Category Archives: Guild

“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

April 28, 2011Permalink 1 Comment

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 :P

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.

April 8, 2011Permalink 3 Comments

Oh My Word The Pressure…

So, although I thought most of my guildies already knew I blogged, apparently some didn’t. So those that now do, OH HAI.

Seeing as one of my lovely colleagues insists on calling me boring, I thought, oo, let’s try and be exciting. And then I thought, no, FUCK YOU Krunge.

I quite like being boring.

I keep putting off doing a screenshot post. This is because I haven’t cleared out my screenshot folder since before The Shattering. That is a LOT of screenshots. What’s even odder is that for some reason, the “fix” button has disappeared off my Windows Picture Viewer thingy, and I can’t crop photos. This is BAD. Because I need to.

I also wish I could sort of…record TS and stick that up in clips. We have some marvellous sound bites at times.

I haven’t talked much about my guild. Those who have been reading me for a while will know when I was on Terenas I got messed about a fair bit until I joined PG. I loved PG. I made friends, I progressed, I had some wonderful social experiences, I got to know a couple of people really well. But as time went on I became more and more disenfranchised with the whole scenario. The officer core was a real “old boys” (and girls) club, it was all about who you were “in” with and the officer roles were undefined, weak and they made that age old mistake of treating being an officer like a perk, not a job.

The amount of blog posts we read on a weekly basis about people having issues because officers treat their position as a perk, not a job, is astounding. It does make me feel better though, as I realise I’m not the *only* one who’s experienced that. Anyway, this isn’t a blog about officer politics.

Basically, I pushed PG as far as I could, putting suggestions in, asking for feedback, etc etc, and got no response other than a brick wall – which I guess you would expect – asking them to voluntarily demote themselves and lose their position of power wasn’t ever going to happen.

So, I applied to one of the server top guilds on Draenor. I server transferred and started to settle in. Then I did something UTTERLY stupid and got enticed away from this awesome guild, enticed away by the thought of being able to *make a difference*. Suffice to say, I made a horrible mistake. It was dire. The guild master and his “officers” were about as much use as a chocolate teapot, and they were just…urg. I can’t think of anything positive to say and I don’t want to lower myself to the realms of name calling but let’s just say if they were on fire, I would be adding petrol.

Luckily, on re-application to Adept me, Thyphs, Thimian and Kamdantil, along with 3 social friends and a RL friend were accepted. So this is where I am now. Raiding with Adept 4 nights a week, running my social raids on a Thursday, being Druid Class Leader and Recruitment Officer.

We’re progressing through content, at 2/13 Heroic on 25 man, but annoyingly Atramedes Heroic is bugged at the moment, he’s doing weird shit in the air phase where he doesn’t really “track” so much as throw fire whereever he wants at whoever he wants.

I like my guild. A lot. There are some very distinctive characters in it with fabulous personalities and there are a few people I really get on with. My technique of just continuously talking to someone until they cave in and talk back is in process. I like our druid channel, and our healer channel, and I love our little rejects channel where me and my friends can sit and chat and generally just ramble. We also have a smut channel, which actually sometimes even goes beyond my comfort zone. I didn’t realise I knew so many perverts.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this. Every time I’ve joined a guild I’ve wanted that to be *it*. I don’t like moving guilds. I want to just *be* somewhere where I can contribute to a team, make friends, be nice to people and help make people happy. I don’t want to move again. I don’t plan on moving again. I hope I can carry on with Adept until either I stop playing WoW or WoW stops being available (whichever should come first). Although I continue to be tempted by other computer games (Hi, Worms 2!) and I hope I carry on contributing to the team, and I *really* hope the awesome people don’t decide to leave either.

If only I was like Raz and could just read peoples’ minds and fix their problems. But unfortunately, I can’t.

Normal service will be restored shortly.

Laters,

Soph

March 24, 2011Permalink 2 Comments

I DID IT!

Yes! That’s Right! I PASSED MY TRIAL!

I am now a full member and raider of Praetorian Guards, of Terenas EU.

So, in celebration, I’m going to do a lovely long screenshot post full of lovely memories over the past couple of months.

There are some from a lonnnng way back but life wasn’t particularly fun filled in May and early June, so there’s just a few from then added with all the glory that’s happened since. So, chronologically, first we have Zal (no surprises there) lamenting about Gunship:

WoWScrnShot_041410_211017Please note, we’re talking about Zal the fat paladin here, not Zal in real life, who’s actually quite skinny.

WoWScrnShot_041810_204030

Fabulous – when I start to go mad, I mix my words up. Somehow, rather than a three phase fight, we ended up with a three fight phase! Sounds pretty epic to me!

WoWScrnShot_041910_172453

The easily distracted Yanader tries to farm a Hyacinth Macaw. Funnily enough, he got bored.

WoWScrnShot_042110_193835

Someone gets a bit pissy when he’s the only paladin….

WoWScrnShot_042410_203244

For some reason it’s always Zal that makes me giggle the most – I do quite like the idea of a hacker who secretly drives players mad!

