Archive for the 'raid' Category

Durumu: The test of patience & the Maze of doom

Published July 22, 2013 raid , World Of Warcraft 1 Comment
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DurumuOur poor bones.

I like this fight because I hate it.  It has an intricate ‘dance’ and a purple maze of doom. It requires the whole raid to pay attention, and beam roles are randomised,  and with lingering gaze, life drain,  the delicate balances of movement, and action and reaction. No one every gets to stand still and just face roll.

I know it’s not even considered challenging content to most 10 man guilds now, and it’s even supposed to be farm for us because we have killed him a few times, and been working on extended lock outs for some of the bosses further on. But it is an intricate fight, and so I hate to love it,  whether I heal it or dps it and always hate to love it the most when we fail at it.

The maze though is what I find the most fascinating part of it in that it is a test of patience.   Once you understand the Purple lightening on the floor to indicate the side where it is safe from the disintegration beam  you are then balancing the urge to run too far past the cleared space against getting near to that beam that is edging closer and closer. The path is very random, and we get ‘good’ and
‘bad’ paths,  the good ones, are easy enough to follow,  don’t hug the boss too close, and create enough space to allow better for our lag. The bad paths are the ones that create very little space to shuffle round the Eyes bulbous body and great beam of destruction.  Its also one thing to watch where you going, but then another to then be dpsing or healing at the same time.  Beam, Floor, Health bars, need to watch them all.

We had a bad run of it tonight.  We were pugging two, and running one under-geared because some of our normal raid people couldn’t make it, and one of our healers had thought we wouldn’t get enough for raid, so cleared it with someone else.   😦 and we lost too many people to silly things,  add bad internet connections,  unexplained lag, and just general bad.

Of course LFR has  much better survivability and I will admit that in the very early days in LFR I would ball up in my dispersion and bounce around until I found the beginnings of the safe path. 10 man is much more organised and I know what I am doing now  ( most of the time )

Every time I am in the maze, even in LFR there is a voice in my head ( and sometimes in vent.. ) saying Wait..  Wait…  now move….. wait… wait…  now move.

 

I am a sad Chess piece

Published December 13, 2011 raid , World Of Warcraft 4 Comments
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I’ve been pretty lucky with the Raid Finder.  2 Pieces of Raid Finder Tier  – and luckily the most important two,  the helm, and Mantle.  ( the looks,  gotta have the looks)   I mogged a robe to try to match the colour schemes of the neck piece and I came pretty close using the Spirit Mend Robe.

Tonight, just after reset I scored the Raid Finder Seal of the Seven Signs +406 intell and 2573 Haste proc – which isn’t a bad for new loot.

I went on public record ( on Facebook to my friends) to say that I didn’t like the new Tier when it was first announced. I can’t deny it looks pretty cool  with it’s  harlequin eyes. However I cannot get away from thinking I look like a chess piece.  I could be a Bishop or the Queen, ( there is spikey crown) and I don’t look very happy, and nor do I feel very wow priest like. But it’s certainly very different and well designed.

I’ve been running LFR  ( and doing pretty well ) and all the new twilight dungeons as a healer.  I was disc  and then I went holy, as our Arena’s 3’s team has been split over realms and we haven’t quite decided who is changing to what toon where,  I haven’t needed my Disc Spec and have found holy healing in Raids much easier.  I can only liken it to the difference in shooting a gun on my hunter and shooting a bow.  The bow is smoother,  it flows,  it has a soft twang,  the Gun is very violent and forceful,  I find holy healing like shooting the bow,  it flows better I fill up your health bar,  instead of slapping a bandage over the wound to prevent extra damage while other people fill the health bar up.

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In other news.  I now have 2 85 hunters.  My Dwarf I’ve had for a little while,  but with the 4.3 changes,  funnily enough my newest 85 ( my BE Hunter Desdemonia) is now my 2nd best geared 85. She had a bit of unexpected funding help from a reader a little while back ( thanks Glenn if your still reading)  which came in handy with the chanting and gemming of the new gear.

