(WoW) Troubled, But Should I Be?
Last night was good in that we had a full raid group, and people to spare. We went through 6/7 in Firelands (as usual). We one-shotted Rhyolith and Beth'Tilac. We got one of our more involved players to exalted with Avengers of Hyjal. We got our guild leader to the ilevel 391 pre-Dragonwrath and a couple other upgrades were had. All of that's good.
It seems like it's just now being realized that we're still somewhere close to 10 Firelands clears away from actually having the legendary Dragonwrath. To which I can only think "Really? It's just dawning on you now how long it'll take?"
I died twelve times over the course of the night. That is... unusually high. We actually did okay on most of the bosses, though Baleroc was tough with 1/2 healers being new to the fight. No, most of those deaths (and some wipes) were on trash. That's stuff that should only happen when people are truly careless. Like backing into adds. Or not having someone jump on a giant, fire-breathing bird to steer its blasts away from people. The run took far long than I feel it should have.
And to add insult to injury, one such death is from my own pressing a key at the wrong time and sailing off into space.
Before the raid, I got to hear about some "fun" that a couple members had in an LFR group: putting up a mage portal to Stormwind in advance of a plot portal that teleports people to the next part of the raid zone. Oh, they got a good laugh out of that apparently.
I find it apalling. And insulting to the guild. Deliberately wasting people's time like that is never cool with me. Maybe I'm a little touchier about this than your average person because everytime I'm stuck cleaning a virus or malware off a computer it means someone, somewhere invested time in this little piece of code that is wasting my time. All I can think of in my fury is "Why would anyone do this?" To prove they can? To delight in knowing they've made life harder for someone else? Because they don't value anyone else's feelings at all? It's an asshat thing to do, pure and simple.
And while this gesture only affected a few people and a relatively small amount of time, it's the same amusement-at-the-expense-of-others attitude. And that disturbs me, especially in people I consider friends and companions.
Communication sucks. We're starting to have enough people regularly showing up on Saturday nights again. So many that some are being left out. And as one such person complained to me (paraphrasing here): "I don't mind so much the not being in the raid. There are other things I can do for better rewards anyway. But I hate that I've been on for hours asking when the raid was, been told the time, and then when time comes just been left out without being told anything."
While, honestly, feelings might get hurt regardless, I find that complaint perfectly valid. If someone might be bumped from the roster, they should be aware of it so they can go foreward with the knowledge and expectation that they are in a stand by position rather than assuming they'll be included. And at the very least, they should be informed as soon as it is decided that they won't be along for the ride rather than not being told anything until the raid fills up, zones in, and starts pulling.
We should all know in advance anyway, but that isn't going to happen until/unless all the players involved participate in the scheduling. We have a forum. There are in-game calendar invites. But even if our leader uses them, our members often do not, and that means the system doesn't work.
Heck, ideally, we should have set, written criteria for selecting who goes and who doesn't. Unfortunately, being a small, casual guild means lacking that. And often the real criteria has little or nothing to do with ability or participation and more to do with who the leader wants to play with.
... which segues nicely into the other aspect of that. We still have two players who are good at the game, but not fully accepted.
Our guild leader can't really get along well with them. And from a purely observational standpoint, he doesn't even seem to try. I realize there are some personality clashes there, but I cringe when grouping up for a quick dungeon and having our GL quip something insulting about one of them right off. And they're most likely to be left out of a raid unless one of them is needed to heal - even if they might be better than others, so long as the role slot can be filled they'll probably be dropped. So from their perspective, they aren't being treated well.
On the other hand... while I think our leader takes such too far and sees "disruptive" or "bossy" behavior where he shouldn't, I can sympathize to an extent and there are some times I feel the pair should rein in their behavior. At least a couple of our other members seem to think less of those two because they completely left WoW to go play SWToR back when we were solidly raiding at the end of last year. They feel like these two abandoned us when we needed them, so they aren't as trusting now that those two are back. That's understandable. On both sides, really. A player shouldn't have to do something that he's bored with, and a player shouldn probably learn not to rely on someone who left a group activity once already.
