Posts with tag prizes

Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook.

Guild events outside of the usual raiding and PvP activities can help break up the monotony and get people excited about their guild. This week's email comes from an "event officer" who wants to know, how do you get people to show up?

I am an officer in my guild, and we have been re-evaluating our roles. I am considering becoming the Social Event Coordinator, and I am looking for some advice to get things started. ... My ideas include scheduling nights to do scenarios/dungeons for achievements, old school raids, and probably a pet battle league once people aren't as focused on gearing up for raids.

My questions are:
Do you have any suggestions on how to communicate to guildies that aren't around much that these events are being planned?
Do you have suggestions on how to determine interest before scheduling?
Do you have suggestions on how to encourage participation?
Do you have other event ideas that have worked for you?

The It came from the Blog family of guilds is having another scavenger hunt this Friday night. There will be the normal amount of the running around and acquiring mostly useless items -- and fun, lots of fun. We'll also be throwing a pre-event party with some WoW Insider staff available to chat.

• When: Friday, July 27 at 10:30 p.m. EDT (7:30 p.m. PDT, 8:30 p.m. server time) for the pre-event party and 11 p.m. EDT (8 p.m. PDT, 9 p.m. server time) for the Scavenger Hunt
• Where: The fountain at the Court of the Sun in Silvermoon City on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H)
• Who: Any level Horde character is invited to join us, but in order to complete the hunt, you should be mounted. There will be no flying, but those who are mounted and can defeat the wildlife easily will have a distinct advantage.
• How: Just whisper Roblinator or any online It came from the Blog member for an invite.

The winners of the scavenger hunt will have prizes to choose from as usual, including loot codes from Cryptozoic. The rest of the prizes will be announced the day of the event, along with how much gold and bag space you'll need. Gold will be provided as necessary.

So join us for fun and fabulous prizes this Friday night!

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Please join us on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H) in It came from the Blog. All guild ranks can invite, so /whisper Roblinator or any online member. You are all welcome as long as you play by our simple rules -- basically, don't be a funsucker! Visit the guild FAQ for more details.

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The WoW Insider Show is going live on Tuesday, June 28, at 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific time, so server downtime isn't as boring as it could be! Join host Mike Sacco and co-hosts Matt Rossi and Mathew McCurley as they talk about patch 4.2, patch 4.2, and more patch 4.2. The patch is totally happening that day (right?) so spend your downtime with us!

Tune in this Tuesday, June 28, at 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific time to ask questions, participate in the discussion with fellow readers and listeners, and have a lot of fun. The show will be made available later if you cannot make it for the live portions.

See you all on Tuesday!

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The WoW Insider Show is going live on Tuesday, May 31, at 11 a.m. Eastern/8 a.m. Pacific time, so server downtime isn't as boring as it could be! Join host Mike Sacco and co-hosts Matt Rossi and Mathew McCurley as they entertain you for an hour of the biggest news of the week in WoW, reader emails, fun discussion, and prize giveaways. Yes, that's right -- prizes.

You'll need to listen to the show live to get in on the prize fun, and while all prizes haven't been announced yet, we will be giving away one Razer Anansi MMO keyboard that was recently reviewed.

Tune in this Tuesday, May 31, at 11 a.m. Eastern/8 a.m. Pacific time for your chance to win. The show will be made available later if you cannot make it for the live portions.

See you all on Tuesday!

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You still have time to enter April's WoW Insider Guild of the Month contest, as long as you're reading this before midnight EDT tonight. The prizes are a $100 gift certificate to use toward custom guild apparel from SwagDog and a profile of your guild here on WoW Insider.

Here's how to enter:

• You must be the guild leader for your guild to enter.
• Email 200 words or less describing why your guild deserves to win April's Guild of the Month to contests@wowinsider.com.
• Send it from an email address you check often.
• Include your guild's name and realm.
• Enter by 11:59 p.m. EDT April 8, 2011 (tonight).

There are a few restrictions. The full contest rules include:

• You must be 18 years or older.
• You must live in the United States or non-Québécois Canada.
• You haven't won before. (It's okay to enter if you have entered before, however, as long as you didn't win.)

We are looking for guilds that are active, unique and have a lot of evidence to back that up. A link to your guild's website is helpful. Good luck!

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Blizzard has just announced the Memories of Blizzard video contest as part of the company's 20th anniversary celebration. Fans can capture their favorite Blizzard memories on camera and submit them for a chance to win loads of prizes from Razer, Steelseries, Creative Labs, TavernCraft, DC Direct, PrintWarcraft, and even an all-expenses-paid trip to BlizzCon. Fire up your video cameras and get creating. Check out the official details here.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.

