Yarr, guildless!

[Oban]

LF65M for SWG:NGE2 post.

[bhodi]

I like to think of this site as a giant WoW guild.  There are the guild regulars deeply immersed in guild politics, accusations of favoritism, the ones who raid with us once every two months yet everyone likes, and the people who never raid but sit in Org all day and talk shit on /gchat until they are ran out.  (Then they form their own guild which fails and come back under an alt).  Overseeing it all is Schild's level 70 Paladin. 

Or your standard office, or any other place where 50+ random people gather. Welcome to our little slice of humanity.

[Zane0]

I've been through vaguely similar experiences.  One thing that I can almost say for certain is: avoid brokerage guilds- the type that pulls together a ton of people with different interests and tries to forge some sort of compromise out of them.  In time, this structure will inevitably either polarize or collapse, causing all sorts of grief and animosity in the process.  The typical embodiment of this principle is probably the struggle between "family guild" and "uber guild" that so many seem to go through, and what this really speaks to is a lack of agreement and discrimination at ground zero- vascillating policy, differences between officers, shoddy recruitment standards, etc.  I've had enough of that nonsense.

The guild I've chosen now has an application process that explicitly outlines our objectives and expectations.  If someone writes a good application, they go through a three week evaluation period- to gauge their performance, but almost more importantly to determine if their personality is agreeable.  At the end of their trial, there's a vote in which all members participate.  More than ~20% disapproval, and the initiate is rejected.  As a result, we basically don't have drama, and there is a lessened sense of core vs. periphery.

Sounds like too much trouble to go through for a silly online game?  Well, it saves time in the end, and I treasure my leisure time, and if you're going to get emotionally invested (which does happen) it can save a few tears.  Roars of frustration.  Whatever.

[ajax34i]

One thing that I can almost say for certain is: avoid brokerage guilds- the type that pulls together a ton of people with different interests and tries to forge some sort of compromise out of them. 

Most guilds used to start out like that.  I guess now the population is more experienced with the game so guilds that get formed have a pre-defined plan and agenda, but the guilds I've been in started as "friends" guilds with the plan of "let's see how the game is and have fun."    Guilds that aren't like that are either: hardcore raiding with hardcore recruiting requirements and a levelup schedule, or not interested in raiding at all, and thus small.

Your guild still sounds vulnerable to the officers or old timers changing their minds about what THEY want from the game, and mostly that happens when the type of game changes (i.e. the transition from a quest/levelup game 1-59 to the raiding game at 60). 

I don't know if we'll get that again at 70; the playerbase is more experienced in the game now, supposedly.  But, a lot of guilds have numbers for 40-man raids AND all these people interested in raiding, and they might believe they have to shrink down to 25-man.   What if the way they do that is "ok, whoever first gets to 70 is gonna be in our raid team, simply because we're not gonna wait for everyone to get to 70 before we start getting keyed and stuff, and the rest of you that are taking it too slowly, are just gonna be secondaries."  That'd break up a guild, especially if it's not spoken out loud, but just kinda expected to happen by the officers.

[WindupAtheist]

I didn't mean to stay up this late playing WoW, but here was my guild's incredibly focused activity for tonight, with a group of maybe half a dozen people ranging from the mid-thirties to the low sixties:

*  Show up at Gurubashi arena and get ganked silly by Alliance players.

*  Call in everyone else who was on and kill all the Alliance until they go away.

*  Run into the arena and frag each other silly for a while.

*  Pick up some wandering 63 mage and run around STV killing every Alliance we meet.

*  Run out to the coast and gank some giant to death.

*  Kill some more Alliance.  Practice sitting on their heads and farting before they release.

*  Swim out to that island to find the giant King Kong ape, and gank him too.

I think I gained like 12xp for the entire evening.  It beat the piss out of anything else we might have gone and done.

[Jayce]

I didn't mean to stay up this late playing WoW, but here was my guild's incredibly focused activity for tonight, with a group of maybe half a dozen people ranging from the mid-thirties to the low sixties:

* stuff

I think I gained like 12xp for the entire evening.  It beat the piss out of anything else we might have gone and done.

You can take the fanboi out of UO, but you can't take UO out of the fanboi.

[WindupAtheist]

New sig!

Also, I need to ask, is there a way to make WoW take screenshots as good old-fashioned .JPGs and not whatever stupid atrocious bloated format it currently uses?

[Valmorian]

*  Kill some more Alliance.  Practice sitting on their heads and farting before they release.

