Recently, a bunch of my alliance friends invited me on a couple of their guild runs. We were laughing and chatting in vent, when one of them said "Jessica keeps interrupting me and asking me questions!" Confused, I said "What? No I'm not, you silly warlock!" to which he responded "No, no, I was referring to my daughter, Jessica." Slightly embarassed, after a short pause, I replied "Oh. Whoops. Guess the cat's out of the bag now, I just gave away my real name!" Much to my surprise, everyone else exploded in laughter, with rounds of "It wasn't really that big of a secret, Jess."

Well. I never claimed to be subtle.

I've thought about this a lot since. We play daily with these people, get to know them and their personalities, and often quite a bit about their personal lives - Yet a lot of the time we don't even know their real names, though we can recognize their voice over vent. While this sort of thing is becoming more and more common amongst my generation, the majority of people still aren't quite sure where to draw the line in what they say about themselves over the internet. In my own case, a strange mix of factors contributes to the internet paradox that is Elimeny, aka Jessabelle, aka Miss Medicina. After all, if you google Elimeny, I'm all over the place.

No, I don't publicize my real name or too many identifying details of my personal life for a lot of very legitimate reasons, though I suspect it would be very easy to get that information, should someone want it. For one, my fiance is intensely private, and it would be disrespectful to him if I were too open about myself since he values his privacy so much. Secondly, if it were not obvious before, I do a lot of work in a research based academic field... one day I really do hope to publish some of my research (if I ever get around to finishing it), and once you do that, you have to be pretty protective of your name.

The funny thing is, I grew up on the internet, and it's very integral to my personal life. I met my fiance online, and several people whom I count amongst my best friends I only talk to over the internet (that includes Fulguralis and Fuubaar!). Relating to people via a handle is not a difficult task for me, nor does it keep me from connecting with others on a very personal level, real name or not. But I always hate these awkward conversations...

Jessabelle: Hi! My name is Jessica :)
Sneakarillio: Hey! Nice to meet you. My name is Sneakarillio.
Jessabelle: ...

There's always this sort of awkward moment as we try to figure out how much personal information to give someone else. After all, we don't want to push people beyond the line at which they are comfortable. When you give people personal information, sometimes it makes them uneasy, because they feel they are expected to return the same amount of information - an amount with which they are simply not comfortable.

I guess my name became obvious, because Jessabelle got shortened to Jess over vent and party/raid chat, and everyone identifies Jess as a nickname for Jessica. I blame Kelly and Fuubaar, FYI.

For the record, most of my face to face friends (I shall now call them F2F) call me Jessie. I actually despise the shorthand IRL - Fulguralis is my real friend in real life. Just because all of our communication happens over the internet does not make him less of a real friend. To be quite honest, most of my communication with my F2F friends happens via the internet as well - I'm a total homebody.

So, maybe it's a psychological thing. I hear about wow being addictive, but I think *anything* can be addictive if you enjoy it enough. I think my grandmother was addicted to church. WoW combines my love of high fantasy role playing games, with my desire for social interaction that does not require me to leave the safety and comfort of my own home. I can be a gamer without being a friend-less loser, who knew? I think people hate PuGs because in general, it's a lot more fun to play with your friends - with the people you know. I know these people, even if I don't know their address. To me, raiding isn't fun if I'm not raiding with those I know - even if I don't know their real name.

What a strange sensation it is to walk away from something for only a week and a half, and feel completely out of the loop!

I finally leave Texas today and head back home, and I can't even tell you how happy I am that my "vacation" is ending. It's not that I haven't been playing WoW, but I've only been logging in during the wee hours of the morning to run my AT dailies, and working on some of my alts while watching movies with my cousins.

Most of my immediate and extended family don't really "get" WoW. They see it as me being anti-social more than anything. I suppose it seems that way, because they have no idea how very social WoW is. My mom will sit at her computer and play solitaire for hours, and unfortunately, I think too many people think that's what WoW is like.

Why do I prefer social interaction via internet or computer? I hear all the time from people who insist it is difficult to read people over the internet, via what they are typing, etc. I actually don't feel that way at all. Maybe it's because I've been using the internet for communication purposes since I was about 9 years old (you know, back when Al Gore invented it!), maybe it's because, let's face it, I have a talent for expressing myself via words. I'm not sure, but I am the type of person who gets sick of other people and annoyed with them very very easily - yet somehow I don't have that problem when I'm communicating via something like WoW.

