117480-morning-coffee-11-2-14-what-time-is-it-edition

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So, today is the day in the US when all our clocks roll back an hour (unless you live in Arizona).  For normal humans, this is a wonderful thing since it means an extra hour of delicious sleep.  However, for me, it didn't really help, because cats don't respect Daylight Savings Time changes, and someone wanted breakfast this morning at 5:30 am.
 
 
So, yeah.  Coffee.
 
 
 
In Wildstar yesterday I did a big social experiment with my guild.  It was called Dungeon Day.  The premise was that we take a whole day and see how many normal mode dungeon groups we could get going.  The day ended with 8 dungeon runs and two adventures:  2 STL, 1 KV, 3 Skullcano, and 2 SSM runs, plus a vet Malgrave trail and a Hycrest run for one of our newer players.
 
Overall the experiment was a success.  The guild earned quite a bit of influence, lots of people got to see dungeons (some for the first time), and everyone had a lot of fun.  Of course, because I'm an evil guild leader type person, that wasn't really the goal of the experiment - just the side effects.
 
The real experiment was to see how many people participated and how many didn't.  The Black Dagger Society is a "casual-friendly" guild, meaning that we don't require people to come to events if they don't want to or can't, but at the same time we are *very* focused on having a community within our guild and making sure that people socialize together and feel like they're part of a real, well, community.  So we're sensitive to people who don't talk in guildchat and never seem to come out to anything, because those folks aren't adding anything to the community.  Almost every guild that doesn't have required attendance at things has a few people like this, and usually they're fairly harmless.  But if you get too many of them in a guild, it can actually detract from the feeling of community within the guild - in the same way that not seeing people online when you play can make a game feel empty.
 
So this is something that I pay attention to, especially since right now we're consciously holding back on doing a lot of vet mode runs in order to insure that our <50s can still participate in things regularly.  That may seem silly to some of you, but community means a lot to us, and we don't want to build a level-based divide into our guild.  The truth however is that at this point over 60% of the Daggers' roster is at level 50.  In fact, just going by the people on the roster, we nearly have enough people that we could make a GA run happen, numbers-wise.  We're not nearly ready for that in terms of skill and experience, but when we are, the roster boss should not be an issue.
 
As long as everyone actually participates.
 
Thus the experiment.  I wanted to see two things - first, how many people would come out and run at least one thing with their guildmates, just for fun or to do it, even if they were already at 50 and the content wasn't really a challenge.  And second, how many people would log on, ignore everyone, not talk at all, and not participate even though there was all kinds of activity going on around them.
 
I got my answer.  Overall the results were positive, which I'm happy about.  There were some people who surprised me (in a good way).  But what I learned from watching things happen yesterday will help in figuring out how fast we open up the throttle on vet mode runs on our calendar, and how quickly we move from that to talking about raiding plans.
 
We run our guild differently from a lot of other guilds, and I'm sure that this all sounds very weird to some folks reading, but it's the product of a LOT of years of experience and a very clear picture of how we want our guild to be.  Everyone's seen the hardcore guild that comes together for raiding and then breaks apart 6 months later because its members can't stand each other.  Likewise everyone's seen the friendly casual guild that never accomplishes anything at all in terms of content, because their high level people bail for raiding guilds in order to actually see anything.  We don't want to be either of those, and so that's why we do things the way we do internally, and why Nephele does crazy things like run social experiments with his guildmates.
 
 
Anyway in non-Wildstar news, today is more packing and moving.  Yesterday I got two carloads over to the new house and dropped off.  I'm trying for three today, although I have to go get more boxes at the Home Depot after the first trip.  Tomorrow I call to schedule the movers to pick up all the furniture, which will hopefully be midweek - and then once that's scheduled, I have to tell Comcast when to move the service to the new address.  If all goes well, I'll be offline less than 24 hours on the day of the final move.  (Everyone knows that the most important thing when you move is to get the internet back up.  It's the rules!)  Compared to my last move which was 3000 miles and 5 days in a car, this one is much easier :)
 
I hope everyone has a great day today!  I'll probably be in game in between packing and runs to the new house, so maybe I'll see some of you online :)	
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			Did some icebreaker play with my new guild. So far so good - took some tours of cool houses and showed off my own modest efforts. Then we went out and did a no-Tank casual tour through veteran Crimelords of Whitevale on some non-optimal paths to help folks get credit towards some of the obscure achievements. Got face-planted a few times tanking on my 'slinger (all the aggros! MINE! PEW ^%!'ing PEW! Muhuwahaha!) which was actually good fun. Its their raid night tonight so I'll likely just stay out from under foot. Maybe listen in and start getting a sense of the rhythms.	
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Good morning, coffee people! How's the science?Weekends are always uneventful when it comes to real life. This week, on the other hand, is going to be crazy. I am going to give a lecture instead of going in to work so I am perfecting it today. Then on Wednesday, my SO and I are going to the theater to watch yet another play. This time, we will be seeing "Les Belle-Soeurs" which is an iconic play of the province. The original version is in a dialect of French and an ordinary play. This version, however, has been translated to English and is a musical. This should be all sorts of fun.
 
