The guild above, Natural Order on Steamwheedle Cartel, has graced these pages before for dramatic reasons, but just to show there's no bad feelings, we're highlighting them in the downed section this week -- as you can see, they were able to topple Archimonde, and that's an achievement for any guild. As long as you can keep progression going, no drama is all that bad.
Unless you run into some of the really harsh drama found in this week's GW, which starts right after the jump. Drop us a tip (anonymous or otherwise) at wowguildwatch@gmail.com if you've got news about drama, downings, or recruiting notices from around the realms, and Sargeras-willing, you'll see it here next week.
My tanking corps rocks. They really do. I'm quite happy to be their officer representative. We all play our role as the meat shield very well, rarely do we miss a shield block in our rotation or forget to pop a health stone as healers make transitions in and out of the demon realm in Kalecgos. What is interesting about any tanking corps I've been apart of is the inevitable drama that comes up.
Since I've been in a few different guilds with a few different tanking corps and this drama always seems to happen and happen the same way, I have to ask: are tanks the most drama prone?
It's best to define what drama actually is. Drama is any whining and moaning from anyone about things out of their control. If they complain about things in their control, well, then they just fail miserably and probably should spend some time outside to recenter themselves.
For instance, a tank complaining loudly that his healer always is the first to get constructs in Gorefiend and demanding that they get a soulstone before the fight even starts, is drama.
A tank complaining that they need healers X, Y, and Z, in the raid or else they won't do anything but auto-attack Illidan, is drama.
A tank complaining that they deserve extra guild repair money for their expensive plate armor, is drama. And since the tank is special, they also need their own rank to let everyone know this (but it's also practical because only they should be able to withdraw 300g a night in repair money).
Here's two bits of literary fun for your Saturday afternoon.
First, earlier this week, I saw this nice little piece of fan fiction over on WoW Livejournal. I'm not usually a fan of fan fiction, but this one just explains so much. And I really do hate those things, too.
And then yesterday, swampers put together this terrific little Shakespearean parody in the World of Warcraft style. "To quit, perchance to /afk" -- that's great. "Out out, brief arena match -- life's but a walking Shadow Priest, a poor player, who struts and QQs while the tank goes down, and then runs OOM."
Great stuff. Literary humor is always fun, and mixing it in with WoW makes it even better. Laugh and enjoy.
I hope everyone who celebrated this weekend had a save and fun filled holiday.
This comic strip was actually brought about by a comment I saw made by a Blue, which one I can't recall as I read the thread it was made in two weeks ago and bookmarked the wrong one. The comment was more or less along the lines of if you want a good thing, don't rush it, and was made in response to people demanding new BGs.
The comic is a result of my being laid up with some sort of crazy bug all last week, and certain medications making me hallucinate. Fun, really, if it weren't for the fact I kept waking up thinking my scanner was talking to me.
See you next week!
Gallery: Barrens Chat
Barrens Chat is a weekly installment of comic insanity from around Azeroth. Barrens Chat is not edible, and swallowing may cause delirium in small children and the elderly. Barrens Chat is not intended to be used as a flotation device, so please use caution around water. If you are feeling like licking your Draenei friend might be a good idea, I'd suggest against it. Instead, come back next week for another comic.
Ever since we heard way back at BlizzCon last year that Death Knights would be available for all races, the lament has been heard: Gnome Death Knights will ruin it for everyone else. Death Knights are, by their very nature, supposed to be pale and scary and imposing, and given the fact that there are bound to be a ton of Gnome Death Knights out there just for hilarity's sake, the Death Knight starting area is going to look more like a nursery than a gothic bed of evil.
But will it really ruin the lore? Daniel already pointed out very insightfully that Gnomes definitely have a dark side -- we all seem to overlook the fact that Gnomes can be Warlocks, and that doesn't make the Felguard they send after you any less scary. And while yes, on launch day, there'll be a lot of Gnome DKs running around (the starting areas will be chaos no matter what gets rolled), after that it should settle down for sure. After all, if Gnomes were all people wanted to play, we'd never see Humans or Dwarves on the realms, and there are plenty of those.