I had been avoiding raiding and even doing instances before 4.3 on my hunter(s).  So I had a little tweaking to do. ( like remember to remove cower, and to not use Kill command ) Because I had some other hunters in raid to compare to – look at what they were doing I made some changes and am pretty happy with my dps in LFR now 🙂

I had a warrior ask me for my tier token when the helm dropped.  I stuck around for the next boss,  unlike some people who win a tier token and leave group, and when he asked ” Did I mind if he grabbed that helm”  I said “Yes”  it was going to be my two set and that was pretty much the conversation.  I think he was the tank,  but he couldn’t even use the excuse that I was scrub and didn’t deserve it because I was doing good dps,  as in  – in the main pack,  pretty high on the list. (  though there does seem to be a bias between those who perform badly in LFR and lady luck -or it can seem that way sometimes)

It was ballsy of him to ask,  but I was going to take lady lucks boon, and run it ( or run away with it)

Yes LFR is charity, but I have experience,  I have loot,  I see bad’s and afker’s getting kicked, so the self-regulation seems to be working ok, and I have not seen one person unfairly booted. ( so far)

Autonomy – Mastery – Purpose

Published December 1, 2010 Guild , raid , World Of Warcraft 3 Comments
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If you haven’t seen this animation that made/is making the rounds  around the interwebs   RSA Animate – Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us  and if you want something to think about it’s worth the 10 min of your time. Dan Pink from the RSA  ( Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce)   gives a speech, and they have turned it into a very clever animation  about what motivates or drives us. The talk was aimed at more company’s, and employers – and basically that treating  people like donkeys by waving carrots in  front of their face is not how your going  to get results and good performance.

Note that this isn’t about fun,  it’s about engaging people the right way  for better results.

I am going to throw the idea out there – that  the people who participate. ( Not troll.  Participate)  in the / a community by contributing things on forums, blogs, boss guides, even if it’s a small community like your guilds,   that they are better players than the people who don’t. They have more understanding of the game,  do more, have better opportunities,  keep more up to date with whats going on, know where the best information sources are also more importantly share what they know and most  do it for free.

This is all relates back to  Autonomy – Mastery – and Purpose.

What does a video about motivation have to do with wow?  If you are reading this, then you already think things about the game beyond the screen in front or you.  Your already on the path of Mastery and a lot of you show that you have purpose too,  by your contributions.

As per the speech. Most bonus scheme philosophies,  in any business or activity is to reward  the top performers.  If you do better than anyone else you get paid or rewarded, but the study where students from MIT and replicated in rural india  participated in tasks found that  “Higher incentives led to worse performance” the moment the task stopped being simple.

Do you think paying a guild to play will make them perform better?

Wonder why things like guild supplied Enchants, Gems, Food and Flasks  – performance or kill bonuses,  effectively paying them to raid, won’t make your guild perform better? 

Good players already have sourced the things that will make them perform better.   To get a guild to perform better, Based on the idea of Autonomy – Mastery – and Purpose,  it could just be as simple as getting the guild involved more in the discussion of the raid,  where everyone feels important, and that they are contributing to the greater plan  – and are not just another dps, or heals, that they have voices and those voices matter.

Autonomy, Master and Purpose are

Autonomy –  the ability to self direct our own lives

Mastery – Getting better at what we do

Purpose  – making the world a better place, and feeling like you are making a contribution.

When I was working on Yogg I had a special dispel spec for that purpose.   I was doing most of the cleansing, and I was running out of mana, so I approached my Class leader,  told him my problem , and that I wanted to try this spec so I could do my job better.  He said fine,  and the results spoke for themeselves.

I was allowed the Autonomy to solve a problem, proved I could master it,  and then felt purposeful because I could see that I was being useful and helping contributing.

