Our team tanked 76 points tonight. Despite winning five straight Arena games worth about 3 rating points each, we ran into a team that was pretty well-geared but were clearly playing below par. Unfortunately, our leader disconnected midway through the match, and even though we were outplaying the opposing team, the loss of our primary DPS and tunnel vision (he plays a Rogue) was enough for the opposing team to eventually burn us down for a 27-point loss. Just like that, all our previous wins were nullified and we found ourselves lower than when we started. Familiar with the opposing team's make-up, we counter-comped and proceeded to beat them thrice in a row until the fourth game where, in the middle of the battle, everyone started running in place on my screen and nothing was happening. It was my turn to get disconnected.
I restarted my router and modem, waited a minute, and logged on to find we'd dropped another 25 points. Eager to recoup our losses against a team we were certain we could beat, we queued again. Not three minutes into the queue, my Vent went silent and I feared the worst. After making certain I had disconnected, I sent an SMS to our leader to tell him what had happened, went through the motions of connecting again and when I finally got on, I found that our team had tanked a total of 76 insane points. And it was largely my fault.
Every Wednesday World of WarCrafts features a recipe that shows you how to make own real life version of in-game recipes and items.
In the spirit of upcoming ChristmasWinter Veil parties I thought that a drink might be a needed component. Now the drinks in WoW aren't exactly something you would want to serve at a party, Refreshing Spring Water, Ice Cold Milk and Moonberry Juice don't seem very....... festive to me. BUT! What about Healing Potions? Now hear me out. There has to something about those things if you have to wait two minutes to drink them.
So, to that end I decided to create Healing Potion Punch.
All the World's a Stage is brought to you by David Bowers every Sunday evening, investigating the mysterious art of roleplaying in the World of Warcraft.
While many online gamers are famous for using "leetspeak," there's a certain portion of the community that places a great deal of importance on complete sentences and good spelling. Roleplayers, as a whole, are friendly and communicative, but nonetheless have special ways of interacting that other gamers may not understand.
As a new roleplayer, I remember having to figure a lot of these things out, although I was blessed to befriend many people who kindly explained things to me as well. The first and most important concept I had to get a grasp of was the idea of "in-character" versus "out-of-character" communication (usually abbreviated to IC and OOC), and in what situations the use of either sort would be appropriate.
It's fair to say that on an RP server where roleplaying is still the rule rather than the exception, anything in the /say or /yell channels should be "in character." That's to say, it should be phrased with good spelling and proper punctuation, and should only refer to happenings within the WoW universe. In situations where one must say something out-of-character in these channels, it is polite to at least couch your OOC words in double parentheses to clarify your meaning.
We really love these player-run parties (how did that AzerothCross go the other week, anyway?), so here's another one for you this weekend. This time around, your host is Kernhoof on Silver Hand (finally, the US realms get their own event), who wants to celebrate his unthinkable accomplishment-- not only did he grind up Bloodsail rep to Honored, but he then went back and killed tons of Venture Co. goblins to bring his Steamwheedle Cartel rep back to neutral. So now he can wear the Bloodsail hat with pride, and walk around Booty Bay without getting stomped on by the bruisers. Awesome.
Sounds like cause for celebration to me. The party kicks off this Sunday, October 28th on Silver Hand at 1pm server in Booty Bay, and since the guards there aren't going to be drunk or anything (like they are on New Year's Eve), it probably won't turn into a bloodbath. Probably. But even if it does, should be a good time no matter what-- sounds like Kernhoof has even invited a few GMs to show up. As always, if you go and check it out, make sure to send us your screenshots!
Gutrot, who has earned some acclaim for leveling an entirely naked Troll Warrior (no armor, no weapons, no nothing) has almost finished his quest, and he's throwing a party on his server, EU Aerie Peak, so everyone can watch.
