Keeping with the Positiveness!

Tomorrow's my birthday. Yay! I don't really care about my birthday and getting older, but I am excited. I'm going home to see my family this weekend. I haven't seen them since Christmas, and I'm definitely ready for a visit. I really do need to go home more, but the hubby and I are already struggling as is with our finances so we've limited our visits to special times and holidays. I don't want to add the expense of more gas than we need to plus our food and such while we're up there to our already hurting wallets. Hopefully things will improve before summer hits and I can go visit more. I really want to take Kroff up there for Funfest and go see the dog show! Yea, I know, I'm a dork. So sue me! :-P

So in any case, Kingsport tomorrow. Excited. :-) It sucks cause it's supposed to thunderstorm tomorrow but it could turn out to be a good thing. Mom said if the weather's too bad then her and dad won't have to work. Yay! So here's hoping!

I'm also hoping I get to see some old friends of mine. I really need to catch up with everyone. It's been too long.

You know what else I think I really am in need of?

A vacation. A real vacation. Time away from work, our home, and this place. There's been waaaaayyyy too many stresses over the past three months and I really think I just need to escape for a while.

I'm hoping our trek to visit my family will provide a little bit of a break for me, but I'd really like to get away for a week. We haven't talked about it because we're still waiting to see if either of us or both of us stay employeed but I'm hoping that maybe this summer we can take a week and go somewhere...anywhere to just get away.

Maybe I can make it til summer without totally losing my mind! hehe

Last One! I promise!

I watched this some time ago and I happened to remember it this afternoon as I was thinking about a lot of things going on right now. It's a great inspiration for all of you who feel pretty discouraged like I do right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YU0aNAHXP0

Something Fun

So as a result of being upset today, I'm bored to tears at work. I swear I can't concentrate on anything long enough to do any good to save my life today. I'm just sitting here waiting for Nakar, Ize, or Jules to write me back...haha, what a day huh?

In any case, to take my mind of crappy things that have happened in the past few hours, I'm going to write about something positive! Something different and something not WOW related.

I'm going to write about the movie Twilight.

Oh boy! A movie review...well kinda.

Over the weekend Jules and her cousin came over to my house, we kicked Kroff out, and we ate dinner talked and watched Twilight. Now keep in mind they have both read the books and I haven't...yet. But I'm sure as heck going to now!

The movie, in my opinion, was freaking awesome! I'm sure my husband's going to watch it with me and go "omg that sucked" but I don't care. It was definitely one of those movies that I got sucked into. And that for me is a rare occurrence. I think the last movie I was this crazy about was A Walk to Remember. I read the book and was hooked, so when the movie came out, I saw it twice in theaters and bought it the day it came out. Yea...I love that movie.

So Twilight's probably going to be my next A Walk to Remember.

For those of you who don't know, it's a movie about a girl who moves to Washington from Phoenix to live with her dad when her mom and her step-dad go on the road. When she moves to Forks, she meets a strange boy at her new HS who ends up being her lab partner. When he disappears several days after she first starts, she realizes there's something different about him. Then the day he comes back, she demands answers out of him. He refuses to give any, but keeps asking about her and her life. She's telling him when she notices his eyes are a different color. She asks him if he got contacts and he said no it's the lights and walks away. He leaves her standing at her locker a little shocked. She's getting ready to leave school when one of her buddies comes flying around the corner in a van and can't stop. He's headed straight for her when out of no where, the mysterious guy jumps in front of the van and stops it from crushing her with his hands. He takes off before anyone else sees him and again, she's left standing there with no answers.

Other events take place and we finally figure out that this boy is a vampire. And he has fallen head over heels in love with this girl...a human.

Weird! Right? Definitely a different approach to a love story. But I'll tell ya, I'm a sucker for 'em and this one is right up my alley. There is a little bit of over acting in my opinion, but then again, we're dealing with young adults...it's to be expected. But overall, I loved it.

And I've been trying to figure out why I love it so much. Why does this movie spark something inside of me? I mean, I'm already married. I've found the love of my life so it's not like I'm sitting here thinking "I wish I could find a love like that."

But you know what I think it is? I think it's the very core of my femininity showing. I think it's the desire that all women feel to be protected coming out. There's part of my inner being that desires for a male figure to watch over me. And before I met my husband, I longed to have an older brother, or a male that would act as my older brother. I wanted someone like that to watch out for me and always be there to protect me. Then I met my husband and that desire for an older brother faded as I knew I now had a husband to fill that role for me. I have a man who loves me so much he would rather die than see any harm come to me. And really that was the essence of the movie. A man who loved this woman so much, he would do anything for her. Completely melting away the image of his maleness and the fact that he's a human killing monster. It was just a very cool way of showing the special bond between a man and a woman.

