Last week I stumbled across a great post on Achtung Panzercow entitled… The Tao of the Click.  After the rough week we had last week, I had almost decided to craft my own post called The Tao of the Clunk.  We were having one of those weeks when nothing really seemed to be going right.  We were short on healing, we were down a tank, and we were having to scrape hard to pull together 25 smiling faces to raid each night.  It very much felt like we were clunking along trying to get a break.

Over the tail end of the week and weekend we put much of effort into trying to smooth out some of our attendance.  I got the fun job I wrote about earlier of trying to help bring up a few of our wayward dps.  Through a good deal of adjustment, mobilization and some luck we pulled out one of our best performances thus far.  We managed a second Flame Leviathan one-shot and our very first Razorscale one-shot as well.

Gears Meshing

Last week it felt like at several points we were close to reaching that illusive click moment.  We understood the strategy for Ignis and would have promising starts, only to have things fall apart quickly.  When a key player would get placed in the pot it, a ripple effect would ensue.  After a short period of time we would get behind and start reliving the Lucy in the Chocolate Factory episode.  We had some fundamental issues with each aspect of the fight from healing, to add management and even shattering.  For the most part the movement would go smoothly, but players not stacking would often cause a scorch to go down in unexpected places, making it extremely hard for the add tanks to get the constructs molten.

We are one of those raids, that when we finally understand the fight it just happens.  It is very much the click moment that Panzercow talked about.  We needed the weekend to ponder the fight; what we were doing, what we could do better, and what elements were simply out of our control that we would have to adjust for accordingly.  When the pieces all fall into place it seems we move from impossible to farmed in a moments time.

So after two nights of focused attempts, we stood preparing for the pull.  Players executed, adjusted, and we managed to get him down to 40% on our first attempt of the night.  When we pull a single phase boss like this past 50% I know without a doubt we have the stuff to beat it.  It is just a matter of tightening things up and paying closer attention.  The second attempt starts rather inauspiciously with healing falling behind and me, the main tank, dying. 

Click

This I think served as a much needed wake-up call to the entire raid.  In a moments time we were flying without a safety net, we had to be flawless now.  Admirably that is what happened.  Each and every player dug down into that intangible stash of grit, and pulled out an amazing performance.  Every single player kept their heads down, focused and lean, only paying attention to the job at hand.  Communications were quick and efficient, and directions kept clear and precise. 

I sat there watching helplessly as my raid learned how to conquer the fight.  I can’t pretend that these kind of things just happen.  I could tell that our members had pondered the fight all weekend long.  Each and every member did something, even if small, to improve the previous weeks performance and pull out the victory.  We downed Ignis, before the nerf, and that is something Blizzard can never lessen.  In fact we somehow managed to get the Shattered achievement in the process.

Worldcarver – Girdle of Embers – Intensity

In other news we got our very first Fragment of Val’anyr from Razorscale.  It went to Elnore, our healing officer, and was very well deserved.  I hope they start coming more regularly so we can be close to crafting one by the time we down Yogg-Saron.  It was yet another week without a Titanguard drop, so once more I was both bummed and annoyed at the same time.  In pretty desperate need for a modern era tanking sword, so I am hoping that Ulduar stops being an ass soon and drops me one.  I let the only Last Laugh go uncontested to our second tank, because by similar bad luck she was still tanking with Red Sword of Courage from Utgarde Pinnacle.  Being a good friend tends to bite me in the ass in the long run, but I can’t change who I am.

Twisted Nether T-Shirt Contest

The good people over at the Twisted Nether Blogcast are hosting a T-Shirt design contest.  The hosts are resolved to attend blizzcon and want a nice shirt to wear showing off the website.  I decided I would throw my hat in the ring and try and cobble something together.  If anyone out there is feeling artistic its to support a good site and they are offering some nice prizes including a 60 day wow game card for first, and your choice of a common TCG loot card for second and third places.  The monstrosity below is my submission.

It’s a fairly crappy day here in Oklahoma.  It has been raining nonstop for weeks, and the ground is roughly the consistency of chocolate pudding.  The combination of overcast day, pounding rain, and my seemingly lack of solid sleep last night have put me in a mood not exactly conducive to creativity. 

