Eff That!

So I took my Pally over to Azuremyst-US, PvE server *shutters*, and I joined the guild Eff the Ineffable.  I also decided to take my Pally in a direction I seldom go. I made him a Holy Paladin. Now I have to get some gear, and learn to Heal.

I’m no stranger to healing, I played a healer for two years in Dark Ages of Camelot until I got burnt out on healing. I never seriously healed in any other game because of that burn out. Now I have healed on my pally before in 5 man regular dungeons in Wrath to level up, but that’s about it.

So I’m excited over this new direction, I need tips and where to find good gear so if you are a Holy Pally feel free to lend me som 4-1-1.

Also excited about my new Dwarf Shaman, I never leveled a Shaman it will be interesting.

Now I am not leaving Stands in Bad, my guild on Azgalor, I’ll still be rocking the Fail Mage there, where I’ll try to be getting some gear to help out with Raids. Still don’t know if I’ll head back to serious raiding or not, but it will be nice to be there to help if need be.

Despite all the doom sayers, and people leaving WoW, I’m still having fun, and looking forward to doing a few things.

 

2 Games, 1 Cup

So last night I downloaded the Space Marine Demo. It has two missions on there.  Holy Shit was it awesome, hacking and slashing with my chainsword, shooting Orks in the face, and using the Jump Pack to rain death upon my foes. The graphics, the feel, the music everything was pure awesome. Ok yes I’m a huge fanboy, but I urge you go to Space Marine website, sign up and try the demo yourself.  Let me know what you think. If I had one complaint, and I just have one at this time…The camera angle sometimes gets a little janky, but that’s usually around tight corners.

After I played it, I went to the World of Warcraft. PvP’d a bit, and it was one of those days, Alliance couldn’t do shit right.  Ohh guildies doing instances. Hey who is this mage, stealing my thunder…Oh it’s Alas from Kiss My Alas. and Ataraxaven from Eff the Ineffable.  It was real nice grouping up with people and actually talking to some peeps on WoW. Usually since my return to Stands in Bad, I just keep to myself, and PvP. I pipe in occassionally to aggravate our guild leader, or crack a joke.  So when I get a chance to play with some guildies it’s a treat for me….I don’t know if it’s such a treat for them.  Toss in the fact I got faction rep, guild rep, and some justice points…holla.

I might make an alt on Effs to join them…I’m thinking Warlock LOL!

Things I Love About Cataclysm – Guild Perks System

Cataclysm is here, and I think I’m in love.  There are many, many things about it that make me happy.  Each week, for the next few weeks, I plan to highlight on a favorite changes/updates in Cataclysm.

PART ONE – GUILD PERKS SYSTEM

I really love the new Guild Perks System.  In the last 2 weeks my guild has doubled in size.  We absorbed another buddy guild that we raided with in WOTLK and (as legend has it) BC and Vanilla WoW.  As of yesterday the guild is on a steady path to Level 5 (Mr. Popularity).  I am currently friendly with my guild and doing my best to become honored so that I can take advantage of more perks.

For those not familiar with the new system, I’m gonna break it down with the information I have.  (e.g. this ain’t scripture):

You now have the ability to earn Guild Experience (a pooled amount among the entire guild – max 6246xp per day) and Guild Reputation (individually – 3500xp max per week). 

Guild (Pooled) Experience is earned in the following ways:

• Questing/Daily Quests
• Leveling Professions
• Participating in Guild Runs (Dungeons, Raids) – in order to qualify as a “Guild Run” you must have 80% of the group being from the Guild.  [that means 4 of 5, 8 of 10, 12 of 15, 20 of 25]
• Participating in Guild Rated BG’s – same 80% applies. My understanding is this is offered in raid groups of 10 and 15 – I would assume 40 mans would qualify as well?
• Achieving Achievements
• Obtaining Legendary Items

Obtaining Guild Reputation occurs similarly.  You will see your guild reputation gains in the standard amethyst-colored text, usually succeeding your faction reputation gains. 

As your guild gains new levels from experience – new perks become available to you.  (Please refer to the table provided by WowHead for a listing of all the cool stuff.)  You will have to have a sufficient level of Guild Reputation in order to purchase these items.  This way, people are detered from Guild hopping to gather all the different perks.  If you leave your guild, you will also leave behind the Reputation you have gained – and all the pooled Guild Experience you have helped to earn. 

I’ll end with some suggestions of how to change your daily WoW habits to help make gains within your Guild. 

#1 – Wear your Reputation Tabards. Put on your favorite new factions tabard and SAVE that bitch on your raiding gear set.  55 exalted reputations will earn your guild the Dark Phoenix mount.  It’s purple and sparkly and full of fucking badassness.  I’ll recommend the Ramkahen Tabard because there is nothing funnier than a bear on a camel. 

