Project Lore

It seems like a most appropriate time to reveal to all my first experience with quality guild drama.  You see the guild I've been running with since Warriors of Faith went in to administration mode died over the weekend.  It wasn't until yesterday that I managed to get one side of the story.  According to my informant, the former GM was fed up with the guild, snagged all sorts of materials and gold and gquit.  Your basic ninja scenario. Instead of flocking to some random guild I've decided to split my chances between my characters.  Solidsamm will be joining the guild that a large portion of Smooth Criminal's officers and members have moved to.  Solidsagart has already moved to a guild run by a friend from the "good ole days" of WoW.  She'll reside there for the foreseeable future, gearing up and possibly even raiding with them. Hot on the heels of the collapse of Smooth Criminals, I bring to you a tale of woe, back room deals and intrigue. Since the abandonment of 40-man content I've always felt that guilds have become a far more fleeting endeavor.  The social aspects haven't changed, but the difficulty of finding 40 competent people, and the more challenging raid content in general, lead to guilds and members remaining together longer.  Knowing those facts, you can imagine my old guild's shock and dismay when word came out that a few core members were thinking about forming their own crew.  A rumor of that caliber, which happened to involve three officers and the main tank, crushes moral, to say the least.  An even worse case, it could easily fracture a guild. Not the stuff of legends; a simple exodus of the executives you say?  Here's the kicker, the rumor started during the second All That Remains party.  As it spread like wildfire through the 30 or so people roaming my apartment the situation went completely nuts.  It became an elaborate game of telephone mixed with the too many cooks in the kitchen issue.  Everyone heard different things, tried to interject their opinions and create a plan of attack.  Personal feelings were used as facts, and players with conflicts of interest started writing guild policy.  It was a mess. Oh, the second kicker (would that be the placement kicker?), this all went down while the people in question were in transit to their domiciles from the party.  A party where they spent a weekend hanging out and having fun like everyone else.  Didn't matter, they were unceremoniously kicked before being confronted.  I bet they were surprised when they logged in! In the end the guild lost a few members, but ATR remained as the premiere guild on Matheridon-US.  The members were kicked, their new guild dreams died shortly after, and they joined another guild.  With the help of our ousted members the other guild became the #2 guild on the server, even grabbing server first kills for a good stretch of time. Friendships were tested, the guild hit a wall in raiding as it recovered, but worst of all feelings were hurt.  All because of a stupid rumor's ability to take on a life of its own, and cause once level-headed people to act on impulse instead of logic.  It pains me to even discuss the stupidity at how the whole debacle was handled.  At least everyone lived... What's the craziest bit of guild drama you've ever been tied up in?

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"If you reach 80 before I do, I will pull out my hair." Not the smartest thing to say to your competitive friends. Especially not with witnesses online. But it started off innocently enough. A couple weeks ago, I was enjoying a nice evening of playing WoW and chatting it up over Teamspeak with the RL friends in my small guild. I was commenting on how quickly a couple of my friends have been leveling. The guild leader's alt and one of my friends who is new to WoW had been playing together and already reached level 60, in the same amount of time that it took me to go from 60 to 70. But I'm not the fastest leveler by any means. I like to take my time enjoying the lore and quests, I get distracted in-game pretty easily by non-xp-driven tasks and to top it off, I just don't play quite as much as my buddies. They've been bugging me for a while about my not-so-hasty leveling process. Sure, the comments always are friendly, but I know they really do want me to get to 80 fast ("We want to start on those 10-mans, Pixie, hurry up already!"). So, I started to pick up the pace a bit in Northrend. And by the time I reached level 76 a couple of weeks ago, they were at level 70. Not too bad on my end. So when one of them commented that they would reach level 80 before me, I was feeling a little over-confident. And in a weak moment of expressing my frustration at their seemingly limitless play time, I said it. "If you reach 80 before I do, I will pull out my hair." As soon as they started asking how I would look bald, I knew that they wouldn't back down. Although I hadn't REALLY meant it seriously, it didn't matter. If I take it back, I lose. So I logged off that night determined to make it happen. Then life took over, and I didn't log in for two weeks. Every day that life kept me away from WoW, I dreaded more and more the thought of logging in and realizing that I had lost. Then, last weekend I finally got some free time back again. The first thing I do upon logging in? Pull up the guild window and look at everyone's levels. Turns out, RL kicked in for them, too. Or maybe just summer. Because they're only level 72. /Cheer! Now I have to get busy! Whether they start seriously or not, there's plenty of friendly in-game bets that add another aspect to gameplay. You could make it a race to complete quests under a certain amount of time, or time how long it takes for each of you to reach a certain level, or you could compete to get specific achievements before the other. What are your stories of wagers or competitions you've had in-game? Did you come out on top, or lose?