Once more I am dipping into the well of ideas, known only as the Blog Azeroth shared topic.  In public channels and forums you often find someone asking for “A Good Guild”.  Copra from BA posed the question…  “what is a Good Guild from the standpoint of a player looking for guild OR from the standpoint of being in the guild?”.  Several of the regulars have now answered the call, but for some reason I guess I have saved the topic as an ace in the hole for a day much like today.

It’s the people… stupid!

Last night I found myself thinking those exact words as my friends slowly filtered offline to get some much needed sleep and bit by bit I found myself with little reason to be logged in at all.  It was too late to start anything new, having just pulled out of a 10 man Ulduar run.  As a couple of my best friends decided to call it for a night, I came to the stark realization that my enjoyment in the game is almost entirely tied up in the people that I play it with.  My guild is my extended family, that I have collected over the years.  So the most simple answer to “What is a Good Guild” in its most basic form is, “Good People”.

If you build it, they will come…  eventually

A good guild is like a snowball rolling down a hill.  While in motion it has it’s own gravity, drawing in players left and right.  However if it reaches the bottom of the hill and is allowed to stagnate it quickly melts and crumbles around you.  Just like a snowball you have to have a bit of good stuff gathered together before you can start it rolling in the first place.  Every guild needs a core to build upon, and a successful core is usually a group of close friends.  Finding the core group to build the guild around is the easy part.

The next step in guild evolution is the part that everyone seems to get wrong.  If the core stays a cohesive unit there is no room to grow.  In a game like wow you are locked to only being able to do things in fixed units of 5, 10, and 25 players.  If the core group is unwilling to be split up there is no room as new players enter the mix, and continue to feel as though they are outsiders.  Each of the core members must be willing to branch out and meet new people, as a result bringing many of them into the growing “clump”.

Some players fit well into the mix, others don’t but you have to have faith that the ones who understand the purpose will stick around and help the group grow.  The next important tenet is to make sure that you allow the guild to grow at the pace it needs to.  Every guild needs a fresh infusion of ideas from time to time, but just like in life it’s weakest point is during one of these growth spurts.  If too many new people enter the mix at once, you risk fragmenting a once close unit into a bunch of individual cliques.  It’s important to instead let the guild expand at the rate that seems natural.  There are going to be moments of rapid growth, but it is important to make sure you incorporate these new members into activities to let them gain a better foothold.

Staying in Motion

A guild that stays in motion, stays together.  It is important to develop a strong sense of community, and reinforce this each time new members join.  It is important to try and go out of your way to work new players into groups and activities, to let them carve out their own niche in the guild ecosystem.  It’s important that the members have a sense of ownership in the guild’s direction. The sense of community is reinforced by structure, and even in the most freeform of gatherings you need a strong backbone to build upon.

The Warders of the guild community are its leadership.  Building a strong group of officers is the greatest challenge a growing guild has.  You need to find officers who are willing to get their hands dirty and make positive change on the community.  At the same time you must carefully choose members who can handle the responsibility of carefully nudging the group without bending its will and purpose to their own desires.  You will often find that the best leaders are the ones who have reservation about accepting the position.  These are the members who most understand the challenges that the mantle of responsibility will present.

Building a Guild, Not a Raid

In 2004 I took the responsibility of forming House Stalwart at the release of the World of Warcraft on the Argent Dawn server.  It was not a job I necessarily jumped into with great gusto, but I wanted to play this new game with people I enjoyed.  Based on bad experiences with tyrant guild leaders, I felt that I had to protect this fledgling community from ever letting that happen again.  I felt that I didn’t have it in myself to dominate the lives of others for my own personal gain.

With a group of close friends we sat about to gather up friends and comrades from various other games we had played throughout the years.  Drawing them all together under one banner with the purpose of providing a relaxed low drama community to be able to enjoy this new game.  We set out to build an extended family, not a raid group, and I feel that’s a key distinguishing factor.  I feel that building a successful community and building a successful raid are two separate but not exactly join goals.

A successful guild is built around a sense of community, shared destiny and joined purpose.  At its core is a center of friendship and camaraderie.  The structure and leadership reflects the goal of binding disparate players together in a cohesive union.  A good guild is a group of players that enjoy the company of each other.

