Posts with tag events

If you're around this evening and want to listen in to some extra podcast discussion, head on over to the Twisted Nether Blogcast page around 9:30 pm PST this evening -- our friends Fimlys and Nibuca of TNB have asked me to join them on their podcast, and it's sure to be a good time. We'll be chatting live with listeners, too, so if you've ever had questions about how we do things on the site or haven't been able to listen in to our own podcast, now's your chance.

And speaking of the Twisted Nether Blogcast, they're also holding their own meetup at BlizzCon, just a few weeks away. Ours is on Thursday, but if you're around on Friday night, you'll be able to stop on by the Anabella again, and say hi to lots of great folks from the WoW community. Both Turpster and I will be there for sure, and there'll probably be at least a few other WoW.com staff members in attendance as well, so it should be a really fun night.

And even that's not all -- our very own Turpster is also set to make an appearance on Rawrcast's live BlizzCon show on Saturday night of that weekend, where he'll likely be talking about everything we've seen at the convention, as well as helping out with some quality giveaways. Lots of great events and shows are being put on by the community around BlizzCon, and of course we're really happy to be a part of them.

That hot time of the year, the Midsummer Fire Festival, has now ended. Once again the denizens of Azeroth go about their humdrum lives without any brilliant fires and spirited naked flame-ladies dancing to and fro on the bridges of Ironforge. Life is boring. The Ice Stone Has Melted.

But alas, not for I and my tabard! After a good half day of solid grinding I trekked my Paladin throughout the dunes of Kalimdor and the lush forests of the Eastern Kingdom, extinguishing the flames of the bastard Horde and honoring those of the blessed Alliance. All was done well, so say we all.

It didn't take long though for me to realize that I didn't want to do this on more than my main. However I found myself exerting as much discipline as possible to finish the dailies every day on my dual boxing Recruit a Friend alts, pulling in about 50% of a level each day just from the daily quests alone. It was quite a nice XP bump.

All in all I accomplished with the Fire Festival I wanted to, and it wasn't too bad of a time. Although I can definitely wait a year to extinguish another flame.

Did you accomplish everything you wanted to with the Fire Festival? Are you satisfied?

Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player with limited playtime. Of course, you people with lots of playtime can read this too, but you may get annoyed by the fact that we are unashamed, even proud, of the fact that beating WoW isn't our highest priority. Take solace in the fact that your gear is better than ours, but if that doesn't work, remember that we outnumber you. Not that that's a threat, after all, we don't have time to do anything about it. But if WoW were a democracy, we'd win.

Holidays are for all players, of course, but I think they are particularly appropriate for players with limited playtime. Sure, there are often raiding quests or achievements that we can't complete, but overall, the activities seem to be designed for casual gameplay. For the most part, I think I'm preaching to the choir, here. But every once in a while, I read comments from people who just don't get holidays and avoid them completely. So here is my sales pitch about why every casual player should give each holiday a try.

Pink Pigtail Inn has what is probably the most involved guild anniversary I've ever seen. We've seen quite a few anniversaries and events come through Guildwatch, but this one takes the cake: a huge competitive scavenger hunt, complete with out-of-game clues, banned class abilities (so teams could be balanced out), and even self-made quests involving the guild's lore. It's probably rare to find a group of officers that can be this committed to something normally considered "an RP event," but obviously it worked out, because the whole guild really enjoyed it.

The context Larisa puts this in, however, is even more interesting. According to the Daedalus Project (a series of surveys of MMO players -- we've mentioned their work before), the majority of players can't celebrate a guild's anniversary anyway, as they haven't been in their guilds for even a year yet. I've never considered it, but it's true: while we are very attached to our guildies when we do find a good guild, we aren't really attached to them for very long, relatively speaking. There are stories of guilds going on for decades, but even those guilds have players coming and going -- if your guild has the same group of people playing together for a few years, you're probably in a smaller group than you think. PPI's example is a great one for any guilds who have been around long enough to celebrate it.

The Spreading Taint, a GLBT guild that we've featured here on the site before, is hosting an in-game event next Saturday, their fifth annual Pride Celebration. Just like real-life Pride events, they're planning quite the spectacle, from floats of all kinds (I'm curious to see the ">8< Spider Pride" float, featuring spider pets aplenty, both Hunter and vanity), a crafting fair in Booty Bay, and contests like a Naked Dueling event and a modeling competition. They've even got "a professional" shooting footage of everything, so you might be able to see yourself in the official video as well.

As we talked about in our 15 Minutes interview with them, these folks are very social and a lot of fun -- while their roots are in the GLBT community, they're interested in including people from all backgrounds, and obviously this event is open to everyone who wants to have a good time in-game (though they are strictly disallowing PvP -- if you want to fight, go elsewhere). The event kicks off next Saturday, June 20th, at noon server time over on Proudmoore. The parade itself starts at Camp Taurajo in the Barrens, but we're sure no matter where you are on the server, you'll probably hear about them -- just follow the wackiness.

