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Category Archives: Blogging
Prioritising
So you know, changes afoot.
See this lady right here?
Right in the middle, flanked by the two most important men in her life.
Just to reiterate, that’s her up there.
She went through a bit of a change. Meet Elsen:
I managed to fail at taking a screenie on my actual log in screen, somehow.
But yea….Elsen the tauren.
This isn’t a change I ever thought I’d embark on. I always swore that Elsen was a night elf, and that that is what she would always, eternally be. But then…things changed. I’ve been desperately unhappy, in real life and in game, for quite some time. I’m fed up of putting a brave face on. Fed up of…trying to make everybody else happy. You know, it just isn’t possible.
I’ve been put down over and over again by people “in charge”, been ignored and rejected as a competent player and officer, felt utterly miserable about my game time. Dreaded logging on because of being *used* by players and other officers purely cos I worked hard. The bureaucracy of some guilds…what is it with officers that think a good officer just sits on his arse and does nothing? Seriously? Such…bullshit. Dreaded raiding because the atmosphere was shite and the raiding was up shit creek without a paddle. For the past 6 weeks especially I’ve just not wanted to be there.
It all came to a-head last Thursday, when yet another round of efforts and attempts at fixing things was rejected by the GM. A PM that took me hours to craft was rejects in one swoop of, “no, your ideas are all shit and I won’t replace the class leader who has a class full of people that hate him and think he’s shit”. At that point I decided I’d had enough and I was stepping down. I wanted to be a normal raider, doing normal things – and I would see how things went from there.
2 days later, Saturday afternoon, one of the raiders who was in my circle of friends but a post up about the state of raiding. Our guild was at a “only killed these bosses once, and then it was messy” 3/13 HC 25, and at that point was the server 2nd 25 man guild. The alliance on Draenor is dead. The top 20 guilds are 80% Horde. We actually have a guild that’s in the world top 300 and who got the realm first Sinestra on Sunday. It’s a decently progressed realm – on the horde side. The alliance side is weak. I decided at this point I was going to give the guild 4 weeks and then move – probably to the Horde. I mean, where else was I going to go?
The posts that stemmed from this raider’s starting post were long and involved, it seemed everyone that cared enough to use the forums (30% of the raiding team, give or take) was fed up of the bitching and bickering. The GM eventually weighed in with a post placing a large amount of the blame for the “downfall” of the guild on myself and a raid leader. Apparently, we were the root of all evil. In our complaints, in our PMs, in our forum posts analysing raiders, in our efforts to turn things around, we had apparently caused problems. In our complaints about class leaders, in our complaints about the state of the guild, even though the GM had consistently buried his head in the sand, we had apparently caused problems. Relatively difficult to believe as I know I was at least pretty well liked in our guild, by raiding members and social members – pretty much unheard of seeing as a lot of the raid team stuck themselves as *higher* in their opinion than the social members. I mean I once got told that if I didn’t want to, I didn’t have to talk to the social druids – as they were not as important as the raiding druids.
He finished his post with that if people wanted Adept to rise again, the members had to make more effort. This just left me deflated, completely. I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. How could he say all that after everything I’d done? I was devastated and decided that that was it. I didn’t care anymore – I couldn’t stay in that guild. For a short period of time I figured that my time in WoW was pretty much over.
And then I had a think. I’m not done with WoW yet. So we looked at some guilds horde side, found one we liked – 5/13 heroic, 3 nights a week raiding, 25 man, on the much much busier horde side. Myself and my friend transferred the alts we’d been levelling.
I arrived in Silvermoon only to realise I had no ground mount…I’d been a worgen. Made my way to Orgrimmar and…wow. What a city. It was literally full. I got a guided tour from my friend who’d only transferred himself to alliance a short time ago, and was literally ecstatic to be moving back. Flying high above the city, finding all these lovely serene spots to hang out and chill, enjoying the atmosphere, the busy streets, the new locations of things, the pure *epic* ness of Orgrimmar. Flew over Azshara and the goblin city, all these amazing areas and places that were all new to me.
And then I took the plunge. Left the guild to a flurry of whispers of abuse from guild members and “sad to see you’re going” messages. Logged off Elsen and actually went for a lie down for ten minutes. This was a scary thing to do. Hit the transfer button and 6 minutes later logged back in as…a tauren. Logged back on to the horde side with my friends, looking a little bit different;
Draenei paladin Zalduun became a holy cow.
Human warlock Donkerz regained his funky goblin form.
And I became Elsen, the tauren lady.
And you know what? It’s fucking awesome.
I love it. We got in to the guild we applied to, re-started our arena teams (now named Moo Two (2v2) and Moo Two Plus One (3v3). 3v3 is pwning me right now, seriously. We’re stuck at 1300 rating and just keep facing some REALLY IRRITATING cleave teams. QQ.)