WoWScrnShot_042510_194900

Why go all the way outside when you can have a friendly warlock do all your leg work for ya?

WoWScrnShot_042810_194554

Some strudels, you just shouldn’t trust.

WoWScrnShot_043010_224243

Zal tries to level a new bank alt but gets exasperated with the nelf starting zone… gummy nightsabers?

WoWScrnShot_043010_232818

a QQing sponge – snigger.

WoWScrnShot_050110_100433

There was a reason. My mum wanted to see the cat…I’m not really one of those awful people that is always putting their pets on YouTube.

WoWScrnShot_050110_104231

Total faith in my own abilities, as ever!

WoWScrnShot_050110_193618

I was trying to make a joke when I was newly dinged 80 – trying to jovially say, “I don’t stand in void zones”. The two raid leaders who said “but it’s a frost boss” in response to my lighthearted comment “I don’t stand in fire” actually horrified me.

WoWScrnShot_050210_134425I’m dead classy, me.

WoWScrnShot_050210_214216

The first time FotP attempted the Lich King… the healer channel may have degraded into mindless chitchat.

WoWScrnShot_050810_192345I was pimping out my druid in the Cenarion set – green furry shoulders and antlers for the win! Way way better than the paladin set!

WoWScrnShot_052610_212712Sometimes, our flames raid leader used to be a little bit more detailed than was completely necessary…

WoWScrnShot_052710_214649

This is what happens when you look at the same character for three years without changing. When you play something new you get VERY confused.

WoWScrnShot_060410_220309Baby Spice + Gnome + Pet Biscuit + Kirin Tor Familar = epic win.

WoWScrnShot_061310_112940

WoWScrnShot_061310_113025

WoWScrnShot_061310_113036

South Park + grinding Mana Tombs together for keys for Zal’s rep = slight insanity sets in.

WoWScrnShot_061410_173717That’s me told for whinging about money…what’d it be like with an alligator hmm????

WoWScrnShot_061410_185201

To put into in to context, he nearly died in Escape from Durnholde cos he pulled the pack whilst I only had one leg in my tights whilst getting changed. Hopping across the room to save a paladin whilst having one foot in and one foot out of tights is NOT EASY.

And then I joined PG. Since then things have changed massively. My WoW experience has changed massively. I am constantly absorbed in what I’m doing. Things are new, and exciting. As I posted earlier today, me and Zal have become PvP fiends. Well, he already was one. Now I am a slightly inferior one. Very inferior! But anyway still awesome. Since I joined PG I have experienced:

WoWScrnShot_062810_220412Algalon – on 25 man. For a guild first:

WoWScrnShot_062810_231106

I also got to watch one of our guildies complete the quest:

WoWScrnShot_062810_231735I have also been part of some other very exciting bits and pieces, such as:

Killing one of our poor guildies (thank you Manda <3 ) 179 times for Halaa tokens for our mounts… a team of 3 boomkins and my favourite pally:

WoWScrnShot_071010_190228

Since joining PG, I’ve had the chance to work my way through some of the Ulduar meta-achievements, leaving me just Firefighter (blergh), Saronite and Yogg + 1. I’ve been desperate since the place was released to really go back and explore, and I’ve really enjoyed doing that recently. Fabulous stuff.

WoWScrnShot_071610_201253

My happy times with my Zal continue withe the creation of RealID:

WoWScrnShot_070410_111812

WoWScrnShot_070410_190032

WoWScrnShot_071110_155154

he’s got no faith in me does he? bloody paladin.

And then, there was this amazing day:WoWScrnShot_070910_191617

Me and Zal, back under the same guild tag again. That’s what makes PG even better. It’s an amazing guild, with an amazing selection people, and now my amazing best friend.

Since then the good times in PG have continued:

I got to defeat Halion,

WoWScrnShot_071810_192440

Progressed further through ICC on heroic on 25 and 10,

WoWScrnShot_071810_212849WoWScrnShot_072710_223518

Had some serious giggles,

WoWScrnShot_072710_210705

took the piss our of a Geordie (it’s got to be done, thanks Thyphs!)

WoWScrnShot_072610_174553WoWScrnShot_072610_174557And of course, completed one of my other major goals of the game:

Die to…

WoWScrnShot_072710_212825

then defeat…

WoWScrnShot_072710_212855

The Lich King!

WoWScrnShot_072710_213049

THANK YOU,

Praetorian Guards, their fab guild leader, officers and of course Dal my class leader for accepting me into your ranks :)

This is an amazing guild. I love it.

I hope I am happy here and can make people giggle and have fun and contribute to the amazing success they have already achieved.

Fabulous.

Long live Praetorian Guards – onwards and upwards!

August 2, 2010Permalink 10 Comments

Two Weeks In, Over Halfway Through

I’m now halfway through my new guild Trial – 2 weeks in, 2 weeks to go.

Some nights I go in and I’m pleased with my performance.

Last night we wiped on heroic Marrowgar just once, which was a shame. And I may well have been partly to blame. I spent a lot of Wednesday night redoing my UI, and although I tried it out in a Wintergrasp that night, I don’t think I tested it thoroughly enough and had some quite severe problems – problems for me anyway.

