Second Wind

Huzzah for trying to revitalize your blood!  Ok so I said I’d try to be more post-proliferic and here it goes:  We got hella bored with beating our heads against ToGC last night.  I mean… I really hate hard modes that pretty much are RNG, you must have ABSOLUTE PERFECTION to them.  I really do.  Doing it in 25 man mode is just redonkulous.  (Haha see what I did thar Euri? XD)

We’ve been doing Trial of the Crusader for about a month or so now, and I think we just got fed up.  i know I did.  We’d get so close, but we were missing two of our heavy hitters and it showed.  I don’t like this absolute perfection demand.  It’s the casual in me that scream OMG WHY ARE WE DOING THIS OVER AND OVER AGAIN. ARG BORING!

I know Fio’s bored, I can’t wait for Ice Crown to come out.  I want to put my dainty little clothie boot in Arthas’s face!  And I also need to not be writing this at work.  >.>  Buuuuut I’m being a rebel XD

Not really.  Just being silly.  More to come!  /flail

Bad Blogger, no Biscut

Other than this being the absolute most funny picture I’ve seen in a very long time, how you been?!

I know, I’ve been a horrible, no good very bad blogger.  In fact, I probably can’t even call myself one anymore.

Why?  I have like 0 writing done anywhere.  Facebook has sucked me into the whole 5 second updates and even then, I don’t update often.  I’ve never understood twitter, so I’m pretty bad at that, and my only time for inspriation is at work.  Which is probably a very bad thing.  No, it’s definitely a bad thing.  But I work at a library, surrounded by billions and trillions of written words, maybe that’s why it’s so inspiring…

Anywho, WoW wise, dear god, I’m bored.  AC, the guild of awesome, has cleared everything, even Ulduar (though not Algalon 25) and I’m just stupendiously bored with Trial of the Crusader.  We’re trying to get a 25 Trial of the Grand Cursader going, but we’ve had the fall time hiccups with our tanks and raiders.  People dropping like flies because… well, they’re bored.  Totally can sympathise.  I am too.  I’ve been helping some of my LARP friends over on Silver Hand by leveling a little bitty pally (which I know, I said I’d never do again but it’s like a whole new freakin’ class since 3.0!)  I’m hoping leveling the little one will kick start me leveling Moon.  Not holding my breath just yet.

Cause at this point, what is the point of it?  I can level all these alts, get them ToC epix, have them raid ready… to what?  PuG stuff?  My hordies on Dreden are pugging masters (Demona is actually doing respectable DPS and Cayleigh (YES SHE’S A TROLL UP YOURS BLIZZ! XP) is doing awesome holy pewpew) and I’m just lackluster with doing anything else on alliance side.  Poor Sasha is boomkin, that’s how bored I was.  She’s Critchicken and Tree.  I have 2 healers on Ally side.  /facepalm

What’s next?  Remaking a shammy and trying again there?  Hell, I made a rogue horde side cause I like how a BE’s butt wiggles when they stealth.

Did I mention… bored?

This post really has no purpose, other than me wanting to say something after months of nothing.  Everyone is bored.  It sucks.  Just not sure what to do about it.

Here’s hoping something much more productive/fun comes up in my next post.

PS:  Harass Fio into making his Dead Tree RPGs Part 2 Post!  I saw that Draft! <3

On Dead Tree Based Games, Part 1

So, I figured today I would pull out the metaphorical dice bag and dive into a realm that most view as perhaps the pinnacle of geekery – RPGs.  No, not console or computer RPGs which, frankly, barely qualify for the name.  I’m talking about good old fashioned dice rolling, dew drinking, THAC0 calculating tabletop RPGs.  And perhaps even more geeky, LARPs (Live Action RPGs).  To begin, I figured I’d take a brief gander into the history of RPGs and a discussion of some of their various characteristics.

For those of you who never really ventured past computer-based RPGs, here’s a quick rundown.  Children have been roleplaying since time immemorial.  Cops & robbers, cowboys & indians, and in even less refined forms than those simple games.  Did you ever draw wings on a cardboard box and pretend it was an airplane?  Congratulations, you were roleplaying.  But for a long time, there was no adult equivalent (except maybe Civil War reenactments and those murder mystery dinner parties – for the life of me I can’t find out when they appeared on the scene).

