groups
Latest
A message to those that ask me to group
Dear PUG Members,Recently you've asked me to group with you. This is cool, and I appreciate being wanted. It gives me that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. The same warm and fuzzy feeling you get after you've killed a million boars and are holding the Sword of a Thousand Truths. However, if you don't mind, could we go over a few dos and don'ts?Here's what you should do: Do ask nicely if I have time to join your group. Do look to see if I'm using the LFG tool. If I'm not, I probably don't want to group. Do offer me at least 100 gold to run you through the Stockades. The two gold you're putting forth does not make up for the time it's going to take me to run you through. Do talk in English or some other real language. I'll even accept Klingon. Leet speak is not a language. Do ask if everyone is ready before MDing the boss to me. Do use Omen or KTM. Do use something more than auto-attack. Here's what you should NOT do:
On age discrimination
Fraid is a young player who says that people show discrimination towards teenagers in WoW. He plays maturely and responsibly, so well that most of the time other players are surprised to find out how young he is. Yet he often encounters guild requirements that say one's age must be 21 or higher to join. Is this fair?In my own experience I've certainly met kids like Fraid who can behave just as well as (if not better than) most of the adults I've encountered in WoW. I've also met players who came across as bragging and became very difficult for me to deal with until a friend said "They're only 12," and I understood. After that, I found it much easier to tolerate the things they were saying as just part of being a teenager rather than some plot to make me feel inadequate. Another time, I went through several 2-vs-2 arena matches in which my friend was strangely quiet, and yet playing very well. Afterwards, my friend explained that it wasn't her at the keyboard, it was her 10-year old friend. This friend isn't very good at typing and talking, but he certainly knows how to play!Kids can be fantastic players, or lousy ones, just like anyone else you might encounter -- it isn't right to judge them based on age alone. The fair way to deal with kids in WoW is to give them a chance to show their skill, and even to help them improve however you can. If they prove unreasonable, then kick them out the same way you would an unreasonable adult. For those adults who just exclude young people from their activities altogether without giving them a chance, there's no denying it is prejudice -- judging before knowing -- and it often means depriving yourself of some quality talent for your group. Of course, if your guild does some sort of ERP, or other "adult" activities, then by all means, exclude away! But in normal gaming, especially in a casual guild or a PuG, there's really no reason a kid shouldn't be allowed to join unless they've already shown themselves unable to do what's required of them. Anyone who says, "some of these people are not fun to be around, so I'll just exclude the whole lot of them," has some growing up of their own to do.[Thanks Raegn!]
The Daily Grind: Leaders and followers
Today, our discussion topic is: When it comes to MMO groups, are you a leader or a follower?To tell the truth, I kind of prefer being a follower, especially when I'm first starting out in a new MMO. I want to let others lead the way, hang back, and reap the benefits of being part of a group without actually pouring all the work in to keep it going.But eventually, my personality (yeah, I'm bossy) and my desire to actually do group things usually turns me into a leader, whether I like it or not. When I want to participate in a group activity, and no one else is around to lead it, I kind of fall into the de facto leader position (and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, but that's a discussion for another day).So when you're logging into your favorite MMO for the day, are you stepping into a leader role or a that of a follower? Are you up at the head of the pack or somewhere back near the middle? Are you leading your own guild or just kind of showing up when someone asks you to join a group?
The Karazhan exchange program
Krystal is a guild leader over on Skywall, and she's got a cool idea for how to get all of her guildies geared up and knowledgeable about Karazhan-- a "Karazhan exchange program," where Team A (the veterans) trades a person with Team B (the newbies) every week, which gives both teams a chance to learn and show more about what they know with each other.It's an interesting thought, and I'm curious-- do a lot of guilds do this already? To tell the truth, I've been kind of absent from my guild's Karazhan runs lately, but from what I've heard, we pretty much keep things separate-- Team A has their progression, and Team B has theirs. But regularly mixing up the teams seems like a good plan. Sure, with one newb on Team A, their progression might slow a little bit (and there might be a little drama coming out of forcing a certain veteran onto Team B), but by switching things up, it seems that overall both teams will benefit, and especially when you're headed for a 25 man instance (where you'll need both teams and then some), that's an ideal situation.What's your guild like? If you have two Karazhan teams, do you mix them up periodically, or does Team A stick to themselves, and make Team B learn the bosses on their own?
