Guild Status Updates....

So more news on my guild status.
The other day, my old guild master (from Edge) whispered me in game and asked if I had considered coming back to the guild, b/c apparently he had been talking it over with some officers and thought the source of conflict was in the past... or something like that. I told him I was committed to another guild at the moment because I was still applying to Balance. I offered to raid with them for the raids which I wasn't doing with Balance as a part of my app process. He declined saying they just missed having me around. Sheesh, how confusing is that? I thought perhaps that they would just need me for raiding, but seeing as how I got kicked not for my play style, but for how I interacted with the guild, their reasoning seems backward for why they want me back. See, social situation in game can be complicated, just like real life ;)

On a brighter note, last night I got an invite to Balance! I am still an "applicant", but I'm workin my way up! More on that process later....

Video Game Vocab....

I recently decided o sit down and look at my character in WoW, and see how many words used to describe her, her armor, and her spells were used that I didn't think people would know. Some of these words would be considered challenging vocab for someone with a college education, while others may only be challenging to a 12 year old. But remember, there are many different age groups that play WoW.

If there are images in this attachment, they will not be displayed. Download the original attachment

If there are images in this attachment, they will not be displayed. Download the original attachment

Druid Healing Spells:
Lifebloom
Rejuvenation
Regrowth
Swiftmend
Innervate
Healing Touch
Nourish
Wild Growth


Druid Healing Talents (and balance):
Genesis
Nature's Majesty
Nature's Grace
Nature's Splendor
Subtlety
Intensity
Omen of Clarity



Other Talent Vocab
Feral
Primal Fury
Primal Tenacity
Mangle
Berserk
Faerie Fire
Vengeance
Celestial Focus
Wrath...

Current Item Vocab
Valorous Dreamwalker Headpiece
Chains of Adoration
Mantle of Shattered Kinship>>>> Spaulders of Catatonia
Disguise of the Kumiho
Preceptor's Bindings
Unraveling Strands of Sanity
Signet of the Malevolent
Spectral Seal of the Prophet
Mercurial Alchemist Stone
Urn of Lost Memories

Other Item Vocab
Shoulder armor items are often called "epaulettes" --- heard that word used in a Evol.


How many of these words can you define off the top of your head?

LFM: -- No WoW-ers PLS!

So you hear an employer is Looking For More (LFM), and you've heard that maybe putting your WoW experience down on your resume, or talking about it during the interview, might be a good idea. Think again-- sometimes this can do far more harm than good! This is a count-point to my last post, and a summary of another article.

For every point there is a counterpoint, and the benefit of WoW experience in the workplace is no exception. While some may say that the experience of working with others in WoW is a plus, others maintain that the game exists largely as a distraction from other, more important matter--- such as your job.

So while it is possible to benefit from WoW, it is also possible that one may suffer as a result of playing it. Apparently some employers recognize this duality, yet choose to remain on the safe side of things, and just avoid hiring people who play the game altogether.

Check out this article here

This site got this info. from another source, but it is interesting to note the author's personal experience with this... , no wonder it's considered a bad idea to put WoW on your resume.

*Resume* Pls list WoW exp.

So as you can see from my previous post, you can definitely learn lessons about interacting with (...more often "dealing" with...) people just by being an active WoW-er. How come you can't list these valuable experiences on your resume? I mean, if you learn the exact same thing from WoW that you learn from a leadership conference (not saying this happens, but hypothetically speaking...), then why shouldn't WoW be listed along with your other qualifications? Well, it turns out some people think you should do this--- check it out!

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/learn.html

Gleaning real-life lessons from bad WoW experiences

I liked my guild. I liked the people in it. I was even doing school projects on my guild, creating advertisements for recruitment. And last night, I was kicked out. That's right, straight-up /gkick!!

I wish I could say that it wasn't my fault, or that the reasons weren't personal or anything... but I can't. I was kicked out of the guild for openly and extensively criticizing the raid leader (and GM), as well as other people in the raid who I believed weren't putting forth enough effort or focus. I had my reasons for being frustrated--- we were 7 hours into a 10 naxx run, and we had been wiping the entire time because ppl were goofing off (etc), even though the place was on farm and usually only took us ~4 hrs to complete. We got to the last boss, failed about 3 times, then the GM said he was frustrated and had to "quit." Again. He had to quit the night before too (Malygos run, also because he was frustrated).