Then back in the dark era of the late 1960s and early 1970s, a strange confluence was born.  Wargaming was becoming popular – miniature based combat simulation.  Essentially, it was the top-down real time strategy game of the day, you just had to do all the random number generating and moving of pieces instead of a computer.  Fantasy wargaming was a particular subset of the genre, where you had wizards, knights, archers, elves, and all the familiar Tolkeinesque trappings.  For the most part though, there was no roleplaying involved.  It was numbers crunching, troop squishing fun, but ultimately just a sophisticated wargame.

Then one fateful day, a conversation happened that probably went something like this:

Steve: “Okay Evan, my phalanx takes the north side of that hill there, and that’s the last of its movement allotment.  Your go.”

Evan (drunk): “Yeah man, okay, my uh, barbarians are going to charge your phalanx.”

Steve: “Dude, my phalanx has a huge defensive value, and that’s not even accounting for the high ground you’d be charging up or the fact that because of the ravine on one side you can’t do your little ‘the barbarian horde surrounds you’ trick you always do.”

Evan (still drunk): “Yeah, but don’t you get it, man?  They’re, like, barbarians.  I know I’m gonna lose, but that’s what they’d do.

And in that fateful moment, the core of modern gaming was born.  Dungeons and Dragons was the first major player on the scene in 1974, but a host of others hit the scene in the 70s and early 80s.  Tunnels and Trolls, Star Frontiers, Gamma World, etc.  The core of an RPG is the fact that you are not playing some nameless piece on a game board, but a character who has certain skills, motivations, and is in essence an individual, much like an actor playing a role (hence, ROLE playing).

I’ll be getting into this a bit more in an upcoming post, but there are generally two broad component categories to a roleplaying game.  For all you cooks/bakers out there, think dry ingredients vs wet ingredients.  These are commonly referred to as “Crunch” and “Fluff.”

Crunch consists of the mechanics of the system, the intricacies of its rules, and the depth, ease and accuracy with which they model the intended subject.  It is the skeleton of the game on which the world, the characters, and everything else is hung.  It is what stops the age-old Cowboys and Indians argument of “I shot you!”  “Did not!”  Fluff is the trappings that give the game its own unique character.  The environment, the history behind the world and the characters, the story that hopefully keeps people coming back.

People tend to like a varying degree of each in their games, but they are not necessarily inversely proportional.  True, there comes a point where too many or too detailed rules slows things down.  Similarly, there is a point at which a lack of structure makes resolving conflicts difficult and stalls the game just as surely.

So, what you end up with as an “RPG” is essentially a game where you take on a role the same way an actor does, and interact in a world (usually) directed by another person.  Depending on the game and the group you play with it can be anything from a hack and slash game where the deepest character motivation is to get more treasure, to a deep philosophical exploration of the nature of reality and human consciousness.  Most fall somewhere in between.

LARP (Live Action Roleplaying) just adds another dimension to the game – instead of sitting around a table saying ‘My character does X,’ you actually get up and do it to some extent.  Obviously, a lot depends on the nature of the game and how accurately you can enact it.  A LARP about dogfighting space pilots is probably going to be a flop unless you happen to have a few custom flight simulators sitting around.  And similar to tabletop games, you can go from primarily hack and slash types of larps (boffer larps for those who are familiar with them) where people actually fight with padded/foam weapons, to more esoteric larps devoted to a certain concept or situation (Intercon-style LARPing, again for those familiar with it).

Anyway, that’s it for now, I’ll resume soon.

On Absenteeism, and the Future

So, it’s been a while.  My apologies for that.  To be honest, I took as much of a break from WoW as I could as a GM for a few months, but I feel that I have successfully staved off the burn-out I saw looming on the horizon and I’m back and ready to go.

That being said, I’d like to solicit the opinion of all 3 of you who will probably read this.

I will be perfectly honest in that I’m somewhat lacking inspiration for this blog.  Talking about WoW seems off, because I’m not the type of person who is going to crunch numbers for you to a high degree of accuracy (see Greylo at http://graymatterwow.blogspot.com/ ).  Nor do I want to simply repost what others have posted – patch notes, what’s coming next, etc.  Occasionally I may have some new point to make, but I don’t think WoW fodder is going to keep my attention on this blog.  However, I’m leery about turning this into a “Dear Diary, today I did X…” type of blog.  No one is going to find that interesting besides a small circle of friends.