Trust me, everything is under control
Marilyn has an interesting point over at WoW Ladies: if you see her grinding Consortium rep and taking on three mobs at a time in Netherstorm, leave her alone-- it's all under control. I sometimes have this same problem as a resto Shaman-- onlookers don't always realize that even though my health is low and I'm almost out of mana, redemption for me is just a huge heal and a Mana Tide totem away. Things may look bad, but really, don't worry about it-- my Earth Shield just got refreshed, and I'm good to go for two more mobs, so no, I don't need saving.On the other hand, I'm not sure I really want to discourage people to help in this game-- I'd much rather have them help me fight than really be in trouble and have them /laugh as I die. So I'm not sure I'd tell everyone to lay off.Rather, the problem here is that when I pull a group of mobs, I don't want someone else stepping in and tagging them away from me in the name of help. So there are plenty of ways to help that don't include stealing my XP-- drop a DoT on something that's been tagged (I do this all the time on my Shadow Priest), or throw me a heal (always appreciated, even if my Mana Tide totem is off cooldown). And just paying attention is nice, too-- nothing burns me more as a Rogue than taking the time to sneak up on a mob, only to have them charged by an overzealous warrior who claims afterwards that they didn't see my Distract go off.If it's legitimate kill-stealing, the best option is just to ignore and move on to a less populated area-- there's no dealing with those people. But if you do see someone fighting a bunch of mobs solo, there are better ways to help than grabbing one of their kills, and chances are they'll be more than happy to help you the next time around.
FlickrExport 3 teaser screencast
Fraser Speirs' FlickrExport plug-ins for iPhoto and Aperture are the undisputed kings of bridging the gap between Flickr and your Mac-managed photos. The plug-ins are pretty powerful, offering a lot of strong integration with Flickr by adding photos to sets or creating new sets on the fly, as well as keeping in step with the tags you use in your account. The Aperture plug-in can even keep track of the photos you upload to Flickr and replace them with updated versions - instead of creating a duplicate. Apparently not one to sit in one place for too long, however, Speirs is already hard at work on a new version, FlickrExport 3.Not many details are known just yet, but Speirs has been tweeting some teasers about the new version, and just this morning published a screencast (.MOV link) demoing some of the impressive new Groups features in FlickrExport 3 for Aperture. Most notably, users will no longer be limited with adding a picture to one group at a time - the new version features a table of all the groups to which you belong, allowing you to check more than one group for adding the images to. FlickrExport 3 will even check with Flickr to make sure you haven't overstepped the upload quota for each group.[Update: Mr. Speirs stopped by to comment that the new features in this particular demo will also be present in FlickrExport 3 for iPhoto as well; he just happened to be demoing them in Aperture for this screencast.]No release date has been set for FlickrExport 3 just yet, and I assume the prices will remain the same for the iPhoto plug-in (~ $23 USD) and Aperture plug-in (~ $27 USD).
Ten commandments of being in a group
Reader Poga dropped us a line to this article he wrote for his guild about the "ten commandments of being in a group" (perhaps inspired by my ten commandments of dueling). Pretty much every group problem is in here, from stealing aggro to breaking CC to loot whoring.The pulling one is an especially good tip-- decide at the beginning of the run who's going to pull, and then only have that person pull. Can't tell you how many times, someone decided to just pull with an instant spell because they felt like it, and not realizing that another pull was already incoming. And I think the "not wear thy gear in vain" tip is an interesting one, too-- you should putting gems and enchantments on your gear already, just to make your character the best it can be. Seeing it as a way of benefiting the group is a new way of looking at it, but it's true as well.If everyone followed these tips all the time (and even the best tanks I know sometimes forget to wait for mana), we'd all have better groups, whether they be PuGs, good friends, or raids.
