Posts with tag guilds

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.

After talking about the Horde pendant last week, we got a little more mail about custom WoW jewelry. Check out this piece by Narutakala:

My guild leader and her husband have been friends of mine since Burning Crusade released so for his birthday last year I made a arrowhead pendant with the Horde insignia on it commissioned by his wife. As a amateur jeweler in the real world it took a few good long days to get just right but the hand knapped raw look of the jet and the leather cording hit the right chord. I am glad it found a home with such a great family.

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.

Reader Mike wrote in with this following tale of epic jewelcrafting:

We wanted a fine piece of jewelery that would reflect on who we were. Since our entire family played WoW and almost all of our friends were part of or met in game we knew the theme had to be Horde. I went to a family friend (master jeweler) and gave him a picture of the horde emblem then picked out an exquisite museum grade 4 ct. trillion cut Tanzanite. The detail work and setting was left up to Nick(jeweler and friend). After several weeks of research and design Nick showed me what the piece would look like on his 3D software and we went forward. Finally Nick called for us to see our creation. Nick is a third generation master jeweler with extended family also being jewel crafters. We were awe struck when he unveiled the pendant.

The main structure has a full ounce of white gold making up the Horde emblem, and bringing the details even larger than life was a carat of beautiful diamond pave'(which Nick sent off for his uncle to do as that is his specialty). Finally in the center of the emblem lay an amazingly brilliant fiery Tanzanite.

One thing I commented to Nick about was that the Horde emblem was upside down, he explained that he had tried everything but due to the weight and shape it kept flipping over. He opted to hang the pendent this way rather than modify the piece. He was wise, this is very elegant and worthy of its heritage. btw it was also worthy of its price tag...almost 10k at the time.

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.

We got a note from the Elysiam Guild talking about their new song. While it doesn't have a video, the song itself is kind of fun. Check out what they had to say:

I am Kayhettin the guild leader of Elysiam. The horde guild on the Shadowmoon US server. You can find us at www.elysiam.org. Today I want to present to you the release version of the I'm Oom mp3 audio. Our music has been featured on this site for our Cataclysm Power Remix. It has gotten quite some acclaim locally and would be great for it to be on the show. Please contact me with any questions or concerns.

Leave them some feedback, and let Kayhettin know what you think. It takes a lot of courage to put this kind of creative work out there. Even if you don't like rap, you should respect the creative effort Kayhettin put forth.

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.

Renowned instrumental musician David Arkenstone, one of the composers for the WoW and Cataclysm soundtracks, greeted WoW fans at a Renaissance fair in Texas this past weekend with several musical selections from the game.

Arkenstone couldn't resist firing up the crowd with his favorite pirate themes and a foot-tapping version of Bloodsail. Once our WoW-playing contingent made known its enthusiasm for his inn music, he came back at a later show with a surprisingly lyrical rendition of Stonefire (what most players think of as "the" inn song) and Gypsy Rendezvous, the theme from the Argent Tournament.

Arkenstone's not officially on tour, so we can't offer any specific dates and places you might catch him near you, but we'll keep you posted with anything else around the country as it pops up!

Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm.

I will be insinuating something later, hence this week's video choice.

Hi there!

I'm writing to you as a non-hardcore player, but one who's been playing since WoW started. Heck, I even played the Diablos on Battle.net! As a long term player, I can't help but notice the venom increasing from other players to the more casual or new. You go into a battleground only to hear the newbies being yelled at for not having PvP gear, or into a random instance to hear the same about raid gear.

I've been married for going on 7 years and it was only a year and a half ago I got my husband to play with me. He certainly took to it like a duck to water, but the abuse from player to player made him so angry he eventually quit playing around the time Cata hit (he never had to deal with much abuse hurled at him as he geared up and learned to play quickly).

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.

We occasionally get requests from students and researchers of psychology, sociology, and other -ologies. It's nice to be able to help folks out with their efforts to understand the dynamics of gamer culture. This is one such letter:

My name is Eva Murzyn, and I am an avid WoW player and a researcher in psychology (I've just completed my PhD at University of Dundee, Scotland)). My adventure with WoW started almost 3 years ago, and as I was leveling, raiding and learning class mechanics, I found that elements of WoW - the world, the gameplay and the people in the game started to appear in my dreams with some regularity. I became quite interested in whether there are more players who experience this sort of game incorporation in their dreams, and as a scientist at heart, I decided to investigate it.

I am looking for WOW gamers to fill out a short survey that looks into their gaming patterns and their dream reflection. The survey is located at http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22CC9TJD79E/ and I can be contacted on wow.dream.study@gmail.com.

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 a WoW Insider spouse discovered last night, things change in the world of WoW information. This guy, we'll call him Bean, was working on a heroic and needed to get the rundown on a boss fight. Acting out of years of habit, he loaded up WoWWiki on his PC and immediately picked up a virus.

(It's important you keep an eye out on your security, too. Do you have an authenticator, as well? If not, you should get one.)

There are other options out there for you. Wowpedia is run by the admins who left WoWWiki back in October 2010. Learn to Raid is a fantastic video resource for many fights. Of course, WoW Insider also has you covered with ongoing guides to things like dungeons and raids (in our Guide to Cataclysm), holidays like Children's Week, game lore, and tons of other information.

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.

Two incredibly popular machinima makers have recently returned to make their mark on the WoW community. I'm only listing them in alphabetical order here.

Myndflame has been incredibly busy, from some new songs to a full album. If you've got some time or a few loose pennies, take the time to swing by Myndflame and support their art. One of the best ways to get more of this creativity into the community is to help out the people doing the art, and Myndflame is certainly deserving.

