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Random Acts of Uberness: A renaissance of kindness
Is the Siege of Orgrimmar turning into a war on meanies? Is World of Warcraft undergoing a renaissance of kindness and cooperation? We have a nice, fat installment of Random Acts of Uberness today, much of it seemingly inspired by the spirit of cooperation as we all stretch our wings in new patch content. "Since I came back just less than a month ago for the most part people have been fairly nice," commented Bob2525 in last week's column. "The rares in particular have been great sources of kindness. That's not to say everything has been roses but overall the kindness level has risen since the last time I played." Ron2 concurred: "In the last two weeks, I've seen a lot more positivity in raid finder. I've seen people thanking the guy who set out a feast, telling the tanks and healers that they did a good job, and occasionally telling jokes in between bosses. Not everybody is that way, of course, but it only takes one or two nice people to change the raid environment." So who's been exceptionally uber to fellow players this week?
Random Acts of Uberness: A toast to LFR raid leaders who explain fights
"Thank you for doing your job" is my husband's favorite deadpan witticism when someone at his office puffs up in expectation of praise for something that's actually a basic job duty. It's true that anyone who signs up for a group activity such as an LFR raid should be prepared to meet certain bottom-line expectations for raiding -- but you know, there's a first time for everyone. A good raid leader knows how to make those times successful for the whole raid group. "Last night in SoO LFR, the tank actually took time to describe the 'need to know' stuff for each of the fights and even answered questions," wrote ErikSetzer in last week's comments. "That's uber for a huge reason: We one-shot our way through those four bosses. But then when I did Pinnacle of Storms LFR, the tanks didn't even ask, and it got especially ugly on Lei Shen, with two or three wipes before someone finally asked, 'Okay, who doesn't know the fights?' One or two people admitted they hadn't been in there before. At least four people had the achievement ding when Lei Shen dropped. So yeah, it would have saved a lot of time and gold to just say what was needed. Sadly, they didn't try that in ToT. But the tank in SoO? Saved us all a lot of trouble. Kudos to that dude." "My LFR last night went well because we had a leader who gave clear, simple directions instead of complaining that we didn't automatically know everything," agreed Pulcherrimus. "We one-shot everything except Sha of Pride, which we two-shot. That was pretty uber." "@Pulcherrimus The same thing happened in my lfr last night," added sfreemanoh. "(I wonder if we were in the same one?) Every single boss went down smoothly except for Pride which took 2 shots, people explained the fights, everyone was courteous in instance chat...it was like a whole different game!" Wonderful LFR raid leaders of Azeroth, the experienced and inexperienced alike salute you. Keep on 'splainin' like you do. Keep reading for more of this week's Random Acts of Uberness.
Random Acts of Uberness: The voice of reason
"Reading this column always makes me want to go out and be randomly awesome for someone," mused JenniferKinnison in the comments of last week's Random Acts of Uberness. "Which, of course, is part of the point. Plus, it's just the right thing to do to help another person out. It's so unexpected these days that it's to be treasured all the more when it happens." Caught being uber: Avelianah, Draenor (US-Alliance) I and a friend were in one of those LFR groups that give people chills (not the good kind), full of newer folks trying to gear and perhaps not knowing the fights as well as they could have. There were a couple of uber nasty trolls doing their best to rip apart anyone they thought "deserved" it, and trying to kick multiple people. I would like to send out a hug of appreciation to the repeated voice of kindness and sanity that was Avelianah from Draenor. From giving out pointers, explanations, kind words and discouraging the L33T kicks to the 'thanks for the group' at the end of the instance, she was real class. -- Anonymous
Random Acts of Uberness: The lovely pandaren lady with the fabulous robes
