First of all, just want to make sure all my readers know I am still alive. I haven’t posted anything in quite some time. During that time I have missed things like IntPiPoMo 2012, but life just happens that way sometimes I guess.
I hit 90 on my hunter, Illayeria, about a month ago. (I am taking forever to level toons this time.) I still haven’t even got her to LFR level, but I did make some cool leveling screenshots to share.
For those of you that don’t know, I live in Atlanta and have for a while. There is a huge sci-fi/fantasy/popular culture convention here every Labor Day weekend called Dragoncon, which gets an estimated attendance of 40,000-50,000. (according to some sources)
I had never really gone to Dragoncon on a serious basis before now. I say it that way because I had actually intended to twice. The first time I won’t get into, but I ended up not going. The second time I worked as a volunteer for the MMO Track, so I spent most of my time in that area.
I decided very early this year that I was attending 2012 Dragoncon no matter what. I seriously had my babysitters lined up in February. Anyways, I was there for three whole days and ended up completely exhausted (and sick), so it has taken me a week to get this post written.
While I did attend panels such as “Time Travel in Science-Fiction” and “Bollywood Dancing,” most of what I attended was gaming-related. Here are my highlights:
1.) The Guild cast Q&A Panel
This panel was one of the first things I went to and the longest line I stood in the whole weekend (2 hours). If you have never seen The Guild, it is a webseries about to be in its 6th season that you can find on youtube (or HERE for season five). It is a fictional show about six guildies based on different gamer stereotypes, and it is very funny.
According to star/writer/producer Felicia Day, Dragoncon 2012 is one of the only times the entire cast has been on a panel together. The Q&A session took place in a huge hotel ballroom packed wall to wall with fans.
Full cast of The Guild
Most of the panel was dominated by Felicia (Codex), Sandeep Parikh (Zaboo), and Jeff Lewis (Vork) (who showed off baby pictures), but they all had great things to say about their experiences with the show.
My favorite question was- If The Guild Cast decided to cosplay at a convention together as a group, what would they dress up as? They answered Winnie And The Pooh, etc., although I think it was undecided who would be which character in the show.
Another great question was- If your character switched personalities with another character on the show, who would you want to be? Most of them said Tinkerballa. I guess everyone wants to be the bad girl.
2.) Cosplay-Watching
There were truly awesome costumes all over the place, lots of them posing for pictures. The only gaming-related picture I have ready right now is a Codex (from The Guild). The outfit is the one used in their “Do You Want To Date My Avatar” music video:
A+ Outfit
Note: I don’t have it ready to post yet, but I got a great shot of someone as Illidan. I will try to upload it later.
3.) WOW Costume Contest
There were only 13 entries (if I am correct) in the WOW Costume Contest, which surprised me, but they were all great! What I loved about the contest is that they gave several prizes out besides just 1st-3rd.
Here are some pictures I made of the event:
1st Place Overall
Some of the Winners
The troll warrior and Onyxia in human form both won judge awards. The resto druid in tree form won Most Creative and 2nd Place Overall. The tree had to be led around by two volunteers everywhere she went (couldn’t see?), which was amusing.
More Winners
The dwarf hunter team won 3rd Place Overall. The Defias Bandit clinched the Audience Award with her dramatic onstage death (plus quick respawn time). Note the rogue in black in the background wearing what I believe was a full Nightslayer set made by a real-life leatherworker.
4.) The Dragoncon Parade
This was the first parade I have attended in Atlanta ever. I got there at least 30 minutes early, and I was still barely able to see the street there were so many people there! I was also surprised at the number of parade participants- my camera battery died before it even ended. (the before-mentioned NEW camera that apparently only has 114 minutes of battery time)
This is one (bad) picture I made that is somewhat gaming-related, Skyrim maybe? These are dark elves:
Dark Elves
5.) WOW Meet-n-Greet / Trivia Contest
The last event I attended of my Dragoncon was this one. The room was packed with tables of trivia teams. There were many categories of what I would call medium-hard to very difficult questions, so it was quite a challenge!
My team, “Pandas Go Both Ways”, did not start out well… because of ME! I was the only alliance player at my table of eight. The first category was ‘Alliance Characters’, and I did not know the answers to ANY of the questions! (so embarrassing) We ended up only getting one right out of five, so that put us behind.
In a surprising end, we bet all of our points on the final question: How many character models have appeared in Warcraft games of Sylvanas? We were one of the only teams to get the question right, but we tied for second place (aw).