Let's take a step back here. As I said, I had been doing school projects related to WoW and this guild. This blog is one of those projects. My final project, worth 40% of my grade in the class, was going to include screen shots and video of the guild downing various raid bosses. So as you can see, there's a pretty obvious disconnect here between myself and the rest of the raid--- this was actually somewhat serious business to me, whereas to them it really was just screw-around time. No wonder the following occurred.

The night before Naxx we were attempting Malygos (downed twice by the guild), and the Naxx night we were on Kel'Thuzad, the final boss of Naxx. When the GM said he was quitting, he said that we would resume the next night. This is where I really got annoyed....

I didn't think it was fair for the GM to just assume that everyone could make it the next night, and the way the system works, if they decided to kill KT the next night and I couldn't make it, that would mean that I had to wait another week before I could get even the raw materials for the project I was going to put together. I mean, why even bother making a schedule ahead of time if you are just going to deviate from it last minute, right? So I made a couple scathing remarks at the GM, and blasted him for quitting. I wish I could remember what I said. It wasn't completely terrible, but I was definitely trying to get under his skin. And I did. He went off on me, expressing his annoyance with me 10x's stronger than I had with him--- this created a very awkward and dramatic situation for the raid.

I don't think I've ever been fired from a job before, or asked to leave a team... or anything of that nature. If I have, I've blocked it out and since forgotten. But that is how I am thinking of this. Pretty much, I didn't agree with my boss and coworkers, and I lashed out at them, harshly stating how I expected more. If I had expressed my feelings in a more mature, calm, and collected manner, everything probably would have been fine. But openly lashing out wasn't the right choice to make. My only excuse would be that I have a lot of real-life stress going on right now, which is true--- but notice how it didn't matter to these people, even though I previously would have considered them similar to "friends." I am going to use this as a learning experience.

Even if my reasons for being frustrated are right, and even if I have solid excuses arising from extenuating circumstances unrelated to the game (job), I still can't 'act out.' Damn, I hate phrasing it like that, "acting out"..... It sounds so childish. But really, that's exactly what my behavior was, and that's why I am not in that guild anymore. I won't admit that I think the GM was being fair with me, because I think a lot of the reason he kicked me out was to save face (by removing the source of his own outburst, he could justify his ability to maintain strong leadership and authority in the guild--- I would no longer be there to point out flaws and undermine his authority in a very non-private forum). and because he didn't seem to care that I was being effected by those special circumstances (which I explained to him, btw). But what is amazing, is that it DOESN'T MATTER whether he made the right choice. Life is a game. One big game. For this bit of it, the GM got to call the shots-- he could have made the right choice or the wrong choice (both are possible and easily debatable).... but because I didn't make him happy, I'm out. End of story. I didn't play his game well, I had no more "extra lives" (gogo super mario green mushrooms!) left (not the first time I'd gotten frustrated in a raid-- though this was arguable worse), and I got a Game Over.

It has taken me 22 years to have this happen to me, which is impressive considering how impatient I can be, and how often I get frustrated. I knew that this could happen, it just never has. Now that I have this experience, I can no longer deny the real consequences of inappropriate behavior. There are a lot of reasons why my behavior should be excused (those personal extenuating circumstances), and even more reasons why this game isn't like real life. But nonetheless, if we make mistakes, why not learn from them, right? So now I am challenging myself to take the lesson I have learned here (as terribly embarrassing and pathetic as it may be) and actually apply it to my life 100% of the time. If am able to do this, and say someday it saves me from losing a job I really love, I think it would be safe to say that WoW has had some practical value to me. Gogo computer games. This one falls under the categories of intellect, social life, and jobs. Lesson learned, continue on....

Unschooling and homeschooling using WoW to teach!

Here is yet another article referencing the educational benefits of WoW (as a game which is representative of MMORPG's). Click this link to read the article.

There is a lot of talk in this article about "unschooling"-- a school of thought that promotes a certain brand of homeschooling in which parents allow their children to pursue various (often recreational) interests, and the parents engage in these activities with them. For example, one child started playing WoW, and his mom got an account and started playing too. The parents say that they use the experiences in the game to explain real-life situations, or show how lessons learned in-game can be apply to other aspects of life as well.

Here is one example of such an interaction as described by the article,

She has watched Luke, 10, make his own learning connections between "WoW" and other areas in life.

One day he became interested in the mathematical concept of exponential increases after his "WoW" character encountered a disease cloud.

"Just in his ponderings, he asked 'Mom, what if someone got infected and he walks into a room with four people, and they leave and each walk into a room with four people?'" Parmer recalled.

