Posts with tag lfm

Last week, level 15 Crikkit ran the Dungeon Finder along with four other It came from the Blog members and another full group. We acquired achievements, completed challenges and leveled to 20. This week, we'd like to be even more successful, and you are welcome to join us.

• When: Thursday, Dec. 20 (tomorrow) at Noon EST (9 a.m. PST, 10 a.m. server time)
• Where: Meet at the fishing hole in the Valley of Honor in Orgrimmar on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H)
• Who: Any Horde character within a couple levels or so of Crikkit, who is level 21
• How: Ask Crikkit or any It came from the Blog member for an invite to the guild
• What: Weekly Dungeon Finder groups

Crikkit is a mistweaver and will be healing using her monk-like ways. If you'd like to play a healer, there should be enough other people to form more groups. Last week we only had two groups, but that's because we didn't have enough healers to go around.

More details are after the break.

Like World of Warcraft? Like writing about World of Warcraft? WoW Insider wants you to join our team! We're looking to hire some regular contributors to help out with our day-to-day posting. This would be a part-time freelance position. Our schedules are extremely flexible, but we would expect you to be available for at least a few hours each day minus weekends. The higher your availability, the more opportunities that will be available to you -- but a few hours most weekdays is what we, as a site, will need from you as your bare minimum.

In a contributor position, your primary role will be to assist us in covering news in a timely fashion, but you will be welcome to cover other topics according to your interests and the discretion of WoW Insider's senior editorial staff. You will also be expected to participate in beta and PTR cycles to contribute to our patch coverage.

We are not hiring columnists at this time, but any contributors we hire may have an opportunity to take on columns that interest them after they've settled into their contributor role.

Knowledge and interest in the following topics is not mandatory, but they are topics where we are particularly interested in bolstering our current offerings:

• Elemental and Enhancement Shaman
• Holy Paladins
• Mages
• Pet Battles
• Game Economy
• The WoW TCG

You can find the full instructions on how to apply on our applications page. If you have prior blogging experience, make sure you mention that in your application! Due to the hustle and bustle of the holidays, we will be accepting applications until January 8, 2013.

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WoW Insider's warlock columnist position has, over the years, developed a ... reputation. It's our Defense Against the Dark Arts. We've never managed to keep an instructor around for more than a year, and their reigns are often much shorter. Tragedy and misfortune tend to follow those who take up the warlock's quill. Unsurprisingly, we're in need of another brave soul to take up the position -- hopefully, someone who can overcome the adversity the position presents.

We're looking for someone truly passionate about World of Warcraft and the warlock class. Every other week, you will be dazzling our readers with your knowledge of the ins and outs of the class, covering everything from leveling guides to raid tactics, PvP strats, patch changes, and recommended addons for all specs and playstyles. We expect you to have a head for research and possess the ability to translate that research into well-written articles that are accessible to both casual and hardcore players alike.

Applicants often ask if they'll be allowed to contribute beyond their assigned class column. Yes, absolutely. As long as your column is meeting its deadline on a regular basis, you will be able to do more around the site.

If this sounds like the chance you've been waiting for, you'll find all the information you need to apply on our applications page. Be sure to submit everything that page requests. Being able to follow simple instructions is the most important part of the job. You have until end of day on Feb. 21 to submit your application.

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WoW Insider is looking for a new PVP columnist. Every other week, you'll dazzle our readers with your words of wisdom on all things PVP: Battlegrounds, Arenas, patch news and analysis, and everything in between. We want a writer who can balance being informative, entertaining, and accessible.

If this sounds like the chance you've been waiting for, you'll find all of the information you need to apply on our applications page. Be sure to submit everything asked for under the columnist section. Being able to follow simple instructions is part of the job. You have until end of day, Monday, Oct. 31, 2011, to send in your application.

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The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold?

I'm not ashamed to admit when I've made a mistake. Which is good, because today's Archivist would be awkward otherwise. Last week's classic WoW recap was a smidge premature. I haven't covered patch 1.12 yet. Why? Because I thought patch 1.12 was patch 2.0. Patch 2.0 would go with the Burning Crusade-era patches. Patch 1.12 isn't patch 2.0, however, so we're mired in classic WoW for one more week.

