There's a disturbing trend happening on the forums lately -- all the great drama threads are getting deleted. It's not like it's not out there -- this week's GW, as usual, is full of good drama, and the truth is that drama threads on guild forums are better anyway. But it seems like every time a tipster kindly sends us a link to an official forum thread, it's mysteriously disappeared? Could someone at Blizzard... not want us to make fun of drama? We'll keep an eye on it.
Until we figure that out, keep sending us the tips, whether they be about drama, downed news for your guild or others, or recruiting notices for up-and-coming raiding groups. The place to send it all is wowguildwatch@gmail.com, and clicking the link below will show you just what we heard about from the realms this week.
It seems the vast majority of drama we've heard regarding guild banks comes from ninja schemes and disgruntled members.Vaela of Hyjal expressed her exasperation with guild banks in the Guild Relations forum.She feels that there is an imbalance between players who donate resources to the guild bank and those who make the most withdrawals.The original poster asked for suggestions on systems to fairly distribute guild bank resources.
The responses focused on cooperation and reciprocity with the guild bank.The purpose of the guild bank is to fun the guild's activities and exchange objects of value.In the end, the system comes off as a communist type of public ownership arrangement, as opposed to the free trade system that rules the auction house.To quote Karl Marx, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need."Communism as we've known it has largely failed, most likely because people don't fully buy into the system.
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.
So Zach posted one of my favorite recent articles about making sure your bank toon looks stylish while it's taking care of your business, and I was amazed when I read the comments to see that a few people were wondering what the whole point of a bank alt was at all.
I have to admit that I was once like them. Why should I give up one of my precious character spaces for some dude who will just sit around Thunder Bluff or Ironforge and do nothing but store stuff that I should just be using or auctioning anyway? Of course, now that I have a bank alt, I'm pretty happy with the concept. If you're someone who hasn't made one yet, I'll tell you why I think you'd be happy with one too after the break.
The days are getting longer and the nights a tad warmer. Now is a good time to go through and clean your house in the typical spring cleaning exercise. It's a good time to do that in Azeroth, too.
For me this entitles a few things with my mounds of inventory items. First, I organize my bank alts. They each are assigned certain categories of items. For instance my first bank alt gets all my gems, raw ore, processed ore, and leather. My second bank alt gets all my enchanting mats, my herbs, reputation items, food, and other tidbits. Now both these alts have been around for about 3 years. In fact, my first bank has a /played time of 10 days at level one.
As a side note having a level one bank alt at ten days really makes me question my sanity...but oh well, on with the article.
Since it's looking hopeful that patch 2.3 will be released within the next couple of weeks, it's probably time to start getting prepared for all the long-awaited features that are being added to the live realms. Aside from Zul'Aman, guild banks are probably the biggest new item coming out with the patch.
While guild leaders will undoubtedly be delighted to delete their bank alts, (some of the guilds I've been in have had as many as five or six,) and will also have to make difficult decisions about which members get access to the loot, I'd like to focus more on the impact upon individual players rather than whole guilds. Most players that have been in Azeroth for awhile probably have a bank alt that's mainly used to store trade goods and sell things on the auction house. In 2.3, according to all reports thus far, it should be possible to set up a one-alt guild so that your bank alt will have access to much more storage space.
Reader Ashendra of Glory of War on Lightning's Blade sends us this shot with the curious question: have you ever noticed that security is a bit minimal in the Aldor bank in Shattrath City? As a frequenter of the Scryer bank I have to say I'm much more confident in my banking choice after seeing this shot. (And to see what Ashendra has to say on the subject, click the image above for a higher resolution version -- in which you can read the quote.)
Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing a copy to aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com, with as much or as little detail as you'd like to share with the world!
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
Greetings, fellow officers! This week's question concerns guild ranks -- a topic that will see increasing relevance as Blizzard rolls out the new guild bank system in patch 2.3.
Hi Scott,
I'm the GL of a largish casual adult guild that is growing fairly rapidly. I inherited the GL role 10 months or so ago, and we've enjoyed a great deal of stability ever since thanks to a close, friendly atmosphere, lots of support from higher members, strong but fair decision making on everyone's part, etc. However, I also inherited a bunch of officers. The previous GL made pretty much anyone an officer who wanted to be, without clear roles or responsibilities. This hasn't been too bad up to now, but the lack of organization is starting to strain a bit as we grow in size and start to raid. It seems like a good time to revisit our officer roles and guild ranks. I was curious which officer roles and ranks you use in your guild, or systems that you've found successful?
I imagine most of our readers could run around their favorite major city with their eyes closed. You must know the quickest path from the bank to the auction house to the gryphon master as well as you know the W, A, S, and D keys on the keyboard. In fact, you probably know it so well that you've stopped looking at any of the scenery, most notably the very impressive Darnassus bank shown above in this screenshot sent in by reader Neelie.
Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth.
