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Drama Mamas: The pre-patch blues
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. Sing it, Black Dog. Hey hey mamas got questions for you, gonna ask your advice 'bout my guild's mood. I'm co-leader with my stable GF of a small casual guild. We've got a small community of members, with most able to log in a couple times a week and a few who play daily. We have firm guild rules about verbal abuse and slurs, and quite honestly have never had drama of any sort. All of this sounds peachy-keen, except we seem to have, for lack of a better word, stagnated. Over the last fall, winter, and spring, our biggest challenges were getting members at all. We recruited a real-life friend who went through some real growth as a person and was made an officer a few months later. He helped us spur the guild's growth and now we've promoted another officer to handle our surging population, and we were making noises about a second raid group...at least, that was the situation a couple months ago.
Drama Mamas: Protect the personal space in your marriage and your game
Ever get the feeling your in-game relationships are just a little too close for comfort? Hey ladies, This is one column I never thought I'd be writing in to, but I sense trouble brewing on the horizon and I'm not sure how to deal with it. I recently got married and love that my new husband also plays -- it was one of the draws when we first started dating. I rolled a toon on his server, and joined the guild that belongs to him, his brothers, and one of his male coworkers. I even moved over two of my max level toons, much to the devastation of my siblings, who play on my original server. The trouble has started with their little used Alliance guild. My hubby wants his Double Agent achievement, and I agreed to make a little alt to play with him even though I have mine already. The boys had their guild, though they all played Horde, and we joined it for the leveling boost. Where the Horde guild is GMed by one of my new brothers-in-law, the Alliance on is GMed by his coworker that I am not overly fond of, and right away there was trouble. The first problem came when we logged on and I discovered that my rank was Porn Star. This isn't appropriate, period, but my new husband is also a recovering porn addict (something this coworker knows) and it added a whole new level of uncomfortable to the situation. The coworker thought it was hilarious, and wouldn't change it for me until I got my hubby to step in.
Drama Mamas: Friends like these
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. When a couple makes a friend pick a side in an argument, it's not conducive to a good friendship. First of all, pardon my english and grammar, because it was never my first language. I need a help regarding my mistake. I always interested on WOW but i always quit playing when i reach the level cap but crawling back for the new expansion. But it was all changed when i met this couple that changed my gaming life entirely. They become my best friends, way better than my real life best friends. They care about me, every time i log in they always greed me, and we even share our secrets. But during the last patch of cataclysm, these couple got engage. Im so happy for them, but they started to argue with each other and asking me to take a side, which is very uncomfortable for me because i love them both.
Officers' Quarters: Last man standing
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. Guild leadership is a tenuous social construct. It's all volunteer. It's based purely on someone's commitment to a community of people, most of whom they have never actually "met." It's based on their continued enjoyment of a single game, over months and years. When you look at it that way, it's amazing how stable and long-lasting some guilds can be, thanks to dedicated and enthusiastic leaders. This week's email, unfortunately, is about a guild in a different situation. It's from an officer who, after a series of mishaps and disappearances, is the last leader left. Hi Scott, First off, let me say that I'm a huge fan of your column, it's helped me out a lot in the past. I'm currently one of 3 officers in a midsize guild. My guild has recently been hit by a perfect storm of bad events over the summer. The guild's raid team has seen moderate success since the end of Cataclysm, enough to keep 8 people interested in raiding. However, we haven't been able to fill a raid team since Mists of Pandaria launched. I'm the PvP officer for the guild, but our Guild Master put a horrible new rule in place (disallowing any kind of guild events on Raid Nights) in January that send our entire PvP team off to another guild. Ever since then I haven't been able to recruit and gear enough people to make a full team. All of the issues started at the beginning of June, when our Guild Master started logging on less and less. He'd only log on for raids, but after a few weeks, he stopped logging on at all. In addition to that, one of our 3 officers stopped logging into WoW completely in mid-June. My colleague and I just kept trying to drive up guild activity with events, gearing nights, and raids, just trying to keep the raid team afloat.
Voice of John Marston joins Codename Cygnus radio drama app
Codename Cygnus, the interactive radio drama app seeking $11,000 on Kickstarter, now has another noteworthy voice actor joining its cast: Rob Wiethoff. Known for voicing John Marston in Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption, Wiethoff will take on the role of a mysterious man named Lazarus during a planned "sidequest episode." Wiethoff's episode will arrive in September, providing the project is funded. The app has players listening to 15 to 20-minute episodes, occasionally deciding on the direction the story turns through touch-screen and verbal commands, similar to a choose-your-own-adventure novel. Wiethoff joins the narrator of Bastion, Logan Cunningham on the project. The app has raised $9,062 on Kickstarter so far, and has until Sunday to reach its goal.
