Back in March, Mike Schramm reported on a player who paid 20,000 gold to ensure that she would receive the Amani War Bear from the Zul'Aman raid instance. It is not entirely uncommon for players to run their guildmates' alts though low level dungeons for fun or profit or purchasing raid runs or arena points. Any of these may be considered cheating by some players, some more obviously than others. Angona of Hellscream (obviously an alt) had the opportunity to purchase Black Temple gear, though her guild is currently running Serpentshine Cavern, Tempest Keep, and Mount Hyjal.

Her guild leader disapproves of this transaction. Angona quoted him as stating "Only lazy noobs buy gear, that's not what this guild is about. If you want to buy gear, then I suggest you just /gquit right now." This attitude suggests that players should earn their gear, even if a gear upgrade would be good for the guild's raiding efforts overall.

To function properly, all guilds must have rules for participation, gear, and general order. Since the ancient MMORPG days, many guilds have assigned Dragon Kill Points (DKP) to players for their participation in raids and events. The points are turned in for gear rewards from raids. Some guilds dock DKP for members that do not meet their standards. Aerte of Blackrock has questioned the wisdom of his guild's policy on this practice for a member that had regularly violated the rules.

The conundrum begins with the statement. "Recently we had a member quit who during the course of his rather brief stay managed to have about 130 DKP docked for various infractions. Not showing up specced properly, gems unacceptable, enchants unacceptable or non-existent, bad attitude....etc..." The original poster expressed that this may not be the best way to keep players in line.

The original poster noted "Every time I get to that point in 2v2 arena where a psychic scream will let me get off 2-3 mana burns, my fear makes my target run in a perfect L, away from me and behind a pillar before I can even get off 1 cast. It's like that's the exact path they would have taken if they weren't feared."

I actually considered asking my boss if this post could be the first in a new series called "Stupid WoW Criminals," but honestly, I'd prefer to think that this guy is one of kind.

So, here's the deal: A young Warlock named Kiranth of the Aman'thul server (Who has since deleted his post, but you find it quoted a couple posts down from the top in the thread) came to the customer service forums, and in this thread here, claimed that he somehow lost his epic flying skill after buying it on a Monday and playing until Tuesday morning maintenance. He claimed that he'd been trying to contact the GMs for months in order to get the skill back, and that he was incredibly frustrated and about to cancel his 3 accounts if he didn't get the skill.

Luckily, the ever vigilant GMs are always willing to please, and Auryk soon chimed in with an answer to his problem.

I'll summarize what he said after the break, but you really should read it for yourself. It's amazing.

Hotlunch of Thunderlord has a bit of a problem - It seems she was out on the prowl recently, and found herself an AFK Warlock. However, despite the fact that she jumped out of hiding and wailed away at the poor Warlock, the Warlock's faithful Felguard came to his aid and killed her first.

To Hotlunch's credit, she didn't immediately chalk up the blame to overpowered Warlocks but, probably rightly, to her gear. It's pretty true that poorly geared Rogues aren't much trouble to your well geared Warlock. As long as you have the hp and armor to last through their barrage of stuns to get off a fear and trinket out of Crippling Poison, then kite them around while they burn through Cloak of Shadows and Cheat Death, they're pretty easy. It's when you get the well geared rogues with tons of armor penetration and resilience that you start feeling the sting of those blades.

Of course, some people in the thread rightfully pointed out that she should start looking at Opportunist's Battlegear for a quick leg up on PvP gear - it seems like her situation is exactly what it was implemented to help out with, and might have helped out a bit with the Felguard. Good luck to Hotlunch on getting geared up. With a little more preparation, I'm sure the next AFK Warlock won't be so lucky.

But thinking about the situation, I think it's also a good counter to those people who get caught in complaining about "welfare epics" and all that.

And Belfaire doesn't care.

Reader Kyver tipped us off to a gem of a post on the Customer Service Forums today, titled "I'm a WoW Widow" (moderately NSFW, PG-13 rating). The story goes like this: A girl, Missmegan, lost her boyfriend to the Burning Crusades [sic]. They used to play together horde side, but after buying the expansion he turned to the alliance and is dedicated to his guild mates. All is lost, as he's no longer interested in his girlfriend's "assets" and rambles like a two-year old.