Lately, I've really been pushing hard to get the 5k gold for my epic riding skill-- as I said on Friday, that Netherwing mount is calling my name. And so, on the advice of a rich guildie, I've finally made it a point to get a fulltime auction house alt. I chose one of my younger, less-played alts, stuck him between an Auction House and a mailbox (it happened to be in Thunder Bluff, but it could have been in any capital city), and made it a point to start scanning the AH every day, posting auctions when I start playing, and sending items to the alt when I'm done playing. That way, the next day when I log in with my bank alt, all those items are sitting in the mailbox, waiting for me to put them on AH-- right after I scan it again.
That's what Amanna at Adventures in Azeroth does as well-- though she goes even farther and looks for deals on gear she has in mind to buy. It would be great to have that kind of know-how, and I'm sure it makes money, but I don't have time to know the approximate costs of every little thing-- I leave that to Auctioneer. (Auctioneer does come with a mod called Bottomscanner (used to be called Bottomfeeder) that is supposed to find deals on high-priced items for you, but I'm not sure that I can get it to work right-- I'm worried that I'll spend a bunch of money on an item I can't sell).
But if nothing else, I do have to agree that the formula works-- check the AH with your alt when you log on, and mail items back to that alt when you're done playing for the night. It's a basic thing to do (and anyone who's been interested in making money before has probably already started doing it). But making money seemed like such a chore before (I'd rather be killing stuff or grouping up then worrying about prices and checking the mail), but it's actually become fun for me to log in every day and check what's sold and how much gold I've earned.
Datto asks an awesome question: which banker do you use? Do you have a loyalty to a specific banker, or do you just always hit up the closest one? Whenever I think of banking, I think of Orgrimmar, and walking a few steps in and to the left to see my man Karus (at least I think it's Karus-- is it wrong of me to never get to know the teller all the times I've visited him?).
It's not that I won't bank elsewhere-- when in Undercity, I often visit the Montagues, and if I happen to be in TB, I'll go to them (although, truth be told, I can't ever really remember visiting the bank in TB). On Alliance side, I don't have a specific banker that I go to, but I do like the Stormwind Bank-- it seems so much cleaner than Ironforge's bank. IF seems like a dirty pawn shop to me. Plus, Stormwind's bankers are named "Olivia," "Newton," and "John," so there's that.
The same could be asked about auctioneers, and again, on Horde I do about 80% of my AH shopping in Orgrimmar, all with the guy on the left (and I have no idea at all what his name is). There is something to be said, as a few players note, for simply going to the auctioneer that's the least busy-- it's nicer not to have to fight the lines to get a click in. And on Alliance side, there is none other: all of my auctioneer business goes through the lovely Redmuse in Ironforge. She's been running my auctions for me ever since the beginning, and I've seen no reason to change. Every once in a while, IF will run laggy, and I'll be a little irked that she's taking so long to get my auction up, but one look in those eyes and that red hair, and everything's OK again.
In WoW, as with real life, I'm a bit of a hoarder. Give me space and I will fill it with things that might be useful, or perhaps were useful (you never know when you'll need them again). After one or two ill-advised disenchantments, I've started keeping non-replaceable gear around in my bank, and as a druid I have multiple sets of equipment anyway.
Of course, I'm also an enchanter and engineer, so I have to store materials and equipment for those professions -- not to mention a vast number of quest items that are collecting dust waiting for me to finish the quest. Non-combat pets, items useful in certain instances, items useful for PvP, Darkmoon Faire tickets... my bank just isn't big enough to hold it all.
There are a couple of solutions. Firstly, I can try culling the trash and actually getting rid of some of my quest items, disenchanting equipment I haven't used in weeks, and choosing which of my non-combat pets is my favourite.
Secondly, as I have multiple characters (including a bank-only character), I can send the majority of my non-soulbound items to an alt, who can hold on to them or return them in the mail for easier access. I always lose track of who has which items; I used to use the BankItems mod, but I haven't found one that tracks mailboxes yet.
The final option is, of course, to get more bagspace. Not easy when all your bags are 16-slotters already; I've recently finished the grind for an Argent Dawn Supply Bag, and I'm also hoping I'll come across an Onyxia Hide Backpack or Panther Hide Sack at some point. The materials for Bottomless Bag are offputting, though -- twelve mooncloth for two bag slots? I think I'll have to manage.
It seems the vast majority of drama we've heard 
So Zach posted one of my favorite recent articles about 
The days are getting longer and the nights a tad warmer. Now is a good time to go through and clean your house in the typical spring cleaning exercise. It's a good time to do that in .jpg)
Since it's looking hopeful that 
Lately, I've really been pushing hard to get the 5k gold for my epic riding skill-- as I 
Datto asks 
In WoW, as with real life, I'm a bit of a hoarder. Give me space and I will fill it with things that might be useful, or perhaps were useful (you never know when you'll need them again). After one or two ill-advised disenchantments, I've started keeping non-replaceable gear around in my bank, and as a druid I have multiple sets of equipment anyway.
Subscribe
