I like
this post on the General forums about being "realm-famous" and how to get there.
World of Warcraft has a gigantic community around it, but sometimes my favorite part of the game is that there are all sorts of little micro-communities in that big one. There's the player base at large, and then groups of people who read
WoW.com or other sites. Then you've got the realm forums denizens, and that's a different group than the factions on either side of each realm in-game. And then you've got your guild, and then within that, your raiders and maybe even your friends list. We're all part of one big group -- we all play the game together -- but there are all sorts of little identities in all of these little micro-groups as well.
And people can become "famous" in these groups. It's tough for us at a macro level to cover all of that stuff, though I like trying to keep up with some of it in
our Guildwatch column (and the picture above shows what happens when someone can become "realm-famous," or realm-infamous as the case may be. What's your experience with realm-fame -- can you name people on your own server, or have you ever gotten "famous" for nabbing a realm first or earning a reputation?
Tags: breakfast-topic, communities, community, discussion, drama, fame, game-discussion, gamer-discussion, groups, guildwatch, micro-communities, realm-famous, world-of-warcraft-discussion, world-of-warcraft-hot-topics, world-of-warcraft-topics, wow-discussion, wow-hot-topics, wow-issues, wow-topics
Filed under: Realm News, Guilds, Odds and ends, Breakfast Topics, Forums
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Oct 8th 2009 at 8:00AM 
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 6)
shanodot Oct 8th 2009 2:16PM
My real life sister and I became known on our server a long time ago for playing night elf rogue twins. We had the exact same talents, skills, looks, and gear. We only played together, never apart and we roleplayed. It was quite a challenge and very fun. We moved to another server and started over again doing the same thing. Again quite fun but never got the same level of fame there.
Another player I know became famous for his rivalries. He ganked in lowbie areas constantly and with style (lots of emotes and funny methods of ganking), and made enemies of entire guilds. Its been a couple of years since he was on that server but he still is talked about occasionally in general chat and on the realm forums.
Shardrell Oct 8th 2009 12:49PM
Back in the day, Earthen Ring had quite the circle of server celebrities, from forum doofuses to the PvP infamous to the Stormwind RP folks to the famous rivalry between the two top raid guilds which culminated in some notorious AQ gong-ringing drama. It hasn't been quite the same since the BC launch... cross-server BGs, less RP, and an increasing number of raid groups made it harder for specific individuals to become server celebrities.
Roland Oct 8th 2009 1:02PM
Big Red Kitty is on my server.
/thread
SpaceGoatPriest Oct 8th 2009 1:20PM
Big Bear Butt Blogger is on my server (Kael'thas). I had him on my friends list after i figured it out, so I must have grouped with him at some point :D
Sarah Oct 8th 2009 2:09PM
Does being featured once directly and twice by-proxy on WoWinsider guild watch make me real famous?
Either way: Realm fame is a fickle friend.
Once, I was an innocent young lass famous for writing WoW-ized songs, organizing massive scale cross-faction PvP bounty events in the Gurubashi Arena and being the recruitment officer for a guild known for being wild and crazy fun people.
Then it all went terribly terribly wrong.
I would advise NOT doing the following things in a one month span of time:
1. Organizing a coup and forcing your unstable GM out of the guild, causing a chain of events that include your guild forums and DKP being deleted, a 12 page realm forum thread and your guild website getting hacked.
2. Accepting a rare drop mount as a gift from a friend whose guild is selling said mounts. This is a very bad idea and can only lead to rumors and whispers about how you paid for the mount.
3. Gquitting your wild and crazy fun guild because the drama wake of the GM quitting never settled down. This leads to more 12 page threads with dissertations about your skill as a player, usefulness as an officer and personal psychology.
In conclusion, real fun can be fun, but its generally overrated and rarely positive.
Signed,
Diavola, Windrunner
Diavola Oct 8th 2009 2:24PM
Hmm...piles of fail.
*realm fame can be fun
Mufin Oct 8th 2009 3:02PM
RP realms are much more likely to have famous people. I'm a denizen of Moon Guard, and the only claim to fame I have was roleplaying a penguin as a joke on April fools, which people really liked.
However, many Moon Guard players and forum goers will know the names of "Everbanned", "Ghostangel", "Slain" (OH Slain!), and what's his face from Northshire Templar. This is just a tiny sampling. If you want a real community, come to a RP realm. You don't even have to RP, but the community is there. MG is a massive server, nearly always full, and yet everyone knows eachother. We're on big happy family.
Allie Oct 8th 2009 5:47PM
Even in Pornshire.
