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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast 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 2 of 6)
Ati Aug 24th 2010 8:16AM
My guild's GM is probably the biggest prankster we have - he tends to liberally /gkick and demote people to the bottom rank (which has no privileges, not even guild chat) for silly reasons. It's all in good fun, never lasts for long, and everybody is amused by it.
Said GM has also been known to /kick our main tanks mid boss fight in raids, thereby giving us a minute to kill the boss, lol.
Aarcial Aug 25th 2010 5:56PM
I was in an this RP guild, and good friends with most people in it, and one of our officers decided he'd start a hunter alt. If you didn't know, RP guilds usually have a channel for out of character discussion, and a lot of them let friends in. So he's in the ooc channel, and he was in the guild on that toon as the recruit rank, and someone in the guild would make fun of him for being a recruit. Now this happened about 5 times before he stopped really playing the alt because he was bored of it, but every time he would log onto his main and demote me. We would all crack up on community vent and he would ask "Who's a recruit NOW?"
--Lurile
Rywen Aug 24th 2010 8:17AM
I was very close to getting the Violet Drake but didn't have time to finish certain dailies needed during the last holiday I had to complete. So a dear real life friend of mine helped me complete them while I was at work, by logging into my account, with my blessing and gratitude. My husband caught wind of this and the 2 of them decided it would be a hoot if when I next logged in, my Drood was standing at the feet of Thrall...Plus, my stealth & speed macro's were removed from my bars so when I instinctively hit cat, I was just a slow and highly visible purple kitty running for my life. After the initial shock wore off and I escaped via the spirit healer, we all laughed hysterically. Oh yes, my hearth stone was gone as well and my Nelf was wearing only her bikini. Thankfully moonkins don't usually care if we're naked in public. We've all since factioned to horde so every time I'm in Org, defending Thrall, I grin remembering that prank they played.
Pauguster Aug 24th 2010 8:20AM
Its amazing how many people don't know what a Mole Machine does when it pops up in the middle of ICC....
Angus Aug 24th 2010 8:42AM
Right after the first Brewfest this was available a lock helpfully told us.
"Jeez, they changed the graphic of summoning people! Click the new portal please."
(This was before the flashing demon tv)
It was fantastic.
Abraxuss Aug 24th 2010 1:06PM
this! my rl hates this prank so much i always feel guilty and donate some money to the g-bank. still hella funny tho!
Kargon Aug 24th 2010 2:05PM
It's even better mid Razorscale when you drop it among the other mole machines. Usually you get a tank who's trying to right click a new add...
Claire Aug 24th 2010 2:19PM
Our hunter always puts it on top of the fish feast. We have to click veeeeeery carefully ...
xenothaulus Aug 24th 2010 8:19AM
Woe to whomever pisses off a hunter. BC raids could be real hell with creative applications of MD.
Gimmlette Aug 24th 2010 9:43AM
Piss off nothing. Best prank pulling shot is MD. It's way better than shoot, FD. Everyone in the guild has had me MD something onto them.
We were running some newly baptized 80's through Naxx and the OT had to go afk right before Rasuvious. "Hey, Gimm. MD onto him and we'll all watch from the ramp." I had to chase down a group of DK's but it was so worth it. We were ready to run if they came after us after pulverizing him. They didn't so we ran over to Rasuvious and waited for him to come back. He came back and released without saying a word.
After we cleared the wing, someone asked, "Were you mad at us?" He said, "No." His wife, who is also in the guild but who has a lower level character, heard what we were planning on doing and she was laughing. He figured it out on his own when he came back to a dead toon.
It's now become one of our guild slogans. If someone pulls aggro, for instance, someone in the raid will say, "Don't make Gimm [insert toon's name] you." And if the MT wants a MD on a boss, he says, "Hey Gimm? Will you [insert toon's name] the boss to me?'
Aaron Aug 24th 2010 10:03AM
Speaking of MD. I used to run with a rogue that LOVED using tricks of the trade on random guildies in heroics (especially my pally healer). If we had a few pugs in the group they would start freaking out asking WHAT JUST HAPPENED and we would all be in vent laughing hysterically.
analgimp Aug 24th 2010 8:22AM
Warlock summon portals can be opened right at the edge of a cliff. A flight form druid can then begin a summon while in flight form, and someone at the edge can assist it. Places this work include the edge of the naxx platform, anywhere near ulduar or icecrown citadel.
When they first gave us the new ritual of summoning, the summoning channel bubble would spawn in front, instead of on top of the player. This meant you could summon someone into the cages found around naxxramas. Mages can blink out - other than that, it's hearthstone time. Doing this to goldseller accounts (back when they used to have a monopoly on eternal fire) and summoning them into the cages in necropolises floating over zul'drak was fairly amusing.
Oh, and you can still do the death-summon thing off the violet citadel in dalaran.
Samutz Aug 24th 2010 8:31AM
This reminded me of early vanilla, long before the ritual stone thing was used for summons, locks could stick a summon portal over the edge, so we'd summon people over high spots in BRD and have them fall in to the lava.
Toadstool Aug 24th 2010 8:42AM
Lies, we couldnt summon into instances in vanilla.
Imnick Aug 24th 2010 8:46AM
@Toadstool, the lava is outside the instance silly ;)
Toadstool Aug 24th 2010 8:47AM
Curses, how foolish of me, appologies.
analgimp Aug 24th 2010 8:57AM
This one isn't quite a prank, as the guy who did it was just a clueless player, but I used to raid with a particularly bad hunter. So bad we never trusted him to misdirect if another hunter was around. First time we had a 25 man raid where he was invited but no other hunters were online, he was told to misdirect the main tank and pull sartharion.
The next thing we knew, vent was collapsing laughing as a hunter performed the ancient art of Melee Misdirection.
Valt Aug 24th 2010 10:44AM
When warlock makes summon portal quickly make portal next to it and be like "help me summon" in /s. People will click the portal and go to stonard/theramore. Trust me.
Valt Aug 24th 2010 10:44AM
When warlock makes summon portal quickly make portal next to it and be like "help me summon" in /s. People will click the portal and go to stonard/theramore. Trust me.
Kuener Aug 24th 2010 8:21AM
Worst I have ever done besides portal roullette was during a Naxx run one night. The raid got called for the night after Patchwerk, I proceeded to run through Frogger and drop a portal Theramore. Once everyone complained, I decided fine I waited for everyone to cross Frogger and the ran back through and droped the portal to Dal back on the otherside. Needless to say many people died trying to get back to the port.
Some even just took the port to Theramore.