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Drama Mamas: Roleplaying the system
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 fear change. Sometimes change is good, though. Change caused a bit of a problem in this week's letter. Dear Robin & Lisa, I'm in a middling-sized roleplaying guild on Argent Dawn (EU). We hold casual RP just about every evening and when we roleplay any combat, it's usually done in the form of an emote battle, with a simple rolling mechanic (/roll 1-100) used only when it's really, really needed. Then, out of nowhere, our GM and deputy posted up a new set of roleplaying rules on the guild forums. These D&D-esque rules asked that each player pick a series of passive bonuses and active abilities to attach to their roleplaying character(s). Later on, we found out that the idea for and most of the work on this new set of rules had come not from our two leaders, but from a brand new guildie, and that he had worked this out with our leaders on Skype long before anyone else was notified.
Breakfast Topic: What will you absolutely not do in Mists?
I am not farming. I don't even mean the typical WoW sense of farming. I specifically mean I am not going to do daily quests for the express purpose of getting my own farm to toil away at. There are certain things from my childhood I hated doing, fishing being one and working on the farm being another. I loathed both. And I have not fished a single cast in World of Warcraft, not in the eight years of playing it. I am certainly not going to go and farm. I got enough digging up weeds, plowing, pulling rocks out of the ground, pulling disturbingly warm chicken eggs out of a coop, and a whole host of other chores in my real life. I am absolutely disinterested in doing so in a game. As I've said before, I have no problem with content not intended for me. I'm cool with it. By all means, put it pet battles, farms, what have you. But there is no way on Azeroth or Earth that you will get me to farm. It is absolutely not happening. No way, no how, not going to do it. So what about you? What are you absolutely not going to do? It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Drama Mamas: Offensive player is offensive
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. Uncomfortable player is uncomfortable. Hi! Your column is fun to read and helpful so Im sending you my story. I've been playing on and off since BC but Cata was the first time I joined a raiding guild and really socialized. The experience has revitilized the game and I get along well with my 10 man team progressing and goofing around having some laughs. I'm also a gay man and while I'm comfortable with this it never has been my intro card (is it ever?) My orientation has never come up in conversation so I've never brought it up.
Drama Mamas: Too shy for an MMO
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. Dear Blizzard, Please give us a release date so that our friends will come back to Azeroth. Much love, Your Current Players My wife bought me a copy of WoW in the weeks before BC came out. There was a large percentage of WoW players among our friends and family: I, my wife, her brother, his wife- her two brothers, father, and mother all played. When my wife and I divorced, I still played with all of my extended real-life WoW family (in fact, my ex-wife's new husband was in our RL family/friend guild for a while, along with her sister-in-law's second husband, whew I know.). Among these and their real-life friends, I could easily play with any of over twenty different people I was friends with in the real world. Now, in the lull that is the waning days of Cataclysm, I don't have a single real-life friend to play with. It has been over six months since any of my RL friends on my friend's list have played. I'm in a new guild (my first lvl 25), yet their guild roster has many, many toons that haven't played in months.
Drama Mamas: Roommate vs. family
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. Ah, college. Good times. The music was fun, too. On to the drama. Hey drama mamas! So, I'm going to try and keep this short. I have played on the same realm for three years (since I started). My dad and brother have both recently started playing and joined me on this realm. My dad has two 85s, and my brother is still working on his first. I've also developed great relationships with my guild, but its starting to dwindle down. Here's my problem. I'm starting college next month, and my roommate (who played nor only on a different server, but the opposite faction) wants me to join her. I have no problem with this, but she really wants me to just server transfer as opposed to just starting a new alt.
Drama Mamas: Guildie vs. guildie at the Auction House
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 don't think we've had Auction House drama before. How delicious interesting. Hello ladies I have played WoW on and off since vanilla, but I always seem to return at the tail end of an expansion. I came back this time 3 months ago and decided to start fresh- new server, new faction, new toons. I have alot to prepare for the release of MoP like this but I thought I was doing pretty well. I joined a really great guild who has an unwritten rule that we don't undercut others on the AH, and alot of the members go as far as waiting until others have sold their items before listing the same thing. As such we're all pretty open with our gold making 'secrets' with each other. I have a friend who, like me, has two gathering professions on his main, which are also the same as mine. He was complaining that nothing was selling well anymore this late in Cata, so I shared with him a few of the things I gather and sell, my main money maker was something I specifically told him sells a little slow but does sell, so don't get carried away putting too much on the AH at once. Very quickly I found he was flooding the AH with what I suggested to him, undercutting me by 10-20g each time and soon enough things were selling for less than half of what they were before. I pointed out to him, again, he does not need to flood and undercut so much, but he did not listen.
