Officers’ Quarters: Suffocating in a leadership vacuum


Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes [hide]Officers’ Quarters[/hide], a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of [hide]The Guild Leader’s Handbook[/hide], available now from [hide]No Starch Press[/hide].

A few months ago, I wrote a column about replacing a [hide]guild leader who disappeared[/hide] without naming a successor. This week, the problem is slightly different: The guild leader named a successor who turned out to be a poor replacement, and the remaining officers have all but disappeared. In light of this leadership vacuum, a member of the guild wonders whether he should step up and bluntly ask for the top rank.

Hello Scott,

For close to a year now I’ve been part of a large social/raiding guild with a very healthy and active player base. In WotLK everything was fine, raiding went great and the guild chat was always full with friendly players so basically the guild was at its best and a great home for everyone. Probably this was very much thanks to the capabilities of our guild leader … She was liked by many and formed the heart of our guild easily.

One day I logged in to hear from some officers that the guild leader was going on a long break to sort out real life issues. Only a few people knew how long this would take and they refused to share this information with the rest of us to respect her privacy. Before she left, one officer was appointed to lead the guild in the meanwhile. Problem was that this was a very unreliable player (he used to disappear for months without notice because he suddenly grew bored of the game) and before he hadn’t been an officer and was only given the role because he was the only one to volunteer.[hide]Continue reading Officers’ Quarters: Suffocating in a leadership vacuum[/hide]Filed under: [hide]Officers’ Quarters (Guild Leadership)[/hide][hide]Officers’ Quarters: Suffocating in a leadership vacuum[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Mon, 11 Jul 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

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Blood Pact: How to spend your initial valor points as a warlock


Every week, WoW Insider brings you [hide]Blood Pact[/hide] for [hide]affliction[/hide], [hide]demonology[/hide] and [hide]destruction[/hide] warlocks. For those who disdain the watered-down arts that other cling to like a safety blanket … For those willing to test their wills against the nether and claim the power that is their right … [hide]Blood Pact[/hide] welcomes you.

With new raids come new items that we can toss away our hard-earned money on. Only in this case, that money is valor points. The sad part about this raiding tier is that Blizzard reduced the valor point cap in order to force a stricter limit on how players gear up in this new raiding tier. The devs don’t want players getting the new gear too quickly, and so they limit us by creating a stop-gap in our ability to get the non-dropped items.

In reality, this isn’t all that much of a bother. If Blizzard wants to create these types of gearing gateways, then so be it. The one issue that I do take with it is that this really places that much more importance on luck as a factor of early gearing. Tier gear cannot be gained via drops, except for the pieces which drop from Baradin Hold. Further, it isn’t token pieces that drop but the specific items themselves — oh, yes, and there’s PVP gear to contend with on the loot table. Getting the drops from inside Baradin Hold saves you 3,850 valor points, which is four weeks’ worth of dungeons. That’s a big deal.

Regardless, let’s talk about the things you should be spending your hard-earned points on.[hide]Continue reading Blood Pact: How to spend your initial valor points as a warlock[/hide]Filed under: [hide]Warlock[/hide], [hide](Warlock) Blood Pact[/hide][hide]Blood Pact: How to spend your initial valor points as a warlock[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

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Gold Capped: How to make money while leveling

Every week, WoW Insider brings you [hide]Gold Capped[/hide], in which [hide]Fox Van Allen[/hide] and Basil «[hide]Euripides[/hide]» Berntsen aim to show you how to make money on the auction house. Disclaimer: Their expertise only extends to making in-game currency, because if they knew how to make millions in real-world money, they wouldn’t be spending their time writing about WoW gold. Feed Fox’s ego by [hide]emailing him[/hide] or tweeting him at [hide]@foxvanallen[/hide].

There are hundreds of different strategies for making money once you’ve hit level 85, right? Max-level professions tend to be strong money-makers in the right hands, because they allow you to sell the latest and greatest items.

It’s a bit of a different story while leveling, however. There are gathering professions, of course, and some can provide fledgling characters with a solid chunk of cash. There are crafting professions too, but often times low-level gear and items sell for less than the materials it takes to make them.

