Oh, this pisses me off

Just 30 minutes before the 3AM reset I realized that I still needed to do the daily heroic on both my characters. Not sure what the trigger was, entering it, or downing the boss, I chose to take my healer first, because that wait time is longer. I just really hoped the trigger was starting the instance.

Of course, I got Old kingdom. But it could have been worse, like pit of saron, or halls of lighting. The tank took off pretty fast so I figured it would go well.

There was a minor slowdown when all the others in the group realized they were from the same country and started chatting in (to me) gibberish. The worst part was when I saw the term Amanitar in between the gibberish. I so hoped that was some swedish word, or whatever the language was..

A few seconds later the tank jumped of the ledge towards Amanitar.. Noooo!

“Sorry, can we please skip the optionals, I really really need to do another char before 3AM, this is the only time I need a fast run, please guys”.

“You’ll never make that anway”

Well, 15 minutes, I think that could be done. And I wanted to find out for myself if it couldn’t be done. At least I could only blame myself then, which isn’t that bad.

“Sure I will”, I responded, “I can do most instances in 15 minutes easy, unless the dps is real bad”

I didn’t know if that was true, but I see people brag all the time, why not me for once.

“Nah, we wanna do this, we’ll do it fast”

Damn, I hate it when I have no control over things. Do it fast, my ass. As if they were holding back before, I don’t believe that. I just tried to dps myself, but that didn’t make a real difference. The lock was constantly lifetapping and the druid was constantly getting aggro, so I didn’t want to risk switching to dps.

Then they wanted to do the achievement for Jedoga too. Ok, that doesn’t really slow things down, but the discussion alone annoyed me. And I couldn’t swap to dps for sure now.

I was watching the clock all the time, 8 minutes left.. There was still a small chance..

I literally took off towards Herald before Jedoga hit the ground, the rest following far behind.. 5 minutes left..

Trash down, 3 minutes left..

We downed Herald..

Server message… everything was rest!

-CENSORED-

Since I’m not tanking icecrown yet, with the insane requirement people expect these days, these dailies are my main income of frost emblems. Nobody really likes Old Kingdom, everyone always skips the optionals. I seriously haven’t seen those two bosses in 3 months or so.

I usually always like to do the optionals, I don’t mind a slow run. I like to do achievements. I don’t mind doing anything special in a daily run… Usually.

But the only time that I do care about a fast run, the one time since I’ve been playing wow that I REALLY want a fast run for a change, THEN I end up with the only group in 3 bloody months that wants to do it ALL!!

MURPHY I HATE YOU!! YOU OWE ME 2 FROST BADGES!

…Or perhaps it is triggered by downing the boss, in which case I wouldn’t have made ie either way… For now I just like to keep blaming Murphy..

UPDATE: I checked it out, it’s triggered by killing the boss. Which makes nothing but sense, because it’s basically a daily quests, which ends when you finish it. The other dailies only are considered done after you turned it in too. Stressing myself seems to turn of my logical thinking apparently.

Guilds looking for members

So, I’ve been guildless on my current two favorite characters for a while now. I actually do this on purpose because I like the freedom, and I hate hierarchies. I’ve still got my old main character and some alts in a once great guild, I should actually leave there, but that’s a long story for some other time (short: it had to do with the hierarchy). Anyway, the downside of not having a guild  is of course having to struggle with pugs, which sometimes turn out great, but often turn out bad. Still, I don’t mind the bad ones if people do their best and are generally pleasant to play with, or the mess is so big that it’s just fun to watch everyone run around yelling in panic.

But running round with no label attached to your character draws attention from aspiring guilds or guilds that are low on people. Especially if you’re a nicely geared restoration shaman or protection paladin, but especially the first one.

Now, I do not mind being in a guild again, but I do have standards if I would join one. Whenever I’m healing, I’m always top on the healing chart, even against better geared players of good guilds. Also, I’m usually also low(est) on overhealing. Now I know that’s not saying everything, but when I’m able to give the raid advice in the meanwhile, I’d say it’s very fair to say that I’m decently skilled. No.. wait.. I’m just going to say what I know is true: I’m a very good healer, period. Therefor, I would not like to be in a guild with a bunch bad players, being the one that’s constantly compensating. So I’ll only join a guild if I have a good feeling about them. Yes, I’m very picky.