Switching out for a replacement in instances
Last weekend, my guild was heroically wiping our way through Gruul's Lair, when a friend called to go see Transformers. I did want to go, but I didn't want to leave my guild without a healer. So I did exactly what you should do when leaving a group-- I dropped a /tell to a priest in the battlegrounds and asked him if he could replace me. He could, I told the raidleader I had to go, helped him summon the priest, and I was off to see Optimus Prime fighting Megatron. Horrible story and acting, by the way, but amazing action with awesome robots.So that's exactly what you should do when leaving a group unexpectedly (find a replacement), but unfortunately, it's not always what everyone does. Sometimes it's a matter of availability-- just last night, our tank in Shattered Halls said he had to log out, and we just weren't able to find any warriors to replace him-- but the point is that the responsibility for filling the evacuated role should be that of the person leaving, not the group. Saying "bye" and logging is definitely one way to do it, but it's not the best way-- what you should be doing is finding a replacement.And how's that done? First, check your guild to see if there are others of your own class around to join up. Even if not, keep in mind that you can change things around if necessary (as a Shaman, I can switch prettty easily between DPS and healing, so if our priest leaves, we're fine adding either another priest or a replacement DPS). If no one in the guild is available, then it's time to go for your own Friends list-- I've met quite a few other players in PUGs that I usually hit up for group members when necessary, and sometimes I'll even ask them to check their own guilds for replacements. And if you have to, it is possible to simply do a "/who 70 priest" query-- you run the risk of getting someone who doesn't know what they're doing, but as my grandmother always said, beggars can't be choosers.Of course, throughout all of it, you've got to be patient-- it's fine to send someone a /tell asking if they want to join up, but if they say no or don't answer, leave them alone after that. And if a replacement can't be found, both the group and the person leaving should understand (although for Transformers, I might have delayed the movie rather than letting the 25 man raid go without). But most people play this game to actually run the instances-- with a little effort, switching out a replacement can keep an instance run rolling right along.
Horde looking for (and finding) fewer groups?
Distraction on the WoW LJ posts about something I've noticed while sitting in the LFG channel over the last few days on my server as well: Alliance are having a nice big party in the LFG channel, while Horde seem kind of lonely in it.Why does it seem like Alliance run more PUGs than Horde do? It seems to happen on every server that I've been on, and it can't just be a population thing-- even Horde heavy servers (of which there aren't many) seem to have more PUGs rolling on the Alliance side. Could it be that Alliance players are more social, or just more likely to be unguilded?And another thing I've noticed (and while Distraction doesn't mention it obviously, you can see it in his script) is that Horde seem to be less responsive to pleas for help in terms of LFG as well. Not only is it less common for a group to be LFG on Horde side, it seems, but it's less common for anyone LFG to find the help they need. I watched one guy Hordeside look for a Botanica group member for about 2 hours over the weekend, and when I finally joined up, the group frll apart anyway. Has that been your experience? And if so, why could that possibly be?
Swift Share, Mac/PC file sharing utility, on 55% sale at MacZOT today only
Swift Share is a utility for creating and managing folders to share for both Mac OS X and Windows based machines across your network and even in remote locations. While Mac OS X allows for some limited file/folder sharing functionality via the Sharing System Preferences pane, plenty of users out there need more robust features for things like specifying various folders for sharing, setting specific permissions (read, write, both, etc.) and much more, not to mention the fact that making all this stuff work between both Macs and PCs isn't exactly one of Mac OS X's strong points either. While I admit I don't have much use for an app like Swift Share and I don't even have any Windows machines lying around the house, I can definitely see the appeal and need for an app like this. Typically, Swift Share costs a mere $19.95, but for today only that price has been temporarily set aside in a whopping 55% sale for a grand total of $8.95. Sounds like a darn good deal for anyone working between both sides of the fence.
