Weekend (7 Mar) - Twisting in the Winds of Guild Drama

Weekend (7 Mar) - Twisting in the Winds of Guild Drama

After the raid on Friday night Wild got a few things done. I was preparing to log off when a thought suddenly struck me. Bd's raid is scheduled for Thursday. Fn's next raid will be on Friday. There's no Tuesday reset between those dates.

Oh dear. There are bound to be conflicts. Which raid will Wild choose to make his priority? His old friend Bd's raid? Or Fn's, where we have made such great initial progress? Wild will see how the Thursday raid goes. But he can't wait too long to make a decision.

There is one other thing hanging out there, too. During the BWD run Wild got a whisper from Lady Hunter. She left MM and is now in MM2. She asked Wild if he would join her new raid when it started up. Wild is very fond of Lady Hunter. Wild also remembers how helpful she was getting Wild into the MM ten man ICC raids when Wild was still in FS with no raid to go to. She all but saved Wild's raiding life. And how persuasive she can be.

I know that Wild kind of blamed the MM guild leader for the dustup that ended with the split in the guild. Yet, now that things have calmed down and the migration has slowed to a trickle, there appears to be renewed interest in getting raiding started again. Wild is not in the FS situation where he was in a guild where he couldn't raid. Just the opposite - I'm not sure which raid group to focus on, but I'm certain both would want Wild on their team. Wild hedged his answer to Lady Hunter, saying that he would come "when he could." That's not likely to be often if Wild is raiding each week. Lady Hunter knows the situation, so I'm hoping what she was really asking was whether she could check with Wild on his availability when she was looking to fill her raid. And of course she can. I'd love to raid with Lady Hunter, and will given the chance. But as long as this new interest in MM raiding continues Wild fully intends to stay with MM, and not get into the FS/MM (or MM/MM2) tug of war Wild previously faced.

The above was the situation as of Friday evening. By Sunday, however, the whole landscape had changed. The ranks of MM2 swelled to over 100 members and they now have 43 level 85s. MM's tally on level 85's has fallen to 98. What is really hitting home, though, is that the cabal of Wild's oldest friends made the move to MM2, including the raid leader Bd. From the MM2 armory it appears that Bd is #2 under the MM2 guild leader. That would be a promotion, whereas Bd was asked to step down a notch when he first moved into MM.

Sunday morning Happy was in game checking the AH, and saw Bd come in game. I needed to talk to him, and sent him a whisper. Bd, always open hearted, returned the Hi, and only then did it occur to me that he would have no idea who I was. I got that sorted out and we chatted for quite a bit. In a nutshell this is what happened with the guild dustup - an intense guild website conversation turned argument between Bd and the wife of one of the other raid leaders blew into a storm when those guildies were kicked last week. Despite what I was told were pretty long behind the scenes discussions between the guild leader and the three raid leader/officers in the guild, no compromise could be made that kept the guild together. A split was negotiated, with the guild leader and the wife/raid leader couple staying with MM and the other two raid leaders moving to MM2.

Bd made it very clear that he and the rest of our cabal would be delighted if I would come join them in MM2. Bd is planning a two night per week raid on BWD and a Saturday run in the Four Winds. Bd also said he would not pester Wild about joining them - Wild had a permanent invite to his raids; it was up to Wild to let Bd know if he wanted in. He then quipped, "But I can't make that same "no pestering" guarantee where Lady Hunter is concerned." I got a good laugh at that, and told him that Lady Hunter had already gotten hold of Wild during Friday's raid.

The MM raid with Fn as the raid leader looks to be a one night per week thing to start with. I loved that raid Friday night. But I have to be brutally honest as well - two of the ten raiders were from outside the guild, and the #1 DPSer in that raid (a hunter with 16k dps) has moved over to MM2.

Whether looking at it logically or emotionally, the obvious choice is to move over to MM2. The loss of all those guild levels can't be ignored, but it isn't the central issue. MM2 is where most of my raiding friends are.

On the other side of all that, I really have to wonder what the staying power of either guild is going to be. Bd is a driving force in running raids, and Lady Hunter has no equal when it comes to getting people to participate. But what happens when those two are taken out of action by real life events? When that happened with MM, raiding died. MM seems to feel that with Bd gone other guildies will step forward and resurrect raiding. Fn is one of those that are trying to do just that. I feel some loyalty to Fn, who was not involved in any part of this mess as far as I know and just wants to have a successful raid group. My first impression is that he is a good raid leader, and showed that he could fill a raid with quality raiders. I'd hate to take away the only guild healer in his group.

