I got some feedback this morning
Bitch, Moan, Bitch. It’s all you do! Where are the happy stories?
Admittedly I received this feedback while starring at the mirror. I knew I should have just checked Squidly’s hair in Culling of Stratholme!
But it’s FUN!
Everyone likes a good vent, especially when there is a bandwagon, or group therapy.
It only takes the most minor of things to turn something into the worst, the most dramatic, the end of the world is coming discussion. Not that I am suggesting that the current outrage sweeping the WoW Blogsphere is insignificant.
The Bitch:Joy ratio
Still, I noticed that right now I can quickly write 5 bitch posts for every one joy post.
You know, something good happens you tell one person, something bad happens, you tell 10 (or on the blogshpere 1,000) people.
You run 9 great heroics, but it’s the one shitful one that sticks with you, that you save the story to share with your guild, with your blog readers.
I still remember 1 of the good out of the 9
Well, 3 of the 9 actually and I’ve been meaning to share it with you, but how could I resist the bitch stories?
So here it is...
Taking a portal in time…
1st I want to reminisce about bygone days. Back in TBC my RL mates and I leveled through Outland together. We did OK considering we only played these characters for 5 hours per week (so I was included with my limited playtime).
We reached Shadow Lab (regular) and we wiped. We wiped all night. We wiped for 3 odd weeks. Usually after about 3 hours of wiping we would go and do something else to relieve the tension and get a victory on the board.
When we got to Kara, we wiped, every night, every week, every month until a month or so before WoLK was released (just prior to the pre-WoLK respec and power boost). 4/7 posts during that period in my WoW life were about wiping in Kara (remember my great post-Curator black hole?).
That’s just not acceptable any more!
From the moment we got the pre-WoLK power-up it has become unacceptable to wipe. This has breed a lot of One Wipe Pansies.
So imagine my surprise when I join this random group in FoS.
The Heroic Heroic Random PuG!
I die a little when I get FoS. Yes I know I dream of challenges, but for some reason when I get FoS I cringe. I wonder if we will make it to the 1st boss. My 1st time in we didn’t and someone /ragequit after the 1st trash pull.
I know I can do it.
I know I have done it.
But I still second guess myself on entry.
I consulted HealerScore and GearScore.
Yes, I now have it installed, just because I want to see what happened to my own score, but I admit I scan others… Thing is I don’t then judge people by it. Have a listen to the latest THL (The Hunter’s Lodge) podcast for Brig’s interview with the GearScore author. It’s another one of those inventions created for the good of man kind, but used for the purposes of evil by other men.
Everyone was above 4k GearsSore, HealthScore was optimistic as well. I was the highest geared by the tiniest of margins.
Let the adventure begin!
We worked through FoS. It was slow going. I find that the trash pulls there suck most of my mana dry. I tend to spam chain heal because I know that even though everyone is on 100% health now, EVERYONE will be on 30% in 1 or 2 seconds.
I think we only had one death, I’m sorry to say it was the Mage. I don’t even know how it happened now. I was probably spending the 2 seconds healing the tank rather than the Mage.
Whatever the case, I think that’s pretty successful.
As the group was breaking up, shouting out their “thanks” & “great group etc”, just as the Mage left the party, the tank asked if we wanted to move on to PoS. (I’m sure the Mage would have been invited, but he probably left while the tank was typing).
PANIC!
I admit it, I panicked a little. I haven’t been to PoS and I was unsure. I informed the party of this and basically the only response was
Let’s Go!
We did. The details are all a bit blurry right now, but we did PoS and subsequently HoR (yeah same panic moment, but I now felt confident in the group).
Like I said earlier, it’s easier to remember the bad things than the good, the thing is in this case the bad thing was really a great indication of what good PEOPLE I was playing with.
It took 2 full repairs!
Yep, we had to port out once during the run to repair and at the end of the 3 instances I had to do a full repair again.
The True Measure of a Player.
- Screw GearScore.
- Screw HealerScore.