Need one more at meeting stone
Elizabeth put a good post up the other day about lazy folks who don't take the time to run back into an instance after a wipe, and this forum post by Eleutheria on EU Earthen Ring points out the other side of instance group laziness: Meeting stone standoffs.Here's how it should work: if there aren't yet two people in your group standing by the meeting stone, everyone in the group should be running, riding, or flying to get there. But of course that's not what really happens-- what happens is that the leader of the group makes it there first, and everyone else continues grinding, or goes to check the AH one more time, or has to run repair, or finish a BG, or any number of things that don't involve getting to the meeting stone and summoning. Worst case scenario is that people start trying to convince others to go for them, and one guy is left at the meeting stone shaking his head.Now, some people say that whoever made the group should be summoning, and in most cases, that seems like a good idea. But there are always exceptions. Even if I'm the last to enter a group, I usually start making my way towards the instance anyway-- the trip is never that long, no matter which instance you're going to, and it's better to be nice and use the flight to get another beer/soda then to sit around demanding a summon.Unfortunately, there's no real way to fix this except to call out people for just plain being lazy. I guess it would be cool if Blizzard gave a nice timed buff to the first two people in a group to use a meeting stone summon, except then you'd probably have tons of people hanging around the RFC meeting stone in Org before they queued up for the battleground. As a few people point out in the thread, probably the best way to deal with it is just to give up on the group. Maybe next time they'll be ready to work together outside the portal as well as inside.
A few tips for starting Heroics
Most players by now that started rolling to 70 when the expansion hit are probably either just starting or in the middle of running their first few Heroic dungeons. I fall into that group-- my guild has had a few folks running Heroics for a while, but the majority of us are just now starting to pick up the Revered rep needed in the different factions to make running Heroics a regular possibility. So here's a few tips I've picked up just in the past few weeks or so about how to get started running the most challenging 5mans in the game. Please feel free to add your own below.-Easiest Heroic: in general, you're going to want to start in the Slave Pens. I've heard good things about Underbog and Old Hillsbrad (Ramparts is comparably easy as well, especially if you've got your FR gear on), but really I've found that Slave Pens is a good indicator of whether your group is ready for Heroics or not, and it seems like Cenarion rep is pretty easy to come by, so you've got lots of keyed folks to choose from.-Best place to get badges: Heroic Mechanar. Even the Gatekeeper minibosses, who don't give good loot in the normal instance, will drop Badges for you in Heroic, which means that if you skate through this place in under an hour, you're earning five badges in that time.-In Heroics, it's not the bosses you have to worry about, it's the trash. Trash hits hard (really hard), so there's no room for error (read: letting the mobs go after clothies). If you don't have the standard CC you need (and you should-- heroic groups are best when every class type is well-represented), then fear is your friend, because in most heroics two hits are enough to cause a wipe.
Breakfast topic: And yet, it worked
There is nothing more lame than getting stuck in a group that just isn't going to work. If you're a warrior, and you get put in a group that has a feral druid, two rogues, and a warlock, odds are that you're in for a rough night. I'm not saying it won't work-- maybe the druid has crazy healing gear, and the rogues are a few levels high for the instance, and the warlock is really good at doing all the things they can do. But if the group's not there, it's not going to happen.But sometimes, you can get a really amazing group from what doesn't seem like the right makeup. I once ran a group with three shaman (me as a resto, and two elemental), a mage and a druid, and lo and behold, we actually finished Stratholme easily (we were all 60, before the expansion). And I've always wanted to run a group of all shaman-- two resto, two elemental, and an enhancement, through one of the 5 mans. I'm sure that if we had the gear and the know-how, we could make it work.So what's the wackiest group you've ever been in, where you thought you were just plain doomed-- and yet, it worked? I'm no good at the math, but with eight nine classes (told you I was bad at math) in five spots, that's a whole lot of different groups out there. What is the craziest one you've had that works?
