This is My Big Fat Thank You Post.
Its actually rather thin to warrant the "big fat" title, but does My Little Thin Thank You Post really sound good? No. It does not.
Several of you wrote to me via blog comments, emails, in-game whispers on-server, and even a level 55 death knight rolled as a means to whisper me from off server (perhaps rolled for other reasons as well, but with my awful DPS lately, I'll stroke the ego however I can :-P )
To summarize those tidbits with a twist of my own slang and dialect, the common thread was: Where Fck You Been, Boi? Gitcho ass back in the writin' seat and gimme some mo'!
TOTALLY UNRELATED BUT HAPPENED RIGHT NOW AND I'M GOING ALL STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS ON YOUR ASS: I just won a f'ing donut! Tim Hortons (think Dunkin Donuts if you don't live in or near Canada) does an annual contest with their coffee cups. The contest is pretty much over, but the timmy-hoho's at work is still in stock with the contest cups in XL size. I just won a f'ing donut. I'm the King of the World! brb, donut....k, back.
My Big Fat Thank You Post is for you guys.
The past month or weeks or whatever gap its been has shown me that I write for myself, to explore my thoughts, to help make sense of the mental jumble that's pretty much with me day-to-day, to sing the praises of things I'm happy about, to vent my beefs and beat dead horses into the ground, to chuckle about frivolous things that I find amusing...
FYI, Lets talk amusement real quick. I wear my chef's hat for every boss progression kill screen shot, and sometimes forget to take it off for the next trash pull. Its my favorite part of the game, and if somebody stands in front of me, I get disproportionately angry. Down in front. Are my ears ok? Do these T8.5 legs make my ass look fat?
But I publish for all of you. It makes me feel good to know that people, however many or few, enjoy reading my walls of text, my far-from-scientific theorycrafting, my strategies and techniques that are anything but optimal, my revelations of things that've been spelled out much earlier and in much better detail elsewhere.
So here's a Thank You. The Big Fat variety.
And now to scan through the massive pile of unpublished posts to see if there's a tidbit or two worthy of the light of day.....
Showing posts with label tribute. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tribute. Show all posts
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Ku-kie
Fimlys at Asleep at the WoW put the call out for the wow-ku poems. He tagged some specific people (not me, which is good, because i'd likely not do it out of spite if he had singled me out. sorry, that's just how we roll). As of this writing, I also saw a post up at Kestrel's Aerie with some good poems also. Its a chain letter thing, so there will likely be more of them out by the time this gets published, but there you go.
I don't know what happened. I came back from a chinese buffet lunch, so clearly I cannot do any work for a good 30 minutes. Its like swimming after you eat. I read the Asleep at the WoW and Kestrel posts, and spent the next little while with the inspiration just pouring out.
Fimlys wanted to impose a constraint of keeping the poems limited to a single class. I went where the inspiration took me, so I bent the rules.
Vote for your favorite of mine in the comments. Creative comments judged to be the best comments of the bunch (ie, the ones that vote for my own personal favs) will be rewarded with the fabulous prize of special mention on this here blog. Does it get better than that? I've numbered them for easy reference in the many dozens of comments I expect on this thread.
Vote early, vote often...
Number 1
Kiting Zombie Chow
Special job for the Hunters
No fun, want pew pew
Number 2
Specialists beware
Hybrid class can dual spec
Where's my raid invite?
Number 3
Bring me, not my class
They homogenized our spells
I'm still a snowflake
Number 4
His wife cracked the whip
Our mentor will write a book
Hobbes is in the pound
Number 5
TJ just posted
Perhaps he's not really gone
Send top secret mail
Number 6
No teamwork for trash
Don't wait, just A.o.E.
Skill not neces'sry
Number 7
Northrend in a funk
Farming naxx, maly, and sarth
Not enough content
Number 8
Achievements are cool
So long as we get rewards
Some folks disagree
Number 9
Some hard modes are hard
Others will be harder still
I can hardly wait
Number 10
Factions waging war
Battling for Wintergrasp
Game completely lagged
Number 11
What's that on the ground?
Fire burning hot, health bar drops
L2P U Noob
Who knew fire had only one syllable?
Number 12
Rogue went AFK
The loot policy just changed
That's why I don't PUG
Remember, there's an awesome prize for the most bestest comment. Really can't put a dollar value on it, its just that hot.
Disclaimer: The prize is special mention on my blog. If you're able to parley that into something of dollar value, good job by you. If you're a dick, I'll just delete your comment and give you no reward.
I don't know what happened. I came back from a chinese buffet lunch, so clearly I cannot do any work for a good 30 minutes. Its like swimming after you eat. I read the Asleep at the WoW and Kestrel posts, and spent the next little while with the inspiration just pouring out.
Fimlys wanted to impose a constraint of keeping the poems limited to a single class. I went where the inspiration took me, so I bent the rules.
Vote for your favorite of mine in the comments. Creative comments judged to be the best comments of the bunch (ie, the ones that vote for my own personal favs) will be rewarded with the fabulous prize of special mention on this here blog. Does it get better than that? I've numbered them for easy reference in the many dozens of comments I expect on this thread.
Vote early, vote often...
Departing from our ordinary jobs
Number 1
Kiting Zombie Chow
Special job for the Hunters
No fun, want pew pew
We all like to be special
Number 2
Specialists beware
Hybrid class can dual spec
Where's my raid invite?
Number 3
Bring me, not my class
They homogenized our spells
I'm still a snowflake
Some more special than others
Number 4
His wife cracked the whip
Our mentor will write a book
Hobbes is in the pound
Number 5
TJ just posted
Perhaps he's not really gone
Send top secret mail
WotLK released almost 5 months ago
Number 6
No teamwork for trash
Don't wait, just A.o.E.
Skill not neces'sry
Number 7
Northrend in a funk
Farming naxx, maly, and sarth
Not enough content
Number 8
Achievements are cool
So long as we get rewards
Some folks disagree
Number 9
Some hard modes are hard
Others will be harder still
I can hardly wait
And an assortment to finish things off
Number 10
Factions waging war
Battling for Wintergrasp
Game completely lagged
Number 11
What's that on the ground?
Fire burning hot, health bar drops
L2P U Noob
Who knew fire had only one syllable?
Number 12
Rogue went AFK
The loot policy just changed
That's why I don't PUG
Go Vote!
Remember, there's an awesome prize for the most bestest comment. Really can't put a dollar value on it, its just that hot.
Disclaimer: The prize is special mention on my blog. If you're able to parley that into something of dollar value, good job by you. If you're a dick, I'll just delete your comment and give you no reward.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Living at the Threshold
Matticus recently writes about the internal threshold of performance that each of us has, below which you push to improve, and above which, you've got little motivation to change things. Good enough, satisficing, perfection vs slacking, Pareto Principle, 80/20 rule, diminishing returns, whatever you choose to call it.
We all have an internal feeling for that threshold. It drives us when we're below the limit, it often leaves us feeling "why bother?" when we're above the line. And its unique for each of us.
There's three concepts intermingled in the original WoM post...
The post opens with human performance (dying on frogger, eating a flame wall, clearing the ledge), if Matticus is indeed human, which is the topic of endless debate on our Guild forum :-P
Each person is in control of his/her own performance. We all mess up sometime, the value is in how you recover and what you learn from mistakes. Are you interested in reliably surviving frogger? Then you can examine why you died and make changes. Did that fire wall taste good? No? Then you can try to review things like your positioning before the wall appeared (were you too far away from a safe spot? where would be better to stand next time?), or what distraction caused you to not react fast enough (was somebody babbling on vent, was House jibbering and jabbering about Lupus, or was your focus too narrow on your healing assignment at the sacrifice of situational awareness and personal survivability).
Although the specific threshold of performance is unique to each individual player, people tend to be highly critical of their own performance. I'd wager that most WoW blog readers/writers have a high threshold that they want to keep their performance above. Sure, some of us are in the blog world for pure entertainment purposes, but when it comes down to it, we're also looking for things that can improve our own performance.
Readers of my blog know I obsess on this aspect of the game. The experience of improving my own personal performance alongside my teammates who are doing the same thing is what keeps me playing WoW.
The original post then moves to toon performance. Professions to eek out more heals, running a heroic every day until you win that one perfect trinket just incase you ever find yourself grossly under the hit cap, maintaining multiple sets of gear perfectly tailored for certain situations, and so on with the toon enhancers.
I think that we all vary greatly in our threshold for this aspect of the game. Personally, I'll grind the hell out of just about anything Blizzard can throw at us to get a gear item or a shoulder inscription (curse you, spear thrusting quest), but as long as I'm having fun with my profs, I have no intention of dropping herb/mining for a DPS enhancing profession, even if that means I'm leaving 20 or 30 DPS on the table. I tried the min/maxing LW drummer boy routine back in TBC, and learned that for me its just not worth it.
