Play as a Team: Guild Progression

What is a guild? Very simply, it’s a group of players who come together under one banner to achieve a certain goal.

That goal can be anything: friendship, camaraderie, questing, leveling, PvP, role playing, raiding, progression. Most guilds combine at least a few of these, though I think we all know some guilds who are more focused on one or another.

Casual Progression

My guild is a casual progression raiding guild. I define “casual progression” as goal-oriented but more flexible than hardcore.

We raid three nights a week for about 3 hours per night. The other nights of the week belong to me (okay, actually, they belong to work and family, but I’m cool with that).

If my daughter wakes up with a bad dream, I can walk away for five minutes and not lose my raid spot. I can sign out of a raid for dinner with my husband. I don’t have to be perfect.

But I darn well better try.

That’s the key to any progression for me: be as close to perfect as you can be. Come prepared: bring a flask, get a stack of potions, eat your buff food, read the strats, watch the videos. When that pull countdown starts, be as ready as you can be and do everything you can to be as good as possible.

When the raid is over, take a look at performance. How did you do? Can you do better? (That’s a trick question, the answer is always yes). How will you do it better next time?

Guild Progression

I said all of that to establish where I’m coming from with this topic. The above is my raiding philosophy,  if you can call it that. I can say with complete certainty that all of the officers in my guild would agree that it’s what we expect from everyone. It’s definitely what we expect of ourselves.

The reason for performing your best is not to be awesome. Sure, it’s nice to be awesome. It’s certainly helpful if you are awesome. But the reason your ability and your performance matters comes down to one thing: guild progression.

Ultimately, I want to be in a guild that kills bosses. My personal role in that experience is to do whatever I can do to help kill bosses, and that is much more than a performance issue.

The fact is, sometimes the best thing I can do to help my guild get a boss kill is to sit out of a fight.

Sometimes the best thing I can do is admit I am stumped on a mechanic or that I need some help with my class and my role.

Sometimes the best thing I can do is to pass on a piece of loot that I could use but that would help the guild out more in the hands of a player who can utilize the optimization better or needs the upgrade more than I do.

Why? Because I care more about the guild progression than my own.

Personal Progression

Personal progression is extremely rewarding, let’s be honest. It feels great to get new loot. It feels great to be involved in a boss kill. 

If you’ve ever gotten one of these whispers:

• “Man, I wish I had your gear.”
• “How did you get that title?”
• “Congrats on the boss kill, we’re still stuck.”

You know there’s some pride wrapped up in personal progression.

But none of us live in a vacuum. I can’t walk in there and solo a progression boss (I’ve proven this with a few misfired Moonfires). I rely on the 24 other people in my raid.

One person’s progression is far, far secondary to the guild’s progression. A raider’s personal progression is only relevant in how much it helps us succeed as a guild.

My Bottom Line

I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic this week, mulling and stewing and raging, depending on the day. All of my thoughts come back to a few principles:

• No raider is irreplaceable. If you’re in a guild that’s been raiding for years, the very fact that you are in the raid at all is a testament to this truth: you replaced someone. 
• You raid because the rest of your raid allows you to do so. As I said before, you can’t solo bosses. If you’re in a raid group right now, it’s because the other people in your raid find you valuable for one reason or another. Keep being valuable, and you’ll probably get to raid for a long time.
  
• Guilds don’t exist to serve you. Guilds are communities created by like-minded individuals, each with their own motives, desires, and objectives. We are not merely a vehicle to achieve your personal goals. We all have individual goals, but our primary objective is for the guild’s boss count to go up.
  
• Guild progression > individual progression. I love to be present for boss kills. I love to get new loot. I love to do well on meters and get acknowledged for my contributions–who doesn’t? But I care much more about where we are as a guild, and if it takes me sitting back on the sidelines, playing a non-favorite role for a boss or two, or passing on loot, then that’s what I’ll do.

I’m in a progression-oriented guild because I like to be involved in a group that gets things done. I like being part of something bigger than myself. I like knowing that I play a role in what the guild is doing. Those things are rewarding to me; those things are fun to me.

In a conversation last night, one of our officers dropped the key word: teamwork.

Do your best, put in the effort, admit when you’re struggling, make a sacrifice for a fellow raider: play for the team.

December Wrap-Up and What’s Next

December Wrap-Up

I only saw one link in the comments, so if you posted but didn’t link, let me know!

