An End to Madness

Deathwing is dead.

Actually, he's been dead for a couple of weeks now. I'm just damned tardy in my progression updates these days.

My guild, Mountain Top, cleared normal Dragon Soul for the first time just before the 5% Power of the Aspects nerf hit at the end of January. Sadly, I wasn't there due to a family crisis, but I'm proud that our guild managed to down Dragon Soul before it's difficulty was reduced. And we managed it despite losing key members of the team and not having a regular raid night.

Did I mention we're recruiting?

I got my own first Deathwing kill on the first week after the nerfs, and am going in again tonight for my third. We've also begun working on Heroic Morchok, whom we got down to 10% on our first night before time constraints forced us to kill him on normal difficulty so we had enough time left to clear the instance that night.

At the beginning of this expansion I set a raiding goal for myself; I wanted to clear each raiding tier while it was current, something that I didn't manage to do in Wrath of the Lich King. With Deathwing's demise at the hands of my Shaman I have now managed to accomplish that on the last two of the three raiding tiers this expansion.

I view Raiding Progression as a very personal thing. As much as I share the accomplishments with my guild and couldn't do it without them, I look at the raid bosses I've downed as my measuring stick as to how well I've experienced the content and how I am personally progressing. I was enormously disappointed that I didn't clear all of Tier 11 while it was current, only going 9/12; I didn't get Nefarian or either of the Throne of the Four Winds encounters down before 4.2 brought the nerfbat to them. Despite that disappointment, I'm very happy to have accomplished what I have done.

ON DIFFICULTY

I promised myself that I would not make this post a discussion on the difficulty level but I need to at least mention that compared to Lich King, Nefarian or Ragnaros, Madness of Deathwing was a hell of a lot easier. It didn't take my guild very many attempts to finally kill him. I think I saw about five pulls on normal difficulty before I got my first kill. Even Ragnaros after the savage nerfs that he received seemed more difficult than Madness.

The question that I pose to you, dear reader, is: Was the Madness of Deathwing encounter inherently easier than previous end boss encounters, or did it simply seem easier because the vast majority of us had already seen and defeated a simplified version of it on the Raid Finder?

On Flexibility, Emotional Attachment and Mister Spock. With Ice Cream!

"Thus, flexibility, as displayed by water, is a sign of life. Rigidity, its opposite, is an indicator of death." - Anthony Lawlor, A Home For The Soul

Those of you who follow this blog closely and spend just a little too much time obsessing over it (and you know who you are) may have noticed that there has been a distinct lack of Paladin related posts around here recently. In fact, looking back at my archives the last post that talked about Paladins specifically was way back in July.

There is a good reason for this: I'm not raiding with my Paladin any longer.


A DISCLAIMER

You know, I started this post with the best of intentions: A short, to-the-point post about what I've been up to in WoW and why I'm not posting about or playing my Paladin. Half-way through it turned into something completely different. I guess you and I will both find out what the hell I'm talking about when we get to the end because I have no idea where this is going any more than you do. Maybe there will be Ice Cream and Whisky. Goodness, that would be nice, wouldn't it?


SHAMAN: The new Battle Medic? At least this one's actually a Dwarf.

With Dragon Soul on the PTR, I was approached by our Guild Master who asked me a question that took me by surprise: Would I be willing to switch my raiding main in order to help with raid healing? It turns out that our guild is so full of main-spec Holy Paladins that it is a little bit like a large, overfilled doughnut—taking a bite of which will get Holy Paladin goop all over your shirt. And that shit is hard to get out.

In the interests of trying to avoid a 10-man raid with three Holy Paladin healers—which would strain just about anybody's tolerance for egocentrics in a raid, I imagine—I switched my Raiding Main to my (then) newly 85 Restoration Shaman.

My GM's reasoning was pretty straightforward: Dragon Soul looked to be a very raid healing intensive series of fights and even with the strength of the 4.3 Holy Radiance changes it seemed as if our normal Paladin/Paladin/Priest setup wouldn't be ideal. This was made especially clear when we found that some of the fights would require only two healers, and neither Paladin had a DPS off-spec. My Shaman provided my GM with a different option.

So, the week before Dragon Soul opened I was running through Firelands, healing on my Shaman. I admit, it felt odd at first. Even though I had levelled her completely through dungeons I was woefully unprepared to take her on a raid. My understanding of the subtleties of the class were at a very basic level, my UI was not set up properly and her gear was, shall we say, eclectic; an odd mix of items cobbled together from every possible source and not powerful enough to even qualify her for the new Looking For Raid feature.

She's nicely geared now, although there are still some problem spots due to some very bad loot luck in Dragon Soul. I'm not sure why, but in our raids the only Tier Token that ever drops is Vanquisher tokens—we literally had a new Death Knight alt get his 4 piece in a single night, and the only reason he got each token was because all the other Vanquisher eligible players already had theirs. Meanwhile, I, along with a lot of other people in my raid group, are organizing strange voodoo rituals to influence the gods to drop something—anything that we can use. Now, I know that no one really cares about other people's loot problems, but that night made me want to roll a Druid just so I could actually get a drop.

THE SPOCK PRINCIPLE: The Needs of the Many, blah blah blah

Imagine, if you will, a dwarf lying on a brown leather couch, a worried expression showing through his beard and his armour poking holes in the leather and setting it smouldering because the shoulder piece is on fire, which for some inexplicable reason is perfectly normal. Next to him, seated at a comfortable armchair is a bald man with a white goatee neatly trimmed into a point and a notepad on his lap. He leans over towards the dwarf, and in a thick German accent asks, "Und how doez ziz make you feel?"

A long time ago I wrote an article entitled What Makes a Main?, in which it I talked about the emotional connection to a character as the fundamental element that determines which character would be a person's "Main Character". While that criteria certainly wouldn't apply to everyone (there are people who change their mains constantly due to many different factors, for instance), but it is absolutely true of me. My Holy Paladin is my main because I am emotionally invested in him, both in terms of character as well as the play-style and mythos of the Paladin. My Paladin just feels right.

So when Mylindara asked me to switch for the good of the raid, I felt a little conflicted. From a dispassionate point of view he made a lot of sense because even while temporarily undergeared, my Shaman brought something to the raid that we were lacking. Emotionally, however, my main is still my Paladin, and is the character that I am most interested in playing and progressing. Not only that, but I enjoy healing on the Paladin more than the Shaman.

So the real question that I, or anyone in a similar situation must ask themselves is: When does the needs of the group trump the desires of the individual? Should we always be selfless in order to help the group, or is it alright to say "No" so we can play the game the way we want to? Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one when the ultimate goal of the game is individual entertainment? What would Spock do?


FLEXIBILITY: When is it okay to take one for the team?

I think the answer greatly depends on what type of player a person is. I believe that there are two extremes to this question where the answer is obvious and unchanging, and then there is a vast grey area in between where a large percentage of the player base sits.

The Activity-Centric people amongst us will look at this question as absurd because min-maxing every aspect of an encounter is fundamental to their play-style. Changing their character to bring that one extra buff or cooldown to the raid in order to gain any advantage—regardless of how small—is far more important than the attachment to a certain character or class. For them the emotional need is to progress at a personal level, and which character they do it on is only a secondary consideration; a tool used to achieve the desired end.

