advice
Latest
Officers' Quarters: Destructive criticism, part 2
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, available from No Starch Press. Last week, I began addressing what is one of the most complex and difficult duties an officer or raid leader must occasionally perform: giving out unsolicited constructive criticism. As the email that sparked this discussion proved, such conversations can be volatile. With the wrong approach, you can destroy friendships and lose guildmates. Let's continue to examine the right approach. To recap, here are the first two steps from part 1: Consider your guild's criticism culture and adapt your approach accordingly. Plant the seed of taking personal initiative to research and improve play. At this point, you have to be a little bit patient. If your guild is on the brink of collapse over performance issues, you can't always afford to let this situation play out. However, the safest bet is to give the underperforming player another week of raids to show an improvement. Keep a close eye on him during this week. Examine his spec and gear to see if he's made any adjustments. Record a combat log to see if he's using the appropriate class abilities. Watch him during boss encounters to see if he is following instructions and executing the fight properly.
Drama Mamas: Friends behaving badly
Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with the Drama Mamas. Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are real-life mamas and experienced WoW players -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We're taking your questions at dramamamas@wow.com. We often explain bad behavior in game (and on the internet in general) with anonymity (NSFW link). This just does not apply to the letters we answer this week. The friends behaving badly know the letter writers in "real life," and it is that phrase that seems to be the problem. If WoW were just a game and not real people interacting in real situations, it wouldn't cause real drama for us to tackle each week. This disconnect between proper behavior in the physical world and Azeroth just doesn't make sense when you know your guildies in both places. But sense or not, it happens -- and these letters are just two examples of a common problem.
Officers' Quarters: Destructive criticism
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, available from No Starch Press. In the day-to-day duties of an officer and a raid leader, few endeavors are more fraught with the potential for drama than doling out performance advice to your players. Constructive criticism, no matter how well-meaning, can become destructive in the blink of an eye if it's not approached delicately. After scaring off a healer, the officer who wrote this week's email is looking for a better way to deal with these situations. Scott, As an officer in my guild, I take care of several things, but the big three are raid leading our second 10-man group (which is not easy as a healer, by any stretch of the imagination), making sure our priests are doing what they are supposed to be doing both as dps and healers, and any extra healers, making sure they're doing their job right. The first two are interesting enough, especially since there's very little consistency with our group, and our number of priests waxes and wanes with the seasons. But the big problem here is when I have to "fix" a healer. Now, I know no one likes to receive constructive criticism, and officers like even less to give the constructive criticism for fear of running off the guild member. Recently, I've had to talk to two different healers to try to help them out with their healing, one was a holy priest, the other a restoration shaman. Now, I have some pretty hefty experience with both classes as healers (I have two max level priests, and a max level shaman, and I've healed in raids on all of them), so I find myself at least somewhat knowledgeable about the classes, but by no means do I consider myself an expert. I'll leave that to Elitist Jerks. At any rate, the two healers, after speaking with them separately in tells, I found that the priest was more willing to work with the suggestions I'd made, and there was a huge improvement the following night in our raid. The shaman, however, was very adverse to my suggestions. Here's where the meat of the problem comes in.
Drama Mamas: When connecting online seems like a Real bad IDea
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 checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. When is your privacy not your privacy? When it's connected to everyone else's privacy. This week, the Drama Mamas help a reader whose desire to reserve sharing her email address and online status for her real-life friends is heating up her WoW friends list -- and they're boiling over at not being included. Hi Drama Mamas, I've decided to only add people as Real ID friends who are RL friends that play on another server. I'm one of those people who sometimes like to hop on a character unknown to the folks I usually play with and spend some hours ingame on my own or with my boyfriend. However, I do have a lot of ingame friends I'm pretty close with and talk about a lot of things apart from the game. After installing the patch and logging on my main, it took only half an hour before I got the first whisper, containing an email adress and asking me to add them via Real ID. I told the person no, I'm only going to add very few RL friends to that list. I recieved a very sulky reply. Today the scenario repeated itself, meaning two days of playing very little have passed and two people are already angry at me for not adding them. Is there anything I can do to prevent other ingame friends to react the same? Why can't some people accept that sometimes I do want to play, but don't want to chat? Taz'Dingo, Anonyma
Ask Massively: Behind the scenes edition
While the Ask Massively mailbag has been overflowing the first few weeks, we have a light edition this time around with what are essentially two questions. Although one question has sprouted dozens of menacing tentacles attacking from all directions, like the Watcher in the Water grabbing at your pony. Or the team's only minstrel. These questions all focus on the "behind-the-scenes" aspect of the site and what makes us tick. As we here at Massively love to share any info on how awesome this job is, prepare yourself for a long-winded answer, which you'll find just after the jump below. And don't forget to get your own questions in for next week's installment at either ask@massively.com or in the comments.
