Vent drives me a little bit insane, or at least it did.
When I was playing with my mates every Friday it was an essential means of communication. Often we would forget to type out the instructions to the couple of pugs that were running with us.
It wasn’t all sunshine and light though. Sure it was a bunch of long term mates (30 odd years for one mate as an example), but the difference between meeting in a pub and meeting over headphones is you can walk away from your annoyance-of-the-moment in the pub.
So it’s been a little while now since we have been together and we rarely get on vent together any more.
More desolate than Desolace
Likewise 99% of my instances and BGs have been with complete strangers, what little communication that occurs is via the text chat.
I am remembering again how desolate party chat can be. You really appreciate when you join a party that includes mates and these is some gentle ribbing going on, some crap talk beyond “pull this, sheep that”.
Desperate Messages
Then there are the times when you are desperately trying to get a message across.
Watch out… Pat!
Dear Mage, may I perchance be supplied with a fraction of you mana bars worth of liquid refeshment?
Of course some times you in up in a parochism over some foolish action. You find yourself banging your head on the desk, screaming your lungs out…
…but in the party chat void, no one can hear you scream…
Sometimes it really is like Get Smart and the cone of silence. You quickly type out a short, momentarily important, message then spend the next 5 minute trying to explain in more detail. (BGs… I’m looking at you!)
When your mid battle or in the Zerg in a battleground, typing a message out is like trying to sing the national anthem with a mouth stuffed full of potato chips. Bloody impossible (in my case I don’t actual know the national anthem, it’s got something about skirts and seeds… I think, or is it the one with the jumbuck and the swagman… Dirty old bugger.. maybe not)
Healing in tune
I think I am feeling it all the more right now. I haven’t found my healing song.
When Gnomeaggedon is out partying it’s in tune with My Pal and Firestarter. There is a rhythm to the pulses of fire and the roaring explosions.
I kinda feel like I need to be playing a bit of Enya while I play Squidly but I am struggling to keep my eyes open anyway, I don’t want to be jolted back from a deep Enya induced coma by a wipe.
There is no rhythm to healing, nothing to tap my feet to, nothing to nod my head to, wave my arms about in the air manically.
It’s all silence and meditation.
- How do you cope with the cone of silence that is party chat?
- Do you have a soundtrack to play by?
Gnomer and Out!
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http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/10/14/
the-cone-of-silence-party-chat/
You’re absolutely right about that… Naelian and I are always on Skype… now that I’ve gotten used to running with him, and especially since we traded our DPS shirts for tanking and healing ones, it’s really hard for me to run with a tank that doesn’t use voice chat. By the time I’ve typed out something as simple as “oom, drinking” they’ve already gotten ahead of me… or they don’t see it because they have the syndrome I call “tanking tunnel vision” or they’re blood DKs so they think they don’t need a healer or… yeah.
My guild is talking about finding a way to procure ourselves a vent server soon. I cannot wait.
It’s kind of funny that I never noticed the cone of silence effect until I got out of it though.
There is a new option… currently in beta testing.. Puggable.
A web based “vent” client…
“Who is Pat?” lawl
I know.. Kriz makes me cry with joy too….
Hey
I play resto too, and I have indeed been the victim of silence. Mostly from chainpulling rabid prot paladins. Tho it doesn’t affect the tanks usually, I have grown into the habbit of trying to get some talk going while summoning. usually works nice, and most pugers like to talk a bit. The worst is if someone starts of by letting everybody know that they don’t accept failure, and start bitching about gear and dps and blahblag. Its a 5 man! No need to ruin the mood. Doesn’t happen a lot tho, just need to spread your roses before the sourpuss can spew his bile on the newly dinged dps. On pug raids, the ultimate icebreaker is fishfeasts. A small investment for some raidhugs. Ooo! And the battleground buffing! Man, I love battlegrounds where everybody is buffing.
On the account of music, its opera for raids and 5 mans, flower duet in particular. To keep the cool
And all kinds of stuff bgs, bring me the horizon lately.
I fear if I played opera when healing I would be asleep before the 1st pull…
I like to try to keep the conversation going whether bgs, instances or raids.
You are right pleasant talk breeds pleasant talk