Patch 1.12, Drums of War, released in August of 2006. It contained the feature that has set the standard for all group content in World of Warcraft: cross-realm Battlegrounds. In addition to cross-realm Battlegrounds, patch 1.12 also included sanctioned world PVP (which didn't work) and a number of UI improvements that you probably take for granted all these years later.

Let's dive in, shall we?

Earlier this year, we were lucky enough to have popular feral cat druid blogger Alaron of The Fluid Druid, aka Chase Hasbrouck, sign on to write our feral cat column for us. Unfortunately, we knew we only had access to him for a limited time before his military unit shipped out overseas. The good news is, though he is now stationed on the other side of the world, he is still able to write the column for us. He started up again just last week by analyzing patch 4.2's effects on feral cat DPS.

The competition for the retribution paladin columnist was fierce. But when the dust cleared, one stood out among the rest. Durin Mundahl has been playing a ret pally for years and at one point was ranked #10 in the world for DPS for his class on Chimaeron 10-man. Not only does he bring experience and knowledge to the column, but a clear and easy-to-understand writing style. You'll be seeing him start up quite soon to delve into patch 4.2 on the retribution edition of The Light And How To Swing It column.

Thanks to all who applied!

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WoW Insider is looking for new writers for our feral cat druid and retribution paladin columns. Every other week, you'll dazzle our readers with your words of wisdom covering everything from leveling guides to raid tactics and DPS rotations, from major patch analyses to recommended addons. Current raid experience is a plus, as is the ability to be both entertaining and informative in your writing.

If this sounds like the chance you've been waiting for, you'll find all the information you need to apply on our applications page. Be sure to submit everything asked for under the columnist section. Being able to follow simple instructions is part of the job. You have until end of day, Friday, May 27, 2011 to send in your application.

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Love your enhancement spec more than your childhood pet? Obsess over DPS charts at the end of every raid? Spend hours scanning armory profiles of top-rated enhancement shaman to analyze their gear and spec? Read shaman blogs and Elitist Jerk's shaman forums on a daily basis? We may have an offer you can't refuse.

WoW Insider is looking for a new writer to be our weekly enhancement shaman class columnist for Totem Talk. Every week, you will dazzle our readers with your words of wisdom covering everything from leveling guides to raid tactics to DPS rotations to major patch analyses to recommended addons for all specs and playstyles. You don't need to play all those ways (we all need a life), but you need to be able to research and write on the topics you don't have personal experience with.

If this sounds like the chance you've been waiting for, you'll find all the information you need to apply on our applications page. Be sure to submit everything asked for under the columnist section. Being able to follow simple instructions is part of the job. You have until end of day, Sunday, Nov. 28 to send in your application.

EDIT: Applications are closed. The chosen candidate will be contacted by end of day Tuesday, Nov 30. And, if we're lucky, will be up and running next week just in time for Cataclysm!

This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com.

How can you tell a good raider from a bad raider?

• GearScore? NO. Often times, people will rely on a numerical gear score, but this is not a good way to judge player quality. Very good players will have low gear scores when starting out, and very bad players who have been persistent or been carried can have very high scores. GearScore is not an indicator of goodness or badness; it's purely an indication of how much time and luck the person has had on that character.
• Achievements? NO. Some group leaders request, "Link achievement, please," but this is not a good method, either. All this indicates is that the person was in the raid when the boss died. You don't know if they were No. 1 DPS or died three seconds into the fight, the same as they do during every fight they've ever been in.

So before you can determine how tell a good player from a bad player, you should understand what makes a "good player."

Zarhym

We have found that most players using the Dungeon Finder don't use the Vote Kick feature or abandon groups very often. For these players, we are removing the cooldown on voting to kick players from a dungeon party. In contrast, those players who tend to kick players or abandon groups more frequently will notice that the Vote Kick feature maintains its cooldown. The goal here is to make sure players who are generally patient can make use of the Vote Kick feature when they really need it, without giving a more powerful tool to those who try to kick others or abandon dungeon groups very frequently.

This functionality will adjust itself as a player's behavior while using the Dungeon Finder changes.

source

You might remember that they started tracking this sort of information as of patch 3.3.3. They have been tracking the number of times you kick, the number of times you are kicked, how often you've abandoned a party and a few other things. While this change is a new one, they have been collecting the data for some time. There's a Santa Claus is Coming to Town parody somewhere in here, but I'm not musical enough to pull it off. Help us out?

