ME: yes i'm a super casual in a hardcore raiding guild
How did that happen? at one point i had a lot of friends who were hard core raiders from the previous guild and I made friends with another raider so when they all ended up in one raid guild it was only natural that I want to join them. So with high up friends I got invited in as a friends only status with no intention to raid. Lol top it off one of my friends is good friends with the GM so there you go. connections.
Later on those friends disappeared from wow but I've established myself as a friendly casual player who is a very good healer so am not likely to get a gkick because my friends are no longer wowing. I have a reputation for being able to get groups going for just about anything.
Druid 80 (server #1): guilded since level 35 for 2 years until it disbanded then I stayed unguilded until I was ready to level and then asked friends of mine who were in a raiding guild if I could apply and join them there as a nonraider. I enjoy my solo time so this is perfect the guild raids and I log on whenever to do whatever and say hi when I log in.
Guild #1: 2 years became a raider then promoted to class lead, then took a 9 month break as guild rerolled on horde side on another server. I refused to follow as I was hurt that we're leaving and I wasn't notified earlier. it was annouced during a guild meeting.
Guild #2 1 year to date as my friends from guild #1 joined raiding guild here to raid and I being thier friend who they enjoy chatting with got the invite here.
Priest 80 (server #2) I rolled hordeside to join my family/friends there for the ocassional group. Guild is an RP guild so definetly different from a raid guild. I'm a super light RPer in a heavy RP guild so for the most part I do my own thing and ocassionally join them for an old instance. They're too RPish for me but I enjoy the cuss free gchat, no leet speak and no locker room talk so that's why I'm here a protected gchat. Instancing .. good lord people in RP guilds aren't geared or as skilled and have more random afks than raid guilds. I'm a hardcore player in an RP guild so I dont take guildies on my runs as they tend to be undergeared and dont know thier class. For them its no big deal to do a wipefest group so long as its with friends and guildies. Uh no thats a waste of time in my book as the only person I would take to an instance regardless of gear is my RL friend/families but then I'd make up the difference with 2 other overly geared dps. RP guilds wouldn't understand my views so I dont bother telling em I just quietly whisper half the server to fill my groups than to annouce it in gchat. If i take a guildie he has to be geared, specced, and of leveled. Should this guildie suck in his role that's that last time he's coming on my runs. And if more guildies fit this profile I dont take any of them and wont' heal in thier "guild only runs" As of right now I avoid guild only runs like the plague because these tend to run long, wipe more than pugs, and have long AFKs. I play to get geared in my very limited wow time and otherwise have quality wow time.
Priest 80/Warlock 63 (server #3) I finally was ready to rejoin old friends from server #1 as they are one of the most mature and nice people i've know. not that I took a year to join them I kept in contact since level 1 day 1 of their reroll I just didn't see it as my priority to level to 80 any time soon and would 2 box a 2nd acct to keep in touch. thing was that I am very bad at mutltitasking so would forget that was afked on the other server too. Any how the GM was nice enough to suggest to ask me to join thier alt group leveling once a week so thats how i got to 80 it took oh about a year. I enjoy the random raids and weekly heroics with the same bunch of people so its nice and very hard to burn out with once a week wow.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Ex-WOW Addict 2 years later
Can you believe it ? its been 2 years since I was seriously addicted to WOW which got me fired, then I mulched off of savings for a year .. and finally faced reality took a month long break off wow or did I .. erm i dont remember BUT I did go into rehab of sorts for 1.5 years a friend took me under his wing and gave me a focus to work on and that was math .. so yea I studied math for a year while i refocused. Then I went back to work for about 9 months or 1 year as a temp making some big monies and after the assignment ended I took my vacation/bonus monies/savings and collected unemployment for 6 months while I studied 3d art but was still not ready by 6 months time so i went back to school for a nursing degree ... Right now I'm 1 semester away from competing for a slot in nursing clinicals and am finishing up my pre-nursing classes. Oh my gPa is competitive as hell afterall I'm hardcore raider at heart but no longer raid as I refuse to allow raiding to suck me back into wow addiction.