Officers' Quarters: When your raiders break up
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook Romantic relationships sure can complicate running a guild. If you lead a raiding guild long enough, someday you're going to have romantic partners who raid together. Sometimes they meet in the game and develop a relationship. Sometimes one convinces the other to raid with them. Either way, when a breakup occurs, it can have a big impact on your raid team. This week, an officer who lost a raider over a breakup is wondering what to do about it. Dear Scott, First off let me say I'm a fan of your column, every time I'm asked for help by an officer or friend I point them to your posts first and my guild even has your blog in our officer handbook. But let me get to the point of this letter, I'm currently an advisor for a small guild of players that moved over from our old guild when they had a fallout with the new guild master (and co-gm). Things have been going well if not great (2 heroic kills ...). However issues relating to guild members dating has often resulted in one of them leaving the guild because the other isn't taking the break up well. Up until the latest one I haven't been around to talk to the member leaving (player A). Sadly I wasn't successful and he still left however I did find that the other guild member (player 1) wasn't taking the break up well and player A just didn't feel conformable in the guild any more. I don't know what to do, I don't want to lose player 1 if I confront her but I don't want lose player A as well. Kre
The Drama Mamas guide to finding gaming buddies
A gaming buddy isn't quite the same thing as a guildmate. A gaming buddy is quite often also a guildie, but your guildmates aren't necessarily your gaming buddies. Your gaming buddies are people who play with you more often than not. They're your partners in crime, the homies you hang out with in Azeroth whether they're covering your back through your first LFR or filling your chat box during a night of pre-alchemy herbalizing. But just as when you were trying to break into the social scene during your school days, you might feel a bit of an outsider when it comes to connecting with simpatico players in WoW. For many players, there's only so long you can happily play on your own; Azeroth is a large, lonely land when you wish you had someone to share it with. While joining a friendly guild can often be a great way to meet people, simply coexisting in an online space with a common chat channel somewhere on your screen won't build the kind of friendships you're hungry for. Let the Drama Mamas show you a few tricks of the trade for finding players you might click with on a more personal basis.
Officers' Quarters: Inner circle
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. Does your guild have multiple tiers of leadership ranks? Such a hierarchy can help you to organize roles, but it can also cause resentment and infighting. This week, we hear from one officer who's fed up with it. Hi Scott, I am an officer in a medium size level 25 social guild. The guild has been around since WOTLK, has been through the normal ups and downs, but now seems to be in a good stable place with active, happy guildies. The leadership structure is set up with a GM, 3 Council members (GM is one of them), and 5 officers. This is for a guild with about 500 members. For about the past 6 months, the officers have been systematically stripped of more and more of their duties, to the point where all decisions now lie only with Council. Officers have no input into admitting new guild members, except to be able to invite alts of current members. Officers also have no input into decisions on various guild perks we offer, such as Riding Scholarships, assistance with profession leveling, selection of class leaders, membership guidelines, etc. Officer meetings have pretty much become sessions in which Council members take turns berating the officers for not contributing enough to the guild bank, or for failing to motivate other guildies to participate in guild activities.
Drama Mamas: Too young to be taken seriously
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. If Maru were in a class, he'd be the class clown -- just like this week's letter writer. Hello, Drama Mommas. I'm currently sixteen and I've been raiding hardcore since patch 3.3, so about four years now, and I didn't typo there. I've been raiding since I was twelve. Normally I wouldn't include this information, but its important to the subject. Well, about a year and a half ago I joined a brand new top ten on realm raiding guild, and loved it. I've had so much fun and I've been included into the guild 'family' Unfortunately, my spot in that family is of the Little Brother, and its not awesome.
The Drama Mamas guide to getting your groove back
Losing your confidence stinks. Still, in a game like WoW where your character must work cooperatively with so many others, there are times the issue is to be expected. Most players feel a bit apprehensive when getting back into content they haven't played with in a while. You feel rusty, and you're anxious about making an obvious gaffe and letting down the group, embarrassing yourself, or provoking some jerk into whining about your performance in chat. The advent of proving grounds makes simple business of knocking the rust off. Just head into your own private scenario and experiment, fiddle, and wipe to your heart's content. Nobody has to see how many times you've flopped but you. But what if the problem's not you? What if you've simply been shaken by too many encounters with trollish players who tear others down in order to build themselves up? What if you find yourself trapped in the ugly atmosphere that makes grouping a hellish prospect for anyone who's been dragged through the dirt one too many times?
Drama Mamas: Games vs. relationship
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. When leisure activities take priority over responsibilities and relationships, bad things happen. In this week's case, the leisure activities in question are MMOs. Hello, I've read your article about Love, marriage and WoW. Unfortunately, I am in a situation that looks alike. My fiancé and I have been together for 5 years and we've gone through a lot, but we still have issues because of his gaming habits. We both are gamers and it is our main activity, but we don't really play together, which is alright at some point. I mostly play console games and he's into pc games such as Mmos or online games on Steam. I tried to play with him at some point, but it never lasts.
Officers' Quarters: Leftovers
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. Last week we heard from a raid leader who was weighing the creation of a second raid team. Ultimately, it seemed like a bad idea. This week, we hear from an officer who has already tried -- and failed -- to create a second team. Now he has extra raiders that he's not sure how to handle. Dear Scott, I would like your opinion on a subject- the veritable, hated bench. See, I tried recruiting for a second group in an attempt to make sure that players beyond our core ten were in the guild and seeing raids, but that hasn't worked out for us at all. It's really been a headache to manage and hard to fill (since everybody who responds to my ads is always interested in our weekday heroic runs. However, now that we've scrapped the idea of having a second group, I could use some advice on how to successfully maintain a 13 or so person roster for a 10 player raid.