This will vary much more from player to player than our threshold for our own personal performances, and will even change over time as our mood or gear situation changes.
If I look back through my performance improvement plans at the beginning of WotLK raiding, it started out almost exclusively focused on gear items and enhancements, and then as I reached my internal level of satisfaction with my gear, my thoughts migrated deeper into the softer side of personal skill improvement.
The article then moves on to food. Delicious food.
I discovered my love for dim sum on a business trip to Vancover. When I'm in town, my work team knows its all serious during the work hours, but once we leave the building, its all dumplings, all the time.
Inspired by my chopstick agility, the natives (well, technically Hong Kong natives, so I suppose Vanc "locals"?) started ordering some things that were clearly out of Fear Factor like duck tongues and chicken's feet. Once you get past the cultural gag-factor, both were outstanding, although I'd rather stick to the basics that Matticus will be forced to buy me next time I'm out that way and I stalk him down. Cue scary-laughter-and-eerie-staring-eyes.
We all have an internal feeling for that threshold. It drives us when we're below the limit, it often leaves us feeling "why bother?" when we're above the line. And its unique for each of us.
There's three concepts intermingled in the original WoM post...
1) Human Performance
The post opens with human performance (dying on frogger, eating a flame wall, clearing the ledge), if Matticus is indeed human, which is the topic of endless debate on our Guild forum :-P
Each person is in control of his/her own performance. We all mess up sometime, the value is in how you recover and what you learn from mistakes. Are you interested in reliably surviving frogger? Then you can examine why you died and make changes. Did that fire wall taste good? No? Then you can try to review things like your positioning before the wall appeared (were you too far away from a safe spot? where would be better to stand next time?), or what distraction caused you to not react fast enough (was somebody babbling on vent, was House jibbering and jabbering about Lupus, or was your focus too narrow on your healing assignment at the sacrifice of situational awareness and personal survivability).
Although the specific threshold of performance is unique to each individual player, people tend to be highly critical of their own performance. I'd wager that most WoW blog readers/writers have a high threshold that they want to keep their performance above. Sure, some of us are in the blog world for pure entertainment purposes, but when it comes down to it, we're also looking for things that can improve our own performance.
Readers of my blog know I obsess on this aspect of the game. The experience of improving my own personal performance alongside my teammates who are doing the same thing is what keeps me playing WoW.
2) Toon Performance
The original post then moves to toon performance. Professions to eek out more heals, running a heroic every day until you win that one perfect trinket just incase you ever find yourself grossly under the hit cap, maintaining multiple sets of gear perfectly tailored for certain situations, and so on with the toon enhancers.
I think that we all vary greatly in our threshold for this aspect of the game. Personally, I'll grind the hell out of just about anything Blizzard can throw at us to get a gear item or a shoulder inscription (curse you, spear thrusting quest), but as long as I'm having fun with my profs, I have no intention of dropping herb/mining for a DPS enhancing profession, even if that means I'm leaving 20 or 30 DPS on the table. I tried the min/maxing LW drummer boy routine back in TBC, and learned that for me its just not worth it.
This will vary much more from player to player than our threshold for our own personal performances, and will even change over time as our mood or gear situation changes.
If I look back through my performance improvement plans at the beginning of WotLK raiding, it started out almost exclusively focused on gear items and enhancements, and then as I reached my internal level of satisfaction with my gear, my thoughts migrated deeper into the softer side of personal skill improvement.
3) Dim Sum
The article then moves on to food. Delicious food.
I discovered my love for dim sum on a business trip to Vancover. When I'm in town, my work team knows its all serious during the work hours, but once we leave the building, its all dumplings, all the time.
Inspired by my chopstick agility, the natives (well, technically Hong Kong natives, so I suppose Vanc "locals"?) started ordering some things that were clearly out of Fear Factor like duck tongues and chicken's feet. Once you get past the cultural gag-factor, both were outstanding, although I'd rather stick to the basics that Matticus will be forced to buy me next time I'm out that way and I stalk him down. Cue scary-laughter-and-eerie-staring-eyes.
Farewell to BRK, maybe?
In case his farewell post isn't an early April Fool's Joke. Sorry, but the WoW community has jaded me to be suspicious of any major announcements near 4/1....
I just read the farewell post over at BRK's site. Seems that he'll be stopping playing/bloging about WoW to open up more time to spend on things that're more important to him.
I applaud the move. For someone who is as passionate about our shared hobby as BRK is, I'm sure it is a very challenging time and decision. I hope that it works out well for him and his family. And I hope he continues with his book project, if it is written even half as entertaining as the blog, I'm sure it'll be a fantastic read.
BRK has added so much to the community, and enriched my WoW experience tremendously. Through his teachings I learned so many of the finer things that make a good hunter stand out from the crowd. He's given us so many entertaining stories, whether related to WoW or not, its been some good times.
If the announcement is an April Fool's Joke, I'll fly down to Florida with a wet noodle (which is easy to get past airport security) and pay my "respects", but if its serious, I wish the best and hope to hear good things about your first book in the not-too-distant future.
I just read the farewell post over at BRK's site. Seems that he'll be stopping playing/bloging about WoW to open up more time to spend on things that're more important to him.
I applaud the move. For someone who is as passionate about our shared hobby as BRK is, I'm sure it is a very challenging time and decision. I hope that it works out well for him and his family. And I hope he continues with his book project, if it is written even half as entertaining as the blog, I'm sure it'll be a fantastic read.
BRK has added so much to the community, and enriched my WoW experience tremendously. Through his teachings I learned so many of the finer things that make a good hunter stand out from the crowd. He's given us so many entertaining stories, whether related to WoW or not, its been some good times.
If the announcement is an April Fool's Joke, I'll fly down to Florida with a wet noodle (which is easy to get past airport security) and pay my "respects", but if its serious, I wish the best and hope to hear good things about your first book in the not-too-distant future.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
I Will Survive
How does one follow up after last week's shenanigans?
Continue to muddy things up with additional conflict?
Describe the outstanding experience of a boosting run through Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle this weekend where the boostee may or may not have contributed to a few wipes (*), and yet the tone on vent was light, fluffy, and full of laughter and win?
Share two additional reputation-based anecdotes from the weekend (one where positive rep caused gain, another where poor rep caused loss/closed opportunity)?
Tell the tale of a PuG run (no uber gf) where two DPS'ers were below the tank and yet we still managed to clear Heroic Nexus in 32 minutes without any wipes, beating the Raid ID reset timer by 7 minutes allowing a second follow-up run, thus efficiently grinding gear, emblems, faction rep, and hunter pet xp?
Go passive/aggressive by floating teasers about several occasions where cooperative play led to fun, gear/economic gain, or both? (mabye, just a little bit).
Nah, I'm gonna take the advice of several people I respect and just move along. Nothing to see here!
What to do then? How about a tribute post linking to a funny page, followed by a review of the most recent seasonal event (see next post)?
/voice [Karazhan Chess Piece that kinda sounds like George Takei] on
Sounds fine.
/voice off
So, first on the agenda: tribute.
Here's a recent outstanding parody song over at BRK. Very well done, sung to the tune of Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive, captures the inner conflict amongst the Hunter community quite nicely.
Go go go, read....nay.....sing that post now.
(*) Oh, and for the record, it was actually the boosters who caused the wipes not the boostee (one was specifically me not getting it through my thick head when the healer asked for "hunter take out the witch doctors", but I digress), but its moot because the end result was a fun hour or so of play time for five people.
Continue to muddy things up with additional conflict?
Describe the outstanding experience of a boosting run through Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle this weekend where the boostee may or may not have contributed to a few wipes (*), and yet the tone on vent was light, fluffy, and full of laughter and win?
Share two additional reputation-based anecdotes from the weekend (one where positive rep caused gain, another where poor rep caused loss/closed opportunity)?
Tell the tale of a PuG run (no uber gf) where two DPS'ers were below the tank and yet we still managed to clear Heroic Nexus in 32 minutes without any wipes, beating the Raid ID reset timer by 7 minutes allowing a second follow-up run, thus efficiently grinding gear, emblems, faction rep, and hunter pet xp?
Go passive/aggressive by floating teasers about several occasions where cooperative play led to fun, gear/economic gain, or both? (mabye, just a little bit).
Nothing to see here, folks
Nah, I'm gonna take the advice of several people I respect and just move along. Nothing to see here!
