Posts with tag wow-drama

Attention, literalists: As you probably noticed from the comments on last week's column, these are not things that should never never be said in game. They're more things that should probably never be said in game. Or sometimes just not said in game until you've thought about them first. Or maybe only said in game if there aren't other extenuating circumstances or unless common sense would dictate something completely different.

Context is king, right?

Here are a bunch more things you should (probably) never say in game. Robin's even brought in a fresh take on the infamous #7 from last week. (It's at #7 this week, too.) Click the links on each entry if you want more context. Click, click.

1. "Well, maybe we should give her another chance or three -- after all, she's gay/young/old/single/a parent ..." Your fellow players are real people with real lives and real problems, sure -- but at some point, inappropriate or downright bad behavior is simply not cool.
2. "It's just a game. Real life should be separate from a guild." Are you guilded with real people? Then it's real life. The game is just the medium you are using to interact with them.
3. "I just think everyone/another party should know about the bad things that this person is doing..." Big yellow caution flag. Nothing good can come from butting into a situation in which you're only a bystander without complete information. Appropriate action -- then back off!
4. "It should be a rule that everyone has to say hello to guildies when they log on. And they need to grats everyone too." Gosh, wouldn't that be sincere and meaningful. /sarcasm
5. "What I said was only words -- and besides, he deserved it." That's what an online environment is, "only words." Those words and their effects are still quite real. Don't take an eye for an eye in WoW. Nobody deserves poor behavior in return for mistakes of their own.

We recently tackled the Blog Azeroth Shared Topic: What spell would you most want? The question was meant for your class in game, but reader Andrew wanted it to be about having spells in the physical world. So here we are.

For my part, my answer would be exactly the same: Zen Flight. This minor monk glyph won't be released until Mists of Pandaria, so you can't find it in game yet. But you can see my monk Krikkit above being all zen-like in the beta.

Wouldn't it be great to float in line at the grocery store, looking all relaxed and glowy? Sure, people would look at me funny, but they do that already -- I have shocking pink hair. Oooh the Zen Flight colors would look great with pink, wouldn't they? Hmmm ... maybe a bit too 80s.

Anyway, I could use it everywhere. Waiting for mass transit? Yes. Crossing the street? Yes. Disneyland? Yes, please.

What spell would you most want in the physical world and why?

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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.

When Lisa and I started to tackle this list, we thought we'd come up with 5 or 10. But after looking back over the advice we've given since we started this column, we discovered that there are many more un-smart things to say that are almost guaranteed to cause drama. Captain Obvious helped with many of them as usual, but some of these no-nos are not so apparent.

1. "Yeah, I know the requirement is 18 years and up -- but everyone says I act mature for my age." If you have to excuse your age, you won't fit in. Find a guild or group that won't be making exceptions even to simply include you.
2. "But Mooom, you SAID I could play an HOUR!" Don't whine for more. Tell Mom how much time you need and why: "I can zip through all my dailies and banking – those are the chores my character uses to make money and maintain her stuff -- in about an hour and 20 minutes."
3. "Yeah, baby, I love you too – oh crap, sorry guys, I'm on the phone here and I didn't see that one from the side coming towar – yeah, baby, I heard you! Sure! We'll leave in 20 minutes!" If you're going to play with the group, turn off other distractions. If your girlfriend won't leave a phone message, perhaps you should be spending that time with her instead!

We all choose how to react to the world around us. Nobody's exempt -- we're so much more than the sum of our knee-jerk reactions to life. Yet it's also true that harnessing raging emotions is hard, especially when things hurt, and sometimes we're just not up to the task.

When continued pain seems inevitable, sometimes treating ourselves with respect means making a measured retreat. The trick is knowing which situations merit dogged perseverance and which deserve said measured retreat.

Hey Drama Mamas

I am a raid leader for my guild, I handle guild progression and the GM handles farming and alt runs, After a long struggle we finally are all set up to make some serious momentum in Mists of Pandaria after using DS to bolster our ranks. Furthermore about 2 years ago I brought my girlfriend into the game and guild.

