I doubt that's a good idea

This is not a Gnomore post. Gnomore is on vacation for this week due to Rift head start weekend.

This is a Rift post. Due to Gnomore being on vacation because of the Rift head start weekend.

Onwards.

So far I've been playing only one character, Kelari Mage called Copraf (ingenious naming, don't you agree?). The term "glass cannon" is an over estimation of Rift Mages survival abilities, but at least at the low levels the damage I can deal is quite enough to keep single mobs a couple of levels higher at bay. Even as much as to get them down before they can even hit me.

What can I say? Argent, the RP server I'm located with this character, is a very helpful and nice community. There have been no queues as far as I've seen, and the overall attitude is the we are in this together. The most bothersome thing about the game is its namesake, the rifts: it seems to me that there are invasions and rift events going on constantly when I'm online, making it nearly impossible to level up by the normal questing way. I'm overlevelling the content here, people!

As the explorer me, I had to take a breath of fresh air in Sunday and I ventured off the beaten path of Freemarch (the level 5-20 area). Strolling around in Droughtlands (level 22+) and later in Shimmersand (at least lv33+!) with a level 14 character was a stressful, exhilarating and very much refreshing experience! As every step had to be thought out in advance to stay alive, the intensity of that session was very, very high. And I really mean that you had to plan your steps ahead, because the nearest resurrection point was always at the other end of the map if you were lucky: the corpse run wasn't as nice as it may sound.

Anyhow, seeing the depth of detail put into these areas and the love in the graphics has convinced me even more that there is no hurry to level up. There is quite enough to explore on the way up, and the lore and legends which I encountered on those travels are quite promising. Like the separation of two Cyclops tribes after they were freed from the ilk of the evil Eth, who had brought them through dimensions by magic to serve as slaves and gladiators... How the heck has all that happened and what is going on in the cave there?!

In Shimmersand there are some nice triggered events which left me giggle: I won't go any deeper into this, because they are somewhat a surprise and I would surely spoil the fun from someone entering them for the first time. Needles to say, I'm waiting to come back with a proper level character and see how the events proceed then.

I have only one thing to complain about in the Rift events and public groups. There seem to be no interest to heal in them. As a pure dps I have no way to keep my health up, while the dps from Druid persuasion toss a self heal every now and then and keep pounding. The elite invader as much as breathes to my general direction and I'm gasping for a potion to stay in the foray.

Sad to say, but this was to be expected: everyone wants to beat the baddies, and as the system rates everyones personal performance, healing isn't going to be rated too high by the players. It's a war out there, anyhow, no time for losers! (I should have rolled a pure healing cleric and level only by quests and healing... no, too much Gnomore!)

The best part was yesterday: guild fun in Iron Tombs.

First of all, the game is gorgeous. But the instance itself rises the bar even higher: it is dumbfounding. The atmosphere, lighting and sounds are just magnificent and just ... right in its grand meaning. Can't wait to run the instance again, even though the initial amazement has vaned.

The structure and flow of the run is well thought. Like I said during the run, Trion has truly delivered the fun they promised to include in the game. Even though our rag tag group had one 'overlevelled' character, the rest at level 18 and my meager lv15 had quite enough to do and the challenge was to plan the pulls and kills after the first - and only - wipe after a specialist pull gone somewhat awry. Or how can you rate a pull for three mobs which ends up pulling thirteen, among which at least one mini-boss? Expert job, I say. Something I capped by stating the next proposed pull with "I doubt that's such a good idea".

The fun part of the run was that I really learned more about my Mage than I had learned before questing and rifting. I also found out later, when I was going through the run, the reason why it was so fun in many ways.

The main thing was the fact that there was no feeling of having to be the min-maxed super performer of the class. There was no need to show and tell how my class is played properly. And there was no expectations on anyone in the group that a certain class should perform at a certain level.

Here comes the only comparison to WoW in this post: in WoW I don't like the instances anymore because I have to be the best there is only to stay out of the name calling ring. Be it tank, healer or any dps, it is the same. The damage meters and the sour community does have its toll on the fun, really. Instead of going into an instance I have to think whether I have the gear to do it, the right spec to be accepted, the buffs I'm supposed to have. There is the feeling that the game and the rest of the group are expecting more than you can deliver.

Sure, there are players who don't give a damn about it and just go and get the bashing. But as a tank or a healer in WoW you are bound to get the shaft even if you perform well if someone decides the failure was your fault. Seen that on both my tank and my healer, and that's the major reason I don't want to tank in PUGs anymore.

It is not fun anymore, it's a chore.

Granted, the run in Rift was a guild run, but in a way it was a PUG: I'm a newcomer to the guild, the composition of the group came on the fly and we were just having a look into the instance. It had more common with a server PUG than a real planned guild run, really.

But the most fun came out of the fact that no-one really knew the instance, everyone was a gamer and had played quite a bit of MMOs and everyone was in to have FUN.

Anyhow, Rift is what I have earlier stated many times: WoW on steroids, Trion doing splendidly what Blizzard did way back when they launched WoW. It's new, familiar, simple to get a hang on, a new car with some new gadgets and better stuff under the hood.

For me the head start weekend - even though it was the worst gaming weekend I've ever had - was a great success on Rift point of view.

How about you? Have you tried Rift, will you give it a try or will you just pass it for something more shiny?

Or are you content enough with WoW?
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Deeper into the community

I've been reading about work place cultures lately and formation of different types of cultures. The fact is, these theories and studies, when done and written properly, are more or less transferable to any group of people involved with similar interests.

Thus I've been making some connections with the stuff I've been learning for work and with the Metropolitan Players post I made a while ago. In that post I compared the current state of WoW population being that of a population of a metropolitan city: busting with action and no interest or concern over what the passerby is doing, thinking or planning. In the worst case this goes as far as the random dungeon experience, where you easily treat the other player characters as moderately working AI characters.

As in all societies or groups of people, there are bound to form structures. Call them tribes, creeds or guilds. The stuff that drives these groups forward is the motivation to work for a common cause. In special circumstances these groups of people will exceed the individual level of expertise of its members, but usually it is the lowest nominator which states the achievable results.