#2 – Go organic and cook your own food.  Beruthiel outlines this awesomely… so I’ll let her do it. Now, I’m not just needing to piss every five seconds when I’m healing a dungeon – I’m also all tweaked up on caffeine. 🙂

updated 12/20/10: I hear this may have been hotfixed.

#3 – Kill as many Critters as you can find.  Critter Kill Squad will open up a new non-combat pet to you when you reach 50,000 slewn.  I’ve gone from the character that will help out the poor dying mammoths to one that kills the furriest of bunny.  I have a real feeling of accomplishment when I can Holy Nova three at a time.  I’m an unstoppable killing machine now.

#4 – Queue up for stuff with your Guildmates, ffs. It is so nice to have people that you know are trying, listening and responsive.  It is also quite nice to not be kicked from your dungeon group right before engaging the last boss on the LONG ASS FUCKING dungeon that is the Lost City of the Tol’vir because you got disconnected. 

Yeah, I’m looking at you Windows Update.

Focus on Guilds: My Guild, My Rules

In Cataclysm I decided to take on leading my own guild, for good or ill, but we need focus, and some base rules.

I am resurrecting the Guild, Realm, Self motto that inspired me, and others back in the day.

Guild – You wear the tag, you wear the tabard, but what does it mean to you? For me make a contribution whether it’s helping guildies, or maybe it’s passing on that slight upgrade for yourself when it would be a huge upgrade for someone in your guild. To think about your actions. Be proud of your guild, and it’s accomplishments. To often I see people complaining about this or that within a guild, I say take charge, take ownership of your guild, make your own events, lead your own raids.  Bottom line is we’re a team, each with a role to play, and no role in unimportant.  In my guild there will be no charging of fellow guildies of any gold for crafting stuff, for example if Scary wants a robe, he’s responsible for getting the mats, but I can craft it for free. There will be no charge. That kind of thing.

Realm – Build relationships with your realm mates. Help them when you can. Don’t just ride by watch a lowbie get ganked in STV, help them out. Who knows you might make a new friend. I want to build alliances again where we could do events together. I want the screams of “FOR THE HORDE” be heard all over the server once more.

Self – Take ownership in your own toons. Read forums, and blogs. Learn your classes. Grow in that class. Have questions, don’t be afraid to ask. Take pride in yourself. I would rather you ask me for gold, or to get you a gem for your helm if you don’t have gold, then go ungemmed because when people see that it reflects bad on yourself, and the guild.

Bottomline, I want to build memories, and friendships. I don’t remember the loot I got, but I remember the funny and good times I shared with my guildies. I want to bring that back, I want to bring pride back in the game, and try to weed out the greed, and avarice that this game sometimes induces.

Focus on Guilds:Guild Leadership

In Cataclysm, Guilds will be taking on a more important role in the game. In other games like Warhammer Online, and older games like Dark Ages of Camelot guilds, and alliances played a very important role. In that regard over the course of the next few weeks I will be tossing some articles up on Guilds, such as Guild Leadership, Guild Profiles, other things guild related.

My real first MMO was Dark Ages of Camelot, In that game I met the most successful guild leader I have ever known. He managed to bring not one guild to the top of the ranks, but two. When our original guild was usurped the Knighthood of the Red Dragon, we broke off and formed the Phoenix Ascension. Then he carried that success to World of Warcraft, in a time of 40 man raids, when being a raid leader meant something he was out front leading us all. Then in PvP in a the days of 12 hour AV’s, we would conquer in 10 minutes as a guild. There was many posts on the Blizz Forums for their hatred for us in World PvP, but alot of our enemies respected the hell out of us as well. 

His name was Bitaken, and I tracked him down cause he no longer plays, but since I’m forming my own guild soon I wanted to touch base with him and get his insight on leading a guild. So I gave him a few questions, and he gracefully answered them.  

1.  In your opinion what are some of the qualities a guild leader should have, and how to draw the line from being firm, to being an out and out douchebag?

First and foremost you have to be honest with yourself and your goals of the guild.  Why do you want to be a leader of a guild?  For me it was about bringing other people I liked together so I could play and have fun with them and help me and them be more successful in our online play.  That I guess is pretty rare because most people form a guild simply to bring more power under their online gaming wings.  That’s a selfish motivation and where you see so many problems come in.  I basically looked at every situation that arose as how I would feel if it were something that happened to me.  Analyzing everything in that manner makes it so you are seeing things from all points of view ( both protagonist and antagonist ) and then coming up with a solution that attempts to solve the problem for everyone.  Again, once I talked to a few other people and felt I had the real gist of what happened I looked at it from every point of view then discussed it with the other officers as to what I wanted to do, then did it.  Once done it was what it was and that was that.  
 