"Please don't shoot me"

The other extreme is the Character-Centric people. These folks form an incredibly strong emotional attachment to their characters, and asking them to switch their Main Character—or even to change their character's hair-style—is like asking them to shoot a puppy. It'll break their heart and the aftermath will be very messy to clean up. Not to mention that I like puppies, and well, shooting them is just wrong. I mean, look at those eyes.

The vast majority of us, I think, fall somewhere in the middle. I have always considered myself more of the activity-centric type, but again, if I am to be truly honest with all of you, I tend to let myself get attached to my characters quite a bit and was a little bit annoyed when I was asked to not bring my preferred character to the main raids. There is a constant battle raging between the two sides when I'm making the decisions as to what to play.

In the end I made the change and the raid team is the better for it, I think. We have a good core of raiding healers now, with a lot more flexibility than we would have had otherwise. I may not be playing the character I would like, but the decision was right because the activity, in this case, was more important than my personal need to play the character.

And I suppose that's the fundamental answer to the question of when it's okay to make a personal sacrifice for the team, and the answer is a lot more simple than the length of this post would suggest. Simply put, if the goal is more important than which character accomplishes it, make the change and be happy about it.

Now, as I'm writing this I'm thinking to myself, "Damn, you've really outdone yourself in stating the blindingly obvious. Should we do a section talking about the different ways water is wet? Way to spend 1400 words talking drivel, dumbass".

It is a pretty straight-forward concept, but I think that everyone is going to approach it differently and everyone is going to have a different reaction to being asked to change the way they like to play the game. It all depends on the balance between the activity and the character within a person.

For me, the activity of seeing our raid progress smoothly won the day over my own desires to play the Paladin. So for now at least, the Battle Medic is a Shaman.

Have you ever been asked to play a class or role that you didn't prefer so your group could move forward? How would you react? What sort of balance to you have?


OH MY GAWD, WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS POST AGAIN?

Oh yes, Ice Cream and Whisky. Excellent.

There ya go. Ice Cream and Whisky all in one.
It doesn't get much better than that.

Inconvenience, Entitlement and The Abominable Greench

"You're a mean one, Mister Grinch..."

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,

Wie treu sind deine Blätter!

Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,

Nein, auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,

Wie treu sind deine Blätter!

As in the real world, Azeroth is crazy busy with holidays this time of year. The Feast of Winter Veil is upon us and brings with it many new and interesting things to do. New dailies, lore and as with most of the holidays we have a big bad boss to fight for a chance at some holiday themed loot.

This Winter Veil is threatened by The Abominable Greench, who has stolen presents and other holiday goodies, hoarding them in his cave in the Alterac Mountains. There, adventurers must gather to defeat this implacable monster with a taste for Grandma's fruitcake. At stake, the very fate of Winter Veil itself.

Okay, that might be exaggerating things somewhat. The world will likely not end if Little Johnny doesn't get his toy train. But still, ooooo, The Big Bad Greench. Scary.


INCONVENIENCE AND ENTITLEMENT

"Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV

That ain't workin' that's the way you do it

Money for nothin' and your chicks for free" - Money for Nothing, Dire Straits


What is different with this years holiday boss is that the Greench is not available through the Dungeon Finder as the other holidays bosses have been. During Brewfest all you needed to do in order to defeat the wicked Coren Direbrew is to press the I button and you would be instantly transported to his location with a party of fellows to help you dispatch the fiend and collect your goodies. With The Greench, however, a long flight (for Alliance folk, anyway) to the Alterac Mountains is in order, and then the long wait in hopes you can find other people there to help you kill him.

Compared to past holiday events, this is inconvenient. Blizzard obviously has the technology to automate the Greench destruction process, but chose not to. Probably due to the fact that the Greench does not or could not be made to exist in an existing dungeon and the developers likely didn't want to spend the manpower and resources to create an instanced version of Alterac specifically for the Greench. There are more important things for the developers to work on after all, like fixing the silly Mature Language Filter bug that doesn't allow me to express myself with my accustomed colour and wit in Guild Chat.

These thoughts occurred to me as I was hovering over the Greench's cave, admiring his 3.4 Million health and the beautifully wrapped presents dangling from his horns. I was annoyed. Annoyed that I had to spend ten or fifteen minutes just getting there, and then finding no one to group with to get the boss kill and save Winter Veil. I was annoyed at the simple inconvenience of not having this boss kill handed to me as previous holiday bosses had been.

Needless to say, that is a terrible attitude to have. It's a sense of entitlement; that everything should be easy and convenient and require virtually no real effort. Money for nothing indeed - Mark Knopfler, you are truly the great prophet of our time.

As I was sitting and waiting for enough people to show up so that a group could be formed I started thinking about how easy everything has been made in WoW. The Dungeon Finder, the Raid Finder, the ease of levelling and so on. I don't want to complain about these things, because honestly I think they are very important changes and overall very beneficial to the game. The Dungeon Finder revolutionized the accessibility of dungeons and heroics, and the new Raid Finder is doing the same thing with Raiding. These are all great things. Easy is not necessarily bad.

However, what all these systems have done is create an expectation that things will always be that simple. And in those few moments as I was waiting, I started thinking about what my expectations were and frankly, just how spoiled I have become because of all of the great, time-saving convenience gifts that Blizzard has given us over the past couple of years. And the fact that this time I had to do things the old fashioned way suddenly didn't seem like such a big deal.

Still, it bothered me. Am I, and by extension the WoW playerbase as a whole, so spoiled that we can't handle a little inconvenience? Are we so used to getting everything we want, right when we want it that we can't deal with even the littlest setback? Are we forever in the days when a single wipe in LFD or LFR means that the group breaks up and everyone goes back to their little personal corner of Stormwind or Orgrimmar complaining at just how bad and impatient everyone else is. Is that really where we are?


THE UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCE OF INCONVENIENCE

All your presents are belong to us. Rawr.
Note the self-satisfied smirk.

So there I am: Up in the air on my flying mount thinking all these profound thoughts on the nature of entitlement and humanity, all the while the Greench is still down there needing to be killed. That's when something magical happened that would never have been possible if the encounter was set up through the Dungeon Finder.

Waiting with me were two other Alliance players and on the other side of the snow covered mountain plateau were hovering two Hordies. On a PVP server such as mine, situations like this can get messy, and involve a lot of running back from the graveyard as the factions fight amongst themselves and no one manages to get anything done. It was a standoff, with no one daring to pull the boss in fear that the other faction would attack from behind.

Suddenly, someone unexpectedly pulled the Greench and without a single word or indication, everyone there attacked the boss and left each other alone. We fought the Greench together; Horde and Alliance, fighting alongside one another getting something done in the spirit of the season.

Soon the Greench died to our collective, cross-faction efforts, and there was a great deal of /bowing, /waving and an overall general feeling of seasonal cheer and camaraderie, not unlike the temporary seasonal armistices between Allied and German soldiers during the bitter trench warfare of World War I. And like those weary soldiers in the battered fields of France a century ago, no one wanted a war - the Alliance and the Horde players that were there just simply wanted to be able to celebrate the season (in this case the seasonal achievement) in peace. Which is what this season is all about, isn't it?


