Guild Officers Should Not Be Allowed To _______

Recently I overheard a discussion about what GM’s and guild officers should and should not be allowed to do with alts and it has really struck a chord with me. Since there are no written rules to how a guild is ran or what is expected of officers, I have no way of determining which of the opposing opinions is the one most commonly believed or followed. So I thought I would present it to you, interwebz, and see what your opinion is on the subject.

Now to the specifics. I only witnessed the dialogue between 2 people. Let’s call them Person 1 and Person 2. Basically, Person 1 believes that it’s okay for a GM or officer to have alts in the opposite faction and alts on different servers than the guild, but they should not be allowed to have alts that are the same faction and on the same server as their guild but are not in the guild. Person 1 thinks this is a disservice to the guild and means the officer has no loyalty to the guild. No alts allowed outside of guild on same server. Period.

Person 2 started off being a bit of a smart ass, saying that Person 1 should treat all alts the same. Why differentiate between whether they are on the same server or not? If an officer is logged into another server he is not serving his guild then either. Person 2 doesn’t see why some are acceptable but some are not.

Person 1 was not amused with Person 2’s attempt at humor.

Person 2 then got serious. If an officer has an alt somewhere outside of the guild (no matter the server or faction) that they begin logging into more than their officer toon, and they begin not showing up to events, etc. then Person 2 can see how that would be a problem. But if an officer has an alt on the same server in a different guild and are still available to their main guild at all times and participates in every event, actively recruits, actively works for the better of the guild… then what’s the harm if they spend 3 or 4 hours a week logged into another guild? Are officers not allowed to have friends outside of the guild? Does spending time in another guild during your guilds downtime really indicate you don’t give a shit about your guild and don’t deserve to be there? How many more times can I say the word guild in just one paragraph?

I’m perplexed by this debate. Neither of the people involved are troublemakers or constant complainers. As far as I can tell they are friends and get along just fine. So why is this suddenly a topic of discussion? How can it be resolved? Is there any middle ground here?

So what is your opinion about how an officer should behave? Do you think alts in other guilds are something that should be against the rules for officers? Or should it depend on the situation and the individual actions of an officer? And what other rules should there be concerning officers and potential conflicts of interest? Someone really needs to write an Idiot’s Guide To Being A Guild Officer or something similar. I know each guild will choose to do things their own way, but there’s bound to be some general guidelines that we can learn. Someone, please teach me.

Screenshot Saturday

I got my ass kicked in a cave in Hellfire Peninsula. And as I stand here and look down at my dead body, I wonder… why in the hell did I have to die with such a stupid look on my face?

The One Where Trade Chat Can Be Entertaining

Most of my WoW friends do not understand why I keep an active trade chat window open. They wonder why in the world I want to expose myself to the immature noobs that seem to login just for the pleasure of trolling others in trade chat. To be honest, it actually serves two purposes for me:

1. Sometimes I have total noob questions (such as not knowing what an acronym stands for) that I’m too embarassed to admit I need to know… and if you wait long enough some noob in trade chat will ask the same question. And somewhere among the 37 lines of ridicule, someone will actually answer the question. Boom! I’ve learned something I needed to know.

2. I am basically a generous and kind person (please don’t ask Kimber to confirm, I do not believe she would agree) and I do approach WoW with a “do unto others” type of mentality. I also have very vibrant memories of how badly I struggled as a newbie player and how I was in awe of high level players who would run by and take the time to stop, come back and either buff me or kill something for me. Keep in mind this was pre-Wotlk, well before Azeroth received an influx of spoiled brat players who only think of themselves. My point is… I’m not actually enough of an expert in anything in-game to offer up amazing internet guides, so I try to help the world out by answering noob questions in trade. Of course, I’m smart enough to whisper them the answer instead of subjecting my words to the trolls.

Apart from the two things I mentioned above, I mostly ignore trade chat and let it just scroll by without paying much attention. But sometimes… sometimes… sometimes trade chat is very entertaining. *some language nsfw

The One With The 5 Things

When I’m lucky enough to get logged in these days, I typically spend my time in Tol Borad. I know I don’t usually get much time before the lag gets too severe, so this is a place where I can quickly get some dailies done to make some gold and gather some herbs along the way. Plus, I really want the spectral steed mount. So here’s my thoughts about Tol Borad.

5 Things I Love About Tol Borad

5. making gold doing dailies
4. Cinderbloom
3. Whiptail
2. Azshara’s Veil
1. mounts for sale

5 Things I Hate About Tol Borad

5. seeing the Darkwood Forest
4. running through the Darkwood Forest
3. questing in the Darkwood Forest
2. Darkwood Lurkers
1. Darkwood Broodmothers

The One Where I Find Heartblossom IRL

I may not be able to spend much time online or in-game these days, but so far it hasn’t decreased my WoW nerdiness any. Last Saturday I spent the day with friends in Branson, Missouri at Silver Dollar City. *Sidenote – while there we decided to catch the brand new show opening that morning, The Flying Wallendas. If you’ve never heard of them, well, I’m surprised. They are world famous, I promise. And it’s a big deal that they’re here in my back yard. Anywho, while waiting in line for the show we were approached by the Discovery Channel who asked if we would agree to sign releases and be willing to sit in the first 9 rows while they recorded the show. The Discovery Channel is apparently filming a series called “Life On The Wire” which follows The Flying Wallendas through several of their different performances. So if you see any episodes (starting near the end of June) and you see the one featuring Silver Dollar City, I’ll be that one hot chick you see. Lol. So not really. */end sidenote.