Names weren’t big enough on the raid frames, and I’d tried to reimplement 3D Portraits (I use Pitbull for my frames as I like the class colour schemes for the entire boxes amongst other things), and my range fader wasn’t working.

This meant a lot of my heals didn’t land properly and things weren’t working at all. We did go on to down Marrowgar easily the second try, the raid (I was subbed out) went on to kill Deathwhisper on heroic, and then we did Gunship.

After that I was luckily out for the rest of the evening, which thankfully meant I could get my UI fixed. Range faders are now working, names are now big and I’ve got it showing my buffs/auras only, so I can track my rejuvs again etc.

My addon list is now greatly decreased and I’ve really started from scratch.

I now have:

Auctioneer Suite (on my bank alt only)
Postal – fantastic for opening mail when you have shed loads
Pitbull 4.0 – although I do miss 3.0 terribly I’m sure I’ll get used to 4
Decursive - curses to left click, poisons to right click. Perfect for Lady Deathwhisper etc
Power Auras – shows my Wild Growth, Swiftmend and Natures Swiftness cooldown, as well as a visual countdown of my battle res, a massive “you’re under 75% mana” rune symbol, and a symbol for missing flask/missing food.
GCD – recommended by Cranky, ideal for tracking WG and Swiftmend, especially the latter, which I used to hit before it was off CD way too often, wasting a click/GCD.
Button Facade – I almost went further and I tried kgpanels, but it was just too complicated for me. I do love how my buffs, debuffs and all my buttons have a lovely dary (I use the Onyx skin) on them, and a lovely gloss to them as well. I really really like this new addition.
SLDT – I’ve used fubar and broker in the past but this is my most favourite – clear text, tiny letters, no big black bar at the top, everything I need all in one easy line. Also another new addition.
Buffalos - I haven’t done much with this other than move my debuffs away from under my buffs to alongside them, in the middle of my screen at the top – slightly easier to see for me and they’re also framed with Button Facade which I like.
SexyMap – had this for ages, currently using the emerald dream skin. I really like the little touch of prettiness this gives my screen.
Clique – used alongside pitbull for my healing.
TipTac - I think that’s the name? Frames tooltips really nicely, plus it gives you this awesome feature of being able to see what people’s guild ranks are – there are some utterly brilliant ones.
Other’s of course include oRA2 and DBM.

That’s pretty much everything I’m using now so I’m quite pleased with the sleeker, glossier and more streamlined look everything has. I’m still not completely happy with my raid frames but to be honest I doubt I ever will be, I’m far too picky!

New guild wise, tonight we’ve got VoA and the weekly (Patchwerk for us), and then Ulduar 10 hard modes which I’m really really excited about.

Team this with the fact it’s Friday, I’ve got a quick half hour horse riding lesson tonight and then it’s the WEEKEND, my mood and things overall are definitely looking up.

Thanks,

Soph

July 9, 2010Permalink 5 Comments

Heroic Modes and Forgetting to Breathe and my public squishyness

Where were we last time I did a new-guild update?

*goes to look at own website because cannot remember what bloody day it is*

Firstly I want to say a massive thank you to all of you for your support. I know those that have followed me for a while have followed my own very public…squishyness.

You all saw me gush at how wonderful Mike is – to only realise that maybe some people have always been single for a long, very conclusive list of reasons which aren’t my problems to fix, to be brutal.

I’m 23. I want to enjoy myself and my life, not look after someone else.

You’ve all seen me come to terms with my own anxiety, and start counselling. Last Thursday, my counsellor said she truly believed I’d turned a corner. I’d started to realise that…a lot of the reasons I was unhappy were, whilst not necessarily completely my own doing, I hadn’t done anything to stop them, or to fix them.

I’d let myself be unhappy. I’d let myself be upset, let myself be backed into a corner and let myself be put upon because it gave me an excuse to be unhappy.

However, things are a-changing.

I have now been on a calorie counting diet for two weeks, and have lost 4 lbs. I don’t know what that is in kilos. It’s not a lot, but it’s a good start.

I have a list of objectives in my diary for every day of the week, and I try and do four to six of those objectives every day. I’ve started small. “Make my own lunch” is on the list, for example. As is, “Netherwing dailies”. I’m giving myself lots of little things to tick off – my mind likes that system. Same as my mind likes being able to type exact calorie numbers into a database and have things worked out for me. I’m a bit OCD like that.

I’ve turned a corner.

If I’m upset – I’m fixing it.

I’m unhealthy – I’m fixing it.

My game experience was bad – I’m fixing it.

From somewhere, as well, I seem to have acquired a boyfriend. That bit sort of snuck up on my unexpected, but I’m going with it so far! It does mean getting my passport stamped, visa acquired and every jab possible everytime I cross the England/Wales border to visit him, but…ya know, I’m dealing with it.