Drama Mamas: Tips on getting wife back into WoW
Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with the Drama Mamas. Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are real-life mamas and experienced WoW players -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We're taking your questions at dramamamas@wow.com. Before I show you the letter this week, I'm going to fully disclose my sympathies here. First of all, I can't stand high-maintenance players. Questions about things? Yes, please. But "ne1 help me?" over and over (particularly if it's something above your level) means a polite warning followed by a gkick if not heeded -- also mockery about the use of "ne1." Ask once for help on something and if no one answers, it's not that they didn't hear you. It's not that they are mean and unhelpful. It means they are too busy with their own fun to help you at this time. On the other hand, I totally feel the pain of being married to someone with a different playstyle. The Spousal Unit is an accomplished raider. I'm an altoholic casual who is increasingly more and more RP-curious. We used to have wonderful times playing SWG and CoH together. But we have rarely been able to match up our playstyles since we moved to Azeroth. Mostly I blame him, fairly or unfairly, because he won't make a WoW duo with me. Jack and Jane Blaze were so fun! /sigh But it takes two to tango. And if he would rather go line dancing with his raider buddies, then I either need to get a pair of purple cowboy boots or see if I have better success convincing him to do the hustle. Tired of dancing around the drama? Then turn the page.
Storyboard: Anyone else but you
Welcome back to another installment of Storyboard, and another week of discussing romantic relationships in roleplaying. If you missed last week's column, it's a helpful primer, talking both about why it's a terrible idea and why the odds are high that you're going to do it anyway. And I can't criticize on that front -- I eat at McDonald's even though I know it's bad for me, I buy new Transformers even though I know it's not the best use of my money, and I watch Persons Unknown even though I know it's only going to last one season. Still, a bad idea is only as bad as you make it. To continue my above analogy, as long as I know the whole time that the show is only going to last one season, I can enjoy the heck out of that season. (It's not Lost, but it's pretty darn good.) And while you can't fix all of the fundamental problems with roleplaying relationships, you can do a lot to make sure that the course of love runs smoothly for the players, if not the characters.
Drama Mamas: Racism and setting social standards
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 checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We love updates! We've already heard back from the writer of last week's letter, Hacking a friend's account. Hi, I recently sent in an email to the Drama Mamas; it was the "hacking a friend's account" one. Just sending this in to say thanks, he gave me a ring today, I manned up and answered it and probably wouldn't of done if not for you. We made up, both said sorry and I gave him his password back. So all's well that ends well -- and sticking with a common theme, an end to situations that have no place in our game is what's on tap this week, too. The topic: racism and hate speech. (Before we begin: Standard warning for comments -- we'll be removing those that veer off the subject of handling racist hate speech in game, so please stay on topic and keep the language civil so we can have a productive conversation.)
Ask Massively: Buy Guild Wars now! edition
In this week's installment of Ask Massively, we address topics such as external vs. internal game wikis, EVE Online's continuing sound issues, which Guild Wars chapter to buy and... well, that's really about it. But we do it with love and hugs in every word. Click right past the jump below for this week's answers. If you'd like to see your MMO- or site-related questions answered next week, add them to the comments below or send them to ask@massively.com. Also, take note that starting next week, Ask Massively will be moving to Thursdays.
Choose My Adventure: Nekkid
Choose the adventures of the WoW.com staff as we level our characters in <It came from the Blog> on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H). Sandwichdoc has real style. Not only was he able to do all his dance moves on top of a mailbox, he was showered with rose petals while he flaunted his nekkidness. We have more nekkid dancing as well as some advice and stories after the break. But first, here's the schedule: Amy Schley as Patent, the troll rogue: Thursday, 10 p.m. EDT Fox Van Allen as Foxlight, the blood elf paladin: Friday, 8 p.m. EDT Robin Torres as Robinemia, the undead mage; Michael Sacco as Sahko, the orc warlock; Christian Belt, as Selfloathius, the blood elf warlock; Elizabeth Harper as Faience, the troll shaman; Matthew Rossi as Andrenorton, the troll mage; Michael Gray as Grayfields, the tauren hunter; Adam Holisky as Adammentat, the tauren druid; and Gregg Reece as Sandwichdoc, the troll shaman, will be making appearances as they can.