Of course this makes our forum posting protagonist upset, and she needs her boyfriend back. Now obviously this is a joke. At least I hope it is. And Katie (my girlfriend), if you're reading this I promise I'll never let it get this bad. I mean, I only play for 5 hours a day, not 13 as the boyfriend in the story does. And I make money with all this, so it's okay, right? Sweetie? Darling? Honey... D'oh....

Tagging the first response to this thread is Belfaire The Mighty, with the simple response "Dear WoW Widow, It's actually Burning Crusade. Yours, Belfaire." This had myself and the other writers here laughing. We had to share it.

So dear readers, I ask you, are you a WoW widow?

If it were up to me, I'd call this "forum post of the month," but I guess March is still young and that would probably be premature. At 2,600 words, this is one of the longest forum posts I've read in its entirety, but it was entirely worth it. In fact, it was so well-written that it didn't feel like a wall of text at all. Alright, but what is it about?

Titled "Long Road Home - Vanilla to WotLK", this great post by Calian (of Norgannon-A) explores the history of the endgame in WoW, from the days when MC was the only raid and there were no battlegrounds all the way through to the forthcoming patch 2.4 and into Wrath. It focuses on the origin and development of the casual/hardcore divide, which has become one of the hottest topics in WoW discussion today.

You owe it to yourself to read the post, but in short, he comes back to the familiar conclusion that casuals need hardcores to inspire them, and hardcores need casuals to show off to; therefore the animosity between the two groups is very much misplaced, and they are in fact in a mutually beneficial relationship. I'm inclined to agree. What's your take on it?

[via WarCry]

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...

Mileiamh has posted an idea for an auction house revamp in the official WoW suggestions forums. Because neutral auction houses are located in neutral towns, and are therefore not frequently used, Mileiamh suggests that Blizzard could place faction neutral auction houses in "each of the pre-BC auction houses".

He posits that these new additions would "solve bad econom(ie)s on low pop servers" and eliminate the "need for opposite faction auction house alts". Furthermore, Mileiamh reasons that these auction houses would "likely supersede the old auction house" and therefore, could "replace [them] completely".

Seeing "no drawbacks", he seems excited at the prospect that the "items available to both factions" would be "greatly expand[ed]".

Taking the neutral auction houses as proof that "[B]lizzard seem[s] to have no problem with horde and alliance selling things to each other", Mileiamh invites everyone for further discussion. What potential benefits and drawbacks could other players point out?

What happened to Drysc over the weekend? The man went snow crazy-- not only did all of the forum posters on the official WoW forums turn into candy canes yet again for the holidays, but the CMs also got turned into snowmen, and Drysc peppered the forums with a brand now "lol wut"-level catchphrase: "snow mans." There's snow rhyme or reason to it!

Still, as forum memes go, I laughed. Detaer from Daggerspine wrapped up all the "snow mans" into one big wrapup (which Drysc then added a "snow mans" to for an infinite snowy loop). The holidays are here again, and while a few forum posters were guessing that Drysc might have been hacked, it's much more likely that our CMs are drinking way too much egg nog. When will the frozen ice-inspired craziness end? There's just snow way to know.

Our own Zach Yonzon is putting together some great guides to the battlegrounds (WSG is the last one, and Arathi Basin is being worked on as we speak), but just in case that's not enough for you, Digo of Hyjal has written up a great (and succinct) guide to how the premades win battlegrounds. From WSG to AB to EotS to AV, he's got a terrific writeup of what needs to be done and how to do it to walk away from the BG with more marks than the other team.

He markets the guide as one for casuals, but it's got great tips for everybody: fight on the flags, not on the road. Make sure you've got something held before moving on. Send a druid after the flag and control WSG's midfield. Stick together and assist and heal. This is all stuff every single person who queues up for a BG should know (and unfortunately, it's also the same stuff that's yelled in every /bg channel because lots of players don't listen).

Great post, and a must read for anyone routinely going into the battlegrounds. If you aren't doing this stuff already, take the lesson, and do it from now on.

