Infernal Vengeance

madalchemist · Mon Nov 19, 2007 7:08 am On being a "Casual" player and IV

Hiya :) It's 10pm, I'm still @ work, having a bout of writers block, so here's my attempt to clear it up by telling you people about life in WoW, being a casual, and why this guild is great. It's long - you were warned :P

I've been playing WoW for over 2 years now. I have a life outside of WoW. Have a gf. Have a family. Work 3 jobs (fulltime studying, 20 hours "normal" part-time working, and about 12 hours teaching a week when Uni semester is running). I still manage to put in about 10 hours of WoW time in a week (more if i neglect sleep). That's about the limit of what I can do.

Me and Major have been running IV for just about as long. And throughout the years, we've seen the gamut of people. I remember most of the names of ex-members, people who had came and gone, i took the time to talk to and understand where in life they've come from.

There was Shads. Popstar kid, apparently famous IRL for singing and dancing, toured around countries. I remember one week he logged in from Singapore telling us about a show he's just done late one night. He played WoW to get away from the madness of what he did.

There was a lady from USA who joined us very briefly, i forget her name. She and her husband were with us for about 2-3 weeks in 2005. She was from the US, and was a mum of a baby kid. She mentioned her husband used to beat her from time to time. WoW was her time to get to talk to real people, given her isolation. After about 3 weeks in guild, she and the hubby disappeared from WoW - no notice, nothing. Characters gone and everything. Always wondered what happened to them.

There was, and I still hope there still is, Seer - or as you know him now, Tebbet from the UK. Real smart, real nice, bit shy, but one of the funniest people I've met in WoW - and you wouldn't know it. Last I remember, he was finishing his studies and starting work. Haven't heard from him in a long while, wonder what happened to him.

There was KD (and Soma). KD was a nice bloke, but had the occasional hefty mood swings. But I felt at the heart of hearts, he was a nice guy just living a tough life. Post 9/11 he enlisted in the army, finally got his call in 2006, and went to fight in Iraq. Kept in rough touch, occasionally logging into WoW, but i think after he came back from the war, had enough and quit.

Thoaxe - warrior, really nice fella worked out at the mines in north qld. Played WoW to get away from the job, life. Used to tell us about the things that happened up at the mines, about the frequency of guys that got killed working there. When we moved server, he was lost in transition somewhere.

Gunj - another nice fella, out aged me ;) Stayed on SR, still plays i think. Casino dealer from memory, him and Jeryn, another crazy guy who used to play WoW till dawn, send the kids to school, then get back on WoW.

Cagey - I managed to meet him IRL once. DJ in Sydney, dunno if he still plays.

Irosk - the ONLY person EVER to be /gbooted from IV (fond memories Major?)

The evils - tank & cheese from hobart One of the original members from way back, prot spec tank and shadow priest levelling up. Both used to play professional game tournaments (forget which games).

Bowa - had a couple of kids, took time off WoW for a bit, came back to tell us about a third kid, then disappeared from WoW.

There's heaps of others (grif, lady from balarat, bushy (come back punk!), winfield. gore (cece misses you), etc etc). Then there's the ones that are still here :) (Shawney, Red, Satay are a bit away, hope to see them back!)

I guess the point of all this is - these people had lives outside of WoW. WoW was an escape or fun, and IV as a group of likeminded individuals with lives outside of WoW suited them. People come from all walks of life, and sometimes, people have to walk back into life. And that's what makes us Casual. Nearly every person involved with IV has said how great an experience it has been to be involved -- I put it down to the fact that we all have lives outside of WoW, and to a good extent, are basically casual players.

Now I know we're raiding a bit more. And this requires some dependancy on other people. But spare a thought for your guildies who do, from time to time, have to manage their lives outside of WoW. The thing that makes them great to be around, also makes them hard to depend on. That's a natural part of the guild that has always been, and probably will always be - people have kids, wifes, work, friends, parties, weddings, funerals, gaol, LIFE to attend to.

Something to think about next time you're waiting for a raid to happen, or hoping that someone logs so you can arena, or wonder why Tree missed that last heal on the tank for the raid boss. RL still remains > WoW - there are REAL people behind those characters. And I hope it stays that way.

ENDE

:shock:

ps. look what I found.

the most powerful +spell dmg prot spec warrior you will ever see... made with our very first flask IV ever created...

