GM's Mad Week

What a crazy week it's been for me.  I want to apologize for not being online much or available to talk to about things.  We've still been going great with the raiding and there's talk about pushing one new progression boss a week which I think is completely do-able. So make sure you watch a few guides on the last few bosses so we are a bit prepared.

Now onto my crazy week. We had the death of our family pet Lily on Wednesday morning which was horrible as it was a murder not a natural death. Her throat ripped out by another animal of some kind.  As Bainmar says "She died a warrior". I asked Sven to tell everyone not to be nice to me or otherwise there would be a risk of tears and possible further drop in my dps. Its ok you can be nice to me now.  Thanks for the support everyone. Here's a picture of my cat Lily in my pink hat which also no longer exists.

We built a therapeutic grave/garden bed and we are on the road to recovery. I'll be right back onto the blog writing this week.

Guild Meeting New Expansion and Our Own Drama Wednesday

The first thing I'd like to say is a big thank you to my officers for supporting me through my drama Wednesday. Where I had a big dummy spit and acted like a huge baby. This was a result of a few months of pressure and the realisation that not only am I getting beaten in dps by my best friend, I'm getting old and I'm going bald too, not an easy thing for a woman :) lol.  I'll buy a nice wig and I've always loved hats. I'll beat you in dps one day my friend.

The new expansion is coming out and we need to have a meeting to discuss where we want to be heading as a guild.  Some people have expressed a desire to switch mains so we will have to work out what roles people are going to play and what kind of balance we will end up with in our raid team. Have a think about what toon you want to play, bearing in mind that we can't have a raid team of Demon Hunters.  However, don't dismay I'm hopeful to start an alt run in which we can have an opportunity to learn new roles and possibly have whatever toons we like and struggle along not worrying too much about balance. We can discuss which day would be good for an alt run during the meeting.  We've got a great group of players and I'd like it if we could all stick together.

We've been discussing raiding options and at long last we are considering adding an extra raid day that day will be Thursday.  We will be doing the first few bosses on this day.  On Monday and Wednesday we will be working on progression only.  We're doing great on progression and as people are gearing up the dps is increasing the tanks are easier to heal and the healers are healing us really well.  This doesn't mean you can stand in things though. We've seen three progression bosses and we totally smashed two of them.  I'm so proud! If I wasn't so exhausted I'd be doing a happy dance right meow.

I'm sorry I became tide and emotional this week. This goes to prove even an old person like me ends up just like Bashies three year old daughter at the end of a hard week. A big thank you to Vonds for taking over the GM role while I rested. She filled up the potion tab in the bank and tied things up. This was wonderful. I just haven't had the time to do that lately.  I'm paying for my game time with wow gold because of my real life sucking and not in a good way. I've had to use my herbs to make potions to sell.  Normally I use those to fill up the guild bank potions.  Unless I use the herbs from the Guild Bank which are normally herbs from  a few guildies I make potions and put them in the guild bank with those. Thanks guys for depositing those herbs in there and sending them to me. I've been flat out at work when I'm not at work I'm looking for a better job which is a good thing for the above mentioned suckiness of my life it does mean I'm having less time to play WoW.

See you all online my lovely WoW family :) Just look at this we've been flirting around the low fifties and up to 48th on the WoW progress. I think we are in a good spot right now apart from my recent melt down lets keep up the good work. I also write another blog related to my desired work as a counsellor.  This week I wrote about giving and caring in an altruistic manner and you guys are an example of just how that can work to provide great outcomes for a group of people.

Trialing New Loot Systems

We are going to be trying a few new loot systems and will be discussing this with everyone as we go along.  The reason for this change to the system is so that we can have a more balanced loot distribution across the raid team which will result in faster progression.  We want everyone geared equally well.  Our old system wasn't working for a few reasons; We had a few people getting lots of gear, other people having to spend a lot of time in PuGs to meet the gear requirements of our guild progression, people getting bored and switching to alts because their mains exceeded the gear requirements of the content we were working on.  We also lost a few people to other guilds because they had exceeded the guild progression and moved to guilds that progressed at a rate they were happy with.