Now I just gotta get my husband to sit down and watch it with me so he can understand why I have been so clingy to him the past few days. :-)

Don't get me wrong

It was pointed out to me a couple of days ago that all I really write about on here is guild stuff and lately it's all been very negative. That's true, I guess I do use this blog as an outlet. I really feel like I have no one in my real life that I can lay everything on. I know there are people, but I really don't want to fuss every time I get upset about something. I know it wears on them as much as it does on me, especially my husband. So I come here and rant and rave and get it all out of my system and move on. :-) Something I've been doing a lot better at lately. Use to things would get stuck in my mind and on my heart and bother me and bother me and bother me. Now I get it off my chest and I can go on with my day.

There are sometimes that things get me down more than they should, or at least, more than I should let them, but over all I'm doing much better.

Case in point. Last night one of my husbands friends really disappointed him, well not only him, but me as well. There were two raids he was signed up to go on this week and he was a no show for both of them. Both of them. Can we say...jerk? Honestly, I expect that from people I don't know that well, people in my guild or on the server that I run into but don't know personally. Yea, those are the kind of buttfaces I expect to do that crap. But not my friends.

So yea, that was great fun last night.

And then...oh wait...it gets better!

And then I had a raid member...in the raid...in the middle of the zone...just leave. Just leave. We thought he was DCed but Kroff talked to his wife and she said no, he wasn't feeling good.

Time out.

I understand if things come up. I understand if you're puking your guts out and you don't feel like playing. I understand if a kid is hollaring "Dad I need you!" I even understand if you're so pissed off at someone you need to walk away before you start yelling profanities over vent. Dude, it's cool. But please for the love of all that is good in this world...TELL SOMEONE. Just say "hey, not feeling it, please replace me, I need to get off." That's all it takes. That's all. No big deal. I got it taken care of.

But do NOT just up and leave and not say anything. It's rude, it's disrespectful, and it really make me angry. And I expect better of you. I expect a lot better of you than that.

And then there's another kicker...dude that fussed at me the other day struck again last night! Started fussing about my second raid leader swapping out her priest for her druid. Both healers and both performing the same function in the raid. But he was pissed about it. Told her she couldn't roll on loot and she had no business being in Naxx. Umm...nooooo. I told her, last time I checked you're the raid leader. So she told him we'd sit down and talk after that raid.

He immediately logged.

How mature right? So here's yet ANOTHER guy showing his butt in front of the guild and my leaders. No respect, no nothing. Just being a prick because he feels like it.

Or maybe it's me. I mean is it me? Am I really that awful of a guild leader that I attact all the pricks in the guild? Do all of these jerks just migrate toward me? Do I have a sticker on my head that says "PLEASE COME TO SACRED PACK IF YOU ARE RUDE, IMMATURE, AND DON'T GIVE A FLYING FLIP ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE'S FEELINGS."

Hellfire, I know at least three people who should be in my guild then. HA! (Come on, I know you laughed a little :-P)

I don't know. It's just frustrating. I just want to go home, log on WOW and be welomed by what I consider my second family. I don't want to log on and get grief and rude jerks hounding me and my officers. It's a game people. We play it for fun. But you will be respectful if you're going to run with this Pack. End of story.

What exactly is "casual"?

Okay, so I have to admit, I was a little taken aback last night when a guild member approached me about not being included in the 25 man raid invites.

Let me set the scene first before I go any further.

Last night, a group of us went into the Eye of Eternity just to see if we could down Malygos since we as a guild have never done it. It was nothing formal, nothing we were all anticipating, just my husband throwing some folks together and seeing if we could get him. My goal was to actually get on a little before it was time for us to go and talk to some people about raids and make sure invites were on the calendar for Sunday's raid. However, real life happened and my father-in-law decides to drop in unexpectedly and help my husband with something. So much for getting on early. So we scarf down dinner since his dad's sitting there waiting on him and then I haul tail upstairs and get us set up. I log in and then get him logged in and just do a quick set up on the calendar with just me and him in it so I can do invites later. But at least I got it started.

Okay, now to chat it up with people about the ten mans. There's a couple on not in a group atm so I pst them and let them know we're starting raid three, here are the times, can you make it, blahblah. Okay cool deal, I've talked to most of them now.

It's ten minutes til raid and Kroff has made it upstairs and is sitting at his desk doing invites for the raid. I'm still chatting with a couple of people and all in all my head is not ready for Maly yet. But we get in there and start trying it out.

