http://www.thegamingstandard.com/forums/blog.php?854-Tirgo en Thu, 18 Jun 2026 21:14:05 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.thegamingstandard.com/forums/images/BP-Black/misc/rss.jpg http://www.thegamingstandard.com/forums/blog.php?854-Tirgo http://www.thegamingstandard.com/forums/entry.php?49-Breaking-the-Shell-a-bit-of-personal-history-and-a-quick-thank-you Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:43:36 GMT I have a major problem when it comes to communities, organizations, and just personal interaction. It's quite a common problem, but I feel it hinders me greatly. I find it hard for me to be any sorts of comfortable around people I do not know. It used to be worse in the past, but in recent years it's been fading away, but it still lingers. However, it's kind of weird how it works. Most gamers that have social issues, have trouble with social interactions in real life then they do online. Myself? It's the opposite. I have trouble interacting with people in an online environment such as here at SoX. Typically I need some kind of motivation in order to press forward. With that being said, I'm going going to go into some personal history in my career as a gamer.

Back in September of 2009, I was just getting back into my WoW career after a long break through Burning Crusade and half of WotLK. I was guild less, had barely any friends playing, but yet had an urge to play the game. Spending most of my previous WoW time in PvP and never touched PvE, I decided I wanted to try out PvE and raiding. I hunted for about two weeks for a guild to join before I bumped into Clan of Woe, the WoW guild I am currently in. They were accepting anyone of any skill level and had an active raid team. I took the chance. I started grinding out those heroics for gear so I could attempt to raid. Finally I had a chance when they decided to do Onyxia 25-man and I got an invite for it. My first time in Onyxia, my first time raiding as a warrior, my first time doing anything serious as a warrior. It was terrible. I died to Deep Breath. However, I kept getting invites for both 10-man and 25-man everyweek. They said they were going to get me raid ready via trial of fire (there's a pun somewhere).

Patch 3.3 came out. Icecrown Citadel was our new goal. For some strange reason I was apart of the first raid team to go in. I was still terrible, but I was putting out comparable DPS. I died to stupid stuff all the time which lead to the phrase "Anything can kill me!" However, all the way to this point, 5 weeks after I joined, I was yet to even speak in Vent. During this time was also the same time I was doing my 4 week craziness of learning how to play a warrior. We wiped on Marrowgar for 2 weeks in a row. 3rd week came up, I was yet to speak, and one of the officers was kind of annoyed that I wasn't talking. We made a deal, if we down Marrowgar this week, I have to speak in Vent. The very next attempt, I executed everything perfectly, was 2nd in DPS, and the boss was down. We were victorious. That was when I had to break the shell and speak. From that point forward, I started raiding better, I spoke more in vent, and I become more comfortable around the guild. Before I knew it, I was our best DPS raider, got promoted to an officer position, and was assisting in raid leading (as the raid leader didn't want to stop raid leading :P). This eventually led to us killing Heroic Sindragosa and being the 2nd best 10-man on our realm. Just amazing.

So what does this have to do with me and being in SoX? Well, I use it as a point of reference as to what's up with me. I still have a shell that I have to break before I truly start doing what I do best in games. I have to fight through it, but it's been easier and easier as time goes on. With that, I have to thank pretty much very one in the guild. You guys are amazing. Specifically a few people as well. Nitros for being so gosh darn friendly and assisting me with pretty much everything. Mortian (or something like that, sorry if I misspelled it! -_-) for last night as doing those few rounds of sPvP was the most comfortable I've felt in the guild since I've joined. And obviously Squirrel for inviting me to the guild and getting me involved around here.

I always have this period of time where I doubt the community I join. It happened here, it happened with Clan of Woe, and it even happened with the Halo community that I now administrate. I am proud to say over the last week, that doubt has been broken and I am in fact very happy with coming here.

That's what this blog post is all about, just thanking everyone here. May the experience continue!

See ya on the battlefield!

Cheers,
Tirgo ]]> Tirgo http://www.thegamingstandard.com/forums/entry.php?49-Breaking-the-Shell-a-bit-of-personal-history-and-a-quick-thank-you http://www.thegamingstandard.com/forums/entry.php?48-The-End-Game-Big-Picture Fri, 01 Feb 2013 04:53:01 GMT First blog post here on SoX, oh boy.

