Why is there so many people for lining up to kill a level 36 “elite” mob which is not really elite at all when someone is at level 80? It is the idea that Microsoft came up with called “Achievements”. It’s bad enough we have people who are already rotten to the core with so-called “pride of epics” and now, Blizzard introduces us to a form of more self-loathing and hatred where we can hate people for getting more points than us. Forget English or Common being the language of choice, it is the language of numbers that concerns people. When you have a number, people love you more.

In raids, as a DPS, you need sustain high DPS. That means, you need to be able to dole out 2250 DPS (please correct me if I am wrong) to even enter a raid and survive. When you run raids, geek guilds (Leeroy Jenkins guild) will do a number crunch and check for statistical probability of wiping. Guilds are becoming tougher and harder to get into because they want to see how many alts you have to benefit the guild or pressing you to get better gear although you lack the necessary time as they need you to generate better threat/heal/DPS. As you can see, numbers are everywhere. It’s inescapable and for me, with the newly established Achievement, everyone will be a number whore by the time the Maelstrom expansion opens.

It’s bad enough that we get judged on how much damage we can give out but now, they want us to be boastful of our achievements. “OH NOES! I AM T3H FIRST ON SERVER TO BE LEVEL 80!!!!1!!!1!” is one of those things people say. Another one involves a hard task like going on a reindeer and bombing Ogri’la to pieces or be the first player to enter Northrend. It is ridiculous that people will want to strive themselves further to make them “famous” or so they think. The assumption everyone goes by is that if they fulfill 100% of the achievements, they will become some sort of local lore and legend. I normally respond with not a who cares but why bother.

Will you be winning 100 million real life dollars with that achievement? Is it going to feed your family? This concept of pride stems from the pure idea of capitalism and self-gratification. Pride kills but with the idea of “the more I get, the better I do” is a deadly combination that will entrench any progress of mankind. How stupid are you to think that with all the world’s problems, a number on World of Warcraft will solve everything and make you famous. People these days cannot live modestly and with that,they travel around Azeroth, galavanting their titles and achievements and in some cases, become a major prick. “Oh, I got all the mounts in the world and I have 350k Gold, and you have 3 Copper. I spit on you!” The pure idea of Marx idea of capitalism where it entangles us from truly making us happy is what Blizzard has proved so far with the introducing Achievements.

Really, I rather waste my time watching Oprah than strive for an achievement that eats up my real world time. People who do this either have got no life or got too much time on their hand. If they can do this, they are really perfect for working in the government. Government don’t get things done and I think if we put government as some sort of game with achievements and stats, they would jump right in and play until they make the bureaucracy we live in 98% efficient. Besides, these people think government is some sort of game so, I can’t blame them and look at the shiny baubles as prizes. Oooh!

RE: Do not send off-colored messages through corporate email Guild Chat

Although I do not work in a corporate environment as of yet, I have keenly observed people around me who have worked in the sector of strict corporations. Regular emails from the Board of Directors often remind their employees to stop screwing around and get back to work. The corporate ideal of creating a sterile environment where the focus is mainly on the production of their employees is paramount. You know… the idea where if you make one devoid of any physical contact with the outside world, the higher ups will get the job done? It makes one wonder whether do guilds like these exist.

The deadly silence of the guild chat may have been a coincidence (it was 3am here and 2pm there) but the Persian mentioned that even during peak times and raid hours, the guild chat stays eerily quiet. The filling of joy and laughter of a game has evaporated completely when one enters his guild chat. He says that the only conversation he has ever gotten from the guild was “Where were you last night?”. Even if there was someone who gave a spill of laughter in the guild chat or Ventrilo, the leader would chuckle a little and tell them to focus again on the boss. The Persian said that the only thing that kept him enjoying the game and the people was both the loot and the whisper conversations, which were livelier and not as business-oriented as guild chat.

A small part of the corporate lifestyle has taken over in many guilds. There would be one or two leaders who would sigh at a true rapier of wit because they think it is a time waster, just like how corporation shuns away funny emails being sent in the office. Now, why is that so? I mean, corporations are bloodsucking parasites who do not care about you and only about themselves and their golden parachutes. Why are guild replicating that? I cannot give any sociological answer but, I can say this: Leaders of these guilds are emulating of what is being done to them in the corporate environment into an online gaming environment. Like I say, that was an assumption but others like “Greedy before the Needy” and “Quipping My Alts because I am leader” are other answers but, there is no absolute fixed answer to why this is going on.

