Raidguilds with entry fees

The social structure that is guilds has come a long way in the history of online gaming. If we take World of Warcraft as an example, which is handy since the game has been around and evolved for a longer period now, we can see the same has happened on Azeroth – the founding of guilds is as frequent as ever, but the reasons why they are joined and the ways they are run have changed gradually over time, as a consequence of the game changing. There’s a vast variety of guilds these days, catering to every imaginable playstyle. There’s true ‘professional guilds’ and there’s guilds with all sorts of requirements. The other week I read about the rise of a ‘super guild’ on World of Matticus, a new form of guild that has sprung from Blizzard’s featured guild perks system for Cataclysm.

If I think back on the early days of my own server, there was only a handful of 40man raidguilds around. If you wanted to raid seriously, there was a limited choice and we all knew each other on that block, just as you generally knew your opponents in a battleground as a more frequent PVPer (which made for many a fun interlude at Xroads). There were hardly any so-called ‘casual raidguilds’. There were far less non-raiding guilds than today and there was certainly a lot less going on in terms of public chat pugs and lose alliances.

My very first raidguilds also had a rather modest structure and set of requirements and guidelines in place, compared to the well-oiled business machinery run by many guilds these days. Officer teams were chaotic bunches more often than not, recruitment happened in much more legère a fashion and if you wanted to raid on Thursday night, the way to sign up was to be there on time.

Oh yes, we’ve come a long way with our guild organisation; with our lootrules and raid calendars, our recruitment procedures and attendance monitors, guild ranks and officer departments. In Adrenaline we make use of all these options and more. Over the years, Blizzard has introduced more tools to help guilds organize and monitor themselves better. I can certainly say that the implementation of guild banks for example was a huge relief to all the officers out there, used to re-logging constantly to some guild mule.

Another change that has evolved over the years in WoW, is a guild’s need for security. Almost all of us have had at least a guildmate or two who’s account’s been compromised in the past. Even worse, many guilds (ours included) have experienced their guild bank raided because a member and/or officer has been hacked. Using a login authenticator has become pretty much standard in WoW’s community, even if some still resist (for what I personally find very weak reasons) to get one attached to their account.

The other day, Alas wrote an article about an officer guild-quitting on her, because of her guild’s authenticator requirement for raiders. It’s not unfrequent for guilds to have safety requirements like this today – but she goes on to ask the more fundamental question of “how far can guild requirements go?” without becoming unreasonable.
Personally I believe that the sky is the limit. Guilds are always about joint ventures and just like it’s up to every guild leadership to decide on their own type of guild and guidelines, it’s your freedom to join or leave a guild that is not to your liking or found a guild of your own. If there is enough people interested in a certain type of guild, chances are such a guild will be created.

We might have a hard time thinking out of the box right now, but if we look at the long way guilds and online communities have come, I wonder how their structure is going to evolve from here: how are things going to look like in a world like Azeroth, 10 years from now? What procedures and requirements might future guilds employ?

Paying for membership

I have an aunt and uncle who love to golf. They’re average middle-class citizens, they don’t own a house of their own and they only drive one car which is 15 years old. They might go on a short vacation every other year, but that’s about as much as they can afford. Pretty standard where I live, one of the so-called richest countries in the world.
In order to find a shared hobby for their retirement, one that allows them to be together outdoors and be active without the ability to hike or run marathons anymore, they settled for their mutual wish to take up golfing together – a much more difficult endeavor for two average people like them, than meets the eye.

The few golf clubs available around here are the same as pretty much everywhere: damn expensive to join. For those of you that might not be aware of this system, the majority of playgrounds like that are not public and come with entry fees and membership fees of several thousand euros, ranging from 5000-10’000 per year, up to more astronomical numbers such as 50’000 euros and more. Entry fees do not include yearly membership, nor any further services or equipment – they’re only payed for well, entry.

A big stash for ‘normal’ people. A reason to say fuck golfing maybe and look into mini-golf. Certainly a reason to go vote and prevent more of these places to pop up and claim public spaces and wildlife habitats. But I’ll leave the snidy side-remarks at that because I really don’t want to talk about the sense or non-sense that is a few select ones claiming leagues and leagues of public countryside for themselves and their private leisure, pushing out all other people and animals alike (not to mention the gazillion galleons of precious water required to maintain the supple lawns every week), to mingle in exclusive country clubs because life is so hard and they really need some luxury every now and then to relax in peace. Ooops, have I already done it now? Oh well, there’s only so much quiet sufferance I got in me, and it’s Julian-week after all.

The logic behind golf club policy is of course most comprehensible: they’re about exclusiveness as much as the need to limit the number of visitors in order to maintain the courses and keep them a clean and quiet experience. You can’t and don’t want to have places like that crowded by hundreds of people. The high maintenance costs a lot of money and you want things to be profitable after all – none of that is possible if you opened it to a wider audience who’s never gonna spend cash in the same way, while ruining the whole point. Also, many golf clubs around here do business with the excess money, investing into financial projects and so forth.

The business model works for the ones running it and their clients alike: both parties get what they want from the deal.

The guild with the entry fee

In the year 2012, Leprechaun, an imaginary tauren warrior from the imaginary Stormglade EU server, is the founder and GM of an ambitious raidguild called -Decadence-.  Decadence is safely established among Europe’s top 5 raid progression guilds and home to a force of 45 regular raiders with a 99% attendance or more. 
The guild runs a strict raiding schedule and transparent guidelines, monitored by a very dedicated staff of officers who look after all the guild’s needs 24/7. Joining Decadence is rather simple: willingness to commit to all raid nights, profound knowledge of your class and game mechanics (yadda yadda) and: submitting a membership fee of 60’000 gold upon joining.

