3.21. Discriminatory Treatment

Neps confirms the evidence with Kerulak,
after they execute a pug clear of 40-Man Naxxramas
during The Burning Crusade.

Innocent By Association

The first time I repeated one of my mother's jokes in front of my wife, I knew there was a problem. I was raised in a small town named Parksville, along the coast of Vancouver Island, but my mother wasn't from there. She had been born in a town called Hudson Bay, in the northern regions of Saskatchewan. She had a conservative, strict family, and although the Holmes' were hard-working and quiet folk, they had a tendency to cling to some age-old biases. And as my mother learned from her environment, I too, absorbed these tendencies, without even giving them a second thought. So, when I sat down to dinner one evening and jokingly remarked:

"I wonder what the poor people are doing now?"

...my wife gave me a look of horror, her eyes wide with shock and embarrassment.

I knew there was a problem.

Part of this outdated programming led me to judge others too quickly, my first impressions resonating like a bell whenever it came time to make a decision. It happened time and again in my early days of running DoD, having already made up my mind about a player long after my gut continued to tell me otherwise. I'd ignore my gut, stick to my biased way of thinking...and end up making a bad judgement call. Ater was one of the first to show me this was just an illusion -- we think we think we know people in other groups better than we know ourselves.

What added to the complexity of my mother's lessons was a layer of morals, delivered in Aesop's fashion,  priming me for a certain way of thinking. These lessons, while noble in intent, often came across as black-and-white, good or evil, no gray area to explore. Among these was the familiar "You Are Who You Hang Around With". Run with a group of criminals, Mom reasoned, and you'll soon find that you've become a criminal as well.

This may explain why I grew to loathe the PvP community.

At face value, there was a lot to detest. PvPers made no secret that they felt they were "better than us". Raiding was for sissies and crybabies -- to them, the real skill came in how well you sized up another human being, how fast you turned their weak spots against them in the ring. Bosses were scripted; conversely, other players followed no such programming. PvPers talked a lot of shit, rarely opting to take the high ground when it came to dealing with other people. And why should they? They had their name, their titles and their gear lit up like the Las Vegas strip proving to us that they were true power in WoW. They played by nobody's rules but their own, they relied on nobody to get where they were. No oppressive guild could force a schedule onto them, tell them how to act or behave.

Every time I tried to push those biases aside and tolerate PvPers despite our differences, I'd always get a slap-in-the-face when I flipped between ElitistJerks.com and ArenaJunkies.com, the two online communities dedicated to the discussion of PvE and PvP, respectively. The former was a tightly run ship where only intelligent, thoughtful contributors were allowed. Moderation was swift and harsh to those who couldn't be bothered forming a coherent sentence. As for the latter, it was a cesspool of trolls, rife with profanity, accusation, and immaturity.

One thing has nothing to do with the other.

Neps & Mature in The Crimson Hall,
Icecrown Citadel

Trusting the Gut

When I began to contemplate another 2nd-in-command, I never gave any thought to promote Klocker because he'd hung up his healing hat. Klocker was now exclusively Retribution in our 25-Man progression raid. I needed a healer for a very important reason: Val’anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings. The legendary mace assembled from fragments put the power of the Titans at the fingertips of the healer that wielded it. But Klocker's days of healing were behind him. He would flip from time-to-time as needed, but it was no longer his passion, and the new edict in Descendants of Draenor demanded players choose what they loved to do, not what we needed them to do. So, rather than make a move to convince Klocker to play a role he didn't enjoy, I looked to someone who embraced the role. Someone who lived, breathed and died healing. Someone who had been healing long after I had hung up Kerulak's hooves, and had no intention of switching -- who knew the ins and outs of the job. More importantly, someone who I could trust and whom made decisions that were aligned with my own. Someone fiercely dedicated and loyal to us.

Someone like Neps.

But, it was Neps’ attachment to PvP that gave me my initial hesitation for promotion. Neps regularly ran with a crew of folks that had traditionally proven to be be unreliable in the long term. They were PvPers in my eyes, that "other group" I was perpetually disgusted with. Somehow, I believed I was an expert judge of them, up on my high horse. Neps had never given me a reason to doubt his reliance, yet the PvP thing continued to bother me. What impact would it have on the raiders? Was there a risk of that "nobody's going to tell me what to do" mentality bleeding back down into the roster? We had filled spots throughout Vanilla and TBC with anything we could get our hands on, and while we benefited from having a large number of players across multiple interests to choose from, when we plucked from the PvP pool, it was a often a crap shoot. And I saw promoting Neps as a very real risk to allow more of that style of player to stick their foot in the raid door, only to cause further mayhem down the road.

