This biggest problem that Fortune Favors faces at the moment is (in my opinion, at least…) our inability to keep level 80 characters in the guild.

Players will level up to 80, do some heroics, and then want to start running raids on a regular basis.  Unfortunately, we’re a casual guild (and will remain so or else the GM will not meet the membership requirements).  That in itself doesn’t prevent us from running raids, but as 80s start looking for more than we can provide at the moment they move off to find a raiding guild.

I understand this, but at the same time I’m not the first person to mention that if all the players who hit 80 and left had not left, we’d have plenty of interested raiders.  Granted, that means they would have had to be patient for the people who weren’t 80 yet, so I’ll repeat myself again and say I understand.

But what if we had a raiding guild?  One where the atmosphere of it was similar to that of the guild they’d stuck in until level 79?

Look at it this way – Cub Scout Packs are usually affiliated with a Boy Scout Troop.  When the boys graduate out of Cub Scouts, they already know what Troop they’re going to.  Their friends from before will still be there, and in many cases the leadership stays the same as well.

That’s the kind of situation I’m thinking of.  Fortune Favors is not going to be able to keep 80s who want to raid because the 80s who want to raid all leave.  It’s a catch 22 that many casual guilds lament and cannot fix without turning themselves into raiding guilds or walking the very fine line between stepping up recruitment and ending up on everyone’s /ignore list because a recruitment message got spammed way too often.  It upsets me, but it would upset me less if I knew they were at least (for the most part) all heading into the same guild rather than scattering to the winds.

There are benefits and drawbacks to this.  For my convenience as well as yours, I’m listing them below.

1. DRAWBACK: Fortune Favors still won’t be holding on to 80s.  It won’t solve our problem, it will just let us know those who leave are welcome in a good guild when they choose to go.
2. BENEFIT: Players who hit 80 and want to raid would have, at the very least, a first guild to try out.  They would know other 80s in the guild and perhaps (again, this is in the hypothetical stage) even some of the officer corps in both guilds would be the same people.

   I have seen some 80s leave Fortune Favors and then guild hop because they didn’t feel they fit in with any of the raiding guilds they tried.  I’d like to think their time with us got them used to a certain standard, but whatever the cause guild hopping should be avoided if possible.

3. DRAWBACK: I can’t GM two guilds.  It may sound egotistical to list this as a drawback, but I do so only because that means there would be fundamental differences between Fortune Favors and it’s affiliated raiding guild.  My hope would be that with enough members in common the similarities would outweigh the differences, but anyone expecting a carbon copy guild would be wrong.

   Ideally the raiding guild would be GMed by one of our Officers (since they became officers because they showed leadership qualities), but this plan is still in the “Tell me what you think” stage.  We could very well just end up affiliated with an established raiding guild run by someone else instead.

4. BENEFIT: The raiding guild would have a guild from which they could always find new members.  They wouldn’t be limited to Fortune Favors for recruitment, of course, but it’s as nice for a guild to know where to go to find players willing to join as it is for players to find a guild willing to take them in.

I’m sure there’s more, which is why I’m throwing this out there to the guild.  What do you think?

I’ve been thinking a lot about my editorials of late, as well as my brief forays into storytelling.  I enjoy doing them, but both have their problems:

I don’t write enough stories to merit having a blog devoted to them.  There, I’ve said it.  As much as I like the blog I can either let it die an honorable death or have it linger on, wasting away to nothing.  I prefer the former, and intend to harvest the organs (posts) so that another blog might live longer with useful content.

Now of course I could always integrate them into my guild site, but that leads to the second problem:

The Fortune Favors Guild Site is becoming my own personal rant space.  That is not what should happen.  That is not what I want to happen.  The guild site is for guild news, advice, event planning, and so on.  The guild is a collective of awesome people, not just me.

So I’m creating yet another blog where I can combine my editorials with any stories I happen to think up along the way.  It won’t want for content (I have difficulty shutting up – you may have noticed…), and I won’t be usurping the purpouse of a guild site in the process.  The downside is that this site will see a little less content, but what I do post there will be more fitting for a guild site so I think it’ll be for the best.

-Splat, GM of <Fortune Favors>

It didn’t take me too long to learn where my talents were when it came to World of Warcraft.  In PvE I was a decent healer, reluctant tank, and so-so DPS.

