Lately, the forums have been full of people accusing other players of being bad at World of Warcraft. The denizens of the Raids and Dungeons forums have even gone so far as to call casual players "bads", and complain about "terribles" or "scrub guilds" getting into raids without attunements. This brings up an interesting point: what makes someone "bad at WoW"?
Personally, I don't think a lack of gear or raid progression indicates being bad at WoW. Some players, like myself, simply don't have the schedule to donate to the acquisition of epics. I would define "bad" as someone who cannot achieve their goals in-game due to their own stupidity, incompetence, or inability to follow the rules.
Here's some examples. If you can't kill Shade of Aran because your schedule prevents you from raiding enough, you're not bad. However, if you can't kill Shade of Aran because "don't move during Flame Wreath" has yet to sink into your skull after twenty tries, you're probably bad. Having trouble winning arenas because you're undergeared? Not necessarily bad. Having trouble winning arenas because your rogue is decked out entirely in strength gems? You might be bad. Getting suspended for being keylogged doesn't mean you're bad, but getting suspended for botting and then complaining that it takes too long to level on the forums does.
What do you think makes someone bad at WoW? Are you bad?
One of my guild's officers has taken up the dubious practice of "farming for Wrath of the Lich King." He has epic mounts for all his 70s, all the recipes he could ever want, and enough spare cash to pay alt support for an army of gnomes, but he's convinced there'll be some big, 20K or so gold sink in the new expansion.
The gold sinks for WoW have always been epic mounts: the epic ground mount in vanilla WoW, and the epic flyer in BC. I'm not sure what it could be for WotLK. I can't see that many people would spend a ton of money on PvP structures, which leaves a couple of options. There could be extremely expensive forms of character customization, such as tattoos, wings, or other adornments. There could be guild housing (finally.) My guildmates suggested that it will be submarines shaped like "sharks with frickin' lazer beams" and underpants "with rockets on the front", further confirming that my guild's sense of humor is stuck in 1997.
What do you think the gold sink will be when WotLK finally emerges from its cocoon?
A couple of days ago, I did something that I never, ever do in WoW. I ran past someone fighting a mob and took a ore deposit. Why did I commit this evil deed? Because the other player was a female troll hunter with a letter-salad name and a pet named "Cat" -- in other words, someone I strongly suspected of being a gold farmer.
After she said "lol" and ran away, I got to thinking about gold farmers. (Edited to add: After the lol, I asked if she was going for the ore and she said no. Armory also provided that her only prof was skinning. I'm not quite as evil as you may believe.) This led to today's two-part breakfast topic: How do you tell a gold farmer, and what do you do about them when you find them?
I have a sort of mental checklist for suspected gold farmers:
Hunter
Female
Blood elf/night elf/troll
Cat named "Cat"/Boar named "Boar"
Beast Mastery in the Armory
Only profession is skinning
Inappropriate gear/Appropriate gear that is all BOEs
Random name
Will never go away when you attack and will never beat you in a fight
I usually don't do anything about them unless they're farming the stuff I need, in which case I'll report them. I'll also grab mines and other nodes from beneath their feet. How do you tell a gold farmer apart, and what do you do when you find one?
Michigan plays Ohio State this week in one of the most storied football rivalries of all time. This got me thinking about WoW rivalries. Sure, we only have two teams, the Horde and Alliance -- but we have tons of classes that hate each other, particularly on the forums.
Every class seems to have a rival or two. The rogues don't get along with the hunters, the paladins and priests are constantly fighting over healing, the warriors and druids argue about tanking, and none of the clothies like each other. Everyone seems to dislike a class that shares their role, whether it be DPS, healing or tanking.
But the current epic class rivalry is probably mage/warlock. The mages feel their spot as top caster DPS has been taken unfairly by the locks. The locks feel like everyone hates them and are causing their nerfs. Throw in that both classes compete for the same items and you've got quite a brouhaha.
What do you think is the best class rivalry in WoW?
If there's one thing I learned from my last breakfast topic, it's that people like to talk about their servers. We have another server- and faction-specific question today, coming from a forum thread: Who is the best known player on your server? Morrath of Daggerspine further elaborates his question: "Whether they are a hero or a villain, there are certain people that make our servers what they are ... on every server there is a player that stands out from the rest, a person who everyone on that server knows one way or another."
Magtheridon has one WoW-wide celebrity: multiboxer extraordinaire Xzin. But we also have duelists Joho and Madmaxo, forum trolls Sarkasmos and Rohnaj, drama survivors Avelin and Lexipie -- and that's only Hordeside. Occasionally, someone sets up a quiz in the forums about e-famous Mag players: "What were the two guilds that blockaded Booty Bay? Who created the catchphrase 'doesn't go to u'? Who was the first Mag player to tell a reroller to go ____ themself?" It's nice to be on a server that has culture and history.