Putting a call out for a pure resto shaman columnist brought out the best in applicants and this time we came out with a clear winner. We know him as Joe Perez, but you may know him as Lodur, the resto shaman columnist at World of Matticus. He will be joining Michael Sacco and Rich Maloy on Totem Talk in the next week or two when we get him contracted and set up.

When Euripides of OutDPS wasn't chosen as our hunter columnist, he came back with a proposal to write a weekly column about the auction house. We liked what we saw and asked him to join us. In addition to writing for one of the premiere hunter blogs, Basil Berntsen also runs a podcast on Auction House gold making and hopefully will be making appearances on our own podcast as well. He will be coordinating with Amanda Miller on Time Is Money and Michael Gray on Insider Trader to bring you even more tips on making gold in-game.

Thanks to all who applied! If you didn't make it, make sure to check out our new call-out for guest writing.

After looking through the absolutely staggering number of applications for our new lore columnist position, we were able to narrow it down to just a few very, very good applications. Then we had to go through the painful process of narrowing those down further to find the best one.

And find the best one we did. Though it was a tough choice, we're proud to announce that we've hired Anne Stickney as our new lore columnist.

You might know Anne as Shade, writer of the popular lore blog Shades of Grey. With her encyclopedic knowledge of the Warcraft universe, her light-hearted style, and her intent of making lore accessible to anyone who cares to read about it, she was the perfect choice.

Anne will be providing all kinds of lore-based content to WoW.com, whether it's new Know Your Lore columns alongside Matthew Rossi, keeping our older lore columns up to date, or brand-new speculation based on upcoming content. You'll start seeing these in a few weeks, once she joins our raid and helps us take down the ultimate foe -- paperwork.

Also, please remember that we are looking for a resto shaman columnist -- you can find out more information on our applications page.

Hundreds and hundreds of applications later, we have selected (most of) our newest columnists. It was quite difficult to choose among the top entries and we want to thank all of you who applied. Your enthusiasm for both the game and our site was truly awe-inspiring.

Now, on to the new hires. As you will see below, some things changed during the application review process. There was much debate over the final choices, and we think the new writers we are bringing on are the best of the best.

Legal Columnist: We've decided to add a legal columnist to WoW.com, covering various aspects of the law as it relates to WoW and online gaming. Amy Schley, a third year law student at the University of Missouri - Kansas City, will be joining our staff and provide her insights in the area once a week. Additionally, expect Amy to weigh on hot button legal issues as they come about, like the recent string of arrests made through WoW.

Paladin: When we put out the call for a holy paladin writer, we were approached by our rogue columnist, Chase Christian. He has been raiding as a holy paladin for quite some time and wanted to know if we would consider him for the new column. We asked him to submit an application and compared it to all the others we received for the position. He rocked it. Chase will continue with the rogue weekly column and will be starting The Light And How To Swing It - holy paladin edition next week. Gregg Reece will continue to cover retribution and protection paldin topics on a weekly basis, but will be posting his column on Thursdays instead of the weekend.

Shaman: Turns out asking for an odd spec combination didn't work out for us. We were hoping to find someone who could cover both restoration and enhancement for us, but, while we received applications that attempted one or the other, we weren't hugely impressed with any that attempted both. We were very impressed with one particular enhancement shaman application. We couldn't pass up on Rich Maloy aka Stoneybaby from Big Hit Box and so we decided to hire him to focus purely on enhancement shaman.

Unfortunately, we didn't see any equally stand-out resto apps -- so we're still looking for a resto shaman. We feel that many good candidates probably did not apply due to the requirement of being an expert on the enhancement tree. Now that we are going to have three separate weekly shaman columns, we are now accepting applications for pure resto shaman. You have until Sunday, January 31, 2010 to apply. Details on our LFM page. If you've already applied once, you are welcome to reapply.

More writer selections after the jump!

Maybe you're aware that WoW.com is looking for a few new columnists and maybe you aren't -- but it matters not, because this post is for all of you. For those of you in the know, consider this a reminder: we're only accepting columnist applications until the end of the day today (specifically: Friday, January 15th, 11:59PM EST). For those of you not in the know, we're looking to bring in new weekly columnists for: druids (balance/restoration), paladins (holy), shamans (enhancement/restoration), lore, and addons. Does this sound like the chance of a lifetime? Read onward for all the details.