About half way through our raid time, a guildie pops on, reads the guild message which states that invites will be on the calendar today for the 25 man run. They state over guild chat that there's no invite, were they left out? I state "no, we just haven't gotten to it yet" and Kroff throws them an invite and so now there's three of us on the list. That guildie appeased we continue pulling and when we take breaks I start throwing in people I know that are on the list to go.

Over the course of about half an hour in between wipes, I'm up to about 20 people. There's still five spots I haven't put on the calendar yet. Five. Here's where the fun begins.

So a guild mate pops on and immediately whispers me "yea, so why am I being left out of the 25 man raids?"

Excuse me?

Seriously, I have been doing invites for half an hour in between pulls, there's five spots, and you want to know why you're left out? Are you kidding me?

So in essence, one of his friends has read the invites, seen his or her name and then ran and told this other person who's now questioning me. Nevermind the fact that there are still FIVE spots that haven't been filled yet. Hmmm...maybe, just maybe, you're in one of those spots. You want to give me two freaking seconds before you jump my case?

Yea, I was pretty peeved, but the whole "why am I not being included" question was not what pissed me off the most.

Let's continue.

So I quickly explain, "you're not left out, I haven't finished invites, please give me a minute as I'm doing this in between tries." So they apparently checked the guild list and saw oh hey, there's a group in Eye. You would think at this point a person would be like "maybe I shouldn't bother her right now, she's doing something pretty important." But no...nope, that's not what happened. I get a guilt trip. "Eye, oh dang, that's what I need for my achievement. Yea, well I just wanted to make sure I was raiding, that's kinda why we're here." (No, that's not exactly what was said, but what was implied.)

Now I'm getting angry.

Here I am, trying to tank Malygos and I've got this person whispering me complaining and 1. not being included in an invite list that's not complete yet and 2. basically telling me that my guild isn't raiding enough for him. I'm sorry, the last time I checked, Sacred Pack is NOT, I repeat NOT a hardcore raiding guild.

I will not make my guys raid 6 or 7 nights a week and I will not cater to the quarals of one person fussing about not raiding enough. I try my level best to do what's best for the guild as a whole. Hellfire! That's why we're raiding in the first place! Everyone's been asking for it. Everyone has expressed an interest in raiding and that's what we've been doing.

I don't mean to beat a dead horse but come on! Can you cut me a little slack? I've been running over numbers and classes and specs and people for the past WEEK trying to get three raids set up so my ENTIRE guild can run 10 man Naxx. I've been busting my butt for these people, and all I've gotten so far (granted it's only been one night that I've told we're doing three raids) is complaints. Complaining and mumbling and grumbling and this or that.

Please get over yourselves. Really, just get over it. I'm totally cool and totally open with taking concerns and complaints privately. I'm down with that. That's part of my job description as GM. But what I won't take is gripping about policies that this guild has set in place from the very beginning. We are NOT a hardcore raiding guild. We raid casually and we do it in the best interest of the guild.

When we start Naxx 25 next week, not everyone's gonna get to go. It's a fact of life. 30+ people will not fit into 25 man Naxx. It sucks, but that's the way it is. That's the way Blizzard made it and like or not, we have to adhere to that if we're going to raid. I'm sorry. I apologize now if you're not on the invite list. It's nothing against you as a person. We want to take everyone and I promise that we will get you in there in time. But the list that's in place was chosen to conform to the right specs and classes that are needed in a 25 man run. There are going to be times that people can't make it, then I will get those guildies not on the list in that run. We'll fill spots as needed and everything will work out. So if you're not on the list, just hang in there with me. You'll be in the ten mans for sure, please let that be enough for now. We're doing our best.

Back to where I was originally going with this.

Casual. Please define it.

To me a casual raiding guild is one that does not make raiding it's top priority. It comes in second to PVP, questing, instancing, or just general hanging out having a good time. Casual consists of raiding a couple nights a week but not being required to raid 7 nights a week. Casual also means you go with the flow, if a bunch of raid members are going to have to miss for whatever reason, we don't raid that week. We don't want our comrades to be left behind because of RL. It happens.

So if you are a member of Sacred Pack or interested in becoming one, get this in your head right now. Raiding comes second. We are a family first and raiders second. And that's not going to change as long as I'm around.

I better do this now...

After being bugged by a couple people over the weekend that I haven't updated, I figure I better do this now before I get too busy to do it later. :-)

What has Aht been into lately? Well not too much. I've mainly been logging on to do my daily cooking and chat it up with everyone. I've been trying to help gear Jule's druid when I can and get some of our other guildies into heroics to help them gear up for the raids. I have a ton of people hitting 80 and working them into the guild runs is going to be great fun.