What to do then? How about a tribute post linking to a funny page, followed by a review of the most recent seasonal event (see next post)?
/voice [Karazhan Chess Piece that kinda sounds like George Takei] on
Sounds fine.
/voice off
So, first on the agenda: tribute.
Here's a recent outstanding parody song over at BRK. Very well done, sung to the tune of Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive, captures the inner conflict amongst the Hunter community quite nicely.
Go go go, read....nay.....sing that post now.
(*) Oh, and for the record, it was actually the boosters who caused the wipes not the boostee (one was specifically me not getting it through my thick head when the healer asked for "hunter take out the witch doctors", but I digress), but its moot because the end result was a fun hour or so of play time for five people.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Blunt Feedback
I've had a couple posts brewing in my mind for a while now, all centered around my server/guild switch when WotLK came out, my personal switch from being raid leader to worker-bee, switching from regularly being top one or two in DPS to being anywhere from #1 to #12 depending upon if I sneezed during heroism or who nerfed what this week, and a whole host of cultural changes that come with the experience.
Reading a post over at Big Bear Butt inspired me to try to get one of the posts out onto e-paper. Read BBB's original, because as always its a good one. To paraphrase...he expects people in game to interact with other people the same way as they'd interact face-to-face. IRL, there's consequences in the form of knuckle sandwiches if you break the social rules of rudeness/offensiveness/whatever-ness. He's a US Marine, therefore, likely to receive a fair bit of well-deserved respect IRL (unfortunately probably out of fear of receiving a thumping, rather than out of respect for helping defend our country and freedom, but I digress).
One of the things that always strikes me in-game is how people give feedback to another player regarding behavior they'd like to see change.
Consider an example...Player A pugs with Hunter B. PA inspects HB and sees a variety of +strength gear. PA would like that behavior to change, since he has some information about the mechanics of the Hunter class.
How does the average Player A in WoW convey this information?
Response A) - I noticed you are wearing some [bad-stat] gear. I'm not sure if you are aware of it or not, but [bad-stat] provides very little benefit for your class, you'd be better off with [good-stat] or [good-stat]. To learn more, a good resource is wowwiki.com/[Class].
Response B) - dude, [bad-stat] sux. you should get more [good-stat] or [good-stat].
Response C) - fail [class] is fail. l2p noob, ur g@y
Ok, so lets take a look at the available options:
Ok, so A,B,C are some what exaggerated to prove a point. C is most likely to be found in PuGs and on /trade channel. A is best if you have a high bandwidth communication channel such as Vent or even better face-to-face where you can include the extremely high bandwidth non-verbal communication of facial expression and body language. B works reasonably via text, if the person is interested in change they can ask for followup, and if not, there's no insult or harm done.
The transition from my old guild to my new one was full of uncertainty regarding delivery of feedback.
I'd heard so many horror stories of hardcore raiding guilds and raid leaders who scream at or belittle people as their way of providing feedback.
I'm a big fan of leadership, both in the theoretical world of academia and literature, as well as practical applications of leadership as a manager at work, in emergency fire situations as a volunteer firefighter, captain of inter-scholastic sports and academic teams (nerd jock, ftw), or as a Raider/Raid Leader.
As such, I was very curious to see what style of feedback would be given in the new guild, and what my reaction would be. As much of a fan as I am of leadership, I also have a massive problem with authority, especially if the powers-that-be are abusive.
The heading says it all.
What I've seen so far in Conquest is blunt. The Response A given above is pretty much non-existent. Pleasantries or other fluff is basically absent in either text or voice feedback.
When you die in the fire, you'll either be asked why you died in the fire, right then and there during a post-wipe analysis.
If you're bringing sub-par threat, you'll be called on it.
If your healing assignments are dying, and the officers can figure out that your assignments aren't doing stupid stuff like standing in fire, you'll be called on it.
If Tenebron doesn't die before his second set of whelps spawns, underperforming DPS players will be called on it.
No pleasantries. No fluff.
However, the key to success is keeping the feedback focused on behavior.
"Player X, you died in the fire. Stop doing that."....
is very different from...
"Player X, you died in the fire. You suck".
Sure, among friends, telling eachother "you suck" is fine. However, in a raid environment, not everybody is close friends. Many of the 25 are there simply to accomplish a difficult (or not so difficult, depending upon your thoughts of how hard WotLK raiding is, so far) task together. Friendship grows in pockets, but it'd be a stretch to call all 30 or so raiders "friends".
Feedback focused on behavior allows the recipients to make desired changes without feeling personally insulted.
The next part that actually makes it work, IMO, is that the officers providing the feedback do not treat themselves as perfect.
Classic was a night trying to kill Sartharion + Three Drakes.
Very hard fight. Very long night (25 wipes, followed by a successful kill). Silly wipes due to void zones or fire walls become increasingly frustrating as the night goes along.
So the Raid Leader reaches, not quite a breaking point, but definitely a point at which the frustration is boiling in his voice.
He lets the raid have it in very blunt un-ambiguous terms that it is unacceptable to die in the fire, and deaths due to fire are the single barrier preventing us from success.
The very next attempt, he himself dies in the fire.
And during the post-wipe analysis, gives it to himself just as directly and bluntly as he gave it to the raid.
More attempts, fewer deaths in the fire, finally resulting in looting a boss in one of the hardest encounters in the game.
The key to the blunt feedback...and this is a recurring theme here...nothing personal. It is focused on observed behaviors, documentable facts (recount/wws data), and avoids personal insult. Note, that does not mean it avoids placing personal accountability on a specific individual when they die in the fire. Die in the fire and you'll get called out by name. However, the feedback is focused on the behavior, which is something you can change.
How do you like to receive feedback?
How do you give feedback?
What's the norm for your guild? PuGs?
Reading a post over at Big Bear Butt inspired me to try to get one of the posts out onto e-paper. Read BBB's original, because as always its a good one. To paraphrase...he expects people in game to interact with other people the same way as they'd interact face-to-face. IRL, there's consequences in the form of knuckle sandwiches if you break the social rules of rudeness/offensiveness/whatever-ness. He's a US Marine, therefore, likely to receive a fair bit of well-deserved respect IRL (unfortunately probably out of fear of receiving a thumping, rather than out of respect for helping defend our country and freedom, but I digress).
Communicates Well With Others
One of the things that always strikes me in-game is how people give feedback to another player regarding behavior they'd like to see change.
Consider an example...Player A pugs with Hunter B. PA inspects HB and sees a variety of +strength gear. PA would like that behavior to change, since he has some information about the mechanics of the Hunter class.
How does the average Player A in WoW convey this information?
Response A) - I noticed you are wearing some [bad-stat] gear. I'm not sure if you are aware of it or not, but [bad-stat] provides very little benefit for your class, you'd be better off with [good-stat] or [good-stat]. To learn more, a good resource is wowwiki.com/[Class].
Response B) - dude, [bad-stat] sux. you should get more [good-stat] or [good-stat].
Response C) - fail [class] is fail. l2p noob, ur g@y
Ok, so lets take a look at the available options:
| Response | Pros | Cons | Liklihood in WoW |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Treats the person with respect. Focuses on facts and/or behavior, not personal traits. Shares some info, and also a place to go to learn more. | Wordy, long to type. Player B might not absorb everything being said. | Near to Zero |
| B | Succinct, quick to type. Focuses on facts and/or behavior, not personal traits. | Provides fish, but does not teach how to fish. Without supporting information, no way to tell if Player A is informed/uninformed, right/wrong. | 10-15% |
| C | Very compact, easy to type using abbreviations. | Provides no constructive feedback to Player B such that he/she might improve. Includes personal insults and derogatory language. | Damn near all the time |
What works best?
Ok, so A,B,C are some what exaggerated to prove a point. C is most likely to be found in PuGs and on /trade channel. A is best if you have a high bandwidth communication channel such as Vent or even better face-to-face where you can include the extremely high bandwidth non-verbal communication of facial expression and body language. B works reasonably via text, if the person is interested in change they can ask for followup, and if not, there's no insult or harm done.
The transition from my old guild to my new one was full of uncertainty regarding delivery of feedback.
I'd heard so many horror stories of hardcore raiding guilds and raid leaders who scream at or belittle people as their way of providing feedback.
I'm a big fan of leadership, both in the theoretical world of academia and literature, as well as practical applications of leadership as a manager at work, in emergency fire situations as a volunteer firefighter, captain of inter-scholastic sports and academic teams (nerd jock, ftw), or as a Raider/Raid Leader.
As such, I was very curious to see what style of feedback would be given in the new guild, and what my reaction would be. As much of a fan as I am of leadership, I also have a massive problem with authority, especially if the powers-that-be are abusive.