When Decadence set out with this unique recruitment requirement, they were initially met with an outrage in their thread on Stormglade’s public forums. By now, the guild is one of the most respected and favoured places to be in their battlegroup. Raiders are switching servers only to get a shot at a trial in Decadence. One more notorious rumor tells a story about a smaller raidguild’s former GM, who disbanded his own guild and sold off the entire guild bank, in order to be able to submit the membership fee.

During this time, Leprechaun has been accused of being an elitist and worse by many haters, as much as being praised a genius by his own guild mates and fans all across other servers. In an interview with MMO-Reportz.com, he had the following things to say about Decadence’ unique approach to recruitment:

“At some point the number of applications was just too overwhelming to deal with. This was on the brink of hitting EU’s top 10. The officers were working all around the clock and our guild’s expenses skyrocketed in order to support our swift progression and minimize our members’ need to spend time on farming for mats and consumables.
In Decadence, we provide for everyone: everything is guild funded and free, down to individual playstyle / consumables, repairs and extra gear sets. All of this is funded through membership fees and business done with it.”

“We felt that with the 60’000 gold entry fee we were killing two birds with one stone: a smaller selection of recruits who put in the extra effort of depositing a reasonable sum of money the guild needs in order to function.

“We don’t believe the amount of gold is too high; if anything, it shows a member is dedicated and knowledgeable enough to farm this kind of money in the game. It’s not hard to come by in my opinion, at least not if you’re playing a lot. And that’s the sort of players we want to attract.”

“We’re furthering the goldseller business – are you serious? [laughs] Now that’s a pretty ludicrous claim, in my opinion!  Decadence is a small guild after all, we hardly influence this kind of global enterprise. Also, the types of raiders we attract are probably not the kind of casual players that are more likely to struggle with gold in the game.”

“Asking everyone for the same deposit makes our members feel they’re contributing in the same way, it’s an even share among everybody. Already upon joining, this allows new recruits to feel they are actively partaking in Decadence and have a ‘right to be here’. This is easing them into becoming an established part of the guild. In return, our members get a unique and all-inclusive guild experience. Decadence is run professionally and provides for all our raiders’ needs without any further guild requirements that other raid guilds have, such as donations or material farming. Even our excess loot is evenly distributed, rather than hoarded by us. I don’t see how our policies are so much worse from other guilds, we’re simply doing it differently.”

“We provide our raiders with the experience they’re looking for. In return, we use entry fees to do guild business and ensure a smooth progression. Besides that, members leaving us are eligible to a refund of a 50% of the initial sum. This is an additional security for us in terms of guild drama: we don’t have rage-quitting in Decadence. People treat a guild very differently if their own money has been invested. And a potential refund makes for much more amicable parting, we have learned.” [chuckles]

I admit that while my initial reaction to the membership fee was very critical, much of that if not all has been dispersed through the course of the interview. There is a solid logic behind this guild model: it allows the guild to function the way it does and there’s a few very interesting pros in Leprechaun’s reasoning. His points on members sharing ‘ownership’ and including newcomers straight away for example, makes a lot of sense to me. So does his point on guild drama, as sad as it might be. The 60’000 gold fee is a measure of security for Decadence and it provides members with services in return.
The only ones that really get excluded are those unwilling or unable to make such a deposit – but then these players would probably not be able to commit to such a raid agenda anyway (much less want to).

I don’t think Decadence is different or necessarily more elitist than other guilds: it is just one joint venture among others, catering to one type of raider. And unlike the golf club analogy, it does not harm anyone else by its exclusivity which is probably the most important part.

What does the future hold?

I can definitely see more evolved ‘business models’ like this hypothetical one, exist in the future of online guilds. There are already enough signs out there, maybe there’s even a few raidguilds around already that require deposits of this sort. Guilds are here to stay and as long as MMOs continue to grow, guilds will follow that progress and become more professionalized, with more elaborate concepts and membership requirements. I guess you can like that or not, but then the freedom of choice is still yours.
Would you pay to join the ‘perfect guild’, if it enhanced your gaming experience? I don’t see why not.

The Traveler’s Logbook, Part II: Secrets of Gilneas

Last week I started a two-part report on my adventures around Azeroth post-Shattering, deciding to dedicate some time to Thousand Needles and Gilneas. I’m enjoying to write these reports immensely and have been very eager since to continue my tale on the worgen starting area which holds a special place in my heart among my favorite maps of WoW. So without much further ado, let me pick up where I left the trail last week and present the second part of the traveler’s logbook about the secrets I discovered in this lovely place! As before, this is meant to be a sneak peek and all snapshots are expandable.

Chapter 1: Of sheep and interior decoration

Traveler’s logbook, November 30th, the year of the Shattering.
The most striking impression upon setting foot in Gilneas for the first time, is that this zone is so, so much England. Heavy rain is pouring down relentlessly and there’s a gray mist settling over the grassy landscape and more highland areas all across the zone. Every now and then you chance upon certain rock formations that will take your memories right back to that time you spent in Somerset and northern Britain. And while the fauna in Gilneas is rather scarcely spread, there’s one animal gracing the landscape before all others: sheep. If that’s not enough to make a northerner’s heart beat a little faster in his chest, then maybe the spooky atmosphere in Gilneas’ medieval towns will be able to.



Keel Harbor to the west of the city of Gilneas, is an astonishing example of how much work was put into the design of the entire zone: never have I encountered such lavish decoration inside and outside of town buildings in all of Azeroth! While the towns all appear deserted to my human eyes and there is no life to be found inside their walls, I have discovered some of the most well-tended and charming homes on my way.

Most tempted was I to linger in these beautiful homes. Yet natural instinct told me not to taste any drink nor to steal food from the tables.