Who's the best known player on your server, and what are they known for?
You wouldn't go to Cancun, Rome or New Zealand without packing items appropriate for the trip -- so why should you go to the Black Temple or Karazhan any less prepared? Levenah of the World of Warcraft Livejournal community asked players, "What do you carry for a raid?" She personally slings an impressive number of potions, a good amount of weapon oil and holy candles, and what appears to be one banana.
Most of the respondents seem to carry multiple stacks of every potion and food available, which makes me feel slack -- back when I was raiding, I came with about 10 healing pots, a stack of plus agi food, and then five to ten or so of my choice offensive and defensive elixirs. Oh, and 20 of each poison and Flash Powder, and usually a small amount of the Blinding Powder that no one ever asks me to use.
I know that tanking and healing classes tend to have to bring more items than DPS -- and this isn't even counting all the various sets a druid has to carry! What's on your packing list for a raid?
At least once a day, the trade chat of my home server, Magtheridon, is filled with people linking [Skullflame Shield] for some reason. For a while, I thought it was caused by some sort of sociological mass brain spasm unique to Mag, kind of like Chuck Norris jokes or being an Ohio State fan (/duck).
But Phyllixia of Proudmoore has broken my theory. It seems like every server has its own item to link in trade. Notable "server items" include:
Warp Slicer on Gorgonnash
Sulfuron Ingot on Sargeras
Force Reactive Disk on Hellscream
A random level 34 stick with a Mongoose enchant on Thunderlord
The Black Stalk and the Crimson Shocker on Maiev
Elementium Bar on Tichondrius
Fight Club on Kirin Tor
Foror's Compedium of Dragonslaying on several realms
Simple Wood on Blackwater Raiders
The Nicker on Maelstrom
So far, it seems that a lot of the items have a long history (Foror's), a weird presentation (Thunderlord's stick) or sexual connotations (Crimson Shocker and Simple Wood.) I have NO IDEA where this desire to repeatedly link one item comes from. What's your realm's item? Why do you think this trade chat linkage is so widespread?
A simple topic, but so difficult to figure out the answer to. If you could go back to when you first played WoW and give yourself some advice (WoW-related only, you can't tell yourself not to date that skeezy dude with the '80s hair from the Rockford), what would you tell yourself?
In retrospect, I probably would have advised myself not to make a Rogue as my first character to level. They're a nice class, but having a primary Rogue made it difficult to get into groups and raids. I would have made a Druid or Priest instead.
Additionally, I would have never tried to level in Silverpine Forest, entered Stromgarde Keep, or tried to solo all the seven billion elite quests before Outlands. I would have never tried to raid hardcore, and generally spent less time thinking about loot and more time cooking deviate fish.
What would you do differently if you started WoW again?
Sometimes it seems that in our rush to be different, we end up just like everyone else. You can see this every day at your local Hot Topic. In WoW, I tend to notice this in hunter pet choice. Some days it feels like every single hunter has a lynx from the Blood Elf starting area, or Humar the Pridelord, or a nifty-colored Warp Chaser. Where's the individuality?
So I've decided to ask the community what the rarest hunter pet model is out there. All the skins are available here on Petopia, if you need a visual reminder.
Hordeside, at least, I see a surprisingly small amount of tigers being leveled to 70. It's such a beautiful model, and so simple to obtain -- I'm shocked there aren't more out there. The plague-stricken animals, such as bears and boars, are also underrepresented -- maybe only Undead hunters would want undead pets?
In general, there aren't a ton of spiders, serpents, crabs and birds out there, except for lowbies with owls. But looking at the Petopia page, there are only two models that I've never seen a hunter with. The white carrion bird model can be found at the named mob Trachela in the Bone Wastes, and the pure white gorilla is only seen on a rare mob in Un'goro.
What do you think is the rarest hunter pet out there? Hunters, would you rather have an uncommon pet, or do you prefer the cats and wolves?
Among many other fine personality traits, my boyfriend happens to run a comic book store. As such, he's gotten a lot of phone calls recently about the World of Warcraft comic book that's coming out next month. The success of the Halo comic has led him to order extra copies of the WoW book, but he's uncertain about how well it will do.
The comic definitely appeals to a niche audience, and a lot of players aren't too interested in lore, so those are factors working against it. But the book also has some top-notch writers, and no one ever went broke counting on WoW players to be kind of crazy about WoW-related stuff. This could mean a lot of walk-ins from WoW players on the street desperate for more stories from their favorite game.
I'm definitely going to check it out -- it'll make a great Know Your Lore, and I'm a hopeless WoW addict anyway. Plus, one of the dudes in the book is using a Thunderfury! How cool is that? Are you planning to read the comic book when it comes out? Why or why not?
