Why I’m Opting In to RealID

First thing’s first: This is going to be rambly. I forgot my anti depressants at my parents’ house and am rather light-headed and nonsensical already – everybody’s affected differently. If I piss someone off, so be it.

So, there’s a lot of concern about privacy regarding RealID. I think y’all ought to read this post before continuing the incoherent rage and whining, first off, and secondly, I need y’all to think about social media.

If you’re signed on to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or any number of other social networking sites, your privacy is already out the window. Even if you’re careful about what you post. If you order pizza, your information is already out there. If you rent movies from your local grocery store, there’s another batch of people with your information. If you run your own website, finding out about you is as simple as doing a WHOIS of your domain (if you didn’t put your domain under a pseudonym or something).

Privacy on the internet is a myth. If you put information out there, you cannot take it back. No matter how paranoid you are, someone, some company, somewhere, has something on you.

Scary, huh?

If someone wants to find something out about you and they know what tools they need to do so, they can. If you race-changed and name-changed and then server-transferred a character to get away from someone, they can figure out where you went (there are WoW detective sites that actually track transfers and race changes). Pre-RealID WoW is no more private than post-RealID WoW.

I will be opting in to RealID because a) Most people already know my real name by now (Parasite Eve, sets people on fire, sings, there you go), b) I’m not afraid to tell people “Not right now, I’m busy”, c) I’m not afraid to simply not accept friend requests from people I don’t like.

If people take my behaviour personally, that’s their problem, not mine. I already have someone taking my snarkiness as a personal affront whenever it’s her hubby (who, by the by, can defend himself he’s an adult for fuck’s sake) that’s snarked after he acts like a fuckwad (hey, he’s a dick to other people sometimes, too, I figure he’s earned it). The best part is that afterward he doesn’t take it personally. Why should he? Why should anybody?

If I don’t want to spend time with you, I’ll tell you. If I want to be left alone, I’ll tell you. If I don’t want you knowing where my characters are at all times, you’ll know. Do I give a fuck if you know my e-mail address? No. I use the same e-mail address for everything. I don’t have the attention span to have a different fucking e-mail address for each little thing that I do.

And chances are, if I let you refer to me by my first name, I’ll happily let you stalk add me (that means you, people with my cell phone number).

You have more power with this thing than you think you do, but if your freak-out is lack of privacy, darlings? You’re on the internet. You’re already without privacy.

I hope Blizzard’s enjoying my chat records~

Big Selling Point? Lol, Riiiight.

Path of the Titans has been yoinked. Apparently it was Cataclysm’s “big selling point”, or something, which boggles my mind. Really? Really?

Forget about the complete transformation of the world we’ve known for five years, the political upheaval and the brand new zones and dungeons! Ha! Those of us that thought all of those were the selling point were wrong – it was totally this unwieldy customization feature all along. Silly us, looking at the content instead of this … what the fuck was it, again?

Seriously guys, whoever was billing Path of the Titans as the selling point of the expansion was shitting themselves – and everyone else. The game will be just fine without it.

There’s going to be juicy new lore, amazing scenery, a new leveling experience and other toys to play with. The classes are being overhauled. Everything as we currently know it is changing.

If that ain’t what sells Cataclysm, I dunno what will.

Oh Lawdy, Loot Debates

Last night there was a debate in the local OOC channel regarding loot in random dungeons, and I am mighty proud to admit that I started it (tongue planted firmly in cheek).

I decided to run a quick random on Dawngarde, my holy paladin, who has no back-up spec but, at her level, still has enough tools to DPS with few issues. I queued as DPS and as a Healer. Lo and behold, I was dropped into ST with a pair of druids, shaman and a hunter. Once the tank realized that one of the Troll bosses (necessary for access to the Prophet) had been forgotten, he dropped, quickly followed by the shaman.

The remaining Resto (or Balance? I don’t know, he was healing and doing very well at it) asked me to tank – but I don’t carry a shield. So he took over tanking while we waited for a proper tank and another DPS or healer.

To re-iterate: My level 49 Paladin on Thorium Brotherhood does not have a secondary spec. I have other more important things to put cash toward, and in the leveling game I am not the only one occasionally DPSing in a healing spec before Outland. Frankly, at that point, I don’t care what your spec is as long as you do your job and you aren’t stupid.

