The Flip Side

If you ever peruse your server's specific forums occasionally you'll notice references to controversy that's taking place on the faction side opposite to your own. Often while this will be your first indication to you of the excitment across the way, the display you are witnessing is merely the crust that's rised it's way to the top after baking in the drama oven. The real juice you'll have to extract through various server networking veins.

As an example of the above, I once read a forum post detailing a ninja event in a rival opposite faction guild. Bear in mind this was well over a year and a half ago now.

The culprit - a former guild leader just returned from army basic training. The prize - Ashkandi (teh uber 2 hander in it's ancient day) and everything else that was on Nefarian's body (pre AQ release, so yah, it mattered). The means - loot type left on free for all.

There's got to be more of a story behind this, thinks me. I must investigate! Turns out - 100% correct. Former guildleader on army leave ninjaed the choice professor plum's as a means of extracting revenge against the warrior who should have won the item out right. Why ? Well, bear with me on some backstory. This realm was one of the first wave of reroll servers - the set that opened up 3 months or so after release. This unfortunately set it up as a safe harbor for rejects of other servers. Future Ninja Guild Leader established his guild with his real life girlfriend , complete with a strict leveling curve deadline and the capacity to be all that they could be for first in server progression. They succeeded, for the most part. As it usually goes with guilds of this type, often rumors would surface and make their way to listening ears. One of which was that Guild Leader had met this girlfriend on the old server from which they fled, and she had moved cross country to live with him. It also came out that she was a Dairy Queen Manager, as well as her picture being traded around.

I digress. Askhandi! Right. Roll tape to several months later - Guild Leader has to be shipped off to the army. Uber Alliance guild would still exist, with Girlfriend and a new leader in the form of the Main Tank at it's helm. The very same warrior that former guild leader would steal from later on.

The girlfriend kept busy in army boy's absence by hooking up with New Leader Warrior. And once again, packing it up and moving several states over to live with her new boy toy. As a little added benefit - this time she actually got pregnant! (Creepy side note: She got this little "X days left until Birth" countdown image she posted in her forum signature)

Former guild leader returned to see his guild and his girl stolen by a new guy. I'm sure he knew of it while it was unfolding, but I have to think he returned to raiding with something like this in mind; knowing full well his guild left loot on free for all to avoid the master loot complications that sometimes would crop up back in the day.

I say he planned it, at least after seeing what had dropped that night, because he frapsed the steal. And then, of himself, PVPing with the weapon afterwards, cut with lines of text telling his ex girlfriend and her new beau exactly what to do with themselves. And then posted a link to the video on the forums. If only I had known I'd blog about it later and saved the video!

His finale was the nuking of his guild's DKP website, of which he still had admin access (yeah, they deserved this one) and replacing it with a photo of himself with the weapon.

Kids, there are several lessons to be had here. 1.) don't ever trust anything but master looter. 2.) Guild leadership change = website access login change. 3.) Look into the drama that bubbles up on server forums, you'll be rewarded.

Second Coming of Christ : Warcraft Style

Oh the difference race can make...

One click to the left on skin color at character creation, everything else the same...

Useful!

Recent threads you might have missed from the Warcraft Raid and Dungeon forums that included step by step instructions: How to Walk to (yes, to, not through) Hydross and Void Reaver 4 Casuals.


I don't have a Hydross screenie that I've taken myself for this post, but damn, isn't Al'ar pretty?

Also, speaking of Al'ar --amusing thread where the original poster gets called out for what he is, only to be lol'ed at by his own guildmates.

Ode to Screenshots: Memory Lane

What better to do at 3:30 am then rummage through your screenshot folder and proceed to experiment editing them? Here's some various gems from over my WoW years.