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So you hopped into the Blizzard Store and ordered yourself a plushie or two. Or maybe you picked up one from BlizzCon. Regardless, there you are, with at least one official Blizzard stuffed toy. Whether you collect them for yourself or have a child for whom you say that you bought them, you have one or more in your home... but now what? Does he sit on your desk? Does he sit on your lap? Is he used to recreate famous in-game battles? And the most important question of all: have you taken pictures of it?

We here at WoW.com want to see your best plushie photos. There will be two categories: Plushies in The Wild and Plushies in Captivity. We will narrow down the best of both categories and offer them up to the readers for voting. The top three of each category will receive loot codes, provided by WoWTCGLoot.com.

Details are after the break.

If the quest for bigger and better loot leaves you craving still more, maybe you need a guild that takes things to the next level: a shot at WoW loot you can wear in real life, too. Enter The Swag Dogs, a brand new guild created by our friends at SwagDog. The Blizzard-approved apparel specialists have created a family-friendly guild where players can make new friends, get in on raiding groups on the ground floor -- oh, and get a shot at free WoW swag and BlizzCon tickets.

You'll recognize SwagDog as the folks behind those sweet guild tabard-style T-shirts you've seen on recent posts here at WoW.com, including our recent WoW 5th anniversary T-shirt giveaway. The SwagDog crew are pretty good people. They sponsor our WoW.com Guild of the Month contest, giving out a $100 SwagDog gift certificate to the winning guild every month.

When we heard SwagDog was forming an in-game guild, we smelled a marketing rat -- but as it turns out, there's no pressure to buy. Instead, The Swag Dogs have created the guild as a conduit between players and the SwagDog design team, to encourage players to bring their ideas for new products and designs directly to the source. Those who participate actively will gain a shot at special giveaways ... And of course, the pleasure of getting into a friendly, casual guild from the get-go.

Blizzard has made it a holiday tradition to release a holiday card every year (usually drawn by Samwise), but this year they're putting a little twist on it. They're running a contest asking the potential artists among you to submit your own original Blizzard-themed holiday card. Download their template, fill it up with Diablo, Starcraft, or Warcraft-related holiday art (no Lost Vikings or Rock N' Roll Racing art, apparently), submit it on the contest page before December 7th, and you can win a whole slew of prizes from Blizzard and Razer, including a mouse, keyboard, and headset, as well as a signed copy of Blizzard's 2009 holiday card from Samwise himself.

So artists, get to, um, "art"-ing! We can't wait to see your rendition of Deathwing as Santa Claus, Kerrigan as the Mrs., and a whole tribe of Fallen Ones standing in for the little elves.

Followers of the official Warcraft Twitter will recall that Blizzard ran a contest some months back using the #Battlecry hashtag, encouraging players to tweet a message for either the Alliance or the Horde depending on the background of their Twitter page. It was a pretty cool promotion and was a great social media activity for fans, who proudly showed their World of Warcraft allegiances throughout the contest period.

An interesting post came up on Pixelated Geek the other day, however, wondering about the results of that contest and if Blizzard had ever gotten around to giving prizes to winners. Or if they'd ever gotten around to contacting the winners at all. The writer notes that he himself was a winner, having received a tweet from @Warcraft requesting for further details, an e-mail he promptly responded to. He then notes sending several more e-mails to the noted address as well as to customer service but has not yet gotten a single reply to date, nearly two and a half months after the contest ended on August 24.

The author also notes several other Twitter users who were asking the same question -- as it turns out, more than a few #Battlecry winners also hadn't received prizes nor responses from Blizzard. One follower asked, "any news for the winners of #battlecry? I haven't heard or received anything yet," while another mused, "Wondering when I will receive my prize from the #Battlecry contest." Still another asked, "has anyone got their Battlecry prize yet? I haven't received anything" just last November 6. One WoW.com reader even wrote us at the end of October confirming the same thing, that he had won but had not received any word from Blizzard, much less a prize.

Update: We have received word from one of the winners that Blizzard sent them an email confirming their prize will be sent soon.

Upper Deck held the WoW TCG and Minis world championships in Austin, Texas as planned this past weekend, and they've got all the results and news up on their website now if you're interested. Billy Postlethwait, above, won the Darkmoon Faire in Columbus, Ohio to gain entry to the championships, and after going into the finals 0 and 2, won three games to win the whole shebang outright. Apparently mages were the class to play in the Trading Card Game: six of the top 8 players were playing that class.

