Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Gaming and Fellowship

Writing this blog is for myself.  I do appreciate those that come to read.  I may not be as good as my wife's blog (who, in my opinion has the best blog for World of Warcraft Rogues and Lore) or as good as Honor's Code blog.

Recently Honor Code did a good blog on end times and his conviction to share his faith.  I applaud that blog and his bold step.  I have watched him go from completely silent about his faith to that bold post.

I on the otherhand, decided to blog about my new toy and got insulted for it.  Sure, my past blogs have been better and my blogs of late of been lacking.  There are many reasons for that, but I hope today I am able to renew the spark of joy I had in writing stuff way back and give you something worth reading.

So I want to write about something that is key to good spiritual health.  That is fellowship with your fellow believers, so that we may encourage each other.  Without fellowship, we become isolated and begin to attack each other and not show the love God has commanded us to show.  One way to have fellowship is by playing games.  This is one of my favorite ways to have fellowship.

I remember growing up and we would play board games and card games 2 or 3 times a week.  I have many great memories of Rook, Monopoly, Clue, Risk, Yatzee, Rummykub to name a few.  Times where I grew closer to my family and my grand mother especially. It was during that time I learned about fair play, sportmanship, honor in the game, how to be a good looser and a humble winner.  I learned how to be on a team and cooperate.  These were all good times, plus I was having fellowship.

When I went to college, my buddies and I started playing Magic the Gathering, and later on Dungeons and Dragons.  Again, it was a good time of fellowship.  I miss those days of hanging out with my college friends and their wives.  It was that bit of gaming that brought my wife and I to World of Warcraft and ultimately to our guild where we try to have good clean fun and provide a safe place for fellowship of believers.

That brings us to last night.  On Tuesdays, we do the weekly raid quest and maybe try to knock out some achievements. Last night we were sent back into Nax spider wing to kill the first boss.  We had I think 22 people.  It was easy as pie, only two tanks, we almost had him dead before his first insect swarm (we had an large number of healers with us).  So we decide to go after Saph and KT and do some achievements.

So people switched for alts and we went up and easily killed Saph and got the 100 club achievement for some guild members.  Though Vangelis was a sacrificial dps as he died each time Saph did the cold breath move.  That was the on going joke for the night that he was taking my wife's place on the sacrificial dps spot.

So we move on to KT and I want to do the kill 18 Abominations achievement.  I think hey, lets just agro it all and aoe it down, piece of cake right?  Amalt, my cotank takes one side and I take the other and we go and cause a raid wipe.  Many jokes ensue about their fearless leader and his um not so brillant strategies (some of the jokes made by myself).  So we go in and do it the right way, having one of our hunters (taita) pull the abominations a cubby at a time to us and we end up getting our 18.  We had a couple of deaths and battle rezzes, but then we are into phase 2.

Bam, ice block move thing and down goes Schekeria and Kiki, our primary healers for the tanks.  This leaves Daerthy and ZimaSquid to keep me alive plus a few other healers that are not used to healing that much.  Bam, iceblock takes out all our melee minus Daraia.  Yet, we persist, bam, Amalt is dead, I am the only tank and 40% hits out come the adds.  I manage to get all of them on me, and the burn to 0% starts.  I am doing all the possible survival moves I know, and I eventually die, with KT having .3% life.  We manage to kill him, get the achievement, but everyone is dead.  IT was a great time of fun and fellowship and I thank God for my guild and the good time we had last night.

It is their encouragement of me that helps me to rise above criticism of others and the other stressors in my life.  Thank you Guild and thank you God for your love and support in me.

5 comments:

  1. Last night was a BLAST. Of the 22 people we had doing Saph and KT last night a good 5 of them had NEVER done the fight before and another 5 had never done it on 25.

    We most likely would not have lost the healers or Dps if we had gone over the fight first rather than the kamikaze way we did it but it just added to the over all hilarity of the run.

    Yeah, it was an OLD achievement, by the time we had KT on farm Ulduar was opening up and our focus turned elsewhere, certainly not on worrying about some out dated achievements. But I have to say it was the most fun I have had in a while, even over downing some of the new bosses in ICC.