Every MMO I've played in my history, I always wind up thinking about the end game content to determine whether or not I'm going to stick the game out. The only MMO that as satisfied me in the end game (before GW2) has been WoW. Honestly when I started playing GW2 back on launch day, I was very unsure of the end game state. Four of my WoW guildmates and I took the plunge into GW2 and played it spottily for about a month. Four of us (one of them being me) backed out and continued playing WoW.

Flash forward to December. None of the original five of us are playing GW2. However, I wind up getting bored with WoW and the other games I am playing. I have the thought to play GW2. I jump on at level 18 and just hit it. Within 8 days I had my very level 80 GW2 character. I was excited, however I had to sit down and try to figure out what I was going to do. First thing though, I'm going to need to find a place to settle my character. I was already in a guild formed by my fellow WoW guild mates, but no one was active and all 800 influence the guild had, I made for them. So I went hunting for a guild. Spent the better part of a week hunting down a guild. Until one day I notice Squirrel recruiting in Lion's Arch /m channel. I took the chance and here I am.

Now I may not be a very active member, but I intend to change that. Just takes me some time to get used to new people and faces. It took my WoW guild 4 weeks just to get me to talk in ventrillo. You folks got me talking in TS on the first night. However this all leads to my end game goals and the problems they came with.

First off, I had to kick that WoW mentality out of my head. Where with WoW I know my end goal is to be running the current tier of raiding. GW2 doesn't have that. Nothing says I should be doing this. I was overwhelmed. So I started my research into what I could do at the end game. Well, frankly the list seems short, more so compared to WoW, but yet I am just fine with it.

End Game Goal 1: Be a better player. This is always an end game goal of mine. Learn the game, learn the people and try to be the best I can be. Back in WoW when I was tired of being that #6 DPS in raids, I literally sent the following 4 weeks researching, practicing, and testing until I was happy with my results. Honestly, I was never happen enough. However, after that 4 weeks when I resumed raiding, I was our top DPS player not only in numbers but also in understanding the mechanics of the fight, the players, and everything else. It quickly led to me becoming an officer of the guild and becoming the 2nd raid leader. During this time we were able to push our guild to being the 2nd best 10-man team for raiding on our server. Now it's time to apply that to GW2. I'm gonna charge in, full force, and master this game. No one is gonna stop me on this one.

End Game Goal 2: Twilight. I watched a video of Dontain (if you don't watch him on YouTube already, go do it) getting Twilight and the process he went through. After seeing it I wanted to do it. Not only because it's a cool looking weapon, but it acts as a prestige marker in the game. It shows your experience in the game. Tie that with Goal 1 and you become the very player a lot of people look for. Speaking of prestige and experience....

End Game Goal 3: Commander. Now I am not talking about just getting the title and the shiny blue icon on my name. I am talking about using that title and icon to show people I know what I can do and I can help them. I watch how WvW goes and I want in on it. Well it's fun being part of the zerg team and capping bases or just a small sapper team taking camps, I urge for me. It's been a thing of mine for as long as I have been gaming. Back in my old Halo: Custom Edition clan, I was always the leader for a reason. I led our team to victory and our tag became a feared tag. People would hunt us down just to play us and then lose (most of the time). This extends into my Halo 2/3 career as well. In the Halo community I currently manage, I lead my squad through 4 major conflicts (think of them kind of like tournaments, it's hard to explain in one sentence; perhaps another blog about that later) to victory. My squads became the go to squads to win games. This happened in WoW as I became a raid leader within the first 3 months of joining them, despite having a tightly ingrained structure already. It boils down to one thing at the end of the day. I like to help people, but I like to help a lot of people. In GW2, I feel an effective commander is just as important, if not more, as an effective raid leader in WoW or a squad leader in Halo. You have upwards of 50 people in your hands and you can't mess that up. This is why I am putting this one on hold until I feel Goal 1 has been done enough. I can't be an effective commander if I can't play the game.

End Game Goal 4: Human Cultural Armor. I like the Human heavy cultural armor. I just want it. :D

So that's it in a nutshell (yes that was a nutshell). I feel these 4 end game goals will actually provide me with more then the current end game of WoW. End of the day, I want to help out people, so I'm gonna try to my best to help others. First, I gotta help myself so I can effectively help others.

See ya on the battlefield.

Cheers,
Tirgo ]]> Tirgo http://www.thegamingstandard.com/forums/entry.php?48-The-End-Game-Big-Picture