The winning team got to have their picture made with the Bling Gnome trophy as well as submit their idea for an item name to be included in the Mists of Pandaria expansion. (There was a Blizzard game designer present who was going to choose one idea to use, but they did not announce which one was chosen.)
6.) Learning About A Popular Korean Song
After Dragoncon was over, this awesome music video was posted on the Dragon*Con forums group on Facebook:
This was my first time to hear the Korean song, “Gangnam Style” by Psy (ok I am slow), and I am totally hooked. I have been watching the original video and parodies all week.
7.) Shameless Blog Promotion
Last but not least, I should mention that I actually handed out WOW Debutante business cards during DC. Please don’t laugh.
I actually had the cards made in the first place to try to get a free press pass to the con. (I was declined.)
My best experiences from handing out the cards were 1) a lady geeking out that she got to meet me and 2) meeting another WOW blogger, Akabeko from Red Cow Rise.
***Memberships for Dragoncon 2013 are already on sale at the Dragoncon website. They are cheaper the sooner you buy them. Also be aware that some hotels are ALREADY selling out! Even though it is in five host hotels, the rooms go fast.
I got this message from Atlantaareamommies.com blog writer MadsMom:
I’d love to get some blog content from you on your gaming, how you got into gaming, the basics of WOW, your experiences with Motherhood and gaming or the other Moms who you play WOW with etc…
Here was my response:
I got into World of Warcraft in December 2004 when my husband got the game for me for Christmas. He thought since I was on the computer so much I might enjoy playing the game too.
At first I played with my husband some, but due to different hours of play and different play-styles I eventually ended up making new friends on the game and playing with them. In 2005 I even became a guild-leader for the first time, which has continued off and on since then.
For those that don’t know, WOW is a MMORPG- Massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Millions of people worldwide play the game at the same time, and you interact with both them and the massive in-game world around you.
There are many things you can do in game… play by yourself, learn professions and sell things, play with others, fight the enemy players, etc. I enjoy many of these things, but I like the social aspect of the game the most. You can meet many different types of people in game of all ages, and I enjoy having them in my guild so they can interact with each other.
Some of my guild members are from a forums group on Cafemom called World of Warcraft Moms. Some of us are moms that have gaming as our major hobby, and some are moms who just pop on for an hour here and there when they have time.
I even have one mom in game who is older whose entire family is in my guild- her toons, her husband, her son, and her daughter.
My experience with moms who play the game is that we are just as good as anyone else who plays. Some men will joke that women don’t play the game… but there are a lot of us, and we are capable of outplaying them even!
I think being a mom doesn’t mean that you can’t have outside interests, and World of Warcraft is one I have enjoyed with my husband for 7 years now. I don’t know any other moms on Atlantaareamommies.com that play WOW, but we would love to have them on game with us if they were interested.
Last night was a fun night for a few of us as we sat around the Ft. Livingston campfire in Northern STV. We had a storytelling night full of making up fantastic ramblings that made each other giggle.
Being on a PVE server, it was extremely difficult to drum up support and attendance for this event, but those that came had a blast.
Roughin It
The first person starts telling a story, then as you go around the circle each person adds to it until you come to a stopping point. We even started acting out the stories using emotes, dueling, and items such as the romantic picnic basket and the beermaiden trinket.
We did two major stories. The first involved a mysterious goblin outside Stormwind who fought one guildie and sent Chatmay a love letter. The second story involved a petition to the king for an East Kingdom pie-making contest, but there was a shortage of sugar so it ended up being a dueling contest instead.
We gave one prize to best embellishements on storytelling to Looneywolf, who was a very good storyteller and actor.
Looking Tough Outdoors
And just in case you are interested, this is the campfire outfit I wore to the event:
Blizzard.com has screenshot contests all the time, but your guild can also host one! Our guild just completed our second week of having a screenshot contest on our facebook group page. The theme was famous album covers in WOW. We allowed photoshop, and at least one guild member had to be in the shot. Here is the winner by Humbert!
Here is another picture from a contest several years ago that did a similar theme- movie lines in WOW. This is one I did with my husband that we entered:
Shot from a Princess Bride
The screenshot contest doesn’t even have to have a fancy theme. You could simply say general screenshots or maybe sunsets in WOW. Something more common might be better for your guild to get more to enter. This is another shot made by me of myself and my husband on alts that I have always liked:
Chicks Bad
Many people in WOW have approached me saying they don’t know how to take a screenshot. You simply hit the Print Screen button. Then the screenshot is saved to a folder under World of Warcraft called Screenshots. You can upload it to places like photobucket, upload to facebook, or just send it to your friends.
