3 Weeks After Release

And how is it all going?

Elsen is looking mightily fine. I finally mogged her back to normal, after the serious drama of “oh my god, I’ve lose my gloves, I’ve lost my gloves” only to remember that ACTUALLY I’d been using off-set gloves to complete my mogging set. I have switched her weapon round though, and might fiddle with a few different staff mogging options. Gear wise, I finally started getting lucky in heroics and managed to boost my iLevel up to 463 ish. I also entered LFR for the first time and got a cloak from the first boss, before the group dissolved on boss number 2. Nice epic though.

I got the chance to dip my toe back in to Pet Battles again yesterday and once again am hooked. I grew a Terrible Turnip on my farm and powered him up a little. I definitely want him in my team, and my Darkmoon Cub (Thomas O Malley) but my 3rd spot just isn’t one I can settle on. I’ve stuck with my Gundrak Hatchling but I’m not feeling the love. I’m hoping that I’ll pick something up soon I can use instead – or I’ll just have to man up and power level something else. I should probably select a mechanical – I am tempted by either Squeaks McGee (my mechanical squirrel) or Speedwell (my De-weaponized Mechanical companion – metal rabbit). It’ll probably be Speedwell as he comes equipped with rare quality as well.

Farming is great. I’m slowly building up enough vegetables to max out all 6 ways at once, and will have completed another goal of maxing out a profession without spending a penny. So far I’ve now done that with First Aid, Alchemy, Engineering, Mining and Inscription. 7 of my alts have farms and are cranking out 20 veggies each every day – not a huge amount, but it doesn’t NEED to be a huge amount. The next thing I need to spend any real time on is fishing, to get the fish I need to max out all these banquets too, and then it’ll finally be the meat. Meat is the issue for me – I don’t like grinding animals out because I’m a) not very good at it and b) lazy. Mostly b).

Dailies aren’t bothering me all that much. They take a fair amount of time, but I get to do them alongside my boyfriend or my friends, and we have a good time. They get done – Golden Lotus, Tillers, Anglers, Cloud Serpent and then Klaxxi, most days. If I don’t get them done, I don’t get them done. Not the end of the world. I have been avoiding, however, the fishing dailies where you have to actually FISH – the drop rates are too low and there’s no maddening rush to reach the cap with that particular faction.

I’d got to nearly 90k gold and was comfortably on 89k, then I started enchanting and reforging and gemming. 900g for an uncut primal gem and the same again for leg spellthread. Although money wise I am still WAY up on what I started the expansion with (about 75k), it disappoints me I couldn’t be self sufficient in this scenario. What it has isolated for me is that I need to work on a couple of things – mining ore to prospect for gems in order to level my jewelcrafter, and levelling my priest high enough to get 10 motes of harmony, to make a spirit, to get myself to 600 in Tailoring. It shouldn’t really take THAT much grinding to get myself 10 motes. She says.

Drama is everywhere. People are always whinging about something. We had someone rage quit the guild last week because his question about the Justice Point vendor wasn’t answered quickly enough or taken seriously enough. Now, there’s a few issues I take with this.

1) We aren’t WoWhead.

2) It’s the beginning of an expansion – people are busy. When the conversation was happening, I personally was in the middle of an instance working on an achievement with 3 guildies and a PuG. There were 44 people online altogether, and I think maybe only 1 or 2 were idling in Stormwind, and they were AFK. People are busy – dailies, farming, grinding, reputation, instances, scenarios, battlegrounds, arena, questing. People don’t have time to stop and answer everyone’s questions, all of the time.

3) People have an expectation about leaving the game and returning that isn’t always valid. This particular person had left the game, come back, left again 4 months later, come back for a fortnight, left again, and then come back on Mists release. When they had stuck around for a “long” time, they were very vocal, noisy, chatty and ‘popular’ in that people tended to say hello, or respond to their comments in /g. However Jane Doe is a big guild, and we are a social guild. We accept new members, and whilst this person had been away, we’d had several new people join who had settled in and were enjoying everything the guild had to offer, including the excellent atmosphere in guild chat. I feel our rage quitter may have had his nose put out of joint when he appeared and wasn’t ‘responded’ to as he was previously. He didn’t like the fact he wasn’t a big fish in a small pond anymore.

However, friends are everywhere too. On Thursday, I had a really, really shit day at work. I came home, did my 7 farms and then decided I was going to farm Coren for the Pickled Egg, because I had had fucking *diabolical* luck with gear drops until this point. So, I farmed. 10 runs in, the pickled egg dropped. The druid tank, who hadn’t tanked the thing at all, there were adds everywhere and mobs everywhere and it was an absolute clusterfuck, needed on the egg and won it. I raged. I really, really raged. I was just absolutely livid. So I took a screenshot, made an alt on his realm, spoke to every. single. one of the members of his guild that were online until I finally got an officer. Showed the officer the screenshot and he was removed from the guild. Dealt with. I log back over to Elsen, carry on farming, after another 5 or so runs the egg drops again. A shadow priest needs it. And wins it. That was it. I was on voice chat with Lewis and Adam at this point, and I just cracked. Couldn’t deal with it. And then that’s when your friends come through for you. Adam, whose internet was bollocksed that night, kept Mumble on through his phone on 3G, got himself online with something ridiculous like 1.5k latency, Lewis came and backed me up through all of my dailies and then our tanking friend John turned up too, and we ran a load of heroics. Between us the four of us turned my miserable mood in to a good one. We stuck together and supported each other (nobody had had a great day at all to be honest) but together, we gelled, and we made it work, and we made each other happier. Damn good friendship.

