Update!

The changes Ess mentioned as to the Ranks has been placed in effect.
The new ranks are:

Infectious Pox
Active Pox
Visiting Pox
Bag O Pox
Inactive Pox(anyone who hasn't logged in in over a month)

Please please let someone from infectious pox know if you are in the
wrong rank or location. Starting today I will probably watch our
google groups page for about a week then I will go absent again and
won't really pay attention.

I will also try to watch the comments here.

Green pox dies.

Not going to post it in two places but I posted a recap of last nights greeness at http://twoandahalforcs.blogspot.com

Hah

I need to read comments over here more often. I usually just glance at it through a reader ;p.

So what happened to my last post here was I meant to post on my blog... I was on my dashboard and clicked on new post... wrote a long post up and clicked view post and woah! It was on the wrong one :P.

Still though.. it was an excellent post and I'm glad I wrote such an awesome piece and all the little, little, very little, not as big as me people who helped get me here I have to thank :p.

Bah bah bah

So uhm..... oops.

Wrong blog ;P

Howling Terror

So our recent signup attempt has been as scattered as a Alliance group scattered by a well placed Howl of Terror.(In terms of us responding back to the applicants...the signupsheet simplified things greatly for those applying). At least I think so. So here is an update:

So far our new blue and blacks are:
Inciendo(not new but yeah).
Tazbutane
Staleshot
Talonis
Scaryscience(level 15)
Unrepentant
Suda
Czanthar

Now if you haven't gone to our spreadsheet and filled out your availability and class etc please do. Our signup sheet was mostly so that we could add you to the spreadsheet so you could update it. (Again I think).

Sorry about sounding so unorganized but due to our Cell-based structure there isn't a -lot- of coordination outside of the group(cell) you are in.

Blue and black are very loose at the moment. Once everyone's availabilities are in we'll group everyone according to time and availability and see where we stand. We may end up with two groups of four or one 5 and a three. If at all possible please try to be on this wednesday and we'll try and finalize the groups then.

*stares off into the nether that exists beetween the cells and yells*
Hopefully I'm not bumping anyone elses work on the issue. Just trying to do a summary based on the results of the signup sheet and what I've seen in comments and on the spreadsheet.

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Pulled from comments we have some input from Abuto:

1) Direct new people to the signup spreadsheet. (That's the spreadsheet for our new "applicants" where they fill out a form.)

2) I get automatic updates when people add to the signup sheet.

3) I get the email addy's and names of the new people and add them to the [poxic] Google Group and give them access to the coordination spreadsheet. (That's the spreadsheet where we break everyone up into the colored groups.)

4) All new members will get emails that they have been invited to both the Google group and the coordination spreadsheet.

5) At that point, it's up to the new people to act on their membership -- i.e., fill in their time availability, communicate to the group, contact us on Anvilmar to be added to the group, etc.

Some stories

Wulfa's account is up. Unfortunately I hosed her first really well done account so she had to write another(also well done but with different content).

Last night was really fun. It was crazy how much a difference two levels made. At level 11 we wiped twice and everything was dreadfully dangerious. At level 13 we easily handled 6-8 elites at a time and only once came close to dying when our druid tank couldn't remember how to get back into bear form for the first half of a fight.

I really wish I could write here about what/how Abuto/Wulfa/Elips did. But I honestly only remember that mobs would -justdie-. I was franticly trying to hold agro on 4-5 mobs and stay within range of Raaksi's totems. Party chat flew by and my world was a frenzy of shouting between myself(in the study) and Raaksi(in the living room).

Him:
"STOP MOVING"
"Why can't you stay within range of the totem!?"
"GET BACK TO THE TOTEM"
"AGRO!"
"NOOOO DON"T RUN OFF LIKE THAT"

Me:
"Dood I have to get close to the enemy casters!"
"LOW HPS LOW HPS"
"WHY CAN"T I GET BACK INTO BEAR FORM"
"WARNING TAKING MORE DAMAGE NOW"
"STOP MOVING"

I've always known that tanks were a 'little bit' busy with stuff... but wow... if you get past two mobs all of a sudden you don't even SEE the rest of your party... you are swapping and growling and biting(or whatever my ability is called). My dps did a good job of not grabbing agro. My healers did too usually. Growl has an absurdly short range that I slowly realized(I thought for a long time that it was broken or needing rage or something).

Oh one thing I did notice: Abuto can when she wants to dump a TON of agro causing damage on a mob. They'd spin to hit her... I'd hopefully growl them back... life was great.

I am still learning a ton. Last night I wanted to keep a big sign over my head that said "sorry about that bad pull/growl/agro/add". But bear tank is -wow- fun. And my crew is great.

Oh and another thing... I laughed so hard:

[Deadrabbit signs in]
Abuto: RABBIT!
Wulfa: RABBIT!
Trifendolden: RABBIT!
Elips: DEAD!
Raaksi: RABBIT!