So I'm all for Gnome Death Knights, pigtails or otherwise. If nothing else, it'll give us Horde something to laugh at -- right before we go in for the kill.
I don't know if it's just the kid in me that likes to blow things up, but I always find myself aiming to make a few explosions happen around this time of year. As I've grown older and understood more about physics, chemistry, etc., I've come to make the explosions even larger. For instance, putting a bunch of fireworks in a barrel, lightening them all on fire at the same time, and then funneling the explosion towards the ground usually has a humorous result.
Humorous might be a few missing fingers, but they can be reattached. And really, who needs their middle finger for anything good?
This year I'm going to try to attach things to bottle rockets, perhaps 10 to 20 all tied together in a bundle. My goal is to see how high I can make things go up in the air. It's going to be a grand ol' time. And after all, what better way to celebrate the birth of America than to blow your own little part of it up?
All this talk about blowing things up has got me thinking though, which race would fit better on a rocket, and which would fly farther? Gnomes or Dwarves? Let's look at the strengths and weaknesses of both.
When I started playing World of Warcraft, I decided to start off by making a TaurenHunter. Mostly because every single game I've ever played, I am usually a healer-type character. I decided that I did not want to be the healer this time around, but I was far from ready for the tank job, so I went halfway into what I figured would be a decent solo and damage support class. I was so unprepared for what playing a Hunter would be.
One of my major obsessions, however, was to find a pet that was an uncommon sight. I did not realize at the time that Echeyakee was a Horde side quest, and was really excited at having gotten a "rare pet" when a friend offered to help me tame him.
The comic this week was inspired by an email received from fellow blogger, Robin about something Krystalle says in response to a (sadly) common misspelling over chats. So dual credit for nudging me in that direction, ladies. I had to run with it once I had the starting idea in my head.
The truth is, I am very grateful to both of my fellow bloggers in sparking this idea in my head. I hope they find the result of Robin's email fun, and I look forward to warping more ideas from them in the future.
We'd like to officially welcome baby Jaina into the world -- born at 12:35am yesterday, Jaina Tiffany Bauer and mom Tiffany are both doing just fine. Dad Tim, who plays on Perenolde, sent us a note to say that he'd joked about naming the baby after the Lady of Theramore, but the name stuck during pregnancy, and now she's Admiral Proudmoore's daughter's namesake for life (as long as you don't name the baby Thrall). Very awesome, and very cute kid. Congrats to mom and dad both.
Tim also jokes that she gets cold already, so he speculates that she's already grabbed Icy Veins, 11 points into the Frost tree. We'd like to know just how soon she can be leveling her Mage in-game -- after all, Jaina is supposed to be there to help us out against Arthas. Level 80 waits for no one (or baby, as the case may be).
Not everyone enjoys fishing. Even the fishing quests from 2.4 can only do so much to liven it up. Still, I know several folk who put up with the pain of fishing for the chance to capture that most cagey of crocolisks -- Chuck. (And his three closest friends: Muckbreath, Toothy, and Snarly). In honor of those farmers of fish, we bring you the latest in real life imitating WoW (hereafter referred to as the Rocky Files, owing to the previously-covered real life Mechanical Squirrel).
Officer Glenn Johnson from animal control in Maryland has completed his first fishing daily by catching an 18 inch alligator with a fishing pole. Apparantly, the little fella had been cruising a local golf course. After a few days of baiting the gator with dog and cat food, Johnson broke out the big guns. He set up camp by a lake with a fishing pole and fried chicken. By the afternoon, he'd succeeded -- gator in a bucket.
The baby gator is being hosted in a local zoo, but his name hasn't been announced yet. We're all pulling for him to go by Chuck.
I would like to begin by pointing out that this comic was not actually thought of by me. Interpreted, drawn, and displayed by me, yes; but the real mind behind this comic is the same on that brought you the deep and insightful explanation on Engineering (which he also had me draw), Brian Karasek.
