Showing posts with label guild. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guild. Show all posts

Monday, December 7, 2009

3.3 drops

as many have u noticed I am sure 3.3 is going live on the servers as of tormorrow. I am looking forward to this as our guild actually has a chance of taking on Arthas but we will have to wait and see. We did manage to get ToC down a number of times though I personally didn't get much from it. Now the real fun part is going to be getting my addons updated.

/crossfingers.

Monday, March 23, 2009

New Addon Policy. Will it break our addons?

Wowinsider brought to my attention that Blizzard has changed their policy on addons. And while I would like to compliment them in a way on this I can also understand why authors would have a problem with it. I hate the idea of having to pay for addons and there are a few of them out there that have enhanced versions of their addon like Carbonite and Wowecon. I personally would never bother with getting the enhanced version but if they take the time to come up with these and then go to the trouble to market it, it is in a sense a sign of free enterprise. After all if we really weren't interested in it we wouldn't pay for it and they wouldn't be able to afford to offer it, so there must be some people willing to pay for these enhanced versions.

So now Blizzard has a problem with it and I can't help but wonder why? Is it that they are worried about peoples accounts being compromised by it? Are they worried that people will have a greater advantage than others with these addons? Or are they just worried that they aren't getting a cut of the action? And how do they plan to enforce this?

The main reason I bring this up is that I have run across a few authors out there that are fighting this move by pulling their addons altogether from circulation. That is their free will to do it, it is their work and they should have the right to do this. It is just that I find it frustrating on my part that they are doing it. There are quite a few addons that I don't need and yet love there are some that I as a GM don't want to have to live without. The main one for this is GroupCalendar, we have been using this addon from day one to setup runs in our guild and while I am sure we can come up with a new way to handle the runs it will take some work and development.

So here is to you authors, we have come to rely on you for alot of our game interaction and we hope that you will understand that we appreciate you. And I hope we can get this "strike" thing figured out.

Edit: Tobold thru up an interesting post on this exact case. 

Saturday, March 21, 2009

R U LF Guild?

Had an interesting post come up in Plusheal.com and thought I would copy my response over to here. To those who are still reading this I hope you find it informative.

I find it surprising how the word guild can mean many different things to different people. For some it is a source to build a group like the above, for others it is a place they can find people who have their sense of humor and for yet others it is a place of refuge for them from the idiocy that is out in /1, guess which one is me. :)

I personally have only been in 2 guilds, well 3 if you count the fact that I started a 2nd source of my 2nd guild on a dif server. The first one I was in was a group of people that I had started gaming with quite a few years ago and we had moved from game to game but the core people stayed the same. We ended up starting in WoW and things were going pretty good. Since I had been part of the core group and had shown leadership skills a long time before they had bumped me up to officer pretty much right away, yes the guild had started before I had started playing WoW myself. We had worked our way to 60 and they were interested in taking part in the end game content, since I didn't have the time to level as fast as they had due to RL issues I wasn't ready when they were and to be honest have never really been that interested in it in the first place. Anywho when the time came that I hit 60 and was starting to get geared they were making more demands on me to fill a role in the raids they were doing. I was unable and unwilling to sacrifice this and had fought them on trying to force others for it too. See when I had joined up the guild was a social place that people could use for getting groups and we were more interested in keeping it rather casual. When by this time the emphasis had moved from casual to semi-hardcore and they were losing alot of the people who had joined up in the first place for the casual. No matter how hard I tried to fight them on the matter they were more interested in getting the people in and getting them into end game than they were in keeping the guild true to itself in a sense. I ended up stepping down as officer with a heavy heart because these people were my friends and I felt I was letting them down. Then the attitude from the rest of the guild became so caustic that I finally logged on and typed in the fateful /gquit.

It wasn't an easy thing to do and it all matters on how you look at your guild as to how much you should way it out. If a guild is just a source for people to get to end game and the game for them is getting the latest greatest loot and achievements, then feel free to hop from guild to guild though I feel you are missing an integral part of the game by doing so. For the some other people out there if a guild is a source of friendship and comraderie (sp) then you need to weigh out what you want that guild to center on. If you look at Conquest they aren't just a group of people who are looking for end game, they are also looking to build a group of people who you can rely on and build a relationship with. The base for it is endgame yes but they don't want people that will just be there for the loot, if I understand correctly. With my new guild that I had joined after leaving my first and then starting on a second server, we are a much more casual place that people can come to and know that their kids have a safe spot to play with out the caustic environment that is out there.

So to sum it up I would say make sure you keep you eyes wide open when it comes to joining a guild. It is your $15 a month and you want to invest it wisely. And if you do find a group that you enjoy playing with then stick with them until their path no longer goes with yours. Yes it can be difficult to leave since you have invested so much time into that group, and yes it is awful when it feels like you are leaving people in a lurch. But don't stay in an group that you will hate to be in to the point that you would end up leaving the game over. There are plenty of people out there that you can find a group with and some of them might be like minded as you are.

And hey if you don't find a guild that is what you want you could always try starting a new guild and see if you can build it from there. :)

Good Luck and God Speed.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Kara Down!! On to ZA?

