Grim Application For Izshara
How did you hear about The Grim?
I heard about The Grim from Khorshah. We’ve been friends for -- well, I don’t think our friendship is old enough to drink; it might be old enough to drive at this point -- a while, and he’s mentioned y’all on more than one occasion, both before his break from WoW and after his return.
What experience do you have with internet forums? Do you check them frequently or infrequently?
I’ve used internet forums in some fashion or another since the days of Usenet. In terms of MMOs, I’ve used forums to discuss game mechanics (specs, glyphs, enchants, boss strategies), to coordinate in-game activities (pve raids, city raids, farming for gear, other in-game events), to share backstory and ongoing RP, and to continue to get to know the people I am gaming with.
Long long ago, in a galaxy far far away, I spent a lot of time on forums (guild forums primarily when it came to posting, and with WoW I also lurked and read EJ and Tankadin forums). My forum use now is not what it used to be. Work has pretty strict web use policies, and most forums are unusable on my phone for anything more than quick reading, so my access to them is limited to when I am home. Whether I get into the habit of checking on a daily basis when I am home depends a bit on the level of activity on the forums.
What sort of role-playing experience do you have? Would you consider yourself a beginner or Gary Gygax?
I’ve role-played in text-based MU*s for years, creating characters, storylines, side-plots, throw-away characters, and enjoying the storylines, plots, and adventures others create. Before I started playing WoW, I role-played in City of Heroes as well.
I’ve done some pen-and-paper gaming, but I’m far happier with the interactive storytelling feel that MU*s and my MMO role-playing experiences have provided. I find sometimes that mechanics can get in the way of story, and story is the thing that drives me most when I role-play; the actions and reactions that one doesn’t expect when one’s character interacts with another’s.
It has been a while since I have done any role-playing, however, so I might be a bit rusty, and I haven’t actually done any heavy-duty roleplaying in WoW (partly out of fear of Getting It Wrong with regards to lore; the same concern keeps me from writing fanfic).
The Grim are considered a Lawful Evil guild. Do you have any experience playing a character of this alignment or a character archetype that believes in structure with evil intent?
Honestly, this is the part that’s stayed my hand on submitting an application for the past month and change (this, and the “rusty” thing). I suppose that one of the things I struggle with when it comes to evil characters are the questions of “what does it mean to be evil?” and “how is an evil character the hero of their own story?”. The “evil” characters that I’ve played (and written) have been either self-centered and self-serving characters, or characters whose actions toward an end goal are questionable to outside observers but who, in their own minds, are not evil by any stretch.
Have you been part of any other guilds in World of Warcraft? If so, who were they and what server do or did they reside on? Let us know of your experience with them and what made you decide to either leave or continue to stay.
I feel like there are two questions to answer here. I’ve not been a part of any role-playing guilds in World of Warcraft. I have, however, been in several guilds in the years that I’ve played. I started out in Vanilla with a guild called Seekers of Truth (on Aggramar); they were a friends-and-family raiding guild and I stayed with them into the start of Burning Crusade.
In Burning Crusade, several members of SoT were less interested in the casual friends-and-family raiding style and we split off to form Invictus. We raided into Mt. Hyjal and Black Temple. I chose to leave because being an officer was wearing on me, and I knew I couldn’t stay and raid and not be an officer; the four of us who founded Invictus were too close for me to not get pulled back in. I left Invictus (and Aggramar in the process) for Elune where I joined Purple Graveyard, raided with them through the end of Burning Crusade when Sunwell and the looming next expansion killed a lot of raiding guilds on the server. Sentimental, I stuck around, hoping that Wrath would bring people back; it didn’t.
While I apped to one of the guilds that a number of PG members went to, they didn’t have a spot for me anywhere but the bench; I wasn’t interested in being a sub at that point, and one of the founders of Invictus said that the guild he was in at that point needed a tank. I found myself transferring servers again (to Korialstrasz) to join Vindication. Eventually, through on-again-off-again raid leadership toward the end of Ulduar, Vindi scattered briefly, then reformed, then fell apart again.
To make a long story short, not long after the release of ICC, I ended up back on Elune and in Celestial Vanguard, with a number of people I had raided with previously in PG; my main is still there. CV weathered Cata--just barely--losing a number of people either temporarily or permanently. I took about a year and a half off, leaving WoW just before Firelands and then came back with MoP to find that CV went pretty casual. I’ve stuck with CV, in part, because the people who remain are people that I like, even though we’re not always on at the same time all of the time, and I’m playing pretty casually at this point. Additionally, for me, moving one toon means moving all of them (and a bank guild).
Are you applying on an alt (non-main) character? If so, what are you looking for here that you are not getting from your main character? If you are feeling honest or adventurous, please let us know who your main is.
My main is Edrie, a guardian/feral druid on Elune.