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Can I Be The Right Baby? I've brought up my humble little guild a few times in the past.  We've had our fair share of issues, but most of them have pertained to getting a raid going, let alone completing it.  After some hardwork from the leaders, a few weeks of gear farming for new members and a fresh batch of core raiders, the guild is back on track and finally in Ulduar.  We've come a long way from scrapping together 10-man Naxxramas raids earlier in the year, but we are still a very much a casual guild, at least by my standards.  Casual or not, all guilds have their share of drama, and lately it has been surrounding the object of endless bickering, purpalz. If there is anything that can instill a sense of hatred among guildmates, for no other reason than favor from the RNG, it is loot.  Interesting and new encounters get players into raiding, but it is the off chance at a new piece of shiny armor, or a pointy new piece of metal, that keeps many of us coming back week after week.  Insert some unskilled, unknown or otherwise "undeserving" players into the mix and you have all the ingredients for Drama Soup.  Add a healthy dose of PUG to the recipe and you have yourself the chunkiest Drama Stew since the creation of The Real Housewives franchise.  This is exactly what has been happening in Warriors of Faith lately. I haven't raided in almost two weeks, but previous to my E3 sabbatical we had a few nights that our heroic Naxxramas outings were filled in with PUGs.  Some of the pick-ups were old friends or friends of guildies, so they were known to the group.  Others were entire strangers, unfamiliar with our flavor of raiding, discussion and joking.  All of which tend to be various forms of toilet humor and other unprintable topics.  Don't get me wrong, PUGs and everyone in the raid deserves a shot at the gear they helped create, but it irks me when some stranger picks up a piece of loot I have been after since our first clear.  To make matters worse there is currently no restriction in my guild of how much loot any single player can take in a run, assuming the rules of the last raid I attended still stand.  That is what really cooks my goose. My last heroic Naxxramas clear saw a pair of PUGs pick up not one, not two, but five pieces of gear!  As I said, I am all for giving our saviors (this is what they were since the raid would have been delayed, possibly even canceled, without them) their just dessert, but is it too much to ask for a limit?  Sure, they saved our bacon, but the raid was still a guild run (20 or more guildies), not a PUG group. I never PUG full raids so I am not sure what the norm is.  Would imposing a limit of two class-based items or a single multi-class item be too far?  How about a lower max roll for PUGs?  If there is no restrictions to what an unfamiliar face can obtain, thus making everyone's chance exactly the same, then why should members even bother with a guild run when they could run a raid at their leisure with the same chance at loot?  Think about it.  In my opinion gearing up members is what a guild run is for.  PUGers are enticed by these oppurtunites for the fast clear, easy emblems and, naturally, a shot at some - often unwanted - loot. What do the PUGers out there think about limits?  How about other guilds who fill their ranks with the helpful populace?  Does anyone place restrictions on what a PUG can roll on?  Do you force them to roll lower (such as /random 75), fight over the scraps (unwanted loot), or pay them off with gold if they win a roll?  Or are they simply privileged to be a part of such an amazing guild, even if it is just temporary? A limited loot solution surely isn't perfect, would cause loot and scoot syndrome, and a lower chance at winning would upset people from the start, but keeping guild members happy should be job #1 for the guild.

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Snow is no fun alone.