Once I dig up the screenshot of what happened next I’ll post it and name names (especially the druid, because he was awesome and I want more people to acknowledge his awesome), but anywho.

As we ran around destroying shit, another holy pally and a prot warrior zoned in. We finished off that last Troll, dropped down to the next level and ran to finish the Prophet’s room. The warrior was trigger-happy and I occasionally had to stop and toss a Holy Light (with delicious glyphed AoE healing action), but otherwise I happily exorcised/holy shocked/judged/consecrated along. The Prophet wound up getting pulled before all of the trash was finished, the other holy pally died to ghosts, so I healed through what little trash was left (protip: Run from ghosties) and the boss fight. With the boss down, a caster chest dropped, which I rolled on and the other holy pally did not. I rezzed her and we moved on to the next set of bosses.

Fast-forward to the Shade of Eranikus. We were both DPSing through him and tossing the occasional heal, and when he died he dropped a caster shield. I, the Prot warrior and the other holy pally rolled need – and I won.

The other holy pally proceeded to bitch me out and call me a cocksucker for winning her loot, twice, then dropped as the druid and I explained that I’m a healer, too, and in just as much need of those items as she was.

What would she have said if a caster shaman had won the roll, or if the Prot warrior (why she was rolling on a caster shield I’m not sure, but hey, whatever) had won it? I bet they’d be cocksuckers, too.

Nobody ‘owns’ the drops in a dungeon. Just because one is healing does not mean they get all the caster drops, nor does the tank get every piece of plate with stamina on it. Yes, it’s nice when people automatically pass on a piece that can be considered an upgrade for the healer or the tank, but this isn’t always going to happen. DPS need loot, too.

My philosophy is this: If losing a roll on a piece of equipment in WoW is worth nerdraging over for you, it’s time to step away from the computer and visit the outside world. I do not care if the item went to somebody that only heals with their guild or only does DPS once in a pink moon, or if a ninja took it for the vendor value – it’s not worth busting a vein over pixels and the attitudes of people you may never see again.

Chances are, that item will drop again. Chances are, you may see that drop or get something better with emblems.

I have lost a healing upgrade to one of the people that was arguing against those of us who occasionally roll for off-spec loot (and, guess what? I tend to ask first – I’m rarely told ‘no’). That same person has frequently rolled on off-spec loot (why the fuck would that person argue against the concept? I don’t know, head up arse syndrome I guess). I may have said “Aw, darn”, but not once did I ever go off on them for daring to take my loot.

Frankly, that attitude is far more disgusting than any attitude that I cop.

Whether we like it or not, the very nature of dual specs and random dungeons have made how we roll for loot a little different – and really, it’s more the dual spec thing than anything else. Many of us have two specs that we’re trying to gear in our daily dungeon runs, so naturally we’re going to roll on shit that will benefit us. That’s the idea.

How do I handle loot? If I’m running on a tank or healer that has a DPS spec, and a DPS item drops for my DPS spec, I wait to see if anyone rolls need. If someone does roll need, I tend to let it go – unless the group is full of jerks, then I don’t let it go. Hey, I’m not gonna be nice to dickheads, okay? The same goes for running on DPS that have tank or healer specs. If nobody rolls need, I state my intentions – “I’m rolling on this for my off-spec” – and I roll for it.

Last night, I was playing a character whose only spec was one that benefits from spellcaster stats. Should I have passed? No. I have just as much right to roll on those items – which are upgrades – as anybody else that can benefit from them.

And, as far as I’m concerned, so do you. As I say in randoms, “If it’s an upgrade and can benefit you, roll for it. I don’t care!” We should be happy when our fellow WoW players win something shiny and helpful.

The real dicks aren’t those who roll for upgrades against others, but instead are those who get pissed off about losing a roll. That’s it.

Being Different Ain’t Bad If You’re Not An Idiot

Every time I read comments on WoW.com’s Resto Shaman column (I would help the author hide a body, so if that doesn’t tell you my opinion on him, you’re fucking dense) I’m reminded that I wanted to write this particular article.