Well just got done with my first full Kara clear with my Druid as healer. We managed to do it in about 5 hrs give or take a bit due to having to setup raid 3 times on different days. We got up to Opera on the first day, then Prince on the 2nd day and finished off Nightbane and Netherspite on the last day. I managed to pick up this nifty little neck piece, Shining Chain of the Afterworld and we had a number of drops for our first timers that went in too. I think we will have quite a few tanks that will be ready to work on Kara again but will be an uphill trip. Always frustrating when you have people drop away due to RL or wanting something different in game.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Release!

Hmm a few things to say for today. Blizzard released the date that Wrath is coming out which I am sure all of you know. November 13th 2008 will be a day that many a business will be shut down due to people taking the day off so that they can install LK and start leveling to 80. Hmm I wonder how long it will take? I remember seeing a Draenei Shaman at lvl 70 in IF by the end of the 2nd week after BC came out so can't imagine it will take all that long. And the DK's? Well they will probably have Northrend flooded with them before Sunday I imagine.

Onto a slightly personal note. The guild has been in a bit of a flux of late. Seems that I had 3 officers pull their mains out of the guild so that they could see End game content before November. This is really frustrating for me because I thought I could count on these guys. I thought they would be there to help the guild no matter what. I guess I thought they had the same feelings for the game as I did in that it isn't the content that you see it is who you see it with. For me personally it is all about having fun with my friends whether that is running Deadmines to help out a lowbie or getting into Kara to see if we can take down Netherspite( which I did for the first time last nite on my druid.) Sure I wouldn't mind seeing ZA and getting into SSC or TK but to be honest if I am not running with my friends and the people I have spent the last 2 yrs with it just isn't worth it.

The other frustrating part about this is they were officers and they want to come back when Wrath comes out. I have no problem with this but how do I treat them? Do reinstate them to the level they were before they left? Do I have them start from one of the low lvls and have them earn their way back up? Also a few of the other officers have alts that they have in the progression guilds as well. Do I treat these guys any differently? Always hard questions when you are the GM of a casual guild and have people who want more.

I guess I will just have to try and stay true to the basic rules that we have in the guild and since these people are spending more time in the other guilds they will then have to get bumped down to a lower rank. While I am sure I can call on them when the time comes for Wrath it will be a little harder to accept them in the leading roll since I will always wonder if they will do the exact same thing when they have reached 80 and want to get to see some of the content that we aren't capable of doing.

Also I hit 58 on my shaman along with my wife on her pally. We are going to stay in Vanilla until we hit 60 then move on to Outlands and work on quests there.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Haels FTW!!

Woot got to run my first instance as a resto shammy was real sweet. Went into ZF with a lvl 49 feral druid, 48 ret pally, 50 ice mage, 45 fury warrior and myself at 49. As we were getting ready for the instance we were looking for people from the guild and had everyone sign up except a healer so off I ran to IF to respec for 15g. Got respec'd with http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hZZE0xtAcop0b and hearthed back to Gadge and headed into the instance. Had my lovely wife share the quests that she could with me and it was off to the races.

I was using grid along with the healing macro:

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover, help][help][target=targettarget, help][target=player] Spellname

to cast my heals. I think I might put in there at /stopcasting to interrupt my casts incase I find I need something better. I was using this along with Grid which was just an easy UI to keep an eye on people's health bars and such. Also I love Nature's Swiftness for those OH Noes!! situations.

ZF is a lot easier now with the gimping from Blizzard but hey I can work with that. Was nice to be able to finish the whole thing in under 2 hrs with only 1 death.

The only thing I am trying figure out why I am getting some kinda lag spike. I think I will try running once without any addons and see if I still get the spikes or not.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Epic Fail

Went into Naxxramas tnite just to get an idea on how it is before Wrath comes out and was it miserable. We went in with 13 lvl 70s and a couple 6x. We went down the construct hallway and made it up to the 3rd room. The first 2 weren't too bad but that 3rd room just couldn't quite get the timing down so then we decided to move onto a different Old World Raid.

Went into Nax with my tank Skarrde, a feral tank and another tankadin who was having severe problems with being d/c'd all the time. Also only had 2 healers along, a lvl 70 holy paladin and a 70 Holy priest. They were pretty good at keeping up with the splash heals that we had along with keeping the tanks up. First pull was interesting but we managed to survive it and the next few were typical tank and spank pulls. Wasn't until we pulled the 3rd room that was full of slimes that we wiped. After the wipe we came back into the instance and managed to take down the room but had some big slimes spawn in the room that we were trying to rez and ended up wiping us. We get back take down the big slimes and low and behold the little guys had respawned, so back at it again and they wipe us out one more time. After we got back from that we questioned ourselves if we really had what it took to work this instance and decided better not. We then decided to run over to ZG and see if we could get the mounts off the 2 bosses in their. Took them down without any problem and had a few purples drop but nothing worth noting, and no the mounts did not drop.

