I deleted four toons today. I know that Wrath of the Lich King is quite a ways off, but I wanted to be prepared. First of all, I wanted to ensure I had a character slot free for my Death Knight. Although I'm not sure I'll be leveling it all the way to 80, considering the jump start at Level 55, it's a much better leveling grind than the alts I deleted, the highest of which was a Level 40 Shaman. I sold all my Soulbound items, mailed all not-so-junk items to my wife's toons, and promptly hit the 'delete' button.
Deleting my toons wasn't as hard as I imagined it to be, the hardest part was getting rid of all the items I'd accumulated. I did this primarily as a way of cleaning house... after all, I hadn't been playing with my alts all that much and one or two were mere bank toons. I haven't deleted my Level 42 Tauren Hunter and Level 28 Blood Elf Rogue because I'm still considering leveling them (unlikely). Of course, what I'm really hoping for is for Blizzard to finally allow PvE to PvP transfers just so I can finally bring my Level 60 Hunter and Rogue over to my server. With two toons leveled to 70 on a PvP server, I think I've paid my dues. Whether or not that happens, I'll probably end up deleting those two toons anyway.
So there, I'm making space for my Death Knight. I needed more character space because I'm reserving some character names. When Wrath is finally released, there'll be a mad rush for cool Death Knight names and I don't want to be stuck with a lame one. In a way, I'm streamlining my character inventory the way Blizzard's cleaning up the game in the expansion. I guess conditioning my mind for a Death Knight has allowed me to remorselessly excise my alts. Are you doing anything drastic to prepare for Wrath?
Emy on WoW Ladies LJ is asking about +hit gear, but I'm actually more interested in the second question posted: How many among you have named all your characters the same way? I'm not a theme-namer -- most of my characters are named after whatever popped in to my head when I created them, creative or otherwise. But some players like to give all their characters the same suffix or prefix on their names, or name them all after something in common (Emy names her characters after stones, so "Garnett", "Ameythyst," and so on.
I've always thought that we should have some way of tracking which player owns which character, either within the guild interface, or within the game at large -- though people probably have privacy concerns about that, it's interesting to me to see people playing different alts and how they act differently. But theme names are one way of showing that characters are all part of a larger group, without actually revealing those ties to anyone not in the know. It's a cool idea -- almost makes me wish I'd put a little more thought into my characters when starting out.
So: do you have a theme behind the names of your characters? Did you plan it out or did it just happen? And is it clear (they all have the same root) or is the theme known only to you? What, if any, are the ties between the names of your different characters?
A little while back, we checked out a Facebook app to show your WoW characters in your profiles, and just this week, reader Orangelick asked for an update to the other app we linked to, called I Play WoW. Previously, I couldn't get it working, but I gave it another try, and as you can see above, it works just fine. In fact, it's pretty customizable, even moreso than what I implemented above -- you can upload a picture for your character, and even give status and description updates for every character on the roster.
If you're looking for some WoW representation on Facebook, it'll do you right. The only real complaint I have is that it doesn't by default show off any armor or stats that you have (the other app, WoW Armory, does, and here's another app that's even flashier if you want to go that way), but then again, how many of your Facebook friends really want to follow your characters that closely? And there's a quick link to the Armory page for those who do. All in all, nice app, and the perfect way to show a little WoW pride on Facebook.
Here's another WoW/virtual character portrait studio -- we've covered a few before -- but I think it's the first place we've ever seen that will actually create an oil-on-canvas portrait of whatever character you choose. Most folks do it with digital art or illustration, but Mondolithic Studios goes the extra mile -- not only will they actually put a painting together, but they'll show up to photograph you in your element, too. Lots of artists use reference shots that you send them, but Mondolithic apparently aims for "combat photography," which means they'll have a toon in world with you to watch you do your thing.
Interesting. There's only a few samples there at the moment, but they'll probably have more when and if business picks up. The style is quite interesting -- it certainly is oil paint, but rather than going realistic, it seems like it's designed more to mimic the actual look of the game, with a few weird polygon angles and designs.
Unfortunately, there's no mention of price at all (you have to email them for estimates), but odds are it isn't cheap. Then again, if you're in search of a one-of-a-kind oil portrait of the character you've sunk so much time into, this just might be worth the money you put into it.
LFG Armory is a new site that's aiming to beat the official Armory at its own game. Blizzard's site, as complete as it is, is still occasionally buggy and slow, and LFG Armory is looking to give players an alternative. And it works fairly well -- while the FAQ claims that data may be a little behind (due to caching of Blizzard's information), both the guild and player profile pages look pretty good and load quickly (and if the site can stay up after we link to them here, that'll be a real sign that it's a stable server).
But the real feature that makes LFG Armory something more than Blizzard's official site is that it has a guild and arena team matching system built in. Once you register your name and your characters, you can do a search for guilds and arena teams and try to find one that matches what you want -- percentage of level 70s, class makeup, and number of members. On the guild side, you can set your guild as looking, and then when you hit a match, LFG will match you up.