I strongly believe that, though there are Things We Should Not Do Because They Are Not Beneficial (e.g. stacking spirit as a Shaman) and there are Things That Have Been Proven To Work Very Well And Are Optimal, there’s also the path of slightly more resistance – the Things That Work, Are Not Optimal, But Can Make A Difference In The Hands Of The Right Player (or: TTWANObCMaDitRP). So that’s the “Should Nots”, “Should Dos” and “Can Dos”.

The “Should Nots”, a.k.a. the WTF-U-Doin’s, are things that have been proven to be lacking in effectiveness or that show a lack of understanding of one’s class and game mechanics. They are the things that leave most people shaking their heads, such as the priests that skip Meditation but gem for MP5 (you say you aren’t having mana issues, but you… gem as if you’re having mana issues and skip the talent that can make a difference), or the dual-wielding Death Knights that do not take the Dual Wield improvements available in the Frost tree. The people who make these decisions consistently perform below average in every situation.

The “Should Dos”, the “Tried and Trues” and the “Cookie-Cutters” are things that have been tested to death and proven to be effective. Certain specs that perform very well, stat weights that are considered the best for particular classes/specs/roles, boss strategies that are ideal. In this category are raid tanks that stack stamina, for example, or Resto shamans that favour haste.

The “Can Dos”, the “Red-Headed Stepchildren”, the “Ugly Ducklings”, these are the stats, specs and strategies that people know work for certain situations but are often derided for not being the norm. They’re the non-ICC tanks that look for avoidance stats over stamina, the Shamans that hunt for crit and spellpower, the Death Knight tank that switches a few points around to fit their style that may seem a little odd but turn out to be highly beneficial (Blood tanks nabbing all the oh shit buttons, maybe). They may not be what’s recommended by Elitist Jerks, but they work despite this – maybe in spite of it. They seem to succeed purely to watch the elitist types nerdrage.

I sincerely believe that, in WoW, we should do what we find fun. For some, it’s min-maxing. For others, RP. Some like to PvP. Others like a little of everything – nothing is exclusive. There are several of us that like to try new things, that realize that if an encounter was only meant to be beaten one way and one way only, no other methods would work.

You can fight Ingvar in his first phase with him facing toward the party, heal through all the AoE damage and succeed. You can also turn him away from the party, move when he’s about to do his thing, and succeed with less hardship. If you like, you can play Ghoul Rhoulette and have the Token Death Knight summon their Ghoul Posse – and still manage to clear.

There’s more than one way to succeed and to get what you want out of whatever you’re doing.

With that said, this isn’t a way to defend crappy specs or gear choices. “This is my play style” does not work when you are talking about a strength-stacking hunter or a death knight that wears Spellpower plate. This does not give one license to defend their 71 points in one tree, even, because that style of spec is highly ineffective (Blizzard has stated as much before, they built the trees the way they did to encourage people to select skills from multiple skill sets). It’s one thing to spec or gear, gem or enchant in a way that deviates slightly from the norm but still uses stats and talents that are beneficial to the class, and another to just do what one wants willy-nilly with no reasoning whatsoever to back it up.

In summary: Just because Elitist Jerks doesn’t spout the virtues of a particular stat weight, spec, strategy or play style (that has proven to work and, in the case of stats, actually benefits the class) doesn’t mean it’s utter shit. EJ is not the be all and end all of everything WoW.

Tanking: More Than Just Having Things Hit You OR If You Don’t Know Shit, STOP TALKING

“Okay fine, I admit it, I don’t know anything about tanking.”
“Now you get it!”

Yesterday I was home from work. I wasn’t feeling very well, in part due to drama from the night before (where I got to play moderator again – not something I wanted to do, but I was the only one around at the time that could) but mostly because my body has decided to be a jerk lately (no, it’s not my time of month, thanks for asking). The topic of Death Knight Tanking came up, and guys, I totally learned something.

I’ve had it wrong all along!

Frost? Totally has defense-boosting talents that make it the tank spec and it is not in the party’s best interests for the tank to use their survival-related cooldowns. You’re wasting runes on Vampiric Blood, Rune Tap and other related skills!

Well, consider me schooled.

Gawsh, to think I had it wrong all this time. It’s amazing my party didn’t die with my thoughtless use of these health-boosting, survival-based talents. Why, the loss of threat generation must have nearly wiped us countless times!

