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Standard advertisement: Wreck List is the Daily Kos World of Warcraft guild. We are Horde-side on the Garrosh server. To join, read this diary and visit the Guild web site to put in an application. Yes, you have to be Horde. No, you don't have to be hardcore - casuals, PvPers, and people that just want to hang out on guild chat are all welcome. |
More below the fold:
So, yeah, I'm gonna talk about it a little.
A lot of distinguished news outlets like the New York Times, NBC News and Comedy Central have discussed this story, so adding my two cents' worth is on the redundant side.
Nevertheless, that's why I'm here, so here we go.
This story is totally about NSA drones goofing off at work. If it were about surveillance, they could have just asked Blizzard for all the logs. Have any of you actually read the TOS? Talk about near-future corporate dystopia.
My personal theory is, you know when you're running LFR and a pally tank shows up in intellect plate? NSA. Hunter gearing for Spirit and spellpower? NSA. Death knight tanking in Frost presence "for the deeps" or trying to DPS in Blood? NSA. Healer priest in Shadowform? Homeland Security. Hunter refusing to turn off Growl on his tanking pet? Company.
Considering that, IIRC, the CIA was of actual negative value in the Cold War, I propose that we assume that every dipshit that makes LFR stand for Look at my Fucking Repair bill be considered to be a member of our country's intelligence services.
And here I wonder why I can't get a credit card.
With that, Pamena and Dkosmama have a few words about our admissions process.:
A Word on Our Admissions Process
We have an admissions process for this guild. I am going to quote here from something our guild leader Dkosmama wrote and then add some thoughts of my own. Mama said this, in response to someone who took issue with our admissions form and procedures:
"The Wreck List was established as a haven for those who are so frequently marginalized in the game by the crap spewed by so many. We have gays and transgender members who just want to be able to play without hearing the word "gay" used as an insult. We have members who have been the victims of sexual assault who would like to be able to play without hearing about how so-and-so "raped" the opposing faction in an battleground. We have members who are women who have avoided using ventrilo because the attitudes toward women is so appalling generally among a large segment of the gaming population. We have African American members who want to be able to play without reading the "n" word in guild chat. And mostly our members want to feel free to talk about politics without being attacked by Tea Party types.
We used to have a much looser and considerably more welcoming admissions process, but over and over we found that people would join our guild and then completely ignore our founding principles. Being told that Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme" by some kid in Texas when you were the congressional staffer who wrote the actual legislation with Tip O'Neill is an example.
So we screen potential members very carefully, just like a lot of Warcraft guilds. The only difference is that our criteria are based in politics, not game achievements. Our admission process was created with input from and approved by the entire guild. We had a small number of people who did choose to leave at that time rather than participate in the process. Since that time, I have embraced a zero tolerance for drama policy. From anyone. Most everyone else who has applied since we adopted this process has actually appreciated our concern. So if you find our admission process too onerous, then we are probably not a good fit for you."
As one of the guild members who helped form our standards and principles document, as well as the admissions form, I think Mama has just nailed it here. The admissions form and policies we have now have been in place for over 2 years now, and have served very well to not only let us know when someone might not be good fit for us, but also to inform potential guild applicants of exactly what kind of guild we are. While it was not really our intention to scare people off, I think the form and the quiz have served to let people know that we're serious about this political stuff, and make up their own minds as to whether that's really what they want in a guild.
I am extremely proud of our guild and our admissions process. We are thriving, with many guild activities (Sat Night Massacre, Tuesday Flex O Rama, ad hoc guild groups farming rep on TI, running scenarios and flexes, Friday Farmer's market to plant crops for guild sale, etc.), 3 10-man progression raid teams, and a host of great people who have wonderful, sometimes wonderfully silly conversations in guild chat (and we really don't think any of them are NSA agents!) We are one of the oldest guilds on the server, having been around now for over 4 1/2 years, and one of the largest. Being careful about who we bring into our family is, I think, one of the main reasons why we're doing so well and have lasted so long. Liberal and progressive are not synonymous with weak and soft headed - that's a right wing stereotype of liberals, and when I see complaints that our admissions process is too tough, not welcoming or not consistent with being a liberal, I know the complainer is more than likely NOT a liberal or progressive. We're going to stick with what works.
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We used to have a much looser and considerably more welcoming admissions process, but over and over we found that people would join our guild and then completely ignore our founding principles.
We have a guild event coming up!
Guild Event: Naked Kara Race! Dec. 28th 9PM!
Saturday night Dec. 28th, we have scheduled a guild wide event - well, for all toons high enough to enter Karazhan without being immediately slaughtered. Nina had the idea a while ago for a Naked Kara Race, in the tradition of our previous Naked Molten Core and Naked Ahn'Qiraj runs, except this time she thought, let's make it a race! We're still working out the details, but this what we have in mind, and we would love more input from the rest of you guys on it. I have lifted most of the rest of this from NIna's musings on the forum thread she set up to brainstorm the idea
Running a dungeon 'naked' means that you're not wearing any armor. We could have variations on these - no equipped items whatsoever except stuff that drops in the raid, or you're allowed to equip gray and white items (think holiday clothes and chef's hats), or you're allowed to equip weapons and jewelry but nothing else that has a visible effect on your character. I'm leaning towards the 'nothing with a visible effect' option. I think since this is so close to New Year's, wearing holiday or party dresses that have no stats - like the Lovely Black Dress or the Spring Robes - would be a great option and would give us a terrific photo op for the beginning of the event.
