And Refugees has been born

So, for a while now I have been sort of stressing about guild and guild type stuff. First the break from SB for what I thought to be greener pastures at GIP. For a while that seemed to be going well, until drama that I didn't see coming. That caused a split, and I got to watch the guild essentially die around me. Now even the GL has decided to take a break. Couple with that a good friend joining the game on another server and I find it as time to move on for a bit.

All the time in the back of my mind I am seeing the failures of the guilds around me. I refuse to believe this is how guild must be. Elitest, stressful, angry, and unfair. I tried a guild to see what it was like on an RP server. Elitest, just in a different fashion. Instead of the classic “Your gear isn't cool enough. You can't play with us.” It was more of a quiet indifference. Not much more fun, and it equates to essentially the same thing in my mind.

On a lark, I tried a couple of other guilds on the server, and learned a few things about the seedier side of people's personalities and why some people should not be allowed to procreate. One was nothing more than the porn channel with worse writing and another was just a group of people who combined seemed to have a combined IQ smaller than my son's. Needless to say I didn't hang around either of these guilds for very long.

I ended up spending the 10 silver and buying a guild charter for myself. If what I have seen of guilds is what I have to compete with, I doubt seriously that I will have a hard time succeeding where others have failed. Considering I have no level 85 toons on this server, nor many friends on the server I think my first big hurdle will be getting people to join. We shall see.

My guild bears the moniker of “Refugees”. There are multiple meanings behind it. The most obvious can be attributed to being a refugee of the upheaval of Cataclysm. Less obvious, I am a refugee from another server, and the other founding member is a Refugee of another MMO.

What to do, What to do...

Dear Readers,

I was struggling last night to come up with something to write about today. I couldn’t for the life of me figure it out. Usually I have something, but as you can see from my last post that this is a bit of a challenge to me right now. In fact it seems to be that way in WoW in general right now for me. I actually can’t decide what to do anywhere.

So I seem to have picked up a normal pattern for my play time: Log on Mich on Malygos, do the cooking daily. Cooking Hat, {Can I have it?} (Bonus points if you get the FFXI reference here). Then I look at my 6 sad Frost Emblems, think how I’ve gotten the low hanging fruit, and I have a long way to go for my next piece, talk to Caralee for a few minutes if she’s on, then decide that I am not up for a heroic to get a lousy 2 Frosts and log off and go over to SAN for a night of trying to decide what I’m going to do there, which typically turns into random runs on one alt or another.

Last night the pattern started up like normal. I did the cooking daily, including forgetting to make the cheese and wine platter and grumbling that I did something wrong before realizing I had more to do than just gather the stuff and go find the big yellow ?. Looked at my 6 Frosts and decided I didn’t want to try to get 2 more since my next piece is 80+ emblems away. Started talking to Cara, and didn’t feel like going away. It was raid night for SoulBound so Cara was busy wiping left and right. During raid nights, some good conversations can and have been had by Cara and I during the times where I assume she is dead and watching the rest of the raid getting munched on whatever it is they are fighting. Last night the muncher in question was the Blood Queen. Anyway, I sat on Michelinea for a while trying to get the push up to doing something, but couldn’t. In the end I switched to Paci. Don’t know why, just did.

I had a surprise in store for me when the log in screen cleared. Paci had been kicked from her guild. I had joined a leveling guild a while back with her and probably was one of the more active people on the guild except for in the last 3-4 weeks where I have been doing other things. Going out to the guild site, I guess it has been decided that the guild is moving in a different direction. What that direction is beyond me. My guess considering the utter and total lack of people on whenever I have logged in is in the direction of the nearest toilet. Good luck to those who still are a member of Atlantis, hope shit don't stick.. Either way, if anyone needs/wants a level 60 druid healer in full heirloom gear in their guild on Malygos, hit me up. I really am nice, I think.

What a wild week it's been...

What a week it has been. Work has kept me from posting anything with all of it's craziness. By the time I get done working, then stressing about the work I should be doing, I'm too exhausted to even think about posting.

Good news? After today I'm on vacation for a whole week....
Bad news? I had a few different ideas for posts during the week and forgot them. Some day I need to, you know buy a pencil and write things down.

Oh well, what have I learned this week.