In the minis tournament, Derek Richardson emerged victorious, with a group lead by none other than Jaina Proudmoore (with two NE hunters in for backup). All told, the event sounds like a lot of fun, and you can check out Upper Deck's official site for all of the coverage, including interviews with the players, photos of the action, and wrapups of the gameplay. Stay tuned for more news from next year's TCG and minis circuits as well.

Upper Deck has announced that the 2009 World Championships for both the WoW Trading Card Game and Miniatures games will be taking place in a public event this weekend, October 9-11, 2009, in Austin, Texas. They'll be at the Austin Convention Center, and of course there will be the world championship tournaments for both games, offering up to $300,000 in cash and prizes total, including $50,000 for the winner of the World Championships for the TCG, including a Spectral Tiger Loot card as well as the chance to get immortalized in a future card release.

And even if you're not a championship player, you can still go see the games, and even play in some of your own -- they'll have tournaments and events for players of all levels all weekend long, some with pretty cool prizes. And you can win just by walking in the door, as they'll be giving away door prizes all weekend as well. The event is free -- it kicks off Thursday morning, and goes all the way until Sunday night (you can download schedules for both games over on the website). Should be fun -- if you go, make sure to take some pictures and let us know what you think.

We've got not one but two different screeshot contests that have shown up on the tip line lately. First off, our friend Mep, who runs WoW Screenshots, has gotten his contest all up and running, and you can go over and upload a screenshot or vote for the winners over there right now. His contest runs through September 20th, and the prize is a mousepad with your winning screenshot printed right on it. Pretty groovy custom prize -- we can't wait to see what kinds of screenshots rise to the top.

And Chris also emailed us about a new site he's started up called Epic Screens. It's another screenshot database (a little competition is a good thing, right?), and he's hosting his own best screenshot contest, with two copies of vanilla WoW on the line (perfect, he says, for Recruit-a-friend). He doesn't have a final date (or any other official rules posted), so we're guessing you just head on over there and submit some shots, and if you win, he'll let you know. Sounds like fun -- let the screenshot competitions begin!

I spent my Saturday out at Gen Con in Indianapolis, and while I did hunt down some of the World of Warcraft action there, there was just too much going on to pay attention to the 2009 North American Continental Championships for the WoW minis and TCGs, which took place right there in the TCG hall. Fortunately, the official site covered it all, so if you're a fan of the trading card game and want to know who the best current players in North America are, there you go.

On the TCG side, Corey Burkhart took the top spot by playing a Troll Shaman deck for the win. In the minis competition, Michael Allen picked up the big prize. The official site has lots more information, including rundowns of each match, standings for each round, and even a Facebook album full of photos.

The winners picked up thousands of dollars in prizes (including a 17" MacBook Pro and a 30" Apple monitor for Corey), and all of these guys will all compete in the World Championships, to be held in Austin, Texas this October (that prize goes up to a whopping $100,000 overall, so the stakes can get big). Congratulations to all the winners -- sounds like it was a rousing event there in Indy, and Upper Deck is probably on their way as we speak off to meet with us later this week at BlizzCon.

One of the highlights of the past two BlizzCons for me is our annual reader meetup -- every Thursday evening before the show starts, we usually invite you all out to mingle and chat with us so we can all party in expectation of all the fun stuff we'll see at the show. This year will be no exception, though the meetup is definitely bigger and better than ever. As we've previously announced, we'll be at the Anabella Hotel in the Tangerine Patio, and the event will kick off this Thursday, August 20th at 7:30pm Pacific. If you're going to BlizzCon or if you're just in LA and want to come see us, feel free to come by. There's no charge to come in (the kitchen will be open for business and there will be a cash bar), but we are asking that everyone in attendance be 18+ or accompanied by a parent.

And of course, many of our writers and editors will be there live for you to meet, as well as many other WoW.com friends and partners from the WoW community. And oh yeah, did we mention the giveaways yet? Our very good friends at Upper Deck, Steelseries, WoWTCGLoot.com, Swagdog, and Creative Labs are all bringing giveaways to pass on to you at the meetup, so if you come by, the odds are very good you'll be walking away with something free.

And as if all of that wasn't enough, you folks at home will also be able to get in on the action. DirecTV probably won't be filming from the meetup (probably), but we will -- you'll be able to tune in live on the Ustream account and join us for the fun. It should be a really terrific time for everybody, so if you're in Anaheim on Thursday, definitely come by the Anabella and say hello.

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BlizzCon 2009 is coming up on August 21st and 22nd! We've got all the latest news and information. At BlizzCon you can play the latest games, meet your guildmates, and ask the developers your questions. Plus, there's some great looking costumes.