Petoholics Anonymous

In Memory: Vinny

// January 29th, 2010 // 5 Comments » // Random Stuff

On Sunday night, I got a whisper from Myst giving me some awful, awful news. Our long-time guild mate, Vinny (aka Solarion aka Ebonwind) had passed away just a couple hours before. Everyone was in a complete shock. He was so young and vibrant that we had never suspected a thing. We had just raided with him the night before, and someone had even talked to him that afternoon. It was just so sudden.

Here it is a few days later and I still don’t think I’ve come to terms with it. A part of me is still expecting him to log on and yell “Surprise!” in guild chat. He was almost always  in vent, even if he wasn’t on WoW. It’s so very quiet without him.

There are so many things I remember about him. How he would sing that corn nuts song over vent or yell “Kungaloooooosh!” at random. One of my favorite stories about him was when he was wandering through Orgrimmar with his lowbie tauren warrior Ebonwind and suddenly a level 80 Alliance death knight raced past him, trying to get away from the guards and the other players. He attacked…and landed the killing blow on the DK. For about a month, he would randomly assume his deep Ebonwind voice and say “Poomf! …Fucking death knight.” It always made me laugh.

What I remember the most clearly though was just how he was always there for everyone. He would run alts through dungeons, provide services to guildies without payment, make suggestions for events and such, and greeted and talked to everyone. Whenever he would notice that I was down, he would whisper me and let me know that I could talk and rant to him whenever he wanted. Even when he quit WoW for a while, he would still talk to me over Xfire, even trying to convince me to join him in City of Heroes. When he came back to the game, he said that the reason he did so was because he missed us.

His funeral is today and being in another country and without a passport or the money, I can’t be there. But that doesn’t mean I can’t honor who he was. He was brash and crazy…but we all loved him for it. My characters are proudly going to wear the guild tabard he designed. And I am going to hope that Bloodriver and our new Alliance sister guild Obsidian Phoenix do him proud.

One day, Vinny, we’ll meet again on the other side. I promise to play City of Heroes with you then.

It’s like a powder keg

// October 19th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Random Stuff

Now I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again… Bloodriver is THE best guild I have ever been in, bar none. We may be scattered all across North America (and even a member in Japan) but I consider these people friends, some of them even better friends than I’ve had outside the game. We’re a pretty close-knit group that’s crazy and funny but we are more than willing to support each other in whatever way we can. We’ve dealt with unemployment, evictions, divorces, and a host of other life crisises that have only made us stronger. But lately there has been a new problem that I for one don’t know how to address: people that don’t care.

One of the fairly active members recently brought a couple of friends she knew IRL into Bloodriver. For the most part they’re eager to join in with all our craziness and just have fun. However, I’m getting a feeling in the pit of my stomach that one of them has a less-than-friendly attitude toward us. Let’s call them Joe. There hasn’t been anything Joe said that has been outright hostile. It’s just a feeling that Joe is using us.

The others from Joe’s group are nice and friendly when Joe is not around but when he is, they all seem to retreat behind a wall of silence and apathy. For whatever reason, they seem to follow Joe. This unfortunately leads to some problems with participation. We do try to seek out members for events such as heroics and raids but because this group has ignored us several times, we’re less inclined to ask them the next time. And then one day they wonder why they’re being so left out.

There have also been moments where this group would come to an event, only to leave at the first opportunity after they got what they wanted. How are we suppose to make people like that feel like they’re part of Bloodriver when they only serve themselves?

For a little while, I had wondered if maybe they were acting this way because we were leaving them out. You see, quite a few of us chat on Vent a lot and often Vent is the first place we ask for people to participate in heroics and such. But after talking to some of the other officers, I realized this is not the case. For an example, we have one member who often has headset problems so she’s not on Vent most of the time. However, she is a very active member…whether it’s through talking in guild chat, helping out other members, or making it known that she’s always willing to join us for our crazy heroics and raids. Being left out has nothing to do with Vent and everything to do with not interacting with the other members.

