Excuses, Excuses

Long time, no post. My last post was a week ago or more.

I could go the easy way and blame the holidays. But that's like the PUG mate who blames the hunter for not controlling his pet and aggroing extra mobs, when in fact the pet's been nicely attacking the main DPS mob the whole time thanks to a handy assist macro that's got some hunter's mark and pet attack commands built in there, and a pet who's been put on passive and as such isn't doing any AI thinking on his own, other than to scoot behind mobs before attacking.

No. The truth is, I've actually got 6 unpublished articles that I wrote but never posted since then.

Two reasons. One easy to fix, the other, who knows.

First reason. I'm trying to write shorter posts. Hopefully I'll cut out what feels to me like boring details or frivolty. Ended up feelin unnatural and not my overly verbose self. Bah. I'm off that horse. If the topic fits in a short article in my style, cool. If not, I'll leave it to the readers to filter out for themselves. I think this excuse can be considered eliminated as of this writing.

Second reason. Negativity. The posts were all hugely negative. And when re-reading before publishing, I can see why.

I've got the pre-Kara blues. That's not a kind of gear, but an emotional state. There's your real reason.

I want to get my little Night Elf butt into Karazhan, and I've been internally blaming everybody else for my lack of entry.

The unpublished posts were all centered on how this situation sux or that server is stupid or this guild is disorganized or any of a million obstacles I feel are in the way.

Pish posh on that. Positive tone, and any obstacle needs to have a plan and not just a babbling vent session or blaming others.

The goal is to get some Karazhan action. While I don't want to artifically constrain myself, having a time limit is often motivational, so I'd like to be in there by end of January. Not just for a sight seeing tour, but as part of a group that plans on returning on a repeating basis.

There's the goal. Now for the plan, very constructive.

Step 1: hit 70. Check

Step 2: get Master's Key. Check

Step 3: achieve some basic minimums of gearing and stats. I'm nearly there, just would like a bit more stamina. Action plan: run instances that drop gear that enhances my stamina without sacrificing unacceptably in other categories (most notably: hit and attack power). Specifically target instances that'll drop another piece of the Beastlord set, as a 4 second reduction in trap cooldown will be sweet. I'll also spend a bit of time researching gem choices to see if I can drop a little attack power to improve my stamina without obtaining any new gear items.

Step 4: find 9 other players to raid with. Plus a few extras so you can have subs. Quite frankly, in all my unpublished posts, here's where the negativity peeps its head in.

The solution to step 4 will be a two pronged approach. Well, more like a single pronged approach, with a contingency plan in the works.

The current guild has a growing quantity and class mix of 70's who either have the Master's Key or are very close. This is a nice thing to have, but there is a fine line between quantity and quality. The unrestricted recruiting policy leads to the guild being less like a family with each passing day. Keeping this post in line with my desired postitive, action oriented tone, I'm going to try to start with the guild, and find what is needed to get a Kara run together. I'll discuss with the guild #1 and #2 guys, the specific party roles we need, and actual player names that we need. Then we can discuss schedule, as we currently do all our activities as ad-hoc groupings in response to a player sending LFG messages to guild chat.

There have been a variety of guild dramas occurring lately, quite likely as a result of the unrestricted recruiting that's been going on. If these aren't fixed in the next few days, or if my attempts at organizing a team and schedule are not received well, then the contingency plan will be in effect.

Not being one to sit on my laurels (i actually have no idea what that means, but i think it applies here), I'm starting work on the contingency now (which will probably become a self-fulfiling prophecy and cause the first prong of the attack to fail).

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I need to be more resourceful on finding another guild to run with. So far, I only see the top-most hardcore guilds that get listed on WoWJitsu, and the top few that are listed on the official realm forum for raid progression. On the surface, these seem to be much more hardcore than I'm interested in. I'm going to try to talk to some members and see how I'll fit. I need to spend a bit more time than I have in the past reading over any guild forums I can find for my realm, specifically looking for scheduled raid times and class needs.

I've read in blogs that some people frown upon applying to multiple guilds at the same time. I'm not sure I agree with this. Sure, from the perspective of a guild master, you don't want to think that you might review a candidate and run a trial with them, then extend an invite only to have them pick someone else. But just the same, as an applicant, you always know that they might run a trial with you and someone else and then pick them for the invite. I like the analogy of viewing a guild as an employer and applying is like applying for a job. If you're currently in a job you hate or working for a company that you suspect might go bankrupt soon or lay you off, do you only apply to one other job at a time? No. You flood the market with your applications, and interview with as many places as you can. Because you're looking for a good fit, not just the first place that will take you. Just as they have multiple options, you need to have multiple options. Everyone wins if you all have multiple options, and yet still you choose to select that guild, and they choose to select you.

So there you have it. I think this is more of a letter written to myself, to convince myself that the steps to Kara are under my control, and its damn time I did something about it.

Wake up, Amava!!!