I said last week we were really close to having three ten man runs, well I told Kroff this morning we were just one shy of being ready to go. And I'm a noob and completely forgot about one of the CM people that just hti 80 with both of his toons over the weekend...we're set.

It'll still be at least a week before we start that raid up. I need to discuss time and committment with everyone that's to be involved and make sure I do have ten committed people to take with us. We've also been talking about who to get to lead it and Kroff said this morning that I probably should. I brought up a couple other people that I would trust to lead a raid, but he thinks me doing it would be a better idea since so many people want to run with me. /rolls eyes I dunno about all that now, but I'm flattered that he still trusts me enough to lead raids.

I lead a raid in BC, but I was new to leading and we definitely had our downfalls along the way. I struggled to get people there and on time and ready to go. I had a hard time fussing at people when they slacked off and settling disputes. I hate dealing with the dirty work. I mean, I don't think anyone especially likes it, but I have a really hard time because I want to be the "nice one". I've always had this thing about me where people tend to run to me and confide in me. I dunno if it's an aura I give off or what, but I've always been very proud of the fact that people feel they can trust me and do trust me. It's something that I don't take for granted and try very hard to maintain my trustworthiness. I like it. So that makes me not want to step up when the occasion calls for it. Definitely a flaw I've been working on. So for Kroff to tell me he thinks I should lead the raid, it means a lot. It means he's seen some change in me. And I'm happy for that.

That being said, we'll definitely have to talk about it some more, but I'll probably be seperating off from my hubby in a couple weeks and taking my own team into Naxx 10 to get ready for Uldar. Oh boy.

It won't be that bad, if I end up leading, I'll have a good crew. A little heavy on the melee, but we definitely have a team for success. And I'm excited. Not about leading, but about getting some people who are fairly new to raiding in there and pounding face. I'm excited we're giving people the opportunity to do something they've never done before. It makes me happy that my guild is so open for those kinds of people. Yea dps may suck at first, but I tell ya, I have yet to see someone who isn't willing to listen and to learn and take advice. I like those people. And honestly, I'd rather have sucky dps or struggling healing or can't hold aggro tanking and them show up prepared and ready to learn and listen than someone who rocks and is stubborn as a mule. Give me the needs to work on my crap person any day of the week.

And just for the record, I by no means think that I'm one of those awesome people. I know there are things I don't know about my class. I know there are things I still need to work on and I know that I will always find someone who plays a Druid tank better than me. But I'm cool with that. I feel I play my toon to the best of my abilities and I'm satisfied with that. And that's all I ask of anyone else. Just play to the best of your ability if you're going to raid, and I'm happy with that. I'll take you to the training dummy and help you, I'll shoot you some sites to help you find gear, I'll take you dungeon romping to get that gear, and I'll even coach you if you need that. But if you're doing your best, then bravo for you. You are a true team player and I salute you. Thank you for being you.

Where are you going?

It's been a slow weekend. The hubby and I didn't do too much but lay around and play games. What's different from normal right? :-P Well I'm enjoying it while I can. In the next few weeks our lives are about to get a lot busier.

This coming up weekend we're going to a friends house to watch Twilight on Blue-Ray. Pretty excited about that, I've been wanting to see that movie for a while. The weekend after that is my birthday and we're headed back home to see my family for the weekend. I'm also excited about that. I haven't seen them since Christmas so this is a long overdue trip home. Then the following weekend is our one year anniversary. Yea, also excited about that. :-) I'm not expecting anything spectacular, money's really tight right now and we are saving up some for our trip to Vegas. So the weekend after our anniversary is Easter and I'm hoping we go to Kingsport again so I can go to my church for Easter. Then there's Vegas! I'm kinda excited, kinda nervous. My husband's going with me so I know everything will be okay, but I really hate big cities. I like my personal space and I feel really crowded in big cities. But it'll be something different and neither one of us have been there before. Actually, it'll be both of our first trips past the Mississippi.

So those are Aht's plans for the next couple months. It's going to be pretty busy but that's okay. All things I'm looking forward to. And lots of wonderful time to spend with the ones I love.

Okay, on to Sacred Pack.

So I spent the better part of yesterday going over raids in my head yesterday. I finally figured everything out and got it all written out. We are very close, two people shy actually, of having three full ten man runs. Three. Can you believe that?

Sacred Pack has been on her feet for almost three months, not quite, but almost. She's very young. And while I have actively recruited when we first talked about splitting into two ten mans, I have not done so in about a month. A months a long time for short attentioned spanned players right? Well apparently not. I've had a couple of people approach me about joining the guild who have seen my spams in trade chat. One actually did and so far he's a wonderful addition. He doesn't know it yet, but he's signed up as one of my healers for 25 man. hehe

As I wrote before, we've also had the merger with Coyote Moon that has brought in several wonderful people. And tomorrow, we'll hopefully get to know them all a little better as they join in on our ten mans. I also had two of my good friends from Wolfden join up with us.

