Minipost: Third Time’s The Charm

The other week, one of our priests stepped out of the raid for someone else after a wipe. Inexplicably, his body floated there long after he'd gone. It was creepy. Our rezzes are so powerful they grant levitation!

I just wanted to post quickly to mention another podcast I was on recently, My Epic Heals. Eade and Wolfshade were our gracious hosts and I was there along with Kurn from Kurn’s Corner. It’s an episode about holy paladin healing. We talked about Ragnaros and a bunch of other stuff if you want to give it a listen.

Also note, in case you missed it, my silly paper dolls post from the other day! I probably would have ordinarily saved that post for today, but I’m impatient like that, so instead it was posted a few days back.

Still Excited To Play World of Dresscraft

Last year, for the first time I paid for the Blizzcon “virtual ticket” so that I could follow along with the Blizzcon action as my Twitter feed was filled with excited attendees meeting up and having drinks. I really enjoyed the opportunity to see some behind the scenes stuff (the art and cinematics panels were my favourites!) and listen to the devs answer some questions.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t entirely fun to watch because some of the flippant replies earned my ire at the time. A woman who asked if we could have female characters that didn’t look like they’d stepped from the pages of a lingerie catalog was asked, “Well, what kind of catalog do you want them to have stepped out of?” You could see her face mirroring the feelings I had as this line of men mocked her question. Disbelief, followed by embarrassment, followed by resignation and a shrug as she stepped away from the microphone. By that time, the “answer” had degenerated into tasteless jokes about female Tauren coming from an agriculture magazine or catalog. It was disappointing to see that a serious question was not taken at all seriously. There are entire blogs devoted to the way female characters in games are portrayed. Women that actually play games? We’d like to know that our important organs are protected when we step into battle. Even gamers that are not women don’t necessarily like their characters to have exposed midriff for no real reason.

I’m digressing, though, because my post isn’t actually about this question, but another reply that made me roll my eyes.

The question and answer I’m referring to happen at around 9:39, so you’ll have to do a bit of scrolling to get there. For those who can’t be bothered, here’s a transcript: (also, big thanks to Wolfshead who wrote about this at the time of the last Blizzcon; the commentary on this entry helped me to relocate the question and answer once I knew exactly which developers were involved).

Woman asking question: I would like to ask for a closet. Something similar to a keychain. We’ve got all these wonderful festival items, and midsummer night, and all that stuff, and no place to put ’em!

Tom Chilton: Yeah, that’s actually something that we had hoped to get in with Cataclysm. It’s really more a question of resolving data storage, and exactly what the interface is, and all that kinda stuff. But it is something we’d like to do at some point.

J. Allen Brack: What I’m interested in, is how excited are you guys to play “World of Dresscraft”?

At the time I was watching this, I tweeted: “Why yes, I AM excited to play World of Dresscraft, thank you very much!”

Now, almost a year later, as the next Blizzcon looms, much has changed. Lo and behold, we’re getting a virtual closet. We’re also getting the ability to modify our gear. I don’t know about you guys, but the reactions I’ve been seeing to this have been uproarious. My guild has been furiously running old content to get specific set pieces – and we’re not talking about RPers here. We’re a raiding guild. I’ve been saving tier gear all this time out of long abandoned RP pursuits, but also because I just like doing it. My bank is all dresses. Tom Chilton gave a really respectful and honest reply to a valid question. Bank limitations are a problem for pretty much everyone, I’d imagine. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much enthusiasm for an upcoming change before!

So I’d say: I’ll let the community’s response answer your question, Mr. Brack.

Right after I watched this Q & A, I started working on a small side-project for fun. Naturally, it could have only one name: World of Dresscraft. This is the result.

SO EXCITED. CAN'T EVEN TELL YOU.

Patch 4.3 not coming quickly enough for you? Help shorten the wait by taking your love of World of Dresscraft into the third dimension with a fully functional paper Millya doll (and assorted outfits!).

Millya is never without an outfit for every occasion. She has fancy dresses, spring dresses, Kirin Tor robes, Draenic Silk Robes (lovingly crafted for Modoru by his grandmother, they’re an heirloom, you know) and even an odd outfit she borrowed from another wizard she met once. There are outfits for fishing and baking, killing Horde, and of course some pyjamas with mage cakes and pink elekk slippers.