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Hellfire at Night
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In Flight
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The Best WSG Defense
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Learning Nef Wipe #137
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The Druid as Leper Gnome
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Failed Kite: Early Naxx Wipe and the Resulting O Chat
(Notice I inexplicably have 78 hourglass sand on my toolbar)
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Caught! AFK Circle of Shame mid Blackwing Lair
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Terrokar Forrest Canopy
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My own AFK niche in Orgimmar - Notice our main tank to my left in full pre-texturized wrath, and one of our rogues in full old style bloodfang while myself was noob decked in only cenarion. Total anti druid bias in our early BWL drops.
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Top down view of the center of Shattrath
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Blizzard on the Ball: No More Tiered Attunements

In part of today's mini-patch, Blizzard announced that they were removing the attunement requirements for Serpent Shrine Cavern and The Eye in Tempest Keep.

" After a lot of thought and deliberation, we’ve decided to remove the attunement requirements to enter Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep: The Eye. While many of our attunements in the Burning Crusade have been good progression checks, a few of the attunements have turned out to cause unnecessary stress on guilds either doing the content or attempting to do the content."

Prior to the patch, both required flagging by killing content in the prior level of difficulty instance. Personally, I think it's fantastic.

Better to solve the problems of fixing guild attrition with a given applicant pool not having to be taken back to do worn out content.

Additionally, I think Blizzard clearly reads Psycho E-Bitch and my interview here:

Fraxx: You've mentioned before about WoW not always learning from Everquest's mistakes... Can you think of any other examples?

Foton: Everyone (all guilds) on my server are running out of gas. tiered dungeons are the devil. I'm pretty sure we learned that in EQ, but apparently some of us didn't learn the lesson

"Chomsky with Dick Jokes"

The title of the post is a quote of self characterization of his own performances by the late comedian Bill Hicks. His stand-up was heady yet had low brow moments. I'd like to use that as analogy for the following display. I'm really just looking for justification for the below pictures of male genitalia taken by people not me (characters Gyrann and Wellington) in World of Warcraft, first found in this thread, but also hosted here for preservation. Also I don't mind the chance to give props to Hicks, and if you've never heard him, you should enlighten yourself.

Without further ado...

Gee, Ya think?

Powerlevelingsucks.com, The site has a forum with testimonials from people who paid top dollar for characters and then had them yanked out from under them once Blizzard confirmed the IP switch from China to Wherever USA. Or, even if they didn't get banned - skills never bought, reputations ruined, and gold/gear stolen. One wayward poster wonders, "What can I do if I can't pay to be power leveled?!" Gee, I don't know!! The site also posted a contest where the prize was a step by step leveling guide. I think people's problems with questing, even with the ease of thottbot et al explains a lot of level 70 behavior.

Triangle of Destruction

I've eluded to the fact that my guild died near the end of last year. This is the story of its death, which was a combination of many factors but sped along by what follows.

We played with the same basic group of people in Warcraft from release up through the end of last year. Lead by a charismatic MMO seasoned Guild Leader, we met moderate success with most available content. This Guild Leader was seemingly everything - around all the time, protection warrior ready to run instances 24/7, even dealt well with drama in a personable way. It worked out nicely, he explained, because he worked as an IT guy for a school district and kept k-12 school hours. Oh, they keep me on a long leash as long as I answer my pages, he'd explain as he'd be around to lead world spawn raids at 10 am on weekdays.

The only annoyance was that nearly every raid he'd veer Vent conversation into some 15 minute long recollection of an amusing mishap that happened while fixing computers at his schools day to day. His long winded stories were guild legend.

His sidekick was a girl in the guild, 10 years younger than he, who led the administrative details of running the the guild. Recruitment, waitlists, dkp, etc. Suddenly, at the end of year, Guild Leader and Girl Sidekick stopped being around 100% of the time. There was attrition due to moving into the more difficult encounters of Naxxramas and a screeching halt to the progression that had flowed so easily. The spots weren't filled from recruitment neglect, and people started getting worried. Where was Perfect Guild Leader? Rumors started surfacing that Officer and Guild Leader had hooked it up. This was met with some surprise, because it was well known that guild Main Tank had strong affections for guild Officer, and he knew her in real life.