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  2. I know I was one on the list of "those big on criticism", and for the majority of it, I apologize. In the end, I think we both just chalked it up to difference of opinion, and left it at that to salvage what remained of our friendship and respect for each other. I also needed a major break from WoW, as I was getting majorly burnt out on it, and that only added fuel to the fire. Tom, I have nothing against you as a person, and I want you to know that. I enjoy reading your blog (and Chelle's when I get a chance) and find nothing wrong with it. I just think some people have a hard time letting go of grudges and hard feelings, and use those as an excuse to attack whenever they get a chance to. I look back at much of my time in EM with fond memories, and despite the frustration and butting heads, I enjoyed the fellowship when it was there. I learned to take the jokes and ribbing in stride (Heck, I even named my first blog on here 'Fear the AOD' after the fated incident in OS when kitty walked across my laptop.) Then there was Roger the 'squishy tank', and 'Wheeeee...SPLAT!' to name a couple, as well as things like firager getting stuck between a wall and a candlestick, and Rhowynne, Hesta, and BryanBG falling through the world upon entering stratholme in the old world. Those were fun, and acted as bonding agents between guild members. I miss a lot of that, and eventually, once school settles down, and my financial situation improves, I'll return to play WoW, and maybe even join my old guildmates in a run or two. As for your blog, keep writing what you want to write, and don't let anyone else's bitterness affect it in anyway.
    Dave

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  3. Nice blog post, sounds like you all had fun.

    You got me alittle misunderstood. I visit your blog so I can read whats up with you and your guild. I wasnt getting any of that for awhile.

    Instead I get random updates once every few weeks.

    I dont read Liar's comments so I have no clue what he says but "The Line MUST be drawn Heah... this far no farther" - I VISIT your blog because I care what your up to!

    You have helped me in some ways become a better player. In no way did I try to insult you, just wished that there was more info.

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  4. How about a blog like a minniscule email I sent?

    Wanted to share something with you.

    Ran Vault of Archavon today (VoA) its a raid that has 4 bosses. On some of the bosses the strategy used is for the 2 tanks to stack on each other (be right on top of each other) to minnimize damage. Well being that I have the lousiest luck with pugs, this trip proved no different.

    We went to the first boss, the new one that drops good gear and 2 frost badges - Toravon the Ice watcher. Using the above Technique of stacking seemed to be an issue for my Off Tank (OT). On top of that as a tank your suppose to taunt the boss off you after so many stacks of the debuff. The raid called out that 4 stacks should be the when taunting occurs. Thats cool with me. So I see the debuff stack.... 1, 2, 3, 4... waiting for the taunt to come. 5, 6, 7... still waiting for the taunt. 8, 9... its not coming and Im dead. BATTLE REZ!! Im back in it! and since I died, my debuff went back to 1, 2, 3, 4 - Boss Down.

    Phew that was rough, people asked if I just solo tanked that boss and I didnt know what to say. Anyways onto Koralon.

    This boss is a fire boss. Both tanks need to stack on each other or the boss will give you a strike thats like for 30k Damage or something like that. So the tanks stand together so each get 15k - not too tough to live through. Guess if my OT decides to stand next to me?

    After 8 of those strikes we kill Koralon, and I see the attached comments.

    So even if the pugs you run arent the best, you can still do your best and have good outcomes - even if they are not ideal = )

    God bless,

    -- J

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  5. That's funny, for someone who cares not what I say (your feeble attempt to belittle only proves you still haven't changed one bit), you sure do check out my blog quite regularly (I know your IP address, so you can't say that you don't.) Also for not reading a thing that I post in response to Tom's posts, you seem fairly well versed in what I have to say. Jon, I have two words for you,"Grow UP". You have done nothing in your attempt to regain "favor" with Tom but to prove that you still are the liar that you were a year ago when you fell out of grace and started attacking everything that Tom, Roger, Chelle, and later myself had to say in our blogs. Despite my disagreements with Tom and Chelle, and the way in which I chose to quit the guild last year, I *DO* care about them, and I *DO* read their blogs when I can, because I *AM* genuinely interested in their posts. Please stop attacking everyone who disagrees with you, or calls you on your lies and petty hatred. You're only digging yourself deeper.

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