You can download the full-sized version here: Millya Doll (Colour)

and if, like me, you don’t have a colour printer, here’s a black and white version that you can colour yourself: Millya Doll (Black & White)

Both of these images should be suitable for output on standard (8.5″ x 11″) paper. I’d recommend printing them on matte photo paper, cardstock, or some other heftier paper. If you don’t have that option, you can always print out and glue them onto something sturdier. Speaking from experience, it is possible to assemble them using plain old’ printer paper, but she won’t stand up really well. If you have any questions or comments I’d love to hear them! The cutting is pretty fiddly, especially Millya’s hair, but it’s just the way her hair is. If you have access to an x-acto knife you might have an easier time using that for the cutting, although it is doable with scissors. I’d never made anything like this before so constructive feedback will be helpful. If I end up doing any more, I can make sure my next one incorporates any suggestions! After all, World of Dresscraft is a vast universe full of many possibilities!

The New and Improved Darkmoon Faire

Screenshot taken from MMO Champion.

New patch 4.3 news hit today with another doozy – the Darkmoon Faire is getting a revamp! I think this is fantastic, because the DMF is something that’s been ongoing for years but I never really knew what to do with it. I mean, I knew you could buy a few things there, get rep with them or something, turn in decks of cards, etc. but it always felt like something that was from another age.

I’ll be honest with you, I love the gypsy and fortune-telling carnival tropes. Back when I played Ultima Online (a billion years ago) I played on a player-run server and my character was actually a fortune-teller. One of the GMs made me a special item that was a deck of cards, and when you clicked it, it became a spread of cards as an accessory for fortune-telling! I had a lot of fun playing that character (and dressing her up in outrageous clothes) so it’s no surprise that a decade later I am excited to transmogrify a carnival outfit and explore the new Darkmoon Faire.

Things have changed ‘round here: we’ve got an island all to ourselves now, and what an island it is. Mist-shrouded Darkmoon Island is a conundrum wrapped in an enigma.

It has its own island! I love islands. I liked the Island of Quel’Danas (actually known as the “Isle of WTF” in local parlance). It was my first experience with dailies, and I liked the look and feel of it and the self-contained nature of the dailies. You went to the island, you did the dailies, you were done. Tol Barad has been a pale shadow by comparison, although I like it too. Will this island have dailies? I guess they won’t be dailies because it’s a once-monthly thing, but I still like the idea of there being quests.

Of course, there’s more to the Darkmoon Faire than just fantastic shows and culinary delights. You can still turn in your Darkmoon Cards, but you wouldn’t just come here for measly ol’ cards when there’s so much more to see, experience, and win. Yes, win! You like dancing bears, right? Everybody likes dancing bears. Even bears like dancing bears. How about a dancing bear… you can ride!

That’s not all! We have adorable companion pets includin’ a fez-wearing monkey, a plethora of profession recipes, toys, balloons, souvenirs, delectable carnival snacks and beverages, heirlooms for the little ones, and even replicas of long-lost suits of armor that we’re offering for your Transmogrification needs. You can also make your mark with new achievements and titles. All it takes to earn these fabulous rewards is a few Darkmoon Faire Prize Tickets and a good reputation with the carnies. How do ya get your grubby mitts on some tickets? I’m glad you asked!

I read this, and all I see are: mounts, pets, achievements, titles. Yes, I can’t help that I am an achievement hunter and an avid collector. Something new to chase? I’m there. Also, not to be overlooked: long-lost suits of armor. Blizzard had said they wanted to make available some sets that were no longer obtainable in the game. I think this is an elegant way to do that; it still works within the game world and it makes sense that the DMF may have acquired that kind of thing in their travels. Expect to work hard to obtain them (or pay out the nose), though. I don’t think they’ll be willing to part with their collection easily!

You won’t have to go too far out of your way to get ‘em and each month you’ll get a new opportunity to seek out an Artifact for us. What do you get out of the deal? Don’t you worry, you’ll get your cut. When you bring a Darkmoon Artifact back to us, you’ll get valuable experience (it builds character, you know!), earn a better reputation, and possibly earn precious Darkmoon Faire Prize Tickets too!

Oh, did I mention that you can use the Field Guide to get to Darkmoon Island whenever the Darkmoon Faire’s monthly extravaganza is up and running?

