Evolution is My Friend

Ya know how every once in a while you’ll get this hinkey feeling about someone — like there’s something not quite right or maybe the words out of his/her mouth resemble the truth, but not exactly? Maybe you’ll talk yourself out of the hinkey feeling — what do you know, you’re just being paranoid, maybe should up that dosage for a few days.

That hinkey is thousands of years of human evolution springing up to defend your vulnerable ass and you ought to pay attention. This is another example of a valuable life lesson I’ve learned in multiplayer online gaming. (What an enlightening hobby this has been.)

We had this level 60 rogue apply to our guild a few months back — he’d been on our server forever, he was friends with quite a few guildmembers, and he had reasonable equipment and resist gear. Since he could string together enough English to complete our rigorous guild application, he was considered solid. And yet … there was something not quite right about the guy.

He’d been around the block a few times … the block being The Endgame Guilds … and my opinion on that is this: if you can’t get along with anyone, you can’t get along with us, either. My favorite guild applicant is a guy who’s been in one, maybe two, endgame guilds, not five or six. Five or six says you don’t know how to deal with the arguments, the frustration or the WORK required of a raider.

A few of the officers had a similar hinkey about the guy and we passed on his app.

He eventually started his own guild and I noticed immediately that he was guilding some of the server’s Unguildables. The Unguildables, for those not in the know, are those players kinda like him: they’ve been in several many raiding guilds and there’s been “problems” … loot disputes, high-scale dramatics, hacking rumors, maybe it’s as simple as they PVP’d too much when they should have been raiding. I couldn’t even list all the ways that one becomes an Unguildable. Just know that once you’re labeled as such, it’s time to roll a new character and a new personality if you want to join a raiding guild again.

Now, remember a few weeks ago I told you the story of our own guild rogue that left after posting that he had sold his rogue account and thanks for the memories and the next day the new driver would be taking over? (Here’s the link.) I also told you that he landed in a Guild for the Unguildables after I torched his application to a rival endgame guild. This is the very same Unguildables guild he joined.

Anyways, the Unguildables go about their business, recruiting fresh-to-raiding, don’t-know-any-better level 60s and other Unguildables and began their ascent through Le Molten Core, the first of the 40-man raiding zones with the primo raiding gear. They had some trouble fielding a full raid so the one weekend they asked a few of our people to help out with MC. They didn’t ask me, and I’ll assume because they knew what the answer would be. In any case, they tricked three of our people into helping them out.

Shit, meet fan. Fan, here’s shit. Our guildleader catches wind of this the next day and confronts each of the three in turn, because y’see, at the time we were still doing MC clears to get to Ragnaros. If they burn up their weekly MC raid ID helping some other guild, they can’t do their weekly Ragnaros duty for us. Two of the three were longtimers and they got a warning; the other guy was new and had, unfortunately for him, aligned himself with the two jagbags that had tried and failed to pull off a guild coup a few weeks prior. (Here’s the link for that guild drama.) He was guildremoved.

I know it’s hard to keep track of all the actors involved without a playbill, but one thing you should have noticed: isn’t this all too many coincidences to swallow? One coincidence I can take, but when there’s two or more, then those thousands of years of evolution spring up to defend my vulnerable ass.

Word got around that the new guy got guildkicked and suddenly, the guildmembers are chatty. “Did I know that NewGuy had an alt in the Unguildables guild that was an officer?” No, I didn’t fucking know that or we would have kicked him out sooner. Duh. “Why can’t someone be in two raiding guilds?”

Why? I’ll tell you why. Because you cannot serve two masters. Your dog can’t do it and you can’t either, that’s why.

Imagine blank stares.

Ok, put it this way: we raid four days a week, they raid four days a week. There are only 7 days in a week. Get it now?

Good news, he was removed before he could do any real damage. (Thanks Evolution!) Bad news, this wasn’t the end of it.

Tomorrow: The End of It. Maybe. I’m pretty sure it’s the end of it.

