The Classifieds: WoW player/MMA fighter on the mend
by Lisa Poisso 
Jan 20th 2010 at 3:00PM
The Classifieds brings you weekly updates on guild recruiting, rankings, splits and merges, progression and more. Have guild news or a Random Act of Uberness to share? E-mail The Classifieds.
In news from the WoW community, guildmates of MMA grappler Haydn Clasby, aka Croc of <Defiant Hearts>, US Bloodscalp-H, are rallying in support after he suffered a broken neck in what was called a freak accident during a match in New Zealand last month. Friends and fans are publicizing a Recovery Fund to help Croc out with the medical costs of the devastating accident.
Our friend Jens "Little Evil" Pulver, also an MMA fighter and inveterate WoW player (and seen in yesterday's 15 Minutes of Fame), offered these words of support for Croc: "My heart and thoughts go out to you, brother. Make sure you keep your spirits up and tackle this with the same grit and guts you used to get in there in the first place. Take the time to heal and get well soon. Chin down, hands up and always come out fighting; don't let this stop you. I wish you all the best."
Best wishes, Croc, for your continued recovery!
Let's open up The Classifieds ...
RECRUITING
- Family-friendly, limited schedule raiding <Knights of Ancient War> of US Arathor-A
- Prepping for endgame content <Dual Core>, US Aerie Peak-A
- Just starting 10-man raids <The Dollhouse> on EU Quel'Thalas-H
- Building additional 10-man teams <Blood of Sparta>, US Alleria-H, has just downed Saurfang; <Gravitas>, US Greymane-A, is building second and third 10-mans with an eye toward 25-man content
- Casual 10-man <Ladies Knight>, US Nagrand-H, is solidifying its 10-man team; <Is Legendary>, US Ghostlands-H, is looking for brand new raiders with limited play time
- Mature family/professional group in ICC-10 <Elite Guards of Alliance>, US Thaurissan-A
- Looking for healers: <Vintage> of EU Turalyon-H seeks new healers over age 18 for ICC
- Hardcore 10-man strict <SRC>, US Malfurion-H, seeks experienced, min-maxing raiders
- ICC-10 and -25 teams <Knights of the Shadow> of US Gnomeregan needs ranged DPS; <Circus Ninjas> of US Gilneas-A is building an additional 10-man team and prepping for 25-man content; <Limbo> of US Caelestrasz-A seeks "unstuffy," friendly players for 10-man teams and a new 25-man team; <Bring Out Your Dead>, US Shandris-H, is looking for a prot pally and a rogue for 25- and 10-man content
- ICC-25: <Talamasca> of US-Executus-A seeks DPS and healers, including a shadow priest who can off-heal, an enhancement shaman and a resto druid; <Cataclysm>, US Mannoroth-H is recruiting all classes, particularly an ele shammy and rogue; <TUWG>,"The Unknown WoW Guild" of US Thorium Brotherhood-H, seeks mature players for its 25-man team
- Hardcore 25-man: <Eximius> of EU Silvermoon-A seeks seasoned raiders with world-ranking aspirations
- <Havoc> of US Burning Blade-H, which formed on Jan. 4, is already 4/7 in ICC-10 and -25 in its first week of raiding. Good work, guys!
- <Dragonvein> of US Borean Tundra-A is proud to have recently cleared TOC-10.
- The "uber-casual" <Havoc>, this one from US Fenris-H, downed both ToC-10 and EoE-10 earlier this month. Congrats on the Champion of the Frozen Wastes titles!
- <Baraka> of US Gorgonnash-H has become the second Horde guild on Gorgannash to clear the first wing of ICC-10. Good work!
GUILD RANKINGS- 25-man Progress <Adept> sweeps into the top five to capture first place.
- 25-man Achievement <Gentlemens Club> of US Korgath and <Balance> of EU Grim Batol climb into the top five.
- 10-man Progress New this week to the top five: <Enigma> of US Deathwing and <Og> of US Burning Legion.
- 10-man Achievement
- 10-man Strict Progress <The Typhoon Struggle> of EU Defias Brotherhood climbs into the top five.
