Hasta la vista, Turkey!

Hasta la vista, Turkey?

Oh yes, another part of the Pilgrim's Bounty meta-achievement...fun, yes. Frustrating...also yes.

The Turkinator...

Here's the goal:

Hunt enough Wild Turkeys quickly enough to gain Turkey Triumph.

Seems easy enough. Right? Well, here's how this works...as soon as you kill your first Wild Turkey, you get a buff called Turkey Tracker. This buff lasts for 30 seconds. When you kill your next turkey, the buff refreshes. You have to kill 1 turkey every 29 seconds or less in order to keep the buff going and until you've racked up 40 kills.

At increments of 10 kills you get a new "buff":
10 Turkeys = Turkey Hunter
20 Turkeys = Turkey Domination
30 Turkeys = Turkey Slaughter
40 Turkeys = Turkey Triumph
(Ok that might not be the correct order but...you get the point). I used this as kind of a benchmark to see where I was at without having to stare continuously at the buff.

Your best bet is to create a spammable macro. Something like...

/target Wild Turkey
/cleartarget [dead]
/script if GetRaidTargetIndex("target")==nil then
SetRaidTargetIcon("target",8) end
/cast Moonfire

The bad news is that you must be in a group and be party leader (or be Assist in a raid group) in order to create the Raid Icons. Also, I found Skull to be rather difficult to see. I'd recommend that you use Diamond or Square, something that stands out a little better from the terrain.

Now, you run around spamming that macro and killing your turkeys. Don't be afraid to mount in between kills. With the macro above, you'll be targeting turkeys whether they're in range or not. You'll need to turn until you see the raid icon and get to the turkey before your buff wears off. For me, travel form was usually fast enough, but if the turkey was pretty far away, I mounted and ran to it just to make sure I got there before the buff wore off.

I did get the achievement last night...but until after nearly 2 hours of frustration. This particular achievement is really, really easy. Turkeys have 2 hit points. They're not level 83 mobs that you can miss. If you are in range, you're pretty much guaranteed to kill it if you hit it. So, where's the frustration coming from?

Ganking.

I had gotten to 32 kills, and a paladin wandered over, saw me running toward a turkey and killed it. I wouldn't have even missed a stride if it weren't for the fact that he targeted my character then /point and /laugh. Oh really now? I dashed off toward another turkey but arrived there a split second too late and lost my buff.

The inter-faction ganking is really sad. The jokes on the paladin that tried to mess with me though. I made his "achievement-getting" a little more...oh...let's say...exciting...last night. He had taken my kill 3 times and pointed and laughed. That's three times I got above 30 Turkeys and was soooo close and he messed with me. An eye for an eye, sir...an eye for an eye. In the "spirit" of the holiday, I made sure that he hadn't gotten his achievement yet, and then when he started working on it, I repaid the "favor". I got my 40 kills and followed him for a few moments..."helping" him get his kills. Gotta love ranged spells, eh?

Evil? Yes. Justified? Totally.

Actually, this achievement is frustrating enough without any griefing from any person of any faction...I had gotten to about 28 kills and was racing to get in range of the next turkey and lost my buff JUST as Moonfire hit, so I had to start over. Grrrrr!

The moral of the story though, is that if you're patient enough and can make your macro work for you, this isn't out of reach. It's totally doable, and actually it's a little fun.

Best tips? Try to do it outside of peak hours for your server (read: late at night or at the crack of dawn). Be patient and be prepared to work on this one for a little while. There are a bunch of useful macros and ROUTE MAPS (Alliance and Horde) on Wowhead.com - so definitely check those out if you're getting ready to give this a go. It also helps to drink a half a bottle of wine before you get started on this ... hehe

Pilgrimage

Pilgrim's Bounty has begun! What's cool about this holiday event is that you can get all but one of the achievements out of the way on the very first day.

Yesterday, I started working on it. It's pretty travel-intensive, requiring you to travel back and forth to each of your faction capitals a few times. Of course, I didn't plot the course in advance to be most efficient about this...so it took me a bit. I was also too stubborn to bring a mage friend along for the ride. A mage could be your best tool while doing these quests and the dailies. (If you manage to convince a mage to do this, be nice enough to buy him a stack of Runes of Teleportation, or at least tip him generously for his troubles.)

Within maybe an hour to an hour and a half, I had completed:
Food Fight!
Now We're Cookin'
Pilgrim's Paunch
Pilgrim's Progress
Sharing is Caring
Terokkar Turkey Time
Pilgrim's Peril

For Pilgrim's Peril, I have to say Undercity was the only one that required me to actually enter a horde city. They weren't making it easy, either. They had hunter's stationed near the tables with pets on aggressive, mages doing Arcane Explosion...No, they weren't killing you right off...but you can't take your seat if you're in combat. So maybe their pet raptor wasn't killing you, but it had you locked in combat so that you couldn't take a seat.

Fun. Luckily, I ended up finding a few Allies outside of the gates of Undercity that needed the achievement. We grouped up and kept running back until everyone had gotten it. Those of us that got it on the first run, we tried to distract the horde so our fellow allies could get their achieves. Once we all got to take our seat, we rezzed and got the hell outta there!

For you Hordies who haven't done it yet: Darnassus will, by far, be the tough one. I watched hordies come sit with us, unflagged, outside of Ironforge, Stormwind and The Exodar. But Darnassus, as I'm sure some of you already know, is a nightmare to get to. You have to get onto one of the boats in Auberdine (prompting the sentinels there to attack you).

Once you've done that, you'll need to survive the boat ride, make it past more Sentinels and then find your way to the far side of Darnassus, just outside of the gates leading to Dolanaar...Seems like hordies were running around the very outter edge of the city to avoid the huntress that patrols. I don't know. I did enjoy a little world PvP doing this.

But I digress...

Let's talk about the two that I didn't finish...

First, "The Turkinator"

It's totally and absolutely possible to do this on the first day if you're willing to tolerate a LOT of competition and frustration. All you have to do is find wild turkeys and slay them. You need to kill 40 within a "certain time frame".

Here's the nitty gritty: After you kill a few turkeys, you get a "turkey tracker" buff. No, it doesn't help you find them better...but it DOES allow you to see how many kills you have. As long as that buff stays up, your kills count toward the achievement. If you lose the buff, I think it makes you start over. I'm not sure. This is a brand new holiday achievement and I haven't had much time to do research. So far, I've found Elwynn Forest to have the most turkeys for the amount of area you'll have to cover to kill them all. They roam ALL over Elwynn. You can start on one of the far corners, with very little competition and work your way around. Unfortunately, on the first day of the holiday, this just wasn't going to happen for me. There were far too many people wandering about. So...I skipped this one.

And now..."Turkey Lurkey".

This one is not possible on the first day. In order to do this achievement, you need to obtain "Turkey Shooters". These are rewarded from the Pilgrim's Bounty Dailies available at the capital Cities. You need at least 8 turkey shooters. There are 5 dailies.

It's not possible the first day. I, personally, chose to get my Pilgrim's Robe and hat (and I got the shoes because I wasn't paying attention on my first turn-in...grrr), so that I could do the other achievements and get them out of the way. Now, all I have to do is my dailies for today and tomorrow, kill a bunch of turkeys, and shoot a bunch of rogues and I'll be done.