The first couple of days were stressful – that flurry of panic when you join a whole new group of people and trying to “impress” of course. We joined an off night raid and cleared 5/6 10 man BWD in less than 3 hours. We only left Neffy because the raid had started on a whim, late, by some alts – we just happened to be unsaved so could join. An alt raid, 5/6 in a couple of hours. May not seem like a lot to some people but…was a lot to us! The night after we joined our first main raid and cleared BoT, with Halfus HC, in less than 2 hours. I mean seriously, for me this was amazing. I was like…what on earth is this. Organisation? People moving out of the bad shit? DPS being high rather than mediocre? No bitching and sniping at people in Vent? No complaints or grumbling?
And then last night was our second large scale raid. We went into BWD and took out Magmaw heroic…who still refuses to drop his Scorched Wormling Vest. Magmaw Heroic. Seriously. awesome. ODS normal, Chim HC – who proceeded to drop his bracers which I WON – replacing my 346 Armbands of Change and netting me the epic achievement FINALLY. An early night after a couple of attempts on Atramedes (seriously, raiding finishing at 23:00 server time means I can finish raiding and then DO something. This is amazing. Rather than crashing out and crawling into bed in misery, I get to *do* stuff.) and myself and Si were promoted to members – Si was rocking the DPS chart and my healing was also I have to say pretty decent. We were thrilled. Are thrilled. I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet!!
What am I most *definitely* going to do now is take a break from any sort of responsibility. No old school runs, no offering to do anything – none of that stuff. I’m going to enjoy being a peon. I’m going to get my second priest to level 85 (currently 63), get my second druid to 85 (currently 40, just need to convince Si to level something up to 40 so we can blast through that together as well) and maybeeeee start a goblin. I’m going to grind my PvP achievements and the rep factions I’m missing (thinking of working on Steamwheedle Cartel next), finish up Loremaster on Elsen (yea, so it’s for the second time…what’s your point!!), try and regain the 220 achievement points I lost in the transfer over *QQ* and enjoy our arena teams, aiming for 1550 in 3v3 at least. I’m also going to enroll in the arena tournament realm this year – the 3 of us will not have a chance in hell of getting in the top 1000 but hey, 50 matches for an awesome rare vanity pet? Count me in!!
Over the past 6 weeks, I’d forgotten what it was like to love this game. Moving over to Horde, starting afresh and having fun – it’s all new and god dammit it’s amazing. I’ve received a lot of resentment from people for moving – for “deserting” them and the guild – for being spontaneous. But I did what I did for me. I’m done with trying to make other people happy. If Zalduun is happy, if Donkerz is happy, if I’m happy. That’s what matters to me right now. I still love my other friends and I miss them a *lot*, but at the end of it all…this is the first time I’ve done something to make me happy in a long time. I don’t want to feel guilty for it. I made a spontaneous decision, and it was the right spontaneous decision for me. I’m happy now, happier in game AND in real life than I have been in a while – feeling sick and being upset in RL because you don’t think you’re doing enough is not the way to be.
This is a game, I’m happy, I love it again, I’m having so much fun and I just want it to carry on this way.
FOR THE HORDE!
I quite enjoyed my bullet points post
It was fun to write and felt a lot like my life recently – a flurry of random points all spiralling off in different directions.
I’m sure you’ll all be very please to know my iPhone has recovered from its mishap and is no longer telling my that this accessory is not optimised for my device.
I’d also like to say thank you to Saz, Ama and Rebecca for the comments recently – my spam filter nommed you up Rebecca and I haven’t had time to reply to anyone. Things have been a bit hectic recently and there’s been a rather large in-game change for me some people on Twitter might have seen, but that’s for another post in the future.
I have screenshots!
Specially requested by Zalduun, who is THANK GOD back in the game now. A lot of these are from guilds I’m not in anymore. I like to think that even if I didn’t leave them on the best terms (Apparently I suck as much at leaving guilds as I do at breaking up with Men, I have NO tact), the fun was still fun, the comedy was still comedy and seriously, what’s the point in being resentful?
These go back a long way, so this is going to be an epically long post, because I can’t *quite* be bothered to split it all up. If you aren’t interested in mindless guild chat chat and general comedy (well, I think we’re funny…) then feel free to skip this. I’ll have another post up later in the week!
ICC mockery fail.
It’s only legitimate to ignore a friend when you’re being smacked in the face by a storm giant.
the waves, the waves…
fear of…?
I’m sure Blizzard do this sort of thing purely to read our chat logs afterwards.
Oh, the visuals!
*confusion*
I have this intensely annoying characteristic where if I’m annoyed I don’t scream or shout I just over use punctuation.
Terenas Gold-Sellers – bringing the lols.
Deathwhisper HC, pain in the butt.
Being slowly driven mad by medicine and society as a university course…
I am awful at gathering professions. This is why I never have any gold.
Spiders – causing issues on Sindragosa
Putricide…anyone else remember how many raiders this drove insane?
he was a space goat. They’re pretty god damn chunky!!!
Actually on second thoughts, a gnome paladin is a rather scary thought…
Me refusing to volunteer for unbound plague….