2.  When I was in KoTRD, and PA, I always felt like a part of something bigger. Our motto was Guild, Realm, Self. Do you think in current MMO’s like WoW, those philosophies have been lost in the search of the mighty purple pixel?

Absolutely, and one of the big reasons I finally quit playing WoW.  It became all about getting stuff, instead of having fun.  I remember when we did guild raids and how happy people were when someone else won something and that’s always how I felt.  In WoW it started to get to be about what “I” wanted and not what “we” could accomplish.  That sentiment ruined things for me.  I always found it most exciting to accomplish something together because of teamwork, dedication, and friendliness.  In WoW it became greed, malice and impatience.

3. I think what really impressed me with you as a guild leader you always took time for us rank and file members to improve the way we played, but also when we had complaints, and problems you took the time as well. I remember when I had an issue, you took the time explained everything to me, where as I seen other guild leaders would of wrote me off. That really impressed the hell out of me. Do you think that had alot to do with your success the personal touch so to speak?

That was actually Engels ( a fellow guildie, and all around good guy. Scary picture of him half naked in a goofy hat is still burned in my brain) rubbing off on me.  He was one of the best people I ever met online.   He Horb and Why (Horb and Why are other guildies, Why has some strange fascination with Chicago Hot Dogs, and Horb is just dirty) actually were the three people I interacted with the most.  Engels was always a socialist and I guess I was too!  The thing was if they wore the tag for the guild they were a part of not just a group, but of me.  I thought of everyone with the tag as a brother or sister and that meant if I saw them not doing something right or was able to give them some pearl of wisdom I gave it freely.  I also made an effort to include them in all the things I would do, just as I always wanted folks to involve me in the fun things they did. 

4. The pressures of being a guild leader, and frustrations, what do you think are some of the obstacles you faced, and how did you overcome them?

The biggest obstacle is and always will be human nature.  We are all competitive by nature and top that off with a bit of frustration it can always lead to a tinder box environment.  That can be waylaid by people just making a real effort at involving everyone in everything, but sometimes there are things we all want to do for ourselves and then human nature causes jealousy, frustration and dissension.   Continually involving folks in things and making an effort to come up with things to do was always the challenge.  Making those things team oriented, team goal focused and rewarding simply by being present is the trick.

5. How important is delegation?

Critical, or you are constantly dealing with every little bullshit thing that happens within the guild.  However, as GM you must always be ready to make the final say on anything.

Thank you Bitaken for taking the time to answer my questions. If you have a Guild Leader that you feel deserves some recognition, I would love to talk to him/her shoot me an email at cc0926(at)gmail(dot)com

The Guild Showcase

I am no stranger to Guild’s getting experience, and getting rewards like guild will soon be doign in Warcraft. I mean in Warhammer both my guilds were very high level guilds…..Yeah Jaded Souls, and Einherjar kicks ass.

I was thinking though I want to hear from the guilds out there, your history, your future, your type of play, etc..etc….

What make’s your guild so special?

This will be open to any game, and any guild small or large, if you are the guild leader, or officer send me an email at cc0926(at)gmail(dot)com

What a long strange trip it’s been…

I think I may be part gypsy, virtually as well as in  reality. I’ve moved like 7 times in my life, and in the virtual world I am quickly catching up.  Spinks posted something asking “How I found my guild”, I thought I would tell you my guild history….

I started playing MMO’s back in 2002 with Dark Age’s of Camelot. I was part of an FPS clan for Aliens versus Predators 2 called Hell’s Elite Legions. A fellow Predator  started a chapter for DAOC, and told me I should check it out. I did. We needed a cleric, so I volunteered, thus Riverian the Cleric was born on the Iseult server. I leveled up with HEL, and met some cool people like Geeno. One person I spent alot of time in the Battlegrounds was a pally called Celyn, she had a pension for dyeing herself teal, and me I liked purple. So we made quite a pair.

Well Hell’s Elites Legion broke up in DAOC after a few months, and I found myself guildless. I saw Celyn she said they could use a talented cleric in her guild Knights of the Red Dragon. I said sure. I joined them. After many adventures the guild imploded due to someone resting control of the guild who had no right to it. So I followed one of the best guild leaders I had Bitaken as well as most of the KotRD crew to a guild called Phoenix Ascension. Where we played happily for a while, where I met alot of great people Byll, Ash, Lestat, SirPerro, Sans, Whynot, Iben, Kain, and many more….. Alot of PA in 2003 went to Midgard, I didn’t feel like leveling another toon, so I stayed and told them I would be leaving PA, and went to Final Revelation for a bit, with my former guildmate Geeno, there I met Sloth, Kev, Jokerz, and many more there.

