Project Lore

So you've found a guild and you think you've got the chops to run with the big boys now. You know your class well, you're all geared up, and ready to go. Though you may very well find acceptance in a top-tier raiding guild at this point, there is still one more hurdle to cross: they have to like you. If it isn't evident by now, World of Warcraft is a social game and that covers everything from trade chat to the end-game experience. If you're not comfortable or friendly with the other 24 people running alongside you towards that next boss, you're not going to get anywhere. And if you're outright rude and abrasive, you'll find yourself tossed out the front door faster than Jazzy Jeff by Uncle Phil. My guild once had to let one of the best Warlocks on our server go not two weeks after he joined because he wouldn't shut up on Ventrilo and acted like a know-it-all. If you're the silent type, don't fret. A lot of them will probably still accept you as long as you communicate to them in one way or another that you understand what's going on. In fact, the players that are going to find themselves in trouble are the loudmouths. That doesn't mean you can't socialize or talk with your fellow guildmates, but do know what your limits are and when to zip those lips. Let me be clear that tolerance levels are going to be different for every guild, and the best way to figure that out is to simply look up their rules, which may be on their webpage or in their forums. Since you don't always know what people are going to be like before you join or become accepted, message boards are also a good way to get to know the "personality" of a guild beforehand. Who knows? You might decide that you don't really like them! Learn how to fit in and you could be the next Sarah Jessica Parker! Don't and, well, you're doomed to be Amy Linker. But, as an officer of a progression raiding guild, I've encountered my fair share of malcontents and I do believe that there are some fairly common ground rules that should be followed no matter who you apply for:

1. Be Social, Not Rude - I briefly touched on this already, but it's a good idea to get to know your fellow raiders in a friendly manner. If you're invited to join, talk them up in guild chat for awhile. Don't make cute jokes or sarcastic statements, and don't attempt to discuss topics that you don't know anything about. In general, make strides to get to know people, not insult them. Like any social group, people will eventually relax while they're around you, and once you've earned their trust, you'll be free to open up a little bit more. If you don't like making small talk, think of the conversation as an investment in your raid spot. There have been people who joined our guild in groups and some of them never once spoke up. You know what happened to them? We didn't invite them to raids because we had no idea who they were and, soon enough, they left or were kicked out of the guild.
2. Don't Talk Over Officers - I cannot stress this enough! In a raid situation, let the raid leaders do the talking! Different guilds may have different policies concerning guild or raid chat, but Ventrilo is a whole different beast. If you've used voice chat before, then you know how confusing it can be when too many people try to talk at once. It sounds like an echo chamber and it's impossible to figure out what anybody is saying. Deal with that in the middle of an encounter and you can chalk up yet another wipe. If communication is essential (and it is), then knowing when to keep your mouth shut is just as important as knowing when to open it. And, on occasion, you should do that too! Certain fights can be dependent on players calling out when they're under the effect of a certain condition (often spells or debuffs cast by the boss), but generally only do this when the officers ask for it before the fight begins.
3. Participate - Like knowing when to speak up in rule number one, participating can also raise your position in a guild. Being known as the kind of player who is willing to help fellow guildies can go a very long way. This doesn't mean you necessarily have to lend a hand at every given opportunity, but try your best to run instances with all your new friends and show up on time for raids, even if you're not guaranteed a spot to go. Merely being available is a good thing. Coupling availability with a well-geared character and knowing how to play can be a great thing! We've had numerous people come and go from our guild over the years. Some have been around nearly as long as the officers have and yet show no signs of increased activity or the desire to ascend in the ranks. Others have earned premiere raid spots mere weeks after joining. How do they do that? They act cordially, demonstrate that they know how to play, and participate as much as possible. The officers will notice those who are making an effort (and, subsequently, delivering during raids), rewarding them accordingly.
4. Deal With It - Develop a thick skin and do it quick. No matter how friendly your guildmates are, there will inevitably be some aspects of the experience that you find undesirable. Another member's personality bothering you? Unless it's obvious harassment, learn to tolerate it, especially if you're the only one with a problem. If you're not the only one with a problem, then it will soon become evident as even the officers tip-toe around conversations with said person. Chances are, their days with the guild will shortly be over. Not satisfied with the gear situation? Tough. There are several ways for a guild to determine how loot is distributed, and often you'll know what it is before you join. If you don't like it, then respectfully decline membership. Common systems amongst raiding guilds include DKP (an officer-administered point system that tends to reward participation) and loot council (which utilizes the wisdom of the officers to give drops to those who need it most -- easily corruptible when done wrong, but one of the best methods if done right). Both types are intended to eventually spread gear drops evenly amongst those who consistently show up to raids. And what about those asshole raid leaders yelling at people over Ventrilo? Well, the fact of the matter is that some people don't do what they're supposed to be doing, and that can quickly lead to frustration. A good leader will develop tolerance of their own, but everybody has their breaking point. Listen well? Know how to play? Then you're in good shape. Constantly messing up and potentially wiping the raid? Take the criticism on the chin and improve your performance for next time. Nothing is more frustrating that consistently bad performers who refuse to better themselves.

