Weekend
Having capped out my vacation time, I took Friday off. The weekend was still too short. Ah well...
I am frequently amazed at how things can change just week to week in our raiding group. Mostly, I feel that's due to limited personnel as we've rarely had more than ten, and sometimes less, regulars. So one person coming or going can throw things all out of whack.
This week, we had a solid group to start with. We hit Alizabel, the new boss in Baradin Hold. Easy - especially since she sort of enforces her mechanics even more than the others there. She signifies the moment to taunt trade not just with a debuff on one tank, but by fully incapacitating them for several seconds - the Skewered tank is pretty much unable to accumulate more threat that might make the trade touchy. During her Blade Dance, you're supposed to avoid her and, in fact, she deflects attacks so there's no point in trying to do otherwise during that phase.
We downed Morchok again easily enough and tried Yor'sahj, but he proved to be a roadblock. What, precisely, the problem was may be open to debate, but my perception was not enough healing. We've been doing Firelands for a couple months now with two healers, though the standard for "current" content is three, and when we don't have a third (geared/experienced) healer to call upon, it looks like that's going to be hurting us trying to go forward. Our third potential primary healer was away Saturday, so...
We went back to Firelands. Our badass DK bowed out again, still weary of the place. So we pulled in a guild paladin who happened to be on as filler. While we were getting set up for the first boss, one of our experienced healers (who had complained about being tired earlier) bowed out and we pulled in a priest who was one. Said paladin and priest are both healers, but have not been raiding, so lack experience and gear. Our one main healer that was still with us was still doing more healing than the other two combined. And we were running with one less DPS character than usual. So... Beth'tilac took a couple attempts, Shannox died with almost half the raid on the ground, and Rhyolith wasn't really happening. On that last point, I hate to say that I still take some responsibility for my own steering inexperience (though why, for the love of the Light, people had switched targets on one attempt he tromped into lava when I hadn't told them to was beyond me).
Some upgrades were had, so it wasn't like a wasted night, but it felt like many things could have gone better. Next week, we're missing our guild leader (though he's the only one I've heard so far). Then we get a Christmas Eve were raiding probably won't happen (I won't be there) and a New Year's Eve where it's unlikely, so... there won't be much more done this year, it looks like.
One or two people have urged that we spend our raid nights in the LFR mode of Dragon Soul. It offers minor upgrades over Fireland gear (yet not as good as normal Dragon Soul), but means joining a group of 25 total people, so our guild would only be close to half that. This... somewhat misses the point in my mind. I want to raid with guildmates, not strangers, even if we don't accomplish as much. On the other hand, if we can't get a solid group together, ending up with only 8 or so, I would consider it a valid option.
---
Guild Wars seemed quieter than usual, even if we had four people on. We got a slightly slower start, ran another couple missions, and called it after about an hour. That leaves five encounters left for the current Winds of Change content. It's a little annoying, though, that we seem to have one person who has finished them all with no desire to repeat them (I can understand that) and another person who missed things a few weeks back, so is several missions behind "the group." That's one thing I really dislike about the game - everything is so chained that it can be hard to keep people on the same page. This can happen in other games too, but I've seen it here the most. And then, I expect Christmas weekend (and possibly New Year's) to be lacking in progress here as well.
---
Tashiro has sort of encouraged me to make a character for a World of Darkness MUCK he's been working on. I haven't dismissed the idea, but I can't say it seems overly likely right now either. The initial suggestion was something like "If your Mage didn't appeal to you that much, maybe you could try a Werewolf?" This spawned some interesting thoughts, like having a mall as a pack territory. Jhazza could probably be imported/adapted real easily...
I even had a dream whilst napping where such thoughts crept in. I was a werewolf, part of a family, and we were hosting some holiday meal-style gathering for various supernatural powers in the region. I got the door for some haughty noble vampire girl who viewed werewolves as little more than servants. In the process, I made some comment and/or expression that made clear just how poorly I thought of her. Some time later, she came to power and engineered things so I became a pack leader, but ended up having to report to her - just to rub my nose in it. So while escorting her as bodyguard with my usual strained smile, I walked her straight into an ambush and has her killed. Then I went to the next vampire in line, who seemed to be her younger brother, and said something like, "So, we can either work together, or you can get out of my way," with the implication the latter would happen whether he liked it or not.
Ruthless wuffie.
But in skimming through books, looking at Werewolves and purified Immortals, I came to the conclusion that the real problem is the same one I suffer in making any character. Or maybe two problems. Hard to say how to count it...
If I don't have a spark of inspiration, I can still throw together stats and templates, but the odds of me feeling the character and being able to imbue any real life into them are slim. And without giving motivation and goals to the character, they will work in a plot-heavy, GM-run game, but not in anything so open as a MUCK. These are things I don't seem to be able to do "on demand."
