Posts with tag guilds

Join a leveling guild? More often than not, I find myself advising players to steer clear. My Drama Mamas mailbox is overflowing with tirades from players stranded by the inevitable explosions of time-bomb guilds that've been hastily duct-taped together by random new players. Even the groups that manage to gather a congenial group of people almost unfailingly burst into flame when members reach the endgame and hit Real Issues: loot rules, raid group membership, scheduling conflicts, rules of conduct ... In these rudderless, inexperienced groups, drama is unavoidable. Most disintegrate sooner rather than later, with members moving on to guilds with more formal organization, rules, and missions.

But then we heard about a European guild that seems to have a lock on this whole leveling guild thing. Tipster Ben jumped the English language barrier to clue us in: "This guild is different. People recently start to create leveling guild mostly for the perks, and this people are here way before the perks. I believe they are around for helping and not for making gold." We investigated and found a guild that's focused not on reaching the endgame but the journey there -- special events and grouping and friendships and contests and retro raids and teamwork ... And the officers seem to enjoy organizing it all as much as the players do participating in it.

Why would an experienced WoW player keep coming back to a level 54 character to spend a massive slice of her time and energy leading a guild full of players who are toddling through content most players are more than happy to speed-jump? It's all about The Leveling Agony.

Welcome to the return of our weekly guild recruitment post. Every Friday, we'll bring you listings we've been sent, even featuring a couple guild's websites right here on our front page. Hopefully this will turn into a great resource to help guilds and guildies connect to go kill some dragons and elemental lords.

Knights of Tranquility
http://kotguild.shivtr.com
Recruiting Mage, shadow priest, warlock, arms warrior, death knight tank
More information Our guild, Knights of Tranquility, is a tight knit group of laid back, fun, sociable older people (30+ years old) who like to progress and see new content, but we strongly believe in the social aspects of raiding, and WoW-life balance. We have a good sense of humor and are respectful of other people's values and beliefs. We place a high value on the individual worth and contributions of our guild members, and pride ourselves on putting enjoyment of each others company over loot/achievements. We have some sort of guild activity going on every day, and each night guild members will be sitting on Vent chatting with each other and having a good time. We have a Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday raid schedule, between 7:30-10:30 p.m. PST. We are a level 25 guild who has currently gotten down 1/8 Heroic Dragon Soul. Our guild has been around for six years, so we have a long history of mature raiding.

Conquest
http://www.cqgaming.com
Recruiting: Resto and Balance Druids, Holy Paladin, Hunter, All Priests, Mage, Warlock
More Information: Conquest is a 25 man Alliance World of Warcraft raiding guild on US-Ner'zhul. We're currently at 3/8 hard mode and are close to pushing heroic modes. We formed at the end of Burning Crusade and are one of the oldest and most stable guilds on the server.

If you'd like to see your guild in here next week, just copy and paste the following info (along with your specifics, of course) to adam@wowinsider.com or leave it in the comments:

Guild Name: The name of your guilds, we won't publish racist or R rated names, so don't be that guy.
Guild Website: Give everyone a link! If you've got no website, just leave it blank.
Recruiting: Tell us what classes and specs you're looking for.
About: Give everyone a short (250 character or less) blurb about your guild. Again, no racist or R rated material will be published.

Onward for this week's list of guilds, collected from Twitter and Facebook.

The World of Warcraft guild experience is as wide and varied as the players who play this game. I'm an unabashed guild-hopper who wants very specific things from a guild and is willing to leave if they don't happen. Other players are loyalists, who find one guild and form lasting bonds that keep them playing with the same group of friends for their entire WoW experience.

Is WoW social media?

Cynwise at Cynwise's Battlefield Manual wrote a post last month about the fact that World of Warcraft is a form of social media. There's no denying that fact: The entire MMORPG genre is based on the idea that you are playing a game with other human beings, not just facing off against the computer as in the genre's predecessors. In fact, I'd go even further and suggest that in many ways, WoW has potential to be an ideal form of social media.