Creating a ‘choppa for a mate
oh i c-whut-u-did-thar tree form jokes.
rocket rides across Northrend until they took away Zal’s nitro switch!
Team Fortress 2 is made of win.
He knows what’s coming now 
Getting abuse from ex-guildies and support from current ones – what could be more threatening that a waxing and a bit of guild destabalisation?
This is what happens if you marry a welsh man. The earth does not move.
Being carried through ICC with my hunter, when I had (cos ofc, I clearly know what I’m doing now…) no idea about gearing and whatnot.
Pokemon comparisons!
trash respawns on top of us mid raid-member summon in the plague wing of ICC…
I don’t even know what context this was in. The LDW elevator would definitely work though.
Oops…
Me on DBS…I am a fail chicken. A funny one though.
AQ40 – how to really really piss off the impatient PuG members of the run. Get your members in REALLY SLOWLY.
How to attack an emo. Attack his hair!
<3 you fero!
Who doesn’t?
eew.
Sometimes, the typos just surprise you.
This is why they shouldn’t let teenagers drink.
wow-cocks.
Lewis struggles with his new phone
Towards the end of my time in PG I actually discovered how awesome private chat channels are. Our first was called something like “sophslikes” although we nearly called it “3bubbles1tree” as it was mainly 3 paladins and myself.
We had a seriously large amount of fun in that channel.
oh i c whut…
Mocking permitted.
Surprise trade sex.
I think it was a legitimate question and a very good answer!
too much time on our hands!
Deathwing.
I don’t usually include “proper” screenies here, but this one is awesome.
I DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW HE DID THIS.
Anyone else remember that intensely annoying bug with druid outfits where we had a large uni-knee? I’d forgotten about that!
weak paladin is weak 
Obligatory squid head post.
Unlikely
Phena takes charge!
Ah Krunge, always so classy!
Seems reasonable
Again, I was thinking about this and wondered if anyone else in guild had any answers. How do they store dental records??
Fair point.
…what Zal?
I’m never going to let Zal forget the time he killed me in the middle of the Twisting Nether.
evil gnum, ruining the city of the elves!
s’fair point really.
caveman John!
Cheese comes from Cheshire…
Another perfectly legitimate question!!
Finland ->Cheshire lasagna delivery!
Before they (thankfully) hit Limnologist with the nerf bat.
It’s nice to know my friends have such faith in ability!
Possibility?
I see no problem with this. Raid Warning though?
I don’t even know what this was in relation to!
The man from Cheshire knows his cheese.
Sugar high!
A current raid leader and an ex-guildie are scarily similar.
The men discuss whether or not peeing sitting down is allowed.
Fair point….again
Race change shock ftw
Sometimes, these things happen.
Anyone disagree?
Comedy typo is comedy.
100k mana? awesome.
Ah, John.
Families never do!
The first time I ever use my engineering transporter, I get an awesome debuff and then just after I’m told not to shapeshift, I teleport to moonglade and….shapeshift.
If only this were possible.
I took to naming hunter pets after whoever helped me find them. This is Thysian the plague cat!
Back in our favourite spot with my two favourite men.
Cotton bud esque weapon provokes comedy.
Tol Barad camel train!!!
Cheese.
Wow. Epic Length Post. There are still a few more that didn’t get on there for some reason I misplaced November 2010 and January 2011, but I think that’s enough for now. I’m going to try and get back into doing these monthly as well as fitting those other two months in, because what I’ve realised over the last week or so is that it’s the people I’m around that matter.
I’ve lost a dear friend recently due to a spontaneous decision I made (unusual for me but to be honest, the best thing I’ve ever done in game for my enjoyment) and I hope she sees this cos I do miss her friendship and her companionship.
At the end of it all, it shouldn’t matter what guild someone is in, what faction they play, what server they are on. If someone is a friend, they will be a friend regardless.
Thanks for the fun guys,
I’ve had one hell of a lot of laughs!
“This Accessory Is Not Optimized For Your iPhone”
I know. I didn’t think Fanta WOULD be optimized to interact with my iPhone. It wasn’t a PLANNED integration.
These things just seem to happen. And usually all at the same time, which is rubbish. Anyway, things are remarkably brighter at the moment, despite yesterdays/tuesday’s mishap.
I’m actually feeling OK. I hate being sick. Like, it’s just icky and gross and generally unappealing. I’ve gone a full 12 hours now without throwing up everywhere though, so that’s always a bonus.
Patch Day yesterday…raiding was a bit of a disaster but to be honest we had some *fun*. We went in with the – well it’s patch day. We are all getting thrown offline at random points, which must have been full server restarts at least a couple of times – the entire raid group got disbanded twice I think. Our poor raid leader.
We only knocked out 3 bosses, and called early, but I enjoyed it.
So, the Patch. Initial impressions:
- omg I did not know I depended that much on my MSBT scrolling text. WTB A FIX NOW PLEASE.
- I am never going to get Mojo.