Zulsoka · Mon Nov 19, 2007 9:02 pm

good post mad, brought back some memories of some long (not) forgotten IV members. RL is always more important than WOW, and that if why i <3 IV. TBH, i only left IV because u guys werent raiding. i had fun while away, met some new ppl and saw more of the game that i didnt think to ever see in IV. then after a couple of months of raiding, i got bored of it, and wanted to come back to the casual guild, only to realize that IV is raiding 2-3 times a week, and now we got 2 kara groups and thoughts of heading into Gruuls..... IV seems to be changing direction from casual to, well, a raiding guild. which is what i wanted to steer away from, just too many headaches and time spent on raiding.

I guess in some of my other posts i have pushed the idea of making 2 solid kara teams and getting geared for 25man raids, but in all honesty, is this what IV wants?? maybe we should re-evaluate our situation and see what the core IV members really want out of the guild these days.

ROFL at that pic, i remember seeing that ages ago... WTH are u doin with that flask@!!!! funny stuff...

http://www.iv.forumwise.com/iv-thread87.html

fun times

Bashkan · Mon Nov 19, 2007 9:43 pm

What's core? The GM's Tree, Major? The officers Cece? Shawne who isnt on much when the majority of us are (through no fault of her own i might add)?Tebbet who is offically AWOL. You or me Zul ... both of whom have left before?
The guild is who plays ... thats the group that that makes the guild. This is my core belief.
Sure some of the newer members may just up and bail if they dont get the short term gratification they were looking for but there's others that wont.
Maybe i dont understand the guild, but i thought it was a group of people who have fun together. Whatever that fun may be ... PvP ... raiding ... ripping on Cece.
My advise to people who are not happy is do what you want, if you dont wanna raid, then screw it you dont have to. If you dont wanna PvP then screw it you dont have to. If you dont wanna help people out then don't. A thousand things have been tried to get people to aid less geared people and lets face it somes down to the same thing everytime ... personality. Either you are the sort who can lend a hand and it doesnt ruin your fun or your not. Its generally the same people who lend a hand, and the same ones who don't. Now im not judging, everyone in here is paying for the privilage so do what you like.
I don't see that half the guild raiding and the other half PvPing/questing/contemplating navel lint has any problems unless people cant abide seeing people raid and not be a part of it. If thats the case then sorry thats their issue.
I'll put my hand up and say im a card carrying member of wanting to raid ... why? Cause its something different, i've just about got my 4th toon to 70 on this damn game ... there's not alot of stuff not in raid groups that i havent done. Besides the vibe in IV when we had freshly dropped prince was awesome for a few weeks. People were keen, the forums vibrant, it seemed to me to be a happy guild. I refute the idea that the entire guild must be of one mind ... raid or no. It's a ridiculas concept unless you are super hardcore. Even then its a shitfight.
The world is made up of different people, for christ sake the same people go through different stages of wanting to raid or not. So why do we perpetually try to tar everyone with the same brush when we are full in the knowledge that the guild is in its essence diverse. Tree's post earlier about people outside of the wow world should make that evident, people are different with different motivations. The thing holding IV together should be that we want to.
It is simple in my mind. We dont have enough people to run 2 Kara groups let alone get us into 25 mans. There's not enough reserves and people often dont wanna do it. So it's simple alternatives that we've been through a thousand times.
1. Wait till more arrive without trying ... long wait as we'll lose some who are not getting what they want. Some may not care. Others will.
2. Recruit more and get sufficient numbers to run 2 groups with people approaching it casually. Here's the thing though ... if you dont earn your spot you aint got one over someone who has earned it. No turning up for 1 boss cause that has my loot ... then once its down goinging "pfft im out". No going my gear is awesome i dont need to run until you guys are upto something that does have my gear and then demanding a spot. You wont get one over someone who's earned it.
3. We take the best 10 ... farm Kara and do ZA. Works great for the people in the 10 ... sucks a twelve inch for those who are not.

In summary, we are group of people with real lives. Real men & women who do put this game in place as a form of entertainment. The second it isnt that its ruined, and we'll go do something else that is fun. Do whatever makes you happy. For me its raiding with the guild. I love it. I fail to see how some people wanting to raid and others not wanting to is a problem. If someone can explain why this is an issue i genuinely want to know as at the moment i'm feeling really stupid 'cause people keep pointing at a problem i don't see.