Artifact collecting? Well, it’s obviously going to be part of the rep grind with DMF, and that’s okay…I just hope it isn’t a bunch of random junk that will clutter up my bags. I have enough of that already.

Maybe you’d like a little peek behind the scenes, eh? Want to see what it takes to run the greatest show on Azeroth? Well, it’s not all sunshine and cotton candy, my friend. There are beasts to heal, food to cook, and buildings to fix. If you’re willing help keep the show going and put your skills to work, you’ll not only impress us, but you can get experience, Darkmoon Prize Tickets, and even polish up your skills — up to five skill points per profession, per Faire week, if you’re good at what you do!

This is a little bit random, but I really hope that this isn’t going to include the “seedy underbelly” of the DMF. Disreputable carnivals and circuses are generally known as places where animals are poorly treated, suffer rough conditions, cruel training, etc. I haven’t been to an actual circus since I was really little. Maybe I’m basing too much of my bias on scenes from Dumbo, but they do give me an iffy feeling. (With the notable exception of the Cirque du Soleil, which only has human performers that chose to be there). Anyway – I just hope there are no bears in tiny cages. I doubt it’s something Blizz would take a chance on, but I suppose you never know.

Darkmoon Mages in capital cities and on Darkmoon Island will also be around to help you get between the Faire and various capital cities. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, so naturally you’re obliged to compensate them for their services.

No mage comes free, but you knew that, right?

Overall, I think that the new and improved Darkmoon Faire sounds like fun! I’m looking forward to seeing it, playing some silly games, adding some mini-pets to my collection, and hopefully having a new island that I enjoy as much as I once enjoyed the Isle of WTF. I enjoy things like torch tossing, juggling and throwing, though – and also the Plants vs Zombies mini-game, so this is right up my ally. Your mileage may vary!

 

 

Tuesday Art Day: Teeny & Claire

I recently did this watercolour painting as a surprise gift! (Not a gift from me, a surprise gift from one girlfriend to another of their WoW characters). I really enjoyed trying to capture a dynamic between the two characters and giving them some scenery. I took a few progress images with my phone/scanner, so I thought it’d be fun to share those.

Final sketch before painting. This is not the "first" sketch.

This next image is a bit shadowy because of being taken with my phone (I don’t scan at this stage because the paper is often still a bit damp and I don’t want to chance dirtying it).

First washes.

In case I haven’t mentioned this…photographing a painting is hard. Especially when you have to hold the painting in one hand, and the camera in the other (without getting your hands into the photo).

Not finished, but getting there!

The above still needs detailing on the shaman dress primarily.

Aaaand done!

This is the final image, scanned in and colour balanced as best I can. Scanning watercolours is tough because some subtleties always seem to be lost. I’ve found that the best way to handle this is to not use the scanner driver (my scanning software has an option) and then to turn off “Auto Tone” in the more advanced settings. This seems to prevent the scanner from washing out the lighter areas by trying to pre-set the contrast itself. Anyway, that’s Teeny and Claire enjoying an afternoon in Nagrand! You know I love any commission that involves draenei. No, I don’t have a problem, why do you ask?

Memory Lane: Burning Crusade Edition

I found this entry in my draft folder from June! I don’t know how I forgot about posting it, but it seems particularly appropriate now as many folks endeavor to recapture and revisit old content in preparation for Azeroth’s greatest fashion show.

I was struck the other day by nostalgia. I don’t think I’ve played any other game so consistently for so long. (And I’m not an “old-timer,” I only started at the end of Burning Crusade in approximately May 2008.) But that’s still three years of time!

I remember being so completely awestruck the first time I saw someone riding a Talbuk. It was in Menethil Harbor and we’d just taken the boat. Someone rode by on one and I gasped to Voss, “What is that? I want one!” I swore then and there that I would have one. I was the first person of my acquaintance to complete the grind with Kurenai. Talbuks have been Millya’s preferred mount ever since. They just seem so perfect for draenei to me, and even when I hadn’t seen Nagrand at all I somehow knew they’d be “right.”

Before I had a talbuk, though, I had my eyes on another prize. The first time we saw the Barrens I was similarly enamored with the Zhevra. It’s a unicorn, but it’s also a zebra! I was crushed to learn that they weren’t actually available as a mount. Until about a month later, they were announced as the very first mount reward for Recruit-A-Friend. Naturally, I knew what I had to do.

