So Who's Faythe ... ?
... REALLY? She looks nothing like her main character. If I were to be a bit truer to shape - I'd have to be a Pandaren. She is the passenger in her beloved Astra Convertible in the photo to the right; the driver is her friend and partner of more than twenty-five years. OMG! Faythe is a she!
When did I start playing this game? I started playing this game in 2010 - so compared to some of the veteran players in Immortal Ascension, I am very inexperienced.
Why did I start playing this game? My children bugged me endlessly about playing this game; they had created characters on their cousins' games. Eventually, I bought the game for them to play, especially for my two youngest children who were struggling with reading and writing. I started playing so I could understand what it was about. I needed to know what was going on and how to help solve the problems that my two youngest children encountered.
Did the reading and writing thing work? Yes. For my son, playing the game meant he had to learn to read the text of quests, and when he needed help, I had him type to me in party chat. We played the game in different rooms of the house. My son's reading ability was assessed at being at the level of a 10-year old when he was 12. However, within six months of playing the game, he had caught up and was able to read and write (type) text in reasonable sentences at the level of a typical 12-year-old.
So you have at least two children, one aged 12? I started playing this game in 2010; when my three children were aged, 10, 12 and 14. For those who are trying to work out my age - I started playing this game when I was 48. I am a rarity, in 2013, Razorzone surveyed WoW players, to discover that 0.5% of players were aged over 50. There is not a lot of public demographics for those who play the game.
What do I do in Real Life? I am a Lecturer in Early Childhood Education and also the Assistant Head of Discipline (Early Childhood and Pathway programs) an Australian University. I'm not the research-type academic - so everyone is safe - their details are sacrosanct. Many of the answers to the questions on this page will give people a clear idea of the person I am.
Why am I still playing? Since 2010, I have met a lot of really talented, worthwhile, amazing and interesting people in those years. Having become a Guild Master of a moderately successful raiding guild has been challenging, and I have enjoyed the challenge of the guild and the end-game raiding content. I have come to value and enjoy the company of my online friends. I hate television and cannot stand watching advertisements. So I spend my time either working, talking to my family, cooking, going out to see movies at the cinema or playing WoW (my private cartoon). It is funny, but when my kids explain to their friends that their mum is a Guild Master of a raiding guild in WoW; their friends all want to come and live with us. Their parents aren't as interested in playing online games... nor as interesting as a result.
My main characters? Faythe is my second character in the game; my first is the Destruction Warlock Korel (she's in the guild too). Faythe was nearly deleted at levels 22, 35 and again escaped deletion at about 76. Being a healer, Faythe became my ticket into raiding. Currently, I want to have a character for every healing class. But, the reality of mastering those different classes takes more time than I can devote to the task and yet still master my main Holy Priest.
What is my WoW history? I started playing Korel (Affliction Warlock) and vividly remember marvelling at the pre-cata environment as I would run around Stormwind, clicking on guards to hear their screaming impatience. Goldshire was fascinating. Westfall was scary, and those mechanicals were smashing me to pieces, as Korel was level 12 or 13. During the endless corpse-runs to my dead body, I met Waggell, the Guild Master of Fat Dog Project; as a level 90 hunter, he effortlessly killed the mechanicals with one shot. He'd pop up now and then, and as I was struggling in Redridge Mountains, he eventually invited me into his new guild. I levelled my Warlock as Affliction.
I levelled Korel, and the Fat Dog Project guild grew. I rolled a new character, Faythe a Holy Priest, and while I have experimented with Discipline and Shadow, I have always returned to that class-specialisation. She became the back-up dungeon healer for the guild. Throughout the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, I quested, explored and dungeoned while waiting for the promised raid-group to start. Korel achieved LoreMaster before Cataclysm re-wrote the lore quests, due entirely to the fact that I didn't raid and wanted to see every part of Azeroth. I played, for the most part - by myself. The Fat Dog Project Guild had some lovely people, who would join me in completing dungeons and personal achievements.
Waggell, the GM of Fat Dog Project, hinted at raiding ... but, never pulled a group together. Some Fat Dog Project members began raiding with other guilds, and I was very interested to see what that was all about. When I was asked if I'd like to heal for a Deathforce Raid, I found myself a bit overwhelmed. It was challenging, fast-paced and intoxicating - meaning it was exciting and a bit disorienting to be a part of. I didn't use any voice chat - so had to do a lot of reading and watching YouTube how-to videos to work out what was going on. I was good enough at healing for Deathforce - to become one of their healers. I got introduced to Ventrilo and bought a microphone headset and learning how to Push-To-Talk was probably the best lesson learnt early.
Since that time, I have enjoyed this game and explored most of the end-game, raiding up to the Heroic Level. Let's face it; Holy Priests are not the most sought after healing class. Legion has witnessed a bit a return to what I have been assured were the glory days... "back in BC".