If you are wanting an even better screenshot, it’s always a good idea to hit Alt-Z to take everything off the screen first except what you are wanting to photo.
For guild screenshot contests, it is a great incentive to get people to enter by giving gold as a prize or maybe that prized companion pet that everyone wants. My guild is giving 200g as a prize each week to the winner of the contest, which is judged by another guildleader I know.
Now Humbert is riding off into the sunset with that gold falling out of his little gnome pockets!
It had been since Christmas since we had a guild party… my guild has added almost 150 more characters since then. It seemed like definitely it was time to put faces to names, plus share in some fun games. This one was held on a Wednesday night in April outside Stormwind City.
First our guild mascot, Druid Gaga, made an appearance.
This time Druid Gaga even had a macro-ed tune ready to share. (To Bad Romance) “I want your ugly, I want your disease; But save me baby, no horde please. I want your love, La La La Alliance Love.” Then she unveiled the pony keg.
The first contest event was Crashin’ Thrashin’ Robot Race. Everyone was given a robot and told not to start it yet. Everyone formed a circle around me, and started their robot on the count of three. The last robot standing wins, and we played twice. Winners were given the Deweaponized Mechanical Robot companion.
Crashin and Thrashin
The second contest event was Beat Up Your Guildmaster. I planned this thinking most people coming were under 85 or new 85s, but it turned out to be the opposite. I had planned on dueling in my RP gear, but since the ones wanting to duel were geared raiders, I did have to resort to my gear. The prize was for the one who got me to lowest health, but I did end up losing two duels. So those two players faced off to decide the winner, who was given 200g.
In hindsight for the events, I decided I prefer the first event with steam-tonk controllers because you can actually control them. For the second event, I should have had an under 85 bracket and an 85 bracket. Only one player under 85 entered, and I think there was some intimidation going on there.
We had about 15-20 show up during the course of events. Those that didn’t partcipate in the contests had fun just hanging out and watching. We were on vent and in raid chat together.
One night I rolled a horde alt on another server just for fun. I somehow found myself in a new guild, and they were discussing plans to have “training classes” by upper level members in the guild for lowbies.
My guild doesn’t have many lower level toons anymore, but we have lots of 85s rolling alts. Which means they are learning how to play classes for the first time in many cases. So I decided that the training class might be a good idea for our guild too.
I have been promoting the events as more of a Q&A session about a certain class with a moderator who has played each spec (or more than one moderator if I can’t find that kind of player). I have played every spec on warlock, so I decided to host a warlock class first.
We had about five or six other locks attend. One was from another guild, but I mostly kept this for guildies only.
I first went over lock basics of each spec, and then tried opening it up for questions on vent….Silence. But then I got the standard lock questions everyone wants to know- what is the best leveling spec, what is the best minion to use, etc. I answered these then moved on to things like glyphing and talent tree points.
Everyone who came said this was useful, so I am already planning a death knight class and a druid class the next few weeks. I hope we can cover all the classes by the end of May or early June. (one class per week usually)
Here is a picture of us near the Stormwind target dummies where we met:
Locks in Force
I think this event would be best for guilds with a lot of lower levels, but there is always room to learn more about your class!
This week I stopped by one of my old servers, Moon Guard, and I saw some players walking around RPing in PVP gear.
You Looking at Me?
For example, this player, who logged off before I could talk to him, actually inspired this article… he is wearing all Field Marshal gear from level 60 along with Ursol’s Claw staff.
So I went on the hunt for players who use PVP gear in their RP outfit, a very good choice considering the cool sets you can choose from… but also because it shows your toon’s history or bragging rights.
The first player I am featuring is Redrik of Doomhammer.
But then I made an around-town outfit using my Voidheart Robe. <Author Note: Yes, I have the helm, and it is one of the ugliest things I have in my bank (which is why it is not being used in this article).> I combined it with other purple/gray items such as Laughing Skull Cap of Intellect, three pieces of the Emberfire PVP set, and Greatsword of Horrid Dreams. I wanted to show that PVP gear can be combined with other pieces for any kind of look.
After looking over these pictures again, I can’t decide which I want to do more- go RP or go do some BGs.
Our guild of around 375 has been doing a guild lottery for the past four weeks. We have a mega-lottery for mats and drops that are since cata came out. Then we have the regular-lottery for lower level mats and drops.