How do you figure out if a guild is any good? I’ve got some ideas:

• Playing with their members
• Getting input from people that know the guild
• Checking their progress
• Doing a trial period
• Having a job-interview like conversation with their leaders

Now the last two might seem logical. Every decent guild has trial periods, and no self respecting guild just invites random people without a chat. I also see a trial period as merely a formality after the choice has been made. It would be rather time wasting to trial each and every guild for a week before choosing.

That chatting part is what surprises me with most guilds.

I’ve noticed that it is still a big problem for most of the people out there do have a decent intake/sales chat. Now, I realize there are probably tons of kids out there that wouldn’t have a clue if they bumped into it, got up and bumped into it again, but I would still expect someone that wants to have a good guild would be happy to sell his guild to a potential member, and would want to get an idea about what he’s putting under his label. I certainly want to know what I’m getting myself into as member.

Let me just give an example of a conversation I had recently:

Guildleader: Are you interested in joing a raiding guild?

Me: I might be if it’s a decent guild, but I’m not much of a guild type.

Guildleader: So u like to pug?

– Anyone using kid speak like “u” “ur” “lolz” “xD” “wut”, etc, etc already lost most of his chance with me, but I’ll still continue while trying not to have it influence me too much. His first sentence was still ok, so he does know how it should be.

Me: Not really, but lots of guilds aren’t much better than pugs.

Guildleader: Well, we’re aiming high.

Guildleader: We’re aiming for 17th on the server.

Me: Ok, but that doesn’t say much. Everyone is aiming high.

– The 17th did seem very odd to me, but I figured they were well on their way and that was just their next milestone.

Guildleader: Why don’t u just take a chance?

– At this point I /who him to see what guild he’s actually representing and find out that he’s guildless himself.

Me: Wait a minute, you don’t even have a guild yet.

Guildleader to be: I’m making one

Guildleader to be: Need dedicated geared players

Me: So basically, you made that stuff about aiming for 17 up too?

Me: Hehe, but why 17 then, why not 20, 15, 5, any round number?

– That might sound harsh, but to me that just sounds like some randomly picked number now, even though it does sound low. Nothing wrong with having ambition, but you need to remain realistic also. How can you aim if you haven’t even got the players, even if it’s a number that sounds reasonable. I expected him to have compared himself to other guilds to come up with a number like that, but I want to hear him say and explain that.

Guildleader to be: 15 is to hard, 20 is too easy.

– Here I pause for a while, still wondering how he got those numbers, hoping he would explain this, but it remained silent for a while, so either he was expecting me to respond again, or he was finally writing some big explanation that would made sense of it all.

Guildleader to be: Well, I’m not going to waste my time with some1 who’s just being a jerk

Guess not.

Ok, story didn’t end here, but it was obvious for me this guy couldn’t handle any critical questions. That’s the most important thing for a guild leader in my book. I don’t really mind that much that he had some randomly picked goals, but he should be able to answer questions about them if he’s willing to lead some guild.

The thing is, this was actually the most decent request I got in a while.

Nearly all of them basically come down to this:

Recruiter: Wanna join my guild?

Me: I don’t know yet, tell me more

Recruiter: Want to try out?

No!! I don’t want to try out some random guild I know nothing about, with the chance of being dumped in a pool of noisy morons, which, let’s be honest, is a rather large chance. People are way to pushy, at least try to convince someone.

I get the feeling most decent guilds don’t recruit this way anymore. Or perhaps my definition of decent has been raised too much. I know top guilds get so many applications it’s hard enough to wade through those, so they don’t need to scout. Not that I’m actively looking for a guild myself, because I actually like the freedom, but I could absolutely be convinced to join one if they’re ok. I would even join a laid back guild that didn’t have high ambitions, as long as they were enjoyable to hang around with. But before I do, I just want to know what I’m getting into. I also want to know that the ones asking me did so because they know something about me, or know what I’m capable of. I don’t like to think I’m just a random filling a gap. Otherwise that guild is no better than a pug with people wearing the same label, which makes it worse, because you’re still stuck with them after the raid.

