Guild applications – secret or public?

When you apply for a job you don’t expect your possible future employer to make your application public, available for anyone to read at a website. But in WoW, for some reason, it’s more or less standard procedure when you’re applying to a guild. I would say that a majority of the guilds which are serious enough to require applicants to answer a bunch of standardized questions choose to handle it in the open.

If you consider applying you have to count on that anyone on your server, former guildies and friends as well as possible enemies you’ve made on your way, will be able to read it and react on it.

Advantages of openness
So, how should you regard this habit of open applications? What are the reasons for it?

If you see it from the guild side, the future employer, it’s quite handy to keep track of your appliances. You get a good overview and can easily see which ones have been handles and which are in pipeline. The whole guild can take part in the process and add comments if they know the wanna-be-guildie. Everything is transparent, which shouldn’t hurt as long as the applicant is honest about himself. If the person is lying on some point it’s less likely that he’ll get away with it.

From the applicants point of view, reading what other have written and seeing how they were received by the guild, will give you a lot of information. Judging from who was accepted and who wasn’t, you can get a good picture about your own chances to pass and make an informed decision if you meet the requirements or if you’re just wasting your time applying.

Advantages of secrecy
What about the other way round? Are there advantages in offering people the possibility to apply to a guild away from the public eye, by sending an e-mail? I think there are.

From the guilds perspective you don’t risk that candidates will be inspired and more or less copy previous successful applications. People will be forced to think for themselves and make an effort of their own applying, especially if you have some questions which are open in their character, not only the yes/no-sort of questions.

Another point is that you won’t miss applications from players who for some reason wish to be discrete about their plans to switch guilds. You don’t add the unnecessary obstacle of publicity.

For those applying I think most will appreciate not having to expose themselves to the public. It can feel pretty awkward “selling” yourself with other readers; it can easily be regarded as gloating. Maybe you’re not quite finished yet with your old guild and feel guilty showing the world you’re applying for something else. (That said I DO think that it’s best for everyone if you can leave your current guild before you’re applying to a new one.) And what if your application is denied? It’s a lot easier to cope with if you don’t have to inform the world about your failure.

A solution
If you sum it up I’d personally vote for the second, discrete strategy for guild recruitment.

But you can ad a twist to it to make it work a little better and involve the guild, without exposing the applicants to anyone on the server. This is what we’ve done recently in my guild. From now on the applications will be published on guild forum, which only is available to guild members. In this way guild members who have valid information will be able to comment and thus help the officers to take a wise decision.

Another advantage about this is that not only the officers, but the whole guild, will know a little bit more about the newly arrived team members. It will make the process of getting to know them smoother.

The only thing to remember is to take away the thread of evaluation once the applicant is let into the guild. If there have been discussions for and against the candidate, there’s no reason to let him or her read about it, once the decision has been made.

Proud BC Baby greeting the Children of Wrath

I’m a proud BC Baby! I didn’t know I was until recently, when Starman of Casual Raid Leader wrote a post about the next generation to enter the game for the first time: Children of Wrath.

In his post Starman asks us: What things will the Children of Wrath never see? What aspects of the world will they miss? What aspects will have changed so dramatically that they have no concept of things we speak of? He gives us a few good examples and wants us to write posts and add some more.

Here are a few that came into my mind.

The Children of Wrath will…

• never experience the frustration of clams from nagas invading all of your bag space unless you stick to a strict open-them-at-once-routine.
• get all their achievements recorded from the beginning. They won’t have to do Dead Mines over again just to proof they were there.
• probably never do the TBC instances in heroic mode unless they’re very addicted to achievements.
• unlikely set their foot into Shattered Halls, Shadow Labs or the Tempest Keep ones, for the same reason as I never cared about doing Dire Maul. Northrend is waiting for them at 68.
• be utterly spoiled when it comes to bagspace, considering that BG tokens, mounts and pets have been removed from it.
• be more likely to collect pets and mounts since there’s no problem to host them.
• have other expectations on how quick and easy levelling should be, considering how spoiled they get on their way to 70.
• not suffer from the monotony of doing the same instance over and over again for reputation. They’ll just wear the right tabard and pick any instance they like.
• become used to carry smaller stacks of arcane powder, if they’re mages, and not know what it’s like to empty your mana pool right before a pull just because you need to buff five raid groups.

