Patch 5.2 interview with Dave Kosak
Inside an old alt's vault
The latest patch 5.2 news
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 4 of 6)
chaosdefined Aug 24th 2010 11:54AM
As a Warlock, back in Vanilla WoW it was great fun to get a small group together, head to a local city and summon a Doomguard without enslaving it, and then watch the chaos unfold.
Drusillä.terenas Aug 24th 2010 9:53AM
Back when ToC was the highest end raid, we would convince the newbies that the last boss was LK. We'd give tell the new person that they're job is to stun/do X damage to LK before Arthas can break the floor after his RP bit. We'd come up with a wide array of what the other classes were busy with that they couldn't do the job. Then we'd add, "Don't mess this up. It's worse than Uld. We have one shot or we're locked out for the week."
Also back then, our DK would Path of Frost most times on that part.
Aaron Aug 24th 2010 9:56AM
During Hollows End I would use the Wisp Wand on my MT/RL right as he was rushing in for a pull. Once he's been transformed he can't use any of his abilities. Vent would explode with laughter as we all clicked the release button. Normally as a MT and raid leader he would get pissed about wipes but when it was for a laugh he seemed to laugh right along with us. xD
lunawolf2000 Aug 24th 2010 10:28AM
I love playing portal roulette on my mage. My guildies have gotten quite used to stopping and waiting before clicking a portal to make sure its where they want to go. Of course there is always the unlucky one who is afk or not paying attention while i drop 2 or 3 on top of one another and they end up in Stonard or thunderbluff, The round or 2 of them cursing my name makes me quite giddy lol
Vitasia Aug 24th 2010 10:28AM
We had a couple people in our guild who would help people trying to level in ZulDrak with the Ring of Blood-type questline. This was still in the early days of WotLK, so you could count on 10 people every hour trying to get this down.
They would get up to the part with the guy on the mammoth mount, then they'd take the mount and run away with it.
I thought it was hilarious the first couple times, but after a dozen or so complaints from people not in the guild, I had to remove them.
photofire1969 Aug 24th 2010 10:31AM
How about the AFK bag filler gag? Run Dire Maul hundreds of times (achievment runs of course) collect your Happy Fun Rocks by the hundreds and wait for your good buddy Guildmate that loves to stand afk in any major city and fire away. The best part of this is each rock after his bags are full goes straight to his mailbox, so not only are his bags full, when he checks his mail his mailbox is completely packed with individual Happy Fun Rock. Trust me it takes a VERY VERY long time to empty your mail when you have 200-300 of them.
Killik Aug 24th 2010 11:00AM
haha - we have a guildie who's always doing that to our MT. I think he spends all his downtime crafting heavy leather balls to throw!
Wix Aug 24th 2010 7:02PM
Bloody hell...my guildie used to do this to me...that or the leather balls. I blame you!
Barry Aug 24th 2010 10:32AM
Back in Ulduar we had someone who use to put a mole on the teleporter so people who accidentally click on the mole instead and end up in Blackrock Depths.
It was a great way on nights of wiping on Yogg and they would do it at the teleporter at the entrance so everyone running in ended up using it as you often couldn't see into the teleporter to know what you clicked on.
Ixui Aug 24th 2010 10:34AM
Far end of Azshara. Naked. No mounts. No hearthstone. =D
Marathal Aug 24th 2010 10:40AM
The other day our GM felt like playing a prank on someone in the guild and put out a call for any Level 1 looking to raid Hogger PST for invite and summons. For about a half hour he was getting whispers from people telling him they were going to log and roll a level 1 don't start without them.
We are still waiting to see what he will do to retaliate.
Merus Aug 24th 2010 10:40AM
I used to have a guildy who'd emote "/e has prepared a Fake Feast!"
Jennifer Michelle Aug 25th 2010 1:05PM
I always do /rw Serjia has prepared a Fist Feast!
Mcdreamy Aug 24th 2010 10:53AM
I'm usually the victim of pranks; I started playing later in TBC, so all my friends/guildies knew the tricks.
While helping me complete the netherwing prereqs in Shadowmoon valley, they introduced me to misdirect when we came across that elite that walks around on the back of the drake (can't remember his name). My warlock never stood a chance, and I couldn't figure out how I aggro'd him from so far away and why he ran past 3 of my guildies to smack me.
First time in Heroic Sethekk, they told me that Talon King Ikiss's arcane explosion had a dead zone and I had to run close to him. So I did and was promptly 1 shot.
First time coming back from a 3 month absence, I was invited to bring my resto shaman to ToC (my first time there). They explained (right before the ground breaks up) that I need to cast water walking on myself because the fight started when we hit the ground and the water would silence me. I watched all the priests cast levitate on themselves, I didn't ask how far of a fall, so I dutifully water walked myself. Splat. Luckily, I tried to be helpful and cast it on the tank as we were falling, so I managed to take someone down with me.
vazhkatsi Aug 24th 2010 11:06AM
a lot of this stuff would be called griefing by a large part of the playerbase. i'm surprised we haven't had any namecalling.
anyway- put an exploding bunny where patchwerk or grobbulus is about to pat.
mole machine on top of where a loot chest is about to appear.
(cutaia) Aug 24th 2010 11:13AM
I agree. Especially a lot of these "convince a bunch of players to whisper a guildie" types of "pranks." Sounds like the only people affected by that are the random people who waste their time helping you with a lame easily ignorable prank.
beta671 Aug 24th 2010 11:09AM
In vanilla we would lock summon people off the thandol span bridge. That swim sucked. After raids I always play portal roulette with the guild. Key is to put the good portals near the end.
Gennie's mom isn't so much a prank as it is a topic of great conquest within out guild.
Damocles Aug 24th 2010 11:23AM
I used to love whispering 'You are the bomb!' to people on the Barron Geddon fight. Our old GM would fall for it 5 times an evening!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP77bAdtB4c
styopa Aug 24th 2010 11:19AM
My son filled his guildbank with cheese (only the empty slots) and his GM got furious and gkicked him for it.
devilsei Aug 24th 2010 11:19AM
Well, correct me if I'm wrong on this, cause it could just be a chain of coincidences coinciding with lag and such...
But during Frogger, I loved running just ahead of people, popping my divine shield, and triggering the slime blob "cars" so the person just behind me or ahead of me would die. And, of course, I tried a few times to also revive someone into the path of the slimes, its damn hard...
Also, it became pretty much a guild staple at the time for me to dance through the slimes while everyone else was getting through them. I've always been damn good at Frogger, and it translated to WoW, to the point where during the 5-10 minutes it took sometimes for people to get through it, I'd be doing nothing but running back and forth through it over and over, and just my distraction caused a few to die heh.