was able to view above this bickering & keep the peace, but he's been slacking...well slacking isn't the right word...real life has taken a priorty...apparently buying a house is more important than running a raid =P Regardless though without his leadership the guild is cleaved between the two camps.

Other Updates

As I just posted I haven't played much WOW since Monday, but some events did happen since then.
As of Monday February 11th I am no longer a member of Sedition on Fenris. All 3 of my characters on the server left the Guild between the 11th & the 12th. My main character, Neren, joined Utopia on Monday Night at 5:46pm after a two week application process (guild runs, discussion with the guild master over a period of several days.) The main reasons for this decision were because Utopia's runs are from 7-10 w a firm end time of 1opm (unless they got the boss to 2% and they want to try one more time!) which fits into my schedule since I am on the east coast and a early bird & the guild progression of Sedition which as a guild was tied more to a casual playstyle which is great but leads to issues when it came to the end game 25 mans raids. Also when Sedition did run raids then tended to start 9-10pm which did not fit my time schedule.

Below is the post I left on Sedition's guild forum on Wednesday. It stemmed from several in game events that happened on Monday.

Hello Everyone,
As you all probably know I left Sedition last night & joined Utopia.
First & foremost this was not due to any personal conflicts with any members of the guild. Sedition has been a great organization & I've met a lot of incredible people through our dungeon runs, quests & raids. I was approached to join Sedition back in July of 2007 when I was still in House of Paratus, and If it wasn't for Sedition I would've just pugged around for god knows how long before going into Kara. I did a lot of things in WOW that I could never have accomplished without all of you. With that said, why did I decided to Leave Sedition? It was a multi-faceted
choice, but in the end it came down to several things.

1.)Scheduling: This was by far the highest on my list. I am an early bird\a creature of the dawn if you will, (Ironic that I play a Night Elf) and Utopia's raids usually start @ 7pm & are over by 10pm.

I was done last night w SSC by 9pm. My wife was absolutely stunned, I mean she was so stunned that I thought she was going to get on vent & thank them for running a raid at a time that didn't cause any conflicts

2.) Progression: Sedition is a great guild but because of scheduling conflicts I felt & had seen that we were not progressing with end game raids. Even if these were resolved. I felt I couldn't commit to any raids unless they were earlier in the Day.

In addition just a few more items

New Members: Don't Worry about Sedition, this guild is a great organization, do not leave because I left. I left for specific reasons due to my own needs as a player. Sedition is a great place w great people!

My Friends: Please do not ask me if I can see about getting you into Utopia. I am an initiate & have no sway. I was invited after several runs w the guild & the application process took about two weeks of back & forth before a formal invitation over the weekend. I still want to be friends w all of you guys & if you need me for 5man\10 man etc & I'm not committed I will be more than happy to join you.

See you all on the Virtual Side
-Neren

I'll post more as time permits

The slow dissolution of my guild - Part II

I logged into my guild website this evening at 5:30 pm & read a thread that talked about the frustration with our raid progression. I laid out 4 points that I needed to get off my chest. Now we'll see if I'm still in my guild or not when I login later tonight.

The slow decomposition of my guild: part I

Over the last two months, my guild on fenris has been slowly falling apart.
This was caused by a number of reasons. 100% due to people whether they were leaders or followers.
This has got me to thinking about what makes a good guild fall apart. I've read posts by other bloggers about different reasons for this problem. But from my perspective I have my own set of indicators. In this series of posts I'll go over one issue at a time.

1.) Commitment vs. Independence. A good guild regardless of pvp or pve\raid progression gives it's members the independence to do what they want. After all WOW is a game & you need to enjoy it or else theres no point in putting in the game time when there's a whole real world out there. At the same time Guild Member's need to have a level of commitment in order to make guild progression\goals reached.
The best raiding\pvp guilds have this level of commitment. I view it as the digitization of obligation: Taking the same level of punctuality & commitment you would have towards a softball team, martial arts class, volunteer group & applying it to your guild. This doesn't mean your OCD about WOW, it just means that you treat your raid time as a social event that requires your
commitment.

Guilds that require too much commitment (We raid 7days a week, your on standby from 7-11pm if we need you, if your not raiding we need you to farm or run lowbies\blue 70's through dungeons.) Fall apart because they require too many demands. They may appeal to some players who need a sense of being the team player, having the greatest gear until the new patch comes out. Like a 80hr workweek the players reach their line, & either gquit or gexplode (sucking out the guild bank, ninja'd tier gear etc. ) Also as I noticed w myself when I raided hard in my 2nd guild for about a month last year, you begin to avoid your guild. I made alts that no one knew about, spent hours killing boars (figuratively) just so I wouldn't be bothered w transmute requests or potion requests or can I farm this mat for the kara runs.

Guilds that have too much freedom, or to much lazies fare attitude towards events have difficulty attaining progression. This is expected. But what is worse is when guild members commit to an event & then do not attend or show up late. I view this a no digitization of obligation, "This is a game so who cares if I really show up on time. I am @ home I'm not outside with other people." This is poison to a guild if it's not eliminated from the organization because the guild members will be conditioned to not attend raid events since they never get off the ground. They will cease to commit to events, which will lead to the guild leaders becoming disillusioned w their positions.

So to Summarize: The Best Guilds have enough freedom so they're members want to play because they enjoy the game, & have players who have been able to mentally apply their sense of real world obligations to be present at guild events.