Brian has been a friend of mine, and my S.O., for well over five years now. We've stalked followed him through three different games, and ended up following him into World of Warcraft after the two of us were convinced we'd never be seeing him again. Luckily, we were wrong. Brian is a truly wonderful friend, and I am grateful to have him. Now that the obligatory brown-nosing is out of the way, I would like my birthday present now, please!
For those of you who don't know (likely 99.8% of you I'd assume) my birthday is tomorrow, June 6th. I expect lots of lovely supportive comments for this comic, as well as large, unsolicited donations of money from you all, thank you (Just kidding... no really).
I have these questions about some of the random things I find in World of Warcraft. One the one hand, I'm intensely curious as to the answer to these questions. On the other hand, I'm really not sure I want to know.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of playing the game sometimes is imagining what it is that is really going on behind the scenes. With an imagination like mine, this can sometimes lead to really interesting ideas as to just how things work.
I don't know that we've ever credited a Forum Post of the Day award to an actual CM comment (though the GM scam comeback was pretty classic), but this post by Drysc deserves it if anything does: when asked by a player if Bolvar Fordragon will get any more original in the expansion, Drysc says that High Overlord Saurfang punched the originality right out of him. Burn much?
And just in case you were worried that a CM would get away with making fun of what might have been a serious player question, Drysc gets burned right back when Aure asks if the same thing happened to Shaman armor sets. "Ouch," as many players say, is about right.
Of course, none of the burning actually answers the questions, so I guess that's what we're here for. No, Bolvar probably won't be redone in the expansion: if the King of Stormwind storyline comes to a head, he may be on his way out anyway (although then who would fight off Onyxia's minions?). And be careful what you ask for with Shaman armor -- next thing you know, we'll have totems coming out of our shoulders (actually, that might be pretty cool). And yes, High Overlord Saurfang can punch the whatever he wants out of whoever he wants.
Engineers frighten me. Mostly because I tend to be the guinea pig in anything and everything I find myself involved in, and because of the things they do when we're not looking. But also because I don't understand a single thing they're trying to tell me.
I don't know about you guys, but anyone who thinks a good time involves playing with dangerous things with electrical charges, and trying to outrun explosive sheep is a little bit on the crazy side.
Gallery: Barrens Chat
Every week, Barrens Chat drags its readers through the clutter-filled, cobweb infested mind of Megan Harris, and exposes the readers to her decaying sense of humor. So if you're interested in soft, fluffy delights, or are more into a quick and tasty snack you... wait. Why are all these comics focused on food so far? Maybe next week our starving artist will be a little more well fed and provide less food-for-though, and more funny.
Anteia emailed us about sayings that her guild has -- when guildies enter guild chat, apparently they say "Parn," for no other reason than at one point someone said "Hola" while their Draenei filter was on, and it came out as "parn." Thanks to a guild typo, they also use "exacrit" in place of "exactly" (as something that crits logic), and running away in cheetah form is referred to as "hauling cat out of there." That's a good one, actually.
My guild has a few sayings (most of which have already sneaked into Guildwatch), though my personal favorite is simply yelling "Shaman Power!" when a Shaman in guild gets a nice drop or does something spectacular. Not nearly as catchy as Anteia's examples, though.
Has your guild built up your own jargon or sayings? When a group of people are placed in situations like this, it's almost unavoidable that they'd build up their own meanings and words among each other. What are some good sayings and phrases that your guild uses ingame?
My 
Here's two bits of literary fun for your Saturday afternoon.
Ever since 
I don't know if it's just the kid in me that likes to blow things up, but I always find myself aiming to make a few explosions happen around this time of year. As I've grown older and understood more about physics, chemistry, etc., I've come to make the explosions even larger. For instance, putting a bunch of 
Not everyone 
Every week, 
Anteia emailed us about sayings that her guild has -- when guildies enter guild chat, apparently they say "Parn," for no other reason than at one point someone said "Hola" while 
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