- 10-man Strict Achievement
COMMUNITY NEWS
- An effort to organize the EU's 10-man Strict community and address 10-man strict concerns is forming on the WoW Europe forums. "As the 10-man Strict raiding community is a small one, spread over all European servers, it is really hard to activate the majority," writes player Ghengie, EU Frostmane), "as it is very time-consuming to make alts on all servers to have a chat. We are a small group of players, so our combined voices still is not a really loud one. This results in the topic being on the edge of floating off the first page all the time." Lend your support and feedback on the forums.
- Word just in from Aleksey, former GM of Sedition on US Cho'gall-A and part of the movement to jump-start Cho'gall's overwhelmed Alliance population. Aleksey has finally thrown in the towel and moved on to a realm with more active Alliance players. Better luck to him on his new realm and to those still struggling to build an Alliance community on Cho'gall.
- Speaking of world PvP, players on US Scarlet Crusade are still coming down from the high of a massive, multi-guild Alliance raid on Orgrimmar: eight full 40-man raids, countless individuals and other raids and groups, in an effort that took weeks of planning by Alliance guilds. The Horde responded with a well planned counterattack. All in all, Thrall, Cairne and Varian all went down -- as did Scarlet Crusade as well as the entire Reckoning Battlegroup. Good times for all.
- Players on US Moon Guard are organizing an in-game event next month in support of cancer awareness. Get involved on the Moon Guard forums.
MILESTONES
- Congratulations to <Ministry of Truth>, US Winterhoof-H, on marking its first anniversary. Dedicated to helping new players, the guild has grown to more than 100 members with two active progression teams (one moving through ToTC after downing Lord Jaraxxus).
- <Order of Golden Fries>, US Moonrunner-A, is celebrating four years together this week. Congrats!
- Marking its three-year anniversary is <Suncrown>, the longest-lasting Blood Elf roleplaying guild on US The Venture Co-H, "where VCO is for FITE and wonderful world PVP."
- Our condolences to friends and members of <Insert Latin Name Here>, US Scarlet Crusade-A, on the loss of guildmate Uthrine, who passed away early this month. "He was young, vibrant, full of humor and life," wrote guildmate Boz. "His untimely death has rocked the whole guild and the many players on Scarlet Crusade who have had the pleasure raiding with him. Uthrine 1989 – 2010 -- he will be missed."
RANDOM ACTS OF UBERNESS
- Wår, US Nesingwary-A "As tank, his gear/HP wasn't uber. His attitude more than made up for it. Group was so awesome we ran four to five more. Total blast, great guy, fun runs. Hey Wår -- keep it real and maybe the LFD will put us in a group again some day." (Lornicide, US Hydraxis-A)
- Maceman <Core>, US Greymane-A "Maceman joined us for our guild's initial foray into ICC-10 as a pickup healer. He wound up raid-leading us through the first two bosses. Not once during the 18 wipes did he complain, mock or discourage us. He truly is an exceptional player!" (Helzibob, GM <Brotherhood of the Vale>, US Greymane-A)
The Classifieds brings you weekly updates on player and community news, guild recruiting, rankings and more. Have news or a Random Act of Uberness to share? Or maybe just a picture of your guild or gang of friends you'd like to lend? E-mail The Classifieds. (If you're recruiting or seeking contacts from other players, please include your guild's web site address.)Filed under: The Classifieds
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Paymetohealu Jan 20th 2010 3:07PM
WTB DRAMA
(cutaia) Jan 20th 2010 3:22PM
Haha...taking the drama out was the best thing to ever happen to this column. Now instead of forum drama, I get to watch the wow community experience a collective rage seizure without even clicking any links! :D
Banndit Jan 20th 2010 3:37PM
Right, drama is still here... it's just in the comment section now.
(cutaia) Jan 20th 2010 3:40PM
Haha...you people need a sense of humor about yourselves. ;)
Buf Jan 20th 2010 3:08PM
still haven't brought back the drama? not even worth reading.
Hooch [Quite possibly crazy] Jan 20th 2010 7:15PM
I'm jacking this post, but there's an update from Haydn Clasby's youtube channel, and he's making progress and can control almost all of his left arm apart from his fingers.
His left is promising as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEXVXmEmBDs
primal.geek Jan 20th 2010 3:12PM
Still no drama? Fail!
