4.70. These Eyes

You should have to beat Sid Meier's Colonization
before you are allowed to colonize the new world and
declare independence from the King.

Hopeful Parents

Something about the Mind's Eye test continued to bug me, days after I'd taken the online quiz. I really wanted to believe it! As much if not more so than the previously debunked Myers-Briggs "personality sorter". After all these years of pulling strings behind virtual avatars, the thought that I might possibly leave with some marketable skill was endearing. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to thumb my nose at convention and prove to naysayers that, yes, a video game did have the capacity to teach a real world skill. It was a lesson many needed to hear.

There was no shortage of dismissive commentary from the public whenever the topic came up. "Video games teaching real world skills" has long been the subject of debate, though "debate" is often code for "mockery". Gary Larson's infamous "Hopeful Parents" Far Side comic remains forever burned into my brain as an accurate representation of how the world sees such a claim. Unless your job description lists leaping barrels or ripping people's heads off while keeping their spine intact as a requirement, video games offer few opportunities for a person to learn something they could turn around and leverage in the blinding brightness outside.

The worst offenders were the edutainment titles (you're not fooling anyone, Math Blaster). Attempting to teach a kid core curriculum while wrapped in a pretty pink bow of a video game struck me as pathetic and sad. An industry of "experts" that knew nothing about the medium, struggling to be "hip" and "cool" and "down" with the kids, while the larger educational problem went ignored. Trying to make learning fun was an act of desperation a gamer could spot a mile away. And nothing irritated a gamer more than someone faking it. Come back to me when you have the Konami code memorized, pleb.

Educators had it all wrong -- they were researching and reporting against the wrong games. Climbing the magic beanstalk to educational epiphany required burying the magic beans far more deeply than topsoil. The true teaching gems were the video games that were nothing more than simply video games....yet indirectly bestowed skill upon the gamer without anyone being wiser.

Build and manage a city, just like what is expected of an actual mayor. Drum to the rhythm of colored bars that just happen to coincide with the sheet music of the actual song. Blow zombies apart by typing words (ok, this last one walks that fine edutainment line, but I'll allow it: the intent is to kill zombies, not learn to type). New examples pop up all the time. Gamers have known for years what academics and legislators are only beginning to acknowledge: games teach through transference. You're welcome.

Which brought me back to the "eyes" quandary: were these video games really teaching skills? Or were they simply awakening talent already dormant in the player, flexing and strengthening a muscle that some of us possessed and still others lacked. Yes, I dealt with a lot of people problems over the past seven years. Some I controlled, some I let control me. But I resolved exactly none of these issues by looking the person in the eyes and getting a read, interpreting their awkward body language. Alas, this was the cost of doing business online. The missing piece eluded my left brain...

...how exactly had World of Warcraft made me any better at reading people...if I was unable to see them?

DoD completes the final meta, "Not an Ambi-Turner",
earning "Glory of the Firelands Raider",
Firelands

Famous First Pull

Apologies, reader. There is no great story about DoD's final accomplishment as a 25-Man raiding guild. I didn't have to make frantic phone calls at the 11th hour, looking for emergency fillers. We didn't secure our final kill amidst player disconnections dealing with hurricanes pummeling their homes or cars smashing through their living room walls. DoD didn't struggle with the achievement, going at it again and again and again, bleeding out past the four hour mark, exhausted and at the end of our collective rope. In fact, there wasn't even a motivational "famous last pull!" chant, inspiring the crew just enough to close the deal. In reality, it was over before it began.

Our final accomplishment took but a single attempt. "Not an Ambi-Turner" demanded we kill Lord Rhyolith by only allowing him to make right turns. We entered the instance on time at 7:00pm. By 7:14pm, Rhyolith had been spun in a clockwise circle, and lay dead at our feet. Glory of the Firelands Raider flashed across the screen of every player in the roster. The deed was done.

Only 30 minutes after the start of our evening raid, we gathered outside Sulfuron Spire, hopped aboard our phoenix mounts, and swarmed the top of the tower. As the raid positioned themselves for the shot, my screen was filled with bursts of a blazing deep violet that shimmered against the burning red sky. The mood in Vent was upbeat. DoD chatted away cheerfully, reminiscing about what they liked and what "sucked ass" in Firelands. They were definitely very happy. They were both relieved and fulfilled. It was another accomplishment that DoD could claim in a long, storied history of raid progression, something that my guild still cared deeply about.

Glory of the Firelands Raider meant as much to the 25-Man progression team as Icecrown's Glory, Ulduar's Glory, or any of the raiding milestones that came prior to the advent of achievements. I might go so far as to claim it meant more to us than usual, having missed Tier 11's Glory amid many stumbling blocks, both in the raid and out. DoD was excited to wrap Firelands and show off their Corrupted Egg of Millagazor to the rest of the World...even if that World no longer noticed nor cared about a fancy mount.

The memory of DoD's last accomplishment is sobering upon reflection -- we endured some shit. The evaporation of recruitment forced us to wring the last remaining drops out of player availability. The team took on increasing responsibility of our success, which equated to players rolling alts and gearing again and again. That encroaching feeling of the walls closing in meant constant people management, forsaking any semblance of game/life balance once formerly in check. Facing the weekly threat of losing good people to 10-Man guilds or teams.

Yet, we persevered.

I can appreciate athletes that train at high altitudes or piano teachers that insist on blindfolds. Firelands (and, to a larger extent, WoW at that time) felt as if we weren't just raiding...it felt as if we were raiding with our hands tied behind our backs.

So, reader, forgive the excess melancholy. If I come across too seriously about a video game, it's because I know the eventual outcome. As will you.

DoD poses outside Sulfuron Spire aboard their
newly acquired Corrupted Fire Hawks,
Firelands

Hard to Starboard

As I spun the mousewheel, a picture of smiling faces scrolled into view. The faces collected around several tables shoved together at a restaurant, all smiling, all turned to face the camera. Descendants of Draenor.