This soon led to the anger of the Guild Main Tank. He stopped showing up for raids all the time, and when he was around, it was an obvious pissing match between him and Guild Leader publicly. Life in Happy Successful Guild suddenly had thunderstorms.

One weekend it hit a head and people started quitting, transferring and apping elsewhere. A meeting was called by Guild Leader, and there were sighs of relief. "He'll make it better!". No, actually, he announced he was quitting raiding. There were attempts to appoint new leadership, but the momentum had all ready started and soon the guild of so much fast success was no more.

Several months went by without much word, people scattered to different areas - transferred, new guilds,servers. All of a sudden, Guild Officer Girl starts showing up in certain circles being very vocal about her breakup with guild leader. She was on a mission to make sure everyone knew that every story he ever annoyed people with was a lie. That he actually had been unemployed for 5+ years, and that he lived with his parents (He was in his 30s). That the reason he had so much time to be so helpful is because all did in his life was play the game. Every excruciating detail had never happened. She busted him, apparently, by reading his email. After months of this going on.

Now, it's not say that our guild wouldn't have met its end eventually anyways from other factors, and who knows what would have happened come Burning Crusade time. But I have to place some of the blame on Guild Officer Girl's Love Triangle of Destruction.

Kobold Nostalgia

It's summertime and WoW was recently content patched, so there's people flocking back to their "retired' characters, and in some occasions finding themselves levels behind in content. Or wanting to play a new character all together. Its a season for the power levelers and it made me think about my first exposure to the subject. When power leveling was more then just paying farmers to earn experience while they then sell the gold they make on your account.

When I was major Everquest Noob we were leveling with another couple of friends. Two of them had max level characters, one of which was a druid. They wanted to catch us up quickly, and one way of doing so was using the druid, botted outside of the group - to heal, cast damage shields, and nuke occasionally. This provided both quick fights but also saved us from having the always in short supply newbie healer with us all the time.

The most effective place we dwelled doing this the longest was Sol B, home to many a cave chalk full of Kobolds and lava spiders. Our bard would run around and pull from camp to camp to a central spot. And I mean, each entire camp at a time. This was way past the heyday of the zone (which I'm told was quite popular) so we had the entire luxurious mob full cavern to ourselves.

My beastlord and druid bot would be waiting the mob train -decked in top level available to us Druid damage shields, with heals set and ready.

The amount of mobs brought in by the bard was a tsunami of Kobold that swallowed us completely, washing over us in waves of experience gains as they pummeled themselves upon the druid thorns in their descent.

Make no mistake - it wasn't always easy just because we had the Druid around. We were still 3 accounts, at the time operating on 2 computers. This involved dexterous use of EQ Windows and communication such as screams from across the room, "HEAL YOURSELF NOW!!!" when the druid operator would neglect his own newb character, tabbed out. Or, more often, not realize he himself needed heals. Then the druid would die, and us newbs ,having lost our one levy against the storm, would soon follow. An auto follow corpse run train would then commence.

This would go on for hours, for probably 10 levels.

I certainly didn't learn how to play my class killing the kobolds in Sol B, but it was worth the experience all the same.

A Visit with AFKGamer's Blogging Bad Boy

Foton from AFKGamer graciously agreed to spend some time answering a myriad of questions I threw his way about guilds and gaming.

He's played MMO's for nearly a decade, from Everquest to Star Wars Galaxies to WoW to Lord of the Rings. AFKGamer is a template for the display of fine drama and Foton chronicles it and other gaming anecdotes with detailed flourish.

Here he weighs in on everything from being a catass to occasional raider, the lessons Blizzard failed to learn from Everquest, and having women in your guilds. Also, apparently the secret to long term guild success is merely having Foton around to entertain. I wonder if he consults or could be hired in moments of low guild morale?