THE ENTIRELY PREDICTABLE CONSEQUENCE OF INCONVENIENCE

Well, not always, of course. Stories like that are the exception. More likely, if a soldier was to stroll out into No Man's Land - Christmas or no - he'd be shot before the second verse of Silent Night. But no one remembers the second verse anyway, so it's probably for the best.

When I went to kill the Greench on my Shaman, Thallie, it was a bit of a different story. As I got there, I noticed that there were a large number of skeletons in front of him, and I swear that the bugger had a self-satisfied smirk on his face. I figured that perhaps some unwise souls had tried to solo him, with fairly predictable results.

Go Go Mountain Top Vengeance Squad!

Well, not quite.

As it turns out, a Horde hunter was hiding in the cave, sniping people as they attempted to fight the boss. He managed to kill me a few times as before I got fed up and had enough. Obviously, the spirit of the season did something nasty to this guy's eggnog and he wasn't exactly in a giving or charitable mood.

So I did what any self-respecting, non-PVPing healer would do: I called in the reinforcements.

Within three minutes, I had 3 hardcore PVP specced guildies zoned in and hunting for this guy. If there is one thing my guild is extraordinarily good at, it's raining fiery vengeance on any player foolish enough to ambush one of our guild in the world. Within a few moments we had showed him the other, much more violent side of seasonal cheer.

It just goes to show that magical season of fellowship or no, some people are just inherently douchebags.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy Winter's Veil from Dwarven Battle Medic! And honour any unofficial armistices lest we not forget the guild banner that gets planted in your buttocks. Happy Holidays!

This Week in Raiding: Dragon Soul First Impressions

Alrighty, now that the 50,000 Words project is done (and so help me if I see another screenshot again...) I can get back to writing about the game that I've been photographing for the past month. I would hate for Battle Medic to be known as just a screenshot blog.

There will be no screenshots in this post. I think I'm imaged out for a while.

As everyone knows, Patch 4.3 dropped Tuesday. Between a cranky computer that chose a horrible time to have a software glitch, a cranky baby that was overtired and dealing with a cold, and a cranky wife dealing with said baby, I didn't have a whole lot of opportunity to run the new content. I did manage to run End Time twice, once on my Paladin and once on my Shaman. End Time was a lot easier than I was expecting; very straightforward mechanics and what felt like low damage. I didn't really feel pushed all that much on either of my healers. End Time, at least, feels a lot easier than the Zandalari heroics and I am okay with that.

Last night Mountain Top went into the new raid instance Dragon Soul on Normal Mode for the first time. Our realm already has a number of 8/8 guilds, which made me optimistic that we would be able to get through it without too much trouble. From what I've heard, Dragon Soul is a lot easier than Firelands was, so long as the raid can manage the various different mechanics.

Without extensive preparation we managed to get three bosses down before we wiped to the Real Life boss. We spent about an hour and a half in a brand new, never-before-seen raid instance and yet still managed to easily one-shot Morchok and Yor'Sajh the Unchallenging Unsleeping. In addition, Zon'ozz fell after three or four pulls once we got the ball rolling, so to speak.

That's kinda nuts, really.

I really like the new 5-mans; they are short, well paced, absolutely stunning to look at and have the right amount of trash, I think. The boss encounters are easy enough to explain to a random group, and the entire dungeons can be completed quickly enough that they can be farmed without too much hassle. Which is what they are for, after all.

A raid, on the other hand, has to last. There is absolutely no reason that bosses should be killed on the first pull on the first attempt in the first week of a new raid - at least not by the non-hardcore crowd. Hell, some guilds have already 9-manned Morchok.

Now, as a disclaimer, we haven't pulled 5 of the bosses yet, so this may be premature, but I'm really worried that Normal Mode Dragon Soul is going to be easy enough that we'll blow through it in a week or two. And if this raid can be cleared by casual raiding guilds like Mountain Top so quickly, then unless the Heroic Modes are brutally, butt-clenchingly hard, the next five or six months until Mists of Pandaria comes out are going to be boring as hell. How long until we're through Heroic Modes and thinking, "What now?"

Mountain Top has never been a Heroic Mode guild - we have trouble getting the same people together each week and even more trouble getting a decent amount of time to raid. Five hours a week is about all we can manage on a good week, and quite often we're struggling to get more than two or three. With those time constraints, Heroic Modes always seemed out of reach. Now, however, with Dragon Soul it seems like Blizzard has lowered the bar for a guild like ours to get into them.

End game content in WoW has always been gobbled up extremely fast by the top-end guilds, and short of extremely restrictive gating mechanics (releasing the raid slowly over time, as they did with Trial of the Crusader and Icecrown Citadel) that's never going to change. Now, it seems as if Blizzard wants everyone to burn through the content just as quickly. I think this is a mistake.

When the Firelands were nerfed, I brought up the idea of the Tourist, which was received with a bit of controversy. Personally, I thought that the Looking For Raid difficulty level was going to be tailored for those people who couldn't or wouldn't run normal raids and just wanted to see the content to experience the story, but now it feels as if the Normal Modes are going that way as well.

Tonight we go back into Dragon Soul to see the remaining encounters for the first time. I would be very disappointed if we don't end this week at least 6/8, and wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Deathwing falls. Really, the only sticking point is how much time we'll have before we have a raider needs to leave in order to deal with the far more difficult fights with girlfriends, wives, babies and work.

It will be interesting to see where the numbers are in a few weeks. Will there be far more Guilds at 8/8 than Blizzard was expecting? And if Guilds do burn through the content as quickly as I suspect that they will, what is that going to do to the subscriber retention between now and Mists? Or, with the advent of the Yearly Subscription Pass does Blizzard even give a crap anymore, since the bribe of a pretty My Little Pony means that people aren't going anywhere and Blizzard has a free ride until the next expansion.

Time will tell, I guess.

I will say this, though, on a more positive note: I am enjoying the new content. Aside from the ease, I think the mechanics of the new bosses are quite cool, the scenery is beyond gorgeous and the sheer amount of lore that is stuffed into the raid and new heroic dungeons is amazing and engaging. I will be writing a lot more about the good things that Blizzard has given us in the coming days, I'm sure.

On Raiding Disappointment: An Open Letter to Blizzard

When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure - Peter Marshall

Dear Blizzard,

As a subscriber who came to World of Warcraft with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, Cataclysm represented my first true opportunity to get in on the ground floor of new content. For the first time I felt as if I wasn't lagging behind everyone else and was finally experiencing content the way it was meant to be experienced. I greeted the new expansion with a lot of anticipation and enthusiasm.

Cataclysm introduced many controversial changes, many of which were not received terribly enthusiastically by the community. I, on the other hand (being an avid Kool-Aid drinker), was thrilled with a lot of the changes, and incredibly excited to see the new content, experience the new levelling experience and, most importantly, to progress through the new raids. I understood the need to make the game more accessible, and supported the changes.

In fact, I was very frustrated with a lot of the complaining and the griping coming from the WoW community. Back in March I wrote a post critizing the community for having a "Doom and Gloom" outlook on the current state of the game, saying that people come and go, but the game itself was in a good place.

