Breakfast Topic: LFG Chillmanders, PST to guildmate
by Anne Stickney 
Aug 24th 2010 at 8:00AM
I don't think that I've been in a single guild that didn't enjoy pranks. In vanilla days, we had that one mage, the one who made a warlock summoning macro. In the middle of trying to summon people to Molten Core, he'd pipe up with "Now summoning %t, please click the portal!" Approximately 6 seconds later, guild chat would invariably flood with obscenities spewed by the unfortunate 7 to 10 people who were now located in Thunder Bluff and the warlocks who now had to spend even more shards summoning all those players back again. Or that one rogue who, upon Onyxia's demise, decided to do a victory dance -- in the whelp pit. While loot was being handed out.
Later on, I joined a different guild with different pranks -- most of them revolved around the fact that a good chunk of the guild was a bunch of guys that lived together or near each other. These guys all had each other's account information -- yes, it was a bad idea. No, you should never, ever share your account information with anyone; it's not only a security issue, it's against the ToS. However, there is also another reason you shouldn't share account information that was beautifully illustrated by the guild. See, we often grouped together to raid Zul'Gurub, AQ20 or AQ40 -- and if we were short a tank, one of the guys would log on his buddy the tank's account and tank the raid for us. That's pretty much why they were sharing accounts, so that we would have fill-in options if someone couldn't show for a raid.
Later on, I joined a different guild with different pranks -- most of them revolved around the fact that a good chunk of the guild was a bunch of guys that lived together or near each other. These guys all had each other's account information -- yes, it was a bad idea. No, you should never, ever share your account information with anyone; it's not only a security issue, it's against the ToS. However, there is also another reason you shouldn't share account information that was beautifully illustrated by the guild. See, we often grouped together to raid Zul'Gurub, AQ20 or AQ40 -- and if we were short a tank, one of the guys would log on his buddy the tank's account and tank the raid for us. That's pretty much why they were sharing accounts, so that we would have fill-in options if someone couldn't show for a raid.
In the unfortunate instance that someone was feeling squirrelly, however, the situation could quickly turn for the worse -- or amusing, depending on which side of the login screen you were on. A player who was out of town for a week on a business trip would log back in to find his character lovingly planted at the bottom of the ocean, naked, bags emptied (into the bank, of course), with his hearthstone deleted. There were plenty of popular locations to strand people -- a little traveling could provide some truly entertaining locales in which said players could be stranded.
Nowadays in my current guild, we have the pre-raid doldrums, that half-hour or so while the raid is being put together and nothing is going on. Since we're all sitting in Icecrown, we can see general chat for the region -- and post in it. The favorite thing to do at the moment is to pipe up in general chat with a "LFM for Chillmanders, PST to <guild member name>," including the name of someone in Vent at the time -- bonus points if he's not actually in Icecrown, so he can't see you do it. Then wait to see how long it takes the named guildmate to start swearing in Vent because he's been riddled with tells out of nowhere. Retaliation is usually swift.
Nobody in any guild I've been in does this to be mean -- more often than not, it's a matter of lovingly harassing people or doing it for the laughs. Do your guildmates play pranks on each other? Does your guild include a fleet of mages that enjoy playing portal roulette? Do you have that "one guy" in the guild who incessantly plays practical jokes on people? Are you that guy? If you're the victim of a prank, do you get upset, or do you just laugh it off?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Dril Aug 24th 2010 8:07AM
As an resto/ele shaman, I can heartily say that the Naxxramas summoning stone was the best place for a duel.
...Until a priest came along. Mind control is even worse than Thunderstorm.
blizzardsprules Aug 24th 2010 8:48AM
Speaking of Naxxramas, have any of you tried using that brew from brew of the month club that turns you into an ice block during Sapphiron then yelling I AM A ICE BLOCK! only to wipe the entire raid? xDDD there's even a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_mKNe_5_T4&feature=related
Hal Aug 24th 2010 8:54AM
Heh, back when Naxx was still relevant, I had a fun one while waiting for the raid to assemble.
I'd aggro one of those Frostwyrms flying around Naxx (either by flying near it or taunting it when it came close enough to the platform), and then . . . I'd just sit there. Being a tank, it was trivial to stay alive.
The fun came from the AoE frost attack the wyrm would do. People would be summoning or waiting for their own raids, when they'd start getting blasted by breath attacks they couldn't even see. Granted, it wasn't a lot of damage, but the confusion was always good for a chuckle.
Prances in Underpantss Aug 24th 2010 9:02AM
@ Hal
Those were the days, huh? On my hunter, I would cast Misdirect on someone in the summoning area and shoot one of those Frostwyrms. It was pretty amusing to watch. And then I would get yelled at.