It’s Adam’s birthday in a fortnight. I can’t wait. I’ve got him a few awesome gifts, although I am holding out waiting on some American delivery, really hoping some stuff comes through in time. A bit nervous it won’t but…well, I’ll have to wait and see! The majority of things should be here in time and if not, I’ll have to sort something out about making the extras Christmas presents instead! My birthday is also coming up, slowly slowly. 6 weeks or so away. I’m supposed to be spending my actual birthday night with a couple of friends having dinner. The week after that, however, I’m planning on having a little bit of a shindig. The three aforementioned lovely chaps are joining me on Friday night, and then on the Saturday the awesome Demeternoth and her partner, the awesome Brunty and a couple of other friends are supposed to be coming to mine for a Saturday evening of food and drink and video games and just general sort of “enjoyment”. I’m also planning on forking out some cash on some fireworks and setting them off and just generally having a nice time. I’m really looking forward to it, which is unusual for me. My birthdays in the past have normally been spent avoiding all celebrations of social interactions whatsoever in order to try and ignore the fact that I am essentially a bit of a social outcast, so I’m dipping my toes into scary water, actually trying to organise something with actual people.

So. Plans for the next three weeks. Spend as much time as I can with Adam, as per usual. Carry on losing weight – lost 5lbs (36lbs overall now) over the past 2 weeks so if that carries on, I might reach my 3rd stone before my birthday, which would be great. Get my tailoring to max level, get Elsen further raid ready, carry on with my dailies, max my fishing out and maybe ding at least one alt to 86. Get my 3 pet battle team all up to level 15. Raid for the first time! (25th). Run my first old content raid – the 21st. And most importantly – try and stay happy.

 

October 15, 2012Permalink 1 Comment

Alts & Farms: An Update!

So, after the lovely comments on my blog and some hunting around on Twitter, last night I discovered the following:

- If you throw yourself off the side of the Skyfire and die, the ghost lady is on the Skyfire.

- Priests need something to stop them from dying after jumping from a great height. Oh yes, Levitate, I forgot about that

- You do not need to have cooking 525 to open up four plots on your farm

- The Skyfire is phased, Admiral Rodgers is not. She’s just in the air, floating.

- Getting your freshly dinged 90 best mate to ship you from the Skyfire to Halfhill is much quicker than walking/running/riding on foot.

- I now have 5 alts parked with their own farms, 2 priests, a paladin, a death knight and a hunter. They have all been allocated a vegetable each and will simply farm that one vegetable over and over.

- Tonight I’ll move my mage and my warlock, the two remaining alts.

- I’ll set my hearthstone to these places and then get a summon back to Stormwind (Stockades stone ftw) when it’s needed.

- I should have remembered to train my hunters professions before she left Stormwind, so I could actually DO some herbing and jewelcrafting whilst I’m there.

- I should have stocked up on old inks on my death knight so I could have carried on with my research whilst I was there too.

On the upside, I have a serious amount of vegetable production going on. Obviously these alts will move about and shift around as they get levelled, but hopefully this will give me a decent amount of time to actually farm up some veggies so I don’t have to worry about my buff food too much.

The plan for Mists of Pandaria self sufficiency continues!

October 5, 2012Permalink 1 Comment

My Mists Progress

I launched myself in to Mists of Pandaria at the worst possible time. I work at a university, so the middle-end of September is the start of the new year. One of my colleagues is leaving, so I’m trying to get to grips with his workload. My university degree started on the 19th of September too. However, fully excited buzzed about the whole caboodle I threw myself into levelling in a totally different way to last year. There was no power levelling this time (I actually spent launch night in Guild Wars 2) and I have levelled at what is, for me, an incredibly slow pace. I am currently about 10% in to level 89 and aiming to be 90 by the end of tomorrow night.

I know everyone has read these “what do you think of Pandaria” blog posts already but you know….oh well.

So.

Things I’ve Loved About Pandaria So Far:

- The Questing – collection quests. I’ve been questing with Adam (the boyfriend) and we’ve found that a lot of previously annoying quests that involved collecting things (6 snake heads, 12 murloc eyes, yadda yadda) have been changed so if something drops, it drops one for each of us.

- The Questing – AoE loot. This surely needs no describing. It’s freaking awesome.

- The Questing – The NPCS. I’ve met some fantastic characters, ranging from the amazing Chen, to the Texan Mudmug, to the Grummle, who tell me how I’m smelling every time I wander past. I also LOVE the Jinyu, and am so glad we got those and not the icky hozen! Any race, however, that use the word “ook” instead of “fuck” on a regular basis do get massive upvotes.

- The Farming – God. This is awesome. It really is. I love this. I have no idea if I’m in the minority or not but frankly I don’t give a damn. It’s just GREAT.

- The Scenery – it’s beautiful. It’s absolutely beautiful. I love the scenery, the different types of zones and the different things I’ve seen.

- The plethora of vanity items – in my bag, I have a turnip punching bag, racoon, puntable marmot, orange paint gun, constant beer keg, fan shaped off hands, incense and…good lord. Everything. I have no bloody bag space, void storage space or bank space so I’m really going to need to rethink my storage. I may actually need to get rid of some old gear because I just don’t have the space! Or my tabards. Serious question here chaps. Should I just bin all these tabards? I can rebuy em back right?

- The Gathering – my aim for this expansion was to be totally self sufficient. I no longer want to spend a fortune on mats and enchanting and gems and god knows what else. So I’m not going to. I had every profession at 525 last expansion, so I want them all at 600 this time – but for free. I want to spend NO money on professions. So far – I’m doing pretty well! I have maxed out Alchemy, Inscription and Engineering, as well as Mining, all for free. I’m hoping by the end of October to have maxed out Enchanting, Leatherworking, and Blacksmithing as well, and by the end of November, Tailoring and Jewelcrafting. I can coast of Adam’s jewelcrafting til then. By the end of Christmas, I want *all* of my 85 alts to have maxed all of their professions (quite a few of the later alts are dual gatherers).