Yumfries is also back with a new video called STUFOOH! The video has some adult concepts and blue comedy, so be warned that it's not necessarily appropriate for work. Yumfries has always had some ironic commentary about the community and its "celebrities," and Nub Tales has been especially insightful. STUFOOH! is probably going to be a little controversial, but it's worth the watch.

Ask the Devs has landed again with Blizzard answering questions about Guild Advancement. Round 6 of this long-running Cataclysm feature on the official site has gathered a variety of questions from folks about the new guild systems and how they're working so far, as well as what they'll be doing in the future. I was particularly interested in the following excerpt.

Q: Leveling guild speed varies depending on the amount of players. Have you considered tweaking the system so that guilds with fewer members get more experience per player and bigger guilds get less to even it out? Are there plans to allow smaller guilds to level their guild faster? – 信蜂 火星小喵喵 [Taiwan], Sergan [Latin America], Jardar [Europe, German], Паладиа [Europe, Russian], Amasisa [Europe, Spanish], Shory, 부너맨/노대현혹, Meltdown, 치킨아고마워/유진님 [Korea]

A: Guild Challenges coming in patch 4.1 are designed to help address this issue. Obviously we already enforce a cap on the amount of XP that can be gained per day to keep the disparity from being too large, but it's clear that smaller guilds still need some help. We'll monitor the impact of Guild Challenges and see if any further changes need to be made.

source

The rest of the entire Q&A session is after the break.

Accessibility is the name of the game in Cataclysm, and Blizzard's next attempt at guild accessibility is launching with patch 4.1. The guild finder interface allows players looking for a guild to advertise their playstyle, time availability, class roles, and more, and lets guilds post recruitment messages and announcements to the realm's public.

The new guild finder feature is available to leaders of established guilds and guildless players, making communication between prospective recruits and leaders easier. Only guilds that are actively looking for new members through the finder will appear in the guild finder interface. Guildless players can browse recruitment ads, while guild leaders are given the option to choose playstyles, types of content the guild is interested in doing, availability of members, and an optional comments section to discuss specifics. Hit the jump for the full announcement.

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.

We'll start off this week directly with some community news.

Congratulations to Victorious Secret on snagging their Realm First level 25 and this awesome video that goes with it. You have to respect a guild video that leads off with Final Countdown. The epic achievement deserves that most epic of anthems.

A new video series called The Serious Gamer is focused on improving player communication and politeness. Check out their first episode and let them know what you think.

Raidbots is now parsing huge amounts of data from World of Logs. More importantly, Raidbot is parsing all the data from World of Logs, which means the site can provide a much deeper field of information. Trying to figure out what the average DPS might be for your class across all the WoL raids? They can do that.

These charts are a lot of fun to play with. It helps you get a good idea of what your damage should be, assuming you have comparable gear. Take the time to check out the site and have some fun.

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 part of the season finale to The Jace Hall Show, new lyrics have been added to the gamer anthem I Play W.O.W. Not only are these lyrics a nice acknowledgment of Cataclysm, but they're equally a homage to the folks who follow Jace's work.

The whole episode is pretty good, but I think the new lyrics really stood out. While I can't imagine they'll recreate the entire video just to feature the new lines, I hope they find a way to string the original song and the new lyrics together. They're a strong addition to I Play W.O.W., and it'd be cool to hear it all on the same MP3.

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

While I'm a veteran MMOer, I often end up coming back to WoW, at least for a few months. I have friends who play, but as soon as I come back, they change servers, get busy, or stop playing, which is partially why I only come back for so long.

I've been in guilds in other games, but WoW guilds to me are much more ... impermanent. Raid progression would do something to kill the guild out from under me, so I figured, for Cata, I'd try a PvP guild. However, we're a few months into the expansion, and I'm not getting the PvP I came back for. I have to raid again, which is what always drives me away. The guild perks aren't really anything I need, either, especially since I avoid alts and reputation and I love BGs, so I'm always rolling in honor. The other day, I stopped and asked myself, "What has my WoW guild done for me lately?"

While people may complain about how bad the WoW community is, I think its accessibility brings in a good mix of people, and often I can find a few who I honestly enjoy. I do things I don't normally want to do in WoW because I want to see my guildmates happy. Even when we lose in PvP, my guildies stay motivated for the next game, rather than exploding, unlike my real-life friends. In essence, my guild's given me a reason to keep playing that transcends just the game.

What's your guild done for you lately? Did they help you get an awesome mount? Maybe they helped you with a dream achievement or feat of strength, or maybe something we often overlook when looking for guilds.

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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.

Recruiting to expand your guild can be a pain in the neck. It's a hard task. You have to balance the need to get additional folks versus the need to preserve the unique character of your existing group. It's difficult to tell if new recruits will blend well and fit into your group. And, after all, you have to get those new folks' attention somehow.

There are a few things you can do to stand out. First, don't sweat listing things like having a tabard or a guild bank. People know that. Make sure you describe your guild's character in short phrases. "Progression," "casual," and "family-friendly" are all words that pack a meaningful punch. You don't need to say things like "balance life and game," usually, because that's almost always a standard.

Try and include some really unique stuff that might reach beyond the basic game: "We spend time talking about comics," or "Guild chat is like an engineering conference." These are the things that will help extend your guild's character beyond just basic in-game stuff.

Mostly, keep plugging away. Don't give up on recruiting; it can happen, but it takes time.