Here's the strange part...I just had four people apply to join the guild yesterday. Four.

Does this not seem a little crazy? I mean, I know Wolfden got new applicants all the time, but come on...we were a guild of at least 50 active members and probably more than that. And I had also been in Wolfden for going on two years, and she'd been around longer than that. People had heard of Wolfden.

No one knows Sacred Pack. Well except my friends I keep in touch with from Wolfden that went other places. We're not a hardcore raiding guild. We're fairly small. I need to count up exactly how many active members we have, but I know we're way less than 50, like I was saying we're barely 30 for three ten mans.

But here we are. Growing like a weed with people crawling out of the woodwork. I'm not complaining. No way am I complaining, it just seems...odd.

A while back I was really worried about people tarnishing our reputation because of the hard feelings that Dero, Fen, and Floppie still hold against us. To this day I can not pass a single person from Maelstrom (well except Soulless the sweeteheart :-)) without a /rude or something to that effect. They all have made it very clear they do not like me. Thank you, now get over it. No one cares, least of all me. You made your bed, now lie in it. The truth of who you people really are and how you really treat others will show in time and I'm not worried about it. The only warning I give you is if you starting harassing my guildies, I will have something to say about it and things will not be pretty. Otherwise, you leave me alone, I leave you alone.

Okay, off my soap box.

It just blows my mind that that whole guild, for the most part, can't stand my husband and I and we STILL do not know why. But whatever, no big loss.

So back to where I was originally going with this...I was worried that the two of them would ruin our reputation on the server. Yes, I still have issues with the two of them, but that's between us, not anyone else. And no, I don't really think Flop would run his mouth, at least to anyone outside of his guild and most of them already know us anyway. I do think Dero and his crew would smash us into the ground given the proper chance though. They've already proven they are immature in how they handle things. And I worried for a while that they would try to do just that to get back at us for whatever the heck we did to turn their worlds upside down.

But it really seems just the opposite. Now I'm sure they've run their mouths to someone at some point and now people who don't even know us don't like us. BUT, I can tell you there are a lot more people out there that DO like us and do like and respect me. I'm seeing it. I've made friends with several new and wonderful people over the past few months and I'm extrememly happy with my guild and where we are going. I feel like our name is getting out there, but in a good way. Even those that will remain friends and allies and may never be guildmates, there are a lot of them out there now. There's a whole guild I still don't know that well, but I'm beginning to trust and I have a high opinion of the GM.

It's really amazing how things work sometimes isn't it? I guess that whole, treat others and you wish to be treated really pays off. ;-)

Mergers

This past Wednesday, I called a guild meeting to discuss a few things. One of which was the 25 man raid and one of which was the general attitude of everyone. All in all I think things went well and we seemed to get our point across. I supposed only time will tell as we are running what appears to be the last of our joint venture with Shattered Dreams this Sunday.

I'm kind of disappointed about that, but Sacred Pack has some wonderful opportunities arising and I'm looking forward to the future. I just hate leaving our friends behind. But what can I say? Seems they, well several of them, don't want to put forth the effort that raiding requires...hard core or not.

I won't go into detail because I don't want anyone to have a bad image of Shattered Dreams, they really are a wonderful group of people and we'll continue to do things with them. Heck, I talked to Mourningside for quite a while last night and he and I decided we're going to watch a chick flick and see who's the bigger sap. Yea, don't ask. :-P

In any case, merger, yep...topic of choice.

So Wednesday right before the meeting, Nakar asked me who Gherig was. Well, kind of odd, but I told him he was a friend of Teacc and Zara's. He said that he wanted to talk to me or Kroff but that any officer would do. I didn't know this at the time, but he was trying to catch us before our meeting so we could talk about it then. He wasn't online when I got on though and didn't get on til after the meeting had taken place and Raid 2 was underway.

But he did eventually log on and immediately whispered me. Asked if I had heard he wanted to talk to me and I said yea, but I had no clue what about. He wanted to talk in vent so we both hopped on and he dove right in. He explained that his guild was made up of about 10 people, all buddies of his that he had been gaming with for about 10 years. He said they knew that they weren't going to get any bigger and they were wondering if we would be interested in taking them in. Not exactly a merger, but more of a absorbing I guess. He told me they were all former hard core EQ raiders and they knew their stuff. Went down the list of what classes and specs he had and reassured me again they were great guys that just wanted to raid. Zara had told him we were having some trouble with our current arrangement and he thought now would be a good time to approach us about it.