Zulsoka · Mon Nov 19, 2007 10:20 pm

BAH!! core members are members who have been involved with IV for a long time, have participated in guild growth, have been around to see IV 1sts, have put other guild members time in front of their own time, have contributed to the forum with constructive ideas, have made the effort to gear/spec for the benefit of the guild, have helped others out of the goodness of their heart, have leant G for mounts or enchants, have provided help via either the forums or ingame,have shown up for schedual raids, have had any sort of opinion concerning the guild, etc etc.......

pretty much all the regulars who are online alot of the time are core members.

mypns · Wed Nov 21, 2007 2:15 am

ok first of all great post there by mad and bash.

my personal opinion is that if someone wants to raid then they raid either with us, a pug group, or another guild.

i play computer games to escape real life because sometimes its just a great feeling to beat a giant barrel throwing monkey, or to shoot that massive alien in the ballsack, or to just camp some 12 year old german kid.

its an even better feeling to be enveloped in a game and become the main character to go through some trials and tribulations to become a better person or "pvp whore".

in the event of the 2 kara teams why not set a time to be online so if you want to go to kara be on time

if your not on time then too bad, but we seem to have alot of "randoms" that just want to go to kara for a certain piece and thats just not on!

eqforce is an excellent case in point because everyone has seen what has happened and for those who havent i will explain:-

last weekend eqforce wanted to do moroes obviously for the emerald ripper so when darkjade said he had to go eqforce jumped at the chance (after spamming guild chat about going to kara for 30 mins) but when dark realised he could stay for moroes, eqforce suddenly had to go offline for a couple of hours.

now im not one to point fingers for no reason but this is not the first time this has happened with eqforce and some others

im happy for guild progression though major raids but recruiting anyone who is looking for a guild is not the right way

im sick of logging on to see new members online who are obviously 10 years old and getting asked to run them through something when A. i dont know who they are or B. have done nothing for the guild

im happy to run someone through something or help kill something for a quest but i need to be shown that you are trying to help the guild

a good idea to weed out the randoms is check who is actually a member of this forum, and make it known that it is compulsory to join the guild forum

now we all know its not hard to join this forum and it would be a great help to see who is actually willing to help this guild and not just leech and quit

now i know i have left this guild a number of occasions but not alot of you know the full story

first time i left it was due to not enough officers

enter cece and shawne

second time was for gear (gg bliz for making that mean nothing thanks to BC)

third time was a post on this forum (im sure you can find it)

now we all pay our subscription fees to play this game so everyone has their own choice to make so QQ about it doesnt help -

if you want to be a hardcore raider then go join a hardcore guild

if you want to be a PVP overlord then join bg's

if you want to be laid back then stay and stop crying about things

all in all i have enjoyed my time with IV (hence forking out more money to get my toons transfered) but i beleive we are capable of so much more

thanks again IV

James (mypns, ugotstabbed, myballs, myrectum)

Ccpl · Wed Nov 21, 2007 2:44 am

mypns wrote: ok first of all great post there by mad and bash.

my personal opinion is that if someone wants to raid then they raid either with us, a pug group, or another guild.

i play computer games to escape real life because sometimes its just a great feeling to beat a giant barrel throwing monkey, or to shoot that massive alien in the ballsack, or to just camp some 12 year old german kid.

its an even better feeling to be enveloped in a game and become the main character to go through some trials and tribulations to become a better person or "pvp whore".

in the event of the 2 kara teams why not set a time to be online so if you want to go to kara be on time

if your not on time then too bad, but we seem to have alot of "randoms" that just want to go to kara for a certain piece and thats just not on!

eqforce is an excellent case in point because everyone has seen what has happened and for those who havent i will explain:-

last weekend eqforce wanted to do moroes obviously for the emerald ripper so when darkjade said he had to go eqforce jumped at the chance (after spamming guild chat about going to kara for 30 mins) but when dark realised he could stay for moroes, eqforce suddenly had to go offline for a couple of hours.

now im not one to point fingers for no reason but this is not the first time this has happened with eqforce and some others

im happy for guild progression though major raids but recruiting anyone who is looking for a guild is not the right way

im sick of logging on to see new members online who are obviously 10 years old and getting asked to run them through something when A. i dont know who they are or B. have done nothing for the guild

im happy to run someone through something or help kill something for a quest but i need to be shown that you are trying to help the guild

a good idea to weed out the randoms is check who is actually a member of this forum, and make it known that it is compulsory to join the guild forum

now we all know its not hard to join this forum and it would be a great help to see who is actually willing to help this guild and not just leech and quit

now i know i have left this guild a number of occasions but not alot of you know the full story

first time i left it was due to not enough officers

enter cece and shawne

second time was for gear (gg bliz for making that mean nothing thanks to BC)

third time was a post on this forum (im sure you can find it)

now we all pay our subscription fees to play this game so everyone has their own choice to make so QQ about it doesnt help -

if you want to be a hardcore raider then go join a hardcore guild

if you want to be a PVP overlord then join bg's

if you want to be laid back then stay and stop crying about things

all in all i have enjoyed my time with IV (hence forking out more money to get my toons transfered) but i beleive we are capable of so much more

thanks again IV

James (mypns, ugotstabbed, myballs, myrectum)

Hate to say it, but the noob is right!

