guild

A lot of the reputation grinds in the World of Warcraft are just that, grinds. Long, repetitive, somewhat mindless, and ultimately boring grinds. There's a reason why many people ignore many reputation grinds that just require multitudes of tedious killing and unvarying repeatable quests. It just gets so boring and takes so much time that unless you are completely focused and dedicated, there will be things that will distract you from it. Distractions are exactly what is needed to keep the grind going.

This has happened to me since I started my quest to get exalted reputation with the Frostsaber Trainers for the Winterspring Frostsaber mount. I've continued somewhat diligently and tried to remain focused on completing the quests. I've even gone as far as to try to complete these as efficiently as possible because I really wanted to finish quickly.

Recently I've joined a new guild and have been asked to help in some instances. Initially I avoided joining these runs thinking that any thing I do that isn't grinding the reputation quests is time away from, . . . well grinding the reputation quests. I realized that the grind was just getting tedious and I found myself only casually trying to gain reputation. So it didn't make sense to avoid other things just to focus on grinding.

I finally joined a group when the GM asked if I could help in an instance. She knew I was grinding rep and didn't want to bother me, but they really needed some DPS to finish the instance. So I joined the group and I'm glad I did. It reminded me why I enjoy playing WoW. Even though I've done the instance dozens of times, many of the guildies in the group were still leveling. So it was a lot fun watching those learn the fights and make new discoveries.

So this one distraction broke the tedium of the reputation grind and actually allowed me to go back to it. Distractions are exactly what's needed to refresh a long reputation grind. Since then I've joined a few more instance runs and have been having a great time. I've also managed to fit in more reputation grinding because of this.

So if you get the opportunity to do something else that sounds fun, do it. Sure your reputation grind will be longer, but at least this way you'll be having fun instead of bored out of your mind.

When I first started dual boxing a couple months ago and was looking to join a guild, I wondered if it was better to disclose up front with the GM that I dual box or just let it be. I came to the conclusion that it was probably still better to just be up front with the GM as to avoid any troubles down the road.

Well it seems this isn't such a huge issue after all and I was probably just being paranoid since I was new to the whole multiboxing thing. I just joined a new guild and there were no problems. I joined with my main, then followed up with a simultaneous request from Team DoubleD. I did the obligatory mention in guild chat that I was both of them and that was that.

So perhaps no disclosure is necessary at all. However if you're multiboxing a larger team, it's more likely you and/or your GM will get comments. So it may still be better to just disclose you're a multiboxer from the beginning.

This is a follow up to my previous post about being up front when joining a guild that I dual-box two of my alts.

I continued my search for a new guild. After the last experience with my last GM "interview" I thought I would take a different approach. Just not say anything about multi-boxing until it was asked. There are a lot of new guilds on the realm I'm currently on, so it was easy to find guilds that were recruiting. I thought perhaps I'd get Nyquist and Zaley into a new leveling guild and look for a raiding or more established guild for Ziv.

I spoke with the leaders of this newly formed guild that was recruiting. I was impressed by their maturity and philosophy about how they want their guild to be. I told them that I'm leveling two alts and looking for a guild for them. I signed up Nyquist and asked if I could have Zaley in the guild as well. They said sure.

So I hopped over to Zaley's computer and sent a whisper the person I was talking with for an invite. Once invited and the "Zaley has joined the guild" showed up in guild chat, the person I was talking to asked if I am playing two accounts at the same time. Apparently he noticed that Nyquist didn't log off. I sent a whisper and told him yes.

We had a small conversation about it and since he and his wife play WoW (his wife is the GM) that he's actually tried to run the two accounts at once but was too much trouble. So he understood why I would have two accounts, and how I would be able to run two of them at the same time. I told him that I just wanted to be sure he and the GM knew that I dual box. They were cool with it.

So my opinion is that one should fully disclose that they dual box at least to the GM, and if it's TMI, then they are just unaware of what dual boxing really is and should just move on.

I dual box when I am running Nyquist and Zaley, or Savik and Zerp. I admit it and I have no problem telling people I do if they ask. However I am evaluating whether I should be the first to bring it up, or just wait until people notice and ask.

The reason this has come up was because a couple days ago I was looking to see if I could join a guild. I was actually looking for a raiding guild for Ziv, but I also thought about finding a leveling guild for Nyqist and Zaley.

When guilds are recruiting and I am interested in them, I ask a lot of question. I ask what kind of guild it is and what the long term goal of the guild is. I ask about rules and ranks, as well as their alt policy. I ask how many people are in the guild and the level ranges. During this time I usually tell them about my main and my in-game experience. Usually during this rather lengthy "interview" I am able to assess whether it may an guild I'm interested in or not.

The other day, I was speaking to the GM of a guild that was recruiting. I had gone through my usual suite of questions and was ready to ask for an invite. But before I did that I asked the GM how they felt about multi-boxing. The GM asked what that was and I told him one person controlling two accounts simultaneously. He replied, that he didn't really mind, but proceeded to ask about it.

After a long discussion about this, the GM seemed to have lost interest in inviting me. Even though I had explained that dual boxing was not against Blizzard's ToS or EULA, I think he was afraid of his guild being associated with a multi-boxer. I suppose it's expected for people to be ignorant of multi-boxers, which brings me to the question.

Full disclosure or not? Is bringing up that I multi-box too much information (TMI) or not?