Millya's first "fast" mount.

I remember feeling very pleased with myself, too, because I saved money by not having to buy one of the mounts. Yes, the money at the time was a big enough deal to me that I was concerned about saving enough to buy a mount. At the time, WoW felt very much like the “haves” and the “have-nots” and I was squarely in the “pretty poor” camp. This was something I could have, and I was happy with it. (Note, I’m not whining here about my broke state. I hadn’t learned to use the AH or make money in any way. Nowadays it seems really easy to make money and there are plenty of resources for folks to learn how.)

So fashionable!

The other thing I greatly looked forward to was matching armour sets. When I hit 70, I had my pieces of Spellfire robes ready to roll because I’d been painstakingly crafting cloth (and borrowing the CDs of others) for weeks! I was so excited to have a set of armour that matched. I then spent a week straight in Alterac Valley to get the best (PvE and PvP) entry-raiding staff that there was:

Giant Pink Lipstick of DOOM!

Every caster had this, because it was awesome. I still have it in my bank because I am so proud of it. I’d never PvPed before, but I wanted the best thing available to me. It was nice to go to Kara and be passing on stuff because it honestly wasn’t an upgrade. (My obsession with gearing my characters even outside of raiding started really, really early).

Firehawks and lynxes and bears, oh my!

One of my other great memories is going to Zul’aman with our ten-man group and downing it all. I think we missed the nerf by a week; I can’t remember if this was pre or post-nerf but I was so proud that we did it. This was as far as ten-man progression allowed at the time, and we were just a small guild. This screenshot of old friends makes me smile.

"Wicked, wicked, mortals! The forest weeps. The elements recoil at the destruction. Ivus must purge you from this world!"

In the time I spent doing AV, I got to summon Ivus the Forest Lord not once, but twice! For those who are unfamiliar, you can summon this big bad when an AV match is interminable. It seldom happens now because there are things you need to do beforehand and most AV battles tend to be zergs. This is what the summoning looks like. I unfortunately lack a screenshot of the Horde players flailing around as we rode forward with Ivus ahead of us, scattering players like popcorn. The element of surprise was on our side because I think most of them didn’t even understand what was happening and had never heard of Ivus, let alone seen him. This is still hands-down one of my favourite AV memories.

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings..." (John Gillespie Magee Jr., "High Flight"

Finally, this is a screenshot I just had to include. Do you remember how you felt when you were first able to afford a flying mount – any flying mount? Who cared that it wasn’t as fast as the other ones? I imagine for most of us, we’ll never have the actual feeling of piloting a plain or hang-gliding. Yet who isn’t captivated by the idea of flying off into the sky?

I know some folks are not happy about the changes to Azeroth and the addition of flight. I think that it’s absolutely a shame if you never come down to the earth to pay attention to all of the details and work that’s been put into creating this world. At the same time, I love being able to fly everywhere since the first moment I could fly, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

The Well-Dressed Paladin Redux

Transmogrification! I’m a little late to remark on this news, but I don’t think you have to have known me long to know that I am over the moon about these changes. Finally, all the space I’ve been devoting to gear storage is going to pay off! If you’re newish to my blog you may not have read before I moved here from Pugging Pally. I’d like to call your attention to a fashion contest that I hosted last year around this time: The Well-Dressed Paladin. If you go here to the entry where I announced the winners, you can see a gallery of all the creative entries I received.

This seems like as good a time as any to revisit some of the unusual and awesome interpretations of paladin fashion – it doesn’t have to be a complete tier set to look great!

I’ve had a post about mage clothes in the works for ages, so watch for that soon. Meantime, if you’re anything like me, I’d better let you get back to doing old raid content to help get those last few pieces in your closet. I can’t wait to see the choices people make about their gear when they aren’t obligated to display the latest tier because it’s the best raid gear. I actually have a feeling that a good number of folks will still display T12, or whatever the latest tier is – because it’s a symbol of prestige and it does suit the content we’re doing. As for me, I intend to change the look of my gear probably around once a week or so. The cost of redoing it is a drop in the bucket compared to the enjoyment I expect to derive from hosting my own ongoing fashion show.

