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World of Warcraft mobile app now offers all services for free
World of Warcraft just got a little freer. Blizzard announced today that the services offered as WoW's Remote subscription service are now free to all WoW subscribers. That means that you can now chat with your guild and avail yourself of auction house services from your mobile device. All you need to start devoting even more of your waking hours to WoW is the Mobile Armory app, which is (and was) free. Along with the newly free features, you'll be able to access character profiles, realm status updates, a talent calculator, and more. Current WoW Remote subscribers will be contacted by Blizzard soon with more information regarding the end of their subscriptions.
Breakfast Topic: What are your guild chat rules?
Recently on Drama Mamas, we discussed guild chat that degenerated into being offensive thanks to the addition of one bigot-mouthed player. Each guild has its own chat policies -- whether written or just assumed. It came from the Blog keeps it PG and tolerant. Our members are from all walks of life, and we respect that. Of course, IcftB has its rules posted in the guild info, so everyone knows how to behave and what to expect from others. Posting rules works well that way. But if no chat guidelines are posted, people can still tell what's appropriate by just seeing what the veterans do. If the topics and language tend toward an R rating and someone gets upset by profanity, that someone is in the wrong guild.
Get your lootables and chatables on with Trion's new RIFT iOS app
With little fanfare, Trion Worlds has released an iPhone mobile app this past weekend for RIFT that should make staying in touch with guildies and in-game events far easier for the on-the-go set. The app is called RIFT Mobile and is currently available for the low, low price of "free." The app allows RIFT players to talk to friends and guildies whether they're in-game or also using the app -- and yes, there are push notifications if you so desire. The app also supports guild and officer chat, guild messages of the day, zone event notifications, and the guild wall. Probably the most intriguing feature of the RIFT Mobile app is something called "Lootables" -- ways to earn actual in-game loot while using the app. The app is available in English, French and German languages and can be used only by current players of the game. A community rep on the official forums has confirmed that it's "an early release/beta" and that more official info is on the way. [Thanks to Valotith for the tip!]
The Guild Counsel: Stop teasing me!
Let's face it: As thrilling as it can be to slay a dragon or blow up a spaceship, MMOs all have their fair share of dull moments at times. And when guildies get together, they can often resort to pranks, teasing, and all sorts of jokes in order to liven things up. That's often when you have some of your best memories in game, and I think it's part of what makes MMOs great. But sometimes, jokes can fall flat, and what was supposed to be a funny moment ends up turning into major drama. In this week's Guild Counsel, we'll take a look at joking around and how to avoid a joke gone wrong.
Blizzard adds WoW guild chat to iPhone Mobile Armory app
If you're hopelessly addicted to guild chat -- and you've got an iPhone or iPod Touch -- Blizzard has a new app designed to make sure you never miss another moment of drama. A new remote guild chat feature has been added to the World of Warcraft Mobile Armory app, and players are now able to chat and send whispers via their Apple mobile device. You'll pay $2.99 per month for the privilege, and the WoW remote subscription also grants you access to the game's auction house functionality while you're on the move. Blizzard is demoing the service -- and waiving fees -- for a limited time, during which the guild chat feature will be enabled on select servers (currently Fizzcrank and Lightbringer). More details are available at the official announcement page. There's no official word on an Android version, though ZAM reports that it "should be released soon."
WoW mobile guild chat released, free for a limited time
The World of Warcraft mobile app for iOS devices was updated today with the oft-requested mobile guild chat feature. Best of all, this new feature is free to everyone for a limited time! Check out the full release after the break.
