Our Neck of the Woods

It's late. I'm tired. I can't think of anything substantial to put up here, so I'm going to do what I normally do in this situation: write gibberish and post annoying songs for you to listen to whilst reading the post and simultaneously annoy the people around you.






So desperate was I for an idea that I asked Ruck for a topic he'd like to see something written about. His immediate response was "boobs". I really should've seen it coming (my spellcheck is saying is saying "should've" is not a correct contraction. pfft.)


Speaking of spellchecks, I recently spent twenty minutes trying to convince a robot that I was a spell-checking program - more on that another time. For now, I'd thought I'd put in an update of all the various goings-on in Harms Way.


Rozie update:
Rozie has been in contact with me recently. We're still waiting on the full restoration, but the account has been reclaimed! Hopefully we'll be seeing that mammoth... er, I mean Rozie, back with us very soon.


PvP update:
Earlier tonight Sporran, Raggingruck, Kerreck, Midnitefudge and myself created a 5v5 Arena Team by the name of No Harm Done. Befitting our name, we didn't even participate in a single match. We gathered in Dalaran, created the team and dispersed immediately after. I think we chose our name quite well.


Raid update:
Slowly our two teams are beginning to come together. Hopefully next week we'll have them together proper.
Oh, and we have a new Maobie nominee (I'll explain these towards the end of the month)! It involved an epic VoA run against the clock with an equally epic (and hilarious) "Oh sh-" ending. Great fun was had by all.


Blowing-a-fuse update:
I really should mention this too, though I won't name the person(s) responsible for triggering it (you'd know if it were you :P). A lot of waves were made recently when a new member began committing the sin of gluttony, both publicly and through whispers. This of course eventuated in me receiving whispers and even in-game mail concerning said sinner from other disgruntled members.
Please, please, please try not to be a nuisance to other members - Harms Way is a place to get away from those types... remember: I SEE ALL!


Fist-shaking update:
During an off-the-cuff guild run through Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle we came across a Blue Proto-drake drop (insanely rare mount). The roll was won by one of our new members and, after the congratulations were passed around, I cleaned the drool off my chin and made an offer for it.
"750g for the drake! :D" I said, which was all the gold I had on me. Normally I wouldn't stoop to such a level, but I've always suffered from particularly nasty cases of mount envy... I have a documented history of it. Then came the reply that almost made me faint:
"I was going to give it to one of you guys anyway, you can have it"
I literally squee'd at that moment. After the instance, the trade window opened, in went the drake and away with any part of me that resembled maturity.


I was about to click the drake to learn it when I had the most buzz-killing thought ever: Why did I only have 750g, my character is loaded... oh no. I was on my alt.


It didn't feel fair to keep the drake on an alt, when other main characters would get more use out of it. Fighting through tears and rage, I traded it to Katinalus, who has been quite happily rubbing it in my face ever since. So for you Kat, I found a picture that accurately illustrates how happy I am for you:

Have a great day everyone :D


-Ahz

Raid Lag and Disconnecting

I've noticed lately that a lot of players seem to hit a massive lag spikes during boss encounters. Worse still, a lot of players will disconnect at certain parts of these encounters everytime.


I was running in a pug ICC25 recently in which one member kept disconnecting. The member would come back screaming "Check your addons for Libhealcomm!" and, after all of the healers (including myself) admitting that we had no clue what he was talking about, he decided to randomly blame me.
"Ahzae, it's you, I know you have it."


Of course, I didn't know what "it" was, and I was using the exact same addons as all of our other healers. I simply assumed, along with most others in the raid, that his connection simply was not good enough and he was looking for a scapegoat. This turned out to be completely true, too.


I decided to find out what Libhealcomm actually was and after some research I found that it's a library used by Grid that sends hidden message to other players in the raid in order to show incoming heals. The first discussion I saw about it had players blaming Libhealcomm for disconnects due to "Addon Spam" - Addon spam is the term used for an inordinate amount of hidden messages being received by other players addons.


The discussion continued with what seemed to be much wiser more level-headed users who outlined the evidence showing that Libhealcomm spam was not what was hurting them, and that they must have a bad connection. However, I wasn't planning to stop there.


