3.63. Algor Mortis

"Tauren Druid",
Artwork by Thiago Almeida

Applying Yourself

"Hanzo, I'm really starting to feel worn out with the tanking thing."

I listened quietly as Omaric spilled.

"It's not really holding my interest as much as it used to."

"I see," keeping as much emotion out of it as possible, "so, you'd like me to start looking for a replacement for that role?"

"I mean, if you can...it's not a HUGE deal at the moment."

"You won't keel over dead tomorrow if I don't have a replacement by Friday?"

"Heh, no. I think I'll live past Friday."

"Well, that's a relief!" I gently joked, hoping to keep the conversation light. My strategy with humor has always been to weave it carefully through the tapestry of politics. It's my go-to tactic in winning over anonymous players in the heat of an argument, and has surprisingly good results, even if we truly don't see eye-to-eye on a particular topic of interest. The human mind is funny that way.

"But maybe just sort of look out for someone who may want to come in and fill that spot? That way I can start moving into more of a kitty DPS position."

"Alright, let me sift through our applications. We should have you doing kitty DPS in no time."

I wasn't looking forward to what came next.

---

Delete.

Delete.

Delete.

I clicked through my email. App after app appeared on the screen, and I scanned the answers to my standard recruitment questions. What is your character name? How old are you? What role do you play? How did you hear about us? Tell us a story about your raiding experience. Why choose DoD over any other guilds? One by one, I read the applications that flooded in on a weekly basis, each one more useless than the next.

Some applications ignored the very first rule on the list: Do not apply if you're under 21.

Ah, wonderful....here's an 18 year old.

Delete.

Oh, nice, this guy's 16.

Delete.

Next up were continuous applicants who demonstrated a complete and utter lack of attention to detail. I needed raiders that could truly comprehend my expectations -- many of our raid strategies came from complex guides that required exacting attention. So, I wove a trick into my application process to cull the herd: You don't need a forum account to apply -- the application is filled out and emailed to me. Yet, there before my eyes was the very thing I hoped to prevent: people unable to read carefully. It made for an easy email filter.

"Hey I can't figure out how to create an account to apply."

Delete.

"Can you give me a hand creating a forum account? I'd like to fill out an application."

Delete.

One by one, the apps hit my virtual trash bin, until none remained. Snake eyes, again. Everybody wanted to get their foot in the Descendants of Draenor door, but nobody was willing to put the time or effort in. I sat there with an empty inbox an overflowing trash bin, and felt nothing but disgust.

"Capturellamaphobopolis",
Hanzo's contribution to The CTF Expansion Project

Setting the Standard

I leaned back in my chair and stared at the pinhole sized dots scattered across the ceiling. Perhaps I was being too hasty, perhaps a good handful of these applicants weren't nearly as bad as I made them out to be. A conversation popped into my head from a year earlier, the weekend before I left on a trip to Dallas, Texas on business...the same trip in which I drafted an officer's termination letter.

"I think you should think carefully about being overly critical of players that can't write particularly well."

"Jul, he writes like a kid. I mean, how is that supposed to demonstrate any sort of leadership?"

My wife shrugged, "Well, some people can't. You can go to school and learn the basics of grammar, spelling, and punctuation...but good writing is inherent. Does he have other skills that would qualify him for the position, though?"

"I dunno. I feel like he comes across as an amateur. As he's not leading by example. I need him to!"

"Have you considered the possibility that maybe he can't? Maybe he is prioritizing things in real life more than the game. You said yourself that a game/life balance is something that's important to you. Maybe it's important to him as well."

"Ok, so that should stand in the way of fundamental sentence structure? Maybe he could give me just a little more effort?"

"Shawn...some people don't care as much about WoW as you do."