- Screw be.imba, WoWHeroes and all the rest.
THE TRUE MEASURE OF A GOOD PLAYER IS IF THEY WILL STICK WITH A PARTY AND A TASK THROUGH MULTIPLE WIPES!
There were no One Wipe Pansies in this group. If we wiped and it was obvious it wasn’t the luck of the RNG, we discussed it, we tried something different.
An example.
We wiped twice on Scourgelord Tyrannus.
- 1st time the Tank wore the Overlord’s Brand.. No heals for tank = dead tank.
- 2nd time we were all a bit spread out, running for our lives, for me to keep the party up.
So the Tankadin became the Healadin. The Resto Shaman became the Master of the Elements. The DestructiveDK became the DKTank.
We wiped as soon as the encounter began… But we just picked up our corpses and ran right back in.
After the fight I asked if they wanted me to stay Ele (the lesser of my 2 gear sets). The DK begged to be allowed to return to DPS as they weren’t confident in their taking.
More props to you for giving it a go for this encounter… and succeeding!
These guys were 1337!
- I don’t mean they were pulling 7.5k DPS while AFKing.
- I don’t mean they had an elitist attitude.
- I mean that they were smart, patient, forgiving 3k DPS with a solid tank and not bad heals.
WoWGods.com
I kind of hope that someone tells them about this post, because while I did thank them profusely for the run, I think they deserve a little more recognition.
There are so many WoWFuckTards.com sites around at the moment. I think it’s time that there was a WoWGods.com site. A site that sings the praises of those you want to group with and highlights the virtues that make a good, no – great, no – fucking awesome team mate.
Anyway we made it to the end… Yes we may have followed Arthas (apparently that’s an exploit?), but to be honest if I needed to use a GodMode function for that last fight, and I had access to one, I would have used it, because this group deserved the win more that the 1337.5kdps 15minute Heroic gangbuster groups that are so common.
We watched the ceiling cave in, we grabbed the achievement and we looted the chest on the ship.
What, no loot drama?
Now just in case I have sung the praises of this group enough, one final shout out to the DK, Dytox.
You see contained in that chest was a pair of cloth legs. They were a significant upgrade for me, but being cloth I could only greed them.
Based on my previous experiences I didn’t think they could be traded, so I just let out a bit of a sigh…
/damn… Those pants are an upgrade for me.
Trade window opens… Pants appear… Pants appear in my inventory!
Yay DK!
Yay Team!
My only regret is that I will probably never group with these guys again, certainly not all of them at once.
So dear readers, do me a favor. If you play Alliance on these guy’s servers, send them a whisper for me.
Tell them you heard on the Internet that they are some of the most awesome players to walk the earth.
Make sure you also tell your own awesome team mates the same thing!
Oh, and just for the record, 3 of them were from the same server.. the same guild. Looks like it’s not just douchebags that run in packs.. but honorable gods as well!
Thanks for the Shards!
I make a point of thanking the Tank, DPS and heals (if it’s not me) mid run these days. I think it’s too important to leave till last last minute as people quit the group.
Aprillian from Ctrl-Alt-WoW (you know she’s a Mac user… Ohh the irony) mentioned the mysterious joy of the active DE button on the loot window and never knowing who the enchanted is, or who to thank.
So I’ve added a new role to my mid instance thank you list.
Thanks to the Enchanter for giving us the option to DE!
When I said this the other day, the Warlock was stoked at being recognized.
So my advice is…
Hug your PuG Enchanter today!
Gnomer and Out, Squidly and Stout!
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http://gnomeaggedon.net/2010/01/19/bitch-moan-bitch-where-are-the-happy-stories/
LOL! Awesome post Gnome! And thanks for the link back. Much appreciated.
And you know what? You’re right. It’s the player that makes this game worth playing! Not the freaking gear!
Again, a truly awesome read.