After breaking myself free of their spell, my curiosity turned me towards Greymane Manor, looming through the mists across the western hills. The way west however was blocked by a firm formation of hills as the only street leading up the manor leads out of Gilneas city. Having just passed down south to Alderic’s Repose however, I found myself in the unfortunate position of being cut off from reaching the city as the bridge crossing over presently lies in ruins. There was however another path.

They really do love their sheep here.

 Chapter 2: The secret passage

Officially, there are four entrances into the city of Gilneas. However, having investigated all the buildings in the area so thoroughly, I found myself chancing upon a secret passage in the cellar of one of the home’s located at Alderic’s Repose. The hair on the back of my neck stood erect as I took courage to follow the dark and spooky corridor…

…taking me directly into the heart of the city. At this point I will not go into further descriptions of this delightful place where the fires are ablaze and bustling leaves are driving down dark cobblestone streets, lest you be tempted to skip the experience first-hand. The music in Gilneas is most formidable too; the deep voice of the bassoon and spooky ring of a spinet greet the weary adventurer, doing nothing to ease his mind.


Back on track, I left the city behind me heading for Greymane Manor. I did not let myself be deceived by an off-limits way sign halfway through the journey and made my way up after taking a considerable detour.

The manor was everything I expected and more: home to Genn Greymane, it is an exquisite place of rich taste and splendor. Feeling oddly out of place, I hastened on to leave it behind me.

Chapter 3: An unexpected party

I finished my tour around the zone by crossing Stormglen Village and paying the Schwarz…forgive me, the Blackwald a visit. Much to my dismay, there was no cake to be found here which convinced me not to overstay my welcome and head straight for Silverpine Forest up north. Upon leaving Gilneas, I stumbled into a most curious camp at the Silverpine border, named “Beren’s Peril“. There were bears roaming the area and I found these two fellows sitting at a camp nearby:

I will leave others to be the judge of this curious scene and most suspicious name-giving of said spot. For my part, I have long learned that there are no coincidences in Azeroth. I have yet to find out the exact reason for this reference though – maybe someone more knowledgeable will help me out someday. 

Closing the logbook

With this, I finish the retelling of my adventures in Gilneas. Not surprisingly, the zone has met all my expectations and definitely sold me into rolling a worgen alt come Cataclysm in order to experience the place come to life. I’ve yet to meet all its inhabitants and I’ve the firm intention to find Sherlock somewhere turning around a corner in Gilneas City.

I hope that those of you that have followed my travels through both Thousand Needles and the home of the worgen were inspired to do some more exploring of Azeroth and pay these zones a visit sometime while you’re counting the days until Cataclysm. There are uncounted secrets to be found on the way for those determined to seek them out. It’s a magical world, Hobbes ol’ buddy !

Another Dog for your Kennel

For an early Monday morning post, there’s good news for all you WoW playing dog lovers out there:

Noticed those new mastiff hounds strolling around Gilneas or Western Plaguelands? Sad that you aren’t a hunter to tame one of them?

Well, you still get to have one of your own now by re-visiting good old Scarlet Monastery! Blizzard have changed the (rather boring) model of one of their old drops in there, namely Dog Whistle dropped by Houndmaster Loksey in the Library Wing. Nicer still: they’ve changed this item from a 3 charge use to a permanent trinket!

Naturally, all us (slightly loony) pet and bauble collectors need to have this – and your Perky Pug will be happy to get a big buddy to play with!

Cat person or not, these two (make that three if you’re actually a hunter) really look adorable together!

The Traveler’s Logbook, Part I: How to have a blast in Thousand Needles

Exploring is one of my most favoured activities in an MMO. There is nothing sweeter than following down untrodden roads into a brand new world of wonder and mystery. I can still recall my very first day in World of Warcraft, when I walked down the path that leads from Northshire Abbey down into Goldshire. Elwynn Forest unfurled all around me and I felt my heart rise in amazement. Just a moment later, I spotted a lvl 10 warlock and his voidwalker which led me to exclamations of “amagad, that is so cool!” and “amagad, he’s already lvl 10!”.

I love the very first days of an expansion. It’s when I do nothing at all but explore all the corners of the new world, while some of my guild mates already have their leveling strategy laid out carefully or dive into a profession spree. I couldn’t care less about leveling – there will be plenty, PLENTY of time to get those experience points, those reputation points, those skill points and badges. But the feeling of being an adventurer, or a child looking at the world with his brand new eyes, only ever lasts so long. It is a precious time in our lives. You only get one first time in all things.

It is a precious time in an MMO too, one that I intend to make last for as long as possible. Now the Shattering wasn’t quite an expansion yet, but it’s changed the virtual home of WoW gamers of many years in such fundamental ways that we get to adventure and explore the world all over. I can honestly say that I haven’t had as much fun in WoW for many, many months, like the fun I’ve had the past two days – when I set out to explore some of the secrets of Kalimdor and to have a look at Gilneas which I have highly anticipated before on this blog. Therefore I have decided to make this a two-part article, starting off in Thousand Needles where I had an absolute blast and continuing my tale on Gilneas in a follow-up next week. If you haven’t taken the time yet to visit some of these new places, I highly recommend you grab your adventurer’s boots and get going!

The following is a traveler’s log and photo album of things encountered during my adventures in Thousand Needles after the Shattering, the special moments and fun to be had in this zone, without giving away everything. It is a place (among many others) very much worth your attention and it’s where I shall begin this two-part tale. All images are expandable.

Chapter 1 & 2: Adventures of the deep and twilight horrors

Traveler’s logbook, November 24th, the year of the Shattering.
Thousand Needles has probably undergone one of the most dramatic changes in the Shattering as the entire, former dry desert zone has been flooded. I entered the map from Feralas and found myself swimming pretty instantly. I resisted my initial urge to levitate my way through and decided to dive down into the deep below – and what a mysterious world it was that welcomed me there!

