guild-perks
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WoW Rookie: Dungeon and world travel tips for Cataclysm lowbies
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. Classic WoW might have been pretty revolutionary for its time in terms of ease of leveling, but looking back, it was kind of terrible. It was just a lot better than what we had at the time. Thankfully, Cataclysm has fixed a lot of the original game's leveling issues, and I can say from personal experience that bringing a character from 1 to 60 is more fun than anything I've ever done in WoW before. And that's with no heirlooms, no gold from my main, no auction house, no nothing. Let's talk ways to maximize your fun while leveling in Cataclysm.
The Art of War(craft): The shape of Cataclysm battlegrounds PvP
Zach loves all things PvP, which is why Fight Quest is the only thing he watches on television. Well, that and Glee, which contains absolutely no PvP whatsoever. Except maybe if you consider Rachel Berry and newcomer Sunshine Corazon's rivalry some form of The Art of WarCraft. I mean, it could be. I was supposed to go into detail with keybindings using an addon this week, but we'll put that on hold for now. We can always revisit keybindings another time, but so much has happened on the beta that it would just be wrong not to take a look at what's going on. By now, many of the abilities are pretty set, and with a rumored November release on the horizon -- an idea that's got some meat behind it now that the background downloader is working on a hefty 4 GB worth of 4.0.1 goodness -- it looks like what we see is what we'll get. The numbers will probably be tweaked up or down on some spells and talents, but for the most part, I think we've got a pretty solid feel for how the game will play. The new game mechanics will take some getting used to for some classes such as warlocks, who become a cooldown class, and paladins, who now manage a secondary resource. Players have all of the pre-Cataclysm and the grind to level 85 to get a good feel for things, and that should be plenty of time. But never mind the new abilities -- those are fun, for sure -- but there's an entire support system for World of Warcraft PvP that raises the bar in a way we've never experienced. New battlegrounds, a standardized currency on par with the PvE system, guild support ... Cataclysm PvP is going to be fun as hell.
Officers' Quarters: March of the freeloaders, part 2
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 from No Starch Press. Last week, I discussed how players interested in Cataclysm's guild perks can get into guilds without becoming "freeloaders." Today, I'll look at the issue from an officer's perspective. I'll examine the drawbacks of having freeloaders in your guild, steps you can take to filter them and methods for dealing with them if they make it past those filters. What do I mean by a freeloader? A freeloader is a player who is in your guild purely out of self-interest, who has no desire to contribute to the guild in any way. In short, a freeloader is there only for your precious, precious perks. Are freeloaders a problem? A few freeloaders on your roster won't be a major issue, in most cases. You can simply hope that they'll keep to themselves and won't actively cause problems. They may even chip in some guild experience when they have an active day. Small guilds may actually decide to seek out such players to help them level up faster. I don't recommend it, but you will level faster with more players, up to a point. Larger guilds won't benefit much from inviting freeloaders. You'll get all the experience you need from the players you trust, so there's no real advantage (aside from a little extra cash) to inviting more players. In fact, doing so carries a bevy of risks.
Officers' Quarters: March of the freeloaders
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 from No Starch Press. Guild perks are coming, and with them a big change in the way guilds are perceived. In the past, some players shunned guilds for one reason or another. Maybe they didn't want to bother with the social aspect of the game. Maybe they had a bad experience with a guild and never had the urge to find a new one. Maybe, like the writer of this week's email, they felt like they wouldn't be able to contribute enough. Hi, I wanted to suggest a topic or at least get your opinion on something. It seems like the guild rewards in Cataclysm are pretty much irresistible. Even though I'm a long-time guildless player (because of my completely unpredictable playtime, my last attempt at being a guildie was in Asheron's Call 2, if that means anything to you ...). I'm going to be looking for a guild to join because I want to have a shot at some of that good stuff.