I Have Done Gruuls, Karazhan and I Have 3 Kids

I know an old friend named Robb who was on Ysera (now in Kargath) who once belonged to a guild called Spiritus Mundi. I have taken a look at previous requirements from this guild to enter and it is like applying for a job. Questions like “Do you arrive home at seven in the evening?” and “How long do you play a week?” shows much of what is taken into consideration of when they want to let you into their so-called “Elite Group”. Intrusive questions from family life and how many children you have are asked. What strikes me as stunning was that they questioned on how many children does the applicant have because the question does not ask whether or not am I a good player. I am quite surprised they did not ask me to pee in a cup or tied a rock around my neck to see whether am I a witch.

Seriously, guilds asking questions about familial and personal matters? What does that have to do with me being a good player? Is juggling 2 jobs, having 3 kids and taking 4 hours of sleep not qualify me to at least let me enjoy myself in this virtual world? Seriously, are these questions even relevant to me being a member of your guild? Yes, I am looking for loot just like every Anduin, Thrall and Jaina but, seriously, these questions drive me to the wall to only ask: Are we running a guild or a multinational corporation with a billion dollar budget? Should you not be asking me whether I need help in getting some gear so I can further help the guild with my later contributions? Why did you not question the 14 year old kid who plays till 4 in the morning about his homework? He seems to be an awesome player but why did you not question him?

Hooray for the Rich, Screw the Poor!

Wall Street was offered a $750 billion bailout for screwing up the American economy. That stimulus comes from the taxpaying American public and so far, I still see these Wall Street executives driving in with their new Ferrari model into work. And they say the economy is doing bad… for these people. You know what they say, when you’re rich, you’re stimulating the economy by having an all-expense paid trip to Paris with Golden Class tickets that have seats cushions smell like caviar and perfume while, a ballwasher washes your ball as you play mini golf. Meanwhile, the “ordinary people” are sitting at the back in economy class, taking in another whiff of the blanket that smells like beer farts and vomit.

Corporate Lifestyle Guilds on the other hand exploit these tactics not through how much gold you have but by playing the game of hierarchy. If you are not an officer, you are not allowed to come for runs until you have gotten yourself X number of epics. Even with the X number of epics, there’s got to be a few others who have gotten the amount specified and they still don’t get to go. Close friends of the guild leader or guild officers also get to go into the run with full greens. Even alts that the people don’t play often get to go. Why is there such a gap between the best geared and the decently geared? Hierarchy and connections. Why do these guilds do this? I don’t know but I can tell you to relate back to the first section of this blog and as you can see, everything in life that was supposed to be fun is shit.

If There is Anything Wrong, It’s that I Don’t Want Both Worlds to have the Same Problem

There is no absolute solution to this problem of corporate lifestyle guilds. Such guilds are not all bad but mostly, the idea behind this was that everyone was to get the raids done and that was what it was for. However, in such dire times, I think we do not need such corporate guilds. We have enough trouble in the real world to deal with and to come back and sit on our computers to see the same kind of biasness done on the virtual world. We don’t need people screwing with us in every corner of our minds. I want to play a game, not pal around with financial/loot terrorists.

Being in the level 30s for the first time in my life felt like an achievement. For one thing, I was close to reaching level 40 and getting my first mount. Secondly, I was secured in my first guild that dabbled in raiding instances. Trying to recollect the name, the name had a life of its own and yet, it felts as though the forces of the warlocks felt strong. The name of this guild was “Demonic Conscience” and it was led by a few guys who seemed to know the game up and down. I joined the guild because Oct was in it and I needed the company. Really, being tied to a kid who was about 10 years old was startling to me and it questioned whether healthy friendships can be maintained if he was “grounded” (which he did).

Being in Demonic Conscience, I became more knowledgeable about my class, the shaman. Back then, I just read a bunch of stuff and stuck myself towards Enhancement because of the prospects of dual-wielding at level 40. In DC however, they advised me on how I should distribute my points and stuff that will make me a potential person in their 10 man line-ups. Karazhan was a big thing back then and crowds always gathered around Kara to either kill Prince or wipe at Chess. I wanted so badly to get there and I decided to keep myself levelled up throughout my days in college and the weekends.