So I ask you, what do you want to see here?  The only “happy medium” I can see is expanding into more gaming stuff in general – LARPs, Tabletop, console, other computer games, etc.  So tell me what you want to read, and I’ll tell you if it’s something I can write.

Logic vs Intuition?

So while the title isn’t exactly what I was thinking, it’s close enough.

I’m going to talk about priesting for a moment here.

Ok, you can get back up from the floor.  I know, shocker.  ;P

I’m being serious here!

Anywho, I’ve noticed that more and more lately… I can priest and heal like a mofo and tweak this and that when I need to (yay challenging raids!) to get the people a live and the bosses dead… but, for the life of me, I don’t know how I’m doing it.

I read a lot of priest blogs, Ego, Matt, Kestrel, to name some, but while some people can use numbers or logic to figure out where they need help, or where they can rock and get more out of what they’re doing… I can’t.

It’s just there.  In the brain pan.  And I wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing.  I mean, is just going with your gut a bad way to play?

Lemme give you a tad of insight to where I’m coming from.

Enter Arrows of the Queen, a really kick ass series for a fantasy horse loving pre teen, such as myself.  The main character, Talia, has the gift of empathy, and can maniplutate the moods of those around her.  She’s a shy, timid, slightly rigid young girl, but eventually turns into the heroin a B type person like me knows and loves.  In the second book, Arrow’s Flight, steamy romance aside, she’s out on her internship, and her gift starts breaking down, because she’s lost her instinctual grasp of it.  Her intiution behind the gift gets underminded by some nasty rumors, etc, plot ensues, she eventually gets control back by basically “logic”-ing her gift, and viola ends up a stronger person for it.

Ok, so not a lot of parrallels I can draw from that… but I got the impression from the book, intuition isn’t enough.  Sometimes, maybe, but if you watch NCIS, that’s totally not that case.  (<3 Abby!)  Gibbs is like the intuition GOD.  And he kicks ass, saves people, shoots the bad guys, gets the red head, etc.

In my very twisted and confused and bored out of my skull way, I’m trying to justify being surrounded by a bunch of theorycrafters by winging it, and trusting what my gut tells me.

Is that wrong?

On Social Dynamics

First off, I haven’t posted more recently because SOMEONE hid the “log in” button whe she switched themes and I eventually had to find and enter the wordpress login URL manually.  Now, fair warning, much of this is going to be rambling and much may not make sense to those not in guild.

Anyhow, it strikes me, from time to time, how like a living thing a guild is.  It sheds cells and rebuilds itself over and over, a constant cycle.  It’s a bittersweet thing, at times.  I look around Aetherial Circle now, and I see fewer of our original faces.  The first that hits me, of course, is Sharvan.  The day I got that phone call from Diyami, it literally took me a full minute on the phone to even figure out who was calling.  After I realized what was going on, I literally dropped to my knees on the floor.  It was so sudden, so unexpected.  We were doing our damndest to get her and Diyami to the AC BBQ we held in Maine, which was a just a few months away at that point.  We were even considering springing for a ticket for them.    It’s a wound that I don’t think will ever completely heal.

Diyami and Bunnyfluff, Shar’s RL friends, ended up switching servers a while back, because they were getting so much lag on Drenden that it was mostly unplayable.  Immortus is still with us, though I don’t see him around quite as much as we used to.  Flesh and Vein, two of the guildies who made the jump to Drenden with us back at BC launch, popped back in a month or so ago, but I haven’t seen them since.  One friend (who shall remain nameless here) who was an original member, I had to gkick because of his temper.  I hated doing it, especially since he’s a RL friend.  He moved a while ago, and I haven’t been able to talk with him much recently.  Msbehavin, the warrior who was our main tank when we made the switch to Drenden (I laugh saying this now, as back then, I had almost no idea what the hell a MT was) still hops on very occasionally with his new hunter, but it’s been a while.

Then, there are those who stopped by for a time.  Pyroclasm, you nutjob, we miss you wherever you are.  I don’t care how drunk you seemed at times on vent, you were hands down the best bear tank I have ever seen.  Kyndig, despite the bad ending, you were still very much a part of the family.  Crux, you were an awesome healer, a grumpy bastard, and everyone loved you for it.  Dallin, it broke our heart when you left to raid elsewhere – I still don’t agree with your reasoning, but I won’t let that ruin the good memories.  Oz, I know you’re still around now and then, but we miss having you around more.  TJ, if you don’t hop on Owen more often I’m going to pummel you.  Laguna, you were with us for a while, and screw real life for interrupting.  Skingrad/Dokis, you were a fun couple to play with.  Nightscarab, not sure if you eneded up leaving WoW, but if somehow you ever find and read this, I hope you’re doing well.  Deoin, Jace, Hathorn, and many others.

