Not sure what it is that drives us WoW fans to adorn our cars with inside jokes and lingo from the game, but it does seem to provide a fun hint of Azeroth while driving around. If you've got something cool on your car not seen here, send it along to us, and we'll add it into the gallery below.
Knightless is having the same problem I'd guess quite a few players have -- her interest in her character is flagging a bit, and she's trying to figure out a way to get more involved in what she's doing in Azeroth. This is an interesting situation, because at this point, with almost any other game, the player would just leave and go find something else to play (and actually, I can say from experience that sometimes taking a short break from the game completely can rebuild your interest in it), but things don't really work that way in World of Warcraft -- responsibilities to your guild and the people you've met in game will keep you around even when your interest is low.
So what tips can we offer Knightless and others who are looking for ways to refresh their interest in the game? Rerolling is a big one -- I've always found that picking up a new class you've never played before can get you to look at a game in a different way. Running an instance that you haven't run in a while is always fun, too -- it only takes a little while to level up a character to Deadmines or Wailing Caverns levels, and both of those instances always renew my interest in playing through Warcraft. Running guild activities or contests are always fun, too -- especially since Knightless is a guild officer, she could organize some lower level runs or some "grind days," where guildies all get together in groups to level each other up.
Any other ideas for reviving a flagging interest in playing a character that you feel a need to play due to responsibilities or other connections in the game?
"Mob: No need to ask the Godfather for forgiveness - a mob is a word for monster. Also known as creep."
"Healer: Who's keeping the tank from floor-hugging? Your powerful, puissant, never-to-be-offended healer. Seriously. Several classes can play this role and they all find it pretty much a thankless task, as people are very quick to blame healers when people die [but you won't, because you know better!]."
"Pat: Don't look around for someone androgynous - someone is warning you that a patrolling mob is coming closer and will probably [if it hasn't already] attack you. "
"Buff: Keep your clothes on. Really. "
"Inc: If there's no time to type "pat" or "adds", sometimes you'll see "inc", for "incoming". [Why is inc faster than pat? No idea.]"
Go take a look, it's not just written with its tongue in its cheek, it's actually pretty informative for new players to the game. Save time the next newbie run and just send them the URL.
This is an interesting idea, though I'm not quite sure it will work: An enterprising guild (that Kimberly from LJ is in) has put together a site called WoWDailies.com, which is basically a list of what daily quests are available on which realms for any given day. As an idea, it's a good one -- pull up the site, and you can see what daily quests are available (BG, fishing, cooking, and instances) on your realm that day.
In practice, however, it's easier said than done. The site relies not on info from Blizzard's servers, but from visitors to the site -- just click a realm name and you can input what quests are available. But anyone can do that, and there's no accounting for whether the quests are real or not (I accidentally entered some probably false information). I think the quests do reset every day, so at least if someone enters the wrong quest it only stays up for less than 24 hours, but still, you have to trust that what's up there is right.
In fact, I'm surprised Blizzard hasn't created something like this to check every day -- they've got a calendar of BG weekends, so it's natural that they'd somehow let us check what quests were available out of game, and maybe even be able to plan instance runs ahead of time. At any rate, until then, WoWDailies will have to do. If you're lucky enough to have someone updating your realm correctly and on time, it should be a good resource.
We've done a lot of talking about alts here at WoW Insider, and if I had to guess, I'd suspect that most of our readers tend to be what most of us writers are: alt-a-holics, with many, many classes and levels of alts, sometimes even spanning across servers. But not everybody is like us-- some people, like the Nameless One over on LJ, have only one character. And to tell the truth, I kind of envy her a bit.
I've known a few people who have only played one character in the game ever, and in my experience, they've done great-- all the money they make goes directly to them, they never have to redo rep runs, all the keys they collect never have to be collected again. If you are an altaholic, think about all the gear you've gotten across the board and all the time you've sunk into other characters-- people with just one toon get to put all that time and effort into just one character, and get to reap the rewards.
There is a lesson here, however, even for us altaholics. I've often found that if I really want to level up one of my alts, the switching just can't happen-- I have to choose one character and stick to it. All the money I earn stays with that character, and my only goals while online are for that character alone. And when I focus, and put effort into just one, that's when things actually get done. I, like many players, get bored easily-- if I had only one class ever, I would have had to give up on this game a while ago. But when it comes to earning gear and leveling fast, the best strategy I've found is to sit down, focus in, and play like you have only one character.
