Matt’s Three Stars: Week Ending October 26

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[Matt’s Note: I finished this yesterday. I didn’t hit the publish button. Fired.]

Ten Commandments for Casual Groups: Kestrel’s Ten Commandments deserved first star honors this week. I think that they are excellent principles to abide by for all players. I daresay that it would stretch outside of most instances and can be applicable to other activities in game as well. Breaking CC’s is especially fatal during the 25’s (wretched sporebats).

Trusting the Leadership: I’ve been on both sides of the officer wall. I’ve served my time as a class lead, an officer, an adviser, and a raid leader. It is not easy at all to execute those types of leadership roles. My hats off to those who are able to handle the pressure and flourish under the conditions. Galadria’s post on recognizing and respecting the leaders in Guild for a reason earns her the second star. It’s not always possible nor is it practical to keep everyone informed about everything that goes on. Sometimes, it’s best if certain information was best left within the upper tiers of the organization. Leaders need to think in a certain fashion and faced with tough decisions. It is not a position to be envied.

There IS No Tanking Shortage: The last star goes to newcomer (to me anyway) Galo who supplies a list of reasons about the seeming shortage of tanks. Even on a server as large as Ner’Zhul, tanks can be hard to find. Personally, I think the reason it’s so hard to find them is because they simply choose not to make themselves available for various reasons. Maybe Paul Tankiya’s forming up for a raid. Maybe Joe Hallentank doesn’t have time to last a full instance so they don’t bother. Jarome Tankginla’s possible undergeared. They want to spend their time efficiently and going into that particular instance is inefficient because they have everything needed.

Or they’re just lazy bastards =).

My blogroll is slowly expanding. You can notice a few new names here and there. I don’t typically announce it. But I will subtly link to them in my posts when I find something of interest. Link’s to me merit a link back provided that the source is updated a reasonable number of times a week.

Thanksgiving Comes Early for Carnage

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We’re all having a big giant turkey. Al’ar down after 3 hours, and much frustration (Picture on Flickr on the right). But we managed to get the job done despite the random fracturing in the raid tonight for some reason. It seemed like everyone had a rough day. The Carnage that showed up on Tuesday one shotting all bosses throughout SSC was seemingly non-existent today. Error after error was committed. Most of them were minor, but they all contributed to the various wipes in some fashion. It took two trash clears, but it was worth it. It’s like that last bit of adrenaline that kicks in. Wipes will always happen. It’s best to maintain a positive attitude as much as possible regardless. If you’re feeling negative or snappy, stifle it. Sometimes if you get called out, it’s best to bite your tongue and say “Yup, won’t happen again.” as opposed to arguing. It’s important to maintain that professional demeanor otherwise you’re going to waste a lot of time. Every person in a raid is important as the next. If somethings not working right, isolate it, then see what you can do to fix it. There was a healing issue where a tank would die on the upper platforms. A different healer was assigned and the problem was fixed. Warlocks were pulling aggro at the beginning of phase 2. They switched the timing of their shatters. Problem solved. Don’t forget that there’s always going to be criticism doled out. Not every Guild is perfect and it takes real courage to admit that as a player you made a mistake. Even then, this applies to life. I think everybody owes it to themselves to be the best they can be. Sometimes you need to listen to some constructive criticism to help you attain that goal. But no matter what you do, always keep your chin up and keep trying.

“Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It’s the courage to continue that counts.”

Anyone recognize that quote? I believe it was said by Winston Churchill during World War II.

With SSC now 5/6 and TK now 3/4, let’s see what Colbert has to say…

Avoiding Burnout

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I have one of the heaviest raid schedules in WoW. Case in point:

Sunday: 4 PM – 9 PM (Carnage)
Monday: 7 PM – 10 PM (Sinful Intent Karazhan)
Tuesday: 6 PM – 9 PM (Carnage)
Wednesday: 7 PM – 10 PM (Sinful Intent)
Thursday: 6 PM – 9 PM (Carnage)
Friday: None
Saturday: None

That’s a good solid 17 hours of raiding per week. My recent midterm results were less than stellar. It doesn’t take a Gnomish scientist to figure out that WoW just might have a factor with that in some fashion. So I’m making the pledge right now that for every hour of raiding I do, I will match it with one hour of reading and/or studying.

My entire time on WoW is virtually spent raiding. I might do one or two five man dungeons in a week. PvP is no longer something I’m interested in for the moment (wretched AV fixes!). But I really enjoy raiding. I relish the thrill of taking down big giant voidwalkers and roasting the largest fish known to man (or dwarf). Raiding on a scale like this is very taxing. It’s important to balance this gaming life style with other activities to avoid burning out from WoW.

A few years ago, they broadcasted those Anti-Drug commercials. You know, the one where it shows a kid on TV saying something like “Friends: My Anti-Drug”. I think that should be applied to WoW to some extent. Otherwise, you will get burned out from the game and will no longer find it enjoyable. I play a little poker with my friends once a month or so. There’s nothing like a little get together with your high school friends and having a good time. Nothing in the world could beat that feeling of comradeship and entertaining experience (always stay in touch with friends, I say). I pre-ordered Hellgate London from EB Games. It seems like it’s going to be another Diablo-esque MMO with first person shooting elements involved.