---

Memories began to swirl, fading in and out across a cloudy spectrum of images. I was transported back in time to a conversation I had with a friend, years before Blizzard would ever announce their intention of creating an MMO. It was 1998, and I was sitting at a desk in a room purposefully darkened by the IT staff. Our collective introversion confined us to the server room; I was a webmaster. On that day, however, I was distracted by a side-project I had assembled: The CTF Expansion Project. It was a collection of Capture-The-Flag maps for the popular Threewave CTF mod for Quake, built by my friend Zoid. I'd known Zoid since even before Quake, playing 2D Fighting games at his apartment in Vancouver...Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Samurai Shodown II. I'd met hardcore game addicts on Vancouver Island before, but Zoid was different. When he picked me up at the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal, I immediately recognized the music playing over his car stereo: the soundtrack to Darkstalkers.

I thought I was the only person in the world that listened to video game music. There are others like me.

To celebrate the success of Zoid's popular Threewave mod, I did my part by coordinating a handful of expert map makers to come together and assemble an expansion pack of capture-the-flag goodness. The CTF Expansion Project enjoyed moderate success, eventually finding its way into a larger production known as All-Star CTF. I felt it was a great collaborative effort, but the true test would come from Zoid's own critique of my map selections. When I pinged Zoid, famous for his short, to-the-point responses, I asked him what he thought of the pack. I remember his response well:

"It was OK. You need to set your standards higher!"

I'm certain Zoid meant it as encouragement, but it felt like a crushing defeat.

A Slight Reduction in Body Temperature

My focus on the office ceiling resumed. Were my standards too high? Or not high enough? I debated relaxing the rules, and giving a few more of these applicants a chance, players whose applications weren't spit polished to a military grade. Right on cue, my gut chimed in.

Do you want to create more drama for yourself? Did you like the way things ran during Vanilla and The Burning Crusade? Perhaps you'd like to go back to neglecting your job and family to spend every waking moment in game, dealing with their shit.

I shook my head and alt-tabbed back to work. I wasn't going to sacrifice our guild's integrity and current standing to let the dregs in. I'd fought to get rid of the stigma that we were a stepping stone guild, and it was apparent from the flood of applicant emails that DoD was no longer perceived as such. We would be their last guild. To that end, I owed it to the members to retain that which I held in high regard: the expectation that you come to this guild prepared to do whatever it took to keep us successful. I'd rather have the team suffer with 24 or 23 players in the roster, than force several people in "just to be warm bodies".

Dead bodies are warm for a short time too...but aren't very good at contributing.

I sat for a moment, lost in thought, contemplating the loss of Dalans and proclamation by Omaric revealing his increasing apathy towards tanking, and began to consider the possibility of solving the problem myself.

Oh, nice. So that whole bit about not forcing players into a role they didn't enjoy, that was all just a line you were feeding them? And yourself? Gonna go ahead and return to tanking, then? Tanking with a Shadowmourne? Bet that'll go over real well with the guild.

I needed a new tank. Someone to emerge with the expertise of a hardcore player, yet could assimilate into a guild insistent on mutual respect and treating others with a quiet dignity. Someone who was already fully geared, and who kept their armor polished, with their point-of-view squarely focused on raid progression through raw efficiency. And someone with a solid grasp on the game's mechanics, to mentor others, to take charge of duties, and to be someone I could count on week after week.

So, basically...I needed a miracle.

The ping of an arriving email rung through my earbuds and I glanced back down to the inbox. My eyes darted from left to right, reading the application...and grew wide in excitement. I flipped open the guild forums, pulled up the private messages, and quickly drafted up a response to Omaric:

"May have found a tank replacement for you. Stand by for further instruction."

3.6. The Hardest Job

Kurst tanks a Death Talon Wyrmguard,
Blackwing Lair

A Difficult Flight

The flight back home to Denver from Dallas was unfriendly and rough. The glow of my laptop screen illuminated just enough of an area to catch a glimpse of my boss waving the flight attendant over, gesturing for another beverage. I looked at the words on my screen, half distracted by him paying for the drink and sending her away with a nod. The words were not coming out of me like I'd hoped. Dave glanced over at me, my elbows tucked in awkwardly to avoid annoying the passengers beside me.

"Whaddya got going there? Still workin'?" I'd come to develop a bit of a perfectionist reputation in the year I had been at my new job.