Like for other zones and hardly surprising in this case, the flora and fauna around Thousand Needles has changed. I found myself in the company of puffer fish, snails and the more majestic deep sea turtles who were just as surprised at my presence as I was at theirs.

The underwater world is stunningly beautiful and serene. If Vashj’ir is going to be anything like that, I’m sold! I adjusted quickly to the physics of swimming and found it a most rewarding experience – there’s a huge difference between swimming in “quest ponds” and actually traveling through a vibrant underwater world that is designed for you to be there.

…wish I could be part of that world.

At this point I was slowly running out of breath and my diver’s camera EsO-2xT, which the goblins in Booty Bay had assured me was 100% water-proof, started to get wet (I want my money back!). Time to climb one of Thousand Needle’s stone colossi and have a look around the zone from up high!

The hanging bridges provide a spectacular view and not just that, the background music of Thousand Needles has been changed slightly: while the tribal touch of the area prevails, this is a softer and much sadder tune than before.


There is some clan strife going on between the platforms, horde fighting each other or fending off alliance attackers from the borders. I didn’t take the time to inform myself properly about the situation up here, but I met some pretty impressive tauren warchiefs before moving on to investigate the cursed light emanating from the southern border of the zone. Something foul was clearly afoot there…

..The walk from twilight Bulwark to Withering was one of nightmares and horrors. A twilight cult of all the races of Azeroth combined, has put up their camp here, engaging in dark magic experiments and the torture of innocent civilians whom they keep locked up in cages. I was able to free some of my fellows, however in most cases I was too late.

Struck with grief I took revenge on all the alien fiends I encountered on my way, but it did nothing to cheer up my heavy heart. Arriving at the third stage of my journey, I took a headlong plunge into the waters below Fizzle and Pozzik’s Speedbarge where my spirits would be lifted immensely.

Their deaths shall not be forgotten!

Chapter 3: Fish burgers among gnomes’n goblins

Located at the heart of what used to be Shimmering Flats, Fizzle and Pozzik’s Speedbarge is accessible via underwater entry only (without the ability to fly, that is). Once more I had the pleasure of diving into the deep where I found myself surrounded by the ruins of Mirage Raceway and a gang of rather hostile treasure hunters. Lucky for me, I had brought my special Gnomeregan Pride suit along which served me as perfect camouflage!

The innumerable tropical fish of the area are a very curious crowd! I found Nemo!

Soon I found an entry into the swimming oasis that is the home of an ever-busy number of gnomes and goblins who work and live together in seeming peace and amicability. So delightful and awe inspiring was my visit to this bustling place that I shall let a few pictures speak on behalf of my discoveries:

In eager expectation, I made my way up to the barge.
Gnomes and goblins make a fine team. Rarely do you encounter races on Azeroth that work together as well as these two.
Let it be known that these sailors keep their lodgings tidy and themselves clean and washed!
These folk know how to hold their after-work parties. The pub inside the ship’s belly is filled with chatty customers, dancing and drinking – and eating fish burgers!
When nature is calling, there is two lanes: one for gnomes and one for goblins. Not quite sure where I would fit in, I chose to wait my turn with the gnomes.

And thus I conclude my tale on Fizzle and Pozzik’s Speedbarge of which I have shown you but a mere glimpse in this traveler’s log. I shall remember my visit to this delightful place very fondly and have every intention to return in the future. It is a rare find on the face of Kalimdor and a good reason to stop by should your path ever bring you close to the borders of Thousand Needles – a zone well worth exploring after the Shattering!

Stay tuned for next week’s Traveler’s Logbook Part II, “Secrets of Gilneas” – featured exclusively at Raging Monkeys! Until then I wish you all happy exploring!

Shattering shinies: minipets and games

‘Tis the end of the world as we know it. And I must say, I like how the new one looks and sounds (you should really turn the ingame music on!).
I started my journey through WoW 4.0.3a in Stormwind, to check out what Deathwing (and Blizzard) did to my hometown and my beloved Elwynn Forest. Lo and behold, there’s flightpaths in abundance now and all the worldmap’s parchments have been revamped and look a lot funkier than before. Such is the beauty of not playing or following any betas – everything is new and shiny!

Which brought me to the most important question pretty soon: where are all the shinies? What to do until December 7th besides farming future reputations?

1) First stop: Plants vs Zombies 
Quest Reward: Brazie’s Sunflower (it sings!)

After satiating my initial impulse to explore maps and get new flightpaths, I headed straight to Hillsbrad Foothills to test myself in the newly featured PvZ mini-game Blizzard installed just south of Dalaran’s Crater.
The quests toward beating the final boss are progressing from easy to more difficult and there’s explanations on the way teaching you about each ability.
The last two quests can be somewhat of a challenge until you’re used to what all the actions do and how to manage your resources. In case you’re struggling on the later parts (2 massive waves of zombies and Warden Stillwater), a few tips that helped me beat this:

  • Stall your very first packs of mobs for as long as you can with rocknuts, to plant sunflowers and gather sun power. You can stall just one zombie for a very long time, refreshing walls before and behind him (they also attack walls that are refreshed right on top / behind them) until you’re good to proceed. You want to have 9-10 up sunflowers towards the end.
  • Reserve your two left-most rows for sunflowers, go for at least 2 rows of spitters and/or freezyas in your midfield. Keep more rocknuts and tentacles up front.
  •  Use rocknuts frequently to hold up as many lines as possible until you’ve properly arranged your midfield.
    1. Keep them busy
    2. Build up your rows

    2) Two’s company: Darkshore 
    Quest Reward: Withers (it shrinks!)