I was kind of taken aback at the offer. I mean, this was the guy that turned me down for a permanent ten man spot in my raid for dps or healing. I honestly thought we had done something to upset him. But here he was, offering to bring ten guys into our fold with no other requests than to raid. Now were we bigger, I would be hesitant to bring them in as we might not possibly have spots for them. But since we are in this situation with Shattered Dreams...ten guys is half of the raid. Ten guys would give us 25 raiders for a full guild raid.

Awesome!

So I talked to all my officers and it was unanimous...we're all for it. Spoke with Gherig last night and he said to give him a week or so to make sure all of his people were good with it as some were on Spring Break and he would get back to me.

/sigh of content

In a little over a weeks time it's possible Sacred Pack could have a full guild raid with some of our friends to fill in the missing spots. I'm extremely excited. The future looks bright.

It Must be in the Air

Forever a Noob just posted a blog about wiping in Naxx 25. How convenient for me! He talks about certain folks that join their guild not fitting in, instead of kicking them, they just let them move on.

I need an attitude more like that.

I tend to get my panties all in a wad because I try so hard to make everyone happy and as we all know, that's freaking impossible. Someone at some point is always going to be unhappy with something. It's inevitable. I suppose I would be rich from the book I would write if I knew the secret to pleasing everyone.

A flaw I desperately need to work on.

In any case, I'm attempting to resolve our guild dilemma by way of guild meeting, as I said before. I can not express how thankful I am to myself for making me wait a couple days before holding it. I have calmed down immensely! I'm hoping all goes well when we all talk tonight. I'm going to attempt to stir up excitement again, something we've been lacking for a couple of weeks now. Dunno how well this is all going to work, but we will find out!

I have been taking a small break myself. I try to get on at least once a day and chat it up with my folks and check on things, but I've not been spending my evenings face planted in front of my laptop. Something I really needed to do. I really think the amount of time I've been spending pouring into WOW is affecting my health and my well being. When we split from Wolfden I vowed I would not turn into the leader that Fen became when the split happened. I promised myself I would be a better guild leader than that and not let us get to the point where vultures were preying on what once was a strong and proud guild. I want us to fight alongside each other and progress with the best of them out there, but I do not want us to have the rep of Dust and some of the other higher ranked guilds out there. I'm quite content to take a month to clear a wing instead of a week. And honestly? I'm thrilled beyond belief that our little group has made it as far as we have. It makes me proud.

I imagine Aht standing tall at the gates of Naxx and looking over our crew. Helm in hand and staff strapped firmly to her back she smiles slightly at the raid before her and lets out a fierce battlecry as they all join in unison. Putting on her helm she turns and they plunge into the undead wasteland that lays before them.

That's how I picture our guild. Okay, that was my little RP for the day.

Sacred Pack. May her days be long and plentiful. May she always be victorious but never lose sight of the compassion and caring that brought her into being. May she always be inviting and welcoming. May strangers feel at home in her presence and my she never turn anyone away unless they threaten the ties that hold you so strong. Long may she live.

Rants of a Guild Leader

*Disclaimer*

Tab is mad. Not as mad as she was last night, but still highly pissed. If you are in a good mood, do not read this blog, I will probably bring you down.

That being said, here goes.

Last night was raid night number two for this week for Sacred Pack/Shattered Dreams i.e. "Sacred Dreams". It was awful. Just awful. And here's the kicker...we made progress. We got Gluth down last night, something we weren't able to do last week. And one more attempt, and we would have had Thaddius down. Our third try was ten thousand times better than the first and if we'd had a few more people make it, we would have made the timer. But that's a mute point.

Why am I mad if we're making progress? Why? That's a wonderful question. I'm mad because of people's negative attitudes. I'm pissed. I was so angry last night I was yelling at my husband. I'm not talking voice raised, I'm a little upset yelling. I'm talking all out, I can't control the volume or pitch of my voice and I'm shaking I'm so angry yelling.

Okay, stop, time out. Why in the world am I this angry about a game? It is after all...just a game. Yes, it is just a game, and I've been telling myself that over and over and over since last night. But inside this game are people, and right now, I'm really pissed at those people. My real life friends and game friends a like. I'm pissed at them.

I'm pissed because last night, it was one thing after the other. First off, we had 20 people signed up to be at this raid. 20 people accepted the initiation for last night. 20. That means I only need to find five replacements. Oh great, one of those that declined was a healer. That's awesome. So I've been talking to an old buddy's new GM. Really nice guy. Was interested in starting up a 25 man joint raid with Sacred Pack before he learned we already had an alliance going. We chatted for a while a couple nights ago and we agreed to let them know if we were short and they would be more than happy to fill in spots til their 25 man alliance starts in a couple of weeks. Cool deal. Okay, Kroff, exactly how many are we short? Alright, we need x amount and one needs to be a healer. No problemo. We'll be there.