I am SO looking forward to using the Turkey Shooter on rogues. Rogues are the bane of my existence and the sole reason I rarely, if ever, pvp. Karma, dear rogues...Remember all of those times you left me stun-locked and unable to defend myself? Maybe you don't, but I sure do. I'm going to enjoy every single moment of this. Suffer well, rogues!

Mission: Kalimdor

Mission: Kalimdor
Status: COMPLETED!

I'll just let the screenshot speak for itself...

Video Break!

A Quick Thank You

Dear Amazing Friend,

Thank you!!!

With Great Love,

Des


No, I haven't gotten my Loremaster Title yet. But thanks to a really good friend, I'm now at 675/700 in Kalimdor. That's without even starting Eastern Kingdoms. So, why am I singing praise of The Mighty Mage? Well, for any of you who have experienced the zone, Silithus is a nightmare. For those of you who have not yet experienced the never-ending hell of Silithus...I wish you a lot of luck and hope you, too, have a good friend willing to come help you maintain some semblance of sanity as you grind through it.

Yes.

Grind.

You see, Silithus isn't like most other zones. Sure, Silithus has a few run-of-the-mill quests.

Like this:
1. Pick up quest.
2. Kill bugs until you get the brain.
3. Collect 3 Silithid Brains.
4. Return to Questgiver.
5. Watch your tracker bar move up one more toward your Loremaster yumminess!

That would be a normal quest.

However, Silithus also likes to throw in quests that require either a lot of amazing luck, require you to cram lucky charms and rabbits feet up your butt, or a WHOLE lot of grinding.

Take THIS group of quests for example...

1. Secret Communications: Bring 10 Encrypted Twilight Texts to Bor Wildmane in Cenarion Hold.
- This quest requires you to go out and kill Twilight Cultists until 10 of these Encrypted Twilight texts drop for you (or you can purchase them off the AH, but why leave the zone?) So you kill and kill and kill...after you've wiped out an ENTIRE COLONY of Twilight Cultists...you might have finally gotten your texts and can turn it in. Yes, the FIRST turn-in for this quest counts. Subsequent Turn-ins with the repeatable quest "Encrypted Twilight Texts" do NOT count.

2. Abyssal Contacts, Abyssal Scepter, Abyssal Signet, A Humble Offering, Dukes of the Council...
- I'm grouping these together because, well they all require you to grind the same thing: Twilight Cultists. You'll be looking for Twilight Trappings. This "Trappings" set consists of a Twilight Cultist Mantle, Twilight Cultist Robe, and Twilight Cultist Cowl. These items share a 6% drop rate. Yeah, and you are going to cry when you do some math to figure out how many you actually NEED...

You're looking at needing to grind out nearly 60 Trappings sets in order to complete all of the quests that involve the Cultists. At 6% drop rate...it's eternal. My math could also be very wrong. Bear with me - I did spend the evening in Silithus again last night, after all. My mind is a little fried.

It's completely doable, but like I said when grinding out the Guardian of Cenarius title...it is SO much nicer if you can bring a friend. Luckily, I have one friend that must love me more than anything else on the planet.

He was questing on his druid when I cried on his shoulder about not being able to get the Mantles to drop, and thus, would never be able to finish this stupid Loremaster thing...and I told him I was going to give up on it. It just wasn't worth it.

But, being the great friend he is (and one that I think ENJOYS watching me suffer and struggle a little, despite what he says), he switched over to his mage and arrived at my side in Silithus to help me get the accursed mantles to drop so I could FINALLY leave that zone.

Either he really adores me...

...or he really hates listening to me whine...

Maybe both...

At any rate, it took us a few hours worth of grinding, but by the gods we managed to get the drops needed together and turn everything in. I quite literally almost cried. I had been stuck in Silithus for 3 nights prior to this, praying for drops and grinding out these Twilight Trappings...and with his help it went so much quicker. Not only that, but he sang the FUN song to me...(for those of you not familiar with it, I'll post a video below for you hehe)

Things are so much easier to do with a friend by your side. So, Thank you again, Mighty, for saving my day again and refusing to allow me to give up! You're my hero!

Also...I might add, that after doing these quests I received a quest from Silithus that allowed me to leave that bug-hole and go to Moonglade for a much needed change of scenery. Lo and behold, friends, the quest I picked up from Rabine Saturna sends me back to Silithus.

I almost didn't pick the quest up for that reason alone. But, soon enough I'll be able to escape that zone and never have to face it again if I don't want to. And I owe it all to The Mighty Mage.

Current Progress:

Loremaster of Kalimdor: 675/700
Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms: 367/700

Terror of Terokkar: Complete
To Hellfire and Back: Complete
Mysteries of the Marsh: Complete
Nagrand Slam: 72/75
On the Blade's Edge: 11/86
Into the Nether: 113/120
Shadow of the Betrayer: 20/90

Nothing Boring About Borean: Complete
I've Toured the Fjord: Complete
Might of Dragonblight: Complete
Into the Basin: Complete
The Empire of Zul'Drak: 63/100
The Summit of Storm Peaks: 64/100
Fo' Grizzle My Shizzle: 1/85
Icecrown: The Final Goal: 11/140

The Seeker: 2348/3000

Well, it's easy to see I've got my work cut out for me. Eastern Kingdoms, from what I hear is going to be quite a bit easier than Kalimdor. I'd like to think I've conquered the hardest part of the journey so far, and that the rest will go a bit quicker. But even if it doesn't...I've now endured the hell that is grinding in Silithus twice now...I can't imagine there's anything worse out there.

Oh, and here's that video...Enjoy! (And thanks again MD *hugs!*)

Masochism at its Finest

The title most assuredly describes what it's like to work on the Loremaster achievement. I started working on it for awhile Friday and have been working on it since. What a grind! I've heard through a great many people that, at least for the Alliance, Kalimdor is definitely the harder of the two Old World continents to knock out. Well, I started at 444/700 for Kalimdor on Friday and ended last night at 595/700. 105 more quests to go.

So, that's not that many, right? I mean 105 out of 700? Should be easy, right?

Well, yes, except that all I really have left is one zone I didn't quest in much at all, and the rest are zones I know I've quested through.

I've learned a few things, both through researching the achievement and through actually working on it.

1. It doesn't matter where the quest starts, it will count toward the total number of quests for the zone you COMPLETE it in. So, if you have a quest-giver in Darkshore that asks you to collect 2,000 Thresher Eyes and deliver them to some chubby dwarf in Ironforge- then that particular quest will count toward your Eastern Kingdoms total.

2. Repeatable, class, and profession quests don't count. Right. It would be pretty nice if they did, but alas...dear friends...they don't appear to count so far.

3. "Track Low Level Quests", Cartographer, and Questhelper are your friends! If you don't have the two add-ons...GO. GET. THEM. Best advice I can give. Also, many of these "loremaster achievement addons" don't really seem to do much other than to track the quests you complete, and tell you whether or not the quest you're on will count toward your achievement. That seems like a waste of memory space to me. I've bypassed them so far.

4. Learn to love (and live on) WoWhead. Wowhead has this nifty feature, where, if you look up a zone, you can have it show your faction's quest givers on the map. Totally beneficial! I found two quests in Feralas that I didn't do on my previous run through the zone with this feature. Two quests might not be much NOW, but suppose I find 2-3 quests in each zone that I had missed? Yeah, it'll add up.