- The World Bosses – we did the Sha of Anger, with 40 of us, and it was great fun! I also managed to get a set of tier gloves – which is awesome. I wonder – will they upgrade them each tier to higher health and new gear? I do hope so, it’s great fun.

- The Lore, the Vanity items, the rare mobs – oh my so AWESOME. There are so many wonderful things in this continent to find and to explore and to enjoy.

- The Instances – I’ve really enjoyed the cutscenes, stories and lore and the bosses, trash mobs and run throughs of the dungeons I’ve had. I can’t wait to do them at heroic and it’s really, really nice to be challenged. I’m enjoying it!

- The Pet Battles – so much FUN. So, so so so so much fun. I could wax lyrical about them and I will do in other posts, as well as my naming posts.

Things I Don’t Like (I tried to use hate but I don’t hate anything about it!) About Pandaria So Far:

- The Questing – speak to so-and-so quests - how is it possible that they improved collection quests (always the bane of group questers) but ruined “speak to so and so” quests? Now, both myself and Adam have to talk to an NPC, release an NPC – the non collection-ey ones that used to be shared are no longer. Most frustrating.

- Err. That’s mostly it. I…can’t find anything at all else I dislike about the expansion so far. The only problem I’m having is time! I have none of it! I need more time.

My Plan For The Next Few Months:

- Get Elsen to level 90, gear her up in heroics and get her raid ready.

- Get my shaman (Mining/Skinning) up to 500 mining (I already have a 600 miner but I fancy a 2nd one) and get her in to Pandaria so I can grind out the leather and ore I need to max out Leatherworking and Blacksmithing, and Jewelcrafting. In the process, get her to at least 86 (so she can access her farm) and then get her to 90.

- Get my worgen priest to level 90, finish maxing her herbalism, her mining is maxed already.

- Get my warlock to level 90, including her professions – she’s currently has no professions at all so I may make her an alchemist (so I can spec into a different transmute) and a herbalist, and farm up the herbs to get myself

- Max out the rest of my professions.

- Finish mogging my warlock.

I’d like four of my chars up to 90 before Christmas, which is goal point number 1.

This will leave, after Christmas, ideally before this time next year (pre-Hallows End so I have multiple chances to grind the mount, basically):

- My night elf priest, maxed to 90, mogged out (she has no mog right now)

- My hunter, maxed to 90, mogged out – she just needs a bow. Rest is kitted out.

- My paladin, maxed to 90, mogged out (I’ve chosen honor gear for her, so it’d take a lot of honor farming)

- My mage, maxed to 90 – she is fully mogged already.

- My DK, maxed to 90 – also already fully mogged.

- My 2nd druid, maxed to 90 (currently 72) – will need mogging (no idea about a look for her)

- The horde!

I have enough to do in World of Warcraft to last me at least 18 months, and that’s not even including PvP, old content, raiding, titles, achievement points, achievements to hunt, things to collect, pet battles…

I think maybe I’ll get to them some other day…

October 4, 2012Permalink 3 Comments

It’s only August

But I’m already coming up with new years resolutions. I actually kept quite a few of them this year. I didn’t bite my fingernails (much). I stuck with Weight Watchers (and have now lost 32.5lbs since my birthday – my current aim is to lose 3 stone, 42lbs, by my next birthday, which is November 29th)

Some, however, I failed at. I didn’t read anywhere near as many books as I wanted to, or watch as many films. I didn’t comment on as many blogs or write as many blog posts of my own. I wonder at the worth of keeping this site running sometimes, but I think I will, even if I aminfrequent at posting and even less frequently read.

At the moment, as I sit in the 35 degree heat on the last day of my holiday, contemplating the busiest time of the year for  people who work where I do – universities, schools – anywhere that works around an academic calendar really, I wonder what the remaining four months of the year will bring.

From Monday, I have access to Guild Wars. On Tuesday, patch 5.0.4 hits, and with it talent changes, quality of life changes and so much more. The latest TF2 patch, Mann vs Machine is great fun, and one of my best friends has rented a server which I am welcome to play on.

I’m still running old content until the release of Pandaria, and will continue to do so once we’re in the swing of level 90s. I have a huge number of Steam games I love playing, ranging from the fabulously scripted hero Niko of GTA IV to the comedy trio of Trine 2 and everything in between.

But anyway, I ramble. My subscription to Rift was cancelled, as something had to slide, and that was unfortunately it. I will go back to it, one day. Warcraft will always be my main MMO and my primary focus, but I am looking forward to seeing Guild Wars 2 and what it can offer me.

My first character will be a Norn Engineer. Female, of course. I expect from then I may (should the game continue to grip me) move on to an Asura Guardian, a Sylvari Elementalist, a Human Mesmer and a Charr Ranger. I like the Mesmer class but fear the mask thing freaks me out a little too much. But that’s a long way off, so no rush.

In World of Warcraft, my main character will always be Elsen, and in many ways she is never complete, and always perfect. I haven’t quite picked out a pet battle team for her yet, and I saw a helm on a Druid the other day that I think would maybe work with her transmog, but other than that I will continually work on making her awesome. I love those pixels very much, because I’m sad like that.