Me, I've never been able to play a Paladin to my satisfaction-- despite my obvious concerns (which have come up before and which I won't belabor here), the class just never vibed with my playstyle. Warlock is another one that, for whatever reason, I've just never been able to play past about level 10 or so. It's not that I think they're bad classes-- it's just that I personally just don't vibe with their playstyle.
What about you? Are there any classes that you just can't seem to play and get into? What's your anti-class?
Lane asks a good question on WoW LJ that I'd like to ask you as well-- how are those Heroic PUGs coming? With the recent changes to reputation requirements for Heroic dungeons, there's probably a whole lot more players out there ready to run Heroics and looking for groups to do it with. But as classically unorganized as most pick up groups are, and as much concentration and skill that Heroics require, I can't imagine a Heroic PUG would ever been a good time, unless you got really, really lucky. Heck, I have enough trouble running with a normal PUG-- a Heroic PUG seems like it would be hell and a half.
I'm sure it's not impossible-- if you've already got a good tank and some good CC, you can probably PUG a DPS or Healer and do OK. And I'm sure that, just like real PUGs, every once in a while, you'll strike gold and get a group that really has it together. But as easy as badges are to come by nowadays, I have to stand in awe of the people who still go for Heroic PUGs. How's it going out there?
Here's an awesome tip from amib over on WoW LJ. Sometimes, we all could use a little location check from time to time. While I usually am OK with finding quest coordinates, every once in a while, I'd just kind of like to know where I am. So here's amib's tip-- a macro that will easily and simply tell you (no addons required) where you are in game.
(As commenters have noted, the formatting is weird here on the blog-- it's meant to be two lines, both starting with script. The other line breaks will need to be taken out.)
Just put that on a button, call it "Where am I?" or something like that, and then click it to get your current ingame coordinates in the chat channel. Considering how poor my addon-updating abilities are, that's perfect.
Of course, there are lots and lots of addons floating around that will do this even better-- showing your coordinates and cursor coordinates in the window, and all kinds of other ways. But if you only use coordinates every once in a while, and never remember to update your addons, this little macro could be pretty useful to have.
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.
These are awesome, and yes, I wish I could buy one, too. Cypher shows off these ribbons she made over on livejournal, and says that whenever she drives around with the Horde one on her car, fellow Hordies scream "For the Horde" at her as she drives by. Sounds about right! For the Horde!
But she says she made them for her and her roommate-- does she keep them both on the same car? I don't know how the whole "Blizzard-created logo" copyright thing would work (and I'm not quite down with putting stickers on my car), but selling both of these as magnets would be a great idea. Very awesome.
The WoW_Ladies livejournal group is one of my very favorite WoW communities, so I was disappointed to see last week that their latest posts were closed to everyone but members of the community. They'd been dealing with an expanding audience lately (brought on partly by attention from WoW Insider), and apparently there were a few issues arising among the membership.
But the community has started posting again (bringing about this completely awesome crochet Draenei), and the mods (formerly pretty unknown-- I've been watching them for a while, and I had no idea who was in charge over there), have made a very public statement about the future of WoW_Ladies. In addition to taking a more high-profile position, they have said that the recent closing was not their choice, but rather either a glitch, or the work of someone not a mod. And they've landed on a great compromise: all posts will be public by default, with an option for each poster to lock them to the community only. They've also made the very great choice of leaving the community open to men-- some men with significant others, they say, "like seeing the women here post - it helps them identify with their partners and helps them get ideas on how to join." Personally, I completely appreciate a place where a woman's perspective on the game gets placed front and center, rather then consigned to a minority, as in many other games media outlets.
The other good news is that they're working on a brand new layout for the community, so it seems like things are jumping over there. We're glad to see they made it through the drama, and are back as one of the most intelligent and interesting groups in the WoW community.
If "you could buff any class -- any class but your own (your main or mains if you've got multiple) -- which class would it be and how would you buff them?"