I won't deny that I'm pretty excited. I've done 151 quests in the matter of a few days and nearly finished off one entire continent. I might take a break from Kalimdor and start on Eastern Kingdoms though.

Since some of the quests that start in Eastern Kingdoms will ultimately lead me back to Kalimdor to count for that zone anyway, it might be nice to change gears for a little while. One could hope, right?

I'll keep updating as I make the journey through this Loremaster thing. And you know, read the quest texts. That's what Loremaster is all about. The stories are actually really cool, and it gives you something to think about while you're battling the ridiculously low drop rates of the old world quests =)

Onyxia 101: "Yes, you're tanking."

Tuesday night, immediately after I logged in, Om whispered me to ask if I was willing to heal their Onyxia run. "It's only 10 man, it will be easy," he says.

Oooh...easy...yeah I'm sure. I'd been pulled into maybe 3 or so other groups and it was just intense failure after intense failures. Tanks never could seem to pick up the whelps fast enough, the lair guardians were being tanked by healers...and that godawful deep breath from Onyxia...Every other attempt I'd been involved with turned quickly from a happy raid group into a writhing nightmare...Needless to say, I was a little hesitant.

We had a little trouble finding a tank, so I offered to switch and explained that my guildie could also heal if he was willing to bring him. Thankfully he said yes and off we went!

We logged into their vent server after being promised that their strategy was a no fail strategy (unless, of course, odd things happened during the encounter...). We listened to their strategy, buffed up, and got ready to go.

Well, the first, second, and third attempts ended shortly after phase 2 began. If you're not familiar with the Onyxia fight...here's how it works.

~Phase 1~
~ Tank picks up Onyxia and runs her to the wall straight behind where she is resting at the beginning of the encounter. Just avoid the tail and her frontal attacks and life is good.

~Phase 2~
~ Onyxia takes off into the air once you bring her down to a certain % of health. This phase probably requires the most coordination for the group. She lifts off into the air and you have waves of whelps spawning, Lair Guardians spawning, AND her deep breath to avoid. It's not hard, but raid members really need to be paying attention and aware of their surroundings. Usually the groups focus on killing off the adds and ranged will work on bringing Ony down to 40%.

~Phase 3~
~ At 40% health, Onyxia will land again. A tank has to pick her up and take her back to where she was initially being tanked. This is the Fear Phase. Every few seconds she'll do Bellowing Roar (or some such thing) which is a fear. It's probably a really good idea to have a shaman in the group to drop a tremor totem for this phase, but I'd imagine Fear Ward might help also.

Now that you know how the fight works, you can see a little more easily why the pug groups struggled so hard on Phase 2. At any rate, this group wasn't getting much farther. After our 3rd wipe, we lost and replaced one member. We pulled in one of the paladins from my guild (Again, thank you for inviting him Om!) and gave it another go.

There was something very different about this attempt. When the whelps spawned, the dps wasn't pulling aggro on them and getting splattered at the beginning of phase 2.

Actually, the only person that died during this fourth attempt was one of the hunters because I was sloppy in picking up Onyxia and didn't turn her fast enough to save him from her cleave. I'm really sorry about that, sir.
Well, we got her down.

I think the absolute best part about it was learning a new strategy so that I can lead my own guild against her. Now I can't wait until next week!

Guardian of Cenarius

Yes. I did. Saturday afternoon, while my husband and daughter were taking a nap I decided to grind my way to exalted with Cenarion Expedition. Rather than going out to Northrend and compete for Lackey Ears, I decided I'd just use Steamvault for rep.

Steamvault, at least for me, was the most efficient way to grind out the rep. First of all, there's no competition for kills. Regular Steamvault is almost hilariously easy to solo as a bear. Actually, heroic Steamvault was fairly easy to solo as well. The only boss that gave me any trouble at all was Thespia. I'm thinking it's because she uses less physical attacks and more magic...but I digress.

At any rate, the rep gains were:

Regular:
Non-Elite Trash: 2 CE rep per kill
Elite Trash (Naga, Tidal Surgers, Wrekt Slaves): 12 CE Rep per kill
Bog Overlord: 24 CE rep per kill
Bosses (Hydromancer Thespia, Mekgineer Steamrigger, Warlord Kalithresh): 120 Rep

On Heroic:
Non-Elite trash: 5 rep
Elite Trash: 15 Rep
Bog Overlords: 30 Rep
Bosses: 130 Rep

Well, I think that's what the rep gains were. After about the 15th time running it, my mind started to go numb and I didn't think about keeping track of rep gains until after I had finished. I will re-run them both and edit the post with the correct rep numbers.

At any rate, I did earn a few achievements doing this:













I figured I'd snag my Cenarion War Hippogryph as a reward for FINALLY grinding the rep with them. The Cenarion Hippogryph is really, really cool, by the way. If you don't have one, you should get one :) I'll post more screenies when I get a chance. For now, it's back to the real world :(

CSI: Azeroth

Just...wow...I didn't create this. Found it while messing around on YouTube and a few of us got a giggle out of it, so I thought I'd share. Credit goes to the creators who reside on BloodHoof.

Cenarion Circles

Alright, so I started a new project Wednesday night. I decided I wanted to get my Guardian of Cenarius title. It's pretty fitting, considering I'm a druid. That, and I like nifty titles that not many people are masochistic enough to grind out for themselves. Wednesday night, I started the grind at around 5100/6000 Friendly and ended at 1030/12000 Honored.

That's a few hundred Twilight Cultist kills, if you're wondering.

I had planned ahead for the grind. I knew the kills would grant reputation with Cenarion Circle until at least Revered. So, I purchased about 220 Encrypted Twilight texts, knowing that if I just killed cultists for rep until I hit revered, I would need 420 texts total to just turn in to get from 0/21000-Revered to Exalted.

I assumed I'd be able to get the remaining 200 or so from kills.

Anyway...I was happily kill grinding when another Ally came over to do the same. A human DK. I asked him to please group with me, as I was only here for the rep and would give him whatever drops he wanted except for the texts. Surprisingly, he agreed. The kill grind goes a LOT faster with more than one person. That's for sure. We were there for nearly an hour together before he decided he'd had enough and was going to log.

I couldn't blame him.

It's a really, really, agonizingly long grind. Agonizingly....long....grind....

Anyway, I kept on with my grinding. I felt bad for missing our guild's 10 man Naxx run, but...I had a good reason for just toughing out the rep grind. I know for a fact, if I would have left the zone, I probably wouldn't have come back to finish it. Ever. And I really want this title...so...I passed on the raid and stuck with my monotonous grind. (To my guild: I'm sorry. I promise I'll make it up to you.)

I was there all night. Toward the end of the evening, close to 10pm Server time...one of my guildies decided to join me with his mage. Again, the kill grind started to move along a lot faster. As it turns out, he was just over 8500/21000 Revered with Cenarion Circle as well.

Oh, you bet. We were both running this marathon to the bitter end. After another hour or so of kill grinding- I told him we should go turn in the texts, since I was reasonably sure I'd be able to hit exalted and have some texts to spare for him to do the same.

I hit exalted with 70 texts to spare and traded them to him. He was about 60 texts short of exalted, so I switched to my DK, ran to the Auction House and bought a stack of 57 of the texts. Expensive, but the least I could do to repay him for coming out and helping me get through it.

We both hit Exalted. It...was...awesome!