One of the things I haven’t done, that I really wanted to get done pre Mists, was finish mogging all my 85s. Although Elsen is complete, everyoneidles is just…not quite right. My DK still needs weapons (which both drop from Halls of Reflection), my Mage needs her gloves (first boss Kara) and boots last boss Mechanar). My worgen priest needs just a weapon. My night elf priest needs her full set, as does my Warlock. My paladin has bracers and a belt…but needs 4.5k honor for the rest of her gear. My hunter is missing her bow.

So you know, it’s a bit here and there. The other thing I really wanted to do was to match a title, mount and pet to each of my characters. Not the most worthwhile of activities, but fun, I think!

How much of this will get done before Mists drops is an unknown, I just don’t know. But I’m going to carry on pottering on, enjoying myself and having a bloody good time. Because at the end of the day, that’s really all that matters.

August 25, 2012Permalink 2 Comments

Open Raid and the saga of holyxpala

Since the introduction of cross-realm raiding, I have made a large amount of use of Open Raid. It’s a great site and I love the system. In fact yesterday I had a prolonged conversation with a Blizzard GM about how great it was. I would like to point out I am a MASSIVE fan of the service and look forward to carrying on as a regular user in Mists and beyond. This post is about a USER of the system, not the system itself. My only comments about the system is that I would like to see some consistency in discipline and how members who behave badly are dealt with, which I reference at the end of the blog post.

Since kick off I have run:

4 x Ulduar 25 man

2 x Firelands 25 man

2 x ICC 25 man

1 x ALL TBC & Vanilla Raids

In the works I also have a Throne of the Four Winds normal achievements run and 2 more Ulduar 25s in the making. I run raids either every week or every other week (dependent on circumstances) on a Friday night and plan on continuing to do so until Mists. Once Mists releases, I’ll be having a month off, but by the end of October I want to be starting off again, kicking off with Tier 11 heroics.

Running these raids is challenging. I do very little DPS or healing because I’m herding cats. Beforehand, I’m checking open raid almost hourly to check sign ups and view achievements and player information and progress. I work on spreadsheets which allow me to amalgamate the majority vote for achievements (I work by the method of – what the majority needs will get done). I make Mumble compulsory, so once invites are done I ensure everyone is on Mumble. I take note of those who are no shows and manage my reserve list. I manage who has received a rare mount in the past 4 weeks (to ensure fairness, I make sure people who get a rare mount are excluded from rolling on any others that should drop for a period of 4 weeks) and ensure that people aren’t needing on BoEs, taking patterns they don’t have a profession for or just generally being a dick.

I have a little spiel I ramble out when everyone is on Mumble. I ask for respect to all other people, ask that if people have an issue they inform me in WHISPER, rather than blasting other members in raid chat or on voice chat. I keep people informed that we are an 18+ raid and to expect bad language!, and bad jokes. However I will not accept any racism or racist jokes, or the usage of the word “rape” in my raid as a gaming term. I welcome chat and conversation and ask people to get involved. Because my old content raids are there for enjoyment, they are there for people to have fun and enjoy themselves. And you know, on the whole, people do.

This is me, on Open Raid:

Sitting at 80% friendly so far, with 455 plus votes. I think this means I’m doing pretty well. I realise this is nothing compared to the people who are half way to exalted, but seeing a I’m actually, it seems, comparably quite a LIGHT user of the system, I’m doing pretty well. Yes I am blowing my own trumpet, but it has relevance.

So. Here are the comments that I’ve received so far on Open Raid (in reverse chronological order). Now you can probably ignore if you want to be objective anything coming from Grokknar, Demeternoth & Gromble because they are all close friends of mine. Some of the others have, through attendance at raids, become friends:

Now I am genuinely proud of these. I work my BUTT off to ensure that people enjoy their raids with me – I want them to. They aren’t about getting the most bosses down or kicking the most ass, they are about HAVING FUN. And fun is had. By almost all.

Open Raid’s policy on comments

Now you can see in that list that there are three hidden comments which have been downvoted by other people that have seen my profile.

The first, from Vexy:

This amusingly came shortly after my raid evaluation, which included the following;

One presumes it took him a month to reply because he didn’t check his profile. Regardless.

The next:

And my response:

As of yet….no response.

I think that one can safely be ignored.

So, Open Raid’s comment policy. Requests friendly and constructive. Now…let’s completely disregard Shirvan and look at Vexy.

My comment on his profile page was not friendly, but neither was it mean, or cruel, or offensive. I simply stated facts. He did need on several BoEs despite it being in the rules not to. He did /spit on players repeatedly. And I wouldn’t invite him again. The whole point of a comments and reputation such as this is surely to inform others. Inform others of quality players, and inform them of poor players. When I fill in the full evaluation after a raid, which I always do, I always leave a comment, not just a vote. Because I believe these things only have relevance if we are open and clear. There is no need to be discourteous but there is a need to be honest.

If we just pretend no bad eggs exist in the bunch, then the rating system is pointless because there’s never any reasoning behind anything. We have to provide reasoning and evidence. There must always be evidence to back up claims. This is why I have thousands of screenshots. Because you should always keep evidence.

His comment on my page however – well for a start it was quickly downvoted into oblivion by other visiters, but what this does is give me a negative *undeserved* reputation. Him stating that I am a “bad leadr” is not constructive. It is not stating facts. He is tarnishing my reputation. However, I let it slide cos…well, I’m lazy.

Then, holyxpala entered the ring.

Last week, I ran an ICC 25. I stated beforehand, as I always do, which parts of the legendary would be reserved and which wouldn’t. I confirmed the roster. I did everyone’s achievements, and I uploaded the spreadsheet for ALL to see which stated EXACTLY which achievements we would be going for – this did NOT include Lich King heroic (as the majority of people needed Neck Deep in Vile & I’ve Been Waiting a Long Time For This, so they took priority). This was also stated at the start of the raid.

