I have been mulling over the idea for this post for sometime. It has been started over a half a dozen times in Word and probably 15 or 20 more inside my head. There is a bit of reluctance about this post because it may offend some of those who were involved. While this isn’t my intention I am sure some feelings might get hurt.
My guess is that some of you will know exactly what I mean when I say I am a Goblin at heart. Once Gevlon introduced me to the term I realized immediately that is what I am. It is that Goblin thinking that leads us to this post. At a very crucial time in my WoW career, a reader made a comment on this blog that allowed me to explore my Goblin ways to their fullest.
After seeing the opening cinematic of WotLK it was my intent to see the Lich King die. Unfortunately for me, at the very beginning of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion it became painfully obvious that my guild would never come close completing the end game. Week after week with no real progress I knew that sooner or later I was going to have to make move, a move that would allow me to see that expansion to its completion.
No one in my guild knew that I was spending hour after hour hunting for that opportunity. Try as I might I came up fruitless every time. I should make it clear, not only did I want to kill the Lich King; I also wanted to do it on a “casual” schedule. No matter how hard I tried I could not find the perfect match.
No one out there was looking for a Boomkin who wanted to raid more or less whenever he wanted. No, everywhere I looked the guilds were demanding committed raiders. They all wanted someone who would commit to 2-3 or even 4 nights a week for multiple hours each night. I knew that there would be no way I could do that. I had just about given up, and then out of nowhere Khaas commented on a post here at GTFOOTF.
I am not sure how I knew that it would be his guild that would allow me to see the end game but I just knew. Immediately I was drawn to Khaas and Face on Fire. That was at least until I read their raiding policy. Once again here was a serious guild that demanded a commitment, which was something I couldn’t do.
Prior to making the move to the Bloodscalp server, Khaas and I had a few conversations about Death Knights and making gold. If I remember correctly there was never any real discussion about me making the move to his server? When I finally made the decision to go, I made a level one toon on Bloodscalp and sent Khaas a tell informing him I was headed to Bloodscalp. As soon as my Boomkin hit the server, I got a guild invite, not as a raider but as a “Friends and Family” member.
Okay here is where I need to make sure we are all on the same page when it comes to Goblin thinking. A true Goblin will analyze various systems and methodologies to determine the minimum amount of effort for the maximum gain.
Only a week or two after joining the guild my Goblin mind discovered a “flaw” in FoF raiding policy. FoF had what they called a “stand by” system that rewarded those not in the raid if they were willing to be on stand by in case a raider drops or has to leave early.
At this point and time in FoF’s showdown with the Lich King they were never quite able to kill him. They experienced week after week of clearing the entire instance in record time only to be foiled by the last boss. Soon enough my opening was reveled, all I had to do was leverage it. The flaw which I mentioned earlier was my way to get noticed, it was consistency that got my first raid invite.
All I had to do was log in, whisper the raid leader I was on stand by and wait. Now here is where the Goblin kicks in, I didn’t have to be on for every raid night, no, I only had to be consistent in being on stand by when I was on! Soon enough some of their dedicated raiders started to flake, and there was good ole Kauzmo sitting on the bench.
Looking back it only took a week or two of my Goblinish ways for me to start to see some raiding, and all of it was on my schedule. Then it happened, raider fatigue. Before you know it we were so far into the expansion, that recruiting became difficult and one or two full time raiders started pulling “no shows” on raid nights. That was all I needed to become a regular fixture in FoF raids. This was about the time I withdrew that “raider application” that was some how forgotten by the FoF leaders.
After awhile I began to feel a bit guilty about how things were going for me. You see, Face on Fire’s regular raiding Boomkin was one of those who just stopped showing up and I happened to be the only other Boomkin. As Goblin luck would have it, all of the leather caster gear was mine by default. The only time I spent EPGP points was for trinkets and weapons. So here I was the, the non-raiding member of FoF decked in raid gear.
As time went on and the elusive Lich King kill was getting ever so close, my guilt was at an all time high. Being a Goblin in the AH is one thing, those are mindless morons. But being a Gobling in a raiding guild is a whole other story. The ever present social side of me was nagging me a bit and to quell it, I started bowing out of the Lich King fights. FoF managed to get enough full time raiders so technically they didn’t need me anymore, for some strange reason the invites kept coming.
In my diluted Goblin mind, I figured those real full time raiders deserved that guild first Lich King kill. I remember writing on the blog that I would wait for the second or third kill but it seemed that fate and Frosty would have none of that. If I was on, I was getting an invite. I am almost positive I was getting raid invites over “raiders” but I could be mistaken.
On the night of FoF’s first Lich King kill I remember having a short discussion with Khaas via whisper about me waiting for my chance at the big guy after FoF raiders got their first kill, in my heart I knew that the Lich King would die soon enough because the guild was back to firing on all cylinders. In all truth there was no need for me to be in that run and I knew it. Apparently the discussion between me and Khaas went nowhere because soon enough Frosty sent the invite.
So for my part in all of this, I come clean. I raided when and how I wanted, up to and including the night of Face on Fire’s first Lich King kill. I went to the Bloodscalp server with every intention of getting my Lich Kill with FoF on my terms. Call it Goblinism, timing or luck but that is exactly what happened.
Unfortunately right after that Lich King kill my health started to wane and I was never able to maintain my presence in the guild. With the disaster expansion known as Cataclysm my interest in WoW fizzled. Here is the question I continue to wrestle with, did I use FoF or did they use me? I wonder, was I the Goblin or was FoF? In the end it I don’t think it matters, we all got what we were looking for.
On a side note, there has only been one piece of gear that I absolutely had to have and that was the Nibelung staff. On my first night of raiding with Face on Fire Khaas boasted that they sharded that weapon weekly and I would probably see it that night. It took WEEKS for that damn staff to drop. Maybe that was fates way of balancing out the Goblins on both sides of the issue.
You always felt a lot more guilty than you needed to, that “flaw” in the system is there as an incentive. You have to understand, it’s a system designed by another Goblin, who was helping to lead a guild to victory in the face of a severe recruiting shortage. You were playing a class that, while not essential helped immensely on several key fights.
I tend to look at it in terms of a mutually beneficial business arrangement. I know that Frosty and I were definitely wanting you around as a full time raider, but that just wasn’t in the cards. And in the end, that was okay. Because we got the fucker, and you got some loot. In the end, everyone wins. I remember the Staff situation lol, it’s sad because it was literally like someone was watching and waiting for you to not be around so it would drop. Same with Belt of Broken Bones, it dropped one night when we decided to do it on Normal just to get it done and out of the way. Then it didn’t drop again until our last clear before Cataclysm…
You stopped to wonder whether you were exploiting the rules. By my understanding a Goblin wouldn’t even consider that because their brains just aren’t wired to think that way. [At least mine isn't >_>]
It also kind of boggles my mind that you would think that a raider who had been ignoring their commitment to the guild would deserve to come more than the guy who had actually been contributing.