Green Recriminations Leave No Room For Spelling

So I was very impressed with Thog-something-or-other and Biznar last night. They really rocked our world. Biznar was a mad dps machine with a healthy dose of pull-mobs-safely. He did this amazing solo pull where the skull was surrounded by 8 other highly agro mobs. Too bad he had to leave early after one particularly bad wipe. So Thogkldjflsk shows up to replace him... and yeah best OT I've ever had. He'd lock down his mob and keep him locked down until we had all the other elites burned down. We had him maintank the occasional level 16's while Raamah helped us speed burn down the level 13-14 ones. He(Thogwersedsds) was great. His friend Elips though needed to learn to pay more attention... all he did was dps and tell Thog what to do. Thog was doing fine without him thank you very much. But to avoid drama* I whispered Thog and told him that any time he wants to join Green Poxed he's in... we'll just boot Elips and be happy.

As for Abuto? I never saw her until Biznar left....then she shows up and starts pulling things. Granted she made a great puller and did a good job of not pulling more than we wanted but every fight she would dissapear and go stealth into the corner. Bad troll woman.

On a completely unrelated note every fight an odd debuff thing happened. As soon as Raamah had agro a flurry of blades and death ... would suddenly appear behind the mob. This was really helpful and I'm glad Blizz added this to make the instance go smoother.

Raamah did pretty good for a new tank. He held agro and kept me(the healer) safe. Too bad he needs to learn to stop dying. Seriously. The guy dies all the time. I was getting hurt a little and he ran up and pulled the mob off of me and while I'm sitting there deciding whether to use the healthstone or the mana potion first... he dies. He has so much to learn. Fortunately I decided to use the healthstone first as I still had about 60% mana and only had about 55% health at that point.

Oh and Wulfa? I'm the healer not you.. so stop healing the off tank..and the rogue...and the warlock. You are a shadow priest.. not a main priest(that would be me!)... use your wand or something... dps don't heal things!

I saved these things for the blog because I didn't want to tell them to their face how bad they were. I mean seriously ... we had to stop and regen after every other group of 3 level 15 elites. We were level 11 for goodness sake. Purple pox kills level 20's all the time at that level. /sigh Amatures.

If it wasn't for my awesomeness I don't know how I would survive.

Your welcome for the chance to listen to me,
Sumyerki the humble.

*Drama comes when you talk directly to the person causing the problem. The best way is to keep it to whispers behind their back and just 'hint' until they go away ;P

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Now that he's done... I'd like to say that I had a TON of fun last night. We were able to work out the kinks and learn to work with little CC and lots of squishy. Wulfa has a cold and may not be posting for a bit but she told me she had a ton of fun as well. I wish I had a more specifics but last night the group rocked even with my mistakes on healing(Raa died 3 times... 2 times to GROSS healer neglect).

After the party ended I realized that I'm not using any of my normal buttons because I have DPS spells there... I will be dramaticly restructering what spells are on my bar. This should make healing more... instinctual.

Pox

Did this while idly waiting for people to actually answer their phone at work. For our four current poxes.

A couple of thoughts. Rambly but trying to make a point.

First let me say that last night was awesome. I had tons of fun and will be posting a complete post on it tomorrow I think.

I wanted to clarify something I had noticed some confusion on. Several* people have wanted to join and then expressed confusion/worry about the availability they see on the spreadsheet. The prevaling** concern seems to be that they are not able to play at the same time the rest of us poxers are able to play.

This is a missconception. Each group is its own entity to a large extent. We created the guild so that our little groups could pool resources and share a communal chat channel. But the toons will really only party with the toons in their group(unless we schedule a guild raid or something of the sort). So if you can get four other people who like our expiriment and who play at the same time as you.... yer in. We'll name you a color and a pox and drape you in our colors and yer off to the races.

Or... if you can't commit to partying but you want to come play? We can set you up as a visiting pox and you can chat with us(just please try to stay roughly the same level as the other groups or below their level ... no level 70 visitors)***

So for example... yellow group(pike/trollin/TJ) are still needing two other like minded individuals to play with them. If they get three then someone will drop into uhm... charteuse group and will be looking for four others and yellow will be full. Yellow will play together at whatever time yellow wants to.

Also, if your schedule does change... or someone realizes that a different group has a playtime that fits them better...well we can swap the groups around a bit if we need to.

Hopefully this is helpful.****

Dammerung

*Several could mean just one. My memory as always is crappy.
**Prevaling means what several means.
***At the time of this writing I believe the group concensous(spelling?) is that we don't accept outside gold and no level 70 running us through instances.
****Everything above is suggestions and interpretations based on what I've read in our google group. If the majority objects things will change.

Oh hey no one has posted yet.

This post was edited to be more respectible. If you can edit this post and you know of more links please feel free to add them.

So here are the posts that started it all:

The basics:
http://outlandbound.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/wow-blogger-lfg-for-quests-and-instances/

The reaction:
http://gamedame.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/a-pox-on-pugs/
http://hoovedshaman.blogspot.com/2008/02/anti-pug.html
http://musingsofanutjob.blogspot.com/2008/02/experiment.html
http://rymes.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/anti-pug/
http://twoandahalforcs.blogspot.com/2008/02/grand-experiment.html

Some details:
http://twoandahalforcs.blogspot.com/2008/02/just-quickie.html
http://twoandahalforcs.blogspot.com/2008/02/tranquil-garden.html
http://outlandbound.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/the-anti-pugs-thoughts/
http://outlandbound.wordpress.com/2008/02/16/getting-closer-and-a-few-more-details/

The spreadsheet:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pF6m2poyfAudEBqZHgSEAJw&hl=en