And there are some that are still with us.  Celliana, who I think it the only remaning member of a guild we absorbed trying to get into Karazhan.  Francois/Jefferson, who I sold the Leggings of Beast Mastery to the day he joined guild for about a quarter of the AH price.  Demetria, Anarac, Lamaa, and the rest of the BBQ crew.  Doom, who is like MacGuyver, except instead of making bombs out of paper clips he makes crude jokes out of the most innocent comments.  Militades, who we picked up as a healer and who turned into an incredible tank.  Naki, who was the tank for the Black Morass run that finally got Cay and Fio their keys (I was literally at the trainer about to respec feral when Steph was like “Wait, I found a tank!”).  BRK, who isn’t around as much any more, but who still stops in and hangs out when he can.  And more, of course.

There are new faces in the guild today.  I don’t know yet how they will fit in, what memories will be built, what the future holds.

Can a guild be said to have a personality?  Can it be said to mature?  It feels that way to me.  So much has changed in AC.  I look back at our early days in BC as a young, struggling guild almost like I look back on my childhood.  Everything was new and exciting.  Downing Attumen was a major accomplishment.  Attracting prospective members was incredibly hard – we had no proven track record to show them.  We almost gave it up twice, when we’d recruit ALMOST enough to get going, and then lose one or two more to a guild that was actually raiding.

We were always close.  But (and I hate to keep coming back to it) Shar’s death was what really made it hit home.  Tragedy is like that, sometimes.  Those who remain behind draw closer together.  In a way, it felt like the first death I experienced in my family.  You start appreciating those you still have, because it truly hits you for the first time that they won’t always be there.

When WoW finally closes its doors, it will be a sad day.  I’m not sure what will happen to Aetherial Circle as a whole.  Will we go our separate ways?  Move on to the latest and greatest MMO?  Stage an armed takeover of a small tropical nation and establish the central state of a hegemony that will soon envelop the world?  I’m just not sure.  What I do know is that among the trade chat trolls, random pugged group members, gold spammers, casually known guildies, and fifteen year old basement-dwelling teenage boys, I’ve found a few gems laying hidden.  True friends who I am proud to know, and friendship that may have been built on the foundation of a game, but has transcended that and become something more.

Unicorn

So way back in January, Bree over at GLDC posted something about a Unicorn.

79 tries later…

Reflections

It’s been a year today.

I’m not really sure what to think.

I miss her.  I love her, and I miss her.  A year is  a long time.  A lot of things could happen in a year.  A lot of things have happened in the year since she’s been gone.

I’m not really accustom to death.  When I was young, my family moved around a lot.  Life of a Navy Brat.  So I didn’t have the extended family a lot of my friends and even Jas were used to.  It was Mom, Dad, my bro and I.  The granparents lived a plane flight away, across the country, in opposite corners of the country from each other.  Aunts, uncles, cousins, they lived on opposite coasts and inner ones too.  So I never did the whole, weddings, birthdays, funerals thing that you might normally do.

Last year I experienced death pretty up close and personal.  Jason’s dad was fighting cancer, his gran had passed, and then… like a train wreck from no where, blind siding me, Shar.

I had lost a friend when I was younger.  But while she was a friend when I was 10, not having been in touch with her for almost 3 years dulled the reaction, it dulled the impact.  I didn’t really have a sense of continuity with friends I made when I was that young.  I mean, why would I?  The internet wasn’t even for public use yet, and when you’re moving from one place to another in the space of a few years, you get used to leaving old friends behind for new.

So… when my friend Kelly died at 13 of spinal menigitus in North Carolina (where her family was stationed once they left Groton), I was sad… but it didn’t linger.  Still makes me kind of sad, she was a pretty red head, freckles and all.  Her neighbor, young girl named Heather, was my first school yard “brawl”, if you can call throwing dirt and pulling hair a brawl. *smirk*

She had it coming to her.  Told Kyle I liked him.  (Blasphemy in the eyes of 10 yr olds.)