In MMOs - and in WoW particular for being so huge - the problem is to show the values of the guild to form a tightly knit group of individuals willing and motivated to work together to the fullest. Usually the guilds are advertising with the general terms like "nice social levelling and raiding guild", "good mature guild" or "mature group willing to raid later on". Very seldom - if ever - you will actually see something stating about the values or aims of the group in question.

Due to this and lack of general social tools in game, it is neigh impossible for a player outside of a group they feel their own in spirit to find one. There are no actual meeting places to find like minded people save the dreaded guild hopping from one to another till something clicks. The LFD tool took the last bit of server reputation off of your shoulders and at the same time took away the only spot where you could have made those connections with people on the same server, which might have given you any sort of direction to look for a group with same thoughts about the content or life in general.

WoW community, which is so much discussed everywhere every now and then is in fact an infantile community. It revolves around the Me, Myself and I in the elitism and respect, with certain aspects from This Game Sucks and My Game Sucks. For well performing guilds, which are not driven only for the individual gain of the GM or an elite officer group, it may go to the common good ground of We Are Good.

For the lonely soldier in the levelling trenches, to find that group in which one can state that We Are Good is a part time job alone. For it is not enough to feel that I Am Good, when the ones you are bound to be compared are already raiding at highest level with their own special group.

Especially when there are no connecting points in the community to introduce yourself, your personality, your skills and your abilities to the groups desperately seeking a team player.

The groups seeking a specialist are in another pit: they can get the specialist, but what might be the personality and how will that fit into the group?

And will it be determined fast enough to avoid any damage?

MMOs at the moment are enjoyable group endeavors to those who travel within their own social contact group. They are a massive single player game to those who are not in any existing group, and there are less and less possibilities to find people with similar mindset in the typical DIKU mud due to the achievement oriented power levelling culture which is present in the games. Like the destination is more important than the journey, the way it IMO should be.

It is not the destination that determines the hero, but the journey during which his integrity is put on test.

Maybe public quest types can be of some remedy to this?

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They put the fun back into my game

Just when I thought that all the fun lies in the levelling, I got a surprise and a note that my whining hasn't been just my problem.

Recently I've been doing my random heroics pretty quietly and slowed down on my guild chat due to the fact that I've had this nagging feeling that the guild is too much achievement oriented and rushing everything to be the #1. Well, this is true, the guild is at the top spot in ICC raid bosses, congratulation and hooray for that, but this has caused the fact that the social and relaxed fun aspects have been suffering a bit. It's all natural and it most certainly isn't my spot as a newcomer to the guild (which has been around since the beginning of the game) to whine and nag about this, when most of the guild -especially the raiding core- is doing fine and dandy.

So I took up the tanking spot in IC 5man normal for some alts with both some enthusiasm (finally a chance to learn the fights PROPERLY) and doubt (alts of the raiders...).

To begin with, it all started by me changing to dps: a pally had been given the tanking spot. Good and dandy. Tought my UI was a mess only to notice that I was doing dps in defensive stance... I had changed my gear and my spec, but forgot to check my stance, which I do not change too often, if ever...

All the merrier. It was all fun and jokes and a epic wipe: DK took out his Army of the Dead on Devourer of Souls and we went down in a few seconds.That mirrored soul isn't too cool with the Army, I say. Sadly the tank had to leave for their raid right after we downed the Devourer on our second try, without the Army. So we got another dps to cover my loss (bah, it was a gain to get me off the dps meters... :P), so enter my brother Bishopgeorge, in his spiffy shadowpriest gear.

Needless to say, I ran PoS for the first time as a tank, all went well except those transition mobs from Ick and Crick to the tunnel gauntlet (hate them!). And as we were going to HoR... Bish hadn't done the q to enter. Nevertheless, we called it a night and promised to do the same later.

Next evening. Me and three of the former team grouped for FoS and PoS and wanted to see if we could get further. All fun and laughter and from the newcomer -our resident healer then- came a surprising comment after we had wiped four times on the Devourer of Souls (this time we had a shammy who unleashed his wolf pack and didn't understand the fault before we told about the Army of the Dead incident... with hysterical laughter). It was simply:"This is what I've been missing in the game. Fun and laughter, not worrying about dying."

It was just that for the whole run. In which we didn't get to the HoR at all: to the door and then everyone had to leave.

These few guildies put the fun back into my game. Thanks for that.

They also reminded me about the fact that I've been too much trying to reach the hc content: Normal IC 5mans are still challenging and rewarding enough for a social slacker like me, even though my gear would give me the keys to run the harder content.

After all, the game should be all relaxed and fun. Not a chore.

Guilds and members.

Yesterday I asked few questions about guild related things. As a matter of fact that has been in my mind since Oakstout wrote about his raiding guild explosion last week.I commented about that about a topic idea I had been tossing around in my head, without getting a solid grasp on how to approach the issue.I have also listened to Kreeoni's excellent podcast Guild-Chat over a few days and found it interesting to notice how different the attitudes in guild leading and guild system are. In fact, the question I posed in the yesterday's post about the training of new members to raid was almost direct rip off from Kreeoni's and David's first episode...

The idea I've been pondering on comes simply from the upcoming change in WoW guild system, in which they introduce the levels and benefits for guild, which the guild gives to it's members. This change is thought to strengthen the social bindings of the guilds and within the members, making it really 'hurt' the people if they leave a good, high level guild. They would lose the benefits this guild has and thus would really have to think over the implications this causes on their own playing. Gevlon has done his autopsy of the system sometime ago, and while I agree with some points of it, I see the situation in a bit different light.

The system works in EQ2, and it's been in there almost from the beginning. The real problem at first will be the fact that the system is kind of plastered over the existing frame and social system, which favors the selfish approach of the individuals: the game teaches you to be selfish to gain better gear, better party and better recognition.Like Oakstout cites Banstick Podcast:

"I don't think that there will be any loyalties until Blizzard encourages guild teamwork and goals with a system."

The game is very, very top heavy in it's player base, and the player base has very much learned to play the selfish way. It's pretty easy -I would suspect at least- to start working for the guild to gain some benefits, but what will be the guilds' interest in keeping the members in? What will be the guilds' incentive -other than experience- to work for the members rather than expecting the members to work for the guilds?

