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It came from the Blog: Forums!
What's that you say? You can't have a guild without forums? Well, we must agree with you, as we've gone and set up WoW Insider's very own guild with a set of forums for you, the guild membership. You'll find the forums at our very creatively named guild website - www.itcamefromtheblog.com (genius, isn't it?) While registration isn't required to post, we do encourage it. Try registering with your character's name, jumping into the conversation, or starting one up. As always, please keep it family friendly, as we have members of all ages and persuasions in the guild.WoW Insider staff will make an appearance when we can, but we're really focused on blogging here to bring you the latest news, information and commentary as it relates to the World of Warcraft!
Blue Notes: Arena Season 2 delay, spam reporting tweaks
The upcoming second Arena season, with new rewards, will be starting on June 19th, a week later than originally estimated (Drysc): As we mentioned in our initial announcement of the second arena season, the start of the next season is planned to coincide with the release of a small patch. Due to additional development time and testing needed we will be delaying the scheduled release of the patch, and thus the start of Arena Season 2 by one week, to June 19. This current schedule is of course subject to change as well. Also, don't forget that team ratings will be reset to the default 1500 with the start of the new season, allowing all teams to once again compete for top honors with a fresh start. The delay was necessary because the new items for the new season are contained in the patch (presumably 2.1.2), and the patch will evidently not be ready for the 12th. The new date will be June 20th instead for European subscribers, by the way.Also, the new-in-2.1 "report spam" feature is getting slightly changed (Eyonix):The new spam-reporting feature has been updated so that you can now report members inside your group or raid. This will allow players who are invited to groups created for purposes of spam to report the abuse appropriately. To report this type of spam, simply right-click on the player's name in the chat interface, and choosing the "Report Spam" option. Once you have selected this option, a dialogue box will open to confirm that you wish to report the target player, and your report will be sent once you confirm your choice. Please make sure you're only using this reporting feature for spam. All other forms of abuse should be reported appropriately, by petitioning a Game Master.This will keep people from pulling you into a group from the LFG tool just to spam you, which I've heard has been occurring here and there. How's the spam reporting functionality working out for you? Personally, I've been seeing very much less spam since 2.1 came out.
Blizzcon forums are live
Eyonix announced that the official World of Warcraft BlizzCon 2007 forums are live. Topics are already blazing: What costume are you going to wear? Petitions to buy tickets for people who can't go but still want the swag How to find a place to stay when every room is already sold out And the most important topic of all: FIRST! No new information yet on additional swag, ticket on-sale date or if a playable Starcraft 2 demo will be available for Blizzcon 2007. But keep checking in with WoW Insider, we'll update here when we know more.
Blizzard banning players in game for forum stupidity?
You may have missed the ruckus on the General forums this weekend-- and if you did, consider yourself lucky. Some idiot (at least we're pretty sure it was just one guy on his many alts) posted a lot of junk on Saturday about a story right here at WoW Insider. We won't bore you with everything they said, but the gist of it is exactly the kind of harassment that Ezra's father was trying to avoid-- players complaining that they weren't cool enough (even with a house that hadn't burnt down, and, you know, their health) to get the epic mount that Ezra did. Yes, it seems Penny Arcade's theory came into effect yet again.Fortunately, it's gone now-- the fever pitch hit on Saturday morning, and it wasn't till early Saturday afternoon that a CM finally showed up on the boards and deleted that junk. We can only suppose that if they had hired someone to take Tseric's place yet, it might have been taken care of sooner.But here's the best part-- while this weekend's incident was far from the first shameful occurrence on the official forums, it might be the first in which a player got penalized not just with a forums ban, but with the loss of an in game account. Iroc says his brother jumped in to make an Ezra troll post this weekend and found his account in game disconnected.Frankly, if anyone deserves it, these losers on Saturday did. But given the way that Blizzard's rep replies in the thread, it doesn't seem likely that they're banning in game for idiocy on the forums just yet-- more likely that Iroc's brother had an unrelated technical problem. Considering the way the forums are, however, it just might be a possibility worth considering.
Forum Post of the Day: Fair play is so unfair
Laij, a gnomish warrior, believes that the point of forming a pre-made group to fight in PvP is to have the undisputed advantage over opposing groups of randomly assembled players. It is not, in his mind, to work as a team or overcome a challenge, but simply to earn farm as many honor points as possible within a short period of time.His post, entitled "Blizzard killed PvP guilds," is a rant against the new battleground matching system, and it begins with the following logic: "Why run BG premades anymore? All you do is get matched up with other premades that are going to drag games out extremely long." The first responder to his opening post sees clear through this transparent argument: "so you're saying its too hard now that you are matched against non-noobs?" Later on, Drysc replies, in his characteristic way, "Fair and challenging gameplay? The horror..."Then, surprisingly, another gnome brought out the following suggestion:
Breakfast Topic: WTB guild silliness, PST
Well, okay, maybe not buy, but I'm all about trading stories! For example, it's my belief that some of the best World of Warcraft posts never see the light of day. Why? Because they're closeted on guild forums, safe from prying eyes. But you know you all have seen them. These threads take on Legendary Thread status within our respective guilds, and grow into in-jokes over time. Here's one of my favorite of the recent posts I've seen on my guild's forums that has exploded into a truly silly string of "contest" posts. This original post was made by my Rogue class leader when he was looking for a Blinkstrike to call his very own. Enter the "Win a Free Pocket Rogue" Sweepstakes!
Tseric has now left the building...
"Treacherous" on the official forums pointed out a new CM opening on the Blizzard site, then asked if Tseric's recent absence was somehow related. The very next response was Eyonix with the following statement: Tseric is now pursuing other opportunities and we wish him the best in his future endeavors.While I know Tseric's opinion wasn't always popular, I did think that he was an excellent CM for a very long time. He brought some of the better zings to the forums, and until the last bit, was generally a pretty nice guy from what I saw of him. Many people are still hotly divided on whether or not it was his right to reply like he did to that one post... Was he right or wrong to reply in that gruff of a manner? And just how far is too far when you're dealing with customers? Obviously we don't know if he walked out on the job after dealing with the forums for 2+ years, or if he was let go due to that bit of forum head-explody that happened. (And Blizzard wouldn't dare tell anyone because that's a lawsuit in the making.) But in either case, I personally would like to wish Tseric the very best for his future, and I hope we'll hear from him somewhere down the road./salute Tseric/bye
Are the official forums a good or bad thing?
Late Saturday night, Tseric, a community manager on the official WoW forums, got into an argument with a (literal) troll about freedom of speech on the WoW forums. Tseric then posted a pretty stunning denunciation of the whole forum concept: "When you can understand how a group of beligerent and angry posters can drive away people from this game with an uncrafted and improvisational campaign of misery and spin-doctoring, then perhaps, you can understand the decisions I make. Until you face mobs of psychology, you will not see my side. Until you see some bright-eyed player coming onto the forums wanting to know what they should spec as this class, and see them shat on and driven away by petty and selfish people who are simply leveraging for game buffs, you will not understand. You will not understand until you have to see it daily, for years..." Pretty tough words from someone who gets paid to manage the forums, but I have to admit that I kind of agree with them. The WoW forums can be a great resource -- specifically the UI, Customer Service, Guild Relations and Professions forums -- but most of the class forums, the raids and dungeons forum, and the general forum can quickly become a cesspool of complaining. Instead of helping people in the game and offering constructive criticism, the forums can serve to drive away new players, and make them see problems when there may not be any. For example, while I'm writing this post and skimming the forums, I've "discovered":
