With much sadness, I have left Oldies but Goodies, having had a falling out with the GM about criticizing people in public. One of the earliest lessons I learnt as a manager is that if you need to tell someone something critical, it should be done in a private room to avoid embarrassment.
So having been mortified at being called out for something he was perfectly entitled to criticise me for, (though it was due to lack of forethought on my part rather than ill-intentioned), in guild chat, I absented myself for a while. When I am hurt and angry, I tend to withdraw. I went and played my alts instead of my main. When Friday raid time came, I was still angry, and said I did not want to raid with him because I might say something I would regret. I also whispered that if he ever humiliated me in public again I would quit. Well he did. His next post in guild chat was "I am fed up with you threatening to quit, so please leave the guild".
Now I do not recall EVER threatening to leave. When the last two people left, we did talk about reasons for going and staying. I had been happy there though, and even, I think, managed to persuade one or two people who had been thinking of going to stay. I also had been instrumental in bringing two of the five new players into the guild, and through one, indirectly another. In tears, I entered /gquit, stood there as my character died. Yes, the guild was holding back my main as I no longer could get gear upgrades from 10 mans, but it was friendly and no whinging if we died as we learnt the bosses, and I could always PuG the 25 mans if I wanted (and did - now have Naxx, VoA and OS 25 achievements, and 3 bosses on Ulduar). I was content to grow with the guild. All that is now gone.
One by one, I logged onto my alts and gquit. The whispers started "why have you left?" "what happened?". Back onto my L72 pally I get an invite to tank Kara ... I accept to take my mind off it, then the whispers from the co-GM start. *sigh*
Well, it is over. Goodbye my friends. Hello my old-new ones in The Divine Ones.
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Patch Issues
Once again, patch day came around, no patch to download. Resolving to try re-installing the patch from scratch, I noticed a log file that gave me a clue "No server-side background download settings found" it said.
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=9520942658&;sid=1
At least this time, a blue answered my post - it seems like files left behind after I allowed WoW to automatically move the game to the c:\users\public\games folder. I don't know which ones yet, and am awaiting a further diagnosis as my email to tech support seems to have gone astray. As the XP box used by my sons has virtually died (thanks to a graphics card upgrade that screwed up the BIOS), I didn't have an alternate means of getting the patch file. Luckily a friend was kind enough to email it to me, so back online by Wednesday evening this time.
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Performance
Whilst scanning the forums I came across a couple of interesting posts that throw light on lag, disconnects and the dire FPS in WinterGrasp, Dalaran and 25-mans.
Firstly I use Virgin Media, which routes to Blizzard through Telia:
Secondly "you mean 5-10fps in a 25-man fight isn't normal" oh my!:
I've downgraded the settings on my Nvidia card to optimise for performance over quality, and next raid I will take recount off (as well as Carbonite and Auctioneer), leaving me with just: ORA2, DBM, healbot, decursive and quartz eclipse. When I work out how to turn off the combat log settings I will do that too.
Time to play...
