Tank Talk is WoW Insider's new raid-tanking column, promising you an exciting and educational look at the world of getting the stuffing thrashed out of you in a 10- or 25-man raid. The column will be rotated amongst Matthew Rossi (Warrior/Paladin), Adam Holisky (Warrior), Michael Gray (Paladin), and Allison Robert (Druid). Our aim is to use this column to debate and discuss class differences, raid-tanking strategies, tips, tricks, and news concerning all things meatshieldish.

This week in Tank Talk I'm covering the various stages a tank exists in during their time in a guild. Yesterday in Part I of the column I talked about the recruitment and applicant stages. These stages help clarify the beginning life of a tank within a guild. While talking about what these stages are and what they mean to the tank, I also covered how the guild can keep them happy while ensuring the best tanking possible is done.

The job of keeping a tank happy is arguably unique task when compared to non-tanks in that they are the ones which everything eventually comes back to in the game. If a ranged DPS dies, they're going to feel it in a longer encounter. If a healer dies they'll notice the healing start to lack. Finding a way to communicate everything to a tank and taking in their unique situations can be a challenge, but it is a necessary one.

Lets resume our look at the last few stages of a tank's life within a guild, starting with the raider tank stage.

Tank Talk is WoW Insider's new raid-tanking column, promising you an exciting and educational look at the world of getting the stuffing thrashed out of you in a 10- or 25-man raid. The column will be rotated amongst Matthew Rossi (Warrior/Paladin), Adam Holisky (Warrior), Michael Gray (Paladin), and Allison Robert (Druid). Our aim is to use this column to debate and discuss class differences, raid-tanking strategies, tips, tricks, and news concerning all things meatshieldish.

This week on Tank Talk I'd like to step outside the technical aspects of being a tank and focus more on the psychosocial side of things. In particular I want to look at what happens when a tank is introduced into a tanking corps of a new guild, how to keep current tanks around, and how to deal with all those old tanks that have been in the guild forever.

For lack of a better phrase, I'll call the time from when a tank joining the guild until their eventual status as "god of all things tank" the life span of a tank. And perhaps the most important part of a tanks life is the new part, and it's something that I've been on both sides of the coin – the one doing the inviting, and the one being invited. Each is equally exciting. When joining a new guild I had not only the opportunity to see new content and progress to new heights, but also an opportunity to improve my skill and focus my ability to tank a mean game. And when I became class lead and eventually the guild's leader, I gained an opportunity to help new tanks become acquainted with our style of game play and watch them succeed and excel within the guild.

I like to look at there being mainly fives stages of a tank's life within a guild: Recruitment, Applicant, Raider, Senior Tank, and Mentor. Let's take a look at each of these and see how people in various stages can help usher a new tank into a guild's tanking corpse while keeping the old tanks around and happy. Since this is a long subject, today I'll cover the recruitment and applicant stages in a tank's life, with the raider, senior tank, and mentor stages coming in the second installment tomorrow.

Recruiting isn't what I'd call a fun past time. Ever since server transfers exploded on the scene, it's not unusual for our guild's officers to spend 30 min to an hour per day scanning the WoW Guild Recruitment forums (Alliance and Horde flavors). With summer hitting, no major content in the immediate future, and what I'd like to call the 3rd Year Burnout affecting players, recruitment is more important than ever to keep a guild's progress going.

There are a lot of options out there to find people LFG, but the WoW Guild Recruitment forums continue to be the largest source of potential class replacements. They're not perfect, though. For one, you'll spend more time trying to find the class you're looking for than actually posting replies to viable recruits. And with the speed at which new posts are made (20 minutes after you post, you're on page 5), it can be extremely daunting trying to keep up with them all.

Join me after the jump to learn how WoW Lemmings has changed all that.

There comes a point where you move past content. There's no reason to go back to it other than nostalgia, or for the off chance on a slow night that the one really awesome drop that particular boss has might finally drop. It's a fact of the endgame... you work, you put in the wipes, you stock up on food, buff pots, elixirs, flasks, and other consumables, you go in over and over again and struggle and finally get the boss down... and then in a month or two it's trivial and you're sick to death of the sight of him or her. Another month and you're saying "Does anyone really need any Vashj drops anymore?" and a month after that, you're done with the instance.