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

This is survey week on WoW Insider. We have a quick player wealth survey below, and then Nick Yee needs your help behind the cut. What's the point of having a multimillion-player community if it can't be exploited for science?

This is what Xsinthis of Shadowmoon (US-A) had to say:

I'm looking for more people to complete my World of Warcraft Wealth Survey. Using this quick, painless 4 question survey I hope to answer questions about wealth in the World of Warcraft. The survey can be found here: http://www.xsinthis.net/survey Everyone is encourage to take the survey, data is needed from all walks of digital life, from the copperless lvl 50, to the players who need guild banks to hold all their gold, the more data collected the more accurate the results will be!

Couldn't make it to California for the convention? WoW Insider takes you behind the scenes at BlizzCon 2011.

Face time -- it's an indispensable part of the human equation of forging bonds and getting on the same page. Friendships that used to rely solely on guild chat and forums deepen under the influence of voice chat, Facebook, and instant messaging. Today, we know our guildmates better than ever, but nothing can replace coming face-to-face, shaking hands, trading bear hugs, hanging out over days' worth of gaming and dinner and drinks ... and of course, endless discussions about WoW.

We talked with three of the many guilds that met up at BlizzCon 2011: Fail Squad, a 10-man raiding guild celebrating its first anniversary; Chatcon, a group of players who came together via chat room with a common goal of handling trolls on the official Blizzard forums; and Crisp, a U.S. top 100 raiding guild bonding in game over hard modes and out of game over BlizzCon drinks.

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

Okay, folks. Here we go. Tomorrow night, we get to enjoy the good times at 2011 BlizzCon Reader Meetup at the Anabella hotel. Live stream, celebrities, and mingling with your fellow players. What's not to love? Come hob-nob with your intrepid staff of WoW Insider writers, have a few drinks, and get ready for BlizzCon.

Did we mention the Horde and Alliance each have their own drinks? Oh yes, it's true. The Horde cocktail and Alliance cocktail are both delicious, tasty, and plentiful. You should feel free to sip from the glass of your faction and raise your mug in celebration.

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

Oh my god. Oh my god, you guys -- BlizzCon 2011 is freaking next week. Like, seriously, in a week, we'll be in Anaheim sipping Horde and Alliance-themed cocktails.

Interestingly, The Syndicate, which has played together for 14 years, has trademarked its name. This is what they say about the process:

Back in 2006, The Syndicate (www.LLTS.org) became the first online community to Trademark its name. Through development consulting and strategy guide writing "The Syndicate" came to mean much more than simply a tag within an online game. Thus the legal protections of having the name Trademarked were put in place. After five years of owning a mark, paperwork can be filed that makes the mark incontestable. That paperwork has been filed and approved and now The Syndicate® has been granted that status. Said another way, no one can come along later and claim that The Syndicate was used by them first within the online gaming space. The mark forever is limited in its usage to only the www.LLTS.org "Syndicate" group. In addition to that, The Syndicate has put several agreements in place with major game developers and publishers recognizing the mark and ensuring that its usage is appropriately restricted within their gaming worlds.

So. I guess everyone else with the name The Syndicate is infringing. Guess we better all get out there and start trying to trademark our name.

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

As I was busily working yesterday in stately Gray Manor, my good friend (and boss) Dan dropped me a message. "Do you realize," he said (and I paraphrase, because he's my boss), "BlizzCon is just two weeks away?"

I dropped my coffee with a gasp. It really is just two weeks away. We'll get to see the Foo Fighters rock the house and stand in line to buy awesome merchandise. Oh yeah, and WoW Insider is going to have one hell of a party.

Here's hoping you're packing your bags, folks. BlizzCon is getting very, very close. Two weeks will fly by before you know it, and suddenly we'll all be in Anaheim soaking in that beautiful Blizzard love.

From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.

