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Guildwatch: Unannounced visitors? Preparations must be made...
Let's face it-- anybody can down Attumen. A Karazhan PUG can drop Attumen in their sleep. But Moroes is the first real boss of Karazhan. If you can get him down, you're ready to roll all the way up to Curator. Finishing that undead steward off for the first time just feels so good.News of Moroes downings and more in this week's GW, which starts right after the jump. Send us you drama, downed, and recruiting tips, as always, at wowguildwatch@gmail.com. Click the link below to read on!
Tigole hits the forums
Tigole has been busy on the forums today, and that always tends to bring out interesting tidbits about the future of our favorite game. While it is certainly not earth-shattering, the most interesting thing that he mentions has to do with the future of the PVP battlemasters. In patch 2.4 these guys will be put on a pedestal, literally. Much like the auctioneers in many cities, the battlemasters will be placed on a raised platform that is inaccessible to players in order to keep people from blocking them with their character's model. He also hints that Wrath will see even better improvements. This is certainly a welcome change to remove a minor annoyance that is sometimes imposed upon us by our fellow players.Other posts hint at the future of guild banks, the title system, and a possible reward for Wrath's Lake Wintergrasp. First of all, he mentions that they're "exploring" the option to allow guild masters to set prices for items in the guild bank. I know in my guild this would be great for the guild leader, since it would probably save him a lot of time in the auction house and also provide an easy solution to those situations where he gets a valuable item and is not sure how to distribute it to the rest of the guild. I imagine that this could be exploited, to an extent, by guild leaders who might suddenly slap a price on everything in the bank rather than allowing free withdrawals, but that would probably fix itself over time as people leave the guild and/or stop donating to the bank.
Alternate uses for Guild Banks
Since the Patch 2.3 introduction of Guild Banks, it's been easier to distribute items for raids, pay for repair costs and track all the transactions involved. But did you know it could also be used to play an ancient game of tactical skill?Player Affix of the Tichondrius server has figured out a way for her and a guildmate to use an empty tab in their Guild Bank to play checkers. As you can see from the image above, one player is Arcane Dust and the other is Netherweave, but any two distinct items could work.Admittedly, one row is missing and there are too many rows across, but a game could still reasonably be played. It's no musical chairs in Karazhan or pet wars or even downtime games, but it is pretty ingenious.EDIT: This is what I get for posting while out of town, double-post!
Armory updated
Earlier today, Blizzard updated their Armory database to support many of the new features that were added to the game in patch 2.3. I've listed a quick summary of the changes below, but the most important one is the addition of guild bank support. Players will now be able to view the contents of their guild bank via the website. You'll have to log into the Armory with your WoW user name and password, so no worries about unguilded people snooping on your hoard. Additionally, a complete bank log will be maintained on the site, which is handy since the in-game log doesn't hold many entries.Check out my summary of the rest of the changes below.
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Preparing for 2.3: Guild Banks
Since it's looking hopeful that patch 2.3 will be released within the next couple of weeks, it's probably time to start getting prepared for all the long-awaited features that are being added to the live realms. Aside from Zul'Aman, guild banks are probably the biggest new item coming out with the patch.While guild leaders will undoubtedly be delighted to delete their bank alts, (some of the guilds I've been in have had as many as five or six,) and will also have to make difficult decisions about which members get access to the loot, I'd like to focus more on the impact upon individual players rather than whole guilds. Most players that have been in Azeroth for awhile probably have a bank alt that's mainly used to store trade goods and sell things on the auction house. In 2.3, according to all reports thus far, it should be possible to set up a one-alt guild so that your bank alt will have access to much more storage space.
PTR Patch notes for Sunday, Nov. 4
WorldofRaids is reporting today on a couple significant changes in the most recent patch uploaded to the PTR. First and foremost, a major change to the guild bank system. Earlier we let you know that it would cost mucho gold to purchase all storage tabs available to a guild. Now we hear that tabs 5 and 6 have had their costs reduced by 50%, making their prices now 2.5k and 5k gold respectively. It sounds like the devs are listening to the feedback they are receiving from the players. In addition to the great news about guild banks, WorldofRaids is confirming what we already reported about the pet buff food Kibler's Bits coming in Patch 2.3. It looks like my hunter will have to work on her cooking skills after all.Also of note is a change to PvP combat. Silence and Interrupt are now affected by diminishing returns when used on PvP targets. This is welcome information for the arena fighters among us, knowing that your spells will eventually break down an interrupt or silence. I don't know about you, but these look like finishing touches to me. I am crossing my fingers that we will see the patch on Tuesday. Yeah, I said I'm crossing my fingers, but I am sure as heck not going to hold my breath.
