Category Archives: Noteworthy

Carved Out of Wood

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Previously … I blew up a dying guild alliance with an offhand remark and so began the race to complete content before our former allies.

We avidly recruited, shoring up holes in our raid roster. We added a fourth raiding night. We raided well beyond our abilities at times. A green/blue equipped guild raiding Onyxia with only 28 players is .. not easy. We persevered. We failed. We won. We looted. We sharded.

The race to finish Molten Core content and move into Blackwing Lair was back and forth for a few weeks. Ultimately, they won that battle. They downed Ragnaros first.

They played around with Razorgore for two weeks while we earned our chops on Rag. TwatGuild decided to take (yet another) two week break from raiding to let their people … I dunno, rest or something, rather than have Razorgore rip apart their guild as he’s done to many others before.

From time to time, our guild has suggested raiding breaks, but I, personally, am very anti-raid breaks. Rust never sleeps, yanno. And good thing we didn’t. We downed Razorgore while they were vacationing in Upper Blackrock Spire or somewhere, who knows.

Let the Living Well begin! We dropped Vaelastrasz the next week, and the other BWL bosses in rapid succession. They’re back to messing around with the drakes, last I heard, after TwatGuild Rebuild #5.

While we were gloating in /gu and Ventrilo the other week, it got me to thinking: what a difference a year can make. Then, we were an allied little raiding guild, dependent in many ways on our allies and they on us. Now, we are the smallest endgame raiding guild on our server, still just a bunch of scrubs, only mere weeks behind the top dogs. That could change in Naxxlerammahamma — we’ll see.

We built this guild on next to nothing: a few warriors worth a shit, a core of superlative healers, a raid leader that would not (and still does not) ever give up and a roster of 50-ish determined, dedicated raiders. We are carved out of wood.

One of the pitfalls in running an endgame guild is redoing old content for newer members. To a certain extent, it must be done. Too much of it, and the veterans (read: The Equipment) burn out or look for greener pastures. How to remain accessible to new applicants, yet not backslide into a farm team for another endgame guild. That old chestnut.

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Wads of Cookie Dough

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It was a little more than a year ago that the gaming buds and I turned around in World of Warcraft, and there was nowhere left to go.

So, we did what many have done and many will do … we looked into the raiding guilds. It was an easy thing to do, back then, there was only two on our server — both lousy with players on our /ignore lists. (To be fair, we were on their /ignore lists as well.) At any rate, that was a no-way/no-how type situation.

Instead, we found a little raiding guild that was just beginning to work through the Molten Core content with an allied little raiding guild. And it was good. For about a month.

Fast forward about a month and we finally make the call, privately with our clique-ish selves: wtf, our little raiding guild is just a bunch of twats. And I mean that in every sense of the word.

Simultaneously, our little raiding guild alliance had some tension going down … minor power struggles, if you will, similar to sibling rivalry: every little thing has to be split exactly down the center or there’s drama bullshit.

Add our growing dissatisfaction with close twat contact every night to tense interguild relations and the sum was … we started spending most of our off-raid game time with the allied guild. A week or two passed, and we approached the allied little raiding guild about jumping ship. They agreed on the condition that we discuss it fully with the twats.

We discussed, they weren’t happy. We discussed more, they grudgingly agreed to be adult about it. Or maybe it was the adults agreed to it. (I think the latter.)

Cue the best guild goodbye I have ever pulled off — the best part, I typed this, coincidentally, just as they had invited a new warrior into the guild: /gu Alright, that’s it for us. You’ve been great. We’re headed to AlliedLittleGuild. Goodnight everybody and see you in MC tomorrow!

We all /gquit simultaneously and accepted the new tag. Showmanship. We hit that high note and walked off.

There was a few more weeks of tension between the two little raiding guilds and then, one night in Molten Core, I single-handedly blew the alliance into bits. Actually, I didn’t mean to blow it up … let’s just say that I stirred the pot a little and it blew.