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Fraxx: The post of yours that I read once and it made me keep coming back ...the Piano man post. I liked the way you characterized the people who maybe had negative reasons to play the game, even as a form of denial, in a humanistic light, and I thought the song was an apt use of analogy for it all. I was surprised when it didn't end up in your favorite posts list. Why not?

Foton: that probably is a fav of mine. I'm not sure why I didn't fav it either. It was more experimental? (not sure of term I'm searching for here) sometimes I do that, earlier I did that. now people arrive with an expectation and I guess I try to deliver on that


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Fraxx: Does Foton do guild leadership? -On any level

Foton: Actually, I resisted for a long time, said no thank you for a year and then I caved (while drunk ... true story) and took an officer promo which I kept for 6 months, and then I asked for a demo to the casual raider rank right before LOTRO release cuz I knew I wouldn't have the play time to fulfill my duties

Fraxx: You have any tricks you did while raiding to make people crank down the suck and turn up the awesome to beat encounters?

Foton: I'm quite entertaining on Vent and in /gu

Fraxx: Single handedly kept guild raid morale on the upswing ?

Foton: actually yes. I don't think anyone would dispute that
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Fraxx: At this stage in your MMO career, how would you classify yourself a player relative to the amount of time to you give to the game(s)? As in...do play a small amount enough of time to be casual, or do you manage to pack in enough time and content to call yourself a raider, despite being a working adult?

Foton: well, still a raider, but not nearly hardc0re like in the EQ days so not casual, altho I'm pushing casual lately with LOTRO and the amount of times I'm ditching wow raids

Fraxx: So, you were once hardcore...in Everquest...you miss being able to give a game that much time, seeing content at the top of the curve?

Foton: NO

Fraxx: Or are you content to hang out with friends and go at your own pace?

Foton: yes, the latter. I think everyone who pays should get to see all the zones (maybe not get the shineys)

Fraxx: Going back to amount of time raiding... at your catassy-iest, how bad was it?

Foton: this is when I was young and stupid
Foton: also, I was broke, just having graduated from college, so 23, I'd say actually 2000 was the Year of Living Catass,so 24 (and not just 2000, btw. but starting then)
Foton: 40 hours a week, easily

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Fraxx: Is LOTRO just a WoW vacation, or you think you'll move on for good once you see what LOTRO's end game is like? And, what long term potential do you think Lord of the Rings has?

Foton: if turbine pushes regular content updates like AC (asheron's call), I could see being down in LOTRO. otherwise, this is just a wow vacation. Of course, if blizzard would stop f'ing around and fix some of the post-70 bullshit, I'd be pulled in that direction
Foton: As far as lotro's potential, it's got legs. I don't know endgame, and I'm at a rough spot now with too many group quests and not enough solo quests (late level 30s), but the game's got legs
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Fraxx: You played a cleric in Everquest and a priest at some level in Wow, Right? Do you enjoy healing or is it for purely utilitarian reasons?

Foton: I hate it. but alas, I'm a control freak and nobody can do it properly besides me
Foton: you can quote me on that, Foton says the rest of you suck

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Fraxx: You've mentioned before about WoW not always learning from Everquest's mistakes, specifically I'm referring to putting Spell drops into raid-able only content, Can you think of any other examples?

Foton: Everyone (all guilds) on my server are running out of gas. tiered dungeons are the devil. I'm pretty sure we learned that in EQ, but apparently some of us didn't learn the lesson
Foton: Also -listening to hardcore raiding guilds. don't listen to us, we're everything that's wrong with MMOGs.
Foton: And - the over-reliance on the healing classes.

Fraxx: But what about the people that enjoy playing that role?

Foton: that's crazy talk!
Foton: I suppose there's some. however, don't a huge majority burn-out from being so critical to everything? I mean, if healer 1 and healer 2 can't log on some raid night, there goes the raid

Fraxx :And from being pigeon holed into the same job despite the encounters changing, and etc etc.
Foton: ya, that too. f'ing repetitive

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Fraxx: Whats your biggest personal fuckup moment in a raid? When you were alone responsible for a wipe.