Yes, they’ll become spoiled little kids, those newbies, won’t they? But I’m so happy they’re joining our ranks. I haven’t met them yet. I think, they’re probably still levelling, and since I, like many others, am more or less permanently stationed in Northrend these days, it’s unlikely that our paths will cross.

However, the very knowledge about their existence made me smile. Their arrival means that I’ve moved up a step, gaining a veteran rank! It’s the same thing as in school when you moved from 1st to 2nd grade. Suddenly there was someone else who knew even less than I did, who couldn’t find their way to nurse, cafeteria or school library, someone who sneaked along the walls, watching all the Big Kids in awe and fear.

Time has come when I’ve been around long enough to understand most of the code words thrown around by the other veteran players. When someone described one of the bosses in a Northrend instance I did like “a little bit like Leotheras”, I knew exactly what he meant. If I had been a Child of Wrath I wouldn’t have had a clue. It’s like I’m part of a secret society.

Of course there’s a lot of stuff that I’ve missed being a BC Baby. I’ve only seen the old raid instances in an overpowered rush-through-them-at-level-70-for-nostalgic-reasons-mode, not as the huge challenges they once were. I’ve never stepped into Molten Core. And there’s really no way to make up for it now. I’m still locked out from the Inner Circle.

But now at least there are some fresh newbies around who knows even less than I do.

Sweet little Children of Wrath – welcome to our world. And who knows, in a year or two it may be your turn to climb up one level on the ranking.

Dealing with the fear of falling behind

Levelling in Northrend reminds me of participating in on of those huge sporting events for joggers. They always have a common start, but soon enough the crowd will split up and the best and most competitive runners will disappear in the far horizon. At the point when they’ve reached the end of the run, I’ll find myself with at least 2/3 of the distance left. It has become painfully clear that I’m stuck in the “fun run class” where no one will clock you unless you do it yourself.

If this really WAS a jogging run, I wouldn’t have any problems ending up in the tail. I know my strengths and limits too well to measure myself against younger, better trained runners. Their success won’t diminish the value of my own achievements. I would focus on reaching my personal goals and be very happy about it. But for some reason I find it harder to cope with the same situation in WoW.

Left behind
As long as I don’t know the player, I’m perfectly fine with others levelling much quicker. The frequent messages the first few days about the first priest or shaman or gnome to reach 80 didn’t affect me. They play their game and I play mine.

But seeing friends in the guild dinging 80, while I’m still doing the first few levels in Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra, is different. They will no doubt be ready to start raiding and gearing up in Naxx, while I’m still stuck at killing mammoths. I already see them entering instances where I don’t have access, at the same time as they have no reason whatsoever to run the ones I need to do.

I can’t free myself from the feeling of being left behind, which is extremely childish, and of course I feel ashamed about even having those feelings. It’s way below my dignity.

No hurry
There’s no reason for me to panic when I think about it. The first official raid of the guild isn’t scheduled until the beginning of January. Even though I have a lot of real life obligations this time of year, limiting my gaming time, I should be able to ding 80 in due time for the raid if nothing unexpected happens. Maybe I haven’t yet capped my professions and maybe I haven’t geared up in heroics properly, but I should be OK since the first raid instance is supposed to be pretty easy.

The early runners probably will be better geared than me at the raid premier night, but so what? I’m in the raiding team and I guess I have the same chances to get a raid spot as anyone else.