The challenge was to tell me what you like about gaming or your favorite game. For me, there are two things: raiding and community. I love killing bosses and I love hanging out with my guild and chatting with the Twitter community.

And I’m a moonkin. For heaven’s sake, I Starfall. I also tab fail and Moonfire things, but that’s a post for another day.

Thanks, Rakuno, for one last post:

Shards of Imagination – Rakuno breaks down each of the parts of the challenge, jumping into adventuring, exploring stories, and seeing old friends reunited under the banner of Tyria!

What’s Next

The truth is, I don’t entirely know. Life recently has gotten insanely busy (but it’s worth every bit of it, I promise). My non-family free time is limited, so I often choose to play WoW during that time.

Unfortunately, that leaves only a little time for posting blogs.

I will definitely not be shutting down the blog again. I love this space. This is my space. It’s my place to talk at length about the things I experience and observe in the games I love so much.  I just can’t promise consistency and long posts…of course, most of you figured that out a long time ago!

I hope someone will pick up the challenges and start doing them every month. You won’t regret it!

You can find more frequent posts on Twitter and the Tumblr I recently resurrected.

Happy hunting, my friends!

December Challenge: Your Favorite Things

November Wrap-Up

In November, I asked you guys to write me a song, but that must have been a little daunting! Double cool points to those who posted:

>> Sugar & Blood brought back an old post with a great parody song: “Wish I Could Be a Vykrul Girl” with the opening line “Well the Night Elf girls are hip / I really dig those gowns they wear…” I do look pretty good in a gown, I must say, but vykrul girls are pretty cool too.

>> Mommy Jenkins busted out some musical mayhem including the lyrics to a parody song she was working on: “Doncha Wish Your Raider Was Skilled Like Me?” featuring the line: “‘Cause you know your buddy stands in the fire / and makes you wanna scream (and not in the good way).” You know it!

>> Adventures of the Hex Machine got in on the action with a remake of “Killing Me Softly” centered around the very, very painful dots of a Shadow Priest. Ouch!

And, as I promised Toriah on her blog, here’s one of my old fake CD’s. This one was entitled “Another Night in Ulduar.”

December Challenge: Your Favorite Things

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things…

What are your favorite things about gaming in general, or about your favorite game specifically? What keeps you coming back? What makes you smile? When the bee stings and you’re feeling bad, what is about gaming that makes you smile?

That’s the challenge!

Bonus Challenge: Tell me something awesome that happened to you this year!

And an important note: This is probably my last monthly challenge. I’ve taken on a lot more lately, and I can’t necessarily stick to a posting schedule. It’s been one of the coolest things ever, though; and if anyone wants to pick this up and run with it, I encourage you to do so. You won’t regret it!

November Challenge: Feeling Musical

October Wrap-Up: Incredible Costumes

From Hallow’s End transmogs to Mad King hijinks, there were some great costumes that came out of the October challenge. I’m just glad I finished the Mad King’s Clock Tower, everything else is meaningless now!

Take a look at these awesome costumes:

Sugar & Blood shows off a great Bewitched-inspired outfit–and some other pretty awesome ideas, too!

Bubbles of Mischief creates a spot-on movie-based Red Riding Hood. Picture perfect, to be sure.

Kamalia et alia presents a bunch of great Hallow’s End themed transmogs you might want to bookmark for next year.

ZazzyMogs creates a witchy transmog with a twist–and a comic to boot!

Harpy’s Nest introduces the smallest troll ever seen…

Image Heavy breaks out an impressive, hard-to-beat costume: gnome into giant bird is pretty impressive.

Shards of Imagination will be in the running for any costume contest with this awesome Charr doctor from Guild Wars 2.

I have to also show off a couple of little costume wearers who weren’t part of the challenge but who were representing  Azeroth on Halloween night:

Elunamakata designed a Chromie costume for her little girl that absolutely ROCKED:

Check out how she and Kurby did it here: The Making of Little Chromie.

My daughter begged to be a rogue…she wanted to be a goblin, but she settled for human this year:

Whoever–or whatever–you were for Halloween, I hope it was a safe and fun one!

November Challenge: Feeling Musical

The other day on Twitter, I complained–okay, I whined–that I was feeling grumpy. That’s when Marathal posted this Tweet…

…that led to this song:

If you’re grumpy and you know it, gank a gnome.
If you’re grumpy and you know it, gank a gnome.
If you’re grumpy and you know it,
and you’re really ’bout to blow it,
If you’re grumpy and you know it, gank a gnome.