It's the times another player lights up your night with precise play, a wicked sense of humor, or unexpected generosity that your login on World of Warcraft becomes something to remember. That's why we're bringing back the feature that lets you send a shout-out or kudos to a fellow player who's made your day in WoW: Random Acts of Uberness. Caught being uber: Hiyorin of Argent Dawn (EU-Alliance) So there I was! Fighting a rare by the western edge of The Valley of Four Winds on my level 87(?) rogue. And I am losing of course, nearly dead. But suddenly out of the blue comes a friendly pandaren in a set of fabulous robes! Within seconds, she has frozen the rare and started sending of all sorts of shiny magics after him! I keep my distance as the enemy is slowed, frozen and whittled down to nothing! Saving my life and getting me loot, for no reason, other than being kind! (Or so I like to believe.) Thank you, Hiyorin, Argent Dawn EU, the lovely Pandaren lady with the fabulous robes. -- Anonymous
Random Acts of Uberness: The Sha of Uberness
In the age of LFR, it's the times another player lights up your night with precise play, a wicked sense of humor, or unexpected generosity that your login on World of Warcraft becomes something to remember. That's why we're bringing back the feature that lets you send a shout-out or kudos to a fellow player who's made your day in WoW: Random Acts of Uberness. This week on Rare Sightings of Azeroth: the Sha of Uberness. It might not seem like much, but I just dinged 90 for the fourth time, this time a discipline/shadow priest. Being barely geared for heroics (and having a difficult time healing some of those), I sort of shrugged when I saw somebody advertising for people for a Sha of Anger group. I decided "What the heck" and whispered the person. He surprised me by not only telling me he didn't care about my gear but offering to let me heal if I wanted! Sha of Anger is something I've wanted to kill since the first time our eyes met. This was a shining moment for me, not only to say "I killed Sha!" but to say "I healed Sha!" to my friends, who thought I hated all things having to do with raids. I just want to say thank you to that random hunter whose name I cannot remember. I hope you read this and know that you made a healer's entire week with that run. Thank you! -- Vilandros, Muradins Resurrection, Muradin (US-Alliance)
Vote for the community in the Dragon Slayer awards at Dragon*Con
World of Warcraft has a large presence in the online gaming community, and that presence is you guys, the people playing the game, reading about it and discussing it. Now, our friend Zarhym the floating, burning skull reminds us all that we can vote for WoW in the Dragon Slayer awards. You can even vote for yourselves in the Most Passionate Fan Base category. As someone who writes about this game and has spent years interacting with you, I think you guys definitely count as passionate. You should totally vote for yourselves. Also, vote for Zarhym for Community Manager of the Year, since he asked nicely and he reminds me of Morte from Planescape: Torment. Community spirit isn't something WoW players lack, in my opinion. With the Dragon Slayer awards being aimed directly at community, here's a chance to show it off. The awards will be presented Sept. 2 at this year's Dragon*Con, which runs from Aug. 31 to Sept. 3. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
World of Warcraft community site preview now live
A preview of the new World of Warcraft community site is now live. It has several tabs that lead you to a blog, the forums (complete with the latest blue posts), services, and a preview of what the armory will look like when fully implemented, among other things. This is the testing phase and also the prelude to a shutdown of the current forums in favor of the ones on the new community site. The full transfer of forum functionality is scheduled to occur sometime this month. This seems to be a step in the right direction for Blizzard. I really like what I've seen so far. Try putting your character's name in the search field to bring up the armory preview. The search results are in a new format that is easier to search through, in my opinion, as well as a better way to critique yourself at a glance. And the community managers seem to be having a good time with it as well. Note: The Off Topic forums have not been transferred to the community site and there are no plans to do so. Update: Forum bans are also not being transferred to the updated forums. The full text of Blizzard's announcement is after the break.
