One of my best friends got me WoW as a Christmas gift in 2005.  I’ve known “Que” for over 30 years.  We met in 7^th grade choir…yes, I am that old.  I love her dearly although we are very different personalities and handle situations differently and think about things in a different way.  Yet we have common interests and that’s what’s bonded us together.  Plus she’s just an all around great person, even if she has a hard time seeing that.

The reason I qualified her as “one of” my best friends is because I’ve noticed that I have two different types of friends, the ones I call my “emotional” friends and the ones I call my “intelligent” friends, which is not to say that my emotional friends aren’t intelligent and my intelligent friends aren’t emotional, but it’s more the way they process information.  I think maybe better terms would be feelings vs. logic, or to take it in the geeky direction, maybe Bones vs Spock.  I am more Spock-like.  My friend is a Bones.  The funny thing is, she loves Spock and wishes to be more like him and I’ve always liked the good doctor better.  But I guess that’s the way of the world, we always want what’s on the other side of that fence.

I wasn’t able to start playing it for a couple months after receiving the gift because I needed to upgrade my computer to be able to play it and then I had trouble with the install discs so I needed to wait for replacements from Blizzard.  So, on February 11, 2006, I was ready to venture forth into Azeroth for the first time.

I’m one of those people who actually read the manual before playing to get an idea of the world, so I knew I wanted to start a rogue because my favorite D&D character was a rogue.  I wanted to make her a gnome because my D&D character was a Halfling and that was the closest I could get.  But I didn’t know anything about servers or how to get connected or any of that, so I called my friend to ask which server she was on so we could play together.  She had no clue, so she asked her husband, and we eventually figured it out.

While we were on the phone, I start creating “Dandylion”.  She ended up being a Night Elf because my friend wanted to make a character at the same time so we could do the starting area together and she loved the Night Elf starting area.  I loved that my rogue could have purple hair, so I was fine changing my original character idea. 

 I went through the beginning cut scene and then I was in Aladrassil and all I could see was the ground.  I couldn’t figure out how to move, let alone how to change the camera angle.  I was totally lost.  My friend was blithely running around and chatting in my ear about things I couldn’t see and it took me about 3 or 4 minutes of her babbling before I could get a word in edgewise to tell her that I couldn’t see what she was talking about.  She finally talked me through using the mouse to change the camera angles and I referenced the user manual for the different keys to use to move and hit things with.  We did the beginning quests and I started getting the hang of things and then she had to go, so I was on my own.

 Now I’m a fairly experienced gamer, so I was able to figure out a lot of stuff by trying things.  In the next few weeks, I had created a few different characters to experience different starting areas and classes to see what I liked.  I had a gnome mage (with pink pony tails and big green eyes), named Calyx (I ended up dumping her later to make another alt), I made my dwarven hunter, Ishkabibbel, and I made a human warrior named Terrah, and if I recall correctly, I had a Tauren Shaman, named Maxine, but she ended up getting dumped at some point, too.   (Alliance didn’t have the shaman class available in those days)

So, as you can see, I like trying the different areas and classes to experience different aspects of the game and see what works for me.  I ended up playing the hunter the most, so she became my “main”, although I really had no idea what that meant at the time.    This was during the “war effort” to gather items, which I now know was prior to the opening of AQ, so I kept seeing these quests to gather items that I never saw in the game (because they were for much higher level items than I was getting).  I didn’t understand this was a world event or what it meant. 

I’m basically an introvert, so I mainly just played by myself unless my friend or her husband was on or someone asked me to do something with them.  I joined a guild because I was invited, with no idea what a guild even was.  I never spoke in that guild, never did anything with any of the members, there was really no point for me to even be in there, but I didn’t know any better. 

I didn’t know you could auto run until someone in a random Deadmines group asked me why I was so quiet and I explained that I couldn’t move and type at the same time.  I never sought out a group, but would join if asked.  I liked the game, but was still very much a newb, even though I didn’t even know what that word was or meant.

One day, I was in my mid-20’s questing on the hunter in Darkshire and Que was with me on her hunter.  We had the Embalmer quest and were getting our asses kicked, so she asked for someone in her guild to help us.  And that one thing changed my game forever.