It may seem easy, and as a matter of fact, nothing much should change: the guilds (at least the ones I've heard and learned about) rely on members donations and deposits already, are lead by a single leader with devotion and determination, and are more or less self contained. The ones which are not, are not very long lived ones. But it's way too easy at the moment to a) kick unwanted members and b) leave the guild if you're not contended with it.

The leaving will become painful if you get used to the benefits the guild offers. But will it be as painful for the guild to kick a player?

A thought popped into my mind today as I was driving to work, that what if the achievement points of the individual members would be part of the guild experience count: thus kicking a player with a load of achievement points could cause the guild lose some benefits...

To me it is a dilemma. I'm not stating or saying that there weren't guilds which were interested in their members of anything. Nor am I saying that it isn't the guild's best interest to keep the players happy and along. It's just something I see as potentially faulty in the upcoming system and as something that may cause problems in some less established guilds, leading to frustration, venting and bad behaviour on the behalf of the wronged party.

And I'm not speaking on my own experience either. Just speculating, that's all.

With a little help from my friends...

What an appropriate quote from The Beatles' to describe last evening's furious couple of hours.

Last evening was a special one for several reasons. Not only did Azariel pay a visit on the 'wussie side' and chat  with me (read: mock and abuse me), but everything seemed to click into place.

First of all, the fishing and cooking dailies were one shots both. I found a helmet from a quest chain I hadn't finished which alone helped my defense to come closer to my aim.

And I learned that the defense caps are a myth to normal 80's instances, providing you have a good group.

You see, I was minding my own business (dailies in Dalaran) when there was a question in guild channel, offering a gear up run in normal Trial of the Champions. Me, being the carefull and concerned bugger, volunteered to join if my presence wouldn't ruin the fun of the rest of the group.

During the meantime I made the Argent Tournament's dailies, learned a bit more about the jousting (which I hate even more) and finally we entered to the instance. My first 5-mans at lv80.

Trial of the Champions, normal.

Anyone who has been there knows that the beginning of first stage is... Jousting.

The end is tank and spank with emphasis on grouping the mobs and not standing in the muck. I've learned from Outlands already, that anything on the floor is bad and should be avoided. Except the dead mobs, of course, but anything else is BAD.

The second part is more grouping exercises and avoiding aoe and turning your back to the boss.

Third is the Black Knight with his army of exploding ghouls.

The group being that of our guild's finest I was lead from stage and encounter to another in a very civil manner. Needless to say, the first run was spectacular: everything worked lovely, we cleared stage after stage without a hitch and the crowd was cheering. In a way I was amazed how my lacking defense wasn't an issue at all, not to mention the fabulous drop I got. My first lv80 purple. (Don't ask me now what it was, I'm relishing the moment, not looking at the Armoury!)

After a successful run we decided to do another. The other players had their alts (or alt's alt or something) and it was obvious they really knew how the encounter works and all. Like I've commented at some point, it's a pleasure to run with a group of professionals: the mentality strikes at all levels and makes you perform yourself at higher level.

The second run wasn't as easy, and we wiped a couple of times. This is where the professional, achiever mentality shows even more: there was no calling on who lacked and who sucked. Instead, everyone more or less analyzed their own performance and what they did wrong THEMSELF and tried to find the reason WHY the wipe happened. And adapted on the next run.

Needless to say, we cleared the instance with flying colours, I was very happy camper and owned two shining pieces of purple gear. I was pretty pleased on my first run on a lv80 normal, even though my defense was 499 after the loot and 'miscolored' gem.

As the whole instance run was so smooth, the whole group agreed to do it again today. Provided all are at the computer: after all it's friday.

And guess what: by receiving this kind of welcome, I'm bound to the guild even stronger.

I'm there to help others when they need. Suck that, Gevlon, with your M&S speeches. This provides continuity to a healthy guild and makes it sure that the guild which is strong from inside will continue to exist beyond the 'next guildbreaker' expansion.

Now I'm hungry for more guild love. :P

A sad, almost degrading, visit

Last night I had the pleasure to accompany some of our guilds finest in a 'raid' like event. As it happens, Lady Onyxia is being revamped soon, so the guild decided to pay some last respects to the original wipefest.

It was a very sad occasion. Hilariously sad, almost degrading experience, I would have to say.

Because there were only 15 of us, lowest being my warrior (lv78) and the rest capped, Ulduar working veterans.

Onyxia was down before I even understood what was happening. People had to activate the whole swarms of the Whelps to get some action going, though all the AOE in the group was just overwhelmingly over powered against anything in there.

In a way, I can see why the content needs revamping. The veterans -players who have been around since first beta or launch- still remember these encounters with fondness, but to see them in this state, forgotten and weakened by added levels, just makes the memories taste stale.

The content should be experienced around the level range it was meant to be, or the group size should be controlled to make the challenge a real one (like our Auchindoun rampage). This way it would be in the correct scope for the experience and everyone could see/feel/smell the event firsthand.

Because of this, I don't want to pursue higher level visits to other Old World end game instances. Of course I will accompany in such a trip if the opportunity rises, but I'm not deliberately seeking for such.

The saddest part for me is the fact that I have lost the opportunity to experience these instances due to the fact I started the game so late. In fact, I've lost the opportunity to experience the Burning Crusade's end game, too, and with this speed I'm levelling and advancing, I will be too poorly geared and experienced to get into the current end game, too. I don't want to be a leech in a group, I want to contribute: without experience the latter is neigh impossible.

This may be one reason why I'm looking forward to the Cataclysm. Then the table is turned and everyone starts from the same spot.

Everything will be new to everyone.

Paradigm change for me, thank you!

I've been Tweeting about it and I was ecstatic about it in my earlier posts, but I haven't reported about the actual issue itself. Yes, how the Three Stooges have joined the ranks of a new guild. The three blind mice have found a new home, and if all goes well -and no one of us blunders spectacularly- we should be approved as 'members' to this fine bunch of casual raiders.

