Okay. Yes. I'm jelly.

Lay me flat and spread me wide, because DAMN.  I am so very jealous right now.  My DK offtank crested the 300k hp buffed mark last night.

Three.  Hundred.  Thousand.  Hitpoints.

He's 394.  He comes in at just over 9.6k stamina.  I'm 395.  I come in at just shy of 11k stamina.  Yes, I realize my gemming is borked, but have you seen the prices on str/sta, dodge/parry, and parry/sta gems lately?  People didn't have those cuts, and the ones that do are all WAHAHAHA I TAKES UR MONEYZ!  *cough*  Anyway.  Back to bitching.

When we did DS Wednesday night, I still had him by a few thousand hp.  I swapped out some sta gems for sta/str, traded out my Veil of Lies for the str proc trinket from Spine, and we were just about even.  Now all of a sudden he's up over 300k with fort, food, and a flask.  I think I was sitting at 277?  Now, I know, I know.  ICC zone hp buff thingy.  But still!

Okay.  I think I'm over it.  I don't think I need to sit here and go through the 8% sta he gets from blood presence, and how much he got from effects, and what +30% is from that, or how it added up to nearly 30k hp.  I'll live.  I should write about something actually pertinent to 5.0.4.  Like...

THREAT!  Threat is good!

I'm a threat monster!  Charge, thunder clap, shield bash the main target, revenge the main target, shockwave, pop a shield barrier.  Shout, thunderclap, rotate devastate, bash, revenge, and shockwave as cooldowns come up.  Hit cleave or heroic strike on cooldown.  It's like...all the same from single target to aoe because shockwave and thunderclap don't cost rage any more.  How sweet is that?  Throw the shout on incoming, and pop shield block early on packs of trash, stick to barrier when big hits are coming in...  It's awesome!  Except when I'm doing a tank swap and I end up stealing aggro right back after my OT's taunt wears off.  All of my spammable attacks have threat components.

Spec note: After playing with threat and stuff, and watching my CD usage, I think I'm going to be switching to Impending Victory from Enraged Regeneration.  10% every 30s over 20% every minute that burns rage?  Yeah.  It's great when I've got my enrage thingy up, but that's only once every two minutes, so they come out to about the same unless I'm sacrificing a big fat damage absorb for a heal...

And stuff.

Disorganized post.  If you were standing where I'm standing right now?  You'd be disorganized too.  <3

Why didn't you guys tell me I didn't have my PTT down?!

I did an AWESOME walkthrough last night before the raid of 5.0.4 prot warrior, from stat changes to spec changes, with an explanation of my ghetto regemming because the AH was ridonkulous and the consumables I was going to be using.  I outlined my awesome plans for tanking and...

So yeah.  I apparently didn't have my PTT down for ANY of it.  All you hear in the background is my music, while my cursor's waving wildly all over the screen.  Also, zomg the resolution is bad on my stream.

I apologize to anyone who tuned in last night to see the raid.  I'll leave the video up and stuff, but I'm also going to record a new version of the tank stuff, and probably a priest rundown later on.

WoW 5.0.4 Warrior Stuffs

I had myself a right proper temper tantrum last night when I finally got home from work and was able to log into World of Warcraft.  The most recent patch brought down a whole lot of major changes on warriors, especially prot warrs.  Between things that were eliminated or merged into other abilites, new decisions I had to make, and a completely new stat priority, I was a very very cranky little girl.

So!  What's a girl to do when she logs in for the first time in 5.0 for her prot warrior?

1. Read over ALL THE THINGS.  Make sure you understand which abilities generate rage, and which consume it.  Rearrange your hotbars to account for the loss of rend (now called Deep Wounds, and a proc from Devastate), and the new cooldown shield barrier, which gives you an absorb that scales up with the amount of rage it consumes.  Once you've gotten familiar with the core, you can ->
2. Read over the new talents.  We got a lot of them.  As Prot, you can now pick up Bladestorm if you want.  We can also get an aoe silence, or a proc that's basically Indomitable Will that doesn't take up a gear slot.  Vigilance was changed from a set it and forget it ability to a two minute cooldown and damage splitter.  You'll notice some things missing, like gag order and stuff, but never fear!  That's all on
3. New Glyphs!  Gag Order, that thing that makes your shield slam hit harder during shield block, that thing that ups your revenge damage after a successful parry?  That's all on glyphs.  The minors are all cosmetic now, but the majors actually have some tough choices for you.
4. Reforge for hit/expertise!  Rage generation is just about entirely active now, and because you're not going to be capping evade you WANT your shit to hit.  Heroic Strike, Cleave, Shield Block, and the new Shield Barrier all consume between 30 and 60 rage.  To top it all off, you are no longer able to CTC cap on block.  Mastery gives you less straight block per point now.  Defense is also on a two roll system now, which means the game checks first to see if you dodge or parry, and then for block.  That means off the top you will evade Parry+Dodge.  Anything that gets through that has a Block chance to be blocked.  With Parry becoming much easier and effective to stack, and block being much harder to come by through mastery, stat priority shifts.  Right now I'm running on (rough) hit (to 8%) > expertise (to 8%) > mastery (until block is in the 20% range) >  Parry > Dodge > expertise (to cap).  Don't quote me on that, because the math is still out and so is the aecdotal running my ass through dungeons and DS.
5. Go tank shit!  Seriously . It will take a few run for you to get used to the new rythm of rage generation and consumption, not to mention the cooldown cycle.  Be prepared to get cuntpunched.  Groups are going to be a little derpy until everyone figures out what they're doing.

I'll be streaming tonight's raid, so my one or two readers can watch me derp and flail.  See you then!

'Twas the night before 5.0...

...and if you really thought I was going to try to make that work?  As if.

Today is patch day.  The servers are down, the forums are down, and WoW players everywhere are no doubt screaming doom and gloom.  My class is broken!  I can't pvp!  I can't raid!  Oh my god, Blizz, how do you expect me to change this quickly?

My patch day crises are about as resolved as they're going to be.  My raid's getting another shake-up as we get yet another main change in the wake of 5.0.4, and a role change.  I'm getting a new tank 2.  And in another month I'm losing at least one of my DPS.  Yaaaaay.  The best time to change your raid comp is when everyone's going to be reeling from mechanics changes.

Anyway.  Blog is going to be in a holding pattern for the next few days.  Hurt my hand at work, and I'm going to be spending my time in WoW fleshing out new builds for my girls and playing with the new shinies.  Stream will be up most of the week, from 9-midnight eastern.  Pay us a visit!

Roxi's WoW 5.0.4 Cram Weekend

Once upon a time I was one of those gamers that spends just about as much time on the forums as she does ingame.  As in, I was playing ten hour shifts, then logging off or tabbing out and reading the forums for another two to four hours a night.  Oh, and I was reading them for at least an hour or two in the morning.  People knew my handle, my smartass sigs, my guild recruiting spam...  It was awesome.  I was like a celebrity or something in a community of maybe 10k people.  It was Champions Online, and at this point it's like saying I was one of the cool kids on the shortbus.  ANYWAY.  The point is I used to be a big forum reader, pts-denizen, and keeper of spreadsheets.

Then I came back to WoW, and everything was already done by people who have dedicated eight years to being professional WoW players, and I got a massive case of the fuckits.  The only threads I really post on unless I'm specifically seeking help any more are the @Day threads on the Warrior forums, the Tank Lounge, and (when I'm feeling brave) the Priest social threads.  Why?  Because I can't be assed.  Literally.  You come near me with the WoW forum donkey and I'll just beat it with a shock stick until the ASPCA comes along and takes it away.  That is how strong my aversion to the forums has become.  Or the force of my lazy.  Take your pick, because either works.

It came as a shock to me that WoW 5.0.4, which has been on PTS for a while now I think and prepatched like a month ago, was bringing the Pandaria class changes.  You know, the big, game-changing things that are making people go AMG DOOM about their classes.  The things that made me quit WoW before Wrath of the Lich King came out because my ex didn't like what they were doing to combat rogues and I was tired of fighting with him about exactly how little the changes actually meant, and how there were two other specs, and wasn't he always complaining that he wanted to run subtlety anyway?  I mean, it's not like we were raiding or anything back then, so he could have played a freaking 21/10/10 spec or something and nobody would have cared.  -.-  Tangent!

