The short version of the tells above: Renzor tried to start some drama by posting a vent recording on the forums, and when Avasa (who took the screenshot) posted against him, Renzor threatens to kick him (and, as you can see, claims Avasa "likes to create drama" when Renzor was the one who posted the vent recording). Click the image above to see the uncut convo (with some not so SFW language), and click the link below to check out the whole story, along with all of the other drama (including a bit of bank drama that will surprise you) from this week's GW.
And if you've got drama, downed, or recruiting news from your own guild or someone else's, send it along to wowguildwatch@gmail.com. Your tips keep this thing running, so thanks in advance.
World of Warcraft has two distinctly different types of play: Player versus Environment and Player versus Player. The styles of play are dramatically different and there are few, if any, skills that cross over from one style to the other. WoW started out as a PvE game, adding in PvP content as the player base expanded. And despite the numerous PvP fanbois out there, the real game in WoW will always remain the PvE game.
There are a few reasons why I think this. First and foremost, you cannot progress in PvP without first completing a large potion of the PvE content. You start out at level 1 and progress up to level 70. You don't level up by PvPing against one another. You level up by fighting against the environment. Put simply, without the PvE there would be no PvP.
Secondly, PvP is an addition to the game. If you remove PvP from the game entirely, the game itself would not fundamentally change. However if you remove the PvE elements, the game would be nothing like it is. Everything would just exist like the Arena Tournament server. That might be fine for some people, and this is evident in the success of the Arena Tournament server. Even I enjoy spending a couple hours a week on there, but by no means would I want to just exist on a server where the only thing to do is kill one another.
The dust has settled on most of the servers, and the Fury of the Sunwell has been a success across the board. One of the lingering issues however is attunement. It has been noted before that Onyxia is now the hardest attunement in the game. This has occurred with the removal of the Karazhan, Black Temple, and Mount Hyjal attunements. However this creates a false impression that these instances are no longer worthy of attunements, and thus these quests are no longer worthy of the care and time that's necessary to push forward into them.
You want to get your Vashj and Kael vials, you want to complete your Mount Hyjal attunement, and you want to complete your Black Temple attunement. If you're in a guild that isn't running those instances anymore and is focusing squarely on the Tier 6 content, then you still want to go back and get the attunements.
This thread over on the forums starts off a little silly (it's a complaint about Kael'thas being both in Tempest Keep and Magisters' Terrace at the same time), but later on gets into some really interesting commentary and thinking about just how the lore and story in this game works. Obviously, there are no problems with having Kael in two places at once (as Bornakk says with an epic burn, a character can be alive on page 1 and dead on page 10 at the same time), but it's interesting that that's not always what happens in the game. Griftah, for example, was never in two places at once, and neither was Hemet Nesingwary -- both of those characters had progressive lore storylines. But Kael, like Thrall, has a storyline that evolves as a character moves forward in their own storyline, and so Blizzard has placed him in two different places at once, and asked players to move their own characters to see the storyline in order.
Interesting stuff. Scuzz makes a particularly interesting point in the thread -- the World of Warcraft really does revolve around player characters, not NPCs. If you discover through quests that Onyxia is actually pretending to be a woman in Stormwind, all of the NPCs your character meets will be shocked. It's a sign of Blizzard's talent at game creation that something can be both known by most players and discovered by one player almost every single day.
Of course there's no problem with Kael being in two places -- I would rather have my character move through a changing world than have Blizzard worry about making sure "reality" was kept correctly. But it's an interesting line being walked very well -- if you do the two instances in order, you get a much better story than if we were simply fighting a generic third boss in Magisters' Terrace.
Alex recently talked about the lack of bag space for the hybrid class. This is quite true for them, as they have a hard time with the near infinite amount of bag space that is demanded of them. However looking at the non-hybrid classes, in particular a warrior, it can be seen that they too have their own issue of sorts. For an end game tank, it becomes less of an issue of actual bag space, and more of an issue of the limitless combinations of gear.
Most tanks swear by outfitter – a tool that allows you to quickly change around pre-saved outfits. For instance, say I'm going to be tanking the nature phase of Hydross. Before even setting foot in SSC, I would have spent an hour or so making sure I had all the necessary gear, stats, and configurations that Hydross requires. A good part of this time would be spent getting all those gearing changes into an easy to use outfitter profile – so I would just have to click one button to wear the gear.