Okay, serious business time. Let me put this in bold type for you:

Tanking is not just about pissing off monsters.

Tanking is not just about pissing off monsters.

Tanking is not just about pissing off monsters.

Is that clear?

Okay, good.

What is your job as a tank?

1. Out-threat your DPS and healer.
2. Keep yourself alive.
3. Keep your party alive.

What does this mean?

As a tank, you have to be the one and only thing the mobs concentrate on. They have to hate you. On top of that, you have several skills, several cooldowns, devoted to one of the following:

• Temporary total health boost
• Temporary damage reduction
• Instant % health recovery
• Temporary armor or avoidance boost

It is your job to use them, to love them and to love your healer by loving those skills. By doing everything in your power to help your healer keep you alive, you save your party from death.

But Matojo, it’s the healer’s job to keep me alive!

It’s also the healer’s job to keep him/herself and three other people from death.

Believe it or not, running instances and raiding are about teamwork. DPS prevent nasties from reaching healers or from hitting the boss and causing them to heal back to full, or they interrupt casts, or they aid in adding to your, the tank’s, threat – some provide buffs. Healers keep the party alive and provide buffs. Tanks sometimes provide buffs and distract mobs. The other part of the teamwork scene, for the tanks, is helping to make things easier for the healer which, in turn, helps make their mana pools last longer. No mana, no heals, and if you’re being wailed on like whoa and not doing anything about it, that mana isn’t going to last long.

Those cooldowns help make you last longer in battle, which helps your healer last longer, and helps keep your party alive.

But Matojo! I waste valuable runes/rage/mana on those cooldowns! I need those resources for threat!

As a Death Knight, by the time I’ve started my diseases, dropped Death and Decay and had some crits from Howling Blast/Icy Touch/Frost Strike, I’m generating well over 40k threat per second. On longer fights, it’s more. This is usually at least 38k or more threat per second above my DPSers.

The fact is, if you cannot spare a cooldown to save your ass for fear of losing threat, there is something wrong with what you are doing. It could be your rotation. It could be your gear. It could be your spec (shitty specs do equal shitty threat, but shitty specs are also the product of shitty players and therefore point to more problems). You could be in the wrong presence, stance or you forgot righteous fury again (Paladins? As long as RF is up, you sneeze and LO! there is threat).

The Teal Deer: One, tanking is not just about holding threat, it’s also about using all the tools that are available to you to succeed. Two, if you spec like this to tank* it’s obvious you have not done any research on tanking as your particular class/spec – so please, stop acting like you know what you’re on about.

* Before anyone brings up Gahiji’s current blood spec, yes, I know it’s not optimal for group tanking. It’s meant for soloing instances and level 60 raids, and it’s in the process of being tweaked. If it’s successful, you lot will be the second to know!

Cranky Matojo is Cranky

Normally I am pretty patient with people (shut up, Kaphik) and willing to give the benefit of the doubt. Well, people that don’t spout hate language/misogyny, gem for mp5 and/or wander through life with their head lodged firmly up their arse.

Oh, wait.

My guild has picked up somebody that takes everything that I hate about wow_ladies and sticks it into a single, annoying human being. Making a big deal of being female? Check. Misogyny and misandry? Check.  Insistence on hand-holding when attempting to figure out a new spec (right down to asking what each and every talent does)? Yep. Constantly asking for help? Yeeeah.

Fuck me with a rusty pike.

Maybe I have been spoiled by my guild’s relative sanity and its female population’s lack of the stereotypical and idiotic. I mean, I rarely complain about the guild and I haven’t had such an issue with a guild member in a very long time, so this must be A Big Deal.

I knew this person was a bad fit when their response to a tale about two Blood Elf priests being jackasses in a pug was, “Ooooh, gai boiz, how CUTE!”

That’s right, folks. All Blood Elves are gay males. Let’s forget that the characters were later mentioned as being female – I bet that suddenly stopped being cute for that person. Lesbians, after all, aren’t nearly as adorable as gay dudes, right?

I just … whatisthisIdon’teven. For the second time in what, three years, I’m going to have to add a Harbinger to my ignore list.

I have seriously never seen the stereotypical gamer grrrl outside of wow_ladies and I don’t like this and I want them to go away. Make it stooooooop.