Sometimes I have a clear mental image of a character to begin with, and that raw inspiration is nice. Sometimes I can find these things with lots of consideration. And sometimes they come about through play, but that's not very satisfying because it means starting out with an absence. None of those methods are reliable or predictable to me, so... I'm sorta SOL.
Running a Werewolf (or potentially any character) on a MUCK also sounds like more work to me than it used to. If I'm the only one, I'm sort of in charge of your pack by default, and thus the pack's territory. So... who's going to run any events concerning the Spirits or people therein? Well... me. Unless a MUCK is particularly active and thriving, players really have to be willing to take the reins themselves or not expect anything to happen. And I feel terminally out of practice (assuming I actually ever was in practice years ago).
---
Then there's Furryfaire, which appears to have transferred headwiz control over to Kyn_Elwynn with zero fanfare. Seriously, I heard more about the possibility it might happen than the event itself. So he's been pondering a new RP system, at least, and... I haven't been terribly helpful. I've analyzed what's gone before, but never come up with a perfect system myself. I do have some other recommendations, though.
- Update the notices on the MUCK itself. Everytime I log in I see warnings of a server move and congratulations to the last headwiz that are up to a year or more old. That's a bad first impression. I wish everything were this easy.
- Make some decisions. It's hard to balance due time to consider and leaving things languishing, but there needs to be some sense of direction. Whether it means calling meetings or running polls, giving some sense that things are moving in a positive direction helps. We need to nail down a period and scope of the setting.
- A system needs to be arranged, plus whatever sheet/info for it - and that should be based on what we want to accomplish and portray. Should social arguments be diced conflicts or straight RP? Stuff like that. I've expressed some opinions before. I tend to prefer simple and self-resolving (rather than requiring GM oversight). I suppose any system "needs" advancement, but I think a MUCK would be well-served by means of limiting the power differential between new and old (as that was one of the biggest complaints I heard back in the day).
- Once that's hashed out, run something. Or get someone to do so. Getting the ball rolling can be the hardest part, and tone for places like this are often set by example.
- Consolidate the Wiki. Grunt work that's been hard to get done before partly because the only person who knew what was valid was trying to get others to do the work - which would be good delegation except for that part about no one else having a clear vision of what was okay and what wasn't.
Or... y'know, let the place flounder in its half-dead state as it has been for a long time already. >.> It's not like this makes it worse.
I am frequently amazed at how things can change just week to week in our raiding group. Mostly, I feel that's due to limited personnel as we've rarely had more than ten, and sometimes less, regulars. So one person coming or going can throw things all out of whack.
This week, we had a solid group to start with. We hit Alizabel, the new boss in Baradin Hold. Easy - especially since she sort of enforces her mechanics even more than the others there. She signifies the moment to taunt trade not just with a debuff on one tank, but by fully incapacitating them for several seconds - the Skewered tank is pretty much unable to accumulate more threat that might make the trade touchy. During her Blade Dance, you're supposed to avoid her and, in fact, she deflects attacks so there's no point in trying to do otherwise during that phase.
We downed Morchok again easily enough and tried Yor'sahj, but he proved to be a roadblock. What, precisely, the problem was may be open to debate, but my perception was not enough healing. We've been doing Firelands for a couple months now with two healers, though the standard for "current" content is three, and when we don't have a third (geared/experienced) healer to call upon, it looks like that's going to be hurting us trying to go forward. Our third potential primary healer was away Saturday, so...
We went back to Firelands. Our badass DK bowed out again, still weary of the place. So we pulled in a guild paladin who happened to be on as filler. While we were getting set up for the first boss, one of our experienced healers (who had complained about being tired earlier) bowed out and we pulled in a priest who was one. Said paladin and priest are both healers, but have not been raiding, so lack experience and gear. Our one main healer that was still with us was still doing more healing than the other two combined. And we were running with one less DPS character than usual. So... Beth'tilac took a couple attempts, Shannox died with almost half the raid on the ground, and Rhyolith wasn't really happening. On that last point, I hate to say that I still take some responsibility for my own steering inexperience (though why, for the love of the Light, people had switched targets on one attempt he tromped into lava when I hadn't told them to was beyond me).
Some upgrades were had, so it wasn't like a wasted night, but it felt like many things could have gone better. Next week, we're missing our guild leader (though he's the only one I've heard so far). Then we get a Christmas Eve were raiding probably won't happen (I won't be there) and a New Year's Eve where it's unlikely, so... there won't be much more done this year, it looks like.