The point is, if you’re a guildleader, or recruiter, don’t settle for just anyone. It’s not just that just inviting a random automatically means that you’ll get nothing but bad players, but it’s also a sign towards those players that you’ve got low standards. Having  a chat, asking questions, checking their gear out, etc, gives the impression that they deserved the membership if the get it and therefor they’ll have more respect for the guild. They were good enough to be invited, that means something. If people have the feeling they earned a spot, they’re much more likely to become dedicated players too.

Contrast

I really enjoyed seeing a certain interview with Robin Williams where he was telling about online gaming, playing Call of Duty online. If you haven’t seen it, watch it, it’s very funny… Now, I’m not a big fan of the guy or anything, but just think about it. You’re back home after a hard days work, you had a nice dinner, then decide get behind the PC, or console and start up your favorite shooter. Ready to shoot away all the accumulated stress of the day. Then without realizing it, a few minutes later, you could actually be tossing grenades with a famous Hollywood comedian, who is doing exactly the same after his workday. Now, how awesome is that!

Sure, of course it’s not really that strange. I mean, famous or not, we’re all human and have our hobbies, and gaming is fun, right? I would probably be a little less surprised if it was some famous rapper that was telling all this, mostly because gaming fits much more into their (projected) lifestyle, and I guess there are probably are a lot of them playing games like that too. It’s the contrast of someone like Robin Williams doing it that just makes it extra amusing. Comedian or not, he just seems like a way too serious guy for that.

But the video I came across today was just humorous without jokes. I don’t know if it’s old or not, I just saw it and it and found it particularly amusing because of the huuuge contrast.

Before you click on it, first think about two opposites in their extreme form. Let’s say, take something that could be considered the ultimate stereotypical nerdy activity versus the living representation of typical macho. Now combine the two!

So, who still has anything to say about the type of people that would play games like wow? Ha! Thought so!

Anyway, the next time you run into some grumpy pissed off tank in your daily heroic, it could very well be someone you know, who just had a rough day at work

It’s just pixels!

Let me start by saying: NO IT ISN’T!!

I’ve seen this comment too many times float by in discussions, and it seriously pisses me off.

Whenever there’s some riot in Trade or anywhere about some guy ninjaing something, usually some stupid mount, there’s somebody sooner or later that is actually taking the side of the ninja by telling everyone to shut it, because “it’s just pixels” anyway.

This guy might think he’s sounding wise, but it’s absolute nonsense! This isn’t smart of wise or anything, it’s completely lacking the understanding of value.

Most people probably remember the news about a boy killing a friend over a sword (the tone in this post is a perfect example btw). In which case some guy killed a friend over selling a loaned sword. Now, what this guy did is absurd, absolutely, but how can anyone get so worked up about something if it were “just pixels”? Perhaps if he later killed people over the deletion of a desktop icon it might be some kind of weird psychological pixel dependency thing, but that’s not the case. It has all to do with value.

Let’s put it simple. Without humans (or living creatures for that matter) NOTHING would have value.

I can say that value is virtual in itself. It’s all in our heads.

But therefore it’s important…

We hold value to that old dusty toy, because it was what we played with when we were a kid.. But it’s just cotton and stuffing…

We hold value to that painting that has a money value of a few million, because it was painted by some guy we only know from history lessons… but it’s just linen and paint…

We hold value to our home, where we work so hard for to pay off, to furnish, etc.. It’s just bricks..

Your favorite football (or whatever sport) club won the cup this year! Yay! …but nah, no need for celebration, it’s just metal on some marble..

That old broken rusty clock that doesn’t even work anymore, but belonged to your passed away father.. Nah.. it’s just useless junk…

Your beloved wife…. Nah, just 80% water, some bones and fat! (alright, might be truth there )

I hope you see where I’m getting at… Reducing things to what they’re made from is plain idiocy.

Ok, one more: our bank accounts are nothing but bits and bytes too.. So is the bank account from the ones making the stupid comments..

Value is a personal thing. It’s a human thing. Even though most animals most likely hold value to things too (usually their offspring), though humans go far with this.

Value is what we give to every thing in our lives, it what being alive is about, being around things that you value, doing things that you value, creating value. It can be anything.

When you look at it logically, nothing is truly valuable, nothing has a true use or meaning. Everything just “is”. If you suppress all your feeling, everything is nothing but material, molecules. Nothing. Depressing isn’t it? Well, that’s what depressed people probably feel. Emptiness, lack of value.

