Category Archives: World of Warcraft Journal

Hey, Whatever Happened to that One Dude?

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Why don’t I just tell you?

Remember that one dude who was guildleader of (yet another) guild that hates my guild and he claimed he got hacked and/or keylogged and, what a world! what a world!, their phat guildbank is gone and they might have to start whoring themselves for a living to survive in Le World of Warcraft? Well … whoring more, if that were at all possible. (Link if you need a refresher.)

So, he had tried for a few weeks to prop up his “I’ve been HACKED! and/or KEYLOGGED!” story for a week or two on my realm forums, and of course all of us were doing the “uh huh, sure”, and his guildmates were licking ass and telling us haters to stfu. And then, suddenly, he dropped off the face of the Earth.

A month went by without a word from him to his guildmates. We know this because we’d politely inquire of his guildmates and they said they hadn’t heard from him in weeks.

(That’s not suspicious at all. No way.)

And so, after weeks of no communication, his guildmates scattered to the winds and transferred to different servers or joined other raiding guilds, like mine, and that one dude became just a story we told our younger members who, often times, take every game character at face value.

Last week, some of our members got tells from “That One Dude” and he explained that he did get his account back from Blizzard after an EXHAUSTIVE investigation and he had server transferred and changed his character name. (As you do.) Despite several direct inquiries, he refused to disclose his new name or server … because “he didn’t want all that drama to follow him”, and he wished everyone well or something ridiculous like that.

Are these the actions of an innocent character? Several of his former guildmates think thought so.

So. Being the fucking guerilla master that I am, I resolve to get to the bottom of this cuz I’m tired of being labeled a hater cuz I won’t swallow bullshit.

Fortunately for me, some of his friends ratted out the thieving bastard and named the new server, and again fortunately for me, he’s as stupid as he is dishonest and he renamed his character similarly, although not quite searchable without more info, thereby saving me several hours (days) of fruitless hunting. Ba da bing, I have the server, I have the name, and now, thanks armory!, I have the guild.

And with the guild, which has forums, and a searchable member list with join dates, I now have the date he first expressed an interest in this other guild on a server far, far away from his own guild — a date one week prior to the day he claimed that he was HACKED! and/or KEYLOGGED! Why … it’s almost as if he planned the whole thing.

Ya’know, it’s almost not fair how smart I am compared to the average gamer. It’s like I’m that Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and I can frighten the superstitious populace with my superior knowledge of a solar eclipse. It’s magic, be afraid!

It’s interesting to me how otherwise (mostly) honest people assume a fake name in a game, and sometimes a fake personality, and their dishonest, thieving nature comes to light. It’s doubly interesting that there’s always apologists and hive minds to defend them. His original story didn’t even make sense and yet, there they were, buzzing around his level one posting alt calling the rest of us jealous haters.

The things some players will do, the things they will believe, all for loot — future loot, the hope of loot, the fond memory of past loot — that’s the magic.

Tomorrow: Meh, I ran out of time to tell you about the continuing woes of hunter sister and our man-whore paladin. I’ll save that one for tomorrow, plus … BabbleOn is back!! She’s still not speaking to us. Yet.

The Evolution

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Previously … something has to give. A raiding guild is tanking (and not in a good way) on Burning Crusade raid content. Six of the raiders call “ENOUGH!” and follow through on that, and yet we wonder, how the FUCK are we going to clear Karazhan with six? Or five? Does it matter when it’s less than eight?

It really doesn’t matter if it’s less than eight. (Ya you hardc0re uber-skeelt people can clear Karazhan with seven, but I am not you.)

The second day of the mutineer guild we have five guildmembers. We only formed a guild through the generosity of former guildmembers’ alts and my nephew, because left to our own devices, we wouldn’t even have /guildchat to complain about the sorry circumstances we brought on ourselves.

But on the third day, something unexpected happened. Non-mutineering (former) guildmates joined. A few of them. People who are QUITE good at their class … without-peer type players. We cleared Karazhan that first week with 11 guildmembers. And I mean we cleared … Prince, Nightbane, Illhoof, Netherspite. Every boss was down with 11.

You want to lecture me about Karazhan and what it takes to raid in Burning Crusade or how easy Karazhan is or the transition into the 25-mans, tell it to somebody who hasn’t done it twice. I already sweat it out with eleven people to choose from, including one holy paladin and one (former shadow, newly holy) priest. (Moroes can be a bitch with one shackle, btw.) It weren’t easy, by any definition, but we did it because it had to be done.