Blunt and Focused on Behavior
The heading says it all.
What I've seen so far in Conquest is blunt. The Response A given above is pretty much non-existent. Pleasantries or other fluff is basically absent in either text or voice feedback.
When you die in the fire, you'll either be asked why you died in the fire, right then and there during a post-wipe analysis.
If you're bringing sub-par threat, you'll be called on it.
If your healing assignments are dying, and the officers can figure out that your assignments aren't doing stupid stuff like standing in fire, you'll be called on it.
If Tenebron doesn't die before his second set of whelps spawns, underperforming DPS players will be called on it.
No pleasantries. No fluff.
However, the key to success is keeping the feedback focused on behavior.
"Player X, you died in the fire. Stop doing that."....
is very different from...
"Player X, you died in the fire. You suck".
Sure, among friends, telling eachother "you suck" is fine. However, in a raid environment, not everybody is close friends. Many of the 25 are there simply to accomplish a difficult (or not so difficult, depending upon your thoughts of how hard WotLK raiding is, so far) task together. Friendship grows in pockets, but it'd be a stretch to call all 30 or so raiders "friends".
Feedback focused on behavior allows the recipients to make desired changes without feeling personally insulted.
Dish it out, and take it as well
The next part that actually makes it work, IMO, is that the officers providing the feedback do not treat themselves as perfect.
Classic was a night trying to kill Sartharion + Three Drakes.
Very hard fight. Very long night (25 wipes, followed by a successful kill). Silly wipes due to void zones or fire walls become increasingly frustrating as the night goes along.
So the Raid Leader reaches, not quite a breaking point, but definitely a point at which the frustration is boiling in his voice.
He lets the raid have it in very blunt un-ambiguous terms that it is unacceptable to die in the fire, and deaths due to fire are the single barrier preventing us from success.
The very next attempt, he himself dies in the fire.
And during the post-wipe analysis, gives it to himself just as directly and bluntly as he gave it to the raid.
More attempts, fewer deaths in the fire, finally resulting in looting a boss in one of the hardest encounters in the game.
The key to the blunt feedback...and this is a recurring theme here...nothing personal. It is focused on observed behaviors, documentable facts (recount/wws data), and avoids personal insult. Note, that does not mean it avoids placing personal accountability on a specific individual when they die in the fire. Die in the fire and you'll get called out by name. However, the feedback is focused on the behavior, which is something you can change.
What's your experience?
How do you like to receive feedback?
How do you give feedback?
What's the norm for your guild? PuGs?
Monday, December 29, 2008
Guest post on Matticus
Matticus (Conquest GM, creator of World of Matticus, writer for WoW Insider, co-founder of PlusHeal.com, friend to puppies and children alike) put out the call for guest posts, only he specifically said NO HUNTER posts, seeing as his blog is primarily about Healing and Guild Stuff.
Either he's very clever at motivating me, or I just had to show him that Hunters have something to contribute to any segment of the WoW community.
Please go have a read about why you want to heal my pet!
Either he's very clever at motivating me, or I just had to show him that Hunters have something to contribute to any segment of the WoW community.
Please go have a read about why you want to heal my pet!
Added to the Must Read Section: Greedy Goblin
Greedy Goblin.
So much fun. Be warned, he comes out pretty harsh with the Social Darwinism and is pretty "classist" ;-) but if you can look past that, its an outstanding read.
I'm not sure which camp he'd put me in: goblin/rich/businessman or dumb/naive/poor.
To phrase it in Greedy Goblin style...
On surface, I never hurt for gold, so rich.
However, (A) I buy frivolous luxury item (mini-van, cenarion war hippogryph) so dumb, and (B) I make my gold through gathering and daily questing so poor.
To truly be goblin, I need spend time on AH buy low sell high, earn substantially more gold/hour than poor working-class dual-gather.
Whether he'd classify me as a goblin or a dumb, I could care less, but his posts are both entertaining and insightful. I wish I'd have found this gem sooner!
So much fun. Be warned, he comes out pretty harsh with the Social Darwinism and is pretty "classist" ;-) but if you can look past that, its an outstanding read.
I'm not sure which camp he'd put me in: goblin/rich/businessman or dumb/naive/poor.
To phrase it in Greedy Goblin style...
On surface, I never hurt for gold, so rich.
However, (A) I buy frivolous luxury item (mini-van, cenarion war hippogryph) so dumb, and (B) I make my gold through gathering and daily questing so poor.
To truly be goblin, I need spend time on AH buy low sell high, earn substantially more gold/hour than poor working-class dual-gather.
Whether he'd classify me as a goblin or a dumb, I could care less, but his posts are both entertaining and insightful. I wish I'd have found this gem sooner!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Absolutely Required Reading for Raiders
I just stumbled upon this gem today, and I wept for having only found it now, at the tail end of Burning Crusade.
REQUIRED. READING. PERIOD.
Angry Raid Leader
REQUIRED. READING. PERIOD.
Angry Raid Leader
Monday, November 3, 2008
Git'cho Enchants
Tobold writes about not seeing enchants on the AH since the release of Inscription and the vellums that you can enchant and sell, thus freeing enchanters from their lives of spamming trade channel.
Who really knows, but I'm thinking it comes down to risk.
Lets look at an enchant like Mongoose. Even though it drops off of Moroes, its still a pretty rare enchant. My guild has killed Moroes a bazillion times, and we have only a single Mongoose-capable enchanter.
So its rare, which is nice if you're an enchanter.
But its also expensive. Just off the cuff, I'm thinking its between 500-600 gold for the mats, plus if you've got any integrity you'll be slapping a nice fat tip on there for your enchanter.
For an enchanter to choose to sink all that gold into mats, and then irreversibly lock those mats into a Mongoose enchant, without any real knowledge of a buyer on the other side. That's a pretty big risk. Sure, there will be a buyer come along sooner or later, as lots of people use it. But until you have a buyer, you've locked up a big chunk of change.
Here's two possible proposals....
Generally, I'm a big fan of the vellums and the ability for Enchanting to be done without face-to-face contact. We'll have to see how it plays out over time, because in addition to the risks and such discussed above, its a big cultural change for people to move away from traditional Enchanting.
Who really knows, but I'm thinking it comes down to risk.
Lets look at an enchant like Mongoose. Even though it drops off of Moroes, its still a pretty rare enchant. My guild has killed Moroes a bazillion times, and we have only a single Mongoose-capable enchanter.
So its rare, which is nice if you're an enchanter.
But its also expensive. Just off the cuff, I'm thinking its between 500-600 gold for the mats, plus if you've got any integrity you'll be slapping a nice fat tip on there for your enchanter.
For an enchanter to choose to sink all that gold into mats, and then irreversibly lock those mats into a Mongoose enchant, without any real knowledge of a buyer on the other side. That's a pretty big risk. Sure, there will be a buyer come along sooner or later, as lots of people use it. But until you have a buyer, you've locked up a big chunk of change.
Here's two possible proposals....
- We currently have the AH. Its a place where people who have something and want to sell it can post their wares, and customers can come and buy them. When you post something to the AH, you technically have no knowledge of the demand for your wares, other than seeing the current market conditions, and maybe your own observations of the recent history of market conditions.
Blizzard could develop the converse of this. Give us a place where customers can post an item they are looking to buy. Would-be sellers can look this over and send price quotes to the posting customer. OR they could allow a customer to post his desired price, and a seller could click it and automatically have it convert to a CoD for that price. - An alternative...We already have CoD as an option. This means that a seller has to tie up his/her gold into an item, and send it to another player. The seller is taking the risk that the other player will just sit on that email. Sure, the customer does not get use of the item until they pay the gold, but until they do that, the seller has their money tied up in those mats they invested up front to craft the item.
Give us the converse of CoD. Item on Delivery or Product on Delivery. Build an interface that allows a customer to send an agreed upon amount of gold to a seller. The seller now has 100% confidence that they'll get paid for their product. They'd still have to front the gold for crafting, since the customer's gold would be sitting in the email escrow, but the seller would have no worries about compensation for the money they put into crafting. The system would have to have some way of allowing the customer to specify the EXACT item they want in order for the seller to complete their portion of the deal that would release the money from the escrow, so maybe this part is the kicker that would prevent the system from working.
In this scenario, the buyer is the one who locks up his money, running the risk that the buyer will sit on his thumbs. Sure, the seller does not get the gold released until the correct item is attached and sent to the customer, but I think that's a little more reasonable than the flip side.