Before the Marrowgar pull, this chap was already starting to grate on me slightly. He was spamming me with whispers, spamming me with WHY NOT LK HEROIC, WHY NOT. I explained on mumble, and in chat, that we would be doing LK normal, for the achievements. I then said to him that he had every right to leave before we pulled Marrowgar to be left unsaved to the instance and able to carry on. There was no response.

Throughout the rest of the raid (which took 2 and a half hours) he whinged about the jokes people were making on Mumble (which mostly consisted of “the worst possible jokes you can think of relating to plays on words of warcraft terms EVER”), he whinged about the speed of our clear, he whinged about the time of our break, he made offensive remarks about people being “old”, and he had some dodgy and offensive macros for ressing or particular spells – “come alive again you wanker” being one of them. He also paid very little attention and was…well, as much of a nuisance as someone can be. I got whispers off at least 7 or 8 individuals who aren’t in my guild about his behaviour, and then guild chat (usually 8-10 members of the raids come from Jane Doe, my guild, itself) was abuzz with about what a pain he was being.

So. The raid ended, despite the whinging from holyxpala, and evaluation time came round. Now, I have a friend. He is…not known for mincing his words, and he also had no idea (having never used Open Raid before) that comments you made on a page appeared publically. So, he may have given holyxpala a rating and MAY (ie did) call holyxpala a (changed font colour – highlight over only if you don’t mind STRONG expletives) “whinging shitcunt. Do not take anywhere”. Now…yes. This does break the Open Raid policy of being friendly or constructive. However it is certainly information.

My own comment to holyxpala was as follows:

All true. His attitude was poor, he was particularly rude, and I wouldn’t invite him again.

What he did then was get defensive, swapping between his own characters (which are all linked, so I think although his intent was to make it seem like different people were commenting, he just made himself look a little silly:

(as a reminder again, these are in reverse order – newest at the top, so start at the bottom)

I’m a particular fan of the way he keeps on adding extra comments to…add weight to his cause. And the last one just strikes me as “petulent child strikes back” – “and don’t worry I don’t even wanna join your lame humourless raids”.

Anyway. Other members of the raid (COMPLETELY uninitiated by me, may I add, commented on his page;

By this point, he’s just digging himself such a big hole.

So at this point, he reports Gnoble – or someone does. Who receives an email from Open Raid, which I can’t remember word for word, except it included a few clauses

- You wouldn’t speak to a stranger in the street using that language

- You must never comment on a raid page that person has joined

- You must never comment on a raid page that person has organised

- You must never comment on that person’s profile

all of which carried the penalty of profile deletion.

Now…I understand what Gnoble did was crass and unnecessary but I feel the above is completely over the top. Really, totally over the top.

Firstly – the statement about speaking to a stranger in the street that way. This chap wasn’t a stranger. This dude was a total pain in the behind who upset several people and caused problems for several others. To be honest if someone was that much of a dick to me in real life for two and a half hours, I probably would be ready to throw a string of expletives at him.

So, I decided to put my own report in, which said:

Hi There,
I’d like to report this member for a variety of issues.
1) Tarnishing my reputation on Open Raid. As you can see, I run quite a few raids. I also have a pretty much 100% happy raiding base. In my entire Open Raid history, I have had 2 justified negative comments on my page. The first was a response to my negative comment on Vexy the death knight, as I’d mentioned him needing on BoEs, /spitting on raid members and whatnot. His negative comment appeared after this. The second was unjustified and stated “did not turn up for raid” – when the person was not selected or at any point added to my real ID. The third came from this person. This person came to my raid on his paladin last Friday. He was abusive to me in whispers. He spammed me all night with questions which were answered several times on Mumble. He was abusive to other raid members. He had incredibly offensive macros and emotes set up. He complained about the raid throughout. When I stated at the start of the raid we would be doing Lich King normal, not heroic, I gave him the choice to leave. He CHOSE to stay. There would have been no repercussions to him leaving and I never said there would be any. 
2) Another raider who attended the raid then made an off the cuff remark on his profile page, which he was then chastised for with a ridiculous over reaction about how he must never comment on this user’s presence on OR ever again. AND most amusingly how he would surely “never communicate with a stranger this way” – now this paladin was not a stranger. This paladin was, quite frankly, a pain in the behind for a three hour raid. He wasn’t a stranger. I seriously recommend you think about rewording your emails. Whereas a warning was justified, he probably shouldn’t have used the coarse language, the email is an over reaction.
3) This paladin then used his other character (presumably to avoid detection) to comment on the other raider’s page, as well as on my own page.
He is tarnishing MY reputation as a raid leader and tarnishing the reputations of my raids with such comments as “well I don’t want to come to your lame humourless raids anyway” (please see Gnoble’s page for these comments).
I would like to see him suffer the same repercussions as Gnoble and have his comments about my raids completely removed from my page and from Gnoble’s page as they bear exactly the same weight as Gnoble’s original comment.
I will be sending this in PM to moderators if I do not receive a response or do not see adequate action being taken as I believe action is warranted.
Many thanks
Elsen

Using the inbuilt “report a user” function I sent this off yesterday.

This user is tarnishing MY reputation as an open raid user and raid leader. This is inappropriate. If there is a warning given to someone for swearing, I believe that a warning, if not a ban, should be put in place for this member due to his behaviour.

Now at the end of the day, I understand he’s probably just a kid, and that he may not know what he’s saying, or care. And I know that my report is a gross over reaction as well, because really at the end of the day, it’s a load of bloody pixels and…it doesn’t really matter.

