Standard disclaimer: Leave your loathing of meta, World of Warcraft, or community diaries outside. If you think we should be playing your MMO instead, start a guild and write a recruitment diary. Don't leave a comment here and then get all hurtful when it isn't received with flowers and candy. Link to your recruitment diary is OK though.
Standard advertisement: Wreck List is the Daily Kos World of Warcraft guild. We are Horde-side on the Garrosh server. To join, roll up a character on Garrosh and when you log in type
/who wreck list
and any officer can get you in the guild. Yes, you have to be Horde. No, you don't have to be hardcore - casuals, PvPers, and people that just want to hang out on guild chat are all welcome.
We're showing Garrosh that we socialists are not to be trifled with. Our way of doing things is leading to a swift progression. I'm playing with a different format for the diary, keeping different things separate. We'll see how that goes. Offers a little bit of an ability to skip the TL;DR parts and go straight to what you wanna see.
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FACTION TRANSFERS ARE GO!
Faction Transfer service from Alliance to Horde is now available! Check out the WoW homepage for more info. Those of you who have been saying you want to join us, but just can't bring yourself to level yet another toon... now's your chance.
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RAID UPDATE
Wreck List is now moving into its fifth month as a guild. We've gone from a handful of ten or fifteen players to fifty, all in various states of leveling and progression. We've gone from brand new WoW players to raiders.
And now, Wreck List is no longer in second to last place on the ten man progression list, with our downing of Sartharion with one drake. Still in the bottom 20%, but with plenty of room to grow! We wandered into Ulduar for the first time as a guild (excluding Flame Leviathan, who we did last week), and brought down Razorscale, XT, and Kologarn. XT went down first try, Kologarn the second. It's a testament to how well we listen and adapt that we can so quickly succeed at these bosses.
Ignis kicked our tails, but with a tank/healer lagging out in a fight where there's no room for error, we decided to cut our losses. So we went to Naxx for a full clear.
Next up: Ignis (again) and Auriaya in Ulduar (or maybe, move up to Hodir), a second drake in Sarth, and Malygos. Not that we'll necessarily do any of them this week, but we've surprised ourselves before and we will again. So there will be an attempt, and maybe some surprises!
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ARTICLES OF INTEREST
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A great article I found on wow.com. This bunch took down the last boss in Ulduar without a single piece of purple gear on. We argue that skill is skill, but gear sure helps too. Which is still true, certainly, but this proves something else -- that a good guild with excellent communication and raid awareness can take down anything, including an Ulduar boss with an enrage timer. If you can learn how not to stand in ground effects, and pay attention to what's happening, and play your role, you can even kick Yogg-Saron's ass. Food for thought as we make our way deeper into Ulduar. And actually, as I looked more closely at the article, they did ALL of Ulduar that way. So even more impressive.
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another article by Gevlon, who happened to be one of the ten people involved in that raid. I read his blog religiously. He's what he calls a "Goblin", much in the sense that the Goblins in WoW are in it for themselves and for profit. Now, I find myself agreeing with him only 25% of the time, but he's still a great read (though a little tough because English isn't his first language).
EDITORIAL
This piece from the second article, I love, and so I will take up diary space:
Among true goblins if someone says "you're doing it wrong" and you find it true you'd say "thanks for you help", because that what he done, helped you fix your problem. For a social person on the other hand any kind of criticism means the very opposite of the social goal. If you say "you missed an interrupt", he doesn't hear that. He couldn't care less about "interrupt". He hears "I'm not amused by you", "You are not good enough", "I don't respect you". He won't even think of interrupting. All he will think about is "how to defend my reputation, my self-esteem against this attack?".
We're certainly a social guild, but thankfully we don't have much of this. If you feel this describes you, though, then think about that. Because this is where we don't want to be as we progress:
So in general you have one thing left: banging 25 heads into the wall and pray every time that the head of the failer will crack before yours. In the meantime you can wish that there would be no social thinking and you could solve the same problem in 10 seconds instead of 10 tries: "X, you missed the interrupt", "Oops, yes, I was too busy DPS-ing and forgot that that's my job, thanks for reminding".
If you're getting criticized in our guild, just remember that we're all trying to help one another. I'm very clear as raid leader that if we come up against something we've done, and I know the plan, let's execute it and win. If we come up against something and fail, then let's talk about it and figure out how to beat it. Don't wait for an officer. Your ideas save us time and frustration, and the officers thank you for that. As a Death Knight tank who often wipes the first pull of a dungeon because I was too scatter-brained to put up Frost Presence, I'm very thrilled when someone sends me a tell or speaks up on Vent and says, simply, "Frost". Thanks for saving us a repair bill!
I don't want any /gquits. And especially to head-bashing. So if you're speaking up during raids -- thanks!
And in order to reduce vocal criticism, I am going to do what I've held back on doing, and install FailBot. Then it's a computer telling you that you screwed up, and we don't get into how Invi's a meanie. (Which is true, but meh.) It's about improving, not making you feel abused.
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SOCIALIST DAYS
Socialist Days are working well, though as always, we can certainly use more volunteers. Lots of people are getting quests done, instances run, and so on. The vault is being stocked with more and more useful stuff every day.
A stack of each Eternal is nice. A stack of each uncut Northrend gem, of each flask, a couple stacks of each leather, also awesome. Dkosmama is the go-to gal for all things guild vault related, but these are just a few things we need. Think potions for the lowbies, think raid consumables for the 80s. We have a great set of crafters!
We still only have about 20% participation though, so please add your name to the list and take some time to help out your fellow guildies.
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MOVE THE DIARY DAY? CHANGE TABARD?
I'm gonna move the guild diary to Tuesday from now on. It strikes me that we're all sitting here waiting for the damn server to come up on Tuesdays, so why not have a diary to shoot the breeze in? If you think this is a bad idea, say so -- if not, I'll move it.
Forum discussion: the guild tabard. A few people won't wear it because they hate the color. Hit the forums and have your say.
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NEW BOSS
I checked out the new boss in Vault of Archavon that was released on Tuesday, and he seems hilariously easy. So we'll take a crack at him when we have the right people, and see what happens. Hard to pass up easy Tier 9 gear. Looks like all we truly need to worry about is the soft enrage timer.
Strategy is simple: kite him around the room, two tanks to split his uber damage. Healers and casters in the middle. Stay out of fire. If you have mitigation for his AOE flame jets, use it. ???? Profit.
Although, one issue with him -- some genius at Blizzard thought a bright glowing orange floor was a good idea when you have to not stand in fire.
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WHEREIN I HEART CAEL
A special thanks to kyril/Caelesta, for taking over some raid leadership duties. Leading every single raid and most of the heroic groups for months has taken a bit of a toll on me, and I've been more of a jerk than usual. Most guildies are accustomed to a certain level of jerkishness from their guildleader (and he appreciates your tolerance!), but the past couple weeks have even had me going, 'WTF?'. So thanks for taking some of the load off, and letting me feel like this is fun and not work.
And sorry to those I have been a jerk to. Except Anti, who's just too fun to kick around. ::grin:: I do like all our members, and wouldn't wish for any of them to leave -- so if something's going down, or if I'm just pissing you off too much, speak up. We're all different kinds of people, and I'm definitely more edgy than some, being the kid who'd chuck his controller after he lost the game. I've obviously grown up since then -- but I'm still edgy. Nobody's perfect, though -- just remember that I do like you, and that I'm not going to /gkick you if you send me a tell and tell me to stop being an asshole. I've always stressed teamwork and communication as keys to success, so call me on my shit, people.
That all said, back to Ulduar, gang! Let's give that place what for!