It's an interesting system, but like all social networks, it all depends on participation -- when I looked for a guild for my Hunter on Cenarius (who could use a guild, by the way), nothing came up, because likely no one on the server was looking (for a Hunter at least). But as an alternative to the Armory, LFG is looking pretty good. If they can get people to the site and stay up, they might give Blizzard's official site a run for its money.
Tactial mentions on the forums that all of the Rogues (in fact, this is true about almost everyone) are still in Tier 4. When Burning Crusade first came out and we all reached 70, Tier 4 was where it was at -- some people were excited about being in Tier 4, even if they hadn't earned it yet. But nowadays, Tier 4 ain't that great, and yet all of our forum icons shows us in the (now old) armor.
Drysc does say that the Armory is a click away from the forum icons, but surely Blizzard could take an afternoon and code a little customization into the icons. It seems like everyoneelse can render icons out of game -- why can't they? There is some good news for those looking for a forum icon update, though: Drysc says that when we're all level 80, we'll probably have new icons yet again, with shiny T7 on our characters.
Which will be great -- until a few big content patches after Wrath, when T9 will be out and we'll all be whining that we're still dressed in T7. Thus goes the circle, the circle of life.
He Said , She Said is a new feature at WoW Insider, which looks at the game from masculine and feminine points of view. This week we discuss the difference between bearing among male and female characters.
David: What's the big idea with all the macho attitude in male characters? I wrote an article about this problem some time ago, and I'd like to see what you think about it. Many people don't even realize it's an issue though; they just assume: "This game is about killing things, therefore, as a male, I should look as violent and intimidating as possible." For those people that think this this way, that's fine; those people should have that option. But let's look at all the male avatars that are available to us in WoW and find out how many options there are for those of us who don't want to look like a football player on steroids. The answer is... one! Other than Gnomes, every single male avatar in the game is pumped full of that "I'm gonna kill you if you get in my way" attitude that I just don't want to play.
Where's the old wizard who spends all his time reading books rather than pumping iron? Where's the skinny rogue who kills things by knowing when and where to put his dagger rather than slashing it around with arms the size of some tree trunks? Where's the option for a male to actually look wise and eloquent instead of brutish and arrogant?
It's an exciting time to be playing WoW, what with the WoTLK alpha information leaking out (Thanks for risking your eternal soul to break the NDA, anonymous screenshotter!) and 2.4 being pretty much a roaring success. By now, I'm sure everyone has settled in and is making plans for WoTLK, figuring out which zone they'll go to first, maybe setting aside a bit of money from all those dailies to powerlevel a trade skill.
So, I was thinking the other day of one more thing I was planning: switching mains. We've discussed the art of switching mains a bit before, but there's always a lot of hassles to it: there's the concern that you'll fall behind your friends, the concern that your gear won't be good enough, the concern that you'll have to grind your reputation up for certain keys and essential reputation rewards all over again.
A new expansion is just the ticket for getting rid of most of those problems. As long as your character is max level at the start of WoTLK, they can catch up on gear pretty quickly just from level 71 greens and quest rewards. Everyone's starting out grinding all the new WoTLK reputation grinds, so no worries that you're behind on those either. Despite being on a relatively "new" character, you'll be able to join your friends in Utgarde Keep right away.
So the reasons not to switch mains mostly manage to resolve themselves when a new expansion hits, and the question becomes, do you want to switch mains, and why?
I love this -- miladyhikara is working on a series of sketches featuring "Bad Girls of Warcraft," and the beginnings of the pieces are now up over on her deviantART page. They look fantastic -- I especially think this Shivarra looks good, but she's also got a female Naga, a Succubus, and Lady Barov herself. She says she's working on color palettes for most of them, so we'll have to wait to see the finished product -- if the sketches are any indication, they should look amazing.
She's also still asking for suggestions apparently -- who else would go in the "Bad Girls of Warcraft" series? Sylvanas? (is she really bad?) Onyxia for sure (in both forms). And she's also thinking about doing a "Good Girls of Warcraft" series, too -- hello Jaina, Tyrande and Fandral Staghelm. Wait, he's not a girl? Then why's he wearing that dress?
Okay, so technically Waaagh! is a Warhammer Online blog, but we'll forgive Syp this time, if only because S/he writes a pretty good article about choosing your character's name. The first part of it is, to me at least, good common sense. Don't choose a name you'll regret or a name that looks overly bad to other people. Naming after real life celebrities can get a bit tired. Naming your character "something naughty" is probably just going to make most people think you haven't cleared puberty yet. And yeah, it might be funny to call your character Rickroll NOW, but when Rickrolling is the next "All Your Base", everyone on the internet is going to point and laugh at you for being old and busted.
The second part has some excellent ways to comb for new names, some of which many veterans already know, but it's a good compilation, and gave me a few ideas for my next name search. I can confirm to anyone who doubts it that Syp's Rule of Three really is true. I have known only 1 or 2 people who have been able to avoid having their name reduced to a 3 or 4 letter nickname that is used almost constantly in place of the whole thing. You can't avoid it, so sometimes it's not that bad to go with the flow and plan your name around it. Same thing with the similar names across characters thing. It works pretty well, if you like the idea, but woe to you if you accidentally take someone's naming scheme and join their guild or group of friends!