Last night I did something that I have never done in my MMO career, I gquit.  Even when I quit the game for a few brief months around The Burning Crusade's launch, my fingers never actually typed that sequence into World of Warcraft's command prompt.  In fact, at that time of my relapse into real life, I was the second oldest member in the guild.  And no, the GM wasn't the longest-standing member, my IRL boss was.  It stayed that way until my subscription ran its course, then I was promptly gkicked.

Upon returning to World of Warcraft more than a year ago I found it fairly difficult to readjust.  Going from arguably the best guild on the server to bouncing from guild to guild as they repeatedly disintegrated was a drain on the soul, and my intentions to continue playing.  My former guild finally "collapsed" - GM quit and guild was reformed under a new name - shortly after TBC's launch.  The pieces were quickly picked up by a few of the dedicated members and reformed as a hardcore, min-maxing powerhouse of a guild.  Not something I wanted.  I fought through the ups and downs, and eventually stumbled into a guild of close knit friends.  Not only were many of them real-life friends, but they happened to be French-Canadian. They were a good group of people, some of them excellent players, others, not so much.  They made a good run towards the end of TBC to get through all of the raid content.  They brought me along on those raids when they could, but I never felt that I was part of the guild.  I was just that rogue they'd bring along if they needed some melee DPS.  I was the guy who could get anything cooked, or would waste time fishing.  I was the gnome that was always at the AH.  I was the dagger lover they'd ask lore questions to.  I was the uneducated person who couldn't speak French.  I was THAT guy, not one of them. Nevertheless, I did have some good times and late nights with them, and thank them for the support they showed me and instances we ran together.  I even scored some going away gems along with the well wishes and good lucks. With my trusty rogue finally at level cap and geared enough to enter Naxxramas, it was time to look ahead.  Wrath of the Lich King brought more than a few friends from my old guild back to the game, so I created a private channel for us to chat in due to our guild separation.  Slowly the channel filled up as old friendship were re-kindled or re-discovered.  Loot drama forgotten - a priest taking tanking loot to use the stamina as a PvP item - we have fallen back under the same banner one by one.  A banner that I will join as soon as the GM gets online.  Till that time, Solidsamm remains guildless, but this time on his own terms.  Soon, I shall return to dominating Naxxramas! It feels good to be excited to raid again.

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Earlier this week WoWInsider broke a story involving PopCap Games, makers of the popular, casual title Bejeweled. Why would a WoW blog be covering the casual games market? Well, PopCap Games has decided to take that downtime we have in World of Warcraft and convert it into color matching time. The casual developer has employed Moongaze, creator of numerous in game game addons including Besharded, Bombsweeper and Bust-a-shard. Moongaze was tasked with porting the popular puzzler into WoW as an addon which will be released for FREE next week. I myself have dabbled with dual-gaming, as I like to call it, before and will have more on that subject and its challenges tomorrow. That being said, the addition of a new time sink and distraction in WoW may be the end to fast raiding times and skilled PvPers. I can see it now... 24 raid members to the tank/hunter, “Pull, please.” “Hold on, I have a huge chain going on with a big multiplier” says the distracted gamer. Someone else pulls, the tank doesn't notice and the raid wipes. Tank screams “WHY THE HELL DID YOU PULL?! NOW I HAVE A 50 GOLD REPAIR BILL!” Rest of the raid laments, leading to the the bank getting looted, the guild collapsing, and 10 members quitting WoW all together. Me, dramatic? Never! Along with breaking the news, WoWInsider managed to score a beta copy which they seem very found of. Early this morning they posted yet another Bejeweled-based story, an interview with PopCap's T. Carl Kwoh and Moongaze. The Q&A session is lengthy and it's because the two interviewees happened to be a bit long winded rather than a whole lot of questions being asked. Anyone interested in Bejeweled, the addon community or why the heck they thought of the idea should venture over. Who else is going to check out Bejeweled when it launches next week? I should mention that playing Bewjeweled - and being skilled at it - is the object of some Achievements.  That'll definitely get you Achievement nuts to look at it.

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