Tuesday Art Day: Female Worgen Wish

This Tuesday is going to be a little different, in that it’s just sketches I did quickly. I was doing some idle musing the other day and I started thinking about how disappointed I was with the female worgen. I fully intended to make a worgen when Cataclysm came out. I had two names reserved for the purpose, even (one male, one female). I usually prefer to play female characters, because I just do. I wrote about what happened with my worgen.

Similarly to how I felt about being a moonkin, I just couldn’t get “into” the way the worgen looked. I think the males look pretty good (although not keen on their “running wild” animation), but the females? I started sketching to try to understand and explain what it is that bothers me about them.

Female Worgen (as in-game)

They have these large, heavily-lidded and tilted eyes. Their eyes are looking in different directions, too, much like a Simpsons character. They have a very narrow, “fox-like” face, and a pronounced forehead. Here is what the worgen actually looks like.

What follows is just a series of quick sketches as I tried to work out for myself what I would have preferred (instead of just complaining about what I didn’t like).

adfs

I really think the biggest thing is the eyes. Lose the heavy lids, make them smaller (and a bit closer to the center of the face). I am still not really happy with the face shape here and would probably keep reworking it if I were actually trying to do honest to goodness concept art.

The actual model has its lips pulled back in a permanent snarl, too. I didn't really do that, which is perhaps like cheating.

Overall, I just imagine female worgen being more…wolf-like. Their male counterparts are wholly lupine and it works for them. I feel as if maybe the art team just tried too hard to make them “feminine” looking. The thing is, they’re werewolves. I don’t think you can make them look really feminine (or perhaps you shouldn’t). In any case, their reasonably slender frames and mammalian characteristics make that much obvious. I could see them with more of a wolf’s head instead of the “foxy” look they went for. I know that female worgen gave them the most trouble, as they revamped them completely several times during the beta.

I’ll be honest; I could see female worgen overall with a bit more meat on their bones. I think they may be overly lanky? But that’s a minor gripe. I should mention that I absolutely love their hands. The in-game model has great hands, with the long, claw-like fingers and nails. I thickened her neck (and also her body, giving her a bit of curve). I still don’t know if I am happy with the face, but it was fun to mess around with. Having completed this exercise, I’m still pretty sure it’s their dead eyes that bug me the most. The dog-like muzzle might be fine if the eyes had a bit of life to them, were placed differently and had a different shape.

That’s what I think, anyhow, in my half hour of idle doodling. What do you think? Love worgen the way they are? See them a little bit differently? I have a feeling I am going to keep doing some sketches of them until I can really see them the way I imagine them being. At THAT point I can put a top hat on one.

Guilds, Cliques, and You

It may surprise you to know that I was once a horrible guild member. It’s true, I was. No, I wasn’t overtly rude or mean. I participated in guild chat. I greeted everyone with a friendly hello! But I was also part of a clique. There were five of us (not coincidentally, a five-man group). One rogue, one resto shaman, one mage, one protection warrior, and one hunter. We were inseparable, spending most nights running dungeons, doing battlegrounds, or hanging out together on Vent. We snickered about other guild members in our private chat channel. We were very “us versus them,” and unsurprisingly, we ended up leaving the guild in question – all at once, en masse.

I’m not proud of this, by the way, but I am using it as a perfect example of what I want to talk about. I believe that the story could have ended differently, had the leadership in that guild been paying close attention and made any efforts whatsoever. There were warning signs. Here are the circumstances that led to the situation I describe above.

First, Voss and I joined this guild at a fairly low-level. We were about level thirty, while of course the majority of guildies were 70. It’s difficult to run things with people who aren’t even your level, and a few guildies made an effort but for the most part we were very much on our own. So that’s an unavoidable circumstance (although one that’s readily ameliorated, given time). We were so sure that if we just got to level 70, we would fit in! We would have people to do things with!

On the surface, this guild was “friendly.” In actuality, most of the people in it were primarily interested in hanging out with the people they already knew. That’s natural, and it happens. What it did was serve to isolate us further, but around that time a new member joined the guild – a hunter, just a few levels behind us. He deliberately sped up his leveling so he could be of a level with us. Then, a couple that had been in the guild before us (but taken a hiatus) came back. They were around level sixty, which is where we were at the time. We thought we might try some five-mans. We went through each of the Burning Crusade five-mans with our hunter friend driving us. He had greater game experience than any of us, and had left a hardcore raiding guild to reroll on an RP server in order to take it easy. Little did we know, he was honing us to be a very efficient five-person team.