Recently one of the guild members we picked up in dragon soul started raiding heavily with us. He quit his other guild where he had lots of friends to join us. I am a tank and for our progression I asked him to be my Co-tank. We did arenas together for a while and became fairly close. Then the other day my girlfriend (also on the progression team) and I broke up. If that was not enough, she then started dating my Co-tank. I found out that the two of them had been in contact ever since they first raided together.

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.

Actions. Consequences. Drama.

Hello Drama Mamas,

When I joined over two years ago, our 25-man raiding guild used a 2-headed GM system. Of course, only one had the guild controls, but they would pass things back and forth at times and had equal say in policy. Over a year ago, one of them, the creator of the guild left the game due to some heavy real life issues. Guild control was passed to the other, and another co-GM was assigned. We were told often that the old GM would be returning soon, but none of us ever heard from him.

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.

Lisa and I love it when parents parent and teens try to reason with them rather than just mindlessly rebel.

To the Drama Mamas,

I am a teen male who plays WoW and has for about a year and a half. I enjoy playing and have a joined a good guild with several good irl friends and enjoy the game immensely, however my parents don't seem to have the same perspective.

My parents limit the time I can spend on the game to about one hour every day which is not something I am particularly fond of.

I may not be the Mr. Outdoors my father hoped for, but I get good grades and am not involved in any of the bad things that occur in school or in my age group.

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.

I'm not usually a fan of Coldplay, but my new favorite show, Newsroom, made me like this song. It's also appropriate for this week's letter. Note: You can't fix people.

Hey Drama Mamas,

I'm writing you guys to talk about a situation that is on the brink of breaking open. Just to say ahead of time, this is a situation of a couple who are in the upper ranks. She is an officer, one of two and he is the raid leader.

As the GM, I leave the raid leading to my raid leader. I participate in the raids as well, but I prefer not to be the one giving all the directions in the middle of fights. The issue is his fiance. We'll call her A. Out of the two, she wears the pants. More often than not, she is either talking over the raid leader ( we'll call him B) or running the show through him where the rest of us cannot hear (their computers are right next to each other). This wouldn't be much of an issue, but it undermines the person I put in charge so when he actually tries to lead, our others don't give him the respect and attention he needs. Often times, I will step in and start calling the shots when things get too out of hand.

In vanilla WoW, it was gnomes: Gnomebase, Noplacelikegnome, Etphognome ... You know the drill -- wherever an obnoxious pun could be made, it was made. Repeatedly and endlessly. It wasn't so bad in The Burning Crusade, but Cataclysm brought the worgen and another cavalcade of pun names: Worgenfreeman, Captnworgen and so on and so on. Now we've got the pandaren coming in Mists, and I've heard hints of terrible puns here and there as suggestions for horrible names that will have everyone in a 30-foot radius groaning.

So let's have it. Give me your best pandaren pun names. Go on, let it all out -- I know you've been aching to share all the absolutely terrible puns you've been thinking up. Here's your chance to unleash all those pent-up puns you've been dying to inflict on people. I'm only saying this once though, so you better get it all out while you can. And when I'm done reading the comments and laughing, I never want to hear another pandaren pun again.

Well, maybe one or two more. Just for giggles.

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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.

Brownie points to the person who can concoct a connection between the above video and this week's letter. I failed. I was just in the mood for the song.

Dear Drama Mamas,

I've been thinking of writing for some time, and have reached the tipping point. There is one obnoxious and rude guy in guild who ruins the fun for the overwhelming majority of the rest of us. He curses, bullies, and complains nearly constantly in guild chat in what has to be intentionally improper English (since still spells his class incorrectly after years of playing), and yells loud obscenities in vent if he doesn't win a drop. He shows a lack of respect for everyone (and our time) by coming to raids woefully unprepared (like tanking in an alt group without an offspec so he has to be MT, without gems or enchants and improperly specced, while not knowing what he needs to do in his new role and not knowing his own abilities) and causing us to spend hours on wipes and not be able to complete the run. The GM is stuck in a place where she's damned if she does and damned if she doesn't, because if he doesn't come he makes things even more miserable for everyone. No one is sure why she puts up with him, because he's been rude and very inappropriate to her as well.

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 fear change. Sometimes change is good, though. Change caused a bit of a problem in this week's letter.

