Inside Jokes

Whenever you are a part of a group be it a guild, raid group or something from Real Life, things will happen that become "inside jokes". Things that will only take a word, object or place to bring all those shared memories back. When new members enter the group a good way to invite them to become a more intimate part is to share these inside jokes with them. While they may not get the memories or even find the humor it, giving a brief explanation can assist new members in feeling more comfortable when those jokes are remarked on as they will at least know why everyone ELSE is laughing uproariously.

This truth was brought home to my the other night when one of our tanks decided to tease one of our newer members. We had just finished the raid for the night and the new member bid everyone adieu by stating they were going to log off to take a shower. The tank replied "Why didn't you just do it during the raid?" The REST of the raid burst out in laughter. Now the new member was completely bewildered and ask why in the WORLD he should do such a thing as well as expressing his confusion over the general reaction. Another raid member explained how back when we were raiding Naxxramas we had a guild member do just that, go afk without telling anyone to take a shower. Since then it had become a standing joke whenever anyone went AWOL afk during raids. Enlighten but still bewildered our new member logged of for the evening.

Some of my favorite inside jokes are OLD, I mean Vanilla WoW old but they still bring a smile to my face and take me RIGHT BACK to that point again and the people I was with. Sharing some of these jokes with others allows me to not only experience that humor again but invites the new individual to "share the joke" with me. Even better is when THEY also help to create NEW inside jokes or tell some of their own. Joking is often used in our guild by our officers as a way to be more approachable to members as well as to assist in building relationships.

My mount farming partner and I have have a long standing inside joke involving his hunter's pet gorilla "Pookie" and my priest Merla. WAY back in vanilla we use to run A LOT of five mans together with his pet acting as our tank. Pookie for WHATEVER reason was CONSTANTLY walking over to stand in front of my priest and then scratching his butt in her face. At first I thought it was deliberate, that my friend was just doing it to be funny, but no, it was just something this pet would do on his own. This became so annoying to me that I  got to the point that whenever I see a gorilla I just run and hide. As several of our guild members have gotten a hold of the Super Simian Sphere they now enjoy chasing me around with it.

Our healing lead has NEVER lived down the time a couple of guild members took her to Feralas to work on her fishing skill and decided to jump off the top of the Twin Colossas. The only problem? They never explained HOW to use the parachute cloak. They landed safely, it took HER a good half hour to find her body smeared down the side of the mountain. (For some reason she never considered just rezing at the spirit healer.) So from time to time our engineers will mention their parachute cloaks and ask her if she needs an explanation on how to use one whenever she gets close to a high ledge (say in ICC for example).

Some jokes, while they started with a specific person, have expanded to include not just that individual but any others that share that class or responsibility. For example another joke that frequently makes the rounds is focused on our healers. Back in Ulduar one of our Druid healers was ill and had taken some medication so that he could do the raid. Unfortunately this medication has the side effect of making one VERY sleepy. We got to Kologarn, about half way through the fight when suddenly this healer just stopped moving. He had fallen asleep at the keyboard IN THE MIDDLE of the the fight. So now if ANY of the healers is moving slow or failing to avoid damage the first question you will hear in our raid is "Did you fall asleep?"

The other thing about inside jokes is they can go from being funny to being hurtful if others are either not aware or not willing to participate in them. We had a situation like this arise not that long ago when one of our members made a "YOU FAIL" comment to another and the receipt took it to heart.  Once all of the hullabaloo died down we had a serious discussion about that particular joke and how we wished to handle it in the future. What came out of it was NOW when anyone makes a stellar mistake they are more likely to hear "Epic SUCCESS there!" It allows us to laugh at our errors and puts us in a better frame of mind to make changes.

So what about all of you? Do you have any "Inside Jokes" you treasure? Something that assures a tension relief and a laugh with other members of your guild? Have you ever considered the power of inside jokes and how they can be used to both build up and tear down the camaraderie of your guild? Don't ignore this valuable tool, especially now when many guilds are facing the summer slump before the next expansion. Humor, if used the right way, can make the time you spend together enjoyable, and even the most stressful encounters something you want to do again.

Memories....

Little bear, there is so much that you have missed out on, let me ask you, do you remember starting out with only ONE little dagger? When we use to have to gather herbs like fadeleaf and swiftthistle so you could craft things like blinding powder, vanish powder and poisons? If you didn't have STACKS of those powders you didn't use those moves often? When we were all addicted to Thistle Tea? When in order to get a buff you had to be out of stealth? When casting Detect traps implemented the swirly ball? When you had to have Thieves tools to lockpick or disarm anything and it came from a quest? When people wanted rogues for their Lockpicking skill? When you had to wait for 3-5 sunders before you could attack and then you started out SLOWLY, if you got high on the aggro you STOPPED dps until you dropped down? When a rogue's best friend was a paladin with Hand of Salvation?