Within the 3 long arduous months, I got to 60 fairly quickly in my time.

Others could speed level themselves because they have posse to drag them to the top. I did not. I could not dual box cause I don’t have two computers. Oct was busy with raiding, Iron was OOCommish and Malaysia was a place of debauchery and cheapskates. I tried persuading friends (even those who earn money) to come and play but they rather spend it on clothes that they don’t wear after purchasing it and on parties where they get shit-faced and get chlamydia. Even if there weren’t cheapskate Malaysians, these players prefer the hotbed of PK servers or PVP servers. They love conflict. They love doing it with a high latency lag. Malaysians want a challenge in the virtual world and not the real one. I wonder how we progressed ever since.

I levelled myself fairly for the one month. I reached level 68 within that one month but to inch close to level 69 was difficult. I was in Shadowmoon Valley when I decided to press on when the guild decided to disintegrate. They reason that the server was becoming “assholey” and it bordered on “douchebaggery” and to some, the East Coast server was being a drag to their raiding life. Oct and a few others packed up their shit and left for Nordrassil. Haven’t spoken to them since. They wanted loot. They wanted to be good. They wanted to enjoy the game and be good at it. That was a sad proposition to me.

However, before they left, a few of the other members who decided to remain in Ysera had joined another guild called “Shameless Elite”. They had a guild leader named “Zerg” and a few deputies that ranged from LG, Thasil, Jayton and RoRo. As you probably recognized, I have not given you some of their names in proper but let’s continue. Shameless Elite said that it was a growing guild and they wanted to move into raids ASAP. Of course, I was getting there quickly and I was liked there because I was either (a) foreign and therefore, exotic; (b) I did a mean MJackson impression or (c) I was just curious and an all-around nice guy who was willing to help whenever I can. This was the big reason why I did not level quickly. I loved helping people and maybe, the reason I was liked back.

Zerg was a nice leader. He knew every instances from top to bottom and what to do and what stats you should focus on and he always showed me as a shaman, what gear I should get. He was a great person to be with. Then, there was LG who was motherly as she was. She was a woman who was the icebreaker and the dealbreaker. She made sure the guild did not break into chaos. She negotiated. She listened. Thasil and his girl, Kairabi, deputy for a good reason. They were awesome players and they were good people. Ordinary guy for ordinary occasions. Jayton was what I call a “wanker”. Why I call him that? Because he was English and I decided to use any colloqual Anglo terms when he’s around. He was the biggest wanker amongst all of us, boasting about his penis 80% of the time. He was the funniest. RoRo was the pixie of group. The sultry, Scandinavian-sounding girl in Texas (yeah, don’t ask me why) was the sweetest person and she wanted to do the best thing for the guild. She would always be AFK’d but she had a sweet voice so, you know you could not get angry at a pixie. You couldn’t.

Shameless was not a guild. It felt like family. For me, it was where I learned truly about my class. For me, it was where I actually got help to get to 70. For me, it was where I first started a raid. For me, it was home. If it weren’t for these few individuals, it would have driven me insane to continue playing World of Warcraft alone. These guys, although matured, were my friends. I can never forget a guild like this. I can name incidences where we would actually wipe at Chess and fail on the first boss but, we had fun. That was important. That was missing throughout my gaming life in World of Warcraft.

I played Karazhan. I played a lot of it. Not many but when I got on, God was looking at me and said, “You are getting quips tonight!” I became well-equipped and I became observant during the fights. I see that the methods that these raiders approached were mathematical and methodical. It was a synchronized effort through the use of Ventrilo and it was almost as though the tank waltzed and the DPS tangoed while the healers… square-danced? I am running out of metaphors so don’t blame me. I realized that maybe in World of Warcraft, to have fun is to be good. Maybe Oct was right in taking in that stride but wrong in moving. I don’t know. Everything is confusing. It became even more so.

——-

The evolutionary cycle of guilds began again as a few members began pairing with another guild due to our futile attempts at larger 25 man raids (Gruuls and Lurker). Soon, Zerg was becoming tired of this and decided to let us all go. I was one of the last people to leave because I could not trust that guild that my friends joined. This guild had a tree as a leader and he had a few tank friends. His guild was a conglomeration of a few guilds including mine. Zerg did not leave because he had tons of alts and only the deputies and a few others joined this guild. I soon fell into that hole of “capitalist advertisement” and with their eye-catching propaganda (through raids mind you), I got hooked. I then apologized to Zerg (who said, “lol, nm, just have fun and i no ull be bak”) and joined this guild. Biggest mistake ever. This guild was called, “HonorBound”.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART III

Before anything else, let’s get my story out of the way first before I start ranting about a lot of World of Warcraft things.