"Not quite," I smiled back, easing my tension for a moment, "I'm writing a 'termination' letter." As both my boss, and a manager intimately familiar with HR practices, perhaps he'd see the comedy terminating an employee that didn't actually work for me.

"Oh yeah?" he said with a chuckle, picking up on the brevity. I worked for him. I owned no business and ran no company. Having these facts in hand, he pushed a bit further, "Who ya firin'?"

I sat back in the confined airline seat and took a deep breath.

"A friend. And it's gonna suck."

---

Six months earlier, I was in real bind. Ater -- the player that acted as my mentor while helping lead the guild -- had finished his tenure in World of Warcraft. One of his many roles was that of acting Warrior officer, following the raid retirement of Annihilation. With Ater gone and Anni fully committed to PvP, I had to look elsewhere for Warrior leadership. Only months remained in The Burning Crusade and we had yet to defeat Illidan. In desperation, I invoked Occam's Razor and went with simplest choice. That choice was Kurst.

Kurst was an old veteran of Descendants of Draenor, obtained during the Dirty Horde assimilation in July of '05. He was a family man, like myself, and had recently become a father. He tenaciously fought by side in the 40-Man raid team, present for numerous boss kills and countless nights of progression work. Quantifying Kurst's contribution was easy: you counted the chalk ticks on the walls of DoD's raid history.

A quick test of a warrior's longevity in Descendants of Draenor was to ask them which position they rotated through during the Vaelastrasz "sacrifice chain," and many warriors selflessly joined Kurst to furthering our conquest in Blackwing Lair. Ater. Annihilation. Darange. Demus. Thangrave. Burburbur. Their names were now but a list marked "offline" when viewing the guild roster. Kurst remained.

Kurst's reliability and trustworthiness continued into The Burning Crusade. His willingness to help new recruits get accustomed to DoD was a godsend, and his conversational nature put awkward newcomers at ease. Kurst would outlast me in Vent many nights, chatting with both old and new alike. In real life, he'd be the kind of guy anyone could sit down and have a drink with. Culture, especially in a game known to be volatile, was just as important as raiding rules.

Conveniently, his job in IT Security kept him online during the day. He and I conversed about the game over IM, an ongoing communication that strengthened our friendship. It was Kurst who reviewed my initial "wake the hell up" manifesto. Over time, I shared more thoughts with him about the guild, management and officership. As my vision narrowed on the goals for Wrath, I too shared these with Kurst, and he was always ready to offer support and feedback.

Promoting Kurst seemed like the right thing to do. He had plenty of tenure, was a dedicated player, held good rapport with the rest of the guild, and agreed with my leadership direction. When I had to make a quick decision to keep the Illidan train on the tracks, these points painted Kurst in a very positive light. When I reflected on the cons, the "certain habits" which might be to the detriment of a guild member in an authority role, I played them down. They were trivial adjustments -- things he could improve and refine with practice. After all, we're human; we all make mistakes. As long as we identify those mistakes and learn, ensuring they are never repeated...well, anyone has the potential to grow. Right?

I wished it were that easy.

Demonstrated Expertise

Keyboard turning is a stigma in the World of Warcraft community. You know it when you see it: the telltale signs of player rotating in a slow, robot-like motion. It occurs when a player presses the left or right arrow keys on the keyboard, which are default key mappings to any player that installs World of Warcraft. But ask a dedicated raider -- typically one that uses a keyboard and mouse in tandem -- and they'll tell you that the first change they make to their setup is to rebind movement/strafe keys, permanently using the mouse to spin both the camera and their player as needed. 

You can instantly size up a player if you catch them keyboard turning; no self-respecting hardcore player would be caught dead using keys to rotate their player, navigating their way through the Suppression Room like it was a game of Snake. In raid situations, boss mechanics demand you change directions and move quickly -- a split-second too long facing the wrong direction often meant instant death. Seasoned WoW players can sniff out a keyboard turner a mile away; when I see it, I want to point and scream.