The brothers Ouleg and Ben were two players in particular whom Neps spent a great deal of time with. Ouleg, when present, would tear into bosses in Serpentshrine Cavern with extreme prejudice, often dealing more damage than that of our regular raiding Warlocks. But, he was quick to come up with excuses to leave the raid if things looked bleak, “Yeah guys, I think my girlfriend's calling me for something” after our fifth wipe on Hydross the Unstable. Ben wasn't too far off from his brother. A fantastic player behind the wheel of a Shadow Priest or Boomkin...if you could get him to show up. If he wasn't completely drunk off his ass. And while neither Ouleg nor Ben themselves were the ones being considered for promotion, I continually dwelt on this association Neps had with them, and whether or not it would become a distraction.

Or worse.

A Second Opinion

I took Dalans aside and shared my concerns with him, broaching the possibility of promoting Neps as another 2nd-in-command to share duties. I told him of the plan involving Val'anyr, and how it made the most sense to go with Neps, but that I had lingering doubts. Dalans reminded me that Neps had been playing the role of Priest officer for nearly the entirety of The Burning Crusade, and had never shown me any reason to doubt his loyalty thus far. My gut told me he was the guy to go with, but the PvP "facts" continued to rub me the wrong way. When I brought up the concerns I had about the PvP crowd, Dalans was logical in his response.

"Anni was of the best officers this guild ever had. High Warlord, remember?"

He had a point.

"Wasn't Blain one of the first players on the server with a Vengeful Nether Drake in TBC?"

Two points for Dalans.

"I wouldn't worry too much about who he runs with. Neps is fine. I'd trust him before I would any of the other morons. If he hasn't given you any reason to doubt his dedication, he won't."

The second opinion was delivered, saying exactly what my gut was telling me all along. Go with Neps. Forget about the PvP crowd. Who he hangs with and what he chooses to do for fun has nothing to do with the person he is. And if Mom was right, and you truly become the type of person you hang around with...well, that would mean Neps was exactly that person right now.

...and there wasn't a single thing I could point to that would cause me to distrust him.

That evening, I went over the ground rules for 2nd-in-command, and made it clear he'd be the first in line to receive Val'anyr. He graciously accepted the promotion, and the guild joined in a round of congratulations for their favorite Priest on his continued service to DoD.

--

I glanced down toward the chat window in the lower-left hand corner of the screen.

Blain has come online

For a guy who retired from World of Warcraft four months earlier, he showed up an awful a lot. I sent him a tell.

“Hey”

“Sup”

“I’ve gone ahead and restored your administrative privileges to the guild. You won’t need to worry about the raid expectations, nothing’s changed there.”

I popped open the guild panel and clicked the promote button several times.

Blain has been promoted to Old God

"Carry on" I said in another whisper.

He replied with a smiley.

3.20. Mexican Hot-Chocolate

Haribo and co. assist Faleby
with his Dreadsteed quest,
Dire Maul

Gummy Priest

It was deep in the brush on the Isle of Dread, just south of Feathermoon Stronghold, that he finally caved in. I had been pursuing Haribo for months after a chance meeting when he offered to heal a party of us through 10-Man Scholomance. An undead priest, he came out of the woodwork of a guild named Forsaken Spirits, amazing me with his skills at healing. Scholomance was a brutal hour-and-a-half long ordeal and after having recently experienced a 45-minute power run thanks to the skilled players in Dirty Work, Inc., I knew exactly what type of player I needed to recruit. Kadrok and Graulm were most likely annoyed by my constant mention of this Priest and how desperately important it was to assimilate him. I needed a crew of players that set the bar high, virtual machetes slicing down any obstacles in our path. I fully intended to make Haribo one of those machetes. I harassed him for weeks, promising fame and glory in Molten Core and beyond. Each time he politely declined, but thanked me for considering him, and then proceeded to heal us in whatever dungeon we threw at him. I wouldn't take no for an answer. I stalked him until he was sick of  hearing about Descendants of Draenor, and when I found him alone on the Isle of Dread one day, standing alone among a pile of slain chimaeras, I went in for the kill. The undead priest who took his name after his favorite brand of candy, finally accepted my offer and joined the guild.

It wasn't long before Haribo rose to the position of Priest Officer. As I continued to aggressively recruit, building our roster larger in preparation for Molten Core, he continued to heal our players through dungeons like a pro, spending his off-hours healing Annihilation in Alterac Valley. And when the time finally arrived to assemble 40 players and dive deep into the Core, Haribo drove the healers -- making assignments, spamming macros, even developing a system of "healing buddies" which allowed Ater and his crew of tanks to chain pull mobs, making our clears an order of magnitude faster. Haribo stood diligently by our side as we plowed through Vanilla content. It was his dedication to keeping people alive that not only helped us become one of the furthest progressed Horde guilds on Deathwing-US during Vanilla, he instilled within players a new found interest in healing, a role often ignored by the masses as dull, uninteresting, and insignificant. Those  few players who mattered respected him for his ability. And hoped to learn from the master.

