rant

What’s In a Name

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Wynthia copy

 

My guild made the decision to transfer to a larger server – seems like the opposite of the trend right now, what with all the free transfers to small servers, but we’ve found that recruiting and raiding at an end-game level are infinitely more difficult when your ONLY recruiting source is off-server, and you have to do all your own farming due to artificially high AH prices.

A few days ago, our officers told us they had narrowed it down to two servers, and the idea was bandied around that we may want to reserve our names.

“Silly. I’m the only Wynthea on the armory, and have been for years. The level 11 is my alt. No one will have my name.”

I’m sure you can guess where this is going.

Someone – either in my own guild as a joke, or, more likely, from our rival guild on our old server – registered my name.

I am not amused.

(before you ask why I think it might’ve been the other guild, quite a few of our more prominent members’ names were also registered. Uncommon, not found on a cool t.v. show or book names.)

Aside from my identity as associated with World of Matticus, I have an email address, a twitter, and a close affinity with this name. I know many people *cough*Matt*Cough* are perfectly comfortable hitting the “random” button, and wearing whatever comes out of it for the rest of their toon’s life.

I am not. I spend, quite literally, hours naming a character that I plan to play extensively. Hours.

I research the meanings, the language of origin, and imbue the name with a personality before the character selection screen even comes up.

Trivia, for the interested: Wynthea, meaning “healer” is a Welsh-spelling of a Hebrew name. My mother’s family is Welsh, and my own real name is Hebrew. The name holds quite a bit of significance for me.

My character is currently named “Wynthia.” Not a huge distinction, I suppose………. and one that I will remedy as soon as possible. But it bothers me. A lot.

Anyway, if you’re looking for me, I’m currently Wynthia *wince* on Firetree.

Oh, wait, I guess I should make this more than a Rant-post.

If you are considering creating a character, for RP purposes or not, but you want a name that actually carries weight, and means something – “noobpwnerx” I’m looking at you – there are some really great resources on the vast interweb. First, though, you need to have an idea of what you want.

Wyn’s character-naming guide

1. Start thinking about what you want the character to be, and to do. Before I name a character, I come up with an attribute I’d like the name to mean.

For example, if you’re creating a character to PvP, you may think about words like “Victorious” or “War-like”

For a bank alt, you may want something meaning “Wealthy.”

Just think about words that mean something you’d like the character to embody.

Whatever you do, do NOT name your character after something you really liked in a currently-popular book or movie. Old books are fine – for example, Renwein (my Human Priest) is named after a relatively obscure character in Arthurian Literature. It’s also possible it wasn’t even her name, but just a generic word for “maiden.” Bonus points if you go look it up.

2. Pull up a baby-name website.

This one freaked my last boyfriend out when he found it in my internet-history. One of my favorites is Baby Names World, because it allows you to search by meaning, and create lots of fun filters.

It also allows you to filter by gender and language of origin.

3. Google a search like “Names meaning….”

If you don’t like anything on a standard baby-site, just give Google a shot. This is actually how I found Wynthea.

4. Refine your choices.

You need to pick a couple. If you’re creating a Female Human Prot-Warrior, and like Irish names, be aware that “Bridget” (means Strong) will probably already be taken.

Say them out loud a few times. People will be trying this on vent, so don’t spend all this time creating a name just to hear it butchered every day.

See what abbreviations you come up with. Wynthea shortens rather handily to Wyn, which is an awesome nickname. (Full of wyn, for the wyn… it’s an unexpected thing I really love about the name.)  

Make sure it’s relatively easy to type. Elves especially seem to have a hard time with this one. I had a friend named Randirardhon who a) hated to be called Randi, and b) couldn’t figure out why people had such a hard time typing it out.

5. Name your new best friend.

Or alter-ego. However it works for you.

Then get really upset when some Jerk steals your name. (Yes, I know that reaction is probably exactly what they wanted….. )

 

My next post(s) are coming, as promised. I just can’t believe you guys wanna read about REP FACTIONS. That’s not one I had 1/2 prepared. That was “no one will choose this” poll-filler. Argh!

 

Luv,
Wyn

SYTYCB: Dear Azeroth, I hate you.

