Friends, Guilds, & Guilt

One of the best things about World of Warcraft is the fact that it’s an MMO. One of the worst things about World of Warcraft is the fact that it’s an MMO.

For those of you following my blog, my old guild has in effect collapsed. Their website doesn’t even exist anymore, although the forums still do. I have therefore removed the link.

I’ve been sorta watching them ever since I left. Kind of hard not to do considering the friends I left behind. A part of me expected the collapse months ago while I was still there. Signs pointed that way although I’m sure not everyone would agree with me as to what those signs were.

I resisted the urge to leave my guild because of friendships and a part of me wondered if it would collapse if I did. I chalked up such thoughts to narcissism.

Once I found out about the collapse, I was a little surprised that I didn’t feel guilty. I know that before I left, feelings of guilt kept me there. So why did I not feel guilty now?

I started to really think about it. I realized that without meaning to I had gone through a series of steps, or realizations if you will, that ultimately made the process a lot easier.

Friendships & Loyalty

Things had gotten pretty bad for me. I was not happy. I dreaded logging in and playing. Every day was a constant battle with myself between wanting to play and not wanting to deal with it.

After dealing with months of guilt, I finally realized that ultimately for me to keep playing the game I needed to enjoy it again. I decided on a server transfer to completely remove myself from some of the problem people and the temptation to rejoin the guild. Due to time and now even more distance from the guild I am not opposed to admitting publicly that one of the biggest reasons for quitting was due to a small group of people. The realization that I needed to get away from them was the deciding factor.

Realizations

What I realized was that this is a game. The whole point of playing is to have fun and I hadn’t had any for a long time. Although I had friends I didn’t want to leave behind, I realized that as my friends they would hopefully understand and even if they didn’t completely understand, they would at least not hold it against me.

Friends come and go. Unless you’re somewhat lucky, you probably don’t even have the same friends you did in Kindergarten. You probably haven’t stayed in touch with many of your High School friends. College roommates? I don’t know where any of mine are anymore. I haven’t kept in touch with former work friends from even 18 months ago.

These things happen. Maybe to some of us more than others–especially considering I’ve lived in 9 states and 3 countries–but it happens to all of us to some degree eventually.

Making Your Own Decision & Dealing With Guilt

If you find yourself in this position, just remember that if they are true friends, they won’t hold your decisions against you. You may even try to stay in touch if you server transfer, but things may never be the same. It isn’t that you don’t like each other, it’s more that both of you have moved on. We may still be playing the same game, but guilds and/or even servers may be different, making the things you have in common a little different.

A little guilt is normal. It’s even healthy to some degree. Before leaving I even considered asking my friends to come with me because I thought it would alleviate some of that guilt I was feeling, but it appeared that the guild was doing well and going to survive. It wasn’t fair of me to ask, so I didn’t.

Once you realize that your true friends will accept your decision and not hold it against you, leaving a friend’s guild or even server transferring is an easier decision to make. I didn’t say it was completely easy, just easier.

Honest Scrap Award

I was tagged for the Honest Scrap Award by HP.

“This award is bestowed upon a fellow blogger whose blog content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant.”

Well, thank you!

The rules for accepting this award are as follows:

• When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.
• Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.
• List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!

Brag? Mmkay, I’m done. Linked HP above.

So, ten honest things about myself:

• Birthdays in March are plentiful in my family. I share a birthday with my 2nd child. I’m 35 years old and he’s 2 years old…today. My oldest turned 6 years old two days ago. My brother-in-law had his birthday yesterday. I have a cousin I will not speak to again, if I can help it, who’s birthday was two weeks ago today.
• For being 35 years old I sure am on a lot of medication! Word of advice, eat healthy and excercise now because you’ll pay for it later. I’m not fat, but I am overweight and the cholesterol and fitness levels are really bad!
• I’m very opinionated, but unless I’m in a comfortable setting I will keep that opinion to myself.
• I have always loved fantasy and sci-fi. I was introduced to fantasy worlds with AD&D 2nd Edition and was an avid reader of many of the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms books. Although I don’t read as much as I once did (or play tabletop role-playing games for that matter), I am a huge fan of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I eagerly await the final chapter which is being finished up by Brandon Sanderson. (I really need to read books 10 and 11 though. As the series started to drag out I stopped reading and decided to wait until the series got closer to ending.)
• I was born in what was then West Germany. My father was in the Army. I then lived in Georgia and Oklahoma until my father left the service. I don’t have memories of any of that. We then moved back to Idaho to live on my Grandfather’s farm. My first memories are of there. Ever seen Napoleon Dynamite? It was filmed primarily in Preston, ID. I grew up about 40-50 miles NE of there in a town of about 500 people. Later when my father went to school to become a professor between my 6th grade and 11th grade years, I lived in Oregon, Japan, Oregon (yup went back), Wisconsin, and Indiana. I then later moved to Germany (Herne, Bonn, Duesseldorf, Oberhausen, and Paderborn) for two years. I have since lived in Utah, Maryland, and finally Virginia. In total I’ve lived in 9 of the 50 states and three countries.
• My father once told me that I would make a great alcholic. I have an addictive personality. Once I am interested in something, I often become somewhat obsessed with everything about it. Might explain this blog and my fascination with WoW.
• Regarding this blog, I once hoped to actually focus in on paladin related topics, but as HP put it my blog is “hard to categorize…but random musings I suppose with a WoW theme”. So my blog is somewhat random. I write the experiences I have or whatever comes to mind. I do have my Pally Healing Guides and the Newbie Raider Guides which were inspired by guild members that didn’t know how to do either. Either way, I hope it entertains.
• Although I spend a lot less time with WoW than I once did (wife disagrees in principle by the way), I have once again started spending time playing Call of Duty: World at War on my Xbox. I’m pretty good, but I seem to always get stuck on the bad team; which is supported by my almost always getting top score on my team, but losing constantly. This is the one game where I need a language filter placed over my mouth…:(
• I love construction. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Construction Management and worked for Richmond American Homes and D.R. Horton in the past. After the residential market started to tank, I got out and now work for Balfour Beatty Construction on the commercial side of the industry.
• In the past I was an extreme work-a-holic averaging 60 hours per week and sometimes topping out at 70 hours. Part of this was out of enjoyment of my job, but also in part out of loyalty to the companies I was working for. What I’ve learned since then is that when push comes to shove, the company doesn’t really care about you. If there’s blame to go around and you’re the next target, all the good you once did is quickly forgotten. What I learned from this experience was, “No amount of success in this life can compensate for failure in the home.” (And for some of you, you just learned an 11th thing about me, if you hadn’t already figured it out from above. )

So now to tag 7 people…

In no particular order, I’m going to pick 7 random people with no real rhyme or reason, but consider yourselves all tagged. (Oh and I’m taking the lazy way out and linking to their latest post which hopefully they have ping- or trackbacks set up.)

Aesthetic
Can Tank Will Travel
WTF Spaghetti
World of Warcraft Wanderings
Fel Fire
Darraxus the Warrior
Purplz 4 My Warrior

And the rest of you!

Search Terms

Sometimes WordPress tools provide me with some amusement.

Things people look for often crack me up not because they’re weird terms (OK some are weird), but rather because I’ve done the same. Hell I probably wrote about it or they wouldn’t find me. Sometimes the search terms are cut short as the WordPress report has a character limit which provides even more humor. Here’s a list of recent ones that cracked me up:

• is it possible to make a game master tic – only if you wind him tight!
• does what comes around really go around? – only with boomerangs!
• wrath of the lich king boring too easy – amen brother!
• world of warcraft losing casual players – wow what server do you play on?!
• are pallys good healers – pallies are excellent healers! it’s the players that suck!
• if i gquit and am guild leader what happ – they burned you out!
• easy way to be able to go to naxx – hit 80. pay a guild to carry you.
• what is naxx? – I sure hope you’re not level 80.
• “afk” “diarrhea” wow – sorta speechless and are you serious?!!!!
• big brother hard core – giving the reality stars weapons.
• how to motivate a raiding guild – bribes.

and that’s just this last week!