Anyone who has even the slightest inclination in looking places like WoW Armory or such will find out that we have been rolled into Highland Warriors , which is -after the recent Mimiron kill (HarGREAT!!!) in Ulduar 25- at rank 23 in the server wide progression list, and in Ulduar10 on the 12th spot.

And the first casual one, besting many of the hard core guilds over there.

As I have a lot to do with this, all I can say is that I'm in a group which has brought up the competitive part in me. Like my recent rant about not being prepared shows, it hit hard to realize that the people in this guild are professionals, and I'm just a noob. I feel like a guy in a tv show who went to fight with the masters -or their best pupils- of ten martial arts after 6 weeks of training said: I don't know what I'm doing here, these guys fight to kill...

Maybe I'll have enough to pull it through as casual and someday raid with this fine bunch.

I've been online to the extreme during this week, and I can see it's affecting my casual being. I'm stressing over the progress of my toons and I'm not really enjoying the ride: it's too darn slow!

But then again, if I'm giving up on the content, I will feel miserable: how did I get here? What happened in the earlier part of the storyline? And so on.

So far what I've seen in the guild has been about two grades better than I have thought it to be. Like I said, the people are professionals in their way: personalities, but all are clearly focused on doing their best. If Gevlon calls casuals as morons and slackers, he sure as hell hasn't seen these casuals! The activity is such that people are organizing lower level achievement 'raids' (to Old World content) while the raid locked teams are doing their runs. And all the while there are questions whether anyone is interested in coming to heroics... I'm dumbfounded after all the time in the quiet small guild living and being able to follow all chats at the same time. I need a paradigm change with this, definitely.

The sheer amount of people and toons has fooled me in the way that my social ape has gone bonkers and I have been slapped in private for greeting the toons as they come in. Only because I just cannot connect all the gadzillion alts with their respective mains, yet, and I've been greeting the ones I know I've been chatting with/to. Can't help it, or my hyperactive clicking on the Guild Greeter announcements... oops...

So I have to prune the Guild Greeter list and personalize the greetings a bit. Already I have introduced my signature greeting in logging in (Terve kaverit == Hello friends in Finnish) and upon logging out (Soommoro which equals approximately kkthnxbb and laters). And I think that will be all of the 'native' things I'll use.

What I've been doing? Laiskajaakko has been questing and like I have said earlier I hate Gjalerbron for its repetitiveness and grinding status: the storylines in there are nice, but the killing is not. Though I cannot say that killing Glaciron didn't boost my spirits... It was great, but too easy...

I got Pupunen to Outlands at level 58, and I think it wasn't a level too soon. So far she hasn't done any combat, but the current Discipline will have to do until I get her to Shattrath and can dual spec her to holy and shadow. I just want to see how the dual speccing works and how easy it is to jump from the evil killing machine to the holy healing machine.

Can anyone tell how you can click the action bars with Clique on? I can't click the skills as I have Clique on for some reason... And for healing I have come very dependent on clique...

Tonight... I will run with LFG on all the time and go where ever it may take.

Oh, gee!

Another leaf has been turned in my WoW endeavours: for the first time since I joined the browser based game community years yonder (and when that group entered WoW in US server) I have filled a proper application for a guild. In the US server guild it was much more generic, this one was... intriguing to put it mildly. It must be a very effective way to keep the guildhoppers, epic hunters and lazy slackers away from even applying, as it goes through your gaming history pretty neatly.

Then again it serves dual purpose: weeds out the raid applicants very neatly and in a nice way if there is competition for a raid position in the guild, and it gives the casual applicant (aka moi) the sense of importance and seriousness of the application. And of course, it gives out the business card of the guild.

I made this decision only after having a lengthy and nice chat with the guildmaster: it only proved what the website and the guild description had given me to understand. The decision was easy after that convo, thanks to that!

For the time being I won't go into details of the guild, but it's sufficient to say that the guild has long history on the server, it's mentality is that of "humble superiority" which I have grown to appreciate over the years in games and it caters both casuals and raiders: one growing to another, the other making way to another.

I'm pretty excited about this. Really.

It's like the saying: "When the pupil is ready, a mentor will show." In my case it's that as I'm ready to change my way, everything just snapped to place. First my rant about how it's impossible to get into anything 'meaningfull' in the game anymore, Azariel's deep and wise (as always) comment and my visit to the realm forum where this particular guild had just posted it's announcement for more players for their raid team. It was way too easy and way too straightforward. Just like my life in general.

There are only two issues left: to get the Three Stooges in together (as my brothers haven't done their applications as of yet) and the fact that I'm going to be away for a couple of weeks at the end of this month/beginning of the next due to our dogs competing in European Masters Lure-Coursing...

But still, I just noticed I've been given green light by the recruiting officer.

Oh, Gee!!

Big decisions

Had some duo fun with Bishopgeorge last night with my Laiskajaakko: Disc Priest and Prot Warrior, both lv70 (stuck at BC cap) taking on Skettis missions. downing all lv71 elites in a breeze, but getting our butt handed to us on a platter by select few lv72 elites. How sad is that.

What we gained for the hours of work? Reputation for the Netherray mount, but not quite enough to get it. Some gold (which I gain more from AH). Some odd gear to disenchant. No real updates. Only one blue during the whole time, which was a disappointment.

However, we made a council decision: we decided to close down The Order of the Fist. Meaning that the guild we started as fun experiment and gathering place for ourselves is now exactly that: gathering place for us brothers and select few who have been invited in there. Invitation only, and that's all. (Solaire, you and alts are safe with us... :P)

I kind of feel sad about it. But then again, to run a guild, casual social and blah-blah, is a real job for one person. The players come into guilds looking for someone else to arrange things for them and are not willing to do anything by themselves. The good ones move on, which is great, but the ones who remain... I hate to say this, but Gevlon the Greedy Goblin is correct: Morons and Slackers. They just rule the average WoW-playing Joe/Jane category completely.

This doesn't mean I'm quitting, though: in fact, I've gotten a new direction and inspiration in the game, so I may even start posting more often in here, too.

Dang. That sounds like a promise...

Positive week challenge!

