• Ramblings

    Unfairness

    April 16, 2013

    It’s like raiding in World of Warcraft. You pot your flasks, you have the best gems and enchants for your gear, you prepare your raiding food and potions, you spend hours going through theory craft of your class and practising your rotation on the training dummy. During the boss encounter, you end up one of the top few in DPS/healing meters, the boss finally goes down, and then  the system gives the boss’s loot you want to the player who does not really care, hardly logins, and is at the bottom of the DPS/healing meters.

    You comfort yourself, telling yourself that there is always the next week. The next week when you down the boss, you didn’t get the loot. And it happened again the week after, and after, and after. And you start asking if the random number generator has anything against you.

    It is the same with life. The person who does not deserve it, tends to get the things you wanted, the things you worked hard for. And gets it again, and again, and again. And you ask if life has anything against you, if life is biased, if life is blind.

    You have doubts, questioning what is the point of working so hard when those scumbags get things that you worked so hard for, without even trying.

    The unfairness of it all. In game. And in life.

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  • Ramblings

    Back to WoW

    March 20, 2011

    There is a strange comforting feel when I am playing WoW.

    Everything is so systematic, so logical. Go there, kill 10 of this, go here, get this. Upon completion, you get this and that. To purchase this upgrade, you need x number of this. To get x number of this, you farm y number of that.

    Perhaps that is what I want in my life now. Boring, logical, routine.

    I had gone back to WoW, surrendering myself happily into its embrace.

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  • Ramblings,  World of Warcraft

    Management Lessons From WoW – Lesson #1

    June 15, 2009

    After leading a guild in World of Warcraft for quite some time, I realised there is a lot in common between leading a guild and managing in work place. As I am getting more and more management responsibilities, I find that it is helpful sometimes to apply what I have learnt from leading a guild. I decided to put down it in words, and perhaps it might be interesting to revisit these in the future and see whether the lessons learnt are still valid.

    Lesson #1 – Motivation

    Motivation in WoW comes in many form. This is especially evident when in a raid. Different people raid for different reasons. Some raid because they find it fun, some raid for the loot, some raid for the comradeship, and some raid because they like the idea of working in a team to defeat the bosses. Knowing why each and every single guild member’s reasons to raid will give a guild leader a pretty good idea to motivate the guild member to turn up for the raid.

    Getting guild members to turn up for raid is make even more difficult by the mere fact that the guild leader has no control over the members’ actions. The guild leader is not their boss who is the one doing their performance evaluation at the end of the year or paying them a monthly salary. As such, playing hard will not be a good idea to ‘force’ the guild members to come for raid. Motivation is the key. And knowing why the guild member raid will give the guild leader a pretty good idea on how to motivate this guild member.

    In work place, it is slightly easier given the fact that the manager usually has some kind of authority over his subordinates. However, being too hard on the subordinates will sometimes create resentment, and subordinates may just do the bare minimum if they feel that they are being mistreated. I find that motivation works much better than actually imposing one’s authority on the subordinates.

    It may be just a meal, or it may be just be a praise, knowing what drives one to work harder, better, and longer, usually gives me a pretty good idea on how to motivate someone. I also discover that for the same person, different motivation is required at different times. It could be just the promise of a free lunch this time, but the next time, it could be a challenge issued for him to get the system to work better.

    Motivation works on myself too. Understanding what drives me allows me to motivate myself in various situations.

    Thus conclude this lesson. I will write the next lesson when I feel like it.

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  • World of Warcraft

    Oscar Winner Who Plays WoW

    March 4, 2009

    Here is a Oscar winner who plays World of Warcraft, is a Guild Master (GM) of a raidng guild. His guild has just completed Sartharion-3 drakes up. For those who do not play WoW, basically it is one of the hardest encounter in the game right now.

    His interview on his Oscar and his WoW is here.

    He is a good proof that it is possible to strike a healthy balance between career, family and gaming.

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