Briefly, the twats were fucking around with the DKP system, to their benefit of course. They asked a select few if we minded. (Do ya MIND??) Fuck ya, we mind. Stop fucking around with the DKP system, they were told, in no uncertain terms. They did anyways. So, on that one night in Molten Core, I made an offhand remark — something like: don’t bother spending DKP on that stuff, we can farm it for free on our own like TwatGuild does.

Well, apparently, AlliedLittleGuild was largely unaware of the twat shenanigans and all Hell broketh loose. In Ventrilo. It was loud. Even I was surprised by the reaction.

The next day, the two guildleaders decided to part ways and that was that.

We went through a rough period where some of our guys went to TwatGuild and some of theirs (non-twats, thankyouverymuch) joined us. Also, people were kinda ticked off at me for a few days. Understood. I behaved myself for a good month after that — cleaned up the language, kept my boots shined, tabard tucked in, all that.

After the shakeout, we entered the Industrial Age and began to raid in earnest. They, who were once our allies, were now our arch rivals. And y’know how they say the best revenge is living well? We were determined to live well.

Tomorrow … the gripping conclusion and a comparison of our applicant requirements then and now. (Yes, this whole story has a point.)

The Gap

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World of Warcraft’s Patch 1.11 (.0, heh) is available for play on the test realm, INCLUDING the new 40-man playground Naxxramallammledingdong, complete with the Tier 3 armor sets.

Things are never as easy or as simple as they seem, so before your guild noobs start yay’ing about a new area to explore and new thingies to equip: there’s some prep work to be done, namely keys/attunement and frost resist gear. Because that’s content too, nagging an entire guild to get ready.

Does anyone ever go through that whole rigamarole and then experience a long-lasting sense of accomplishment? Isn’t it more like: thank god that’s over? And, where the hell am I going to put all this frost gear?

Anyways, the Naxxramahamma attunement is controlled by the Argent Dawn, the World of Warcraft faction group that is the HARDEST TO PLEASE. God, I hate those bastards. I give and give and give, they begrudgingly call me revered. All the work I’ve done for them, they should be kissing my exalted ass, BUT NOOOoooOOO … revered.

Attunement costs as confirmed by some dudes you don’t know on the forums:
Neutral/Honored: 5 arcane crystals, 2 nexus crystals, 1 righteous orb and 60 gold.
Revered: 2 arcane crystals, 1 nexus crystal and 30 gold.
Exalted: The Argent Dawn gives you 100 gold and a kick in the ass, because that’s how they roll. (P.S. I made that up. I wouldn’t doubt the kick in the ass, however.)

(WoWWiki and What About PP‘s info differs slightly.)

Personally, I don’t care. Other than the 30 gold fee, my key/attune will be free, courtesy of the guild bank. Thanks to months of disenchanting Molten Core crap, we can probably key our entire guild, even the raid slackers and overeager alts. We won’t, however, provide attune materials to applicants. We’ve been pretty generous in the past with our applicants, assisting with attunes, keys and resist gear — technically, we require all that of apps, but we’re not without heart. We assist.

Few months back, we had this applicant warrior hot to get a guild tag. No more warriors, we told him. He could not be deterred — he’d run the small instances with our alts, he completed all his attunes/keys and resist gear in PUGs, he would sit outside our raid instances every night hoping for an invite. NO MORE WARRIORS, we repeated. The next night, we’d fly, run, hobble to the raid area and there he’d be, waiting already.

Well. After a few weeks, we couldn’t take it anymore. It was so damn pathetic … and yet, who could resist his persistence. Not us. We tagged him. He has one of the worst connections on the planet, but his guild loyalty is without peer.

That creaking sound you hear? That’s the ever widening gap between those who have been raiding for-fucking-ever and those that haven’t. We still have the wherewithall to suit up a green raider and have him join us the next night, but guilds a few steps down the food chain do not.

It pains me to think we’ll miss out on quality raiders because some day that gap will be too wide. That’s how it is and that’s how it’s always been.