Jumping Ship Into Chaos

Sadly, WoW seems to have been losing it's appeal. Most of our Alliance guild has either stopping playing or xferred their characters off server. So the few of us that remain decided to look for a more active guild to join up with. We wanted one that was at about our level of raiding (even though we're not planning on raiding just yet) and wasn't so big that they wouldn't be able to et to know us. So in the end we transferred to <Lunar Chaos> on Alleria. So far seems to be working out well for us.

Break Time's Over

Around the time of my last post something became very apparent: I felt obligated to play WoW.

This had only happened once before, but not nearly as bad. And back then the solution was to only log into vent, but not WoW and I was living alone so WoW was my social outlet. This time around, WoW was not my only social outlet and there was no vent.

I think I was actually getting over WoW, but I missed my toons. Plus, I found out a bunch of my college buddies are now all playing again, albeit on Horde side, but still it was on my Horde server. So I came back to the game. But I came back with a new attitude—I was going to play for me.

Sure I feel left out when Jake is playing all night, I'm not and I see all my friends online. But after talking with Sheltem, we're both kinda of relieved to not have to try and hold a guild together anymore. It's a huge weight lifted. I still wish I was playing on Mirax and Rhysati more than I am, but I don't feel pressured to play if I don't want to.

Mists of Change

Several things have happened since my last post.

The Bad News
I left my guild. I miss <Censored>, but the old Censored. Back during Wrath. when we had active players and a GM who didn't hold a guild hostage and run it into the ground. There is a bit of goodness to come form this. We did start a new guild, <Redacted>, and got several long-time Censored members to come with us. We're still small, but out aim is quality over quantity currently.

The Good News
The Mists of Panderia beta is out! I signed up for the one-year WoW subscription, so it's only a matter of time before I get my beta-key and can try out the new expansion. I've never gone to a PTR server before, and I'm kinda of hesitant to. I don't want to get bored of the new content before it goes live.

Additionally, Blizz released the character models for female Panderans (pictured above.) Storm and I think they'er super adorable. I can't wait to fill my 11th character slot and play my monk.

Recap
All in all, it's been a bittersweet month. Mostly, I just want to move on and enjoy my $15 a month again. and from the looks of what Blizz is bringing out, that shouldn't be too hard to do.

Guild Officer Blues

I got some disturbing news tonight. After talking to the GM of our guild, one of our officers found out that our uninvolved GM has no intention whatsoever of relenquishing control of the guild. The GM doesn't talk to guild chat, doesn't interact with members and NEVER talks to the officers to let us now what's going on or to keep up to date with guild happenings. It makes me want to take all of my alts out of guild. I know that's rash and drastic, but it's my gut reaction. Hell, even before all of this, when the GM logged on my gut instinct was to log off. I'm not going to do anything just yet pending a guild meeting I heard the other officers want to call.

But this whole situation really has me on edge. I've been one of the few people fighting to keep this guild together. All of the new recruits think I'm the GM and keep asking me for things I can't give them or do for them because I'm not the GM. The other officers and I have been frustrated with the lack of involvement by our GM. Granted the GM has been through some rough times in real life recently and I can understand needing tie to deal with things. But if you're having that rough of a time why are you clinging to control of a guild you are not involved in and not even asking your officers for help? We all voted you in because we had confidence in you but this behavior is undoing that confidence. I don't want to see everything fall apart, but right now it feels like the guild is on the verge of that. I know that I'm on the verge of falling apart as a result.

When to Give Up

I'm getting increasingly frustrated with trying to rebuild my guild. I want to go back to being a casual player who raids, but I can't. I guess it's a sense of duty to the guild my friends founded but aren't really active in anymore.

Drawing the Line on Guild Raid Performance

My guild has a BIG problem. Our players are constantly getting outshined by the PUGs we bring in to fill out our 10-man raiding team. Last week in the first official guild-sponsored Firelands run one of our 3 dps was constantly lower than the tanks on the meters and the undergeared PUG was outshining our fully geared out in Tier 11 enhancement shaman. Had our dps been pulling the numbers we needed them to we would have had Shannox down no questions asked. Many times we got him to 3% but then everyone started taking too much damage and the raid wiped or we were too slow on the dps and he hit enrange. At 3%.

Our officers, who coincidentally are our regular raiders, had an impromptu meeting after the raid to discuss the issue. Sadly the meeting didn't result in much except our low dpsers saying their dps was low "because we're melee and have to run around a lot." This kinda pissed me off because the main spec on my paladin is retribution and earlier in the day I had been pulling 14k dps without thinking about while running around like an idiot trying to heal the tank while do ranged dps in a ZG because the healer and dps kept dying. And I'm just as geared as the enhancement shaman. Hell my under geared enhancement shaman pulls the same dps as the other raider. Back to the issue at hand, being melee dps isn't a good excuse for low dps in a raid. I think I was so pissed off about the comment because I had been asked to heal for that raid due to the fact that we have too much melee dps and the only other melee with a heal offspec is the guild lead who pulls the trump card. And this issue has come up before--forcing one of the best dps in guild to go heals.

So last night a few of the officers were talking about the raid dps issue once again since our previous meeting had not produced anything other than excuses. We realized that our guild is in the EXACT same position it was in when Trial of the Crusader came out--our guild dps and overall player performance is lacking and Zeffra and Mohrrgun are not in the picture currently--and the guild needs a gimmick to re-invigorate it. (Zeff and Moh are two of the guild founders who happen to be the glue that holds us together.) And just like when TotC came out we decided that we are going to start running 25-man PUG raids on Saturdays that are not guild sponsored and thus we are not obliged to take under-performing guild members along with us. This also means that any PUG we bring in has to pull at least 15k dps or they will be kicked from group. Granted leading 25-man raids makes out main tank and primary raid leader go batty, but he was the one who suggested it. However, unlike TotC he's not running the 25-mans on his own. He has both myself and his co-raid lead to help with group formation and raid execution.

I will always hold out hope that our guild can regain the glory days of our 10-man Ulduar raid team that made our guild 9th on server for 10-man progression. Maybe this is what's needed. Maybe we need to stop walking on eggshells around guild members feelings and be straight up asses about the raid performance. Maybe we should just start our own new guild or go join another. But I don't want to leave a guild I have worked so hard to make a great place to play WoW that it is.

Heroic Mode: We Can Do it, Now What?

My guild is comfortably farming Blackwing Descent 5/6 and Bastion of Twilight 3/4 and a couple of us have actually killed Cho'gall and thus the guild can make attempts at Heroic Halfus. I was discussing the issue of heroic raid bosses with the guild's main tank last night. We both agree that the guild can do it, it's more a question of if we should and would the guild want to?

From what I can tell our guild members all want to down raids but their reasons for doing so are varied. Some people are concerned with the lack of raid drops they have been getting. Others want the achievement for the full raid before even attempting heroic modes. Still others just want guild members to show so we don't have to PUG. Personally, I would love to see our guild make attempts at heroic Halfus. I think we can do it and not to mention there's better loot associated with heroic modes.