Regardless, Joe and his group leaves us with a predicament. If anyone says anything about it, it might cause waves with the active member that invited them in the first place. But the thought of someone using the overtly kind members of Bloodriver just depresses me. I’m sure the others in Joe’s group are feeling left out and they don’t realize why this is. But I have a feeling that Joe doesn’t realize that this is a group of friends, not a bunch of people who are there just to further their own goals like it would be in a raiding guild.

At this point in time, my thoughts are that the best strategy is to watch it closely but take no direct action. This is a possibly delicate situation, where the last thing I want to see is it devolve into some guild drama.

So my readers, what is your advice for such a situation?

P.S. Sorry if this post seems unorganized, I was trying to get multiple thoughts down at the same time.

Linkback: Kazimierz’s blog – Totems and Technology

// October 19th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Random Stuff

So apparently if I drop enough hints (if you consider saying outright “You need to start a blog” a hint), eventually Kazi will listen to me.

Jokes aside, Kazi has several wonderfully written posts about his shaman’s early life, so for those of you who appreciates WoW roleplaying (including myself) or just a good story, you will find them very entertaining and a great read.

I think he deserves some more readership love so drop by his blog and give him a warm welcome to the blogosphere!

Now I feel inspired to write some more character history myself.

More proof that we’re crazy

// September 29th, 2009 // 19 Comments » // Hunters and Pets

Let me set the scene for you. It’s getting to be late at night (almost midnight) and five of us have just finished a heroic ToC. There’s me on Niqora, Goldmoon on her DK alt, Kazi the shaman, Velinix the crazy suicidal pally, and Mootwo the other shaman whose main is in Bloodriver. We could have gone to bed. We should have gone to bed. But then the question pops.

“Who wants to do Nexus? Gold can tank.”

Gold has some tanking gear but has never tanked in her life. We don’t even know if she’ll be def capped when she puts it on.

“You up for it Gold?”
“Sure, I’ll try it.”

Vel switches to his rogue which just hit 80 about 2 weeks ago. Kazi says he’ll heal because he’s already got his gear on, despite the fact that he prefers enhancement. Gold grabs her tanking gear and finds that she’s just short of the def cap. Meh, good enough for us.

Off to Nexus we go.

As we make our way to the Alliance commander boss, Kazi gives Gold the quickest rundown I’ve ever heard of how to DK tank. To sum it up: “Pull in the caster, drop DnD, and spam your diseases. Oh, and make sure you’re in frost presense.” Gold isn’t even sporting a tanking spec, she’s unholy DPS.

Despite all of this, she’s doing pretty good. She only has 20k health though so sometimes she goes down fast right after the pull. At that point, I hit my macro to switch Growl on and pop Intimidation while frantically saying into vent, “Just heal Blacky, just keep her up.” Between the 2 shammies, they managed to keep her up as I switch targets like a madman to keep all the aggro onto her. (By the end of the instance, I’ve pet-tanked 3 or 4 groups of trash. My new motto is now “Blacky saves people.” )

I do pull an oops when I press my shot macro after everything’s dead, which of course auto-targets the nearest mob and pulls them right in. Luckily it’s not a big oops as Gold picks them up right away and no one dies. We’re all allowed one mistake per instance, right? >.>

I soon find out I have nothing to worry about in regards to mistakes. Both the Alliance commander and the mage bosses go down without a problem. But then…as we head to Anomalis, certain brains lose their effectiveness. (Or as they put it, they’ve lost “thinky points”.)

First Vel leaps to his death off one of the platforms because Moo dared him to (and Vel is always leaping off high places “for fun”). We have to wait for him to run back. Then he stealths towards a group of dragonkin, only for them to see him. Splat goes the little rogue and look, here they come at us. Hai Mr. Dragon! Gold goes down fast and I kick Blacky-tank into gear, preventing a wipe.