She told him, yes, that could happen, and added another fact about not all people getting infected at the same rate in the real world.

What is interesting to note here is not necessarily that the child learned some new mathematical formula, but isntead that he was willingly thinking about it. Just by thinking about the information, people (in general) can learn effectively, especially when this thinking leads to curiosity which leads to some form of research. When you research a topic because you are dying to understand something, you are likely much more capable of efficient and effective learning than if a task to do the same research was thrust upon you. The child was curious about the possibility of spreading the disease and he wanted to understand it, and so he did research to find out if his suspicions were true. Granted his source for information was his mother, but nonetheless, he made an attempt to further his own knowledge.

Personally, when I read about this example, I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to write an equation which would allow you to "predict" the number of individuals infected (y) during a certain 'certain' generation of the disease (x). What I came up with was that the number of newly infected (and thus contagious) individuals during a given generation of the disease would be equal to 4^(g), where 'g'= the generation of the disease. Thus in generation=0 (when only the original individual was infected), there were 4^0=1 newly infected people. After that person walked into the room of four people (the 1st generation), there were 4^1=4 newly infected people. When those 4 newly infected people walked into a new room, thus each infecting 4 new people, the number of newly infected was 4^2=16. In order to predict the TOTAL number of infected people during a given generation of the disease (not just the number newly infected/'contagious' individuals), you need to do a summation of the number of newly infected people from each of the previous generations, such that that the # of people infected in the 3rd generation of the disease = (4^0)+(4^1)+(4^2)+(4^3)= 85 total infected individuals in the 3rd generation (and 4^3=64 newly infected/contagious individuals). I didn't represent the formula as a summation here because I dont know how to get that symbol in this text (:p). Furthermore, I didn't bother to integrate the summation in order to simplify it (I think that's what you do next...) because I haven't looked at calculus in 4 years, and had already been told I was taking this math too far (go figure). Either way, you can see how this statement about a disease spreading in WoW triggered my interest enough to get me to spend a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how to represent this occurence mathematically, thus causing me to use and re-learn (and a bit of new learning not mentioned here because this post is already too long ;) ) some math. Go WoW (and those who talk about it)!!!!

***TOO LONG DIDN'T READ VERSION (tldr)*** My curiosty caused me to do a bunch of work and learn some math. Why did I become this curious? Because of a question relating to WoW. This can happen to anyone, thus WoW can instigate learning for those who play the game.

WoW ==> No Social Life? Wrong.

I recently came across a blog post which mirrored views of WoW commonly found among both gamers and non. The post (read here) pretty much stated the usual, "WoW is addictive, if you start playing it you won't want to hang out with any of your friends and your social life will be in ruins..." Not a direct quote, but it goes something like that.

However, I notice a couple inconsistencies in the author's description of this process, as well as some flawed/incomplete logic. First, the author of that blog post mentions that one of the qualities that makes WoW so addicting is that you start playing it with other people (s/he actually uses the word 'friends'). Err, doesn't this make playing the game a social activity? I.e., in theory you could spend all your time in game, and still have a social life. Personally, I play WoW with several people who I know in real life, and with whom I engage in activities outside of WoW on a regular basis. Sure, there are people that I consider "friends" who I only know through WoW.... but I still consider these interactions as social.

Furthermore, I would caution this author against the use of words such as "always," "never," and "impossible." Such words almost never accurately describe reality (see the different the italicized qualifier makes in the accuracy of this sentence?). Looking beyond semantics, I would still argue that many of the descriptions the author makes are only true to the extent that any other generalization or stereotype may be true. Sure, some individuals fit this bill, but on the other hand, many don't. More importantly, there is no 'all or nothing' description of what happens to one's social life when they play this game. For example, one person might lose all their real life friends, another may lose none and even gain more real life friends, yet a third person might lose a couple real life friends (still retaining some), but make a couple in game friends. Anything can happen there-- you can't really say that WoW will make you lose your friends.

Lastly, I would just like to comment on the statement, "The only way to avoid the negative effects of this video game is to never start playing." So not true. I have played this game off and on for about 3.5 years now. Sometimes I played wayyy too much and it negatively affected my social life. Other times I was able to manage this recreational activity, and find a healthy balance between the gaming and having a 'real-life' social life. There are even times when I stop playing WoW for weeks at a time because of school, or just because I want to take a break. You CAN play this game and still avoid its 'negative' effects. It's called self-control and discipline.

But i g2g now b/c i need 2 farm gold before the dual spec comes out (patch tuesday?!)... cya! ---- jk ;)