Stupid Awards of the Week

The Gkick Me Please Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The idiot hunter who, despite knowing he was skating on thin ice due to having recently broken guild rules and insulted many guild members, decided it would be a great idea to make an ass of himself in Trade Chat. Once I had plowed through the whispers, chat logs, and in-game mail from the various people he pissed off I felt it was best to part ways. /Gkick


The Old Noob of the Sea Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The mage who kept complaining in gchat the fishing daily was taking way too long. Reason behind this: he was trying to complete Disarmed in the Frozen Sea. You know, where it was months ago. Patch notes FTW. Same mage complained later the same week about the fishing daily taking way too long…because he was in a raid group. Bless his heart.


The Oops Award of the Week goes to…

/drumroll

The various morons in my guild who clearly don’t think that if they plot, plan or speak against me I won’t find out. Seriously, people, eventually the GM hears everything whether you like it or not. Think before you speak, nooblets.

Rant Day

Have I mentioned lately how much I loathe the Stupid Debuff? No, really? Well let me be clear….I REALLY, REALLY FUCKING HATE IT!

How is it that otherwise sensible raiders can die to frost bombs? There’s an ice tomb to stand behind for a reason! And dragons, heaven help me, how does one forget after months in ICC and dragons in almost every raid, that they cleave! And have bad breath! And, oh yeah, the tails will knock you into next week!

Why, oh why, people do you stand in green slime on Putricide? We have clearly established that it does not give you a lovely buff.

I say at the beginning of every Blood Queen fight, “If you can’t find your bite target for whatever asinine reason then bite ANYONE but DO NOT get mind controlled!” So, help me understand the mind controls?

Oh, right, healers, bosses on ICC Heroic mode….they hit the tanks harder! And my darling off-tank…pop your freaking cool downs more! Don’t wait for the emergency that may come your way, I’ve got news for you, it’s an emergency NOW!

Lastly, let’s just take the word “lag” out of our vocabularies, please. If you fuck up then just be a man about it, admit it, and move on. If I hear lag used as an excuse one more time I may hurt someone. Even if it is lag tell me something else. I don’t care to hear it anymore.

Why We Wipe

Bittersweet Change

You may have noticed references to the Princess in various posts and a few people made comments on the post last month about a guildie crossing lines. He was supposed to be my partner in the guild. I won’t be having those exact issues anymore. Princess left the guild and the server.

After many, many conversations and arguments in which I can honestly say I tried my hardest to make things work out it boiled down to too much history he was unwilling or unable to let go of and move forward from. Both of us have been way too defensive with each other for a long time and that opens the doors for miscommunication. The differences were I was willing to let go of the past and he wasn’t and I tried to keep our differences from having a negative impact on the raids and the gulid and he didn’t. One of the guildies summed it up well when she said, “If Princess wasn’t happy no one was.”

I’m truly sad in many ways to see him go. We were friends for a long time before we ever started playing together in Heroic. I can still remember teaching him the Malygos fight back when that was still the big thing. However, this has been a long time coming and, in the long run, I really think it’s for the best.

So far the guild doesn’t seem too shaken up. I’ve sent them mail to make sure they know that I’m here and nothing changes. The officers have met to figure out what to do with the few pieces he handled and to replace his class/spec. Just your standard damage control. Most of the comments I’ve heard have been along the lines of him being moody, grumpy and not himself for quite a while. I’m sure they won’t miss the delays in raid so he could have temper tantrums either.

I think the biggest mistake I made with this whole situation was attempting to have a co-GM. I know some guilds make it work but the way the game is set up structurally there really isn’t a way to truly make someone else of an equal rank. There will always be one person with the final controls. When new people come into the guild and need to know who is who they will sort by rank. It didn’t help that I’m MT and raid leader most times too. I think he wanted more respect based on rank but never really carved out a defined area in which to demonstrate his expertise and earn the type of respect he wanted from the raiders. When it comes to guild management I’m an admitted control freak so I have to see what someone can do before I will let them loose to do it.

So, I’m a little sad, a little angry he left the way he did, and whole lot relieved that the tension and misery are over.

Stupid Awards of the Week

The I’m Not a Blonde But I Play One on TV Award goes to…

/drumroll

Our drunk hunter who repeatedly buffed her pet with Intell Scrolls while complaining in vent that she wasn’t getting the Intell Buff. Said hunter logged on the next day and complained she couldn’t figure out where all her scrolls went. Some people should probably not drink and raid. Ever.


The Yeah, I Should Probably Just Server Transfer Award goes to…

/drumroll

The priest who applied to one of the few guilds more progressed than we are on the server and bashed our guild on the application. We have a good relationship with that guild. We read their website. We talk whenever anyone we know applies to either guild. We are not stupid. The priest clearly is. Apply elsewhere if you must but don’t bash the guild you’re in. /Gkick.


The You All Can’t Stealth Award goes to…

/drumroll


Each and every one of the idiots who are absolutely positive they can dodge the evil Val’kyr patrolling the Upper Spire and proceed to pull the damn things, cause a loooooong drawn out wipe because we’re spread all over the instance, and then proceed to try again to run straight through the next time.



The They All Looked the Same to Me Award goes to…

/drumroll

The druid who, when told on Blood Queen to bite one of the trees, got mind controlled because he repeatedly tried to bite the treants. Really. I can’t make this shit up.

It's About Damn Time Arthas Died

Oh my god I'm so glad it's over for this week. Bring on hard modes! Long overdue death. And the bastard didn't even drop my tanky weapon.

Cataclysm Raiding (Or How Blizzard Royally Screwed the 25 Man Raid)

I’m one of the folks who take a look at patch notes, expansions, class changes and the rest of the panic inducing things Blizzard likes to throw out there to send the masses into a frothing frenzy and simply shrug. Meh, change happens, we’ll make it work. I don’t panic and if Blizz decides they want paladins to tank with tap shoes on while holding a barbeque fork and garbage can lid in Cataclysm then, by golly, somehow it will all work out. I can’t imagine changing my main to another class so I’ll adapt.

Pretty zen, right?

That was all before I found out that Blizzard is fucking with the one thing in this game that has made me log in damn near every day for a couple of years now: Raiding. Specifically 25 man raids. Yeah, yeah…I’ve read the blue posts, hell I read every page of the 330 page forum thread http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24401856405&sid=1 as it was developing, I understand the theory that sure you can still run 25 man raids but holy hell could Blizz be making it any harder to maintain that kind of raid group?

In any 25 man group there are people that:
A. Love the larger scale of the event

B. People that are there because the loot has always been better

C. People who would prefer to run 10s solely but all their friends are in 25s

If you take away the better loot the team will lose group B. If raiders have to make a choice between 10 or 25 in any given lockout you’re going to lose group C. This leaves group A sadly running 10s because there simply will not be the staff to do more.

If they want to cater to the strict 10 man guilds, the casuals, and the whiners who want easy-mode all the time they could go back to TBC style raids where a raid is either a 10 or a 25 not both. Gear is already way too easy to come by as a fresh 80 and is seldom an indication of skill anymore. I don’t want to see the game lose the last thing that offers a challenge to those of us want to work harder. Blue posts can say all they want that they will make the 10 and 25 raids of equal difficulty but it just isn’t that simple. It will never be as hard to manage a 10 man guild and raid team as it is to manage a 25. Once they post something like this chances are it is going live. I can hold out some small hope they might listen to the community but odds are definitely against it.

In the mean time while we wait to be sure I’ll keep doing what I’m doing for the guild now and mentally making a list of the raiders I do and don’t want in my 10 man guild in case I don’t quit the game altogether.