No matter what you do in the World of Warcraft, you risk stepping into a sludge pool of drama. From arguments about class mechanics to heated discussions with trolls, to distribution of loot, it is impossible to avoid conflict.

In my personal gaming experience, I would have to say that most of the time I become upset, angry, annoyed or feel the need to take a time out, it is because I chose to run a dungeon with a pick-up group. Whether I'm tanking or healing, I inevitably run into people who seem to have no regard for other players.

As an example, I have a strong policy about my resurrection ability. I feel that if you die, whether from a stupid mistake of your own or a legitimate reason, you deserve to be resurrected.

On the other hand, if the entire party wipes, and no one had a soulstone or self-resurrection available, I believe everyone should run.

Sure, if you have to hit the washroom or someone comes to the door, I'll run with everyone else and pick you up after, and that's no problem.

Larisa over at The Pink Pigtail Inn mused on an interesting question the other day: Should you pay for the wipes you cause? Her feeling is not only that you shouldn't, but that the mere fact of offering to pay is offensive to her, like offering hush-money or a bribe. Instead, she says, apologize quickly and confess what you did so that others can learn from your mistakes.

I agree with the idea of the mistake-maker apologizing and confessing immediately. This technique also works in real life situations. (I wish it was heeded more often in politics, too.) Further, I vigorously disapprove of ham-fisted reactions from over-zealous raid leaders or guild leaders. Overreacting by /gkicking people (as one of the commenters related) in normal guilds is completely ridiculous. (If you joined a guild who wants to make world's firsts or server-firsts, then you know what you're getting into.) If you are the raid leader then you need to take responsibility for the team you put on the floor. In life, work, politics, and gaming, the buck stops with leadership. Leaders need to pick the right team and remind people who they know are not as experienced or strong in the particular raid situation about tactics, strategy, and common mistakes. Or else they need to chill the heck out. In fact, from a certain point of view, it's not the person who caused the wipe who should pay repair bills: it's the raid leader.

Other commenters on Larisa's post offered different payment plan ideas. One suggested a tax on all the loot acquired in the raid. Another suggested that before the raid even begins, raiders should pay an ante to participate, thereby socializing the costs of what might happen. Of course, there is the ever-popular solution of letting the guild pay for repairs afterwards, too. But as another commenter pointed out, repair bills and buff flasks for a 25-man raid can run a guild nearly 400G per run. My feeling is that as long as everyone goes into the raid knowing those taxes are being imposed, it sounds like a fine idea. Or, realizing that mistakes are going to be made, even by the most experienced and savvy players, we could all act like we realize that raising gold is as much a part of the game as raiding, questing, or grinding, and suck up our own repair bills, regardless of who caused the wipe.

[Via The Pink Pigtail Inn]

About 3 months ago I got my first pet. His name is Max, and is a grey domestic short hair cat. He was a stray that was scratching at my apartment door on a very cold November evening. At the time it was decided that he was just going to stick around for the night, but he grew on us so quickly that we weren't able to let him go. He now is a happy member of my family, and just like the rest of them, he has to put up with me playing World of Warcraft.

Except, it's not really "putting up with" WoW, it's more like "intensely interested in what's going on." Max will often times spend the whole four hours of the night's raid spread across the desk staring at my computer screen. He'll react to the sounds, the bright flashes of light, and occasionally even other in game cats. When someone says "lol" and their character laughs, he'll jump and stare down the speaker the laugh came from.

Many raiders and machinima fans will be disappointed to learn that Stage6, one of the best purveyors of high quality DivX videos, will be shutting down. Moo announced yesterday in her his WoW Moviewatch the shut down will take place this Thursday. This is a big blow to not only the WoW community due to all the superb WoW videos hosted there, but also to the larger DivX community.

If you're like me, you probably have half a dozen boss videos that you either need to watch, or do watch after wipes to learn from them. Stage6 has an option to save these videos to your hard disk, and it looks like after this Thursday, that will be the only way to enjoy them.

In light of the closure of Stage6, what video sites will you use to get high quality boss and strategy videos from?

Edit: A sincere apology to Moo for my gender mistake. Having not met any of my fellow bloggers in real life yet, I mistakenly assumed Moo was a masculine identity. /red-in-the-face. /apologize.

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

It happens to the best of us: We tried our best, and it wasn't good enough. We're no longer epic heroes bravely marching into battle but broken corpses littering the cave of some huge, slobbering monster or the fortified hideout of a powerful villain. We've all been there, and it always sucks (though it can occasionally be hilarious). As an officer and/or raid leader, what you do next can determine whether you find yourself in the same place all over again -- or standing victorious over the fallen body of your foe, sparkling with purple-ly epic awesomeness.

This week's question asks about wiping.

What is a good post-wipe process? I feel that we often just wipe and throw ourselves at an encounter -- rather than pausing and debriefing on what caused us to struggle.

-- Ciacco, Malygos, 70 human rogue

It starts out innocently enough. The tank loses aggro, the healer goes down, the rest of the group falls like dominos. It happens. Regroup, head back in, try again. But then it happens another time, then another time. What in Elune's name is going on?

Is the tank undergeared? Is the healer running out of mana too soon? Does the mage have to open with his biggest nuke? It could be one thing or a lot of things. But one thing's for sure: this 90 minute run through an instance is starting to look like a 4 hour death fest with a repair bill kicker.

So, I ask you this, gentle readers. When faced with a non-functional group, how do you get out? Nicely? Bluntly? Oops, my kid kicked the power cord? What's the classiest exit line you've seen or used? The funniest?

Mostly, full group or raid wipes are lame. Really, really lame. But sometimes, every once in a while, you'll have a wipe come along that is so spectacular, so fun, and so memorable, that it almost makes the repair costs worth it.

So let's hear your best wipe story. The shot above wasn't actually a wipe (we finished the Tiger boss in ZG with one solitary hunter left, and it was awesome), but my guild will always joke about the time our Warlock lead accidentally fell off the bridge in MC and onto the head of Golemagg-- who then proceeded to make his way all the way around the instance, grabbing every lava pack and puppy on the way, and crushing every single one of us out of existence. TS was just full of people screaming, yelling, and laughing the whole time. Oh, the Horde-anity!