A successful raid is built around a sense of achievement, shared skills and joined purpose.  At its core is a center of worth ethic and goals.  The structure and leadership reflects the goal of binding separate players together into a cohesive work unit able to execute orders for the good of the collective raid.  A good raid is a group of players with similar skill levels, competitive drive, and shared goals.

Know your purpose

At their core the two are similar,but you can immediately tell that the cores of each are grounded in very different places.  It is important for you to know your personal focus and the focus of your guild.  I chose to build a guild and not a raid, and then in turn chose to build a raid independent of guilds.  House Stalwart has the clear focus of trying to be a good guild, in which players feel comfortable and happy to be part of the larger unit.  Duranub Raiding Company has a similarly clear focus, trying to be a good raid in which players feel like they are actively part of the success of the whole.  Each serves a very different purpose, but each exists successfully independent of the other.

I think one of the issues that shipwrecks many raid guilds is the attempt to be too many things to too many different people at once.  Guild drama is a horrible thing.  Raid drama is can be atrocious.  Raid Guild drama, however can reach near post apocalyptic levels that can from time to time shake entire server communities to its core.  Loot brings out the worst in everyone, and not having that distances between guild and raid means often that when things are not going well, there is no place someone can escape the ravages of war.

What is a good guild?

A Good guild most simply is a gather of good players.  Players who work together well, have common goals and common ethics.  The average player looking for “A Good Guild” in public channels, are simply looking a free ride in order to achieve whatever goals they personally have.  A true good guild, is however neither something that serves the player or that the players serve.  It is a community that experiences both the good and the bad, and somehow comes together, after it all, still working group as a group.  A “good guild” is a very rare thing in an often time self serving game like this.  When you find one, you should hold on with both hands and try not to let go.

 

I hope you are all lucky enough to find one

First let me apologize for the lack of the new post on Friday.  I had been trying really hard to keep something fresh coming up every day.  However for lack of a better term I was overwhelmed.  Friday was a very busy day, I had been fighting with a bit of video at work trying to get it ripped and encoded and onto our webpage.  So from the start my blog post was going to be coming later that afternoon.

However around 2:30 that afternoon, my “keyboard turning” post was featured on WoW Insider.  My highest readership shot from 60 unique users to 6000+ unique users in a single day.  I was deluged with comments and did not get a chance to put up any new content.  Then the weekend happened and with it came a wedding, all the mothers day festivities and a night out with friends.  And while I had the cultural awakening of experiencing a “biker” wedding, it was not necessarily proper fodder for my blog.  I am hoping with the new week that things return to normal, but maybe with a bit of an increased readership.

Dirty Jobs

Where is Mike Rowe when you need him.  Of all of the jobs that falls upon the raid leadership, the most distasteful is pulling a member aside and talking to someone who has been underperforming.  You can look at the meters and see that something is drastically wrong… but I personally have no clue why.  Were it a warrior, rogue, paladin, or even a boomkin I would be able to look at their ability rotation and glean some basic understanding of the thought process they are going through to piece together their attacks.  However, I am presented with our present under performers being classes I have never played for any amount of time.

So I am forced to go into the battle under informed, and tackle issues that face “finger wigglers” when I have often had a disdain for actually playing a dps caster myself.  I am slowly adjusting to them myself, since I am trying my best to play as good of a Boomkin as I can.  I am trying to rely on players who seem to be doing a phenomenal job playing that class as a basis of comparison and a resource for suggestions.  However I still feel completely blind rushing into battle with someone who honestly feels like they are doing everything right.  I am hoping this gets easier with time.

In Naxxramas, we needed 15 players who were performing exceptionally, and could drag along 10 players who were under performing their classes either due to lack of gear or skill.  As we have moved into Ulduar this is not the case.  During many of the fights like Ignis we are literally 2 or so players away from a successful kill.  So I have taken it upon myself in a few cases, the uninformed habitual melee, to try and work with players and find out exactly what the issue is. 

I try and take the meters with a grain of salt, but at the same time feel that DPS should been fairly tightly clumped.  When there are outliers to the negative side, I feel those players are underperforming their abilities.  Someone has to be dead last, its a given, but when there is a wide gap between the DPS haves and have-nots, I feel there are other issues at work that can be adjusted.  We have actually managed to increase a few of these players performance through this process of talking to them…  so here is hoping that the latest crop can be effected the same.