I tweeted last week on Friday, that I challenge all, each and every tweeter and blogger following me to post and tweet only positive things this week. I'm going to do my best at that, because it is a challenge for me: I'm Mr. Negative in my thinking, seeing ghosts and goblins behind every corner. People at the office know me best by my daily quote: "Pessimist will not disappoint", so go figure.

Weekend was fa-bu-lous. I pruned the guild, dropping some 10 or so toons out of the roster: none of them had logged in within the last two months, and I hate the idea of MY guild being an alt garage. Now we're down in the member count, but at least these members are active, up-and-running and available at least occasionally. 

Based on the quick tweet-poll, a social guild cannot be active without an active GM. Social guilds need their town fool to run the show, arrange activities and keep the things running smoothly. Kind of taking the burden off of the shoulders of the players themselves.

I can live with that: I'm on slow fuel, so the guild can take that, too.

On the other hand, I levelled three toons during the weekend: priest, druid and warrior. Boy what a different experience each was to another! Now I understand that you can switch the build but not necessarily master all of them as well: I was so lost of the keybindings of my Warrior after the two casters at first. But soon enough I was killing things some levels above my level, so no real problems in there.

AH was a HUGE success: I bought Slime Stream Bands for 1500g (biggest purchase ever for me) and sold them within minutes for 2800g, making nice 1100g profit (excluding the AH fees and such). What was especially rewarding in this was the fact that I was being 'forced' to accept that the Bands were worth 'just' 2000g in direct trade. Now I'm having Avool's Sword of Jin to sell, which I bought for 1400g: it's easily worth 2500-3000g, now I just have to find the raider who is in dire need of enhancing DPS.  Considering the profit I made earlier, I'm very much on the safe side with this purchase and will be making some neat profit.

All the while, the smaller, bread and butter trades are going on. I've found that the Converter function in Auctioneer is a real money maker, and it's pretty incredible how much money you can make just by scanning the products sold below Vendor prices... my last count was a bit over 12 g in two days, so go figure!

All in all, I enjoyed my weekend in the games. What a change: I just took myself from the grind and enjoyed the minigame of AH.

What a strange and postive thing world is.

Individual community

There was an interesting editorial in the local newspaper today. And quite surprisingly I started thinking the editorial in terms of WoW guilds and social surroundings.

Because the editorial discussed the current trend of individual benefit over the benefit of the community. Mainly the editor was viewing this western phenomenon from the viewpoint of nationalism, governments and the individual in these contexts. Overall, the editorial was very well written and pointed out the problems arising from the instant gratification culture which emphasizes the individuality over the communality.

I hope I'm making sense, as the language barrier is bothering be at the moment.

The more people are taught that their personal happiness, gain and individuality matters more than the general good of the many, the more the societies split and splinter, causing even more hardships to the government because how do you satisfy the needs of several splintered groups having different needs and demands? The democratic power of the majority gets split into quarreling sub-groups and thus the democratic decision making gets jeopardized alltogether.

This goes extremely well into MMO's, WoW being excellent example of this.

As the personal benefit -soloability, loot- becomes the main motivator, even the easy content becomes hard in the end as the group effort needed for raiding becomes secondary to the personal gain: the 'strong' will survive, but the community suffers. The guild system in WoW doesn't encourage people to support the guild, the guild hopping is an excellent example of that. This guild cannot offer me anything more, so I'll move to the next one.

It's a question of what the guild can offer to me, rather than what can I give to the guild to make it succeed.

Instead, the guild system should encourage the people to do more for the guild and advance as guild. If we're thinking about the Middle-Ages, that was the reason for the guilds and orders in the first place: to advance their common good instead of the good of the one artisan or knight.

The splintered communality has shown it's ugly face twice in a couple of days: the Alabama shooting and the Germany's school shootings prove that the individuality can go too far for the human animal to cope with. 

The Vulcan saying is considered a joke nowadays, but I think it would be good to start valuing that. "The needs of the many outweight the needs of one." Well, maybe not in as strong context, but it would be high time for the Western civilization to realize the Zen-kind of thinking that even though everything starts from the individual, everything is connected and effects everyone.

Community is not a bogey to be shunned from. If we consider the games being one way of educating the young about the proper code of conduct, the developers are in a pretty influential position in this sense.

This is a very messed up post. I hope you get something out of it. At least it made sense to me.

EDIT: As it happens, Tobold wrote about the games and the learning from them. Same issue, different approach.

Social tool candy for a change, please!

I just read a couple of posts about player housing and guild housing. While these posts are more on the actual implementation of the housing system, I'd like to approach the housing -and the inadequate social tool- issue from another point of view.

As it has been stated earlier in my posts and comments, the social surroundings -or the community- of the servers is more or less a very shattered and incoherrent whole. The lacking social tools -both guild tools and lfg system- have resulted a situation in which the players are playing a solo game in social environment: much like the business world today. Everyone is trying their best to maximize their personal gain from the grind, so to speak.

The main aspect which I think is lacking is the communality: people are separated from each other, only looking for their own benefit. The guilds provide the smaller community to all who want to participate, but they imply their own rules. In PUG's the rules are even more ambiguous, resulting the PUG from Hell status to many of them. Guilds are considered stepping stones on the way to the much famed End Game, where the fight is over the few minutes of fame in the current top guild one is able to get access to.

People are not really asking the right question from their guild. Nor are they willing to answer the right question posed to them.

There is no achievement for being in a guild and making it to prosper. 

If we compare the fantasy RPG MMO to the actual 'fantasy', the difference becomes apparent: in fantasy the hero -or the antihero- groups to overcome the opposition. Guilds are ways to gain more power and esteem, as belonging to the right guild can be considered as a career move. Currently the guild tag doesn't mean a thing ingame. Belonging in a guild is more a habit than actual need.

You can PUG easier than get an impromptu guild run set up, even in a larger guild.

What could guild housing and/or player housing solve?

First of all, it would promote the feeling of belonging: I am part of this guild which has this guild house. My house is in this city, neighbouring these people.

Feeling of belonging is a powerfull motivator.

After applying this simple way of making the Guild meaningfull, the rest of the Guild status strenghtening stuff would be easy. Guild totem giving a buff to members according to levels, guild store for additional buffs only for this guild and so on. Something to make the Guild mean something to the player.