*And no I hate reality TV and have never seen Big Brother. Biggest Loser is about the only show I can watch and not for more than 5 minutes.

A Newbie Raider’s Guide: Lead, Follow, or Get The Hell Out Of The Way!!!

Raid Leaders often take for granted that everyone understands raiding like they do. What they forget is that “once upon a time”, they were just as ignorant…

When you think of great leaders, who do you think of?

Washington?

Lincoln?

Bush?!

OK, you probably didn’t think of Bush, but we all had a laugh. What’s important is why are you thinking of those people? What qualities or traits do they possess that lead you to believe that they are good leaders?

Lead

“Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile. ” – Vince Lombardi

Leadership is not easy. There are many traits a true leader needs to possess, learn, and hone to perfection. If you do a Google search for the Eleven Principles of Leadership you’ll find several links going every which way. Some are credited to the USMC, some the Army, and some not to anyone, but I found a list I liked here and have included comments with regards to Raid Leadership:

• Know yourself and seek self-improvement – Know your toon.
• Be technically proficient – Know not only your own toon, but the roles and general abilities of others as well.
• Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions – Be aware. Fess up when making a mistake.
• Make sound and timely decisions – No one likes a raid leader that clearly doesn’t know or understand what to do. But people are more forgiving of a leader that makes a wrong decision than of one that makes no decision.
• Set the example – Practice what you preach.
• Know your people and look out for their well-being – If you don’t care about those you lead, they already know and they won’t stay.
• Keep your workers informed – Communicate. Some things are not public information, but keeping members in the dark of pending decisions generates an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.
• Develop a sense of responsibility in your workers – Help them to understand their roles and importance of being prepared. Someone who knows why s/he needs to do something is more inclined to do it than someone who’s told to “Just do it!”
• Ensure that tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished – Even a 5 minute delay to explain the fight can save 30 minutes after a wipe. Follow up with feedback as appropriate.
• Train as a team – Not just in raids, but heroics as well.
• Use the full capabilities of your organization – Find out what professions each player possesses. Find out their roles and how well they know them. Knowing what your group is capable of is the start of knowing where you can go.

If you ever get the inclination to start your own guild or to be any kind of a leader in a raiding guild, keep the above in mind. Those you lead need to trust you and that trust must be earned. By being respectful, being consistent, and being an example, you’ll earn that trust.

Follow

Before you can ever lead, you need to learn to follow. As a follower I want you to remember one thing and one thing only.

There’s a time and place for everything.

Last night we hit a snafu with our looting system again. The officers are working on streamlining everything and making some changes, because what was supposed to be a simple system blew up into something complicated. I believe they were trying to institute an addon that would post DKP on the website, which then blew up the website forums, as well as attempting to get the addon implemented in game.

As it stands, the addon didn’t quite work with our system, but changing the loot rules during raid time was not an option so several things were being done manually. So they asked us to bear with them. Unfortunately several people started to get impatient. They started making snide remarks in raid chat about the looting system and about how it was taking too long. They were getting frustrated and I suppose rightly so.

But the negative comments were distracting and began to irritate the officers as well as myself and others. Ultimately they were asked to knock if off because they weren’t helping the situtation.

As a follower you owe it to your leaders to support them. In this example, it would have been nice if the officers had taken the time to work out all the kinks before hand, but they didn’t. Regardless they were trying very hard to get this working as smoothly as possible and were just as frustrated as anyone else. Throwing in negative comments only fueled everyone’s frustrations.

As a follower, realize that your leaders are trying. They aren’t perfect. In fact some you find will be downright awful, but remember you signed up for this.

Get The Hell Out Of The Way

There’s a time and place for everything and for most problems during the raid is not the right time. Ask yourself if your comments or actions are just adding fuel to the fire or do they actually serve a purpose. If you find you can’t be supportive vocally, then sit on your hands. Don’t type or say anything.

No one’s asking you to follow blindly, but choose your battles and think of how it affects others. If you can’t do any of this or if your leaders are so incompetent, then get the hell out of the way! It takes less than two seconds to type /gquit.