How will we split into teams? Each team should contain at least one character who does not yet have the Karazhan achievement, so the rest of the guild can tell when you win. Teams of 5 seems optimal - maybe mostly 90's, with one lower level toon, maybe an at-level toon who could actually benefit from the gear. It would be nice if we mix the groups up so that folks from different social circles (yes, I know we have them) get to interact with each other. It would be nice if each group contains someone who knows the instance well and someone who has never been there and is willing to listen to "back in the day" stories.
How do we keep people from cheating? I don't think that we can. Nothing except the possibility of public ridicule will keep someone from zoning into Kara and putting on all their gear to do speed runs. Heck, nothing will stop someone from clearing almost the whole zone before the raid start time and then zooming to the top to claim victory. Except the possibility of public ridicule.
One possibility is that we could provide a prize for best ad-hoc Kara-themed transmog after the runs. The outfit must contain at least one piece that was picked up that night. Alternate prize for most hideous clashing colored BC clown suit.
Another feature of holiday events is that they often happen while the participants are somewhat impaired. Bonus points could be awarded for teams who feature mostly drunk people, people playing from laptops in the living room while a lot of people watch sports on TV, and people who live with or are small children. Proof of age not required.
We will all gather somewhere near the instance entrance for a group photo before the run begins. Prizes will be awarded! Start forming your teams now! And let us know what you think about this and what ideas you have for rules or prizes or additional features that would make it even more fun!
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Wait, we have social circles? When the hell did this happen?
Oh, and I have several 90s and I've never been to Kara. Just depends on which of my 90s causes you less psychological damage to see naked.
Awkward silence then on to the raid reports! Here's Team Kaels' report from Ninotchka:
Team Kaels returned to a secret lair deep under Orgrimmar this week, to attempt to end the tyranny of Garrosh’s rule once and for all. You know, until next week when we try to kill him again. Except he wouldn’t actually die. Stupid Varian.
Anyhow. We spent two nights working on this fight and while we’re getting better, we’re still not there yet. We’re very good at the first phase and the intermissions now, except when we get mystery disconnects. We’re very good at the first stage of the fight. We’re very good at the intermissions, so long as we remember the difference between left and right. Cough. Not that we’ve forgotten that or anything. Anyhow. We’re pretty good at the first round of stage 2, before any of Garrosh’s abilities become empowered. And we’re pretty good at breaking empowered mind controls and at staying away from empowered desecrated weapons.
It’s those stupid whirling corruption adds. I swear, as we kept on working on this stage of the fight it seemed like we got worse and we were going backwards. Honest to Murgatroyd. Last night we started at having 22-28% wipes and ended up wiping at 37-45%.
However, I’ve been through progression before and I know that this is part of the learning process. I trust my teammates, and I know we’re very close to a win once we actually understand this part of the fight. We’ve gotten past brute forcing a mechanic and now we’re learning how it works and developing our own little tricks to deal with it. So I have confidence that we’re on our way to a win.
The flex raid group helped us out enormously this week by clearing Blackfuse and Klaaxi in good enough time to give us some practice pulls on Garrosh flex. Big thanks especially to the people who stepped up and learned how to play on the conveyor belt for Blackfuse, and thanks also to the rest of you who were patient and let the conveyor team learn their roles without carping or criticizing. The team reacted to the Klaaxi fight with poise and quick reflexes (excellent target switching) and soon we squashed them like, er, bugs.
And Pamena taught most of Team Kaels something we didn’t know about the Garrosh fight. There’s a ramp? Who knew?
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And here's Pamena's Team RubiPam report:
Team RubiPam report:
Team RP did a little farming this week, since we've been kind of stuck on Spoils of Pandaria, and it was well worth it to go back and do the first wings again. We can't quite clear it in one night yet, but we're getting closer to that, and good loots were had. Monday, we went back to Spoils, and we're making progress. Rubi has been trying different combinations of dps on each side to see what will work best to beat the timer on that - we mostly need to get the boxes open faster, I think. We did get to the second phase once, and might have completed it if not for the stupid disc priest (that Shamena again!) who totally forgot to set up her special action bar button and couldn't dump the stupid bombs fast enough. Oh well. We will be back at it again tonight if we can find a high dps guildie to sub in for Joravic - otherwise, we'll farm some more, if only to see the trinket that Joravic craves drop off of Immersius when he's not there [snerk].
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Here's the Team Z report from Tvath:
Team Z report:
We just love Throne of Thunder so much that we want to stay there a while longer? Uh, no, actually we are still working on Lei Shen. Made some progress, doing well in the first phase, just need to get the dance down. It was therapeutic to kill him dead during SNM. We'll get there!
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And finally the Saturday Night Massacre report from Pamena:
Saturday Night Massacre report:
Another great SNM this week - since many people are now collecting secrets and runestones for the legendary cloak, either on their main or an alt, I thought doing the wings of TOT and Siege that yield those would help the most folks, and it seemed to work out that way. We had almost a complete LFR this time - I think 23 or 24 guildies, doing the last wing of TOT (hello, Thunder King, it's been a while!) and first wing of Siege, and it was great fun. The only issue was that Mumble started misbehaving and we had to switch to vent for most of the raid. I'm not sure if someone's mic was open or what - it has not seemed problemmatic since then, so hopefully it was just a random event.
This Saturday, we may do the same thing again, to help folks with what they need for the legendary. Looking ahead, no SNM on Dec. 21 - that's usually when people are out for travelling or holiday parties, but I'll be around if people want to do something anyway. Dec 28 is our Naked Karazhan race, about which more below!
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That's what I have for this week.
For the Horde!