Sometimes when I’m playing World of Warcraft, or previously SW:G, I’ll jot down some notes so I have some material to write about. There are times, however, that I’m two sheets to the wind while doing said jotting.

Apparently that explains these two pages of notes I made about our (at the time) rioutous guildchat a week ago. Maybe two weeks ago — the days blend together when you’re subject to frequent blackouts. (I exaggerate!)

Like this note: “Ship comes in.” WTF. I didn’t even finish the thought and I doubt it was even funny at the time. Or this one: “women that –> men that don’t = happier” ??? Women that what? Why the arrow? Crimony.

Anyways, I have a vague recollection that my point was going to be: guilds with lively, pointless guildchat are the best guilds. And I’ve been in several where the guildchat bounced from here to there and back again, covering the entire gambit of human conversation.

I’ve also been in guilds where a large portion of the population is completely devoid of personality. I mean ZERO personality is in evidence. The most I ever knew about those people was the “incoming” and “/assist on me” macros. Well, that and they were DEAD serious about winning the uber. Time spent with the zero-personality crowd really should be counted against any prison time you might be assigned during your lifetime … maybe it should count for double.

Other jottings I can actually decipher: This Sony “ebay” story. I’m getting a big kick out of some of the message board posts around the world that are rabidly against this experiment. Some of the players act as if learning to play a particular character in a game takes longer than all of about five minutes. Ok, maybe a half hour if you’re a raw noob to a game and need to customize your UI a little and figure out where the attack key is.

I’ll agree that it would be nice if we lived in that ideal world where the gaming had integrity and everyone played nice and shared, if we were all happy elves and helped our fellow players whenever we could without any expectation of reciprocity, and no one ever stabbed their guildmates or groupmates in the back by laying claim to some uber just to IGE the shit. But c’mon, wake up. We haven’t lived in that world for over five years.

My opinion only, of course. Although I have never bought or sold game shit for real cash, I’m a game whore nonetheless and I have no delusions about that. I used to be a happy elf, and now I’m not.

Player types I hate. I already have many (many!) posts about player types I hate, but I have one more to add to the pile: Players that have “lady” or “sir” somewhere in their character name. I’m not entirely certain why I hate this sort … maybe it’s the almost-roleplayish nature of their name. I also hate when they refer to themselves as Druidess or Priestess — what’s next, Paladiness? FFS.

Is it wrong to laugh (irl!!) when players die at your feet? Y’know, they’re running from a pack of mobs they had no business aggro’ing in the first place, I target them, I see that death is imminent, and hell, what can I do anyways as they’re too far gone, then SPLAT! they hit the dirt and skid right at my feet. I don’t think it’s wrong to laugh. I’ve done my share of splatting, even in situations where I just know the witness is having himself a good laugh beyond the interface. That kind of player-created content is the best.

One of the greatest things about Dark Age of Camelot was there would be a zone-wide announcement when a player would die to a mob (and I don’t know if this has changed since the early days post-release). I’m laughing even now remembering it — that was my favorite feature. It was a rare treat to see in the zone chat an entire group get downed by one of those wind vortices (wind mephit?) … good times.

The only real life women players with helm graphics turned “on” are dykes. This was proposed by our token chick guildmate when this night elf fem warrior with a wolf-ugly helm walked past us. She said, “Now that is either a male driver or a dyke. Hideous.” I’m not saying she’s right, I’m not saying that’s gospel, I’m just saying no humanoid should have to wear something so ugly.

Lastly, looking forward to Guild Wars’ upcoming release on April 28. I could really use a World of Warcraft vacation.

Ain’t called a grind for nothing.