But what I would like to see is some repercussions. If this is a website that is supposed to be community monitored, then it needs to be done so adequately. I haven’t, as of yet, received a response from Open Raid to my report. I will be waiting for one and will re send it if I don’t get one. I am happy with NOBODY being disciplined for negative words or negative reactions, or EVERYONE. It cannot be one rule for one and one rule for another.

Anyway. That’s as things lie at the moment. Once Mists drops I look forward to making use of the system again to run T11, T12 and T13 raids, as well as the LK and earlier content. I really do think it’s a great system and the people who thought of it are doing a fantastic job in joining up the World of Warcraft community and deserve a large round of applause for this.

I’d be interested to see what other people think about Open Raid, how they’ve found it or interacted with it, and how they’ve dealt with problem players or other issues.

Many thanks

Elsen

August 7, 2012Permalink 3 Comments

Oh Arena, I do love you!

So, I’ve finally restarted Arena. I’m in both a 2v2 and a 5v5.

Arena is one of those things I share a real love-hate relationship with. It’s something I’m never going to be *supreme* at – at the end of the day I have to choose between PvE progression and PvP progression and my heart lies with PvE. I find it impossible to believe anyone with as much to do as I do could possibly excel in both. If I wasn’t doing a degree, a certificate, didn’t have a full time job and the 18,000 other things IN WoW (5 85s, 1 80 and 2 lowbies to level) that seem to occupy my time maybe but…that ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.

So, why do I do arena? It’s a mixture of two things. 1) is my eternal goal – achievements and achievement points. I love them. I am such an OCD collector I constantly want more. I’m sitting on something like 10,300 at the moment (I think), and last season, from our 5v5 team, I managed to net myself the Challenger title. I was really, really proud of that title. It took me a long time to get decent enough to hit our 1550 rating and I was genuinely proud of myself – of all of our team – when I logged in that day at the end of the season to be presented with the flash of the Challenger achievement.

And the second reason – my friends are AWESOME.

I’m currently playing in the 2v2 with my best friend, and then the 5v5 consists of me, the shadow priest from 2v2, a mad chicken named Thimian (who moved from Terenas with me), my boyfriend (Fury Warrior) and our awesome paladin tank friend Thysian. Last night our raid was cancelled, so we were mostly at a loss of what to do. And then it struck us – although we may have a neon yellow tabard (black mushroom in the middle and a black border), and have named ourselves Cheesewheels Inc. (our paladin is from Cheshire, and there’s this running joke that he carries a cheesewheel around under his arm all the time…it’s funny to us…), we hadn’t actually…played any matches.

So we signed ourselves up. And we waited. And waited some more. 20 minutes later, our queue popped and we got thrown into a match. And annihilated. Completely. Not a great start. But we picked ourselves up off the floor and started again. Quicker queue, we went in and…we won. And then we won again. Lost a couple of times, but came away from the evening with 5 wins and 4 losses.

And we had an absolutely fantastic time.

Over the evening topics of conversation ranged through:

- the fact I was really glad this season it wasn’t me that always got picked on first, it was the Fury Warrior and his full sparkling PvE gear. (lol)

- my shadow priest buddy could make a sound with his throat/nose that sounded JUST like a clown’s honking noise

(those of a sensitive disposition may wish to skip the next one)

- that when clowns climaxed, they came with confetti.

- that it’s not a good idea to enter an arena match laughing about the above because you’ll forget your keybindings, your plan and your general strategy and just become floor smears because you’re all laughing too hard to select a target.

- that I only live 10 miles away from our paladin (spooky)

- and a variety of other strange random facts.

I’ve come to the main conclusion that arena is really really good fun if you can laugh at yourself.

It’s not the same in PvE. A boss wipe caused by one person – even though they are only 1/25th of a group, is a bigger deal. It’s a problem, it’s an issue. Because it’s about progress, about ratings, rankings, moving forward, competing with other guilds, being the best (or trying to be). That one person will undoubtedly feel my internal wrath even if I don’t show it externally (I am exceptionally restrained sometimes, which surprises even me). But in arena…if someone fucks up, I don’t really care. We just…requeue and give it another go.

I wonder why this is? Will I feel less like this when we’re in the 1400s+ and every loss costs you 20 points when you only get 1 for a win? I don’t remember feeling that way *last* season.

I don’t know – maybe because I will never take arena as seriously as I take PvE I’ll never be as upset about it.

I’d be curious to hear from any true hardcore PvPers to see whether it is as big a deal as a progression boss wipe is. And how do you choose your teams? I see so many advertisements in trade for 3v3, 2v2, 5v5 – people looking for random strangers to complete their team and hit their massive ratings. Our group comp is odd and unbalanced and occasionally unfunctional…but I’m playing the game with my friends.

Surely that’s all that matters?

March 28, 2011Permalink 1 Comment

Altruism In World of Warcraft…

al·tru·ism

–noun
1.the principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others (opposed to egoism).

MMORPG

-abbreviation of
massive(ly) multiplayer online role-playing game: an internet-based computer game set in a virtual world, which can be played by many people at the same time, each of whom can interact with the others .

As so, so many of us are experiencing, Wrath of the Lich King is ending. Some of us have the willpower to let the Sundering come upon them organically, others, like myself and Beru, have been chipping away at bucket lists/to-do lists, whatever ya wanna call them.

For me, achievement junkie that I am, I’ve been trying to finish and clear up a variety of bits and pieces. I have managed to miss out on two full Ulduar drake clears by having other social commitments (yes, me, doing things with REAL people. Granted one was my mum, but hey, it totally counts.). However I have spent the last 4 – 6 weeks trying to finish off other aims.

