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Breakfast Topic: Have you tried your hand at running a guild?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. It happens to all of us at one point or another. You're riding into Stormwind, perhaps admiring the dragon head that someone has strung up on the gates, and you're headed to the auction house when your eyes light upon the Visitor's Center. Inside, a bright-eyed young hero, very much like yourself, is speaking to Aldwin Laughlin, the Guild Master. Suddenly, you think, "That could be me. I could be in there, buying a guild charter and designing a tabard. I could found my own guild." You dismount, take the first two steps at a bound -- but suddenly, you stop in your tracks. All at once, you stagger under the weight of responsibility. The trouble with starting a guild, you realize, is that once you do it, you actually have to run a guild. Of course for some, this isn't a drawback -- it's a perk! There are plenty of aspiring guild masters out there who have a vision, execute it, and become great leaders. Then there are those of us who consider starting a guild but balk at the particulars; others who create small, friends-only or alt guilds just to have a fun guild name or a guild bank; and many more who are happy to leave the burden of leadership to someone else. Have you thought about starting your own guild? If you went through with it, how did it turn out? Is the guild still around today? If you thought better of it, what stopped you? Or are you still making up your mind? %Poll-56456%
Valve to release GL code, games on Mac see sales bumps
Boy, if you had to choose one company (including Apple) that has really led the charge for Mac gaming recently, I'd have to say Valve takes the cake, and that's no lie. Not only has the company brought an unprecedented set of quality titles to the Mac with Steam, but it's now announced that it will be sharing some of its graphical code for the Mac with Steamworks developers. That graphics layer coding is apparently the "real hard work" in making a game for the Mac, and Valve is trying to make that as easy as possible for its partner developers. Why? Because -- and get this -- games sell more when they're on the Mac. Games that have added a Mac version since Steam went live on the Mac are seeing a 15 to 20% sales increase. That's actually for both platforms -- most Steam games available for the Mac share ownership on both Mac and PC, so they're not really tracking sales of one platform or the other. Still, having a game available on the Mac is a big bonus, as not only does it make Mac players possible, but it drives attention for both platforms (as you may have even seen here on our site -- when we post that a game has finally come to the Mac, even PC gamers consider going back to check it out). Excellent news for developers already working with Steam, and also good news for those of us who enjoy running our favorite games from the dock rather than the start menu. Even Apple hasn't put the kind of work into reviving Mac gaming that Valve has in just the past few months. [via Joystiq]
We Have a Tabard: A little help from my friends
The We Have a Tabard series is designed to help guild leaders, officers, members achieve their goals to maximize their cooperative experience.I'm relatively new to leading a raiding guild. I've been working on building and training my team for about six months. I've been leading the recruiting and correcting members, managing raids, and in general trying to make my online family as functional as possible. It's a lot of work for one person, and no matter how much I love my guildies I have to admit that I am tired.The best thing that I've ever done for myself and my guild is to ask for help. I have some great players in my guild that are well respected by other members and the server community. They have expertise in areas that do I do not. Probably most importantly they are less likely to mince words than I do and are willing to do what it takes to get the job done. Having some backup has helped some become more invested in the guild and has really lightened my load.Choosing who to ask for help can be a tough call. It does little good to select only your favorites or your friends, if they are not successful leaders. Take several factors into account when selecting a council of officers:
From our readers: Guild Retention
We get lots of email from our readers trying to find their way though WoW. I'd like to take a moment to answer a question about membership retention. This also builds on a previous response regarding the trials and tribulations of starting a guild.Hi I been reading your posts and listening to the podcast and you recently made a new guild. I have a guild with around 140 members and we do some raiding weekly but every time I log off, it seems that people start arguing, and drama just starts building up. I went away for a couple days and when I come back from my vacation, Alot of people have left the guild. Maybe 10-15 people. Now they are stealing my members and have made a new guild. Do you have tips on member retaining and stuff like that, would be cool if you can do a post on that kind of stuff and how you work that out, thanksHello reader,Thank you for the email. One of the hardest things I've noticed about a guild is dealing with a certain amount of churn. Acceptance is the first step. People leave for all kinds of reasons. There will be those that come and go. The stronger you make your core, the stronger you make your guild.
LG claims Scarlet 42LG61 is world's thinnest LCD HDTV with built-in tuner
Maybe our math is off, but we're fairly certain 44.7-millimeters equates to around 1.76-inches. Strangely enough, LG is claiming that its Scarlet 42LG61 is actually the world's thinnest LCD HDTV, and we all know Hitachi's definitively thinner 1.5-inch family just started shipping to US consumers last week. Of course, maybe it just meant the slimmest it has ever produced, but we digress. The set is apparently loose in South Korea, featuring a 1080p panel, 120Hz technology, a 600,000:1 contrast ratio and four HDMI ports. Granted, the previously veiled set won't run you cheap, as you'll walk away ???2.5 million ($2,427) poorer should you choose to take one home.[Via AVing] Update: LG clarified the situation. It's the slimmest out there with a TV tuner built-in. Nice.
Gruul's Lair tweaks
Gruul's Lair is the first 25-man raid many BC raiders may experience. My guild hasn't gotten a crack at it yet, since we can't seem to get 25 raiders together at a time, but I'm still hopeful. The raid is relatively short, consisting of two bosses (Gruul the Dragonkiller and High King Maulgar) plus relatively small amounts of trash. It doesn't require any attunement, drops (among other things) the T4 legs and shoulders, and is required for Serpentshrine Cavern attunement.Both bosses in the raid have had adjustments in the past couple of days. Gruul was using his Hurtful Strike ability on both the second and the third players on his aggro list; this was a bug introduced in 2.1 and has been hotfixed such that only the second player on the aggro list gets struck, as intended. Maulgar was slightly nerfed in 2.1 as an intended change; he now attacks faster, but for less damage at a time. His overall DPS should stay the same. This change ought to result in less spiky deaths, and will be "mostly noticed by under geared raids."