I was under the impression that the purpose of a guild is to have a group of folks that you enjoy playing with and have common goals. It's a good way to share the game with friends and family, in addition to experiencing new adventures and progressing together. Triamala of Blackwater Raiders fears that such actions are seen as cliquish, causing drama amongst the ranks.

In a post in the Guild Relations forum she said that a previous guild of hers feel apart because of cliques and her current guild is facing the same fate. Members of her guild apparently get up in arms if she runs instances together with her husband or other friends. In a later post she admits that she is closer to the officers than other guild members because they've been playing together for quite some time.

If the Arena can be a spectator sport, raiding can too. Nihilum, a guild that simply needs no introduction, has broadcast a live feed of their elite Sunwell Plateau raiding skills will also be appearing at WWI this weekend. An update on the convention's page notes that you will be able to meet and watch some of the guild's superstars:

• Kungen (Thomas Bengtsson), guild leader of Nihilum, playing his Tauren Warrior
• Hath (Luke Brown), playing his Undead Mage
• Sniffy (Bryndis Sturludottir), playing her Blood Elf Paladin

These members will be joined by Gustav Käll, aka Marilyn, who will be giving commentary of the raid. The WoW Europ page promises that viewers will be able to see Nihilum in action live on both days of the World Wide Invitational. Participants will also see the guild's top-notch arena team, consisting of Beasteh, Cherez and Hydra.

It looks like the entertainment at the event will be spectacular. In addition to Nihilum's appearance attendess will also be treated to live concerts by Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain and Video Games live.

That's Alyxandria of All That Remains on Sisters of Elune, professing the opinion that the stuff her guildies stole from Just a Game on the same server isn't being given back. Apparently taking a bunch of stuff out of the guild bank and then /gquitting doesn't count as stealing -- we'll leave you all to decide the morality there.

For our part, we don't judge, we just report on all the guild drama, downed, and recruiting news from around the realms. If you've got some, feel free to send us a tip, anonymous as you'd like, at wowguildwatch@gmail.com. Whether it's a particularly interesting screenshot of chat (as above), or an all out hilarious forum thread, or just news that your guild has downed a boss they've never downed before, please let us know, and you can see it here next week.

World of Warcraft attracts a variety of players from all demographics. Players face different sets of challenges based on where they are in real life. Students may face time crunches at some points that prohibit themselves from immersion in the game. Parents have many obligations that may pull themselves away from the keyboard with little to no warning. There are times when big projects at work require extra hours. Some may even go into labor in the middle of a battleground. Somehow, despite our divergent responsibilities, we all come together to enjoy WoW.

Crothiuz of Lethon has found himself in the middle of an age-related struggle. Posting in the Guild Relations forum, he told a tale of how he was excluded from a raid because he was only fourteen years of age. He feels that he has carried himself in a mature manner and it is only his age that has precluded him from running Karazhan with his guild. He was then kicked from the guild while he was offline. The original poster is concerned that age will continue to be a factor in his online aspirations.

We post a lot of stuff here at WoW Insider, and chances are that you missed some of our weekly features. But don't fret it -- here are our top weekly features from the last seven days, so if you missed them the first time around, we're here to make sure that doesn't happen again.

	Raid Rx: Analyzing your healers, part 3 Marcie Knox continues her series on how to get the most of your healers during a raid.
	Officers' Quarters: Cracking the whip How to keep your guild rolling all the way up through the expansion.
	Ask WoW Insider: When to gem and enchant Our readers sound off on the best time to take advantage of getting your gear min-maxed with gems and enchants.
	Spiritual Guidance: Seven tips to prepare your Priest for Wrath Matt "Matticus" Low gives you a nice checklist for getting your Priest ready to head up to Northrend.

More of our great weekly content after the break.

I intend to sidestep the question of whether getting mounts at level 30 with upcoming patch 2.4.3 falls on the Dark Side or the Light Side of the Force. For now, I'm going to muse briefly on what impact this change will have on gameplay.