- Bwemba ALWAYS bugs out when you take her back to the digsite. A relog fixes this.
- Pitbull is still working. PITBULL IS STILL WORKING. *thanks the gods of addons*
- I like this new fancy shmancy Arena countdown timer, but seeing as sometimes you fight alliance, I don’t get the point in the alliance mask, it isn’t like you’re always against the other faction. But yes, the new flashy countdown is funky.
- Remote guild chat is awesome. If you can’t see people typing – update Prat. That fixed it for me. It’s well worth the £2.50 a month.
- ZA and ZG are…fun with the right group. They are taxing on my mana, stressful at times and long. But I enjoyed ZA. Haven’t actually run ZG yet on thinking about it.
- the big BOOM when you click “play” on the launcher has gone. How freakin awesome is that??? Very.
- The Auction House wouldn’t work for me. I got very exasperated.
- for the first time EVER, I got “underground” in my options on the northrend wormhole generator. I have NO idea how much these patterns will sell for, and part of me was desperate to just learn them myself, but hey, I stuck them up at a ridiculously high price. I’ll see if they sell…
- Ogri’la dailies are still making me QQ. And it’s ridiculous, because if I just DID them every day, I’d be done in 7 days. I just keep…finding better things to do.
- I’ve just seen the new trailers for 4.2 I feel very sorry for Fandral. I really, really hope we can redeem him SOMEhow. I hate to see druids go bad. I’m very excited about more new content, but also quite happy with what we’ve got on at the moment.
- I’m powerlevelling – or at least, in comparison to my NORMAL levelling time I am! My two “babies” are now level 40 – my druid, and level 55 – my priest. I’m levelling with one of my best mates and we are having awesome, awesome fun.
Anyway. All is well with the world for me.
I hope you’re all enjoying the new content and having fun – that is, after all, what playing a game is all about.
Sophs
xxx
Day 09: Your First Blog Post
Hmm, let’s have a look…
Hello all!
My name is Sophie, but in this blog the people I will be discussing are Elsen – a level 80 night elf druid who likes to heal and occasioanly turn into a lazer chicken, Sapphrina – a levelling human paladin who follows the light whilst smacking things with a big hammer, Petranne – a levelling spacegoat hunter with a cat named Colin, Rafigia – a levelling death knight with a penchant for black clothing and glowing eyes, Baeletha – a levelling night elf priest who likes to heal but will be pewpewing her way up the levels and finally Schepa – a baby gnome warlock who may be replaced by a Worgen when Cataclysm comes OUT!
Currently the levels of these characters are:
Elsen: 80
Sapphrina: 53
Petranne: 26
Rafigia: 57
Baeletha: 1
Schepa: 1I would ideally like to add that as a signature to each post that can be changed daily, or however often they level anyway!
This blog is to discuss my Warcraft trials and tribulations, be it achievement hunting and raiding on Elsen, levelling up the other girls, profession grinding, reputation grinding on Elsen, pet hunting, mount hunting….or anything else I can grind for!
I will also be linking to other guides and blogs, discussing warcraft news and tips, and hopefully in time building a nice little web-presence for my character team.
If anyone wants to find me to chat (or trade me that last horde pet I’m needing – the enchanted broom!) I am usually online nightly, my server is Terenas in the EU and I can almost ALWAYS be found on Elsen!
Hope to hear from you all soon!
Soph
Well. I sound like a right tool.
Since the, I’ve changed servers, although Elsen is of course still my main, and my army of alts is growing, with 5 level 85s, one level 80 and a *second* druid and a second priest on the way as well. The warlock never got levelled, and the DK was deleted and replaced by a nelf DK. The others are still around though…
It’s OK To Be Anxious.
This is a bit of an odd post for me and is one inspired by Ophelie and the blogger she linked to, Glorwynn (someone else to add to my feed reader!).
It’s probably going to be a bit of a ramble, bit of a mix and a match and general thoughts. There’s going to be some smushy guild love going down as well (maybe even some for you, Krunge).
It’s probably going to take me a fair long while to write as well because I’ll spend a long time umming and aahing about what to write, about who I might upset, about who I might anger, about the consequences.
As I do. So yea, social anxiety. It sucks. It really, really sucks at times. It sucks when people use it against you. But that’s something I might touch on later.
I feel like I’m in some sort of circle on plastic chairs in a room, “Hi, my names Sophie and I’m defined as socially anxious”.
What does this mean for me? How much of *me* is anxiety and how much is my personality?
This means that I’m frightened of upsetting people. I can be paranoid. It means that I strive to make people happy. It means I fear people being angry at me, yet I always presume I’ve done something wrong. I’m an eternal pessimist, I see no redeeming features in my personality, I don’t see why anyone would want to spend time with me or want to be my friend. I worry. A lot. I’m stressed out – a lot.