The latest changes on the PTR
World of Raids once again has the latest breaking news on the latest Patch 2.3 Public Test Ream changes! Today's class changes seem to be mostly happy buffs, especially for hunters and rogues and paladins, as well as a slight nerf to warriors beyond the jump. Also read on below for Guild Bank prices, New Arena Season 3 weapon models, a Field Repair Bot change, as well as a few new engineering toys.Hunters: It looks like hunters get their version of Mortal Strike after all: Aimed Shot now reduces all healing done on the target by 50% for 10 seconds, in addition to the regularly increased damage. The dead zone has not been eradicated, but it has been reduced to just about 1 yard. Why not just get rid of the dead zone and be done with it? Is Blizzard paranoid about the possibility of using melee and ranged abilities at the same time through latency bugs or something? Rogues: The rogue talent "Aggression" is being improved so that its damage bonus applies to Backstab as well as Sinister Strike and Eviscerate (at +2/4/6% with each rank). Shadowstep now has a 30 second cooldown in addition to being usable out of stealth. Its range has been changed from 0-20 yards to 8-25 yards, and its +20% damage bonus now applies to whatever special attack you make next (i.e. Sinister Strike, Hemorrhage -- even Eviscerate or Rupture). Could this make it beneficial to non-dagger rogues as well? Hemorrhage has received a huge buff: It now increases physical damage dealt to its target by up to 36 (increased from 10!), but its number of charges has been reduced from 30 to 10. This should make hemo rogues more desirable in groups, and also increase the benefit from having more than one in a raid -- but is it really enough? Paladins: The "Fanaticism" talent in the retribution tree now reduces the paladin's threat by 30% at the highest rank in addition to 15% increased critical strike chance with all judgements. The protection talent "Precision" now gives a +3% chance to hit with spells in addition to melee attacks.
Big surprises in Patch 2.3 on the PTR
Many of the Patch 2.3 changes were pre-announced over the last two weeks by Blizzard. But today when the patch hit the Test server, many additional changes were discovered. And some of them are very interesting.A new Expertise Skill has shown up in the notes. Based on the description given the meat of it seems to be that Weapon Skill Rating is out and Expertise Skill Rating is in. Weapon Skill Rating on an item used to decrease your chance to miss, increase your chance to crit and decrease your opponents chance to block, parry or dodge. Now that's been eliminated in favor of this new stat that simply reduces the chance for your attacks to be parried or dodged. It looks like you're losing out, but the effects of Weapon Skill Rating were small (0.04% per point) where as the Expertise Skill rating has more impact (0.25% per point.) How this affects your overall dps I leave to the mathemagicians.Weapon Skill Ratings on ranged items have not been replaced with Expertise Skill, but with additional +crit and/or +hit. Check individual items for exact changes. Also, some talents haven been altered to accommodate this new skill but what those talents are and how they were changed isn't clear yet.Details have finally surfaced about the Guild Bank. We knew there were going to be 6 tabs and some permissions and a tracking function for transactions, but now we know the specifics. The 6 tabs will each contain 98 item slots for a total of 588 slots. Permissions to view, deposit and withdraw can be changed for every tab. Also every tab will show the last fifty transactions. So new recruits can't raid the good stuff.
Guild banks are now scheduled for Patch 2.3
Guild banks were initially intended to go live with the Burning Crusade launch. Apparently Blizzard wasn't happy with them and postponed their implementation until "a later date." That date has been confirmed by a blue on the WoW Europe forums as Patch 2.3.According to this preview article, guild banks are designed so that every member of the guild can deposit or withdraw cash or items. Limits on transactions can be set so a new recruit doesn't walk off with all the good stuff. Also, all activity will be viewable by the guild so the guild officers can't keep the best things for themselves without everyone else knowing.My favorite feature of the new guild bank system is the ability to use guild funds when paying for repair costs. A new button will appear on all repair NPCs and repair-bots. This function can also be set by the guild leader to work for only certain ranks within the organization.Soon we'll be saying goodbye to the guild mules and hello to an era where guild resources are viewable, if not available, to all.Update: we have tons more patch 2.3 info!
Officers' Quarters: Tips and tricks
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Hello, fellow officers! For a change of pace I'm going to forgo the usual Q&A format this week. Instead, I'm going to share a few random tips that have served me well in the past. Let's jump right in, shall we?1. Use the guild UI to keep track of your members' alts. A lot of serious guilds don't allow alts, or only allow raiding alts. In these cases it's pretty easy to keep track of who's who. But most guilds don't restrict how many alts a player can have on the roster. Eventually you're going to wind up with one of those altaholics who is compelled to roll a character (or two) for every class. It might not seem important to keep track of all those alts, but if that player causes a big problem down the road, you'll want to know exactly which toons he or she plays. Also, it's just handy to see which main characters are available to your party or raid, assuming that player is willing to switch over.Whenever an alt joins your guild, make sure the officer who invites them puts their main character's name in the officer's comments section of the guild UI. Assuming you've set up your ranks properly, you'll be able to see who's playing that level 12 Draenei warrior or which member is leveling up a Blood Elf paladin to help out with raids. And speaking of ranks . . .