Generally, I'm a big fan of the vellums and the ability for Enchanting to be done without face-to-face contact. We'll have to see how it plays out over time, because in addition to the risks and such discussed above, its a big cultural change for people to move away from traditional Enchanting.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
This one made me smile
This one made me smile too big to pass up on. Its stolen directly from Rohan from Blessing of Kings, who was quoting a WoW forum posting...
Random signature seen on the WoW forums (credit to Building of Uldaman):
Dear Blizzard,
Paper is fine, but Rock needs to be nerfed.
Thanks, Scissors
Random signature seen on the WoW forums (credit to Building of Uldaman):
Dear Blizzard,
Paper is fine, but Rock needs to be nerfed.
Thanks, Scissors
Friday, September 5, 2008
Tag, I'm It
Loronar at 35 Yards Out tagged me.
Full disclosure. I'm usually one to opt out of the blogging wildfires that sweep across the land. I've seen a bunch of these crop up, and haven't fully followed them. But on blogs I read daily, I have been scrolling to the bottom to see if I was tagged, out of respect for the authors.
That said, here's where I was at various times in history:
September 11 Attacks: September 11, 2001
The city of Buffalo, NY is a funny one for somebody who grew up near NYC, and therefore had ingrained since birth that all cities should look like NYC. Buffalo has dozens and dozens of buildings, ranging between 5 and 10 stories. Relatively small, I'd say. Then, there's this one building. Its the big one. 40 stories tall. And has a very visible, high contrast, primary color logo of a major international bank at its peak. That's it, just one big building. Sticks out like a sore thumb.
So, on a day that there's a report of an unknown number of airplanes crashing into large, visible buildings, in what was at the time an unknown number of locations/cities across the east coast, you pretty much don't want to be in the giant building with the target on top of it.
I heard the news on the radio, then somebody whipped out a small portable TV and we watched the footage.
Although no corporate-wide instruction came out yet, I told my team to evacuate immediately. Most of them wanted to stay and make sure their work was saved and checked into the remote servers and stuff. Very responsible people, outstanding to work with. I grabbed one by the shoulders, and said "GET THE F$%K OUT. RIGHT NOW!" and we all left.
I was a volunteer firefighter at the time, so the story and relief efforts for the families of the FDNY were a big part of life in the following months and years.
Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster: January 28, 1986
I was in grade school. Hugely into airplanes and flight and outer space and all sorts of stuff like that. Some kids like dinosaurs, I liked NASA. Some kids read Go Dog Go, I was reading WWII: The Airman's War: Life in a B-17 Over Europe. Naturally, I was pretty excited that we were given the opportunity to watch the launch on TV at school, which was a pretty rare treat.
This particular launch was also of importance to me, because it was the first to include a member of the Teacher in Space Project. My father was a science teacher, I had been following along with his application process to join the project. Who knew that overeating and underexercising would prove to be a good thing, since it disqualifies you from being selected for a NASA mission.
Hurricane Katrina: August 29, 2005
I don't really have a particularly close connection with this one. I watched the news, was appalled at the complete incompetence of our government to provide timely and effective help for the people impacted by the disaster, but then again, it was just another cluster fu$@ in a long chain of clusters fu$@.
And I don't know about you, but when I see the disaster footage, the thing that really gets to me is seeing the animals. Cats, dogs, farm animals, wild creatures, all clinging to roofs and tree tops to keep out of the floods, starving and exposed to the elements. That's always a tear jerker.
Reagan Assassination Attempt: March 30, 1981
I was a lil kid at the time. Lil kids growing up in the overprotective environment of American suburbs don't really understand the concept of assassination, so while I was vaguely aware that something bad happened, not really a significant moment in my life.
John Lennon's Death: June 8, 1980
Even lil'er than when the Reagan thing went down, so yeah, I'm gonna have to go with no on this one too.
Kurt Cobain's Death: April 5, 1994
Never a big Nirvana fan. A strange part of me both lol's and cries at the memory of this one.
Earlier that year in highschool, one of our classmates killed himself. The kid was a bit of an outcast, not really accepted by any of the social cliques in the school. There was some small uproar over the tragedy of his death, but the school more or less kept on keepin' on.
Then Kurt. And you'd have thought the world had come to an end. People tried to organize sit-ins and memorial services and stuff.
WFT? Some popular musician living in a far off part of the country eats a bullet and you're all up in arms, but your socially unpopular neighbor and classmate goes down the same path and you barely notice? Get some perspective here, ppl.
John F. Kennedy Assassination: November 22, 1963
My closest connection with this one was the Seinfeld episode where they recreated the event, replacing killers with NY Mets baseball players, and bullets with loogies.
Full disclosure. I'm usually one to opt out of the blogging wildfires that sweep across the land. I've seen a bunch of these crop up, and haven't fully followed them. But on blogs I read daily, I have been scrolling to the bottom to see if I was tagged, out of respect for the authors.
That said, here's where I was at various times in history:
September 11 Attacks: September 11, 2001
The city of Buffalo, NY is a funny one for somebody who grew up near NYC, and therefore had ingrained since birth that all cities should look like NYC. Buffalo has dozens and dozens of buildings, ranging between 5 and 10 stories. Relatively small, I'd say. Then, there's this one building. Its the big one. 40 stories tall. And has a very visible, high contrast, primary color logo of a major international bank at its peak. That's it, just one big building. Sticks out like a sore thumb.
So, on a day that there's a report of an unknown number of airplanes crashing into large, visible buildings, in what was at the time an unknown number of locations/cities across the east coast, you pretty much don't want to be in the giant building with the target on top of it.
I heard the news on the radio, then somebody whipped out a small portable TV and we watched the footage.
Although no corporate-wide instruction came out yet, I told my team to evacuate immediately. Most of them wanted to stay and make sure their work was saved and checked into the remote servers and stuff. Very responsible people, outstanding to work with. I grabbed one by the shoulders, and said "GET THE F$%K OUT. RIGHT NOW!" and we all left.
I was a volunteer firefighter at the time, so the story and relief efforts for the families of the FDNY were a big part of life in the following months and years.
Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster: January 28, 1986
I was in grade school. Hugely into airplanes and flight and outer space and all sorts of stuff like that. Some kids like dinosaurs, I liked NASA. Some kids read Go Dog Go, I was reading WWII: The Airman's War: Life in a B-17 Over Europe. Naturally, I was pretty excited that we were given the opportunity to watch the launch on TV at school, which was a pretty rare treat.
This particular launch was also of importance to me, because it was the first to include a member of the Teacher in Space Project. My father was a science teacher, I had been following along with his application process to join the project. Who knew that overeating and underexercising would prove to be a good thing, since it disqualifies you from being selected for a NASA mission.
Hurricane Katrina: August 29, 2005
I don't really have a particularly close connection with this one. I watched the news, was appalled at the complete incompetence of our government to provide timely and effective help for the people impacted by the disaster, but then again, it was just another cluster fu$@ in a long chain of clusters fu$@.
And I don't know about you, but when I see the disaster footage, the thing that really gets to me is seeing the animals. Cats, dogs, farm animals, wild creatures, all clinging to roofs and tree tops to keep out of the floods, starving and exposed to the elements. That's always a tear jerker.
Reagan Assassination Attempt: March 30, 1981
I was a lil kid at the time. Lil kids growing up in the overprotective environment of American suburbs don't really understand the concept of assassination, so while I was vaguely aware that something bad happened, not really a significant moment in my life.
John Lennon's Death: June 8, 1980
Even lil'er than when the Reagan thing went down, so yeah, I'm gonna have to go with no on this one too.
Kurt Cobain's Death: April 5, 1994
Never a big Nirvana fan. A strange part of me both lol's and cries at the memory of this one.
Earlier that year in highschool, one of our classmates killed himself. The kid was a bit of an outcast, not really accepted by any of the social cliques in the school. There was some small uproar over the tragedy of his death, but the school more or less kept on keepin' on.
Then Kurt. And you'd have thought the world had come to an end. People tried to organize sit-ins and memorial services and stuff.
WFT? Some popular musician living in a far off part of the country eats a bullet and you're all up in arms, but your socially unpopular neighbor and classmate goes down the same path and you barely notice? Get some perspective here, ppl.
John F. Kennedy Assassination: November 22, 1963
My closest connection with this one was the Seinfeld episode where they recreated the event, replacing killers with NY Mets baseball players, and bullets with loogies.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Accessibility and Netherspite
Can't. Resist. Urge. To. Think. About. WoW.
What can I say? You gotta babystep into these good-corporate-citizen-knows-a-job-aint-nuttin-but-work binges.
I accidentally opened up my google reader and stumbled across a gem of an article by the Serial Ganker describing Warhamer Online from the perspective of a WoW player.