I started to do fun-run nights of old content on a Friday – I try and mix things up, do places in a different order, try and be as inclusive as possible.

I also do the same on a Saturday afternoon, except on a Saturday we are working our way through Tier 7 content – Naxxramas, Malygos and also Onyxia.

A fortnight ago, we fought our way through the Malygos bug of him resetting to full health on entering phase 3 and defeated him getting the speed kill. So – in our heroic ICC gear (the drakes do scale, right?), we can down him in phase 3 from full health to nothing, with 9 people (one DCed), and get the speed kill. Go and try it, we all felt very overpowered and exceptionally smug, especially as he was such a bastard to us in level-appropriate gear.

That speed kill earned me my Glory of the Raider achievement. I’d like to point out – I realise we totally outgear the content – but it’s not about that. It’s about completing things, because I’m OCD.

However, the week after that, I built up my list on the forum of interested parties and ran the instances again. During that run we managed to get four people their Glory achievements – my favourite paladin (now Zal’s deserted me!), one of our guild’s main tanks, our rogue Class Leader and then another one of our rogues. This final one was the most comical – all he was missing was Gonna Go When The Volcano Blows, so to ensure he got it he got naked (except for a tabard to cover modesty of course) and threw himself in the lava.

I’m having a Saturday off this week, but next week we’re going to go back again and I’m going to try and clear it up for a couple of other people that have consistently helped out.

One of them needs The Undying so that’s going to be interesting, but I think it’s certainly possible.

You know, I get a real buzz when those achievements pop (or don’t pop due to the current bug). I like it that I’ve been able to be part of something that’s helped make somebody else happy. Or that’s helped make somebody else smile. Helped make somebody else achieve something (see what I did thar?) they wanted to achieve.

Now please note: I’m not making myself out to be some super selfless wonderwoman. I can be totally selfish. I tend to avoid groups when there’s someone present I don’t get on with. If I know someone stands in fire a lot, I will often body swerve them in 5 mans. If someone has the survivability of a Asda brand rich tea in a mug of hot chocolate, then I won’t res them. The fuckers can run back.

But I like helping nice people out.

There’s also a commitment issue. I’ve started to put a disclaimer on my Friday night old-content runs. If you want something, you come for the whole night. I understand some people have time constraints, but what is it with this, “well I’ll come for one thing but I don’t want anything from the other instances so I don’t want to bother”. I’ve not needed anything from Mount Hyjal, Black Temple, AQ40, BWL or Sunwell (except the smelting book but thats not really a “need”) in like…well, since my first run where I dinged exalted with The Scale of the Sands.

Why do people presume that they are the centre of the universe? I mean, do they think I’m running this instance purely for them? I mean…I understand things like time constraints, I understand someone really wanting something badly and that being it, but what happened to comradeship? It’s an MMORPG. We play with others. Some of us choose to be guilded with other people as well. Everytime I’ve moved guilds, I’ve made an informed choice, a LOT of which has had to do with how the guild is known, socially. And once someone is my guildie, it is my mission to help them in ANY way I can. I want to help. So not only is someone playing a multiplayer game, they are choosing to associate themselves further with a community – their guild.

Yet self-centred-ness (I don’t care if it’s not a word) does sometimes override, and it confuses me.

I debated for a long time over publishing this which is why it’s partially out-of-date but the principle stands – how many people do we interact with in this game, that we give so much to, that give nothing back?
Surely bloggers – most of which seem to be the altruistic type, by our nature to want to share information and opinions with others, I expect – can’t be the only ones in game?

December 10, 2010Permalink 5 Comments

When New Bloggers Do It Right

Presuming people haven’t all had their head’s buried in the sand and will get my rather not-so-cryptic post title, but I got a lovely email from a new blogger the other day, as did I think a few others, so I thought I’d give him a little heads up on here and send all you lovely V-T-t-B readers over there.

The Grove” is written by Niq, and is a new resto druid blog. Go take a look and say hello, I’m sure he’d appreciate some loving warm resto druid welcomes!

November 4, 2010Permalink Leave a comment

Shared Topic: Mementos!

I’ve not done a BA shared topic in a while but I really liked the idea of this one cos I’m such a hoarder! I’ve copied Beru’s method of posting with pics, so bare with me as the list is pretty long…

Firstly, here is my bank & bags:

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As you can see, they’re pretty damn messy…

So, with a run through of my mementos here goes:

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This is item number 1. This mace dropped from Kel’Thuzad in Naxx in WotLK. We worked on a Loot Council, and the first time this was awarded I got given it. It was a massively proud moment for me, as I was awarded it for not only my good performance in raids, but my dedication to the healers and the healing organisation in general. It was our first KT kill and one of my best in game moments.

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The LAST gold coin I needed for the achievement, and also I think possible one of the best one-liners in Warcraft!

My titanium seal of Dalaran sits in my bags.

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It’s not complete yet, but this is one of my many “old” sets – the Cenarion set, one of the most “druidy” and most ridiculous looking. The antlers and furry shoulders take the biscuit really.

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This is the second gear set that means a lot to me – excuse my ICC belt in both screenies mind you.

This is T7.5, and was the first set I ever completed, as Naxx was my first raid. Really satisfying to again be allocated the tokens and to have a full set where I just look so lovely!

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This is quite a recent memento – when he server transferred this, along with a bouquet of red and white roses, were in my mailbox.

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This is one of my favourite mementos as it reminds me of the Brood questline, of how much effort and energy it took me to grind my rep up and how incredibly satisfying it was!