I'll say that if you want cool points on this one, you should stay away from any classes you play regularly-- for me at the moment, that'll be shaman, rogue, and hunter. I really like anti's answer of priests-- they are QQing a lot, but there is no reason they should be DPSing while paladins heal in raids.
Personally, I'd hook up prot warriors a little bit-- right now, their DPS is such a joke that the only way they can really play is in instances. I'm not saying that we should give them tons of DPS-- that would mess everything up in PvP-- but just a little extra DPS would let them solo, and wouldn't unbalance PvE groups that much (since it's likely that if the group makeup is right, the prot warrior's DPS will still pale in comparison to your regular DPS class's hits).
A buff like that isn't really necessary, but it's an interesting thought experiment to see where you might make positive changes that don't actually affect you. So if Blizzard suddenly gave you the chance to buff any class except your own, what would you say?
I may have to retract my reward to Lynyrd-- Yougotserved (how appropriate) has found an interesting, fun, and fairly mean use for the Armory. He puts forth a challenge for WoW's new online catalog of players and their talents and armor: Find the worst player in the game, based on spec, professions and gear.
Ouch, look at that spec and those greens. Oh my-- look at that neckpiece. Like I said, it's pretty mean. Yougotserved says it doesn't have to be level 70, but the really good ones are-- how you make it all the way to the end of the game without replacing all your gear at least once from the quests in Outland, I have no idea.
Is it wrong to use the Armory to make fun of players? Probably. But they shouldn't take it personally-- heck, that warrior in mostly greens has a Grand Marshal weapon (enchanted with Icy Weapon, but still), so he must be doing something right. So have at it-- dive into the Armory and see if you can find WoW's worst player. Maybe other players who made the same mistakes will learn something. And before you get all clever and start looking me up, I'll save you the time.
I like to think that maybe it's because I'm special (but it probably happens to everyone who has a 70)-- periodically ingame, I'll get tells from lowbies, asking either for mount money, or to run them through an instance. I've made it a habit to laugh and politely decline (this is not a hard game, and they can play it themselves). But this post on Livejournal made me reconsider the question of why I should or shouldn't help beggars.
Fordarkness tells the story of his mother selling some furniture that she was asking $500 for $25 to help out a couple who'd been going through some rough times, and he says that it seems like a good idea to help beggars out when you believe they genuinely need it. I've never begged for money or powerleveling (although I have begged same-level guildies to tank or heal an instance for me, I'll readily admit), but, like Fordarkness, I have been gifted money by friends who saw how close I was to my first mount.
Of course, guildies are a different situation-- I'll give them anything they need, because I figure you might as well show loyalty to someone besides yourself. As for beggars, though, I've never helped them, and unless they take an effort to show my why they actually need what they're asking for, I'll keep it that way. Have you ever felt the need to make a lowbie's day and gift them that mount money or run them through that instance? Or does a tell from someone you don't know asking for something automatically add them to your ignore list?
Update: Right after I finished writing this article, reader Preacherman23 sent us this elegant solution: one player puts 50g in the trade window of a beggar... and then just goes afk for an hour or so.
Via Livejournal, here's another WoW cake-- lottie says she made it for her boyfriend's birthday, but the URL on the pic goes to a site where there's all kinds of nerdy cakes to check out.
The cake depicts the gates outside Orgrimmar, of course, and apparently everything there is edible (and sugary): "chocolate and vanilla sponges with mars bar mini rolls, matchmaker chocolates, jaffa cakes and chocolate finger biscuit and chocolate chip logs." This is the second amazing Horde cake we've seen-- where's your delicious cake skills at, Alliance?
Knightless is having 
Recently we created guides to help 
This is an interesting idea, though I'm not quite sure it will work: An enterprising guild (that 
We've done a lot of 
We're not 
Lane asks a good question on WoW LJ that I'd like to ask you as well-- how are those Heroic PUGs coming? With the recent changes to 
Here's an awesome tip from 
The WoW_Ladies livejournal group
theantipoet asks 
I may have to 
I like to think that maybe it's because I'm special (but it probably happens to everyone who has a 70)-- periodically ingame, I'll get tells from lowbies, asking either for mount money, or to run them through an instance. I've made it a habit to laugh and politely decline (this is not a hard game, and they can play it themselves). But 
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