So, on to that game experience

Since 1st July, I’ve done some lovely raiding. Thursday was quite a relaxed night for me – an off night. I did some dailies, wandered about Azeroth and chatted a lot. Listened in on Teamspeak and absorbed some more tips and whatnot.

Friday we steamrolled through ToC and VoA as per usual. I also went into Molten Core and dinged revered. Now. Here’s a query for you all. I am now 1005/21000 with the Hydraxian Waterlords.

One boss run of Molten Core nets me 1050 rep. I need 20994 rep to hit 999/1000. That is 20 runs of Molten Core. That means one run every week for 20 weeks will take us to 24th November 2010. We all know Cataclysm is going to be out before that.I know the last 1000 is impossible so for now let’s just concentrate on me hitting Exalted.

What do we think is going to happen to Molten Core? I know Raggy’s off for a wander to the Fire plain thingies. But will the instance die? What will happen to the reputation faction? I’m going to try and do an MC every month, because even if I can’t get myself all the way to exalted, I’d like to get myself as far through revered as possible.

Any speculation? Does anybody actually KNOW the answer definitively?

Anyhow. I had awful internet problems for a lot of Saturday, however on Sunday we raided again.

We did Deathwhisper on normal, Lootship Heroic, Saurfang on normal, and then Valithria Dreamwalker on heroic.

Now THAT was a fight. That was a hard fight. Luckily, oh oh oh so luckily, I got to stay outside. We had a few wipes but we managed it. I’ve never, ever gone oom in that fight, ever, and towards the end I was literally waiting for my trinket to repop, for my mana to creep up for one more rejuv, just clinging on depserately.

And we did it.

Valithria Dreamwalker on heroic.

I’d be interested in any tips from anybody who’s done this a few more times than me, here’s the basic info:

untitledAlthough the night wasn’t great for the guild – they’ve progressed much further than this and done a lot more on heroic – I had a fabulous time. I feel like I proved myself to be decent. I feel like I did my job, and although I ran oom, I know both the shammy and the holy priest who were outside did too.

I certainly felt, after Sunday, one hell of a lot more confident about my abilities to pass my trial than I had done the week before.

That’s when things started going wrong. Last night, after a fabulously lovely long walk with Jess (the bezzie), her mum, and three mad dogs, I got home to find a totally deceased internet. Latency varied from 5.5k, to 1.7k, to 2.5k, ms. That’s in between a 2 seconds and nearly SIX second lag on cast times. That would be a wild growth applied and expired before I would see it get through. I spent 90 minutes on the phone to BT, I had to cancel arena (Sorry again chaps :( ), and I couldn’t sub in when needed in the guild’s raid.

HOWEVER! The 90 minutes with BT seemed to fix things enough to play with, so I’m hoping to actually get something done tonight, and get some proper gaming done.

I might get a chance at an ICC10man tonight, which would be quite nice.

So yes! In summary, I am most definitely feeling more confident about my trial than I was.

Which is good.

Before I leave you, I’d like you to watch the below video.

I don’t know how many of you know about Ikea. And about Ektorp sofas. But as you can see by this lovely advert, the sofa covers are washable.

I have TWO cats, and one puppy. One of my cats, the siamese, likes to sit in the soil in the garden, then sit on the white Ektorp sofa covers.

But it’s OK, right? That man! He split tea, and they’re WASHABLE.

But let me tell you this. Try and get the FUCKING covers back on after you’ve washed them is physically impossible. I spent 45 minutes last night struggling to get the (yes by the way, mud does come off, they were as good as new) fucking covers on. FOURTY FIVE MINUTES. All that had been achieved was that I was very red and very sweaty and very exhausted. I had the two back corners on, and one arm. But the other arm would not go on.

So I gave up, put the cushions on and threw a blanket over the uncovered arm.

My dad gets back from a fortnight in Italy tomorrow. I’m going to see how long it takes him to notice.

Adieu,

Soph

July 6, 2010Permalink 2 Comments

Oh what, the Beta’s out?

Firstly I’d like to say thank you to Kae, Seph, Cranky, Ophelie and of course Dal for being so supportive after my whinging post the other night.

I have downloaded GCD, and it’s AWESOME. I love my little Wild Growth and in particular Swiftmend tickers – that’s one I often hit when it’s still on cooldown and I saw a marked decrease in the number of times I did that thanks to GCD last night.

Anyway.

Apparently, the closed Cataclysm Beta is starting soon. I didn’t sign up for the Beta. I’m not…I don’t know how to say this but I’m not really that interested. Everytime I’ve entered new content, level wise, on Elsen – and to a lesser extent on some of my other characters, when I’ve quested through zones I hadn’t experienced before – I have truly been open mouthed with wonder, aghast at the monstrosities I see before me that have to be killed, speechless at the acts of heroism we see by NPCs.

I want my level 80 to 85 experience to be exactly the same – which is why I won’t be looking at *too* many screenshots (I have snooped on troll and worgen druid forms mainly because they won’t affect me), I won’t be dissecting quest lines, or going any further into the druid changes than I have already. I’m all about superficial analysis.