Several of them raised a glass in toast, others grinned boastfully, proud to be a part of something bigger. Those who don't know or understand the gamer lifestyle will forever pigeonhole gamers into the antisocial stereotype, but you'd never know it by looking at this pic. This was just a group of friends, celebrating together, partying, reminiscing. And all the pairs of eyes looked back at the camera, as if saying, "Here's to DoD, Hanzo. Here's to you."

All but one.

Near the lens, sitting directly across from me, one pair of eyes was turned to look at something off-camera, as if unaware a guild photo was being taken mere inches from his face. A smirk lay half-settled on his lips, partially here, partially distracted. With every single guildy focused on the shot, he was the odd-man out.

What the hell is so fucking interesting that you can't even look at the camera, Drecca?

I laughed at what had to be a simple case of bad timing. Everyone takes an awful photo now and again: eyes closed as the shutter catches you mid-blink, mouth agape as the photographer presses the button. It catches up to you eventually, that one photo that makes us look like we've been kicked directly in the junk during "Cheese!" I scrolled further, to see if there was another, more flattering photo of my least favorite ex-guildy.

Sure enough, a second photo scrolled up into view, taken moments later. It was the "just in case" photo you take when you want to be sure you capture everyone in their most devilishly handsome state. Again, all faces were turned to the camera, grinning. In this particular pic, Goldenrod raised a glass in toast, mouth most certainly forming the words "For the Horde!"

There he was again, the odd-man out. Instead of being distracted, this second pic was even worse. Drecca's face was painted with a dead, blank stare, contemplating absolutely nothing in particular.

I zoomed in. In this second photo, he was the closest to the camera. There was no possible way he couldn't have known a picture was about to be snapped. You could reach right into the photo and flick him in the head. Hey. Wake up. Over here. Picture being taken. The guild gets together for events like this never. Pay attention for five seconds.

Nothing. He was completely checked out.

I looked at the two photos, then thought back to that glare he gave me, arms crossed, leaning back in his chair, that smirk across his face in response to my proposal -- that I had a good feeling about DoD in Cataclysm, that "it was doable," so long as everyone was in it for the long haul. I remember reading that smirk of his, and ignoring it. I remember the drama, reflecting on the damage he caused DoD by ripping a portion of my roster away in the Herp Derp exodus. I remember thinking only one thing: he had it planned all along. I beat myself up for not catching it sooner. He had that same look in his eyes as thieves from childhood, ones that screamed you're a fool to have thought I was ever on your team.

I looked at the two photos, and knew better now. There were no plans.

There was never a scheme, no great conspiracy to break my guild up and take my members away. That look Drecca gave me from across the table in the restaurant at the conclusion of BlizzCon 2010 wasn't one that spelled manipulation, or cunning, or dishonesty. It wasn't any look at all. Play. Don't play. Raid. Don't raid. Guild. No guild. Whatever.

He simply didn't care, not about the success -- or even the failure -- of DoD. He didn't even care where the lens was. He was aboard a ship of one, sailing, with neither destination nor purpose.

Contemplative. Panicked. Desire. Jealous. Indecisive. Playful. Guilty. Bored. Upset. Confident.

Apathy.

3.74. Compartmentalization

DoD defeats Lady Deathwhisper in Heroic mode,
wrapping up "Heroic: Storming the Citadel (25 Player)",
Icecrown Citadel

Every Month is May

My wife's birthday fell on the weekend that Descendants of Draenor completed two additional meta achievements, "Heroic: Storming the Citadel (25 Player)" and "All You Can Eat (25 Player)", and I was present for both. But there was no fighting in the Holmes' residence. No accusations, no finger-pointing, no yelling and screaming about "putting the game before your family" or how "another year's gone by with no regard to birthdays or other important events." It was a relaxed, enjoyable weekend, and both real-world and in-game events were attended to. And that wasn't all that was happening in May. My son also celebrated a birthday in May. Mother's Day meant planning flowers for both my mother and Jul. The Memorial Day weekend had a history of sticking its nose into our raid schedule's business, but we were able to carry on without interruption. It wasn't some magical cast of Tranquility that allowed all of these events to take place without stepping on each other's toes, all it took was some thoughtfulness and planning ahead; a tiny bit of effort had far reaching effects.

It wasn't always this way. A guild leader in World of Warcraft constantly juggles two worlds. The secret was to schedule proactively, rather than reactively. May of 2010 produced some of our best progression to date, inching toward Glory of the Icecrown Raider. By the end of it, two wings and six heroic bosses lay in our wake. The unorthodox executions of Professor Putricide, Sindragosa, and The Lich King, resulting in three meta achievements: "Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion…", "All You Can Eat", and "Been Waiting a Long Time For This" (respectively), left only three metas before we could claim the chilling Frostbrood Vanquisher flying mount. If that wasn't enough, the completion of Shadowmourne, the continued eeking out of content in Blain's Si Team, and practicing arenas with Sentra and Nerffmeh was a feast more than any king could hope to finish in a single meal.

The only way...the only way...to make May work, was to meticulously plan ahead. Cover the bases by getting the roster rotations done well in advance, and repeat my warnings both in-game and on the forums as to what to expect when we hit certain speed-bumps along the way. How many people are planning to take time off for Mother's Day? If too many people are away for Memorial Day, ensure the raid leaders have strict orders not to attempt heroics (and especially metas that the core might miss). In the real world, who was responsible for picking up the presents? The cake? Who is sending the flowers and when? And what days are we agreeing to celebrate? With both the family and the guild completely squared away, there was no chaos, no curveballs, no emergency situations. Everything ran smoothly, because they had been handled...because I had handled them. "Hoping" for everything to fall into place had a poor track record, and wasn't going to win me any awards.

Success over the long term simply meant handling every month like May.