Ask WoW Insider: Best way to get instance invites?
It's time for our weekly edition of Ask WoW Insider, wherein we publish one of your burning questions for the WoW Insider readers to answer. This week's question comes from David, who seeks advice on scoring an invite to an instance you haven't had any experience running yet: Ok, here's my question that I'm hoping gets a good response. For starters, I played WoW when it first came out and was a hunter then after getting to level 40ish I decided to reroll as a paladin and got to 50ish. Then I quit playing WoW until just recently with the newest Expansion. Any pointers on how to learn the new instances because it seems no one wants to invite someone that doesn't know the instance. Everytime, I try to get invited with my new character (neither paladin or hunter) I get kicked because I explain I just hit where I'm told and people don't seem to like that idea. Any pointers? Can you folks help an instance noob out? What are your tips and tricks for convincing a group you've got the goods despite not having seen the inside of the dungeon? Got questions? Send them to Ask WoW Insider at ask AT wowinsider DOT com; every week we'll choose one to publish for your peers to answer.
The Burning Crusade: What to do at 70?
Yeah, I realize this is a little way off for some, and a long long long (like maybe next year or the year after) way off for some other people, but when I think of the Burning Crusade I always tend to think, "What'll I do when I hit 70?" I've had a level 60 since December of 2004 (yes, I'm one of those nerds), so I've always been wondering what's next in the endgame. In WoW 1.x, we had Molten Core, and then Blackwing Lair, and after a while we had ZG, AQ20 and AQ40. That's a fair bit of content in itself. Add Naxxramas to that, and there's been a lot to do. Or at least, I thought I'd had a lot to do. Attunements were pretty simple, the quest chains not unbearable, and progression a pretty solid and steady advance. Last week I talked about Mount Hyjal, and the attunement leading up to it. As it turns out, it's even a bit more complicated than I thought.
Set preferred addresses for Address Book groups
Dan Moren at MacUser just removed a long-standing headache of mine and I'm sure many others by posting on the ability to specify default addresses for Address Book groups. Here's a little background if you're scratching your head: in Mail.app, you can type the name of a group to address a message to every member of that group. The catch is that if any of those members have more than one email addresses in their card, Mail.app arbitrarily chooses which address gets used when that member added as part of a group. This can cause all sorts of problems, ranging from minor annoyances all the way up to sending a NSFW (Not Safe For Work) forward to exactly the wrong address.Enter the wonders of being able to set a default address for these members in groups. This removes the worry from using the power of groups to address your messages. All you need to do is select Edit > Edit Distribution List... (not the greatest name for this feature, IMHO) to access a panel which allows you to chose default addresses for all the members of your groups. What's even better is that this panel allows you to simply specify one label or another (Work, Home, etc.) for all the members in that group, instead of forcing you to manually chose labels for each member, one by one. Nice.
Desktops of the week for 10/15/06
Here we go with another edition of TUAW Desktops ladies and gents. You readers are submitting some great stuff to our desktops Flickr group, and since our last edition was a nice overall roundup, I decided to pick a theme for this week: function. I'm a big fan of making the most out of my available desktop real estate, and the desktops I've chosen each exhibit an interesting perspective on this practice. In this edition we have desktops ranging from über-minimal yet uniquely-functional to a full-on Exposé overload, and even a pseudo-multi-dock environment. But without further adieu, let's get down to business:First up is shorts by pacificbro. By his own admission this isn't so much a clever, intricate desktop setup, though it's more of a functional use of the wallpaper space with many common (and some not-so) keyboard shortcuts he needs to get around his daily business. Too bad I didn't see this before the My Dream App stuff started - I just got inspired to submit an app idea that swaps out shortcuts like this on the desktop space depending on what app you're currently working in. A simple F11 Exposé keystroke would reveal all (or most) of the shortcuts you need to work. *Sigh* - maybe I can get in on round two. But speaking of Exposé, let's keep moving.