I've never had to Spirit Rez after a PvP death, but if I recall, it causes durability loss, right?  If that is so, I find it odd that you would participate in this..

[bhodi]

Only PvE causes durability loss. It's based on who gets the killing blow, though, so you can abuse it somewhat.

[WindupAtheist]

I've never had to Spirit Rez after a PvP death, but if I recall, it causes durability loss, right?  If that is so, I find it odd that you would participate in this..

Why is it odd?

[Merusk]

WUA has always been a PK at heart. He just refused to admit it.

  "You always hate most that which reminds you of yourself" explains much about his and Sinij's 'relationship'  :-D

[WindupAtheist]

The beautifully consequence-free PVP system in WoW has unleashed my inner PK.  I don't have to worry about who's red, or who's grey, or who's a noto, or if I'll get a murder count, or replacing my armor, or buying a new horse, or having my cash looted, or whatever other stupid shit the same six troglodytes still think makes them radical extreme dudes.

As I said to Raph almost a year ago in the thirty-page epic UO thread:

You know what WoW does right?  It lets the players do what they want.  You can play a PVE server and PVP only at your whim, or you can play a PVP server and merrily frag away.  You can frag away, as opposed to sitting around burning off murder counts, or replacing all your gear after being looted, or what the fuck ever.  The thing WoW PVP most clearly demonstrates is that PVP death-penalties are for suckers.  They want to fight, so JUST LET THEM.  You want "consequences" and "risk versus reward" and "meaningful control of resources" and all that niche-game shit?  Go find a niche-game, Blizzard won't miss you.

[Morfiend]

New sig!

Also, I need to ask, is there a way to make WoW take screenshots as good old-fashioned .JPGs and not whatever stupid atrocious bloated format it currently uses?

There is no way WUA, but you cazn download a free program caled InFramView, it will batch all your wow screenshots in to .jpg and its a very easy program to use, just search google or download.com for it.

[bhodi]

I use FRAPS' screenshotting capability.

[Valmorian]

I've never had to Spirit Rez after a PvP death, but if I recall, it causes durability loss, right?  If that is so, I find it odd that you would participate in this..

Why is it odd?

Because the moment you cause durability loss, the PvP is no longer "Consequence free".  I thought you were all down on having a PvP loss cost the player anything.

[WindupAtheist]

I have no idea whether spirit rezzing after a PVP death causes durability loss or not, having never needed to do it even when being camped.  In any case, why would anyone spirit rez in the face of my little guild squad?  It's not like we were hovering over their corpses waiting for them to rez normally.

[Valmorian]

  It's not like we were hovering over their corpses waiting for them to rez normally.

Ah, I thought you were, given what was said before it certainly applied corpse camping.

[Jayce]

I've never had to Spirit Rez after a PvP death, but if I recall, it causes durability loss, right?  If that is so, I find it odd that you would participate in this..

Why is it odd?

Because the moment you cause durability loss, the PvP is no longer "Consequence free".  I thought you were all down on having a PvP loss cost the player anything.

Even if so, only on the most epically equipped characters is this cost anything of consequence.  Maybe it's a gold.  If you have epix, who cares about a measly gold?

The point is that it's not a huge timesink.  You can make the cash back to pay for your repairs in no time, and you can put it off until later if you have any money at all in reserve (which I have to think that most people do).

[Xanthippe]

Or you can log off for a period of time until the campers get bored or you can play an alt or whatever.  Nobody's forced to spirit res - unless they die in midair or an otherwise inaccessible area for a ghost.

[MrHat]

Or you can log off for a period of time until the campers get bored or you can play an alt or whatever.  Nobody's forced to spirit res - unless they die in midair or an otherwise inaccessible area for a ghost.

Sucks to fall off of Outland.

[Valmorian]

Sucks to fall off of Outland.

I jumped off of a cliff in outland to see what would happen.  My corpse appeared near the spot where I jumped, on the same side as the graveyard.

[SurfD]

To clear up some stuff:

Spirit rezzing (the act of using the spirit dude at the graveyard to rez yoruself instead of going back to your corpse) causese 20% durability damage to EVERY piece of gear you are carrying (equipped or not).  If you are a well equipped Druid (Full set of healing gear, full set of Feral Gear, + a few backup pieces or something) that can run you an easy 3 or 4+ gold.

Running off outlands doesent incur Spirit Rez.  Your corpse somehow "washes up on shore" around the edge of the zone where you fell off.  You still have to run back to your corpse.