But what I don’t do is blame all these characteristics on my “anxiety” and what I won’t do is ever medicate it. I deal with my issues by myself, and one of the things I stand proud by is that YES – sometimes my anxiety has a hand in me doing silly things, but NO it doesn’t make me do them. If I make a mistake then I put my hand up to it and say sorry, and admit fault and admit culpability. I will never use anxiety as an excuse for being a dick.
What does this mean for my guildies?
I love my guild. I love the raiding, I love the guild chat, I love the friends I’ve made, I love the teasing, the joking, the mutual verbal abuse that gets flung between players, I love the fact I feel comfortable. I love the fact I’m an officer and that I’m approachable. I love it that people come and ask me for help. I love it that people enjoy the social events I organise (more on those below), I love it that I can have a hand in making peoples’ gaming experiences more enjoyable. I love my other officers, our guild leader, I love our socials and I love our raiding team.
Most don’t know I’m *anxious*. I expect a few more will now, if they still read this. I handle myself well most of the time, I’m outgoing, I’m willing to speak on TS, I’m willing to organise things and put my opinion across. Why do I do this? Because I *force* myself (probably wrongly a lot of the time, it may be better for my mental state to stay quiet) to speak. Why? Because I crave responsibility and I believe those seen as anxious aren’t given the chance to shine. Guilds need officers, officers need to be hardy, to be strong, to be able to put up with shtick from people.
Every Thursday night, we go and do old content. It’s something I’ve tried to do in all my guilds. Here in Adept we have, so far, run 5 weeks of activities. Week 1 we hit Ulduar 25 and picked up 25 man drakes for everyone. Week 2, we went to Naxxramas, Halion (although failed at heroic…gonna have to actually work for that one), Sartharion and Malygos. I got the Twilight Drake – awesome. Week 3 we had a short raid to the TBC instances and AQ40. Week 4 we went to ICC and worked our way through the drake achievements, although we still need to go back for Part 2 and finish off some heroic modes/odd achievements we missed.
Last night we went back to Ulduar again, but for the Non-drake achievements. We “broke” Auriaya twice (although thanks to my lovely friend Si we adjusted our tactic and actually tanked her in Hodir’s tunnel – we were having issues with the Cat Pouncing for 9 Lives), and we wiped on Hodir 4 times (/raidachievement is the Best. Addon. Ever – awesome for discovering when you need to wipe because something’s gone wrong) until everyone moved/didn’t move/jumped/didn’t jump correctly. We cleared up to Yogg, saving him and Algalon to knock out maybe next week.
As for next week, I’m thinking of hitting up ToGC for some Anub P3 pain and Sarth for a free mount. A nice short one. When I “lead” these raids – and I used lead in the LOOSEST possible sense of the word, I make mistakes, I bumble around, I ask for help, I ask for advice, I ask questions, I welcome feedback. I only ever got angry once, and that was in ICC, when someone stole my Dreamwalker portal. I have a rule that if someone makes a mistake twice then they go and wait outside the instance for us to complete the boss. It’s not punishment it’s just base fact – we’re here to clear, not to wipe for hours. But it’s clear to all those around that I’m not a raid leader – and I say as such. I organise, and we all work together to complete our goals.
I organise these raids with long spreadsheets which allow me to track peoples achievements, work out what they need, fill it in as we go along. I want to get people achievements because…well, achievements make people happy. They wouldn’t be coming along to achievement runs if they didn’t like achievements, right? I want to help make people smile. These runs aren’t compulsory. People don’t have to attend. It’s supposed to be fun and I won’t let a bad atmosphere pervade these nights. My anxiety or no – people are there to have fun so if I have an issue I keep it to myself.
So – does my anxiety affect the majority of our raiding team and guild? No. It’s my problem and I keep it to myself.
But, it does affect my friends.
I have this group of people that I like spending my time with. I absolutely adore these people. Truly, I adore them. All of them. My gaming experience would not be good without them. It would be hollow.
There is, of course, Zalduun, who has been masquerading as a shadow priest for some time but who has finally relogged his old character and is back being the squid faced paladin I remember. What would I do without Zal? There’s Thimian, the world’s most awesome laser chicken (she comes with in built sound effects and everything), Kamdantil her partner, and of course my fella, Thyphs. There’s the wonderful, sweet, kind, utterly marvellous Donkerz, there’s our cheesewheel carrying policeman Thysian, my dippy IRL chef and hunter extraordinaire Ferocitis and our quiet mage Marleth. There’s also Yanader, here in spirit if not in name, as he’s off playing poker professionally at the moment, leaving the computer games to us geeks
These people are my friends and I love them. We have our in game chat channel where we hide out and where I can say whatever I need to say and where people understand it because they understand me. They understand how scared I get, they understand why I’m scared. Last night there was an incident where I got very upset. Straight away, my lovely Zal knew from my voice on TS that something was wrong. He knows me well enough to know the inflection in my voice when I’m on the edge of tears. I told them what had happened, and I didn’t need to do anymore. They understood why I was distraught, they got pseudo-angry on my behalf, they gave me /hugs, and I felt better.
This is how I deal with social anxiety in game.