So as that month drew to a close, I was able to spend Jul's birthday evening with her, while we sat out on the front deck. We breathed in the evening while glancing at the Denver skyline and shot the shit about how Mad Men was getting really good and how True Blood was quickly going down the toilet. Yet, only an hour earlier, I had been a digital death knight, cleaving my way through internet dragons and toiling toward imaginary golden awards that didn't actually exist...but did. The ability to flip back and forth between game and life so quickly, keeping them separate yet equally important, became an increasingly valuable trait as Guild Leader. It was the only way I was able to sit in a Vent channel while a guildy lied to my proverbial face about his drunken, jealous transgressions toward a rival, maintain a cold distance while ejecting him from the guild...only to be pouring a glass of wine moments later, discussing TV shows with my wife.

DoD defeats Halion the Twilight Destroyer,
earning "The Twilight Destroyer (25 Player)",
Ruby Sanctum

U Jelly?

June wasn't nearly as clean. The only unorthodox kill remaining was "Neck Deep in Vile", a brutal gear check that demanded we assassinate every last kamikaze Vile Spirit before it suicided in explosive death. Continued attempts without progress wasted precious hours, and any hope of getting into flow was erased by Omaric's changing opinion of the appropriate boss to tackle. Bretthew completed his transition out of the roster, leaving Omaric to fend for himself. Bretthew's tanking responsibilities were taken up by the DoD vet Kizmet, who partnered with Drecca from that point forward. Without his raid leading partner, Omaric fielded decisions by himself, struggling to accept advice from the shadow of a former leader as it continued to cast doubt on his own ability. From my own perspective, it was a challenge to switch gears so frequently...even with my aforementioned practice in that department. I imagine it was worse for the roster, especially those who didn't see every raid they signed up for.

We pressed on. Heroic Professor Putricide required an insane amount of damage and control. Sindragosa's heroic mode demanded exceptional control on the part of the tanks; Kizmet's dedication to the role was admirable, but was not an instant replacement for Bretthew's jell after so many months at the head of the progression pulls. Synergy comes from more than just a handful of well-geared players randomly thrown together. Raid with the same people long enough, and you slowly enter a state where their pulls are already happening in your mind -- you're already winding up a heal before the blow comes. Jell doesn't come overnight, it takes time. Putting Kizmet into Bretthew's role simply meant getting accustomed to different rhythms.

More disruption arrived by July. The 3.3.5 patch was released, another kink to distract us. To keep morale high, we downshifted into the Ruby Sanctum, where the Twilight dragon Halion was causing trouble on behalf of the impending arrival of Deathwing. Old habits resurfaced: Ben's drunken rants colored Vent, Omaric's insistence on gear to assist with our heroic achievements butted heads with Blain's long held beliefs of effort first, I even had to raise my voice to Hellspectral on several occasions when he was unresponsive in Vent. One such occasion took place during Halion work, where the teams struggled to divide their DPS evenly between the mortal realm and the realm of shadow.

"We need better synchronicity between the in-and-out team assignments if we're going to get this down."

"That's fine, we can move Hellspectral back out to Team 1, it's still lopsided. Hells, you got that?"

Silence.

"Hells? HELLS!!"

Oh, Christ. Not this shit again. "Is he passed out?"

The thick New York accent suddenly broke the silence, "Yo, relax. I was alt-tabbed, lookin' up 'synchro-whatisname'."

Laughter in Vent, followed by a sigh of relief, and the Halion kill came soon after, bringing an end to the drought in achievements. It was July 2nd. June had come and gone without the 25-Man team seeing a single golden bar flash up on their screen.

Sindragosa falls without any player gaining 5 stacks of
Mystic Buffet, earning DoD "All You Can Eat (25 Player)",
Icecrown Citadel

Faux-jection

"I was upset. I couldn't deal with it. The people I trusted as my friends basically stabbed me in the back."

"I could see how that was upsetting, I’m sorry you had to deal with that."

"For a while there I just shut down. Didn't want to have anything to do with them, with the guild, with WoW."

I offered support to Bheer as best I could while he revealed the story to me over a series of IM windows, "I can’t imagine I would want to face them either. I read somewhere that rejection from a social group affects the same areas of the brain as physical pain. Do you feel like you have a handle on who it was that swayed Eh Team in that direction?"

"Taba was the one who told me, but I have my suspicions about Crasian being the one responsible for putting the idea of kicking me out in their heads. He and I never really saw eye to eye. He always fought me on loot, dismissed my suggestions on strategy. I just never expected them to all side with him."

His story correlated with my own observations, "Well, he is pretty wishy-washy in that respect. He came and went from the roster several times, remember? Took off right after I gave the role of melee officer to Jungard, which meant he wouldn't be seeing Shadowmourne. And the loot whoring, it became pretty common knowledge. There was a couple of times where he promised to take Jungard into Ulduar for a cloak...never even followed up with the guy. Anyway, what’s done is done. Your back now, and that's all that matters. I appreciate you taking some of these spots, the roster’s been all over the map this last month."

"No problem, happy to help. How are the revisions coming?"

"Good, good. I still have more to do, but I have a pretty solid handle on what further tweaks we can make to loot rules, rotations, etc. Really want to make sure we close off any remaining loopholes. Perfect example was that one you pointed to me, back in Ulduar, alts being able to roll on items ahead of mains? Yeah...not gonna let that go on."

"Thank you."

A period of silence where we each carried on with our individual business, and then, a final question popped back up from Bheer, "Do you think we'll ever seen Crasian again?"

"I doubt it, but don't worry. If we do, I don't expect there's any way I can invite him back. Not after all of this info has come to light."

No player was going to treat my veteran guild members like that and not feel my wrath in some form or another. I expected Crasian could find a perfectly acceptable crowd of players to join up with that shared his mentality regarding loot.

The text-to-speech announcement of Vent run out across my speakers as a new player connected to our server, one that had held a long-standing "open policy" of players of any faction/guild to join and chat with us:

"Bulwinkul has joined the channel."

I alt-tabbed and removed myself from the Vent server, then logged off before the purple text had a chance to beg me to stay and listen.

3.46. Glory

The big red button that activates Mimiron's hard mode,
Ulduar

Firefighter

"Stand right here in this corner."