I may restart my series about the new maps – not including screenshots – because I think that was quite a nice way of going about things. A real sort of, “direct” comparison.

So anyway, yea, don’t expect to see any in-depth super good (HA! as if) analysis of the druid changes on this there poxy website.

Time for some more QQ?

SO! How’s the raiding going I see you all clamouring to ask. Look away now if you’re bored of me complaining.

When I last posted I believe it was just before my adventures into ICC normal with the new guild.

Well, in we went. I sucked on Valithria. I always suck on Valithria. I can’t portal bounce, I suck as 3D swimming and that, “bork” noise Elsen makes in her tree form when she pops a bubble always makes me jump.

I was healing with a resto shammy and a holy priest, for info. The priest stayed outside, and I went in with the shammy.

We then went on to Putricide, which I matched the other healers for, and Sindragosa. Sindy took me a while to grasp, and I did accidentally double frost tomb myself at one point. It’s funny though, when I managed to frost tomb myself, my heart sank and I said to myself – oh it’s a wipe. But no! I’m continually amazed by the quick reaction times and general bad-ass ness of these guys. If it was my old lot, we’d be floundering on our arses, no frost tombs getting broken and an invariable wipe. I got broken out and once I grasped the method of the boss I did OK, and she went down. I was only a smidgen below the others there.

We then went backwards and squished the BPC, and then heroic BQL. I love Lana’thel. Lana’thel is where I get to shine. Resto druids are AWESOME on that fight. Like, truly awesome. Pulsing raid damage FOR the win.

BQL healzI love that fight.

Thankfully I then got to have a rest, as the team went on to kill the LK on normal, and then make some attempts on Professor Putricide heroic on 25 man.

During which time I managed to finish grinding my Kurenai rep! Netting me the Kurenai achievement, the Diplomat achievement, and progressing me to 79/100 mounts!

So that was Tuesday, right?

Well, along comes Wednesday. Raid lists go up. I’m in for Heroic Marrowgar, Heroic Deathwhisper, Heroic Gunship, 10man Sanctum and 25man Sanctum.

Busy night much?

On Marrowgar, I’m down to heal the tanks. Not a role I’m particularly best suited to or one I enjoy a lot. I’m not particularly good at tank healing or experienced at it. But anyway. I stand in the wrong place at first, but thanks to the lovely GM telling me where to move to I manage to plant myself in the right place and, whilst forgetting to breathe, manage to make it through.

On Deathwhisper, things get a lot harder. My tanks to heal are on either side of the room, and things go fine until I unluckily get hit by a Death and Decay, or am trying to decurse/cyclone and lose a tank. That happened a couple of times, so after a wipe I get switched round to looking after one tank and the raid.

I feel bad about that, because I feel like I wasn’t capable of doing the assignment given to me. But Deathwhisper heroic is fucking…insane.

Constant adds, constant mind control, and then the one time we did get her down past the shield, those god damn GHOSTS!

I think I only got hit by the explosion once, which isn’t too bad going seeing as I’ve never done it before, and I didn’t die until right at the end. I certainly wasn’t one of the first to fall. Small victories and all that, hmm?

We called it there and moved on to Sanctum.

We spent about 90 minutes in there, on ten man. Three groups went in, and only one managed to get Halion down. Not ours, unfortunately. The mini bosses went quite well (except for the first one, which took us a couple of tries), but the Halion fight itself is hard.

Phase 1 we did successfully every time. Phase 2, however, the first two tries I walked straight through a laser beam. What a fucking numpty. “OO, purple lasers! Let’s RUN THROUGH THEM”. Stupid feckin tree.

We got through to Phase 3 a couple of times but then got stuck against the corporeality buff with a bit of misunderstanding and not quite grasping it overall I think.

It then hit the end of raid time, and we called it.

I feel like I was a massive drag factor in that fight. Massive. It depresses me to think that with someone more competent who doesn’t walk through laser beams they might have got him down. It’s weird, because sometimes my spatial awareness is good – for example, I’m quite good at avoiding fire. I don’t tend to stand in void zones and I avoided DW’s ghosts. However when it’s an entirely new fight…I think somethings just take me longer to learn than others.

Sigh. All I can do is hope that I will have improved enough if I get the chance to go again and do better.

So. As it stands now, my “will I pass my trial meter” went from “quite unlikely” post-Algalon to “you know, there is a chance…” after ICC normal, to “well, if they’re REALLY short on resto druids” after Marrowgar to “you ain’t got a feckin CHANCE my girl!” after Halion.

I will update again soon…

July 1, 2010Permalink 7 Comments

So. How Does It Feel To Know I’m….Awful?

Blergh.

What’s that annoying phrase? Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained?

So if I hadn’t have left Flames, would I have never known briefly what it would be like to be in a proper raiding guild?

I have now experienced two separate things with my new guild.

1. A VoA 25 & Sarth + 3D 25man zerg.

2. A guild first of Algalon the Observer – resulting in Observed, the Astral Walker title, and a brief period of time when I nearly died because I stopped breathing.