Now to grind out Cenarion Expedition rep. I'm currently at 2154/21000, which is a metric furkton closer than I was with Cenarion Circle. I mean, I started at Friendly with the Circle. I'm starting off on Revered with the Expedition.

I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to grind the rep just yet. I've heard a few different ideas. One would be farming Lackey Ears in Northrend. The other is to farm Steamvault for armaments and kill rep. Considering I haven't soloed Steamvault yet, I'm probably going to give that a try, just to see how it goes. It should be kinda fun :)

Lord knows I'll try and solo just about anything. If Mar is interested in running together, it'll make the instance so much quicker and easy to get through. Makes the time investment for rep more valuable than struggling with it alone for hours at a time, right?

Anyway, after making a million Cenarion Circles worth of kills, I'm a very happy druid today. I'm an exalted Cenarion Circler. Now...to make it up to the guild...

Halfway! I'm halfway to my new title: Destinae: Guardian of Cenarius! WEWT!

After I posted this image, I realized that I'm going to be getting two achievements at the same time! 20 Exalted Reputations AND my new title! That's SO AWESOME!!!!

Guild Update

I know, I know. I haven't posted in awhile. I've been busy...ish. There's just been a lot going on. Balz brought home two kittens...and they're a full time job right now. Plus caring for my daughter, my dog, my guild, work...friends...I've been a busy girl.

I'm starting to feel a little like Felicia Day after she was given the "honor" of guild leader by Vork. This is a reference to The Guild. If you've never checked it out, you should. I love the show, personally. At any rate, things with the guild are going both awesome and terrible at the same time. We're definitely raiding more, but we just don't have the participation we need in order to even fill up a 10 man run. That puts 25 man runs in a really hard to reach place for us. We tend to pick up people to fill in the slots that we need filled for all of our runs. I've been trying to recruit, but it's going very slowly. There are only three of us in the guild that have been actively recruiting. I'm not saying that the rest of the guild members are less valuable because they're not recruiting. I'm saying we'd be hammering out 25 man content a LOT more easily if everyone was on board and recruiting and participating.

Recruiting is going slowly. Too slowly, really, but there's a lot to consider. Currently, our guild seems to lack a solid identity. We're sort of a raiding guild, but more of a casual guild. I think if we had more "raid" people, we'd eventually become a raiding guild and slide slightly farther from the more casual thing. *groan* I guess I really need to figure out what exactly this guild is before we start really recruiting heavily.

Also, we need to find a way to calm some of the current storms in the guild before we bring new people in. Lately, things have been very tense between our "raiding core" people, the super casual raid participants, and the non-participants. We've had a few explosions recently. I totally understand why. Our raiding "core", aka the people who participate in EVERY raid the guild does are getting a little worn out. We don't have a participation requirement. Our "Core" is the group of people who've realized that they are the foundation of our guild's ability to raid. They participate willingly, for the most part, but they also feel like it's their duty to show up and help carry the group

But, like I said...things are going awesome, too. My Paper Towel Priest's hunter is already level 79, which is very exciting! We have some other members that are very close to level 80. Hopefully, we can get them geared and interested in raiding. Also, we've managed to clear some bosses in Ulduar. We're getting ready to maybe try some Trial of the Crusader soon. I hope...I don't really know...who knows?

So, all in all things are going alright I guess. We've lost a few people, but they weren't really active participants in the whole scope of things anyway. I mean, I don't like losing people. Especially Ragno. I really liked having him with us. But I understand that people need to find a guild that's the right fit for them and aligns with their goals and needs as far as the game goes. Hopefully we get things moving in a more positive and relaxing direction soon.

Progress Report

I'm not going to lie. I am a tired druid right now.

Very tired.

You know though, it's a good tired. Last week, I promoted a new officer to help get our guild more active. I don't think I could have made a better choice! Bel has been an absolute blessing! He's somehow managed to get a few more guildies interested in raiding with us and has really gotten our guild active. He's been amazing. I'm eternally grateful for the hard work he's put in this week alone. He's just what our guild needed. He actually wore me out with raiding this weekend! IT WAS AWESOME! *cheers!*

Let's see...Previously, I had been denied my Naxx25 achievements because of stupid Thaddius. I'd never seen the final 2 bosses on 25-man. Last Friday, he grabbed the bull by the horns and MADE it happen!

Not only that, but we finally started our Ulduar progression. It's posted on our guild site but:

Ulduar 10
Flame Leviathan
2009/10/10
Razorscale
2009/10/10
XT-002 Deconstructor
2009/10/10
Kologarn
2009/10/10
Auriaya
2009/10/10
Ignis the Furnace Master
2009/10/11

Yeah...check that out! Our guild really owes Bel like thank you letters and flowers, and a new car...whatever he wants...

See, here's the thing. After weeks and weeks of trying unsuccessfully to bring our crew together to start raiding...I had completely given up. I was ready to leave the guild and move on. I'd even promised a tauren that I'd convert my druid to horde and server transfer to come hang out with him, especially since their guild raided so much. He's the one that planted that idea in my head, but at the same time he offered a lot of advice on how to get people motivated. His first suggestion? HIRE SOME DAMN OFFICERS ALREADY! The one man guild administration was failing miserably and we were all pretty frustrated. I had lost all hope. This weekend really helped to revive my spirit...

I mean, we not only destroyed Naxx25 Friday Night, but we started our Ulduar progression. After we called it quits on Ulduar (not enough frost resist gear lol), we moved back into Naxx10 for a gearing/learning run. Well, Naxx10 was a little rough Saturday night. We chalked it up to being tired from Ulduar and called it a night after one quarter.

Yesterday, we went in to try Hodir again. Who knew that trying to stay by the fire while avoiding other random damage was so hard? I was pretty tired though. Maybe this week we can try again and I'll "get it". We've come so far...even if we don't beat Hodir for another month it won't matter.

I'm the happiest guild leader ever! Not only do I have Bel as my right hand man, but our guild actually participated in a lot of activity together this weekend. I'm really impressed with the performance, perseverance, and participation of my guild crew this week. Beautiful, beautiful job guys! *wipes away a tear of joy* Thank you for renewing my hope in our little family!

Another, stranger update: I was asked by one of our guild pvp people if I'd go onto his 3v3 team. I think I might like to, but I don't want to drag his team down. I don't have any pvp gear so far...I pretty much hate battlegrounds...but, I'm thinking maybe if we go into some battlegrounds together, I can learn more and maybe grind out some honor for the pvp gear I need in order to participate. I really wish I knew SOMETHING about arena...it terrifies me. So, Dara, we'll schedule our first skirmish soon...but you probably need to teach me more about pvp 'cuz...yeah I'm fail at it. lol

He's really gotten my husband into PvPing, and they're possibly working on an arena team together also. I'm getting ready to create a PvP officer Rank. I just...need time to get that taken care of. It'll be nice to have a PvP officer, but I hope he's ready for a challenge. It's hard to develop a solid core of PvP players in a PvE oriented guild. We'll see how that all works out...

Hope you're ready for a bumpy ride, Dar...I'm clueless on PvP lol

The Winds of Change

What a week it's been! I've been a busy, busy bear.

See, things in our guild got sour after yet another failed Naxx25 run. Yes, I know. All the "good" guilds are past Naxx25. I know this. But we're a very new guild on our server, only a few months old, and we were trying to get through Naxx25 in order to snag a few pieces of gear for our members and get them prepared for Ulduar.