If I’m not busy playing WoW, I’m keeping myself busy with online shooters. CS: Source, TF2, Call of Duty 2, DoD: Source are among the few games that I come back to when I’m not in WoW. Sometimes, nothing relieves frustration more then shooting Nazis. In the summer, I would always play games of pickup street hockey in the local lacrosse rink. Now that fall’s starting to set in and the weather is turning horrible, that option becomes less and less attractive.

What’s your Anti-Burnout?

20 year old pretends to be woman to go after 16 year old high schooler in WoW

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Now this story merits a double post today. Judging by the source, it occurred down south in Tacoma, Washington (not far from Vancouver, I don’t think). Allow me to provide you with a shortened version. If you have time to read, here is the long version.
This guy travels across the US/Canadian border to go to a high school to meet this 16 year old girl. What she doesn’t realize is that they’re Guild mates in the game (A Guild is like a recognized group of players who play together like a team).

When the student arrived at school that Monday morning, she was called to the front office and told a man was waiting to talk to her about college. It was Gregory-MacIntyre. The girl had no idea who he was.

“ustin introduced himself as Greg, and told her he was Vera’s best friend, the affidavit states.

The student knew Vera. Vera was the Canadian college student she’d met on Warcraft and MySpace, the social networking Web site. Vera was in her Warcraft guild. She was the friend who talked about fashion and Calgary College and how much fun it was to party there.

So the guy hands her a bunch of gifts which includes his car keys, a tank top,”The OC” season one DVD box set and a brand new laptop computer.

It turns out the guy masqueraded as his friend Vera. His Myspace picture is that of a woman. That’s a pretty stark deception right there, if you ask me. It was one hell of an elaborate deception. It’s been done before in the past in various stats involving IRC, chatrooms, and other forms of sociality.

Furthermore, Vera had problems with someone pretending to be her on such social web sites. Go figure, eh?

My Response

I don’t think there would’ve been a problem if the guy comes out in the open and says who he was honestly. If they wanted to meet, that’s okay as long as it’s in a public area with a lot of people (like a shopping mall). It would have been even better if the girl went to meet the guy with a few of her own friends who might be football players or wrestlers.

Hell, if I wanted to meet a female player in real life, I’d say lets go get some coffee then hit up a LAN center or something. But that’s just me.

But to pretend to be a girl? What the hell is wrong with you? Is he really that desperate? Way to make us all look bad. By us I mean Canadians and WoW Players. No, not just WoW Players, ALL GAMERS. The media already seems to have a negative stereotype of gamers. NOT ALL OF US ARE TWENTY YEAR OLD GUYS WHO PRETEND TO BE GIRLS TO PICK UP OTHER GIRLS.

Two years, less a day, in my opinion. But honestly, society has some serious wackos out there. There’s a reason why I’m studying Criminology. There’s a reason why I chose the path I did. I could’ve gone into sciences or business. There are three things in the world that seriously piss me off:

  • Sex predators
  • Child stalkers
  • Pathological liars

A few days ago, I read a few posts by Kestrel about girls existing on the internet. That’s fine and dandy. We live in an age where male dominance over the IT sector is slowly beginning to dwindle. Dungeons and Dragons just ain’t for guys anymore. But even if you have a picture of yourself on the internet, I will still cast serious doubt. With the existence of social networks such as Myspace and Facebook, it is no longer difficult to rip off a friend’s picture and use that in a deceptive fashion.

In my Criminal Justice courses, we learned about the concept of the presumption of innocence. In a nutshell, you are innocent until proven guilty. It’s one of the few foundational principles in most western democracies. Similarly, I operate under a gaming doctrine of the presumption of masculinity. You are male until proven otherwise. Unless I can HEAR your voice and compare it with your actions in game, you’re still a man. I think most people can tell the difference between an 8 year old kid and a 22 year old female gamer. If you want more credibility, put it on your facebook profile or Myspace that you’re a WoW Player along with your character information. Frankly, the more evidence that leads to your femininity, the more likely skeptics will be convinced.

Why is gender such a big deal anyway?

I think it’s because of this dominant belief that not a whole lot of gamers are women. Ten years ago, games used to be the domain of men. Arcades would be flooded with male gamers playing street fighter. Counterstrike and Quake 3 public servers would be filled with guys fragging each other.

Until a girl would say something in game.

Then it seemed that the world stopped. Guns dropped to the ground. That all of a sudden, there was this goddess that was sent by the heavens to help light the way for all geeks in their never ending quest for supreme nerditude.

Then some guy would walk up to a female gamer, open trade, put in 20 Large Prismatic Shards, and hand it over free of charge.

Why?