So now I'm looking at my class being completely redesigned JUST after I've finally stopped sucking at it.  (For those of you who haven't heard, I used to be a disc priest atonemen/lolsmiter and mainchanged to my warrior, who runs prot and arms like... six weeks ago?  Eight?  Pretty much right after she dinged 85.)  A smart woman would have been at least keeping the changes in mind, holding onto things in case they became useful because of shifting stat weights and priorities, or open gem sockets, or...  Yeah no.  My bank has a bunch of transmog shit in it, and all the junk I've accumulated while leveling archaeology.  My brain is about the same right now.  That is to say: I know rage is getting changed, but don't know how; I know tanks are going to need some amount of hit or something; and I know mastery's being...fucked with.  Somehow.  But I don't know how.

I'm like, a primary tank.  Depending on which way the wind is blowing and whether or not his girlfriend used fabric softener when she washed his boxers, I trade off main tanking with Zartash the fatbear Reckless Embrace's fearless leader, who is also occasionally Hexxie the shaman (and who used to be a rogue, and was a paladin before that, and a warlock before that, and...there may have been a hunter in there somewhere?  I don't know.  I need a score card for these things.).  Point is, my raid kind of depends on me to know my shit and be able to not completely screw up Zon'ozz because I'm turning him too early because I'm half-drunk and trying to overcompensate for the fact that I might possibly be getting drunk, or...whatever was going on this week.

Know what?  Enough preamble.  I went to the WoW forums, and all I found was bitching, and it made me sad.  Seriously!  I know they're not exactly known for the quality of the information to be found within their vast halls, but you'd think with a major patch on the way SOMEONE would be talking about the changes.  Only...not so much.  Warrior forums?  Are all about how much we suck in PvP.  And occasional recipes for tasty goodies, beer, and how to name/transmog your warrior.  So I picked up my toys and went over to the tank forums (after chiming in about how stupid I thought someone's name was, and why), where I saw some pertinent thread titles.  Sadly, I have not yet gotten to read said threads, because real life is hard and I want a pony.

BUT!  Blizz has delivered!  Today, I go to claim my totally cute Li'l XT consolation prize for paying Blizz three bucks a month for something that should have been free all along (mobile AH/guild chat) and I see that they've got a 5.0.4 Survival Guide up!  Let's give the devs a round of applause for keeping the lazy strong!  So I read it over, and I go "Meh.  Meh.  Fuck druids.  Meh.  Oo!  Someone left a piece of candy on the- ew, never mind, it's cinnamon.  Meh.  WARRIORS!  Here we go!"  And...  Blizz tells me exactly what I already knew, MINUS the fact that tanks actually need to care about hitting things.

When Tuesday rolls around and the patch hits, I'm going to be streaming the hilarity of me running dungeons and LFR trying to wrap my head around whatever fresh hell Ghostcrawler's come up with for me.  My rage is going to be generated when I use certain attacks, like building runic power.  Okay?  This means I need hit, because if one of those misses, I'm screwed for rage.  Gotcha.  And I can use anything from any stance.  WOOT!  No more stance dancing for arms.  Maybe now I'll stop sucking!  Of course, now I'll have to change my hotbars completely, since I've got it all carefully mapped out and macro'd to work with my extreme windowlicking playstyle. 

We're also getting the new talent system on Tuesday, so I'm going to have to decide between Shockwave and Bladestorm.  Shockwave...  And BLADESTORM.  But of course... I can only shout during Bladestorm, so what if I need to taunt something, or use a defensive cooldown or-  screw it.  I'm motherfuckin' bladestorming with a motherfuckin' shield.  This also means the new glyph system, which means herbers, get your gloves on.  Expect a HIGH demand for inscriptionist-made stuff, between the new glyphs and the Tome of Clear Mind that lets you switch talents out on the fly.  Harvest all tiers, and plan for a 25-50% markup on Cata herbs, and as much as a 100-200% markup on non-Cata herbs.  Those numbers are pulled out of my ass, but that's what I'm planning on doing.

5.0.4 is also bringing some little things, like account-wide mounts and achievements, a unified cooking currency (because they couldn't have done that back when I had like 80 tokens on my priest and dumped them all into meats and cocoa beans to sell?  I want my chef hat!), aoe looting, and the valor -> justice conversion.

Oh.  And mana is getting capped.  Grats on your herps, casters.

And I almost forgot.  The ranged slot is going away.  No more melee, hunters, sorry.  At least the damned minimum range is finally getting axed.  Now you really can be all Legolas and just point blank eyeshoot someone in the face.  I just hope they refund me my valor or something for the two ranged pieces I'll suddenly have no use for.  Or make them vendor for a stupid amount.  Even though, you know, I'll probably just DE them because I'm a whore like that.

If you don't like my rundown, do your own cramming or read Blizz's page.  I'm at the shore this weekend, but I'm going to try to compile Roxi's 5.0.4 Cheat Sheet For Shieldy Hurty Things when I get back Sunday night.

I've got some cool plans for the stream after Tuesday, including Pre-Pandaria Window Licking for Prot Warriors, my vainglorious attempt at getting my DK 85 before the expansion hits (including tradeskills, so bring a pillow and some coffee), and 50 Shades of Training Dummy: Arms Warrior edition.

How to take it easy without sucking

I started writing this last month sometime, when I was at the very beginning of a weeks-long recruiting slump, and getting tired of arguments in trade chat.  I decided not to post it at the time because I more or less ramble, rant, and and offend absolutely everyone on the planet- myself included.  Why am I posting it now?  Because I have an eight hour recataloging shift at work, nothing prewritten, and it's already noon.  You know where to send the hate mail.

Nobody wants to be called casual.  Guilds that self-style as 'casual' or 'family-friendly' usually end up dumping grounds for terrible players, leeches, and the maturity-challenged.  Like it or not, being casual has become a catch-all excuse for not giving a flying fuck about what's going on around you.  I've watched players go into full-on freak-out mode when someone called them laid-back, relaxed...  So close to the dreaded C word.

Believe it or not, there's a happy middle ground in MMORPGs.  Most of us live somewhere in that grey area.  It's perfectly possible and reasonable to have a job, a life, and a family outside of the game and still push progression, strive for excellence, and succeed.  There are server top-five guilds out there that only raid once a week.

So stop waving around your little I'm A Casual flags every time someone asks you to stop sucking and do your job.  Seriously.  The reason more serious players look down their noses at "casuals" and have basically turned the word into a racial slur is that we're tired of some guy standing in the fire and shouting about everything he's done in the last five years when we ask him to move.  And hearing people cry for handouts because they're 'casual' and can't get it themselves?  Yeah.  Less than appealing.  (I know, right?  I sound like such an elitist hardcore prick.  Only remember yesterday's rant?  Yeah.)

If you're not a serious player, it's okay.

Questing, roleplaying, socializing, being pretty...  It's all part of the game.  Play however you have fun.  We all pay our fifteen dollars, or whatever the sub fee is (unless it's a free to play game, and that's another rant entirely).  We all have to decide what the best use of our sub is.  That said...

Don't try to force your playstyle on everyone else.

This is really just a Best Practices For Life kind of thing, but seriously.  If you don't want to be judged, don't judge.  You are not better or more right than anyone else playing this game.  Pot, kettle right?   You play your game, I will play my game, and we'll all get along.

Make the most of your time.

If you want to be effective and efficient, minimize the amount of time you spend standing around in Orgrimmar bullshitting in trade chat.  Learn to multitask.  If you're DPS queueing for heroics, spend that extra time you're waiting out in the wild farming cash, or stuff for your tradeskills, or running quests.  Unless you need to be in a town to catch a pickup raid or you're listing things on the auction house, don't be there.  If you're wasting a lot of time on stupid shit?  I'm going to be pissy when you start whining about how hard it is to have money and be successful as a casual.

Schedule things.

I'm so tired of hearing how there's not enough time for people to raid or even gear through heroics without massive windows of time every night, or whatever.  MMOs are like any other hobby- if you want to do it, you make time for it.  Block a couple of hours off a few nights of the week for Mommy's Computer Time or something, and massacre some internet space dragons or whatever it is you're killing.  This kind of goes a long with the last one.  Suck it up and start managing your most precious resource.

Your lack of skill has nothing to do with your financial problems.

No really.  You're not standing in fire because your computer sucks and you can't afford another one, you're not bad at PvP because you've got high latency because you're not on fiber, and there is nothing in the cash shop you need to have that is going to make you markedly better or worse at the game than I am.  Stop using things you can't fix as excuses and identify the stuff you CAN fix and work on.  Seriously.  If you know you're lagging, plan ahead.  If your graphics are crap and you can't see effects, you might possibly have picked the wrong hobby because DAMN.  Do you think I'm going to go like...step into an ice hockey game as a goalie with a field hockey stick and no pads?  If I do, I'm sure as hell not going to moan about taking a puck to the face or not being able to stop a shot to save my life.