I loved EQ2 guild experience system. Guilds have levels to which all the experience the members gain contributes to. The first time you dinged the guild gave you an enormous boost, and the scarcer the dings get, the more meaningfull the mention in the guild log gets.

I contribute, I'm valuable.

Well, that's what the achievements do already, don't they?

How hard is it, Blizzard, to work on the social tools for a change?

Guild: growth pains

This is my whining post, so bear with me.

As I have stated, I started a guild with my brothers. The Order of the Fist.

First of all, the charter came up fast. Only one of the toons that signed it is still with the Order. Typical.

Secondly, the Guildlaunch site I used for the forum is blocked by my workplace's corporate filter, so I cannot access it daily. Which is a hindrance.

Thirdly, recruiting sucks. It's a full time job which means that everytime I login to scan the AH and do my business as usual, I'm spamming trade and general with ads, contacting guildless toons around the AH and doing my best to spread the word.

It doesn't work.

There are people who are looking for guild, constantly, but something in 'our way' is turning them off. Is the guild information too cold or harsh? There is something wrong in my approach, somewhere, as there are several guilds offering the same 'help and guidance' as we are...

There is another worry that I face. MOTD is stating that all members must register to the forum to gain promotion. The promotion would mean access to the guild bank, which is bursting with gear, trade skill resources and such. But no-one wants to do that. WTF? Then people just whine how they didn't know about this guild event or ask if there is anything planned when it all is in the forum. Too bad, I have had to cancel a couple of events because there haven't been anyone interested in them. Goodbye guild RFC runs, goodbye WC boosts. 

Not to be on the whining side, there are a couple of active guys -in addition to me- who have really amazed me. The other is a DK who came to the guild right at lv55. He's just the material we were looking for: helpfull, available and actively looking for ways to help others. In fact, he recruited our highest levelled member so far, lv78 DK the other day. Now that the holidays are coming, I'm promoting him to Officer, as he joined the forums before joining the Order!

It's the hickups and growing pains, I know. I've busted my AH for the second guild tab, and I got it with a couple of lucky deals. Now I'm well on the way to the third, so that the members would have two for themselves and one for the Officers and Council.

The Order of the Fist is here, alive and coming.

Grouping and dynamics

I'm obviously not the only one hating PUGs, players who don't know their class or players who don't understand the grouping and group dynamics in the game. This has come evident by both Pupunen, my priest, and Laiskajaakko, my warrior: both have been in the receiving end of the dungeon love by the group which has put the blame of the 'failure' on them, not noticing the real problems of the group.

The groups haven't been groups but a crowd of solo toons.

As a matter of fact, this reminds me of the posts in the Matticus' blog about breaking into raiding and how to find a raiding guild in that sense that in both of them (or their comments) its recommended that you solo up as fast as possible and start PUGging only at the level cap. I remembered this advice at the instances I grouped for lower level dungeons and found out how single minded the others in the PUGs were. They just couldn't work as a team or for the team, instead they played like they were soloing: making their own pulls, breaking the tank aggro, taking adds both by accident and by choice... and it became clear to me that the grouping should start earlier to learn at least to play the class in group.

Like Hudson and Tobold report, the selfishness is pretty concentrated on certain classes. Well, especially Hudson puts it nicely by labelling them as "Huntards" and "Retardins", which I agree completely.

Here are some advices to these classes... no, make it advice to all who are starting to group in WoW after levelling to some dungeon levels.

1) Like it says in the loading screen info: a little politeness goes a long way. You have to remember you are not soloing, but are working for the group to kill the boss of the dungeon. If you don't know the dungeon, admit it. If you start bragging about your level capped toons instead of taking into account the fact that you don't know this particular dungeon and you act like a douche bag, you are not a team player. And not invited easily again.

2) In dungeons and instances, it's always the group first, own toon second. It's like playing american football: you do everything in your power to ensure that the quarteback can deliver. It's the same in the dungeon. Which leads to

3) Know your role in the group. Tank IS tank, DPS is DPS and healer is -quite surprisingly- healing. DPS, even if he's the best geared of them all, is not taking the aggro from the tank and expect to be healed. Never.

4) Know who and what is the most important in your group. There is one simple rhyme to remember:

#1 If tank dies, the group dies. 

#2 If healer dies, the tank dies. 

#3 Return to #1.

5) If unsure of your position, take care of the healer. S/he'll thank you later.

6) Keep track of your aggro. Get Omen or some sort of threat meter. Now. And learn to use and read it. Really. Especially if you're playing Hunter.

I must have left so much out, but that covers mostly what got stuck in my mind during a few successful and disastrous lower level dungeon runs. The worst had it all, starting from a player with several lv70's and later admitting he didn't know ZF at all (his first visit, but he acted like he owned the place. Well, ZF pwnd him. And the group.).

I hope this helps. In fact, I think I copy this to our guild forum.

Hell yea, recycling!

By definition

Jason commented to my post "Incoming: plans for a guild" very interestingly. I hadn't thought about this before, but this entry made me wonder a certain thing:

I would define what you described your guild as a "Casual Raiding Guild". I know
you said you are not a raiding guild, but you also say that you will do all the way up to 40 man instances to experience the content and learn your classes. If your intent is to move at your own pace then "Casual Raiding Guild" fits pretty well.

What this popped to my mind is the question: what is a raid? By definition it is:

A raid is a type of mission in a video game, where the objective is to use a very large number of people, relative to a normal team size set by the game, to defeat a boss.

Which in turn means that each and every dungeon and many of the group quests would be considered a raid by this definition. A group with single objective to defeat a vastly superior opponent.

I think this definition taken from Wikipedia isn't up to date. When I think of a raid, it brings to my mind a group which is locked to the completion of a larger, more demanding whole. Usually this definition is used in WoW to describe the 'end game instances', or the hardest dungeons available in the game. Not the ones preceding them, because the 5 man instances are deemed to be 'levelling instances', thus making them 'not raid instances'. They are like pop and run spots, meant to be run once. Or twice. Or as many times as you can endure them.