I Am Still the Worst Rogue Ever

Last week I was a Commander for the Alliance in World of Warcraft and this week I am not. If I had known they were changing the mount system, I would have obsessively PVP’d to maintain my Commander ranking so I could buy the ultra-cool black tiger and the mega-fruity black ram because one thing I discovered about the Commander rank, people really like when I sit on my black horse in Alterac Valley’s Frostwolf Keep and bark out orders like “PULL THE WARMASTER!” and “EVERYONE INSIDE FOR DREK!!”

Not really. Mostly they’d say “wtf” and “goddamit, DPS this!” but to hell with them — this is all about style.

So I fucked that up and it’s back to obsessive PVP to ding back into Commander to buy the ultra-cool black tiger and the mega-fruity black ram.

Let’s say you’re thinking of becoming equally obsessed with PVP to buy the complete set of black Commander mounts. I have some advice for you: Don’t PVP in the early morning unless you really like A. spending time with schoolkids before they have to race out the door for the bus and B. The Arguing Battlegrounds. These are the battlegrounds where there’s two or three guys who don’t do much of anything except argue. Most of the times, it’s amusing, but there are times …

Example. Warsong Gulch, one morning before work (for me, before school for the arguing dudes — trust me on this kids, it’s obvious to the rest of us that you’re a youngster. Young, dumb and full of … well, y’know.) So the one dude has the horde flag back in our base and it’s our job to get back the Alliance flag, a job for which a rogue is ideally suited I will add.

The Horde flagrunner is with six of his buddies running along the west wall and there’s two of us rogues using our entire bag of tricks to slow him down and knock the flag out of his bear claws. (That’s an important point for you druid PVP noobs. You see rogue, you pop bear form. Do not argue with me — seeing a druid in cat form is almost as exciting as killing warlock pets.) Anyways, we rogues die horrible deaths thanks to 78,000 dots stacked on us and this jackhole on our team starts bitching how we let the horde march our flag down the middle of the field untouched.

Whatever. We rezzed, we rode down to horde base, dismounted, stealthed, and started to sneak our way to the Horde flagrunner. Then the jackhole complains that we’re camping honor kills in the middle and he knows that because he can see us on his map.

Ok, now it’s on.

I’m inside their fucking base and if he had paid attention in his Social Studies class, he would know how to read a map. So I told him, “L2ReadAMap”. I didn’t have time to add that part about his Social Studies class, I was busy with a priest.

Does he shut up and wait patiently for us to choke the flag out of the Horde bear? No, he does not. He continued: I can see you in midfield *FotonRogue* camping HKs. This was me: Dude, I am on their (vanish) 2nd floor (cheap shot, backstab, backstab), dealing with a priest (kidney shot, backstab) guarding (backstab, eviscerate — buh bye now) the flag carrier.

Again, he won’t shut up and tells me to go back to AV (Alterac Valley) to farm HKs, noob. (Oh, it was ON.)

Because he’s so busy bitching about my play and what I’m up to down in Horde base, he didn’t notice the six Horde that came flooding into our base. I wasn’t aware of that part either because now I was dealing with a bear who had dropped down to the flag room after he noticed his priest buddy was dead.

Some extra backstabs for the bear form … boom, dead bear … ka-ching, flag return … and motherfuuuu, the Horde got their flag back too. (It wasn’t that simple, the bear ran and put up a struggle, but I’m summarizing.)

After the crack about going back to AV, Commander noob that I am (was), and the Horde wrestling the flag out of his hands because he wouldn’t shut up, I saw red.

Worst Rogue Ever

Now that really hurts my feelings.

Today’s PVP Lessons:
1. Don’t PVP in the morning hours before work.
2. You see rogue, you go bear.
3. Pay attention in Social Studies class when the teacher goes over how to read a map.
4. Typing long paragraphs in /bg while you’re carrying the flag can be dangerous.
5. I continue to be the worst rogue ever. Also, I’m fat. And a chick.
6. The next time I’m in a battleground with Blood**** — and have no doubt, I will meet up with you again, my friend — it’s ON. Screenshots will be provided.