I think it might also come down to the fact that I'm a multi-tasker. I can't just sit at a table and chat with people for hours on end. I get restless. I need to be doing something else. What's nice about WoW is that I can communicate and socialize while entertaining myself doing something else. I don't get restless.

All that having been said, I basically checked out of the WoW social atmosphere for a week, and I miss all my wow friends like crazy. I haven't even been checking our website much, whereas before I left I was obsessively checking it every few minutes (shh, I'm a tiny bit OCD). I log on now and we have so many new people, and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I don't have the patience to deal with people who can't respect the fact that my WoW friends ARE real friends. That if I "make plans" with them, such as for a raid, it is just as valid as me making plans to go to dinner with girl friends, so no, I will not cancel my raiding plans to go out with other friends. My mother has asked me why I don't spend as much time with some of my older friends as I used to - I don't spend time with people who cannot respect and appreciate my time commitments to other people. Unfortunately, I find that many non-gamers just don't "get" it. They don't consider those other people real people.

The World of Warcraft may not be real, but the people who gather, play, and involve themselves in it ARE. Most of the people I know who play WoW play because of the people and the community - not because of the gameplay mechanics.

Our alliance makes our first attempt at Ulduar 25 tonight. I have only made a smattering of attempts at even Ulduar 10, and one ridiculous and ill-fated Ulduar 25 pug. Needless to say, I’m quite pumped. Coupled with that is the fact that for the first time in weeks, we had several healers sign up – to the point that I don’t think we will be facing any extreme problems in handling the healing situation.

About three weeks ago, when we began seriously discussing starting Ulduar, I ran across this post on wow.com. I took that advice very much to heart, and after starting a discussion on the item in our forums, and listening to what others in our Alliance had to say about it, the officers decided that the best way to handle Valan’yr was to let the entire Alliance decide. We chose to hold a vote.

This is how it will work. One healer will be designated as primary recipient of Valan’yr shards. A secondary healer will be designated as recipient for whenever the primary healer is unavailable. If neither of those healers are in the raid when a fragment drops, it goes to open roll for all healers. There will be no tier reductions for someone who receives a fragment (our loot system is a modified tier system).

After taking nominations via the Alliance forum, a poll thread was started with the nominees allowing everyone to vote. The healer who receives the most votes is designated as Primary recipient, and the one with the second largest number of votes is secondary recipient.

In most guilds, the officers will simply select the healer who “deserves” the fragments, and thus, eventually, the mace. I cannot express how happy and proud I am that we did not choose this approach. Perhaps it is because I am both a healer and an officer, but I did not want anyone to think I had an agenda of securing a legendary item solely for myself. It just breeds bad blood and resentment amongst our healers.

I didn’t actually expect to win the vote.

This isn’t some misplaced modesty. I didn’t vote for myself. As an officer, I was able to see who voted for whom, and over the past couple of days, as the vote has been progressing, I can’t even express the warmth I felt for my Alliance members. I mentioned earlier today that I am the kind of person that needs positive feedback. For weeks now I’ve felt I wasn’t doing a very good job – I’ve been absent due to real life circumstances. And to see so many of my fellow raiders show their support for me in spite of all that has really touched me.

I’m feelin’ the Valan’yr love. Some legendary items proc all kinds of warm gooey feelings.

As a side note, I respecced from holy/shadow to holy/disc, so that I can fulfill whatever role is needed most on our raids.

The problem with that thing all WoW players know as “DRAMA” is that once the drama ball starts rolling, it’s hard to stop. You get caught in this sticky web, and the more you try and get out of the drama-vironment, the worse you seem to make it. It’s like there is a panic in the streets, and anything you say or do can and will be treated as MOAR DRAMA.

It usually doesn't stem from one source. We've got it running rampant in our Alliance right now, and it's not just from one person, I assure you. It's like a disease that is spreading quickly through our ranks. Hell, I've been suckered in myself, and contributed a lot more to it than I meant to.