Dorian Walker, Explorer Extraordinaire! Up until that screenshot, I had not noticed that Dorian is half cyborg. Mechanical arm AND leg.
 
 
In WildStar news, pretty much what Nephele said. I ran SSM with the guildies and it was a blast, as always. We even managed to gather all the lore in the Sanctuary after I found the one titled "MY LEGS!". It is on a rocky formation with no way to reach it except if you take what we dubbed the "Dagger's Leap of Faith". Oh and I got myself a new nickname: Erayo, He Who Runs Away From Angry Women With Big Swords. Basically, the Swordmaidens in SSM can be kited indefinitely with the proper use of sprint and movement abilities. It prevents them from resetting so people can just come back and finish it off. Beyond that, not much. I am still struggling to get new dyes but I did manage to get a new one: Ionic Yellow. Oh and the server does not seem to follow DST so R-12 happens at 7-11-3 instead of 8-12-4. Quite bothersome.Danger ahead! Danger behind! Maybe danger sideways...	
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Wait, 7-11-3 when? Let's see, if it was 1-5-9 PDT and everything goes back one hour that'd be... uh... 4-8-12 PST? Ugh, time zone math is a lot harder when just waking up. At least I already have max reputation there.
 
So, good morning everyone! Still trying to wake up as you see, so... hm... Didn't do much yesterday. Did the daily areas and had a bit of RP. Mostly daily areas. And somehow got five eldan data fragments on my exile in one box. It's odd, I've only gotten a multiple fragment box once on Kolba (with 4, which only took over 90 days to find!), but have gotten a 3, another 3, and a 5 exile-side (And I haven't even hit 50 days yet). It's like... this game wants me to play exile.
 
Hah, yeah right. That's funny.
 
(I need to use my main Exile more)
 
EDIT: AND I JUST GOT 4 FRAGMENTS ON MY MAIN EXILE TODAY! Really now? Really?	
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However, for me, it didn't really help, because cats don't respect Daylight Savings Time changes, and someone wanted breakfast this morning at 5:30 am.
 
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No way does it look that bright at 5:30am in November in the PNW! Nephe's cat is big fat liar. :P
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As promised.
 
Sorry loves, lot of... things happening IRL. :) Enjoy the Nephele reveal, she's actually a really tall Aurin.	
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Noes!!  My secret is out :(
 
Darn that tail.  It's always popping out at the most inappropriate times.  I swear it has a mind of its own.
 
Kael, we miss you.  Hope the RL things are good things.	
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 Glad to know your experiment went well. Probably i would have run away from a social event, but that is just me, lol. I do better dealing with small groups, than big ones :). Anyways, kicking that to the side. Main reason i don't join groups besides real life. As a casual gamer, i can say my toon is not ready for big dungeons and raids, it's been a slow work in progress but i will get there someday. I read guides and things like that and i am still learning how things work. Another thing, i play to have fun, and relax, not to have another player telling me how bad others, including myself are at something. If i am doing bad, my build sucks, yadda, yadda, i am not in the mood to hear a sermon on how bad i am, i rather hear how i can improve.
 The next, english is not my first language, and mmorpg slang is hard to get. The only dungeon i ever been at, it was difficult for me to follow what the leader what saying as i couldn't really understand what he was talking about. Glad a friend was there and instead of telling me avoid the telegraph (i think is how is called), she said avoid the red thing on the floor, dodge do whatever but don't let it hit you. Voice chat, not my thing but if is necessary i can go for it, and listen.	
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 Glad to know your experiment went well. Probably i would have run away from a social event, but that is just me, lol. I do better dealing with small groups, than big ones :). Anyways, kicking that to the side. Main reason i don't join groups besides real life. As a casual gamer, i can say my toon is not ready for big dungeons and raids, it's been a slow work in progress but i will get there someday. I read guides and things like that and i am still learning how things work. Another thing, i play to have fun, and relax, not to have another player telling me how bad others, including myself are at something. If i am doing bad, my build sucks, yadda, yadda, i am not in the mood to hear a sermon on how bad i am, i rather hear how i can improve.
 The next, english is not my first language, and mmorpg slang is hard to get. The only dungeon i ever been at, it was difficult for me to follow what the leader what saying as i couldn't really understand what he was talking about. Glad a friend was there and instead of telling me avoid the telegraph (i think is how is called), she said avoid the red thing on the floor, dodge do whatever but don't let it hit you. Voice chat, not my thing but if is necessary i can go for it, and listen.
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			I'll get coffee today.	
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