Twenty some-odd players crunched together, backs pressed up against one of the metallic walls as instructed. Omaric and Bretthew shuffled around to prepare for instruction. An enormous red button hovered above us like a canopy, larger than the entire group of raiders. I hovered my mouse over it, the tooltip revealing a message: "DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON!" Two weekends had passed since our completion of One Light in the Darkness. Last weekend, we'd cleared up through Auriaya and made initial attempts on Mimi. Tonight, four hours were on the clock; only a few minutes had passed since the official start time for a DoD raid.

Another new feature added with the release of Ulduar was the ability to extend a raid lock. Further adding to a raiding guild's convenience, raid lock extension provided guilds with the option of saving their weekly progress. Rather than starting from scratch each Tuesday (or Wednesday, for you Europeans), guilds could now return from whence they left off; a sort-of raid progression "save game", if you will. Casual raiding guilds wept with joy at the inclusion of this feature, freeing them from the brutality of clearing an entire instance in under a week. It was a feature to, again, grant guilds the necessary flexibility to experience endgame content, one piled on to an ever increasing list of compromises that the more hardcore of guilds questioned.

Extending a lock was not without its consequences: all the loot that would've gone to gear up lackluster players would be flushed down the drain. Truly hardcore raiding guilds cared little for loot, extending only if and when it made sense to secure a server or world first boss kill. As DoD continued to walk the fine line between casual and hardcore, we had our own stance on when it was appropriate to sacrifice gear in lieu of progression: when we needed to maximize the use of our eight hours per week on only the most difficult of encounters.

Like tonight.

"The flames aren't as random as you think. They spawn near you, and they'll seek you out...so the key is controlling them."

Bretthew continued Omaric's thought, "So that means everyone moves carefully. Together. Spreading out is actually a bad idea. What we ultimately want is fire to spawn near other fires, and you do that by staying near existing fires. This is mostly on melee's shoulders..."

"...so we're perpetually fucked -- is what you are saying."

Bretthew laughed, "...more or less."

The two raid leaders began to square away positioning, suggesting various movement strategies for the groups. Having seen the 10-Man version first-hand, Jungard was well-equipped to direct melee traffic. Among those drivers stood the guild leader, having cut over to my new role -- in training for legendaries to come. To my left, a familiar old face listened quietly to Jungard's direction, taking his place among melee, his weapons dripping with vile poisons.

"Fancy meeting you here," I whispered the rogue. He returned a smiley and said nothing.

Descendants of Draenor completes "Firefighter (25 Player)",
wrapping up the final meta for Glory of the Ulduar Raider,
Ulduar

Multitasking

How much do you think you can keep track of at once?

This is what we had to look forward to, on the off-chance we executed a clean transition into phase four:

• Three synchronized health bars: The health of all three mini-bosses making up the V-07-TR-0N. As we depleted the boss's health, each of the three pools had to remain in synchronicity; killing any one of the three parts of V-07-TR-0N's body too soon would cause the remaining functional parts to resurrect it.
• Shock Blast: No player could risk being near the clockwork construct when shock blast was about to go off, not even the tanks. 
• Mines: Ejected by Leviathan MKII (V-07-TR-0N's feet), stepping on any of the freshly laid mines that formed a ring around the boss was nearly always fatal. The risk of setting them off was increased now that Omaric and Bretthew were dragging the boss around the circumference of the room.
• Laser Barrage: VX-001 (V-07-TR-0N's body) continued to produce a focused stream of instant death. All players had to move around the boss, avoiding impenetrable purple beams of focused fire on a full 360 degree rotation. It could not be healed through. If players didn't move, they died.
• Rocket Strikes: Also from VX-001, the floor continued to feature randomly painted targets, offering players mere seconds to sidestep impending rocket strikes. These crosshairs were now infinitely more difficult to see on a screen ablaze with fire.
• Frost Bombs: Slowly moving blue orbs forced anyone near them to get away as fast as possible. Ten seconds was the grace period. After that, any player within fifteen yards was a tax write-off.
• Emergency Fire Bots: These annoying contraptions distracted and confused the raid; their silencing aura shutting down casters and healers in the process. Raiders were instructed to keep their distance, specific players were assigned to blow them to bits.
• Fire, fire, fire: Always and forever. Fire covered every inch of the screen, closing in on players, suffocating them, turning feet into inches, reducing what little safe spots remained in the room.

On top of all these things, we had our roles. Healers had to keep people alive. The tanks had to drag V-07-TR-0N around his room with care and precision. DPS had to unleash every ounce of Hell onto the boss they could wring out. Roles we had all come to perfect over the course of many months of play in multiple tiers of content.

Except myself, of course. I always had to be the exception to the rule.

I had to keep one eye on the wealth of items bombarding the raid, and the other eye on what little DPS I was able to contribute, always struggling to find a better groove, push my damage up the meters with what little off-spec gear I'd managed to piece together. Hour after hour we sunk into Firefighter, walking the tightrope, imminent death a constant threat. When the raid perfected its handling of one roadblock, we'd fall behind in other areas. Nervousness and exhaustion led some pulls to go down the drain right from the start, annihilating the tired and the weak before even getting a chance to see phase two.

And the fire...

Flames scorched virtual flesh, closing in with a claustrophobic intensity that hypnotized players. When focused on moving just enough to keep the fire at bay, they lost sight of the multitude of other risks on their plate. Early deaths in phase one were our first obstacle. Healers caught in Flame Suppressant would have their healing slowed, though most of the deaths couldn't be helped by heals. Careless players met a quick and painful death by stepping on ejected mines. A rocket strike here. A frost bomb there. A few seconds late in rotating around the boss, getting caught in a laser barrage as a result. Then, it was the long run back. Half the time was spent perfecting the art of returning to Mimiron's room quickly, buffing, preparing for another pull. How many more attempts could we fit in? An hour ticked away. Then another. And another.

