Devil’s Advocate: Epic not really Epic


February 26, 2010 at 11:57 pm by

Eh? Epic not really epic? They look purple to me… Oh I see! You meant in the “They’re so common, they’re not epic anymore” category. Ah right… But how and why? Let’s look at that.

Once upon a time instance bosses dropped greens, not blues. Rares were pretty damn rare and epics were unheard of. Someone who had an epic was the centre of attention with everyone inspecting him and patting him on the back and ooing and aahing over how much of an awesome player he must be to have gotten an epic.

What changed? Most would argue it’s that the game has gotten easier and epics are being handed out like candy. But is that what really happened? Or is there more to it?

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Quirks of WoW #2: Boys Who Like Girls…


February 15, 2010 at 8:03 am by

Shell’s note: This is the first post here in a week due to useless “editors” and we apologise, you may slap me in-game.

I don’t know about you but I’ve been seeing a suspiciously high number of female Draenei wandering around lately. They all seem to be in my guild as well. And my guild consists of mostly male players. So what’s with this boys who like being girls thing? I feel like I can make this outrageously sexist comment because I rarely see a female player putting her toon through a sex change operation—and if she does it’s to go from being a male toon to a female toon.

Gender selection is not a new topic in virtual/online games research. I suspect for academics who were curious about “What we do” in games, they found this ability to preselect our gender a very interesting aspect of a virtual game/world/culture that prompted questions. Are we curious about exploring other bodies? Are there desires for other-genderedness that we can only really explore in a virtual environment? Does it let us safely explore what may be forbidden or impossible otherwise?

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Our Survey Says: Goldmine


February 2, 2010 at 8:01 pm by

A common question you hear from newer players is how to make a lot of money very quickly. The stock answer appears to be “take skinning and mining, sell everything you gather, and worry about real professions later”. To an extent this is great advice, though I’ve seen people get to 80, change their professions, and spend the rest of their lives in poverty.

My question is this: on an established character, how do you find yourself making your gold?

How do you make most of your gold?

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Our Survey Says: Website Fiend


January 15, 2010 at 5:15 pm by

How many times have I pointed a guildie* to Gear Wishlist? I’ve no idea, but it’s got to be a lot. This is an excellent example of a far-too-underused and yet extremely useful game-related website, and only a few of us seem to have ever even heard about it. I’ve been an avid user of these sites for a long time, in TBC for example my obsessions were Warcrafter and Loot Rank. Yet I’m constantly reminded that most people haven’t only not heard of these sites, they actively don’t care.

Do you use these resources to improve your character and your gameplay, or do you prefer the more relaxed “it’ll be fine” approach to character development?

How do you feel towards WoW-related websites?

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*often the same one

Devil’s Advocate: Emblems of Triumph


December 17, 2009 at 3:21 pm by

Professor

Devil’s Advocate – Someone who takes an opposing position for the sake of argument, regardless of whether they agree with the stance they defend or not. This column will do just that, take a point of QQ and argue the opposite side.

Ahhh badges, who’d have thought that something intended to make getting upgrades easier would cause so much drama and whining eh?

*Adopts Freudian voice*

Ah-ah-ahem. Now I Doctor Rupert Charles Von Necrallion have some volunteers who wish to share their complaints of said badges and said upgrades. You shall analyse these statements with me to determine how much of their view is legitimate concern and how much is the gum flapping of bruised prides.

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Our Survey Says: Are You A Guildhopper?


December 17, 2009 at 2:21 am by

From Wowwiki:

Guild hopper is a term used to describe players of World of Warcraft who join a guild for the sole purpose of gaining loot, then leaving to join another guild. It was possible for this type of player to gear themselves up in a very short space of time by gaining drops from boss kills with their guild.

If you’ve been in a lot of guilds, chances are that somewhere along the line someone you know has considered you a guildhopper. You may not fit the definition above, but whether you left your guilds for good or bad reasons often doesn’t matter since all we see when researching guild history is the number. The question is do you think your guild number is a bit over the top, or is all fair in WoW and loot?

Would you ever consider yourself to be a "guildhopper"?

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As a sidenote I’d like to point out that this poll is two days late, I have had horrendous flu and will be spamming you all again shortly.

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Our Survey Says: 3.3 Release


December 9, 2009 at 12:39 am by

The news should have filtered down to even the most oblivious player by now…the patch is on it’s way! For some of us it’s an exciting time, we’ve managed to complete at least most of the current raid content but with enough left over to keep us from becoming bored, but others haven’t been so lucky.

I’m glad to count myself among the former group, but which are you? Share your thoughts, ‘cos let’s face it we have little better to do while the realms are down.

Do you approve of the 3.3 release date?

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For this week’s poll I was accused of being a keylogger. The things I do for you.

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The Soapbox: Icecrown Gated Progression


December 5, 2009 at 3:23 pm by

If you have any passing interest in the soon-to-be-released raid content, you’ve probably seen this post.

Predictably, a lot of progression raiders seem to think the sky is falling, because they won’t get to down Arthas the night the patch is released. To be fair, it’s understandable. If raiding is all you want from the game, and Blizzard put a seemingly arbitrary limit on the rate you can get things done, I can see how that would be annoying. Let me offer up a different point of view, however.

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