By the time we hit 7o, we geared up very quickly (again, I didn’t realize this at the time, but our hunter suggested instances that would have upgrades for all of us.) By the time we moved on to heroics, we really worked well together and we’d found out something, too: we no longer needed our guild. For the most part, if all five of us weren’t around, we simply didn’t run anything. The attitude of most other guildies towards us hadn’t improved. We expressed interest in raiding and the guild leader said that perhaps an alternate Kara run could be put together. Another guildie we didn’t know remarked on the forums that it could be like “Kara on training wheels.” This air of condescension didn’t improve matters.

Each week at the guild meeting (held in a spooky location in Duskwood) we attended and crammed ourselves onto one long bench, all five of us. As I said, all of the signs were there. We weren’t integrated with the rest of the guild, frankly didn’t care what they thought, and eventually grew so fed up that we left (and when we left, of course, we all left together).

One of those friends has since been lost (MIA), the other two both stopped playing the game. Naturally, Voss and I still play together. I have fond memories of them. Here we are in another guild (guild name pictured is not the guild discussed above. I’m trying to be classier than that). Besides, I know that we were trouble for that guild. It isn’t all, “Oh, how we were wronged.” We stopped trying to be friends with them and instead opted to be the bad kids at the back of the room, doing entirely our own thing. It’s a tough thing to handle, as a guild leader or officer, but I do have some suggestions.

Set Expectations

Have a clear vision for what you want your guild to be. I’m sure in larger guilds it’s harder to manage cliques, because you do have so many people. People are going to naturally want to split off into smaller groups. That’s fine. The expectation in my guild is that everyone is going to get along (even if they aren’t the best of friends, we are all going to be civil and friendly to one another). Anyone will run five mans with anyone else. We’re all in a smaller guild because we want to get to know our fellow guildies, and know them well. It’s part of the experience we’re seeking, so we have the advantage of a very clear bottom-line: you don’t have to best friends, but you do have to get along and be inclusive of other members.

Make sure your guildies know what they can expect from you, and what you expect from them. I think our biggest problem with the guild above was that we joined it expecting to meet people we could spend time with (it was, after all, an RP guild on an RP server; even at lower levels we could have gotten together to RP) and I’m not actually sure what they expected of us. Probably they didn’t expect that we would leave and take five people out of the guild at one time.

Divide and (Befriend)

Cliques usually become more of a concern when:

1) members have a pre-existing attachment to each other, either from a former guild or real-life friendship or both,

or 2) some circumstance in the guild drives people towards each other in the face of adversity.

If anyone feels under attack, isolated, or otherwise excluded from guild activities – they are liable to gravitate towards other people who feel the same way.

What’s the solution to this? Be as inclusive as you possibly can. Make an extra effort to get to know specific people. You don’t always have to be the one spending time with them, but bringing them into a five-man group with other guildies might make those guildies more inclined to run together later. One of the best officers I ever had was a lady from the guild pictured above. Each week she’d say to me, “Oh, so-and-so is my ‘project.'” She meant by this that each week she was focusing on getting to know one person specifically, to talk to and include them. Of course you have to do this with moderation. If someone is an introvert, being badgered constantly is probably not going to earn their friendship; it might get them to stop logging in with exasperation. So this is your first step, you must get to know people and include them. The second component to this (if a clique already exists) is to try to do it without existing friends around.

See if you can get the guy who is usually quiet in guild chat into Mumble to run some five-mans. Most people will open up a bit more in that circumstance, plus they get to know you as well. Do this with everyone you can – separately. People who realize that you care about getting to know them as individuals are much more likely to feel at home in your guild, and much less likely to only talk to their close friends.

Limit New Folks

This one is easier said than done. One guild I was in actually had a hard and fast limit of members they would accept within a given time frame. This ensured that before new members joined, others would already be a part of the guild. The needs of a raiding guild can sometimes preclude this, unfortunately, but it’s still important to keep in mind. Each new person you introduce into a group will unbalance it simply by being there. Everyone has to get to know the new member, and assert their role within the group. It takes time to settle down. When you have many new people at one time, you run the risk of completely unbalancing the preexisting social dynamic. You can even isolate the guildies you already have, because things have changed, and they may no longer see themselves in the change.