300

I am still very much licking my wounds from our last trip into Ulduar.  Thursday night, our various attempts on Ignis ended up costing me around 300 gold for the night.  I am not really sure how much it was, all I know is I went in with 1600 something gold, and came out with 1300 something.  Granted many of those attempts included me getting battle-rezzed mid fight, so I took far more deaths than I would in a normal run.  But when each repair costs between 20-30g it adds up quickly.

Ulduar is giving us a much needed scrying stone that we’ve have never had before.  Considering the ease at which we moved through Naxxramas content, it was difficult to sort out the players that were doing well and the players that needed lots of work.  In truth it was more that so long as we were progressing smoothly we had more important “fish to fry” than to figure out why certain players never seemed to perform the way they should.  We should have taken time back then, but when the raid has been held up on the shoulders of two people for months…  we just did not have the bandwidth.

So now we have set in front of us a path that is going to force us to deal with the little issues standing in the way of success, and as a result force us to make significant efforts to recruit and replace those members who are not currently performing.  In the coming weeks I am sure there will be many feelings hurt, and many players who cannot see the big picture.  Players who won’t be able to separate the fact that anything I do, I do for the good of the raid, and not because of personal agenda. 

I have seen comments brought up already, that people want to play this game for fun and not like a job.  I agree this game should be fun, but fun for everyone.  Let me tell you, playing 300 gold for 2 1/2 hours worth of repairs is in no way fun, especially when it was caused by the fact that not all of the players were giving their full measure of devotion to the effort.  Wiping is not fun when there are many players fighting harder than they should to try and even out the effort.

The Hard Path

As a raid we have to accomplish in 5 hours a week what most raids do in 15.  The only way we will do this, is through the hard work of the entire raid.  This is going to take research on the part of each player in order to make sure they are doing everything they reasonably can.  Raiding is a team sport, and we can either allow ourselves to be beaten by it, or all rise to the occasion and get past our difficulties.

We’ve never been a hardcore raid, and I hope that we can continue approaching content in a casual but serious fashion.  However as a part of this, we as a raid with have to arrive at some form of a cultural ethics, and an agreed upon level of effort expected by every member.  The path ahead of us for the next few weeks I feel will not be our most enjoyable.

We are better than we have been

I realize this is a very bold statement. I believe, however, it is as clearly as I can possibly state it.  The latent “keyboard turners”, are I am sure, offended, but there are times you have to be blunt.  It still seems astonishing the sheer number of players that use the inefficient method of turning with the keyboard alone.  This is an issue touted amongst the PVP circles, but in truth it is effecting your raid as well.

The act of rotating your character with the keyboard is physically slower than methods you can employ to turn with a mouse.  When you combine this with the fact that many fights in Warcraft require split second movement and decision making, this choice of turning means your reaction speed is greatly slowed.  Players who habitually move with the keyboard often have issues running out of area effect spells, staying out of the frontal cone of bosses, and can take as many as 2 extra ticks from environmental damage.  Standing in the “fire” for more than one tick means death for most classes. So quite literally keyboard turning might be killing your raid.

What caused the cultural divide?

The World of Warcraft engine was rather unique at the time of it’s release.  It combined the fast reaction time of a first person shooter, with the core of a role-playing game, creating a new paradigm appealing to proponents of both genres.  For players who cut their teeth on FPS games like Doom or Quake, the concept of using a mouse to turn is so ingrained that it is unimaginable to use any other method. 

However the large bulk of WoW players came from the older MMO genre.  These titles were for mostly designed around the concept of using the keyboard to turn.  Prior to Warcraft none of the MMO genre titles required fast paced reactionary movements, so this construct worked fine.  As players have moved from other titles to WoW, they have carried with them their game play habits and the game engine has done an amazing job of accommodating different play styles.  However in the case of keyboard turning it has simply reinforced bad habits.

How can I change my ways?

