The Dambusters

I have never been one to shirk a fight, you might have noticed and I have become better as the years have passed but I still have no problem with a bit of confrontation when I feel unjustly treated.

Thing is, sometimes there is no way to win and all I do is cause heartache for myself. It’s only a game, but getting involved in disputes can cost me more time than the dispute was worth. I need to remember that I’m not a guild leader in a Raid Finder, I’m just your average nobody. I get no leeway, nobody kowtows to my view and nobody gives a good shit if I’m having a hard time.

Why do I do it? I think there’s something inside me that wants to see the good in everyone, maybe I want to change the troll and make them become nicer. I’ve done it in the past and welcomed reformed characters into the guild to great effect but sometimes? Sometimes it just ain’t worth it. I will offer this example which has caused a total waste of time for me in the last 2 days of play:-

Siege of Orgrimmar Raid Finder 2nd half. I needed only the 2nd and 4th bosses since I had killed the 1st in a guild flex run and also the 3rd in a Raid Finder previously. I’m tanking on Caledonia with the formidable Meatblocker and the excellent Jibbas healing with us. One particular priest grabs my attention early on because we wipe a few times on the Dark Shaman fight and he is well geared and doing good HPS yet healing nothing, even lower on the meters than myself (I am tanking). After we wipe, someone calls him out and then I link healing done to which someone mentions vote kicking the guy out who is clearly slacking. Now, he’s not alone in slacking and it must be noted that myself and Meatblocker are still learning the tanking stratagy at this point. However, the slacker is pinpointed and the group fail to remove him.

We manage to kill the boss finally after a few wipes and unsurprisingly, this healer has slacked his way through again. We move on to 4th boss, the General and proceed to wipe a couple more times and now I am really annoyed this guy continues to slack his ass off to the detriment of our success and it’s wasting my shortening time.

I call him on it and request a vote kick, people sit and sit and ofcourse, guess who ninja pulls the boss out of fear of the boot, the slacker….

I am incensed and walk off to make a cup of tea. There was no way I’m tanking that! I boomed. Such people drive me nuts and I have no way to hide my sense of injustice that he will go on to get the kill and probably the loot he needs while everyone else has to work that little bit harder to pull off the kill.

I made my tea and watched as the group slammed me for failing to tank with poor old Meatblocker piling up the stacks to certain doom. My issue is greater than one pull, I have a major grievance against little internet trolls who find it funny to waste 24 other people’s time and I will not damn well play ball with it. If he wants to pull to save his slacking butt from getting the boot, the group should lay the blame firmly in his lap but ofcourse my furious and stubborn stance made me look like the bad guy. The priest left as we wiped and I exclaimed “our problem is gone, now I am ready to tank!” And they kicked me….

Let it be said that I know I was wrong, very wrong and I paid a heavy price today by re-entering Raid Finder yet again in search of that last possible loot chance to get an 8th Titan Runestone which would leave me with only 4 more to get on Wednesday after reset. Today, I was holy spec and we proceeded to wipe all the way through a struggle of 2 hours until the last boss which was yet again, a wipefest. I ran out of time in the end and had to leave for work meaning I achieved the sum total of zilch! Nothing, total waste of an otherwise peaceful happy lunchtime period.

My stubborn stance and determination to attain impossible fairness in a flawed raid system was stupid. I should have just tanked that fight yesterday and saved myself the bother today, and tomorrow which I will have to do again ofcourse. I should have just let it go and carried on. The slacker might have been booted after another wipe where I would not have caused the wipe. Even tho every inch of my being wanted to let him stew in his ninja pull, I should still have rewarded it with 100% effort no matter that it seemed so wrong. Best to just get on with it, get the thing done and get out of there.

It’s with that thought in mind that I would like to discuss my feeling towards Raid Finder in general. The Raid Finder has been an excellent tool which has really served its purpose well in bringing end game raid content to the masses. People who might never have been able to raid in the past now have a platform to get themselves some decent gear and see current raid content which the Blizzard developers have worked so hard to implement.

