The new LFG system

If like me you have a couple alts you most likely think the new system is awesome. I honestly think its absolutely brilliant in some ways. In others, just by the nature of the system, it blows goats. I realise I'm posting behind the times a little here as the wow blogosphere has been filled with much the same over the past few weeks. Unfotunately my stomach and myself had a disagreement earlier in the week where I thought he should be filled with food a couple times a day and he didn't. Now I'm feeling slightly better I thought I'd release a little more bile (vomit related humour!). Another rant? Why of course!

Abuse
Below is an example of a guy (who I play with sometimes) who decided to be an asshole. What did he do? He and a pal from another guild repeatedly killed other players on the first pull in Gundrak Heroic using Tricks of the Trade to pull the first pack and refusing to leave. Because there is two of them they can't be kicked and everytime someone accepts they're just going to take the 15minute debuff and leave, they can refill it with more victims. Because one of them is in the tanking spot the mobs won't be picked up and most of the party will die and incur repair bills every single time. They did this for around 2 hours and killed people around 70 times.
Here's the shit that got  posted on our realm forums which is complete with screenies and drama.
Now I'm occasionally very immature. I have been known to deliberately provoke people and on accasion I've seen Trolling produce some pretty funny banter (like the time 3 of our members spent 2 hours patiently sending individual stacks of 1 fish to another member and completely spam filled their mailbox). But, I have never wasted 2 hours of my life just to piss people I don't know off. It just doesn't make sense.

Lootwhores
You play a plate dps. The pally healer rolls on your gear for their DPS spec because they play that usually. Ok its fair enough, I know I tank stuff on my DK because it means faster groups and I don't have a problem with this. You get to the second boss and a tanking item drops, and again the pally is rolling need because they "also tank sometimes". I've seen people roll for all 3 of their specs in heroics before. Normally I don't give a crap because the bulk of heroic loot is bad anyway and by this point everyone is normally rolling in enchanting mats and only doing the heroics for their 2 frost emblems. Its in the ICC heroics that this mainly produces the QQ and this is precisely why I only do these places with guildies/friends if I actually want anything.
Or a DPS wants an item so they wait for your debuff to run out so they can try to kick you and get someone who doesn't share their armor class/spec type this annoys me most. Mainly because I've had it twice even when I've been on echo who needs nothing from any heroic.

Elitists without a clue
The people doing it for just the frost emblems generally fall into 2 categories.
The people who recognise they outgear the instance and will tolerate the presence of everyone else because they know its just a heroic and its pretty hard to screw it up. They just want it to go fast and smooth and will generally agree to the optional bosses provided people are moving quickly and will do all reasonable things to keep the group moving at a reasonable pace.
The other category is made up of people who are similar in gear to the first type but severely mentally deficient and impatient. If they are a DPS they refuse to use aggro drops or Misdirects and will generally pull aggro and whine about how its the tank's (who they outgear) fault. They'll also often try and speed up the run by pulling other packs to AOE when the healer is running oom or the tank is miles away.

Achievements
Why oh why do some fuckwits insist on doing the achievements that still require some co-ordination? I'm not talking about the simple ones like On the Rocks. But occulus ruby void/emerald void for example are common ones players try and force the rest of the party to do. I can control an amber drake, I know when to put my rift up, I know when to fire my shock. It's not rocket surgery but some people really don't have a clue so the party will wipe repeatedly and the guy who begged you to do it is either putting a stupidly optimistic slant on how badly you just failed ("almost guys just 50% to go, we almost had it there") or nerdraging because he assumes its someone elses fault.

Know-it-alls in Lowbie Dungeons
Reading around a bit on the intarwebs I look at other blogs, generally hunter oriented. At the moment a lot of the blogs I'm reading are bringing it up.Being a bit of an elitist cockbag I figured I was immune to it. What I mean is, you join a group and some wanker in BOA gear spends the entire instance telling you how to play your class.
Example - I'm playing on the char I hang out with the missus on. A level 34 (currently) Balance druid. Now I'm basically spamming moonfire and the occasional wrath to conserve my mana pool which at the moment has a tendency to deplete rather alarmingly. (dreamstate soon wooo!)
A freaking hunter starts telling me to do things. A hunter in STRENGTH GEAR ARRGHGHGHGH!!! Ok so maybe just the strangth BOA Axe. He was telling me to use DoTs. Starfire is more than adequate and means I can spend the majority of the instance actually dpsing instead of drinking as everyone moves off into the distance. I will spend a good 70-80% of my time levelling in situations where I can't justify using them so I simply don't.
Now apparently this makes me a noob. A noob who was outdamaging his scrub ass. Of course any information I give him is met with "Lol l2p ur own clas noob". IT IS MY CLASS ARGHGHGHGHGHGH!
I don't normally bite. I normally am very calm and do something vindictive like forget to heal them/fail to taunt off them or even deliberately misdirect them. You know, something that kills them but leaves the people not annoying me alive. On this occasion, it was the good old vote kick before the last boss. It has the double advantage of being completely unexpected and such a massive kick in the balls that perhaps next time they won't consider being such an asshole again

The sad thing for me that really is kicking in is the lack of a community on your own server. Previously you instanced, pvped and hungout with everyone on your server. Now with instances cross Battlegroup, pvp the same and about 6 big cities to choose from its often like the only contact you have with the rest of your server is in pug raids and trade chat. Both of which aren't exactly the best place to meet people. RPers won't really see this as they have their own communities but for those of us who play for the pve its actually becoming more and more dissociated and I'm just not seeing all the people on my realm I used to.