I’m not saying it’s for everyone, I’m not saying it’s the best coping mechanism in the game. But it is what it is – I handle my anxiety by surrounding myself with people who understand me and who I can let go with, so that I can keep a fairly passable facade to the rest of the guild that I’m totally well balanced…
*twitches*.
So, those of you that worry about upsetting people, that worry about people being mad at you, that worry about just, well, EVerything, try doing what I do. Find people you can trust. Find people you can love and surround yourself with people in game that know you and care about you and will watch over you, same as you will watch over them.
There are people in this game who will exploit your “weakness”. They will know what buttons to push, they will know exactly what to say to upset you and they will have no qualms about doing it.
These people are around, there may well be some in your guild. They aren’t good – they are weak for picking on something they know is sensitive and exploiting it to make themselves feel bigger.
My friends empower me to see this and to deal with it with their support.
Warcraft is a MMORPG. One could say we’re supposed to socialise. Some people don’t want to, some don’t need to. But for those of us that want to but find it harder – just know there are others like you around and that the nasty people, the bullies, the belittle-rs (not a word, don’t care) can’t have any effect because what makes you you makes you special.
Day 08: 10 Things You Don’t Know About Me
You know, this is going to be a hard one. Not because I don’t *want* to share, but because I’m usually so open about my life and myself that a lot of people already know a lot about my day to day life.
I’ll give it a go though 
- I’m Druid Class Leader and Recruitment Officer all rolled in to one for my guild, Adept of the server Draenor-EU. I haven’t been in post long but I’m enjoying finally getting to have some responsibility and being able to put my organisational skills to the test.
- I’m one of those irritating people that names all their characters differently. I have Elsen (druid legend), Sapphrina (named after the colour of her eyes), Baeletha (some weird elven mix of healing & priest), Ellenaie (no real reason behind this one), Nioma (chosen as it’s a common Wildhammer dwarf name, and she’s a shaman), Petranne (character out of a Tamora Pierce book), Sophronia & Abygael (both worgen, chosen as they are takes on ‘Victorian’ names).
- My current Warcraft projects are arena (I have a 2v2 team with an awesome shadow priest. We’re currently only on our second week of matches but it’s awesome fun.), general PvP (I’m slacking with that one a bit), and my two new alts: Sophronia (level 23 feral DPS – eventually to be dual specced bear/cat – worgen druid) and Abygael (level 11 shadow priest – eventually to be dual specced holy/shadow – worgen priest).
- I live with my dad in the house I grew up in, in a place called Birchwood, near a horrible foul town called Warrington in the North-West. I lived here until I was 12, at which point I moved to Rome, and then back to the UK when I was 18. I lived in 4 houses across Manchester city centre in 4 years, and then moved back home. My room is tiny, and I built a flat pack bookcase yesterday. I can’t shut my bedroom door completely now, but figured this is just an incentive to keep it tidier.
- Might as well as mention something about the horses here – I ride every week, having a private lesson on alternate Thursdays and show jumping lessons on alternate Fridays. Nothing makes me happier than riding.
- I’m addicted to American cop dramas. CSI (until it all went to pot in series 8), CSI Miami, Law and Order: CI, Law and Order: SVU and most of all NCIS. I love Mark Harmon. I think he’s a God. In fact, if he WAS god, I think the world would be better. He’d put everything to rights.
- I love Worms. The computer game that is, not the gross slimy things. Especially Worms 2. I’m also a big fan of TF2, Psychonauts and Assassin’s Creed. I’m trying to make myself like Dragon Age, and trying to work out whether or not I actually want to buy Rift or not.
- I have very weak joints in both my wrists and ankles. Nothing really works properly, so I tend to fall over on my ankles a lot, sprain my wrists etc. Usually from doing things like falling off a horse or trying to pick up too many books and or ring binders at once.
- I’ve am avid reader but always want to learn more and do more. I’m currently doing a history degree, as well as a certificate in web applications development, part of which I failed and am going to have to resubmit in July making my whole life a LOT more stressful.
- I really, really like trashy magazines. Heat, Closer, Reveal. gossip and trash. This does not make me a bad person, or make me stupid. It just means I like reading gossip. I also like reading the poems of Keats and massive books on the history of the asylum and the treatments used for mental illness. People who read Heat are not all idiots. Some, yes. All? No.
Hmm…
looks like I could find ten things afterall!
Day 7: Why The View Through the Brances?
Hmm.
This is quite a short one. The View Through the Branches came about just before I went self-hosted, and I decided I wanted *something* druid related. Something tree related. But I’m not really a “druid blogger”, I’m more a druid that blogs. TVTtB isn’t full of useful, handy information about how to be a great healer, but at the same time my views on the game are most definitely coloured by my ‘place’ in it.
I also really wanted to avoid the word tree. I associate tree with my two of my favourite bloggers – Keeva and Keredria. Tree is *their* word. “leaves” and “wings” always makes me think of Beru, and “dreambound” of Kae, “spoon” of Ophelie *of course*, “spellbound” of saga, “rejuvenate” of Angelya… the list goes on.