So what's the answer there? I don't know for sure. For a long time, I've been baffled by why these people are in the guild at all if the guild leader can't and actually refuses to get along with them. I feel like they either need to be made more welcome or cut loose completely. It's not really fair to string someone along with abuse, especially over a game.
It seems like it's just now being realized that we're still somewhere close to 10 Firelands clears away from actually having the legendary Dragonwrath. To which I can only think "Really? It's just dawning on you now how long it'll take?"
I died twelve times over the course of the night. That is... unusually high. We actually did okay on most of the bosses, though Baleroc was tough with 1/2 healers being new to the fight. No, most of those deaths (and some wipes) were on trash. That's stuff that should only happen when people are truly careless. Like backing into adds. Or not having someone jump on a giant, fire-breathing bird to steer its blasts away from people. The run took far long than I feel it should have.
And to add insult to injury, one such death is from my own pressing a key at the wrong time and sailing off into space.
Before the raid, I got to hear about some "fun" that a couple members had in an LFR group: putting up a mage portal to Stormwind in advance of a plot portal that teleports people to the next part of the raid zone. Oh, they got a good laugh out of that apparently.
I find it apalling. And insulting to the guild. Deliberately wasting people's time like that is never cool with me. Maybe I'm a little touchier about this than your average person because everytime I'm stuck cleaning a virus or malware off a computer it means someone, somewhere invested time in this little piece of code that is wasting my time. All I can think of in my fury is "Why would anyone do this?" To prove they can? To delight in knowing they've made life harder for someone else? Because they don't value anyone else's feelings at all? It's an asshat thing to do, pure and simple.
And while this gesture only affected a few people and a relatively small amount of time, it's the same amusement-at-the-expense-of-others attitude. And that disturbs me, especially in people I consider friends and companions.
Communication sucks. We're starting to have enough people regularly showing up on Saturday nights again. So many that some are being left out. And as one such person complained to me (paraphrasing here): "I don't mind so much the not being in the raid. There are other things I can do for better rewards anyway. But I hate that I've been on for hours asking when the raid was, been told the time, and then when time comes just been left out without being told anything."
While, honestly, feelings might get hurt regardless, I find that complaint perfectly valid. If someone might be bumped from the roster, they should be aware of it so they can go foreward with the knowledge and expectation that they are in a stand by position rather than assuming they'll be included. And at the very least, they should be informed as soon as it is decided that they won't be along for the ride rather than not being told anything until the raid fills up, zones in, and starts pulling.
We should all know in advance anyway, but that isn't going to happen until/unless all the players involved participate in the scheduling. We have a forum. There are in-game calendar invites. But even if our leader uses them, our members often do not, and that means the system doesn't work.
Heck, ideally, we should have set, written criteria for selecting who goes and who doesn't. Unfortunately, being a small, casual guild means lacking that. And often the real criteria has little or nothing to do with ability or participation and more to do with who the leader wants to play with.
... which segues nicely into the other aspect of that. We still have two players who are good at the game, but not fully accepted.
Our guild leader can't really get along well with them. And from a purely observational standpoint, he doesn't even seem to try. I realize there are some personality clashes there, but I cringe when grouping up for a quick dungeon and having our GL quip something insulting about one of them right off. And they're most likely to be left out of a raid unless one of them is needed to heal - even if they might be better than others, so long as the role slot can be filled they'll probably be dropped. So from their perspective, they aren't being treated well.
On the other hand... while I think our leader takes such too far and sees "disruptive" or "bossy" behavior where he shouldn't, I can sympathize to an extent and there are some times I feel the pair should rein in their behavior. At least a couple of our other members seem to think less of those two because they completely left WoW to go play SWToR back when we were solidly raiding at the end of last year. They feel like these two abandoned us when we needed them, so they aren't as trusting now that those two are back. That's understandable. On both sides, really. A player shouldn't have to do something that he's bored with, and a player shouldn probably learn not to rely on someone who left a group activity once already.
So what's the answer there? I don't know for sure. For a long time, I've been baffled by why these people are in the guild at all if the guild leader can't and actually refuses to get along with them. I feel like they either need to be made more welcome or cut loose completely. It's not really fair to string someone along with abuse, especially over a game.
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