There's plenty about Wreck List of Garrosh (US-H) that's a little different from your run-of-the-mill World of Warcraft guild. The sprawling social guild doused Ragnaros just days ago with a team of core raiders rooted by several members in their 50s and 60s. In fact, the guild is run primarily by women over the age of 50 -- "at age 51, I'm the baby of the group," admits guild leader Dkosmama. With a median member age of about 40, Wreck List boasts well over 200 members, half of them women.

Even more remarkable than its unusual gender and age mix, though, are the guild's roots -- Wreck List is the unofficial guild of the popular progressive political blog Daily Kos. Not limited to members from the Daily Kos community, Wreck List is open to any player looking for a sanctuary from trade chat madness, away from "threatening racist, homophobic, and misogynist language and ideas." The group's official Declaration of Purpose clearly states that "while guild chat is mostly non-political, it is also where we express our leftist political views, which sometimes may include a sharp word or two about Republicans. Because many guild members did not come to the Wreck List through political blogs, we do not expect everyone to hold progressive views on all issues; however, we do expect that all members respect the liberal foundation of the guild."

An unusual balance for an entire guild? We thought so, too, and sat down to visit with Dkosmama about the balance of ideas and free expression that makes this whole group hang together.

Editor's note: This article focuses on this group's integration with the World of Warcraft and is not an endorsement or promotion of any particular political ideology or agenda. Please keep comments focused on the guild and its activities, rather than political ideologies.

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

There's all this excitement around here about patch 4.3. You would think there might have been some kind of news. Oh, wait, there was! While you're getting caught up on your weekly Classifieds reading, make sure you're also up to date about all the excitement on the PTR.

• An official blog post sheds light on balance changes.
• Priests and hunters finally get to see their tier 13 gear.
• New achievements have been uncovered.
• Winter's Veil is getting some new vanity pets.
• New patches get new art in the form of loading screens and maps.
• And, of course, we have new patch notes.

Looks like the game is going to get exciting again for everyone. Now's a great time to meet new people and recruit new raiders. It doesn't seem like it will be long before we're off to kill the dragon.

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

The librarian guild Where is the library on Saurfang (US-A) is doing something unique and interesting. On Nov. 17, they will meet in the Ironforge library to talk about cognition and learning in MMOs. Check out what they have to say about it:

18 November 9.00am (Australian Eastern Summer time) Crystle Martin will be talking about cognition and learning in MMOs and the constellation of information that surround them, focusing on topics of literacy including information literacy. She is the lead project assistant for the PopCosmo research group led by Constance Steinkuehler and a member of Games+Learning+Society.

You can read more about this effort, part of a regular series of talks for library professionals on gaming in libraries, on the group's event page. It's definitely worth taking the time to attend the discussion. Good luck to Where is the library on getting a good showing!

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

This video was created by Bloodvein and Myndflame on behalf of Skill Capped. Cottage is a restoration druid gladiator who is widely known as one of the best PVP players in Europe. He'll be starting a death knight and going from a brand-new character all the way to Gladiator inside a single season. You can find out more at Skill Capped itself. I've watched this movie in its entirety, and I'm pretty excited to see where the whole series goes. Cottage is definitely putting out some worthwhile analysis, and both new and experienced players can benefit from the information.

If you decide you want to try out the Arena and PVP, make sure you take a look at Arena Junkies. It's a community site that's been around for a while, and many experienced PVP players post to the forums. While it might take some work to find the best information, AJ is definitely a great first stop as you're getting started with the Arena.

Did you catch this awesome interview about the AFK Tavern? We were pretty excited about it; I wish I could open one around my own home. Just to cement how cool it is, check out this picture they sent us of their own roasted crocolisk.

We had a few letters this week to The Classifieds asking about what the deadline schedule is like. I need submissions in place by Monday, since I turn in The Classifieds Tuesday morning. While I sometimes squeeze late entries in through the day, I can't always promise that.