Dear Robin & Lisa,

I'm in a middling-sized roleplaying guild on Argent Dawn (EU). We hold casual RP just about every evening and when we roleplay any combat, it's usually done in the form of an emote battle, with a simple rolling mechanic (/roll 1-100) used only when it's really, really needed.

Then, out of nowhere, our GM and deputy posted up a new set of roleplaying rules on the guild forums. These D&D-esque rules asked that each player pick a series of passive bonuses and active abilities to attach to their roleplaying character(s). Later on, we found out that the idea for and most of the work on this new set of rules had come not from our two leaders, but from a brand new guildie, and that he had worked this out with our leaders on Skype long before anyone else was notified.

I am not farming.

I don't even mean the typical WoW sense of farming. I specifically mean I am not going to do daily quests for the express purpose of getting my own farm to toil away at. There are certain things from my childhood I hated doing, fishing being one and working on the farm being another. I loathed both. And I have not fished a single cast in World of Warcraft, not in the eight years of playing it. I am certainly not going to go and farm. I got enough digging up weeds, plowing, pulling rocks out of the ground, pulling disturbingly warm chicken eggs out of a coop, and a whole host of other chores in my real life. I am absolutely disinterested in doing so in a game.

As I've said before, I have no problem with content not intended for me. I'm cool with it. By all means, put it pet battles, farms, what have you. But there is no way on Azeroth or Earth that you will get me to farm. It is absolutely not happening. No way, no how, not going to do it.

So what about you? What are you absolutely not going to do?

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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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.

Uncomfortable player is uncomfortable.

Hi! Your column is fun to read and helpful so Im sending you my story.

I've been playing on and off since BC but Cata was the first time I joined a raiding guild and really socialized. The experience has revitilized the game and I get along well with my 10 man team progressing and goofing around having some laughs. I'm also a gay man and while I'm comfortable with this it never has been my intro card (is it ever?) My orientation has never come up in conversation so I've never brought it up.

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.

Dear Blizzard,

Please give us a release date so that our friends will come back to Azeroth.

Much love,

Your Current Players

My wife bought me a copy of WoW in the weeks before BC came out. There was a large percentage of WoW players among our friends and family: I, my wife, her brother, his wife- her two brothers, father, and mother all played. When my wife and I divorced, I still played with all of my extended real-life WoW family (in fact, my ex-wife's new husband was in our RL family/friend guild for a while, along with her sister-in-law's second husband, whew I know.). Among these and their real-life friends, I could easily play with any of over twenty different people I was friends with in the real world.

Now, in the lull that is the waning days of Cataclysm, I don't have a single real-life friend to play with. It has been over six months since any of my RL friends on my friend's list have played. I'm in a new guild (my first lvl 25), yet their guild roster has many, many toons that haven't played in months.

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.

Ah, college. Good times. The music was fun, too.

On to the drama.

Hey drama mamas!

So, I'm going to try and keep this short. I have played on the same realm for three years (since I started). My dad and brother have both recently started playing and joined me on this realm. My dad has two 85s, and my brother is still working on his first. I've also developed great relationships with my guild, but its starting to dwindle down.

Here's my problem. I'm starting college next month, and my roommate (who played nor only on a different server, but the opposite faction) wants me to join her. I have no problem with this, but she really wants me to just server transfer as opposed to just starting a new alt.

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.

I don't think we've had Auction House drama before. How delicious interesting.

Hello ladies

I have played WoW on and off since vanilla, but I always seem to return at the tail end of an expansion. I came back this time 3 months ago and decided to start fresh- new server, new faction, new toons. I have alot to prepare for the release of MoP like this but I thought I was doing pretty well.

I joined a really great guild who has an unwritten rule that we don't undercut others on the AH, and alot of the members go as far as waiting until others have sold their items before listing the same thing. As such we're all pretty open with our gold making 'secrets' with each other.

I have a friend who, like me, has two gathering professions on his main, which are also the same as mine. He was complaining that nothing was selling well anymore this late in Cata, so I shared with him a few of the things I gather and sell, my main money maker was something I specifically told him sells a little slow but does sell, so don't get carried away putting too much on the AH at once. Very quickly I found he was flooding the AH with what I suggested to him, undercutting me by 10-20g each time and soon enough things were selling for less than half of what they were before. I pointed out to him, again, he does not need to flood and undercut so much, but he did not listen.