Saying things “are just……..” is doing that, taking away the value we feel something has, for whatever reason, our personal reason.

So if anyone is angry because someone ninjad a mount, it’s not any different than when somebody stole his bike. It holds value, and it was taken from them. I might think that mount is just a stupid dumb ugly mount, but you’ve got every right to be pissed off and look for justice if it got taken from you while you earned it!

Different servers, different cultures

I always try to avoid to be prejudice, because there can always be hidden gems within something that’s seemingly a pile of junk. Or a piece of junk in a pile of shinies. On the other hand, I’m realistic enough to realize that when I do a random grab from a pile that seems like junk, the change of grabbing a piece of junk is very high.

Having said that… I’ve noticed that the people from the different servers in my battlegroup seem to have a certain attitude that’s typical for people from that server, for example:

• Whenever there’s someone from the EU Moonglade server, chances are high it’s a friendly person. This could be explained by Moonglade being an RP server, so the type of person that goes there is most likely a pretty social kind of guy/gal.

• The Trollbane server also has a good amount of friendly people on them, but what’s typical about them is that they’re mostly very good players. I rarely get a “standing in the fire while doing less than the tank’s thorns buff” player from that place. It’s a PvP server, and one of the oldest in our battlegroup. So that could be a reason also. Besides having to stick together to survive in a PvP world, you’ll also learn some skills and tactics fast enough because you’ll regularly meet some true challenges amongst the usual grinds. Being an old server, this will probably mean there are a more older and veteran players that are long past their epeen days.

• The Kul Tiras server on the other hand, has a very bad reputation with me. From the people I get from that place, an above average amount of them are obnoxious and mediocre at best players. It sometimes seems like they actually seem to enjoy pissing as many people off as possible. Of course, there are good and friendly players from that place, but it’s not surprising to find out that the player that’s being the biggest pain in the group comes from that place . This server is a normal server and I’ve noticed about other normal servers also that they are more likely to produce these kind of people. My assumption is that normal servers promote individualism a lot more, because the only challenge you get in the world is PvE, unless you specifically choose to PvP. You can also just be “yourself” unlike RP servers (I guess the “just be yourself” advice people sometimes give isn’t always the best advice )

I’ve tried to get as much information from my battegroup servers as possible and got this from warcraftrealms.com:

Realm	Online	Type	Alliance	Horde	Alliance	Horde	Total
Ahn’Qiraj	01/06	PVP	2,527 (28%)	6,446 (72%)	1	2.6	8,973
Bronzebeard	11/05	PVE	12,642 (84%)	2,407 (16%)	2.1	1	15,049
Chromaggus	11/05	PVP	3,791 (28%)	9,576 (72%)	1	2.2	13,367
Dentarg	11/05	PVP	1,201 (38%)	2,000 (62%)	1	5.3	3,201
Drak’thul	01/06	PVP	1,182 (7%)	15,373 (93%)	1	4.6	16,555
Emeriss	12/05	PVP	1,153 (16%)	5,950 (84%)	1	5.6	7,103
Executus	11/05	PVP	7,277 (68%)	3,384 (32%)	1	1.8	10,661
Khadgar	11/05	PVE	10,967 (95%)	537 (5%)	1.9	1	11,504
Kul Tiras	11/05	PVE	11,107 (68%)	5,211 (32%)	1.9	1	16,318
Mazrigos	12/05	PVP	203 (14%)	1,256 (86%)	1	10.7	1,459
Moonglade	11/05	RP	2,847 (28%)	7,381 (72%)	1.2	1	10,228
Talnivarr	12/05	PVP	1,026 (45%)	1,271 (55%)	1	2.2	2,297
Trollbane	12/05	PVP	3,691 (68%)	1,710 (32%)	2.4	1	5,401

I know this data is far from accurate, but it should be good enough for a rough indication. The “online” data doesn’t seem to be correct for one. I know for a fact that Trollbane is a day one server, because a friend of mine that’s been playing since the day wow was released is on that server. It can’t be newer than my server. I’m also pretty convinced that my server (Khadgar), has a lot more active horde on it than what is displayed here. Even though it’s true that they are in a minority.