Now she is extremely extroverted and not shy at all, which is probably one of the reasons why we get along so well.  I was the party leader, so she had me invite “Pan”, a warrior in her guild, and Pan asked me to invite “Del”, who was a druid.  They were about 10 levels higher than us, so we knocked out that quest quickly.  We asked them if they needed any help and they said no, so that was that, or so I thought. 

Later, they asked Que if we wanted to go to BFD the next day at 7pm…That’s when I learned about server time and what BFD was.  We set a date and at 7pm server (which is 5pm my time), we met up in Astranaar.  My friend was late logging on, so Pan, Del & I started chatting and I learned a bit about them.  I got the idea they were a couple, although it wasn’t stated at the time, it was just the impression I got from the conversations I had going on with them.  Del chatted the most in party chat, but Pan also carried on a whispered conversation with me too.  I got the impression he was more comfortable with one-on-one conversations and she was more extroverted. 

They also invited another warrior from their guild, “Pig”, who was pretty quiet.  Finally my friend logged on and we went to BRD and we all had a great time.  This is one of my favorite WoW memories.  None of us had been there before, so it was all new and we ran around and got lost and wiped a few times.  I had no idea how even how to swim under water, so that was new to me.  I still didn’t understand the concept of tank, healer, dps, but somehow it all worked.  We ended up in the room with the braziers and we cleared it out and then we were like “now what”?  I remember putting my mouse over the brazier and seeing the cog, so I said “Wonder what this does” and clicked it…well actually, I clicked all 4 of them.  Of course, we got swarmed and wiped, but we were laughing doing it.  “Wonder what this does” became a catch phrase for us for a long time.  After we downed the final boss, I ended up joining their guild and that’s when my true love of WoW started…(to be continued)

I think this history is important to my understanding how I got to where I am now, but it also goes along with my theory of WoW being a microcosm of the real world.  To use myself for an example, I am introverted, but sociable.   I don’t actively seek out interaction, but I am friendly if approached.  I enjoy learning about people and how they got to where they are in life and what motivates them.   I love to try and learn new things and experience different aspects of a given situation.   I have what my friends have called FMS, which stands for Fear of Missing Something.  If an opportunity presents itself, I am going to grab it.  I won’t put myself forward or aggressively pursue something, but I will point myself in a direction and make myself available. 

For example, back in the pre/early internet days, I wanted to work in the computer industry making games.  I was looking for a new job and the newspaper was my main job hunting source.  Anytime there was an entertainment related job that I was remotely qualified for, I’d send them a resume.  My degree was in Information Systems, but my experience was in Accounting and office work, so I’d apply for anything where that might fit in.  Eventually, I had an interview with PDI (pre-Shrek) that I totally failed at because I had no idea what they were about, but it was a learning experience for me because after I went to their offices, I knew wanted a job at a company like that, but I also analyzed what I did wrong on that interview.  A few months later, I got a call from Industrial Light & Magic, and I KNEW who they were. 

The call came on the day of the re-release of Episode IV – A New Hope.  I had had a horrible day at my current job and was upset because I wasn’t able to get a ticket for that night to see it and I had really wanted to go.  I had to go check on my mom’s cats because she was out of town and I decided to spend the night there because I was too tired to go home, so I called my phone to get my messages and there it was – “This is Susan from Industrial Light & Magic.  We’re in receipt of your resume and would like to talk to you about a job opening.”  Right then & there, I decided I was going to get the job no matter what it took.  I went to the library & got a book on interviewing.  I bought new interview clothes.  I studied up on their past filmology.  I was so prepared and I nailed it and ended up getting the job (because of my enthusiasm). 

So, I didn’t actually get a job working with computer games, but it was close enough for me.  I wasn’t calling these companies day and night asking for an interview.  I had mailed a few resumes for different jobs to LucasArts, LucasFilm, and ILM, but didn’t really do any follow up.  So I put myself in their path, hoping we’d bump into each other, and once we did, I took the bull by the horns, but I didn’t send the bull in first without an invitation, if that makes sense.  It wasn’t the kind of company I had originally planned to work for nor the type of work I had wanted to pursue, but it was close enough for me.

This post was originally going to be about Que’s personality and how it translates into the game and somehow it got hijacked by me.  I don’t know, these things write themselves once I get started.  My joining BBC (Que, Pan, Del, & Pig’s guild) was that opportunity I grabbed, even though I didn’t realize I had put myself in that path.  It may not have been what I had planned, but at this point in the game, I really didn’t know enough about it to plan anything.  I just knew I had a good time with these people and I wanted to play with them some more.  Little did I know how far it would go or how involved I would get.