Last weekend's raid didn't go that well. I ended the weekend in tears of frustration. My husband was the Guild Master, but he's not around much lately because of work schedule changes, so the weight of the world was left on my shoulders. I adore the two officers we started off with, but we needed more "cooks in the kitchen". One person can't be responsible for ensuring good conduct, getting folks geared, scheduling raids and trying to live a real life on top of that. Given the workload I'm facing at work, I just didn't have the will left to schedule raids and fail at them anymore. I'd given up.

I vented to a really amazing friend about it, declaring that I was just "done". I didn't want to be on the server anymore. I no longer wished to be the one-bear driving force behind our entire guild's activity. I didn't want to prep for raids and have my own guild members ditch anymore. I was just...DONE.

After talking with him at great length, he somehow revived the RAWR in me. He gave me a lot of priceless advice on how to get things moving in a better direction. My husband, who was also quite frustrated at how stagnant things had gotten, was open to my suggestions.

But...

He didn't know that he could really follow through on all of my requests for this change and that, so...

He gave me the guild last night. I'm now the Guild Leader for our guild. O.O Wtf have I gotten myself into?!

I spent the evening rearranging our guild ranks, reassigning permissions, and trying to figure out where to start. The High Council. That's where I started. Okay, well, it wasn't a HUGE start, but I promoted one of our guild members to the High Council.

Instantly, he scheduled a Naxx10 Gear/Badge/Learning/Morale Boosting run. I damned nearly cried tears of joy! FINALLY! Someone else willing to step in and get some momentum building with our crew! If I could have hugged him through the internet, I absolutely would have! Thank you Bel!

The winds of change have stirred up a little bit of uncertainty within our guild. Guys, relax. We're not going to become omgwtfhardkore...

Change is good. I sincerely hope that my guild embraces what we're trying to do here.

Also, I owe an immense amount of gratitude to a great friend for the tough love, advice, inspiration, encouraging words, and the revived spirit to change things. *hug* Thank you, sir.

I also owe thanks to my fellow druids for their gentle guidance and words of encouragement during some of the rougher times, and also for their help and advice and gentle push to get things turned around. *hugs you all* Thank you, guys.

Hangin' with my Hordies

Uh, yeah, the Horde is "HARDCORE!!!" SO hardcore, in fact, that this guy here actually posed for a photo-op with me. We played leap-frog, too. I made sure to omit his name to prevent the inevitable flaming he'd get from fellow Hordies. "zomg u had fun with teh enemee? omgwtfbbqsawce"

Server - Faction Transfer, please.

Yes, it's another rant. Well, not a rant so much as...I don't know what I'm doing. Just...bear with me, k?

Let me first say this: In general, I like my server, my guildies and my friends on this server. For the most part, it's just good in Dessieland. Then there are moments where, well, I just don't even know why I log in.

Issue #1: Leaving the guild because we don't "run with you enough".

Admittedly, with me, the squeaky wheels get my attention. If you ask me to run with you, I go with you. If you ask me for help, and I'm capable of helping, I help. If you don't tell me you want to run heroics with me, then how am I supposed to know you're interested?

Hmm? I'm a bear, not a mind-reader. Hell, as a tree I might be full of magical abilities to keep stuff alive- but still...I'm not a mind-reader. I didn't bother talenting into that because I didn't realize it was a necessary skill to have.

While I completely understand that people need to find guilds that suit their needs, goals, and personalities...I don't understand the ones that leave because we "weren't helpful enough" or don't run enough heroics for them...

Wait a sec...put on the breaks! We don't run enough heroics? I have all of my Emblem of Conquest gear, plus over 120 extra Emblems to spend on other things. I also have enough Emblems of Triumph for my healing AND tanking shoulders. I officially have enough Stone Keepers Shards to BUY Wintergrasp...

We don't run enough heroics? ORLY...

Have "cliques" formed in the guild? Sure. But do you know why cliques form in the guild? It's simple really. Going back to the whole mind-reader thing...If you don't speak up, we assume you don't want to run. If we ask in guild chat to try to put together a heroic group, and you don't reply to us, we assume you don't want to run. Ninja-invites are bad, mmkay?

/g "Hey Guys, would anyone run some heroics with us?"

So simple. And we're back at my first point. Guildies aren't generally mind-readers. If you want to grind heroics, you have to let us know. If you want us to help, you need only ask. So, generally, we won't randomly invite you unless we know you want to go...

I'm reasonably sure that goes for most guilds out there.

So, now I'm going to be on the lookout for the mind-reading trainer...but anyway...

Issue #2: Fairness

Without getting into great detail- I missed some chat from a friend who I had previously asked to run Brewfest Boss with me (Kodo plzkthxbai). After asking him to go, I realized my bags were full of old gear I don't need anymore. My bank was also full. Ugh...so I spent some time sorting through it. I was pretty much consumed in what I was doing. It's interesting the things we just toss in the bank and forget about. At any rate...I happened to look up a few times and see questions in guild chat- so I responded. I missed a few guild chat questions. It happens. The apparent issue is that I missed this friend's chat to me, and he noticed that I was answering a few things here or there in guild chat...so...He called me out on it.

Maybe I'm a bad Guild leader because I don't have the presence of mind to stare at my chat screen to ensure I am answering every single question/request/etc. This might be a shocker, but, GL's like to enjoy the game too. We don't log in under the assumption that we're expected to stare at our screen and be enslaved to every and all requests. We're aware that we're expected to help more and be more willing to help than maybe others. But we deserve to enjoy our game too...So I fail if I'm expected to stare at my chat screen all night long and not do anything else...

The accusation was that I was ignoring him. *sigh* Really? I scrolled up and was just about to apologize for missing his tells when the whole thing got blown WELL out of proportion...Well, I figured...may as well keep on ignoring him now because we can all see this is just going to be an argument, and a stupid one at that.

Fail.

Ignoring someone who's already mad at you because they think you were ignoring them makes them angrier, evidently.

And so it began...the ranting at me about how I treat him unfairly...a rant that included...*GASP*...the F-Bomb.

Drama...

Let's not consider that I might NOT be ignoring you. Let's not consider that I might be DOING something and happened to catch the guild chat completely by accident after closing my bank vault. No, no, no! Let's IMMEDIATELY jump to the conclusion that I'm blowing you off. Let's stress out the bear over absolute nonsense...

Here, let me lay out some simple math for you, jerk.

Des+Drama+Being Cussed At=Enrage

Des+Enrage=DOOM!

Duh...try thinking before you go off at the mouth. You'd be amazed at what a little self-control can do...

That whole server or faction transfer thing is becoming more and more enticing lately...If it weren't for some true and amazing friends on my server, I'd have taken off last night for sure. Who needs to be sworn at over a stupid game? Seriously now...grow up, k?

Ready for the real kicker? My bags and my bank are STILL full of the same crap as they were yesterday- on account of I was disgusted with the entire evening and gave up on the whole inventory cleansing I had started...So, not only did I get aggravated beyond belief, but I also didn't get my junk sorted out. Grrrrr....

Huntard FTL

BY THE WAY...I found this while searching for things to take my mind off of general frustrations:

Huntards

In essence, a huntard is a Hunter who does not know how to play his class well. While slang to describe badly-played classes is common, hunters have this stigma above all others.