I know I make the game worth playing and I have neither gear nor skill… Must just be me…
I love it! I’m glad others are doing these types of posts too! I recently did one on my blog.. singing the praises of a pally tank that solo’ed a boss with 500k health left, while the rest of us were dead.
❤ Kaylex
That’s one awesome tank!
Let’s call them out until people can’t hear the cries of the terrabad
My Holy Pally is still in the 80 infancy stages, trying to aquire the gear to get into some of the end game stuff. We ran the normal versions of these this Sat. and the HoR was a beast at the normal level, I shudder to think of how bad the mobs are in Heroics. We wiped and wiped after each of the Bosses, finally was able to take them all out (me sucking fumes on mana…divine plea and spaming the Holy light to keep the tank going) and valiantly made the run to the gunship. The one thing that all the wipes do in my opinion, is make the completion of the instance all that much sweeter. When you really have to work towards something, that is the memory you take with you.
So much sweeter… another reason I have one wipe pansies… They deprive everyone of the sense of acheivement.
Great post…Negativity doesn’t fuel lasting passion and certainly doesn’t lead to happiness or joy. We play any game because it is fun. If it weren’t fun we wouldn’t play, so there must be many more instances of positive things happening in the game for us or we would leave. We just don’t tend to think of them or tell people about them.
My guess is that the posts (like this one) where you relay a positive idea are longer than the “bitch” posts and more enjoyable to write as well.
Thank you for the good vibes.
Longer… Occasionally. It’s pretty hard to stop a rant-stream.
There is a differnce in feeling though.
The rant post either ends in relief (usually) or builds into so much rage another 3 posts are spawned.
The joyful post rises to euphoria. I tend to reread my happy posts just to relive that moment, whereas the rant posts are cathartic, but normally not deserving a 2nd read
Amen. To what you wrote about the measure of great players, and what makes people 1337! (ok, i will out myself as being ancient by having no clear idea what that really means, aside from something hugely positive).
But that does not stop me from agreeing – full time.
I have to admit that i wrote my own share of “bad pug” reports, so it is very refreshing to read about the absolute opposite – something which seems rare, so thank you for providing it, and in such a well written manner.
L
1337 = leet = elite in 1337speak, which TBH is less of a badge of honor (if it ever was) and more of a nutjob meter.
The good player stories are out there, or I guess in there (inside of us all), but by the time you have made it through the 9th great group the details have all faded and merged… But that bad pug from a month ago… Burnt into our memory
i will second your assertion about good birds of a feather flocking (or guilding) together. in my experience, this is very very true. also, hooray for a positive story from da gnome! i was worried that you were gonna /ragequit lately, with all the griping going on around here… : P
Yeah, I have been a little concerned Bout the random pug advice of don’t run with 3 or more people from the same guild or server.
I dare say there is the same small ratio of arsehat guillds/server populations to great ones as there is individuals.
I often group with one or two mates… We are good people (I guess ishouldnt speak on their behalf), I don’t want ppl to drop group.
No need to worry, everything is good, hone, Odin, work, life in general. I dare say it was the 3 week gap in posts that meant that those engraved into my brain came out 1st.
Lots of rosy fire(ball)s to sit beside on the way
Amen, Gnome! We need to start writing more and more of these, to recognize the 733t human beings, not the wanna-be 733t-ist jerkoffs.
Yep, it is still the people that matter most. There are only a few classes, a few more specs… Fundamentally they are all the same.
But the people… That’s where the fantasy begins, the good, the evil, the Belfs.
[…] Yes, more of those that I was just talking about. […]
I know I’ve gotten just a *little* ranty in my blog lately, and I TRIED to do a shoultout post for one good group Iran with. (same 3 raids, but we just weren’t able to outrun/survive Arthas, we didn’t know about the follow the LK thing)
It’s so easy to recall the screw ups, but when things go as they should… There’s nothing to report.
Don’t give into the exploit 😉
[…] I went for a week without posting bad Looking for group stuff. I deserve a […]
[…] post is a response to the shared topic in Blog Azeroth and the this post by […]