Self-awareness is a Beautiful Thing

Dear Guildies.

Heroic is about to go through some very interesting changes when it comes to competition for raid spots. Frankly, I’m thrilled and can’t wait. Because I care and want the best for my guild I thought I would take a few minutes to enlighten you on some of the things that go through my mind when making raid spot decisions. These decisions, when made properly, lessen the likelihood that the Raid Bitch will come out to play.

In addition to checking for the Stupid Debuff there are many factors in deciding who is a core raider, who is an acceptable raider, and who is (or should be) on their way to a happy new home elsewhere. Obviously I can say performance and attendance are the two biggest things to help me make that decision but I do factor in all sorts of things you may not think I notice when it comes to what comes out of your mouth.

For the raider the completely lacking in self-awareness here are a few things to think about whether you are in my guild or moving on to another guild:


When raid invites go out do you:

A. Accept the invite, park yourself at the instance, grab a drink or whatever you need to do, and wait for the direction to zone in?

B. Tell the raid leader you need a few more minutes to finish your fishing daily but you are ready to go as soon as that’s done?

C. Tell the raid leader you’re going to squeeze in a quick OS3D but you’ll let them know when you’re ready? *



When raid invites go out are you:

A. Online, on your main, de-grouped, ready to accept?

B. Late?

C. On an alt in another guild’s raid? **



When placed on stand-by on a regular raid night do you:

A. Gracefully zone out and either stay in raid or in vent and keep yourself occupied ready to come in when needed?

B. Whisper the raid leader repeatedly listing all the gear you need off the next several bosses (or the entire instance including hard modes both 10 and 25 in some cases) and complaining that it’s not fair because you didn’t get the trinket last week?

C. Have a hissy fit, tell the raid leader you’ll see them next Tuesday, and log off?

D. /Gquit?



When you are placed on stand-by for a progression fight do you:

A. Honestly assess your current gear/performance/attendance, look at the raid composition, comprehend that there are only 25 spots in a 25 man raid and realize that the raid leader is doing what she feels is best and there is probably a very good reason for that fact that you are sitting?

B. Whine about how you needed the badges and possible upgrades without quite grasping the fact that because you need those things you really shouldn’t be in this particular fight since there are raiders on that are better prepared for the content?

C. /Gquit and bash the guild in trade chat?



When talking about your current spec do you:

A. Fully explain why you are talented, gemmed, etc. the way you are and back it up with facts and numbers?

B. Explain that you copied it from a player who out DPSed you in VOA?

C. Say that your friend put in your talent points for you and “they are totally good at playing this class”? ***



When you screw up and wipe the raid do you:

A. Look at combat logs and know what happened, own up to errors you made, and apologize?

B. Blame lag?

C. Blame the healers?

D. Blame the tanks?

E. Blame the hunter?

F. DC and fake a power outage?



When you screw up repeatedly on the same exact freaking thing to the point where we name the error after you for all future raids in which anyone does the same stupid thing do you:

A. Understand why you are on stand-by and work to improve your performance?

B. Blame lag?

C. Send the GM many pages of in-game mail complaining about how you are being unfairly picked on?

D. /Gquit and bash the guild in trade chat?



When you are placed in a raid with another raider of comparable gear, the same talents, and very similar experience and you are out healed, tanked, or DPSed by them do you:

A. Hit the websites for theory crafting and tips to see if there’s something you missed and ask the other raider what their secret is and pick up a few things to try?

B. Talk to your class leader and ask for advice?

C. Blame your gear anyways?

D. Blame lag?

E. This never happens to you because you don’t run a damage meter because you don’t think meters are important since it’s just a game and you play it to have fun and you can’t understand why we are having trouble on the boss and keep hitting the enrage timer and the only reason you showed up tonight was because you want the trinket that drops and since you are such a fantastic human being and raider you’re certain it will be given to you even though you only show up on Tuesdays. ****



When the GM tells you that you need to stop talking because you are making an ass out of yourself by demonstrating you do not know your own class, another class, a fight, your audience for perverted sexual comments, or by digging the hole that your mouth got you into deeper and deeper and you can tell by the tone of her voice that you had best chill out for a while do you:

A. Stop talking?

B. Start explaining why you were saying what you were saying thereby digging that hole of shame deeper?

C. Argue and insist that you are right even though you have no clue why…you are just convinced you are indeed right?

D. Whisper the GM for the next two hours explaining in great detail how it was not your fault that you upset someone/were wrong/didn’t understand what “stop talking” really meant?