Ten minutes til raid time, time to start inviting. Okay, picking up Sacred Pack folks first, say in guild "when you're ready for invite, let me know", /who Shattered. Umm...there's five people on in their guild. Did I miss something? *refresh* Nope, still five people on.

At this point, I'm getting kind of flustered. Now we're ten minutes after raid was supposed to start. Sacred Pack is still missing two of it's members, one of which is a healer, and now there are a few more on in Shattered Dreams, but still less than ten. What the hell? Did I miss something?

So we wait. I'm able to pull a few more from Karaviri, but since we've waited this long we're just going to wait on three people that were running late. Might as well at this point. We've missed the first HOUR of raid time. And guess what? Chapp and Gracey still aren't on. No one has seen or heard from them. Honestly, I have a feeling something happened or came up that they had to deal with or lost power or internet or something. It's really not normal that they do something like that. Hopefully I'll find out the whole story in the next day or two. But we'll see.

That frustration aside, where the heck is most of Shattered Dreams? They have eight people in the raid right now. That's several less than they're supposed to have. We're short too, but I knew Goy wasn't going to be there and had planned on filling his spot. With Chapp and Gracey no where to be found, that put us at 11. That means between the two guilds we had 19 people. I had to pug six people outside of those guilds last night.

Let me interject and say this real quick. A big thanks to Ozuls and his folks at Karaviri for coming and filling in last night. We really appreciate you helping us out and look forward to running with you guys in the future.

That said, I'm not happy about having to pug six people. You can take 25 of the greatest players in the game and throw them together to run a 25 man Naxx and things are still not going to run as smoothly as having 25 people who are used to running together. There's a certain comfort zone people get into when they are used to running with others. It's normal and it's good when it happens. Occassionally you need to switch some things up, but for the most part it's really good to have the same folks running together so they learn each other and each other's play styles.

For example. My husband and I have been playing together for over a year now. I know that I can yell at him when I lose aggro on something and he will run and get it off a healer for me. We're used to playing together and have that connection, and not just because he's my husband. I also know that Jules is an awesome main tank healer. She, because of her spec and her playstyle, is not a raid healer. She just doesn't enjoy it as well. But you put her on a main tank and let her lose and she's going to kick butt. I know that if we're in a de-curse, de-poison situation, I never have to say anything to Asanta about removing said debuffs. He's on it. I know that Teacc is on his toes. I know he knows his class and I can always count on him to tranq shot if needed or drop traps to keep mobs off the healers and squishies, or kite something that's gotten away from me. As a former raid leader, I also know he knows his stuff. So when he's got a suggestion, Kroff and I always listen, because we know him. I could go on, but I think you see the point. The more you run with people, the more you get to know them, not just on a personal level, but how they play. You pick up their quirks and where they shine. It just happens.

So last night, our groove was off from the get go. Hanging out for an hour sucked and having six people out of the norm was going to make learning this new boss a...interesting go. But that's where we were. We FINALLY got the ball rolling and went in and pwned us a Grobulus. At this point, I'm aggravated and ready to go so as soon as everyone hit yes, I pulled. Yep, it was probably too fast, and yes there were probably still some questions, but tough toodles. 24 other people hit yes and we were already running late.

Grob was awesome. We one shot the punk and only lost one person. Okay, distribute loot and let's keep going. On to Gluth. One shot him too. Freaking awesome! Last week we were struggling, but with Noxxic there to help Del kite the adds, it was perfect. Okay, Gluth down, hand out loot and let's do this.

Thaddius. Oh Thaddius. I knew this fight was going to suck. I figured we'd have a couple of wipes before everyone learned "left side negative, right side positive". I totally understand. The very first time I did this fight, I was so confused I never thought I'd get it. But I did and I knew all of these guys would too. We had a head start as I knew for sure that 11 people knew what they were doing. And while that's not half, it's pretty darn close.

Kroff explains, we answer some questions, and we're off. Wipe. Okay, dust the dirt off, let's do it again.

Here's where things really go south for me.

At this point in the raid, our friends at Karaviri start talking about a really easier way to do this fight. They start explaining and things get a little chaotic. I've got people in vent talking, people in chat channels talking, people in raid talking, people in officer talking, and people in guild talking. That's a lot to keep up with while trying to listen to what their idea is. Kroff says we'll try it that way just to see if it works better for people so here we go...