In order to run a successful lottery, a couple of things have to happen:
1) You have to have a tab of your guild bank set aside for donations. It must be cleaned out on a regular basis if donations are heavy, which means distributing the donations or moving them to other tabs.
2) You must provide a list somewhere of preferred items for donation. This avoids junk the guild doesn’t need being put into the tab, plus it tells how many of an item must be donated for a ticket. I base the amounts needed of each item on a common value. For example, I might require more volatile earths or lifes than volatile airs. Some items I just list as BOE drop- depends on value of item.
3) Set aside a realistic amount of money for prizes or make sure you have the mats coming in that you would need to craft a prize. If the lottery isn’t paying for itself, it isn’t working well. Right now our mega-prize is worth 3000g while the regular prize is worth a couple of hundred. While some people think this is too much, I have had two players pass on the mega prize to let the guild keep the donations, while two other players that needed 359 upgrades were given a crafted item that we had the mats for. The regular prize has been the only one I have been buying on occasion.
4) Have a team that keeps a log of donations. I log on all the time, so I am mainly doing this alone. However, if you have a ton of donations coming in or you won’t be on all day, you need to assign people to check the bank log at a certain time each day. Write down the player’s name that donated, what they donated, how many, and even the time if you want to get that detailed.
5) At the end of the week, make a tally. If the player only gave partial amounts of an item, they get a partial credit towards a ticket. I don’t round up at the end though. Here is an example of someone who donated a lot of mining mats:
So at the end I have a list of all who donated for the mega- and regular- lotteries that can be posted somewhere where anyone in the guild can see it. This shows them what they got credit for as well as gives new members ideas of how the lottery works.
6) Have a roll-off. It is impossible to get everyone online at one time that donated. So I wait until there are lots of members on to help with it. This also is exciting for new members and those that don’t donate because they want to know what is going on, leading to perhaps even more participation the next week.
I form a group to do the roll-off based on players I know are not busy that will help. I look at the total tickets for each player, and then I have that player or someone in their place roll in party or raid set amount of times they were awarded. The highest roll for each lottery wins.
Again, this is for a medium to medium-large sized guild. I think it would be extremely difficult to do this for more than 400 players because the log only shows so many lines. And sorry no pictures for yet another post. I will get back to screenshots later this week.
I hate to start my post by sounding like Ol’ Grandma, but here goes:
When I first started playing WOW in 2004, things were different. I know you have heard these stories, but here is my reasoning… there was more accountability for the way you acted.
For example, with the current random dungeon finder mixing you with people from other servers, no one cares anymore about things like the tank who needs the caster BOE worth 2000 gold or more on your server. In vanilla no one would even dare roll on a BOE they needed unless they asked first. If you didn’t ask and you took something- even if you needed it- the other people in party would harrass you for days or weeks and also request that your guildleader boot you from your guild. Why? Because everyone knew the guild you were in and how to contact them.
I am not saying this behavior is acceptable, but during Lich King especially I noticed total lack of caring from most players. Dungeons would go by without anyone even speaking in party chat. Insults flying at each other or booting new 80s was rampant if there WAS any communication. And what was once considered being a ninja is now just common loot rules- need something that drops because someone else will probably need it too is what I was told one day.
So this is kind of turning into a ramble or rant… so here is what I did. I posted a thread on Blizzard’s WOW general forums asking- what do you consider to be polite? What do you wish people would do that would be polite?
I got a lot of different responses, but overall it seemed that the major thing people want is communication. Just a simple “hi” when entering a five-man as well as a “thank you” when it is over was mentioned more than once.
Here are some other ideas I had for being polite:
If someone is fighting next to a gathered item, don’t take it without asking.
If you are wanting gear for RP or off-spec or something like cloth for a druid, don’t roll without asking.
Don’t call people names or make offensive statements just because you are having a bad hair day- especially not noob.
Don’t try to tell someone how to play their toon unless they are total fail or unless they ask for help.
Don’t use caps or be a bad troll.
Respond to people’s questions in trade or guild with helpful suggestions, not worthless comments or not saying anything.
If you leave a guild, say goodbye. Don’t just leave without saying anything unless it is just that bad of a situation.
And for heavens sake, roll greed on BOEs you don’t need people.
I am sure there are other things I am forgetting. Feel free to mention them in comments.
I feel like you CAN be polite in game without people walking all over you. And I consider myself a pretty polite person in game, even when frustrated. So the way I look at it is: if a warlock can be polite, hey anyone can.