You want something?  Fucking earn it.

Rewards are based on three things: potential risk, time investment, and skill required for completion.  That time investment factor?  It's a biiiiig factor.  But here's the deal: you can so totally put in enough time to eventually balance the equation.  Contemporary MMO design practically encourages you to take your risk (constant) and skill (not constant, but hopefully always increasing) and add them to a smaller or at least variable time factor to get your reward.  Persistent raid zones, shorter raids, multiple difficulty settings, and pickup raid finder tools are all modern additions to the standard MMO social experience that are meant to give more casual players chance at seeing the formerly 5% content.  SO.  Stop bitching that you can't do things because you're a casual, you can't get the gear to be decent as a casual, you can't compete as a casual.  You can.  The tools are there.  STFU and use them.

And this is why I didn't post this when I first started writing it.  Raw, un-cut Roxirants are bad for your health.  <3

Tomorrow: Roxi's WoW 5.0 Cram Session, and why the class changes are giving her heart palpitations.

Roxi's Raid Night Checklist

Every Wednesday night* I get my ass off the couch and, for about two and a half hours, act like the dedicated and responsible guild officer I tell myself I am.  At the end of the expansion, raid night ranks about up there with going to the gynocologist or sitting through a staff meeting: you've gotta go, but you really don't want to, and the enjoyment factor just isn't there.  You've been doing the content for weeks or months, you're to the point that people are just gearing their alts, and you find yourself mumbling along with the dialogue between pulls while you're in the bathroom taking a ninja AFK three rooms away.

Now, I have an attention span problem.  This may come as a shock to you, dear reader, but I have this tendency to completely lose the plot the minute something shiny pops up in my field of vision.  It helps when I have to pick up unexpected adds or get out of fire.  Doesn't help so much on turn and burn fights where I've got to stare at stacks of a debuff on my offtank and wait to snap aggro back.  I tend to zone out.  Needless to say, I've come up with a sort of checklist for things that I need to have at my desk or readily available by raid time to make sure I don't spaz out, wander away from the computer, fall asleep, or tab out and start watching porno.

• Beer - Yes, this is item one.  If beer is not available, rum may be substituted with restraint.
• TV or Radio -  Background noise to drown out things like police sirens, car accidents, people screaming, and my cat whining about wanting petted mid-pull
• Comics - Usually on my tablet, for skimming during dialogue, between pulls, during raid strats, and if by some miracle I'm not the last back from an AFK break
• Snacks - Finger food that doesn't make a mess of my keyboard, usually plain tortilla chips, pretzels, rice crisps, or popcorn
• Water bottle - Alternate between beer and water to stretch the bottle out and avoid drunken Spine pulls.  Your mileage may vary.  I am Irish-American and can drink like a fish before I realize that it's alcohol and not water that I'm chugging.
• Catnip - You know that thing with a circle of salt around you to protect you from ghosts and witches and shit?  Draw a circle of catnip around your desk to keep your cat from bugging you during the raid.
• Sparkly cat toys - Piled near your mouse, for an easy quick throw if the catnip circle fails for some reason
• More beer - For when the wipes start.  If drinking rum, more rum, and well-practiced Captain Jack Sparrow voice for "why's the rum gone?"
• Mouse, headset, and other actually important things - Not that I would ever raid with vent muted, using my touchpad and keyboard for movement.  Nope!  Not me!  Neeeever....  >.>

There you have it!  All you need for a perfectly dysfunctional, Roxilicious raid night.

Now get going!  And don't stand in the shit this time!

*Some exclusions and exceptions apply.  Raids may be called for any or all of the following reasons: too much beer, not enough beer, short squad, PMS, raid leader on the rag, drunk main tank, drunk main healer, emergency booty call, fried chicken, work, acute case of the fuckits.

Protip: Don't overshare

So...  you know how they have all those rules for things you shouldn't say in a job interview?  Don't talk about your health problems, or your kids' activities, or that one chick Janice who never gave back your home brazillian kit...

Yeah.  A lot of those rules apply to the guild recruitment process.  Enough people have blathered at length about the similarities between successful guilds and successful companies, recruitment and the hiring process, being a guild officer and an HR rep, and all that good stuff.  You've got work that needs done, and you want to get the best people you can to do that work, but you also have to offer the right incentives to attract those people.  The parallels between recruiter/prospie and HR/job-seeker are easy to draw. 

Today, I want to focus on the prospie.  You've contacted or been contacted by a recruiting officer, and you're in your interview.  They're asking you all kinds of questions about your experience, your expectations, your availability...  And they're dumping all kinds of information on you.  You want to get a feel for them on a personal level, and you want to show off some of your personality, but...  Please.  Don't go overboard.  The most creepy, awkward, and annoying moments I've had as a recruiter have been the direct result of oversharing, either on my part or my prospie's.

So, for your future reference and my ease of posting, a beautifully bulleted list of What Not To Say in a recruiting interview:

• Don't whine about not getting loot in your old guild.  We will probably ask why you're leaving your current guild, if you come to us tagged, or why you left your other guilds if you're tagless.  I'm not saying don't be honest if you left over loot disputes, just... be delicate.  When it comes to loot, we recruiters are a skittish lot, so try not to scare the poor girl.   If you have to say anything, just say that there were inconsistencies in the looting policy, or there was a dispute over some drops.  You don't want the recruiter to walk away thinking you'll start whining or jump ship when things don't go your way.
• Leave old drama in the past.  Okay, you're leaving your guild because of drama.  That will suffice, thanks.  I don't need to hear about who was sleeping with who's cat, or girlfriend, or how many raids were cancelled because your raid leader was spending the night in the drunk tank.  Guilds these days like to stay low-drama, especially raiding guilds, where every boss kill has a brand new chance to start shit.  If you're so eager to talk shit about your old guild, odds are you'll be spreading things around THIS guild, and discord is bad mmkay?
• Your personal life is just that.  PERSONAL.  The interview is not some kind of speed date, where I've got to get to know you at least enough to know if I want a second date.  That's what your trial period is.  If we happen to all get blitzed on raid night and we're telling stories about painful water births or ruptured discs...  Go for it!  Now isn't the time.
• What you do for a living, what you drive, how smart your kids are?  Don't care.  This sort of goes with your personal life staying personal.  What I care about in the initial interview is your experience as a raider, your skills as a player, and your ability to commit to the guild.  Telling me you have a busy evening schedule and are only available late nights because of Tiffany's ballet classes is one thing.  Telling me that she's the best in her class, and fell last week, but she's still got a shot at the lead in Swan Lake?  Oversharing.
• Why you don't play your warrior any more is your problem.  This happened to me.  I had a woman go on at me for half an hour once about why she doesn't play her warrior any more.  See, she rolled it with her boyfriend, and he was her healer, and they ran as a tank/healer duo.  They ended up dating, and it was true love, and they moved in...  And then she caught him cybering with some mage and they broke up and it's all so painful and...  Yeah.  I stopped paying attention for a while because I lost interest.  The point is: I never offered her a trial, because she seemed like she was just going to be WAY too high maintainance.  And talk too much.  Oh, and I hate girls.  (That last part isn't true.)

Really, examples aren't necessary.  What's important is that you keep it professional and stick to what matters.  Don't overshare, don't waste your time and mine, and don't make me hate you.

Coming soon to a dysfunctional blog near you: How to select the perfect raid night cocktail!

Five questions you should always ask a guild recruiter

I know, I know.  I said "tomorrow" but...  Come on.  It's the tail end of summer and I'm finally getting my vacation time.  Tomorrow is relative.  Be satisfied that I'm getting anything at all posted, given that I was left work for the Jersey shore on Saturday night and rushed home with two hours to spare because I got called in to work this afternoon.  You know what?  Since you're being so pushy, tomorrow I'm subjecting you all to a lengthy about the author post.  That's what you get for nagging.

Now!  Guild recruiting.  I know I harp on this a lot, but it's one of those things I always seem to find myself put in charge of to some degree.  Maybe it's because I'm outspoken, or people think I'm just mature enough to be a good face for the guild.  Whatever the reason, over the years I've come up with a basic set of questions I ask my potential recruits, and a fairly lengthy set of FAQs that I just rattle off when they ask for information.  It never fails that I'll finish up my spiel, ask the prospie if they've got any questions, and they hit at LEAST one that makes me twitch, double-take, or quietly /ignore Prospienoob and log off.  What questions are these, you ask?