Phase four continued to devolve into a pyromaniac's wet dream.

---

Only thirty minutes remained for the evening, the second full night of work practicing the million and one things Mimiron had planned out for us. Countless pulls over the weekend had been attempted, and slowly, the 25-Man progression team had begun to refine their system. Frost bombs were now less of an impediment, players had learned their Pavlovian lesson to move their ass...or have it handed to them. Fire bots were a non-factor; casters dodged and weaved out of their silencing auras, unleashing bursts of magical light that blew the contraptions apart before the bots had a chance to wreak havoc on the raid.

Baby steps.

We were fast approaching the definitive "famous last pull" of the night, but the sheer randomness of luck offered us no insight into how close we were to wrapping things up; each pull felt like the first. Omaric and Bretthew dragged the enormous robot across the outer edges of the room, a ring of discs flipping out onto the ground. I glanced up at my raid frames. Neps was out of commission, as was Jungard and Abrinis. I continued to eat into the boss's health with every Obliterate I could, dumping Frost Strikes as soon as my Runic Power capped out. My gaze darted back down towards the damage meters for a split second.
9th.

A wave of deja vu washed over, remembering Zanjina's first night of crossing into the top 10. I popped my remaining trinkets and potions, dug in deep, Mature's refreshing runes scrolling down the screen like Guitar Hero.

The picture stuttered a moment, as it typically did when uncached assets were being loaded by the game client for the first time. In reality it was no more than a second, but to me, it seemed that the game had stopped completely. When your screen locks up, your heart sinks and you know you're about to be kicked off the server. This would have been a shit-poor time for that to happen. But I wasn't kicked off the server, and nobody was disconnecting. Instead, a flash of yellow text scrolled up through guild chat while the familiar gong sound-effect of an achievement bellowed out of the speakers sitting atop my desk. Wide-eyed, I glared at the screen, just below Mature's health. Two golden bars delivered the news.

The 25-Man Progression team displays their freshly
acquired Ironbound Proto-Drakes,
Dalaran

Ironbound

I slumped into my chair and looked up at the ceiling, while cheering and screams overflowed from those speakers and filled my computer room with the noises of triumph and celebration.

On November 1st, 2009, six-and-a-half months after Ulduar was released to World of Warcraft, Descendants of Draenor completed Glory of the Ulduar Raider in 25-Man progression.

Completing Glory of the Ulduar Raider was both euphoric and empowering; the events of the previous tier had now been redeemed. As the 25-Man progression team coalesced over Dalaran in a cloud of purple Ironbound Proto-Drakes, our heart-aching loss of The Immortal was fast becoming a distant memory. As our Twilight Vanquisher titles had done so before them, these proto-drakes would act as badges of pride to those dedicated and loyal to the raid team, and to the guild. As well, they would provide the necessary sales pitches for those on Deathwing-US who continued to a seek a place amongst a 25-Man progression raiding guild, when the hardcore ones had turned them away.

---

One day after we completed this massive raiding accomplishment, a post was made to "The Leaver's Lounge". The Leaver's Lounge was a section of our forums set aside to wish players well on their quest to pursue new interests, outside of the confines of Azeroth. Stickied up at the top of the forum was a popular internet meme; an appropriate final message I directed to players, mocking their exit from World of Warcraft. In the photo, a stereotypical nerdy gamer wearing a headset sat in front of a keyboard and mouse. But in the place where a monitor would normally sit, the gamer instead faced an open window, peering out into his neighborhood with focused concentration. The meme's message read:

Reality: Worst. Game. Ever.

The newest post to The Leaver's Lounge was from Crasian.

Snow was coming, and he yearned to ski atop the Colorado Mountains. He thanked us for the community we provided, congratulated the 25-Man team for their tremendous work on Glory, and wished us well as we headed off toward the next big challenge deep within Icecrown. He thanked Cheeseus for putting up with him, the progression team for the fond memories he'd take away. And he thanked me, for allowing him the chance to hold the rank of Elite and help be a part of the team that drove progression, week after week. It was a heartfelt goodbye message, followed by virtual waves from the members of DoD that had had a chance to play with him.

I read his goodbye forum post, slowly scrolling down the series of replies made by his former teammates, and could only think one thing:

So. Mr. "expected to be at every raid." You wanted to claim Shadowmourne all to yourself, and yet this entire time your plan was to take a leave of absence. Why had you failed to bring this up in any of our conversations regarding a promotion?

What else had you kept from me?

3.44. Bullet Points and Lies

What Their Body Language is Telling You
Source: 9gag.com

The Read

When you sit across the table from someone, leafing through their resume, you're trained to pay attention to the cues that are present. The stranger staring back at you is now more than just a name and some impressive typography printed on fancy paper. When their credentials first hit your desk, the best you can hope for is to look beyond the literal content and examine the little things like their choice of fonts, how they've decided to prioritize their education or their experience. If their name is enormous in the header, are they demonstrating a mastery of Microsoft Word or are they overcompensating for a deficiency in their confidence? Do they describe their work history as a series of things they've done or ways they've made their former companies successful? When you look them straight in the eyes, it's much easier to read the nervousness, the constant uncomfortable shuffling; the body language of folded arms shielding them from the onslaught of incoming questions. When they're in the room with you, it's a little bit easier to tell if they mean what they say, or if the resume you hold in your hands is just a series of bullet points and lies.

But if you never get them in a room, it becomes more of a Herculean task to get a good read.

There aren't so many cues when you run a guild. You don't get the luxury of a professionally written resume, and there is no table to sit them at; all the body language is absent from the equation. Without these cues to help bolster your ability to read their true intent, you're left with what floats to the surface: their actions, their measurable contributions, and if they treat both stranger and friend alike -- the kinds of things you might consider when judging a person's integrity. If the person is genuine, it is a simple task to walk your list and scratch check marks next to the ones demonstrated by candidate X. But when a person has another agenda in mind, the items you check off your list become their strategy. The key is determining what parts of their behavior are just for show, and digging through the dirt to reveal their actual motivations.