The underlying sources of drama

The relative anonyminity of the internet allows us all to release our inner jerk. Yet, even despite this, the biggest problem is miscommunication, and even that comes down to basic human flaws. People are wimpy. It’s so much easier to tell someone they are doing a great job, than to tell them they suck. Now, for some people, it’s a helluva lot more fun to tell people they suck – but in general I don’t like spending time with those people anyway. Except my fiancé, and that’s just because he’s cute.

It’s not easy to step up, and privately tell someone you don’t like what they are doing. It requires a lot of diplomacy. Doing it in anger will only make it worse, and if you can’t be calm and rational when expressing your grievances with someone, then you will most likely just make it worse. I’m a big proponent of positive honesty, and I have been accused of many things because of it.

It’s not easy to be that person who gets criticized – even when it’s done in a private, calm, rational way. I don’t take criticism very well and I’ll be the first to admit it. I know some people who always seem to assume the best about themselves – unless they are told they are doing a crappy job, they believe they are doing quite well. They give too much credence to kind compliments. I’m the extreme opposite of that particular type of benevolent arrogance. I always assume I’m doing everything wrong, and that I am crap at everything I do. Unless someone tells me I’m doing a good job, I assume I’m not. So if someone shoots criticism at me, it really shakes me – because I don’t need confirmation of my own failures.

If you cannot stand up and explain to someone how and why you are disgruntled with them, if you cannot appreciate the bravery it takes for someone to express their grievances about you TO you, then you are failing at mature human interaction. Being a WoW player doesn’t excuse you from mature human behavior.

From where I’m standing, that’s the source of the drama. People are being unfair to one another, and it all comes back to that fear of honesty. So let’s break it down.

• It is unfair to expect others to fix a problem they do not realize exists.
• Most people do not read minds. A lot of people who play this game are really dense. There’s no point in getting pissed off about something they cannot change about themselves. If you want more positive outcomes, you have to adapt. You cannot realistically expect others to know you are upset with them unless you TELL them – and tell them why.
• Informing others that you are upset with them will likely not have a very positive response if you do it in a public fashion that is meant to attack, alienate, or accuse them.
• If someone takes great pains to apologize to you for something they’ve done to upset you, or if someone goes to great effort to rectify their previous actions due to your criticisms, it is unfair to attack them in such a public setting. They are doing all they can to rectify their mistakes. Get over your grudges, and try to come at it with a clear head. Did they listen to your criticisms? Have their words and activities since you expressed your concerns shown a marked improvement? Are they at least trying? Give them credit.
  

Venting your frustration

Everyone gets pissed off about the ways things are being run in a guild or alliance from time to time. Sure, sure, if you had the ultimate power, I'm sure you could make it all better. Just ask Stalin.

Sometimes, all you want is to rant. It's cathartic. The thing is, you need to pick your rant location and audience carefully. Yesterday I was subjected to quite possibly the most amusing and annoying rant ever by a pretty good friend of mine. I could hold it against him, but truth be told - I'm glad he ranted to me instead of behind my back, or in a public forum. I'm especially glad that he chose to take it out on me instead of on the people who were the true sources of his anger. If we had been in the same room I probably would have punched him in the neck, but see, that's why the internet is so awesome. I would like to believe that he went off at me because he knew it was safe, and that I wouldn't hold it against him or anyone else. I know that my part in contributing to the current drama from which our group is suffering is due to my poor choice of rant locales and audiences. Go ahead and get out your frustrations, especially before you address them to the source, but take care not to influence others into a grudge they are unlikely to forgive anytime soon.

Drama can be prevented

I recently had a misunderstanding with a very dear friend of mine in the WoW universe. Luckily for both of us, it was only semi-public; Only a handful of people saw what we had to say. We both shed a lot of tears about it, and then talked about it privately, and understand a lot more about one another. Now we’re back to mutual adoration. It all stemmed from taking things too personally (on both sides) and possibly being less than forthright with one another. Why didn’t this escalate to full on guild/alliance level drama? Because instead of attacking one another in increasingly public spaces, we decided to handle it privately, and accept one another’s apologies.

We’re both girls. I am trying to decide if I think this has any bearing on the outcome. I am the anti-sexist, so I usually try to avoid such generalizations. But there’s a lot of testosterone in WoW, and there sure are a lot of temper tantrums. Is this a solid trend? Moar research required! I need a flow chart.