It’s also interesting to see that Trollbane is the only PvP server that has a majority of Alliance, I wonder if that has a big influence on their attitude. I can’t say much about the other pvp servers, the other servers haven’t left a particular impression (yet).

Now, if my theories are correct, that would also mean that my own server harbors the same kind of persons my least favorite other servers (Kul Tiras, Bronzebeard) do. And to be honest, I think that might just be the true. It’s just harder to judge, because even though I play with players from my server through the LFD tool too, and some of them have been terrible, I also know quite a bunch of good and/or friendly people on this server. The thing is that I’ve been on this server from day one, and it’s all I know, so it’s easier for me to be in favor of my own server, because I’ve got friends here. When you’re in a good guild, you also don’t really care or notice that much about others, and you tend not to pug much.

But as I’m guildless now, it has been a bit more noticeable.

Anyway, these are just theories, based on experiences and not very trustworthy data. It has however made me think about changing servers, just to see how it’s like. I’ve got two level 30 characters on trollbane now, but they’re horde, and I’ve recently made a new char on Moonglade, which I might just level a bit more to get a better idea about that server.

I wonder though if anyone else is experiencing something similar? Do you also notice that certain servers have different attitutudes? Good or bad?

Realm	Online	Type	Alliance	Horde	Alliance	Horde	Total
Ahn’Qiraj	01/06	PVP	2,527 (28%)	6,446 (72%)	1	2.6	8,973
Bronzebeard	11/05	PVE	12,642 (84%)	2,407 (16%)	2.1	1	15,049
Chromaggus	11/05	PVP	3,791 (28%)	9,576 (72%)	1	2.2	13,367
Dentarg	11/05	PVP	1,201 (38%)	2,000 (62%)	1	5.3	3,201
Drak’thul	01/06	PVP	1,182 (7%)	15,373 (93%)	1	4.6	16,555
Emeriss	12/05	PVP	1,153 (16%)	5,950 (84%)	1	5.6	7,103
Executus	11/05	PVP	7,277 (68%)	3,384 (32%)	1	1.8	10,661
Khadgar	11/05	PVE	10,967 (95%)	537 (5%)	1.9	1	11,504
Kul Tiras	11/05	PVE	11,107 (68%)	5,211 (32%)	1.9	1	16,318
Mazrigos	12/05	PVP	203 (14%)	1,256 (86%)	1	10.7	1,459
Moonglade	11/05	RP	2,847 (28%)	7,381 (72%)	1.2	1	10,228
Talnivarr	12/05	PVP	1,026 (45%)	1,271 (55%)	1	2.2	2,297
Trollbane	12/05	PVP	3,691 (68%)	1,710 (32%)	2.4	1	5,401

Lead, follow or get out of the way

There’s no right choice for me when it comes to (PuG) raiding. The thought of raidleading one stresses me out, so I rather avoid that. I do know I’m quite capable of doing it if I have to, because I have done so before, but it only works well for me when I’ve got the correct kind of group. That means: a bunch of proactive people that can communicate normally. I’ll even settle with just no obnoxious types that go kicking and screaming whenever something is not 100% equivalent to what they’re used to, whether it’s no better, or even worse. The type that constantly challenges decisions and can even go as far as deliberately sabotaging an attempt to show they are right. I always manage to get at least one of those on my raid. Kicking them is no option unless I can prove it, otherwise it only seems that he was right, making me look bad.

Not raidleading however, usually forces me into that role. I won’t go kicking and screaming, but when I’m not raidleading I almost always end up in some seemingly clueless group, and the raidleader just doesn’t care, treating everything as if it was tank & spank. I feel forced to explain some important details in those situation, so I could just as well have been the raidleader.

Today I had a good example of this.

The new weekly raid was Ignis the furnace master, a fight I can almost dream. First I went pugging on my restoration shaman. The nice thing about healing is that you can keep yourself completely in the background if you want to, but you’re also that important to the group that your decisions matter. I chose to stay in the background this time for reasons mentioned above. The raidleader was therefor of course, the AFK kind, and let us just do whatever we thought was best. FL went down with ease, so the group wasn’t all new, luckily. The trash before Ignis wasn’t a problem either, but that’s tank and spank with just a little environmental awareness required, so nobody should have problems with that. At Ignis, the raidleader spoke, finally: “go when ready”. One of the tanks charged in and started kiting the boss all over the place. The other one instinctively picked up the adds, but for some reason ran into a far corner with them and stayed there, with me having to make the decision of either running up and solo healing him, or healing the rest of the raid and hope for him to realize his weird choice. He still had my earth shield so I chose the last.