Cataclysm Beta: Guild advancement Q&A
Blue poster Mumper was busy the past day or so answering questions about guild advancement over at the forums. His answers are spread over several posts, so we've compiled some of the most useful answers for you. If you've been curious about how guild XP will work in Cataclysm, hopefully Mumper's answers will shed a little more light onto the situation. Polegara asked: What exactly contributes to guild XP at the moment? Mumper Guild experience can be earned in any of four ways: 1. Completing quests / daily quests that reward experience 2. Killing any dungeon / raid boss with a guild group/raid 3. Winning a rated battleground with a guild group/raid 4. Earning a guild achievement (these are nice, fat chunks of experience so they feel great when you get em) A guild group/raid is 4/5, 8/10, 12/15 or 20/25 members of the group/raid being guild members. source
The Daily Quest: So then he said
Here at WoW.com, we're on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Some people have things to say about everything under the sun -- like the goblin pictured above, who is engaging in a frank and earnest discussion about poultry-based thermodynamics and the merits of their application in conjunction with other forms of flightless fowl. Unfortunately the only person that would listen to her is Chilly the penguin, who simply doesn't know any better. Fortunately, we've found some posts that are much more entertaining than Miss Yammersalot. Mana Obscura discusses the growing yet shrinking world ... of Warcraft. World of Warcraft Philosophized comments on guild perks and the effects on individual players. The Pink Pigtail Inn asks whether Twitter chat is really the best way to communicate. And speaking of birds, Bible of Dreams has a Friday Five about our feathery friend, the boomkin. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment, and you may see it here tomorrow! Be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites.
Officers' Quarters: Rating Cataclysm's guild perks, part 2
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. Last week, I reviewed the perks that provide money and convenience. Today, I'm going to talk about (and rate) the remaining perks, which I've divided into three categories: active abilities, professions and points. Active abilities Currently in the beta, two guild perks offer castable abilities. It's not clear yet whether everyone in the guild will gain access to these abilities, whether they will become available to a given player once a certain level of guild reputation is achieved, or whether the guild leader will be able to assign them to specific guild ranks as they do now with other actions, such as inviting new players. Time will tell. Have Group, Will Travel Summons all raid or party members to the caster's current location. 2-hour cooldown. This perk is, frankly, a godsend for getting raids started. No more clicking giant rocks or warlock portals over and over again! People who are lagging behind everyone else might still wind up begging for a summon, but compared to summoning 23 other people one by one, this is a walk in the park. It amazes me how many people can't be bothered to fly to a raid entrance, but that's another story ... This ability will also be useful for bringing players together for group questing, roleplaying or world PvP. The best part is that the summon occurs at "the caster's current location." I wonder if there will be restrictions on that. Could a Horde rogue sneak into Ironforge and summon 39 other players right where she's standing? If so, the possibilities for mayhem are endless. 5 salutes out of 5
Officers' Quarters: Rating Cataclysm's guild perks
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. Cataclysm is finally in beta and the information floodgates have burst! One of the most interesting revelations for officers is the unveiling of guild perks -- or, at least, Blizzard's current pass on them. I'm sure that, like everything else in the beta, these perks are subject to change. We also don't know how long it takes to obtain them, but it seems like Blizzard's intention is that every guild will be able to unlock them eventually. As you may recall, I was unhappy with Blizzard's decision to give us perks instead of talent trees. I stand behind that opinion, but there's no use in dwelling on it. So let's rate the perks! I've broken them up into five different categories: money, convenience, active abilities, professions and points. This week, I'll be talking about the first two categories. (Note that I am listing only the highest rank of each perk.) The money perks Cash Flow (Rank 2) Each time you loot money from an enemy, an extra 10% money is generated and deposited directly into your guild bank. First of all, wow, that's going to be a lot of money flying into your guild bank, especially for larger guilds. If 100 players loot 100 gold from enemies, that's an extra 1,000 gold for the guild. The best part about this perk is that it is not a tax -- the money is generated by the talent, not taken out of what a player loots. The only problem here will be figuring out what to do with all that extra cash! I never felt completely comfortable with the random cash donations that guild members would make to our bank. We couldn't have afforded to unlock all those bank slots without them, but it never felt quite right to me. As for the money that's left over after you unlock all the vaults and the money that's donated later, how do you spend that money in a way that's fair to all of your generous contributors? Hopefully, with this perk, you can tell players to keep their money. They will earn gold for the guild just by going about their business. 5 salutes out of 5
Cataclysm Beta: Guild perks
While guild talents may have been scrapped in Cataclysm, the bonuses you would have gotten from them appear to have survived the culling fairly intact -- as of this beta build, guild perks (as they're called) are active and awesome. This list is by no means exhaustive, as chances are good there'll be plenty more in the game. The full list is after the cut, but here are a few to whet your appetite: Cash Flow (Rank 2): Each time you loot money from an enemy, an extra 10% money is generated and deposited directly into your guild bank. Hasty Hearth: Reduces the cooldown on your Hearthstone by 15 minutes. Guild Mail: In-game mail sent between guild members now arrives instantly.