I dove in deeper into the field of Addon Spam and came up with (hopefully) a few solutions. From what I've discovered, these three addons seem to be causing the most trouble:




1. Carbonite


I really hate to admit this, because I've been a huge carbonite addict for a while, but it seems that this addon is the worst offender. Carbonite has a tendency to be constantly sending hidden messages about everything that's going on (position, hp, quest status, "Punks", etc.) and it hits a peak during raids. Add to that the fact that Carbonite uses a huge amount of cpu power and memory, and you've got a possible liability instead of a helpful tool.


Carbonite seems to have been designed for high-end users with top of the line hardware and a net connection you could drive a car through. Even if your hardware can handle what it does, it might still be adversely affecting others.


My recommendation is to stop using it. Carbonite is a terrific tool - well designed and amazingly useful - but it may be causing more problems than you realise, and not just for you.




2. Gearscore


Hooray! Another reason to hate gearscore! Sadly, Gearscore isn't the worst when it comes to addon spam, but it can still cause problems. If you use it and you have problems, switch it off and forget about it. Forever.




3. Recount


Recount is the only one on this list that doesn't affect anyone else, but it will kick the crud out of your own cpu at certain moments, causing fairly predictable disconnects.


If you find that you disconnect at times when Recount is hit hardest (eg. Raid aoe on fifty-odd whelps or just about any moment in a 25-man raid) then disable it.




Hopefully, removing these three should improve the quality of the time you spend raiding, however there could be any number of causes for what's going wrong. If you're still having problems after removing these three (or if you don't use them at all) I'd suggest doing your own research into the matter. Chances are that there are loads of people experience the same problems and just as many who have found a way to combat it.


Remember: When Cataclysm hits you'll likely be spending some time without any addons, so it's best to stay as true to the original ui whenever you can.

-Ahz

Raiding Teams

One of the original ideas for Harms Way was to have two 10-man raiding teams, so we could get the most out of our raiding time with the guild. Each team would run separately during the week and on weekends the two forces would combine for twenty-fives... That was the idea at least.


To begin, I figured filling one team would make a good start. At this point, my incredibly lax idea for getting ten people under one banner was to call it our "core" team and have people mail me their preferred raiding times. Despite a lot of interest, we haven't had a single "core" raid where the entire team has made it on time. That fact doesn't bother me, but it seems to defeat the purpose somewhat.


I also discovered that our members available raiding times were far more varied than I'd expected. Naturally, being the lazy bastard that I am, I simply started scheduling different raids at different times to see what would stick... but that approach seems to have made things slightly worse.


So now it's time to make a stand. Our raiding format as far as "core" teams go is going to change. The first improvement will adding the second raid team, with Raggingruck at the helm. Each team will have their own set raiding times each week. "Core team 1" will likely raid during the evenings and the imaginatively titled "Core team 2" captained by Ruck will be scheduling raids around midday (server time).


We'll be restarting the team recruitment process, and members will apply based on what time they want to raid. Evening raids for team 1, send mail to me, Ahzae. Midday raids for team 2, mail goes to Raggingruck. As always within Harms Way, we don't care about your gear or achievements - part of having the core teams to begin with was that we'd have certain people to focus development on.


I know I've said it a million times, and I'm gonna say it again: Harms Way is a teaching guild. No matter who you are or what think you can do, if you're a mature person with a desire to learn and experience raiding then you'll have a place with us.


So, to recap:

• To sign up for the evening raid team - Mail Ahzae (Team 1)
• To sign up for the midday raid team - Mail Raggingruck (Team 2)

Finally, once we have the teams assembled we'll get to figure out our team names (T1 and T2 wasn't cutting it for me, more on that another time). Personally, my vote for team one is for "The Wayward", but I have a habit of being much, much cheesier than I realise I am... then people laugh at me...

Now if you'll excuse me I have to drown my sorrows in icecream... *wanders to the fridge, weeping*

-Ahz

Raid Basics: Leading a Raid

Being a raid leader can be a tough job. Not only do you have to organise anywhere between ten and twenty-five people into a coordinated force, but you have to have the answers for any questions that come up and try to keep things fun for everyone despite the inevitable competition between raiders.

To put it bluntly, being a raid leader means that whether or not your raiders enjoy their precious raiding time rests squarely on your shoulders. It's a big task.

There are three steps to becoming a good raid leader. They're relatively simple, but they'll take up a lot of your time too, so make sure this is something you really want to do before you proceed.