When he started to ask for healing I figured a tiny hint couldn’t hurt. I didn’t want to leave the rest up to my only (effective) colleague healer and also didn’t feel like making the group wipe while I was well aware of the problem, just because I chose to stay in the background. I still left the other tank running in oddly shaped circles with Ignis though. And nobody was still saying anything about that either.

He went down alright, and with the gear people have these days it’s not a big deal of course. The Ignis tank then decided to say it was actually his first time doing this, and wondered if his kiting was ok. Bit late, but at least he cared.

Ok, second run, now on my paladin tank.

I wasn’t planning on raidleading again, but as tank I kinda feel required to take at least a leading role. When we entered Ulduar somebody immediately started a discussion whether or not to try a hard mode FL. I don’t know why anyone would want that these days, and there’s also the risk of wiping, which inevitably causes people to leave, so the answer was no. Nevertheless, he, or somebody else already turned on the towers. So much for that decision. I ended up solo nuking some of the towers, because the pro-hardmode fans were charging straight to FL, while others were just following the ones in front of them. Luckily I got help from the official raidleader, so towers down eventually.

FL down, no big deal, onto Ignis.

Now, I had not met the entire group in person yet, I knew one healer, but that was it. And people started saying “gogogo”. Not fine with me, because I got some rules of my own:

• Tanks need to be marked. Simply because I want to know where my fellow tank is at and I’m not pulling if he’s not ready. (Note: my ui doesn’t show raid health in numbers, so I can’t see who’s tank quickly).
• Healers need to be ready. One priest was afk, and those first mobs require some AOE healing, and I didn’t know yet if he was one of the healers.
• Tanks need to know their target/role.

I stated this, result: small bit of commotion. Not much, but still.

We got marked, I got assist. I changed the tank mark from the druid healer to the DK tank, which I figured out myself by then then was the other tank. We cleared the trash.

At Ignis. We chose nuke tactic (In my book, that’s tank & spank ignis in the water, OT just holds all adds and should be able to do so till the boss goes down), but when some people started to explain that choice as kiting him in a square, and adds nuked in the water first, I got the idea they had a whole other definition of “nuke tactic”. All I could type was “hold on!”, but the ADHD hunter already pulled the boss misdirected to someone in the raid (but definitely not me or the other tank). I quickly grabbed the boss, and just figured I’d do the square kiting thing, if that was the way they understood it. As tank that’s just more fun to do anyway, it’s the classic way, and even if we don’t nuke the adds, it’s really not any different to the water thing except for melee having to use their legs, and tank doing more *yay*.

Result: COMMOTION! PANIC!

Apparently another part of the raid did understand “nuke tactic” as tank&spank in the water, and they now reacted as if I was pulling Ignis into their own front yard, and was putting their cat, grandma, and home entertainment system into his slagpot. At those moments I feel like telling them to shut it and calm down, but I just pulled Ignis into the water. It was their choice now.

But I mean, previous group was running for their lives when the tank realized that if you don’t tank Ignis away from the raid, the raid will run away from Ignis, and was quite happy with that way of doing it. Where was the commotion then? It will remain a mystery I guess.

Well, they might have been to busy saving their own ass to also plea the thank for better aiming. I should remember that one

The secret of success

Well, success in blogging in this case.

This might sound a little overambitious, writing about the secret of success with just two posts in the history and no reader base that I know of.

..But this is not meant to be a guide, this is more me overthinking the subject. Mind you, I don’t need this to be some top rated blog, no, I’m not good with that kind of pressure! But I don’t want it to be a waste of webspace either, that would just be senseless. What’s the use of having a blog when it reaches 0 people? “None!”, says Loken. I could disagree a little with him, because it still functions as some sort of diary to rant my heart out when I need it, but… Well, I don’t want a diary.