I don't really know yet what I am going to decide.

Monday - Wild's Plan and Lao's Hot Goggles

After much thought, a huddle with JB and Philly, and some excellent advice from Lao and DER, Wild has a plan.

The first part of the plan was put into place Monday night. JB bequeathed Happy as the new Order of the Dragon Guild Leader. JB will make an account transfer from Wild's to Philly's side. That will make JB the highest level toon on that account and she will continue to work on leveling to 85. Philly has much work ahead of her to get both of her professions, inscription and jewelcrafting, up to full skill. She'll level a bit while doing that, but leveling won't be her priority.

To make the account transfer happen I needed a volunteer to retire as the Philly account already has a full roster of ten. Dethsdoor, a level 11 warlock who was the custodian of all the cloth and bags in the family, said she was pretty bored with inventories and that wool made her sneeze. Deth welcomed a chance to go home. Hapless will take over those duties.

I attempted the account transfer of JB, but it didn't go through and I have a ticket in to find out what the issue is. It may be that the guild leader changeover hasn't caught up with the account yet (guild leaders can't be transfered). Once the transfer takes place, Wild will be able to invite JB into the MM guild.

On Wild's part, Wild will stay with MM for now. There is no urgency to change guilds, and supposedly members of both guilds are now on speaking terms again. Wild signed up for Fn's Friday raid with MM. Bd wasn't quite sure if there would be an MM2 raid this week, but Wild will see an invite if one is scheduled. There is an old sign up for Thursday night posted by Mf with MM that showed Bd as attending - but that was put there before the guild split. Not sure where that stands.

But things are starting to sort themselves out. Shevils is certainly anxious and ready for some clean, uncomplicated killing come Tuesday night!

Lao's Hot Goggles - How could I forget this awesome story? Here goes, straight from Lao -

So Lao decided to start doing dungeons as a dps vs. healer. Friday I downloaded recount to see how she held up (I have never set out to DPS in a dungeon with her). So I queue up and it is about a 30 minute wait, which seems standard as dps for dungeons. She gets pulled in and is doing some Egypt dungeon, the first one she healed on, but hey, she is not worried, she is not healing this time. And the bonus on top of that is that three of the people in the dungeon (healer, tank and dps) are all from the same guild. That usually is a good thing.

Shortly into the dungeon she is thinking to herself.. hum, I think I queued for a heroic without noticing. This is the default for her gear level. But it went well, tank was top dps (34%), mage was second (26%), Lao was third (24%), and rogue was last (16%), but the tank was very well geared so she was happy. What made her even happier is that the orb she needs for her goggles dropped from the end boss and rolling against three, she won.

So she set out to join the trade channel *shudder* something all my toons usually avoid like the plague. But she needed someone to transmute truegold for her. She was not able to get a transmute specialist but she found an alchemist anyway. She handed over the mats (30 volatiles and 3 pyrite bars) and a tip of 75g to use his cool down, then she was off hunting for the rest of her mats on Sis. She came back and looked in her bag and *GASP* he handed her back a pyrite bar and not the truegold she wanted!

Crap, now what was his name? She had switched over to Sis so she could not scroll up to it.. She remembered that it was something like faulker, foncker.. something, which is no help. So I broke out to the armory on WoW’s site, too vague. She remembered that he was a BE priest or pally, but was pretty sure it was a priest. With a friend's help I hunted around for a different armory and found one that I could sort by server, horde, and class. While scrolling through several names I found him! Lao added him to her friends list and sent him a letter (he was not on). She was hoping it was an honest mistake (since they are both a “gold” color bar) and he will still have the truegold bar in her bag and send it to her.

Two days go by, no dice. She had not seen him on nor had he responded to the letter. She was telling her tale of woe to Happy and he suggested that she look up the guild and talk to the GM. Genius! She did and sent a letter to the GM. Got a very nice response saying that she would let him know when he came on but did not know if he had any alts or not (hers was a very large guild) and she suggested I file a ticket so a game GM could restore my items. I had not thought of this. File a complaint against the player if he set out to jip me, yes, ask for an item that it was my fault for making sure it was traded back to me correctly? Did not think of it. But I did a ticket and this morning in her box was a nice letter from a GM with a truegold bar.

You all should look up Lao and admire her new goggles.