What is my Guild Philosophy? I think it is best to start with my personal experience of being in a guild and why I left them. The parts I enjoy most about being in a guild is the freedom to explore all parts and levels of the game with a group of people who are supportive friends. However - the friendship doesn't stop there; these friends are also ambitious and visionary people who want to make the end-game possible and are committed to working it out in a genuinely honest manner.
I left Fat Dog Project, as it was never going to see the "end game". It took a while for me to realise it, but the guild was only about making the GM a "Fat Dog". Willya, a founder of Immortal Ascension, saw it first and started moving away to raid with other guilds. He would often tell me that if I wanted to see the end-game - it wouldn't be with Fat Dog Project. He implored me to stop being so committed to a group of people, some of whom had become friends and company with whom I enjoyed playing. Being committed to a group is important to keep a guild together just as it is important for a guild to give a reason for people to remain committed.
As I moved into Deathforce, I started in that guild as a raid healer. It was hard work. Yeah, I know Deathforce wasn't a serious raiding guild, and it took anyone into raids - even those who didn't know how to play their class. Of lasting value, it taught me how to heal through anything and everything. I worked out with the GM of Deathforce if his guild was going to make any progress into the WoWProgession Realm Rankings, that the approach to raiding had to be a bit more stringent and not just take anyone. He agreed and permitted me to form a raid team that was seriously interested in getting through the raid bosses. I became involved in the background to the Deathforce Website, as it was the best place to communicate with people with some sense of privacy on personal information. The raid team began making some impressive headway, at one point Deathforce was in the top 20 on Gundrak - due entirely to my team. However, this also meant that I was becoming more exposed to some of the poisonous sides of being in the guild. I experienced open jealousy and spite, with some vicious rumours and some horrifying stuff beginning to happen. One player went as far as recording Ventrilo Channels, and things started to get a bit too serious. I left Deathforce, as I was experiencing some intense harassment that had frighteningly moved on to stalking members of my family and making claims of spreading rumours into my workplace. It was genuinely scary stuff.
I left Deathforce just as the raid team had only worked out how to get into raiding progression. As I was the Raid Leader, the guys didn't want to see that disappear - so they left too. That was genuinely amazing to me. The Website Page "Our Story" provides critical information about how I got into raiding and formed a guild.
The "Our Story" page describes the journey towards becoming a guild - it wasn't smooth sailing. However, as I have refined a guild's philosophy and approach to community - we have landed ourselves into a comfortable space.
We work towards being a community of committed, easy-going, yet ambitious friends. We share our vision of seeing end-game content and having fun - both the intoxicating variety of fun and the hilarious kooky type of fun.
We have helped our guild members, those who are interested, in achieving those coveted "Ahead of The Curve" personal achievements.
- Ahead of The Curve: Garrosh Hellscream (10 player) normal June 2014.
- Ahead of the Curve: Imperator's Fall on Heroic in May 2015.
- Time is a Flat Circle, defeating Archimonde on Normal, in October 2015.
- Ahead of the Curve: The Black Gate, in March 2016
- Ahead of the Curve: Xavius, in January 2017
- Ahead of the Curve: Gul'dan, in April 2017
- Ahead of the Curve: Kil'Jaeden, in October 2017
These days, we find ourselves working on Raid Guild and Personal Achievements in current content. I think that is evidence of my philosophy working towards establishing a great Guild Groove. As a Guild Master, I seek to create a community that offers opportunity, not just for end-game achievement, but to also establish and strengthen friendships in the game. These elements have spilt over into real life, where we build our community through online forums. Initially, this was using our website. However, in recent years, we have begun connecting, speaking and sharing fun and support through FaceBook and even more recently through Discord. It is great to have different places for our players to connect - as everyone is different, and not everyone is a fan of FaceBook or interested in joining a website.
I have to say; I was a bit fearful of our very first Guild Meet-up in September 2017. Despite being a lecturer, I'm a shy person. The Guild Meet-Up enticed people to journey from as far as Perth and Brisbane to gather together in Melbourne, Australia. We have formed some lasting and genuinely accepting friendships and formed a community of people across all walks of life, from all parts of Australia and New Zealand, with the occasional member from other parts of the world.
So, reading through all that - Immortal Ascension is a great guild, and I am proud to have achieved what I have both as a person and as a player... I am proud to be Faythe.
Coming to the end of the "Faythe-era" for Immortal Ascension. On the 13 May 2019, seven years after starting Immortal Ascension, I decided to step down from the Guild Master role and encouraged the Council to step up into full guild leadership. I posted the following into the guild's FaceBook group page:
"Well, this is a difficult post to make. Across the past 12 months, my real life has become quite tricky. My game life is a part of my real life, and it has become difficult as well.