The Workforce wants engagement because engagement means better results, and you can apply this to a guild setting as well.

Raiding this week.

Published October 29, 2010 Guild , raid , Shadow Priest , World Of Warcraft 6 Comments

I cleared 10/12 ICC HM on my 2nd Priest ( Yes I have 2 ICC geared Priests)  she was  holy healing  with my old guild Wednesday night, I was doing ok, we had a mix of veterans and alts, and considering we two healed most heroics I felt somewhat proud that while at times it was scary, and OMG I am going to run out of mana,  I do not feel that I was at any point carried.   I logged back in last night so we could do H Sin, and some H LK attempts, and for the occasion,  I finally got duel specs for my 2nd priest. ( she was holy only )

I was fully expecting to pay the 1k duel spec cost,  So cringing at losing my 1k , much more precious since my main gold earner is off server – I asked the Priest trainer for training, and Oh..  It’s only 100 now – There is now NO excuse to not have duel specs.

I had done some disc healing before, but never on LK, and certainly never on H LK.   We didn’t do so well,  BUT!  we have high hopes for next week ( if I get invited)

It was very easy to slip back into the ” Oh I need to be home by *this* time because I said I would be available thursday night as well for the follow-up raid, and make sure washing was done, garbage was out, shopping done,   dinner was made, cat was fed, new light bulbs bought – all so I could be available to raid. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing, but I work full time, and while I don’t have any family responsibility I was really enjoying being able to say – ” Sure – let’s go have a drink ”  or go shopping or not log in, and not worry or fret that I was going to miss out on a raid.

I’m not pretending I have an exciting life –  and I’m certainly not doing as much as I was pre WOW,  and some of that is financial,  Eg expensive singing lessons v Mortgage payment.   Mortgage won,  but I got to see a few friends in the last few weeks that had been too difficult to arrange otherwise – trying to fit into each others lives is much easier when someone doesn’t have a 4 night a week standing committment ( Looks pointedly at myself)   and the last few weeks have been a  lot of fun.

On the other hand my scrub pugging attempts on my main, v an organised, run on an alt has taught me  that some people will never raid in such an organised environment, and will have missed out,  not just on content,  but also just being surrounded by dedicated , and competent people – and as much I really don’t want to do 4 night raiding a week  – um maybe only for a little while yet.  4 nights gets you places that pugs/casual will not.

In the scheme of things – what you miss out on by doing something 4 nights a week in real life is also a  cost, and I was kicked out of a musical bout 18 months back ( I shouldn’t be proud of that – but I missed a ‘compulsory’ musical rehearsal for a raid, – It worked out for the best as I was hating doing it. A Board game will never be the same for me.  

But it does interfere with RL – how much you let it interfere is completely up to you, and yes I have been accused of picking Warcrack over wanting to see someone.

For now my alt priest  is  a ‘friend’ in the guild – I haven’t committed myself as a raider, and nor are they promising me a spot, and my Main priest is my main for a reason, and I am enjoying  Pvping so much on her  right now, 

next weeks installment may be  – “I miss raiding  – I’m comming back” buuuut..  two days might be doable – need to pretend I have a semblence of another life…

Tank available for free. Just Pst me.

Published August 16, 2010 Gaming , MMORPG , raid 11 Comments
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“Hi – are you a tank?”

“yes” 

“Wanna run a dungeon?”

He was level 77 Mage, ( I was 78) I said yes.  I finished checking the AH on my  Tank, and had been planning on Queueing anyway.

“Invite” he says, but can you wait till I finish my Bg?”

“uh…  ok.”

Waiting..  Waiting…

5 min later.  ” You can queue now”

So we queue,  and I don’t get an insta queue.  Waiting on  a healer.  I suspect because   of this..