Far as i know, the only time you would ever need to spirit rez is if you either fell "through" the world down on azeroth, or if you somehow die WAYY up in the air in outlands.  (and even that is avoidable, if you can get someone to queue you for an Arena or BG match)

[WindupAtheist]

Ah, I thought you were, given what was said before it certainly applied corpse camping.

Oh, no.  I was practicing getting my /sit and /fart off before they released to begin running from the cemetery.  (What can I say, I find it funnier than the traditional /spit.)  Once they released, we were on our way to find the next target.

Had some fun that night.  Got squashed by a 64 mage while running back up to the arena solo.  During the furball at the arena, I caught him with his back turned, getting ready to cast on a 63 druid buddy of mine.  Hit him from behind with an earth shock to disrupt his spell, then ran in and smacked him a couple times with my hammer as he was wheeling around and casting on me.  I went down hard, but I actually moved his health bar a little and for a few seconds we were "fighting" and not just playing uberling versus newbie target.

[Der Helm]

The fact you want to make 'online' and 'real' social behaviour subject to different rules baffles me.

That sounds familar. Hiru, ist that you ?  :-D

[Valmorian]

Had some fun that night.  Got squashed by a 64 mage while running back up to the arena solo.  During the furball at the cemetery, I caught him with his back turned, getting ready to cast on a 63 druid buddy of mine.  Hit him from behind with an earth shock to disrupt his spell, then ran in and smacked him a couple times with my hammer as he was wheeling around and casting on me.  I went down hard, but I actually moved his health bar a little and for a few seconds we were "fighting" and not just playing uberling versus newbie target.

I agree completely, I just love the PvP in WoW for the most part.  It can be frustrating when you are stomped by someone against whom you have no chance, but since rezzing and being on my way is trivially easy, it's just mildly frustrating instead of the gut-punch of having hours of investment in your character removed a-la the old UO days. 

Not only that, but I get as much satisfaction defeating an enemy in WoW without being able to loot them as I ever did when I WAS able to loot them on UO.

[Lantyssa]

New sig!

Also, I need to ask, is there a way to make WoW take screenshots as good old-fashioned .JPGs and not whatever stupid atrocious bloated format it currently uses?

There is no way WUA, but you cazn download a free program caled InFramView, it will batch all your wow screenshots in to .jpg and its a very easy program to use, just search google or download.com for it.

Do you mean Irfan View?  I use it for all my simple picture editing.

[Chenghiz]

I could have sworn that they patched in an option a while ago that allowed you to simply screenshot straight to JPG or PNG, but I can't find where they put the option.

[WindupAtheist]

I'll look around for that.  Thus far I've been reduced to bringing the screenshots up, then taking a screenshot of that screenshot with shift+prntscrn, then pasting it into Paint, saving it as a JPG, and deleting the original.  It works well enough, but it's a huge pain in the ass.

[Morfiend]

Here.

IrFranView

Easy and free.

[WayAbvPar]

Someone in my guild cleaned out his WoW screenshot folder last night...deleted 8100+ images. I have never taken a singe screenshot; am I missing out?

[Jayce]

Someone in my guild cleaned out his WoW screenshot folder last night...deleted 8100+ images. I have never taken a singe screenshot; am I missing out?

I often go through my screenshots and wonder why I took a certain one.  Sometimes I notice something in a tiny section of the screen that I meant to capture. Other times, I hit the key by mistake and spend a few minutes trying to figure out what I was thinking.

I could probably do a pretty good flickr trail thingy with my screenshots over the past few years.

[Morat20]

Someone in my guild cleaned out his WoW screenshot folder last night...deleted 8100+ images. I have never taken a singe screenshot; am I missing out?

I take a good number. Every couple of months I'll take a few hundred, delete 90% of them, and copy the rest over to my screensaver pics folder. I keep meaning to do something more interesting with it, but don't.

[WayAbvPar]

What kind of things are you capturing? Cool vistas, big mean mobs, or funny things people say in chat? I guess I can see snapping some pics of PvP ownage; that might be kind of fun.

[Lantyssa]

I do vistas, cool outfits, and portrait shots.

[Morat20]

What kind of things are you capturing? Cool vistas, big mean mobs, or funny things people say in chat? I guess I can see snapping some pics of PvP ownage; that might be kind of fun.

Cool vistas, cool mobs, the occasional funny reference, and character/gear progression. I rarely have my interface on when I take shots.