This week, you proved me wrong, Blizzard. I now feel compelled to add my voice to the chorous of the discontented.


Lord Rhyolith: Call me Admiral McROFLStompyPants



And it's because this week saw the introduction of significant nerfs to the Firelands bosses, crippling each boss - in both normal and heroic modes - anywhere from 15 to 25 percent in damage done and health, as well as simplifying several of the more difficult mechanics. This was done in an unprecedentedly brief time period since the raid was released.

Regardless of what your intention is, the significance of this change is instantly and universally understood by your player base: If you didn't clear Firelands before this nerf, you failed. Here are your free charity epics.

This is the exact same message that was sent regarding Tier 11 when Tier 12 came out. Didn't clear it before? No problem, let me hold your hand and walk you through it. Don't worry, the Internet Dragons are toothless now, so you won't get hurt. Just try to stay awake, okay?

At least back then we had a new, full-difficulty raid tier to busy ourselves with. Reducing the difficulty on previous tier content in order to allow more people to see it makes sense, at least. And it worked; raids were able to go back into Tier 11 and cut through the bosses like a they were barely there, and mechanics that were previously raid killers became irrelevant.

These changes to the current tier are completely inexplicable and inexcusable. They go too far, much too soon.

I mean, it's not as if people were complaining that the Firelands bosses were too hard. Quite the reverse, really; early on a lot of people were complaining that Firelands was decidedly too easy and that Raid Teams were blowing through it far too quickly. And it wasn't just the elite raiding guilds that were expressing this opinion, either.

Our raid team, for instance, is not at the cutting edge of progression. We are never likely to compete for a Realm First but neither are we at the bottom end of progression. We are probably the poster children of your average raiders; a casually-oriented guild that raids 6-8 hours a week. We expect to tackle the encounters, learn them and defeat them as they were originally designed.

Why aren't you giving us the time to do this?

My guild and I have been raiding Firelands from the day it was released. We were a new guild then, still gelling as a team, but we went in and got things done. Some of the encounters were really challenging and tested us; we wiped more than a few times on some of these bosses, which made downing them that much sweeter. I don't cheer out loud - causing my wife to give me strange looks - when we down an easy encounter. No, that is saved for when we overcome a significant obstacle that has stood in our path blocking our progression like an obstinate traffic cop. I like cheering, Blizzard, but where are the obstacles?

Wednesday night we went through Firelands after the nerfs and did six bosses. The difference in the level of difficulty is painfully obvious. It's actually invasive. Bosses that previously required precise play, good communication and teamwork even at good gear levels are now simplistic and easy. Lord Rhyolith, for example, lasted less than 10 seconds into Phase 2. I didn't even have time to get into position before he died. The burn phases of Shannox and Beth'tilac, which were previously heavy-damage phases that required the use of healer and tank cooldowns as well as skillful play to get through, are similarly laughable. As a healer, it seemed like Health Bars barely moved in those phases.

There is no thrill or enjoyment in beating up crippled children, Blizzard, and that's what you've turned these raid bosses into. You might as well give Fandral Staghelm a wool cap and a cane and rename him Tiny Tim. I actually felt sorry for Rageface the other night because he died so quickly, and his whole purpose for living - to Rage on Faces - was no more painful than a puppy dog licking ice cream off your toes. It does not qualify as something to be concerned about any longer. PETA will be hearing about this.

I think that in the pursuit of the noble goal of making the game more accessible to a larger variety of people a large chunk of the challenge of World of Warcraft has been removed. Many aspects of the game have fallen victim to this, with the endgame being the most notable and most damning, but even levelling is now so quick and painless that there is no sense of danger left in the game. Even without heirlooms, enemies fall over dead with little more than a mere glance, and there is a distinct lack of worry that something is actually dangerous. Low level dungeons are, even with poor gear, ridiculously easy, which is especially obvious when the vast majority of boss fights last under 30 seconds.

In fact, there is so little challenge left in WoW that your players are taking it upon themselves to make the game more difficult. Your very intelligent and creative players are coming up with things like the WoW Ironman Challenge and the Naked Dungeon Challenge just so that they have something to do that doesn't involve one-shotting the poor denizens of Dun Morogh on yet another overpowered Alt.

Thomas Paine said, "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value", and I think that is a lesson that has been forgotten. There is a benefit to difficulties, a benefit of failure. Overcoming adversity is how people learn and improve, and it's how fierce emotional attachments are created. Raiders who raided Molten Core don't look back on the gear that they got with such love and devotion because getting it was easy, but rather because the blood, sweat and sheer red-hot effort that they expended to get it has branded it into their souls.

I think it's time to put the challenge back into the World.

BALANCING ACT

I understand that balancing the many different types of players and trying to make everyone happy is a difficult, if not impossible task. I can't think of a more thankless job that trying to please eleven million people, all of whom want something different, and at the same time trying to feed the corporate overlord's insatiable lust for profits.

I know that there are quite a number of people who are happy with these changes to the raids because it gives them a chance to finally see the content. But I think that there is a difference between seeing the content and experiencing the content.  The idea of merely seeing the content reminds me of a tourist: Someone who comes to visit and see the sights, but wants to have a good, relaxing time and not really get their hands dirty. While experiencing the content implies slogging through the worst that the raid can throw at you and working through the inevitable failures and hardships. These are two very different types of players who want two completely different types of gaming experiences.

However, nerfing current content when there is no alternative, higher-end content available means turning everyone into the Tourist.

I know that Patch 4.3 is brings us the Raid Finder tool and a new difficulty level that caters to the Tourists, PUGers and people who just want to see the content but are, for whatever reason, unable to raid at the normal difficulty levels. I'm sure it's your hope that this elmininates the need for nerfs such as these, and I'm optimistic that it will work very well. But that doesn't change the fact that in this patch, on this raid, you took away my challenge.

We're going into Firelands to kill Ragnaros for the first time this week. Last week it was an exciting prospect, now it's just something to do on a Sunday. Oh, we'll get the achievement, but the accomplishment has been made lesser. Like Roger Maris, I will forever have an asterisk next to my 7/7 achievement.

Sincerely,

Fannon

Dwarven Battle Medic and Dissatisfied Raider.



Ragnaros: Still tough, but 25% less satisfying.

 
 

This Week In Raiding: The Next Logical Step?

The last couple of weeks have been very exciting for Mountain Top progression. Two lockouts ago we got Alysrazor down for the first time in what can only be described as another "Click" moment. This week marked the first time that we killed all five Firelands bosses that we've downed so far, plus Heroic Halfus in a single night, leaving us a full raid night to work on Majordomo Fandral Staghelm.

I'm pleased to say that, for the first time this tier, Mountain Top took down a progression boss on the first night of attempts. I had heard that the Staghelm encounter was relatively easy, but that the transitions were quite tricky. I think that most of our raid group went into the fight not really expecting a kill, but hoping for some good, solid progress on learning the fight.

It really surprised me, then, when in the midst of a promising pull that was about to turn into a wipe, I look down at the good Majordomo's health and see it sitting at 5%. I was completely gobsmacked. At that point it really felt as if we had really just started working on it, and yet the bastard was already practically dead? For me, that was the moment of emotional elation, and the point that I knew it was only a matter of time before we get our kill. The actual event itself was an anticlimax in comparison.