Kinda neat description that would have any WoW player who is on the fence with hating on grindy grinds, stupid class composition and balance issues in raids, and a whole host of other things thinking.
Buried in there somewhere he mentions being colorblind, and thus very frustrated with the Netherspite fight in Karazhan.
I never thouhgt of it from that perspective.
The fight is largely undoable if you cannot differentiate between the colored beams.
Kinda makes me think they should make the red beam lasoo shaped, like the damn lasoos (sp?) you wrangle rays with for the Shatari Sky Guard. I grew to despise that quest, because my pet would continuously kill the damn ray while I was in the process of lasoo'ing. So I dont do it anymore. Because, as a wise man said, it's my 15 bucks, I'll do what I want with it, lol.
And maybe make Netherspite's green beam with sharp, pointed zig zags? And keep the blue one nice and smooth, just for good measure.
Would add a bit of Accessibility to the software, yes?
Edit: firefox's spell checker correctly informed me that the way to spell it is lasso, unless you're a jackass. I am a jackass and like the way lasoo looks better.
What can I say? You gotta babystep into these good-corporate-citizen-knows-a-job-aint-nuttin-but-work binges.
I accidentally opened up my google reader and stumbled across a gem of an article by the Serial Ganker describing Warhamer Online from the perspective of a WoW player.
Kinda neat description that would have any WoW player who is on the fence with hating on grindy grinds, stupid class composition and balance issues in raids, and a whole host of other things thinking.
Buried in there somewhere he mentions being colorblind, and thus very frustrated with the Netherspite fight in Karazhan.
I never thouhgt of it from that perspective.
The fight is largely undoable if you cannot differentiate between the colored beams.
Kinda makes me think they should make the red beam lasoo shaped, like the damn lasoos (sp?) you wrangle rays with for the Shatari Sky Guard. I grew to despise that quest, because my pet would continuously kill the damn ray while I was in the process of lasoo'ing. So I dont do it anymore. Because, as a wise man said, it's my 15 bucks, I'll do what I want with it, lol.
And maybe make Netherspite's green beam with sharp, pointed zig zags? And keep the blue one nice and smooth, just for good measure.
Would add a bit of Accessibility to the software, yes?
Edit: firefox's spell checker correctly informed me that the way to spell it is lasso, unless you're a jackass. I am a jackass and like the way lasoo looks better.
Rant. About "fun".
Kestrel recently wrote an article regarding guild drama triggered by the GM of the guild moving an alt into another raiding guild.
The article illustrates two types of feeling about this action. On the one hand, the guild has kicked out members in the past who have been clearly fishing for greener pastures. And, to quote the article...A counter argument, made very well by at least one commentator, is that the game is supposed to be fun, and everyone has the right to do with their characters as they wish.
Thus begins my rant.
Not aimed at Kestrel. Not at all, I love the blog, great read, daily. But triggered by that counter side of the argument that was presented.
Its a game. It should be fun.
No-fu$@ing Doubt.
You should be here for fun. WoW is recreation. WoW is social. WoW is entertaining.
But. And its a BIG BUT.
Every raider has chosen to engage in "fun" along with 24 other people. Probably lots more than 24, because you need a pool of players to raid with.
The moment you engage in an activity with even one other person, you now have to consider the feelings of others, and you have to accept the fact that your behavior will have consequences.
I cannot think of ANY example from any slice of life, where there's been a room of 25 people, and I am fully, totally, 100% engaged and enthused by the presence of each and every one of those people.
I cannot think of ANY example from any slice of life, where there's been a room of 25 people, and I haven't had to accept certain constraints that come along with being part of a team.
I cannot think of ANY example from any slice of life, where there's been a room of 25 people, and there hasn't been at least one person I wish would get brutally inconveniently timed diarrhea. A spell I'd like to learn IRL...Diarrhea Cramps. And lol as they run from the room anytime they p1ss me off, clenching for dear life.
If raiding is how you choose to seek fun, then you need to accept the fact that you experiencing that fun comes with a price. You may be asked to do a job you are not 1000% thrilled with. You might have to watch someone else get the loot that you are 1000% convinced that you deserve more. You might need to hold in your pee 5 minutes longer than the moment you notice that you have the need for relief. However, the brutally inconveniently timed diarrhea? I understand, you gotta go when you gotta go. I'm talking about your run of the mill pee-pee.
You are expected to put in enough non-raid time to ensure you have sufficient consumables, gold for repairs and specs, enchants on those pretty pretty purples you just got, which, coincidentally, I am 1000% convinced that I deserved more :-P
Hell, you might even have to swallow your pride, and let go of the spite that you harbor towards the team that made a progression kill on an off night while you flew back from Texas without having had the treat of enjoying some Beef Ribs.
I'll tell you first hand how hard that is. I cling to spite more than you can possibly imagine. But I'm fully aware of the consequences of my behavior, and the price that must be paid to participate in a team activity with a large number of other people.
In the end, if you choose to have your "fun" through raiding, or even better, if you choose to have your "fun" as the GM of a raiding guild, you've got to consider the team.
If you cannot do that, WoW still has lots of ways for you to find entertainment, but raiding is not one of them.
The article illustrates two types of feeling about this action. On the one hand, the guild has kicked out members in the past who have been clearly fishing for greener pastures. And, to quote the article...A counter argument, made very well by at least one commentator, is that the game is supposed to be fun, and everyone has the right to do with their characters as they wish.
Thus begins my rant.
Not aimed at Kestrel. Not at all, I love the blog, great read, daily. But triggered by that counter side of the argument that was presented.
Its a game. It should be fun.
No-fu$@ing Doubt.
You should be here for fun. WoW is recreation. WoW is social. WoW is entertaining.
But. And its a BIG BUT.
Every raider has chosen to engage in "fun" along with 24 other people. Probably lots more than 24, because you need a pool of players to raid with.
The moment you engage in an activity with even one other person, you now have to consider the feelings of others, and you have to accept the fact that your behavior will have consequences.
I cannot think of ANY example from any slice of life, where there's been a room of 25 people, and I am fully, totally, 100% engaged and enthused by the presence of each and every one of those people.
I cannot think of ANY example from any slice of life, where there's been a room of 25 people, and I haven't had to accept certain constraints that come along with being part of a team.
I cannot think of ANY example from any slice of life, where there's been a room of 25 people, and there hasn't been at least one person I wish would get brutally inconveniently timed diarrhea. A spell I'd like to learn IRL...Diarrhea Cramps. And lol as they run from the room anytime they p1ss me off, clenching for dear life.
If raiding is how you choose to seek fun, then you need to accept the fact that you experiencing that fun comes with a price. You may be asked to do a job you are not 1000% thrilled with. You might have to watch someone else get the loot that you are 1000% convinced that you deserve more. You might need to hold in your pee 5 minutes longer than the moment you notice that you have the need for relief. However, the brutally inconveniently timed diarrhea? I understand, you gotta go when you gotta go. I'm talking about your run of the mill pee-pee.
You are expected to put in enough non-raid time to ensure you have sufficient consumables, gold for repairs and specs, enchants on those pretty pretty purples you just got, which, coincidentally, I am 1000% convinced that I deserved more :-P
Hell, you might even have to swallow your pride, and let go of the spite that you harbor towards the team that made a progression kill on an off night while you flew back from Texas without having had the treat of enjoying some Beef Ribs.
I'll tell you first hand how hard that is. I cling to spite more than you can possibly imagine. But I'm fully aware of the consequences of my behavior, and the price that must be paid to participate in a team activity with a large number of other people.
In the end, if you choose to have your "fun" through raiding, or even better, if you choose to have your "fun" as the GM of a raiding guild, you've got to consider the team.
If you cannot do that, WoW still has lots of ways for you to find entertainment, but raiding is not one of them.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Completely Frivolous Computation
Never satisfied with things until I've totally overdone it, I went back into the BRK Bingo card generation statistics and played around.
Using some basic discrete math, I calculated the odds of randomly generating a valid BRK Bingo card at 0.17%
Unsure of how correct my calculations were, and full of some spare time and CPU cycles, I decided to run a simulation and see how things play out in the "real world".
Wrote a little Java program that would randomly generate boards until it created a valid board, and then report some basic data about the trial.
Then wrapped that whole routine in a loop so it could be repeated many many times.
Bottom line, after running a batch of 10,000,000 simulations the program reported that it nailed a valid board on the first try 16,848 times, or 0.168% of the time.
Pretty damn close to the 0.17% my calculations predicted. The difference is most likely explainable by either too small a sample size of ten million, or the fact that the Java Random Number Generator is not perfect, it is a Pseudo Random Number Generator, and thus can tend to have non-random sequences, although the amount of error is generally accepted as statistically insignificant.