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HateAz(2)

This is a SYTYCB submission from Joveta.

joveta-post The main problem I face being a recent horde-reroll is the fact that my years as Alliance has left me with a pretty full roster of high-ish level characters taking up slots I could be using in newer, greener, hordier pastures. I’m only rarely a quick leveler, so I’m loathe to delete any character I’ve invested the time to drag slowly above the level 40 mark. However, I mercilessly axed all my 20-and-unders to try and get myself the start of a support system hordeside, namely a banker, a goof-off character I can play with my husband, and my current project: the hunter.

My hunter was created with a very simple purpose: to get her butt to 70 as quickly as possible (before the next expansion) and become my farming character. My priest is currently an herbalist/alchemist. I love alchemy and I love the money I make from herbalism. The thought of going Inscription in Wrath, however, is like whispering sweet nothings into the ear of my inner-min/maxer. I want to keep my Redeemer’s Alchemist Stone. I want to continue to be self-sufficient when it comes to my consumables. I also want some of those snacky Holy inscriptions, damnit. This calls for a fast-leveling alt! I know, a hunter!

Azeroth conspires against me, though my needs really are very simple. I want a zone with quest hubs that are logically laid out. I dream of a zone where my time actively questing is not dwarfed by the amount of time I waste in transit. I lust after a zone where I can hunker down and get a couple levels in without needing to hop a taxi twice, or spend more than 20 minutes running in a single sitting.

Azeroth, you suck.

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It’s really hard to work up the desire to level my hunter; I’m spoiled by Outlands. The difference between the “new content” and the old is extreme. Both the Blood Elf and Draenei newbie zones are awesome. Quest hubs are well-designed, enabling quest-batching. With twinked bags, I can go out, clear 4 or 5 quests, and come back for turn-ins at about the time my bags started begging for mercy.

After that, level 20 is a slap in the face. I’m really not interested in (re-)exploring the wonders of Azeroth. I don’t need the guided tour. I especially don’t need to run up and down the length of Kalimdor twice because some idiot-NPC decided he wants the special flowers that only grow over there and if he doesn’t get them, he’s not going to give me the next step in the chain which actually gets me something I might want. If one more NPC sends me to another continent for the next step in a chain I’ve already spent 30 minutes in transit for, I’ll scream.

Maybe I should just forget the hunter. I already know I’m going to have to axe something or pay for a transfer if I want to play a Death Knight. Leveling gathering skills from 0 at level 55 will also suck. However, at least I wouldn’t be stuck questing on Azeroth.

SYTYCB: WTB 2m leetsauce DPS 4 MrT, lf uber CC, kkthx!

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This is a SYTYCB entry from Jen who made it to the top 7.

jen-post WoW language… where do I begin? So being a fairly new “gamer” (zomg it’s been a freakin year!) I was lost when I first read trade chat in Darnassus. So many acronyms and so many words I had never heard of in my life. I majored in Literary Studies, so it was incredibly frustrating to me to not understand wth anyone was saying.

For the most part, I’ve overcome these frustrations (thanks to my sponsor and 12-step program,) but there are still things that irk me about WoW-lingo. I honestly don’t know if these terms are exclusive to WoW or part of all MMORPGs, anywhozzle here I go!

Misspelling

I’m kind of a spelling snob; I have a habit of pointing out spelling errors in trade chat on my server, especially if it’s a guild recruitment spam! I have noticed a lot of these WoW terms are just misspelled words that caught on and became accepted gamers’ lingo.

Pwned, Pwn, Pwnt

Is this pawned or owned or a combination? I think either way it’s over-played and over-used, it’s like “Burn” from that Friends episode. If you tell me you pwned me in-game, be prepared for a /glare /slap combo, cause that’s how I roll!

Leet, Leetsauce, 1337

I can only assume this came from elite, but where do we get the sauce? It sounds messy and somewhat disgusting; I get all kinds of visuals that I’m not going to explain here.

And are we really in 5th grade where we are playing with our calculator and trying to spell words with numbers? Remember 55378008…if you don’t, type it in your handy dandy calculator (not the one on your computer you n00b!) and turn it upside down.

Hai

Is this to be cute? Like the “I can haz” crap? Sorry I just don’t get it, first time I saw it I thought the guy was from Hawaii and maybe it was some cultural thing =/

Oh noes!

Admittedly I use this often, especially when I’m trying to get away from CAPSmonster (he’s the rare elite mob that strikes in trade chat and burns everyone’s eyeballs out of their sockets, he’s also the namesake of my 2v2). But where the hell does it come from? Instead of shortening the phrase to make the typing faster we actually add two letters for silliness?