First, on the LFD Leveling thing: Holy crap does it slow down around 50 and not really very much fun. I get the choice of either BFD in some form, or Sunkent Temple. Most people don't know how to handle either of these and I find that it usually means frustration, and lots of dropped parties, deaths and pain. Also, no one seems to know how to get back to them after they die. This stinks because I can't lead them back. Frustrating. On the good side, I got TREE! Yes, I am now a healing tree. The animations for the tree are completely hilarious to me. Every time I stand around for a couple second and he looks around turning one way and the other I start to laugh. Ok, yes, I admit it, I am easily amused.

Second, Mich: So, Jin found out for me why the folks in her guild seem to hate me. Seems that when I was guilded, the officer who guilded me thought I was Jin. Odd, since Jin was online when I was guilded and welcomed me. Then when it came clear I wasn't, hard feelings abounded. Hard feelings equal bad treatment for Mich. Would have been nice if someone had told me this months ago so it could have been cleared up. But it wasn't, now I have to "prove" myself. Annoying in and of itself, since most people who are guilded don't have to do that, but whatever. I want to play with Jin and Cara, so I will do it. Good side to it all? At least now I know and don't feel like I'm being punsihed without a reason. The reason was dumb, but now I know.

Third, Paci: OK, so because of my LFD leveling project I have been more visible online with the guild that she's in. I've been vocal, well cause I am. I have an opinion on occasion, and I don't fear telling what it is. Anyway, I have been trying to help out with the guild and the GM has sort of noticed, and made me a general officer. Holy crap, I have power. Don't know what being a general office really means, but for now I will ask some questions and answer them if I get asked them.

Last? Umm. I don't know what to say for last. I'm done.

Trials and Tribulations of Guild life.

Considering a week break from writing I have a good bit to talk about. I think I may end up breaking this into a few different posts, because I did a lot and got to thinking a lot.

First, the whole idea with trying to get something going with Atlantis died. I decided to try talking to some of the people in the guild before I posted anything. So randomly, I talked to what ever guild members happened to log in. First, there were a grand total of 5 people who logged in when I was on. And I'm pretty sure that 1 of them logged in on 2 different alt toons. Second, of those 5 people 3 said they were not really able to commit, 1 didn't respond, and 1 thought it was a good idea.

With sterling results like that, I know its pretty much a dead end chance for me to get anything going with this guild right now. I talked a bit to Alydar the other night about Atlantis and where it stood. He asked some about Soulbound, so I think he's kind of lonely there too. I actually have been playing Mich a lot again, but I'll talk more about that in a later post.

OK, personal gut feel, Atlantis is going to die. I have 3 options left to me.

1. I can leave Atlantis for greener grasses that are elsewhere. I don't know how to find that, I sort of fell into Atlantis (blind invite), and I don't think people are going to really want Paci anyway. Not only that though, I happen to really like Alydar, I don't want to lose that friendship that is building up. I suppose the friendship will continue to grow regardless, but there is a part of me that feels like I'd be a deserter if I left Atlantis.

2. I could try to build up Atlantis. I have built guilds before, I know how it is done, and technically every person as a part of Atlantis can add new members, though we can't change what they are ranked as initially. That requires a real officer. I could still do it, but what if I go through the trouble, build up a thriving guild and the real management comes back out of the woodworks and decides they aren't happy with what I've done. All that effort for essentially no gain, and maybe a lot of hurt.

3. I could do nothing, let it die when the time comes and decide what to do there. Ah the greatness of apathy. I love it.

OH! 4 I could create my own guild. Maybe figure out how to drag Alydar over, and start to build it up myself.


Lots of work, but it could be fun. Then I too could give myself loads of headaches and I too can be one of those guild leaders that I am always bitching about. That could be fun. Can you say sarcasm? I bet you can...

Oh yes, there is also Soulbound, I don't know what to say there. I am playing Mich more, and when people are asking for things I am saying memememememe. And even getting invited a bit here. Did a late night Heroic the other night, and yesterday I tanked the Valentine's day boss for a few folks. Little things I know, but better than nothing, right? I figure if people see me around and doing things, maybe I'll get asked to more.

Who ever thought....

I would have so many ideas to write about that I would not write any of them down? Since Saturday I've been getting ideas to talk about on my blog, but each time I start to write them down I get side tracked and that means I ended up with 5 or 6 post starts and nothing actually published.