One or two people have urged that we spend our raid nights in the LFR mode of Dragon Soul. It offers minor upgrades over Fireland gear (yet not as good as normal Dragon Soul), but means joining a group of 25 total people, so our guild would only be close to half that. This... somewhat misses the point in my mind. I want to raid with guildmates, not strangers, even if we don't accomplish as much. On the other hand, if we can't get a solid group together, ending up with only 8 or so, I would consider it a valid option.
---
Guild Wars seemed quieter than usual, even if we had four people on. We got a slightly slower start, ran another couple missions, and called it after about an hour. That leaves five encounters left for the current Winds of Change content. It's a little annoying, though, that we seem to have one person who has finished them all with no desire to repeat them (I can understand that) and another person who missed things a few weeks back, so is several missions behind "the group." That's one thing I really dislike about the game - everything is so chained that it can be hard to keep people on the same page. This can happen in other games too, but I've seen it here the most. And then, I expect Christmas weekend (and possibly New Year's) to be lacking in progress here as well.
---
Tashiro has sort of encouraged me to make a character for a World of Darkness MUCK he's been working on. I haven't dismissed the idea, but I can't say it seems overly likely right now either. The initial suggestion was something like "If your Mage didn't appeal to you that much, maybe you could try a Werewolf?" This spawned some interesting thoughts, like having a mall as a pack territory. Jhazza could probably be imported/adapted real easily...
I even had a dream whilst napping where such thoughts crept in. I was a werewolf, part of a family, and we were hosting some holiday meal-style gathering for various supernatural powers in the region. I got the door for some haughty noble vampire girl who viewed werewolves as little more than servants. In the process, I made some comment and/or expression that made clear just how poorly I thought of her. Some time later, she came to power and engineered things so I became a pack leader, but ended up having to report to her - just to rub my nose in it. So while escorting her as bodyguard with my usual strained smile, I walked her straight into an ambush and has her killed. Then I went to the next vampire in line, who seemed to be her younger brother, and said something like, "So, we can either work together, or you can get out of my way," with the implication the latter would happen whether he liked it or not.
Ruthless wuffie.
But in skimming through books, looking at Werewolves and purified Immortals, I came to the conclusion that the real problem is the same one I suffer in making any character. Or maybe two problems. Hard to say how to count it...
If I don't have a spark of inspiration, I can still throw together stats and templates, but the odds of me feeling the character and being able to imbue any real life into them are slim. And without giving motivation and goals to the character, they will work in a plot-heavy, GM-run game, but not in anything so open as a MUCK. These are things I don't seem to be able to do "on demand."
Sometimes I have a clear mental image of a character to begin with, and that raw inspiration is nice. Sometimes I can find these things with lots of consideration. And sometimes they come about through play, but that's not very satisfying because it means starting out with an absence. None of those methods are reliable or predictable to me, so... I'm sorta SOL.
Running a Werewolf (or potentially any character) on a MUCK also sounds like more work to me than it used to. If I'm the only one, I'm sort of in charge of your pack by default, and thus the pack's territory. So... who's going to run any events concerning the Spirits or people therein? Well... me. Unless a MUCK is particularly active and thriving, players really have to be willing to take the reins themselves or not expect anything to happen. And I feel terminally out of practice (assuming I actually ever was in practice years ago).
---
Then there's Furryfaire, which appears to have transferred headwiz control over to Kyn_Elwynn with zero fanfare. Seriously, I heard more about the possibility it might happen than the event itself. So he's been pondering a new RP system, at least, and... I haven't been terribly helpful. I've analyzed what's gone before, but never come up with a perfect system myself. I do have some other recommendations, though.
- Update the notices on the MUCK itself. Everytime I log in I see warnings of a server move and congratulations to the last headwiz that are up to a year or more old. That's a bad first impression. I wish everything were this easy.
- Make some decisions. It's hard to balance due time to consider and leaving things languishing, but there needs to be some sense of direction. Whether it means calling meetings or running polls, giving some sense that things are moving in a positive direction helps. We need to nail down a period and scope of the setting.
- A system needs to be arranged, plus whatever sheet/info for it - and that should be based on what we want to accomplish and portray. Should social arguments be diced conflicts or straight RP? Stuff like that. I've expressed some opinions before. I tend to prefer simple and self-resolving (rather than requiring GM oversight). I suppose any system "needs" advancement, but I think a MUCK would be well-served by means of limiting the power differential between new and old (as that was one of the biggest complaints I heard back in the day).
- Once that's hashed out, run something. Or get someone to do so. Getting the ball rolling can be the hardest part, and tone for places like this are often set by example.
- Consolidate the Wiki. Grunt work that's been hard to get done before partly because the only person who knew what was valid was trying to get others to do the work - which would be good delegation except for that part about no one else having a clear vision of what was okay and what wasn't.
Or... y'know, let the place flounder in its half-dead state as it has been for a long time already. >.> It's not like this makes it worse.
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