If these conditions seem too harsh, remember that I'm trying to help you join a good progression raiding guild. Those without such strict policies are doomed to failure, and casual guilds, in general, are going to be more lenient with disruptive behavior. To some, everything I've communicated in these articles is going to seem like common sense, but my experience as an officer time and time again has proven to me that a lot of people out there playing the game still have no clue what is expected of them in a serious raiding environment. To everyone else, I hope I've equipped you with the tools and knowledge to find a future home. Look at it this way: we want you in our guild! From a recruiter's perspective, it's extremely hard to find good, quality raiders. Some have gear, but not skill. Others have skill, but a bad attitude. Yet more have the gear and the skills, but never actually attend raids when we need them to. Be the whole package, and we'd be happy to have you along for the ride. Of course, if you're still having a hard time or have any further questions, post them below and I'll be happy to provide you with some good advice in due time!

Click to read more ...

A few nights ago I was on WoW, not unlike a lot of other nights that I play. But unlike most other nights, I was in a particularly reflective mood. It had been at least a week since my previous jaunt around with Pixiestixy, my alt draenei hunter on Executus, in the alliance Project Lore fan guild. So I logged on to get a quick level or two and to chatter with whoever was online. While running a couple of questlines on Bloodmyst Isle, I noticed someone spamming guild chat with information for logging onto a Ventrilo server. Personally, me and my main character guildies prefer Teamspeak. But a while back, I DLed vent for just such occasions. So I input the info, connected to the server and listened in for a couple minutes. I realized right away that these were not the voices that I had imagined I might hear. One person clearly spoke with a Spanish accent. Another had a boyish, high-pitched voice. I heard a kid screaming in the background of one player's audio. And while I'm used to hearing east coast, and often southern drawl common in Virginia, I picked up from those few short moments of just listening that we were a diverse group. I'm not listing our differences to poke fun or to point out what separated us. I rather enjoy the idea of playing with people from all over the world. But I suppose my perception of their character names didn't match up to what I heard. I could compare it to meeting a giant, rustic Tauren druid who opens his mouth and sounds like an irritated 6-year-old girl. I stopped thinking so much about it and finally introduced myself (and immediately heard exclamations that I was a RL girl.) Apparently, I broke their perceptions, too; They assumed that I would be a guy. A couple minutes later, one of them whispered me, asking how old I am. 26, I replied. Then I realized something. My voice makes me sound much younger than I really am. Or, so I've been told. Another misconception. I'm still unsure whether that's a good thing. I don't usually think that any of this would matter; it's a game, and what someone sounds like doesn't change how the game is played. Unless maybe you're roleplaying through Vent. But it does make me curious - how many of you have ever connected to voice chat and been surprised by what you heard on the other end? Or are you the one providing surprises, if your voice doesn't match up with your character?

Click to read more ...

During this week's raid, an odd thing happened.  Something that has never happened in my entire MMOG career.  The event was shocking enough to leave me speechless.  Literally.  In the middle of our run through the Military Wing of Naxxramas, the Ventrilo server kicked the bucket. For those of you who may not know, Ventrilo is a popular voice chat application that many players and guilds utilize for communicating while playing WoW, among other games. Once the raid realized that the issue was guild-wide rather than personal, the chiding set in. "Looks like someone forgot to pay the bill." "The economy is so bad that even the Ventrilo hosting companies are laying people off!" "This guild can't kill Sarth + 3D or even keep their Ventrilo up?!  I am outta here," followed by a joke /gquit. The server went down during the early trash of our second wing of the night.  After a slight pause to let the Warlock admin reboot the box, we moved on.  We were at pre-Instructor Razuvious trash, so no worries.  Who wipes on trash, right?  I don't know if it was the distraction, the need to type again or random chance, but we nearly had our first - and what would have been our only - wipe on the second to last pack of Death Knight Cavaliers.  The raid pulled out of the lengthy skirmish with a healer standing and a few DPS.  Thankfully, things shaped up after that. Once the initial excitement and near wipes dissipated, an unusual calm set in.  Macros were patched together in haste for boss fights, tanking and stun rotations were set way in advance to compensate for the inability to voice our directions (Yes, I know WoW has built-in voice support now, but I don't know a soul who uses it).  The adaptations allowed us to continue on for the night, but holy crap was it an entirely different experience. I and many other guildies never realized how boring a raid would be without the pointless banter.  No more mom/girlfriend jokes to distract us during trash.  No more lore quips about Thaddius and how he is composed of women and children.  And political/religious chat?  Who the hell would want to type all of that stuff out?  None of my guildies, that's for sure.  Normally the GM has trouble shutting people up, but Ventrilo goes down and even text-based conversation drops to a minimum.  Damn, I should have done /tumbleweed.  I am sure that would have got a few laughs. Have you ever had to suffer through a Ventrilo-less guild raid?  It is one thing to be a part of in a PUG (and usually, you are smarter for not signing on that Vent).  But when you aren't conversing with people you know, the game certainly loses some of that social aspect.  It was one of those eye opening experiences.  You will never realize how much you enjoy Ventrilo until it is randomly absent.