WoW remote guild chat updated
Blizzard has posted new information regarding the latest addition to the World of Warcraft Remote service. Using their iPhone, iPod or Android device players will soon be able to access guild chat, officer chat, and send whispers to guild members without even having to step a virtual foot into the game. This comes on top of the app's ability to access the action house from your mobile device already. Keeping tabs with your guild can be a huge asset, especially for the larger guilds out there. While the AH feature has already been a hit with players, this new addition holds a lot of great potential. Running late for a raid? Just log right into guild chat and keep everyone up to date on your status. The feature will also provide access to viewing and responding to calendar events as well. The offical statement on the matter posted in the WoW community blog can be viewed after the break. %Gallery-120566%
The Guild Counsel: To vent or not to vent
As we've looked at the ins and outs of managing a guild, one issue that's often overlooked is whether to vent or not to vent. No, not the Minus 50 DKP type of vent -- I'm talking about Ventrilo and voice chat in general. Ten years ago, guild leaders didn't have to worry about this, because the choice was between typing text or hosting a LAN party. But today, with the rise of voice chat clients like Ventrilo and in-game voice services like Vivox, the culture has changed quite a bit. In this week's Guild Counsel, we'll take a look at the benefits of type vs. voice chat, and we'll look at what role each plays in guild management. Whether you sleep with your headset on or cling to your keyboard, read on for a look at why both have their merits.
The Queue: Extra strength
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Mike Sacco was unable to tackle your usual Friday edition of The Queue this week, so I'm going to use this opportunity to make up for my oh-so-brief Monday editions of The Queue and answer a few more questions than we typically do each day. Onward! Noyou asked: With Activision pulling the plug on Guitar Hero and True Crime, how will that impact WoW, if at all?
Drama Mamas: When NSFW guild chat aggros a parent
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. We are planning a special Drama Mamas that talks about the results of our advice -- good or bad. Some of our letter writers have responded in the comments, but we'd love to hear from more of you. If you have had your letter answered here and would like to be included, please send us an email at DramaMamas@wow.com letting us know how your situation turned out. Now on to this week's letter: Last Saturday night very late in the evening and pushing into the early morning, our guild chat erupted into the usual filthy conversation as drunk people came home and got online, and those of us that were online slackened our usual standards to join in. However, this time, one of the guild members exploded after about half an hour of this, claiming that her 12-year-old child was on, that we had scarred him for life and ruined his childhood. I helpfully pointed out that perhaps she was not being the best parent for allowing her young child to be playing the game very late at night with an unfiltered chat box -- not the best move I have ever made. This has now blown up to the point where I have left a guild I was very happy in to attempt to ease the obvious grief that the guild leaders were getting from this person. Unfortunately, this has not stopped it, as many of the guild members who were involved are still arguing about the situation and are disappointed that I have left. This guild member is now going to report us all to Blizzard and attempt to get us all banned from the game permanently. I was hoping for a neutral view on this.
Guild chat coming to the Mobile Armory app
Wrocas (European community manager) announced on the WoW forums moments ago that a guild chat feature will be added to the Mobile Armory that's available on both the iPhone and Android. Players have been asking for this type of feature ever since the armory was introduced. This feature piggybacks off the same service that the remote auction house uses, which requires an additional monthly fee on top of your normal World of Warcraft subscription. One fee to rule them all (and by "all," I mean both the mobile auction house and the guild chat feature). This allows access to guild chat, officer chat (presuming you had access to start with) and whispers. It appears the whispers will only be allowed to and from guild members, at the moment. There is also no news about being able to chat with your Real ID friends. If you don't have a device that the Mobile Armory runs on, Blizzard will soon be adding this feature to the normal armory as well. The full announcement is behind the break.
Officers' Quarters: PDA
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press. Everyone seems to have their own opinion about public displays of affection (PDA). What's acceptable to some may be scandalous to others. What makes one person feel awkward may make someone else jealous and yet a third person happy for the lucky couple. This week, one reader is facing a PDA outbreak in guild chat. Hi Scott, First off, I really like my guild and everyone in it. We all get along (as much as it is possible) and I've had some great laughs as well as some intense fun. We do guild events, we all know how far to go in guild chat, and so on. However, a problem is arising from the relationship between a guy and a girl in the guild. They are both long-time members, but have recently hit it off and have gradually become more and more smitten with each other. This has happened before and never been a problem, but due to the extremely charismatic nature of the couple, they are having a negative effect on the guild chat.