Tonight, I am in one of the ten man teams who will be going for Valithria Dreamwalker, Professor Putricide, Sindragosa and the Lich King. Thankfully, I’ve been left out of the Lich King team to break me into my first proper guild raid.

I’ve seen the logs for last night’s Algalon attempts.

I’m looking at the upside here, right?

Upsides:

a) I didn’t die at the beginning in any of the attempts. In fact I didn’t die in any attempts until we were essentially all dead. I was successfully understanding the fight mechanics, getting out of bad shit and whatnot. I also grasped the “black hole” mechanic quite well.

b) My healing is back to front. Normally Rejuv makes up over 60% of my healing, but WG was doing that and Rejuv WG’s numbers (on our successful attempt). I think my lack of knowledge of the fight, lack of understanding of “what the fuck was going on”, and general lack of not-knowing, meant I was more panic-healing than planning out my heals or getting into any kind of routine or motion.

c) Despite this, my ‘raw’ healing was only 100k behind the other Resto druid (who is so good it’s a little bit scary). My effective HPS was 900 behind the other Resto’s, at a pitiful 2.8k.

d) My activity was decent – 98%. I did 10.4% of the overall healing, just 1.5% behind a priest, 3% behind t’other druid. A very long way away from our Disc priest and the other two healers.

Downsides:

a) I am simply a good 10% behind the other healers. Whether this is down to not knowing the fight or general nerves I don’t know, but it needs to be improved on if I deserve a place in this team. Seriously.

b) I am outclassed completely and this affects my nerves and my abilities. I need to overcome my nerves, stop being such a fucking girl and MAN UP.

The thing is, tonight is the real test. Tonight I see how I do in fights I know, see how I do in fights I have done before, and “easy” fights (ie, ICC normal).

I’m so worried I’m going to fail. Flames isn’t my home anymore. I don’t…want to be there anymore. It’s not somewhere I can go back to, so if this new guild don’t accept me (which they shouldn’t do if I am not capable), then I’m back to square 1.

I expect, to be honest, I’ll take a break from playing, or go Horde full time.

I’ll keep you updated as to what the hell happens tonight…

June 29, 2010Permalink 6 Comments

But It’s All So….New

Moving Guilds & Settling In

Moving guilds has been a strange experience for me.

I’ve got big fish in a small pond syndrome. I’ve gone from being guild banker in a tiny, tight nit guild with only 15 raiders, where my voice is one of the loudest, my opinions always heard and my mark on the guild everywhere…to being one of many.

One of a BIG many. A trialist (and to be perfectly honest – I doubt I’ll pass. I was shown some raw healing figures (which I know don’t mean much but you can effectively compare raw with raw), and I actually did a real life ‘quiver’. I did a full out “omfg-what-am-I-doing-here-these-people-are-uber-and-I’m-rubbish-and-the-only-reason-I-got offered-a-trial-was-because-I-spent-two-hours-on-my-application-and-it-was-really-good-and-hid-the-fact-I’m-a-rejuv-flailing-numpty”) amongst 40-odd active raiders and hundred or so active accounts.

I’m used to things being vocal…

But, I’m getting used to the changes. The chattiness is different in my new guild. It’s not really based in guild chat, but I’m in four different chat channels. I’m in a healing channel, where assignments get written down, battle rezzes are broadcast, chat is serious and kept to a raid relevant basis only.

I’m also in a druid channel. In there, it seems we mostly talk about cake. Battle rezzes also get broadcast, but conversation does seem to circulate mostly around cake. I approve.
I’m also in a /pervs channel, and a /ladies channel. Both of these are, like the druid channel, are very very chatty. People are friendly and lots of them have given me tips and hints and really helpful bits and pieces of knowledge in preparation for my first raid (which will probably be Wednesday). I feel like I’m starting to settle in. I am starting to know people and starting to take part more vocally in conversations.

Do I miss my Flamers?

But it will take me a while. After being in Flames, anything and everything is different. At the moment, I don’t regret my decision. I don’t honestly know how Flames will fare now. A very small part of me sees things not going well anymore and thinks – maybe now it’ll become clear that my way was the right way. And that to shoot me down and not support me is resulting in something fading. All I wanted was a bit of decisiveness and a bit of support.

But I might be wrong. Things might be incredibly successful, things may improve, and they may come out the other side stronger of it. Who knows? I think the whole situation is totally unpredictable right now.

Anyway. Back to pastures new. I listened in on Teamspeak last night. And at one point, whilst browsing my feed reader and hovering in Nagrand (I’m very, very slowly grinding my Kurenai rep), the raid leader shouted, “woa woa woa stop MOVING” and I jumped about 3 feet, tabbed back in and panicked, before realising I was still just hovering 60 feet up in Nagrand, unaffected by Festergut’s heroics malleable goo.

I think it’ll take me a while to get used to a different style of raid leading to Nyo’s very calm, slow, stoic descriptions.

How is raiding going to be different?

The main difference I can see – or that I think I can see – is that the responsibility is on the individual. In Flames, our hands were very much held. Spore there, spore there, cross/square move out, phases were called out, transition phases called out, information and descriptions on all the different possible boss abilities – all called out, even when stuff was on farm.