Basically, most drama can be prevented by calm honesty, discreet disagreements, and rampant forgiveness. We all screw up. And most of the time? Our mistakes are not malicious. We can’t always see things from another perspective, unless that perspective is specifically explained to us.

I have multiple examples of people with whom I disagree on a regular basis. Anyone who reads both of our blogs knows that Ful and I are polar opposites on a lot of issues – but despite the fact that we annoy the hell out of one another, we are equal opponents, and we consistently remain friends. Perhaps this is borne out of mutual respect. But that respect came from being honest with one another when we piss each other off. If it were not for that fact, we could easily continually instigate loads of drama.

Maybe it’s due to the fact that I know from experience such drama can be prevented, but I have very little patience for people who, instead of approaching disagreements with a clear head and a calm tongue, decide to spark drama. Is it a need for attention? Do you want people to beg for forgiveness so that you feel more powerful? Or do you simply feel that it’s not worth the energy to try to rectify the situation through more appropriate channels?

Regardless, I find the best way to deal with these types of misplaced acrimony is simply to ignore it. It doesn’t mean I don’t care – but I’d rather let it blow over, and instead focus my attention on those who find more productive means of conflict resolution.

Nota Bene: In the next few days, there may be some strange random changes on this blog as I attempt to duke it out with the HTML to create a site more aesthetically pleasing (to me anyway.)

Recruitment gets tricky for us in the EGA (the alliance of which I often speak).

We aren't a guild, and therefore we lack many of the resources many guilds have, such as a guild bank, a strict set of guidelines for members, and ownership of players' souls. We are very casual, and yet still focused on progression. Balancing these things is incredibly difficult - and we have no precedent to follow, so we end up making up the rules as we go along. With the exception of the EGA, I have yet to hear of any other similar Alliances that tie guilds together under one banner the way we do.

Unofficial recruitment is sorta my thing. As mentioned before, I'm a very bottom-up person, and I focus a lot of my attention on individuals. I use my personal networks, word of mouth, shower my alliance members with attention, and get to know new people on a very personal level. Where do I go when I'm hunting fresh blood?

Pick up groups.

We all know it's hit or miss with pugs. With the release of WotLK, and the 10/25 man raiding differential, we've got a lot of raiding options - and a lot of raid lockouts each week. We've got badges too - so I don't like to let a week pass without running 10 and 25 man OS and Vault. These are short fights, and incredibly easy to pug - everybody's doing it. It's the new thing! If the pug is truly awful, you aren't stuck with them for very long in these raids.

But what I love about pugs is that they are the most fertile pools of people who want to raid, but may not have the guild resources to do it on a large and regular scale. That is exactly the niche EGA fills. What better place to find potential new raiders to fill our slots?

Do I just spam the raid chat with EGA information? Not at all. A lot of people may actually pug raids to give themselves a break - it's easy to be lazy in a pug. While everyone else is relaxing though, I am furiously inspecting others, checking recount, looking people up on wow-heroes, sending tells left and right to feel people out. It's a lot of work - I also have to remember to heal on occasion. I usually don't mention the EGA per se. I add good players to my ever-expanding friends list.

During our progression nights, we nearly always end up with 5 or 6 open slots due to a shortage of sign-ups. If it's just a handful of slots, we can usually fill them pretty easily with some of our more casual members who choose not to sign up for events and through various guild members who are not active EGAers. This is where I pull out ye olde friends list, and start sending out some whispers. Before I add puggers to my friends list, I always chat with them a bit via whisper - this way they remember me when I invite them to something later. If they join our raid, and see what we're about, and the positivity that runs rampant over vent, we can often score ourselves a new EGAer. Casual is okay.

It works very well, and I've managed to pull in a couple of new EGAers this way. And, if I bring in one new person, I also inadvertently add their entire guild to our network. The key detail is networking - and networking requires a lot of time and proactive effort.

I'm not the only person who uses this strategy, so it must work for others as well. I know this because I too have had fellow puggers attempt to recruit me. My name is relatively familiar in the raid pugging circuit, because I do it every single week, at similar times. So even though people often associate pugs with strangers, one might be surprised to discover an extensive community of regular raid puggers. We just start to recognize one another's names. If i see a few names I recognize, I also know that this particular pug will likely go well.