Acronyms

These are probably carried over from other games, but for those who didn’t play these so-called “other games” it’s incredibly annoying and frustrating! The very first day I started playing WoW I saw the acronym LFG and I was too nervous and n00bish to ask what it meant for the longest time.

Common txt lingo (wth, wtf, omg, lol)

I don’t really have any problems with these, I txt probably more than I talk so I’m used to it. Moving on…

WoW specific (dps, cc, wtb, dungeon names)

I know these are necessary, especially in a game where you want to spend more time pew-pewing than typing. Btw dungeon names are normally a no-brainer but for all that don’t know Magister’s Terrace is MrT – nothing else (nightelf mohawk ftw.)

I almost quit the game a couple of times as a low-level since I felt like I entered a world where I didn’t speak the language and I was not given a translation guide.

Hey WoM, make a guide! 😉

Asshats who think they are cool they can acronym anything

These are the people that were put on earth to make me want to go punch a kitten in Elwynn Forest. Stop trying to act like you are cool by making everyone else in the world figure out what the hell you are saying, you suck! Noone is going to pick up on your acronym and start using it; you are not a trend-setter. NP2SW is not the new cool way of saying “need portal to Stormwind”. I’m determined these are the gamers who are 42 years old living at home with their parents trying to get their band off the ground. I hate them, and I put them on ignore!

Emotes

/start rant

If you put a / in front of something it means this is what you or your character is doing or feeling right now. In a game where you can’t convey your true feelings with absolute strangers and you don’t want to type it out just put a / in front of a word and everyone will know what it means. You can also say “slash (insert word here)” in vent and it makes sense!

/rollseyes

/facepalm (spoiler! Coming in wrath!)

/end rant

Vent

There is really only one thing people say on vent that makes me want to QQ and that is “lawls”. Lawls is a misspelling of an acronym that means to laugh-out-loud. If you are laughing out loud and you press your vent key wouldn’t everyone hear you laughing? Apparently not. Instead you press your vent key and say “lawls” which just makes you a freakin liar! You are not laughing out loud at all so don’t say that you are. It doesn’t make any sense. This bugs me cause I love to hear people laugh, it makes me laugh more, and I LOVE to laugh! I laugh a lot and often and I press my vent key when I’m doing it. I NEVER say “lawls”. I also press my vent key when I sneeze…that’s a whole other topic I suppose.

Uber and n00b

I separated these out because I despise them especially. For one, they just sound gross, they both remind me of the word booger and it makes me want to vomit in my mouth. I understand what both terms mean, but I have no clue where they came from so I made some assumptions. Uber comes from some idiot trying to spell super and failing in epic proportions. He was obviously not uber and now he’s doomed to endlessly sift through the trash in the Ironforge Deeprun tram station (dirty, dirty Haggle!). N00b/nub comes from “new player” or “new person” being shortened to save typing time. Nub (rhymes with rub) I think I hate more because again it’s a visual thing and it’s not even pronounced like newb but it means the same thing.

What WoW terms do you love/hate or love to hate? Am I absolutely nuts for the assumptions I made?

SYTYCB: It’s not you, it’s me. Yea, no. Really.

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dwah

Image courtesy of Willrad. This is a SYTYCB submission from Rusco who made it into the top 7. 

rusco-post Hey everyone, Rusco here.

There are only a few things in this game that bother me; super long flight paths, druids inability to crowd control inside most instances while npcs use similar spells without issue, and a warlocks fear. But on the top of the list sits something that doesn’t have to due with coding.

It’s the players. I feel like there are so many ignorant, stupid people that play this game.

It makes me feel elitist, to say the least, when I think of it and I hate it but it’s true. I tend to get frustrated when I’m grouped with other people I didn’t pick and chose to group with. Usually in battlegrounds, I can ignore the people yelling at everyone to give up or making stupid remarks. Unfortunately, it’s a bit harder in raids that I ask to join because I have to keep my ears peeled and my eyes on the screen.

Even in 5-man’s I still come across people that can get to me without actually trying to. Just the other day, I was in a partial pug run through slave pens and make a joke about one of my friends getting himself killed before we met at the entrance when our mage drops group because he didn’t like my attitude. I can almost understand, I’m generally sarcastic in my humor and if you’re coming from the point of view that all people are out to hurt one another then yea, I could have come off a wicked jerk. But this guy knows me in real life, we’ve played tabletop rpgs for two years. We’re not close, but it was a shock to see him react that way to something he should recognize as playful not harmful.