Click to read more ...

Via an overzealous nerd with shoes from the 80s

Generally speaking, watching another person play an MMORPG can be incredibly boring. PvP matches and raiding aside, the audience always knows what will happen, the avatar will kill the mob with plenty of HP to spare. World of Warcraft is no different in that respect; thank god for WoW's customization. Rather than watching the shining graphics on the screen, I watch a player's hands to see how they have mapped their keys for their personal settings.  It has proven to be far more interesting.

For every type of player that exists in Azeroth, there is a type of play style. One of the best warriors – one of those people you'd hate on Ventrilo though - I have had the privilege to play with moved around with the arrow keys, mapping his abilities to keys in the area.  A hunter from our guild didn't hit any hotkeys, relying entirely on mouseclicks.  A pair of my druid friends are a clear case of convergent evolution, mapping all of their healing keys as close to WASD as possible, including Q, E, R, F, G, C, V.

My brother, a Holy Priest from the beginning and a RTS master, only used 1-5 for his spells. Five spells isn't enough for any class, let alone a Priest.  He simply would hit Shift 1-5 to change his bars as needed, effectively giving him 25 keys to play with. His “uber-micro” from his Red Alert and Warcraft III days are what enabled him to keep up with the required speed necessary to be a main healer.  Those frantic keystrokes and movements to flip his bars to the correct spells at precise moments was stunningly beautiful.

And here I am, a fourth alternative to the default layout. I have applied a few tricks from my RTS playing days as well. The ability to hit CTRL, Shift and Alt with ease – years of training - frees up the rest of the keyboard for use with macros. In an attempt to give 1-6 as many uses as possible, I chose to map CTRL 1-6 and Shift 1-6 to additional bars instead of their default actions. The new keybindings allow me to keep spells, abilities and macros on my top and side bar, but avoid the need to mouseover to them. Mousing is for newbs. My personal attachment to palming CTRL has lead me to only purchase keyboards with raised keys and after I have played with them in meatspace.  On the flip side, my mouse requirements are incredibly basic.

Do you guys go about your business with the default layout, or have you changed the title's key layout as much as your User Interface?  Are you a mouseclicker or do you have a gear out mouse with as many inputs as a keyboard?  What is the craziest play style you have witnessed or heard about? Heck, I even use ` (the key next to numero uno) for Stealthing.

Click to read more ...

I don't know how some of you do it. How do you sign on to World of Warcraft and jump over the gaps in Ironforge for 30 minutes before doing something? How do you sit there and shoot the shit for two hours and nothing else? How? I was watching my friend “play” the other day and that was the kind of stuff he kept doing. I thought he brought me over to show me his new spec, a new piece of gear, perhaps something from Hallow's End that he manged to get or thought was cool. No, he just called me over to show me that he could jump the gap with a full 720 thrown in. With all the new stuff added in the past month, how is it that he lacks something to do!? Whenever I sign in I always have a concrete purpose, even if I am only logging on for 10 minutes. Yea, I have signed in just to talk to someone, but if it wasn't a five minute conversation, then I was headed off to do some dailies at the same time. When I pop on in the morning, it is usually to buy up all that cheap Netherweave cloth that is constantly on the Auction House. I don't know how those people do it. How can you sign into World of Warcraft, a game that has so much to do, and just kill time in the city or chew the fat on ventrilo, while your character goes through its idle animations? Personally, if I am not doing at least two things at once I feel like I am wasting time. Please, explain it to me, and no, I am not belittling you. The reason I want to know is because I am one of those guys who will sign off from WoW almost without notice. I will never do this if I am in a group or actively participating in something, but if I am questing and just get fed up then boom, I am gone. I could even be mid-conversation with someone, as rude as that is. This actually annoys me and is the reason why I want to know how some players can just do nothing. My biggest pet peeve is when I am actively trying to find a group for an instance. If I spend more than 5-10 minutes LFGing I will throw my hands in the air and swear off the game for a few hours. Please, enlighten me you “wasters of time,” and if you are like me, shout it loud so I know I am not the only one. This is completely off topic, but anyone interested in the video game industry and computer animation should make sure they see this video from Image Dynamics about their new technology. The most up-to-date of you have already seen it, as it is a bit old.

Click to read more ...