The Drama Mamas guide to basic WoW etiquette
Joke as we might about rude, trollish behavior in game, that sort of thing doesn't really represent WoW's gaming culture. Our community of MMO players is kinder and gentler than the seething horror of console FPS titles. The truth is that when WoW players are rude, it's most often completely inadvertent and based on their newness to WoW and the MMO subculture. Especially if this is their first MMO, they might only be dimly aware of the concerns of the other players around them and of how and when it's appropriate (or inappropriate) to open the channels of interpersonal communication. Ever have that uncomfortable feeling your groupmates consider your matter-of-fact approach too abrupt? Or perhaps you've wondered if other players view your friendly chatter as nammering instead. What are all these people expecting from you, anyway? Your mother was right -– manners are grease in the wheels of the social machine. Let's get this thing off to a smooth start, shall we?
Officers' Quarters: State secrets
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. Privacy and information security has never been a more relevant topic than right now. With the revelation that the U.S. and British governments have been engaged in unprecedented worldwide surveillance of our Internet communications and phone calls, the threat to our privacy is very real. As an officer, you are on both sides of such situations. It's up to you what information to collect about your members and about other guilds. It's also up to you what to keep to yourself, what to share with your guildmates, and what to share with the world. Let's look at some of the privacy issues that officers must face.
Drama Mamas: Guild to guild harassment
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. We've seen a lot of drama pass through these pages, but funsuckers can always surprise me with new methods of drama-mongering. Dear Drama Mamas, I come to you with a problem that at first seemed simple enough to fix but has proved to be a royal pain that not even Blizzard will address for me. Recently I was told by several people in my guild that they were being whispered in game by a people all from one set guild asking them if they were happy with their guild. Now normally this isn't a problem, I know people often do this to find new people but it quickly became a problem when after the said people continued to whisper the people in my guild over and over, even changing to a different toon to repeat the process.
The Drama Mamas guide to communicating with others
The heart of a rich, long-lasting MMO isn't actually the gameplay itself. No, the heart of an MMO is its community. World of Warcraft wouldn't be World of Warcraft without the crazy quilt of personalities –- guildmates, real-life friends, family members, acquaintances met in game, passing strangers in public chat channels -– that keep Azeroth breathing and bright. Successful participation in this community depends upon one single thing: communication. What's the expected behavior in a public chat channel? Is that different in guild chat? Are you so curt with other players you seem unwilling to cooperate during group events? Can you efficiently and effectively coordinate a group or raid encounter? Much of MMO socializing comes down to simple good manners, but new players can find themselves stumped by gaming lingo or stymied by unspoken social expectations and commonly understood conventions of group behavior. Need a refresher course? Let's talk.
Storyboard: Operatic soap
If you've never watched a soap opera before, you owe it to yourself to do so at some point. I don't just mean a single episode; I mean spending a month or so really following a show, unraveling the plot and character interrelationships, and trying to really get what's going on. Let me tell you, these things are crazy. Silver age comics crazy. And they're dying out, so you want to catch them before they're gone. Despite that, I generally use soap opera as a pejorative term because while the shows might be entertaining, they're not good at character development or drama or nuance or most of what makes RP enjoyable most of the time. They're well-written only insofar as they're written to convince you to watch the next episode, not in the sense that they form any sort of overarching narrative. And while RP can creep into that territory at times, that's generally a problem rather than an acceptable endpoint.
Drama Mamas: Being deaf and raiding
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. I had to edit this week's letter for length, but it's still a long one so that you can get the whole story. Howdy Drama Mamas, [...] To begin with, I'm a male deaf gamer. I've been very blessed with great support systems in all areas of my life and have made friends both on and offline who have been extremely supportive of everything that I do. But I'll also be the first to tell you that I'm not perfect but I do try to avoid drama where I can.
The Drama Mamas guide to coping with trolling and profanity
It's the last straw: After a long day toiling in the salt mines, you come home to settle in for some stress-relieving World of Warcraft, only to find yourself transported back to The Barrens –- not only the latest patch's Battlefield Barrens, but the trollish Barrens-style general chat you've come to loathe. Your chat box is scrolling ceaselessly with "Douchebag this!" and "$%^& that!" and you can see that any hope of a restful evening is slipping inexorably beyond your reach. What's a poor profanity-pelted player to do?
Drama Mamas: Raiding remedies
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. The above video has nothing to do with this week's topic. I just like it. Anyway, this week we have two letters again, both about raid teams. Lisa and I disagree on the second letter, which is always fun. Dear Drama Mamas, I have a problem with my guild that I was hoping I could get some insight on. [...] My guild is a casual guild with one core 10-man raid group. They have been having issues with attendance with one of their dps and one frustrated afternoon asked me to step in. At first I was asked to be a substitute but as time went on it became apparent that their dps was not going to return. When I started I was poorly geared but with a little hard work, some enchants and gems, and reforging I was able to greatly improve not only my gear but my dps. I was thrilled and can honestly say very happy with the way things were going.