This is my understanding on how the LFG Queues are filled. So a tank gets an insta queue, and clears  Line 1,  Healer gets an insta queue and clears Line 2

I come along with one DPS – and I couldn’t fit into group 1 2 or 3,   so  my Party,  A Tank and a DPS  gets shuffled all the way down the bottom so we fit into a group together.

“Sorry, It doesn’t normally take this long” I apologise  after 5 min – like it’s MY fault the queue isn’t instant.  More like it’s his fault. ^^ see above.

“Going for a smoke” he says.    1 min later – Queue pops. I click it.  Waiting.. Waiting..   he is still not back  – We miss the Queue.

1 min later I am thinking WTF am doing this for a complete stranger who is wasting my time

“You have 30 secs” in party chat.

about 40 sec pass and I leave party.

” I’m back” he says, and reinvites me to party  ” I’ve just got to do something”

“Queue now, or I leave.”  I tell him

He queues,  and it pops in a about 2 min.

We do VH – no deaths/wipes   – ” Want to do another? – I need to do more”

‘No thankyou.” I say.

I blame the posts from  Klepsacovic from Troll Racials are Overpowered “Dear Blizzard, Please end our loneliness”  and Adam from The noisy Rogue’s  “I am a Social Leper”  that got me worried that I am not friendly enough, and that I should give random people who whisper me nicely  more attention, and maybe they are just trying to be nice,  and friendly,  and that they don’t want just to sell me gold, or hack my WOW account.

 I can do reasonable requests.

Not only  did he make me wait till he finished his BG. ( and complained that all Alliance are nubs) He then made me queue longer, then he goes for a smoke making us miss the queue we had already waited for, and then wants me to wait for him while he does something else.

I should have said no, but I was trying to be nice. . It could have been a wonderful experience, and I could have waxed lyrical about the benefits of running with random people.

It was about 16 min of my life wasted – for a stranger. No personal benefit. The only thing he learned about me was that  this was going to be my 5th 80 – and all I learnt was that he smoked, and cared enough about his PC/whatever to not do it at the computer.

I do not feel like I have connected with the human race  in any useful capacity

So what was the point?

I wonder how many people he went through looking for a willing tank.  Used to happen all the time in BC -” can you heal this..  can you run this for us.. ”

He didn’t ask in trade,  didn’t offer gold,  he just whispered random people  his request hoping for a bite.  He did it while in a BG too,  forward planning his convenience at the cost of others.

It’s  reasonable to ask someone to wait a couple of min,  but you  should do what you need to do first  before inconveniencing people,and not make people wait for you when your the one doing your own thing. I am not at your beck and call.

People wonder why people are so un-helpful. It’s partly why I don’t respond to LF enchanters anymore.  No one is bloody organised enough before they ask for people to do what they want.

So if I am feeling nice next time, and it’s gonna take a while to   build my friendly bar up again. Like Taxi’s when you order them ask “Ready now?”

IF YOU SAY NO – I shall say no too.

More MANA!

Published August 15, 2010 Guild , raid , World Of Warcraft 6 Comments
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Another boring post about replenishment

I paid particular attention to my Vting and MBing on Hal Trash  ( not much good on Hal himself..  I got meleed  going into the portal on p2.  Guess I clicked too fast.)  but except one or two MB’s I know with absolute certainty I was Mbing with VT.

We had three sources of replenishment in raid, and I thought that replenishment would override existing replenishments  and that all replenishments were created equal, so I was surprised when I started taking SS of who was getting my buff using my Dot timer.  ( it’s not normally in the mid of my screen

Only 3 people got it  – but it proc’d and the whole raid was in range.

9 people this time

4 people

So is it supposed to proc on 10 toons/pets at the same time but it’s not.

So is  pally replenishment better than mine?  I know they do it more often but I started ssing because it was procing as what ever amount was on that list of people.  It wasn’t procing 10 and then 7 people falling off  within 1 sec.  People weren’t at 100% mana either,

“I can’t… mum’s cooking a lamb roast.”

