[1.Local]: The week from a reader's point of view

25-man and 10-man raiding battle it out
This look at the compatibility of both 25-man and 10-man raids in Wrath of the Lich King, along with a companion post casting a little more doubt on the new design, sparked plenty of conjecture. "I'm very excited for this as a member of a 10-man guild that just downed Zul'jin for the first time last night after 1.5 months in ZA," said reader Prance. "For those of you who haven't done ZA (with a 10-man progression group, no 25-man loot, etc), it's a good challenge with a progression feel to it. This is what the casual raider group is missing. Whether they want to make it against arthas or whoever, just as long as there is more ZA and beyond type raids, I think they'll be hitting on a good note.

"For those 25 raiders who are worried about their raids in WotLK, I don't think you have too much to worry about. You raid 25s to progress to be one of the best on the server? That's still there. Your rewards in loot will be better, and I think they should continue with the titles and maybe other things like tabards, mounts, etc., to show the accomplishment of 25-man raids. 25s will be harder than 10s, so make sure that everyone is aware of that, but don't take the content away from the 10s either.

"Give everyone a sense of accomplishment of killing lore figures, but make sure those who did it on the tougher scale are recognized, and I think this will work out fine."

Should Arthas be 10-mannable?
Lore nerds, unite – this is your thread. Should 10 players be able to kill Arthas in the Wrath of the Lich King? "Who's to say that we won't be 10 people with the support of Tirion, numerous nameless NPC's, and a few other Lore characters such as Sylvannas?" asks Saf. "Simply by altering the number of NPC's in relation to 10/25 players, the difficulty could be adjusted without worrying about fight mechanics all that much ...

"It's likely not going to be a repeat of Illidan, where Akama holds off the adds or w/e, and Maiev steals the kill. I'm talking more about an all-out assault, pitting our army against the armies of the Scourge. Arthas himself isn't likely to be too much of a challenge. It's the fact that his entire army will swarm the raid in order to protect him ..."

Show your stuff on guild applications
Are guild membership applications a useful tool or an outdated demonstration of elitist snobbery? "As a recruiting officer for a raiding guild, I would like to comment that applications are absolutely necessary," opines Sydera. "I don't like turning people down, but my highest level of commitment is to my guild's current members. I want our new applicants to mesh well and keep the guild happy. We use our applications to determine not necessarily who has the best gear or skill but who will work best with our team. Our applications seeks to weed out:

"1. Negative attitudes. This comes clear based on how someone describes their guild history.
2. Selfish people. Hence, the 'are you willing to sit on the bench' and 'do you accept our loot policy' questions.
3. Flakes. Hence the 'can you make our raid times' and 'how often will you raid' questions.
4. Racist, sexist, or immature folks. This is why we ask applicants to tell us a joke. The joke question is the most important one on our application -- it's the one that tells us most accurately what someone is like.

"I often compare my guild to a pretty good team in an amateur bowling league. We're not the best bowlers out there. We're enthusiastic about it and love our team. We like to play the game, we have a lot of fun, we play about 12 hours a week and there's nachos and beer for everybody. We also plan and organize pretty carefully -- we find that when things run smoothly, everyone is happier and gets, on the whole, more nachos. Now, if one whiny butthead joins the team, we're not having fun anymore, so we're very careful about which new bowlers we take if a spot opens up."

Racism in Arena names
More than 300 posters raged on this post about an Arena team (and many knock-offs) with a questionable name that many players considered racist. "Come to think of it, Rosa Parks would fight for the free speech to have such an arena team name," observed Naix. "I may not like what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it."

Top Arena team sells points along the way
When 15 Minutes of Fame talked with a top-ranked 5v5 Arena team, we knew they'd be great players – but we didn't anticipate that the team would turn out to be prolific points sellers, as well. "With all due respect, Boom, MLH wasn't selling arena points in protest of a broken system," interjects Juliablushes. "They did capitalize on the state of the system and profited greatly by it. What gets me, and likely many others, is that the 'scrubs' they wish to keep out of high-end arena gear are the same 'scrubs' which have been lining their coffers with gold. If the members of MLH actually felt that 'scrubs' shouldn't be in gear that MLH has earned, why would they sell it to them? No matter which way you slice it, MLH are five very wealthy hypocrites."

When WoW runs slow
When a reader called for help with a computer that was bogging down under the weight of time, readers jumped to his assistance, offering post after post of savvy advice. We can't cite just one particular comment from this post – you'll have to visit the thread itself for an overview of all the helpful tips.

Chill out with fishing macros
Ok – raid design, points selling and racism aside, it's the weekend. Time to go fishing! "For the great many of us who play with the sound off, my variant on this macro function thus," advises Kershner.

"On left-click:
1. Increase volume to max
(I can't figure out how to flip sound on and off, but I can turn the volume from 0 to max, thus your sound has to be on, but with the master volume at 0%)
2. Equip fishing rod
3. Begin fishing (requires a second click)

"On right-click (I like right-click, use the modifier of your choice):
1. Reduce volume to zero
2. Equip your weapon again

"For reasons of versatility, I use the mod ItemRack which provides functions to switch equipment sets by name. Thus all of my characters have a set called "UnFish" which consists of the weapon they'd like to switch back to. Thus all characters can share the same fishing macro."

#showtooltip Nat Pagle's Extreme Angler FC-5000
/console Sound_MasterVolume 1
/equip [nobutton:2] Nat Pagle's Extreme Angler FC-5000
/cast [nobutton:2] Fishing
/stopmacro [nobutton:2]
/console Sound_MasterVolume 0
/script EquipSet("UnFish")