Cause he wants some.
That stuff (Prismatic Shades) doesn’t come cheap anymore. To offer it so freely, I think, is akin to buying love. Even when I played Guild Wars, I’d get whispers saying “Hi, I’m a girl, can I have some Platinum?”

I don’t care if your reproductive organs are on the inside or the outside. You’re not getting my gold. I don’t think there should be any special treatment allowed of anyone because of their gender.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against girl gamers. I absolutely LOVE girl gamers. I think it’s great that girls are getting into gaming. But what I DO have a problem with is girl gamers who use their sexuality to exploit other players and Guilds. I can see why Nihilium doesn’t allow women into their Guild because it would cause too much drama. Hmm, guess that wasn’t true after all. Thanks for the correction MK.

Look, I treat all my friends and guild mates equally with respect and dignity. Treatment should never be based on gender because it’s not fair. Why does she get her repair bill paid for when she was AFK for half the fight while I have to some how come up with 35 Gold on my own busting my ass for flasks, pots, and ensuring the MT was alive? If I were to show favoritism or special treatment of any kind, I would base it solely on performance. Nothing more and nothing less.

Thanks for reading, and I know that this sounds a lot more aggressive than usual, but nothing gets me more riled up than reading stories like this. I also want to reiterate that not all female gamers act in such a manner. I’m in no way trying to paint them with a bad brush.

Raiding with an Alt character

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I just received clearance from my GM to raid in SSC with Saphfira. I know the last couple of posts had me express disappointment in my class, but that’s not the case. Mallet is my favourite character out of all of them. Let me explain the situation here. It only recently occurred to me that Carnage raids with four active Priests. Three of them are Holy and one is Shadow. I’ve never really played a DPS class at all throughout my WoW career. Even right now, Saphfira is Restoration specced. We only have one Shaman and she’s Enhancement. We’ve been sharding a ridiculous amount of mail healing gear. Last night in SSC, 3 mail healing items dropped (also 5 of 6 SSC bosses dropped within 3 hours which is a big plus in terms of progression).

Luckily, Maeve understood the point I was trying to make so I didn’t have to waste my breath explaining my situation. But here was the argument I was going to make: Three Holy Priests means theres going to be more competition for gear. Having a Resto Shaman would increase the diversity of the raid and not allow healing loot to be wasted. It’s basically another group getting totem buffs. Healing power isn’t going to go down a whole lot. It’s not like I’m requesting to swap Mallet for an Elemental Shaman. So it’s a pound for pound trade of healer for healer.

Is this something I really want? No, because I absolutely love playing my Priest. But having three Holy priests in the raid means its going to take three times as long for us of them to get geared up.

But we spent so much time gearing up Mallet and he’ll be wasted

Well no, it’s not an either/or situation. Mallet is clearly a superior healer in comparison to Saphfira in every respect. I think there may be certain encounters where having a Wrath of Air totem and a Mana Spring might provide some extra punch. It’s not like I’m going to stop raiding with both of them. Healing has always been my calling. Even back when I played Guild Wars, I had a Monk/Elemental (In PvP, I’d make an E/Mo which still cracks me up every time I see it). It’s also not like I’m going to be competing with another Resto Shaman in raids for gear either. There isn’t that much of a loss that’s occurring. It will be a huge benefit for everyone else because then I will be spending my DKP twice as much.

That’s another interesting ethical question that I’ve also had to wrestle with. How do I deal with gear? I’ve always been for progression. There will be mace and shield drops and that there is direct competition against Paladins. I’m fairly certain that I have more DKP then they do. But it wouldn’t be right for me to exercise option and bid. Damn all of these morals and ethics courses they make us take for Criminology.

I’m worried that there might be some contempt or that raiding with Saphfira would raise a few eyebrows here and there. I sincerely hope not. Really though, I’d rather prefer to raid with Mallet if I could. But raiding with four Priests made me think that could I not be utilized better if I brought a Resto Shaman instead.

In any case, it will still take some time before she’s up to SSC status. Here’s the highlights of her gear right now:

  • 3/5 T4 (head, gloves, shoulders)
  • Nightbane’s Healing Staff and Neck
  • 5/5 S2 Gear (Just for the pants)
  • Netherspite’s Mail Chestpiece
  • Gruul’s healing trinket

Saphfira presently sports approximately 1550 +healing. That is nowhere near high enough for Mag+ raids. There are some improvements that can be made:

  • A better mace to go with the Chess Shield (Essence Focuser)
  • Honor Hold head enchant
  • 81 Healing enchant to weapon

That should shoot her + healing to around 1660 and should last against encounters such as Mag, and VR.

Has anyone else had similar cases where they wanted to raid with alts? Did your guild shoot you down or guilt you into not using your alt? I’m lucky to be playing two support classes. I’m also lucky to be in such an awesome Guild where the leadership can understand what it is that I’m offering.

This brings up another question. How do Guilds handle alts for loot? Do they draw from the same character (IE, both Mallet’s and Saphfira’s DKP are cumulative) or are they separate (Both Mallet and Saphfira earn separate DKP and are exclusive from one another).