*slap*  I was getting there.  Give me time.  Noob.

• How do you handle loot for new members?  Asking about loot is not in and of itself a bad thing.  It's an important thing to know when you're going into a guild, and in many (if not most) cases it's why you're looking to leave your current guild.  Pay close attention to your recruiter's informational packet speech, because any headhunter worth her salt is going to have that in there somewhere.  And if you're still not clear on how getting goodies works, find a better way of asking.  Cutting right to "how likely am I to get drops" is going to send up warning flags in the recruiter's mind, if she's been in her post for any length of time.  Heavily emphasizing loot in your question/answer phase is going to send the signal that you're only interested in gear, and once you've gotten what you need or it looks like someone else gets something you want, you'll be moving on.  Recruits are a big investment for a guild, and too often we see our investments walk out the door before we get any kind of return on them.
• Try asking a more specific question.  Something along the lines of: "How is your EP/GP system weighted?" or "Does your loot council check against attendance before awarding drops?"  Tailor the question to the guild's loot system, and try to get a more complete answer out of the recruiter.  If for some reason they suck and didn't mention loot at all in their informational speech, ask what kind of loot policy the guild runs, or offer up the loot system you're most familiar with and ask how theirs is different.  You may get a "we can go over that in more detail later" or a link to the guild website, but it's less likely to set off your recruiter's spider sense.
• What's your minimum attendance?  Seriously?  All that says to your recruiter is "how little effort can I put in before you kick me?"  There are SO many better ways to ask that question.  Would you ask your professor how much homework you have to turn in to not fail the class?  (Don't answer that, because I know you have, and I know I have, because that's just how college students roll.)  Remember that look you got from mom when you asked what happened if you didn't do your chores?  That's the one your recruiter just gave you through the internet for asking that question.
• Pretty much any other way of asking about attendance policies is better than that.  Try asking what their attendance policy is, or how they handle RL interruptions, or something like that.  It's easy.  Just don't mention the minimum.
• Will you guys backflag me?  Flagging, keying, and attunement for dungeons is a lot less common in MMORPGs today than it was two years ago.  If your game happens to have some dungeon or other that has an access requirement, it's kind of a big deal to have access or get it as soon as possible.  Especially if you're coming in from outside a raiding guild, you've probably got some catching up to do.  But remember...the Q&A phase of your interview is where your recruiter checks to see what your priorities are and what you're looking to get out of the guild, so you wan to be careful not to make her think you just want carried, welfared, or handed things.  Weigh your phrasing.
• Try asking which keys/attunements you're expected to have, or just come right out and offer which zones you haven't completed access for.  Yes, this may cost you your guild invite if the guild's not interested in helping you flag for the zones.  That said, you would have lost the invite anyway if you came right out and asked them to carry you. I usuallC default to something like "I haven't been able to get runs to finish my Deathtoll access yet.  Is that going to be an issue?"
•  What level is your guild?  Guild levels are really dumb.  All that tells you is how long the guild's been together, how much grinding they've done, and what perks you have access to.  I've yet to be in a game where not having certain high guild-level perks would make or break your raid.  Just don't ask this one.  If you're that desperate to know, check them out on your game's armory/players/DB site.  Game doesn't have one?  Guess you'll just have to be curious.  This one isn't going to make your recruiter question your integrity, but it WILL piss her off.  It's not important.  Don't waste her time.  She's got things she wants to do as soon as this part of the interview's wrapped up and you're invited.
• How fast will I get promoted?  Really?  You just asked that?  Odds are, if you're just walking into a guild you're going to want to get yourself established before you even THINK about things like promotions.  Your recruiter should have covered at least the recruit/probation/member phase in her informational, but in case she didn't you can really simply cover your backside on the issue without sending up the power-hungry scrub flags.
• Ask if there's someplace you can get a rundown of the guild ranks, see who your class leaders are, and all that good stuff.  If the guild doesn't keep a website, your recruiter will probably launch into a discussion of the guild ranks you need to worry about, and how to get there.  If they don't- Q&A is also about you feeling the guild out.  You may want to consider looking somewhere else, because they may just not be organized enough. 

  So...what questions do I really want to see my prospies ask in an interview?  This depends a lot on the sort of situation my guild is facing right now, and how desperate we are to fill the slot.  If I'm just recruiting socials to make a big guild xp push or pad my roster going into an expansion, it's going to be different from what I want to see when I need a cleric for THIS WEEK's raid.  Generally speaking though...

• Will you need me to fill any roles besides (main role)?  I like people that know how flexible their class is, and I like to know if someone is willing to role pivot if my raid leader needs them to.  This kind of question tells me that you know more about your class than what's posted on the cookie cutter websites, and you're at least familiar with your class's alternate roles.
• Don't ask "Do I have to tank/heal/dps?" if it's your offspec and you don't want to.  It's a phrasing thing, and "do I have to" sounds whiny and makes me think you're going to be a pain in my ass.  That, or you don't know what you're doing, and you'll be a pain in my raid leader's ass.
• Have you guys already blown your locks for this week?  I actually like this question.  It's sort of a way to ask if you can get into this week's raid, but it's also checking to see if you're free to get a pickup raid or a last run in with your old guild before zone lockouts reset.  This shows that you're aware of the fact that your lockout is going to belong to the guild once you're tagged, and you're willing to commit to our schedule.  If the answer is yes, and you still have an open lockout, check to see if it's okay for you to blow yours as well.  You may be forwarded to the raid leader, but again...  It shows both officers that you care and are considerate.
• When are raids posted?  You want to know when to watch for the next week's events going up, so you can sign up.  This, to me at least, shows eagerness and a willingness to commit.  It also opens things up for me to give you our "you have to sign up by" and our cancellation policy without having to ramble for an hour solid at you.
• What voice chat system do you use?  If I didn't already cover it, this clarifies for me that you're willing to use voice chat, hopefully won't whine about the system we're using, and are familiar with how to navigate the programs.  My raid leader bitches me out every time a recruit doesn't have voice ready to go by formup, so you're saving me an ass chewing.  Thanks, prospie!
• Is there anything I should be looking to pump into the guild bank?  Maybe you're a tradeskiller.  Or you're just someone who wants to contribute.  I don't care, because you just made my day.  This shows that you're willing to contribute in some way to the guild as a whole, either with crafted or dropped goodies.  Or cash.  We recruiters are suckers for that kind of thing.  This also lets me bridge into an explanation of consumables, guild repairs, alt gear...all kinds of things.  Thanks, prospie!  Hugz 4 u!  ^_^

I know I focused a lot on loot/inventory-related questions, but you've got to keep in mind that I'm also the poor bastard that's trying to keep track of the guild bank, and I'm on loot council.  A roleplaying officer or events coordinator will have different priorities than I do.  Likewise, a social guild or RP guild is going to have a completely different set of concerns than my guilds.  The above is mostly tailored for people looking to transition into raiding, or into a different raiding guild.

Tomorrow: Drama from your old guilds does not constitute experience, or Stuff Roxi doesn't want to hear in your interview.

We interrupt this important lull to bring you random!

So, I just recently got back from a week of hanging out in my guild leaders' living room playing WoW, visiting NERO events (live action rp: beating people with plumbing supplies and having pretend babies with people you don't so much hate as loathe and despise), and trying to convince them to play The Secret World.  You read that right: I spent seven days of vacation time to go halfway across the country for what I already do in the comfort of my own living room.  And it was totally worth it.

There's definitely something to be said for meeting your council face-to-face and being able to hash out your recruiting strategy and progression plans over a small mountain of Papa John's while playing pass the Dew.  (Cups and plates are for people that want to do dishes, and dishes are the devil.)  As many great tools as guild leaders have available for faceless management and organization, that extra bit of connection and (as much as I hate to say it) the ability to see someone wildly waving her hands about and all scrunch-faced while she screams at people makes the communication process go a lot more smoothly.

So (belated) thanks to my awesome GMs, and their kitty Luna, for having me last week.  I think I've got just enough time to recover from that visit before the Tactical Dysfunction meet-up extravaganza and its bizarre bleed-in to Mists of Pandaria release weekend back with the Reckless Embrace buys in the land of banjos and shine.  Whether or not my car will have gotten over the trauma of crossing the Appalachians, having a hawtt pancake threeway with some 18-wheelers on the PA turnpike, and getting stuck in both Philly AND Pittsburgh rush-hour traffic on the same day?  That's another thing entirely.