In some ways I am a little frustrated that we gave up so early on Naxx and I honestly felt we could have worked something out but we were kinda limited in who showed up. Maybe if there had been enough people that were able to come we could have made some head way but we will never know. I know that not everyone in the guild really wanted to run that since it has nothing for them loot wise and they felt it was content that wasn't important. I also know that if it had been Gruul's or even Kara the same people would have asked to go again and again til we beat it even if we had been short a few people.

Maybe try MC or something next time. One other note, you can't summon people into Naxx who aren't attuned for it.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Naxx on Saturday :)

So the guild is going to be running Naxx comin up on Saturday. Lookin forward to a chance to do some farming with the guild of this Old World/New World instance. I wanted to get into it before the expansion just to see how it is for now and see if it changes after Wrath hits stores. So far we have 20 people signed up but may have a few more show up last minute depending on schedules, just one more problem with a casual guild.

Anyways been farming Strat:Undead for rep to get attuned for Naxx and I picked up the attunement with 1 nexus crystal and 2 arcane crystals. Had some interesting drops tho nothing to write home about, was nice to get back there and remember the old days. I remember when that was a 10 man raid that you could do, this was before they gimped it and then put in the 45 min run for upgrading your gear but ah well. That was also when BRD was a nice 10 man as well. Then again that was the days when there were no Greater Blessing either and as a pally you were constantly casting buffs on people that would last for 5 min at a time. That was the time when all pallies were wanted for was their buffbot ability, /shudder. Glad things have changed in that part for sure.

Also the new trailer for Wrath came out today here it is below, hope you enjoy. :)


Wrath of the Litch King Cinematic Intro HD from DrkSnpr14 on Vimeo.

Monday, August 18, 2008

WoW Insider: Defining mains and alts

So what does define a main and an alt? Is it the one you play the most or is it the one you started with? This is a tough question and can be different for each person as they play. For me personally I think it is the one that you enjoying playing the most. Your "main" can move from each of your toons in your arsenal since this is a game you should be playing the way you enjoy. The main thing people seem to forget is that this game is supposed to be enjoyable. I hear over and over about how people can't handle the pressure of having to fill roles, or aren't enjoying the characters they are playing or the spec they are playing. I have always had the stance in our guild that each person plays the character they enjoy the way they enjoy. I don't pay their $15/mo and neither does anyone else in the game so they shouldn't have to play the way that other people want them to play.

Now how does this affect the guild? As a guild we need certain people for runs, we need to have healers, tanks, ranged dps and melee dps. And if we want to take on some of the bigger mobs then we need to have a party that is geared for the target and can fill the roll necessary either through spec or through spell rotation. So what we need is people who are willing to fill those rolls and stick with those characters to help out the others who are looking to improve their gear. The biggest problemis trying to balance the desire of people to try something different and not sacrificing the gear that is necessary for some of the core people that are on the run. Now the advantage we have in our guild for this is that anyone who is on the run gets to roll for the gear. So if someone has a toon that is geared and ready for the instance and they have signed up for it then the loot that is for their spec is available to them. By this I mean you don't have a resto druid rolling against gear for a feral druid or a rogue.

So is there really a difference between a main and an alt in our guild? Not really, we have players in our guild and they decide if they want to take that character with them on a run.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Nothing New under the Sun.

Went into Kara on my Tankadin tnite and finished past Curator, of course nothing great dropped but hey got some badges. Played for about 30 min on my Shaman and got Grid+Clique setup for heals while in party. Also while going thru my forum roll I came across this macro and I plan on trying it out instead of clique.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover, help][help][target=targettarget, help][target=player] Spellname

Will get back to you as soon as I have tried it. Could be tomoro but have to wait and see if we find the 2 tanks and the healer we need for ZA.

Side note that I had to boo on because of how my Shaman will be healing. According to Wow Insider one of the things Bliz is toying with is call Potion Sickness. Seems this won't allow you to take a 2nd pot after you ahve takin your first in combat. So no chain chugging.

http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/07/29/azeroths-new-plague-potion-sickness/

Friday, July 25, 2008

Well, What I never thought would happen was,

Been checking out Blog Azeroth lately and they came up with the above shared topic and it got me to thinking.

1. 25 man content.

While I haven't seen this on my shaman yet I have been through on my druid and had the pleasure of taking down Gruul. We as a guild are currently working on getting Mag down as well and may even look into going into SSC and see how we do. I have never been much of an end game content kind of person, probably the reason I have everyone of my character slots filled along with 3 70s, and so never really thought of getting far enough to get to 25 mans. Well that and never thought the guild would get big enough/geared enough to handle it.

2. Guild Size.

This goes along with the above but I never really thought we would get the Blooded Dragons to a point that they were "self-suficient" and geared enough to make it to 25 mans. When my wife and I started the guild on Uldaman it was more a place for people to get together who had the same idea of play and where they could let their kids play. Well it has become that and so much more, I never thought we would be breaking the 150 account mark, and we have blown that to 200, that are all together to have a safe enviroment to interact and play together.

3. Family in Game

Hmm well seeing as I have my wife 2 sisters, 2 brother in laws, and my mom in the game it kinda of surprised me that we could find an enviroment that we find so entertaining. While I have to give my one sister the credit of getting us into the game still I was able to get them all to be part of our guild. :)