In PvP, I said the above quote.  A lot.

At the time I thought it was strictly my lack of skill.  The few times I’d tried PvP games online before had met with similar results, and I was the lowest common denominator of that equasion.

Or so I thought.

My problem, apparently, was that I didn’t PvP well as a paladin.  I saw my responsibility was to rush over to the enemy and smash it’s face in with a blunt weapon.  That worked quite well against many foes.  Against a warlock, I ran around in circles while I watched my health bar tick down to zero.

Of course I wasn’t being feared by warlocks all the time.  I even managed to get out a healing spell or two, since I was holy spec.

Ever wonder why you hardly ever see people healing in a battleground?  It’s because the other faction sees the glowing hands as international sign language for “I have a crick in my back, please help me get rid of it.”

There are ways to spec and play a paladin to make it actually viable in ranged combat, but I never tried them.  I never even considered them, even though I’ve seen PvPers play ranged paladins (“shockadins”) and play them well.  Don’t even get me started on retribution spec.

And then one of my little baby hunters was challenged to a duel by a warlock.  He feared me 3 times.  I was not properly geared.  I had put no points into increasing the damage output of my pet bear (mostly for self-preservation).

And I kicked his butt.

So it seems that I actually like doing a little PvP from time to time on my hunter.  I may not be the best there is but I don’t die as often, I have more crowd control options to assist my teammates, When I’m left as the only person guarding the flag I at least have a pet to keep me company, and frankly it just seems to be more fun for me.

Ranged?  Melee?  How about both?  My pet will be all business in the front while I party in the back!  That’s right, I just compared hunters to mullets.  Mullets of power.  Do not mess with these mullets or their pets will eat your face.

… now if I can just get that one person in each battleground to stop complaining about how bad our faction is instead of helping to defend &/or capture the flag (whichever needs more people at the time), I’ll be set.

10. Spring is rearing it’s ugly head and all your guildmates are remembering that the day star doesn’t burn you if you wear sunscreen.

9. Hey, you’ve already forgotten what the “RP” in “MMORPG” means – ignoring that 2nd “M” in there isn’t going to kill you.

8. Instance server crashed, going down with all souls on board.  While your 80 is in Limbo you might as well do something to pass the time.

7. Your rampant paranoia and fear of ninja looters prevents you from grouping with anyone unless they can show you 2 forms of ID and a blood sample.

6. You’re leveling through Outland and are honestly embarrassed (Warning, strong language beyond link) to be seen by anyone until your gear looks nicer.

5. You hate people.  (But love gatherings!)

4. You’re trying to get a group together for Gnomeregan.  (Been in LFG channel for 2 years, 3 months, 5 days, 2 hours, 57 minutes and counting!  Just need a healer and G2G .. oh wait.  There goes the tank.  And the DPS.  /sigh.)

3. The only person you’ve found that’s willing to quest with you is this guy.

2. You have a life outside of the game, requiring you to go AFK so frequently that anyone you group with eventually just leaves you to your own devices.

1. You play a paladin, druid, or hunter.  Soloing things 4 levels higher than you is the norm.  Why would you want to share loot & XP?

Warning: this one's a little geeky.

I got hooked on WoW from the moment I made my first character.  I found the game to be a visual treat with an easy to use interface.

… and now my screen looks nothing like it did back then.  I have systematically replaced a good portion of the user interface (UI) by downloading addons that helped my experience in some way, and from what I’ve seen there are people who’ve gone even further than me when it comes to redoing how you interact with the game.

So… here’s some of my favorite improvements.  All of these are free, and most are available through WoWMatrix.com.  If you can’t get them there, Curse.com has them.