It's been the top online roleplaying game for quite a while now, and The Burning Crusade was actually released as the biggest PC game sequel ever. But as popular as videogames are, they're still a niche market in the terms of popular culture. Every gamer may know what Warcraft is, but that doesn't mean your parents or grandparents do (unless they play, but that's another Breakfast Topic).
Until now. Is World of Warcraft finally breaking out of the gamer barrier and moving into the mainstream? There are more WoW players in America than farmers, and while I was kind of joking about seeing realm outage news on the local TV station, maybe it really will happen-- the game's already appeared on the sitcoms before the news. Are all these mentions just a coincidence, or has WoW finally hit its mainstream tipping point?
Lavinia over on WoW Ladies found a pretty funny definition for "gold plz" that got me thinking. What if we "redefined" a few WoW phrases to make them a little more "accurate"?
PUG: (noun) A group of people who probably aren't finishing an instance today.
DEATH KNIGHT: (noun) What we'll call Ret Pallys after WotLK is released.
THE BARRENS: (noun) A section of the world where those who can't play, chat.
OVERPOWERED: (adjective) Anyone who beats me in PvP.
Those are all right, but I bet you all could come up with even better ones. Choose a term from WoW and "redefine" it to better describe what our world is really like.
Just a quick question this morning, from Indigo on Livejournal: if you compared the way you look in real life to a WoW race, what would you be? Indigo would be a Female Dwarf, and I'm sure lots of people would be human. Who would be a Tauren? Actually, now that I think about it, Samwise Didier, lead singer of Blizzard's L70ETC, would be a pretty good Tauren. But only because Pandaren aren't in the game yet.
No doubts here-- I'd be an Ogre. Just the one head, but considering my height and size, you can call me High King Mike. I can definitely break out the dance, though, at a moment's notice.
Reader Stalzar is worried about twinks. With the announcement of experience gain acceleration between levels 1 and 58 coming down the pike, he is concerned that this means an end of his beloved PvP characters. I have never like twinking much, that process where players maxed out the gear on a low level (mostly level 19) character for the sole purpose of living as gods in Warsong Gulch. I used to be nothing but irritated that when I attempted to get into the battlegrounds my characters were instantly trounced simply because they were not completely dedicated to PvP. I was frustrated, I was bitter.
Now that I have grown up a little Warcraft-wise, I realize that this is in a way an adaptation to the battleground system. I do think that the twinks might do better at least as far as their reputation goes, if they played in their own battlegrounds, where they would have equal footing with other twinks.
The current experience system allows a character to stay at level 19 for a very long time, enabling them to get the most out of their PvP-ness before sliding into the next bracket. Does this mean that when experience gain is boosted in a future patch the world of the twink will die out? I don't think so. This sub-culture arose because of the desire to be the best at one specific aspect of the game. Will this change things for them? Sure, but I expect that the same inventiveness that went into the creating of twinks in the first place will also spur them to adapt to whatever affect accelerated exp. would have on them.
What do you think? Will the twinks survive, or be lost to the annals of WoW history?
The end of a relationship can be a painful thing. Sometimes you see it coming from miles away, and are able to part ways while still remaining friends. Sometimes you get blindsided by the news and spend months depressed or drinking until you come to terms with it. And sometimes it's bad enough that you'll carry seething resentment towards the person for years and years.
Breakups are always tough, but they can be even tougher if both members of the couple play WoW. Suddenly, instead of your breakup being a private thing, a ton of other people are involved -- namely, your guild. Can both of you keep playing in the same guild without causing trouble? If you don't feel you can keep playing together, who gets to stay in the guild and who has to go? And if the couple are officers or guild leaders, can this tear apart your guild?
I've seen a few breakups in WoW where both members of the couple continued playing in the same guild without any trouble. However, I've seen quite a few more that ended in quitting, server transfers, or total destruction of the guild. What is the etiquette for breaking up in Azeroth? Would you find it hard to be guilded with an ex? Do you have any stories from the trenches of guild love?
One of my guild's officers has taken up the dubious practice of "farming for Wrath of the Lich King." He has epic mounts for all his 70s, all the recipes he could ever want, and enough spare cash to pay alt support for an army of gnomes, but he's convinced there'll be some big, 20K or so gold sink in the new expansion.
If there's one thing I learned from my 
At least once a day, the trade chat of my home server, Magtheridon, is filled with people linking [Skullflame Shield] for some reason. For a while, I thought it was caused by some sort of sociological mass brain spasm unique to Mag, kind of like Chuck Norris jokes or being an Ohio State fan (/duck). 
First 
Lavinia over on WoW Ladies found 
Reader Stalzar is worried about twinks. With the 
The end of a relationship can be a painful thing. Sometimes you see it coming from miles away, and are able to part ways while still remaining friends. Sometimes you get blindsided by the news and spend months depressed or drinking until you come to terms with it. And sometimes it's bad enough that you'll carry seething resentment towards the person for years and years.
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