And because it wouldn't be TacDys if I didn't give some random tips or snark of randomness: Roxi's guild roadtrip guidelines!

• Always pack a cooler!  As I learned on the drive home, no matter how excellent the food on the highway looks, it's marked up by exactly way too flipping much.  You're spending enough just on gas and tolls.  Steal a cooler from some unsuspecting relative or foolish neighbor that left their garage open overnight.  Spend a week before your trip making ice in your freezer and filling dollar store ziploc baggies (or, you know, buy a couple bags of ice).  Go to your nearest bulk buying club (steal a card if you have to) and pick up the following (amounts will vary depending on number of passengers):
• One case of Monsters (or your energy drink of choice)
• Two bags of beef jerky (protien, low-mess)
• One box granola bars (breakfast)
• One value-pak string cheese (dairy)
• Two bags veggie chips/straws (vegetables)
• One case of soda or bottled water
• Take extra socks!  No really.  Wet feet suck, as I learned during the great torrential downpours I hit going through the Lancaster area.  This was reinforced by various horror stories from NERO.  Take extra socks.
• Label your CDs!  Don't take originals if you're afraid of losing them.  Take your totally legal copied CDs, and write what's on them in black sharpie.  Trust me, radio roulette is a lot less fun than it sounds.  You don't want to be hoping for Dee Snider Does Broadway and get Crown Thy 4nicatr.    Or however it's spelled.
• Don't check your auctions every time you stop!  Seriously.  Unless you've got a charger that can split to USB, you can't afford to have to charge your phone AND run your GPS unit at the same time.  (We'll ignore for the moment that my car has two standard outlets on top of the lighter thingy.)  WoW's auctionhouse app, Facebook, Twitter...  they all eat up battery.  The last thing you need is for your phone to be dead when you start hearing banjos playing Jeepers Creepers.
• If work calls, don't answer it!  Telling them that you're stuck in wherever isn't going to help the situation any.  They'll figure it out on their own.  If you answer it, you'll just feel guilty about taking vacation time, and no one should ever feel guilty about taking vacation time.
• If you don't like to go 80mph+, get the HELL out of the left lane!  In all the states I've driven in so far, the left lane seems to START at 75mph and ramp up from there.  Don't think you have to be over there just because you're exceeding the speed limit.  Following this, if your car can't make it up mountains and you're crossing the Appalachians, suck it up and limp your ass into the right hand lane.
• Gravity works on cars!  Know if you're going downhill and adjust your pedal-metaling accordingly.  Your car really CAN hit 110mph+ if it wants to, and gravity is like automotive jello shots.  It makes your car want to do all kinds of crazy things.
• Rotate your cards!  Swap between the credit card and the debit card, and keep a close eye on your balance on both.  If it's super duper omg important?  Use the credit card.  And don't carry cash.  Hobos can smell cash from a mile away, and they WILL jump through your window while you're stuck in traffic to get it.  >.<  Yes, I know this from personal experience.
• And finally, Always bring your towel!  Related to the socks thing, I know.  But seriously?  I refilled my ice on the way home, and exploded a couple of Monsters in my cooler, and GOD was that a mess.  ALWAYS have a towel.

Hopefully, I'll be done with silence and filler posts for the next few weeks.  Coming up tomorrow: 5 questions you should never ask a guild recruiter, and five you MUST.

I haz a lazy

Taking a couple of days off from textually stroking my epeen at you to hang out with my guild leaders.  Yes, I was too lazy to pre-write enough entries to get me through to midweek.

You're welcome.

End of the X-Pack Blues

The tail end of an expansion is always the worst time to be playing an MMORPG*.  (*Unless you're a new or returning player.)  Unless you got a late start or you're just progressing at the speed of backwards, you've got nothing new to do, not much in the way of content to build towards, and best of all- basically everyone is either working on alts or just flat out not playing.  Even the most active guilds go silent, capitol cities turn into ghost towns, and prices get flat out stupid.  So...what's a girl to do when she's still got two months before her expansion hits and none of the new shinies are tickling her in her special guild leader spot?

• Level an alt
•  Of course, depending on how long you've been playing your game, you may not have room for any more alts.  Or you've got everything max level already.  Or maybe you're one of those weird people that only plays one character.  Ever.  For the whole history of the game.  Running an alt up so you have some options when the expansion hits in the very likely event that your class is changed in some gameplay-screwing, desirability-tanking way is usually a good plan, but it's not for everyone.  And anyway, alts are expensive little things, what with needing skills and mounts and gear and food and puppies...
• Work on your tradeskills
• Tradeskills suck.  In some games, they suck less than others, and in some games they're more necessary than others.  That said, it's an xp bar/skill bar, and if it's not maxed yet you may want to consider doing that before your xpack lands.  Early expansion is the best time for crafters to make money, because people aren't getting dungeon gear yet, and even drops are less-than-plentiful.  This goes doubly for harvesters, who can make enough money to support them through the entire rest of the expansion if they farm early and plentifully.  Right out of the gate, tradeskillers pay a massive premium for the new materials that come along with an expansion.  Wouldn't it be nice to be that guy making 100k Your Currency Here a day selling flowers and tattered demon buttwipes?
• Get achievements
• There are games that don't have achievements these days?  Sure, they might be badges, or perks, or whatever the hell, but there's Stuff you can Get for Doing Things.  Explore!  Run old quests!  Go solo that stuff you used to raid with twenty-four other people like five years ago.  See if you can solo that stuff you threatened to set your guild leader's boyfriend on fire over earlier this year.  You get another shiny number to show off, and sometimes you get cool stuff like mounts, costume armor, titles, tabards, cloaks, special powers...  Everyone loves having new and interesting ways to show off, right?  Right.  Trust me.  The random fluffy stuff makes you automatically better than everyone around you because you have them and they don't.  It's a rule of MMORPG society.
• Farm
• Face it.  When that expansion comes out you're going to have gear to upgrade, new skills to buy, tradeskills to level, stuff to do...  You're going to want to be able to focus on blasting through the new content and getting yourself sorted for your raids or ERP circle jerks or whatever it is you do as soon as possible.  Farming NOW means more time spent doing what you love later.  It also means that in the tumultuous early days of the new stuff being available on the auction house/broker/whatever you can dumpster dive and sell whatever you find that is new, different, and exciting for a hundreds of gobzillions of currency mark-up.  Wouldn't you rather be the guy destroying the economy than the one having to pay post-arbitrage prices?  The more capital you have at your disposal when the patch hits, the better.
• Take some time off
• No really.  You're allowed to take some time off, cut back your play time, and explore other interests and hobbies.  Hell.  Prepare for your expansion the way obsessive popular girls do for swimsuit season.  Work out, get yourself into shape, lose some weight...  Because you just know those long nights making love to a two liter of Dew and eating banana chips are coming.  Get all of your family obligations and visitations out of the way, pre-write/address/stamp your Christmas and Easter cards, buy your birthday presents and Hannukah gifts, do your research into likely political candidtates for upcoming elections...  Yes, I am saying that you may want to consider pre-living before your expansion comes.  You may also want to stockpile sleep, and bank sick time at work.  Just sayin'.
• Precruit
• Yes, I just invented a word.  Precruiting is going out and scouting recruits for the upcoming expansion rather than current content.  The trick to precruiting is that a lot of people opt to take time off at the end of an expansion, so guilds are slow.  You can scavenge players during these lean times that you wouldn't be able to get during the thick of progression: core players, junior officers, class leaders, and so-on.  Many of these fine folks will jump tags if they see that they can get their content fix with you here and now, and you plan to continue your activity into the next expansion.  Be careful what you promise your precruits, because many will still be baited back to their old tags once the expansion lands.  Also, don't push potential precruits too hard when you're feeling them out and getting to know them.  Their guilds have gone inactive, but they are still loyal to those old connections.  Nobody wants to feel pressured into jumping ship. I've found that if you're patient, and welcome potential precruits to join you for raids and groups while staying tagged with their old guild, eventually they'll decide that they want to join you anyway.
• Start a blog
• No really.  People are going to be looking for new sources of game news, commentary, and all that good stuff when the expansion hits.  Get yourself into the habit of writing blog posts, or streaming, or whatever well before that happens so you're ready to go when your audience opens up.  No, this is not at all in any way, shape, or form what I'm planning to do.  Nope.  Not this girl.  >.>  Watch my livestream.