All that remains.

THE NEXT LOGICAL STEP?

With the death of the Majordomo, Mountain Top is 6/7 and has the end of this tier in sight - at least in the normal modes. This brings up the question: Once a casual guild is 7/7, what's next?

Do we progress into Heroic Modes? Even at this stage in T12, we've only ever attempted Heroic Halfus (the easiest of the T11 Heroic bosses).

Or, do we continue doing regular modes, farming for gear and then bringing in Alts (of which there are plenty in our guild) and less experienced raiders so that they can get geared up?

I think that for a hardcore raiding guild, this question is so easy that it's not even asked. Heroic modes are not just an option, they're the entire point. I have always imagined that for guilds like these, regular modes are merely an inconvenience; a tedious chore that needs to be completed as quickly as possible so that they can get to the real fights.

For a more casual guild, on the other hand, the idea of Heroic Modes gets much more complicated. Questions need to be asked and the Raid Leadership needs to take a critical look at the raid team. Is the team dedicated enough to put in the extra work that Heroic Modes will bring? Will morale hold while relearning a boss that everyone knows can be beaten easily with just the flip of a switch? Does the raid team have enough gear to even make Heroic Modes feasible? At what point do you make the switch? And probably most importantly, Does the Raid Team even want to do Heroic Modes?

For myself, I think that I would like to see this group tackle something really challenging. I'm very impressed with the quality of people that we have in our Raid Team and how far we've managed to come in a relatively short time - despite the many challenges we've faced. We've had to deal with hurricanes, two different medical emergencies, scheduling conflicts, gear drama, raid spot drama and a host of other things that make organizing each raid an epic adventure all on its own. And yet we've managed to make it this far.

I think that we've got enough talent on the roster to make a very good showing on the Heroic Modes if we could get everyone - including myself - committed to working their butts off to sharpen our play.

What I'm afraid of though, is that the desire to do heroic modes - to continue on past 7/7 normal - just isn't there.

I think what happens in a lot of casual guilds is that once the final boss of the instance lies dead at the guild's feet and the rush of emotion dissipates, the idea that "we're done" sets in. Why bother going back once we've already downed the end boss? Oh, the raids continue, but some people take a break, while others start bringing in Alts to get those characters geared up. Raiding continues, but progression stops.

And that's okay, too. Heroic modes aren't for every guild or for every player. If desire and commitment to move forward isn't there, attempting heroic modes isn't going to accomplish anything other than frustrating everybody.

There are many ways to fail at raiding, but there is only one way to succeed: The entire team has to share the same goal, and be willing to put in the blood and sweat needed to make it happen. And this isn't just about raiding, this is true of life in general.


A REALISTIC LOOK AT LOFTY GOALS

At the beginning of Cataclysm, I set myself the goal of finishing the normal modes of each tier while they were still current. I missed out on accomplishing that in Tier 11, but it seems almost certain that my guild and I will succeed in Tier 12.

If Mountain Top does decide to move on to the Heroic Modes, I will be the first one to sign up and will give it every ounce of dedication I have. But I think that if we do simply stall at 7/7 and get no further, I will be satisfied with a job well done. For me, at least, it will be a first and an accomplished goal that I can be proud of.

But I would very much like to test myself against the really hard fights that this game has to offer. I think that doing those fights would make me a better player. Odd as it may sound, I really love working on a new and difficult fight, and there is no sweeter moment than the successful kill after weeks of hard disappointment. I really want to experience that feeling knowing that I'm working on the hardest content in the game.

The real trouble with normal modes is that, no matter how sweet the taste of victory is, there is always the niggling doubt in my head that knows I am working on second tier content. It's like sitting at the kids table at Christmas; you're there and eating the same food, but the experience is lesser.

I would like, just once, to sit at the adults table in WoW. To get the full experience. To look back at a Raiding Tier and say to myself, "Yeah, I've done that shit".

But if I were to look realistically at my ability to dedicate time and effort to working on Heroic Modes, I wonder if I would pass my own criteria for a Heroic Mode raider? Can I dedicate the time, or rather, will the wife and Dwarfling allow me to dedicate the time to be successful? Do I honestly have the skills to be valuable to a Heroic Mode raiding team? Never having tried, I can honestly say I don't know.

But damn, I really want to try.
 
  

This Week In Raiding: Steady On

"Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress." - Mohandas Gandhi

Being at the forefront of any raid groups advancement - charging blindly into the unknown, so to speak - is by its very nature going to be fraught with setbacks and disappointments. Wipes happen, stress builds up and nerves get frayed regardless of whether the group is a world class progression guild or a more casual one. It's called progression because you're moving forward into new and dangerous territory and success is by no means assured.

This week our progression results were a mixed bag of uplifting positives counter-balanced by maddeningly incomprehensible setbacks.

Mountain Top has made some steady, if unspectacular headway in Firelands to this point, but we're moving slower that some people feel we should be, and nerves are getting frayed. It's less the pace of getting bosses down - 3/7 with only two nights of raiding per week isn't bad at all - but I think that it has more to do with how long it seems to take us to figure out the mechanics of each new fight. It seems as if our attempts at a new boss get only so far and just stall out.

This week we pulled Alysrazor (pronounced a-LISS-rah-zor. Get it right) for the first time, and she schooled us on the true meaning of the word futile. Then she went on to further instruct us on all its synonyms: The words abortive, ineffectual, fruitless and unsuccessful all come to mind to describe our night.

We spent the whole of Thursdays raid working on Ragnaros's pet Firechicken to no effect, and by the end tempers were starting to run a bit thin. The tanks were getting frustrated with their mechanics and wanted to call it, the healers were frustrated with being unable to work out how to split themselves up properly and wanted to keep working on it, whilst the DPS were arguing about who, if anyone, should grab feathers and fly.

I always can tell when morale is sinking when the cupcake jokes stop. In the end we called the raid early and agreed to come at it fresh next week in the hopes that a little distance and perspective will help.

"If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress." - Barack Obama

Once a progression fight clicks, on the other hand, we don't regress. I wrote a few weeks ago of our struggles with Shannox the Rat-bastard and how we seemingly just couldn't get him down. Well, since then we've killed him with ease in one or two attempts each time we've faced him. It feels like all at once, as a unit, the fight just clicked, and suddenly it was as easy as selling beer at a Dwarven bacon-eating festival.

Beth'tilac has also been handled cleanly since we got her down for the first time. My only complaint with her is that she always drops Holy Paladin gear that our other Holy Paladin always gets. Spider Matron favouritism is the worst kind. And I like her shield, too.

The Gatekeeper is dead, huzzah.

We got our third Firelands boss down this week as well, with Baleroc meeting his end for the first time and marking our first three-kill night for this tier. We pulled him for the first time the previous week, and like Alysrazor this week, he gave us fits while we learned the fight.

If you are unfamiliar with the fight, Baleroc is an encounter where healer coordination is vital. The healers are attempting to keep up with ever increasing tank heal pools and incoming damage. This is done by healing people affected by Torment and gaining stacks of Vital Spark, which turns into the buff Vital Flame which boosts a heal cast on the tank by 5% per stack. It's crucial that all the healers get as many stacks as possible, and so it's incredibly important to know who is healing what and when.