So yesterday I did something I never thought I’d do.  It’s not earth shattering or anything, but definitely moved me out of my comfort zone.  What is it, you ask?

Well, I took Tierra (my druid) out of my guild and joined a raiding guild…filled out an application and everything.  I always said that I didn’t want to join a guild I had to apply for because it’s a game, not a job.  But I like raiding and my guild is practically dead as far as that goes, and we’ve always been casual anyway.  I’d really like to raid on my main, but I don’t feel right moving her out of LotV.  She really belongs there.

The more I think about it, though, the more I can see this was coming.  About a year ago, I dual specced Tierra to Resto so that I’d have a second healer for raids because I was getting tired of having to turn groups down because I was saved.  There was another raiding guild I was pugging with a lot and I had ideas of taking her over there…until they pissed me off, so I decided it wasn’t worth it.  Having two healers, though, did come in handy some weeks.

A couple months ago, I almost quit LotV altogether after a particularly bad night.  I wrote a really really long blog post that I still have in my drafts and I may one day post if I ever go back and edit it.  Right now, it’s just a lot of angry ranting, but I think there’s some good stuff in there too.  Anyway, I know that staying with my current guild is holding me back as a player, but I have loyalties to people in my guild, probably more than they have loyalty to me, but I’ve had a lot of people tell me they stay in my guild because of how helpful I (and my other guildies) are.  I think that I help foster that sense of community and if I left, it wouldn’t be the same for the people that are there because of it.  I don’t know if that makes sense or not written down, but it makes sense in my mind.

Anyway, the other day, I was talking to a friend I made recently in a pug and I was talking about my guild and how much I love it but that our lack of a raiding structure frustrates me.  I try to get it going, people are all gung ho, they show up one or two weeks and that’s it.  Can’t get a group after that.  And I have no support from my guild leadership…well, my gm has been mostly absent the last few months except for signing on a couple times a month and the same has been going for a lot of the other guild officers except for me and maybe the day shift.

So, while I was chatting with this new friend, he was telling me about this raiding guild that he was talking to about joining.  It sounded good, I checked out their website and applied.  While I was applying, I noticed that one of their officers is someone that used to be in the guild we do 25-mans with, so I figured I’d be in if I was interested anyway. 

The application was easy, just mainly list your toons and times available.  I got a pm from the gm of that guild and we chatted for a few minutes.  He said that I got a glowing recommendation from that officer, even though I didn’t even mention that I knew him.  That felt pretty good. 

The gm gave me member access to their forums and I read a couple posts on the raiding structure they want to implement and it’s exactly like the ideas I had for my guild back when we raided regularly but could never really explain well enough to get it to go through. 

I really liked how they had organized everything and their policies are right in line with my own thinking, so I decided to join.  Before I did, we ran a 25 man VoA (mostly pug), which didn’t go so well and a 10-man Ony (mostly guild) which went great.   The other healer, who would have rather dps’d, made a comment to the effect that I was good enough so that he didn’t have to heal…at least on the trash. 

So, I think it will be a nice fit.  I hope so anyway.  I do feel that the winds are changing and maybe LotV won’t make it through the pre-Cataclysm slump.  I hope they do.  I really love that guild.  But I want to progress as a player too.  I guess it’ll just have to be on my alt for now.

This week has been a little busy, so I haven’t made the time to write.  Plus I’m a little depressed because this week was the one year anniversary of the death of one of my coworkers who was a good work buddy of mine and one of the few people I work with that I could really talk to about anything.  And she passed away while I was in Greece on my dream vacation, so it’s never really felt real to me.  And it’s scary because she was only 5 years older than me.  So I’ve been thinking about her a lot and not really thinking about writing.

Anyway, I’m hoping to write a couple posts this weekend.  I want to expand on my last post and there was a post at The Hunting Lodge today that I want to discuss.

In other Whimzee WoW related news, this week, my friend, Al, that I wrote about a couple posts ago, told me that he’s going to be taking a break from WoW for a while, so I probably won’t have to deal with the Mr T issue.  It’s a bummer, though, because I enjoy raiding with Al and he’s usually doing fresher content than my other contacts.  Oh well, I guess it’s that time of the expansion.