/echo out

Why being an Officer in a raiding guild sucks sometimes

I don't mean to QQ here but I feel this is a valid topic that some players in raiding guilds will understand. It's a bit of a rant but bear with me.

So here's a short list of why sometimes it just plain sucks a bag of dicks to be the one cracking the whip.

1) You're never "off duty"
You can log on intending to play for 5mins and you'll get spam whispered by someone who's annoyed/upset or possessing some other drama that NEEDS to be attended to now. If there are pugs going and you just want to chill out you'll often have people expect you to take charge and organise it for them. A lot of the time our members are very good about this but sometimes you just want to hug them (until they stop breathing).

2) If you ever take anything for yourself it's "Officer Corruption"
Now this doesn't happen a lot in my Guild at the moment but it has done and its happened to me personally in the past. An item drops, say a rare mount, anyone can use it and you raid roll. You win the raid roll - you get 24 people telling it's you its someone different. We had an officer pass Death's Verdict recently because he didnt want to cause drama by taking it. Even though this guy attends every raid and has the most priority. Another reason to make loot rules crystal clear which is something I think I've learnt the hard way over the years.

3) You're under constant scrutiny, often from people with half the facts
Being second guessed is never fun and this is often just part of the job. However there will be situations where you just have to sit on your hands and not do anything. As an officer you will typically be privy to the inner workings of the guild and will know the real reason Player X's recent attendance is low. Even if Player Y is complaining that they haven't shown up for 2 days and should be demoted.
I've had people running their mouths about how they've been excluded from one raid then whinging that we're not trialling enough players. They just don't see the connection. Or they look at the number of healers online and the number of tanks and make the assumtion that just because they  match the number we're after we should take them even though there might be a healing class lacking or a tank who's completely inexperienced or not geared for the encounter. Lack of understanding of the tools needed for a successful raid is one of the most annoying things I've come across.
You also can't slack like you used to. No slacking on buffs or waiting to enchant new gear. You have to be the example or you don't have a leg to stand on when you come to ask that holy pally why he's only using 50spellpower on his weapon. If you're standing in fire or doing any other easily avoidable nono you'll also come in for a lot more flak than a normal member because you should know better.

4) You occasionally have to kill your friends
Ok so not actually kill them, this isn't China . But sometimes the people who you like and play with a lot will step out of line. Now often you can just have a friendly chat and remind them to "pull their finger out". But sometimes you'll have to go further than that and do what you'd do to any underperforming player and demote them/kick them. I've never had to do this is my current guild but I've had to before and it's never nice. This sounds melodramatic but if you raid I'm sure you know each raid squad contains its fair share of drama queens.
Generally having to be serious and demote people is never nice either. Especially when you have underperformers making up all sorts of reasons for why they're not performing and promising they'll be fixed by next raid. Experience teaches you that the problems never are fixed or the excuses are completely inadequate. We do accept friend ranks and we have a pretty good community inside the guild, but the fact of the matter is, our main squad is here to kill internet monsters.

5) You have to be the bigger person, a lot
Surprisingly enough a lot of people who play this game can be incredibly immature. Speaking as someone who once rolled a character on an RP realm called "Dildo Baggins" I'm no different. I'm not saying you have to be srs bsns all the time its just that when people are being awkward or refusing to work with each other, or even cursing each other and you out. You often have to put your personal feelings aside for the time being and sort out the problem so it doesn't affect the other 20odd people. Always remember that afterwards you can remind them that you'll tear them a new bumhole if they speak to you like that again.

Being in charge is often a thankless task. Don't get me wrong, being an officer can be rewarding and actually provides a different level of playing. One of the reasons I stick with it is because its constantly giving me experience that come in handy in my working life. People management, performance management, organisational skills etc. (That said I think its incredibly nerdy that I know a fair few people who, if they could get away with it, would put down their raiding experience on their CVs :s )

I'd also not read so much into this. I know people who are incredibly serious when they raid and I'm generally completely not. Several of our first kills of hardmode bosses we've nearly wiped due to people laughing at me or one of our other officers "raising morale".

So in conclusion; 
If you're an officer and your guild is prospering then I tip my hat to you. Remember, its a game at the end of the day and if being in charge is ruining your enjoyment then you can stop. The guild will generally not fall apart without you.
If you're a raider and you're wondering why the officer you've been whispering every 30s for the past hour about when invites are starting has steam pouring out his/her ears please just remember they've probably got enough to deal with.

/echo out