There is enough whining performed by me to satisfy the guild whining requirements for a year, let alone having randoms add to the effect.

Bash, you make some good points, but I have to disagree on what the "core" of the guild is.

The guilds focus and movements are defintely influenced by its members and how those members play the game - however the core of guild originates and should stay focused on the original idea behind the guilds creation in the first place - which is a casually focused and fun loving guild - which was designated by the very people who created it (major/madal).

What really annoys me, is people joining the guild and whining about the focus of the guild (which I believe is due to random people ginviting and not making the guilds focus obvious to the invited person) - then attempting to shift that focus to their personal goals within the game without contemplating why that focus is where it is.

There are some decisions that cant be ratified by a democratic decision and I believe our glorious GM's need to make a decision - do we keep the focus of a casual guild, or move onto more raid focused.

Whatever the decision, we need this to be enforced, and enforced with all new recruits as well - or we will continue to experience the constant issues and whining that we are having now.

On a side note, as an officer of this guild, I have always promoted the casual side of WoW to existing and new members - and its something that I believe is important to the guilds way of life. It seems that several of our members now have ginvite rights, and i'm finding more and more that new members arent being "screened" for their age/maturity and game focus - which is leading to more and more problems. Please guys, ginviting isnt just some mystical power that you should just play around with whenever you like - we need to be responsible with these things if we want to avoid such issues.

wonju · Wed Nov 21, 2007 4:41 am

Ccpl wrote:
On a side note, as an officer of this guild, I have always promoted the casual side of WoW to existing and new members - and its something that I believe is important to the guilds way of life. It seems that several of our members now have ginvite rights, and i'm finding more and more that new members arent being "screened" for their age/maturity and game focus - which is leading to more and more problems. Please guys, ginviting isnt just some mystical power that you should just play around with whenever you like - we need to be responsible with these things if we want to avoid such issues.

lrn2cut quotes

A couple of those bad invites are probably mine. I tend to get /tells from guild members saying "Can you invite so-and-so, he's my all time best friend in the whole wide world," so I trust the guildie and we end up with mypns :P

I'll have to some up with some cunning banter that will artfully detect if they are annoying noobs or not. Somehow i don't think "Are you an annoying noob?" will work.

Bashkan · Wed Nov 21, 2007 6:03 pm

OK so the guild focus thing. I too am a fan of a casual guild ... however i dont see this at odds with raiding.
What specifically are the issues? I mean this genuinely, lets list them so we can address them. At the moment i feel we are trying to address different problems on the grounds that we see different problems and have a different understanding of exactly what it is that we are trying to address.
My problem list ...
1. Whiney bastids ... nobody likes them everybody hates them ... think ill go and eat worms.
2. Loot issues ...
2a. I'm dreaming of a particular drop that i want so bad, but realistically thats all i want. Good luck Charlie you sit at the bottom of the list of importance if you think you are gonna pop into the raid for that and that alone.
2b. Loot focus ... we all do it ... we all pretend we dont, but there's nobody that doesnt want better gear. We can work it out, the current loot system works OK.
2c. Multiple personality disorder looters ... nothing really can be done about it under the current loot system, if people wanna part gear for several specs rather than get sorted for 1 first then thats fine, but don't cry about not being picked for ZA because your gear is substandard.
3. Unrealistic expectations of peoples availability to play.
3a. I play for fun and can't relax cause people always want me to do stuff for them. Harden up and stop being such a pussy. Do what you want, look after those who you feel you should. For some that will be the entire guild, for others themselves. Rest assured that those who feel its the whole guild will get alot more love in return than the latter.
3b. This isnt a raiding guild it is a casual guild. OK ... here's the ticket.
(I'm heading into rant territory here but screw it)
What the hell does this mean? I am in a guild ... i have mates in the guild. If there's enough of us on we should do things together 'cause its fun.
The difficulty being that we've done the whole spontaneous raid thing and guess what ... someone needs go for dinner ... someone needs to do the washing ... 9 people wait while that happens. This is not cool. 1 person's flexibility meaning that 9 people sit down staring blankly at the same patrolling mob ... it is a BAD situation. Someone realising a movie is starting soon and bailing and leaving 9 people 15 mins into a raid that took 45 mins to organise ... bad scene. Raids need to be organised or it is a sucky experience. There is no harm in picking a time and saying we go then. Its ugly as hell trying to organise on the fly.
4. What about people who are leftover?
Well what? I didnt start with Bashtard as my main toon, i got him capable of DPS through crafting and grinding out crappy dailies till i wanted to die in order to get him to a stage where he could contribute. You don't like your gear pull your finger outa your arse and do something about it. You all have professions ... craft gear, craft consumables and sell them & buy gear etc. There is no reason for anyone not to have epics on their toon other being too damn lazy to go get them. You dont need to go anywhere near a raid in order to get epics on your toon. Fair enough you get better epics as raids progress further, but thats considerably further than we've gone as guild i might add ... but earn your damn spot or shut the hell up. If you are a casual player and cbf farming mats for gear then dont whine when someone gets picked ahead of you in a raid situation. It'd be like me demanding to be in the top PvP team (not my strong suit and im not geared). I want the rating and arena points but they'd suffer cause they wouldn't be as good with me there and they'd lose points from the deal too. Not cool.
5. I don't want to commit to fixed times on wow. OK then dont raid often unless circumstances exist whereby you fluke a spot. There's enough of us that do to get ourselves organised. Don't pass out a commandment that forcibly excludes those of us that enjoy the more challenging aspects of PvE from hangin with our friends in IV.