Going one bit further, I wanted to see if I was lucky or unlucky in that it took me about 30 minutes of clicking F9 to generate a solution.
On average, during the 10,000,000 simulation batch, a valid board was generated after 586 trials.
Thinking back to my 30 minutes of clicking, I'll estimate that I spent 2 seconds per click. This is a giagantique estimate, based upon the fact that the 30 minutes had some small interruptions and the fact that I was not spamming the button, but was instead trying to go slow such that I wouldn't fail to recognize a valid board, since my spreadsheet had no "back" button.
30 minutes * 60 seconds / 2 seconds per click = 900 boards.
So I estimate that it took me 900 boards to get a valid one. Somewhat more unlucky than the 586 average that I predicted, but not so far out as to have me worried about getting hit by lightning in the near future. I could to a standard deviation analysis, which will probably show me that 900 is right there in the comfort zone, but I think I'm done. And the 900 is considerably more lucky than the worst-case found during the simulation of 9,364.
That should just about satisfy my curiosity on this topic. Time for that hogie.
Maybe I'll try out a batch of 100,000,000 simulations, which will take roughly 2 days, or maybe even bite the bullet and run a 1,000,000,000 batch over 18 days, just to see if I can keep the process uninterrupted for that long.
In case you're a raw data junkie, here's the output for a variety of sample sizes, adding an order of magnitude each time.
Using some basic discrete math, I calculated the odds of randomly generating a valid BRK Bingo card at 0.17%
Unsure of how correct my calculations were, and full of some spare time and CPU cycles, I decided to run a simulation and see how things play out in the "real world".
Wrote a little Java program that would randomly generate boards until it created a valid board, and then report some basic data about the trial.
Then wrapped that whole routine in a loop so it could be repeated many many times.
Bottom line, after running a batch of 10,000,000 simulations the program reported that it nailed a valid board on the first try 16,848 times, or 0.168% of the time.
Pretty damn close to the 0.17% my calculations predicted. The difference is most likely explainable by either too small a sample size of ten million, or the fact that the Java Random Number Generator is not perfect, it is a Pseudo Random Number Generator, and thus can tend to have non-random sequences, although the amount of error is generally accepted as statistically insignificant.
Going one bit further, I wanted to see if I was lucky or unlucky in that it took me about 30 minutes of clicking F9 to generate a solution.
On average, during the 10,000,000 simulation batch, a valid board was generated after 586 trials.
Thinking back to my 30 minutes of clicking, I'll estimate that I spent 2 seconds per click. This is a giagantique estimate, based upon the fact that the 30 minutes had some small interruptions and the fact that I was not spamming the button, but was instead trying to go slow such that I wouldn't fail to recognize a valid board, since my spreadsheet had no "back" button.
30 minutes * 60 seconds / 2 seconds per click = 900 boards.
So I estimate that it took me 900 boards to get a valid one. Somewhat more unlucky than the 586 average that I predicted, but not so far out as to have me worried about getting hit by lightning in the near future. I could to a standard deviation analysis, which will probably show me that 900 is right there in the comfort zone, but I think I'm done. And the 900 is considerably more lucky than the worst-case found during the simulation of 9,364.
That should just about satisfy my curiosity on this topic. Time for that hogie.
Maybe I'll try out a batch of 100,000,000 simulations, which will take roughly 2 days, or maybe even bite the bullet and run a 1,000,000,000 batch over 18 days, just to see if I can keep the process uninterrupted for that long.
In case you're a raw data junkie, here's the output for a variety of sample sizes, adding an order of magnitude each time.
Completed execution of [1] simulations...
Elapsed time (HH:MM:SS.mmm): 00:00:00.20
Minimum Trials until Valid Board : 846
Average Trials until Valid Board : 846
Maximum Trials until Valid Board : 846
Number of times I got it on the first try : 0 (0.000%)
Number of times I got it in less than 100 tries : 0 (0.000%)
Completed execution of [10] simulations...
Elapsed time (HH:MM:SS.mmm): 00:00:00.10
Minimum Trials until Valid Board : 24
Average Trials until Valid Board : 521
Maximum Trials until Valid Board : 1,112
Number of times I got it on the first try : 0 (0.000%)
Number of times I got it in less than 100 tries : 2 (20.000%)
Completed execution of [100] simulations...
Elapsed time (HH:MM:SS.mmm): 00:00:00.110
Minimum Trials until Valid Board : 3
Average Trials until Valid Board : 600
Maximum Trials until Valid Board : 2,382
Number of times I got it on the first try : 0 (0.000%)
Number of times I got it in less than 100 tries : 16 (16.000%)
Completed execution of [1,000] simulations...
Elapsed time (HH:MM:SS.mmm): 00:00:01.222
Minimum Trials until Valid Board : 2
Average Trials until Valid Board : 581
Maximum Trials until Valid Board : 3,690
Number of times I got it on the first try : 0 (0.000%)
Number of times I got it in less than 100 tries : 142 (14.200%)
Completed execution of [10,000] simulations...
Elapsed time (HH:MM:SS.mmm): 00:00:15.422
Minimum Trials until Valid Board : 1
Average Trials until Valid Board : 593
Maximum Trials until Valid Board : 6,530
Number of times I got it on the first try : 26 (0.260%)
Number of times I got it in less than 100 tries : 1,508 (15.080%)
Completed execution of [100,000] simulations...
Elapsed time (HH:MM:SS.mmm): 00:02:26.492
Minimum Trials until Valid Board : 1
Average Trials until Valid Board : 583
Maximum Trials until Valid Board : 6,881
Number of times I got it on the first try : 192 (0.192%)
Number of times I got it in less than 100 tries : 15,566 (15.566%)
Completed execution of [1,000,000] simulations...
Elapsed time (HH:MM:SS.mmm): 00:23:09.501
Minimum Trials until Valid Board : 1
Average Trials until Valid Board : 586
Maximum Trials until Valid Board : 8,573
Number of times I got it on the first try : 1,652 (0.165%)
Number of times I got it in less than 100 tries : 155,395 (15.540%)
Completed execution of [10,000,000] simulations...
Elapsed time (HH:MM:SS.mmm): 03:44:24.375
Minimum Trials until Valid Board : 1
Average Trials until Valid Board : 586
Maximum Trials until Valid Board : 9,364
Number of times I got it on the first try : 16,848 (0.168%)
Number of times I got it in less than 100 tries : 1,554,695 (15.547%)
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Just a small feel-good moment
I've been reading through some posts at Lume the Mad about running a guild and running a raid. Very interesting stuff if you've never seen it before. Probably interesting even after you've seen it, but I wouldn't know that yet.
Long story short, he runs a guild that's in Sunwell Plateau, competing with other guilds for first kills and such on the server. So pretty advanced content, to say the least.
I got a small feel-good moment of the day when I was reading a post. To paraphrase, he's talking about assessing healer performance, how you might view a healer as bad because a number of their assignments died, but you can't just look at the raw data, because maybe those assignments stood in the cave-ins on Gruul's fight.
Felt warm and fuzzy to hear somebody killing the final bosses in the game talking about the same bosses my guild is killing. Perhaps a steak and cheese sub to celebrate, although I hope the sandwich is warm but not fuzzy.
Long story short, he runs a guild that's in Sunwell Plateau, competing with other guilds for first kills and such on the server. So pretty advanced content, to say the least.
I got a small feel-good moment of the day when I was reading a post. To paraphrase, he's talking about assessing healer performance, how you might view a healer as bad because a number of their assignments died, but you can't just look at the raw data, because maybe those assignments stood in the cave-ins on Gruul's fight.
Felt warm and fuzzy to hear somebody killing the final bosses in the game talking about the same bosses my guild is killing. Perhaps a steak and cheese sub to celebrate, although I hope the sandwich is warm but not fuzzy.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Welfare, not just for PvP'ers
Strange feelings wash over me as I follow along with the BRK / AC / Ratshag / Ego saga.
In the recent-ish installments of the story, you've basically got a player who, through hugely colorful personality and a very unique style, caught the eye of a pretty advanced raiding guild, although they'll swear they're casual. lol. Then the player rolled a brand new toon with that guild, did a great job zipping on up to 70, and only a short while later, is downing boss after boss after boss, donning T4 and if not yet, then I'm sure its soon to follow, T-(insert tier number most folks wont ever see) gear and is now heading on into Mount Hyjal for some progression runs.
You tell me...welfare? or no?
Did it take hard work to get his toon to 70 and grind out all the proper reps and gold and other assorted things necessary to be a successful raider? No doubt.