Published June 23, 2010 Gaming , raid , World Of Warcraft 10 Comments
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Michael Grays Ready check: How to make that vital member show up made me think about when the idea  of  when a committment to people on the interwebs became as important as a committment to people in my real life,  and  how easily I can be manipulated when it comes to wow commitments. There are some things I don’t say no to that I should.

The main point I got from the  article was  about getting that vital person to turn up to your raids, and basically applying social pressure, via guilt trips and ego stroking to make them. ” We need you..  stroke The raid can’t go ahead without you ” stroke

In a progression guild environment,  if you needed to apply this type of pressure on any of your essential people,  then your already in trouble – guilds work because  there is an automatic assumption of commitment as per your agreed raiding times,  you turn up – you get purples – progression  – prestige – what ever the aim.  Most non casual guilds  have attendance requirements. If you don’t meet them, then you will miss out on things and get replaced.

How to make a raid member show up, is worth a read,  but I am going to assume that it’s written partially tongue in cheek.  You should not have to manipulate someone into a commitment.  In game.  In real life.

One point of the article that disturbs me a little in it’s use for exerting social pressure  is the part of Michael’s article  “Trade some contact information” It’s no longer just posting  on a forum saying your late – not available.  It’s having your personal email address,  Mobile number, Home number made available to people who will try to peer pressure you into being available for what they want you to be.  Of course it’s still your choice to share this information.

I can tell you the exact moment when my Wow/Real Life commitment priority switch got confused for the 1st time.  I was sitting in a dodgy Irish Pub In Sydney on a weekend drinking beer with friends,  and getting anxious that I might be missing out on  late night bit of raiding they were trying to squeeze in outside of normal raiding times. Having to be anti social and email from my phone the raid leader telling them,  that I would not likely make it home in time, and that I was sorry.  Looking at my friend laughing at me when I explained what I was doing.

That was by email,  not so bad.

But imagine getting a call from someone.  ”  The Raid will be called if you don’t turn up”   How does that make you feel?  Even the coldest of hearts has to be thinking.  “If  I’m not there – 9 other people have had their time wasted. ”

This is my list of what I consider to be the methods of communicating social/peer  pressure with the most  affective at the top, based on methods to make it difficult to  ignore social pressure  ( so yeah if you really want me to do something you better be asking me face to face.)

1) face to face
2) Phone call / vent
3) text message
4) Whisper In game
5) email
6) forum post

There are people I have shared personal contact information with,  while it can have it’s uses I probably have been somewhat pressured to  be available by my ability to be contacted .  (  I am not talking about you.  Yes I know that’s what your thinking.)

With the implementation of real ID – hiding on an alt will be difficult and I’m undecided as to if I want to use it because of its additional way it makes me contactable.

I know your playing, and you are in…    Why are you ignoring me?

I don’t have a secret alt  I hide on,  but I know some people who do – or only share it with some people.

Like most social media trends it will depend on if my friends use it – and whats it’s used for.  So I will wait  – am happy to be a sheep rather than a trend setter.   I am interested in its potential,  and eagerly await the scandals that I am sure will appear in trade channel and forums, and will be interesting to see if it will be used to exert peer pressure/social pressure

That’s Noooo how you eat Porridge – umm Heal Dreamwalker

Published June 21, 2010 raid , World Of Warcraft 13 Comments
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Yes I had Porridge for breakfast & this comes from an ad for porridge where a little kid would declare ”  that’s noooo how you eat porridge” in an adorable Scottish accent.” so it’s kind of a catch phrase for you’re doing it wrong.

I have been in the portals once before in Dreamwalker on an achievement attempt as an offspec healer.  Pop green bubbles. Don’t lose your stacks – Heal the big green dragon.

incoming delivery of Cake.

You can do eeet!

