Of Guilds and of Blogging

Note: This post is crazy long. That’s what happens when I’m away from my blog for more than a weekend. The words build up and come out all at the same time. I wrote this for myself because I’ve been thinking about the topic quite a bit lately and it’s driving me nuts. I considered splitting the post into two, but it’s too personal to be worth it.

I hate getting into hot blogging trends. Unless it’s an official Shared Topic, the more people talk about something, the more I write about everything but. I’m special, unique snowflake dammit!

I do, however, love thinking about blogging. I also love talking about anything guild-related. I’m somewhat of a closet amateur social anthropologist. Anything that has to do about how people interact with each other, about cultures, about communication, about influence, about social behaviour just gets me giddy. And the young, diverse, strange, ever changing social world of the internet? OMG! Just thinking about it makes me want to jump up and down in excitement.

What can I say? Some people are big into birds, others into sports, I’m a geek for social anthropology. I have no training for it, though, (two level 100 courses I took while on student exchange don’t count) so I kind of fumble around topics in hazy bliss. May real social anthropologists forgive me.

But anyway, I talk a lot about guild stuff on my blog. As a result, I’m constantly worrying about crossing the line. It’s important to me to show respect towards my guildies and to have respect for the work the officers put into the guild. I don’t want to censor myself, yet it’s not my place to criticize others, or be the cause of hurt feelings.

So, to make myself happy, I’m going to jump onto the bandwagon and bring up the very topic that’s been discussed on bit on Twitter, and posted about by Cassandri, Tam, Larísa, Anea, Pugnacious Priest as well as my own guild master, Matticus. Besides, I’ve been very good lately and put my schoolwork before my blogging for FOUR (4) WHOLE DAYS! (OMG IT WAS SO HARD TO DO! Blogging is such a drug.) I totally deserve a self indulgent post.

Inserting a cut here for your scrolling ease (sorry feedreader people)

Shared Topic: Looking Back

After what feels like forever, the Shared Topics are back from their holiday vacation! I wonder if I still remember how to do them.

Speaking of remembering, this week’s topic involves looking back to the beginning of Wrath and everything that we felt and thought during that time. It was proposed by Jaedia from the Lazy Sniper and, of course, you can find a link to her take as well as to all the other participants’ takes in the thread on Blog Azeroth.

Looking back to my first memory of Wrath…

The first morning of Wrath I was actually sitting in Blade’s Edge, trying to solo a group quest. Well, I wasn’t sitting there, but my character was. I, the player, in my room, was feeling pretty bummed about my solitude in Blade’s Edge. The rest of clique, my partners in crime, were online. Their locations read Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra. I wasn’t sure where those were, but I was pretty sure they were somewhere I couldn’t get to.

See, I was trying to be good. The fall semester of second year pharmacy school is the brutal one. 7 or 8 difficult courses, over 30 hours of classes a week and more than that in study time…I didn’t have time to obsess about grinding 10 levels. Besides, money was super tight and video games are an expendable luxury. I was worried about passing and about not starving to death.

But I was sitting alone in Outlands with all my friends away in Northrend, happily grouping and laughing and holding hands while prancing gaily through meadows of flowers.

Author's impression

No time or money.

VS

All alone in Outlands.

Two hours later I was installing my copy of Wrath. I would have installed it sooner, but it takes awhile to get to the mall and back.

I remember respeccing to retribution. I remember things dying all around me and squeeling with glee. I mean, me squeeling in glee, not the things dying around me.

I remember being impressed by the quest diversity. Sure, there were the “bring me 3439483 ears” quests, but there were also vehicle quests, cut-scene quests, riding on missiles quests and torture quests. Yeah. Torturing someone with a needle until they passed out was a little, um, you know, but it was pretty original. I can safely say, before that day, I had never tortured someone in WoW with a needle until they passed out before.

My favorite moments, though, involved stepping into the new instances.

See, this was theoretically my first expansion. I started playing long before BC, but the first max level I reached was 70. When I started running dungeons with guildies, it went kind of like this:

“Now you pull this group.”

“Now you turn right.”

“Now you pull that group.”

“Now watch out for the pat.”

Kinda bland, really.

When Wrath came out, suddenly I was allowed to explore instances at my own pace. My friends were just as unfamiliar with them as I was. Together, we discovered the paths through Nexus. Together, we were confused by the Prophet Tharon’ja fight in Drak’Theron Keep. Together, we gasped as we fell a looooong way through the hole in Azjol-Nerub.

There was no one to tell us what to do, what to expect. We had to tell ourselves what to do and see what happened. We compared impressions and laughed at our mistakes.

We learned quickly, so the magic was short lived. Still, looking back, I’d have to say that those first few weeks of Wrath were probably the most enjoyable in my WoW life.

In the end, I didn’t regret buying Wrath. I still passed my semester, paid rent, didn’t starve and had a really good time leveling to 80. Which goes to show that I probably try to be masochistic for no reason.

* * *

On a completely different note, please take notice of the out-of-office sign.

I’ll be away at a conference until next Monday with very limited net access. Seriously, I’m staying at the only hotel in the country that doesn’t have free wi-fi. I’ll try to make a decent post during the week, but if I fail, rest assure that I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth and abandoned my blog.

Thinking back on this blog: 2009 Edition

I say “2009 edition” even though it’s really a first edition. First of several, I hope! I’ve been wanting to do a meta post for such a long time but never dared. After all, this blog is still very young, too young to deserve a deep, thoughtful meta post.

BUT! I’m going to use the changing of the year as an excuse to pretentiously write about my blog. I wanted to follow the trend set by Matticus by going over my favorite posts of 2009. However, it would really be my favorite posts of the past three months. Which would be silly.

So instead, I’ll do K’s Pretentious Blogging Meme. I have a lot to say, so my apologies to those of you who’ll be reading this via reader. For everyone else, I’ll use a cut.