Tuesday, June 17, 2008

June 17, 2008
8
I told Examino yesterday that I'd do some venting today, so here we go.

Frustrations, annoyances, grief, emotions and all the usual riff raff you really don't want to deal with during raid time. It distracts from the ultimate goal you're trying to achieve that night.

Yet ultimately you'll end up having to deal with some kid who's got his panties in a bunch and intends to take it out on the rest of the raid, or worse, attempts to involve others into the whole "I'm right and he's wrong" argument. It won't occur every night, it might not even occur once a week, but once every while every guild will have one of those bad nights where you just wipe all night long on a boss that you've been farming for weeks.

Why? No reason really, a few people in the raid with a beer too many, one trialist too many, people getting themselves killed, DPS not waiting for tank aggro, hunters forgetting misdirects, healer distracted by people crying for heals on TeamSpeak or just random bad luck. There's plenty of things that can simply work against you in such ways that you'll spend all night biting nails or wanting to bash in somebody's skull in frustration.

But, it happens. And other than sucking it up, there really isn't much you can do about it.


Top most annoying things

Let's do a Top-X of most annoying things during raid time.

  • Constant disconnects by a crucial player. Generally one of the main tanks.
  • Loot whores screaming about unfair distribution. Seriously, shut the fuck up, it'll drop again next week.
  • Repeated overaggro by the same DPS players.
  • Players asking for a summon in raid chat. Whisper a warlock damnit.
  • Some player ninja pulling and causing a wipe. (Bonus points if the ninja puller manages to stay alive himself)
  • Asking for a heal over teamspeak, constantly and every single time your health drops below 90%
  • Buffers, slacking. Having to tell them, every single wipe to buff up fast.
  • Players asking buffers for specific buffs, while those are obviously still busy buffing. Have some patience, or whisper them instead.
  • Dead players, not running and demanding a rez so they can go afk and watch porn.
  • Going afk during a boss fight without letting others know, receive a Battlerez and not accept it.
  • Going afk a few seconds before a ready check.
  • Strange afk times. Also known as "brb 2 minutes" (or muffin time in our guild) only to come back 15-20 minutes later.
  • That guy who doesn't know how to use "push to talk" on teamspeak and is constantly causing feedback.
  • Players wanting to kill boss X before boss Y and whine about it because they need loot.
  • Long discussions over whisper during boss combat. Then be outraged because you get no response within a minute.
  • People not understanding, or bothering to listen to tactics.
  • Players who don't understand that fire is in fact hot.
  • Casuals going "ding" in guild chat. Or anyone for that matter.
  • Slackers who show up 5-10 minutes after the usual raid start time, then demand an invite because they were "on time".
  • Raid members putting other players on ignore. How stupid can you get really.
  • Drunk or sick during raid, and irrational behavior. While it's of course very honorable that you're still willing to raid when you're not fit to, sometimes it's best to just go to bed early so you'll be good and fit the next day.
  • Players bringing their "real life" issues into the raid. If I ever care to find out why little timmy his poop is black instead of brown, I'll be the first to ask you. No really...
  • Emo players, whether they go "emo" because we're doing wipes for 2 hours, or because loot distribution isn't handled the way they like it.
  • Players crying about their repair cost. If you wipe a lot, obviously you'll have repairs, just deal with it.
  • Players who forget to equip resistance gear for relevant fights.
  • Shamans without ankhs.
  • Druids without acorns to battle rez.
  • Warlocks who show up for raids without soul shards.
  • Players who find out during raid time that some of their addons aren't working.
  • Players using wireless to connect to their internet router.
  • Players using wireless mouse / keyboard running out of battery power mid-raid.

    Can you think up some other interesting annoyances or general slack? Leave a comment.


    Drama

    Leaving the guild if you don't really mean it. /joke Fake drama, drama because it's fun, or to create drama where there was none before. Or as in the previous section, creating drama over loot that you wouldn't have gotten anyway. Some players think it's fun to break up guilds and will go trough any lengths to start a fight or even a fake fight between two friends to see the reaction of the guild. Just, don't

    Seriously though, if for whatever reason you have some actual drama or disagreements in your guild, or perhaps you just aren't getting invited to raids as much as you'd like. Leaving the guild with a spontaneous /gquit is the LAST thing you should do. It looks bad on your guild resume. Any new guild you apply with half a brain will check back your credentials and guild history. If you're known as a hothead or unstable player who /gquit over a minor issue is a lot less likely to be recruited. And if you think going back to your previous guild is a good idea after applying elsewhere.... don't bother.

