Real people.

Keredria’s recent post about Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov’s WoW addiction hobby reminded me of a couple of recent posts by Ta-Nehesi Coates, contributing editor of The Atlantic about things to do while you are gaming, or why he can’t bring himself to brag about not owning a television:

“…one reason I’m unlikely to lead a brigade against television is because some of my happiest hours are spent prancing around as  a red-headed elf. When you’re a WoW-geek, it becomes difficult to argue for stigmatization…”

I remember when I was sitting in a coffee shop near a university and overheard bits of a conversation from a couple of very “normal” looking 20-something college students, a man and a woman, who talked casually about classes, apartments, life, and raiding. I remember how this startled me and then being startled at the fact that it startled me. Why should I react that way when I play WoW? I mean, I actually think I am fairly “normal” myself.

Your first shock with your first MMO is that the characters you meet in the game are played by real people. Your next shock is when you learn the people you meet in real life play the game.

But I’m still sick!

Here’s what Keredria sent me last night.

Sigh. Ok well I have several posts that I’ve been wanting to do, but I’ve been busy in real life and I am still getting over the plague flu. But here’s an update at least.

Progression. We’ve done all of Ulduar except Yogg-Saron and of course Algalon. I’d say we’ve got it on farm even though we don’t actively farm it much now. The Keepers can still make things exciting sometimes, and we’ve done Mimiron and General Vezax only a couple of times, but it’s clear that now it isn’t a matter of if we down a boss, but just if it will take one or a few attempts. We would still like to go back and do some of the hard modes, but we’ve not yet found time to work that in to our raiding schedule. I really enjoyed our progression in Ulduar. We hadn’t farmed Naxxramas all that much before we started working on Ulduar, and we wiped many times, especially on The Keepers, but it was hard honest work and it felt good that we were able to master the encounters up through General Vezax before the welfare epics became available in Patch 3.2. Also Ulduar is just a wonderful raid instance and well worth seeing through anyway. I’ve been meaning to write a retrospective of Ulduar but I’ve just not gotten around to it.

We’ve cleared Trial of the Crusader on normal mode each week for the past four weeks so it’s on farm. Soon I think we’ll try the heroic mode. It feels a bit meh after Ulduar, but I’m sure the heroic mode will be a significant challenge.

Onyxia and Koralon are pure fun. I like that we can do these little mini raids when we have an extra hour or so.

Jess has done pretty well in terms of gear. I have enough Emblems of Triumph to buy at least a couple pieces of Tier 9, but I’m still running around with my Tier 8 since I have four pieces of it. I guess some might argue that the 4-piece Tier 8 bonus isn’t all that great, and I’ll probably try mixing in some of the Tier 9 for hard mode ToC. Anub’arak was kind enough to cough up a nice sword and board for me.

Also GuildOx ranks us as #3 on Drenden for strict 10-man progression, although I’ll admit that part of the reason for that is because some other 10-man raiding guilds disqualified themselves by doing some 25-man PUGs.

Alts. I’ve had a chance to heal most of Ulduar and ToC with my resto shaman, Makawee. She’s got a good set of Tier 8 and 8.5 and some other good drops. I do like raid healing with the resto shaman, and of course everyone appreciates totems and Heroism. I’ve also leveled a kitty druid to 80. She is purely for fun. I’ll try to write a post about her soon. I’ve messed around a little with my 74 priest and my 70 mage but haven’t really gotten back into them.

PvP. Yes, Jess is doing some battlegrounds PvP. The last time I did any serious PvP was back in TBC days when I needed tanking shoulders for Jess and a staff for my mage. I’m still not as into it as many others in the guild, but I enjoy a bit of PvP from time to time, and I do like playing an arms warrior although it’s embarrassing that my kitty druid can do more DPS with welfare epics from Trial of the Champions.

Ok. Moar posts soon. I promise.

The Raidleader.

So Keredria has been encouraging me to write about guild mastering and/or raid leadering (i.e., what it’s like to have her for a back-seat guild master and raid leader). “Just write” she said. Easier said than done. Words are hard for warriors. But perhaps a little anecdote might better explain my style. Here’s the story of how I recruited our healadin Nicolause a couple of months ago.

Nicolause: I believe in the Alliance. The Alliance has made my toon. I leveled my paladin in the Alliance fashion. I got him gear, but –- I geared him to always heal for others. He was in a PUG, not a guild run. He went to Ulduar, it was very late. I didn’t protest. They wanted to try some of the harder bosses – The Keepers. They made me main tank healer. And then they tried to kill Freya. She resisted! She pwned all of us, like noobs. When it was done my gear was broken. My ego was shattered. My toon could not weep because, well, I forgot the emote. But I wept. Why did I weep? He was the light of life –- leet paladin. And now he will never be leet.

I went to the forums, like a good player. I tried to find a better PUG. These people that I pugged with criticized my healing -– for three pages. Three pages! I looked like a fool. And those people that I pugged with, now they just lol at me. Then I said to myself, “for progression I must go to Jessika.”

Jessika: Why did you go to the forums? Why didn’t you come to me first?

Nicolause: What do you want of me? Tell me anything, but do what I beg you to do.

Jessika: And what is that?

Nicolause whispers to Jessika.

Jessika: That I cannot do.

Nicolause: I’ll give you anything you ask!

Jessika: We’ve known each other for two expansions, but this is the first time you came to me for counsel, for help. I can’t remember the last time you invited me to tank a heroic, even though my healer is on your arena team. But let’s be frank here. You never wanted my leadership, and you were afraid to be under my command.

Nicolause: I didn’t want to wipe on hard content.

Jessika: I understand. You found paradise in Northrend, you had two good professions, made a little gold. People ran dailies with you and there were Naxxramas PUGs. And you didn’t need someone like me. But now you come to me and you say “Jessika give me progression,” but you don’t ask with respect. You don’t even think to call me Raidleader. Instead you come to me and you ask me to carry you through content, for gold.

Nicloause: I ask you for progression.

Jessika: But it is not progression if someone carries you.

Nicolause: Then I can work, as you work. How much shall I pay you?

Jessika: Nicolause…Nicolause. What have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? Had you come to me in friendship, then these bosses that pwned you would be down this very day. And that by chance if an honest raider such as yourself should want more progression, then it would be our progression, and then others would respect you.

Nicolause: Be my guildy…Raidleader?

Nicolause kisses Jessika’s hand.

Jessika: Good.

Nicolause has joined the guild.

Some day, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to respecc for me. But until that day, accept this as a gift on our raiding day.

Nicolause: Thank you.

Jessika: Ishnu-dal-dieb.

Ok well maybe I made some of that up.