Maebius Musing

Feel free to ignore this post, if you are not interested in world of Warcraft…..I’ll be using game-terms here, sorry forfolks who may not play and be confused.
Recently, I have been playing world of Warcraft very regularly, slightly more than every other night and both weekend evenings. My new favorite character is a Troll Holy Priestess named Kanandi, on the Farstriders realm, and she is currently level 57 at the time of this writing.

The guild she is in, known as “The Refugees”, was one which had existed long before, and collapsed. After the collapse, it was three people around level 25-30, and I joined up with them after a really enjoyable dungeon run. The main folks I ran around with are a real-life couple (from Mexico & Canada, moved together to Connecticut!). We had a blast, quoting movies, being silly and all wiping after some crazy strategy like “lets fear the patrol and see how many we can get at once. Keep us healed, Kanandi!” All in all, the fun of playing the game became much more than the completion of quests and earning new items.

Time passes, a few other friends-of-friends and random great people joined the guild as a result of our quirky recruitment “rules”, which mostly revolved around knowing the meaning of ‘42′, and which positions Ruby Rod wanted in that movie. (you don’t know?! Be gone from this blog!… /sarcasm)

Currently, the guild is comprised of 61 characters (many alts), and around 35 actual people behind keyboards. We range from folks being online once every other week, to some hardcore PvP folks who chat infrequently, but enjoy the game as a game. I’ve been an officer for the entire time, and my progress in-game has slowed due to helping out others instead of completing (mostly green/grey) quests.

We have a few brand-new players, who received the game over the holidays. I never have encouraged running low-levels through high-level content, but will gladly answer questions and make suggestions on their particular situation, to help avoid unnecessary hassle (like hunters just learning how to tame/train their pet skills).

I have maintained the guild website as a sub-domain of Everthorn, out of my love for the game, and to help keep tabs of things for folks who are away from their home computers and such.
Last week, the leader decided to step down from the role, and passed it to me after what apparently was a unanimous vote from the other officers. I am honored, and yet, this has changed the entire game for me…not sure for the better or worse quite yet.

One one hand, I am now in charge of maintaining the guild bank, to consolidate the accumulated wealth of 20+ people. I am the de-facto mediator in all drama such as the recent invite of a very chatty, teenager who is a nice person but was irritating the others with constant babble about school and “Epic Lootz” he hoped to get someday. I am now in the process of delegating a few roles to other officers, which is something I had campaigned for with our old leader.

The issue is our founding principles, which are to be a casual, friendly group who likes to play the game. If we sometimes do things “wrong”, if it’s enjoyable, its “Right”.

We do not raid for epic loot (though when the high-level folks explore dungeons they do get nice new toys!).
We do not concentrate on dominating the PvP battlegrounds (though there are two or three folks who created characters specifically for this type of gameplay).
We do not enforce strict roleplaying rules, and in-character discussion (though there are a buch of folks, myself included, who are more in-character than OOC).

The problem now is, that I feel this unspoken weight regarding the game.

This past week our officers have ‘been gellin’ and seem to honestly appreciate a rather forceful takover, to define our goals and provide contacts for various types of things like who can manufacture crafted items for the younger folks. I created a few more ranks with different permissions to access guild-related things in-game, so it was not simple “members” and “officers” like it had been. Basically speaking, trying to organize a group of thirty middle-age volunteers with a myriad of interestes, backgrounds, and playstyles who all enjoy playing the game in their own way.
I’ve even drained my own meagre gold-coin into making sure all our active and “member-rank” folks are outfitted with some bag-space for their inventory, and encouraged everyone to at least create a profile on the website so we can try to coordinate guild events, or provide help for the new players.

The thing I mostly want to do now is get back to our roots, hash out the drama that seems to be inevitable in any group that undergoes a change in leadership, and figure out where/if I want to continue leading. It’s tough to simply login and go kill some random critters to de-stress when I’ll get whispered chats from others for some reason or another. It’s usually good stuff, as the drama is starting to die off, but it’s a whole different level of meta-game that I was not quite prepared for.

Wish me luck!