It took us almost two whole nights of working on Baleroc until we got him figured out (which from the perspective of a week later, isn't bad at all, really).

In the end, what really made the difference is having a dedicated Healer channel in Mumble so that would could coordinate our rotation without the DPS and Tanks talking over us. It helped immensely, and within two pulls of changing channels Baleroc fell over dead and we were standing on his crotch taking a screenshot.

AND FINALLY: THE POINT

Mountain Top's progression through Firelands has been slower than other guilds out there, to be sure, but it's been steady. Each raid night brings us closer to figuring out whichever boss we happen to be working on, and there is a great feeling on confidence in the team, even though frustration got the better of us on Alysrazor last week. We're all working hard and waiting for that wonderful click.

Despite our rather casual schedule and the setbacks that we've had, our raid team is coming together really nicely. Certainly one bad night isn't going to stop us. There is a great feeling of inevitability that it's only a matter of time before we're taking a screenshot while standing in Ragnaros's crotch - if he had legs.
 
 

Shannox Down - Identifying the Problem

A lot of people read my whining about Shannox in my last post and offered a lot of great tips on getting through the fight. Thank you everyone for your advice and comments.

Dead.

However, frustrated with our lack of success in Firelands, Mountain Top put together an off-night raid last night to take another crack at Shannox before the weekly reset. Sadly, both myself and our regular Death Knight Tank were unable to attend due to family issues.

They one-shot Shannox and killed Beth'tilac as well for good measure. Grats, Mountain Top!

The difference, as it turns out, was changing tanks. The Protection Warrior that replaced our regular DK tank was able to block a great deal of the incoming damage that was insta-gibbing our DK, which made the healing in the last phase a lot smoother and easier to deal with.

Also dead.

Don't get me wrong, our DK is a great tank and there is no one I would rather heal when the going gets tough, but reading the Blood DK forums over on Elitist Jerks confirms that a lot of DK tanks are having problems coping with the damage spikes in this encounter. The self-healing that the Blood spec uses to tank is seemingly less effective during intense, burst damage than the reliable mitigation from blocks that a Paladin or Warrior can expect.

It's no excuse, and it doesn't really change anything for next week when our Death Knight will be back getting beat on by Shannox. We'll still need to figure out a way to prevent him from dying.

But the bastard and his dogs are dead, and that makes me a happy Paladin.

Next up: Admiral McSpinnypants

 
   

This Week in Raiding: Shannox the Raid Killer

Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change - this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress. - Bruce Barton

Putting together a new raid team can be tough, and I don't envy Raid Leaders who have to do it.

There are countless pitfalls to deal with: Schedules to coordinate, divergent personalities that need to mesh, boss strategies to learn, communicate and change on the fly. Each wipe that occurs is a disheartening experience to a new group, shaking it's confidence in itself.

Unfortunately, that's what Mountain Top is going through with it's raiding progression right now.

I hate you, Shannox. I really, really do.

MOUNTAIN TOP v. SHANNOX
(or, How To Kill Morale in 27 Excruciating Pulls)

Oddly, it wouldn't be so bad if we were wiping early or doing something stupid like standing in traps. Quite the contrary, as once our Tanks got the mechanics of stack-dropping down (The Doggy Dance? The Crystal Trap Two-Step?), the first part of the fight became simple and our raid group is getting through it cleanly and reliably.

Our strategy is to burn Rageface down as soon as possible, then get Shannox to between 35% and 40% and kill Riplimb. The doggy poop really hits the fan for us when Riplimb goes down and Shannox freaks out; gaining two stacks of Frenzy and doing 60% more damage 60% faster. This is ouch-time for our Main Tank and the time for the Healers to do a gut-check and earn their paychecks. Invariably, it's where we've been failing.

We're so close, though. 9% wipe. 7% wipe. 4% wipe. A freakin' sub-1% wipe. Tantalizingly, terribly close to seeing him die like the mongrel that he is. Getting within a dog's whisker of success means that we're doing something right, but the repeated failures also means that we need to be doing something better. Keeping the Tank alive during the Frenzy phase would be a good start.

Once that last dog dies the healing strategy needs to completely change. Efficiency goes completely out the window and it's Wrath-style healing again: Spam big heals or else your tank is going to die within seconds. Mitigation cooldowns such as Hand of Sacrifice must be utilized, but it's often hard to spare the global cooldown in order to cast it. The reactionary, triage style of healing that we've been trained to use throughout Cataclysm needs to be quickly forgotten; by the time you see and react to damage it's probably already too late. Sadly, the realities of mana management do not make this style of healing practical any longer, and healers with their mana tanks drained can't keep anyone alive.

A fight like this requires very good coordination, communication and rapport between healers, something that a new Raid Group like ours isn't likely to have built up yet. A strong role leader who can analyse problems and implement solutions is also a luxury most new raiding groups - particularly more casual ones - won't have. I'm not going to sugarcoat things, it's been a really difficult and demoralizing test of our new team. We're all good healers, but we don't know each other well enough to really push each other or properly hold each other accountable. I would love someone to tell me, "You suck. This is what you did wrong and here's how to fix it." That's easy; it's much harder to have to try figure it out for yourself.

Of course, the random connection issues and weird happenings that have plagued us haven't helped much either. We've had to call raids two or three times now because of gigantic, crippling lag spikes on our top DPSers. The opening of the final Harry Potter movie cancelled tonight's raid. More than a few pulls have been delayed due to baby aggro from the Dwarfling and our Death Knight's two kids. Not to mention having one raid memorably and frighteningly cancelled due to a real life emergency which ended with an ambulance trip to the hospital. Lady luck, it would seem, is not on our side.

ENOUGH COMPLAINING, ALREADY
(or, So What're You Gonna Do About It, Pally-Boy?)

Keeping the tank up during Shannox's Frenzy is tough, but that clearly is the problem and the main reason we've been unable to down this boss. I think that better coordination of the healers and their cooldowns is all that we need. The Tank simply can't go for more than two seconds without a major heal.

I think I am going to suggest a more coordinated approach. We have two Holy Paladins healing, so you would think that we wouldn't be having this problem, but with both of us healing independently- and using our cooldowns independently - there are gaps in the incoming heals. Looking at the death logs in recount after the fight shows that the Tank can go from full health to a fine, bloody mist in a mere three seconds, so any gap in large, incoming heals will be invariably fatal; especially as the stacks of Jagged Tear begin to mount up.

I am going to do two things: Firstly, I'm going to suggest to our healers that we setup a Cooldown/Heal rotation. I envision having one Paladin spam Avenging Wrath/Divine Favor boosted Divine Lights on the tank while the other uses cooldowns such as Hand of Sacrifice and Aura Mastery to try prevent damage, at the same time healing efficiently with Holy Light and Holy Shock. When the first Paladin gets low on mana, they switch. This should prevent any gaps in the incoming healing and at the same time help prevent both Holy Paladins going out of mana at the same time. This in itself should be enough, but...

Can a Mastery Build Save the Day?