Various reasons seem to exist to explain this. The class has an intuitive battle strategy, easily dumps aggro (more than likely onto the healer when in a group) and allows flexibility with weapons while also fighting long range. Huntards are especially disliked in low-level PuGs, where mismanaged growl-enabled pets can cause annoying and expensive wipes (versus the pet-using, squishier, and presumably more careful Warlock). Hunters also excel at solo PvE, compared to more group-oriented players like healers or tanks, and don't necessarily have grouping experience even at higher levels.

Huntards are also infamous for rolling Need on items and equipment not considered true upgrades, if not outright ill-suited to their class, usually under the excuse of being used as "Statsticks". One example of this is a hunter rolling need a 1-handed melee dps weapon and claiming, "It will help me get out of tight places." In addition, huntards are prone to frequent melee combat, something normally only done in emergencies. This not only puts their safety at risk and diminishes their damage output, but can lead to unnecessary competition in group loot rolls with other classes like rogues and shamans. They are notorious for being self-centered and egomaniacal, never taking the blame for a wipe. They have tricked themselves into believing that they are the core of the group, but unfortunately often control its failure.

Interestingly, many huntard traits have also become associated with Death Knights, leading to such terms as Death Knoobs and Dunce Knights.

Yep. I have my very own Death Knoob/Dunce Knight...and haven't we all met our fair share of huntards? Very awesome article. THANK YOU WOWWIKI!!!

I Promised Myself I Wouldn't...

Promised myself I wouldn't turn this blog into a QQfest, but...Bears and Trees get frustrated sometimes. We need to vent just like the rest of the world.

What do I need to vent about? Guild stuff, raiding...you know...that junk.

Sometimes I wonder why I agreed to the Co-Guild Leader job. Now, first let me say that I adore almost all of my guild members. ADORE them! There's really only two right now that I'm sad with. And no, not angry. Frustrated. Very, very frustrated.

I'm guessing people don't really care or understand what goes into my job. As much as I adore my husband and almighty Guild Master, he gets the glory of calling this guild his while I end stare at this list of duties:

-Stimulate Guild Conversations
-Get to know guild members individually
-Try to schedule raids when most people are able and willing to come
-Try to figure out how to get the shy folks involved
-Try to figure out how to get members geared quickly
-Try to make sure everyone enjoys our guild
-Try to keep the website updated
-Approve Guild Applications
-Enforce Code of Conduct
-Maul my officers for not enforcing the Code of Conduct when I need a break
-Try to make sure we raid "enough" but not too much
-Try to keep the guild drama free
-Be available to help guild members with whatever they need help with
-Be available and able to answer questions
-Try to find decent guides that will help people gear up, learn fights, etc.
-Try to keep up guild morale
-Try not to maul random guild members when I'm having "a day"
-Continue to try to learn about each individual class and spec so that I can assist members who aren't druids with class/gear/spec questions
-Try to promote Guild togetherness and team-work
-Other random duties as assigned by Balz The Guild Master

I'm sure the list could be cut down a bit, but there are more individual duties I have to try to do that I can't even remember off the top of my head. It's tiring. Oh, and somewhere while I'm thinking of ways to accomplish all of this, I have to try and figure out how I'm supposed to enjoy the game.

What I'm trying to say is...I'm doing the best I can.

Give me a break sometimes.

Don't whisper-spam me with nonsense. I don't have the time or patience for unnecessary drama.

If I schedule a raid you don't want to go to, then just decline the invitation. Don't rant about it in guild chat and proclaim yourself to be "better" than the guild so you're going to run off and do something "better" than what we've got planned. Know why you shouldn't do that? Because...

When you do that...I have to try and respond to our other members who are now concerned with the things you just said in guild chat, while I'm being mauled by some random heroic boss...while I'm explaining, I lose agro and some poor, innocent warlock loses his life. Yeah. The poor innocent warlock dies all because you started drama in guild chat.

Poor warlock. *In quiet contemplation, Dest mourns the death of Warlock.*

Know why else you shouldn't do it? Des+Enrage=DOOM. 'Nuff said...

There's a reason we're still smashing our faces against early progression content, and that's because we, as a guild, want and need to become better together. If you're not on board, I don't need you to go off in guild chat about it. Just decline the invitation and be quiet about it. Seriously.

Now that I've ranted about things...let me just applaud all of my fellow guild leaders and officers out there. Keep fighting the good fight, friends!

Thanks for letting me vent. I feel better. Guess I just needed another good cry.

Lubs,
Brewmaster Des

Drunken Bear

I'm sure by now, you're well aware that Brewfest is going on. Get involved! It's the one holiday where Blizz encourages Humans, Gnomes, Elves and Draenei of all ages to get SHMASHED! (I didn't include dwarves because the assumption is that they're always drunk anyway...YAY ALLIANCE!)

Make sure you go out and experience EVERYTHING this holiday has to offer.

Things to do during Brewfest:
- Complete your Brewfest Achievement and become "Brewmaster ______"

- Get your toon smashed.

- Get your toon smashed and go for a fly.
* We all know that getting your toon drunk and trying to ride your ground mount is a wild ride. Make sure you try out the flying though. Definitely fun.

- Get your toon so smashed, they spew green goo.
* Make sure you're standing with a group of friends and be sure to spin in place while spewing the goo. After all, You don't want anyone's shoes to feel left out.

- Run at least one heroic or raid while completely smashed. Make sure to bring extra "booze" along. You don't want to sober up in the middle of Onyxia's deep breath, trust me.

- Get smashed, and tell someone you are "saved" to such and such an instance, even if they don't ask. Do this in guild chat. Trust me, the conversations that will be generated from this are worthy of screen-shotting and putting in your scrapbook. People will love to hear that you are "shaved...hic!"

- Make sure to whisper random people and congratulate them on their holiday achievements if you're in the vicinity and see it. On second thought, just whisper random people during this holiday. It is, after all, a drinking holiday. This sort of thing is to be expected.

- Find a resto druid and /hug them. There's no real reason for this, we just really like hugs. =) Come to think of it, Bears like hugs too, so go for it.

Most of all, have a little fun. After all, it's nice to take a break from the daily grind and enjoy two weeks of binge drinking and random acts of hilarity. This is, by far, one of my favorite holiday events because it promotes a happy, jovial feeling overall. Yes, we still got camped by some horde outside of Blackrock Depths while trying to get to the Brewfest Boss...but for the most part, people are busy having fun. Enjoy yourself =)

I'll be waiting for my /hugs, and I better get LOADS of them. I'll stay in bear or tree form as much as possible so I'm easy to find. =) Thanks for reading! Enjoy your holiday!

Des's Raid Dos and Don'ts v 1.0

I know, I know. It's been a long time since my last post (like exactly a month...sheesh...I'm a bad druid =( sorry guys). It's been pure chaos at work and by the time I get home, the last thing I think of is posting. I'm a bad druid. Chain me to a wall and spank me, please? (wink wink- lol)

Alright, well, I suppose a good update is in order.

First, let me start with a list of things NOT to do in a raid with Des.

1. Do not, under any circumstances, bring a train set to the raid. If you do have one in your inventory, keep it there.

*The reasons*
- It's irritating.
- It's distracting.
- It's irritating.
- It's annoying.
- It's irritating.
- It's childish.
- Did I mention it's irritating? I did? Good. Because it is.