There’s another guild that my guild usually does 25 mans with that has started up again.  We haven’t been doing the 25 mans in quite a while and now they’re trying to find a good day to do them.  They started this week on Tuesday, which doesn’t work for me at all because I have a standing “date” with some of my real life friends.  They were continuing on Thursday, although we didn’t end up getting a full group together because ICC was the weekly and they were already past Marrowgar.  I told the GM then that I couldn’t ever make Tuesdays, so they’re going to try Thursdays & Mondays which work great for me.  We did end up getting a 10-man together, so I got the weekly done.  I figured I’d PUG a 10-man anyway to get it done, so that worked out great for me.

I’ve been spending a lot of time leveling Whimzee the second on Argent Dawn.  She’s up to level 35 now.  I’ve been doing a combination of quest chains and random dungeon finder.  I’m so sick of SM Graveyard, but I think I’m finally beyond that.  I’ve gotten the Library twice, the armory once and RFD twice in the last couple days.  I had never done RFD before on any of my toons, so that was a great new experience, although I love the SM instances because they’re fun & quick.

I’ve decided to server transfer my warrior to Argent Dawn because I was going to delete her anyway when Cataclysm comes out, so I’ve been buying heirlooms for her, my baby Pally (who I still haven’t decided how to spec so I bought almost 2 sets for her) and Whimzee the second, of course.  I’ll probably be sharing some of the gear across the 3 and if I make another alt…hmmm, maybe I should get some shammy/hunter gear and druid gear too…I have a LOT of triumph badges…lol.  I’ve also been making 18 & 20 slot bags in anticipation of the transfer.  I’m also planning on using some of my almost 2000 stone keeper shards to get some gems to sell.  And I bought one tome of cold weather flying, figuring I’ll have enough cash by then to get any others that I might need.  I’ll be doing it next weekend (after payday), so I’m still trying to figure out what to bring.  Any suggestions?

Last week I read two blog posts in one day that inspired me to write about something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.  The first was  one about friendships in World of Warcraft and the other was about loyalty and what does that mean to your guild.  I’ve often said that WoW is just a microcosm of the “real world” and the way that people act in game is really a more honest representation of who they are as members of our society (and to be clear, I am not talking about the RP aspect of the game, since most WoW players don’t engage in RP). 

From wikipedia, “the concept of microcosm has been taken over by sociology to mean a small group of individuals whose behavior is typical of a larger social body encompassing it.”  Apparently, I’m not the only one to believe this.  The Daedalus Project studied MMO players over a number of years, and the people behind it are starting a new study to try to “predict who people are just from the way they behave in a virtual world.” 

This kind of stuff fascinates me.  I love psychology and personality studies.  Myers-Briggs (I’m an ISFP, although for years, I thought I was an INTJ), Enneagram (I’m a 9 – The Peacemaker), the “Big Five” factor, etc.  When people act in a way that I don’t understand, I try to look at things from their perspective and analyze their motivations.  I am a firm believer in “live & let live” as long as you don’t harm someone in the process or try to force your beliefs on me or others.  I think those quirks that make us unique are what make the world an interesting place to be in.  And I know not everyone thinks the way I do.

I have found, though, that people react to situations in WoW as they would to similar situations in life.  People that have a hard time handling money in the real world have a hard time hanging on to it in game and vice versa.  People who are introverted tend not to want to group with others.  People who are extroverted meet a lot of people and like grouping.  People who are selfish in the real world are selfish in game.  People with strong values and morals display them in game and the opposite is true, too.  People who are leaders tend to take a tanking role, people who are supporters tend to take a healing role. I could go on and on.  And, to be fair, this is not always the case.

In the friendship post mentioned above, the author talks about a friend quitting the game because of a guild member’s in-game behavior.  The guild was formed with some real life friends and no one wanted to hang out with one of the guy’s because he was an asshat in game.  I say that negative behavioral tendency was always a part of his personality to begin with, it just may have been more “hidden” in his outer facade.  They may be better at playing society’s game and hiding it in real life but it came out in WoW, possibly because the “friend” felt protected by their avatar, not realizing that their online behavior would then affect their real life relationship.