If you're having trouble thinking of a new name, or plan to roll a character at some point in the future, give the article a read. It's pretty keen.
As you may recall, a few days ago, I wrote a little Dear Blizzard letter on the subject of enforcing the RP and Naming Policy. Of course, Once one writes a letter to someone, it is a good idea to deliver it, and thus I delivered it, or at least the issues therein, over on the Customer Service Forum. I was lucky enough to have Belfaire, who you may remember from his post explaining Blizzard's stance on multi-boxing, answer some of my questions and concerns. I also got some pretty well thought out feedback from a couple other people browsing the forums, including some roleplayers who disagreed with some of my points, so I think the threads worth a read in itself, and I'll comment a bit more on what Belfaire said after the break, now that I've had time to digest it a bit.
First of all, I really do have to thank you for changing the name of that guy called Longjohnson. Yeah, He sent us this pretty long rant about how it was unfair his name was changed, but honestly, it was a pretty clear violation of the naming policy against inappropriate references to bodily parts or functions (Sorry Jason, I'm only siding with you to a point here. Your character's name needed to be changed). That said, I'll give him this: It is pretty annoying that he was able to then proceed to the Armory and find 19 characters named Longjohnson and 60 characters named Bigjohnson. If a name is impermissible because of being profane or inappropriate on one server, it should count on them all, right? Every server has the same set of naming rules, except for RP servers, which have the extra "appropriate for an RP server" qualifier, so this shouldn't be a problem. Mike has actually observed that enforcement tends to be a bit lax in the past regarding both the naming policy and RP server policy, but I figured it was worth bringing up again.
Yeah yeah, lolRP, but even though I'd never seriously do an emote with my character (though I do enjoy /coughing at inappropriate times), I do kind of enjoy thinking of what my characters did before I started playing them in the game. As I've said before, my Orc Shaman was actually a prisoner in Durnholde Keep along with Thrall (and though I've tried to find him among the Orcs down there, I don't look too hard -- wouldn't want to cause a paradox).
But for my Undead Rogue, I've never thought about this questions: What did he die of? Whether it was choking on a gnome, one too many enchantments (never knew those could kill you), or the old standby of, y'know, cancer, every Undead character out there used to have a life (and now they just play WoW, ha!). So how'd your Undead lose theirs?
I'd like to think mine was something poetic, like his family was murdered by roving noblemen, and he arose from the afterlife and became a backstabbing rogue to avenge his lost ones. But it's probably more pathetic: like most of the Forsaken, he probably just got trampled underneath the onset of the Scourge. Of course, that'll make an appointment with Arthas more interesting...
Blizzard CM Bornakk announced that the following free character transfers will be available from Wednesday, February 13th at 12:00 p.m. PST until Wednesday, February 20th at 12:00 p.m. PST. Of course, these times are fully dependent on Blizzard reaching their transfer goals.
For the PvP servers, you can move from Illidan, Mal'Ganis, Skullcrusher, Smolderthorn, Tichondrius, and Warsong to the Anetheron server.
For the PvE servers, you can move from Aman'Thul, Dath'Remar, Khaz'goroth, and Nagrand to the Caelestrasz server.
Be sure to move as soon as possible! The transfers have been known to shut down early when Blizzard reaches their goals.
All the World's a Stage is a column for creative minds, playing with roles every Sunday evening.
The best characters in novels and movies often leap into your mind from the moment you first see them -- something they say or do sets them apart and captures your interest, and from that time on, you're hooked.
Likewise, when we roleplay, our characters should always have some memorable trait which can hook other people's interest. Too often, I see roleplayers focusing too much on dark secrets that they only reveal to their closest friends, and neglecting those mannerisms which could give everyone they meet an instant and profound impression of their character. Of course, if some people prefer to roleplay this way, that's fine. But to my mind, roleplaying is best when it avoids cliquishness, and the best roleplayers are those whose characters stay with you, even if you never see them again.
When I'm creating my own characters, I think of such memorable traits as "gimmicks," but that word usually has a negative connotation that doesn't apply in this case. For now, the best word I can think of is "quirk." It's an instantly recognizable pattern of behavior or speech that can let others know who your character is right away. Below you will find some of my favorite quirks I have seen people use in their roleplaying in WoW, each of them entertaining and inspiring it its own way.
Emy on WoW Ladies LJ is asking about +hit gear, but I'm actually more interested in 
LFG Armory
Tactial mentions on the forums that all of the Rogues (in fact, this is true about almost everyone) 
Dear Blizzard,
Yeah yeah, lolRP, but even though I'd never seriously do an emote with my character (though I do enjoy /coughing at inappropriate times), I do kind of enjoy thinking of what my characters did before I started playing them in the game. As I've said before, 
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