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Use the Armory to find WoW's worst player
I may have to retract my reward to Lynyrd-- Yougotserved (how appropriate) has found an interesting, fun, and fairly mean use for the Armory. He puts forth a challenge for WoW's new online catalog of players and their talents and armor: Find the worst player in the game, based on spec, professions and gear.Ouch, look at that spec and those greens. Oh my-- look at that neckpiece. Like I said, it's pretty mean. Yougotserved says it doesn't have to be level 70, but the really good ones are-- how you make it all the way to the end of the game without replacing all your gear at least once from the quests in Outland, I have no idea.Is it wrong to use the Armory to make fun of players? Probably. But they shouldn't take it personally-- heck, that warrior in mostly greens has a Grand Marshal weapon (enchanted with Icy Weapon, but still), so he must be doing something right. So have at it-- dive into the Armory and see if you can find WoW's worst player. Maybe other players who made the same mistakes will learn something. And before you get all clever and start looking me up, I'll save you the time. [ via krmtdfrog ]
Charity for beggars, or lack thereof
I like to think that maybe it's because I'm special (but it probably happens to everyone who has a 70)-- periodically ingame, I'll get tells from lowbies, asking either for mount money, or to run them through an instance. I've made it a habit to laugh and politely decline (this is not a hard game, and they can play it themselves). But this post on Livejournal made me reconsider the question of why I should or shouldn't help beggars.Fordarkness tells the story of his mother selling some furniture that she was asking $500 for $25 to help out a couple who'd been going through some rough times, and he says that it seems like a good idea to help beggars out when you believe they genuinely need it. I've never begged for money or powerleveling (although I have begged same-level guildies to tank or heal an instance for me, I'll readily admit), but, like Fordarkness, I have been gifted money by friends who saw how close I was to my first mount.Of course, guildies are a different situation-- I'll give them anything they need, because I figure you might as well show loyalty to someone besides yourself. As for beggars, though, I've never helped them, and unless they take an effort to show my why they actually need what they're asking for, I'll keep it that way. Have you ever felt the need to make a lowbie's day and gift them that mount money or run them through that instance? Or does a tell from someone you don't know asking for something automatically add them to your ignore list?Update: Right after I finished writing this article, reader Preacherman23 sent us this elegant solution: one player puts 50g in the trade window of a beggar... and then just goes afk for an hour or so.
A very tasty Orgrimmar
Via Livejournal, here's another WoW cake-- lottie says she made it for her boyfriend's birthday, but the URL on the pic goes to a site where there's all kinds of nerdy cakes to check out.The cake depicts the gates outside Orgrimmar, of course, and apparently everything there is edible (and sugary): "chocolate and vanilla sponges with mars bar mini rolls, matchmaker chocolates, jaffa cakes and chocolate finger biscuit and chocolate chip logs." This is the second amazing Horde cake we've seen-- where's your delicious cake skills at, Alliance?
Real life wedding rings get Soulbound
A member of the WoW Ladies livejournal group, Tsuraibara, and her husband figured out a completely awesome way for them to customize their wedding rings. Since they "met on an online game, the engraving was free, [and] 'soulbound' sounds nice even if you aren't familiar with WoW," they actually went out and got "Soulbound" carved on the inside of each of the rings. That's great!I liked the plush Shammy a lot, but I think this might be my new favorite real life WoW item. Of course, this does mean that they won't be able to put these on the AH anymore. But if for some reason an upgrade drops (maybe on a wedding anniversary), a vendor could probably offer them a few gold at least.
Seeing the effects of guild affiliation
See, this post by superdeluxe over on Livejournal, I think, constitutes exactly the kind of great "emergent gameplay" that the folks at Terra Nova are so ga-ga over lately. The poster found his way into a guild that, because of their size, is well-known and loved on his side of the server, and as a result, he finds that he's getting "10-20 times the amount of Free buffs/free stuff/bow's/hugs etc than I did before."He's not on an RP server-- rather, his guild has just built up a social reputation, and he's benefiting from it. Likewise, a commenter on the post says his guild, because of PvP, has a negative reputation, and as a result, he became Kill-on-Sight for a number of opposing faction guilds around the server. The only way this stuff is built into the game is that Blizzard has put everyone's guild name above their character, and players have socially created all the rest of these affiliations themselves.Now, a lot of it simply follows from common sense: my guild isn't huge, but every time I see someone with my guild name, I'll /wave and buff, even if it's someone I don't know that well. We haven't really made too many enemies (well, we did have a little tussle with the alliance that we seperated from, but they've since dissolved), but as we've moved further and further into the endgame (we're still not server-first, but we're working on it), we've created more and more of a reputation as a known and trusted guild on the server.What other examples of this have you seen? I'm fascinated with the way players treat each other based on guild affiliation-- at their essence, guilds are mostly the social structure within a realm in the World of Warcraft.
Wii lures in the seniors
An account of a recent visitation from his parents, Livejournal user zubkavich tells of his father and mother's love of the Wii. In hooking in the seniors with its intuitive, pick-up-and-play nature, Nintendo's estimations of appeal to seniors is true, at least with this family.Have any of you out there hooked in parents, grandparents, or other 'grey gamers?'
Three funny quickies from WoW Lj
Three quickies from the WoW Livejournal that I found chuckleworthy today:How many GM swords do you see in the picture of the AV loading entrance to the right? I'm a slacker (I haven't done any serious PVP grinding yet), so I haven't gotten mine, but it looks like everyone else is picking up epics aplenty thanks to the new honor system. I'm sure there's a few dual wielding warriors and a few rogues in there, but still-- that's a lot of Grand Marshal blades (and are those the shoulders, too?).I'm still not convinced, however, that they should raise honor prices. Maybe Blizzard should just come up with some new kinds of swords to buy.From the forum sig of a dwarf pally: I'm a little pally short and stout,Here's my hammer, here's my mount.When I see a horde I scream and shout,Pop on ma bubble and hearthstone out. And last but not least, I bet they do. And I bet they play Alliance, too.
Murlocs: the RPG
Whether you're running in fear from them, getting yourself tattooed, or just holding out for them to be the next Alliance race, murlocs have a special place in many players' hearts. Fortunately, this extremely well done Flash RPG lets you step into the (webbed) shoes of a murloc for an hour or so--perfect for satisfying those WoW cravings at work.[via World of Warcraft Livejournal Community]