That all being said, I am of the opinion that Raid Finder has served it’s purpose due to the inclusion of the fantastic Flexible Raiding system. If only they were able to have introduced Flex Modes instead of Raid Finder then the mass experiment of humanity degradation LFR has opened up might never have been witnessed. For beginner raiders and advanced players alike, Flex is the place to begin. You need a raid leader and people who are actually willing to do their job in the team or chances are, the fight will end abruptly with a pile of bodies and a hefty repair bill. There is actual personal responsibility unlike the clownfest that is the raid finder. Flex is beginner raiding whereas raid finder has just become a total joke.

People who either don’t give a shit or have no idea how to play the game are thrust together with honest, hard working people who need Sigils of Wisdom/Power on alts, Titan Runestones to finish off their legendary journey or to just maybe get that lucky item drop to upgrade an piece that they just couldn’t manage to replace last tier. I love a trier, someone who is still learning but is willing to listen and work hard to become a better player. I hate trolls who know the team is wiping and trololol their way through hoping the fight will get done and invariable these bastards get all the loot they want! Leachers! Ninjas! Slackers!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a slacker at times when healing in raid finder but there’s a difference because if I feel the group needs that extra bit of power then I will hammer those heals out and do my best to get us through…

But that’s exactly my point. I’m sure people who know me, know I’ve never burned out and I’ve always worked hard on my game but in a raid environment is it really acceptable that the drive to work hard in every encounter isn’t really expected anymore?

If too many people have this attitude but no desire to work harder if the group needs the extra effort then what exactly are we teaching people about raiding? If raid finder is only about seeing content then why does it drop the stuff I need to finish the legendary on my 2nd character? Why does it drop tier tokens or valor points if it’s aimed at people who are not gonna be doing normal modes? Trouble is, there’s just too many boss fights nowadays that we have to get through and we feel the need to do it because it has a reward.

I for one hope Blizzard remove the raid finder and spare us all the hassle next expansion but my thoughts on raiding shouldn’t cloud the message I intend to express here…

‘When faced with certain injustice in Raid Finder, be the better person and do your best to kill the boss no matter what other people try doing to cause havoc in there. Otherwise you’re only wasting your own time’.

Don’t do what I did, save yourself the hassle!

/Salute

Since my recent blog post about guild roster activity management, specifically about having to remove offliners, I had a look today and found myself facing a difficult task. Now it may appear easy when people just see ‘%+&@ has been kicked out of the guild by Bigticket’ spamming guild chat but trust me, there are many tasks around guild management that I would gladly do instead of /kicking offliners.

Today I came across some well known names but two names in particular stood out and made me think twice. Actually a few were alts who can easily return when the guys return to them but our old friends Prozackk and Bigooliess were among the offending group this time with the omenous status of ‘2 months’ beside their names. I removed Prozackk with little hesitation because I know he has had stuff going on irl and I am sure he would understand the situation and recognise the need for me to keep the roster clean these days. He is welcome to return any time ofcourse.

Biggooliess is a different ball-game all together. This is a guy who was the subject of a blog I wrote a while back and described him as the classic Dambuster. However, since he is wary of the internet’s dangers and tries to stay away from stuff he doesn’t fully understand, including this website, I suspect he might miss this. I really hope he is well and is reading this because I would hate for him to log in one day again to find himself in a guildless wilderness when really I should be making sure his home is always here for him.

What I will say is that I have not yet removed him but I simply must because although our old friend Lee is such a legend around here, the rules must apply to all no matter how hard I find implementing them sometimes. I have put them in place for the good of the entire guild so he’s gonna have to be removed and I dearly hope that if/when he returns, he will understand what has happened and why, and contact us immediately to rejoin his home where he belongs.

This brings me onto a more poignant consideration. I am sure Lee is just fine, busy doing other stuff, playing his ‘Faceache’ games happily with no pressing desire to re-sub WoW at the moment but you can rest assured there have been people in the past who have vanished for more painful reasons. There have been so many people through the front doors and out the back over the years that inevitably some of them have fallen foul victim to tragedy and are no longer capable of rejoining our friendly ranks. It’s thoughts like this that make the roster clearing difficult for me because I know only too well how fragile life is.