The advantages to having an even loot distribution is that the focus is on the team getting geared not just individual members getting geared. The progression will be easier if people are geared equally and people are less likely to leave the guild or progress past the guild progression.  We have one or two people who discount any hope of getting gear in guild runs and have personal progression by going to PuGs that far exceed where we are as a guild.  As the Guild Master I find this completely dissatisfying.  I view raiding as a team activity where we move through the content together, it's upsetting to think that only one or two people are getting their toons geared and some people in the raid team have to switch to alts because their mains are overly geared.  Some people who want to be in the raid team have to gear up outside of the guild.  Some people have to drop out of the raid team because they just aren't getting gear on the guild runs and don't have time to go to PuG raids or have difficulty getting into PuGs because they don't meet the gear requirements.

I think all of these issues are my responsibility and this is why the officers and I are trialing different loot systems.  If you are having problems with the loot systems we are trialing please express these concerns with us prior to the raid tonight or at any time the officers are online.

Negative feedback is coming to me from a few sources. I am happy to accept negative feedback however, if you are finding things difficult  in the guild I would request that you look at what you can do to improve the guild as well as what other people can do to make your experience in the guild a nicer one.  Its not acceptable to me to hear complaints about particular people if you have not raised this issue with the person yourself.  Ask yourself what are you doing to contribute to the problem? People are not mind readers and we can't magically produce good outcomes for you telepathically. You have to talk to each other about these things. Your first point of call should be what am I doing? What can I do to improve this situation?

I am more than happy to mediate between two people or a group of people and I will advocate for people if I think it's necessary. However, as adults or adults in training I do expect you to be thinking about taking responsibility for yourself and the impact that you have on the group, to be open to receiving criticism yourself as well as being able to give criticism.  If you need assistance in deciding how to improve yourself and your situation in the guild then please have a chat to me about it.  Being part of a team is taking responsibility for yourself and working to making the team a better place.  Its not just up to me.  If you are unhappy in the guild look for a guild that you will be happy in.

New Expac is Coming

The hype is beginning to rev up we haven't reached fever pitch yet, I think I can feel it steadily building. Speculation about where we will be going has started a few bets going in the guild. Are we going to the deep sea or are we facing the legend??  If you haven't worked it out yet I'm not really into the Lore of Warcraft as much as a Guild Leader should be.

I love Warcraft the game and the players.  My real life family and I have been playing this game for ages, 10 years or so.  The thing I like most about the game are the players coincidentally the players are also my least favourite part of the game. I think you all know the kind of people I'm talking about. Those dicks who gank you in the Jungle and make me have to call Bainmar to save me from them so I can catch a few fish. The elitist jerks who spend most of their time putting everyone down while they are standing in fire or sitting in the bg doing nothing on the side of the road.  However, I have grown to appreciate the humour of such players over the years and also discovered the joy of pressing the ignore button.  Oh how I wish there was an ignore button in real life.... The last few expansions have been a bit disappointing however, there have been some great raids and some awesome mechanics. This is of course my second most favourite element of the game Raiding :)

We've got a really good team together now for raiding and a great bunch of people in our guild.  We are looking for a healer preferably and druid or a pally.  I would love to get Nuth back into raiding and Rentail on his Pally I will give it a good go it would be great to have three of my four real life sons in the raid with us.  I'm afraid the chances are slim.  Myself and Bashy will be doing our best to add a pally or a resto druid to our team in the next few weeks.  Once we get them in the guild it's basically impossible for them to leave as Alyianna and Vonds are quick to point out to anyone who joins us.

Every raid we are slowly progressing through the content this week we will hopefully get the 14th boss Socrethar and if you want a brief version of this fight click here.  Keep up the good work guys I'm sure we will get a server first next expac or fun raiding together :)  I consider our guild as an extension of my family and I love raiding with you guys and girls.