Drama Mamas: The case of the raid leader and a guildie's wife
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. Should inappropriate behavior always be against guild rules? Help me, Drama Mamas! I'm a newbie guild leader (of about two months now), but I was an officer in my guild for over a year before that. When my GM/RL retired from WoW a couple of months ago, I took over and things have been going pretty well. We're a medium-sized, active PvE guild with a core raid group. My raid leader is my only officer. Recently, my RL (who is also a good friend) told me that one of our raiders, a woman who is married but not to him, had sent him some dirty whispers during raid. He said that she was "in a weird mood" and kept on saying sexual things to make him laugh on Vent. Her husband is also in our raid. The RL told me so that he wouldn't "feel weird about it."
Drama Mamas: When a friend keeps you from leaving WoW
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. Friendship is important, but is it so important that the effort to sustain it be one-sided? Hi Drama Mamas, I've been playing WoW for several years now, and while I enjoy it and am excited for MoP, I'm a little burnt out and want to take a break. However, there's an issue keeping me from taking the break that I want to, which is my friend. My friend Tom is a mutual friend of my friend Kyle, who I've known since high school who has already quit more or less (he's very busy and logs on a couple times a month, if that). Tom is a nice guy, and I enjoy talking with him and occasionally running stuff with him...but he only wants to play WoW. He doesn't want to play anything else, and he doesn't want to even talk about anything else.
Drama Mamas: The absent GM who won't give up control
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. And now for something completely different. Before the automatic option to replace absent guild leaders after 30 days, you had to petition to have them removed. Uneducated guild owners could stay away for a while and not know that coming back periodically would prevent losing ownership. Now, shady GMs can just pop on for a bit every month to keep control. And as long as they have ownership, they are free to do anything they want to their guilds -- even disband them -- and Blizzard can't do anything about it. So around 4.1 i found 'my guild'. I had been in a few that were nothing more than banks. This one clicked. We talked, we chatted all the time on vent and have our own forum. We met up in other games and had a great time. ...Trouble is the GM seems kind of bitter about playing WoW at all.
Drama Mamas: How to deal with profanity in Battlegrounds
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'm not one for the profanity filter. Special characters randomly appearing in public chats don't improve my gameplay experience. Also, it's so easy to get around, so why bother? And honestly, I just don't mind profanity. Now, if there were some kind of hate and trolling filter, I might use that. Ah, just think of how slowly trade chat would scroll ... Hey Mamas, I've been playing since vanilla. The reason I preface my letter with that is because I know the drama that goes on in battlegrounds. Really, I do. But for some reason, I feel it's just gotten so bad lately. People being rude or just trolling isn't anything new. But this is a whole new level of mean, and the offenders act like every little (often just perceived) mistake is a personal slight against them, one from which they will never, ever recover from. This isn't just about one instance either. In literally every battleground, whether we're winning or losing, someone is cursing someone else and causing a ruckus over something very little.
Drama Mamas: When marital troubles are played out in guild
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 letter. Deal. Hello Ladies, I am a member of a fairly old casual raiding guild. Coming into Cataclysm, our GM/RL left for a hard core guild and leadership was transferred to other officers. There were some hard feelings and it was a very rough patch but we persevered for the most part. We were even able to recruit as our new raid lead, a returning raid team member who had quit playing WOW for personal reasons. Unfortunately, those personal reasons involved his wife having multiple affairs, some via Wow. Worse, he told quite a few guildies about it when he left. Even more worse, she was a guild member also and as she has communicated, he "allowed" her to come back.
Drama Mamas: The case of the needy guildies
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. Welcome to this week's episode, in which Lisa compares me to baked goods. I think I'm more like a Disney villain, but benevolent. You be the judge. Dear Drama Mamas I'm the new gm of a social guild. As such we find that we get a lot of players who are new to the game entirely. We try and help the out but lately we have a number of new people who seem to be taking the "we are happy to help" and running it for all it's worth. I'm a firm believer is looking for the solution yourself and then asking if you don't find anything. Particularly with resources like wowhead, noxxix, wow insider and blogs for every other thing you could ever hope for.
Drama Mamas: When a guild splits in two
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. Dig those groovy threads, man. Being caught in the middle of a feud between the raid leader and guild leader does not require you to wear baby blue bell bottoms, but it may help. Dear Drama Mamas, I find myself at a loss for words about recent events in the guild I belong to. Since I can not figure out if I am being unreasonable I've decided to seek outside help. Recently a Raid Leader and our Guild Master had a fight. The Raid Leader and his Raid Team quit the guild we belong to and settled into a level 1 guild together. They were the only people raiding in our guild and the raid leader was instrumental in helping each of them gear and I understand why they followed them. They did not have an issue with the fight between the GM and RL, they just followed the person who had helped them the most and who would see them through their raids. Our guild has a lot of followers and very few leaders so I am not surprised. This was a loss for our guild, but since drama always seemed to follow that Raid Leader its probably for the best.