The other thing I am going to do is experiment with a Mastery build. There has been a lot of talk about Illuminated Healing builds lately: Rohan, Enlynn, Adgamorix and this thread on the official forums have all been talking about how it's a great, but incredibly specialized tank healing build that shines in encounters like this at the expense of virtually all versatility. I even talked about wanted to try out it's viability when I talked about the changes to Illuminated Healing.

I think that this build is ideally suited to this fight: Insanely heavy incoming damage where the shields will shine. Enlynn of Bubblespec wrote a great, detailed post on this style of play and has inspired me to finally try it out. I hope it will give us the boost that we need to finally put this boss down, permanently.

How has your raid group dealt with the Shannox Kennel Club? Any tips? Did you make any changes to your healing composition or style that you felt made a difference?

 

Fitting Into a New Guild

"Céad míle fáilte" - Irish Gaelic greeting

Imagine being invited to a party and walking into a room full of people you've never met before who are chatting amongst themselves as if they have known each other their whole lives, but the person who invited you is no where to be found. Finding oneself in a new social setting can, for a lot of people, be one of the most intimidating social nightmares possible.

Well, you know that new druid in the questing greens and blues that just joined your guild? That's what he's going through right now. He is the WoW equivalent of the guy standing in the corner of your guild's party trying to pretend he's interested in the photo of your Great Aunt Olga that's hanging on the wall. Which, depending on the expression on his face, can be extremely uncomfortable for everyone involved.

I started this article while dealing with helping new recruits fit into a very old, established guild as part of my role as the recruiter. Ironically, I now find myself in a new guild as well, trying to make new friends and fit in. In this article, I'm going to talk about this topic from both perspectives.


THE RECRUIT'S PERSPECTIVE
Or, Making Friends for Fun and Purples

"If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair." - Samuel Johnson

Join the Right Guild in the First Place

The first step to fitting into a new guild is to make sure that you are compatible with each other. Sadly, while Blizzard has added a lot of new functionality to make finding a guild easier there is no such thing as eHarmony for guilds, so finding a good match takes a bit of work.

Before joining up with that guild with the cool name that you've been eyeing up, do a little research to find out what they're all about. Whisper one of their members and ask what type of guild they are. Do they PVP, Raid, or just sit around in Guild Chat telling dirty jokes in character? No one is going to think less of you for asking questions about their guild, and they are likely going to be asking some questions about you as well. It's important stuff to know, because joining up with a guild that doesn't do what you're looking at doing is just a waste of everyone's time.

Blizzard's new Guild Finder tool is decent, but doesn't really tell a potential recruit much about the inner workings of a guild, and certainly won't help you determine if you'll fit into their culture. By all means, send in a Guild Request using it, but follow that up with a PM or in-game mail to the recruitment contact of that guild and ask them some questions. If nothing else, it shows that you are genuinely interested and not just clicking the Apply button randomly.

Don't Join a Guild Hoping it Will Change

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." - Leo Tolstoy

A player that is mismatched to the guild they're in is an unhappy player who is unlikely to stick around. A guild with unhappy players is an unhappy and drama-filled guild. The best and happiest guilds are the ones which have a membership that is all on the same page as to what they want to do in-game.

As a potential recruit, make sure that the guild you are looking at joining is doing the things that you want to be doing before you join, and don't expect the guild to change just because you show up with different plans. A casual guild will always be casual, a PVP-oriented guild will always want to eat the opposing faction's faces, and coming into that type of guild with a different mindset will eventually cause problems.

Be Social!

As a recruiter, nothing annoyed me more than inviting someone to the guild and then have them remain stone-cold silent in Guild Chat only to quit the guild the next day. Going back to the party metaphor, if someone walks into a room full of people and then doesn't make any attempt at all to interact with the other guests... well, it's kinda creepy.

What I always want to see is a new recruit start interacting in Guild Chat immediately, even if it's just something simple as introducing themselves or asking more questions about the guild and how things are done. It's very hard to jump into a new social group and instantly be the life of the party, and no one expects anyone to do that, but the only way to begin to fit into a new guild is to start talking to people.

I think that the internet has skewed normal social rules to a degree, and it's become normal when going into a new social situation (forums, for instance) to lurk for a while to get a feel for the culture. Imagine yourself back at that party and the new guy is hiding behind a potted plant listening to your conversation: what would be considered strange and abnormal behaviour in the context of normal, face-to-face social rules is now the norm on the Internet. I understand the desire not to jump into a social scenario until you understand the dynamics, but Lurkers in a new guild tend to forget one, simple and important fact:

These people wouldn't have let you join if they didn't want to talk to you.

So talk to them! Ask questions about the guild, or about their Raiding or PVP habits. Tell them a little about yourself. Ask them if they like kittens or puppies or My Little Pony. Jump into a conversation with a joke or an observation. Just say something so that you're not just another anonymous and silent name in the guild roster.


Forums

Virtually every guild has a webpage with forums, and every guild that has forums complains that their members don't use them enough. 

If you must Lurk or feel more comfortable getting the lay of the land before jumping into a conversation, the Guild Forums are a great way to get an idea of your new guild's personality without having to actually communicate with them. The variety of posts will tell a new recruit whether the guild is serious and business-like or whimsical and fun-loving. Most times the forums will also let you in on a lot of the inside jokes and past accomplishments of a guild, helping a new recruit feel more a part of it.

The forums are also a great place to post an introduction to yourself so that the guild can get to know you. Oftentimes it is easier and far less intimidating to post something like that rather than typing it in Guild Chat or saying it in Voice Chat. If your new guild has an introduction thread that other people have used, so much the better, as the previous posts will give you a good idea who these people that you've signed up with are, and what they would like to know about you in your own introduction post.

Groups

Of course, the best way to get to know people in a game is to play together. There are many different ways to group up with your guildies: Dungeons, Raids, Battlegrounds, Arenas or questing, among others.

Sharing an activity is the easiest and most comfortable method - in game or out - to get to know someone. It gives everyone involved something in common to talk about which, given time, will allow openings into other, non-activity related conversation topics. And if nothing else, grouping with your new guildies and sharing a gameplay activity will show them what kind of a player you are, even if nothing is said.

It's unlikely, depending on the guild and how friendly and welcoming they are, that a new recruit will be swamped with group invites upon joining. In my experience, most guilds are friendly to new people but don't go out of their way to try to immediately include them in spontaneous guild activities, and it's left up to the recruit to find a way in. This really is a horrible way to welcome a new member into your social group and in my opinion, the worst mistake that most guilds make with their new recruits.

The best way that I've found to get involved in your guild is to simply ask. Let people know what you're doing and ask if anyone wants to join you. Or, if someone is organizing a group for something, offer to join in. I feel that a brand new recruit in guild is still queuing for Random Dungeons or Battlegrounds by themselves without at least asking for company in Guild Chat is not doing themselves any favours - both in terms of fitting in socially and showing the guild that they are a team player.

Remember, if you've done your homework right and are in a guild with compatible goals to your own then there should always be people willing to join you in doing whatever it is you want to do. All you need to do is ask.

