What Part of "Maybe Later" Didn't You Understand?

Happens all the time. Some random whispers you asking if you'd like to go on a run or do this or do that with them. You, likely in the middle of something (especially if you are leveling a priest), are expected to drop everything and rush to help or else you're unkind, a loser, an asshole, or worse.

The honesty approach never works. Early in my WoW playing days a Guild Master kicked me from her guild for saying: "no, I'd rather finish up my quests. I don't have a lot of time on tonight," in response to her request for me to run her new rogue through Wailing Caverns. Maybe in that case I just had an immature GM. Fine.

But there's one type of player I still can't figure out. The one where they send you a tell, you respond, "Maybe later, I have to log for dinner in a few mins," and then as their response to your response they immediately try to group you. It boggles the mind. And instead of just /ignore the person, I usually try to get to the bottom of it, and ask them: "why did you just do that?" as I decline. "Did you read what I said?"

"Yeah, but you're still on," the reply will come, "it will only take a second."

"Yes, but I'm in the middle of something right now," I reply.

At this point, it either goes quiet, or the random reveals him/herself as an "ultra." An ultra what, I'm not sure. But it isn't cool. It isn't "ultra cool."

"Yeah, so was I," the ultra has said, "but I have some time to grp up if you still want."

Now he or she is trying to flip this back on me, as if grouping up in the first place was my idea. It's borderline sociopathic. I realize - far too late - that I've been caught in the vortex. Forget about the tractor beam, I'm already in the landing bay. I'm as easy a mark as a fat American in Liverpool.

"I never wanted, actually," I'll reply, "you did."

Depending on the level of obnoxia, a second group request might be incoming. Or it might be, "lol, k, I'll friend you and hit you up later."

It's amazing, really, that people are like that.

Welcome Back Melissa & Pete Pete!

I'm very pleased to report that our friends Melissa Muromets and Peter Massimo have officially returned to the UWoW fold. So now we at least have one decent WoW player here (Pete) to lend some credibility, in addition to a complete noob (Mel) and a pathetic-for-having-played-for-two-years noob (me).

Hopefully Melissa will actually do some work on the graphic side of the blog this time around, rather than just saying she will and then never doing anything about it like in the past! And hopefully Pete Pete won't lose his cool the first time I tell him something he's written is a sack of crap!

Both Mel and Pete will begin reviewing podcasts again, probably as soon as next week. Melissa has already been added back to the blog as a contributor as you may notice, and Pete shall be by the end of the day today. Pete was supposed to be back a week or two ago, but he (understandably) wanted to avoid Brewfest podcasts at all costs so strung me along until now!

With a few notable exceptions, the WoW podcasting landscape seems to have completely changed from where we left off in the Spring, and we'll look to see if that's a good thing or a bad thing. The three of us have to update our master list as well as I haven't listened to a single podcast outside of Blue Plz! and Ctrl Alt WoW in months and don't even know many of the changes that have happened, or which podcasts have started to fade, halted completely, etc.. That will probably be a collaborative effort by all three of us.

The re-introduction of Melissa & Pete will not mean the re-introduction of "The Code." The Code was a bizarre set of communication rules I put in place which prohibited the members of the blog from speaking with each other in real life. The point of The Code was to keep each reviewer in a vacuum, where none of us with stronger opinions would be able to influence the other in terms of the sort of review they wrote.

While it may have been an interesting concept, it failed miserably in execution and led to a host of unintended consequences we really should have considered before even attempting it. Toothy, who will not be coming back to the blog, is still convinced I created the rule so that I wouldn't have to be seen in town speaking with them in person. And to a degree he is correct, although In my case it is more from a time-wasting point of view than an image point of view.

When the blog started we had just met each other, so things were always going to be a bit awkward. Rather than getting to know each other, I then decided to cut off communication. While everyone was enthusiasic at first, it became clear in the very first week that it was going to cause problems. But I stubbornly refused to change without giving it a solid try first. In all, the very code that was supposed to help bring us together and help keep our opinions fresh nearly killed the blog completely.

Also, we had like 19 bazillion different email addresses and contact points which was a mess for everyone. That's all gone. If you want to contact the blog, just shoot me an email at: jimsurge@gmail.com, or follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/uwow

So, here we are, ready to give it another go. A heartfelt thank you to the hundreds who continue to check the blog on a weekly basis, your support is much appreciated. Hopefully we'll continue to give you reasons to keep coming back.

Stir It In The Sauce

Some random quick hits today:

Shows just how out of the WoW podcast scene I've been lately, but did Renata leave World of Warcast? Our boy Hatfield sent me a surprising (to me, anyway) note saying Ren's Twitter bio begins: "Former cohost of World of Warcast..."

I tried poking around the website but didn't see anything official. Let me know if you have info on this!

***

Does WoW seem "more alive" to you now that you know that Cataclysm is coming? I know it isn't until next year but a few of my guildies have already started to get misty and are rolling up lowbies to run through Old World once or twice more before it changes.