William Potter Oct 8th 2009 3:50PM
Beep from Echo Isles is very well known. I am guessing it's for smack talk in trade or the like.
sgtsolidus Oct 8th 2009 4:06PM
ask almost anyone on bloodscalp and you'll guaranteed hear about endgame and 'lieutenant general xiangxiang'. although i doubt they're only on bloodscalp. trade spammers seem to become the most famous.
sgtsolidus Oct 8th 2009 4:24PM
Also on bloodscalp. anyone in [Harmonium] for obvious reasons. (see this past week's guildwatch)
P.Ribas Oct 8th 2009 4:10PM
On Gurubashi's horde side we have a lot of famous people, Crul, Teanoooooooo "the might titan", Imagoon "the ninja"(it seens even ML cant stop him from ninjaing), Jddogg "Im on a drake", the people of guild, some mage that parks his Ashes of A'lar in Krasus Landing all day, and all those trade chat drama queens...
On Alliance side I can think of only two players, one particular mage named Chargin became famous back in TBC for ganking in Isle of Quel'Danas taking advantage of guards blind spots,and of course Pypoku (aka Pikachu) a human warrior that would drop out of nowhere to gank people doing dailies.
P.Ribas Oct 8th 2009 4:11PM
*pepople of the [WHERE DO YOU GOT THAT FROSTWYRM] guild
xSeanZx Oct 8th 2009 4:16PM
Goldnlock on Azjol Nerub.
Nuff' said.
PontiusGlaw Oct 8th 2009 4:18PM
Only one comes to mind. Back in the Pre BC PvP monsters days. I was rolling with a guild called Monolithical and we had a rep as PvP junkies. And there was this one Hordey who was a constant bane to everyone... I think he was in Guild Aquatic.. though I may be wrong.
Gnomecooker - Khaz.. Great player top bloke
RIP. Why do we only remember the ones we lose
Cheers
Snores
Kyle Oct 8th 2009 4:33PM
On my server, Fizzcrank-US, Horde side, the most famous person was Newfietauren. He was the guild leader of Hordeland Security, but what made him so famous was his constant and successful raids on Alliance cities. In fact, they were scheduled every Wednesday at the same server time. Sure, the Alliance expected them, but the raids were still successful. The shining moment of glory was when some Alliance were trash-talking us on the realm forums and challenging the Horde, and Newfie organized and lead a TWO HUNDRED MAN RAID on Stormwind. It was epic. Beyond that, we have our infamous trade trolls, like Frisskeh, and a ninja that has multiple threads reporting him on the realm forums, a blood elf DK named Aesdel.
Lemons Oct 8th 2009 5:57PM
There's a guy on my server who, a while back, started advertising that he had 98% of the blacksmithing recipes in the game, and for some reason he became famous for it. Nowadays, however, I think he's just famous for the sake of being famous. Some people probably don't even know why he became famous in the first place, they probably don't even know he's a blacksmith.
He's the only one I know of that's actually famous...the "infamous" douchebags that constantly yell in trade just for the sake of seeing their own text don't even deserve a mention.
"can you name people on your own server, or have you ever gotten "famous" for nabbing a realm first or earning a reputation?"
I don't think getting a realm first can make people individually famous. It can make a guild famous, but a single person in that guild? No. I know the name of the guild that got Celestial Defender, but I don't know the name of a single person from that guild, not even the GM. I think if you asked a bunch of people on my server they they would all know the blacksmithing guy I mentioned above, but they won't know anyone for getting any server firsts.
MusedMoose Oct 8th 2009 7:42PM
There was this one guy on my server who was the "annoying jerk" kind of realm-famous, and when he finally got fed up and rerolled Horde, he somehow had the brilliant idea to try to attack Ironforge. By himself. People were lined up to kill him as he came back to his corpse over and over and over.
...and people were lined up *healing* those who fought him...
Raz Oct 8th 2009 9:27PM
[Horde] Dunemaul-US has:
realm first Algalon kill (probably others too, but I don't follow that stuff much),
is currently the butt of every joke in Trade (have yet to figure out why),
Thorull is our realm's #1 Trade Chat "will buy your high end stuff" spammer,
Tepor is an old one that many still remember from BC most famous for pretending to report everyone for everything. Being "Teported" was a once-every-five-minutes kind of event.
Probably a few more I missed. Then again if I missed you, you probably aren't that realm-famous now, are you? :p
zulwiga Oct 8th 2009 9:38PM
The gankers seem to be famous too. Dalvengyr has an alliance druid called Toxictraktor who has the art of running away like a pansy down to a science. He's a pvp fiend too, I wouldn't be surprised if our whole battlegroup hates him.