It's a good idea to keep in mind that the generally lower prices and more active alt scene make the end of an expansion a good time for new and returning players to hit up a game.  If all else fails, adopt a newbie.  ^.^

WTF is a wendigo?

So I've been playing The Secret World.  Every time I turn around there's a zombie or a ghoul or SOMETHING needing dispatched.  Returned to the abyss.  Or jumping out and clawing me in the face.  I can figure out just about all of them, but...  Seriously.  What the hell is a wendigo?  In TSW they're these crunched-up muscular guys running around on all fours.

Yeah, I'm phoning in today's blogpost. I started ranting about casuals, realized that I sounded like a giant dildo, and scrapped it.  Eventually I'll get around to writing about casuals, but that's probably best saved for a night when I haven't tried to run a pickup group, ended up in the WORST dungeon finder ever, and been called a hardcore prick and had someone play the Life card on me.  (I have a life and a job, so I get to stand in fire and make you waste three hours of your night.  Counterintuitive much?  You'd think someone with such an important life would want to maximize the use of their time ingame.)

I'll also eventually get around to doing a proper writeup on the Secret World, and why it's a game worth at least buying and playing for a month.  Honestly, it's worth watching, too.  If Funcom handle the game well it'll be a really nice niche title.  It's a nice challenge, but there's definitely a lot of pressure to get everything done all at once.  A less obsessive-compulsive person would probably feel differently, but for me?  I can tank, and heal, and dps all on the same toon, and I'm having a hard time focusing.  Controlling my urge to cross-class.  It's going to be a long time before I find the plot over there, so to speak.  And rather than be That Guy who's whining that she doesn't have time (that guy is gender neutral, duh) to be good at the game...

I have a feeling that I'm going to be sidelining TSW entirely.  It's fun.  I love the flexibility of the system, the openness of the gameplay, and the overall challenge level of combat and the quests.  OMG the puzzle quests.  But right now I'm looking for some low key, low-maintainance fun, and...  TSW has the potential to be very bad for me.  Like discovering pineapple upside down cake martinis bad for me.  (I deleted the video from that night, because OMG was I obliterated.)  Self-control comes a lot more easily when I know I can walk away for a few days and not let my crew down.

Not the blog post I intended to write tonight, but there you go.  My quest to figure out what a wendigo is continues.  TO THE BATWIKI!

You are not hardcore

To quote my long-distance silent life partner and soul mate Jack Black, "You're not hardcore unless you live hardcore."  Yes, I just quoted School of Rock up in here.  But my darling makes an excellent point about something that's been bugging me in MMOs for the last...oh... forever.

Hardcore does not mean what you think it means.  This means you, mister my guild raids three times a week, and we're trying to down Hogger.  This ALSO means you, mister I've killed everything in this expansion and have all the best gear, but have never been on a progression kill because I conveniently take the first three months of an expansion off.  Hardcore means going out and killing things.  Big things.  On a regular basis.  It's not an indicator of time spent killing things, or uberosity of gear.  It's about being on the bleeding edge of content, and constantly pushing for more bigger mobs, more better skills, and more phatter lewts.  (Grammar means NOTHING to the truly hardcore, as they live on voice chat, and scoff at the idea of wasting precious GCDs typing things in chat.)

Back in ye olden dayes, when the original Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot were serious business, hardcore was more or less synonymous with raiding.  Face it.  The first EQ raids were zergfests where you got as many people as you could and threw them at dragons.  People were on dialup.  People were playing on computers with less under the hood than my Nintendo DSi.  Making parse meant turning on auto attack and MAYBE getting off a few casts.  Being an effective healer meant having a stopwatch next to your computer synched to whoever was before you in the complete heal chain.  If you wanted that mob, you had to sit and stare at where it spawned until it popped and killed you.  Then you threw up the guild batsignal (hai 2 u, call list managers) and hoped you were first in force.  If you weren't the first in force, you still probably stuck around on the offchance that you could pull while the other raid was doing their CR/drag/rez routine.  In short, raiding meant putting everything else on hold to make progression, spending days at a time building up to a raid and then hours upon hours clearing because raid zones were open-world and all bosses were contested.  Oh, and if you died you had to start at the beginning.

We've come a long way as raiders since then.  While World of Warcraft's all-instance approach to group and raid content was initially met with some hostility and trepidation by raiders (what do you mean, everyone can get a shot at Onyxia?!), instances have become more or less standard, and raiding has become a right rather than a privilege.  It's like purple pixels- designers discovered that epics (or fabled loot in the EQ games, or whatever the convention is for your game) make people happy, so they decided to give EVERYONE epics.  Back in the day, top-quality loot was RARE.  Like, you might see two or three a week if you were beasting all the content available.  (EQ2 Desert of Flames raids, I'm looking at you.  You bastards.)  Now it's not a question of "are you fully epic'd?" because you are.  Of course you are.  You have a pulse and you can avoid irritating people long enough to survive a pickup group.

Killing endgame bosses and having endgame loot doesn't make you hardcore any more.  Raiding multiple nights just means that you show up, not that you're committed to progress and challenges, or that you're willing to put everything on hold until you've found the solution to a bossfight or to lock down a contested spawn.  Modern hardcore is defined more by mindset and habits than content cleared or eliteness of gear.  Also, in this age of legacy guilds, multiple charter guilds, and all that good stuff, tag doesn't automatically confer hardcore status any more.  Sure, you're in a world first guild, but that doesn't make you a world first player.  Yet.

Signs that you are not hardcore:

• If you have not slogged through progression, gritted your teeth through wipe after wipe after wipe, and pored over combat logs and videos to figure out how to beat a boss, you are not hardcore.
• If you have not on more than one occasion extended your raid night well past its end time just to see that boss finally dead, you are not hardcore.
• If you cannot figure out your own strategies for new bosses, you are not hardcore.
• If you cannot figure out your own spec and gearing, you are not hardcore.
• Being hardcore does not require minmaxing.  Being hardcore DOES involve knowing enough, and pushing yourself to understand your game and your class well enough to figure out an approximation of your optimal setup without having some website or forum guru walk you through it in monosyllabic words.  With screenshots.
• If you are not willing to guildkick people, or at least bench them to further your raid progression, you are not hardcore.
• Face it.  Not everyone is a winner, and some people need to be carried.  You cannot always afford to carry them.  It's not any kind of reflection on you or them, it simply is.
• If you are not willing to be benched, put on stand-by, or sidelined to further progression, you are not hardcore.
• Being hardcore requires dedication to the guild and the raid team.  If you are not willing to set aside your goddamned ego so that the raid can progress, you are not hardcore.  You are a twat.
• If you downgrade your weapons because they aren't pretty enough, or your build because it doesn't fit concept, you are not hardcore.
• If you are not killing mobs before the nerfs hit, you are not hardcore.
• If you have to ask "am I hardcore?"  You are not hardcore.

Yes.  Things like call lists are part of being hardcore.  If there is something out there with potential upgrades or challenges, and she has not downed it yet, a hardcore will do everything in her power to make sure she is the next person to bury her sharp pointy things in that whatever it is's skull.  It may seem extreme, but it's the only way some people know how to play.  There's nothing wrong with being hardcore, and there's nothing wrong with NOT being hardcore.  Problems only arise when people misrepresent themselves and their play styles, and start crowing about things they have no right to crow about.  I don't care that you're not 100% dedicated to the game, going over strats in your sleep, and naming your kids after your faction leader.  I don't care that you're on a call list, have had Superbadman on lockdown since the expansion hit, and you can clear every EXTREME ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE OF PWNAGE mode dungeon in one night.  While drunk.  With your cat boxing his cleric on autofollow.  It's a game.  Play however you have the most fun.  Just don't slap me in the face with your playstyle and expect me to ask for another, or beg for your autograph.

And for the record, I am not hardcore.  I just like killing shit.  I tried to be hardcore for a good few years, but that just lost me a lot of friends and made me a LOT of enemies.  (I totally got myself blacklisted for a while after flying off the handle at someone during a contested call and posting a bunch of angry nervous breakdown crap on their forums.)  I have spent a good amount of time rubbing elbows with the hardest of the hardcore, because they're freaking goldmines of information for how to beat the system, make money in your sleep, and weird synergies that often get overlooked that make things like inquisitor tanks and ranger healers work.