Puggy recruitment requires a lot of work, and it requires a person to be extremely proactive. But, the greatest benefit is that you are able to pre-screen everyone. The pugged raid itself is the pre-screening process. The pressure of testing people and potentially finding out they are a poor fit is significantly smaller, due to the nature of a pug.

One of my fellow officers and I have come to terms with the fact that sometimes we're just gonna have to agree to disagree. I must say, it's a wonderful thing to know you can disagree with someone on very fundamental issues, and still maintain a good friendship.

I think a lot of our differences are based on one simple debate about how to manage problems in our alliance: Fulguralis advocates a top-down approach, while I look at it from the bottom-up. I won't try to speak for him here or explain his ideas about what a top-down approach entails - he's got his own blog, and perhaps I just gave him an inspirational prompt for today. That's not a challenge or anything *cough*.

Our alliance leader pointed out to me today that there's a reason he made us both officers; We balance each other out. Our guilds are exact opposites. Our votes on issues practically cancel one another out. When Ful and I do actually agree on something (aside from our love for our comrades), he jokes about calling hell to see if they've seen any snow yet.

Our guilds ARE complete contrasts. His guild is quite large, but there isn't a strong interest and/or availability for raiding. From what I understand, his guild is made up of a great variety of different types of people, with different personalities, gaming interests, mentalities, etc. You can go read for yourself; He described his guild just yesterday.

But oh boy. That is not my guild.

There's only 5 of us. Thank God. If our personalities were tripled and unleashed upon poor Lothar, it would make the evening news. We have known each other for a very long time, and three of the five of us went to high school together. We could never really join another guild - we would get kicked out. Our guild conversations would make Doug Stanhope blush (My fiance assures me he is a very offensive man). Trust me when I tell you - you don't want to deal with a pissed off Beardy. And you certainly don't want a whole Bunch of pissed off Beardies. And basically? If you piss off one, you will shortly find yourself having pissed off four more.

The thing is, you might never know it about some of us. Some are actually very quiet to outsiders. You can call it cliqueish if you like, but it's just how we are - it's a comfort zone thing. I met these awesome people by falling in love with one. It was years before the rest of them ever warmed up to me - and I made a lot of gumbo and provided a lot of alcohol to try and loosen those stubborn bitches up. They aren't going to tell you if they don't like what you are doing, or how you are doing it - they will just stop coming around. It's probably better for you, really. See above comment about pissed off Beardies.

When I became an officer in my Alliance, my primary concern was to try and advocate for my Beardies. I hoped that as the most recent addition to this clique of friends, perhaps I could explain and translate our foreign ways. If nothing else, maybe I could hold my tongue better and be a tad more diplomatic (I'm not sure if that actually proved to be the case). If decisions were made that the Beardies didn't like, that they disagreed with, it is unlikely they would say anything - they would just stop raiding altogether. Or leave a giant "screw you" message on the forum, and then stop coming. We are not a loose or diverse conglomeration of casuals who became closer friends through WoW. We are a group of friends who took our hard-core-and-slightly-obsessive-about-everything gaming mentality into WoW and created a guild because let's face it - we don't want to have to censor ourselves. We are five people, tightly bound, who work as a single force. We have similar personalities and interests. We live near one another. In general, from the outside, we look like one solid block of pewpew.

5 people may not seem like a lot, but we're a very well rounded group. A tank, an offtank/dps, a caster, a hunter, and a healer. All dual specced to fill other roles as needed. And that's not including our level 80 alts. Throw us all together, and we're like a well-oiled machine. In addition, we have a tendency to stick together, because we like running together - we feel most comfortable that way. It's not a good idea to split us up - but, the flip side of that is that if you ask for one of us, you will likely have 4 other strong willing players for a raid. We will join one another simply to spend game time with one another.

So my intent was to make sure that the Beardy Bunch never left en masse. It would be a big hit to the alliance. And we are a stubborn group - you will have a hard time convincing us to change our minds.

Therefore, when it seems like things might start falling apart with the alliance, I choose to step back and regroup with my guild. This isn't to get away from the alliance - it's to reassure my fellow guildmates that we're in this together - we're a team, and we're gonna stick it out with the alliance. If one of us starts to think that it's time to back out of the alliance, all five will end up going. I care about my guild, and I care about my alliance - and my alliance has allowed my guild to see content we would never have seen otherwise. So when any of us start to have doubts about the alliance we all agreed to join, it's time for us to get back together and remember why we loved raiding in the first place. Positive reinforcement. I refuse to lose either group of much loved friends.