Breakfast Topic: Mister Jones and me
Jones and I are buds. He's a cat that likes to hang out on the landing in the stairwell of the Legerdemain Lounge in Dalaran. He's a stealthy little guy -- he doesn't even have a listing on Wowhead, but if you stop to give Jones a /pet, he'll purr contentedly. I like to hang out in the stairwell sometimes, just Jones and me -- it's a relatively quiet spot in the middle of a usually busy area, and I can sort through my bags, chat with the guild, harass trade chat engage in some lively banter in local channels, and just hang out without being pestered. I've got a few different spots I like to hang out at, and the locations change every expansion or depending on what I'm focusing on at the time, but nothing beats Jones, he's the best. I'm not sure why exactly I like finding non-crowded places to sit and chat with people -- it shouldn't really make a difference where I'm typing to people from, but I enjoy the relative solitude in what is otherwise a very busy and populated game. And every expansion it happens -- in vanilla, it was the upper buildings in the Drag in Orgrimmar. In Burning Crusade, I liked the relative quiet that could be found in the World's End Tavern in Shattrath, or the rocks up above the city. In Wrath, it's either the Underbelly, or the little landing in the Legerdemain that I share with Jones. He doesn't mind, he's a pretty well mannered kitty. Sometimes we tell each other fairy tales. So how about you guys? Do you have a favorite spot to sit and chat? Does the generally crowded nature of Dalaran bother you? Do you, like me, seek out an area of relative solitude to hang out at when you aren't off storming the castle or otherwise occupied?
Officers' Quarters: Unsocial
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.What does your guild mean to you? Is it a community of like-minded players enjoying the company of their peers, helping one another to meet goals, and overcoming challenges together? Or is it simply a means to an end, a treadmill of raid attendance and loot rewards, where you slog through the necessary steps but never feel any real companionship with your fellow raiders? Some guilds start off as the former -- a fun, social organization -- and then end up as the latter -- a tier-set assembly line. This week, one officer wants to know how this can happen and what he can do about it.Hello Scott,I'm facing a dilemma that I'd like to share for a possible "Officers' Quarters".I am an officer in a medium-sized European raiding guild. We have always been proud on our mature and social playerbase. It is one of our spearheads to provide fun raids in a relaxed atmosphere. But lately, the social aspect has been degrading. Ever since the launch of Wrath and people rushing to level 80 something has changed. Where TBC provided a challenge and a common goal to work towards (mainly progressing through the different raid instances) Wrath has left us with a lack of common binder.
Breakfast Topic: To talk or not to talk on Ventrilo
I like Ambrosyne's Vent chart, even if it is a little harsh. It's true, when you're not part of the raid leadership (and especially when you're a talker like me), it's sometimes a little hard to tell whether it's ok to try and crack a joke in the middle of the raid on Vent or not. Usually: no. I've learned the same thing by my own experience -- no matter how easy the fights are or how your guild is doing, the raidleader probably won't appreciate you trying to play some "Safety Dance" over Vent during Heigan's dance-off.However, in my experience, there usually is a place for joking during raids, and it's the guild chat channel. Actually, that's where I do most of my communicating -- I leave the Vent chat open for raidleaders to address the whole raid with the actually important stuff, and the rest of us hang around in the peanut gallery of raid chat, grats'ing each other on good loot and slipping in some commentary for the raid. You've got to have fun, right?Raidleaders, are there any good times to open up Vent and let everybody talk? And everybody else: have there been problems in your raids thanks to an unwanted Vent outburst, or does your guild pretty much understand that silence is golden?