NOTE: All hateful comments will get deleted and repeat offenders will be banned. You don't have to agree, but you can disagree respectfully without personal attacks or insults.

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

What does your guild mean to you? Is it a community of like-minded players enjoying the company of their peers, helping one another to meet goals, and overcoming challenges together? Or is it simply a means to an end, a treadmill of raid attendance and loot rewards, where you slog through the necessary steps but never feel any real companionship with your fellow raiders? Some guilds start off as the former -- a fun, social organization -- and then end up as the latter -- a tier-set assembly line. This week, one officer wants to know how this can happen and what he can do about it.

Hello Scott,

I'm facing a dilemma that I'd like to share for a possible "Officers' Quarters".

I am an officer in a medium-sized European raiding guild. We have always been proud on our mature and social playerbase. It is one of our spearheads to provide fun raids in a relaxed atmosphere. But lately, the social aspect has been degrading. Ever since the launch of Wrath and people rushing to level 80 something has changed. Where TBC provided a challenge and a common goal to work towards (mainly progressing through the different raid instances) Wrath has left us with a lack of common binder.

Huge congrats to our second Guild of the Month, the Wildfire Riders of Feathermoon. We combed through all of the entries sent to us over the last 30 days, and the Wildfire Riders came out on top -- not only do they run some exemplary raids, but they are a shining example of fun and interesting RP, and we really enjoyed their one loot rule, too. Read on after the break to find out what it is, and what kind of people make up April's Guild of the Month.

In addition to being featured right here on the site, Wildfire Riders also picks up a raid pack from the good folks at Swagdog.com, who offer hats and t-shirts custom printed with your guild and character information -- the perfect piece of clothing to pack up for BlizzCon later this year. And speaking of BlizzCon, Swagdog tells us that they're going to be there yet again (last year they were giving away custom mousepads), and that they've got some more customized guild gear in the works, so stay tuned. Thanks to them for helping us sponsor this contest -- go head over to their site now to make your own custom guild shirt or hat.

And of course we're now opening up nominations for the May Guild of the Month. To enter, send us an email (no more than 200 words please) to guildofthemonth@gmail.com stating why your guild deserves to win. Please note that you must be from the US or Canada (excluding Quebec) and age 18 or older, as them's the legal rules, and also note that even if you sent us an email last month, you must re-nominate your guild if you want to be considered again. You can send us the same message if you want, but we've got to keep everything current, so please re-send. Official rules are still here, and this month's deadline will be midnight on June 13th.

Well that'll teach us to assume -- earlier this week when mentioning the upcoming Noblegarden holiday, we pointed out that considering it was being tested on the PTR right now, we'd likely see 3.1 hit the live realms by the time Easter came around in the real world. But Kisirani has appeared on the forums saying, "Not so fast." Blizzard has apparently gained the power to cancel Easter, because they say Noblegarden and 3.1 will start when it's ready, not because there are kids hunting for eggs on the White House lawn.

So basically, if patch 3.1 isn't done by Easter, we won't see the holiday ingame until it is done. And while it'll be a little strange to be looking for eggs in May (if it comes to that), we have to agree that's the right decision: we all know what happens when Blizzard releases a patch that isn't fully tested.

We can wait. Noblegarden might not match up with the real-life holiday this year (if the patch does come late -- Kisirani still says this is a plan, so maybe the patch will be done by April 12th), but hopefully when it does appear, it won't be broken.

Elizabeth's wishes have been answered -- in-game Easter holiday Noblegarden has been extended to a full week according to the calendar on the PTR. That's six more days to run around getting eggs, not to mention doing all of the new Noblegarden achievements being included in the holiday. In the past, Noblegarden hasn't meant that much to players -- the rewards were never that great, and the fact that it was on only one day (a day usually reserved by most celebrating for family dinners away from the game) made it much less active than it could have been. But Blizzard has revamped the holiday, apparently, so be on the lookout for some eggs and bunnies starting on Sunday, April 12th.

One quick note for those of you worried about your Violet Proto-drakes: apparently still none of the Nobelgarden quests are included in the meta achievement. So there won't be any Bags of Candy or monthly Brews to get -- just enjoy the festivities.

And we'll give a shout-out to Kisirani here as well -- since she took over World Events on the Blizzard team, we've seen some great changes. Despite the issues with the Zombie launch event for Wrath, it was still a ton of fun, and we're pretty sure that she and her team also been behind the popular Brewfest and Hallow's End holidays as well. Excellent work -- we can't wait to see what the new Noblegarden is like.