A lot of conflict is about control and expectations and miscommunication.  There were a few comments on the loyalty post about not just blaming the other person but trying to take a hard look at the author’s own behaviors.  There are many different perspectives to every story and there is no concrete “truth” to any of them.  It’s all in a person’s perception of the situation.  In this case, the author had an expectation of a person’s behavior and that person didn’t conform to that expectation and hurt ensued.  Fortunately, they were able to work things out in the end due to the post getting some attention and communication occuring.  That doesn’t always happen, so it’s nice to see when it does.

As to “evidence” for my WoW/Real World Microcosm theory, I look to my real life friends, some of whom I’ve known for over 30 years, and to some extent I use myself.  It’s hard to be impartial about oneself, but I’ve done a lot of therapy and self analysis over the years that I think I can be somewhat objective.  I also look at the friends I’ve met in game who have become “real world” friends.  I was going to write up examples in this post, but I think I might make them into a series of blog posts.  Otherwise this will just be too long.

So I promised myself I’d do a blog post every other day at least, so I’m going to write a short one now. I’m working on a longer one, but it’s not going to get finished by the time my eyes want to shut down for the night, so just thought I’d catch up on my WoW doings this week. Well, at least the ones I remember.

Whimzee, the second, hit 30 tonight.  I had two SM Graveyard runs from the random dungeon finder, which thankfully were short.  In the first group, the mage refused to give the pally tank any water, claiming that he only had so much mana and it took too long to replenish it.  The mage’s friend ragged on the pally tank, telling him to pick up some water at an inn.  They started bickering back and forth.  I made a snarky comment about how fun it was to play with twelve year olds, but I think it went over their head.  Honestly, I have no idea what the big deal is.  You’re a mage, he asked politely, make him a few waters and be done with it.  Plus the mage thought he was a tank.  I should have let him die and not rezzed him unless he gave the tank a couple waters…but I didn’t.  Next time, though, I might…except I put him on my ignore list.

The 2nd group was a little better, although I did have to lecture the tank about pulling a large group when my mana was at 10%.  I did it somewhat politely, in a passive aggressive kind of way, though (I said something to the effect that in the future, he might want to check his healer’s mana bar before a large pull.), and he said “my bad”, which I guess was an apology.  Anyway, I hope he got the message because he was a decent tank…not great, but not bad, definite potential.  He just needs to build a little more situational awareness.

I”ve also started leveling a Paladin on Argent Dawn, Daffnee.   Who knows, maybe I’ll actually get this one past level 18, but this is my 4th try.  Right now, though, she’s level 6.

Whimzee, the main, got 3 big upgrades this week. Two loveley pieces of jewelry in 10-man ICC, the Soulcleave Pendant off of Deathbringer Saurfang and the Cerise Coiled Ring off of Prince Valanyr.  That run also got her enough badges to get a new belt.  I’m still not sure that ICC run was a good idea, though.  I kinda feel like the loot is a bit tainted.  Let me tell you why:

I’ve been pugging a lot of raids lately because my guild is going through the end of the expansion slump, so there’s never very many people on.  We’re also an extremely casual guild and our gm has been taking a lot of time off from the game, so there just hasn’t been much raiding.  Plus, our last guild raid, if you can call it that, was so horrible, he doesn’t really want to plan another raid.  But that’s a story for another time.

I’ve made a lot of friends over the last 4 years and I have a pretty good reputation as a healer, at least I think I do, so I often get asked to fill in for other guilds raids.  One of my friends from my first “real” guild has been using me a lot for his pug groups in VOA (10 & 25 man) and 10-man ICC; let me call him Al.  I like running with Al and his usual cohorts because, when he runs the groups, the raids are pretty mellow and mainly successful, and he’s a decent all around guy. 

So, last week, Al asks me if I want to heal 25-man ToC.  I accepted and got invited to the group.  His GM was the raid leader and MT; let me call him Mr. T.  Probably half the raid were PUGs.  The other PUG priest in the group, who was Disc specced, had never been there, was pretty new to raiding, and didn’t have vent or DBM.  I”m not sure who invited her, but she said in raid chat that she hadn’t been there when it was asked if everyone knew the fights.  Mr. T assumed that everyone knew the fights and didn’t pay attention when she said she didn’t, so after she got hit during Icehowl because she didn’t know to get out of the way, I started whispering her the things she needed to know about the fights.  I was on Vent and Mr. T was bad mouthing her and saying she was a poor healer because she was low on the meters…um, dude, she’s Disc, she’s not supposed to be high on the meters. 