[1.Local]: Gigantic
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Yes, I am just naming this column after Pixies songs so I can embed them and not even attempt a theme. Thank you for noticing. I do have a gigantic love for many of our comments, though. They are fun to read and the threads are gigantically entertaining. I also really like when a gigantically different viewpoint is presented for discussion. My love for the new guild perks in Cataclysm is gigantic, and so is Cyanea's: This list is the reason why we couldn't have "guild talents" and why we get all of them instead. Any hardcore PVE or PVP guild that doesn't have either the Honor point or the Hero point gain talent is not going to be competitive. A lot of more casual guilds could've easily picked them both up, but when you're in a hardcore guild striving for world/realm firsts or whatever the equivalent is for PVP you're going to go for the most effective point distribution, forcing players who do both (like me) or who are in a primarily PVE guild and mostly PVP and vice versa to leave their friends and find other guilds just to stay competitive. All that whining about Guild Talents was pointless. Pointless indeed. Turn the page for some more gigantically fun and/or interesting comments from the past week.
[1.Local]: Where is my mind?
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. I can tell you where my mind is. It's still pole dancing outside of Booty Bay after the Midsummer Flamefest. At least, that's where I think I left it. That's the last I remember knowing where it was. I should probably go check. Before I do, we have some comments to nod our heads and/or snicker over. First, the Roleplaying Spotlight goes to Bobury aka Razell: Hi! It's Razzell here. My parents were great researchers. If you could name it, they would study it. They studied alchemy, herbs, various creatures, blacksmithing, etc. Unfortunately, they were killed. I was at their house when Gnomeregan was invaded. My house was overrun with troggs. My parents were killed, their research destroyed. I escaped. I do miss them so. It is a good thing we are taking back Gnomeregan. For the Alliance, For Gnomeregan, and for the parents! I, uh, hope you weren't expecting a theme this week, because I don't have one again. But go ahead and turn the page for some more themeless fun.
[1. Local]: I'm a slacker
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Hi. My name is Robin Torres and I'm a slacker. I have totally slacked on my [1. Local] duties for weeks now, so I have tons of goodies stored up for this time. I know that the above video is called Loser and not Slacker, but it still seemed appropriate. I would have embedded the Glee version, but those never stay up very long. Anyone who has ever worked retail must appreciate that version of the -- oh, great. Now I'm slacking and writing at the same time. A couple weeks ago, we talked about a guy named Mr. Green and a Spineless Jellyfish GM in Drama Mamas. An alternate solution to ours was suggested: Russ: You could always lure Mr. Green into the Billiards room, hand him a candlestick, and drag Mr. Body into the room and accuse him of murder! Grovinofdarkhour: But everybody knows, it was Professor Plum, in the Study, with the Revolver. So that would never work. I hope you weren't looking for continuity this week, because that's not going to happen. We've got too many fun and insightful things to go over to try to squeeze them into a coherent theme. It's all my fault, because I'm a slacker. So let's just turn the page and have at it.
[1. Local]: Tooting of horns
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Tootoootoootoooooot! Yeah, I'm about to toot my own horn -- well, the horn I share with fellow Drama Mama Lisa. We so rarely get to hear the results of the advice we give on Drama Mamas, but last week we got the best feedback ever. Tootootooooot! We told AFK to make it work, and he responded: Hey, Drama Mamas! I really appreciate your answering my questions. You weren't kidding when you said that you were going to do a lot of finger wagging. I read your answers, and I read the comments as well. I found Arann and Soonerwolf's comments especially helpful. I talked to my wife today about setting a date night every week for just the two of us, a family day to spend uninterrupted time with our toddler, and a personal day where we are to pursue individual activities. She actually really liked the idea. My wife has told me that she feels neglected before, but I spend every moment that I am not at work with her. I guess guaranteeing her a night together every week was something she wanted all along. Lisa, Robin, and all of the commentators: thanks so much for your input, AFK Tootootoooooot! We've got more horns to toot. I may even toot my own horn again, I haven't decided yet. You'll just have to look after the break to see.