However, now, I’m going to have to be totally responsible for what I stand in, what I heal, what I avoid and what I do. It’s on ME to look for my spore. It’s on ME to avoid goo. I’ve become more spatial as time has passed, more aware of my surroundings and more au fay with boss abilities. I now know how to do things and what to stand in and not stand in. But I my comfort blanket has been taken away. So it will be very interesting seeing how things go. That’s if I even get taken to a raid! I wouldn’t take me if I was them.

Although I’ve been mildly worried since the off about my level of ability in comparison to the healer team, it was only yesterday, when I saw the scary ass numbers, that I really started to shit myself.

YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!

I am, however, as prepared as I can be. I have 70 flasks of the frost wyrm. I have 60 odd spineleaf. I have 40 pieces of firecracker salmon, in case there are no fish feasts. I have made notes on the differences in between normal and heroic on every boss in Icecrown. I don’t learn well off video – I find writing things down easier.

I even have 20 toasted smorc in my bag for that extra spellpower.

A well oiled machine…

I had my first experience of the well oiled machine that is my new guild on Friday – for VoA and the weekly. In VoA they did all four bosses, FINALLY netting my my Emalon achievement *shameface*. The weekly on Terenas this week was Sarth.

I said to Zal – getting ready to pull Sarth now.

2 minutes later, I got three achievements. 25 man When the Volcano Blows, 25man Twilight Duo, and 25man Twilight Zone.

I said to Zal – Sarth 3D zerg down.

Wow. Actual wow.

I barely contributed.

One only hopes I am more useful and effective in a proper raid.

And now, to my reptuation/achievement grinds!

One thing I am finding, with all this time spent on Elsen but not raiding, is that my rep grinds are sloooowly slowly advancing.

Before Wednesday, I was only friendly with Skyguard, neutral with Netherwing and Honoured with Kurenai.

I am now revered with Skyguard (2240/21000). A lovely guildie did a bit of farming with me for Time-Lost offerings, and we’re using up a couple a day. We’ve got about 9 or 10 left I think, which is another 5k ish easy rep. With Skyguard, I’d also like to migrate myself out to Blade’s Edge, and start doing the Ogri’la quests. By doing those (1,350 rep a day), I should hit exalted by July 10th. (That’s presuming in that time I do the Terokk offerings we’ve collected, and missing the odd day out because I have no time, and/or too pooped!)

I am honoured with Netherwing (7575/12000). I easily completed all races except Skyshatter – which I failed at. I will keep trying it I think and hopefully grab it eventually. Tips have included grabbing a paladin for Crusader Aura and essentially flying inside him. I will keep having a go and seeing what happens. Luckily yesterday I also grabbed 5 eggs. I can now, at honoured, collect a huge number of quests, netting me (if I do them all! over  2k rep a day. Once I hit revered, I’ll be on 3k rep a day, so seven solid days would hit me exalted. I’m essentially also aiming for exalted by July 10th.

The third rep I am concertedly working on at the moment is my Kurenai. After being stuck at about 8k honoured for ages, I put a bit of work in this weekend and have progressed to 3512/21000. So I’m in to the home straight. I have also now collected 220 obsidian warbeads. This means I am over half way through collecting the number of beads I need to reach exalted, and the number of beads goes down as I collect them. I’m working it out as I go along and it’s satisfying to see some actual progress. I haven’t got an end date for the Kurenai rep – so let’s say, July 20th.

This will result in me being able to buy 6 nether rays (71 + 6 = 77 mounts) and one non-combat pet (110 + 1 = 111 pets) from Skyguard, 5 (plus one free) netherdrakes (77 + 6 = 83 mounts) and 8 kurenai mounts (83 + 8 = 91).

I will also be able to collect two more tabards (21 + 2 = 23 tabards, plus destroying my current midsummer one, and collecting the opposing colour = 24 tabards).

These three reps will also take me to thirty eight exalted reputations.

So how am I going to grind my way to the last bits of my achievements?

I’m missing one tabard.

I’m missing two reputations.

I’m missing nine mounts.

I’m going to go for Ogri’la next. That will net me 39 exalted reps, and will complete the grind for 25 tabards.

After that, I’m going to go for two different reps at essentially the same thing. I would like to get my Scale of the Sands rep to exalted – however this is dependent on being around when a Hyjal run is in existance, and the groups doing well, and me getting one every week. I’m also just barely into revered – it would take me roughly 3 – 4 more full clears to ding exalted.

The second rep of choice will be Stormpike Guard. I’m halfway through revered here, and AVs would do me good – I will be able to grab some honor – I only have 1 out of the 6 available mounts, and it would also allow me to grind enough honor for some non-set PvP gear.

This would take me to 40 exalted reps and another pimpin title.

And finally – I’m missing 9 mounts.

I can get five of these nine mounts from PvP – I own the stallion but am missing the Stormpike ram, the IF ram, Gnomer Mechano, Battle Cat and Elekk.