E. /Gquit and bash the guild in trade chat?


The answers to these and many more questions go through my head as I assemble raids. Now you know and can prepare accordingly and save us all much grief.



Sincerely,

Your Positively Giddy with Anticipation GM, Lark




* Seriously? And then you complain you don’t get in a full raid? Seriously?!?!

** Yeah…that one got some strong encouragement to move his main to the alt’s guild…in the form of a /gkick.

***I’d really like to meet this friend. I’m sure we could have a very entertaining conversation. Very.

****Yes, yes you are a special snowflake in so many ways. Good luck next week when there’s competition for that raid spot you sort of filled.

Science Class

Gotta love Tuesdays!

I’m all caught up on blog reading - found some new ones today too. Spent some time at Wow.com watching videos and perusing other class changes coming (tomorrow is pally day!).

I also dissected the guild today. Go ahead, picture that frog splayed out on the table looking at you with his beady eyes, the feeling was very similar. Ugh.

Out of 45 active mains in the guild 20 of them landed on this list:

• We know you will be gone because you were kind enough to let us know your work/life schedule changed and we’ll welcome you with open arms when you return

• You’ve always been flaky about attendance and you just moved to the side of the roster where we’ll let you raid if no one else wants to

• You’re new…shouldn’t you be making a better impression?

• You’re emo

• You’re name looks familiar and I’m pretty sure you used to be here every day…alien abduction?

• I’d like to /gkick you but you’re friends with the Princess

This leaves us with the following raiders - and includes 5 new recruits that I’m desperately hoping live up to at least some of the expectations - to form the bulk of our M-Th raiding team:

• 2 Tanks - Me and one who is completely untried with us (cue the scary horror movie music here)

• 15 DPS - 2 of which have solid tanking off specs and 2 of which have solid healing off specs

• 8 Healers - 4 of which have strong DPS off specs

Now remember, today is Tuesday, so I fully expect to see somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 people on for the weekly loot piñatas. So here’s the GM/RL dilemma:

Do I….

• Make sure to save absolutely everyone to ensure the reset raiders can’t pug later in the week? /cackles maniacally

• Only bring the new “core” to give them the best shot at upgrades? (Particularly since we are relying fairly heavily on duel speccing?)

• Ask for volunteers to sit like we usually do? (This is boring for the people who sit and I know they do it to be nice but I really hate it for them.)

• Pretend I’m suddenly deaf, mute and illiterate and ignore all whispers and set up the Dream Team?

What would you do?

Raider Black Hole

I’ve been a bit lax in posting lately because the only thing on my mind has been attendance. And you know what that means don’t you? Yes, indeed, another bitching post!

So here it is! The most annoying attendance issues I can think of:

New recruits that swear up and down that they will be here every raid night without fail. No matter what. Every night. And then they don’t show up for the first week…I have no idea where they are. They are about to be guildless though.

New recruits that show up and don’t get a piece of loot they want - despite the fact that they haven’t been here long enough to earn it and know about the trial period of no shiny pixels - and won’t raid for days. They are also about to be guildless.

Raiders who disappear with no word for days/weeks on end. Unless you are in a coma or in jail you can at least log on and shoot me an in-game mail or get on our website and send an email.

People that actually go to the trouble of signing up on the calendar…and then they don’t show up.

People who won’t accept or decline the calendar invite but instead choose “tentative” for every raid night. How is it you are only tentatively going to be here? You said you could raid those nights...help me understand.

Raiders who use any one (or more) of the following excuses more than once every two months:

I fell asleep
I was too drunk
Wife/GF/BF/Husband aggro
I was bleeding on my keyboard
I lost my authenticator
I was grounded
I didn’t feel like raiding
The power went out (and yet strangely you updated Facebook at that time…)

Emo excuses of any kind, don't care, over it, pop a Xanax and get on your damn toon.

There’s more I’m sure…heard any good/bad ones lately?