In fact, the whole night he was badmouthing all the healers, which was pissing me off because I kept his ass alive when his healer wasn’t keeping up.  Al whispered me and told me to just ignore Mr. T because he always spouts his mouth off like that, and told me I was doing fine, which I know I was, but I was still offended (and if you know anything about me, I am NOT easily offended, but when I do get offended, it’s usually because of the way someone is treating someone else, which was the case here).

Ok, so some nice healy thing dropped, but I didn’t need it, so I didn’t roll.  Mr. T barely gave anyone a chance to look at it before ending the roll and the other priest rolled just after he had counted down from 3 to 1 in about 1.5 seconds, so he gave it to his guildie even though her roll was higher.   The other priest whispered me that she couldn’t believe she didn’t make the roll but she didn’t want to make waves because she didn’t want to get kicked and she was glad for the experience. 

So, then another boss dropped another healy thing (I think it was the staff off the Twins, which I already had).  This time she rolled between the 2 and the 1, so it was on time and he still gave it to one of his guildies, so I lost all respect for Mr. T right then and there.  His comment in vent was that she wasn’t performing up to par so she didn’t deserve it.  I’ll bet you that it was a much bigger upgrade for her than for his guildie.  Anyway, we finished the run, I commiserated with the other priest about what a jerk he was, gave her some advice on finding good healing info out here on the interwebs, we added each other to our friends list and that was that.

The next day or the day after, Al asked me if I wanted to do ICC-10, which of course I did, since the weekly was Marrowgar and I knew we’d get it done if it was his group.  He was waiting for his friend that usually tanks his group, who I also know from my original guild and I’ll call R.  Al started putting the group together.  It was mostly his guildmates and we were in vent and they were trying to find a 2nd tank.  Mr. T was on and one of the group was trying to get him to come along, which I wasn’t too happy about, if you can imagine, but I didn’t say anything. 

Anyway, they went up into a different channel to chat with Mr. T, I went afk to take care of some stuff before the raid, and when I came back, the group had been dropped.  Al whispered me that there was some guild politics going on and they were regrouping.  R still hadn’t logged on at this point, so it wasn’t really clear to me what was going on.  However, I was standing around for a while, waiting for an invite.  It never came.  I checked my friend’s list and they were in ICC, so I figured I got dropped because they got a full group within their guild.  Ok, fine, but let me know that’s what’s going on.  Am I wrong here?  I know Al wasn’t happy with what happened, but since it was his guild, he went along with it.  Whatever…The next day I got an invite from another guild that was part of our 25 man group back in BC days, so it ended up working out fine.

Fast forward to this week.  On Tuesday, I run into R while picking up the weekly (Patchwerk) and he mentions to me that they were going to try get a 10-man ICC group together on Wednesday.  I say great, that I”m interested.  I log on Wednesday after work and get my daily random in.  While I”m in there, Al whispers me that he’s going to get a group together, he’s just waiting for R to log on.  I say ok, since there’s some time, I needed to go afk to take a quck shower, which was fine. 

I come back after about 10 minutes and Al says that the other healer had to go because of family stuff and R still hadn’t logged on, so we’d probably try to get the group together on Thursday instead.  I said I had 25-man ICC on the calendar for Thursday (with another guild), but we’d probably be done by the time the 10-man got started.  He said he’d contact me when he got on Thursday, then, and I said ok.  After that, I wasn’t really sure what to do, so I went afk to finish drying my hair and all. 

When I came back, there was a whisper fromR asking me if I wanted to do 10-man ICC, that there was one spot left.  I said sure, figuring that Al had found another healer and the original group was back on.  However, after I joined the group, I noticed that Al wasn’t in the group…and that Mr. T was leading it.  R kept saying to me that this was a really good group and we’d probably go far, so I stayed and we went on, but I didn’t feel very good about it.  And I was the only non guildie.

During Marrowgar, I dc’d in the middle of the fight and by the time I got back, they were already rolling on loot.  Cord of the Patronizing Practitioner dropped, which would have been a nice upgrade for me, but they were already rolling on it when I logged on and I didn’t even have a chance to see what it was before he closed the roll and gave it to the druid healer.  I wasn’t pleased to not even have a chance to roll, but in all reality, I don’t play for the loot and I was working towards the badge belt anyway.  Loot a nice bonus but I like the experience and working together more than I care about who gets what.  It was an upgrade for the druid, I dc’d during the fight, so it was fine, don’t dwell on it, I know Mr. T’s an ass anyway.