People often make light of the clean-ups I carry out from time to time and I’ve been known to reply with similar care-free banter but in reality I am deadly serious when I proceed with this chore. I neither want to remove these people nor do I feel easy about the possible reasons for their absence as I fulfil my duties. You just never know the real reason for someone’s extended absence.

On a lighter note, anyone with more simple temporary absence who returns to find themselves guildless is absolutely welcome to give the guild a shout and return home where we will all be blasting along, business as usual; killing shit, trolling Spyrot, rofling at Bigticket’s surprisingly common noobishness, hunting Diputs’ horde abomination, checking in with the Wenya library, getting mass rez’d by Skankas and having the evergreen Debbs plastered all over our faces!

Let me just offer my warmest applause for those people in the guild who hold together a fulfilling real life outside but still maintain a healthy schedule to balance with some solid game time. Real life time management like this provides a solid platform to ensure you are best placed to get the most out of your WoW career and also helps prevent the dreaded ‘burnout’ which is a phenomenon I am delighted to say, I have yet to experience…

/Salute

Dambusters, you might have noticed recently that I have been removing inactive guild members more frequently than ever before.

When we used to rock n roll at the old server Xavius, we used to be more accepting of medium/long term offline alts and people who are good friends who we know will one day return to the guild. Since we changed server to Ragnaros, I have tried to slowly bring in a better awareness of our actual online activity by mentioning my thoughts in previous blog posts. I have always tried to be lenient with the good people of the guild who have real life commitments which keeps them offline for extended periods.

This leniency has not changed because I do realise people must put real life first as it should be. It’s only healthy to ensure things are sorted in your own life before taking control of a relatively meaningless online avatar. Some people have more going on irl than others so it stands to reason that the guild must be understanding of all. I myself am just back from a 4 week holiday where I managed to keep close contact with the officer team but in fact, I had to rely heavily on them to keep things running smoothly which, naturally, they did without flaw. Thanks guys!

What I do want to stress however, is that I have placed a cut-off for ANY and all characters who remain offline for more than 1 month. It’s pretty easy to track in the guild roster pane so it’s easy for me to remove the offliners, be they forgotten alts, friends who joined and didn’t quite get hooked, people on extended holiday or without Internet etc. these guys are all in danger of the big /gkick. If you have an alt who is underused and you want them to remain in the guild, please ensure you log in from time to time, even if its just to reset that status in the roster page. This could save you the ball-ache of trying to call for another invite when there may not be any officers online (I know that’s an extreme thought lol) but be sure if you have had a character removed in this way then chances are, you will be welcomed straight back in as soon as you are ready to be more active on it. There’s that continued leniency right there 😀

What this does for the guild is that it ensures we never have a massive bank of characters who never log in. I think a month is fair and tbh logging for 30 seconds once per month could still be considered as inactive but I have to draw the line somewhere otherwise I’m looking at weekly activity and calculating that for each character over the course of the month and that’s not gonna happen, it has its own flaws that I won’t go into right now.

Rest assured that the way we have it currently looks good to newly invited members who see plenty of activity and nobody offline for like 6 months+ immediately making them question the guild. I know if I ever joined another guild then the first thing I would do would be to go through the roster and see how active it is.

Anyone who knows they will be going offline for an extended period should speak to me and we will discuss the best course of action but remember, it’s not the end of the world to drop out of the roster while you are offline as long as you know you are returning because as long as you don’t join another guild before returning to the Dambusters, your guild reputation and activity are restored when you return.

Happy activities Dambusters!

/Salute

Back from a month off, I was really excited to get back into the game. Looking back, the last month has flown in so fast but in terms of World of Warcraft it feels like we have been away for a year!

Changing raiding main is something I thought would be easier to grasp than it actually is. I am finding it hard to set Bunnyboiler aside and try to focus on another raidable character but it’s something I must do for the good of the raid team. Actually the more classes and specs I play intimately the better for my overall knowledge of the game so there’s a big positive right there.