Matthew Rossi Jan 20th 2010 3:28PM
You don't consider it dramatic when a man breaks his neck and his friends try and help him? What plays have YOU been reading?
(cutaia) Jan 20th 2010 3:31PM
Psh, broken necks are old hat Rossi. I broke my neck like 3 times last week. I'll let you know if someone takes some gems from my guild bank, though.
primal.geek Jan 20th 2010 3:36PM
It'd be drama if his friends didn't help him (not that i hope such a thing comes to pass).
On a side note, are you trying to calm the cries to bring back the drama by putting a sad story on top to make people feel bad for complaining in the comments?
JokerFace Jan 20th 2010 3:38PM
It's not "drama" unless there is 75% bitching and 25% moaning. Maybe a dash of QQ.
You know, the sort of things gossip whores care about.
I guess most people prefer the WoW tabloids...
Matthew Rossi Jan 20th 2010 5:34PM
"On a side note, are you trying to calm the cries to bring back the drama by putting a sad story on top to make people feel bad for complaining in the comments?"
Well, I'm not involved in the production of this article in any way. But if I were, I doubt I'd bank on comment trolls feeling shame or common decency.
(cutaia) Jan 20th 2010 5:45PM
Oh snap, Rossi! :D
primal.geek Jan 20th 2010 7:35PM
@Matthew Rossi
So are you saying the only people that are asking to see the drama section back are "comment trolls"?
Adam Holisky Jan 20th 2010 7:46PM
While we acknowledge that there is a segment of our community that wants the drama back, that segment is not the majority of readers by far. In fact, it is a very small percent-of-a-percent of readers. 200 comments on an article (by about 80 people, I might add) does not represent anywhere near a majority opinion, or reason for us to change something back.
Over time we'll track this article's hits and interest from around the site and other places on the internet, and if changes need to be made, changes will be made. We have found, however, that drama related articles do not produce as good of results as non-drama related articles do. I'm not going to go into exact numbers and other statistics, but we have clear evidence to support this -- and the entire management staff agrees on this.
If you all want drama and like to read about it, you are more than welcome to go on the forums and elsewhere. But WoW.com will not the be purveyor of such articles anymore. Instead, we're going to focus on providing you with more investigate articles, community support tools, breaking news, and a wider variety of interesting columns. Drama articles are not on that list.
Cheers,
Adam Holisky
Editor, WoW.com
primal.geek Jan 20th 2010 8:03PM
Cheers to Adam for putting it out there the way it is. While I will miss the drama, I do appreciate (as I'm sure most readers do) when people are willing to give a straight forward answer without any fluff or condescending overtones.
On a much more serious note, I'm sure Haydn Clasby, his family and friends would appreciate any help that we as a community can offer him in this time of need.
marco Jan 20th 2010 8:21PM
Interesting, Adam...it seems this "very small percent-of-a-percent of readers" likes to vote too, which I'm sure you do look at. All the comments saying dropping the drama is good, gets shaded. I know most people don't comment, but many at least look at them right? I mean come on...how many people enjoy WoW enough to read WoW blogs AND care about people clearing Naxx/Ulduar/ToC?
Adam Holisky Jan 20th 2010 8:31PM
Marco,
It takes about 10 people to vote a comment down into obscurity. There are also situations where a single user can vote a comment down multiple times, making the system useless. I'm sorry, but the only real way to track our entire readership is by tracking the numbers and hard scientific facts. We've found that only a small percent-of-a-percent of reader actually comment, and we can't let their trends dictate overall site activity. If 0.003% to 0.01% of readers all leave the same comment and we act on that, we'd be unfair to the other 99.997% to 99.99% of readers who don't vote by leaving comments or "voting comments down", but instead vote with their eyes and links from around the web.
~ AH
raingod Jan 20th 2010 8:34PM
Well you might have had more comments Adam, if you hadn't locked the thread last week. And your snarky response here says far more about the direction wow.com has taken recently than anything else.
Adam Holisky Jan 20th 2010 8:41PM
I don't believe I'm being snarky about this.
And we locked the the previous post because people made physical threats against the staff and were getting very much out of line. And again, about 80 people left comments -- about 60 of those were in favor of drama. And those 60 people were commenting a lot and making a lot of noise. It's not a majority, I'm afraid.