As it happens, currently the Classic Old World 'raid instances' are deemed to be similar to the Northrend 5 mans: fast nostalgia runs by people at higher level. The same is happening to the Burning Crusade content, and before long -when our guild ever reaches Outlands- we will be toiling the content on our own.

I'm not going to change the definition of The Order of the Fist -or the Boxers, as we lovingly have given a nickname to ourselves- as a guild. We are PvE focused Casual Explorative guild without raiding priorities. And playing to have fun.

I'm content with that. Thanks for commenting and giving me something to think about, Jason!

I'm neglecting the blog

Yes. It's not intentional, though. Last week was a disaster as whole, starting from a trade fair in Moscow and getting my wallet stolen and ending in a heck of a headache caused from stiff and sore neck and back. Don't ask me why, but it happened again.

Anyhow, they opened a new realm in EU area, Chamber of Aspects. This caused me to transfer some of the extra toons to the new one, leaving only my main toons on both sides on Thunderhorn. Bye Coprah, Feyrex (my oldest son's toon) and Sarvijaakko (my youngest son's toon)! More to come as soon as I get the mailboxes emptied.

The Guild is picking up. It's amazing how much there are people -mature, adult (minded)- on the server, looking for guild. I have already proven my point that there is need for a guild which is more based on having fun while playing rather than aiming for progression. Let's call it a guild for old bores or something. A retirement home... crap, that would have been a good name!

"Retirement Home is recruiting! Join the ever growing ranks of old bores who don't give a *BLEEP* about raiding, progression or gear."

There you go, whoever wants to steal that one.

I'm having doubts about the guild forum site, though. It's very messy, complicated and not easy to handle. If anyone has any suggestions for a ready, free but expandable and working guild site service, all information will be readily accepted. I would like to have a forum, calendar, auto-updating roster and option for Vent. Thank you.

On playing. After I sent the forementioned toons to obli... other server, I launched my Horde mage. First time in ages, only to learn that I cannot play mage anymore. Even though she's frost, she is squishy. And I don't remember the spells anymore. Just to make the disaster even worse, I grouped with a druid and a warrior, whose definition of fun in chat was to spell 'penis' in all different variations and with /lol or /laugh emotes. This clearly shows the fact that the factions aren't any different, but because of the fact that Ally overnumbers Horde, the Alliance seems to have more immature populace. Heck, all my kids wanted to make Horde toons, but then again, I know they know how to behave.

Ran with Laiskajaakko the most of Sunday. Well, couple of hours anyhow, as the headache made everything a collection of pain and misery. Had fun chats with new guildies who were actually old friends (thanks for popping by, Azariel) and completed some quests just for the reputation. Like I have been saying, I'm progressing very, very slowly, so I'm looking forward dinging on the next guild run planned on thursday. Be that Ulda or ST, I don't care. I've quests for both.

I'm also having second thoughts about powering the transferred priest to the cap. Why? Some part of my being is craving for challenge, something not even the (mis)management of the Guild hasn't been able to answer. Something Matticus -who just emailed me his answer to the post which resulted Sydera to write a whole post in Matticus' blog- rubbed on my face. He stated that because the Old World and Outlands (!) instances have been nerfed, the real challenge of the raiding lies within Northrend. What is really the real challenge?

At this point of life it's finding time to play in the first place, let alone plan according to the raid schedule made by others.

Now that is a challenge.

Holy BG!

I admit, I have done against my better knowledge and against what I have ranted. I have found out that BG's can be pretty nice pass time. With a disc/holy priest, of all toons!

Two nights this week I have logged in to my priest, Pupunen, whom I plan to be holy specced till the end. Healer to the max. She's also my AH wizard, being the former mule, so to speak. (Which reminds me, I don't have one anymore...)

I have liked the healing earlier, and as a Shadow priest, she was a blast to level, too. Then came the 3.0.x and I decided to switch her to more healing.

Boy what a surprise: the levelling is just slightly slower, but the ability to take a level or two higher mobs down has remained! I think the mana efficiency is even better than with pure shadow spec at this point.

With the shadow specced Pupunen I was the super-squishy in the BG's, and that was the reason I decided to stay out of there. Granted, 10-19 bracket is not the easiest for a priest anyhow, and the hunters rule the 20-29 bracket in WSG anyhow. You can imagine my immense surprise when I entered 30-39 bracket with Pupunen, lv30, disc/holy, and found myself

a) in the game where Alliance won
b) Pupunen scored kills (!) with Holy Fire
c) Pupunen, being the lowest levelled Alliance, was actually in the middle of the roster!

Healing pays, it seems. Loads of HK's, loads of cheers and even a couple of remarks on the heals at difficult spots from warriors and pallies.

I think I liked it. /scared

That was the first evening. The game took about 30-40 minutes to complete and it was won by a slight margin (3-2), so it was tight and to my surprise both sides tried to win the game by capturing the flag!?

The next games yesterday were similar bliss: first AB, which was not so tight this time, but as rewarding as the earlier. I got a couple of disbelieving whispers about my toons level ("You might want to level first" was one...), but still scored to the middle of the roster. Then the WSG, which was a bliss even though we lost. That was pretty easy running for Horde, really, as they were this time pretty much overlevelling Alliance, our highest being 37, their... team was 39.

Just read Hudson's report on levelling a plate in Outlands today, and I'm thinking if I should respec my Tauren druid and make him resto... that would help to level in the instances and raids. What can I say, I like healing more than sneaking. Then again, I'm trying to launch my guild tonight, so that will eat my time pretty surely for the time being. It's not easy to have so much to do... on both sides of the Horde/Alliance faction split!

Anyhow, wish me luck. I'll keep posting about the proceedings.

Incoming: plans for a Guild

Ok.

I've had enough with the 'progression guilds' and 'alt garages'. I've read Sydera's excellent guild forming guide in the World of Matticus (thanks Sydera for this continuing series!), and I have made up my mind. Even though the guide is mainly focusing on raiding guild and it's requirements, I have seen that most of this applies to any kind of guild or internet community with common goal.

And I'm not flying high and fast not to understand that as a real person with real life I could cope with everything by myself.