Slightly less specific, a good friend of mine has a podcast about world of warcraft and one of their usual features is “Real Noobs of Warcraft” and I badgered him until he included an idea of mine called the “back-seat raid leader.” Now that’s something that really gets me in raids. When someone other than the raid leader starts spouting off commands or details, especially when someone asks a question directed to the RL, I throw my head back and groan. It’s like, “Yea, we all know you’ve been around since beta or whenever. We know you’ve got experience in this game. But you’re not the boss. Stfu. Srsly.”

Speaking of raids, is it too much to ask to have people arrive in a timely fashion and packing all the heat they can bring? I don’t think it’s too hard to find out what elixirs, food, reagents, potions, scrolls, weapon buffs, or whatever else you can use during combat that can benefit the raid as a whole. Sure, that may seem like a lot of stuff to remember but it doesn’t take much effort to check to see if you have what you need and if not to go get it. Not enough gold? One run through the Sunwell dailies and you’re good to go. What’s the problem there?

Now, I come from a casual guild, so it’s not required of anyone to be über prepared but I just don’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to make sure the raid does it’s utmost best. I’m taking my time, but I plan on having what every class/spec needs for raiding because I’m sick of complaining and maybe then no one will have an excuse to skimp out. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy doing the research and work, but I hate hate hate that I come across so few that will actually do it for themselves.

Don’t get me started on people who don’t know how to play their class. I’ve heard a horror story from a good friend of mine coming across a shaman that didn’t know what a totem was.

World of Warcraft brings in so many different walks of life and luckily there are really cool, smart people that play this game. I just wish I could play with them, rather than just read their blog. Maybe I’m just being overly pessimistic but I think I’m either getting the short end of the stick or I’m just crazy.

Myth: It Doesn’t Matter As Long as the Boss Dies

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does-matter

It’s time for a good, old fashioned rant.

“It doesn’t matter, as long as the boss dies.”

Oh, but it does matter. It matters a lot.

It matters if you AFK trash.
It matters if you wipe on a farm-content boss.
It matters if people die unnecessarily.
It matters if the fight drags on for double its usual length.
And it matters because “as long as the boss dies” is the dumbest quote EVER.

Think about it. I understand the need for bio breaks, and taking an announced absence is a perfectly legitimate way to get a drink of water, relieve yourself, and be that much more focused when you return. But when you have a couple of raiders who consistently AFK their way through everything that doesn’t drop loot, it adds stress and resentment to the pressure cooker that is a raid. It’s lazy and inconsiderate. Worse, it sets a terrible example for not just new recruits but everyone else in the guild.

Anyone who’s ever wiped on a “Farm” boss can tell you that it is infinitely frustrating when that happens due to sloppy mistakes and lack of attention. It wastes valuable time, leads to full-on burnout, and can make a guild feel stunted and unsuccessful. Slacking off here can cause major problems, and even if the boss dies on the third try, that’s 30 minutes to an hour of 25 people’s time. Not to mention repair bills, wasted consumables, and loss of morale and momentum.

Okay, so say you didn’t wipe. Say the fight just lasted 12 minutes instead of 7. That’s only 5 minutes extra (Nevermind that it’s really 5×25.) Wrong. When fights double in length, the impact is the same as a wipe, just on a smaller scale. Consumables, cooldowns, and resources are STILL wasted, and more likely than not, players will die needlessly. Not to mention that’s 5 minutes worth of Arrows and Bullets. And you now have a raid-mentality that knows it’s in for a rough night, since the bosses aren’t dying smoothly. Beyond that, if you’re a guild in the position of both farming content AND making progression runs, the sooner you can get the old content finished the more time you can spend on the new stuff. Eating up minutes and hours when you have 14 bosses to get through before you can even get to the fun stuff is “srs biz”.

More than anything, I hate that this quote as it seems to embody the ultimate in epic-greedy laziness. As if there’s no difference between the boss dying in an unspectacular way vs. dying efficiently, with everyone putting out 100%. The reality is at the other extreme – the only thing the two events have in common is the dropping of loot. And if loot, rather than progression and improvement is your focus, I want you the hell out of my raid, out of my guild, off my server, and away from my game. Go play EverQuest with Jimmy.

Luv,
Wyn