Foton: LOL, first, I'll tell you the one that my e-buds always bring up
Foton: now this one IS NOT A FUCK UP - it was the goddamn monk, this is EQ, obviously
Foton: I played a bard and we're working on mithaniel marr. and as bards could completely wipe aggro and also had the fastest run speed in game (faster than mounts, etc.)
Foton: I had been reading that bards could split mithaniel marr from his dog guards with a pull, run, feign, instant dmg combo (not feign, aggro wipe, but I say feign)
Foton: bards could fish almost anything out of the pool and i was a master
Foton: so, I had the 3 off their altar and I'm fishing mithaniel marr, and the monk pulls too early, so all 3 come and we wipe
Foton: I had jaked the pull, and I SAID let me die, but he pulled nonetheless, and we wiped, and that was the end of foton's experiment
Foton: so now, my e-buds always bring up mithaniel marr anytime I have a new strat in mind for a quest or a group, etc


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Regarding MMO Fan Faire's, Foton himself in game, and his facade as an asshole...

Fraxx: I was hoping for some sort of juicy detail that you hadn't all ready blogged about, but alas.

Foton: i do have that, but goes to the grave, my friend

Fraxx: Which could maybe bring us to the question .Is there someone somewhere telling Foton stories or have you kept your hands clean all this time? Drama, absurd story wise -Something scandalous

Foton: are there people saying i'm a moron and an idiot? yes

Fraxx: More like....in game hookups, or e-baying, or did you ever run off with a guild bank- I guess you wouldn't tell me though if you did

Foton: =) I've never cheated anyone in game,I've done far worse things in real life than in game. kinda mixed up, i know

Fraxx: What about your asshole level again? Are you a nicer guy IRL?

Foton: I actually am a nice guy in game. I'm helpful to noobs, I'm entertaining in guild. I think I'm actually nicer in game than I am to my employees
Foton: That's kinda messed up
Foton: I think what i'm saying, if all you knew is what you read on afkgamer, you'd think i was horribly impatient and a demanding taskmaster. and that's not true. as long as people do their best, admit to mistakes and have a laugh, that's good enough for me
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Fraxx: I know you did some writing while you played SWG, what about non gaming writing?

Foton: my job involves content, if you will, with a slightly punchier standard. I'm a multi-tasker, creatively, so when I'm stuck in one area, i shift to another for a while. That sounds really pretentious. I LOVE IT!

Fraxx: Ill let you shore up some more pretentious points here. Good writers like to read, so what do you read ? If you say trashy fantasy novels it'll ruin the above image.

Foton: LOL I'd imagine so
Foton: this is the dork side of Foton -every summer i set a reading goal. old school habit, the one summer I did old classics I missed in high school/college, another i did true crime This Summer, I'm doing political non-fiction. I am a skilled reader and well-read
Foton: I'm liberal, so currently, Al Gore's new book and then a little known historical liberal review Saving General Washington
Foton:I have a well-thumbed version of Common Sense. (quote me on that, makes me sound edgy)
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Note: Investigation proved whatever Foton read wrong, Nihilum says here they will actually recruit women.

Foton: I read about nihilum's no recruit policy on women today, and frankly, i have expressed privately the concern that women are >>> trouble
Foton: but as i thought about it, probably it's the immaturity of men equally - there is a definite benefit that women provide to a guild leadership
Foton: i think male-only guilds lack soul. and I hope that's not offensive to women, because i mean it in the most respectful way
Foton: We could be all business about guilds, the games almost require it, but we are far better for having women/a woman at least in a leadership position
Foton: there's no reason for it anymore
Foton: y'know it's easier to make potty talk than to straighten up and take the best players
Foton: Maybe that's one of the last gaming dirty little secrets
Foton: What I mean is, excellent girl is seen as T and A - sorry. biology is pwning here, which is equally man's problem as woman's