WOW Addiction is a strange thing .. non addicts can never understand that addiction is never over just controlled and that it requires constant vigilance. I channel my wow addiction into other interests and leave some time for wow I am always monitoring my wow usage and myself. I ask myself on a weekly basis am I ok? did i take care of RL business and am I on track in RL (real life) is my career, school, goals on track. Have I let RL stuff slide while I wow? if the answer is no to any of these I take a step back and figure out the problem and if WOW's taking up the time that i should have used to do these then the choice is simple I put down wow and take care of business. If you find that you cannot stop WOWing and RL is a mess then do yourself a favor and admit you have a problem: you are a wow addict and you need to stop and fix your life.
These days I wow whenever on school semesters as in once a week or less and on spring/summer breaks I switch back ito hardcore player and gear up.
The ability to not let wow interfere with RL is what separates a wow addict from a wow player.
WOW Addiction is a strange thing .. non addicts can never understand that addiction is never over just controlled and that it requires constant vigilance. I channel my wow addiction into other interests and leave some time for wow I am always monitoring my wow usage and myself. I ask myself on a weekly basis am I ok? did i take care of RL business and am I on track in RL (real life) is my career, school, goals on track. Have I let RL stuff slide while I wow? if the answer is no to any of these I take a step back and figure out the problem and if WOW's taking up the time that i should have used to do these then the choice is simple I put down wow and take care of business. If you find that you cannot stop WOWing and RL is a mess then do yourself a favor and admit you have a problem: you are a wow addict and you need to stop and fix your life.
These days I wow whenever on school semesters as in once a week or less and on spring/summer breaks I switch back ito hardcore player and gear up.
The ability to not let wow interfere with RL is what separates a wow addict from a wow player.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
How to get Groups: LFG or LFM?
Here's my secret to getting groups going in under 10 mins. I happen to be very good at putting groups together and getting runs going and have a very high sucess rate in my groups. Perhaps its a mix of player style, personal view of if you want it then you must do it yourself.
At level 34 that I was complimented by a group member that I'm a raider priest. This was before I had even heard of raiding and raiders. But what stood out was that I organized groups fast, my groups were always balanced in that I had a strong tank, good healer, and 3 mixed dps and at one point I insisted on bringing 1 class that was able to CC (crowd control). Of course it helped that I was a healer and did it well.
Personally I find it hard to believe that people can spend hours in LFG and not get anything when all it takes is a 10 min whisper to everyone in the /who class level location : /who paladin 80 dalaran of the thousands of people on you mean to tell me you can't get 4 other people who are geared for that instance? lazyiness i say.
Group make up:
Tanks - specced, geared and of level if not higher.
Healer - specced, geared, maybe 1-2 levels lower
DPS - mix it up as each class offers its own skills and you wont be wasting gear or having too much competition. nothing like seeing 4 druids in a group when you're wanting a piece of leather.
1.) join the LFG channel see who else is wanting to do your instance
2.) armory them to see what gear they are at .. instances run smoother with geared people than not.
3.) whisper only the geared and of level people in LFG before you issue an invite. Be polite say something like. Hi can I interest you in a tanking spot in heroic TOC or Hi would you be interested in TOC?
4.) use /who list to find more people: /who class level location Ex: /who paladin 80 dalaran
5.) armoy these people and only whisper people who are geared, specced and of level
6.) wait for answers
7.) when lazy type LFM instance name in LFG channel and sometimes as bad as it is trade chat.
POST GROUP
What these sets of rules do is that you are screening out the noobs, immature types, rude and otherwise people who will make your runs miserable. How people behave to an unsolicited whisper will tell you alot about them and if you'd like to spend the next .45 mins in the same instance with them. Also as a rule politeness always helps your cause. I've had people who normally would not consider running with pugs agree to come tank stuff for me because it was the most polite request they've received in a long time.
At level 34 that I was complimented by a group member that I'm a raider priest. This was before I had even heard of raiding and raiders. But what stood out was that I organized groups fast, my groups were always balanced in that I had a strong tank, good healer, and 3 mixed dps and at one point I insisted on bringing 1 class that was able to CC (crowd control). Of course it helped that I was a healer and did it well.