Just in time to cheer up us diehard Shamans, Halbrium has stepped up to be our Alamo, and put together a "Shaman's PvP Guide" just for us totem-droppers. Class by class, he goes over, in hilarious almost English (he's from Quebec, but there's a lot of tongue-in-cheek going on here), just what we need to do to beat everyone else in the game. From Druids ("OH NO WHY IS ANIMALS ON MY FACE?!") to Priest ("If they turn dark, you have made them angry and your brain may start to smell like burning"), he runs down custom strategies, all the while giving out great Shaman tips: "USE EARTHSHOCK CONSERVATIVLEY (like your bush!!) Because when you do that it will be very difficult for them to destory you when you are weaked at the end of the fight."

Use Earthshock conservativley (like your bush!!) indeed. The only thing missing are the hastily Paint-shopped photos of Shaman totems, but otherwise, we've got a Shaman guide for the ages. Great show, and definitely worth a Forum Post of the Day.

I have to say that I really enjoyed this little ditty Tatiana wrote up over on the forums. She's seen all the trouble the CMs are contending with lately, feels a little sad for our Community Managers, and decided to write a song for them. I don't want to turn this into yet another discussion about Shaman buffs (we've got other posts for that), but no matter how you feel about the CMs, you just have to be won over by lines like "You tease us with "When it's ready" and even with "Soon." / And you get flaming pumpkins as your forum toon."

Hopefully some musician more qualified than I (I've got my trusty Uke right here, but unfortunately my mic isn't quite good enough to give this thing justice on a recording) will toss in a catchy chorus and set this to music. I imagine something a little Arlo Guthrie-- how else could you pull off the song's best joke: "In excitement I click on the Blue post, / To see if it's "Soon," or "!!!" or " If you have any complaints or feedback regarding a Community Manager, please email wowcmfeedback@blizzard.com. Thanks!" Funny. And if someone does put it together, drop us an email about it-- we'll be sure to play it on the podcast.

The whole thing is reprinted for posterity after the break.

It started the day before Halloween, a thread on the Mage forums about certain issues with the changes to Patch 2.3. Today, 51 pages later, mages are still posting about their concerns, and the thread has gotten notice. I don't know where to start explaining this thing. It's just too huge, too massive, and too full of brilliant suggestions. The more I read the more I learn, and the more I gain a deeper respect for my mage brethren.

The original poster, a mage named Adultralisk writing under a friend's account (for reasons I'm unclear on,) starts by explaining that mages are unhappy with certain changes coming in Patch 2.3. Largely, they coalesce down to two themes, Arcane viability, and PvP issues. Nethaera took the time to post on this thread, asking mages to include feedback rather than simply typing '/signed,' and while I see her point -- adding suggestions to the discussion is always better than simply agreeing -- I feel that if you don't have any suggestions, a show of moral support is equally as viable.

So much as been going on with revitalizing underutilized talent trees of late. A long while back Feral Druids and Shadow Priests were changed so dramatically that they are now coveted members of raid groups. In Patch 2.3 Retribution Paladins will see passive threat reduction, and a boost to DPS that will give pallies back their Jack-of-all-Trades persona.

Now there is talk of turning attention to the discipline tree. In a post today on the forums Eyonix laid the foundation for what will become some juicy speculation on what Blizzard has wanted from the discipline priests:

Yesterday I took an extensive review of what we have in store for discipline (though it will see many changes between now and release) in Wrath of the Lich King. For quite some time I've been providing the designers with feedback from the community, as well as my own thoughts and ideas. Though it may not always be apparent every member of our team works very hard communicating all aspects of player feedback.

With that being said, the current iteration of the tree literally blew my mind. I was in the class designers office in under a minute discussing the changes like I was a nine year old child who was given a sneak peak of an entire set of unreleased Garbage Pail Kids cards. I can't say much but I will say this:

The tree will stand on its own two feet.
It will be viable in PvE.
You will notice impact from player feedback

The statement is so marvelous I wanted to give it to you in its entirety (minus the first line, that merely let us know no formal announcement is being made at this time). We're going to see a fully -functional Discipline tree in WotLK, able to stand alone as a viable PvE option for priests. Finally it appears that Blizzard knows where Discipline fits in now in the scheme of things, and it seems their goal of giving every class three viable trees is coming to fruition.

Who will next receive the love, do you think?