Of course, that's resistant gear and it's expected that there'll have to be a bunch of switching of it. However, the gear switching doesn't end there.
Kitara of the Kudzu guild on Underbog has a great story behind this campfire shot:
This is from our first kill of Kael'thas last night. One of the advisors, Capernian, basically can't be melee'd; it is up to the ranged DPS classes to bring her down. So while this advisor is up in phase one, the melee group had a little pow-wow off in the corner.
Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? Because we'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We prefer full screen shots without the UI showing. And please, no more sunsets. This means you. I'm not kidding, yours is not the exception. No, really. Sigh.
Isn't it ironic that the guilds who always brag they don't have drama... seem to have drama? Today we've got a great story of drama, and the best thing about it is that the guild who went through it.. actually called themselves No Drama. Trust us -- Murphy wasn't kidding around.
For more stories of drama, downed and recruiting news from guilds all over the realms, just click the link below. We've got a nice full slate of news this week, so jump right in and start pulling trash, even if you don't have a full raid yet. Enjoy.
Exodeus of Celestial Blade on Icecrown was there when his guild downed Kael'thas for the second time. And what should drop, but the Ashes of Al'ar which summons the coveted Phoenix mount, a server first for Icecrown. Appropriately, (at least in RP terms) a Holy Pally won the roll.
Exodeus considered the arrival of the fiery creature to be a good omen of things to come as his guild said goodbye to T5 content. Later that night, they not only walked into Hyjal for the first time and downed the first boss, but they also got attuned for the Black Temple. On to new beginnings, indeed.
Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? Because we'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We prefer full screen shots without the UI showing. And please, no more sunsets. No, really. Ok, only if it's a sunrise in new Patch 2.4 lands. We'll take those anytime.
Yesterday I was able to get my warrior copied over to the PTR. I proceeded to head up to the new 5 man instance, Magisters' Terrace, and see what it was all about. Its a pretty cool place over all. It feels a lot like the Blood Elf city, and has a couple cool encounters. Including Kalecgos!
Of course to get to the Terrace you first have to have your character copied over to the PTR. For a little while, Blizzard was letting new people through. But lately it seems that the PTR character copy queue is again backed up.
Take a look after the break for lots of pictures of the place, a good walk through, and my first impressions of each boss fight.
While the removal of the attunement is obviously a way to get more people to see their new raid zone, the Sunwell Plateau, all is not golden. Many, many, many raiding guilds and players who have already made the brutal trek through Vashj and Kael will be quite upset. On the other hand players who are not yet able to, but perhaps ready for, the first few bosses of MH and BT, will undoubtedly rejoice.
What are your opinions of this change? How do you think it will affect the raiding landscape?
Every successful guild that I've ever seen has some sort of loot distribution system. Whether it's a major DKP system with a dozen small caveats, or a slow moving loot council, some way, some how, all guilds get the job done handing out every day loot in a fair manner. But there comes a time, a dark and evil time, a time when brothers and sisters fight against each other, cats and dogs live together, and all things foul spill forth from the bowels of the Earth. There comes a time when special loot priorities come into effect.
Many, many guilds have broken up over this. I've nearly been in a few myself. Back in the days of pre-bc, the first major loot drama came in Molten Core over the Hunter's ability Tranquil Shot. While now a days there are not really any single items that makes people fight tooth and nail over, there are a few bosses that drop some important equipment that might only be killed a few times.
Ready Check is a new weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, everyone feels good about a boss kill. Get your questions answered and turn those dreaded repair bills into epic loots.
Kael has an infamous reputation among the raiding community. If someone made a t-shirt with the classic phrase "work is a four letter word" and replaced "work" with "Kael," I would quickly buy two shirts. Many people feel the same way about this Prince of the Blood Elves when they are stuck on him. He is the gatekeeper to the paradise of epics that lies in Hyjal and the Black Temple and is considered the wall that separates the serious raiding guilds from the endgame raiding guilds. In order to defeat him, it takes hard work, excellent communication and coordination, and lots and lots of wiping.
The goal of this article is to shorten the learning curve with this boss and get over the hump quickly, before raiders start to get the dreaded "burnout." On average it takes most guilds about a month to kill Kael.
The dust has settled on most of the servers, and the 
This thread over on the forums
Yesterday I was able to get my warrior copied over to the 
Blizzard announced the following important four lines in their 
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