In other news, apparently girls ask a lot of questions and are bad at WoW. DID YOU HEAR THAT, MERI, WE ARE BAD AT WOW AND WE ASK A LOT OF QUESTIONS. HOW DO I MINE FOR FISH, GUYS.

One More For the Alt Closet and More Babble

My Warlock hit 80 yesterday and is already hit-capped thanks to some crafted gear. Oh, Ebonweave, I love you.

So I am now up to Warrior, Rogue, Hunter, Mage, Priest, Death Knight and Warlock at 80, which probably means I spend way too much time on WoW, but really, meh, whatever. I am finding that my preferences for DPS are tied between Warlock, Mage and Death Knight, surprisingly, so I will probably just prod at their gear gradually between my preferred activity of watching toons gain experience and delving into the occasional Roleplay thing.

I am loling at my community’s belief that there is no such thing as a wrong opinion. Believing that it’s stupid that there are some people that don’t enjoy raiding is, frankly, wrong, because who the fuck are you to decide the stupidity level of one’s in-game preferences? Then again, I have no respect for the person who stated that as his opinion (hello, he spent a long time thinking that he didn’t need to gem or enchant his gear as a raider, his opinion does not matter because it’s bound to be idiotic anyway).

I’m finding that the more certain individuals try to push me into raiding, the less interested I am. When I hear, “Now pick one and get it ready for raiding” my immediate internal response is “no, fuck you” – have I mentioned I’m really cranky and combative lately? Like, if a baby looks at me funny I might punt it.

It’s just… if it’s so damn fun then stop fucking pushing and let me come to it on my own. I’m already wishy-washy about it as it is, damn it, and sitting there trying to debate my decision to do shit other than raid is fucking – AUGH. I rolled on a fucking roleplay server. If I wanted to raid, I’d actually make the attempt at making a character raid-ready.

I don’t have the fucking attention span, so drop it already.

Besides, I’ve pretty much decided that – after attempting to do a Naxx weekly and having it turn into an awesome bashing of the military and plague quarters – I’m only raiding with the Harbingers. [plug]The Harbingers of War are the most awesome guild on Thorium Brotherhood[/plug], they keep me sane through the issues I keep having with real life, thus, they get my undying loyalty and love. They’ve taken me into Naxx, they’ve thrown me at Flame Leviathan, they’ve offered – not PUSHED – me a spot in an Ulduar run (unfortunately, this week’s didn’t have enough people and I was in too shitty a mood to even try it), they held my hand, pointed me at shit and told me to kill it.

… And they didn’t laugh TOO hard when I died to Frogger. Twice. SHUT UP.

So yeah. I have a bunch of 80s and I don’t raid. BOOYAH. Respect my decision not to raid just like I respect YOUR decision to do so. Or something.

Last night, I also tried DPSing as Gahiji (my Death Nugget) and found that a) So far, I like Blood and Unholy about equally, b) I peaked at 3.5k DPS on Loken in Heroic HoL as Unholy, beating my previous DPS record on that toon by a good 1.3k, c) I’d like Unholy a hell of a lot more if I didn’t have to deal with the Ghoul. I picked up a pair of the tournament maces to try out DW Frost DPS, but will have to level up my mace skill first – I plan to finish that tonight, which means potentially pulling an alt into say, RFC or SM or something.

On Playing Half-Elves

I apologize if I’ve covered this before, but I was up way too late last night debating about this very thing, so it’s on my mind.

Most who roleplay with me are aware that I’m willing to accept a lot of things. I can deal with the walking homosexual stereotypes (though, to be honest, I’m getting a little tired of people playing up the stereotype of the FABULOUS gay elf – you do know it’s possible to be into members of the same sex without being flamboyant, right?), the occasional speshul snowflake, the dudes with mechanical parts (though that is supported by lore and people that don’t see that obviously never quested in Stonetalon, Borean Tundra or ran Gnomeregan) and the secret somethings. I can deal with strange shit if it’s played well.

What bothers me the most about the play of half-elves is that, like secret dragons, they are rarely played in a manner that realistically matches the setting.