For this reason I’m especially wary of groups of players. You see these ads on the forums, “Mage, H Pally, Druid LF Raiding Guild.” Sometimes, maybe these will be a great find. Just be aware that you may be letting yourself in for a ready-made clique that could prove difficult to integrate into your guild.

In Business Time, we all get along, because we're all Voss.

Respect

This may seem overly simplistic, but if you respect your guild members are a up front with them about any issues or problems, I have a naive belief that you can’t go too far wrong. It’s tough, because you can’t exactly tell someone “I notice you only hang around with these two other people. Could you try to spend time with other people too?” Small cliques and groups will naturally form in any group of people. They aren’t even necessarily something you want to avoid at all costs, so much as be aware of. Does it matter if Jim, Jacqueline and Joe have an arena team together? Probably not. Do they have an arena team together but also never run five-mans with anyone but each other? You might have a problem there. What you CAN say is, “Hey Jim (or Jacqueline, or Joe), want to come run this five-man with us?”

If folks are still sticking to themselves primarily, you could just ask them separately if there is a problem they want to talk about, and whether everything is okay. Maybe they had a conflict with another guildie and are specifically avoiding him/her, or maybe they are shy and haven’t known how to expand their social circle within the guild. Whether there is a problem or not, you won’t know unless you ask. Taking the time to talk to someone is far preferable than saying later, “I am always available to talk! Why didn’t you come talk to me?” Plenty of people aren’t comfortable approaching leadership about anything “official,” or they themselves may not know their problem is big enough to need addressing. If you take the time to check in with your guildies periodically just to see how they are doing, I guarantee you’ll have a healthier guild as a result.

I should add, as an aside, that I sometimes feel a bit odd writing posts like this when I know that some guildies read my blog. Yes, I think about “management stuff,” but it isn’t motivated from a place of wanting to manipulate guild folks. I’ve seen this attitude of “We are such a small group, so we don’t need rules” or “We just want to have fun, we don’t need any management BS,” but I actually think that having people who do consider these things is what helps to ensure that everyone has fun. Most of the time, I’m just thinking, “Hey, let’s go kill some internet dragons!” and having fun with the people in my guild. But I do stay attuned to the social currents, if you will, to make sure that potential problems are waylaid before they ruin anyone’s good times.

So have you had the trouble of cliques in your guild before? Were you a member of one (like I was?) What did/would you do to handle them?

Tuesday Art Day: Corycia

I’m cheating a bit today with some older art (that I know I haven’t used for a Tuesday art day). This is a postcard sized watercolour I did of my draenei shaman, Corycia, wearing gear she doesn’t own. (I love this shaman set from Burning Crusade!) I have done another watercolour recently that I’d love to post but can’t, because it hasn’t yet been gifted to the surprise recipient! Look for that one coming soon to a Tuesday near you.

Update on Settling Into A New Role

I’ve been raiding as a paladin now for just over a month or a little bit longer. It’s been an interesting transition, further complicated by the fact that I feel obligated to re-do many achievements with Vid. I thought it’d be fun to provide a kind of update with how things have been going.

DPS: Now With 100% Rear Boss View

For the occasions when we’ve needed a healer to DPS, I’ve been gearing and working on my retribution spec. Thanks to some help from Antigen and our guild’s protection paladin, I even know what to do (more or less). The only thing I can say is that melee DPS is weird, yet oddly calming. I feel as if I have to frantically spam buttons quite a bit less than as a mage. Oh, I’d definitely be failing if I were just auto-attacking, and that’s not what I’m doing, but it is reassuring to know that my character is always hitting if I’m in range. (Thank you, startattack macros). I’m by no means the world’s greatest retribution paladin, but we still managed to kill bosses with me as a ret (I am the ret). It’s been awhile since I’ve had to go ret for a raid and my gear has improved so I imagine if I were to do it again I would be even better.

I got to hit Rhyolith’s feet and run around frantically! I also went up to attack Beth’tilac, which proved to be convenient because I later went up to heal the tank on Beth’tilac. I got to stand there and DPS Shannox, which kind of feels like cheating to me. Even Staghelm from a ret perspective was almost peaceful, but he was still progression then and so I have only healed for our subsequent kills. I think it’s safe to say that I never imagined I’d be melee DPSing in a raid, but it’s fine. 95% of the time I will be a healer; for that other five percent I’m happy to do whatever is necessary.