I’ve heard from the PVP circles that the single greatest thing you can do to improve your success is to abandon using the keyboard to turn.  This might be overstated but I believe that the transition is one that can benefit any player.  Using the keys to turn often means you are working harder than players for a less successful result.  There is an excellent guide to mouse movement on Allakhazams, but I will cover some of the finer points below. 

 

Above is a basic diagram of the default key binds WoW uses for mouse movement.  The W and S keys are used to control Forwards and Backwards movement of your character.  However soon you will have picked up several tricks that make using the “Back key” in almost all situations obsolete.  So for optimal motion your left hand should be centered over the Q W E keys, with your middle finger resting on the W key, considering which will be depressed when you are in motion.  Your mouse should be held in a way that it is comfortable for your right mouse button to be depressed at almost all times. 

Holding the right mouse button while moving the mouse allows you to spin your character easily in an arc by pushing out or pulling in on the lower half of the mouse turning it sideways on your mousing surface.  The effectiveness of this can be increased by employing the Q or E keys to “Strafe”.  Strafing is the act of moving your character to either side, and when combined with mouse movement allows you to rotate your character in a much more subtle manner.  After awhile it becomes instinctual but this is after lots of practice.

Advanced tips and tricks

Using strafing in combination with with mouse movement allows you to do a number of “special” maneuvers that can be valuable in certain situations.

The Circle Strafe

The “Circle Strafe” is a maneuver that allows you to orbit a single point in space.  This is extremely useful when you need to quickly circle a mob.  Normally this is used by melee or PVPers in order to land attacks on the backside of an opponent, which negates certain defense mechanics.  However as a tank I often use this tactic in order to spin certain mobs like Maexxna that I wish to place in a certain way.  This tactic is achieved by sliding the base of your mouse in the opposite direction you are strafing giving your movement a nice wide arc.  One of the best ways to practice this is to target a player and spin around them in a public area.  If done correctly you should be able to easily “orbit” them with minimal effort.

The Instant Turn

The next trick uses two features of the game that I have not covered: camera movement and moving forward with only the mouse.  If you hold down the left mouse button while sliding your mouse to the left or right you are able to rotate the camera around your character model.  As a tank I use this functionality during almost every fight, since I need to keep aware of my surroundings and the positioning of the individual mobs.  The next feature of the movement system is the fact that if you press down both mouse buttons at the same time, it causes you to move in the direction the camera is facing.  When you combine the two of these together, you can rotate the camera in any direction and simply by pressing the right mouse button while the left is held down you turn instantly in that direction.  This is especially useful on fights like Loken and Murmur that require the player to run out of a point blank blast effect.  Using this trick to instantly run away from a mob allows you to shave a good 2 seconds off of the process and allows you to move out of these effects with plenty of time to spare.

The Jump Spin

Using this trick properly allows you to quickly shift the position of your player while continuing motion in a forward direction.  This functions through a quirk in the WoW movement engine which allows you to rotate your character model completely while jumping.  This maneuver is performed while moving in a specific direction, most often while moving forward with the W key.  While moving forward you press your jump key, which is by default bound to the spacebar.  As your character model leaves the ground you slide your mouse to the left or right while holding down the right mouse button.  This will cause your player model to spin freely while in the air.  As you land, you will be facing in the direction that your model now is.  Hunters who are extremely quick about it, can jump, rotate, fire an instant shot, rotate back, and land without ever losing forward momentum.  Personally as a tank I use this trick often to run through a mob without ever exposing my backside to harmful attacks.

Pulling it all together

Shifting from keyboard turning to mouse movement will not cure all problems.  These tricks will not replace good situational awareness, but they will buy you much needed time to react to changes in the various fights of the game.  A player who simply does not pay attention will still “die in the fire” each and every time.  However a player with good reaction times and a high degree of movement skills will be able to move in and out of fights more freely.  For casters this means more time to land your attacks.  For melee players this can often mean the difference between life or death.

You should realize going into a major shift like this that it is not going to come immediately or easily.  However changing your movement style will make you a more efficient player.  One of the best means to practice this is by playing First Person shooters in your downtime.  A great free to play shooter is Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.  It runs on the Quake3 engine but offers all of the basic constructs of game play driven by mouse movement and it is playable on both the PC and Mac platforms.  Another great resource is the positioning and movement video provided by Ciderhelm at Tankspot.