In World of Warcraft, Quel’dorei – the blue-eyed, pink-skinned elves whose majority population became Sin’dorei with Kael’thas upon feeding on Fel energies – and humans are considered traitors by the Sin’dorei. For the Quel’dorei, it’s because they didn’t join the Sin’dorei in their transformation. For the humans, it’s because they basically left the Sin’dorei to die when the Scourge happened. So, one can imagine that neither race would be welcomed to the Horde with open arms – their offspring even less so.

So, try to imagine a half-elf that doesn’t have green glowy eyes. Tell me how long you think that would last in a Horde city, realistically speaking.

Yeah. Exactly.

You would also think that a character that has been challenged for being the product of two traitorous races’ mating, has been threatened and has had their points of view regarding human relations to pretty much every member of the Horde would be a little more careful about how… they… act. You would think that they wouldn’t be so quick to exclaim, “I’m part human!”, or to express their like of humans and how totally not dicks they are, seriously guys.

But, no.

Azeroth is a world that is at war. Most Sin’dorei are unwilling to forgive the Quel’dorei and the humans for screwing them over, and most of the other Horde races are pretty rar-fase over anything with an Alliance tabard. Yes, there are exceptions, but those are rare – and the player-characters that actually play out being “roooar hiss” are met with… surprise on the part of the half-elf. The half-elf who has been met with these reactions before.

What.

I’m not quite sure where my point was, I know I had one. I guess it’s this: If you’re going to play something that the in-game world at large considers “taboo” or outright traitorous, for the love of Djehuty who guides my writing hand please at least attempt to play your character in a manner that’s realistic for the setting. This does not include putting a spotlight upon yourself and bragging about where you’re from or what you did while under Alliance rule (I’m writing from a Horde P.O.V. here), nor does it include spouting off about how the Alliance are so totes cool and omg the Horde isn’t innocent either we should all be ~*friends*~. It… isn’t working that way in the game world. It really isn’t.

… No really I had a point come baaaaaaack.

Matojo Likes to Bitch

I need to take up knitting so I can attend these “stitch and bitch” things, ’cause I know I have The Power of Bitch and could provide plenty of (non-WoW, even) fuel.

I was totes Kermit that night.

First off, there’s a segment of my RP community that is made up of some really loud individuals that make me want to reach through the screen and choke them because, my Gods people, what the hell there is no class. Misogyny like whoa – much of it internalized – and a general lack of understanding that words mean things and I’m finding that my ability to keep relatively non-snarky is failing.

Well, who am I kidding, I decided about the time that I stepped down as a moderator that I had no need to be nice anymore, but even I have my limits.

This doesn’t, of course, mean that the entire community are a bunch of loud-mouthed, inanely-prattling nitwits, no. Just a handful. They’re loud enough to make it seem like a lot, though (consider that at any one time there are about 30-35ish people in channel, and only 5-6 of those people tend to talk a lot), and it’s occasionally enough to make me leave the channel. I have a pretty high threshold for silly, but when that “silly” is… wow_ladies level of vacant idiocy, my brain explodes.

[Matojo-DK-Alt#3]: “I am pretty and disease-ridden. Unholy, I love you.”
[Somebody Else]: “… So you’re a celebrity?”

Wat. Oh come on. Come on. Really. At that point I should’ve said “No, I’m a fucking elf corpse” but my brain wasn’t really working after a weekend with my parents and their psychotic dog.

It’s nice to see the community so active, though, even if there are some creepy aspects of some folks or the whole “OMG SRS DISCUSSION IS BAD” bit, but we can’t have everything.

I’m also looking over my PvE server toons and kicking myself for transferring my 73 paladin there instead of, say, race-changing her on my own server or booting her to Moon Guard. Zul’jin has been pleasant, but it’s fucking lonely with its non-RPness and the fact that I only know… a couple of people. MG has harbies, too. ZJ lacks harbies. MG has the entertainment that is the Darknest channel (I envy their mods’ stompy boots of doom). ZJ … I haven’t looked into that part. I don’t really know what I’m going to do about that, I may gradually move some of my toons from ZJ but we shall see.

Overall, though, I’m okay. I’ll go over the Gearing Adventures I’ve been having and that at some other time.

A heads-up to readers: I will be at Conference in Toronto starting on Friday and ending Thursday. I am currently going insane!