Drama Mamas: The consequences of lying about your gender
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. Sometimes commenters will suggest that we have received a fake letter. I hope this week's is, although that's actually irrelevant. This kind of thing does happen, unfortunately. Dear Drama Mamas, I am writing to you today in need of your coveted wisdom and advice. First just let me inform you that I am a gay man of age 16 in real, and that this type of situation has happened before, but in different variations. Here's my problem.. It all began with an innocent night outside the gates out Stormwind city. I was sat on the grass opposite a guy. He began talking to me very nicely, I replied, and we got on well. We were talking about random topics for around 10 minutes and became instantaneous friends. He was kind, polite and had top notch spelling and grammar (Which I loved). He went on to ask me personal questions. Such as age, place of residence etc. I had asked these questions first so I thought it would be fair to answer his.
Drama Mamas: How to spend time in WoW alone
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. With Real ID and Battle Tags, solo time while playing any Blizzard game is more difficult than ever. But can playing alone still be accomplished? I get that WoW is an MMO, and that many games are multiplayer or have multiplayer opportunities. Most of the time, I don't mind playing with other people. I like dungeons and raids and grouping for battlegrounds. But sometimes, I want to play alone. I don't like to quest with other people because I have a certain way of doing things, and I don't like to be redirected or slowed down. Likewise, when I'm learning a new class/game/spell/mechanic, I want time to flounder on my own (or in random groups) to figure out how things are going to work for me before I jump into a group with my friends, where I feel the stakes of my failure are a little higher.
Drama Mamas: Love triangle or just stay friends?
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. Confess your love or respect your friend's new relationship? Dear Drama-Mamas, After reading both articles concerning two different love triangles, I felt compelled to write this. I'm sort of in one at the moment. Sort of, because I'm the crusher, secretly of course. What's worse about it is that she's my friend, of nine years, we met back on another MMO and while our friendship has had a few ups and downs, we always came back to each other stronger. We've both seen the other go through several relationships and bounce back as well.
Drama Mamas: When casual raiding is neither casual nor 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. There is a common misconception that "casual" is synonymous with being inconsiderate or incompetent. Perhaps this is because many raiding guilds that take long breaks, don't show up on time, and don't read strategies before new encounters call themselves casual. What category does the letter writer's guild fall into? Hey dear drama mama's I'll try not to make any mistakes in my language since English isn't my native tongue. I've read your colum/posts for a long time now and I always praise myself lucky that I've been spared of that drama. Unfortunatly I'm in a conundrum.
Drama Mamas: More unwanted sexual attention
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. Female gamers in the wrong guilds can have a really rough time of it. Dear Drama Mamas I am hoping that you can help me break a pattern that has been occurring for quite a few years across many MMOs. I have tried everything I can think of but every time I join a guild, the same thing keeps happening again and again (with some slight variations). In the last three years, I haven't lasted longer than three months in any guild nor in any MMO!
Drama Mamas: Should a WoW widow become a WoW player?
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 are all for couples spending time in Azeroth together to strengthen their relationships, but is that the solution to this week's drama? Boy, do I need the Drama Mamas advice! Here is my dilemma....my husband is a devout WoW player (we have been together for 2 years), my adult son and teenage daughter from my previous marriage live with us and they also play WOW. I feel sad, left out and jealous (of the time he spends on it, having to wait for raids and dungeons to be over with so I can talk to him, him getting to have fun while I have to work and last, but certainly not least, of his relationships with certain guild members.) I have been kicking around playing with him, but I get totally overwhelmed just thinking about it.
Drama Mamas: The mystery behind guildchat silence
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. Silence. It can be relaxing. It can be peaceful. And it can be heavy with the lack of replies after you say something. Just what does silence in guildchat mean? Dear Drama Mamas, I recently joined a guild that's been working hard on DS. I've only been on a few raid nights (maybe three guild runs). But I've got serious mic shyness. So I literally hadn't said a word yet. Nor have I told anyone I'm that shy. The others kept on chatting, friendly and all, and I just kind of hung around, pew-pewing, etc. like I'm supposed to. I rarely said anything in guild chat either and was just doing my own thing and showing up when I was supposed to. Needless to say, I did get a little lonely. But I just couldn't get over my shyness. Or the fact that the all-guy raid team (as far as I can judge from voices on vent) was intimidating me, unintentionally of course. But I think it's a good guild, I hope we just have to warm up to each other.
