Recently, one of our pally tanks decided to apply to a 25 man raiding guild (I only raid 10s out of preference). We were all shocked and dismayed and after some drama he decided to gquit while awaiting the response from the guild (a major player for our faction and server as it went).
I’m not sure how the app would have turned out but they also accepted another paladin. Now, the pally in question makes an application to our guild asking to re-join us apologizing for his mistake of applying to another guild (I didn’t see it as a mistake, just not perhaps a wise decision).
Of course the rest of the guild are all lovely people and accepted him back with no problems at all. The caveat is that a few of us can’t be sure if he would have come back had he been accepted to the new guild. I myself do wonder, but he’s a great tank and a nice guy so I’m willing to give him another chance.
I know in the past I’ve been given another chance by a guild I left and later re-joined so why not anybody else? The guy came back in as a trial and will have to pass said trial to be a raider, from there on I doubt he’ll go back up to Officer again.
We’re all friends and we’re all casual so perhaps we need to be more laid back about it – but perhaps we need more structure to make sure things like this don’t happen again in the future.
Lately, security has been playing on my mind a lot.
I’ve become friends through association with another player who uses bots to make gold and power level characters and then sell them on various sites (I wont link them because I don’t approve of them). He doesn’t have a problem with what he does and claims he’s never compromised an account etc… The guy is young, at college and uses it to keep his “tech addiction” flowing. Fair enough, he’s not hurting anyone, is he?
When I was levelling quite some time ago I used to see bots a fair bit and the fuckers would be doing a circle round and round getting the mobs I needed, I played on a PvE server as well which meant I couldn’t just ambush their asses into next week. We’ve all seen gold seller ads and we’ve all seen the services people offer. These guys are destroying the game experience:
The economy gets ruined, those who work for their gold are de-valued because some asshole with a VISA can buy all the gold he wants.
The play experience gets ruined when you’re in trade or minding your business and get THOSE whispers (although some times I do ask for a 56 which garners no reply!)
For the people buying the gold or the power levelling or the honour grinding… YOUR experience is worsened.
Point 3 is what I want to focus on.
Where’s the satisfaction in buying a hog after waiting 30 minutes for your gold to be delivered? Where do you get the joy from with a level 80 pre-made for you – that’s not your work, hell in all likelihood a programme did the work, not even a human being.
Don’t people feel cheated by this? Don’t they feel inhuman? Do they not feel cheap?
I know people have busy lives and that’s the reason for buying gold etc but as long as people buy gold there will be a market for it. Getting people to stop buying gold though, well now, I fear that’s an impossible situation.
The macro above is a simple macro addon (and when used with IronChef is awesome!) It tells the button when the left hand mouse button is clicked to Use (open) Cooking and when the right hand mouse button is clicked to cast Basic Campfire.
Pretty simple stuff eh?
Well let’s put it into perspective for rogues:
/use [btn:2][mod]Deadly Poison IX;Instant Poison IX
/use [btn:2][mod]17;16
This macro applies Deadly Poison on your offhand if you press the second mouse button and otherwise will place Instant Poison on the main hand.
Now let’s look at an even more complicated macro with more options:
This macro will first check to see if you have a fishing pole equipped if not it will equip a gearset called “Fishing”.
Then if you click normally you will fish if you have a fishing pole equipped.
If you click with shift your Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat is used to provide a lure.
If you click with alt pressed you’ll equip your gearset called PvE and switch to your primary spec.
This is a simple list for Rogues on how not to raid in 3.3 but still enjoy the PvE experience and get some decent gear. If like me you’re not a fan of raiding every single night or just like to relax a bit more (my guild luckily is very accomodating for this) then here’s a list of gear that you can get without popping your cash on flasks, pots and fish feasts.
#showtooltip Tricks of the Trade
/cast [target=focus,help] Tricks of the Trade
/target lasttarget
/startattack
/script SendChatMessage(“Tricks of the Trade has been cast on you – inc. threat!”,”WHISPER”,nil,UnitName(“focus”))
This macro places Tricks of the Trade on your focus target (it could be used on anything, for example a DK’s Hysteria). To set a focus with Blizzard frames right-click the target and press focus, for any other unit frame you have to select the player and type /focus manually. This is an issue in WoW’s API, not a lot addon authors can do about it unfortunately.
It will also whisper the tank. Please note if you’re doing X-Realm PuG’s it will attempt to whisper the name of the tank on your server which can result in embarrassing apologies – so feel free to remove this line.
This is a fantastic macro for helping non-AoE tanks rocket through instances, especially in Halls of Reflection when using the peekaboo method!
You may remember in my 2010 looking forward post one of my achievements was the to get the lovely mechano-hog. Luckily last night I turned badass… I even had a full set of leathers! (arf arf)
This macro allows you to change spec and corresponding gear with 1 click. It presumes that your first (primary) spec is connected to a gearlist called PvE and your second is connected to a gearlist called PvE. This could easily be changed to Tank and DPS or any other combination.
I raid mostly 10 man raids, I’m a competent raider who uses his brain and to some extent can compensate a little for others DPS. I’ve played my class since just after release.
Never before have I farmed so many badges so quickly as I did the last 2 days. In total I needed 150 triumph badges and managed it after rolling and getting 2 x Trophy of the Crusade from a ToC 25 man PUG. It actually started off very slowly as I was queuing solo, then our new Paladin tank decided he also needed badges and boom instant groups.
So what did I learn from so much pugging? People love their alts! Very rarely did I come across mains (or at least I hope I didn’t when most of you were putting out 2-3k DPS). Really, I’ve never been a big fan of alts, I enjoy levelling them and making money from their professions but that’s it really. If there’s even 1 bit of loot I need in an instance you can bet your ass I’ll take a main there over an alt.
Ashankt was my first character and has remained my main for over 5 years and 200 days /played. He was there at the opening of AQ, he was world 10th to down Kazzak (v2 in TBC) and he's been having -lots- of fun.