Common myths about hardcore gamers:

• Hardcores have no lives
• Actually, most of the hardcores I've known have active social lives outside of the game.  They LARP, they go to concerts, they're on PTA, they play other games, they go to church, they dance and go clubbing, they knit...  Being dedicated to the game doesn't mean never taking time for the arr ell.
• Hardcores are unemployed bastards
• This is true in some cases.  A lot of cases.  Unemployment means total freedom to sit in front of the computer and drool on yourself until the zone boss pops.  Being unemployed makes you an ideal candidate for Keeper of the Call List and Recruiting Officer, because you are ALWAYS. AROUND.
• Hardcores live on cheetos and moutain dew
• Um.  No.  Duh?  That orange goo that gets all over your fingers when you eat cheetos gums up your keyboard, which increases latency between keypress and skill activation.  And with all the caffeine in Mountain Dew, you have to pee a LOT.  AFKs cut into valuable raiding time.  If you have to drink, drink water.  If you have to eat, pick something mess-free like rice cakes or celery or M&Ms.
• Hardcores have no girlfriends
• Hardcores usually game WITH their significant others.  It's the only way to keep a healthy relationship going when technically speaking you're a bigamist and your other spouse is your game.  The spouse is often not also a hardcore, but there are plenty of documented cases of hardcore husband/wife and boyfriend/girlfriend duos.  Be worried if they're your guild leaders.
• Hardcores are better than the rest of us
• Not better, just different.  It's a lifestyle choice, like being goth or driving a Prius.  Choosing a particular lifestyle does not make you better than anyone else.  Not even you, Mitt Romney.  (And no, Mitt Romney is not a hardcore.)
• Hardcores are assholes
• Some hardcores are assholes.  Some are totally amazing people that will bend over backwards to give a girl the hookup.  (Or a guy.  Or a genderless grey alien.)  It's like everything else- you've got your cool people and your cock sandwiches.
• Hardcores don't want you to have things
• If it will shut you up and keep their content from getting nerfed, hardcores will more than likely let you have whatever you want.  And honestly, after a certain point most hardcores will happily carry you through whatever (for a price) if you ask.  Some will even omg do it for free.
• Hardcores are better in bed
• I don't know where this one started, but dedication to progression and sexual performance have nothing in common.  This one goes out to the guys in Agnitionum, because I think I heard it on your vent server.  Being hardcore does not make you a better lover.  Sorry guys.  We are still <3 even though.

Tomorrow: Taking it easy, or Casual doesn't mean you have to be a complete and utter fucking waste of my time.

The branding of the noob

Or, hey guys, I moved my livestream.

The link on the side of the page ---> has been updated, but just in case you favorited or bookmarked me or whatever...  FIXEY!  I had a long heart-to-heart with myself last night while I was babysitting my sister's pocketbook at the club and contemplating turning Gaming In A Dance Club into my gimmick (decided it would be a bad idea after watching some guy get beer dumped all over his phone), and came to the conclusion that for the betterment of all mankind I should standardize my game namey stuff.  Rather than have to deal with renaming characters to match my I Named It After My Cat habit, I have appropriated the name of my bestest guild evers.  Sorry guys.  I now own you.  <3

Now all I need to do is figure out a standard colorscheme and imageset to use, and I'll be something approximating one of the cool kids!  The cool kids have audiences and I don't so much, but we'll get there!  Frodo didn't get to Mordor in a day (though he probably could have, if he'd just asked a friendly eagle for a hookup), so I figure if my Hobbit brothers by other mothers can be patient, I can too.

What I have to work with so far:

Tactical Dysfunction - (n) A disorder characterized by a complete and utter lack of adherence to standard ideas of "the best" and "most efficient" practices.  Generally, the tactically dysfunctional will prefer what is "fun" to what is "uber" and will go out of their way to make the supposedly impossible possible by employing nonstandard methods.  Most commonly, tactical dysfunction is evinced by combining otherwise unworkable class or ability combinations in video games to achieve substantial goals with fewer than the intended participants.  Tactical dysfunction often leads to enhanced performance in standard environments, increased flexibility, greater crisis management skills, and an acute lack of patience with typical MMO players.

Yes, that was my original description for the guild when we changed from Fallen Tide to Tactical Dysfunction.  I think I ended up listing us as a small, tight-knit group of progression-oriented gamers that value fun over optimization.  Oh, and that we preferred the challenge of making things work with what we have, rather than what high profile minmaxers said we should have.  Later it became "face it, we hate you because you suck" or something, but that proved to be the opposite of helpful for recruiting.  Which was good in the long run, because by that point we didn't want to recruit any more.  Too much chaff.

Our colors have usually been red and black, red and grey, or on rare occasions pink, white, and sparkly.  (Yes, sparkly is a color.  If you don't believe me, ask our princess patrol.)  TacDys's heraldry in WoW is a white bull's eye on a red field, so I may run with that.  Clean, simple, effective...  Now I just have to re-download  Gimp and try to not make my pages look like an afflicted two year old revenant did my web design.  This is harder than it sounds.

Streaming this weekend: The Secret World 36hr Marathon, or "Playing and chugging NOS until I throw a temper tantrum at some investigation quest or other, break another headset, and go to bed."  Tomorrow's blog post: Hardcores don't eat cheetos (and here's why).

I'll need these requisition forms back. In triplicate.

Or: Where the hell did I leave off yesterday?

My last post glossed over a whole lot of "things to think about" when you're trying to set up your guild bank, and figure out how to manage your guild's shared resources.  Today, I'm going to try to dig in deeper, and outline my idea of a simple, functional bank management system.

It all starts with guild permissions.


I was just getting to this point in yesterday's post when I realized I might want to possibly consider maybe doing a second part, or taking a few hours to write up a proper guide instead of a blogrant.  Exactly how well you are able to tailor your materials use depends on how your guild's ranks are set up.  If ranks are arbitrary, and awarded based on who has the same favorite color as the guild leader or something, you're going to have to micromanage a lot more outside of ingame bank permissions utilities.  Odds are, you'll have to either open your bank up to everyone, or make them ask you for something every single time they've got a hankerin'.  And let me tell you, that gets old fast.  If that's the case, punch your worthless jerkface guild leader in the wobbly bits and get him to implement a more investment/rewards-oriented hierarchy.

• Recruit - The new guy.  Nobody likes him.  Nobody trusts him.  He's lucky you've even deigned to let him display the guild tag.  He gets nothing without asking, because he's put nothing in.  He has to earn his place in the guild like everyone else.
• Member -  These guys have put in at least enough time that we can trust them not to list stuff from the guild bank on the auction house.  Maybe.  Okay, so I'm paranoid and I check these guys religiously just to be sure.  Your mileage may vary, but these guys are entitled to a slice of the pie.  They get access to your FFA tab at least.  Depending on guild structure and dynamic you may also want to allow them restricted access to crafting materials and cash.
• Raider - Whiny entitled bitches!  It seems like they need a lot, and constantly.  Give them their own tab, and allow them restricted access to money and items from that tab.  Tweak your caps so that they can take out what they need for your raid on any given night.  Most bank utilities limit to stacks or items per day for the whole tab, so if someone needs three flasks, a stack of potions, and a stack of food you'll want to adjust accordingly.
• Guild Crafter - Not everyone uses this rank, and I've never been sure why.  I've always had dedicated crafters in my guilds that were our go-to guys for armor, bags, enchants, or whatever.  When possible, I give these guys their own rank so I can give them unlimited access to FFA, tradeskill materials, and the guild coffers.  The assumption is that your guild crafters are longtime members in good standing with the guild.  They're usually also the guys pumping all of the materials and goodies into the bank, so it's a good idea to keep them happy.  If they're not also raiders, I DO suggest restricting their access to that tab.
• Officers - Officers should have as much access to the bank as you and your guild leader, which is to say unrestricted.  If someone with restricted access needs things from the bank, they should be able to cover for you and go "Sure bro" or "no way, man".  A lot of guilds extend bank access to officer and GM alts, but I've found in the past that stuff like that just invites officers and leaders to abuse the guild bank for their own purposes.  I'd rather have to switch to my main to fetch something for someone than have to deal with whining about how so-and-so is taking everything out of the guild bank.
• That Guy - You know, the one that keeps taking more than he puts in?  There's been a trend in MMOs recently to give guild leaders a godzillion ranks to work with, largely because of how crazy resource management, rewarding loyalty, and contribution tracking can get.  I like to have a That Guy or Time Out Chair rank (I think in Fallen Tide we called it Shortbus or Windowlickers or something) for people who have for whatever reason lost their privileges.  You're not kicking them out of the guild.  You're just letting them know that you don't appreciate the way they've been behaving and they need to take a week to learn their lesson.  If their contributions start to go on the upswing, they can have their bank access back.