He's going to hit level 70 on Saturday night at Sen'jin Beach just outside the Orc and Troll starter area (not sure how he's going to level up there, but I guess he's got plans), and he's inviting everyone on the EU realms to come over, roll a naked troll of their own, and celebrate with him. Sounds like a lot of fun-- I can't make it, as I'm in the US, but it definitely seems like a good time to hang out as a bunch of naked trolls, not to mention that making it all the way to 70 naked and unarmed is quite an achievement.
Things are set to kick off at 9:30 pm UK time-- if you head over, take lots of pictures, and send us the galleries. A bunch of naked trolls is something I've got to see.
It's a problem: here you are, a master of your very own runed blade, a summoner of an army of undead, an immensely powerful tank and damage-dealer -- and yet no one will let you into the lore party over at Starshine Shadowstrider's house!
"Yuckie!" they say. "He got his powers from the Lich King! ...Eww!"
"But I turned against him!" you proclaim in your defense. "I wised up and came back to the Light, sorta. Okay not really but I'm still not completely bad! It's like... fighting..." your voice gradually gets quieter as party-goers stop listening, "... fighting fire with ... fire. Dammit. I'm gonna go kill Onyxia by myself! That'll show 'em."
Yes indeed. It's looking like the future's going to be pretty rough for Death Knights. As Nethaera explained, "It's most likely that Death Knights aren't going to find themselves being popular guests at the town picnic."
But Death Knights aren't alone in dealing with this sort of thing. "Keep in mind," Nethaera points out, "that Warlocks aren't generally welcomed with open arms either (depending on the culture of the race in question)." Here we have a good role model for plucky summoners of the undead: Warlocks are magic users who use the powers of the Burning Legion against the Burning Legion itself! Have not the Alliance and the Horde not gradually come to accept that just because some people happen to summon demons, cause agony, corruption and ruin, as well as steal people's souls -- that doesn't make them inherently evil, right?
So it is with Death Knights. So what if you betrayed all the peoples of Azeroth to go and serve the Lich King for a little while? So what if his taint of undeathiness is still flowing through you while you draw those unholy runes and create zombies? You can now go to Shattrath to have your picture taken with a Naaru! Your reputation should be squeaky clean.
While Blizzard may yet find a plausible reason for Death Knights to be fighting against the Lich King rather than with him, keep in mind that even if that doesn't work out, you've got one magic word that will make everything okay. Whenever people won't trust you or play with you just because it would seem that you might possibly be technically evil (on the outside)...
It's time once again for Ask WoW Insider to publish one of your questions for the community to answer. Last week we heard a ton of great ding stories, and this week we examine a possible breach of instance etiquette. Pelia on Greymane writes:
Last night I was leading a PUG into DM East and about 10 minutes into the instance our mage says "hey guys, i g2g in 20 minutes..." Since we were just starting the instance, I dropped him and instantly started looking for a replacement that would be able to run the whole instance with us. The mage was surprised and said "I said 20 minutes!"
Should I have let him stay in our group until he really needed to go? The group had just formed, so I didn't really feel I owed anything to him. Plus I couldn't use the LFG tool/channel if he stayed since we already had 5 people... I figured I owed it to the rest of the group to find a 5th person that was in it for the long haul...
Was I being a good leader, or a jerk... or both?
What say you, readers -- did the mage commit an instance faux pas? Most of us have rushed to complete a dungeon whilst an exasperated significant other/parent/child/spouse/friend waited for our tardy asses to show up somewhere, but what's an acceptable limit for a "gtg soon!" announcement? Would you go into a dungeon knowing you had to replace a member part way through?
Our kingdom for your questions! Please send us what you'd like to know for next week at ask AT wowinsider DOT com.
We'll be meeting up at the Lost Bar at 1150 W. Magic Way in Anaheim, just minutes away from the Convention Center. We'll be having all kinds of good times, including a trivia contest, some fabulous door prizes, and most likely the imbibing of drinks all night long. All of the WoW Insider staff at BlizzCon will be there, so come by, say hi, and have a good time on the eve of Blizzard's big event! See you there!
