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Officers' Quarters: Secret farmers of the Firelands
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, available now from No Starch Press. In the Firelands, red fire and black ash rain from the sky. Meanwhile, purple axes, scalpels, scales, mysterious apparati, and even scraps of purple parchment rain from its dying denizens. Another raid has brought with it the opportunity to kill scores of trash mobs for high-ilevel loot, much like players did in tier 11 with the Bastion of Twilight's first-room trash-athon. The purple recipes hearken back to the days of the Sunwell Plateau. Yes, trash farming has a long and illustrious history in WoW. With such great opportunities for both loot and gold, it's hard to blame players for getting in there and farming away. WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley even wrote a guide about how to do it. But should your members ask permission before they use the guild's raid ID for such runs? This week, one guild leader found out that some members have been venturing in without telling anyone. Hi. The basics. I run a decently good 10-man raid guild. We have a guild-master, me, a few officers, a few semi-officers, and raiders. The semi-officers are guildmembers that are very good at their class and been in the guild for a long time. You could say very valued members or maybe classleaders and they have some areas of responsibilty in the raids and guild. We often seek their advice but they dont have decision making rights like the GM and the Officers. The background. We killed Shannox and some other bosses the first week of Firelands, and we have done so every week up to date. We recently learned that since the first week a few of the semi-officers has been going in to the guilds Firelands instance, between raid days and farmed trash. The drops [have] been used to gear themself and their alts, but the stuff they havent had any use for, odd drops recipies, has been sold on the AH for quite alot of gold.
WoW Insider's 2008 holiday gift guide
Yes, it's that time of year again -- the lights are up around town, the weather is cold and snowy, and you've got a long list of nice (and maybe even some naughty) people who will need gifts this year. But what will you get? If anyone on your list is a Warcraft player, worry not: WoW Insider has compiled a list of ten Nintendo Sixtyfoooooooour-level gifts for the Warcraft player in your life, five out-of-game and five in-game.Whether they're level 10 or level 80, odds are that they'll love any of this stuff, and whether you've got just a little bit of time and/or money to put in or want no expense spared, there's something on this list for you. Click into the gallery below to check out all of the gifts, and be sure to have a happy holiday season -- here's hoping there will be a little something more exciting than coal in that stocking!Looking for non-Warcraft related gamer gifts? Joystiq has up-to-the-minute news on the best holiday deals and tips around for Holidaze 2008. And our friends at Big Download have a nice set of guides up as well, featuring anything and everything you might need for a PC gamer.%Gallery-38276%Winter's Veil is almost here. Watch the 12 Days again, wonder what might be new this year, or settle down with some cocoa and some tasty... bark?
Officers' Quarters: Three questions for Wrath raiders
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.With Wrath nearly in our hands, it's time for us as officers to go over a mental checklist and make sure we're adequately prepared for this expansion. (Please no Illidan jokes -- poor Arthas has no catchphrase and it only makes him angrier.) I can't possibly tell you what should be on that checklist -- it all depends on the type of guild you run and what your guild's goals are. You do have goals, right? However, here are three questions that you should start thinking about -- if you haven't already . . .1. How will you distribute BOE raid drops?Epic BOE raid drops aren't new. World bosses in Outland had their loot changed to BOE to encourage guilds to go after them. But it's been a long time since most guilds have had to deal with them on a regular basis -- not since Molten Core, if memory serves. They weren't too difficult to manage back then. With 40 people tagging along, odds are someone in the raid wanted whatever dropped. If not, the drops were all class-specific, so the number of people who could request them was relatively small.
BoE epics on each Naxx boss
Someone on the forums noticed what at first appeared to be an oversight: Rusted-Link Spiked Gauntlets, from Grand Widow Faerlina in Naxx-10, are tagged as BoE, not BoP as most boss drops are. As it turns out, this is intended. According to Blizzard poster Verimonde, each boss will have one BoE item on its loot table. This has a few obvious benefits, as Verimonde points out: More trickle-down items from raiding - non-raiders, be they alts, friends, or just random AH patrons, get access to a few raid items More excitement - even if nobody needs anything from the boss, there's still a chance to get a potentially lucrative BoE (and badges, of course) Another income source for raid guilds Although it isn't mentioned specifically, I expect that this BoE philosophy will extend to all raid bosses in Wrath. I think it's a nice idea. Let's say the average 10-man boss has a 12-item loot table and drops 2 items from it plus badges. If one of these items is made BoE, there's roughly a 17% chance to get it, which sounds reasonable. My question: what will raids' loot rules be for BoEs? My guild typically does open rolls for BoE items that aren't needed by anyone present, so that's probably what we'll do. But how will DKP guilds handle it? Will people who need it for their alts get precedence? Will they be auctioned off and the funds added to the guild bank, if nobody needs them? I guess it'll vary depending on the guild. But between these BoEs and Heirloom items buyable with badges, raiding is going to be a lot more interesting for those of us with many alts.