[1. Local]: Hey
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Hey. Reader comments have been cracking us up all week. From completely inane threads to humorous ways of explaining things, compiling this week's sampling has given me the giggles. There were some serious, insightful comments as well, of course. In fact, we'll start off with one from Drama Mamas. We answered a letter about some loot nastiness. A priest accidentally rolled need and won a weapon that a rogue wanted. Drama ensued. Scooter offered some added insight: My friends and I call this situation the "Ticking Loot-Bomb Scenario". Basically the rogue was all set to go off on someone and the priest happened to cut the wrong wire. Everyone goes off like this at least once in their lives. It takes a level of maturity to recognize this in yourself and take action to calm down. Unfortunately this is something that even most adults never obtain. It's also important to recognize when people do take that important deep breath and either calm down or remove themselves from the situation. The rogue should have just left the group. True, this inconveniences any friends/guild mates also on the run but 10 minutes of waiting for a replacement is still an improvement over 10 minutes of yelling. There's a ticking funny bomb waiting to go off on the next page.
[1. Local]: Psychology
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. It's an interesting coincidence that so many quotables this week had something to do with our mental processes. For example, when Brian Wood pretended to interview Ghostcrawler for Scattered Shots, the faux-Ghostcrawler said the following: Anyway, so the chimp has a lever, and when it pulls the lever it gets a piece of lettuce. Chimps like lettuce; it's tasty. So the chimp loves the experiment to death. Pull the lever, get more lettuce, eat the lettuce and pull the lever. Then after a while, the researchers change things up. One time, the chimp pulls the lever and gets a grape. Chimps love grapes; they're way better than lettuce. But then the chimp pulls the lever again and it goes back to getting lettuce. Now the chimp gets pissed off and throws the lettuce at the researchers. So just a minute ago the chimp was loving the lettuce, and now it's insulted to be given that garbage. The lettuce didn't get any worse or any less tasty, but the chimp's perception of the value of the lettuce changed. MMO players are even more extreme -- in an MMO if the players even hear that we considered giving grapes, they'll suddenly be insulted with the lettuce that they loved until that point. So while we can't avoid every nerf, we really try to avoid as many as we possibly can. Brian's favorite response was from Undra: Ghostcrawler promised me a grape! Promises, promises. I promise we have more psychology related comments and some that only slightly have to do with what's in our noggin. And I also promise no mention of sparkle ponies. Well, except that one. I broke my promise while making my promise. Wrap your noggin around that.
[1. Local]: Chariots and cheats
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Dominic Hobbs, our warlock columnist, speculated about flying mounts for warlocks in this week's Blood Pact. He found the following suggestion the best one from the readers (though there were many): Tidelord: Dear Hobbs, While I agree with your idea of Metamorphosis or sprouting wings, I find the thought of being carried by my shoulders by a Doomguard to be utterly demeaning, and if you have seen the model for Invincible and the new "Sparkle Pony," you would see that while the wings are ingenious, the steed itself has legs stumpier than a dwarf's! No, my dear friend. For a warlock, the only mount suitable for us masters of shadow and fire is nothing else than an enormous, obsidian-black chariot with wheels made of the bones and skulls of magi, pulled by a pack of at least ten or twelve fel-green hellhounds. The animation would be so full of demonic splendor and top-of-the-line graphics that it would cause the video card of any cowardly mage to explode violently. Grow In Shadows- Caneyn Ravenshield, Future Worgen Warlock Continue reading for an in-depth discussion of cheating -- and what's this about breeding WoW.com staff?