I tried to pick a word that would make people think of me. I don’t know how successful it is – I think most people will think of me as either Soph or Elsen.
This is also a bit of a kick up the arse that I really need to sort my header out…totally not on Terenas anymore.
Day 6: My desk
I’m at home today with a horrendous sore throat and a cold, so I’ve decided to do another ’20 days’ post.
Here is my desk, at home:
Here you can see the staples of my room.
The green card table on the right just out of shot is my warhammer models painting table.
on the floor, clothes and my seldom used makeup bag.
The tall white cabinets have photos pegged to them, including a signed picture of Philip Glenister *swoon*. My computer tower is scattered with frogs and my warcraft trivia calendar, my makeup stand and 2 stacks full of DVDs I really need to sort out, as well as a handy bottle of night nurse.
Now, my “workstation” itself. Speakers, microphone (standalone, as my headset hurts my ears), a highlighter and underneath it for some reason a bit off our hoover, the bit we use for cleaning the stairs. Not sure why thats on here. My monitor was too low, and so is currently propped up by a book on how not to procrastinate, a Kevin Brooks novel and the complete works of Oscar Wilde. Sorry mate.
On top is a packet of pro plus. 3 at a time and some diet coke and I’m ready to go. Sometimes. My lovely new keyboard (thanks Craig <3), and my iPhone. The box of tissues is a new addition, as I have a cold at the moment, and behind it is my history degree current module assessment guide. Along the top of my monitor are three post it stickies with directions for the thaddius “shocking” achievement and the kill order for saurfangs blood beasts. As you can see, when I took this shot I was paying close attention to what I was supposed to be doing, healing a shadowfang keep heroic run.
There’s a snapshot of my UI as well
I enjoyed this post and I’ve been enjoying the others people have done – keep em up chaps!
People Are So Utterly Surprising.
The last time I blogged about something ‘controversial’ was nearly a year ago, in March of 2010. I’d only actually been writing about 5 months, on the self-hosted domain anyhow, and I thought very long and hard about posting.
Luckily, I didn’t actually attract any “trolls”. I said I’d approve all comments that came through unless they were out and out mean but none did. And I’m not going to discuss last night’s ‘thing’ in too much detail, other than to say this short paragraph:
I am very over sensitive, and an anxious person. I find myself worried about upsetting people often, and that is why I try my hardest to keep everyone around me happy, and why I spend a lot of time worrying about hurting feelings. I am very soft and I don’t want to hurt feelings.
In my heart of hearts, there are two people here that I cannot believe would ever, ever intentionally cause someone else hurt or anguish. Neither Alas or Larisa ever, ever strike me as people who would intentionally cause upset. I just…maybe I’m being naive, but I just don’t see it happening.
I saw DinoTam as a mark of affection, and find it actually incredulous that it could be seen as hurtful, but maybe if someone named a dinosaur after me I’d be upset. I don’t know, it hasn’t happened yet. I did name my dog after Zal, but he’s a real dog.
Yesterday he got kicked out of his basket by the cats:
Because my Zal is an abject coward consistently beaten up by a siamese and a brutal moggy called Hollie, doesn’t mean Zal the paladin is. All it means is that I had Zal-the-dog’s balls chopped off as soon as he turned 6 months old and he therefore has no testosterone in him and wouldn’t hurt a fly.
I feel I’m going off topic here.
I don’t think Alas would have wanted to upset anyone, Tam or Larisa, or that Larisa would have wanted to upset Xeppe. I like both of these people – Alas and Larisa. They are both nice. End of.
What I actually wanted to talk about was one of the issues that got brought up by the Righteous Orbs team in their guest post/comments, and has been brought up by other bloggers in the past.
Are bloggers responsible for their readers?
This is a very inflammatory way of starting this discussion, I know.
But comments on my own post about the Anna/Cranky thing makes this quite personal to me.
I have something like 130 subscribers, according to Feedburner. I’m very happy with that. I think most of them are other bloggers, and probably a few guildies. It’s nowhere near Matticus’ 6000 (or whatever it might be) and I don’t think I want it to be. I’m just me, and although I love getting comments, hearing feedback, chatting to people, I don’t want masses of attention. I think this ‘unwritten rule’ I’ve seen thrown about where everyone talks about being desperate to be big – I don’t. I just want people to like me. I’d rather I was tiny and liked than massive and hated. I remember a comment from Lisanna on my original post back in March last year;
Being a public figure in the WOW community means that you are going to take some slack for being public. I mean heck, with the amount of harassment that Anna has received from her post, you would think that she would have folded up and packed out, too. However, like me, she’s so used to the harassment that she just sucks it up, locks her thread, and moves on with her life. It’s part of the package that comes with being a public figure. We just learn to live with our harassment AND realize that NONE of it is really personal.