*Des?*

Obviously, if we're all in a jovial mood and you drop a train set for haha's at some point in the raid, that's cool. I don't mind. But to drop the damn thing EVERY time it's off cooldown, even during fights (even boss fights)...well now you're treading into a danger zone. Des has her own enrage timer and has been known to one-shot obnoxious train-set officianados who obnoxiously choose to play with this toy in the midst of a raid. Use them at your own risk.

2. Do not, under ANY circumstances, play with your juggling torches while we are battling a boss.

*The reasons*
- It is obnoxious.
- It "spams" people's chat windows, and sometimes much needed boss-fight communications are MISSED because of it.
- You should be doing your JOB in the raid, not messing around. We didn't bring you for entertainment and we don't need the dead weight. Do your job or get the hell out of my raid.

*Des?*

Let me first ask you, the reader, have you ever thought it to be a good idea to do such a thing? Yeah, I didn't think so. Unfortunately, someone in my raid DID think this was acceptable. On PATCHWERK no less. *sighs and shakes her head* Listen, if you want to stand on the highest peak in Northrend and toss your juggling torches until you giggle yourself into a fit, go for it. But on a boss with an enrage timer...don't. Again, I refer to Des's enrage timer. If you've already gotten yourself into the danger zone with the train set, you're only going to hasten your inevitable demise. We don't bring you because we like your cologne. We bring you into the raid because we need the dps slot filled. If you're going to be tossing your torches during a boss fight, Des will deem you absolutely useless not to mention completely moronic, and you know what? Screw the enrage timer. You're doomed. If the raid WIPES because of your idiotic and childish behavior, not only are you going to be doomed, but Des will rez you and kill you over and over again.

3. Don't play with juggling torches in between fights when your raid leader is trying to explain a fight in raid chat for folks who haven't been there before.

*The reasons*
- It is obnoxious.
- It "spams" people's chat windows, and sometimes much needed boss-fight communications are MISSED because of it.

*Des?*

Listen, not everyone has been to all of these raids and not everyone cares to hop on vent. If we're all huddled in a corner getting ready to take on a boss and you're standing their like a twit-face, spamming everyone's chat windows with your stupid juggling torches....bad things are going to happen to you. Des is approaching enraged status. Stuff the torches up your nose (haha what? you thought I was going to say ass huh?) and stop preventing people from learning what they need to do. Again, if the group wipes because of your idiotic behavior...Doom, Rez, Doom Again, Rez, Doom again...I think you get the picture.

4. When Des asks you politely to stop doing something, stop doing it the first time you're asked. The next time Des asks, it won't be so nice.

*The Reasons*
- If I need to list a reason for WHY you need to stop being annoying when Des asks you to stop being annoying...then you shouldn't even be ALLOWED to have an account. You're obviously too immature.

*Des?*

I always try to ask nicely the first time. If I have to ask a second time, chances are it's going to be unpleasant. If I have to ask a third time for you to stop whatever offending action you're obsessed with doing that's obviously quite irritating, chances are REALLY good that it will be REALLY unpleasant...or you'll have hit Des's enrage timer and your doom has arrived. Either way, I don't care if you pay your $30 a month (I'll explain in a little bit here, bear with me), if you're ruining the raid experience for even ONE other person, then you need to stop. If you want to act like a 4 year old and play with toys, find a group that also likes to play with toys while engaging bosses. Des and her beloved raid members, do NOT. We ALSO pay our monthly fee and are entitled to an idiot-free raid experience. Now, wiping is fine. If we're learning content or struggling a bit with a boss. No problems there. But to do irritating things over and over, even after being asked to stop...that ruins it for us. Go play with the other toddlers and GTFO of my raid please.

5. Do not EVER, NEVER EVER, pretend that you are the raid leader and "call" the raid for the evening when you aren't, in fact, the raid leader.

*Des's Reasons*
- It's rude.
- It upsets the raid members.
- It's obnoxious.

If you want to leave our raid, go. Say so in raid chat or vent and go. We'll replace you. It's up to our raid leaders or the group as a WHOLE to determine when we've had "enough fun" for the evening.

6. For the love of everything holy, DO NOT WHINE that the raid isn't "fun" for you because you aren't being allowed to act like a nit-wit!!!

*Um, Des?*

I think we've covered a lot of ground here. Don't drive the raid group insane with torches and train sets. Check. If you're asked to stop, just stop. Check. Don't interrupt vital raid communication with idiotic nonsense. Checkaroo! Don't pretend you're the raid leader and upset the raid by saying we're "calling it". Yup. But this last one...*growls menacingly*

Let me explain...

Des is a patient and loving bear...tree...druid thing. Des adores her guildies. She loves them dearly. Des also has a husband who wants to provide these most cherished guild members the ability to see raid content in a relaxed and stress-free environment, as friends. Now, maybe some folks are geared past Naxxramas-10. We wanted to take a few new folks in to let them experience it. And this is where the story begins...

Once upon a time, on Durotan-US....yeah...I'm not even going to get into the "We invited...and summoned...we fought..." Raids are raids.

But, what I WILL tell you is that after the first quarter we did, our warlock needed to leave. So, we talked to our guild to see if anyone was interested in filling the slot. My mom was supposed to come, but apparently this WKnight whispered her and begged for her slot. She willingly gave it up to him. Don't ask me, because I don't know why. So, WKnight gets invited and summoned. Great fun.

Take a quick look, again, at the list of Des's Raid Gripes above. Wknight committed all of the above offenses. IN ONE QUARTER OF NAXX!!!

Yeah, I promised this wasn't going to be a slanderfest, but for the love of Grob...how are you seriously going to come into a raid and do all of that? He was invited just before we took on Maexxna and we prepared to enter The Construct Quarter.

First of all, the train set issue was instant. He was asked to please not do it again as soon as he dropped it the first time. I wasn't even the one who asked him. So...

You can't really call me a mean druid yet. When it came to the torches...I have a screen shot of it...him juggling torches on Patchwerk. YUP! included in this post for you to stare at in disbelief, just like I did when my officer emailed it to me. *shakes head in disbelief* We were 11 seconds away from the 10 Man Achievement [Make Quick Werk Of Him], so HAD he been DPSing, we might have actually been successful...but I digress.

The whining started when, after alt-tabbing to look at this screen shot, I whispered him and advised that if he was not there to dps, then he would be dismissed from the raid and we would bring someone who actually wanted to raid. Then, our raid chat began to look like this...

[Raid] Wknight: this raid ain't fun. y'all r too tense
[Raid] Wknight: yall r 2 srs this raid sucks
[Raid] Des: Um, leave then.
[Raid] Wknight: why cant u guys have fun and relax?
[Raid] Wknight: srsly
[Raid] Wknight: too tense in here
[Raid] Otherraider: Dude, just leave if you don't want to be here.
Wknight whispers: u all r too tense. this raid isn't any fun!
To [Wknight ]: leave. We've been having fun so far, up until your antics.
Wknight whispers: whats with your high and mighty attitude? ur too tense des. tryin to have fun
To [Wknight ]: Like I said, we were having fun. Just stop with the nonsense. We're not too serious, but we ARE trying to enjoy our raid...and you're killing it.
[Raid] Wknight: Sry guys, we're gonna call it for tonight. im gettin tired so we'll finish 2morrow
[Raid] BalzTheEnforcer: Yeah, no. We're not calling it. If you're so tired, hearth.

He hearths.

WKnight has left the raid. Phew...