This will take me to 91 + 5 = 96.

Four mounts left!

There are three relatively cheap buyable mounts I don’t own – The Armoured Snowy Gryphon, the Red Drake and the Ice Mammoth – buying those two will get me 96 + 3 = 99.

That’s one more mount to get. Logic would say drag Zal along to tank for me to Gun’drak and Oculus – I only need Less-Rabi, Ruby Void and Amber Void, to complete Glory of the Hero. That would take me to 100 mounts.

One option for mount number 100 would be to save up enough to buy the Grand Ice Mammoth (I only have about 10k gold right now – the drakes, rays, talbuks, drake/gryphon/mammoth will clear me out, really).

Another option would be to pay a Horde (a friend of mine paid one 3k), to be killed 70 times. Killing a horde 70 times would allow me to collect 70 Halaa war tokens, teamed with the Oshu’gun Crystal Power I’m collecting from ogres for 15 research tokens, would allow me to collect my 100th mount – the Dark Riding Talbuk.

I think one of those three is certainly possible.

I am aiming to have completed these three awesome achievements by the end of August.

That’s 25 Tabards, 40 exalted reputations and 100 mounts.

That’s some seriously large amounts of awesome!

Sophxxx

June 28, 2010Permalink 4 Comments

Time for change

My readers will know how dedicated I was to Flames of the Phoenix.

They will have read how my time in Respice destroyed my spirit as a World of Warcraft player, and how my promotion to Guild Banker filled me with the glow of responsibility.

I took it upon myself to make the place I loved somewhere everybody could love. I thought about things I felt were necessary – a regularly updated forum thread on recruitment, on progression, on intiates – and updated them.

I kept the guild bank in absolutely fabulous order. Everything was there, nothing was lacking, everything was available. I was on hand for anything that was needed.

I designed us a new website, and I investigated finding a way to keep old content yet transfer to a new set of forums designed to be controlled/admined by all officers (not just one person who had left 3 years ago), and gave us a bright, exciting colour scheme.

However, when I proposed this last change (migrating forums from proboards to phpBB) my enthusiasm was met with…angst. I think angst is the best word. Angst from an ex GM and an inactive officer who both claimed they would therefore be leaving the Flames forums for good, and one would be leaving the guild.

These people were staples of the guild and I felt deeply troubled by the prospect I had inadvertently caused – so I informed the officers I would stop my actions, and move to a new guild.

This was not a rushed decision. A series of failed raids due to people stopping to care and stopping to sign and attend, even for farm nights, meant we had stalled in progression again. I was unhappy with signing constantly and getting no…enjoyment.

There were some people beginning to permeate the raid team I didn’t enjoy the company of. I hated our 25 mans. We were, to be honest, carrying 13 people through ICC.

When our team was selected, the team was our best 12/13 people. They were chosen by raider rank first and then members second. People were not taken unless we knew they could perform.

However the raiding alliance guild brought new people every week – some of our regulars saw Sanc. Marks go to brand new people who hadn’t stepped foot in ICC before, or who didn’t even have any Tier 10.

It was disheartening, seeing people standing in the same void zone week after week. I used to spend the whole four hours whinging, moaning and complaining, which can’t have been very nice for Zal nor Riccah.

And then last night, I spent four hours in the company (on vent) of an American who proceeded to ask, “what’s this orange ball?” in Blood Princes, as well as “what’s the white thing on the floor?” and “why am I over here now?” and other such marvellous comments.

I have also started seeing someone new. I found it very difficult not being able to tell my guild the numerous reasons I had dumped him, and the several thousand, thousand issues my ex had, and because I worry, sometimes, about what people think of me, I found I was thinking – I bet they think it’s all my fault, I bet they think I’m a right slag, yadda yadda yadda. I mean, let’s face it, they weren’t. But I was worrying they were. Plus there had been in the past disagreements between Darren and another guild member, before they joined Flames.

This had carried on into Flames (not from Darren, mind you), and I was getting stick for dating him. I should be able to date whoever I bloody well want, without fear of saying anything or doing anything in case I upset somebody.

So they were my main three reasons. I applied to a new guild (who have a link to this blog so may see this – evening chaps, if so), and was accepted as a trialist.

And now? I’m SHIT scared.

I’m somewhere new, and I’m going to have to prove my worth. I’ve spent six months basking in the glow of Zal, and his awesome holy pally-ness, and I don’t know what I’d do without him. I don’t know what I AM going to do without him. He’s my lifeline, my best friend, my little brother, my agony aunt. With Zal healing next to me, we could do anything.

But now? I’m healing with other druids. Other druids who are undoubtedly a damn site better than me at doing this druid healing lark.

What will I do? How on earth will I cope! I honestly don’t know. It killed me to leave Zal and the others last night and I will admit I had a bit of a cry on vent and afterwards.

But this is a new start for me. I might get the chance to raid alongside people who can teach me, show me where I’m going wrong, and maybe together, with my new guild (if I pass my trial!), we can kick some ass!

June 24, 2010Permalink 4 Comments