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Why aren’t more of you participating in Ryan’s pasta poll?

Today I went to the DeCadence CD release + Patrix bday party at Schmarowyn’s (new) house. It was fun until my tummy started hurting. My tummy still hurts. However, that means that I got to curl up in my bed and read an article about the president of Brown setting up a committee to find out more about its history and John & Moses Brown’s roles in (or vs) the slave trade in New England. My bed is stupid. One day I will ask somebody to drive me to Ikea so that I can stand in line and wait to try to explain to someone that my bed broke and that I want replacement feet for it. When will that day be? O the unknown.

We’ve been applying to a guild called Lost Cause. Here is their website: http://www.lostcauseguild.com/index.php
Here is their DKP system: http://www.lostcauseguild.com/dkp/listmembers.php?s= …as you know, I am Arala. DKP stands for “Dragon Kill Points.” Apparently, in another MMO of days past, there was a dragon that the developers thought would be impossible to kill… but people finally figured out how, but then had to figure out a way to distribute loot that is “fair.” The DKP system is used in most endgame raiding guilds across MMOs today (uh, right, as if I know what I’m talking about). Anyway, basically you accumulate points by going on raids (“raid” when used here = a planned 40-person run of something like Molten Core or Onyxia… and hopefully soon Blackwing Lair) and then when stuff drops that you want, you bid on it, competing with your fellow guildmates. This makes it so that each person gets loot incrementally, rewarding those who put in more time to helping the guild, and it keeps everyone hungry and coming back for more all the time becuase of the chance that something for them might drop.

Basically the prime motivation for everything in this game is greed. There are awesome items, and you want them, so you find a group to go get them with, but you have to all work together and agree to get stuff only if you help other people get their stuff. Another is pride: people go crazy about being the “server first” for certain things, about coming up with new and better strategies for stuff, about putting other people down… it’s highly competitive.

So the story of this development is as follows: once, a long time ago, P and Alli and I did BRD with a guy who had a NE rogue character named Halfpint. I thought this was hilarious as night elves are rather tall. We’ve been in sporadic touch ever since. P went for the “applying” process first, and got enough yes-votes… but then hung back for our sake. Now Alli, M and I have submitted applications as well, and I’ve even gotten to know a few of them and I like them, but we’re just nervous becuase P should already be in, but she’s hanging back to wait for us, and I don’t want them to revoke her app or anything because of us and have her be disappointed. Originally I was staunchly against splitting up… but now I’m torn. I’m still very much against it, but I just want everybody to be happy. The best would be if we could retain our tag and participate with in their raids and DKP, but I don’t know if they’d be down for that. The second-best would be if we could all get in, but after we four get in… what about the rest of you? Will we be able to bring you to MC after you reach 60? That worries me… (unless it’s not something you’re interested in) … but I want to at least have that option… maybe if they reject us I’ll just wait until the veggies all turn 60 and then we can run ZG, which only requires 20 people… I just don’t want P to be really disappointed about not joining right away… it’s just a game, why should I get all hung-up on loyalty or something, it’s not like a different guild tag will cause her to not be able to play with us… but I AM hung up on it… it’s just the idea of doing stuff together… and this is an MMO, you’re supposed to do stuff together, that’s what makes it fun… and these guilds that you have to “apply” for are so fatalistic, if you get rejected you just don’t get invited to stuff anymore becuase they have enough people to fill spots…

I HATE HATE HATE applying to things. Can’t stand the rejection. Of course, this is just a game, so it is all ridiculous and now you can write me off for taking everything much too seriously. But hey, being able to do endgame instances means a lot to me. It is challenging and interesting. It is not as if I play much of a part, if at all currently, since all I do is follow orders and have little knowledge of the actual formulation of strategies, but I am new to endgame content (even though I have TWO SIXTIES god what’s taken me so long) and I’ll learn quickly. Also, it’s a prestige thing. Fear me and my deer antlers. Oh man oh man oh MAN do I want those shoulders next… I need to get a program on my computer that can handle .tga, and soon.

So there are these sets of gear that drop, right? Ok. First, I should tell you that there are different “rankings” of loot. In order: grey is crappy & you sell grey drops to NPC (non-player character) vendors for cold hard cash. White is “common”–normal-quality stuff, used in trade skills, nobody equips white gear after level 20 or so. Green is where it gets magical–it’s “uncommon” and better than white loot of the same level. Greens are not terribly hard to find. Blue is “rare”–most boss drops are blue, and before level 60, the point of doing instances is to get blue loot from the bosses. Then there’s purple, for “epic,” and a red-orange color for “artifact.” Purples are definitely much rarer than blues, and there exist some random world drops as low as level 40 or so, but the first bosses that drop them reliably are in the Molten Core. And as for “artifact”–well, as far as I know, there’s only one artifact on our entire server.

There are different sets for all nine of the different classes. The first set for each class is blue (of “rare” quality); the druid blue set is called Wildheart. You can get these in 5 to 15-man groups, which are very easy to find pickups for (but pickups often suck, and I can’t stand the level of “ur fag” “stupid chink farmers” in the /endgame channel, makes me believe the worst in people and society). Many people have their blue set. After that, you go to the Molten Core for your “tier one” purple (epic) set. The druid one is called Cenarion. I got three pieces of the set IN ONE DAY. And Arala’s gear is crappy. She still uses a few greens. It’s embarrassing. Astix’s gear is all blue and much better. But I applied with Arala becuase they told me that though their druids and warlocks were few, the druids they did have were all very well-equipped, and I’d gear up faster that way. So I did, and lo and behold… I went on a raid where there were only two other druids and they didn’t need the helm, gloves, or boots. Ridiculous. Seriously… I just got lucky. Each boss only drops 2 set pieces max, and the chance of almost every boss dropping one class set is small… and the chance that you’re the only one in the raid of FORTY PEOPLE who needs it is even smaller. Totally crazy.

The frustrating part of this game at 60 is that you have to rely on other people to get anything done. Which is why I don’t have the complete blue class set on any of my characters–I haven’t had the willpower to run the same thing over and over again until I get a piece of gear. On Astix I’ve managed to collect random blues other than my class set with +shadow damage that I’m quite satisfied with. MMOs are great because sometimes people are great… but people are stupid, too. I don’t want to worry about dealing with people, I just want to have fun, but sometimes other people ARE fun. Bleh.

I don’t know. I’m fascinated by the leadership/politics that go into social organizations.

I could go on but I’ve astonished myself with the amount I’ve typed. Hey Judy: SHUT UP. IT’S A GODDAMN GAME.