But try to explain this to my inner child, who keeps whining no matter what I tell her. I think she somehow recalls times of loneliness in the school yard, watching other kids playing a game where she wasn’t qualified to participate. What I THINK about being left behind is one thing, what I FEEL about it is something different.

Behave like an adult
So what do I do? I try to see the next fem months as a trial of the level of my maturity and independence. I don’t want to get my levelling process spoiled by the constant stress and feeling that I need to speed up to catch up as soon as possible. It’s about time I start behaving as the adult I am.

Stay calm.
Stay confident.
Relax.

People ended up raiding for two years in TBC and I can hardly believe that the speed that people levelled up to 70 affected their possibilities to raid at any greater extent. When April comes, who will care or remember if I dinged 80 in the middle of November or two months later? Nobody. And levelling won’t be any lonelier than I make it. Northrend is crowded with people to group with for quests and pugging isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

As you can see I keep fighting my inner demons and I’m afraid it’s just as in the Leotheras fight: there’s no one around who can beat them but myself. Wish me good luck.

Buying food is humiliating

My era of self sufficiency is officially over.

It was humiliating and I hesitated for a long time but finally Larísa took the step. At level 73 she bought her first stack of food from a vendor. Ever.

Blizzard is playing a joke at the mage class in the expansion. While they did add new food to the vendors, they didn’t give mages any new rank for conjuring it. Our food is now only half as good as the sold one and won’t become any better until level 75, when we learn to conjure mana pies.

At first I didn’t believe my eyes when I happily went to the mage trainer at level 70 to train the new food spell. I took it for granted that they would give us one. But the trainer just stared at me with a blank expression in his face, offering me nothing at the moment.

Trying on my own

Until now I’ve tried to manage on my own, changing my habits slightly. There’s no point starting every gaming session conjuring food since it’s useless and I won’t eat it anyway.

In order not to leave Larísa starving, I’ve stopped throwing away or vendoring food dropping from mobs. Instead I’ve stored it carefully in my bags, swearing a bit over the fact that the diet is so varied; it takes up quite a few slots. I’ve also come into the habit of using evocation as often as possible – I gave it an inscription so it returns heath as well as mana.

But finally I realised that my efforts wasn’t enough. In my long journeys, following questlines all over the place and rarely getting to an inn, I saw there was a potential risk that I’d end up with nothing but the Mage Emergency Food. So for a few silver, but at the cost of my self respect, I gave in and bought my first stack of vendored food. It was a Salted Yeti Cheese and I hope Larísa enjoyed it. After all she’s had quite a few croissants in her days, perhaps it was time for a change, even though salt cheese doesn’t sound too tasty.

Still, on behalf of the mages, I’d like to grumble a bit about it. All classes have some benefits. Shamans can walk on water, druids can swim, warlocks can make health stones. Mages can make food, that’s one of the things that characterizes us. And why not let us make decent food then?

Vacation
However, I wouldn’t be Larísa if I didn’t try to look at it from the bright side. Because in my misery, I’ve also noticed that the devaluation of the mage food has an instant effect on the demand of it. I don’t want my own food anymore, and of course no one else wants it either. In every instance I’ve run so far, I’ve offered the group a table, as any decent mage would do. But it’s always turned down.

Maybe we should view this period as a short vacation, when mages are free from their duties to cook? Soon enough we’ll be back to baking pies, not only for ourselves, but for everyone else too. Proud and independent of vendor food.

The lack of pigs in Northrend spoils me

My picture of Northrend was somewhat hazy before I entered it. I never made it into the beta and for some reason I haven’t been keen on reading about it and watching movies on beforehand. It wasn’t as if I avoided it un purpose, but I had enough of unfinished business in TBC to keep me occupied. I couldn’t put time and energy to explore the new game before it was there for real.

I only had two clear ideas about WotLK before it arrived:

1. I expected new landscapes, rather influenced by Scandinavia than by Africa. There would be ice and tundra and not so many jungles and deserts.