Voice Chat

Ahh, Voice Chat. For a person who is nervous or uncomfortable in new and unfamiliar social situations, chatting in Ventrilo or Mumble can produce a lot of anxiety. Who do you talk to? Which channel? Is it okay to listen into a conversation in a channel, or will you be thought of as that creepy guy behind the ficus tree again? Is it okay to jump into a conversation between two people? Oh god, oh god what the hell do you say?!?

Every guild will have a different culture when it comes to Voice Chat, and it's a lot harder to generalize than Guild Chat. Some guilds will use it only for organized guild activities such as Raiding or PVP, others will use it as the primary means of communication, with a dead silent Guild Chat and a buzzing, lively Voice Chat server.

Everyone knows that Guild Chat is public and available to anyone in the guild to see and therefore the rules are understood to everyone without being spoken. Voice Chat can seem like it's completely different, but it really isn't. Here are some basic things to keep in mind:

Get in there and start chatting! It's surprising how much of some guild's social interaction goes on in Ventrilo or Mumble. If your guild is like this then get in the channel and jump into a conversation!

Voice Channels are public forums unless they are marked private in some way. Normally, as a member of a guild you will have every right to join any of the public channels in your voice chat server. Any channel that you're not supposed to be in will be marked Private or password protected. These are normally reserved for Officers or specific functions, but often there will be specially marked channels for people who want to have a private conversation.

If you interrupt or join a private conversation, the people involved will either stop talking, find somewhere else to chat or ask you to leave. It's important to remember that this doesn't mean that they're anti-social or that they don't like you, it simply means that they are talking about something that should have been done in a private channel. You had every right to be in the channel, but out of respect for the people involved it's best to say sorry and find a different channel. In this scenario, don't worry about it if they're a little rude asking you to leave; you don't know whether or not they are talking about something personally upsetting.

There's no point to being in Voice Chat if you don't talk. If you're in Voice Chat, by all means, say something. Even if you just break in now and then to offer a comment on what other people are talking about. Talking to someone is the best way to get to know each them, and they you.

Don't worry about it. Seriously, there is nothing that anyone can say to you in Voice Chat (or Guild Chat for that matter) that will change who you are. If someone is saying or joking about something that you don't like, simply leave the channel. If you say something stupid that you immediately wish you could take back, don't worry about it - ignore it or make a joke about it or apologize then move on. I guarantee you that everyone you're talking to has said something completely asinine themselves at one point or another.

Surviving the Trial Period

Most guilds will have a Trial or assessment period of some sort, and all of them will have different rules on how they run it. It's a good idea to know about these before you join, or at least ask about them after.

Offering specific advice on how to survive the trial period is impossible because each guild is looking for something different. A Raiding Guild will evaluate you based on raid performance while a PVP Guild will rate you based on how proficient you are at melting Horde faces. Study up on your class, Enchant and Gem your gear the best you can and play as well as you are able is about all you can do.

Outside of game performance, however, there are things you can do to make yourself stand out, and a lot of it is simply following the advice I've detailed above. Be friendly, have a great attitude and play your best. Regardless of performance, it's much harder to kick a friend out of a guild. It may not help you get your raid spot, but a good, friendly attitude will never ever hurt your chances.


THE GUILD'S PERSPECTIVE
Or, How Not to be a Dick to the New Guy

"Ah, beware of snobbery; it is the unwelcome recognition of one's own past failings." - Cary Grant

As an established member or officer of a guild, there are a lot of things you can do to help a new recruit feel at home. Most of them are common sense and blindingly obvious, but rarely done. I can't even count the number of times that I've invited a new person to a guild only to have Guild Chat remain frustratingly silent and unwelcoming.

Include the New Guy

Assuming the goal of guild recruiting is to create stable, happy, long-term members, the most important thing that a guild can do to make their new members feel at home is to actively go out of their way to include them in guild activities. A new recruit that is invited to a Raid, or a Rated Battleground or even a simple Random Dungeon will immediately feel more comfortable and have a much greater likelihood of sticking around than if they were left to their own devices. Think of it as offering to get that new person at your house party a drink when they arrive instead of just pointing them in the general direction of the fridge and telling them to figure it out for themselves.

One of the most intimidating things that a new member of a guild has to do is ask to be included in group activities. Since a recruit doesn't really know who any of the people in the new guild are, running a dungeon or a battleground with a guild group is not a whole lot different than a PUG. And while it's in the recruit's best interests to be sociable and start or ask to be included in groups, it's much friendlier if the guild offers and attempts to make the recruit feel welcome and included.

Engage Them Socially

What is a recruit to think when the rousing and encouraging chorus of "Welcome!" that he gets in Guild Chat when joining is followed by nothing but intimidating, icy silence? Just as with grouping, starting a conversation with a new group of people is intimidating as the new person. It's much more natural and comfortable if the established members of the guild take the initiative and try to get to know the new recruit. Even simple questions like, "Where are you from?" or "How long have you been playing?" will go a long way to breaking the ice and help the recruit feel more comfortable.

This is especially important in guilds that are old and established or composed primarily of real life friends. Guilds like these are very hard to fit into successfully for a new person. Inside jokes fly around constantly, leaving the new recruit on the outside with no idea what anyone is talking about. Large guilds that have been around for a long time also tend to have cliques - groups of people who primarily talk within their own group - which are extremely hard to break into as a new recruit. If a guild like this doesn't make an effort to include the new recruit in some way or give him some kind of acknowledgement that his input and participation is desired, the odds of him sticking around and making the large effort required to be accepted by these groups on his own is slim.


Tell Them How Things Work

You've been a great host at your party so far, you've pulled the new guy away from starting at Aunt Olga and introduced him to a few of your guests and they're chatting away like old friends and getting to know one another. But then you make a mistake and say something like, "Help yourself to a drink in the cooler, but don't take one of Jack's or he'll rip your teeth out with a Yellowstone National Park commemorative spoon". Great advice, unless you neglect to mention which drinks are Jack's.

Having a new recruit that is fitting in but that doesn't know the rules or how things work in your guild is asking for trouble. Let them know the things that they need to know. Are there any restrictions on using the Voice Chat server? What are the Guild Bank rules and does the recruit even have access? If not, when will he? How do the promotions work? How does one sign up for raids? Is there something to never bring up around Jack lest he go postal on your bicuspids? Whatever taboos or unusual policies your guild has should be communicated to a new recruit. Most guilds will have a post on their forums detailing a lot of this stuff, so make sure that the recruit knows where that post is.


CONCLUSION

The guests have left, your house is a mess and your liquor cabinet was emptied around 2am to create a "Super Cocktail" in your dearly departed mother's favourite fruit bowl, but the party was a rousing success. Judging from the fact that one is passed out in the corner with a lampshade on his head and drooling into the azaleas, the recruits fit in fantastically, had a great time and left Aunt Olga's picture unmolested.

Fitting into a new guild, or helping a new recruit get comfortable in an existing guild really just boils down to commonsense and friendliness. The best way to get accepted by any new group is to simply be social, and conversely, the best way to make someone feel accepted is to talk to them and include them in activities. Remember that the people on the other side of the computer screen have the same fears and insecurities that you do. Being friendly and open will, in the long run, make everyone feel that the guild is a safe, comfortable home that they would be crazy to leave.