This is my bottom up approach. When the big group starts to tremble, I'm going to reach out to Alliance members I know well, and try to regroup them on a smaller scale, so we can all walk back into the Alliance stronger than ever, rejuvenated and reinspired. If you start to lose sight of the bigger picture, put it in a smaller frame, and it starts to make sense again.

But I don't keep secrets from my guildmates. And if one wants to piss off a Beardy, all one has to do is tell them they can't do something. Go ahead and try it - tell them they aren't allowed. You can even try telling them they have to do something. You'll get the same response, folks. As Gordin, one of my guildmates, explained this evening, it's an ice cream man situation.

"It doesn't matter how much one of us is craving ice cream. If someone comes up to us and says 'You HAVE to eat this ice cream.' we're gonna tell him to piss off and we'll buy the shit sandwich instead. Don't you dare try to tell ME what to do."

If you want to see the Beardies walk away together, flipping you the bird as they depart, all you have to do is imply that they can't do something. Tell them, in so many words, that they are not allowed to do it. I'm sure it would be a fun social experiment - give it a whirl. And don't think I separate myself from them in that regard. Tell me I can't do something, and I immediately get indignant - on behalf of myself AND on behalf of my guild. I don't say all this about my guild as though it were an embarassment. I'm proud of how stubborn and independent we are, and that we still manage to maintain such outward cohesiveness.

As I try to toe the line between my alliance and my guild, I spend a lot of time grimacing and bashing my head against my keyboard. I am not always forthright with my intentions when I attempt to organize things. If I were to tell a Beardy "I want you to come on this PuG with me, because I want you to get emblems so that you will gear up better", I will find myself Beardless in my pug. "Don't YOU tell me what to do." If I try and tell Gordin that if he needs gold, he should really try the Sons of Hodir dailies because they are quick and lucrative, even though my real intention is that I want him to get the shoulder enchants, he *just might* go for it. I'm not lying. I'm just telling the part of the truth that will encourage him. I'll have to try something different next time though, since he'll likely read this and be suspicious of my shenanigans.

If I were to tell my alliance that I suspect my guildmates are becoming disenfranchised, and I foresee a Beardy departure, which will be a huge blow to the alliance, I worry they will try to do something about it. Please understand - I know they have the best of intentions. But they *really* don't know what they're dealing with here. The words from an outsider will likely fall on deaf ears - trust me. I was an outsider once too. At best, we will scoff and ignore. Probably even come up with new nicknames that will be shared in guild chat for months, and won't be kind. Just ask Gordin what he used to tell the others about my feet when I first started dating my fiance. At worst, they will take great offense to being told what they can/cannot/should/really ought to do, and the stubborn reaction will likely provide the exact opposite response of what was pursued. Their names simply won't appear on the raid signups anymore.

Therefore, I take great offense to anyone in my alliance being suspicious or fearing any malicious intent in anything I try to organize for the benefit of my guild. If it looks like I'm doing something to separate my guild from my alliance, then stop right there and think again. I won't ever advocate one at the expense of the other. I had thought everyone knew this about me, but times are tough I guess. If you aren't part of our guild, then please just try to trust my judgment. My guildmates have a right to question me - I am accountable only to those who have graciously allowed me the honor of representing them.

By questioning or doubting my intentions when I try to find ways to resolidify our guild in any public way, it is very easy to undo all my efforts at guild-alliance diplomacy.

Because despite our inner squabbles and the control-freak idiot I can oftentimes be, somehow my fellow Beardies still manage to support me when it matters, with righteous indignation and stubborness as their shield. I can only hope that somewhere along the way it became apparent that I do not try to make decisions for them, or in some ill-fated attempt to gain control over my guild mates (as if that were possible). It doesn't matter how it was said, or how justified the feelings may be - if it can in any way be interpreted as telling me that I am not allowed to do something, if there is even the slightest suggestion that the Beardies cannot do what they want, you may just have thrown away their participation. You know, that thing I was specifically trying to avoid.

*Sigh.* From the beginning again then. I guess I'll have to be more creative this time.