In the examples below I will show you the resources I use. There are many, many other resources and guides out there, so make sure you look around for yourself too.

Step 1: Education

Raids are much more complicated than anything else in the game. The first thing any raid leader needs to do is educate themselves. First, pick the raid you want to do and look up the details:

Eg. Naxxramas:

I use wowwiki.com for when I begin researching a new raid. You should find a list of all the boss encounters (or even trickier trash encounters) on these pages, and normally a basic idea of the order in which you fight through them. From here, open the page for the encounter you want to learn more about.

Eg. Northrend Beasts in Trial of the Crusader:

On these pages, read up on boss abilities and strategies. Even if they don't make sense straight away, you'll find yourself surprised at how much of it comes back to you when you see it all in action. Which is where the next part of education comes in.

Head to Youtube.com and enter this into the searchbox: 


Tankspot *bossname*

For example, "Tankspot Malygos" will bring up the following video.

Eg. Malygos:

Tankspot.com videos are extremely useful for raid leaders - not just for tanks either. Everyone in the raid will benefit greatly from the knowledge contained within the wiki pages and the videos, and it's that same knowledge that you need to bring to the raid.

The final stage of education is educating your raiders. Once you know what to do, you need to communicate the strategy to them. How this is done is up to each individual leader. I prefer to explain everything via chat before the encounter then let everyone charge in head first; others like to take a 5-10 minute break before each encounter so all raid members can watch the strategy video. In the end, the choices are yours.

Step 2: Preparation

Relatively simple compared to the first step. Try to plan ahead for the raid you want to organise. When planning, ask yourself the kid of questions you would expect your raiders to ask:

·         Where are we going?

·         How many bosses will we do?

·         How long do we want it to take?

·         When is the best time to do it?

·         What are the loot rules?

·         Will there be punch and pie?

Once you’ve answered those questions you’ll have a plan. Now you need to let your raiders know about the plan. Setting a calendar event is the way I prefer to pre-organise my raids, though you are free to go about it any way you choose.

To set up a calendar event, follow these steps:

·         Right-click the day you want to have the raid and select the appropriate event (Eg. Create guild event.)

·         Select the event type, in this case Raid, and select the raid you plan to do from the list that appears.

·         For guild events, guild members can sign up in their own time. Otherwise you will need to invite members to the event manually.

Step 3: Execution

Once the time has come to begin the raid, invite your members (convert your party to a raid using the Raid tab in the Social window) and head off.

Make sure you lay out the ground rules before you begin, as well as anything else your raiders need to know (ie. Loot rules, time frame, etc.).

In a perfect world this would be all you needed to do to have a successful raid, but there’s one last responsibility you’ll need to manage: Leading.

As a raid leader, your leadership style ultimately comes down to you, but you must remember that as the leader you are responsible for the enjoyment of everyone else in the raid and sometimes you just can’t please everyone.

Q: What has two thumbs and
 doesn't give a crap?
A: Your raid leader.

In case of any disputes, be it over loot or wipes or someone getting annoyed at another raider, you must act as the judge, jury and executioner when necessary to preserve the raid overall. I can’t tell you what you should do for every situation, but this aspect is by far the most important of raid leading.

How you resolve these situations will affect your reputation as a leader. People are generally begging to be picked for raids by good leaders and telling the bad leaders “Uh, I just remembered I left my cat in the freezer” and immediately logging off just to avoid them.

In short (hah!): Do your research, set your goals, communicate with your team and be a leader. Like I said, it’s a rough job, but there’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when you watch a team of raiders thrive due to the effort you’ve put in (and watching the lazy leaders fail miserably :P).

Every day is a good day to die... remember that.

-Ahz

MTC Monday: Raggingruck

Yet another Meet The Crew Monday is upon us and.. wait, what?! Another tauren?! Things are beginning to look a bit suspect, I think. I'll do my best to get you a non-tauren next week (we have them, I swear!) but in the meantime prepare to bask in the glory that is Ruck!

Raggingruck
Tauren Warrior
(Fury/Protection)
Founding Member of Harms Way

Location:
Unknown

Age:

Unknown

Likes:

Fast kodos, hot heifers, cold steel and even colder beer.

Dislikes:
The Alliance, the Alliance, people who don't know how to have a good time and... oh yeah, the Alliance!


Most Epic Moment:"Taking down Blackrock Spire back in the day with my brother, who is no longer with us."