Do you remember when to be properly prepared to raid you had buff food, scrolls, regents, flasks, resistance gear, and if you had ANY empty bag space you were lucky? When poisons had charges and only lasted a maximum of 10 min so you were constantly having to reapply them? When entering or exiting an instance would remove your poisons? When placing a sap took you out of stealth unless you specced for a 90% chance for it NOT to and hated every time that 10% it failed?

Do you remember when AV fights took 12+ hours, sometimes entire weekends? When Warsong Gulch could be endless? When to earn pvp rank required HOURS of dedicated play? People would leave battlegrounds because the other team was full of Battle Marshals or High Warlords? When the defense channel was for SERIOUS pvpers and required rank to talk in? When there was such a thing as a DISHONORABLE kills?

Do you remember when it took the best guilds in the world MONTHS to kill every boss in the game because they had to craft resistance or other special gear for EVERYONE? When you had to clear trash both TO and FROM the boss? When raiding meant attempting to get 40 people together at the same time and required HOURS of grinding respawning trash?

Do you remember when you needed crowd control to do a 5 man dungeon? When the art of pulling a room could mean the difference between a wipe or victory? When the Horde complained that the Alliance had the advantage with Paladins and Alliance complained that Shamans were better? When Blues were considered GOOD gear and Epics were something you bragged about? When to get INTO a raid required a long, involved and sometimes expensive attunement quest?

Do you remember when flight paths weren't linked so you had to specifically select each stop on the way to your destination and if you messed up it required repeating the process? When to get to a dungeon you had to WALK there? When getting your first mount required Level 40 and training in the skill cost LESS than the mount? When epic speed mounts were rare because they took months to gather enough gold to be able to afford?

Do you remember when if an individual had more than one max level character the thought was they must have no life and live in their parent's basement? When earning gold took a LONG time and hitting the gold cap was almost an achievement in and of itself? When there were no such things as "Daily Quests"?

So often we talk about how WoW USE to be as if it was this golden paradise of gamers. Sure some things have gotten SIGNIFICANTLY easier like leveling and managing the basic needs of a character. These are just the things that come quickly to my mind, what about you? Are any of the things I mentioned stuff you would wish to have return?

White Raid

From time to time you just need to take a step back and remember what raiding USE to be like. A recharge in what makes it FUN. Last night we did that, had a "Crazy Raid". What made it crazy? No piece of equipment could be better than White level save trinkets and those could not be better than level 60 blues. Off we all went scrounging our banks for gear. Holiday outfits and Vendor trash were the norm. Barov Peasant Collars and Seal of the Dawn abounded. The idea was basically the only advantage you would have would be the abilities available to you at level 80.

Looking much more like our Classic selves we arrived to Black Rock Mountain. The conversations resembled something like this. "You have 13k health, what haven't you taken off yet?" "What vendor did you find that pair of plate bracers at?" "Hit the shops in Dalaran if you can't find a weapon." "Yeah, you can use your Royal Seal of Eldre'Thalas."

We started off in Upper Black Rock Spire so that people could get use to their 800 dps and mana pools of less than a Thousand. The other rule of the game was that if something dropped that was an "upgrade" over your white gear you could grab it. Oh the arguments that abounded when Mages rolled on the Devout Shoulders and Boomkins got leather pants with Agility. Laughter filled vent as we bemoaned the loss of each green to another. Success was quickly ours so we headed off to the true task of the night.

Molten Core.

Twelve of us headed in. A couple were not even level 80 yet. Some of us had farmed this instance at level 60, others had never seen it before and hoped to get their achievement. It certainly was a challenge. One hunter had almost the entire Giant Stalker set by the time we finished and picked up the quest for Rhok'delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keep. I managed to pick up the Bloodfang Pants, my only upgrade of the night. Our top dps was a mage at close to 2k by the time he finished. (Luckily for him his spells still worked even if he WAS oom most of the time.) The healers had the hardest time as our tank whom they are all use to sporting close to 60k health was running around between 8 and 12k and three heals would have them oom.  Suddenly it was important to remember how to do pulls, to hug walls to skip mobs, focus firing specific targets rather than just steamrolling through as we usually do, stopping frequently for drinks.

The final verdict? 