I know this strategy because I've employed it myself. I've changed my own line of questioning to suit an agenda I felt my interviewees wanted to fulfill, and it may very well have been the deciding factor in gaining The Final Cut back in Vanilla; my last real opportunity to leapfrog into 40-Man raiding. When I began to ask about how they would handle fixed schedules, strict start times, the administration of DKP...it all added up to the same underlying theme: we're a casual guild that has the professional approach of the hardcore. In actuality, we hadn't pulled off a single, successful raid by that point. But it was enough for them to take a gamble on us, thankfully, and it paid off in dividends.

I was closing in on my decision regarding who to go with for melee officer. I had conferred with Neps and Dalans, rounded the candidate pool down to two options, and attempted to wrap my arms around who was more aligned with the best intentions of the guild. For Descendants of Draenor to continue down its current path of success, leadership had to be just right, and I was becoming hyper-vigilant at scrutinizing my decision-making process. Mistakes of the past coupled with recent events made this a choice that I couldn't gloss over.

It was time to sit both Jungard and Crasian down and determine who was going to be the best fit for my next melee officer position. I wanted their perception of things. In my mind, listening to them explain how they saw events unfolding would paint a clearer picture of who I was considering. This, in my mind, would be the best opportunity to get a read of the candidates. And when I stepped into the interviews, I prepared myself for the same treatment I dished out to The Final Cut years before. If players were prepared to tell me what I wanted to hear, how would I be able to cut through their bullshit?

I did this by asking them their opinion of each other.

---

"So, which do you like more right now?"

"I dunno, I really like the idea about armor pen at the moment, and Blood is pulling some sick numbers but you really need the gear for it. Having to re-gem everything across the board like that? Doesn't seem very practical. I mean, I like to change it up a bit, and I can pretty much do that now if I want to flip between Frost or Unholy. Strength is strength, y'know?"

"Yup."

"I'll probably give it a go at some point but right now I'm getting the numbers I need from Unholy. The rotation gets a bit dull but it's doing more than Frost at the moment, so I probably won't change it up anytime soon."

"You don't mind losing Frost's burst?"

"Well, there are ways around that. It's just a lot of Death Knights aren't paying attention. Y'know? I mean everyone seems to have a DK but that doesn't mean they know what's going on. Simple things like spreading diseases before dropping a DnD on the twin valks. Most DKs could give a shit. It's pretty common knowledge. But instead they have to resort to exploits and pulling the valks into the doorway, or whatever. Sad."

"Crasian, let's change the subject quickly. What's your opinion on Jungard?"

"Ho, boy. Jungard? Um, he's a good guy, I guess...I can't say I really know too much about him, y'know? I mean, like...we've run some stuff together. He's offered to help out on a few fillers in the Eh Team runs, so we've brought him along for those. But I know he's helping his brother run Starflex throughout the week, so other the 25...I don't get much of an opportunity to hang out."

"Do you think Jungard's competent enough to lead the melee team in 25?"

"Oh, no doubt. No doubt at all. Yah, he's sharp, he knows his stuff."

I waited to see if Crasian would offer anything else up in Jungard's favor.

"So...how's the decision on Shadowmourne coming along?"

And just like that, the discussion shifted to more important things.

"Still deciding. I'm getting close. Just a few more loose ends to tie up."

"Sweet! Yeah, let me know how it goes!"

I went into Crasian's interview with a hunch. His responses confirmed where my head was at.

"Yogg-Saron"
Artwork by Dan Scott

Insane in the Brain

Omaric and Bretthew made it clear to the 25-Man progression team that in order to execute One Light, the keeper we would have to leave alive was Thorim. By phase three, we'd already be stretched thin by moving slower, taking more damage, and receiving less heals. We'd probably be down a few folks as they lost their minds to the gaze of Yogg-Saron. All of these hindrances would add up to a drawn-out phase three; we'd need every last ounce of help during the final burn. That meant Thorim had to help us kill those Guardians. So it was decreed. During our clear toward Yogg, Omaric and Bretthew directed players to talk to Mimiron, Hodir, and Freya, removing their protective gaze from the Antechamber.

Omaric's primary tactic was, first and foremost, for players to get a handle on managing their sanity. Many of the progression raiders voiced their opinions in this department on the forums. Jungard, Crasian, Mangetsu -- folks passionate about their play and determined on being focused towards the win, shared their thoughts on the DoD boards. Omaric remained resolute in his stance: by reducing the various mistakes players could make throughout the course of phase one and two, the raid would ultimately transition into phase three with a healthy abundance of sanity. Without Freya's sanity wells as a crutch, players would have no choice but to perform with a high degree of precision. This essential tactic had far reaching effects in our One Light attempts for the duration of the raid that Friday evening.

When we returned to the instance Sunday, rested and ready to dig back in, it was as if we had never left. Each pull got a little cleaner. Transitions from phase one to phase two got a little quicker -- Bretthew expedited each attempt by purposefully walking into clouds in phase one, artificially spawning more Guardians than the default -- their subsequent deaths eating away at Sara's illusion in greater haste. Meanwhile, phase two continued to receive the spit polish. Jungard helped direct our melee in the nightmare, reminding folks to face away from the skulls as they dug their way through each dream sequence, eventually exposing Yogg's brainstem. As the attempts continued on into the evening, we closed the gap from three nightmare cycles to two. If we could burn the brainstem hard enough during those two cycles, we'd have enough sane people alive to deliver the true death to Yogg and transition the Old God to phase three.

At 9:18pm, the dual raid leaders made the call to melee: Get out now. This is it. We're pushing into phase three.