2. There would be pigs. A lot of them. I would be expected to kill them and turn in details from their bodies for xp. Perhaps the pigs would have a bit thicker fur to withstand the coldness. Perhaps we would cut out some other part this time – eyes or tongues instead of livers and snouts?

For some reason I had the idea that levelling would be rather tedious, a more or less monotonous sequence of barely disguised grinding sessions.

How wrong wasn’t I? Not about the landscape – as far as I have seen they’re quite much what I expected. But I was wrong about the pigs and the questing.

It had been so long since I levelled a main character, experiencing content for the first time that I had forgotten how fun it is. End game still is what I enjoy most and aim for, but the road to get there can be quite entertaining.

Up to now I’ve managed to get halfway to 74, questing my way first through Borean Tundra and currently in Howling Fjord. And what I’ve seen until now has been amazing. I haven’t encountered a single pig so far. The quests are far from repetitive – on the contrary, they’re varied and full of humour and surprises.

I’ve dressed up like a crazy murloc (try a few moves with it like jumping or dancing and I promise you’ll end up giggling). I’ve been flying all sorts of vehicles, including turning myself into a hawk. I’ve entered the spirit world and I’ve tortured people, which took my by surprise, but didn’t make me as upset as Rohan of Blessing of Kings.

Seeing all of this I’ve become a bit spoiled. Or at least I’ve got higher expectations than I used to have. Every quest now is like a little wrapped-up gift and even if I know that some of the quests still are in the genre “Kill 10 evil guys”, they still have some freshness in them and every now and then I know I’ll encounter one of those jewels that make me go: “Wow!”

So where does this leave the pigs? I think that the low areas in the old world really have lost their charm when you compare it to Northrend. It’s beyond my comprehension how anyone could go through the pain of killing pigs in Westfall or gnolls in Redridge in order to bring up another alt. I certainly know that I couldn’t.

It’s no wonder that they’re introducing the possibility to get alts ready to go at lvl 55. Blizzard wants to direct us to the newest and coolest content so that we’ll stay satisfied and not get tempted to try out some other MMO.

Are there any boars at all in Northrend, hiding in a corner? I don’t know. Perhaps the Vikings grilled them in a barbeque beach party. Anyway I certainly don’t miss them for a second.

Why I’d rather not kill yellow mobs

I’ve always been a fan of budo sports, especially ones like aikido, which doesn’t really teach you any techniques for attacking, only ways to effectively take care about people who attack you. Be peaceful to the peaceful and remorseless to the aggressive ones. It’s easy to like the philosophy.

Maybe that’s the reason why I find it so easy to attack red mobs, which apparently hate me and will do anything to kill me unless I do something about it. And that’s why I also find it so hard to kill yellow mobs, which won’t attack me for other reasons than to defend themselves.

It just doesn’t seem fair to nuke an innocent, peacefully grazing clefthoof or mammoth calf, because some stupid quest giver has told me to. No wonder the poor animals get angry with me when I come there, tanking and spanking and wanting to cut out their intestines to sell to some guy for gold!

I know there have been some dedicated pacifist players trying to level their toons without killing stuff. I wouldn’t go that far. I kill they yellow ones if I have to. But I feel bad about it.

The level 1 critters
When it comes to the yellow level 1 critters, I’m even more reluctant to throw my spells. I can’t think of any good reason to kill them. But other players obviously can.

I’ve seen surprisingly many bloodthirsty players who won’t miss an opportunity to stab a tiny level 1 animal, and who seem to get happier the cuter the little creature is. “Yay, there goes another rabbit!”

Some of them refer to the damage lists. I don’t know if they’re joking or if it really would help them to climb. I’ve never tried it myself. But for some odd reason the most enthusiastic critter killers I’ve seen have been healers. I guess it’s the only way they can live their secret wanna-be-a-dps-dream.