Drama Mamas: Hacking a friend's account
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 checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. It was really hard to choose from the many dramalicious emails we got this week. So much drama, so little time. I'm happy we have so many topics to choose from, but sad that so many of you have to go through so many dramafied situations. This one really did stick out as pretty dramarific, however. Dramarily! Drama-lama ding dong! Dramastified. OK, I'm drama-done. Turn the page for all the dramaness.
Drama Mamas: Rowing in opposite directions
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 checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. Sometimes there are good reasons that people don't make the same choices as you do. What you might consider to be a perfectly reasonable rationale for jumping ship and moving to a new guild sometimes holds no water for someone who's rowing a different direction in another dinghy. This week, the Drama Mamas take slightly different tacks with a reader who thinks her friend is lost at sea. Dear Drama Mamas, Back in January, I left a guild that I'd been an officer of for years. I left because due to internal personal issues, many of the guild members had grown apart and all that was left was myself, the GL, and one other person. In addition, the GL joined with a raid that one of her friends ran which effectively destroyed our own guild's raids. However, since then I've kept in close contact with the guild members who had left before me even though they don't speak with each other. I'm not concerned with trying to reunite the old gang because some of their issues are just too large for a game to erase. My issue is this: the old guild leader and I are great friends which has carried over to RL. She still keeps her guild even though it's effectively dead and only has one active member. The people she surrounds herself with in-game are not good for her, however. She raid that she runs with creates a huge amount of stress for her, especially the raid leader that is simply a giant jerk. She's slowly losing her love for the game due to these people that she's begun running with.
Drama Mamas: My guildies are turning into alcoholics!
Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with the Drama Mamas. Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are real-life mamas and experienced WoW players -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We're taking your questions at dramamamas@wow.com. Before we go into today's touchy topic, I just want to be clear that we are assuming all people involved are of legal age and in good health. If that is not the case, then that's a whole other issue entirely. We don't condone underage drinking or illegal activities of any kind. And now that I have piqued your interest, let's get right to it.
Drama Mamas: The curious case of That Guy vs. the Spineless Jellyfish GM
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 checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. Once upon a time, there was a guild member called That Guy. That Guy was typical of his kind -- abrasive in guild chat, incompetent in raids, seemingly without redeeming value ... Except that the guild always seemed to need him in order to scrape together a full raid group. His GM, the usual enemy of all That Guys in their natural habitat, turned out to be a subspecies that posed no threat to That Guy at all: the Spineless Jellyfish GM. To the horror of guild members, not only did Jelly-Belly do nothing to solve the chaos created by That Guy, but he actually wrapped his tentacles around That Guy and laughed in glee as the guild spun more and more rapidly into a vortex that threatened to suck them all into the briny depths ... Dear Drama Mamas, I am in a 25-man raiding guild on a server. We are a decent group of raiders. We have every raiding stereotype you can imagine: the yelling raid leader, the cool-as-a-cucumber DPS, and the always-has-a-strat guy, just to name a few. So as you can see, we are a typical group trying to climb to the top of the server ranking. I have been in this guild since a month after Ulduar released and I have gotten into the flow of people leaving, joining and quitting the game. It felt homey until 5 months ago, when problems started to arise. I have been having drama with one person -- not run-of-the-mill drama, either. Recurring drama.
Choose My Adventure: Stories and warrior advice
Choose the adventures of the WoW.com staff as we level our characters in <It came from the Blog> on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H). This week, we have advice for Annephora, who is pulling ahead in the leveling game, as well as stories from our favorite troll warrior and Foxlight, the shirtless pally. But first, here's our schedule for the rest of the week: Michael Sacco as Sahko, the orc warlock: Wednesday, 7 p.m. EDT Elizabeth Harper as Faience, the troll shaman, and Robin Torres as Robinemia, the undead mage: Wednesday, 11 p.m. EDT Amy Schley as Patent, the troll rogue: Thursday, 10 p.m. EDT Fox Van Allen as Foxlight, the blood elf paladin: Friday, 8 p.m. EDT Matthew Rossi as Andrenorton, the troll mage, Michael Gray as Grayfields, the tauren hunter, Adam Holisky as Adammentat, the tauren druid, and Gregg Reece as Yakkowakko, the orc warlock, will be making appearances as they can
Drama Mamas: Divorce drama
Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with the Drama Mamas. Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are real-life mamas and experienced WoW players -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We're taking your questions at DramaMamas (at) WoW (dot) com. I think it's pretty much impossible to avoid drama when it comes to divorce. Even if it's an amicable breakup, there are still the issues that caused the breakup as well as situations that must be dealt with as a result of the split. This week, Divorced asks who gets custody of the guild?
