Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

So I'm chatting to some guild mates on Ventrilo one night, just shooting the breeze, talking a little shop, usual kind of conversation. Anyway, the subject comes up about how we are doing in PvP as a guild. "We were 7th on the server last week!" the guild leader pipes up. 7th? 7th across the whole server? That seemed impressive for the size of guild we are and the number of current active players.

Now, I've always considered myself an ok kind of player and the guys in the guild are all pretty similar level, or higher. I've frequently had conversations with various guildies about the skill level of fellow faction members and of course slagged off opposition players, but seeing your guilds name actually ranked against others gave me pause for thought and inspired some further investigation. (by the time I checked them they were subject to the weekly update)

The guild has risen to from 7th to 5th on average kills per week.
I'm top of the tree for my given profession (woohoo, go me)
My guild leader is just behind me in 2nd place (another ego boost for me)
Another guildie is top of his profession

Impressive huh?  Well, I'm not entirely sure. As I look at the published lists I cant help wondering how we have done so well. We arent a hardcore PvP guild, we have limited numbers (half our guild is alt characters) and we dont practice or anything. How have we managed this level of "success".

So, I have a look at a few other stats...    Our total weekly kills puts the guild 6th, a good 100+ kills behind the 5th place lot. On an individual basis I come in 10th on weekly kills, another guild member is 20th, another 28th and the guild leader back in 31st !!  One gratifying stat is that the newest guild member has come in at a respectable 48th. Bear in mind this is all out of 738 registered players and 318 active participants.

Personally I think this isnt too shabby. We arent setting the world alight, but we are holding our own when we need to. Just think what a bit of pratice and co-ordination could do for our game....

The London Meet-Up

Well, its been about a week since meeting up with some of my online gaming friends and I've slowly put things together in my head.....(I lost about 4 hours due to lager)

Was great to see some old faces again, some new faces and generally enjoy a top night of boozing.

It was odd to relate the ingame persona to the RL person and as suspected there was quite a marked difference in many of them. The "online super-hero" turned out to be a very young mild-mannered quiet, unassuming lad. The quiet unassuming support player turned out to be a massive rock-monster !!

What was great is that despite the varied back-grounds, upbringing and even languages the one thing we had in common was the catalyst for an immensely enjoyable day.