• Auctioneer: My first addon ever, and still used almost every day to help bring in the big bucks.  If your system can’t handle it you can always try AuctionLite, but I’ve found Auctioneer is the one that has the features I use.
• FuBar: Totally pointless by itself, FuBar allows you to use an entire subset of addons that are placed in small horizontal bars at the top and bottom of your screen.  (You can move and/or turn off the bars if you need to.)  Any addon name that ends with “Fu” probably uses FuBar.  Speaking of which…
• PerformanceFu: System seems to be going slow?  Wondering if it’s latency, lag, or just TOO MANY ADDONS installed? (*cough*)  This one measures what’s going on and can occasionally speed things up for you.  At the very least it’ll tell you which addons are the system resource hogs.
• GarbageFu: Puts a new button on every vendor’s window that allows you to sell ALL your grey items in one click.  Also, if your bags are getting full you can shift-click to get rid of the cheapest grey item in your inventory to free up some space.
• Omen: Threat management is a must, even more important than who’s doing the most DPS.  While I’ve abandoned my DPS meter completely I still like to make sure I’m the biggest threat when tanking and not the biggest threat when doing anything else.  Omen let’s me know if I’m doing it wrong before someone who isn’t supposed to be the meat shield becomes the meat shield.
• AuldLangSyneFu: Tells you how many friends & guildmembers are online, as well as other information.  I don’t gnow how I ever GMed without it, but I find it’s useful even on my characters that are in other guilds.
• Bartender: This got installed when trying out another addon which I ended up despising, but Bartender is awesome once you get past the “What the heck why are all my buttons in the middle of the screen?!” moment.  True, it takes some configuring to get it the way you want it, but with that reorganization I was able to make my UI much more intuitive.  (That means I die less, and when playing a healer that means everyone else dies less too.)
• Power Auras: Notification system (mana low, mana high, rage high, health of player X is low, debuff on mob X has worn off, etc.) is one of the ones that requires a higher level of geekiness.  After installing it it you bring up it’s configuration window by typing /powa (as in:” I have it.”).  Even then it might take a bit or a lot to get used to it, but fortunately you can import settings made by others and some people managed to pave the way for us so you can look at what they did and modify it to make your own.
• Carbonite: Tells you where to go to complete quests, shows unexplored areas of the map, shows more in your minimap than you really should be able to see, allows easy transfer of friends lists between alts, and a few other features too.  This used to be an addon you had to pay for, but now it’s free and has replaced two other addons of mine (QuestHelper & Cartographer, if you’re curious).  The settings that controll it are … almost more confusing than Power Auras.  However once you bang your head against the keyboard enough times to get it the way you like it (Warning: Get a spare keyboard if you really want to configure it using this method.  Preferrably someone else’s keyboard.) you’ll wonder how you played without it before.

Lately I’ve been finding reasons to avoid playing with Splat.

I’m not talking about the time I’ve been spending away from the game entirely.  (The apartment looks a LOT better and I’m not even done with the spring cleaning!)  Lately when I log in, I find myself gravitating to my bank toons and other alts.

I’ve done this before – it’s why Artus and Elumi both made it to 50.  It’s also why Splat took so long to get to 70.

… and why Elume never made it that far.  She used to be my main, and I enjoyed playing her immensely.  Most of my “n00b” mistakes were made with her, from not DPSing with a wand to begging guild members for instance runs.  Suffice to say I learned a lot.

Then a few alts later Splat came along, and guild members were already calling her my main before I got her to level 20 – I enjoyed being a paladin that much.  The mana-economical heals! The plate armor! The ability to run into Scarlet Monestary by myself and decimate everything at a level where I was told it couldn’t be done!  Mwa-hahaha… um …

*Ahem.*  Moving on.

Splat wasn’t the end of my character creation spree (also known as my alt-oholism), but I always came back.  No mater what class or character I leveled, I knew that Splat was my main.

I’m just not as sure of that now.  You see, hunters are just that much fun.

I’d rolled a hunter or two before, but never really got into them – mainly because I was playing them wrong.  I could play a healing spec and do a phenomenal job, but when it came to DPS I never quite did it well, then lost interest and deleted the character or turned it into a bank alt.

Until I learned what I was doing wrong.  Now I love the class (even if I have a somewhat unorthodox take on how to play them) and have made four of them (so far) spread out between various servers and factions.  I really should just pick one and start leveling it, but I love them all.

I know I’m giving up a lot by switching from paladin to hunter.  As a holy spec I had a lot less competition when it came to instance groups, but I’m not going to play a specific class/spec JUST so I get picked for instances.  That wouldn’t be fun for me, and I’ve already ranted about that.