I started playing this game not since “Beta” like many claimed but in May 2006, during my midterm school break in Malaysia. I did not care about my final national exams and I frankly could not give a damn but, I was in the midst of deciding whether to purchase World of Warcraft or that other game, Guild Wars. From monetary factors to sheer orgasmic enjoyment factors, I could say that I wanted to let my splurge and fun side to be sated so I opted for World of Warcraft. Within the days I played it, I became engrossed about Azeroth. I wanted to see everything until… August 2006, the parents decided to “confiscate” the computer. Like any good child, gave it to them willingly and went back to studying and proved to them that I needed the computer to study after the results came out. (I purposely flunked Biology because I hated the teacher and the subject but I did well in others)

The exams ended in December and my first instinct was to Wii myself into a frenzy. After I Zelda’d myself out for three days, I decided to go back and get another “60 Day Time Card” to continue my adventures in World of Warcraft. I did as such and of course, I began my journey from where I left off. However, from where I left off, there was a disaster. Silver Hand (RP) server was where I began and to my amazement, 4 months changes lots of stuff. My (online) friends whom I met there, Iron and BWyll, had a fallout with guild called “Alliance Guard”. They started their own for their own characters and I joined because I enjoyed their company.

After a month of so, I did not grasp my warrior character (Vaespar) very well. Heck, it reached an improbable level 21 and as much I wanted some assists from these two, it seemed everything fell apart when their friends stopped talking except Padre and some other names that I forgot. He reached 60 and of course, being the gentleman that he is, he helped his girl. Well, I knew I had to make alliances or friends but to no avail, the RP server had a few problems: (1) it had tons of kids screaming up and down the channel incessantly AND (2) nobody wanted a suck tank.

The next day, they told me me that they are switching servers.

I was not heartbroken as I expected that. After all controversy was all around and the stuff going through that sewage line of a server, I needed a change of atmosphere. Iron told me where he was going when he was sending mails to his other friends. He said, “not an rp server but norm server”. I just nodded in agreement and grinned, “I see… I see…” They moved within the next hour and poof, Iron, BWyll and Padre moved to their new server. This server was called “Ysera”.

I hung around two days more in Silver Hand with another fellow I befriended (druid) but, the kid was busy with school and he could not play. Tired off being around kids and their time constraints, I moved on to Ysera. I could not move Vaespar as I have not acquired the monetary means to transfer a character to another one with a plastic card that contains money. Besides, bringing Vaespar over would have been a pain. He was weak, he was underequipped, he was a noob. I wanted to move him to Ysera so I thought of convincing my parents but I risk losing everything altogether. Ranging from ninja-use their credit card to robbing a bank, in the end I decided for my own relative safety and to avoid jail-time/grounding time, I start a new character. Aercul was born.

I met up with Iron and BWyll, who started a new character called “Niraele” and they were already screwing around with Ashenvale in the three days. I was starting out in the draenei starting place and well, they gave me a lot of things. They gave me A LOT of things. 10 Gold back then seemed a lot but it was a huge sum of money. To top that, they send some armor and ring pieces. I was grateful to them. I truly am. I will never forget Iron or Niraele. They have long since stopped playing World of Warcraft and I am still glad to have them as friends. They were a nice couple and still are. They decided to leave the game abruptly while Iron was in level 75 and Niraele was 37. I was sad, I was alone, I was level 27.

On the flip side, I can spread my wings. On the downside, I am tied to kids again. This time, I was in a very lousy guild that had one kid as a leader and I WAS THE ONLY OTHER PERSON WHO WAS IN IT. I felt sorry for him. I really did. I joined in because I could hang with him. But, his character mysteriously disappeared or as he claimed, “deleted by my sister who spites me” and I was left guildless until I met a guy named Octavi. Oct was a nice guy from Cali and he was a 60 lock back when I was near 30. I asked for help in the Duskwood area and he willingly obliged to help me. I thanked him and he asked, “Do you have any other quests?” I said yes and he helped me again. Rinse and repeat.

-TO BE CONTINUED in PART II-