    We've had some bad luck with tanks in the past ourselves, some got bored with the game, some felt they didn't get invited enough, some cry about loot distribution. Most of the reasons were quite simply bullshit, some were valid but could easily have been avoided if you simply talk to your officers instead of stewing in your own pool of private emo misery. Those of you who read this, I know who you are, and you know how I think about it. Grow some fucking spine and quit being a damn baby, you're in a mature guild, act like it.

    A raid consists of 25 people in TBC, keeping 24 players waiting for a single one who gets his or her panties in a bunch is rude, selfish and simply bloody annoying. Is it really too much to ask to save your drama issues at least until the raid is finished?

    What is it about tanks though? it's almost like the class _attracts_ drama. On top of that it's the one that causes the most issues to the raid balance. If you lose a dps, you just replace him or her. If you lose a healer, you recruit a new one. If you lose a tank, you're fucked for several weeks unless you steal a tank from a different guild. The gear dependency is so damn big that it's a huge problem to the guild anytime you lose a tank. And we lost quite a lot in the year and a half that we've been progressing trough TBC. We could probably have been halfway trough sunwell by now if not for those drama queens.

    We struggle, but we manage. Illidan has been killed twice now, and we're considering going easy on Hyjal for a while so we can put some raid time into the Sunwell. We'll have an interesting time ahead of us. If you wish to join the party, you know where to find us.


    Illidan is a nice guy! (No really!)

    So i mentioned earlier, that our guild has killed illidan, and he was kind enough to give us a MH glaive. This sunday we downed him again, and guess what? The OH dropped!
    Two Kills, 100% droprate. Keep em coming big boy!


    WotLK still going strong

    Rogue talents

    In case you haven't seen the new Rogue and Shaman talents and abilities made available in the latest alpha yet, be sure to check out the classes on wikidot. They've also got a summary page for all classes including Rogues and Shamans to fill your need for information.

    War tools is also getting regular trees posted. Good luck finding a relevant one though as all of them are player made.


    More stuff

    Deathknight.info posted plate dungeon-3 shoulders and helmet screens.

    And, new emotes are being added in WotLK. It's a minor feature but a great boon to role players I'm sure. It's a huge list so check dk.info for the full feature. Here's a summary though:

    /serious /goodluck /blame (Our guild will be using this one a lot !) /blank /brandish /breath /disagree /doubt /embarrass /encourage /enemy /eyebrow /toast /fail /highfive /absent /arm /awe /backpack /badfeeling /challenge /chug /ding (So sad) /facepalm /faint /go /going /glower /headache /hiccup /hiss /holdhand /hurry /idea /jealous /luck /map /mercy /mutter /nervous /offer /pet /pinch /proud /promise /pulse /punch /pout /regret /revenge /rolleyes /ruffle /sad /scoff /scold /scowl /search /shakefist /shifty /shudder /signal /silence /sing /smack /sneak /sneeze /snort /squeal /stopattack /suspicious /think /truce /twiddle /warn /snap /charm /coverears /crossarms /look /object /sweat


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  • 8 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    /BLAME ATOM

    bbr said...

    Noes!
    /blame deadlike!

    Anonymous said...

    http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u12/darkside709/emo-kids-oh-god-why.jpg


    Mooki /signed

    Anonymous said...

    I sense much fear in this blog.

    Anonymous said...

    http://lordcrimson.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/fear.jpg

    Anonymous said...

    http://www.comictreadmill.com/CTMBlogarchives/2007Images/Atom-thumb.jpg

    Anonymous said...

    I've been considering Project Wonderful.

    Also nice rant :]

    Exanimo said...

    Seems your more unlucky while raiding then i am :)
    We do have our bad nights but besides an overaggro now and then (which we will just laugh about) it's pretty relaxed and people invest in the raid/guild.

    Then again there is always someone (a warrior, surprise!) who often doesn't want to raid but is "forced" to as we need him. The rest of the night he will make sure we know just how much he hates being there and rather be on backup (grinding dkp).
    I'd rather see him go at times, it's a nice guy but the same old story over and over again... i'd be happy to be rid of that.

    About the gquiting and not meaning it: we have no-return policy. When you decide to gquit, you're out.
    Feel free to copy-paste our rules ;)
    http://www.elysium-wow.net/forums