Friday, February 25, 2011

Rebuilding our raid

Darkfall needs to rebuild the raiding crew, starting with healers, so Kuan stops being stuck with it.

I took the time last Saturday afternoon to improve our website a bit at darkfall-guild.com, and Clara has posted a recruitment notice in the Hyjal forums. A guildie, Earthen, who plays a female Tauren boomchicken, has also been trying to recruit in the cities.

We've already picked up one new person and potentially another; we got 10-man Halfus down last night and are working on Valiona & Theralion. I know that's behind the curve, progression-wise, but we'll catch up.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

I'm Here to Kill Dragons

Since becoming an officer in Darkfall a couple of weeks ago I've been leading raids.

Initially it started out with the GL asking for someone to lead raids during Darkfall's traditional raid times: Sun- Tues. Because he now works at those times. The GL would continue to lead raids on Thursday. However, that kind of randomly stopped. He can only raid on weekends now. I think he and his wife are playing together on the weekday evenings. (Which is adorable!) So I've added leading the raids on Thursday as well.

The schedule as it stands right now: Progression raids on Sun, Tues, and Thurs. Older raids for guild achieves on Monday, if people actually want to come. These raids are all from 9pm to midnight Hyjal server time.

I'm okay with this. Honestly I've been leading PUG raids since the end of BC when I put together a PUG for TK: The Eye. During Wrath I did some more with setting up and leading the Uld10 raids that got our drakes.

So now in Cata it shouldn't be quite so intimidating to be leading the Darkfall raids. However, Darkfall are the people I care about. They are my WoW family, and I don't want to let them down or make a fool of myself in front of them. I tend to feel personally responsible when we fail to kill a boss. And I tend to want to avoid conflict, so I'm unlikely to call people out on their problems.

All of this is leading up to me admitting that Darkfall hasn't killed any Cata boss except Argaloth. We've spent multiple nights wiping on Magmaw and Halfus. But either due to a bad dps or a bad healer (or both) we have entirely failed to get either of them down. I think we were close *once* on Magmaw.

I was talking to a coworker about this today, he said:
"Your job is to kill dragons. The guild leader's job is to keep people happy."

And he is totally right.

You can't do 10k dps on Argaloth? We need to find someone else to fill that raid spot.

You can't two heal Argaloth? We need to find someone else to fill that raid spot.

I'm not sure how to evaluate tanks. Maybe: You fail at taunting at the right time at Argaloth? You crumple like a wet paper towel when Argaloth hits you? You fail at using any cooldowns at all on Argaloth?

I need to get my brave on and only let people into the raid who can perform.

There are only two or three people I'm worried about failing that check. Most of our raiders are actually quite good. But in a ten-man it only takes one person who needs to be carried to make everything very hard, And two people being carried makes it impossible.

So tonight, we'll do Argaloth first, if we have TB. And if you can't fulfill your obligations to the raid then we will find someone else to replace you before we go to Magmaw.

I'm here to kill dragons.

Friday, February 4, 2011

RIP Gnoxen

There are some people that I know because of WoW and only through WoW. Gnoxen was one of them. I've known him since Vanilla WoW, when he answered my trade spamming and crafted herb bags for Kuanchichi and Viljo. I added him to my friend list then and kept in spotty touch with him after that. I remember being so pleased when he joined Darkfall in Burning Crusade.

We lost touch for a little bit in Wrath when DraNgNon and I left DF for a bit, and he left not long after due to schedule conflicts. But he was always on my friend's list. And when we did our Ulduar drake runs he was along for about half of it, I think.



I logged in last night to find that Gnoxen had passed away.

BRIAN PHILLIP BAKER
August 28, 1980 ~ January 31, 2011
"We lost our dear son, brother, uncle, grandson, and friend."


Brian Phillip Baker of Vancouver, WA, passed away on Jan. 31st.
He was most proud of his work as a mason. Brian loved fishing, was an avid music fan and movie buff, and could make anyone laugh with his wry observations about life and people. Ever the gentle soul, Brian was loved by anyone who met him and was honored to share his light. He adored his dogs, Chip and Eddie, who were his fiercest defenders, though each only weighed five pounds.
A graveside service will be held Sat., Feb. 5, 2011 at 1:00 p.m. at Park Hill Cemetery, 5915 E. Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver, WA.
Donations may be made in Brian's name to Q Center at www.pdxqcenter.org.
Please share your condolences at www.columbian.com/obits.
Published in The Columbian on February 4, 2011


I'd never known his name, or age, or where he lived. I knew him as Gnoxen the Tauren druid. I had fun playing with him. I didn't know he was depressed.

I'm sorry Gnoxen, you'll be missed.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Riding Raptor

Khyrie my little troll druid, is not so little anymore. She is, in fact, big enough to buy a mount. This is not as big as it used to be, but it is still an important milestone. So off to Sen'Jin village she went.

Once there I had a hard time deciding which raptor to buy. Turquoise? Emerald? Violet? The Violet would match her hair, but the other two raptors were pretty spiffy looking too.

In the end I went with all three raptors. Unlike Vanillla when you had to wait until level 40 and shell out 100 gold for the privilege of 60% speed mounts now each raptor was only 1g before any reputation discounts.





I've put all three of them in my mount macro so I'll get a random mount whenever I mount up.



I'm really enjoying playing Khyrie. She's gone down the feral tree and it's a pretty good way to level. Between stealth and being about to pop back to caster form for self-heals when I need it's pretty OP. So far I've been sticking with cat. Perhaps soon I will be brave and take her into an instance as a cat or bear.

I do feel a little bad for the mobs I kill. Here they were quietly going about their business, when suddenly a huge fucking tiger appears from the shadows behind them and shreds them to ribbons.

Speaking as the tiger in question, it's tons of fun.