But with Shar… I never got to see her, face to face.  But I knew her.  We weren’t BFFL, but we were friends.  She liked to cosplay, she loved her tiny japanese dolls, she was an anime freak! and usually where I would get some good tips for good shows, she loved cows.  It was such an odd quirk, but adorable at the same time.

I almost wish I had her moo on recording.  I almost had it.  I fraps’d the Headless Horseman fight when it first came out, twice.  Once with sound, once without.  She was in the silent version.

Sometimes I can’t get the sound out of my head.

It’s probably pretty dramatic sounding, but this is still… painful.  It’s been a year.  There’s no more “fights” between her and Fio about which is stronger, the power of OOM or MOO.

I should probably go to sleep, but this unusual April heat in the northeast is keeping me up.

Yea, it’s just the heat.

~

We’re Alive! And Recruiting PEWPEW! (DPS)

Yes, I know, the blog has fallen by the wayside.

Life has crit both Fio and I upside the head.  While it’s been crazy, we’re going to get back into the swing of things.  Life, the boredom of the content, work woes have all contributed to lack of posting.

But fear not!  I have a cookie.

We’re recruiting… DPS!  We have the healz, we have the tanks!  We’re just looking for more pewpew!  Here’s the offical forums post from your lovable Critchicken (and the GM), Fio!

Hey everyone,

Aetherial Circle finds itself in need of (mostly) ranged DPS. We’ve lost a few to the Real Life boss, and for some reason our rezzes aren’t working..

We are currently full on Priests, Paladins, and DKs, but we potentially have space for just about anyone else. As I said, we’ll be mainly looking at ranged DPS. We specifically have room for a resto and/or elemental shaman, maybe two, depending on our other response. We could also use one more hunter.

We have currently cleared all content except Sarth +3.

Now, about us. We do 25 man content, although there are unofficial runs into the 10 man content. We’re a “casual raiding guild” for all that tells you. What it means to us is that we raid 3 days a week, about 3-4 hours per raid. We’re 18+ only, and while guild chat isn’t a cesspool, you will sometimes see off-color jokes. We plan to do experience all content, but we don’t necessarily do all acheivements. Our purpose is to experience what the game has to offer, and still be able to have family, kids, and about half of a real life. For those that are curious, we use a zero-sum DKP system called SWAPS.

What we want to hear about is just a brief blurb about your experience, a link to your armory profile, and why you think you’d fit in with AC. There are no hard and fast DPS requirements or gear requirements. As long as you’ve got decent gear and know how to play your class, you’ll be fine. We raid Monday, Wednesday, and Sunday, and invites go out at 7:45 EST. If you can’t make every night, that’s fine. We’re willing to talk to people who can only do 2 of those nights. The main thing we’re concerned with is that you attend what you commit to, and you come to raid on time and prepared.

If you’re interested, please email recruit AT aetherialcircle DOT com. Yes, I’m writing it that way to avoid spambots. Consider it the pre-screening intelligence test.

Thanks for the interest all. Hope to hear from some of you soon.

So join us for the fun! <3 Stephi

EDIT:  US Drenden Server!  Totally forgot that part >.>

And that, as they say, is that

The night started off so young. Heroic  Sarth +1, with some lazer pew pew. Mid battle, we lost a healer. Thought it was lag, turned out it was fried power to the PC… DOH! But we’ve done Sarth +1 in our sleep, so no sweat.

On to Malygos! Our second night of hardcore tries! Monday was just a warm up XD  Getting used to a fight that’s actually… well, hard.  (Sorry but Naxx was waaaaaaaaaaay too easy.)  Doling out the healing assignments… wait… 1 priest, 2 priest… pally… shaman… that’s all?

Four healers.

COMMENCE FREAKOUTIFICATION!

So, first wipe, Phase 1, adjust strat.  Second wipe, phase 3!  3D ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!  combo points not showing up arg I hate Ace’s High!  Wipe 3, 4, 5, and 6, adjust adjust adjust.

Did I mention this guy looks pretty damn epic?

Anywho, we’re on our 6th wipe, and we lose a DPS.  ZOMG and we’ve already had a 1% wipe and a 5% one in there too!  Nooo lose on teh DPS!  T.T

But then… we got our crap together, aaaaaaaaand died… except… for ONE!

Jefferson LIIIIIIIIIIIVES! AND MALYGOS DIED! WOOOOOOO!

Time to rock out with the Queen bee.  /rockout

Aetherial Circle clears Wrath 25 man!  Wheeeeeeee!