Personally I find it hard to believe that people can spend hours in LFG and not get anything when all it takes is a 10 min whisper to everyone in the /who class level location : /who paladin 80 dalaran of the thousands of people on you mean to tell me you can't get 4 other people who are geared for that instance? lazyiness i say.
Group make up:
Tanks - specced, geared and of level if not higher.
Healer - specced, geared, maybe 1-2 levels lower
DPS - mix it up as each class offers its own skills and you wont be wasting gear or having too much competition. nothing like seeing 4 druids in a group when you're wanting a piece of leather.
1.) join the LFG channel see who else is wanting to do your instance
2.) armory them to see what gear they are at .. instances run smoother with geared people than not.
3.) whisper only the geared and of level people in LFG before you issue an invite. Be polite say something like. Hi can I interest you in a tanking spot in heroic TOC or Hi would you be interested in TOC?
4.) use /who list to find more people: /who class level location Ex: /who paladin 80 dalaran
5.) armoy these people and only whisper people who are geared, specced and of level
6.) wait for answers
7.) when lazy type LFM instance name in LFG channel and sometimes as bad as it is trade chat.
POST GROUP
What these sets of rules do is that you are screening out the noobs, immature types, rude and otherwise people who will make your runs miserable. How people behave to an unsolicited whisper will tell you alot about them and if you'd like to spend the next .45 mins in the same instance with them. Also as a rule politeness always helps your cause. I've had people who normally would not consider running with pugs agree to come tank stuff for me because it was the most polite request they've received in a long time.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Commentary on Wow Addiction
Okies its been a year or two since my last post on WOW addiction. Personally I think WOW addiction is a life long life long battle and you're always watching and balancing the RL & WOW life. When WOW is greater than RL then its a problem otherwise I call it controlled use of a recreation drug. I'm of the opinion that WOW addicts have a addicting personalities that makes them more likely to have an addiction to start also that if it wasn't WOW then it would have been another game, drugs or what not.
Solution: Balance RL & WOW and always RL>WOW
There really isn't a quick fix for this problem, you either accept your addiction and work with it or be another WOW statistic someone who's life was destroyed by their addiction.
Your choices are to make sure that your RL is in order and that all responsibilities are taken care of then log on to WOW, cut off WOW entirely or be yet another broke assed WOW addict 30ish, living in thier retired parents basement. Its your choice. Ya real life sucks but that's the way it is.
Of course this is all from a former WOW addicts viewpoint. I'm a hardcore addict turned casual
altoholic and am on a self imposed WOW methadone maintenance program. I find other stimuli and things to do to occupy my spare time. Sports, hobbies, new friends and old all are ways of filling the void left by less WOW or no WOW. In many ways WOW is used to fill a void inside ourselves.
A word of advice - as Robin Williams once said about drugs - if you find yourself playing Warcraft, and you fall asleep and you're still playing Warcraft and then you wake up and you're doing Warcraft except your family has left you and you stink and there's a starved dead pet at your feet and all you can worry about is where you left your Hammer of the Naaru - WARNING!
Solution: Balance RL & WOW and always RL>WOW
There really isn't a quick fix for this problem, you either accept your addiction and work with it or be another WOW statistic someone who's life was destroyed by their addiction.
Your choices are to make sure that your RL is in order and that all responsibilities are taken care of then log on to WOW, cut off WOW entirely or be yet another broke assed WOW addict 30ish, living in thier retired parents basement. Its your choice. Ya real life sucks but that's the way it is.
Of course this is all from a former WOW addicts viewpoint. I'm a hardcore addict turned casual
altoholic and am on a self imposed WOW methadone maintenance program. I find other stimuli and things to do to occupy my spare time. Sports, hobbies, new friends and old all are ways of filling the void left by less WOW or no WOW. In many ways WOW is used to fill a void inside ourselves.
A word of advice - as Robin Williams once said about drugs - if you find yourself playing Warcraft, and you fall asleep and you're still playing Warcraft and then you wake up and you're doing Warcraft except your family has left you and you stink and there's a starved dead pet at your feet and all you can worry about is where you left your Hammer of the Naaru - WARNING!
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