    Like for other newbie-areas, Darkshore has had new lowbie questlines installed. In case you’re wondering why you should bother with these at lvl 80, there’s another shiny new mini-pet to be picked up here, after finishing a quest called Remembrance of Auberdine. To get the show started, you want to pick up the following two quests in Darkshore and follow things from there until you get you get to the final stage:

    These first two quests will take you through a series of about ten more steps before you are able to pick up the final quest in Darkshore. There is no need to complete other quests from the area (like the one to kill 50 murlocs). The approximate time to complete all quests at lvl 80 is 60-90 minutes, depending on rush hour.

    Tip: Turn your low level quests tracker on.



    3) Three’s a crowd: Eastern Plaguelands
    Quest Reward: Mr. Grubbs (ewww!)

    Fiona is a worgen lady stationed at the western entrance to Eastern Plaguelands (a new neutral flightpath can be found there too) with her caravan. She will initially present you with two quests which will result in a few follow-ups of their own before returning you to her. After completion, you will be able to interact with her caravan and receive Fiona’s Lucky Charm (there is no need to complete Fiona’s further quests).

    Her lucky buff lasts for as long as you stay inside the zone and enables you to loot hidden stashes randomly from any EPL mobs which have a chance to drop Mr. Grubbs – similar to the Disgusting Oozeling grind but not nearly as bad (AoE is your friend!). Funny enough, it was Garginox (lvl 45 elite) in the Noxious Glade that finally dropped this for me. Didn’t you always wish for one of those carrion grubs in miniature form?

    4) Fourth of a quartet: Burning Steppes
    Quest Reward: Tiny Flamefly (bzzz!)

    While warcraftpets hasn’t added this pet to their data bank yet as I’m writing this post, the tiny flamefly can be picked up over at Burning Steppes, by completing a quest called Seven!Yup!.

    To get there you will have to complete a longer series of quests similar to the chain in Darkshore which are started by Mouton Flamestar and John J. Keeshan in western BS at Flamestar Post (a new flightpath is available). Continue from there and you will eventually be awarded your new companion.

    The approximate time to complete all quests at lvl 80 is 60-90 minutes, depending on rush hour.

    5) More shinies: Azshara 
    Quest Reward: Faded Wizard Hat (horde only?)

    A little disappointing, this seems to be the reward to a horde only quest so far.
    The quest you are looking to complete to receive this fun item is called Farewell, Minnow in Azshara. Once more this is the final reward to a long series of quests, started by Teemo at Bilgewater Harbor.

    Similar to the Orb of Deception, the Faded Wizard Hat will allow you to randomly transform into different races which lasts for 30 minutes. I’m wondering if there’s ever going to be an alliance equivalent to this?

    …Just when I thought the wait until Cataclysm was gonna be boring! Anything I’ve missed?
    Have fun with these quests and rewards everybody! =)

    So long Arthas and thanks for all the fish!

    Its’ time. I’ve been wanting to write a “Goodbye Wrath of the Lich King”– post for a while, but I always felt it was too soon to look back on the past 2 years, drawing a final line and remembering the best moments. But Cataclysm is due in less than a month now, we’re defending our hometowns against the rift invaders, eagerly awaiting the Shattering. It’s time to let go of the past.

    Wrath of the Lich King felt like a drag these very last months which is probably a mixture of different things: the changes in accessibility and loot this expansion, but also the fact that Blizzard’s latest installment lasted a lot longer than The Burning Crusade and didn’t have the novelty factor of vanilla WoW (which actually lasted a bit longer). Nevertheless WotLK was a great expansion, I absolutely loved Northrend and I will take a lot of fond memories with me over into Cataclysm. A few things are worth remembering before all else –

    1) My WotLK Top 3 features:

    • WotLK quests

      Wrath of the Lich King’s quest design was worlds apart from everything we’d seen before. Blizzard put a huge effort into creating quests that were more diverse, fun and engaging, trying to get away from the past’s standard fetch&delivery or escort quests. From flying a helicopter dropping bombs on your targets, to fighting your own doppelganger on 1vs1, collecting bat guano (while swearing like a lumberjack) to jumping on flying dragons around the Temple of Storms, WotLK delivered long and memorable questlines full of fun moments. Kudos to Blizzard for making such an effort this time around!

      • The maps of Northrend

      I’m sucker for northern themes in MMOs; you can make me very happy with dark, misty woods and snowy mountains. The Northrend maps were beautiful, some of them accompanied by the sweetest tunes ever in WoW! Thank you so much for Stormpeaks (norse mythology ftw!) and Grizzly Hills above all else, I’ve spent countless hours exploring them and enjoying their atmosphere!

      • Dualspecs

      Finally this came true! For so long players that respec on a daily base had to endure the superfluous procedure of respeccing at their class trainers, filling in the talent points every single time (without an addon at least) and there was really nothing to it but a timesink (and 50g are not that much of a penalty these days). Dualspecs have made the life of so many raiders and PVPers so much easier and added a lot more flexibility in general to the game. Cheers!

      2) Personal Top 3 WotLK moments:

      • Sartharion 25man 3D and the Twilight Drake

      Above all else and every kill Adrenaline have added to their progress list in this expansion, our legendary Sarth 3D kill will stand out forever. Not only was defeating this boss (pre-nerf) our greatest achievement and struggle since…..well, Archimonde or something,  but on this hard-earned night of all nights I actually rolled a /98 on our very first Twilight Drake. I had never won any special mount or similar in WoW before that, my bad luck with rolls has been the butt of jokes many times.

      So, when Stumps asked the exhilarated raid to roll for the first drake, I didn’t even bother to check my roll! I certainly didn’t expect to win – “Me? Y’er having a laugh!” Only when the first “omg GZ!” whispers came rolling in did I realize what had happened and it made our achievement (and killshot!) so much sweeter for this priest. 🙂

      That’s me, me, me up there! ^^
      • Adrenaline’s 1st and 2nd anniversary events

      I’ve been very deeply involved in the planning and execution of our guild’s 1st and 2nd Anniversary events which have been some of the best, most fun times I have ever had in WoW. Already the planning phases were a blast for somebody with too much creative energy (and sadistic tendencies =p) like myself, and seeing all of that hard work come to live later and your guildmates competing against each other while you’re dying of laughter on ventrilo – truly epic!! We’ve raised the bar quite high and I’m a little scared of our guild’s expectations for year 3 – I’m sure we’ll come up with something though.