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I was away for the weekend visiting the Danville folks with a friend of mine (boys weekend out = gaming, Tivo watching, and general beer/absinthe infused lounging around being slugs! w00t!)
While there, it reminded me of a few things, which remarkably enough have a vaguely muse-worthy and self-spiritual bent.

We feasted, we sat around playing video games, and generally had a great time playing Rockband. (with a periodic break to convince ourselves we were not JUST gamer geeks by playing a rousing round of Cranium!)

Of course this was awesome, very relaxing, and quite a great vacation, since my friend drove the 4 hours and I got to sit and chatter in his ear the entire time instead of my usual driving.

I realized how addicted I am at Warcraft, since I was wondering if my guild there was runnnig any instances without their pocket heal-bot, but a quick login last night allowed me to run Maraudon and ’save face’ there. Those folks are awesome, and did miss my [Brewfest Party Keg], but we are such a casual guild no one noticed I was not on.
The thing that was particularly muse-worthy was that this arguably ‘geekdonistic’ weekend made me realize how much I missed being home, playing with the kid, and eating salad.

Seriously, I am CRAVING greens and crispity crunchity leafy stuff like carrots and romaine hearts or even iceberg lettuce. Absolutely no offense to the chef who will be reading this blog. Those meatballs were yummy, and all joking aside about the bruschetta and my tomato-quirks, the food roxxorz my soxxorz. I just realized I tend to eat more salad lately with our home’s slow transition to healthy more-veggie diets than our former Meat&Gravy trend had been. London broil was the dinner leftovers that awaited me, and is one of my favorites…but today I absolutely craved nothing more than a hunk of leaf and a sprinkle of garlic for some reason, with a nibble of Dulce on the side. (I have not gotten this yet, but I will, oh yes, tonight I WILL be eating this!)

That’s all for now, since it is ample fodder for a food-related post scheduled for New Moon musing this week. I’ve started that draft already…..so stay tuned.

Happy 2008 everyone!

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I decided November, as part of my 33rd Birthday “do something different” and rededication to Druidic studies DAILY, I have joined the crazy world of novel writing. NaNoWriMo.

I do not really have a plot, I do not have a story. but I do have an image that cropped up three times now in various meditations on unrelated topics, and as I put e-pen to e-paper to type some random thing in my profile there, the image came back with a clear first few words…..Suddenly, a path of plot stretches out before my mind. Unfocused and hazy, and really only enough for a full two pages or so, but it’s a start.

And what starts, is already halfway to completion in a certain sense….so, I am writing a novel. wish me luck!!

Here’s what popped into my head. An image of a cave, similar to that I saw on a hike in New Hampshire (Nettle knows which one I mean), though larger and without the hidden alcove above…. A natural stone pedestal (broken Stalagmite?) hollowed out and full of burning campwood, re-fed by the locals daily, and surrounded by dancers vis-a-Starwood.

And eyes watching from the sidelines. The Patient. Always watching, never dancing with the others…old as the cave itself.

Got your interest piqued?!

For as long as they could remember, the flames had danced and leapt along the cavern walls. The Patient sat, for longer still, beyond the memory of those who danced, his eyes turning now to the firelight flicker, now to the shadowy depths. But it was always thus, Dancers, Doctors, and the Patient…

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Storytime at night has gotten interesting. Our current schedule is to pick out a book (or two or eight) before bed, and once it is read, we are requested to “tell a story” once the lights are off. These stories are held to a very high value, and our caliber as tale-spinners is held quite accountable if we make them too silly or stupid. (The kid’s a critic!).

Of course, this means Mom and Dad are required to flex our creativity, and try to weave in something about transformers, or events of the current day, in order to satisfy the rigors of the evening Adventure-tale.

So the other night, The story was described as follows (paraphrased for content and time, this stories tend to last a good 20 minutes due to “what happened next!?!!?!!” syndrome. Continue Reading »

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I’ve taken the initiative to make a simple little web-template for a World of Warcraft guild.

The basic style is from another template I found on the web, with some moderate photoshopping, re-editing, and such to make it a bit more simplistic and easier to update.

If you’d like to take a peek at it, I would REALLY appreciate any comments regarding it being too simple, too fancy, whatever.

The forums you can view, but most topics you can not post to.
http://www.everthorn.net/Warcraft/

Check it out.

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