When Kurst was famously caught doing it one night during a raid, everybody in the roster instantly knew...and judged him for it. My initial thoughts were of shock and disappointment. How could you? Kurst laughed this off as playful ribbing between online gamers, but as the guild doubled-down on personal responsibility, Kurst's own performance continued to be called into question. It didn't matter where the real deficiency lay, keyboard turning marked him for life. It was difficult to see past that.

In a raid, the role of the tank is to repeatedly strike a boss, building up an invisible meter known as threat. Monsters aggress toward a player when that player's threat surpasses all other players' -- an action known as "getting aggro." Tanks are responsible for producing the most threat of the raid; it was their job to keep a boss focused or "aggro'd" onto them. If another player produced enough threat to surpass the tank, the boss would turn to that new player and proceed to smash their face in. Only tanks were equipped to withstand boss attacks; a warlock or a mage would never survive more than a single blow. 

This give-and-take defined a core fundamental of early WoW raiding: Tanks produced threat and kept control of the boss, and DPS unleashed hell while keeping their own threat well below that of the tank's. And unlike the WoW of today, threat generated by tanks and DPS were not as dissimilar as you might think. A poorly played DPS could pull off a reasonable tank.

And...a reasonably played DPS could pull off a poor tank.

Kurst's #1 job in our raids was to take a hold of a boss and keep it there. Kurst's threat, however, was an ongoing issue. He had a history of not being able to keep bosses off of DoDers with the highest damage output, and I urged him to refine his technique. He practiced. He researched. He came prepared each night to demonstrate growth. Whatever improvement he made in the threat production department was minimal, if any at all. Against better judgement, I continued to encourage him and watched my best players continued to pull mobs off him. My reward for backing Kurst was having to listen to the dead DPS complain to me after the raid. They felt it was "stupid having to hold back" from unleashing their full power in fear of pulling a boss off of Kurst.

They were right.

Born Not Made

As we transitioned from TBC to WotLK and more warriors joined the fray, the critique of Kurst increased. When opportunity arose, I discreetly pinged the other warriors in an attempt to determine how they felt leadership stood. Are you getting your needs met? Is Kurst a valuable source of information and insight? Is he providing you with education, mentorship, new tricks and insights that might improve your own play? Their responses were disheartening. 

Some warriors, like Abrinis and Jungard, were kind-hearted by nature, keeping them from responding negatively. They pointed out how much they liked Kurst and "thought he was a good guy," which did nothing to address my specific questions on Kurst's leadership. Others, like Omaric, were more acclimated to being honest about the sad truth -- truth that's often hard to admit. In exquisite detail, they would paint a picture of Kurst's fundamental failings in baseline knowledge, whether it be in his choice of gems, enchants, attack rotations, or other raid-related warrior mechanics.

"He's not still keyboard turning is he?" Omaric asked, a question I could only sigh in response to.

One of the expectations I made clear for the officers in Wrath was for each of them to keep their specific class forum thread updated, particularly where spreadsheets were involved. The raiding community often had theorycrafters building complex spreadsheets, and players used these to plug in their own stats, crunch the numbers, and maximize their play. While other officers actively engaged in these discussions with their respective guild members, Kurst required continual harassment to stay on top of his. Whether he was distracted by work or his new baby was unclear. What was clear was that the effort I was investing into an officer was increasing my load, not lightening it.

Nevertheless, I remained optimistic about Kurst and hoped he would turn things around. In retrospect, I consider many of these to be rote -- things that could be practiced and improved upon. Kurst seemed passionate about the class; surely, logic dictated that diving in to the warrior with greater gusto would lead to more knowledge, more sharing, and in turn, more forum updates. 

I hoped leadership would eventually emerge. What emerged instead, were social missteps.

2.32. Downsizing

"You are nothing without me"
Artwork by Breathing2004

The Layoffs

Weeks went by as Ater put in night after night at the office, busting his ass on the time tracking app. I rarely saw him. He'd pop in occasionally, swing by with a wave and a smile, only to be swarmed by suits and various designers plugged with a myriad of piercings. His work caused a lot of attention for the firm and it was clear his team was making progress. I was excited for him, but at the same time, felt loss as I glanced up from my desk to see his old vacant seat across from mine. I stayed focused on the positive: Ater was here, in my presence, to give me both professional and guild leadership advice. That he was having a such an impact on the company was gravy at this point.