I have been healing a 25 Gdkp ICC on my Healing Priest, and a 10 Icc  regularly for a few weeks now.  I usually get out going in the portals by asking for a ‘pro’ portal person. Stroking other peoples ego.  Of course everyone thinks they are pro – so I normally get to stay out.  Not this time. Icc 10.

“Ok the Two priests go in.” 

Oh crap.

I knew what to do in theory – and I was doing fine. ” Hey ma!  Look at me ” ( yes It’s corny catch phrase monday)  I would come up under the bubble and strafe up a little to pop it.  Was getting awesome stackage.   The advise I got was that lag means that sometimes you can not pop it – and I made sure my stacks didn’t drop

“Why isn’t Dreamwalker up yet?”

Heal Heal Heal Heal Heal.

Wipe.

Other priest mumbles something about losing focus or something and losing stacks.

We try again.

Wipe.

“Urhhhhhhh ” I say to the other priest who was holy for this fight .  “Why are you using “Prayer of Healing?” ( Heals all party members)  We are supposed to be healing Dream walker.  I was doing twice his healing on Dreamwalker as target.

“I don’t know – this is just how I do things –  I’m not doing too bad..   I’m not far off the other healer ( me)

“Um – but you’re not healing the dragon  – and a small discussion happens over why he isn’t flash flash flash greater healing instead. So after I clarified his understanding on serendipity – and the target we were healing.  I had to add – Could you also stick up renew on Her as well.  I noticed you didn’t cast it or a greater heal  it at all last fight.

I was telling another healer to suck eggs, and I hate that.  Even because now I am still not sure my way of doing it was the most effective. Renew up all the time. Reapply with new stacks. Flash Flash Flash Greater Heal.   Guardian Spirit where appropriate –  depending on if there is another Holy priest in raid and if her debuff is off),  I’ve seen it done before, so I have had lots of theory to work with. I also stuck a Divine Hymn in  because I noticed it was hitting Dream more than my raid as long as they weren’t taking damage.

I was doing Twice his healing,

I eventually convinced him over to my point of view.   I had to do this on vent,  and I also had to convince him with numbers – eg  the party heal your casting is only hitting a single target for….   yet if you used greaterheal with the your 3 stacks of serendipity  you will heal …    base amount.   Stick renew up as soon as you can out of the portal blah..  I was fully expecting him to blow up at me about doing it his way  

We did it my way – ( mostly.  7 ticks of  Renew on his part >< ) Dream walker:  ” I am renewed!”

Give him his due – whether it was because I was keeping my voice calm and reasonable, and not insulting his healing , and appealing to common sence,  he seemed to take the feedback ok. 

I find it difficult to instruct other people – especially strangers  – of which I have no idea how they will take it, on something I don’t feel confident about.  Even if I have numbers to show that what ever I was doing was working. 

Stuff I’ve been reading since puts priests in their best place outside the portals yet we sent the two in as holy  ( he was disc for some fights) and kept the Shammy outside,   It certainly was doable.   Would have been even better if he had put renew up! 

As for the rest of the raid.

We got Sin down  two shot, which is not bad for a  pug.  We would have had H Marrow if the mage hadn’t have been on the phone( ><  x 2)  On our way to boat. ” Oh Hai guys my dps should improve now that I am off the phone – like I have been the last 1/2 hour”

Several attempts at the LK – with the ‘best tank on the servers dps alt”  Yes that is how he was sold to us as a replacement when one of our dps had to go raid 25’s.  Best tank refused to get on vent because of his tendency to scream at fails apparently.   In vent ( where the  best tank was not)  I was told by his friend  not to mention that I disagreed with his self-declared title of  best tank on the server. Cause I know one that’s better.

But yes we failed.  Defile. Running into orbs, disease not coming off quick enough. Shammy cleansing totems bouncing the disease – only half the raid had seen the LK before, but we were getting better.  We are probably locking it out, and spending next week working on him in the 10’s group.

Healing ICC is SO much easier than dpsing.  Can I just say that.