I couldn’t handle that. No way could I. I’m too soft. I’m over sensitive and squishy and easily hurt and a lot of the time the general consensus seems to be that if I am like that, I shouldn’t be blogging. Someone commented early on on Tamarind’s post *goes hunting*
ha, I didn’t even remember it was Zel, but it was. She said:
(1) If bloggers need to have thick skin, and take criticism, you’re going to have a more and more homogeneous group as the more sensitive members with valid opinions self-select out of the pool.
(2) Self-selecting out of the pool is a bad thing. Unlike when someone flunks out of school for being dumb, and we were probably better off that he didn’t become a bad doctor, we are NOT better off as a blogosphere when people are driven off by hostility.
I think this is very true. And this is why I want to stay small – I want to blog, but I’m not thick skinned enough to handle the crap the big bloggers get. And I do respect them for putting up with it. I truly felt for Larisa when she got that awful troll comment on wow-insider (or whatever it’s called this week). I know I would have been devastated by it.
So, once again off on a tangent. Am I responsible for my 130 readers? If they go off and have a bitch and a blogger x because blogger x took offense at something I said, what do I do?
To be honest, this whole scenario is highly unlikely, but I’m trying to put myself in someone’s shoes, rather than just being all hypothetical. I think…I’d go to blogger x and say – sorry, this person wasn’t endorsed by me.
And you know – they’d probably know it. When ‘Itanya Blade’ came and gave me some shtick for my post about Anna/Cranky, I didn’t think it was advocated by Anna. I didn’t think Anna had gone, “GO MINIONS, AND SMITE MY ENEMIEEEEEES”.
But there is a common courtesy here. There is a case of saying, “I’m sorry – I didn’t want my readers to come and give you shit for this. I might have beef with you (that’s the second time I’ve used the word beef for this in 24 hours) but my readers shouldn’t troll you”.
A lot of assumptions have been made about larger bloggers not being responsible for their readers’ actions.
But I think that in some ways, they are.
Tamarind and Chastity built up a cult following of people who were at first amused by the comedy and the light-heartedness. That cult following turned into a mass following of “we love you tam and chas!”. And I find it very hard to believe they didn’t know this. And this following will defend their ‘favourite blogger’ to the very end. A lot of this was displayed by the fact that a lot of the comments on Tamarind’s post were just “come back tam!” comments, and had nothing to do with the content of the post at all. (not saying this is a bad thing – just stating a fact).
Larisa has a massive following, but I think, like Larisa herself, they are calmer, quieter, more thoughtful when they have their “support larisa” heads on.
We mimic our heroes. Our behaviour echoes that of our idols. When we see our idol react with vitriol – even severe vitriol – to something, we automatically agree, we automatically fight for their corner, we now automatically have that same vitriol.
As bloggers, we are supposed to…be thoughtful. As I type every word of this post, running through my head is, “will people be mad at me? will I get trolled? will there be a bad reaction to this?”. I find it very very hard to believe that other people don’t think the same.
If you are a “big” blogger then you have a responsibility to think about your actions. If you are a “small” blogger you have a responsibility to think about your actions. If you are putting something in to the public domain that may cause hurt to someone else then you have responsibility to think about your actions.
If someone does something (ie, Larisa’s innocent linkback to Xeppe, the creation of DinoTam) innocently and without malice, and they then do accidentally upset someone, if they apologise then why isn’t that the end of it? Why can’t it just be a case of – yea, I know it wasn’t on purpose, thanks for saying sorry, it’s all done now and we can be friends again.
What is it with these allegiances forming, these secret camps of “one side” and “the other side”, of “us” and “them”?
That’s what really surprised me. It shook me up, as Poneria and Rades will know, as I was angst-ing at them on Twitter last night (thanks by the way guys).
I think what we need to remember is we are all in the same boat. Whatever the size of the blog is, we should all be decent people. I don’t want to get into a row about what’s decent and what’s not, that isn’t the issue – it’s a far too inflammatory and BIG thing to think about.
When you write a blog post, I don’t give a fuck about free speech, or “not being responsible for readers”, or any of that. Just think about what you’re writing. We are supposed to be intelligent individuals – put that to some use. Accidents happen, and accidents can be apologised for, and hopefully be moved past. Cranky offending RPers was an accident. Larisa upsetting Xeppe was an accident. Alas upsetting Tam with DinoTam was an accident. Going, “oh well, it wasn’t my fault my readers went and had a bitch, I don’t care what they do, it isn’t my problem” is just evading responsibility for actions. And in my opinion (and as always this is a blog, it isn’t FACT it’s just opinion), evading responsibility is not right. Yes, we are responsible for our readers actions, purely because we are responsible for our OWN, and if it’s our actions that caused our readers, then it’s our responsibility.
To sum up.
If you upset someone by accident: say sorry. They should believe you and accept your apology, because your intentions were never malicious.
If you upset someone on purpose: give it a rest. Go be mean elsewhere. The blogging community does not need people being out and out NASTY to other people. We are all human and we all hurt.