But here is where the story starts to transform into something more tragic and annoying. I didn't believe it could get more annoying, but it did. Yeah, I know...

Apparently, Wknight whispers my husband and complains that the raid wasn't fun, and he pays his $30 a month, so he deserves to have fun and play how HE wants to play. My husband explained that, yes, to some degree he does deserve to do what he wants in game, but that in a raid situation, it isn't all about ONE member of that raid. There are 9 other people who also...wait...$30 a month??? Wtf? Anyway, there are 9 OTHER people who also deserve to enjoy themselves, and that his antics were ruining it for everyone else. This we know to be true, because we had both been receiving complaints from other raid members about him, the things he was doing, the things he was saying, etc.

Wknight continued to maintain that HE was wronged by us ruining his experience. After quite a lengthy conversation, This message appears in guild chat...

Wknight has been removed from the guild by BalzTheEnforcer.

To this DAY, Balzy won't tell me what went down in their conversation, but I can only imagine what was said, since I was having a similar argument with the kid for the duration of the raid. I will say that if this Wknight was removed from the guild, he must have REALLY gone too far. Balz is infinitely patient. He just ...doesn't...get upset over things, especially in game.

Now, there are plenty of other reasons he had been removed from the guild. Talking disrespectfully to the Guild Master was the final breaking point that got him booted.

After the same conversation regarding HIS needs being paramount to all others, I ended up placing him promptly on my ignore list.

Folks, listen...We don't pay to play this game to deal with middle-school drama. We log in to relax and get our minds off of things. Maybe maul a few bosses...get some sweet new gear...There are lots of reasons people play. Putting up with childish nonsense, idiotic behavior and needless drama is NOT one of the reasons I log in.

In all seriousness, I'm about the last person to go off and tear people apart over drama. But, given the large number of people that he had upset over the course of just a few weeks, and other members saying they were considering leaving to get away from him...

I mean, I don't like upsetting people and I surely don't want to think that I've hurt anyone's feelings. But there comes a time where it's better to hurt them a little bit by refusing to build a bridge they've burned (yes, you should HEAR the rumors I'm being told about that he has allegedly started)...It's just sometimes better to refuse to build that bridge. Because you know, if you rebuild that bridge and something else happens...well...ENRAGETIMERDOOM!!!!

BTW- I doubt Ara will read this, but if he does...You are absolutely welcome to bring a train set to our next raid if you desire, sir, but you're doing so at your own risk. Remember...Des...Enrage Timer...DOOM!

lol eye heart my guildies =D

Screenshot or it didn't happen!

Wow...it's been awhile...

It's been a long while since my last post. To briefly explain- things have been hectic at work and I haven't had the time to really post here. I "seem" to be caught up with things, at least momentarily, which is why I'm taking a little while to post here today. The other reason there's been a general lack of posting is because, well...I have allowed myself to get burnt out again. My fault. I have recently been taking time off from the game and am slowly easing back into it. It's really hard to want to play when things just aren't "fun".

I'm not going to sit here and whine about it, but I will say that I had tried to plan "fun" events for the guild. Fail. Seems like people don't enjoy doing fun, silly things in game. I imagine that was my mistake- for thinking that this game could be anything less than SRSBZNSSZOMFG. But, I tried to make things fun. No one wants fun...they want high pressure, drama, and better-than-you gear. *shrug* Whatever...

With all the RL stresses and recent in game stress, I've been fishing a lot. That's what I do when I'm upset/irritated. I go fishing. I get much needed "alone" time. I hide my chat screen and just relax. At any rate, that doesn't really afford TOO much opportunity for stupid things to happen.

Speaking of fishing, though...I got a pet from my very first outlands fishing daily! I got a Snarly! Cutest little crocolisk ever! Hell yeah! He was the highlight of my entire week...how sad is that?

I mean there have been a few things that have happened this month that have been a little funny.

The new 5 man dungeon: Trial of the Champion. WOW! My first time in there, I was healing and we just got OWNED on the first set of bosses. I mean, instantly owned. We ended up getting the rogue (undead), warrior (orc) and hunter (troll). We got destroyed. Between poisons everywhere and the friggin Mortal Strike...it was ugly. VERY ugly. I did quite a bit of research on the strategies for that entire instance and posted a pretty lengthy, but detailed guide on the guild website that no one uses. At least I learned something from the guide. Guess that's what counts.

Um, we had a Naxx25 noobism happen. We had gone through a big portion of the instance as a PuG without much issue. Do you know what dissolved the ENTIRE group? The slime room before Patchwerk. Yep. Go figure.

See, our Raid Leader had given us a 5 minute break to repair, go get drinks, eat, breathe- whatever we needed to do before continuing. When break time was over, we get our ready check, good to go- then we start plowing through the slimes. We get to the other side only to find out that 2 of our raid members had gone off to repair instead of coming through the slime with us. Not ONE warlock in the group...so we couldn't summon them. We tried to take on patchwerk without them- but failed. So, the raid leader posts in raid chat that we're going back for the others. Before we even get the chance- they start plowing through the slimes themselves and wiped half the raid. It was all downhill from there...eventually people began leaving the raid and that's where it ended. Joy.

Other than that, no real wild stories to tell. Hopefully I'll be back to post soon...once things settle down a little more.

3.2 Live?

It sure seems that way! There are soooooooo soooo many cool things for 3.2! Let's just hope this one is rolled out without any need for rolling restarts and extended maintenance due to bugs. GO BLIZZ!

I haven't been posting much lately. Here's why:

My husband recently started a new guild, and I'm Co-GM. You wouldn't THINK that helping to establish a guild would take so much time, but my GOLLY does it ever! So far, it's been one of the more time-consuming things I've taken on in the game.

Recruiting and answering questions, trying to get the website up and running...developing guild Fun Nights, trying to help out our new family of guild members and farming gold to fund our guild has pretty much consumed my free time.

Do I regret it?

Absolutely not! We're only 2 weeks old and already have begun to grow rapidly. We've actually gotten quite a few more members than I had even imagined we'd have by now! We have a lot of absolutely incredible people who have come in and are helping out so much! We've got some very generous guild members- and already have 4 guild tabs! 2 weeks old...4 guild tabs...that's AWESOME!

We have some really fun members. The conversations are normally a LOT of fun in guild chat! Everyone seems to be getting along really well.

I'd like to plan some more guild togetherness events, so we can get to know each other- and more importantly, so that I can get to know each of our members better. For me, that's really important. There are people behind those pixelated faces- and in most cases- really awesome people! You bet I'm going to make every attempt to get to know them!

So, for now, I will post whenever I get a free moment. Things will be slow here at LBT until we get established and I have a few more officers I can boss around....hehe kidding!

....or am I? I have two friends from RL in the guild with me that I tend to rely on for about everything right now...proofreading guild policies, suggesting fun events, helping to make sure everyone feels welcomed into our family, helping out folks with quests when I can't make it over to help out personally...yeah I tend to send them on an endless slew of errands.

But like the Wordy Warrior said, "Being an officer IS NOT A PERK!" So they're cool with it, and Draco keeps me grounded while gently encouraging me...Mighty tends to help more with the hands-on stuff right now. They're both absolute gems! Love them!

Hopefully I'll be back soon! I have a new hunter that I just started leveling. I'm quite sure you'll be hearing stories about her soon, since I'm the worst hunter in the history of histories!