TUAW Desktops of the week for 9/10/06
Being that this is the first official TUAW Desktops series roundup post, we couldn't force ourselves to chose just one. You readers have found some pretty creative uses for your desktops, and our new TUAW Desktops Flickr group is shining proof. As a result, we decided that in order to get this party started, we should round up a few desktops from different ends of the spectrum; some busy, some minimal, and some in a class of their own. First up is quite possibly the busiest Dashboard we've ever seen from Flickr user Z6p6tist6, pictured above. We're sure Apple would be proud of the little bit of business mixed with a little bit of play that's happening on this desktop.Read on for a few more desktops that made this week's roundup, and be sure to submit your own unique take on the desktop to our TUAW Desktops Flickr pool, as we'll round them up in this new series each weekend.
Announcing the new TUAW Desktops Flickr group and series
Fire up your screen capture software and keyboard shortcuts TUAW readers, as we are announcing a new Flickr group and post series titled simply: TUAW Desktops. That's right ladies and gentlemen, in addition to immortalizing you in our archives with the Rig of the Day series, we want to dive a little deeper into just what makes your Mac, your Mac. Are you a wallpaper connoisseur, or perhaps you have the busiest Dock this side of Cupertino? Is your workspace decked out with utilities like iPulse, Konfabulator widgets and ShapeShifter themes, or do you want to share you mastery of clutter-free desktop feng shui? Join our new TUAW Desktops group on Flickr and upload your screenshots. On Saturdays, we'll pick out and round up the best of the desktops to share here on TUAW, complete with credit attribution and a link to your site, if you have one.Speaking of credit, we should probably lay down some rules here: First rule about TUAW Desktops: you do not talk... If you can (or would like), please attribute any work like wallpapers or icons to their original authors, and we'll do our best to include those attributions in our posts. It's fine if you don't know who that is when you post your shots - trust us, we have hundreds of wallpapers and we don't remember where we found every single one - but at the very least, don't take credit for someone else's work. This is the internets, and the readers *will* call out stunts like that. On the other hand - if something *is* your original work, by all means - let us know, and we'll be sure your creativity gets a mention in the spotlight. Try not to overload the pool with submissions that are too similar to your previous submission(s). We're looking for fresh desktop shots; that little 'extra something' that really makes them leap off the display. Desktops that have that element which is difficult to describe, yet impossible to miss. Keep it clean. This is a family blog, and we like to keep our Flickr groups and other community endeavors family-friendly as well. Last rule (for now): Unless you went all-out using products like Stardock's to make your Windows desktop look and act like Mac OS X (it's do-able - I used to, before I actually got my first Mac), we'd like to stick with Mac desktops only. After all, you are reading The Unofficial Apple Weblog. With that said, get on to showing off your desktops and let the submissions begin!
iTMS introduces "New Rock Revealed" weekly band explorations
The iTMS has introduced an intriguing new service called "New Rock Revealed", where one band's music will be dissected each week to find who their roots and inspirations were, as well as similar sounds you can find today. This first week looks at Pearl Jam's new album (which rocks, by the way), and lists its tracks in the middle of the chart. On the left side is a list of "Roots & Influences", where songs from bands that inspired Pearl Jam are listed, track by track, matching up to the Pearl Jam songs where their influences can be heard. On the right side is the "Similar Sounds" list of bands who clearly were inspired by Pearl Jam. Each of the two lists (Roots & Influences and Similar Sounds) are available as mixes ready for purchase, priced at just over $12 apiece. I would imagine that price will fluctuate, depending on the length of the album New Rock Revealed dissects each week.This is a really cool idea, though I wish the iTMS could produce some more information along the lines of truly exploring a band's roots. I'd love to be able to read a little more into what exactly inspired Pearl Jam; where they got their sound, how they started out as a band living out of their broken-down tour bus and eating stale bread three times a day until they got their big break. With that said, I'm excited to see the iTMS whipping out clever new services like this to get people more interested in music, where it came from and where it's going.