Nepster is spotted with Haribo moments
before the release of The Burning Crusade,
The Dark Portal

The Rogue That Healed

When Haribo announced his retirement from raiding at the start of The Burning Crusade, there was nobody in line to take his place. It was a time of transition; we'd been playing the same characters since launch. Leveling alts wasn't nearly as commonplace as it is today, because leveling itself was an act of raw willpower. I had dabbled in a few alts myself, but pushing any one of them to Level 60 demanded months of work, night after night. So, we had mains and we were invested in them. As time ran out on Vanilla and we counted the days until the Dark Portal opened to Outland, many players took the opportunity to start anew. Our old investments were suffocating. The Burning Crusade introduced Paladins to the Horde, and many of our healers re-rolled in order to breathe clean air again. But while the torrent of pink names flooded guild chat upon our arrival in Outland, one white name quietly took an invite and began the journey of following in Haribo's footsteps.

Neps had been a part of Descendants of Draenor since late Vanilla, one of the many faces that populated our 40-Man roster. My earliest memory of him is running 40-Man Naxxramas with us on his rogue, Nepster. Quiet and polite, he kept to himself, but never hesitated to jump at a moment's notice when the time to raid was upon us. He would spend his off-hours plumbing the depths of PvP with some of the old-school players in DoD, namely Haribo. Neps soaked up Haribo's knowledge like a sponge, learning all of his tricks, his tactics, day by day growing wiser and adept at handling himself in emergency situations. It was through these late night PvP sessions that Neps began to feel the Priest bug biting. To him, healing in PvP was a dark art, not one that many players chose to take up. The majority of players rolling characters to PvP dumped their effort into damage dealers, and were quick to complain when they had no healers to support them. Neps learned very quickly about the law of supply and demand. And if he took his responsibility with enough seriousness, his expertise would always be in demand.

So while the freshly invited Paladins dominated our attention at the start of The Burning Crusade, Neps quietly leveled his Priest. And, as was his demeanor, he took every opportunity to assist with heals that he could. The newly introduced 5-Man Heroics were a real test of strength for a group. Today, most 5-Man heroics are facerolled; there was no facerolling in the heroic version of The Steamvault, Shadow Labyrinth or The Shattered Halls. Each pack of trash had to be meticulously crowd-controlled, and accidentally pulling a 2nd pack was a guaranteed wipe under normal conditions. Pugging a 5-Man Heroic in TBC was almost entirely unheard of -- you ran with people you knew and trusted to minimize the amount of time that was wasted.

If Neps was your healer, you had a fighting chance.

Neps concurs on a successful
first kill of High King Maulgar,
Gruul's Lair

Everybody Loves Neps

As we ramped up to raid Gruul's Lair and Serpentshrine Cavern, Neps demonstrated a continued dedication to his fellow guildy. Whether it be assisting with a weekly Karazhan race between our various 10-Man teams, or helping another player become keyed, Neps never complained, never whined or moaned about repetitiveness or boredom. Every opportunity to assist in the healing department was a chance to flex his muscle, refine his skill, and fill the need that was so desperately sought after. Because of this affection toward his fellow guildy and his need to constantly improve, he made many friends in the process. His name soon became synonymous with Priest Heals whenever the topic came up. And, Neps always carried himself humbly, never spoke ill of anyone, never once revealing a loss of temper. He was, in short, the very definition of a model guild-member. He spoke rarely, but when he did, it was usually to deliver a dry, sarcastic punch-line, finishing someone else's joke, the virtual room filling with laughter as a result.

It was Neps' humble side that I felt players often underestimated. They mistook his solitude for an amateurish mentality, especially when it came to crediting his ability in raids having come from a PvP background. This was a foolish mistake. Unlike the PvP crowd which commonly talked a lot of shit and dissed one another openly, Neps kept his opinions to himself -- but he was no less aware of his opponents. It was from those late night PvP sessions, slowly developing as Haribo's apprentice, that he developed a keen sense of who were scrubs, and who were worth their salt. Other players could talk a big game, but Neps was quick to cut through the shit and tell if they were truly experts at the game, or just good at spinning more yarn. Once I caught wind of Neps' sixth sense, I moved quickly to make him the next Priest Officer. As expected, he humbly accepted.

Neps diligently served as Priest Officer through the remainder of The Burning Crusade, never once missing a raid, never once taking time off. His priority was his online family and keeping them alive through Lady Vashj, Kael'thas Sunstrider, Archimonde and Illidan the Betrayer. My trust in Neps grew to such a degree that I handed over the Master Looter and DKP import responsibilities to him, never once considering for even a moment that he would misappropriate an item or cook the books. And, when not honing his skills in dungeons or managing the priests, Neps returned to his original love of PvP -- his funny and always positive attitude drawing the attention of both Horde and Alliance players. It wasn't long before Neps himself had a following of fans. Descendants of Draenor's Ventrilo server soon became home to the enemy as they hopped in to chat with their favorite Priest. It soon became common knowledge in the guild that Neps was particularly fond of female players, and why wouldn't they be fond of him? He was never derogatory, never spoke in a sexist tone or demeaned them (as is very common in games where players are shrouded in anonymity), and was always friendly and supportive.

Neps was a charmer, loved by all. So, why was I hesitant to make him second-in-command?

Classism.