      For anyone interested in details on said events, I have a few links to share:
      Larísa’s first and second review, Adrenaline @WoW Insider, an interview @Gamerfill.com , my personal event album (anniversary 1), my WoW quiz (anniversary 2).

      • The Lich King’s demise on 25man

      Killing Arthas felt great, and not only because he annoyed the shit out of us in the Culling of Stratholme so many times. Killing the big bad endboss of the expansion marks the end of an era. All in all we didn’t struggle at this boss the way we struggled on others before, but he certainly gave us a run for the money. The title is epic and I loved the kill-cinematic (which would’ve been even more awesome had I not misclicked the damn fountain in Dalaran some time before we killed him /gah!).

      To me, as to so many other players, Arthas was always that distant endboss figure at the horizon of World of Warcraft: the last hurdle, the end of the main story. Whatever follows after him in Cataclysm is an “extra” in my world (“what, I am STILL playing this game??”)

      So long Wrath of the Lich King, I knew ye well!
      So long Dalaran, you won’t be missed!
      (I will miss Sheddle tho!)
      So long Sindragosa, I still hate your guts (and icetombs)!
      So long minefield in Stormpeaks, it was good fun!

      So long Arthas! The Lich King is dead, all hail Deathwing!

      Holy qualms and related Cataclysm healing links

      So Discpriests got some sweet buffs last week to boost their raidhealing power and having gone through various articles on healing in Cataclysm and the state of priests on the beta servers lately, I am beginning to wonder more and more where that will leave Holypriests in the upcoming expansion.

      [/rant on]

      I can’t say that I am very happy at the moment. The echoes from the test servers so far were disheartening – “priests have the lowest throughput”, “priests go OOM before everyone else”, “priests are the least efficient of the lot”. Blizzard states that druids and paladins are getting the nerfbat and that priests apparently are the only healers that are working as intended for lvl 85 while everyone else is still slightly overtuned. Wonderful…
      While Disc gets buffed, our Chakra sounds duller by the minute and Blessing of Sanctuary got nerfed along with the respective AoE heals from other healers. And with the distribution of heavy AoE healing to everyone in Cataclysm, Holypriests will definitely not hold their niche of powerful raidhealing in the same way they have done in WotLK anymore, with our fabulous CoH (since nerfed) and bursty PoH – the two spells that really set us apart from Disc and the shammies or druids on raidhealing duty.

      What will be the state of Holypriests in the expansion? Does our strength come down to “gimmicks” like Lightwell and Leap of Faith now, while we’re struggling to maintain our Chakras AND Evangelism stacks (an issue I have seen coming for a while)?

      All the articles I’ve read so far have done nothing to improve my initial mood on the holy tree changes. From day one I have played a holypriest in WoW and those of us rolling priests back then chose the class because they wanted to be healers – good healers, THE healer. Continuously Blizzard homogenized all healing classes in WoW and I am fine with equally powerful healers as long as you still have reasons to favor every class for their individual strengths. This was true in TBC and mostly in WotLK too. Holypriests were never the most efficient healers but we were always the most versatile while producing great raid healing together with the shammies. It seems this is true no longer.

      At the same time I don’t see we were given buffs to make up for this loss: where’s our improved single-target power? Heal-Chakra (still too slow @ 1500+ haste)? We do not have access to the buffs and shields of Discpriests and we don’t have the Holy Paladins single-target throughput. As for HoTs, they’ve just taken our extra HoT away again with the removal of Renew-Chakra.

      Where’s my share Blizzard?

      [/rant off]

      Further reading

      Dawn Moore from WoW Insider recently published a detailed and insightful overview on priest healing in Cataclysm heroics. I linked this in our guild forums as it is a very useful read for healers of all classes, while including some more priest-centric advice. To highlight a few of her most interesting points:

      • The new heroic dungeons are properly challenging and will require players to prepare a lot more than before due to more complex encounter mechanics. For this reason, you might want to lay off PuGs for a while – a long while.
      • Priests might find themselves in situations where they want to use Psychic Scream (glyphed) as CC.
      • You will want to encourage parties frequently to use Lightwell so you have more time for mana breaks.
      • Yes, you want to spec into Evangelism and Archangel – and things are going to get rather complicated for Holypriests:

      So let me lay it on you … You will want to take the talents Evangelism and Archangel. I’m talking to both disc and holy here.  […]

      Anyway, let’s get back to Evangelism and Archangel. The key to not going out of mana with these talents is upkeep. Especially with holy (and all the Chakra maintenance), it’s pretty easy to forget about your Evangelism stack and just heal until you realize you’re nearly out of mana (OOM). When this happens, you can freak out a little and pump out four or five Smites in a row — and hell, you might even pull it off without anyone dying. But if you do that, you fall behind.[…]

      As a holy priest, I will look for natural breaks in the damage to Smite, then heal the rest of the time. You have to get comfortable riding out the duration of Evangelism (make a Power Aura for it if you have to), and if you must use Archangel at three or four stacks to keep from losing it, do so.[…]

      While I always look forward to a challenge and welcome anything that adds to our versatility, I am very skeptical about coordinating for Archangel as a Holypriest. I’ve never liked the idea of smiting several times in a row just to regen mana and I have yet to see just how chaotic this will get while we are also trying to heal, cleanse, manage CDs and juggle Chakra states. Then again, if Chakra really ends up not being much of a choice anyway that should simplify matters, huh? /sarcasm

      To finish off,  Matticus recently posted a Cataclysm raidhealing video that gives healers a nice idea of what to expect for the first raid encounters. I am actually looking very much forward to the more technical and tactical aspects of healing in Cataclysm – I just do have my justified worries about holy right now and how all players will cope with the required switches in mindset. Alas, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess.