Here's a cool way to donate some money to charity and have a chance at probably the best prize a WoW player could want. Katherine Allen (our own Michael Sacco, formerly known as "Belfaire," says she's a friend) is raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and she's offering a contest with each donation: by giving at least $25 and putting an Alliance or Horde comment on the donation page, she'll enter everyone who does so in a drawing to win one of three one-year timecards for the game. And because donations have already topped $5500 (as of this writing, they're at $7,420), she's picking one more name out of the hat, to win a lifetime subscription. That's right -- donate, win, and you'll never have to pay for WoW again.

Very nice -- not only is that an amazing prize, but it's awesome that because of the generosity of WoW fans, they've already met their fundraising goal for the society, and then some. Donations are being accepted until January 5th, so there's still time to get your name in the pot if you'd like. Even if you don't pick up a prize, you'll be helping to try and save the lives of 145 people a day, and while trouncing the Lich King is definitely a thrill, helping people in real life is even better.

We broke everything. We plead guilty.

Our Baby Tauren Army had 897 baby Taurens, peacefully hanging out and dancing. We had a fifty-five level 70s in two raids, ready to plow the way into Stormwind. Then, at the appointed hour of 6pm EST, we started for Ratchet, and the lag started. GMs started whispering people in our newly-formed guild, telling us of dire consequences if our actions didn't stop.

Had we spoken directly with a GM, we imagine the conversation would've gone like this:

What happens when Halloween rolls around and you haven't gotten around to buying your almost one year old daughter a costume for the holiday because you've been spending too much time playing and writing about the World of Warcraft? Well, you make her a murloc costume, of course!

From the moment my daughter was born, I just knew I had to dress her up as a character from my favorite game. I initially wanted to make a Moonkin costume but thought that it'd be best if she wore that when she was already walking proficiently. A miniature Moonkin waddling around would be priceless.

This year, however, found me short of time and ideas so I decided to steal the idea of a baby in a murloc suit from last year's crop of Halloween costumes over at the Blizzard site. Since I don't have mad sewing skills, I made a quick jaunt to a shoe supplies store and picked up a bunch of slice foam and some cyanoacrylate.

It seems the jury is out on this year's Hallow's End celebration. Chakras of Cenarius is loving the event. She's excited about the holiday achievements. In her thread she was met with agreement from many posters. Ritsuka of the Thorium Brotherhood agreed that it's been fun to farm decent gear off an easy boss with her friends. Halloween is a favorite holiday amongst many WoW players, and it's a good addition to the game.

Not everyone is entirely thrilled with their experiences so far. Some folks are frustrated that they've not yet gotten the Sinister Squashling or the Horseman's helm despite many attempts. Some like Crexia of Hyjal have made better than twenty-five attempts today without seeing either of those items drop all. Her attitude is to try again tomorrow since Blizzard has stated that there will not be a change to the event. (EDIT: though now it appears you can get these items from trick or treating and Blizzard has stated the drop rates of the pet are significantly higher than last year.) On the other hand Orcshock of Archimonde reported seeing two drops out of five attempts today. Such is our fate when using Random Number Generators (RNG).

I have to admit, since the patch I've had other goals in mind so I've turned down most invites for holiday groups. So how has your Hallow's End been?

Hagiel, the guild leader of Warriors of Time on the Moon Guard server, is having a birthday this week (happy birthday!), and to celebrate, they're hosting something that sounds awesome: bare naked boxing duels. This Thursday, October 9th, at 6:30pm server (which I believe will leave you enough time to still come out to our meetup later in the evening if you're in Anaheim), they're all meeting in front of Orgrimmar, and it's fight club time. To fuel the festivities, we hear there will be beer and treats also -- let me tell you, if you've never gotten drunk in game, taken off all of your clothes and weapons, and gotten in the ring with just your fists, you're missing out.

Seems like it's always the Moon Guard folks holding all of these fun player-run events, seems like. If you're running an event or you know about one going down on your server, feel free to drop us a tip, and let us know also if you make it to these things. We're always interested in seeing pictures or videos of player-made events going down. And good luck to the fighters on Moon Guard Thursday night, because you know what they say: If this is your first time to bare naked boxing, you have to get naked and box.

The date on the video says 8/13/08, but we suspect it's actually meant to be September 13th, as that's when, this past weekend, WorldofWar.net did that Gnome race for a few beta keys. And this is a fun documentation of it -- the Gnomes all run from the front steps of Ironforge all the way down south to the Dark Portal, with a little fun bit at the beginning using real marathon audio.

Big player-run events like this are always a good time. We wonder if there's some way Blizzard could actually support this stuff with an ingame UI feature -- maybe show distance run or time traveled with an option? But even if they don't, players are creative enough to come up with all kinds of strange fun to have in Azeroth. Whether it's fun races like these or Gurubashi Arena challenges, one of the best things about a social game like this is all of the games players come up with on their own.

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

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