On an otherwise unremarkable evening, the bosses called for a company-wide meeting, to be held at the office where Ater did his work. I arrived with the rest of the crew from our side of town and navigated through the bodies to Ater's desk, where he greeted me and showed off the latest build of his application. As expected, it boasted a polished, professional look and feel. I moved the mouse around, clicking on icons shaped like subway sandwiches. It was intuitive, he didn't have to explain how to use it. It was natural. It didn't make me think. The layout of the timeline, how hours were plugged in and modified...it just worked. Another example of Ater's finesse with embracing simplicity to overcome great obstacles.

Before he could give me a detailed walk-through of the latest changes, the bosses called out to get everyone's attention. Ater and I straightened up and focused in on the speech. It had been a challenging several months since the merger, and we had new obstacles to overcome. Finances were being straightened out as each company's respective books were consolidated. This gave way to a new, unified road map for the company's vision. In this changing economy, however, certain cuts were going to have to be made in order to keep the newly merged firm afloat; a storm that any great company should expect to weather. The industry was shaping up to be blah, offering us both new blah, and exciting blah. But in order for us to be truly successful, blah blah blah would have to be changed and adapted to. More words. Adjectives nouns and verbs. Tech-based buzzwords and marketing lingo, spin and utter bullshit, while side-stepping the inconvenient hard truths. So on and so forth, excuses and lies, and everything you've poured into this job has come down to money. Money for things, phat lewts, petty power struggles...and more money.

I stood and listened to the bosses give their shpeel while the bridge began to crumble from both ends. When the support beams buckle, what do you do? Do you make a run for it, bolting to the end in the hopes of making it to safe harbor as the steel welds crack and support girders buckle and bend? Cables snap and iron beams make a gutteral boom like Gruul demanding you "stay" in preparation for the incoming Shatter. What options do you have? None. You stand there and watch the ends of the bridge fold inward, and you close your eyes as you lose your footing.

Comes the drop.

I watched in disgust as the bosses named the folks that would be laid off as a result of the downsizing. Should it have been any surprise that Ater was one of them? I looked over to him. Ater kept his gaze focused forward toward the commanding officers, never flinching, never once showing even a hint of contempt, not a single sign that this decision was short-sighted. He remained steadfast in his position, dignity intact, as the crushing blows pummeled him, crit after crit...until it was over.

Until it was officially a wipe.

Tank No. 2

Guild Leadership consumed so much of my life that I had dreams about it. Deep in the recesses of my unconscious state, I saw images of my original raid team, interacting with me at the office, sitting down to have dinner with my family, and taking my dogs to the groomers. People I had never met in person now had faces, composites of random strangers I passed on the street in daily life. I would wake in the morning from these dreams and shake my head, coming to terms with the realization that I was well past "it's just a game." Logging in to World of Warcraft was more than leveling a priest or doing some dailies; I had the politics and drama of 600 random strangers to greet me on the other side. It was a virtual business, sans an inflow of money. It had been three years since forming that guild comprised of five buddies. We had seen successes. We had seen Ragnaros, Nefarian, and even bosses in 40-Man Naxxramas fall. And after hitting a speed-bump at the beginning of The Burning Crusade, Blain's return had catalyzed a profound resurgence. The next notch on our belt, Kael'thas Sunstrider, would be the ultimate test of our endurance and ability to play as a team.

Work began in earnest during the 2nd week of January, 2008. Ater's attendance wasn't as consistent as it had been, what with the looming life-change he was about to endure. This meant I only had Blain to rely on for strategy and tactics. The responsibility of mediating personal beefs players had with one another rested solely on my shoulders. What little experience in solving people issues I claimed came from hobbyist experiments on players like Ekasra, tactics I thought he could use to fit in better, become a part of the larger social circles that comprised progression. Said tactics seemed to be working, so I kept on him to see them through. This was mostly unexplored territory for me; I had no professional experience working through people's psychological and sociological issues. There was no way to be sure I was heading down the right path. Ekasra was improving, no question, even Dalans tolerated him in greater doses. But would it continue? Or was a drop-off quickly approaching, to which there was no emergency brake?