1. Don’t forget you have a life outside of the game. Running a guild is important, but it can fall apart so long as your real life doesn’t.  RL > WoW

2. Find members who are awesome and make them officers. Awesome officers can help hold the guild together and run it for you when you’re taking care of rule #1.  If everyone’s awesome, then make them all officers.

3. If a member is a drain on the guild (constant begging, leaching from the guild bank, annoying other members, blatantly breaking rules…) give them a 1 on 1 warning, then take action. This could be demotions or outright /gkicking them from the guild if the offense is serious enough.  Make no exceptions – those will be remembered as special treatment by other members of the guild.

4. Remember there are players not in your guild.  Refusing to give free Deadmines runs to non-guild members is one thing, but being a jerk to everyone reflects poorly on you and your guild.  You will always lose members through attrition, but you won’t be able to pick up new ones if you’ve acquired a reputation for trash talking, ninja looting, griefing, and so on.

5. Limit your rules to 5 things.  Your guild members will for the most part not be lawyers.  Don’t overcomplicate things. Rules that are hard to remember are also hard to follow.

…

… see what I did there?

Someone who likes bubbles, I’m not saying who (oh wait, I just did), decided to participate in a haiku meme without tagging anyone specific at the end.  To help appease the high lords of the internet and prevent my fellow healbot from getting disconnected during a Naxx run I must take it upon myself to continue the meme!

Behold, my character summaries in haiku form!  Mwa-hahahaha!  To keep things from reaching epic poem status (see what I did there?) I’m only going to mention my favorite characters, in order of their creation.  Hello, my name is Splat, and I’m an altaholic.

Elumi
Resto drood for life!
Tried Feral, didn’t like it.
New hat is awesome.

Splat
Draenei paladin
Holy spec, but tanks U.K.
Healadin Tank, HA!

VonSplat
I’m a Death Knight, LOL!
Best ability? Death Grip.
It’s fishing. For cows.

Kerrsplat
Beastmaster hunter
Wait, there’s no tanks my level?
S’ok, I’m specced Prot.

Jagar
Go away, I’m old!
Grumpy dwarf hunter with bear.
No, won’t join your guild.

Now to tag someone, lest I myself anger the high lords of the internet and continue the cycle.  Hmm, first I think I shall bother fellow GM Nia/Birgette.  The Dark Titan himself has mentioned that he enjoys haiku from time to time.  And of course Zhire.  What’s a new blog without a meme or two?

(And if you can’t wait to be tagged, consider yourself tagged.)

To get my WoW fix I’ve started hanging out with some cool people on Twitter.  It’s sort of like our forum, but with fewer features and a lot more people.  One cool thing is that our forum has Twitter integration, so you can have things you post there show up automatically on your Twitter account too.

Do I like Twitter better?  Not really.  ShoutEm is a lot easier to manage and more customizable.  But like I said, there’s some cool people using the service.

In any case, if you choose to check Twitter out be sure to look me up and say “Hi” so I can find you.  And don’t forget to look at who I’m following.  You’d be surprized who’s online these days.

(Disclaimer: While *I* watch what I say not all conversations on Twitter are safe for work and/or children. Use the service at your own risk.)

Death Knight: I just bash the keys.  In most cases I still never die.

Warrior: I just bash the keys.  And die.  A lot.  Then delete the character so I can make something else.

Rogue: Started out using strategy … then found I got higher DPS by bashing keys.

Paladin (Ret): See Rogue.

Mage: Bash the keys until my DPS gets me killed.

Warlock: See Warrior, only speed the process up x2.

Priest: Forced to use strategy to keep the party from wiping.  First class I played that I actually enjoyed.  Coincidence?

Druid (Resto): Take priest, replace bubble with more HoTs, give better armor, sit back and watch the fun.

Druid (Feral): Complain about it for 5 minutes then respec back to Resto.

Paladin (Holy): Forced to change my strategy from how I played priests & druids, but enjoyed the class even more than both of them combined.

Paladin (Prot): Forced to use strategy to keep the party from wiping, but hated every minute of it.

Hunter: Could probably bash keys and get away with it on most runs (have some good guildies), but forming a strategy is so much more fun and rewarding for all involved.

*This is not a jab at any class but merely an insight into how I’ve come to play the game.