Did he, and everybody else involved, tell an interesting and creative story via their blogs along the way? You bet. I've enjoyed reading every bit of it. They form the heart of the WoW community I read every day, and hope to hear more as the story unfolds.
But it surprises me that people cry WELFARE over epics available through Arena or BG, but nobody looks at this scenario and considers it the same thing. At least not that I've seen.
Am I jealous? A drop. Their's is a story of what seems to be a good bunch of respectable people who all approach the game with a similar zest and level of determination, and also have a talent for sharing their thoughts and experiences with their reading audience. If given a chance to do the same thing, would I take it? More than likely. And if I happen to be in a dungeon, whether on farm or progression, and epics drop that would be upgrades for me and nobody else wants, do I grab 'em? Oh, yeah!
As much fun as it is progressing "the hard way" through bosses, wouldn't it be more fun to experience more of the game, and still get to have that progression feeling, just in Mount Hyjal rather than in Kara and ZA. Truth be told, finding the right leaders and players to enjoy the game with in a 25-man setting is more jealousy-worthy than the actual content is. I'll tip my Gladiator's Chain Helm to anybody who's able to find that type of environment.
So who is a bigger recipient of welfare? The guy who shows up to 10 arena matches a week for a month and gets a sweet axe? Or the guy who finds the right group of friends, and gets run through farm content that's more advanced than most guilds will ever see, and gets access to every epic drop along the way?
Not that welfare is a bad thing. I'm on it too, a different kind.
I'm just sayin'
In the recent-ish installments of the story, you've basically got a player who, through hugely colorful personality and a very unique style, caught the eye of a pretty advanced raiding guild, although they'll swear they're casual. lol. Then the player rolled a brand new toon with that guild, did a great job zipping on up to 70, and only a short while later, is downing boss after boss after boss, donning T4 and if not yet, then I'm sure its soon to follow, T-(insert tier number most folks wont ever see) gear and is now heading on into Mount Hyjal for some progression runs.
You tell me...welfare? or no?
Did it take hard work to get his toon to 70 and grind out all the proper reps and gold and other assorted things necessary to be a successful raider? No doubt.
Did he, and everybody else involved, tell an interesting and creative story via their blogs along the way? You bet. I've enjoyed reading every bit of it. They form the heart of the WoW community I read every day, and hope to hear more as the story unfolds.
But it surprises me that people cry WELFARE over epics available through Arena or BG, but nobody looks at this scenario and considers it the same thing. At least not that I've seen.
Am I jealous? A drop. Their's is a story of what seems to be a good bunch of respectable people who all approach the game with a similar zest and level of determination, and also have a talent for sharing their thoughts and experiences with their reading audience. If given a chance to do the same thing, would I take it? More than likely. And if I happen to be in a dungeon, whether on farm or progression, and epics drop that would be upgrades for me and nobody else wants, do I grab 'em? Oh, yeah!
As much fun as it is progressing "the hard way" through bosses, wouldn't it be more fun to experience more of the game, and still get to have that progression feeling, just in Mount Hyjal rather than in Kara and ZA. Truth be told, finding the right leaders and players to enjoy the game with in a 25-man setting is more jealousy-worthy than the actual content is. I'll tip my Gladiator's Chain Helm to anybody who's able to find that type of environment.
So who is a bigger recipient of welfare? The guy who shows up to 10 arena matches a week for a month and gets a sweet axe? Or the guy who finds the right group of friends, and gets run through farm content that's more advanced than most guilds will ever see, and gets access to every epic drop along the way?
Not that welfare is a bad thing. I'm on it too, a different kind.
I'm just sayin'
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
The Jogging of the Bulls
If you really want to scare your immediate non-WoW playing family, I highly recommend participating in a nekkid Running of the Bulls.
A few days prior to the brk/ratshag sanctioned event, I created MootonBerle on the server, a baby little druid in a banana hammock.
On the day of the event, I was at a family gathering, just sitting around talking. A small lull in conversation and my sister says, "hey its 10 to 7. didn't you say you had some meeting at 7?"
Hey, why not share a little fun with the fam?
Log in with 2 minutes to the start, with the whole family gathered around.
Hundreds of Cows in their birthday suits, randomly wandering around and bouncing or dancing or mooing.
Then the run. So much server lag, you'd see a giant empty zone free of toons ahead of you, then a small lag, then dozens and dozens of tauren zip past you like they hit ludicrous speed. Hoped the server would crash, but alas, no joy.
Relatively uneventful rest of the run from there, but if my family had doubts about WoW before this, they're definitely scared now.
Hey, Mom! Be afraid. Be very afraid.
A few days prior to the brk/ratshag sanctioned event, I created MootonBerle on the server, a baby little druid in a banana hammock.
On the day of the event, I was at a family gathering, just sitting around talking. A small lull in conversation and my sister says, "hey its 10 to 7. didn't you say you had some meeting at 7?"
Hey, why not share a little fun with the fam?
Log in with 2 minutes to the start, with the whole family gathered around.
Hundreds of Cows in their birthday suits, randomly wandering around and bouncing or dancing or mooing.
Then the run. So much server lag, you'd see a giant empty zone free of toons ahead of you, then a small lag, then dozens and dozens of tauren zip past you like they hit ludicrous speed. Hoped the server would crash, but alas, no joy.
Relatively uneventful rest of the run from there, but if my family had doubts about WoW before this, they're definitely scared now.
Hey, Mom! Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
WoW Ku, Beast Master Style
Not sure where it started but the WoW haiku poems are catching on. I've seen it a couple places, including but not limited to, Asleep at the WoW, Stop the Warrior, and Altitis, Musings of a Nut Job. I also saw someone make reference to a poem over at Outland Bound, but I haven't seen any WoW-ku over there myself. Sorry if I missed it, Ess. :-(
I shall now add my contribution....
Blue Square is on ice
We're safe for twenty seconds
Burn Skull to the ground
Beast Masters Sustain
From Distance, not Melee Range
Massive Dee Pee Ess
Who shot my turkey?
With trap on cooldown I kite
Beast Lord set be praised
It is now quite clear
Beyond reasonable doubt
I'm a big fat nerd
I shall now add my contribution....
Blue Square is on ice
We're safe for twenty seconds
Burn Skull to the ground
Beast Masters Sustain
From Distance, not Melee Range
Massive Dee Pee Ess
Who shot my turkey?
With trap on cooldown I kite
Beast Lord set be praised
It is now quite clear
Beyond reasonable doubt
I'm a big fat nerd
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Best Quote Ever....
You can fix gear. You can’t fix stupid.
As said by Lassirra over at Hunter's Mark in a recent post discussing the concept of selecting people for guilds and filtering out candidates by gear alone. According to the story, the guild rejected Lass due to gear issues, with no attention paid to the human qualities such as attitude, skill, motivation, patience, helpfullness, generosity, and all the creamy goodness that is inside the type of players we love to play with.
That's one of the biggest problems with this silly little game we're all addicted to. You have to play with people who, back when they first were wee little lvl 1 turds, happened to select the right classes that would complement your class, and the classes of your friends. You have to play with people who were lucky enough to get the drops off the random boss loot tables. But not too lucky on too many drops, because then they'd out gear you and hop to the next advanced raiding guild.
Finding the right classes and gear doesn't mean you'll have fun, but you will be able to kill bosses.
To have fun while doing so, you need the right classes, with the right gear, but who also have the right kind of people at the other end of the keyboard.
Of course, Blizzard probably thinks...
Why fix stupid? Their money is just as good.
Plus the drama that stupidity creates is worth more than any single monthly fee cuz it keeps all us chumps logging in.
As said by Lassirra over at Hunter's Mark in a recent post discussing the concept of selecting people for guilds and filtering out candidates by gear alone. According to the story, the guild rejected Lass due to gear issues, with no attention paid to the human qualities such as attitude, skill, motivation, patience, helpfullness, generosity, and all the creamy goodness that is inside the type of players we love to play with.
That's one of the biggest problems with this silly little game we're all addicted to. You have to play with people who, back when they first were wee little lvl 1 turds, happened to select the right classes that would complement your class, and the classes of your friends. You have to play with people who were lucky enough to get the drops off the random boss loot tables. But not too lucky on too many drops, because then they'd out gear you and hop to the next advanced raiding guild.
Finding the right classes and gear doesn't mean you'll have fun, but you will be able to kill bosses.
To have fun while doing so, you need the right classes, with the right gear, but who also have the right kind of people at the other end of the keyboard.
Of course, Blizzard probably thinks...
Why fix stupid? Their money is just as good.
Plus the drama that stupidity creates is worth more than any single monthly fee cuz it keeps all us chumps logging in.
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