The following is my view on things, which I will refine as soon as I get some input from my brothers about it. Naturally, they will be the rest of the Guild Council, making it in the beginning easy to handle things on the fly. I'm focusing on having this guild around so, that I'm not needed to run it anymore. Really, that should be attainable!

Please comment.

Charter

Basics
The Order will focus on PvE, especially unlocking
the content that is widely neglected by the players who have been in the game
for longer. The aim is to provide a platform for players to proceed from
instance to instance at around the right level range and provide support to
achieve this. The Order is not an alt garage: we accept only one –two in special
cases like the council- character per player, which should be the main of that
player. We also are actively looking for people who are newcomers to the game to
help them advance and understand the game better.

PvE
The Order
is PvE based, though nothing prevents it’s members taking into the
Battlegrounds. In fact, PvP is encouraged especially as a group effort, because
there are nice rewards and achievements available in the PvP. But the main
emphasis of the arranged activities of the Guild is in PvE and especially in the
Dungeons and Instances. The Order will not boost players through instances
unless necessary due low attendance, but even then the toons in appropriate
level are more likely to be made to play to get through rather than guided
through by higher level toon killing everything. This doesn’t teach anything,
only shows the scenery.

Casual
We all have real lives. Real life
comes first, Guild second and the game is in the third place. Even though we
might not be able to play the game regularly, everyone is required to follow the
information in the Forums, and make it their habit to follow the forums and post
in there. It might be impossible to inform the Council or the officers about
issues in game, but the forum will be available to all, all around the clock.

The Order doesn’t require the members to have certain gear at
certain point. However, it would be wise to invest time to gathering information
about the best possible gear and consumables for the instance which one is
attending to: this is merely courtesy towards the others, because no-one wants
to have a wipe.

How ever, because we are all newcomers and playing
casually, there will be wipes. Be prepared to die, and to die a lot. The main
thing is to have fun, no matter what!

All Content for All
The
main focus of the Order is to unlock and open all content to all players in the
Order. This requires from the members certain devotion to know their character
class to be able to tackle the unexpected situations certain instance bosses
pose. No-one is required, however, to be able to raid and play any more than
their real life and will permits.

Due to the common courtesy that
one should make every precaution not to result a wipe by not preparing for an
encounter, it would be advisable for everyone to try to find information about
the class they are playing and about the instance and boss they are going to
face.

Learning and teaching
The Order isn’t a progress guild in
the sense that we will not boost and help people to get to the level cap as fast
as possible. Instead, we try to learn the game and teach each other the things
we learn. In a sense I would like to think the Order as a boot camp for
newcomers: we teach the basics to everyone, so they can continue to a raiding
guild if they want to.

Everyone is welcome to ask questions and
comment on others, but mature mind frame is expected: there shouldn’t be any
flaming, calling names or degrading others in the game nor in the
forums.

Maturity
Maturity isn’t dependant on age: it’s a state
of mind which some reach earlier than others, and then there are some who will
never be mature. This means that members of the Order should refrain from using
excessive foul language in the chat and in the forum. Be civilised and treat
others as you expect to be treated by others. Fair
enough.

Raiding
The Order isn’t a raiding guild. Sure, we have
to form raids teams to tackle the larger instances (10, 20, 25 and 40 men
instances), but our main interest is not in beating the bosses but learning to
play the class in a team of people. This will prepare us all for the real
raiding game at the level cap, level 80. Our aim is to be able to visit all
instances at around the appropriate level in the range of the
instance.

Loot is given by loot council if need be. In lower
dungeons the need-greed-looting is the norm, but if you need, you should make
sure that you use it right away: no transfers of gear to your alt.

This charter is subject to change whenever the founders, Guild
Council or the officers assembly see that there is something to be changed. The
founders have the final say.

Matured out MMO

I'm not sure if the title describes the content best, but that's what comes to my mind on my yesterday evening's roamings in WoW.

I finally got around and joined a 'newbie guild'. So far I have been avoiding guilds like a plague, because I know I commit to them till the end. In Horde side I have been in three guilds so far: first one was temporary till the second one was formed. Second one died out. Third one is on another server and is still keeping me as a member even though it's been over seven months since I have actually played my horde characters.

Horde guilds have been mature. Both in real member age and in the mentality. Set for a job.

Now on the Alliance side I have been in one earlier. It was closed down as the GM moved to another server. Well, boo-hoo, there was no activity in the guild anyhow. So I was more than cautious when I was presented with the current Guild. Newcomer oriented; low level entries preferred; guidance, instances and boosts scheduled; and so on.

After first hours I was sold.

The GM really is practicing what he's preaching. The members are -especially the higher level ones- helping each other out. And the instance runs, both boosts and normal, are really scheduled, but that's not excluding the spontaneous ones. Which means that with over 80 characters in the guild already, there is no real need for PUG's as there is always some people around to run instances with.

Of course the level range is more difficult to accomodate.

But. There is always the 'but'. In this case it's the enormous drive of the newcomers to push through the content to the 'end game'. I ended up helping a lv12 to complete a quest which has the level recommendation of 18. Well, I got a quest for reputation done while at it, but it made me feel bad. Another newcomer to the game insisted, really, that I should give him money so he could repair his gear and continue playing. And later insisted that I should help him to do the same quest as the other one.

No manners.

This only shows to me that the publicity of the end game content being the game has paid out. People coming to the game for the first time are rushing through the content to see what the fuzz is about, not understanding that the fuzz was originally about the content they are neglecting!

I'm afraid that WotLK will be a sad occasion for WoW as we know it, both game and lore wise.

Then again, I had some real fun in the game yesterday, roaming around Loch Modan and Wetlands with my lv40 warrior. I know, I know, not much of a challenge, but I really got into the role of explorer and mentor. I helped at least three or four players to achieve their goals while just being around, I chatted at /guild about levelling and helping people and over all, I was enjoying the helping part more than the playing itself. Which consisted mainly killing dozens of Ogres at the north-eastern corner of Loch Modan area. I'm missing that one crushed crystal from the ogres to complete that 'last mission' in Loch Modan...

I'm camping over by the caves, so I'm ready right away I login.

Ram mount, here I come!