I am determined now though. I will post. It will rock. Well maybe not, but I'll like it and maybe you, my 3 faithful readers scattered out among the servers of the internet. Which reminds me, to that person out in Alaska who is reading to me, I have no idea how you find me, but thank you for reading. I know I don't know anyone in Alaska, and yet you are my highest hit person. Thank you.

On to the post!

One of my favorite parts of WoW started up on Sunday at 3AM server time. Another holiday has begun in the world of Azeroth. I am not going to post a guide, since sites like Wowhead write very good ones and I would be merely copying from them or another site that provides such good details on the holiday.

Back a year or so ago when I started playing WoW seriously I skipped on the holidays in my huge rush to try to get to be one of the cool kids at 80. I've since learned the error of my ways. I didn't realize how much I liked the holiday events until last thanksgiving when I happened to run by the thanksgiving vendor outside of Stormwind. Since then, I have tried to do as many events as I can. I down right love them and eat them up. They are great. I started last night and did the 2 dailies I am allowed and advanced the main questline about as far as I can go on my own (destroying the cart and the sprayers). I need to do some research on it before moving forward from there.

What else is going on in WoW? Let's see, still doing Heroics with Alydar, I bought my first piece of Frost emblem gear, the back piece. I'm still battling with deciding whether I should have Mich leave Soulbound and join Atlantis. I don't know what to do here. I don't really get anything out of Soulbound other than the companionship of Cara and Jisao, but I wouldn't really get anything out of Atlantis either.

I begin to think that Atlantis is a dying guild. The GM is doing a semester abroad so is rarely if ever on. In addition, I rarely see anyone online other than Alydar and myself. Every once in a while I'll see another person online. I don't know if people are logging in, seeing no one so logging off, or they just aren't active anymore.

I started thinking about it, and I noticed that I can set up events on the calendar (I think anyone in the guild can). I was thinking I might set up an event and see if I  get any acceptances. I was thinking of maybe a 10 man Naxx run, something easy like that to see if I can get some 80's interest. To do this though, I really should move Mich since she's my only 80, and she's in another guild. Oops! Circular argument. Round and round we go!

Also, I am a bit nervous. I don't want to update Alyx (our GM), or any of the other Guild officers (there are a few). It wouldn't be good for me to take initiative and find out that in fact I was rocking the boat. Problem being though, I never see any officers other than Alydar. I have mentioned my ideas to Alydar, and he hasn't really said anything positive or negative on the subject. Maybe I'll do it, what's the worst thing that can happen? I get thrown out of Atlantis? Oh no. It isn't like there aren't other guilds out there that people are always shouting for membership on trade.

I'll do it tonight. If you happen to read this and have an opinion, please comment!

OK, something's eating me....

Note, this post was started and stopped a few times over the last week or so.

So, Paci and Orkette are in the guild Atlantis on Malygos, a fairly small guild that doesn't seem to have many active players currently. I've met a couple that do seem to be around and they are really great. I enjoy talking to them, and I like the fact that the group as a whole seems to want to help each other. I also enjoy that I can help them out a little by providing a little of the knowledge that I have to some of the other players in the guild.

Now, I have been talking to one of the Co-GMs Alydar about beginning to do some events with the guild. There are a bunch of 80's in the guild that I see pop on and off fairly often, and many of them are in heroics and 10 and 25 man runs. Now, his concern (validly) is that he is not ready to be a tank for a heroic yet. And though he often talks about how he is out DPSing the DPS players in the non-heroic runs he is doing, he is also uncomfortable as a DPS. He says he isn't up to par there either. If you look at the link you'll see he's not specced for DPS, but that is changeable, or he can heal too.

Now, I've tanked Heroics on Mich successfully, and can get up to the defense max with a potion, so I want to try running them with him. I admit that some of my success may have been because of my healer (I had Caralee for one set of runs, and then another healer who was very good that I can't remember for the second) but I think we can do it. He plows through non-heroics now, I plow through them as well, and do well on heroics also. I just don't know how to get him to do them with me.

Why am I doing this you ask? Well, I think Atlantis has the potential to be a guild that raids at least 10 man content, but I feel the GMs are a bit nervous about doing it. I'd like to help them see that it can be done, jsut as I've seen it can be done with sub-par people. Part of me has even thought about setting up a 10 man Naxx run and seeing if we can get the people for that, but I am guessing many won't want to do that since its a step back.

Anyone have any ideas?