Cryptos posts on the forums about a subject very near and dear to my heart: loot whining. It is one of my great flaws that whenever I get close to a boss that I know drops something I really want, I can't help but share my excitement with my fellow party members, and sometimes (more often then not, unfortunately for them) my guild members. I'm sorry to say that I'm the guy he's talking about-- I'm the guy that is about to fight Murmur telling the guild, "man I sure hope my pretty dress drops." And it's a sign of how amazing my guild really is that they put up with me talking about it all the time.
But then again, loot is basically why we play the game in the first place. Shouldn't I, and players like me, be able to share with our fellow players what loot we're going for, to let them in on the stuff we hope we get? Is it right for this GM to actually threaten to disenchant a piece of loot, just because someone says they want it?
I definitely agree it can go over the top-- one of my pet peeves is people who join a PUG and try to "reserve" not-yet-dropped items, especially when there are others in the party who would obviously roll on it. And for my part, I've already noticed that I should keep my loot hopes to myself-- my guild doesn't really care about me getting every little upgrade I want. But good loot is the reason why many of us play this game, and so it's only expected that we should be excited at the prospect of getting it, and want to share that with fellow players.
And the Europe-themed news keeps on coming. The Blizzard Europe team will be having some events of their own to celebrate the expansion, with copies to sell and developers signing. Locations are as follows:
UK: HMV 150 Oxford Street London W1D 1DJ Phone: 020 7631 3423 Doors open: 11:00PM, January 15
FRANCE: FNAC 74 Ave des Champs Elysées Paris 8e Phone: 0153 53 64 64 Doors open: 0:00 - 04:00, January 16
GERMANY: Media Markt 10627 Berlin-Charlottenburg Krumme Straße 48 Phone: 030 31992 0 On sale: 0:00, January 16
SWEDEN: EB Games Gallerian Hamngatan 37 Stockholm Phone: 08 411 21 51 Doors open: 0:00, January 16
WHEN: Monday, January 15/Tuesday January 16, 2007 | On Sale at 0:00
As much as I won't be going to California for the US events, the extent to which I won't be going to Europe is even greater. What about you guys? Any of these convenient for you?
We posted a few days ago to tell you that the Fry's in Anaheim were having a midnight event for the launch of the Burning Crusade, and now we have official confirmation. Blizzard will be celebrating, selling, and signing copies at four California locations:
Fry's Fountain Valley (4500 copies available)
Fry's Anaheim (4500 copies available)
Fry's Sunnyvale (4500 copies available)
Universal Citywalk Gamestop/EB Games (1500 copies available)
Lining up at each of these locations begins at 6 AM on the 15th, and wristbands will be distributed to make sure you get your copy. More details, including store addresses, are available at Blizzard's page. I won't be making it out to my state of birth for this particular party, but I do plan on going to a midnight event at my local GameStop.
So which of you are lucky and dedicated enough to be attending one of these shindigs?
Jonesing for that rare murloc pet? Wish there
was some kind of LAN based competition to compete in for WoW? Guess what... There is!
Everlan is a LANparty in Denver CO that hosts 500-600 gamers and they are
being sponsored by Blizzard. They have a whole slew of WoW competition lined up for party goers, including scavenger
hunts, leveling races, and other in-game competitions. Makes me wish I lived in Denver :P.
Kudos to these
guys, I know it was a challange to throw a 120 person party, so I tip my hat to them for their 500-600 gamers!
Gutrot, who has earned some acclaim for leveling 
It's a problem: here you are, a master of your very own 
Cryptos posts on the forums about a subject very near and dear to my heart: 
And the Europe-themed news keeps on coming. The Blizzard Europe team will be having some events of their own to celebrate the expansion, with copies to sell and developers signing. Locations are as follows:
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