For whatever reason, Brudie has made me an officer in the guild. While I am flattered, I am also wary of my responsibilities, which include posting notes about new toon members and getting tabards to them. I have already failed on the first count since I missed the name of the first person to whom I was supposed to send the tabard. Oy. Pressure.
On the other hand, being an officer seems to have given me some sense of license about shaping the players. I have seen Brudie and Felison at work. I think I have internalized the role to some extent. Here's my evidence.
This morning I logged on, the way one flips the radio on in the car, casual and unfocused. Then, as I might fix on a station in the car, I pulled up the social panel to see who was on and where. I found Cerwyn, whom I adore, in Stranglethorn, where I have quests. I did the WoW version of page and asked if they were up to something interesting. Bany was there too. I like Bany. How can you not like a guy who has a pet cat trailing along behind him while he slays raptors? Leishman was also there. They invited me, and after a long trip down from Southshore, I joined them at Nessingwary's camp.
Ah Leishman. Eric, this will ring a bell. At first we were a decent party. Then Bany had to leave. Cerwyn and I continued on with Leishman, doing tigers, panthers, and raptors. Leishman kept commenting in the party chat: 10 hrs to level up. 10 hrs to lvl 40. At first I shared his glee. Sweet ride at 40. But then, he went un-leished.
Cerwyn was trying to skin the dead, and distribute the loot, (as was Bany while he was still in the party), but Leishman kept running off and pulling aggro. At one point he drew five raptors down on us. Yeah, we knocked 'em down. It was a little touch 'n go, but not bad. Still, it wasn't how a party plays. If folks are kneeling down skinning, or making potions, you don't surprise them with a load of aggro. After Bany left it got worse. I stayed back with Cerwyn so she could skin, and Leishman ran off. When Cer had skinned the pile of raptors, we got a message on the party chat from Leishman to come join me.
I could see on the mini-map that he was not particularly nearby. In fact, he was across two bridges on the other side of the river and down a ravine. When Cerwyn and I got to the second bridge and looked down the ravine we were faced with a nest of panthers, beautifully distributed to cover every possible sneaky square inch of the terrain.
I chatted to Leishman, in a quick series, Dude, don't ever leave your party like that.
To which he responded, Use the mini-map.
That pisssed me off as I am neither stupid, nor making a comment about being lost. I responded, It isn't about the mini-map, it's about the aggro we have to face to get back to you.
Cerwyn was pretty pissed off too, as she was actually questing. I was just in for the fun. Car radio, remember? She joined in with me trying to give some feedback to Leishman. I said, Hey, it's cool if you just want to solo, but tell us. Don't party up and then play it solo style.
His reply was Hey, I'm helping you do your quest.
Cerwyn said, I didn't ask for your help, and whispered to me This isn't fun. I'm logging.
My last remark to him was, No one will want to instance with you if you act like a wildman. He said he didn't act that way in instances. Okay, the dude can't tell when he's soloing and when he's in a party. I tried to straighten him out.
But my point was this, I not only felt the need to shape Leishman, and the right to shape Leishman, but more interestingly the obligation to shape Leishman. He needed to know that, to paraphrase James, that's not how we roll in this guild.
Hall.
btw, LVL 34, babes, LVL 34 and 35 by the time you read this!
Interesting. I wonder how your IRL jorb and prior experience will impact your "officership" - and what the guild will look like with Hallgrima leading it.
ReplyDeleteLeish may be one of those players we end up having to watch. I played with him several weeks ago, and he was a little hard on me. Specifically, he was looking for a zone where silk dropped, and I happened to know of one, and had a quest there. He agreed to come with me to do the quest, so long as I gave him all the quest. I figured, what the hell.
What was funny/frustrating was that I didn't understand that in a group, once a player loots a corpse that's "theirs", then others can loot it. I just figured "once ours, always ours", so I looted the silk on a couple, and he started griefing me about not leaving it. How did I know? Finally I asked "How do I leave it" and he explained it.
Now, I'm sure that from his perspective, I may have looked duplicitous. I assumed that I was gathering silk to hand over. Cross-communication at work...
But - and this is the kicker for an officer to consider - once we clarified the points of friction, I found him to be a responsible group mate. P'raps he's just one of those players who need to be reminded of others' different assumptions.