"There's some new energy running through the old content now," said a guildie called Oatmeal. "Knowing that where you're walking or riding is going to be altered forever."

Semi-related, I have one toon on an RP server and all of the "clairvoyant" characters are standing on top of mailboxes shouting that 'a cataclyism is coming, listen now or you'll be lost!'

Snore.

***

Pete Pete will probably be back and write his first piece for the blog next week, although he's absolutely infuriated that he's coming back the week of Brewfest! "Can't wait to listen to 20 Brewfest shows," he texted me last night.

That one did elicit an audible reaction from me, but it was a chuckle rather than genuine laughter.

How Now Brown Cow?

Hope the weekend was restful for you. It wasn't for me. A 1½ year old can do that to a fella!

It looks as though we'll see Melissa and Pete Pete back in the fold here relatively soon. Whether that means this week or next I'm not yet certain. Pete has already sent me a little something and if I get the okay from him I'll post it.

I got a note from someone asking about the next part of Hatfield's sci-fi story. I'm not sure if it was Hat himself since there wasn't much chatter about it here on the blog! It's all up to him if he wants to share more. You can hit him up on twitter at "thehatfield."

For some reason, Hat continues to refuse to write for this blog. I think he wants to go write for The Hunter's Mark, a very good blog/resource for hunters run by Lassirra.

For me... not much WoW for the weekend. Got the priest up to 64 and took a break over in Champions Online.

Updates

Hamsalad hit 60! He's been running into all sorts of trouble in Outland thus far, numerous mob zergs, etc.. Seems like just when I get down to one mob left I pull just one more... and then just one more... and then just one more... and then I'm dead. I financed his flying mount already it should be fun/quick to be able to fly for all of Outland.

I thought that I'd be too tempted to ditch the priest and just level the 70 pally since the faction change but I'm pleased to have stayed with the priest for now. I think I'm going to do as much of Outland as I can stand, then start Northrend with the pally

I've been forcing myself to get addicted to Pandora again. I think I made a mistake adding the Ventures as an influence to my main station because since then I've had a TON of surf music suggestions. Surprisingly, I think some of the modern stuff is actually pretty cool when it crosses into electronica, but that's just me.

Haven't been able to get into Champions Online for a day. I don't mean mentally either. The server on their site says up, but in my launcher it says down and doesn't connect me. If it's still that way tonight I'll have to open a ticket. Sigh.

Fall In

Some ongoing behind-the-scenes maneuvering may result in the return of Melissa Muromets and Peter "Pete Pete" Massimo to the UWoW blog as regular contributors.

If they do return they will resume duties as podcast reviewers which is doubly good news. The blog has suffered greatly without Melissa and Pete Pete's insights, and it will be great bringing back two of the original members of the team who really get the spirit of what I'm trying to accomplish here.

One of the biggest issues we've discussed in these talks is that there will be no silly non-communication rules between us this time. Who would have guessed that non-communication would lead to petty misunderstandings and off-based misjudgments? While it did serve its purpose well in terms of not influencing each others' writings in the early days, it was a practical nightmare for everything else from editing to deadline-meeting, etc..

So let's hope they do return and this blog gets back to being something much greater than the sum of its parts.

Faction Change Service - part 3

Easy peasy. Finalizing the transfer in-game took seconds.

Well done to Blizzard for having this function so smoothly.

Faction Change Service - part 2

Woke up this morning and the transaction has been confirmed. In my Account Management it read:

These faction changes have been successfully completed.
The characters are now available to play.

My old human pally Mikeadin is now going to go through a painful procedure that will lengthen his ears and make his body more supple. He will emerge on the other side as Thehatfield, to join up with Hatfield, Hamsalad, Oatmeal, and the whole Sons of Horus gang on Anvilmar.

There was a very slight problem last night... I forgot that Mikeadin was the GM of a guild called No Drama and you cannot faction-change if you are the guild's GM.

Funny story, Mikeadin wasn't the real GM of No Drama either. When I rolled my first horde toon and went 1-80 with him I left Mike in a thriving leveling guild that was about to start raiding. After I got the hunter to 80 I went back to check on Mike and all of the guildies were gone and he was the GM! So I quickly rolled another toon, transferred the guild leadership to keep the No Drama name going, and then had to log out and wait 20 minutes before I could start processing the faction change.

I'll post a quick follow-up in part 3 about actually making the switch. So far, so good.

Faction Change Service

Wow, that was fast. It seems like we were just getting confirmation that faction changes were actually going to happen, and now they've already arrived! I've immediately begun the process of switching my lvl 70 human paladin over to the horde side. We'll see how smoothly this goes.

Champions Online

Having some fun getting into an electricity character in Champions Online. Think I'm going to delete and start over because I haven't really been paying much attention to REC & END. Also have to get a better grip on gameplay mechanics/UI.

Tried a might character too late last night for a few minutes. Want to do a custom archetype tonight if time allows.

Not really finding a huge leap from CoH but I've not really logged any time at all yet so that's pretty unfair.