I suppose, in part, I am looking for something outside of the “level another alt to cap, grind rep/valor, grind LFR for gear, lather-rinse-repeat” rut that I seem to be edging toward with 6 90s.
What are your expectations for your character after joining The Grim. What aspect of the game, if any, do you wish to focus on?
At this point, what I most want to focus on is having fun--in whatever form that ends up taking.
I like end-game, but am enjoying the freedom of not needing to race home (praying for no traffic), and shove food in my face as I log on just in time for raid invites three nights a week. In spite of my often-loud protests to the contrary, I have enjoyed BGs as well as world PVP when I am with people who also enjoy it (the little min-maxer in the back of my head says that I’d enjoy it more if only I would gear up for it and get better at it! -- and then I stuff that little min-maxxer back in a box and find a padlock).
As far as my character, as I said before, I like to see how story plays out and is shaped by interactions with other characters. I expect that, as a character, she will be shaped by what she experiences with the Grim, shifting her views, or perhaps finding herself more firmly entrenched in them (which is not to say that she is a complete blank slate looking to be written on, merely that I am not so set in a story for her or a place that I expect her to get to that I will push it at the expense of the fun of other players and the stories of their characters).
What is your PvE (player-versus-environment) experience in World of Warcraft? What classes and roles do you enjoy the most in a raid environment? Do you have any PvE experience from other MMO games?
I raided up into BWL in Vanilla, through BT/MH in BC (with some trash farming in Sunwell after Kalecgos farmed my guild), through Heroic ICC (except heroic LK 25man) in Wrath, and got some heroic kills in BoT and BWD in Cata. For most of that, I’ve been a tank (druid), or off-spec melee DPS. I’ve been through the current raiding tier in LFR as melee DPS (minus the wing that unlocked this week), and have tanked the first three fights in 10man MV.
I play tanks a lot (guardian druid, prot pally, prot warrior), usually with melee DPS as my secondary spec. While I have healed in the past, and would again if a situation required it, it isn’t something that I enjoy, nor is it something that my UI and macros are set up for.
My PVE experience in Star Wars TOR and City of Heroes was a lot of solo levelling, and instances with friends. End Game in CoH before NCSoft killed the game felt remarkably like LFR in the ability to let you casually “gear up” whenever you had spare time to do it.
What is your PvP (player-versus-player) experience in World of Warcraft? What classes and roles do you enjoy the most in a PvP environment? Do you have any PvP experience in other MMO games?
Most of my PVP experience in WoW is in battlegrounds. Just plain old BGs, not rated or anything. I’ve poked at Arena (I played on the tourney realm for the murloc pet). I dabbled in world PVP now and then, and have done city raids. All in all, PVP has been a thing to do occasionally when I’m with friends/guildies who want to, or solo as an alternative to taking my eyes out with a grapefruit spoon.
What is your regular World of Warcraft play schedule? If your answer is "anytime", "flexible", or some other vague word please describe why. Our scheduled interview times are 8pm on Monday and 10am on Wednesdays. Can you make either of those times?
I’m often in WoW in evenings during the week (after 5:30pm Pacific), and off and on all day on weekends. I’ve become rather fond of the flexibility that not having a set raiding schedule affords me. Unless I’ve done my timezone math wrong, I can make 8pm on most Mondays (25th of March, however, I’m not available).
How is your computer performance when playing World of Warcraft? What is your FPS/load times during heavy graphical or high population times? Is your internet connection stable?
My computer’s performance is good (have, in the past, 3-boxxed with it with minimal drop in FPS). My internet connection is occasionally temperamental, however. I’ve dropped out of one LFR due to latency since MoP hit (I’d rather contribute than be carried), and have opted out on dailies a handful of times because of it.
Provide an armory link to your character.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/t ... ara/simple
This might be dps spec and gear depending on when you look. I’ve been working on getting her into LFR so have been doing heroics and scenarios as fury instead of tanking.
Do you have anything further to add?
I’m an alt-a-holic (in case my PVE experience didn’t give that away). I like to see how other classes play, how the play differs between being melee DPS and ranged, between tanking and melee DPS. I also like to see how storylines differ between Horde and Alliance (or, in the case of TOR, Empire and Republic, and across the various classes).
While I’ve been a hardcore raider in the past, I’m not anymore. I still try to play to the best of my ability (I don’t want to be carried through raids and I don’t want to waste other people’s time anymore than I want mine wasted), and I know better than to stand in the fire (even though it gives me candy), but I don’t have as much time for reading theory-crafting, or to do as much research into fight strategies as I have in the past. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t tanked in LFR; raids are less forgiving of tanks who don’t know all of the fiddly details of a fight’s mechanics than of DPS who don’t (and tanks have so many more fiddly details).
Also, I can sometimes be a bit long-winded in guild applications.
Izshara
Moderator: Officers
Re: Izshara
Araun will be hosting an interview on Monday evening at 8pm. We will expect to see you there.