Just when I felt like I had a handle on the roster, having hit that carefully tuned mix of players whom jelled and were focused on completing Tier 5, another bombshell took us by surprise. One of the progression tanks, a paladin named Bretthew, had been hacked. Bretthew, first known as a warrior named Taba during the Vanilla era, played a crucial role in DoD's progression during both Vanilla and TBC. It was his exemplary control of Tidewalker's murloc swarm that ultimately saved many a healer and caster from imminent doom, able to stay focused on their heals and DPS, working Morogrim down to zero. Like all my tanks, Bretthew was attuned, geared, and absolutely vital for the upcoming work on Kael'thas. So when he delivered the news that he'd been hacked, the finely tuned roster began to slip through my fingers.

With Ater's schedule an unknown, and my number two tank now off-the-table, I couldn't sit back and "wish" for things to get better. I needed to get a handle on Ater's long-term availability, once and for all.

Ballpark Lofts,
Denver, Colorado

Windy City

"So, what's next for Ater?" I asked, surveying all that I could from his balcony. A third floor apartment at the corner of Blake and Broadway planted me at the outskirts of glitzy downtown urban life, cradled by the railroad tracks that marked a poorer industrial area. From his balcony, you could catch the flood lamps of Coors Field -- complete with the booing crowd of the Colorado Rockies choking during yet another game. Turn your head a few degrees to the right, and you might catch the tops of the train cars as they jam together, booms that sound like explosive charges being detonated. I knew the sounds well; Ater lived a mere five minute bike ride away from me.

For now.

"Dunno!" he remained surprisingly optimistic, pushing past me to flip open the lid of the barbecue, as he fished a couple of steaks off the grill, slapping them on to some plates. "I have a number of things I'm looking at right now. There's a place in Chicago I need to hear back from that has potential."

"Chicago?"

Well, shit. It seemed like Ater had only just arrived in Denver.

"That's a hell of a place to move, man. You think the winters here are bad!"

"Oh, the winters are not bad here at all", Ater replied, "Chicago will be absolutely bitter by comparison. I'm gonna need an entire new winter wardrobe."

I dreaded broaching the subject, but it had to come up.

"This thing with Taba sucks. Pickings are pretty slim at this point. What do you think your WoW availability is going to be like now?"

"Well, that all depends. Definitely reduced, if and when I have to move, no question. Definitely want to start thinking about getting a replacement. Maybe Anni? Kurst?"

"Anni's all but completely cut over to the warlock now. And Kurst, well...he's good, but he's no Ater."

He laughed. Inside, I was a mess. I cut into the steak and listened to Ater talk about the rise and fall of his time at our agency, of the things he learned and his growing interest in UX. As I ate and listened, he never once spoke ill of the company that had given him his walking papers -- to him, this was a new adventure, a bold avenue to seek out grand opportunities and experiences. I looked at his firing like the worst of betrayals...but to him, it was the exact opposite. A gift. A chance to grow and move upward in the world. Change will happen. People will come and go. It isn't for us to dwell on these things like they are personal vendettas. It's just business. All part of the big game, the master plan, and we can either sit and sulk and wallow in our perceived defeat, or we can focus on what we've been given. A chance to start over. Fresh.

As I left his apartment that night and headed home, I hoped that one day I would be able to see things with his clarity, be able to make life-changing decisions with his level of dignity and optimism. To not take the recruitment and removal of faces as a personal attack, or cling to sentimentality when -- in the end -- the change of faces comes down to simply business. Perhaps that insight would come with time, or perhaps I'd need to harden myself as a result of this change. For now, I struggled to untie my stomach from its hundreds of knots, and knew that in the morning, I would begin to plan for the end...

...the day that Ater retired from Descendants of Draenor.