[1.Local]: Celestial RMT and the Fresh Steed
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Would it be wrong of us to lead off this week's [1.Local] with a comment from someplace other than WoW.com? This comment on Blizzard's astounding sales of the Celestial Steed comes from our sister publication, Massively, where one would think readers would be a little more objective about MMOs and microtransactions as a whole. Pingles: I play Allods, a free-to-play cash shop game and have purchased items to support the game. So at first I was a bit perturbed at how anyone can accept a subscription game charging for things in a cash shop but I think that Blizzard may very well get a pass on this one. The reason: WoW is a behemoth. People don't mind throwing $25 at something that ALL of their friends are going to see and that they envision spending the next few years playing with. This isn't just a game to some folks. This is a social and long-term commitment. I have to admit that when I purchased a bag in Allods I wondered whether I'd be playing the game a year from now. I don't think folks wonder the same thing with WoW. Back here at home at WoW.com, opinion about the new ride seems fairly split. Pull up a seat and let's chew on it some more. Oh, and you'll want to be sure to check out a truly epic take on the situation from [1.Local] regular (cutaia), whose fiancée Autumn Kosik created the headline photo, above. (Thanks for sharing!) Most definitely worth a trip to the end of the post.
[1.Local]: The lore according to James Cameron
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. When it comes to the chatter in [1.Local], sometimes it's the sidetracks and the tangents that pull up the most interesting results. By now, we've all heard comparisons between James Cameron's "Avatar" and Disney's "Pocahontas." ("Pocahontas in Space," anyone?) Leave it to our readers to take things a step farther. sherekhan88: Actually, maybe because of too much WoW, I was able to piece together Avatar as "The World of Warcraft movie, as envisioned by James Cameron." It goes like this: Guy log ins on his new Night Elf Hunter WoW character. He tries to cast Tame Beast on a panther that's too high level and almost dies. He gets Apprentice Riding and Exalted with Stormwind and gets a pony mount. He skips Journeyman Riding, but later gets Expert Riding in Outland. After much grinding, gets Netherdrake mount. Meanwhile, humans want to mine giant Titanium node under Teldressil. They use vehicles to raid Darnussus. The World Tree crashes, lots of Nelfs ragequit. Meanwhile, Sigourney Weaver tries to do a server transfer, but fails. Stuck with Blizzard's customer service for a week. Main guy finally gets Artisan riding and bags a Time-Lost Proto-Drake mount. He then epeens it in Shattrath. Nelves follow him. Gathers more people with Netherdrake mounts and Stormwind horses. Later they forgot Blizzard never gave them mounted combat. Main guy and Nelves defeat Humans using greens; midway through the battle main guy's game time card almost runs out. Humans ragequit after losing, Nelves call them noobs. Main guy Feigns Death for lulz, does server transfer, but comes back when he found out Paragon AND Ensidia are both on the same server. Coming up after the break: More (unique? lovable? twisted? overenthusiastic?) nuggets of wisdom, plus the World of Warcraft week in review from WoW.com's commenters.
[1.Local]: Yo, it's April, fools!
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. April Fool's Day around WoW.com usually means bracing for impact with emails and comments from nerd-raging readers who haven't ... quite ... caught on that there's something special going on. This year, though, you all really outdid yourselves. You played along! You danced, you sang, you /fishslapped, you showed us your sunflowery sunny dispositions, you popped back in every two hours like clockwork to see what new havoc was going on. Special thanks go to Kelly Aarons and Zach Yonzon for oudoing themselves on the fabulous artwork, and three cheers to Justin Glow for helping us change out the site header every two hours. Gather 'round for a group hug, everybody -- ya'll are an awesome bunch. Sedirex: All 5 iterations had their own logo, top stories, and hot topics (on the right). The evil part of this joke is that if you're like me, you felt obligated to check every 2 hours to see them, as, unlike the posts, they don't remain after the site changes focus again. Jayfitty: That was actually a pretty awesome routine. I'm not sure how I feel about so much turmoil happening here at WoW.com. Hopefully we can just settle on one type of Insider and commit to that. Every time the website changes I have to update my wardrope, Facebook page, Twitter and haircut to reflect said changes. And to go from Edward hair to Gaga hair in one day isn't easy.
[1.Local]: To meme, or not to meme?