How did you come to know the time was right to move on? Across most of 2017 and 2018, I had found myself with less and less time to spend on the game. Ending my time as GM wasn't as graceful as I had hoped. My eighteen-month minimal presence caused some things to go awry - in that it revealed that there were two different parts of our guild community. In some very real [and awkward] ways, I had let the guild drift away from the original mantra of "RL comes first". Not having the time to invest in an online community, when in a position of responsibility and leadership, is dangerous [possibly too strong a word] for that community. I wasn't present enough to see what was happening and relied upon the Council to shoulder the day-to-day work. While that wasn't a bad thing, the guild had drifted, and the drift revealed the age-old tension of those who are serious about the raiding achievements and those who are serious about playing a game. When I found myself managing a busy work-life, family-life, dealing with a bit of 'game-fatigue' or getting bored with the way the game had changed I knew I had to make up my mind about what I wanted to do with my limited time. When I was not able to log into the online guild community as much as I used to, I knew it was time to wind up the "Faythe-era" in the leadership of IA. The guild deserved a greater online presence from their leadership.
You apologise in your FaceBook speech, what was that about? Some of the recent Blizzard game-dynamic changes were good, yet, as a guild, we were still struggling with the tension between those who saw the game as a game and those who saw the game was a major part of their Real Life. There is genuine space for RL, including a dedicated game-life that achieves every Ahead Of The Curve for every expansion.
As I had become increasingly absent, an increasing amount of the day-to-day guild-life was centred on raiding and, more obviously, raiding progression. However, not all of the Council agreed with that being the primary goal for the guild. There has always been a tension between getting serious about raiding progression and getting serious about the guild community. Three of the council saw the seriousness of raiding progression as the main driver. Across the 18 months when I was just logging into the game to raid or to prepare to raid, one of those Council members, Emrald, carried most of the load. It was unfair of me to have left that person in that position.
Guild Leadership and Tension? Across the last year, I had spent some time on some discussions to re-focus the Council on their values for the game. I wanted the Council to step up into real guild leadership. There were a couple of unsettling incidents arising from differing raiding expectations. To put that into context, when I was more present, I relieved the tension of raiding achievement through developing an open guild community. People could come and go, raid with other guilds to get the time-critical AOTC. Some of our more experienced players took up that opportunity and played with two different guilds. While this eased the tension, it made things difficult when IA went to face each raid boss. It didn't remove the pressure; it eased it a little and made some people more frustrated. The tension has always been present in IA. The guild's raid team in MOP was limited to 10 - we never had enough for 25. The ten people were a tight group that played well and achieved some great things. People loved being a part of that group of ten core raiders. It made the game fun for them. Not so much fun for those in the guild who, for what ever reason, were not able to be good enough to be a part of the core raid team.
It is important to note that there were always those who looked in on a core group - wishing they could join in. It happens in-game and out-of-game in RL. I never wanted the in-game community to be that cliquey. It has always been a tension within the guild community, one tension I wish I could remove. We never had enough RL time to organise two raid groups - every attempt at this failed. Just like every attempt at Rated Battleground groups and Arena had failed. When MOP ended, and Blizzard launched the open groups with flexible and responsive raid mechanics - we thought the answer had been found.
However, we struggled with the larger group of people who could and couldn't' commit themselves to meet the dedicated commitment of raiding progression toward achieving AOTC. In reality, the tension was no longer between the ten core raiders of MOP and those who didn't get on the team. It became an endless struggle within a flexible group of between 16 and 19 raiders who all wanted to have a go. In the end, things may not have gone the way I would have preferred - but they went the way they did - because the Council were working out what was important to them as Guild Leaders and what was getting in the way of the guild's community.
Are you OK with how it ended? Those in the Council who wanted a more serious approach to the game's raiding context - left. Those who were more serious about playing the game as an inclusive and easy-going community stayed. I guess we became two guilds - not that it was neatly organised and managed to achieve that - that was the outcome. It was certainly messy, some heated things were said, and hasty decisions were made. In the end, all people felt the pain of deciding what was important to them and where they want to spend their time. Time will heal most, if not all, of the wounds. I have stepped back and let the IA Council handle the issues of the separation; I feel a little like a parent letting their young adults leave home. Except it is me who is leaving!
Am I OK with it? Yes! Just like any parent - I am fearful, annoyed, reflective and possibly regretful. I have seen other previous-guild members return to the new guild that has formed. They left IA to find their achievements with like-minded people who were serious about progression. I have witnessed their return to play with the friends they made while in IA. Likewise, I have witnessed some of my friends who had diminished their IA guild-life involvement return to the more inclusive and easy going core guild community and resume their participation in raiding - almost like coming back to say to me, "it is about time you stopped the struggle!".
I relish this perspective of seeing my friends [real people] step up into leadership, and be in a place where they can make decisions, make changes, and be the leaders they want to be, in a guild community that is responsive and helpful.
I think we grew to be who we truly are and I hope others can see that this is a good play-space. It is important to be in a community of like-minded friends - who can be honest and mature.
I think I did a lot of growing up - and it was time for me to leave and let IA do its own thing.