Random Reserve – Compensation for the GDKP Raid Leader.

Published June 18, 2010 Gaming , MMORPG , raid 4 Comments
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On Horde side on my realm in GDKP’s  I have been told it’s not uncommon for there to be a loot rule of at least one random Reserve.  or 1RR.  This means that  at any time during the run,  the Raid leader & Organiser of the GDKP can say when a piece of loot drops ” Mine! – that’s my random reserve.”

Other are more specific – if” *blah* drops  It’s mine,  or I reserve one BOE .  Someone – probably a Horde to Alliance transfer tried to reserve two BOE’s in their GDKP ad the other week.  They were laughed out of trade chat.   At least they were being upfront about their loot rules though. Those sorts of loot rules do not sit well on Alliance side.

  Most GDKP’s go ahead without reward given to the raid leader.   Other rewards are subtle, and not declared.  The Goodie bag that was saved to the end of the run is forgotten about – the Primordials aren’t included as part of the auctions –  sometimes it’s not their intent  to forget, or the amount the primal might go for may not be consequential so it doesnt matter.   I worked out that was how one frequent GDKP leader was making so many of the ICC patterns and then selling them cheaper then the AH – he was keeping the primordials

Is it fair?

A GDKP is still mostly a Pug run.  We have at least one sponsored one on our side where last week the share each was 14.5 k gold.  It has a waiting list. Most however  you still need to sit in trade at the right time,  hope another one isn’t forming at the same time,  juggle your class and role needs,  screen the potential peoples,  balance your carrys and non carrys. Control bidding and looting and gold while in the run,  run the raid,  handle drama.  Know strats.  That’s not easy to do at the best of times.

A Guild master / Raid leader does it for free in their guild  – but that’s a guild – why shouldn’t an organiser of a GDKP get compensated for their efforts?

unfortunately that is a reason for a lot of ninjas. -Their feelings of entitlement override what is ‘fair’.    Fair – is making the rules upfront – and sticking to them.  That way I get an informed choice.

When looking for a  GDKP – a loot rule like 1RR would influence my decision to join.   If the organiser  – say does not have Deaths Verdict  – and it’s good for his class – and he declares  “1RR”  then if I was after that same loot item –  it means the opportunity to bid on that is gone for a week.

Reserving of much wanted items is also bad for the Pot.  Heroic DFO’s in the earlier days was going for 45k gold  – thats 1.8k gold each in the pot off one bid.  Boe’s always sell well in GDKP’s because of their resale value on the auction house.

What sort of compensation should they get?

I find it unfair that we would pay 1k for someone to unlock heroic mode once for lootship – yet the person who ran it – gets nothing but the pleasure of 24 other peoples company and the equal chance to bids. Maybe some of the carrys are their friends. 

However besides  a cut of the pot – the primordials – patterns, a choice of loot, or a BOE  – how do you be fair to the leader without being at least a little unfair – or depriving the remaining 24?

I would prefer that they get no reward = more things/gold for me,  but I don’t believe that it’s entirely ‘fair’ but it’s certainly a preference of mine.  No Funky loot rules.

What would I be ok with? – what’s ‘fair’ ?

Firstly.  I would need to be informed of these rules before I started.  Then I would weigh it up.

I might be ok with say a 1k payment.  40 gold each from the pot for a decent ICC run. Eg now 10/12 bosses.

Keeping the patterns from TOC/TOGC

One BOE

 That about covers it what I would be willing to give up to be involved in a GDKP.  I’m sure  a lot of people wouldn’t even agree to those.  But I think they are reasonable. If that was my only choice.