• Speed of leveling: Obviously leveling will be faster with a mount between levels 30 - 40. I doubt it will be 60% faster, though.
  
• Questing: Going through Thousand Needles, Alterac Mountains, Desolace, Arathi Highlands, and Stranglethorn Vale will be much easier. I remember Desolace, in particular, being one long drag after another.
  
• Economy: Lower levels will probably do more farming professions in order to raise the necessary gold for training and a mount sooner. This influx should drive down the cost of materials a bit in the short term. Also, given the low amount of silver rewarded at low levels, expect to see even more begging.
• Guild recruitment: Players who normally would've waited to join a guild before Level 40 (to help with mount costs) will want to join earlier now. On the other hand, guilds may have a tougher time keeping those players through endgame since there will be a longer span between getting the normal mount and getting the epic one at Level 60.

After the jump, read about more gameplay impacts.

John Bohannon has been writing for Science magazine as "The Gonzo Scientist," and his most recent writeup, on a real scientific conference held in the World of Warcraft, is a great read. We reported that the event was happening back in May, and now Bohannon's put together a really honest report (from how the conference was funded to the reasons why it was chosen to be Horde-only) on what its like for these scientists researching virtual worlds to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, and actually hold a conference ingame.

They had to deal with everything from conversation direction (they appointed one person to get whispers on any questions for speakers, though, as anyone who's ever been to a mass ingame event will tell you, you can't really keep people from yelling and screaming) to mobs in the Barrens. And it sounds like they did get something done -- besides the panels, which were only slightly frustrated by griefers, they took expeditions throughout the world, and did do a little thinking about how different meeting in RL and meeting in a virtual existence is.

Very good read. The end of the article has a link to a PDF book about the conference, but it's hidden behind Science's membership wall. Still, Bohannon writes clearly and fairly about the game, and it's fun to think of a bunch of scientists actually trying to navigate a virtual world while doing their own research.

All the red tabards on the Horde side really annoy me. How come everyone picks a red tabard? Isn't it enough that the Horde flag is red? Can't we have as much variation in our color schemes as we do in our tusk/horn/pigtail configurations? Red is so 2007.

Or maybe it's not. A study published in the Cyberpsychology & Behavior journal determined that teams who wore red while playing Unreal Tournament 2004 won 55% of the time over teams that wore blue. Another study from 2005 showed that wearing red gave an advantage to athletes in the 2004 Olympics, too. However, I'm not sure I buy the reasons given for this advantage, though. The neuroscientist who studied the Unreal Tournament matches thinks that because men turn red when they're angry this color acts as a psychological distractor. Sounds like some reaching, if you ask me.

Now, of course, in WoW we don't always wear the colors of our faction, but the predominance of red tabards on the Horde side and blue ones on the Alliance side may just put a Brutal Gladiator's Painsaw in the hands of those who claim the Horde has an advantage in the battlegrounds. But only if everyone wears red or blue. Hm. I wonder if I can change my guild's tabard color from green to red...

[Thanks, Avadann Kedeth.]

Our columnists work day and night to push out terrific weekly columns and features here at WoW Insider -- in fact, they write so much that you might miss some of it. That's why, every Tuesday, we cover our most popular features from the last week in WoW. If you didn't catch them the first time around, get your baseball glove out and keep your eye on the ball, because here they are again.

	Ask WoW Insider: /roll abuse? Problems with the /roll system? We ask readers like you to sound off.
	Hybrid Theory: Shaman and the Wrath alpha What's up in Wrath for the totem tossers?
	Tank Talk: The better (and lesser) angels of our nature The tank raiding column gives some good tips for dealing with that little voice in the back of your head who says "go DPS!"
	Ask a Lore Nerd: The evil-o-meter Among other questions, the Lore Nerd answers who the most evil being is in the WoW universe. You know, besides Bobby Kotick. We keed!
	WoW, Casually: Is it feasible to play PvE casually? Can you play PvE without losing your life? Of course!

More great features after the break. Gotta click 'em all!