The people I was hanging with are not nerds. Not only do they not play WoW, they barely use computers. So while we were driving home and I looked out the window and started screaming “Heartblossom”, they were totally confused. And probably wondering why they hang out with me. I told DJ, who was driving, that I really REALLY needed a picture of the orange flowers that were flying by on the side of the road. We didn’t have an opportunity to pull over at all, but slowed down as much as he could and I snapped the below picture. Then they asked me what the hell Heartblossom was and why I needed a picture of the flowers. Of course they totally made fun of me when I explained it was a flower my character searches for in-game and that I wanted a picture for my nerd blog. But they still love me anyway, so I guess that’s something. And it was all worth it anyway because I totally found Heartblossom irl you guys!

The One Where It’s Really Getting To Me

I hate that this blog has turned into a place where I do a lot of whining, but the things I’ve been whining about haven’t gone away so how can I quit whining about them? This whole internet situation is really bringing me down fast. I had initially thought I would be able to just deal with it for a month or two before I was able to drop money on service from another ISP. But I am not dealing with it very well at all. I keep trying to convince myself that it’s summer and since I’m not able to play WoW through no fault of my own, I should just go out and enjoy the summer; get started on a a gym routine, be active and spend time outside. But I haven’t been able to make myself do that yet. I find myself sitting on the couch, flipping through my basic cable channels, watching reality TV and becoming depressed. And don’t get me wrong, I do realize how ridiculous it is to be depressed about not having internet. It’s not like I have serious problems like so many other people unfortunately do. I should be using my new spare time to catch up on my reading, do all those crafty things I’ve been wanting to do, etc. I need an intervention.

I think the reason I’m letting it upset me so is because I’m just getting so far behind. I am still able to read my blogs intermittently and everyone’s is getting ready for The Firelands, everyone is making huge progress on raiding, ZG and ZA are becoming old news. I, on the other hand, have never completed StoneCore (normal or heroic), I got pulled into one ZG group by friends when a healer dropped and after I helped them with the boss they were working on, they called it a night. I haven’t seen ZA at all. I only have 116 Tol Borad commendations. I only have a small handful of Valor Points. And I’m just getting left further behind in the dust. I think that’s why I’m so upset about this. I feel like by the time this internet situation is resolved I will be so far behind I’ll be useless.

To make matters worse, I decided to start researching my alternate ISP options here and it’s amazing how much is not available to me. I moved 2 miles away from where I had lived, but it did cause a zip code change and the AT&T dsl we had at my previous address is not available here. Mediacom cable internet is available here, but I’ve been all over their website and can’t figure out how to subscribe to internet only instead of a bundled pack of cable, internet and phone for a large monthly payment. Knowing that this may not get fixed after all is not helping. I realize it’s ridiculous to be upset over something as silly as not having internet, but I can’t help finding myself upset about it.

Anyway, I suppose I’ll wrap up this session of feeling sorry for myself and see if I can force myself off the couch to get something accomplished this evening. Wish me luck.

The One Where I Say FML

Okay, here’s the latest update on my recent move – I love my new place. I’m thrilled to have a master bathroom. I’ve got so much storage space that several kitchen cabinets are just completely empty. There’s no cat hair anywhere (but I do miss the cat). For an apartment, I’ve got a great view. Life is peachy… almost.

What I dont have is good internet. Or even decent internet. In fact, the longer I live here the worse it becomes. I am posting this from my phone because currently I am not able to get any pages to pull up at all. I’m getting a great connection to the router and I’ve changed router channels, turned off the router firewall, restarted everything several times, etc. And yes, I’ve hardwired directly in. That does technically make a difference but it’s so minor it doesn’t count.

Although I’m very upset about not being able to access the game, I have been a fairly casual player throughout most of my WoW life so I’m used to being away from the game for days and sometimes weeks at a time. But when I’m being forced out of the game and it’s not my decision, it just isn’t the same. It sucks ass. But then, nothing has been easy for me since this latest expansion launched. Back in October and November I got really excited about Cata and decided I didn’t want to be a casual player any longer. Then my guild fell apart. Now this. FML.

I was counting on my guildmates and other WoW friends to keep me from feeling lonely now that I live alone. Obviously that isn’t happening. Not only can I not spend time in game, I can barely use the internet at all. And since everything got blocked at work I’m going batshit insane from withdrawal. I’m lucky to have a smartphone which I can use to blog, read facebook and twitter, and do important google searches. But it’s not the same. I guess this means I need to stop by the managers office and complain but man I hate doing that. I’ve already had to turn in a small maintenance list and I don’t want them to view me as a troublemaker. But surely this entire complex doesn’t put up with this kind of service. There are a million young couples around here, I know I’m not the only person addicted to the internet. It’s gotta be something that can be fixed.

Until then, bear with me here. I’m not planning on taking a break from the blog, I will still have opinions and thoughts about the game. But things might be a little intermittent around here for an undetermined amount of time. And in the meantime please feel free to hit me up with an email or google talk me to keep me from going even further into depression. You can see my email address in the right hand column over there and you can find me on google talk with that same ID. Keep in mind I may be responding with my phone, so my typing may be a bit slower than normal. Luckily I use Swype on my phone, so it’s not that bad.

Later homies.

Screenshot Saturday

That’s right, my healing is LEET.