Drama Mamas: See ya around, buddy
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 checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. No one wants to see a good friend move on. Gaming friends seem to come in two varieties: the kind who end up at your side in game after game, across the years ... and those who drift away as soon as your immediate goals diverge. Some of them end up on your Facebook page chatting about the kids, but most fade into obscurity so quickly you find yourself struggling to remember their names. Still, you can't force a good thing, as one Sad Panda discovers this week. Hi Lisa & Robin, For the last few years I've been playing with a very close-knit group of friends, our play time with each other comes and goes as we go about our ever changing lives, (work, school, non-wow relationships), but we always keep in touch with email, and chat outside of the game. About a year or so ago we had the pleasure of including another person to our group. He's an all around great friend to have, and I think I can safely say for everyone that we've all enjoyed knowing and playing with him. Now as you know we're in the pre-expansion dead zone right now. Either you're raiding to get to, or finish end game raids, farming for rep / skills / heroics / so on, or you shelve your main(s) and bust out a new toon to level up. I've chosen the latter, I have toons on both sides of the border and have been playing on the Alliance side for some time now and really felt like dusting off my Horde toons. So both my hubbie and I are stomping around with new toons, (and old), on the horde side and a few of our other friends have joined us.
Drama Mamas: Make it work
Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with the Drama Mamas. Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are real-life mamas and experienced WoW players -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We're taking your questions at DramaMamas (at) WoW (dot) com. Wives get a bad reputation. We are often portrayed more like evil stepmothers than the helpmates and lovers that we would like to be seen as. Some of us deserve it, from time to time. But often we are just trying to be the voice of responsibility in the face of a spouse who's behaving more like a carefree teen. Supervisors and guild leaders are also put in uncomfortable situations, where they are forced to be The Bad Guy in order take care of their responsibilities. This week, we mamas put on our stern caps and wag our fingers a bit more than usual. But we really hope things turn out well for the letter writer and those he interacts with.
Choose My Adventure: Stories and advice
Choose the adventures of the WoW.com staff as we level our characters in <It came from the Blog> on US Zangarmarsh-H. We continue to have a great time leveling our adventurers. Here is the remaining schedule for the week: Elizabeth Harper as Faience and Robin Torres as Robinemia: Wednesday, 11 p.m. EDT Fox Van Allen as Foxlight: Friday, 8 p.m. EDT. Michael Sacco as Sahko, the orc warlock: Wednesday, 7 p.m. EDT. Amy Schley as Patent, Matthew Rossi as Andrenorton, Michael Gray as Grayfields, Adam Holisky as Adammentat, and Gregg Reece as Yakkowakko will be making appearances as they can. This week, we have some advice for Foxlight and stories from Annephora, Yakkowakko, Foxlight and a warning from Robinemia.
Drama Mamas: When the game is no laughing matter
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced WoW players 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 checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We're taking your questions at DramaMamas (at) WoW (dot) com. Text communication is a touchy creature. The simplest of situations can spiral out of control in the space of a single chat pane, when players blunder along without considering the disparity between the words they've actually typed versus the message they intended to communicate. We all know how easily humor (and especially sarcasm) can fall flat on the internet. Emotes and the oh-so-snappy "LOL" seem especially prone to offending others who aren't on the same wavelength. Disaster strikes when players stop reading and start reading into what others say. This week, we'll help several players who find themselves caught up in a web of pride, honor and misrepresented intentions -- all over a loot situation that would have been simple to resolve with clear communication. Dear Drama Mamas, As a priestess who is devoted to the Light, I follow a flock where I make sure that everyone is happy and content. A few moons ago, I had gone on an adventure with several of the flock to the Halls of Stone, where we faced off against the Titan's creations and helped Brann Bronzebeard find out about the mystery of the dwarves. When we had finally retaken the Forge of Wills, we had found a weapon in possession of Sjonnir the Ironshaper, The Fleshshaper. Oh, what joy our rogue companion felt when we had finally gotten the weapon for him. Alas, that joy was suddenly shattered, as the other priest of our troupe had rolled his need dice accidentally. Our companion rogue burst into a fury like Ragnaros the Firelord, spewing out his frustration upon our dear priest, who had simply laughed off the whole affair.