We get through Lady Deathwhisper and go on to the gunship battle.  Mr. T puts me and the 2nd healer on cannons without asking me if I wanted to do it and leaving just the druid to heal.  I didn’t want to do the cannons for a few reasons.  One, I go on raids to heal, that’s what I want to do and I hate it when I’m not “allowed” to by the mechanics of the game; two, I had never done it before, which is not that big of a deal since I learn quick; and three, which is the most important reason - yet one that no one ever considers - I am left-handed (and a clicker, don’t shoot me) so vehicle fights are difficult for me.  I use my mouse in my left hand and move with the arrow buttons.  I know it’s supposedly not as efficient as mouse turning and hot keys, but it’s what I know and what I’m comfortable with, and after almost 20 years of playing that way…well, it’s difficult to teach an old dog new tricks.  Anyway, for the gunship battle, you need to use the 1 & 2 keys, which are closest to my left hand.  However, I target with the mouse, which is being used by my left hand, so I need to hit the numbers with my right hand and the angle is awkward, so I’m not very fast. 

Anyway, being the good little raider that I am, I hop on a cannon, like I was told and shoot towards the back of the ship even though I can’t really tell what I’m shooting at.  I hit 1, 2, 1, 2, etc, like they said to do, even though everything is at an awkward angle for me.  And Mr. T is yelling in vent that we’re not doing enough damage to the other ship and how hard is it to hit two buttons fast.  I really wanted to strangle him.  So, after the cannons are unfrozen, I go to hop on the cannon again and all of a sudden I’m flying through the air.  I was wondering if I accidentally jumped off the ship instead of getting in the cannon, but I landed back on the ship, so I don’t know what happened.  When I go to get back in the cannon, someone had taken it over for me, so I didn’t have to do it again, and I certainly didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to do it anyway.

Gunship battle down, we go on to Saurfang.  That fight goes smoothly and they start doing the loot.  At this point, I know he’s going to be quick, so I see there’s a healing something, I roll on it.  I honestly had no idea what it was or if it was an upgrade, I just rolled, and barely got it in before the 3.  And Mr. T’s response was “damn”, so he clearly didn’t want me to have it since I wasn’t in his guild.  Whatever, I earned it and if you weren’t such an ass, I may not have even rolled on it in the first place…except it did turn out to be a nice upgrade.

Now, this is the furthest I had ever been, so wherever we went after this was going to be new territory.  They decide to go to the Blood Princes, we get a very brief explanation of the fight, which was mainly to stay 10 yards away from each other.  R whispered me things to look out for and we start the fight.  I honestly had no idea what was going on.  I was healing whatever was in range and needed healing and trying to move whenever DBM made a noise at me.  I couldn’t tell who was where, I just saw that some people were out of range, so I tried to move so that they’d be in range and still be 10 yards away from everyone else.  To me, it was utter chaos, and we wiped.  And, of course, it was the healers’ fault because we couldn’t keep everyone alive.  And, according to Mr. T, everyone was stupid because if you keep 10 yards away from each other, it should be an easy fight, and why was everyone moving around, there’s no need to move around. 

Ok, so I had seen the fight and kinda knew what to do a bit.  My computer hung up at the loading screen, so I had to restart and fell behind the rest of the group.  I was still running back when I got the ready check window and Mr. T asked where the priest buffs were.  For all of us who “need to pay attention”, he sure doesn’t.  Anyway, I get back there, buff everyone, and we do the fight and we down the princes and life is grand, right? 

Time for loot, healy ring drops, not sure if it’s an upgrade, but don’t care, I’m going to roll if I can.  Can’t roll Need for Main Spec, since I already won something, but so did the other healers, so it goes to Greed for Main Spec.  Mr. T tries to rush the roll again, but I won it.  He gives the ring to the druid.  The druid, though, was honest and said it should have gone to me, so he traded it to me.  Mr. T wasn’t happy about that, but said he “didn’t see” my roll. 