Like I said, it's something you'll have to iron out with your guildleader.  Possibly with said iron pressed to his face until he relents and gives you his way.

Once you've got the system up and running, the hardest part is making people understand how things work and getting them to contribute.  The best advice I can give you here is to start folks off slow and gradually give them more, so it feels like you're being generous and opening up to them rather than clenching tight and screwing your eyes shut at them.  If you do have problems with people taking more than they give, be calm, be reasonable, and don't be a douche.  Most people don't realize that they're overstepping when they do, or they're honestly not used to keeping track of how much goes in and comes out.

So!  You have my condolences if you've been appointed bank officer.  For what it's worth, I feel your pain, and I am here for you if you need me.  Except you, Kr0.  Fuck you.  <3

I am the quartermaster! Mistress! THINGY!

It seems like in every guild I fall into, at some point I end up the guild bank officer.  Maybe it's because people trust me with their resources, or they think I'm highly organized, or they assume that because I'm a librarian I can keep track of their crap...  In all fairness, it's probably because it's a seriously shitty but important job, and I spend so much time farming for guild resources I get cranky when I suspect things are being mishandled.  Looking at it that way, the most likely answer is that I've been appointed guild bank officer because people were tired of hearing me bitch about withdrawal limits, deposit quotas, and rank permissions.

Bank officer's a thankless, messy job, like being on loot council, or the DKP officer, or god help you the keeper of the call list.  Most of the time people don't notice you, until they hear that dreaded little word: "No."  Then you become the worst human being on the planet, a loot whore, a killer of kittens, and an eater of babies.  The meltdowns that follow someone being told they no can haz are the stuff of legend.  The trick is to establish early-on that you can and will say no, and then find ways to minimize how much you actually have to deny people what they want.

I've run a few different in/out systems.  In Tactical Dysfunction, the going rule is basically "if it's there, it's up for grabs."  We're a small guild, we all farm obsessively, and we've been playing together so long that we know the folks we're hanging with aren't greedy twatwaffles.  In Reckless Embrace it's more amorphous, though we're approaching that small, tight dynamic at least in our raiding core.  In general, though, I look at how much a person is contributing, how often they make requests, the kinds of things they ask for...  And yes, I stalk my guildmates on the auction house.  Daily.  This isn't always a problem, but when you've got a lot of blanket recruiting, blind inviting, or just random people wanting to join you it's always a good habit to maintain- at least until you know you can trust that person not to be a douche.

The wonkiest system I've ever run was when Rift first came out, because there was no guild bank utility at all.  I had a MASSIVE google docs spreadsheet that I embedded right on our guild website (with only officers flagged with edit privileges) to track deposits, withdrawals, inventory... all that good stuff.  Behind the scenes it was a royal clusterfuck, because bank and inventory were so limited initially over there.  We had a network of officer bank alts, circulating the guild inventory by mail.  Potions and pot ingredients were stored with our consumable officer's alt, I had tailoring materials and coin, someone else had metals and wood...  All of THAT was tracked on a second googledocs spreadsheet, which we kept hidden from the masses.  It was clunky as hell, but it worked.  As long as someone remembered to update the spreadsheet each time there was a transaction.

It took a lot of getting used to.

Anyway, when I'm setting up my bank management systems (assuming I'm not walking into someone else's shitstain when I get promoted) I usually look at the following:

• How big is the guild?  Simple, important first question.  If you've got a small guild, and everyone knows everyone else, odds are you don't have to put a lot of time into tracking ins and outs.  The larger the guild, the more moving parts you've got to track, and the more time it will take.  Also, larger guilds are more likely to have random riffraff that are just there to try to take advantage.  You get more random people with no attachment to the guild, and those guys are a bank officer's worst nightmare.
• How active is the guild?  If you've only got two or three people on outside of raid nights, you're going to have to be more heavy-handed with your restrictions on the guild bank.  Basically, if your demand exceeds your supply, there will be problems.  And as much as your dedicated core say they're cool with supplying the guild, keeping those people active and happy means going "Yeah, I appreciate that, but people need to not abuse your awesomeness."  
• How big is your bank?  What you hold onto and how much of it you keep around is going to depend heavily on how big your bank is.  If you only have a hundred slots, you can't keep a stack of every crafting material for every tradeskill at every level.  It's not feasible.  Once you know how much space you have to work with, you can move on to prioritizing your stockpile.
• What do we NEED?  The hardest question in the lot.  If you're raiding, you need consumables.  How much do you need per week?  How important is it to have extras available?  If you're in a large guild, you might have a raid leader, or a consumables officer to help you with this.  If the whole mess has been dumped in your lap by your teary-eyed guild leader who's begging you to fix things...  You're probably on your own.  My usual rule of thumb is "a pair, a spare, and one to wear."  That is to say: what I need for tonight's raid, what I need for the next raid, and mats enough to make more if something comes up.  In WoW, this equated to an entire bank tab full of herbs, and ten of each flask/stat potion (until we got the cauldrons).  Managing our feasts was easier, because it takes fewer raws.  Consider things like rare raid drops, tradeable gear, and quality of life items.
• How much money do we need?  Guild repairs, guild hall rent, filling in the gaps on consumables, subsidizing guild crafter costs...  It all adds up.  The more services your guild wants to provide for its members, the more money they need to cough up.  In some games, you can collect a tax automatically every time a guild member loots a body.  In other games, you're reliant on donations, or on "guild runs" where all drops go to the guild bank and the guild merchant.  Each method is going to require different kinds of tracking, but it's important to make it clear to members that if the money's not there, the guild can't do what they want it to do.
• What to do with gear?  Gear drops are always problematic.  From a simple space-saving standpoint, they don't stack, so every item you hold onto is anywhere from 5-1000 things you can't keep set by instead.  Also, these pieces are often the most valuable things in your bank.  It's usually a good idea to discuss with your fellow officers early-on whether the guild will be holding onto any loot at all, or selling them to other players for guild money.  Most of my banks have had at least half a tab dedicated to current-tier, high-end tradeable weapons and armor.  
• How do I handle permissions?  Most guild bank systems set permissions by tab and member rank.  When you're getting your bank sorted and your inventory managed you'll want to at least have a rough idea of what things you want to make easily accessible and which you want to restrict more.  Until you've got your policies ironed out with your GM/Officers' Council, it's a good idea to be the tyrannical overmistress of the bank.  Because most game bank setups are tied into rank, a nice long sitdown with your GM is unfortunately unavoidable.

Okay!  So I've covered my usual, dithery starting points for working out the bank.  Tomorrow I'll go into the gory details, including what your guild leader needs to hook you up with, how to select the best cattle prod for your raiders, and how not to be a douchebag.

Live from Solomon Island!

And Azeroth, and occasionally from...whatever the world is called in the Oblivion games.  Thingy.  Live from a whole bunch of places that don't exist outside my glowy thigh-mounted recreation device (god that sounds dirty): The Kleptokitty 100% Tactically Dysfunctional Livestream of Randomness and Ladylike Outgassings!

I caved.  I started streaming.  As soon as I figure out how, I'll probably embed the stream right here on the blog so that one poor, lost person from Germany who keeps popping in here can be all "OMG.  She's not streaming anything most of the day!"  I've yet to really flesh out what sort of a broadcast I want to run.  So far it's mostly been a stalker feed of whatever I happen to be doing at the time, when I decide I want to make it possible for people to stalk me.  The most interesting parts are probably while I'm streaming The Secret World, which usually happens from about midnight to two or three Eastern.  Screaming "NO NO GET BACK HERE!" and whining about the Crimson Theater nerf... True newbie experience.

Eventually I'll get a schedule put together for broadcasts.  Wednesday nights from 9-12 are pretty much always going to be WoW raids, until I either quit the game or our raid night changes.  Once Mists of Pandaria hits there'll be an almost 24/7 non-stop stream of me powergrinding to 90 and gearing out.  I'll also eventually standardize my graphics and naming across the stream, Steam, and the blog so I can better "brand" myself.

So...Random dude from Germany!  If you happen to have any suggestions for themes and layouts I might want to try...give me a comment, yo.