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And here is my exalted ring. Don’t ask why I’ve got the tanking one, I have no idea.

WoWScrnShot_091110_101024Completing Loremaster meant I did some awesome quests, and I loved this one for seeing ghosts. It was one of those amazing little extra added bits I love about Warcraft.

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This took a LOT of effort at level 70. I was wanting to raid and progress, but obviously had no gear, spec, or brain! I asked for assistance from a friend, and he recommended I did the grind for this and the offhand. Lots of AVs and whatnot later and I had enough marks and honor to purchase them both.

Something else I was very proud of.

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These were an awesome bit of kit I use on my more…RPey moments. I love the colours in this set and think it suits Elsen and her colouring well. They were a reward from the Brood scepter questline.

WoWScrnShot_091110_101131This is another of my “outfit” sets, that dropped on a random Scholo run I was on. I always click and check out what something looks like, and I was particularly chuffed when I found these.

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Above is the Darkwater Robes, and below the Arcane.

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Anyway, those are my mementos! I’ve really enjoyed reading other peoples posts, a really brilliant shared topic!

September 16, 2010Permalink 2 Comments

More Uproar In the Blogging Community

And I’ve stayed out of this one.

My own opinions, views and thoughts on sexism, feminism in games and the other myriad of subjects covered recently have been discussed with my close friends/boy, and I will be leaving it at that.

There is no reason at any point to add any fuel to any fire.

What I am going to pick up on briefly is what the topic moved on to – Blogrolls.

Now, as I’m sure you’ve all picked up on, I’m more than a little mad. I’m OCD, a bit loopy and utterly obsessive about organisation.

I like lists.

I love lists. I don’t just have on category in my feedreader, I have thousands. OK, well that’s an exaggeration.

I was, however, very poor at keeping my Blogroll up-to-date. Because I was always adding more and more blogs to my feed reader, I couldn’t come up with a solution which meant I could get everything I wanted on there in every way I wanted it, so I’d sort of given up.

However, whilst reading Tam’s finishing-the-topic post, I came upon a comment by Pewter linking to this post. Praise the lord, I’ve found my saviour.

So, now, my blog roll is complete.

What I’m reading in my feed reader is now on my site. Which is awesome.

So, thanks Pewter, Tam and most importantly Mystery Buttons, you legend.

Anyhow.

You will see, if you can be arsed to look, that my blogs are split into class info. So, I know when something appears in my feed reader roughly what I’m gonna be reading about. I also have categories I haven’t hosted for my friends, for technology blogs, for careers blogs (thrilling stuff, careers information and advice, like you wouldnt believe), and things often have multiple tags. For example, everyone in SAN is also tagged with a SAN tag. OCD much?

People are on my blog roll because they are on my feed reader. I read them for a variety of reasons:

1. They are informative (WoW.com, World of Matticus)

2. They are druidey and keep me on top of what’s happening druid wise in sensible coherent text, as I’m a moron and can’t comprehend blue posts (Beru, Lisanna, Qieth, Graylo and many many more)

3. They help me understand other classes (BRK, Kurn, Mental Shaman, Mana Obscura and too more to mention)

4. They make me giggle and brighten my day (Righteous Orbs, Disciplinary Action, Big Bear Butt, Murloc Parliament and soooo many others)

5. and most importantly I enjoy reading their posts, I enjoy reading what they have to say and they write good quality, fun, interesting, thought provoking posts (Larisa, Cass and Lathere, Altaholics Anonymous and every single one of the other blogs I mentioned above.)

I have only ever taken ONE blogger off my blogroll, and that was after the previous blogosphere explosion. That caused me to remove the blogger in question from my blogroll and I truly no longer had any interest in what they had to say.

And that’s the only reason, in my opinion, someone should get taken off my blogroll.

Not because they post something controversial, or something I disagree with, but just because they don’t interest me anymore. That may well have been inspired by the fact they said something that caused such an issue with me I no longer “liked” them, but at least there was a fair and solid reason.

Adam is still on my blog rogue. Pewter is. Larisa is. Tam is. They are all on there because I enjoy reading their blog posts, and I enjoy reading what they write about. Sometimes I might disagree with them, sometimes I might not read a whole post as it’s not something I’m interested in, sometimes I might snort diet coke out of my nose in the office (thanks, Tam).

I don’t expect other people to do what I do. I don’t expect people to look down on me or dislike me because of who I have on my blog roll. It had, to be honest, never even occured to me that a blog roll could be used as a sort of…method of separating friends from enemies, social networks one moved in, stating who you liked and you disliked. I’ve always just used is as… a list. An objective list of things I like to read.

Does the fact I like watching Jeremy Kyle make me a (stereotypes incoming, ok?) sit at home scrounger who wears velour tracksuits and ugg boots? No, I work 9-5, am studying for a degree and consider myself to be contributing to society (in that some fucker takes a load of money from my salary every month).

Does the fact that I horse ride mean I spend all my day “guffawing”, walking around in jodphurs and asking daddy to buy me a new car? Hell no, I scrimp and save pennies every month to be able to enjoy my one hour of riding a week.

Just because I read a blog does not mean I share that person’s views. That assumption shouldn’t be made, and therefore we should not feel worried about keeping someone on our blogroll just because they said something controversial.

We should all be judged on our individual merits as bloggers and people. It makes me really happy when I find out someone reads my blog, it really buzzes me up when I find out someone has me on my blog roll. I get a proper buzz out of it.

I don’t know if that’s weird or not, but it’s how I work.

I think I’ve got quite an objective way of managing what I read. I’d be interested to read more peoples opinions on why and how they manage their blogrolls.

September 6, 2010Permalink 11 Comments