At this point, it was getting late, but we decide to try to go to the Blood Queen; however, we wipe on trash, which, of course, was the healers’ fault again, so they call it, which was fine with me.  They may go back later this week.  I doubt I’ll get an invite, but I don’t care.  I really would rather not do any more runs with Mr. T if I can help it.  I still want to run with my friends, Al & R, though, so I’m sure he’ll show up again unless they switch guilds.  Al mentioned that he was thinking about it, but we’ll see.

Ok, so much for a short update…my eyes definitely don’t want to stay open now, so good night!

I always have these great ideas for things to write about, but it’s usually while I’m driving or in the shower and by the time I get to some place to write it down, I’ve forgotten about it.  So I don’t write. 

I also think I should have pictures with my posts because that’s more interesting that my walls of text, but I really hate dealing with graphics.  So I don’t write. 

I work long days and spend my evenings playing WoW (for the most part) and by the time I sign off, it’s late and I should be getting to bed.  So I don’t write.

I tell myself I want to write, get things out of my head.  I always feel better when I put words down, even if I can’t fully express what I really want to say.  So what I wrote above are just excuses.  It’s time to write.  Even if it’s only a few sentences a couple times a week.  Knowing myself, it will be more than that, but I need to commit to writing. 

On Whimzee the second’s SAN member notes, I have “Reader / Wannabe writer”.  Well if I want to be a writer, I have to write, right?  So, as of tonight, I will write at least every other day, even if it’s just a little bit with no pictures and about nothing…kinda like this post.  But I wrote!

I recently joined the blogging guild, Single Abstract Noun (SAN), on the US Argent Dawn server because of a post by Miss Medicina.  I had started a blog here for a blogging class, but it never felt right, so I thought I’d start fresh.  My main problem was finding a focus, which I’m still not sure I have, but I feel this title is better suited to my ramblings.  Because I tend to ramble.  Mainly because I write when I’m tired, so whatever is in my brain at the time spews forth in my writing and my edit muscle is repressed.  Usually my ramblings are about WoW, what I’m doing in the game, what’s going on with my guild, etc., but sometimes there might just be stuff going on in the real world that’s on my mind, so that will come out instead.

Ok, to get back to the Intro.  My name is Tami (for more about me, see the About page).  I’ve been playing WoW since February 2006.  The majority of my toons are on the Kael’thas realm.  I am an altoholic.  My original main, back in vanilla, was a female dwarven hunter named Ishkabibbel.  My current main is a human priest named Whimzee (Holy / Disc).  I currently have 4 level 80′s – my priest, my hunter, my Night Elf Restokin, Tierra, and my Dranei Shaman, Esmyrelda (currently Enhancement/Elemental, but considering changing Elemental to Resto).  On Kael’thas, I also have a 70 DK named Clementyne, a 69 Rogue named Dandylion, who was my first toon, a 54 priest named Verasitee (yes, another one – I made her as Whimzee’s evil shadow specced sister before dual spec, but now she’s shadow / disc), and 3 toons that are stuck in their 30′s (Warlock, Mage, Warrior) and probably always will be unless I dump them to create another.  In fact, I’m pretty sure the warrior is going to become a worgen when the time comes.  Either her or the Warlock.  

All my toons on Kael’thas are Alliance, but I have a couple horde toons on various servers.  The highest, Taralynne, is level 34…another priest.  She’s on Cenarius, along with a level 16 Paladin and 11 Mage.  I put them there because I have real life friends that play horde on that server…although I never see them there.  I also have horde on Aerie Peak, but they were created as a place to hide when I wanted to get away from guild stuff with one of my friends (and guild master).  We don’t play together like we used to (long story, I’m sure I’ll write about it at some point), so those toons will probably languish there for a long long time.  I have a couple more toons on other servers that are unimportant as well, since I will probably never play them again either.

And, now I have Whimzee the second, my character in SAN.  She’s actually an exact clone of my main, human priest, angelic looking (can you tell I like priests?).  Just with lesser gear for now.  Last night she hit level 15, so I’ll mainly be running her through the Dungeon Finder while I’m on.  I’m really loving the guild and the community there.  Everyone is friendly and helpful and chatty.  There’s always around 20 people on whenever I log on.  It’s a great getaway and I find myself wanting to play there more than I want to be with my main, but I think that just might be because it’s fresh and there’s no obligations, kinda like a vacation.  And since everyone is related in some way to the blogging community, there’s a greater awareness of different aspects of the game than most of the people that I’m used to being around.  And that is a good thing.