DoD defeats Yogg-Saron under the sole watch of Thorim,
earning "One Light in the Darkness (25 Player)",
Ulduar

One Light

With my back to the Old God, I resumed my role, calling out in Vent which tank was getting the next Guardian. Omaric and Bretthew did the same. Players continued to catch a peek of Yogg's horrific face and their sanity bled away. Another guardian spawned in the chaos, too close to pick it up. With maximum health, the Guardian was at its greatest strength. It turned to Sixfold, killing him instantly. The tanks fell back into our rotation. Crasian and Jungard hammered away at Yogg along with the rest of melee, risking their own sanity in the process. Turtleman came up snake eyes in the luck department and his sanity melted away. Bretthew called out to kill him, and the raid converged, blowing the undead Mage apart. More succumbed to Yogg: Abrinis, then Sir Klocker. Crasian focused on the kill as the last bits of his own mind were stripped away; the raid soon turned to kill him as well. Yogg's health continued to drop. Jungard held his faculties for a few additional moments, slashing his dual two-handed weapons into the hundred gaping mouths. Finally, he joined the list of the damned, killed by the raid amid his own insane ravings. In the last remaining percentage of health, Bretthew, Omaric and I could barely keep ourselves alive with the weight of the Guardians continuing to press down on us.

And then...brilliance.

Our screens lit up with a double dose of achievement spam. Both "Two Lights in the Darkness" and "One Light in the Darkness" had proc'd side-by-side, the result of our urgency to complete Glory. Cheers and screams filled Vent as we picked ourselves up and distributed loot. The reality of how close we were set in. Only one meta remained. Adrenaline pumped through our veins and we felt unstoppable. With forty minutes remaining in the evening, we celebrated our accomplishment by taking the raid back to Obsidian Sanctum and executing a three-drake kill for old times sake. This produced a Twilight Drake flying mount for Omaric in the process. It was well-earned and well-deserved. I took a moment to address the raid before they disbanded and headed out for the night.

"I just wanted to thank you all for the hard work everyone's been putting in on Glory. We're just about there, gang. Make sure you hit the forums and do that research on Firefighter. While I have everyone's attention, I have an announcement: I've come to a decision on the guild's next next melee officer. Most of you probably saw this coming, as the guy contributes so much to the guild and progression, that he's practically an honorary officer by this point. So it's time to make it official. Everyone, please join me in congratulating Jungard."

Again, the Ventrilo server erupted -- this time with congratulations and cheers for DoD's newest officer. A random voice piped up as the cheering subsided, "So does this mean Jungard's getting the ol' legendary axe first?"

"No," I replied, "I am."

3.43. Showtime!

The 25-Man Progression Team defeats The Twin Val'kyr in
under three minutes, earning "Salt and Pepper (25 Player)",
Tournament of Champions

The Definition of Insanity

Cheeseus had taken a bow and exited stage right. Upon his exit from DoD as raid leader, some significant hurdles remained. Omaric and Bretthew took control of our 25-Man progression team at a time when it was most critical for DoD. Only three meta achievements remained outstanding in our quest to complete Glory of the Ulduar Raider, but they were arguably the most difficult ones of the bunch. All eyes were on them as we returned to our instance locks that Sunday at the start of October 2009. How would they approach it? Would Omaric's voice impressions and Bretthew's chatty nature distract the team from focusing in on the most brutal of these final Ulduar achievements? Would the raid follow their direction, or get caught up in unrelated conversations as they began to wipe to trash? Did the boys have the capacity to keep the peace and identify problematic players, or were we headed into attempts that Blain warned me about years before; attempts where you repeat the same thing over and over, changing nothing yet expecting results. Would Omaric and Bretthew deliver? Or would they slowly drive us insane?

The lights dimmed, and the curtain went up on their first act.

For their first trick, Omaric and Bretthew drove the raid up through the Tournament of Champions and had us target a three-minute burn on The Twin Val'kyr. A month earlier, The Eh Team had knocked out "Salt and Pepper (10 Player)", so this achievement was a safe play for them. I casually suggested that they keep their strategy and opinions hidden away in officer chat. We needed to keep a handle on the perception that The Eh Team's influence was broadening in scope. Many of us had first-hand experience in performing the 10-Man version by this point, so it was common knowledge that "Salt and Pepper (10 Player)" was an order of magnitude easier to accomplish. Repeating this information to the twenty-five as a teaching device would have been a bad idea. That tactic could have been misinterpreted as "we beat it a month ago because we're better than you" -- a situation not so difficult to imagine in a game where the difficulty between 10 and 25 was blurring in the public eye every day.

After securing "Salt and Pepper (25 Player)", their next trick involved Mimiron. We were dodging mines, bursts of damage from mechanized guns, and making our way into phase three. Omaric directed the raid to leave an Assault Bot alive in an attempt to force Mimiron to destroy it with a rocket strike. As it turned out, I had an Assault Bot on me, and kited it around while Mimiron transitioned into his final phase, combining into a giant clockwork monstrosity. I scanned for the rocket blast targets being painted on the ground while the raid began to chip away at all three parts of Mimiron's body. I missed the first target by inches, but remained diligent, zooming my camera out and spinning it like a top, watching for new crosshairs to paint. Another showed up across the room and I made a mad dash for it, squinting as I prepared to mess up in some horrific fashion; the guild leader ever-confident in his abilities.

The Assault Bot tailing me sputtered, whirred, and fell backwards, while achievement spam lit up guild chat: "Not So Friendly Fire (25 Player)". We were clear to burn through Mimiron, and the steampunk Voltron soon sagged its shoulders as it ran out of power.

Their opening act was a success. The main event was yet to come.

DoD defeats Freya with all three Elders alive,
earning "Knock Knock Knock on Wood (25 Player)",
Ulduar

Knock Knock Knock

To say there was a lot going on would be an understatement.

Freya's adds made up the majority of our suffering. While Ancient Protector himself wasn't terribly oppressive (as the raid very quickly moved under mushrooms to evade the silence from Conservator's Grip), a random person would be selected for Nature's Fury, doing repeated damage to players in close proximity. If players were sharp, the Nature's Fury target would zip away from us in no time at all. It didn't always play out that way. The ring of Detonating Lashers were also not much fun. A warrior tank could deliver a Shockwave to AoE stun them, allowing the casters to chain into a massive shower of AoE damage, while we gained a safe distance from their explosives deaths.