In 2004, I got into Beta for this game called World of Warcraft, since I loved the Warcraft series, I used to play Warcraft I when I was working in the computer lab in college so much it almost got me in trouble. So this is a dream come true. So I left DAOC, and went to WoW, then when the servers opened I created two toons, Riverian the Priest on Arthas, and Riverien the Paladin on Garona, both Alliance. On Arthas, some Final Rev people played and joined in a guild  called Black Dragon Clan which was a guild on Iseult as well, on Garona played some Phoenix Ascension people, where I leveled the Pallie. PA was fully formed, and Bitaken took the helm. I said good bye to Arthas and stuck to Garona exclusively. World PvP was the thing back then, and PA was one of the best. We rocked the Horde so much they hated us with a passion.

Then Battleground came out, and it changed the face of WoW PvP for good. Queue times for Alliance BG’s were Ridonkulous. So as a guild we decided to move to the Horde. Those were great times, I rolled an Orc Warrior named Rivgorian on Garona, Phoenix Ascension helping each other level, then when we were 60, we rolled the Alliance in AV’s, and then crushed Molten Core beneath our heels.  Then it all came to a halt. Alot of the core PA members got bored with WoW, and went back to DAOC. So PA dwindled. I made a decision to leave.

In late 2005, I rolled a mage called HeatScourge on Thunderlord, a Arcane/Fire mage. The new job I started had a few people play there. I joined there guild called Lords of Lager. As we hit 60, we wanted to raid, so we merged with another smaller guild called Kindred Spirits. A great raiding guild we burned through Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, AQ when that came out. Such great people like Legger, Gort, Sleepin, Preventer, HolySchnikes, and many many more.

Then Burning Crusades came, and with it’s smaller raids really put pressure on Kindred Spirits, we dissolved from the pressures and went our seperate ways…

Alot of the Phoenix Ascension crew were back on Garona, so I went back to the Warrior and Tanking full time. We didn’t have the numbers we once did so we merged with a guild called Oppress. The leader of Oppress was a tyrannical despot, so Bitaken left MMO’s for good, most of us left Oppress and went back to Phoenix Ascension, later reforming as a guild called Blight which is still doing pretty good from what I hear. Now as I was tanking, I leveled a Horde Mage. By the time Wrath came I was so sick of Tanking, and everything that went along with it. I left Blight, and made my mage a loner..

In the meantime I started playing Warhammer Online. a bunch of old Phoenix Ascension people went to a Guild called Einherjar, and we had some great times in WAR. Until things started to get bad in WAR, alot left to play Lord of the Rings, while some mergered with an old alliance guild Jaded Souls, whom ironically I ran with alot. I was the only Einherjar toon in a Lost Vale group for Jaded Souls.   

I decided to play WoW again, and a fellow Blogger talked me into joining the Alliance with the New Faction Changes, and I did. I moved my Mage there a dubbed him Frostscourge. I joined a guild of other bloggers called Brotherhood of Oblivion. It was great, and I met some great friends, well we merged with another guild which caused some growing pains, as well as my War on Role Playing goddess Too Many Anna’s I decided to go back to my beloved Horde. 

I was back on Horde side, and before I payed 25 bucks to go back to Garona, I thought why don’t I make a go of it here. I do enjoy a PvP server, from my glory days of magedom on Thunderlord. So I went to the forums, and found a guild that was recruiting. I seen them around, and I wondered if they had any connections to the Black Dragon Clan. They didn’t it was just a coincidence. I joined as a social member, I had no plans to get back to raiding. Well I saw they were hurting for numbers cause of summer blues, and expansion duldrums, so I stepped up and started signing up for raids.  They are some great players, really know their stuff. Have a great sense of guild and faction pride which was what I was looking for.  I am enjoying myself so much that my ideas of going Worgen when expansion comes out are dissipating.

I also picked up WAR again and am playing with Jaded Souls, and having a good time with some old friends again.

Well I guess I could of saved you some time, and told you  the short answer is I always got my guilds through friends online or real life, and once through the forums, and I got lucky with that….but that would be no fun for me. 🙂

Will WoW’s New LFG hurt Guilds?

When I was in Vanilla WoW, I was in a raiding guild we had something like 70 active members in it. We did a bunch of 40 people raiding dungeons. Then when Burning Crusades came out there were only 25 people raiding dungeons. There were problems, crys of cliqueism came up, and it tore the guild apart.

When Wrath of the Lich King came out, there were more 10 man’s then Guild drama started again.

Though I am on a new faction, new server.  Now that the LFG tool is working. I wonder how will it effect guilds. Will it affect guilds?

This is my pseudo prediction….

 As Cataclysm comes closer… That solo’ers won’t need to find guilds anymore for regular groups, because the LFG tool is nice. Raiding guilds will starve for new people to join them. In the future you’ll see alot more solo’ers, and alot bigger uber raiding guilds that merge together to get the numbers they need. When Cataclysm hits it will change the way we guild in WoW forever.

…Sorry I blacked out for a second…Where was I.