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Sometimes puppies just aren't enough. Sometimes, it takes an industrial-strength WoW meme to bring a smile to your face -- or in the case of one lovelorn writer to the Drama Mamas, to soften the blow of dealing with a sticky situation. icepyro: "Despite seriousness of the issue, this had me laughing and loving every moment of it. Many internets are to be had by the mommas. TT, I would give my own internet to you, but I feel that is akin to giving the proverbial drowning man a glass of water. "To those that criticize the writing, I must say the fact that both the letter and responses took the time to find game terms that work to describe the problem showed how serious it was actually taken. While amusing to read, metaphors really drive home the underlying tone that the English language itself lacks. This is not some meme-filled, short letter that just tosses wow terms in for good measure. It's only purple prose if it felt like an attempt to market the product via excessive jargon rather than the jargon used to describe how he really feels. While the goal may have been to interpret it this way so that it would stand out (mission accomplished), I really didn't feel like he was holding himself back or hiding behind the jargon. "I do not want to recommend this style all the time lest we fall to overuse and making it a meme itself (see also: puppies). Still, it was supremely refreshing and quite the treat. "There were some rough spots for interpretation, but the mommas seemed to be able to interpret and their resulting advice made things much clearer. Still, anyone who compares a woman to iLevel 277 will have more problems (if you don't already) when Cataclysm comes out and better gear is to be had. Thinking about it, heirloom items may work. They level with you and while it may not always be BiS or shiny purple, there is no level limit to equip nor will you ever outlevel them. They even boost your own ability to level. ... Yeah, I overthink things." More observations (no overthinking necessary) from the past week, after the break.
[1.Local]: Making your comments matter
VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED; language Not Safe For Work. Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Internet comments and commenters -- gah. What does it take to get a comment spotlighted on [1.Local], anyway? Many readers assume that the comments we select each week represent the most popular posts, or the most controversial, or the most "important." That's true ... Sometimes. Humor is frequently the common denominator; after all, everybody loves a good laugh over the game we all enjoy. Beyond that, the factors that make a comment [1.Local]-worthy are more of a moving target. Maybe that comment is the seed of an intricate debate. Perhaps it's an inspired strategy worth sharing. Maybe it's simply a pointer towards a story we think more readers ought to see. There's no set formula. What is set, however, is our commitment to providing a place for our readers' voices to be heard. That doesn't mean we're throwing open the editorial doors to some sort of hegemony via comments. What it does mean is that we love a vibrant, energetic community of commenters just as much as you do. Blog comments do matter. How can you make your own viewpoints make an impact? Join us after the break for a refresher course on best practices for commenting on the internet.
[1.Local ]: Screaming over Hellscream's Warsong
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. While some players are hailing the Icecrown Citadel "tugboat" buff (Strength of Wrynn/Hellscream's Warsong) as a great equalizer that will open up endgame content to the player base at large, others have spotted holes in its implementation. The most common complaint is that doing the encounters the hard way yields no bonus at all: no achievement, no title, no recognition. Mennoknight: The issue ... is that there is nothing showing if they did it the hard way. Most people take kill shots with the UI hidden, so the buff will not show. Our group wanted to do it "the hard way" because we could. But the more you look at it, there is no reason NOT to keep the buff. There is no in-game tracking of it, and while you could technically take a screenshot of every boss kill without it, who's to say you won't go and kill everything with it one week and then kill the next week (with much better gear and perfected kill strats) without the buff? (5% doesn't matter, but this will become easier in later weeks.) Additionally, none of the other groups are trading in the buff, and we decided as a realm not to count it in the progression threads, so there is very little reason not to change it. This could be EASILY solved by a simple track (feat of str, no points) with something along the lines of "Achieve your first kill of Marrowgar without using the Strength of Wrynn" (because other kills don't count past the first). Just something in game to track the kill, so you don't have to jump through hoops to get it tracked. You don't need to give better loot, more badges or anything. Just the simple tracking would be enough to get groups like mine to run without the buff. More reader perspectives on the Wrynn/Warsong buff, after the break.