      Dear guild applicant, what’s your weakness?

      There I sat at one of my job agencies last Wednesday, feeling horribly out of character. I am looking for a new job at the moment, that is to say for a new new job, one that is hopefully as unlike to my last few jobs as possible, but there’s a desert to cross first, an annoying phase of explaining curricula and dealing with administrative bullshit.
      And I notice these job agencies all look the same: gray and impersonal bastions of corporate capitalism, “help us to help you, so we get money from you working”, it’s a modern version of slave-trade really. Nothing to make you feel the ordinary human resource you are quite like job agencies. But to get where I want to go apparently they’re my best shot.

      So, I sat in that small cubicle office waiting for my agent, some way-too-young, teeth-bleached sunnyboy in a way-too-expensive suit. Instantly I felt under-dressed. The whole procedure took about 30 minutes, half an hour of jolly good fun trying to explain to Ken why I am looking for a change of scenery and what salary I deem appropriate, given the fact that I lack experience in the field while holding an academic degree that probably surpasses the education of most people I would be working with. There’s something horribly depressing in realizing those 7 years at university were worth so little. Maybe I should mention my epic WoW skills and guild leadership experience? No?

      Anyway, halfway through the exercise Ken caught me slightly unawares as I wasn’t actually prepared to do a full job interview, all I expected was some administrative stuff – yeah, call me a noob. So when he got to asking how I see my future or what my strengths and weaknesses are, I actually didn’t know what to reply to the latter straight away. My weaknesses? Errr…right that’s the standard phony question you can expect in every job interview. You know, the one where you’re supposed to display how much of a self-critic you are, oh-so capable of self-reflection. And that’s why everyone answers with some wanna-be weakness that isn’t a weakness at all, but a strength too really, like “I am such a perfectionist” or “I’m overly punctual”.

      HA-HA…!

      I hate things like that. They’re part of what (the brilliant and ingenious) Billy Connolly calls”beige-ism”. Everyone knows how utterly stupid and empty these questions (and answers) are – as if you were gonna tell your future boss that you’re a messy slob or like to steal cookies from the cafeteria. So I just sat there for a moment contemplating a potential answer vs. my utter disgust for the procedure, before I told him I was a little impatient at times (which is actually true), but in the way that I “really like to get jobs done fast and efficiently” (which is again actually true), ya know! He seemed to be perfectly happy with this answer and the conversation proceeded to other topics from there. Phew.

      An exercise in phoniness

      On my way home, the whole experience got me thinking about what a hilarious thing it would be to incorporate the more nonsensical parts of job interviews into the standard WoW recruitment procedure. Most guilds, ours included, already run a questionnaire that will touch on matters like playtime, goals and expectations in their application form. What if we included the awkwardness of real interview questionnaires in them, could we expect to get similar cringe-worthy answers? What would we expect our applicants to say?

      Question #14: What do you consider your weaknesses as a player?
      – Answer 1: “Sometimes I am just so focused on downing a boss, I forget about my CDs or taking a potion.”
      – Answer 2: “I’m a total perfectionist. I always want to be the main puller and clear every pack in an instance.”
      – Answer 3: “I’m a little impatient. I always want to start raids on time and hate wasting time on bio breaks.”

      Question #15: Where do you see yourself 2 years from now?
      – Answer 1: “As a valuable member of your raid guild and one of your top DPS”
      – Answer 2: “As part of your officer’s team where I can contribute in the guild’s best interests.”
      – Answer 3: “I’ll be celebrating our success of having become one of the server’s top 2 progression guilds.”

      Question #16: Why should we take you instead of that other applicant?
      – Answer 1: “While I don’t know the other person, I assure you I am better than him.”
      – Answer 2: “Because nobody can heal like I do.”
      – Answer 3: “I am a 100% committed and fit your guild’s profile perfectly. We have a great future together!”


      Now wouldn’t that just be a blast? I really think we should include these questions in our guild’s recruitment questionnaire for shits and giggles if nothing else! A lot of players already think that WoW feels like a job rather than a game sometime, so let’s go the whole nine yards I say! =D

      P.S. Dear job agents, please don’t be offended. I do not actually dislike you, it’s not like you invented the system. And I like keeping the pen!

      World of Warcraft secrets: revisited

      Some time ago I wrote an article on one of Dalaran’s best-kept secrets and was surprised and happy to get so many reactions from people telling me that they had never known about this. On top of that I was made aware of other similar secrets inside the game that I hadn’t discovered yet myself – once more a big thanks to those that left a comment or sent an Email!

      I love the small and silly things in WoW so much that it inspired me to suggest the topic over at Blog Azeroth as they were desperate for more suggestions at the time – if you ever have a topic to share yourself, go and give them a hand.
      Several WoW bloggers joined in the secret hunt and came up with great articles of their own. Once more I found that I hadn’t discovered nearly all the fun things hidden in WoW! Did you know that Dalaran does not only hold one, but actually three great secrets of this kind and that all of them are brought to you by a gnome?

      Well, I do now! And if you’re curious to find out yourself, have a look at the full list of contributed WoW secrets published on Twisted Nether Blogcast! I’ve been wanting to get back to these for a while, well rather late than never.

      For completeness sake I’d also like to mention two more contributions that didn’t join the shared topic but added a WoW secret of their own, either on their blog or as commenter on Raging Monkeys:

      In case you’re a little bored with WoW at the moment, these might keep you entertained for a while! I can’t wait to discover the secrets hidden in the upcoming expansion – “WoW secrets, Cataclysm edition” coming soon!