There have probably been many blog posts about the subject. I remember coming across the subject on many blogs I read. I would have linked those posts if I could find them again, but I can’t. One of them even wrote a real guide (ok, losing that one is plain bad). Of course, I’ve also got my own theories. Combining my own and the theories I’ve read, I came up with the following list of items:

Base plan

• Have something interesting to say: seems like a no-brainer, but it doesn’t have to be every post. At least have something every now and then. This is also “in the eye of the beholder”, so it’s basically out of my control, but it’s about putting effort in. Things that are considered interesting are:
  • News (with sources)
  • Facts (with sources/proof)
  • Theories (well explained)
  • Humor
• Write guides / Teach: This has some overlap with previous point, but basically: pose as an authority on subjects.
• Specialize: Write about paladin tanking, priest healing, mage dps, gold making, guild running, end content raiding. I’m not doing this btw, I enjoy doing more then one thing too much. I’m the typical jack of all trades, master of none. I’ll try sticking to a small subset though.
• Post regularly: preferably every day, but avoid long unannounced pauses of two weeks or more.
• Keep post easily readable: use good writing skills, spell-checking, no overly long paragraphs, sentences, avoid walls of text, etc. This also means having a good blog layout, fonts, etc. There are two problems I see here, one is that this blog host doesn’t allow changing the themes, and they have very small default fonts. The other is that my native language isn’t english and I was never really good at languages in the first place. I just hope these handicaps will not pose a to big of a problem.

Extra Ideas

Note: I’m writing every possible tactic here, even downright terrible things to do, as long as they’re effective!

• Advertise: blog plugging, forum linking, etc. This is probably inescapable to get started.
• Keep the blog clean: I’m not very sure about this one, but it seems to be held high by some bloggers, basically it’s moderating comments (Note to self: check commenting settings) to keep trolls and spam out. Personally I like an open atmosphere, but it’s not good when trolls pester decent folk away.
• Branch: Take the subject from another well known blog, and write about it yourself. It’s like writing a comment (so it can be supporting/opposing), but on your own blog. It really needs to be an interesting  (or humorous) viewpoint/addition, anything less will have an opposite effect. It also needs one of the previous two points to get noticed. Personally, I’m not that crazy about this tactic, I see it as a filler tactic when you don’t have a subject of your own.
• Make lists: Top 10′s, best ways to, things like that.
• Best of the week: Or worst of the month, etc. A collection of funny, or interesting things. It can be anything, from jokes, to screenshot, to news. Kinda like the lists, but it doesn’t have to be ranked, and returns regularly.
• Cliffhangers: Make posts that have open endings, short previews of what’s coming next, etc. This works best to keep readers, not gain them.
• Drama: Cause drama, mix in with existing drama, mention names of well known blogs, people, or guilds. Nothing attracts people as much as a good old fashioned conflict. “There is no such things bad publicity” is not a joke, it’s the rock hard truth.

I’m sure there is more to add to this list, this is just what’s in my head right now. Any additional tips would be very welcome. Also, I’m not planning to do all of this, it’s just an interesting subject to think about for me now.

The list makes me realize that having a blog requires much work if done well, and I wonder what the true reward is. And let’s face it, there needs to be a reward for people to do anything. I can fool myself by saying I’ll feel good by helping a large base of people getting entertainted, educated, or up to date, but that good feeling is an indirect result, there’s another reason that lies between. I guess the true reason for people having a blog is a social one: for status, for power, for attention. I’m not sure what’s mine, such things probably lie deep in the human psyche, but I do hope I’ll find out.

Getting started

Yay, today I realized again why I wanted a blog for myself. I love to read blogs and comment on them, but there’s just this thing that always seems to happen to me. Some, in my opinion, completely innocent and even friendly (meant) comment get’s either deleted or blocked by moderation. This usually made me feel both bad and pissed, because just like in game I just hate to get silenced. Then I feel bad because this guy likely misinterpreted what I said, but since you don’t get the answer why, you can only guess what he took wrong. I hate guessing. And it is all just too minor to send a PM for. But it remains annoying me for a while. I hate pre-moderated blogs anyway. I know there are many trolls out there, but censorship is not the solution. It get’s way to easy to just block posts that have good arguments against your ideas, instead of discussing it.