Beyond 2.1: Guild banks
"Games for Windows" magazine has released an second article regarding further implementation of features post patch 2.1. Guild banks, a feature we've been begging for for years, will finally be a reality! Get ready to free up some character slots and delete those mules! In every bank, a new NPC will appear where guild members can deposit and withdraw items. Offering potentially hundreds of storage slots, this will offer players the ability for free storage. At repair NPC's, a new button will appear allowing players to repair using guild funds rather than their own money. Blizzard even has methods for hindering the abuse of this system. Using a tab system, guild leaders can allow certain levels of players access to certain tabs in the bank. This will prevent players from stealing and selling or transferring guild items. "But what if the guild leaders do the thieving?" Blizzard's website will track EVERY transaction, so their customer service can respond if there is a dispute. I think this feature is a long time coming, and I'm excited to see it finally implemented. I'm not sure how it will work for those of us who have private mule characters to consolidate our auctions, funds, and storage between many different alts, but we'll see what happens. You can read the article here.
How to Destroy Your Guild: An Officers' Quarters Special Feature
The feedback to my first Officers' Quarters column made me realize something that was floating around in my head for a while but that I never fully acknowledged: It's usually the guild leadership that causes a guild to collapse. I don't have any hard data to prove this statement. However, from what I've seen on my server and heard about on others, the cause of a guild's demise is much more likely to be its officers than its nonofficer members. It's obvious when you think about it: A guild's leadership defines not only the guild's rules and regulations, but its philosophy, purpose, and culture. When its purpose is to do what the GL wants and its philosophy is to do what the GL says, that is a guild headed for extinction. From time to time I'll be bringing you a feature in addition to my weekly Monday-morning posts. Today's feature will explain how to destroy your guild in seven easy steps. 1) Invite everyone. That 10-year old warlock whose dad obviously helped him fill out the app. That warrior in Serpentshrine gear who wants to switch guilds so he can raid more. That guildless hunter who melee'd his way through the Ring of Blood quests with you. There are often many warning signs that someone may not be the right fit for you guild -- ignore them at your peril.
I'll bank on it
Recently I donated a character slot to the cause of guild management. One of our guild officers thought it was a good time to start a guild bank system, and since I had an extra character sitting around (goodbye Fela, I'll miss you) I offered my services for managing the guild bank. So we created Donations, an officious little gnome with a penchant for bureaucracy. Our system is highly organized, thanks to minds that are substantially better at these things than mine. We built the donations system along the gold standard. Each item donated is assigned a point total based on how much gold it is worth in the auction house. I downloaded Auctioneer, and that has cut my research time in half. The guild bank accepts certain crafting supplies along with monetary donations. Any greens or blues donated are auctioned and the player is given points corresponding to the amount of money it sold for. The points are a lot like DKP, you spend them on items or gold whenever you need them. The more points you have, the more points you can spend on items donated to the guild bank, or withdraw in the form of cash should you need to pay for some hefty purchase in the future – epic flying mounts anyone? So far the system has been pretty successful in its beta phase. Several of us, myself included, were able to save enough points for mounts for our alts. I am hoping that when Blizzard instigates its guild bank system in the future it is something that is this intuitive. I know personally I like being able to get value from items that I cannot use (exactly how much Knothide leather does an Alchemist need?), and it's important to me that we are able to provide supplies to those in the guild who need them. What are you guild bank systems like? Do you tithe, or are the donations all voluntary? And what would you like to see in the guild bank system Blizzard is proposing as an addition to the game?
Guild banks? Someday!
Guild banks are inching closer and closer to reality. According to Enoyls in this thread, Blizzard initially planned to implement guild banks for the expansion, but that has been pushed to the back burner, and the banks will make their appearance in a post-expansion patch.Sure, it is a little disappointing to hear that they were planned for the Burning Crusade but have since been pulled, but it is great news that they are very much on Blizzard's radar. The current system of storing items on alts works, but it is annoying...and wouldn't it be nice to have a guild bank everyone could send items to? Instead of having MiningBank or ShardVault alts? What features would you like to see included in a guild bank? Should everyone in the guild be able to view it? Do any other MMORPGs have a well-implemented guild bank feature you'd like to see Blizzard copy?