"What is this I don't even..."

Achievements

Continuing to work on Vid’s achievements has helped me to feel engaged with her, even when I’m not raiding. To me, Vid (as a character) has been something of a sleeper hit. I made her in 2009 for a lark, did the whole dungeon-leveling thing, wrote a blog about it, etc. I never imagined she’d shoulder her way to the front and wind up a main. I always assumed that if I healed full-time it would be as a druid. I was clearly wrong.

As far as achievements go, her pet collection is up over a hundred now, her mount collection is somewhere around fifty. There are a few pets she won’t be able to get for awhile (Midsummer, Love Is In The Air, etc.) but such is life! I finished the Higher Learning achievement with her as I was writing this post. Up next: continuing to kill poor TB foxes and camping the spawn point for Jadefang.

The biggest trouble I have is trying to catch up with achievements as if I’m on a time limit. I want to catch up yesterday and so sometimes my focus wanders as I try to do everything all at once. I finally, finally finished the last Molten Front “unlocking” and so now will do those dailies until Zen’Vorka’s cache sees fit to give up a pet. Meantime, I have to remember that nobody cares about my achievements except me, nobody cares except me (it’s my new mantra).

Blogging

I’ll admit, I did worry a bit that I might lose readers when I switched from raiding as a mage – and perhaps I did. The funny thing is, though, that very little of my content was mage-specific. I wrote the five-man guides (but never updated them for the Zul instances) and a gear guide, but other than that the things I write about are seldom class-specific. Now I’m in this odd limbo where I don’t feel I have anything to teach or say to paladins, nor do I have mage experience in Firelands. It’s tricky how your personal identity can get tied up into your class identity, so I’m trying not to worry about it overly. I’m just going to write about things that interest me, be they mage, paladin, or guild-related, and hope that they’ll be of interest to someone, somewhere.

Raiding

Make no mistake, switching from being a DPS (especially a pure) to a healer is a big adjustment. I heal five-person content a ton but hadn’t healed a raid in about a year. It says something about my guild’s trust in me that they were willing to let me dive in. Especially being somewhat undergeared for Firelands (I did the best I could, but was definitely behind the curve), healing FL was kind of like performing without a net. It’s been a rush, it’s been exhilarating, frustrating, and triumphant. It’s been humbling. I’m still constantly learning how to be a better paladin, but I’m happy with how it’s gone so far. With my usual zeal for gearing, I’ve managed to squeeze every last upgrade out of non-raid content and I can definitely feel the difference. Especially getting a new weapon and the two-piece T12 bonus have made me feel pretty unstoppable in heroics.

The biggest shift is a mental one, and it’s taken some time. I’ve had to teach my brain to recognize mild stress as ‘the norm’ and not freak out and just do its thing. It was funny when we went back one night to eight-man BoT for valor points. Remember, I didn’t do BoT as a healer, only as a DPS. So we’re on Ascendant Council and I lost range on my tank and my brain just kind of zoned out a bit. There was a part of it that thought, “Gosh, tank’s health sure is getting low.” A few seconds later, the other part of my brain screams, “YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HEALING THAT TANK.” Ohhh right, that’s my thing!

I haven’t done this in current content, it’s just interesting to me how the encounters themselves (and the way I have learned them) are so intertwined with the role I was playing at the time. When it comes to Firelands, I’ve only healed (or melee DPSed them) and so I don’t suddenly forget that I’m healing; all of my knowledge is centered around healing patterns, incoming damage, and needed cooldowns.

Recruiting

It’s been a long time since we’ve had three trial members at once. It’s not something I like doing, really, because each new person takes awhile to integrate into a group. Because of our relatively small number, an influx is especially unsettling and runs the risk of unbalancing the group paradigm. Also, they may not get the kind of one-on-one attention and feedback that we like to give, but I think we’ve managed well enough in this regard. I still reflexively catch myself going to check out recruitment ads until I remember – oh right, I don’t have to do that right this instant! It’s nice. They have been doing well, and of course time is the most important factor here. Everyone will naturally ease up as they get to know each other, given some time.