Then there are others who make a sport out if it. In my former guild there were a couple of guys who had a little private vendetta every time we ran Karazhan. They both wanted to be the first one to reach and kill a rat dwelling in one of the last rooms before the Opera event. It was a race for life and death, much more important than getting the bosses down or topping the damage list. (Actually it was a bit fun to see, another idea how to get some excitement out of the game when you’ve done Karazhan too many times.)

Role playing aspect
The funny thing is that I feel different about killing critters on my characters. Larísa would never kill a level 1 critter, no matter if it’s a snake or a cow. She considers herself too enlightened and intelligent to do such a thing.

My rogue on the other hand, Arisal, is streetwise as a rogue should be, and only thinks about morale when she seems some way to benefit from it. Killing critters is a perfect way for her to improve her stabbing technique.

I guess it’s the closet role player side of me speaking again.

But since Larísa is the innkeeper and master of this blog, I let her get the last word in this post, while Arisal is probably sneaking around in the backyard, killing the rats.

Killing yellow mobs is wrong unless you’re forced to it by circumstance. Let the critters live. And maybe it’s like in the sf short story where the killing of a butterfly will change the whole future? You never know for sure what effects your blood thirst will have in the long run.

Happy expansion night

It turned out I was an outsider, an alien, an intruder.

As I told you before, I had decided to join the midnight party outside a game store in my home time. It was part of a ritual and a great opportunity to satisfy my curiosity and give answers to some questions I had been carrying.

Who are those people I’m bumping into in the crowd in front of the auctioneer in IF? What do those guys who instantly kill me whenever I dare to enter a WSG look like in reality? It was time to find out the truth.

Men only
Judging this two-hour experience I must admit that I was a bit surprised at the homogeneity of the player base. There were several hundred players around and of those only a handful of women. The age span was very small. In fact it felt like 90 percent of the people in the queue were young men, 17-25 years old, and I noted they were generally slightly more overweight than the average. In fact what I was seeing was pretty much the gamer stereotype, alive.

It was rather disappointing to be honest. The diversity among players is one of the things that I find attractive in the game. But maybe this event didn’t show the true face of the player base; maybe it just showed the special segment of players who are prepared to do such a stupid thing as to spend hours in a queue for a buying a game in the middle of the night, when it is so late that you need to go to sleep as soon as you have installed it anyway.

I never saw anything of the small talk to other people in the queue that I had anticipated. I turned up sort of squeezed between two parties, each consisting of a few young men, who knew each other in real life and had no interest whatsoever to talk to that odd old lady (who probably was only there to pick up a copy for her son).

So I focused on trying to snap a bit of their conversation. Apparently one of the guys played a mage and was in a guild which was first to take down Kil’Jaeden on the horde side on their server. He seemed to be pretty serious about his playing. For a second I hesitated – I would have wanted to ask him what spec he had picked for levelling and have an exchange of experiences between mages. But then I realized I was to shy. The effect that WoW has on me, making me socialize and talk to strangers without feeling awkward, seems to work best online.

One hour after the midnight opening it was finally my turn to pass the security guard and be admitted into the shop. And after another hour I was at home, smiling in triumph as I logged in. Success!

Like a happy school class
I had anticipated huge technical problems – a nightmare of mysterious error messages. And if I after all did manage to install the game I had not expected to be able to get into it – the server surely should be overloaded and unavailable. But none of those things happened and instead I joined the crowd standing on the boat in Stormwind, setting course for our new destination.

We entered the Borean Tundra with the same enthusiasm as a school class rushes into an amusement park right at the opening, taking all the merry-go-rounds in possession. I didn’t see anything of bad behaviour, whining or mob stealing. All I saw was happy, excited players, helping each other to orientate in this strange new world. I did a few quests just to get the taste of it and I felt instantly that I’m going to love this place.

Reluctantly I realized I had to go to bed. And that was the end to it – my wonderful, happy expansion night, full of promises and void of disappointments. It couldn’t really have been any better, except for the long and lonely hours in the line. But they were soon forgotten.