We get to Anomalis and kill him real quick. On our way down the platforms, Vel is totally not paying attention and manages to run right off one of the platforms…again. All we hear over vent is “Oh s***!” and suddenly Vel’s dead again. We all laugh at him and kill some trash while we wait for him to come back.

We’re almost out of that particular area…we approach the last set of mobs in there. Suddenly Kazi completely forgets who he’s playing, walks right up to the mobs, and calmly drops his totems. Splat goes the shammy healer. “What the…I have no idea why I just did that.” Cue hysterical laughter on vent. The mobs die anyways so we work on scrapping up what’s left of Kazi, who then decides that he’s a little tired to be healing and Moo takes over.

We get through the gauntlet with only one wipe, despite the fact that Vel stealths again towards a mob, forgetting that he is not actually stealthed. Finally we reach the ice giant dude.

Somehow Gold dies on the first set of ice spikes. I switch to Blacky-tank as quickly as I can but somewhere in there, Vel and one of the shammies go down. The remaining shammy tried to heal Blacky but it’s not enough and she goes down. Then he dies as I’m casting Heart of the Phoenix. Blacky’s back up at full health and we manage to get him down to almost all the way before she dies again. I’m out of tricks but I’ll be damned if I’m going to just FD. So instead I start meleeing him. And I killed him. By hitting him with my staff. I had about 200 health left but I did it, damnit! Of course I can’t rez so everyone still has to run back. xD

I swear this next part is from a comedy skit or something. We take the little cave shortcut and are all standing at the edge, ready to jump. Kazi, in his tired state, thinks that he sees Gold jump down so he jumps down too…right into a pat. Vel and I jump down to help but Kazi dies too fast. Then Gold and Moo jump down just as I FD and Vel vanishes. Vel gets out of stealth to help but Gold and Moo die anyways. Vel can’t vanish anymore and joins the others in floor tanking. Guess who’s still alive but can’t rez anyone again? At this point I’m wiping away the tears, I’m laughing so hard.

Luckily we get to Keri and kill her without mishap.

With all those mistakes, sleepiness, and  general goofiness on our part…we agreed that that heroic was the funnest one we’ve had in a long time. I know my own stomach was sore from spending most of the time laughing.

Only in Bloodriver. I love those guys.

((Thanks to Tzia for telling me “You know Niqo, you should blog all these stories.”))

Ticalos and Valraen

// August 8th, 2009 // No Comments » // Roleplay

There’s a pyschotic creep after Valraen and having no one else to go to, she turns to the death knight Ticalos, a mysterious and dangerous man that she’s only met once briefly. But things are not as simple as they seem as the pair begin to realize that someone is trying to use them as pawns in a much bigger game.

This is an ongoing roleplay between Ticalos and my warlock bank alt, Valraen. The posts have been posted from emails between Tic and me. The post with (T) beside them are written by Tic, the ones with (V) beside them have been written by myself. All credit goes to Tic for coming up with the amusing titles.

To keep track of new posts, watch Ticalos’s blog or follow me on Twitter and watch for the #Ticalos tweets.

1. A Night at the Auction House (T)
2. The North (T)
3. Valraen’s Plight (V)
4. Message Delivered (T)
5. Ticalos the Protector? (V)
6. A gift for Valraen (T)
7. A gift unwelcomed (V)
8. Alms for the…poor? (T)
9. How dare he! (V)
10. Deliberate Hostilities (T)
11. The Fiend (V)
12. Doing things her own way (V)
13. The Hunter becomes the Hunted (T)
14. Shacking Up? (T)
15. Soap Opera or How did I manage to be in the bath with a Death Knight in the room? (V)
16. Hand me a towel (T)
17. A Fireside Chat (V)
18. Fight or Flight or…A Rose by any other name is still a Feather (T)
19. Lullaby and Goodnight…. (V)
20. Promises in the Dark (T)
21. To Sleep Per Chance to… (V)
22. Ride out…or..I’ll be really surprised if you wear this (T)
23. Dressing for the Part… or…..Wow, she actually wore it!!! (V)