Raid Safe List

Published June 16, 2010 Gaming , Guild , MMORPG , raid , World Of Warcraft 10 Comments
Tags: , ,

Matryoshka Nesting Ninjas Via Thinkgeek.com

Blackrock has its own Raid Safe list,  with names, and screenshots of known ninjas  at Straferight.com

“The people in this list are proven to steal or scam players out of items. Grouping, trading or any other type of interaction with them may result in being scammed. “

It’s a blacklist of sorts with guilds, and players, of known ninja’s – with a strict rule of  – must have screenshot evidence.  It seems mainly aimed at Horde Side,  because it seems to be more of a problem on that side of the fence,  but there are a few Alliance in there as well .  I can’t find however, the names of at least two people I was aware were confirmed ninja’s alliance side recently.

List is here and is 121 pages long to date of names,  screenshots, posts,

It’s moderated,  and as the moderators says

 ” I  have removed many people from the list. I update and research it often. Shit happens and sometimes people get shit mixed up. I am a realist.”

and as for its accuracy – and should you rely on  the information?

 “I know the time and effort it takes to keep a list accurate……  it is up to you to trust the link and to trust the content”

It’s quite a collection -a history of people who really do go out of their way to make things ‘unfair’  Keyword though is Scam.  They have scammed other players,  and that is what Blizzard does not like.

How useful is the information?

While using my google fu,  I found someone who app’d to a Alliance guild and the first response from the guild was the link to the post at straferight  which included multiple screenshots of that person ninjaing  something.  He was not accepted to that guild.

I also found reading back through the thread  someone who was implicated as being a ninja or being stupid for rolling on an item because the poster didn’t think it was an upgrade. The accused/implicated  had to defend themselves for gear choices,  and his explanation seems reasonable  – maybe this is the type of post that gets moderated eventually, especially when the posters link to image is broken.

It seems to be the most comprehensively organised list available.  It’s not defamation if it’s true,  and for the most  – the cases put forwarded are backed by screenshots.  Some realm forums try and keep a list,  but most end up degrading into mush.

I could keep a  separate list of people I have pugged with / raided with that have annoyed me and publish them here – they would become googleable.  My posts get google indexed, and I have a google rank of sorts – so if I named someone, and you google the right words, in theory you will find them here, which I why I do not want to post such things here   It’s one persons experience – mine-  even if they are true, , and unless someone is moderating me  and they have the opportunity to share their side. It wouldn’t seem fair.

*Disclaimer*I did name one person in an incident – and included screenshots which showed me telling him to read the blog – never heard from him, but he continued to be bad for other reasons, and got called out on the  realm forums,  so that google rank beats mine hands down. Still it was bad of me.

 I’ve been in some pugs that have made me angry – frustrated, but honestly without a permanent record of those I feel have ‘wronged’ me in some way  I’m going to forget your name in 2 weeks,  maybe 3  and I want to keep it that way.

I don’t want to feel obligated to check  a list, be it mine,  or somewhere on the web incase they are a bad. It would destroy the game a little for me each time I did.  I’ve never been ninja’d. ( Touch wood) –  but the choices I have made that turned out to be no so-good choices,   had signs that it wasn’t going to end well – but I went on the raid anyway. Weigh up the rewards v risk.   Set your standards, and for the sake of your stress levels. Keep them.

One thing I will offer advise on is,   read trade chat – people who ninja get talked about.  People who are idiots often trade spam stupid things.  Think upon it as your local gossip rag.   It’s good to keep your ear to the ground. 

I think a ninja list can be a dangerous thing – and I know by posting this – opening it up to discussion I am bringing it more attention.   I do think though it has it’s uses, as long as it’s moderated by people who do not have bias and the blackrock list seems to be done fairly. 

 If the behaviour – personality of a player is as easily discovered by a google search, or a report,  I am sure guilds would love to do that for all their apps.  I wrote a post some time ago “ How to use Warcraft Realms to investigate a Guild application”  as an example of armory crawlers that are already out there.

Even now,  any guild forum indexed by google becomes  a potential information source on players.   It’s amazing how easy it is to find guild applications, forum posts by, and to by any player name.  A raid safe list just makes it easier.

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