Actually that kinda brings me onto a point I would like to make. It’s an important part if the game to get to know what the other classes are capable of. Playing multiple different classes really does provide valuable experience which can help you and your guildies when raiding or facing the opposite faction in PvP encounters. Most of us Dambusters play alt characters but I challenge our raiders in particular to try and put some more time into a second character. Try playing another role more, ofcourse after prioritising your main character.

Anyway, back to my own internal battle. Having spoken to Spyrot and Wenya about what the raid team actually needs this tier, it’s still not 100% certain which one the team and I will get most benefit from but I think the safe option for now is Caledønia the paladin which I will push to play as a tank as my main-spec and healer as my off-spec but that could change. What I do know is that I enjoyed tanking the first 3 normal mode progression bosses on Friday and looks like the team needs me to tank again this Thursday/Friday where we will get at least the first 3 down and hope to progress past the 4th and maybe even 5th boss.

That’s the raiding out of the way. Another personal war I have had is the part of me that was desperate to get back into the game. I don’t know what happened and I know it will pass but I’m finding it strange that after a month out, I feel something like burnout although I can’t be sure because I’ve never burnt out before. Maybe it’s the indecision about what character to play, maybe it’s depression at having to leave my beloved Bunnyboiler to 1 side for the time being. Maybe it’s the addition to our family home of a certain new pet, named GTA5? Such a fantastic game.

There’s another thing I’ve been meaning to talk about, and I’ve talked about this before but I want to briefly touch on it again.
There are a lot of guilds out there who are set up as raiding guilds and who’s raids are run by the GM who commands all authority and completely directs the way raids are operated in their guild. That’s fine and it works if the GM has a clear vision of what the guild is all about while ensuring his members are fully aware before they join, that can work.
However, guilds like that are susceptible to drama and often implode the moment a respected guildie disagrees with the way the GM runs the show or the raid team. I wanted to underline the fact that in the Dambusters, we have a unique setup which protects the guild from such drama. In the example I gave, a respected member of the guild’s raid team may start a war with their GM and cause an irreparable fracture straight through the core of the guild, which is the raid team. You may have heard me stress on numerous occasions that the Dambusters are not primarily a raiding guild and my conscious choice to ensure we don’t ever consider ourselves as such is the foundation upon which we have built our strength as a guild.

The Dambusters are completely unperturbed about the possibility that our main raid team might break up one day because that team, however proud of it we are, does not hold the key to our success. The key is the attitude of our members, the spirit and our feeling of being part of the community. Absolutely the raid team greatly enhances the well-being, operation and maintenance of the guild but this is only because of the excellent attitude fostered within the team. That commitment and spirit is generated by the people of the guild and encouraged by the way I run the show.

People with a good attitude have the chance to be recognised here if they can take the opportunity to prove they have what it takes to step into a leading role within the guild. Sometimes hidden gems lie dormant around the guild, seemingly overlooked but by and large these unsung heroes all form a collective which makes up the beating heart of the guild and this is why I try my best to offer my thoughts in this blog.

People who quietly go about their business within the guild but don’t have too many chances to speak to the officer team can find the overall direction of the guild by reading here.

The blog is designed to offer an insight to where the guild is going from my own perspective and while some don’t read it, anyone with keen interest in the guild will be reading and I can assure you, we have friends outside the guild reading. Even folks over in the US are reading each installment and I hope that anyone else looking for a specific GMs perspective in the outpouring of love for his own guild will find the blog of interest too.

I am no instructor but I do lead the guild by example and its something I have enjoyed doing immensely over the years while I see no signs of that coming to an end anytime soon. It’s a very fulfilling position to manage but I hope our guild can inspire other guild leaders to follow our example by creating their own community which is protected from drama.

A clever man once said, ‘we join world of warcraft for the content but we stay because of the friends’

Amen to that!

/Salute

This Saturday the 14th will see the guild enter our usual monthly meeting on mumble.

As always, all Dambusters are welcome to join us to listen in and add your opinions and discussion points. I will generally follow the usual format which will revolve around the most pressing issues important to the guild at the moment. Primary topics will include:-