Guild chat is honestly what's pissing me off at this point. There is so much negative talk I'm about to say "screw it, I'm done". But I bite my tongue and I finally get the bright idea to be positive about the situation (ha, ha, okay corny I know). I tell my folks to stop being so down about this and let's be the bigger people and just try it. More negative.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

STOP IT! Really, just stop. Can you all not be gung ho about something for ONCE in your life? No one twisted your arm to get you here. YOU chose to come. YOU chose to be here and to be part of this raid. SO STOP BEING NEGATIVE. Really. Get over it. And get over yourself. YOU are not better than the other 24 people in this raid. We are all paying the same repair bill. We ALL had to wait an hour because our guild mates and raid mates chose not to get their butts online. We're ALL in this together and we need to start acting like it.

This...this attitude problem is the EXACT SAME thing that tore Wolfden apart. THIS is the problem. And honestly, I have a bigger problem with my officers being negative than anyone else in the guild. I made you officers for a reason, and gave you responsibilites for a reason. I trust you. I think you're different and that you can handle the responsibilites. And with that title comes something else that you HAVE to do whether you feel like it or not, and that is to be uplifting and a positive influence on the rest of this guild. No, we're not very big. But I don't give two flying flips about how big or small we are. YOUR attitude influences how everyone else is. YOUR negative comments rub off on everyone else. And guess what? If an officer is having problems and expresses that outloud, everyone sees that. Everyone picks up on that. AND that starts rubbing off on everyone else. You were made an officer to be above that and if my officers don't start acting better, I'm going to clean house.

Sacred Pack will NOT, I repeat, will NOT turn into Wolfden. I will leave the game forever before I see that happen. I have worked my butt off to get this guild going, to be fair, and to make everyone happy. I WILL NOT let us fall apart by bad attitudes.

And I'm nipping this in the bud before it gets out of control. I've had a problem for a few weeks now with a few individuals and tomorrow, it's going to stop. I'm having a guild meeting and we're going to talk about this. And if things don't change, well, there's the door.

Don't get me wrong. I meant every word when I talked before about loving my guild. I do. I love each one of them very much and I will bend over backwards to make sure everyone is happy and feels at home. But on the same note, I will not watch our home turn into where we all came from. My main concern is taking care of us, and right now, some things need to change for me to be able to do that.

Honestly, I'm really frustrated. But it's not the game. It really isn't. It's most definitely the people. And it's really sad that it's that way. Interacting with other people is really the core element of WOW. It's what makes it so fun, at least for me. Yea, the content is awesome, but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun if I were doing it alone.

Guilds are in place for a reason. Heirarchy is in place for a reason. But it really seems like no one cares. No one is thankful for their position or for the work that has gone into getting us this far. Sacred Pack has been alive for three months now. Three months...and we're in 25 mans. How cool is that? Maybe for some of those bigger realms, that's really slow, but for Scryers, I think that's awesome. And I know several guilds who wish they were in our shoes. I know a bunch of people who would kill to get as far as my guild has gotten. But somehow, and some where along the way...my folks have lost sight of that. They've forgotten that we're kicking butt and taking names. And I've over it.

For those of you reading this that haven't stopped being thankful, thank you. And I'm sorry I went off. You are what makes being a guild leader so enjoyable and you are the only reason I'm still here. You are the reason I haven't gone off the deep end yet. You guys keep me going and make me want to make things better. You guys tug at my heart strings and keep me logging on putting on my happy face. And to you, I am most appreciative. Thank you guys. :-)

/end rant

Oh My!

So I just saw the date of my last post and want to kick myself. Last night I was laying in bed browsing through the list of blogs I normally read and complaining to my husband that no one has updated in the past few days. Serves me right I supposed. :-)

In any case!

Aht has been pretty busy. Since I last updated, I've gotten three upgrades out of Naxx 25 which include:

Footwraps of Vile Deceit
The Undeath Carrier
Stalk-Skin Belt

Our ten man also plowed into Naxx and downed everything but Kel. Tricky punk. I'm totally blaming it on our raid make up though. We were really heavy on the melee making it hard to get all of our dps on the boss at all times. We definitely needed more ranged for the fight and we would have had him.

However, the evening was not all in vain...

Helm of the Vast Legions

Oh yes, Aht has a new helm! She's a lean, mean tanking machine now. I'm happy to report I have all the upgrades I have been hoping for except a couple of random 25 pieces that would be slight upgrades to my already awesome set up. I'm a happy bear.

Am I the best bear on the server? I highly doubt it. But I have met my goals for gear and I'm very happy of how far I've come. Aht is my crowning jewel of WOW and I'm very proud of her.

I'm ready for Uldar dang it! :-)