“I Don’t Mean To…” Is Not A Magic Ticket Out of Deep Shit

In the dramas that have cropped up over the last month-and-a-bit, I’ve noticed some patterns. I’ve noticed this with regard to the user on Thoriumbrotherhood.net who threw a fit over a channel ban, or the other user that felt the need to bitch about how the forum was run, I’ve noticed this with how BBB has handled his whatever-it-is and I’ve generally just seen it um, everywhere.

Guys, if you have to say, “I don’t mean to stir up shit/cause drama/hurt feelings BUT” and then you say something that is worded to do just that – that’s exactly what you mean. I have a PhD in passive-aggressive bullshit, I know these things. The people that you are saying this to are not stupid and know bullshit when they see it.

If you do not want to cause problems and your issue is with one person or a small group, contact them directly. Do not place blame, be as neutral and non-confrontational as possible.

I have seen the following things happen over the past month and I would like to use these examples to teach you people why they are not conducive to avoiding drama.

1. A forum user is informed, privately, that he exhibited inappropriate behaviour and is informed of the penalty for his actions. The user then posts to the forums with a volatile diatribe about how he should not be punished for his actions and how he will never return to the forum again. He also makes a point of bashing the individual that informed him of the penalty.

   Drama Avoidance Failure: Throwing a temper tantrum in public when a decision is made that one does not agree with.

   Alternative Measures: Instead, respond directly to the individual that issued the warning – include other forum moderators (if any exist) or administrators in the message (I can’t think of a private messaging system that does not have the capability to handle multiple message recipients). Be calm, clear and concise – remember, being reprimanded for actions on a forum or in a chat channel on the internet is not the end of the world.

2. A user on a forum has an issue with a particular moderator. Instead of speaking to the moderation team about his problem, he posts to the forum stating that it isn’t his intention to cause drama, but accuses the individual of being “mean”, “power-hungry” and “rude” while demanding a change in the moderatorship of the forum.

   Drama Avoidance Failure: Publicly slamming a member of an online community as well as the moderator team.

   Alternative Measures: Speak to the individual one has a problem with first, then take it to other moderators. Tossing an accusatory message out into the open without making any attempt at dialogue with the people that can fix it is not the way to solve an issue – it only serves to cause ill feelings and can go toward making issues worse.  As with example one, be calm and clear, it is important not to be rude.

3. An individual posts on their public blog about guild drama. Now, this is… expected in the blogging community. This sort of thing happens. However, when the other sides of the story begin to be revealed, the blogger begins to delete commentary that does not agree with him (which is his right) and then tells readers to confront him privately instead of in public, despite having made the matter public himself.

   Drama Avoidance Failure: Expecting others to deal with an issue privately after airing it in all its ugly glory, fishing for sympathy.

   Alternative Measures: Nobody needs to know everything and some problems are best dealt with among those that were involved. Do not give too much detail if you absolutely have to post about it, and be as mature and neutral as possible. If there were left-over issues, communicate privately with those that were involved.

Phrases To Look Out For:

“I don’t mean to be rude, but…” – Translation: “I know that what I’m going to say will be rude and I am covering my ass.”

“I don’t mean to cause drama, but…” – Translation: “I know that what I’m going to say will cause drama and I am covering my ass.”

“I don’t mean to start shit, but…” – Translation: “I know that what I’m going to say will start shit and I am covering my ass.”

Notice a pattern, yet?

Sometimes, we can’t avoid drama. Sometimes it bites us in the ass so quickly that we didn’t even see it coming. Other times, it can be seen from a mile away and you’d have to be a fucking idiot not to be able to get out of the way.

In those cases, here’s what’s important:

• Pick your words carefully. Sometimes, something as simple as not being an asshole can prevent a shitload of drama.
• Watch what you share.
• Don’t call in the cavalry.
• Don’t demand of others what you aren’t willing to do yourself.
• Be non-confrontational.
• Speak directly to the problem, don’t broadcast to the masses.

This can’t guarantee that drama will be avoided, but for some of the obvious shit? Every little bit helps.

TL;DR – Lately I have seen some obnoxious, obvious drama-bait. Most people aren’t stupid – we know what you really mean when you say “I don’t mean _____ but…”