Posts with tag drama

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 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.

I was healing a Well of Eternity PUG a few days ago when I got a whisper from the group's warrior tank.

Warrior: Could you help me out with something?

Me: Sure, what do you need?

Warrior: If Varo'then's Brooch drops at the end, would you roll on it for me?

Me: Um ...

I'd been off in my own little world watching health bars and thinking about next week's Shifting Perspectives column and hadn't paid any attention to the group's composition. It turns out the DPSers were a mage, a hunter, and -- oh, there we go -- a frost death knight. So in the event that the strength trinket dropped, the warrior tank wanted me to roll on it and, if I won, give it to him over the DK. He probably asked the mage and the priest to do the same thing, but the group was quiet in party chat, so I have no way of knowing.

We had a small and, to his credit, civil conversation over it, and there are a few issues here on which I'd like to get readers' opinions.

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 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 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.

Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press.

Selecting players for slots is always a sensitive situation, whether it's for a Rated Battleground or a heroic raid. That situation can be magnified when other factors -- such as cliques -- come into play. This week, a guild leader finds himself torn between friendship with a member and loyalty to his raid leader after a shaman protests a benching.

My guild was dying on our old server, so me (guild leader) and 8 other raiders, who I had been raiding with for 4 years, transferred to a new server. We needed a new dps/healer as a backup and a new tank, and set out recruiting. The new tank has worked out well, but our ele/resto shaman hasn't worked out as well. He's a nice guy, someone who I view as a friend, always shows up on time, often shares volcanic potions with other raid members etc. He's been in the guild now for 2 months and has helped us progress through Heroic Warship, Spine, and Madness.

Anyway, last Tuesday, we sat him for H Spine to bring in someone else, and with the 15% nerf, we 1-shot Spine, something he was bitter at missing after spending two weeks with us ... progressing and missing out on the kill. We did a few attempts on madness and looked forward to our Thursday run. On Thursday, we spent about an hour and a half progressing on Spine. Our holy paladin (and also an officer) was getting angry over some in-game stuff and was making mistakes. He finally logged off in frustration and we brought in the shaman and he helped us progress throughout the night (8% wipe).

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.

Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press.

It's not often that I get questions from PvP guilds. Your questions are usually quite different from those of raiding guilds, so I'm intrigued whenever I hear from you. This week's issue, however, may be all too familiar to those who raid.

Hi Scott -

I'm really struggling right now with a Guild member who wants to be included as a member of our Rated Battleground group, but seems to be unwilling to put in the necessary time and effort to become a good PvP'er.

Some background...two in-game friends and I run a small, casual PvP Guild on a medium population server. The Guild consists mainly of working adults who PvP for fun. We're a friendly group, not elitists, and are happy to accept people into the Guild who are new PvP'ers, or who choose not to PvP at all.

A few months ago a long-term WoW player with almost no PvP experience joined the Guild and decided to start gearing up for PvP. She thought the idea of Rated BG's sounded fun, so we were happy to explain the concepts of acquiring Honor and Conquest Points to her... As soon as she acquired the Resilience minimum, we added her to our twice-weekly RBG sign-up roster. Also, a few of our members took her under her their wings and began helping her do Arenas for points.

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 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!

Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press.

Some members, whether by their attitude or their behavior, don't give us much choice but to kick them. That doesn't mean their complaints are always wrong. This week, a guild leader wonders whether a recently kicked member might have had a good point about her guild.

Hello Scott,

First of all, thanks for the awesome and informative blogs!

Lately there have been some issues in my guild. The issues have been solved now (I hope), but I'm wondering about something.

The member that has been causing the issues has been known for being dead-set on getting a position as an officer. She had been there from the start and each time the previous GL promoted someone to officer, she'd whisper him with words like "Next time you're promoting someone to officer, it's me!" She never got that promotion for obvious reasons. Last week she caused an uproar in the guild about not being happy with there being a 'Supreme Ruler' (the guild leader) and gave the previous GL and another officer an ear bashing about it . . .

Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press.

It's certainly no rare situation when a guild leader has to scale back his or her time due to offline obligations. The right thing to do is appoint someone who's willing and able to cover your own slack. But what if that person isn't even an officer? This week, a guild member wonders whether it's time to panic.

Hi Scott!

Recently I joined a re-roll guild that has been around since the first of January. The premise of the guild is simple: new members can only join with a level one character and must level up within the guild without the help of outside resources. For a while, this worked out well. Everyone became fast friends and the guild grew to be called "the fam." But now we are approaching another month of "re-rolls," and drama has reared its ugly head.

Our GL just announced an impending life change and since then he's been markedly absent from our roster. One member posted on our forums noting that activity had declined, and another responded with suggestions on how to improve the current state of affairs. A few of the officers replied agreeing and disagreeing with various points, but the general consensus was that the members were not happy with things as they were. Before I go any farther, it helps to understand the... unique, way in which our officers are appointed.

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 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.