If someone asks for an opinion, why don’t they just mention that, in fact, they just want you to agree, or tell them it’s all fine and they’re great, because they need an ego boost or something. I can even do that, no problem! Fool yourself all you want, it’s your blog, your party. But otherwise, I’m just going to say what I think, honest, probably very blunt, but with good intentions. I’m just naive in that way.

Yep, I’m terrible with handling people’s egos. I’m even bad with my own! Like yesterday, where I did a perfectly good [Lord Jaraxxus Must Die!] PUG run, with my paladin tank. I never tanked that place before. My tank is actually an overgrown bank char, which I found out was fun to play. But that didn’t stop me from charging in there with just dps/healing experience for that place and a meticulously composed personal tactics sheet. I thought I knew it all. Well, wrong! Of course there’s always something you just didn’t expect that could happen. Like a DC at the moment Gormok walked in. Which is great, knowing that I just bought my Blizzard Authenticator, and now I had to find the damn thing for the code, while in the back of my head, my poor colleague was getting slaughtered by impales. But DCs happen, so no way I could’ve foreseen that. When I finally got back in I could just grab gormok for 5 seconds before he hit the ground.

So, kudos for that offtank and both(!) healers! And /bow to the great dps.

Anyway, Dreadscale and Acidmaw were up. I would take Acidmaw, and the offtank would take Dreadscale. The rules of this fight seemed so simple to me. Mobile tank get’s a debuff, raid get’s the other, raidmembers walk to mobile tank, et voila! I just keep threat, and face the jormungar away from the raid. But of course, before I could even get decent threat on acidmaw, that bastard paralytic toxined me, while he was grounded! I didn’t even know he could do that to his tank then, I never noticed that happening before. So I was a bit shocked for 3 seconds. None of the many tactic sites or videos mentioned this and the other tank was on the other side of the room already also. So all I could think of was having him drag that worm all the way to me, while trying to avoid the entire raid that was in between us.

No way of getting that done smoothly now is there.

Anyway, lots of raid damage, and a bit of a mess, but we survived. Yet I can’t help but blame myself for not knowing that could happen, and how to handle it.

Finally, Icehowl. Ah, an easy fight! At least that’s what I thought. Tank and spank, with a short run like hell phase. This bastard does hit hard though, I didn’t expect that. For some reason, I guess frozen healers, my health got to about 5%. So out of reflex I pushed my lay on hands key, but nothing happened because I was stunned. Screw PVP because before my my brain could yell “NOOO!” to my fingers, they pushed bubble!

Well, it saved my ass, though I still had Ardent Defender, yet not the poor DPS that was trying to beat me to my threat. So there I stood, as tank, bubbled, and while I was playing whack-a-mole with the elusive Divine Shield buff icon, which jumped around like crazy with all those temporary raid procs going on and off, the offtank was doing his best to grab that wild ape.

So many times I told myself to make a switch on/off macro for that damn shield, just in case. I finally did that now.

The funny thing is that I think nobody noticed it. In chat the offtank got blamed for something to which he admitted. I still don’t know what it was. I doubt it was because he acted as a backup tank on the boss, which is his job, so I hope not. Panic bubbletank thanks him for that.

To my surprise, Jaraxxus himself, which I considered a much trickier fight, went smooth. And even though the raid was saying thanks for the smooth run, I was still cringing of the fuckups.

Tank you aren’t really allowed to make mistakes, only dps can get away with a them, but that’s probably the reason why I think DPS is boring. Subconsciously, I probably like to stress myself out to the point of grinding teeth and pushing my keys through the floor.

But I think that’s a good thing. It pushes me further. It’s easy to just tell myself I did awesome, while in fact it was just mediocre.

First!

I’m not much of an introduction guy, but I guess it’s a bad start to not tell anything about me and my evil intentions. So, in short: I’m a Warcraft player and this blog is about exactly that. Raiding, leveling, pugging, making gold, class mechanics, whatever I have on my mind at anytime and need to share. I’m doing this mostly for the other blog owners, so they don’t have to endure any of my comments that were sometimes larger than their original post. No wait, I’m doing this for YOU of course, my faithful readers.. Hello? anyone there yet? No? Shoot.. Ah well, I guess if everyone just moves a few inches, there’s room for yet another Warcraft blog.

Welcome, by the way!