MajorMojo · Wed Nov 21, 2007 6:12 pm

yeah we've had a few new members who are a little annoying but I prefer to give most people I invite the benefit of the doubt at the start. Besides most of the annoying ones leave after not too long anyways. But if anyone is having big issues with someone else - pst me in game, and i'll exercise my gkick privilege (Which i've only had to do once before :p)

But there has been alot more untracked invites of late. Most of the time when i track down who invited whom, its usually people's friends or family members - which is cool with me.

If people are worried about the people coming in, then we can restrict the ginvite privileges to just officers and GM's. Currently all old timers are allowed to ginvite

btw wonju - i find the easiest way to weed out the annoying ones is to mention we're NOT hardcore raiders, and NO i can't gurantee you a raid spot and NO you may not get phat lewt right away...

If they understand that, and their still keen, I usually let them in. But yeah i haven't done a major recruiting drive in quite a while now. Most the invites since about July has been from others

oh and Pns i'm pretty sure you've left more times than that ;)

shadylady · Tue Jan 29, 2008 6:10 pm

Hehe Tree that post was quite a trip down memory lane, certainly bought a smile to my dial. I'd forgotten about some of those old members from SR, have some fond memories of those guys.

And I love that screenshot - I remember we were standing outside scholo and from memory Cec had asked you to link the flask in chat. Enter fatigue from the late hour, a miscued shift-click and then it's bye bye flask and hello uber spell damage wielding prot warrior hehe

I noticed in that ss that shady is wearing Eye of Rend. Ah those days of hitting up UBRS, fun fun times. Will there ever be another Love Corner? I think IV might be the better for it ;)

Finally, a question probably directed more at the pre-Barth IV members: Does anyone still have old level 60 goodies (like the UBRS blues and ZG purples etc) stashed away in their bank? Shady has at least 1 bag completely filled with stuff like the Dal'Rend swords that I just can't make myself part with rofl. Is it only me that is so pathetic? :D

Zulsoka · Tue Jan 29, 2008 10:07 pm

I doubt its just u shady, i think many ppl who worked hard for gear will find it hard to part with it. i know i had some ZG epics in my bank for a long time, and lord V's staff ( lol ) from UBRS, which i ninja'd, stayed in my bank for a while. i know mojo stil has most of his .5 set in his bank, and i stil hear him everynow and then talkin bout going back to scholo to get hit elements hat, to finally upgrade it to tire1!!! lol...

madalchemist · Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:01 am

See Mad's ui/backpack from the screenie? It's nearly the same today as it was back then :shock:

The only difference is that the herbs are Outland herbs, and the keys now have their own home. But apart from that, the rest of the crap is the same, including that crusty old Defence Stance buttons.

I used to have my old tanking stuff, but ended up chucking it away - all except for the Breastplate of the Chromatic Flight, which took me 6 months of farming to acquire. I'm never throwing that away.

I easy chucked my Tier 0 Valor stuff out.... because I still to this day never acquired the Breastplate of Valor :evil:

shadylady · Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:01 pm

Well if mojo ever gets sentimental enough to grind out his tier 0 headpiece, shady is also ready to hit up lord V to finish that quest line too lol. Mats are ready and waiting :)

Actually the one other thing I never did get around to finishing off was my UBRS key. I've got all the components, I think I just need to go kill that dragon in duskwallow. I guess I could just go solo it now :)