Rag downed and they all want to do a Green run of an Outland instance for our next "fun run".

The Hazards of Deathbringer's Will

I recently managed to get my greedy little hands on Deathbringer's Will. Since having it I have discovered a few things that future users should be aware of.

1. All other dps (save casters) will either hate or envy you. Learn to live with it.

2. You have no control over when or what shape shift will occur. So yes this trinket WILL make you look fat.

3. Shape shifting into a Vrykul will make you unable to use mounts until you remove the buff. (Taunka and Dwarf form seems to works fine.) There is a simple macro you can add to deal with this issue.

#showtooltip mount(s) of choice
/cancelaura Agility of the Vrykul
/cancelaura Speed of the Vrykul
/use mount(s) of choice


4. The shifted shapes are ALL male so if you play a female character you will see your gender specific titles spamming every time you shape shift.

5. Sometimes as the result of the shape shift you will notice it appears as if your weapon is missing. It is still there but for whatever reason not visible. DON'T PANIC! 

6. This trinket can proc off of Sap WITH OUT BREAKING STEALTH. Yeah I know, not really a hazard but good to know and even funnier to watch since the idea of a Tauren or Vrykul sneaking is completely foreign.

7. Shape shifting can cause distraction.... DANCING TAUREN ROGUE!!! (Ok, maybe just for me but I laugh every time I turn into a Taunka and prefer it to the Vrykul procs since I get to do the Peanut butter Jelly dance.) I have also had group members freak at finding a "Tauren" in their Alliance dungeon.

8. Shape shifting changes your size, this will effect your positioning, especially if you proc while casting Killing Spree. (Poor Gnome rogue friend of mine got stuck when he transformed into a Taunka.)

9. If you are trying to judge when this trinket will proc it appears to have a 105 sec internal cool down with about a 30% proc rate. (Again not a hazard but good to know.)

10. Rogues do NOT get the Iron Dwarf proc which gives Armor Pen. (Cry)

Vanished Rogue

The insistent banging just would not let up. I have to admit I was rather surprised that our local Jehovah's Witnesses were being this persistent so I washed my hands and headed to the front door. It wasn't someone in a suit on the other side however.

"Where in Azeroth have you been!?!?!" Daraia burst through like a storm cloud, arms flailing as she turned on me. "It has been a WEEK, a WEEK!" Her glove clad finger grinding into my chest, she continued. "You left me in Dalaran to fend off herds of star ponies, their obnoxious owners and temper tantrum throwing robots for a WEEK!" Stopping abruptly Daraia stepped back, surveying her now dust covered glove, then looking me up and down in bemusement. "What is that."

"Sweatpants and a denim shirt?" I replied, pushing my filthy baseball cap further back over my tangled hair.

"Sweatpants? Why would you choose to wear pants you KNOW will make you sweat?" Before I can answer she waves dismissively and continues on. "That isn't what I meant anyway. The white and gray stuff all over you...you look like you fell into something."

Looking down I realize what she is talking about. "Oh, that is just cement, plaster and paint. I have been kinda busy this week with my kitchen and bathrooms."

Daraia pulls back swiftly, putting her hands behind her back. "Since when did we join the Defias? I'm a Scribe not a Mason thank you very much! I have no intention of power leveling another trade. It was painful enough the last time!"

Briefly the idea of informing her about Archeology passes through my mind only to be dismissed. She is ticked off enough with me as it is.  "Listen I am just trying to get this taken care of while I can, before my kids are out of school for the summer and underfoot. I should be back to the regularly scheduled program by Children's Week."

"I don't think you realize what you are subjecting me to here... you left me in Dalaran!" Daraia interjects. "I have to listen to TRADE chat all the time and deal with drunken Elves and Draenei who think they belong on top of mailboxes." Arms crossing she continues to glare at me. "Couldn't you at least log on and put me somewhere else? I haven't darkened the door of a dungeon all WEEK!"

By this point I am beginning to realize just how tired I am. That is the problem when you stop doing physical labor you hardly notice your fatigue until your muscles start screaming at you. "Ok Dar, I will do my best to get on more regularly this week but it is going to still be a little bit before I can get back to our routine. Can you accept that?"

Reluctantly she nods. "I'm going to hold you to that. You fail to show up and I will be back here again. I am sure your neighbors would LOVE to know why someone dressed like me is showing up at your door." Pausing briefly she narrows her eyes in contemplation before continuing. "I refuse to go back to Dalaran though, you can find me at the Argent Tournament. At least there I sit back and mock Paletress." With that final threat she touched her tabard clad chest and vanished.