      Mi warcraft no es su warcraft

      …or English for: my warcraft is not your warcraft.

      In a past article of mine I wrote that gamers are not a community, a fact that has often grieved me on my journey through the gaming world. Even if we love the same MMO that doesn’t mean we have a lot in common, our views and values inside and outside of our cultural backgrounds and upbringing can be entirely different, even if gamers often wish to speak of themselves as a community, a group to belong to and identify with. My heart jumped a little at Metzen’s “Geek is…” speech at the Blizzcon 2010 but in reality many of these geeks will give other geeks a hard time because playing golf is so much cooler than playing tennis, ya know. Even in the world of geekdom there are nonsensical pecking orders.

      Yet a facet of this that often strikes me, and on a much brighter note, is the diversity in which MMO players can and chose to play the game. When you look around in the WoW blogosphere you can already see the multitude of different approaches to the game, different interests and playstyles. For all I know, some WoW players are playing a completely different game than me! Every time I read an article on improved goldmaking or the many-colored world (and drama) of pugging or finding the right guild, I am strangely fascinated about the experiences and issues of some players, feeling oddly remote from them.
      I actually love reading such articles because they show me how diverse an MMO really is and what “sub-cultures” there are entirely untouched by myself, existing like some parallel society.

      Inside our own bubble

      When I read this article by Spinks some time ago, I was reminded very strongly of the disparity in which all of us experience online games. I play WoW in my own little bubble which is the safety of my PVE raidguild of many years with its stable, longtime member base. Some of my guildmates have been around me since vanilla. I play on a European PVE server on which I have played my holy priest since day one. I’ve a long friendlist of people that have shared this server with me, acquaintances in other guilds and resources I can rely on if required. My entire outlook on the game and my future therein is safely founded on this.

      I’ve no idea how it is to play this game as a more casual player, a non-raider, a role-player, a trade seller, a pugger or a frequent guild-switcher. The last time I filled out a guild application form was in vanilla WoW because ever since I have been an officer in raidguilds I have helped founding myself. I do not know how it is to feel “homeless” in WoW, I don’t need to pug and I don’t get scammed after paying a stranger to do my enchants. If people talk about the trolls in tradechat, I don’t know who they are – I haven’t followed any public chats in years. In my guild everything is available to me, access to content, free services and most of all shared companionship and laughter. I couldn’t imagine playing WoW in any other way and I dare say I would’ve quit ages ago if I had not found and created this space for myself.

      We all live inside our own bubble when we play MMOs – the “massively” is actually only so much true. If we’re lucky, we find like-minded people to share them with. Sometimes we meet players who live in bubbles different from our own and when we do, we’re impressed or surprised at best, although irritated or annoyed are an option too. One such “clash” I’ve experienced myself was when Adrenaline established a temporary raiding alliance for lack of active raiders during our very first summer in TBC. All too soon we realized that our partner guild (which had a somewhat similar progress orientation, or so we thought) had an entirely different and (from our standpoint) less serious approach to raiding – it was two different worlds colliding, much to our own dismay. Of course they felt exactly the same way about us with our set standards and quiet, militaristic raid style. Needless to say our alliance didn’t last for long but it got us through the worst weeks of summer. It also taught us that lobotomy is probably preferable to raid alliances, even if a common enemy is great for building team spirit.

      MMO subcultures

      The more sandboxy an MMO is, the wider the potential spectrum of bubbles or sub-cultures becomes. I’ve played MMOs where big groups of people dedicated themselves entirely to trade, running shops of their own and spending huge amounts of time harvesting and crafting all around the clock. The most remarkable such example I have ever seen was in Ultima Online on the Atlantic Shard, where a player had set up his own gateway station located in his house where he provided teleports leading to all the different corners of the world for a fee. He had undertaken extensive traveling himself first in order to provide this service and it was widely used and appreciated.

      While World of Warcraft is far off from a sandbox game, it still offers space for a variety of “sub-cultures” to develop and play the game to their own ends. By default Blizzard gives players the choice to experience their content from a PVE-, PVP- or RP-centric perspective. While I like PVP in WoW, I have never ever ventured into RP and I admit that it’s a very curious thing to me that I don’t feel comfortable with (whatever floats your boat tho!).

      Then there’s the greedy goblins, fully dedicated to the mammon in WoW and it’s quite a fulltime endeavor if you choose to delve into it fully, goldmaking guides and respective mods included.
      There’s the crazy collectors of mounts, minipets or whatever other baubles. There’s the achievement hunters that spare no expense for another 10 points. There’s the dedicated arena teams. There’s the daily PuG organizers in public channels (I noticed that one time I looked!). There’s the perfectionist alt players desperately out of character slots. There’s the explorers and the lore masters. And there’s pretty much every flavor of guild.

      Indeed, WoW can be many things, also in the way we look at it and what we appreciate most about it – Larísa has written a post on this just the other day.
      And I wonder what other groups there might be in WoW playing the game from their unique angle, different from others. Do you know of more niches or sub-cultures in World of Warcraft, remote from the standard PVP or PVE oriented endgame playstyle? Are you one of them?

      There’s no reality..

      …there’s only perception. Many of us enter a different micro-cosmos when they log into WoW. This gets most noticeable when we discuss features and aspects of the game or share experiences, also very often on our blogs. We forget that the other person we read about or talk to might come from an entirely different WoW than us: with a different lookout, different people sharing the game with him and hence different experiences. And in all these differences things are not so different from the real world.

      I’m sure that my way of playing this MMO might seem strange to somebody else. I know that my opinions and attitude toward it are merely a product of my personal experiences. It’s a small and fragile world we call home.