Officers' Quarters: Guild control
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.At the right you'll see Blizzard's illustrious guild control panel. Anyone who's been a guild leader has had to deal with this clunky interface at one time or another. I don't know about you, but I dread having to make adjustments there. I've even gone so far as to download add-ons in order to make some changes easier. But today's column isn't about how unfriendly the interface is, but what choices to make. Here is this week's e-mail: Dear Scott, I found your column on Wow insider and it's a very good idea for a column! I recently started a guild on the Haomarush server called The Kings Guard. It's going quite well with decent officers, a guild bank and tabard. Something I do want to ask you about however is the settings on the guild control. I'm not quite sure how much power to give who and to what rank, and also what guild bank depositing/withdrawing rules to set up.
Officers' Quarters: (Group)
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.With every expansion comes a slew of new quests, many of whom have that word at the end that's both aggravating and exciting: (Group). It's exciting because the rewards are generally better. But it's aggravating because now you need a few extra hands on deck to move forward with the questline.Finding help with these quests is easy when everyone is still leveling. But eventually most of your guild will be 80, and those lagging behind or leveling up secondary characters won't have as much luck finding groups. In a month or two, guild chat across every server will be filled with people asking for assistance. In small, tight-knit guilds, it won't really be an issue. Ironically, it's usually people in the larger guilds who have trouble finding groups -- and we as officers can wind up providing most of the help. This week, one reader wants to know how to prevent this scenario.Hi Scott. I'm the assistant GM of a guild with over 400 members (225-250 accounts), and an issue that keeps coming up is the lack of response for help, either with instances or quests. The problem I have faced personally is that at one point I went out of my way to help anyone who has asked and eventually had to make an alt to hide on. If I logged onto my main I couldn't accomplish anything that I wanted to do since all I did was help others. This also happened to one of my Officers. Then there are those who won't help anyone at all unless there is something involved that they need.
Fighting off the WoW doldrums
Andy Salisbury recently forwarded his latest post to the WoW Insider team, originally published on A Rogue's Eye View. The article provides some excellent tips for staying excited about the game. They should be especially useful now while fighting off the it's-not-expansion-time-yet blues.Here's a brief summary of his points, minus the tips, discussion and personal experience in the article: Don't treat the game as work. Start an alt. Make time for other games. Take a break from raiding. Spend time with friends that doesn't involve a computer.
What's in a name?
Last night over guild chat the subject of naming our characters arose. Someone asked exactly how we chose our character names. It's a pretty personal question, at least it is for me. Being a writer pretty much all my life, my player character names are mostly names from my writing. There are also those characters that have been created out of jokes, or as representations of their jobs like Donations. I've built character names out of thin air as well, mostly because I love character creation beyond all other things. Most of my characters' names are fantasy in nature since being a fantasy writer I tend to be a stickler on that sort of thing. But some of my characters have looser based names. My priest is named Mandie, for obvious reasons. My paladin I've called Vashlyra, which is a combination of my dogs' names. I once even had a gnome rogue named Runnt. Perhaps that is part of why I love creating new characters so much. I get to give them a name, and infuse them with personality and back story. Every new character is a chance to rewrite the story, and each name is so important to me. But I am just one player in millions. I know my guild mates choose names differently. We have one player whose characters are all named variations of the same word. We have another who picks all his names from the random name generator. And yes, we are a guild populated mostly by alts, if you must know, so there are plenty of characters to name. On the other hand, I have seen many, many names that I cannot stand. I have actually found a correlation between horrible players and those who named their characters by picking a cool word they like and tacking on the letter X at the end (CipherX, you know who you are.) On our server I have run into Linksys, Pallyman and my personal favorite Ooitsahamster. I have even seen some I cannot believe haven't been reported. Now while I am more of a name snob, I can see why people choose to have fun with their character's names. What I cannot see is playing a character with a ridiculous name until 70. How do you choose your character names? Is it something tied to characters you have always played, or do you close your eyes and hit 'random?' What makes you connect with a name, or do you have no connection to it at all?