Zhiva Aug 24th 2010 9:59AM
http://www.wowbash.com/image-7614.html
Chadz Aug 24th 2010 8:12AM
We had plenty of those characters in the guild I ran on azjol nerub for years. It is great fun but you tend to struggle to keep members who cant take a joke or just plain dont understand the prank. The core members tend to enjoy pranking each other. One of the players has a tendancy to use the " has reported you afk and you will be removed from the battleground" one. especially now BGs are cross server.
Ounitron Aug 24th 2010 8:11AM
We have a mage in my guild who loves to overlay a portal to Exodar on top of the dalaran portal. He's pretty much punked 3/4 of the guild this way at some point, so back during early wrath, I path of frosted him as he was jumping down the exit tunnel in Utguarde Keep. He cratered at the bottom and i shouted in vent "For the Exodar!" and charged out of the instance.
Vladeon Aug 24th 2010 9:43AM
Me and another mage in my guild do something similar to this, but we just overlay all of the portals together so it's basically impossible to tell where you're going to go. It's pretty obvious what we have done, but it's more fun than anything cause seriously, you never know where you're going to go. I also like putting slow fall on everyone in that long drop in Azjol Nerub after the second boss.
Bashina Aug 24th 2010 10:32AM
This also works if you're not in a raid or party, just overaly the Org portal in dall with one of your own. It takes a few seconds before you have a group of people complaing in /trade that "teh portalz is teh brokenz :("
Hours of fun...
Marathal Aug 24th 2010 10:45AM
Running a random heroic we all got into the instance and did the jump down into the water instead of running around in circles down the shaft. An 80 DK thought he would be funny and turned on path of frost right as the healer was hitting the water. Fortunately I was able to rez her but the DK was on the self healing program for the entire run. I think he learned his lesson.
(cutaia) Aug 24th 2010 11:07AM
"This also works if you're not in a raid or party, just overaly the Org portal in dall with one of your own. It takes a few seconds before you have a group of people complaing in /trade that "teh portalz is teh brokenz :(""
Sounds less like a prank and more like griefing random players.
Grokmar Aug 24th 2010 11:28AM
Our mages used to overlay all the portals (casting Dalaran last). We call it "portal roulette".
Cyanea Aug 24th 2010 2:10PM
A mage in my guild does "portal roulette" too.
(cutaia) Aug 24th 2010 3:05PM
Alrighty. Guess I'm in the minority on that, but in my mind blocking the portals is no more a "prank" than standing on a questgiver with a mammoth.
Pranks are something you do to people you know so you can later laugh about it together. Annoying random strangers is just a dick move.
Darias Aug 24th 2010 8:11AM
Best prank I have done in game was on April Fool's Day. We were about to start attempts on Sindragosa. I whispered every single person in the raid, except our main tank and told them to run out of the room when the MT started running in.
He ran forward, aggro'd Sindragosa and we all ran out and hid behind the ice wall as he got killed.
Vent erupted with laughter. It was great.
Yserathegreen Aug 24th 2010 8:31AM
We have a few jokes like this. When we have new people going through Sindy trash (never ending spiders) we will tell them they have to go over and push the button on the wall. Of course they would go over and instantly get owned.
I personally convinced 3 new people at LK that if they jumped off the edge the gunship would catch them and fly back up to his pad. I told them that Sylvanas would be on the ship and that she would have some things to say and it was a great lore moment. My GL piped in and told them it only works before the pull as after LK is engaged the edge becomes part of the fight. He then said if they wanted to see it they needed to hurry up so we could get on with LK attempts. Next thing you know all three are jumping off the edge.
We also have a mage that is known for his moments. Once we were preparing for a Sarth 3D pull and out of nowhere he goes shooting off the edge of a cliff on his motorcycle. For a moment he looked like the classic ET image...then landed near Sarth and it all went down hill. He was kicked from raid and globaly muted but looking back it was priceless.
tonz0phun Aug 24th 2010 8:12AM
Does DI-ing your main tank on Sindragosa count as a funny prank? I think so.
Phaea Aug 24th 2010 2:46PM
Our pally tank will BoP our DK tank midfight.
Zuljo Aug 24th 2010 8:12AM
I constantly play portal roulette. I love it ^_^
Boreddruid Aug 24th 2010 8:13AM
There was one time, back in Kara days that me and a mage decided to play a prank on our guild.
We were on Nightbane, and we had just called the raid. The mage was asked to port people to Shattrath, but instead threw up a portal to the Exodar. I then proceeded to start up the Nightbane event so people had to either take the portal, or hearth out.
That's the only 'pranky' type thing I've done.