If you’re wiping and you know it, blame the tank.
If you’re wiping and you know it, blame the tank.
If you’re wiping and you know it,
and you’re really ’bout to blow it,
If you’re wiping and you know it, blame the tank.

If you’re losing and you know it, go for kills.
If you’re losing and you know it, go for kills.
If you’re losing and you know it
and you’re really ’bout to blow it,
If you’re losing and you know it, go for kills.

The possibilities for additional verses are limitless. I’m sure I will have many opportunities to sing of epic stories to this tune.

This got me thinking–what other wandering minstrels (or at least semi-interested lyricists) do we have wandering around in our fantasy lands, not yet tapping into their talent?

Here is the challenge: Write the lyrics to a song (and/or the music if that’s your thing) about your game. It can be silly, fun, sweet, angry, a little naughty, a little nice–whatever you want to write about, write me a song about the game or games you play. 

I can’t wait to see what you guys write!

The (Halfway Through) October Challenge

All right, so I had my hiatus while everyone was starting Mists of Pandaria, and then it was extended as I jumped into the fray and found myself completely awash in things to do. I mean, geez, there are ALL THE THINGS and only one of me!

September Wrap-Up: Caught Being Good

We didn’t have a lot of response to the September Challenge; I’m hoping that’s because of the MoP release and not because there are just so few people caught being good. Here are the ones we did have, though; I found them very encouraging! I’ll add my own story, as well; I just had my own Caught Being Good experience a couple of days ago.

That Was An Accident! – After some encounters that left Mechalis feeling a little gunshy, there was a friendly–if very odd–mage that came along and managed to brighten the day.

Shards of Imagination – Rakuno shares an encounter in Lineage 2 that will stick with me for a while–when you play with people, sometimes it can’t be just a game. It is personal to me. 

The Daily Frostwolf – Navi busts out the super warm fuzzies with a shoutout to a bunch of the people who have made her happy for one reason or another along the way. I love it!

Pained from Dark Democracy Rocks, Period

My own Caught Being Good story happened a few days ago as I was doing Golden Lotus dailies in the Vale. I added NPCScan just out of curiosity a week ago, and it alerted me (it is completely unmistakable and will give you a heart attack if you aren’t expecting it) that there was a rare below me. I went and found him, a Pandaren in a cave with over 4 million health.

I pulled him and promptly died because I forgot about the spell Pandaren cast at range (Chi Burst, hurts for a lot). I managed to rush back before anyone else showed up and try again. I got started, and about that time I saw a horde shadow priest named Pained show up. I died by not running quickly enough out of crane kick. I knew when I got back that the priest would likely be killing it. I’d help, because I just think it’s a nice thing to do, but I was a little disappointed that I had let it slip away.

When I got back to my body, I was surprised to see the rare still sitting there in his cave. Pained stood outside, looking at him. I rezzed, healed up, and waited for a moment for the priest to pull, but it never came. So, cautiously, I approached the cave, realizing that I would have to pull him out into the open with a LoS this time.

Sure enough, I did that, and it worked. And then, to my surprise, I realized I no longer had aggro–Pained had the rare. In fact, Pained helped me through the entire fight, interrupting when my interrupts were down, ping ponging the aggro, and being repeatedly chased by Spinning Crane Kick until it was dead. When the encounter was over, Pained /bowed, mounted, and flew away–but not before I could get off a /hug.

I’m extremely appreciative, and even though my guild proceeded to call us Care Bears, well; I am A-Okay with that. These are the people and the moments I remember. Pained will always get a /salute or a /hug from me; this is the kind of people I want to share my server with, Care Bears or not.

Thank you, Pained, for being awesome.

October Challenge: Your Character’s Costume

This one’s easy (especially since I’m giving it to you with only a couple of weeks to go!): Halloween is right around the corner! Many games  have in-game events for the holiday, but rarely do we get the chance to fully dress up in costume.

The challenge is this: If your character were going Trick or Treating in Azeroth, Tyria, or wherever they call home, what would their costume be? Tell me all about the what and the why, and if you can find a picture of it or something similar, please post that with it–I’d love to see!

/cast Stealth

Here we are, Mists of Pandaria is about to be officially released and handed out to a bunch of very level-hungry World of Warcraft players. I don’t need to ask if you’re excited!

