[1.Local]: And that's not all these clams do

Just when you thought clams couldn't get any better ...
Maybe it's hearing the same news tips over and over again ("Hey man, just saw this really cool vid you should totally post called BLIND ...") that makes WI bloggers a little slap-happy. Or maybe it's ... something else?

"Maybe I'm just way too easy to amuse and/or way too in love with Vince Offer," asserted Daniel Whitcomb, "but this made me lawl." This one's for you, Daniel, from reader Cyno01:

"Hi, Vince here for ClamWoW. Just when you thought clams couldn't get any more convenient, these clams do it all. You can open them while mounted or even when you're not. How great is that? And that's not all -- these clams stack! And even if that's not enough, the meat inside stacks itself! You're gonna love my clams."

Sounds like this is one schtik that's stacked, for sure.

The grammar police have arrived
It's not uncommon for post comments to run way off the rails into territory that has absolutely nothing to do with WoW or the topic at hand. Such was the case with this thread on tradeskilling preparations for patch 3.1, which degenerated into a debate over the use of gender-specific language.

Many rants were had, including this snippet from Worcester: "'Craftswoman' tells me what gender the person is, but I still don't know what color her skin is. What about her religion? What about her height? What about her preferred breakfast food? Which of these things are important to her skill in her profession? Right. None of them.

"What about those words that don't reveal a person's gender? Do we need to make words like he-soldier and she-soldier? Would any commander on a battlefield, while barking out orders to take a particular hill or bunker, bother with the difference between his male and female soldiers? Hopefully not!

"Will creating artificial names for professions make up for past inequalities? Will those artificial names even make up for current biases?"

That's a lot to ask of a video gaming blog, Worcestor. Can we get back to you on those?

Advice for a new mounts collector
Experienced mount collectors lent their combined wisdom to a budding collector in this post on new mounts coming in patch 3.1. "Coolio, turtles for the win," noted Dez. "Say, how hard are the mount achievements, would you say? I have no idea, recently got the idea in my head that it could be fun. I've always been a fan of completion. With the thought of all the mounts that exist in this game, I fancy the idea of having every single one. Not that it's possible, and at any rate, RNG limits the possibility further. But 100 is a nice goal.

"... I finally have more energy in my life and I play casually, so it's a good time for this. That said, there's so much to complete in WoW and collect, (which) a obsessive person like me wants to complete everything fully, so how do I choose which things to do and in what priority? Usually I get so frustrated from the thought of everything that I haven't completed and in turn end up doing none of the things.

"This leads me to my question: Should I go for it? How difficult, how time-consuming, how costly will it actually be? I have eight mounts only, but I haven't given collecting a thought until now, and I have roughly 4,000g and no problems earning more easily. (1,000g needs to go for dual spec, though.) Any need-to-knows, tips would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. ^^"

Readers proceeded to give Dez the low-down on collecting mounts, top to bottom. If you have more than a handful of mounts in your own personal stable, do you have anything to add?

Constructive criticism for guild members
Most reader comments on WoW Insider fall into one of three categories: agree with the post, disagree with the post, or repeat various points actually already made in the post. This comment from Mordiss breaks new ground with fresh, constructive advice for guild members who have feedback on the guild's direction.

"I'm an officer in a pretty successful guild," explains Mordiss. "I'm sort of the 'morale' officer, which is the one who handles most of the drama, explains why we made decisions we did and hears complaints. A few suggestions for non-officers who have disagreements or ideas they want heard are these.

"A) Don't use gchat to QQ. Complaining in gchat brings out all the whiney players like nothing else will. No officer wants people ganging up on him, and some players just resent the fact they aren't in leadership positions and will do that every chance they get. Bring it to me in a tell or a mail.

"B) Have a solution. Don't have a 10-page QQ session. You're going to be taken much more seriously if you have an answer to your problem. Think it through and make sure it's something that's fair for everyone. If it's only going to benefit you or one or two people, it's a sure bet it won't happen. Think about what you would do if you were in the position of the officer faced with the same choice.

"C) Don't be a hypocrite. If you miss every raid, always DC during progression wipes, never run a heroic to help undergeared players out and never put a single thing in the gbank, then you don't care about the guild. Officers aren't going to spend energy worrying about what you think. Do your part first; then people will take you seriously.

"D) Be reasonable. If you don't get your way, don't throw a huge fit. As long as everything was explained to you and there's solid reasoning behind it, move on. Giving an ultimatum will almost assure that you will be guildless in the next few minutes. Odds are if you came to the officer in a fair and intelligent way, he's going to listen to you more closely on other issues, especially if you show yourself to be a reasonable person who's got the guilds best interest at heart."

We couldn't have said it better!

Everyone out of the fire!
Is it a healer's duty to save players who are too unobservant to get out of the fire? "I am definitely a proponent of getting out of the fire," agreed Shardrell. "However, it'd sure be nice if there were fewer boss fights that involve some kind of fire/spit/shadow poop that is so huge that melee DPS often have to choose between getting out of the fire and actually being able to hit the boss.

"If Blizzard tunes the fights so that it's a viable option to either choose lower DPS/less damage taken or more DPS/more damage taken, then it's all cool. But Blizzard doesn't have a good track record of remembering that some of us have to stand next to the boss in order to damage it, and thus certain 'mobility' challenges unfairly punish melee DPS."

"@Shardrell: If this happens, then you likely have a newer tank," advised Eisengel. "If there are environmental hazards that are cutting down melee DPS, the tank should reposition the boss so that melee DPS can get back on it ASAP.

"Back in vanilla, when Rogues and Shammys were much more powerful, this was widely understood. Not repositioning the boss means less melee DPS, which means the healers have to heal the tank longer ... which strains their mana. If a melee-heavy raid is having trouble downing a boss that has close-range environmental effects, the tank may be killing themselves by not helping melee DPS as much as they can.

"I've also found tanks will often not provide enough room for melee players to get in behind mobs in instances, many times making melee DPS choose between pushing parries on the tank and losing DPS, or possibly aggroing another group.

"I think in general the tanking shortage is pretty much gone, but there is now a question of tanking quality. There are tanks that have been playing since vanilla that know how much a tank affects the party/raid in ways other than just taking hits to the face and have tanked very hard bosses, and those that have been tanking for two months that haven't had a chance to experience a lot."

Ahh, teamwork – isn't that what Ghostcrawler was getting at in the first place?

Are achievements your A-game?
Are achievements all that? For some players, the answer is absolutely.

"Achievements kept me in WoW," noted SaintStryfe. "10 more levels and new raids aren't enough to keep me sitting around. But working toward great goals I can compare with other people? That's something I can sink my teeth into. Before achievements, you were judged by your gear. Now I can get a measure of respect for my work not related to getting lucky in raid drops.

"Not too many Draenei Loremasters running around, is what I'm saying."

How many achievement points do you have – and how important is that to the way you game?

The drama of DKP
We could go all day about the merits and flaws of various loot systems. That's why we appreciated the succinct way that jurandr cut through the jibberish with a simple philosophy we can appreciate.

"As the techies always say: Don't throw hardware at a software problem," he observed. "If your guild is having drama, it's because the people in it don't know how to compromise with each other. In any loot system, somebody has to lose. And just because somebody lost doesn't give them the right to whine about it."

Moar pewpew, less QQ indeed.