While we cleared Karazhan that first week with 11, my prior guild (roster of 40+ members after the failed mutiny) couldn’t get through Aran.

We did well, quite well, but we couldn’t exactly send a /tell with HAHAHA hay we pwn with 11, nubs!!

Week Two, we had to down High King Maulgar and make a few Gruul attempts. Again … we only had eleven guildmembers, so y’know, that was going to hurt. (WoW nubs: Gruul’s Lair — High King Maulgar and Gruul himself — are 25-man raids.) Late in the raid week, just when we figured there was no fucking way, we recruited tricked a few more people to join, and, we got an offer from a small group of long-ago guildmembers to assist in Gruul’s. (That’s what we call “Making a Deal with the Devil”.) Talking numbers, we had 8 new recruits hostages and 5 long-ago members with us in Gruul’s Lair that first kill.

And so it’s been every week since the failed mutiny: we get a handful of the former raid core to join us, including long-ago Nefarian/AQ40/Naxx raiders, and slowly, we’re climbing to the top of the pile and are back in Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern, this time with 50% less bullshit. (Did I say no bullshit? I did not. Less is a start, however.)

I often think if only we had compromised more, or if they had at all, we’d all be three times ahead of where we are. I’m bitter that their recruiting is so easy, because, after all, they’re recruiting on the strength of the name we built. They’re bitter because we “stole” the raiding force. I imagine they’re also bitter because they spent ALL NIGHT in Gruul’s Lair yesterday and we were in and out in under 20 minutes and had moved on to Tempest Keep. (Update: Gruul’s Redux for them tonight too. Now I kinda feel bad about snickering. Almost feel bad.)

It hasn’t been all purples or void crystals for the new guildbank.

This week for example, when one of our paladins backed into the boss while the casters were finishing their mana drinks, and then again when ALL our warlocks died in the first minute of a boss fight (and you know when I say ALL our warlocks, I mean two, because my server’s warlocks are rarely outside of an arena), and later still when one of our shadow priests pulled aggro off the tank because he was happily mind flaying his way up the threatmeter (“hay guys, i forgot to check my threat lol!”), we just laughed and were glad that we’re all together in a new guild.

Are you nuts?

We bitched out their asses in Ventrilo and threatened to throw them back out into the wildnerness of the guildless. Wouldn’t be a true raiding guild if we didn’t end the night not speaking to one another at least once a week.

As I told the reconstituted private chat channel “guildbitchfest”, after we flew back from the graveyard and had run back through the long twisting hallways and ramps to begin the boss buff session anew: Same shit, different guild name.

The Mutiny

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Previously … my guild begged the raiding core to return to World of Warcraft from Lord of the Rings Online, where we were happy and birds sang and women were free with their sexuality. Despite all that free love, we answered the call of duty and were prepared to do what was necessary, as long as our “good ole boys” faction was similarly prepared to do what was necessary. It was about then that the word “mutiny” was whispered. By me.

Recall that we, the raiding core, spent an ENTIRE WEEK on Ventrilo talking to Boss Hogg and the good ole boys about what we’d need to rebuild our guild into its former glory — and in modern gaming, rebuilding is de facto, every few months, here we go again type stuff. We, the raiding core, knew the kind of nuts that would be required to restore glory. Like … logging in when we really didn’t wanna, logging in when we’d rather watch the final Sopranos half-season (and wtf!), logging in when our imaginary girlfiends preferred we didn’t … it’s a commitment, we got it. Been there, and y’know …

We were denied and we were not happy. Guildmates /whispered to and fro. As I said, it was about then that the principal good ole boy enemy announced he would be offline for a week and I floated the idea of Mutiny.

It started as a joke, then the idea became more than just a dream. The day before he (PGOB, principal good ole boy) returned, it was a password in the guild /whispers for who was with us … and who wasn’t.

PGOB returned and he was not amused. For the last time, the guild (no, wait, he capitalized that in /tells), The Guild would not bow down to our demands. But we could talk about this (YET AGAIN) in Ventrilo in three days, after he did his vacation laundry. Seriously. He had laundry and he couldn’t be bothered with Ventrilo convos for 3 days.

Although I didn’t understand this whole urgency about laundry, I could wait and said as much. Practically speaking, recruiting post-Burning Crusade was not the cakewalk that pre-BC recruiting was and we had nothing to lose by waiting.

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