Starting out as as Watcher for Thunderbluff, Raggingruck and his two siblings were sent as soldiers for the Horde to fight off the Alliance forces in Kalimdor. He rapidly honed his skills as a warrior and distinguished himself as an invaluable asset to the Horde.

Raggingruck's rank grew as he proved his worth on assignments all over Azeroth, managing to reach the officer rank of Blood Guard. With his equally skilled brother and sister by his side, he was considered by many (if not all) an unstoppable force.

Tragedy struck when both Raggingruck's siblings fell, leaving him with only his blood-stained blade to cling to. Raggingruck forsook the Horde that day - he took his battle-worn blade, loud mouth and blind rage back to the field of battle and has been taking his anger out on the Alliance ever since.

After a time, wandering from battle to battle with just a blade and no real direction, another warrior began to take notice. The warrior Banakin approached Raggingruck with a proposal and a promise: "Join me, focus your rage and you will find your place."

The two discussed at length their hatred for the boys-in-blue, and Raggingruck agreed to join Harms Way. Shortly after, he was introduced to Ahzae, whose wisdom acted as a counterbalance to Raggingruck's unbridled fury.

Now, Raggingruck is a revamped, recharged and re-established walking nightmare for anyone that would dare to cross him or his new found family.




That's it for this week - be sure to watch this space next Monday for a profile on yet another tauren, knowing my luck! *grumbles*  


*Note: the web-editor has gone haywire again, let me know if this post looks all messed up.
 -Ahz

For Giggles

Hehehehe.

-Ahz

Getting Hacked

Today, Harms Way lost it's first member to a hacker. Rozie (mentioned previously as the winner of the VoA Mammoth) was hacked and, though we're not entirely sure of this yet, the likely culprit would be one of the hundreds of fake but genuine-looking "Blizzard" emails that have been circulating around the clock for the past few months.

I was also recently caught by one of these emails and I can tell you, some of them look really genuine. The one that caught me looked like this:

At the time I didn't suspect a thing. There were no grammatical errors common in the deperate spam, it actually suggests I maintain safe internet practices and provides a genuine link to the Authenticator FAQ and then suggests I safeguard my account information! I checked the links carefully for any sign of tampering (Edit: I missed the fact that the "http" on the second link was slightly off >.<). I was convinced it was the real deal and figured the someone who knew my account name tried to get my password reset. I decided to log into my account to see if I could find out more about this password resetting business. I clicked on the second link...

Days later I got hacked. My heart sank a bit, but I didn't see the need to get angry... after all, it was very likely my own fault. I checked through all of my emails (even the one above) and they all seemed clean. I did multiple virus scans on my pc, now certain that it was a sneaky trojan. Nothing.

I gave up in the end, stumped as to how they got my details. I'd submitted a report through Blizzard who told me they would likely be able to get everything back and that it should take about a week.

A week passed.

Two weeks passed.

Three... still no word from Blizzard. Then I stumbled across the answer to it all:

These were the genuine emails from Blizzard, informing me that (two weeks prior to my discovering them) everything had been restored. They had automatically gone in my spam folder.

At this stage I was thinking something like "Now why the frik did they get marked as spam?"

I checked my Gmail on the website to see if anything had been set to stop them coming through.

Nope, the genuine Blizzard mails had come through without a scratch - but even more intriguing was that the older email about the password request was nowhere to be seen. Eventually I found it in the webmail's spam folder with this big, red warning:

Gmail had spotted it, buried it in my spam folder, gave me a bloody-great big warning and made all of the links completely unclickable. The program I was using to deal with my emails at the time (it rhymes with Stoutcook) did not do anything of the sort. In fact, it not only let through the fake emails, but subsequently marked the following genuine emails as spam!

Needless to stay, I stopped using Loutrook and went back to my webmail.

There are a few lessons for everyone to learn here, the big one being be very careful what you do with your emails. No-one is immune (like I stupidly thought I was) and the more careful you are the safer your account will be. The absolute best advice I can give is to get an authenticator! Getting one will make your account more bulletproof than anything else. Sure, in Australia it'll cost you around $30 to have one shipped over, but it's a damn bargain for the kind of peace-of-mind it provides.

Anyway, we hope Rozie and the mammoth return soon - we're missing you already.

*shakes fist of sorrow*

-Ahz