It was a pity, then, that our warrior tank decided to become a druid.

Meanwhile, I had my own struggles to deal with. Snaplasher, Storm Lasher, and Ancient Water Elemental all spawned together, and required us to kill them within twelve seconds of one another. Yet, the "group up and AoE down" method wouldn't fly here, either. While Storm Lasher's chain lightning could be mitigated with stuns, Riskers was having a tough time of it on his own as the sole remaining rogue in progression. Ancient Water Elemental had a tendency to want to charge out in a random direction, and made it difficult to keep damage focused on him. As it turned out, both of these adds were my responsibility. Meanwhile, Snaplasher was kited away, its own damage growing as its health dropped. In 10-Man, the Snaplasher would eventually be frozen into position, affording the kiter a buffer of freedom. In 25-Man there was no such allowance. Poor timing on the part of the kiter would cause player death as Snaplasher's own life came to an end.

The deficiencies of modifying a 10-Man strategy for the 25 were starting to rear their ugly head, and the audience grew restless.

Mangetsu, along with his warlock officer Eacavissi, worked  in tandem to perfect an extended Shadowfury chain, which Turtleman helped augment with a Frost Nova tagged on the tail. This was our best bet to eliminate the threat from the ring of Detonating Lashers. Meanwhile, Bretthew, Omaric and I worked on our own system: Ikey-bear held Freya while Bretthew AoE taunted Snaplasher, Storm Lasher and Ancient Water Elemental. Without skipping a beat, Ikey would pull Freya back (as she was also subject to Bretthew's AoE taunt), while I gripped Storm Lasher and Ancient Water Elemental, facing them away and keeping tabs on Riskers so he was in range for stunlocks.

The baby steps slowly emerged over the course of the evening. The Detonating Lashers remained in place just a bit longer. Those with Nature's Fury moved away from the group a bit faster. The Snaplasher dealt far less fatal blows to random players in the raid. But it was grueling to perfect, and our attempts filled up the evening. Even when all looked good and we transitioned into the final phase, Freya still managed to play us, locking random players down with grasping roots, only to end their lives with the toss of spore-like bombs that we needed to avoid.

The worst part is when you feel like you have a phase down, only to be awakened to the brutal truth that you have absolutely no handle on what comes next -- and the work begins anew. In the days of Kael'thas Sunstrider, this sort of raid mentality was par for the course: entire weekends spent working on one phase, while four more waited in the wings. But now, in a new era of raiding where everything was a "pushover", getting a taste of what got us here was a bitter pill to swallow.

"Knock Knock Knock on Wood (25 Player)" eventually wrapped late that evening, in DoD's trademark famous last pull of the night. We sealed the deal eight minutes past our raid end time. Exhausted, we congratulated one another and retired for the night, replenishing our energy in preparation for the remaining two metas. The raid retired, rather. A guild leader's business, as they say, is often never done.

Jungard and Crasian go head-to-head in Recount as
the guild wraps up "Con-speed-atory (25 Player)",
Ulduar

An Axe to Grind

The decision on Shadowmourne still hadn't been made; a melee officer promotion hung in the balance. With two tanks now leading raids, melee lacked guidance -- a role formerly held by Cheeseus. I was lucky that talented players like Riskers were able to work through their own issues as he had on that evening's boss kill. But our guild needed to provide a better support mechanism than that. We weren't a true hardcore raiding guild; it was unfair to expect that every player could act as their own troubleshooter. It was our job to provide an official person in which to assign the responsibility. If we claimed to take players of all shapes and sizes (read: skill levels), we had an obligation to prevent them from impeding the work of our existing successful core. I needed a melee person that excelled to such a degree that they could not only keep their own shit straight, but had the capacity to clean up after other people's messes as well. Weighing the options on deck, two names rose to prominence.

First on this list was Crasian, the Eh Team's resident death knight who demolished the damage meters each night in our progression raids. Having climbed up to Elite rank, he was one of the primary drivers behind Descendants of Draenor's melee DPS being absurd throughout Wrath. Crasian was a likable guy, full of energy and carried with him a completionist mindset -- he was one of the first guild members to finish Glory of the Dungeon hero, earning a Red Proto-Drake in the process. Crasian had been sacrificing much of his spare time to help others knock out these heroic 5-man achievements, demonstrating that guild spirit I often looked for in people. Still, he was reasonably new to the guild, so his perceived selflessness had to be tempered carefully against other criteria. Crasian made a regular habit of checking in with me on the status of my decision regarding the legendary, and I assured him it was my number one priority. One thing was certain: putting Shadowmourne into his hands would secure his place in the #1 DPS spot for many months to come, and when I imagined how many heroic mode kills his boosted DPS would guarantee us, flashing images of golden achievement bars filled me with glee.

A second option existed, the yin to Crasian's yang. The warrior we called Jungard had been a steady source of high quality melee DPS since joining our 25-Man progression raid late in Mount Hyjal, way back in The Burning Crusade. Jungard was less of a show-boater than Crasian, but no less timid than the death knight when wrecking the meters. Jungard had recently helped grandfather his brother's guild into ours, augmenting the roster and adding another 10-Man team to the weekly clears. Jungard and I saw eye-to-eye on a good many things, and shared conversations over IM. He supported my changing guild structure as we moved from TBC to WotLK, and never once missed a raid he hadn't cleared with me before hand. Jungard was one of those few individuals that had never red flagged me once; never for a moment giving me a question to doubt his loyalty or honesty -- and with every bit of praise I showered on to him, he remained humble, thankful, and ready to prove himself worthy at the start of the next raid weekend. It stood to reason, then, that Jungard wielding a Shadowmourne in one hand and a Shadow's Edge in the other would be a force that few on Deathwing-US could threaten.

With my sights set on both Crasian and Jungard, the next quest in my log was clear to complete: Promote a New Melee Officer. It was time to schedule some interviews.