Unfortunately, for reasons beyond my control, I’m not able to get Mists of Pandaria on release. However, thanks to the very considerate intervention of some pretty awesome people, I’ll be getting it only a week late instead of having to wait until November.

Battlechicken Vlog #2: Let Me Make a Macro

Battlechicken Vlog #2! I told Navi earlier this week that I wasn’t sure I’d ever find something as awesome to vlog about as Navispam. I still haven’t, but you get this anyway!

I like to make made-up albums for my guild with song titles specific to our raid and members. I’ll show you the cover of the “album” from which this song comes, but the songs themselves are guild-related and will stay on our forums.

However, “Let Me Make a Macro” has been stewing in my head for a few months. Our raid leader/GM Boomslang says this phrase at least once every new fight. I felt like it needed to be written, so I wrote it. And that’s what vlog numero dos is: “Let Me Make a Macro.”

If it gets someone to smile tonight, I’m good with that.

September Challenge: Caught Being Good

August Recap

I found out a lot about you guys and your collections! Some of you are minimalists, and some of you…well, your bags are overwhelming! Here’s a look at all of the bloggers who answered the “I’m a Collector” challenge; thank you guys!

The MMO Compendium – Feliz is a seller! While bags get full from the effort of selling, the compulsion to keep things is not strong in this one.

Image Heavy – An organizer at heart, there’s still some inadvertent collecting that happens for this blogger–the kind that comes from leveling and preparing for an expansion!

Anka Huntress – Anka’s not into running out of bag space, but game changes have turned her into a collector, after all!

Healing Mains – This right here is your “Aww” moment, ladies and gentlemen. I’m not even going to tell you more than that.

Healing the Masses – Sometimes it’s just hard to say goodbye to things we love–and everything else, too!

Kamalia et alia – I have to be completely honest: I’m a little jealous of this wardrobe. Not the organizing part of it, mind you, just the fact that there are so many things available in a moment’s notice.

Bubbles of Mischief – Cymre has…well, a LOT of things! But I’m impressed that they all make sense, which is more than I could say for my bank when I wrote the challenge post.

Starshadow (and Part 2) – In a 2 part post, there’s first the adventure of the stuff in Skyrim, where an organizing system gone awry put gaming on pause, and then an awesome collection of bows and books!

Shards of Imagination – Rakuno’s EQ2 collection is impressive. I mean, just take a look at that huge sword–and everything else! Besides “Everhoarder” is such an apt title…

Arguing With Myself – Ainyan’s a packrat. I’ve seen this first hand in-game–do NOT get into a click-my-items showdown with her! She’s also got quite a thing for pets.

The Crimson Hammer – Someone’s feeling the space crunch…leaving enough room for auction house and looting? I completely relate!

Please check out all of these awesome bloggers!

Navispammed!

Subtitled: I got on video because Navi is that cool.

Edit to Add: Navi’s post about her visit! 

Navi’s blog: The Daily Frostwolf

5.0 Patch Day Mayhem

Best advice I have for pre-patch is read all the blogs. See the bottom of this post and the comments for resources, posts, and guides. If you have one, please link it!

Here’s the problem. In the past, I did patch days like everyone else does patch days in the blogosphere. I talked about my class, I wrote guides, I talked about all the changes. Here’s what I’ve decided: there are so many people doing that way better than I would.

So instead, we’re going to amble down the path of the many, many half-finished blog posts I’ve written about this patch and Mists and the game in general. We’re going to hit each point as succinctly as possible (which means this post will go on forever…) and, yeah. That’s the plan.

Point 1: Where I Stand on Mists of Pandaria

When MoP was announced at that fateful Blizzcon, I looked at my husband and said, “You have got to be kidding me. Pandas? They’re going to base our entire expansion on an April Fool’s joke?” Later came: “Who am I fighting? What will I be raiding? What is my purpose?”

I would never completely discount something without seeing it first, but my initial response was slightly more than reserved, slightly less than annoyed. Internally, I gave Blizzard this challenge: you’re going to have to sell me hard on this one.

For months, no matter how interesting the news came out, I dismissed it. Over and over again I brushed it off, sneered, or sighed at “monk” this and “pandaren” that and “Horde” this and “Alliance” that.

Then I played the beta. I wanted to play because it was beta, not because my mind had changed. I wanted to see it for myself. This was it–the moment Blizzard would have to sell me on Mists of Pandaria.