Making money while leveling isn’t typically at the forefront of your mind when you’re making your fifth alt on your home server — after all, you can make more money running dailies at 85 than you can farming Wool Cloth. But if you’re just starting out in World of Warcraft or are starting fresh on a new server without any of your main character’s bank … well, finding a way to make money while leveling is exceptionally important, especially so you can buy the much-needed conveniences that rich players take for granted, such as [hide]Flight Master’s License[/hide] and [hide]Expert Riding[/hide].[hide]Continue reading Gold Capped: How to make money while leveling[/hide]Filed under: [hide]Economy[/hide], [hide]Gold Capped[/hide][hide]Gold Capped: How to make money while leveling[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Mon, 11 Jul 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

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The Daily Quest: I want money

WoW Insider’s on a [hide]Daily Quest[/hide] to bring you interesting, informative, and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

It’s weird to think about the fact that The Flying Lizards were popular when I was just a baby. I always associated the song with the movie [hide]Empire Records[/hide] — which, by the way, if you haven’t seen, you should go do so. Right now. It’s okay, we’ll wait. Anyway, this was easily the most popular song they ever did. But then, who doesn’t like money?

Today, we’ve got a collection of posts from around the blogosphere regarding that favorite topic of many.

[hide]Warcraft Econ[/hide] shares some data regarding the [hide]best-selling items[/hide] as of patch 4.2.

[hide]Power Word: Gold[/hide] goes over some [hide]engineering items[/hide] that are selling in patch 4.2.

[hide]Auction House Addict[/hide] goes over the inscription profession for [hide]lowbie scribes[/hide].

[hide]Kuja’s Gold Mine[/hide] points out the profit potential in [hide]plundering Ahn’Qiraj[/hide].

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 [hide]WoW Resources Guide[/hide] for more WoW-related sites.
Filed under: [hide]The Daily Quest[/hide][hide]The Daily Quest: I want money[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Mon, 11 Jul 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

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Weekly Podcast Roundup: July 4-10, 2011

Every Monday evening, WoW Insider brings you a long list of WoW podcasts that were published the week and weekend before. If you don’t see your favorite World of Warcraft podcast listed, just let us know in the comments. Be sure to leave a link to it, and we’ll pick it up next week.

All podcasts and content belong to their owners. WoW Insider is not responsible for what you hear, and some of the content may not be safe for work.

[hide]All Things Azeroth[/hide] Dude, That’s A Fake!

[hide]Rawrcast[/hide] Dailies in Your Dailies

[hide]The Instance[/hide] The Lady With Two Voice Actors

[hide]Twisted Nether Blogcast[/hide] Hunting Quori
[hide]Continue reading Weekly Podcast Roundup: July 4-10, 2011[/hide]Filed under: [hide]Podcasting[/hide], [hide]Weekly Podcast Roundup[/hide][hide]Weekly Podcast Roundup: July 4-10, 2011[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Firelands reputation rewards


Every week, WoW Insider brings you [hide]The Care and Feeding of Warriors[/hide], the column dedicated to [hide]arms[/hide], [hide]fury[/hide] and [hide]protection warriors[/hide]. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

[hide]Patch 4.2[/hide] is still here. And we’re all rolling through the Firelands, some of us already on heroic modes, some of us still clearing some bosses, others working on the dailies. Something for everyone. Today, we’re going to talk about the loot you can get out of the Firelands without actually getting a single drop from a boss. Some of these rewards require you to kill trash for rep (or even bosses, in the case of Avengers of Hyjal rewards past honored), but others you can get through Marks of the World Tree or even from the Thrall quest line added in patch 4.2.

Before we talk about all that, though, I have to say that if you’re able to raid Firelands, even on a limited schedule, you really should. These are some of the best-designed, most well thought-out boss encounters I’ve seen in years of playing the game. Trash runs are absolutely puggable (and the trash drops are worth pugging for, [hide]as last week covered[/hide]); a coordinated group in 359 epics from tier 11 raids absolutely can do the first four bosses and can probably learn to do Baleroc in a week or two. There’s no reason to avoid this raid. It’s fun, well-designed, and within your grasp. Of the five bosses I’ve now seen, none of them is so easy as to be boring nor so hard as to be daunting.

Now, let’s talk about gear you can get before or just after setting foot in here.[hide]Continue reading The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Firelands reputation rewards[/hide]Filed under: [hide]Warrior[/hide], [hide]Raiding[/hide], [hide](Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors[/hide], [hide]Cataclysm[/hide][hide]The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Firelands reputation rewards[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Sat, 09 Jul 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

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The WoW Insider Show’s Weekly News Update


Welcome to The WoW Insider Show’s Weekly News Update, hosted by Mat McCurley. In this weekly news brief, we recap the week’s top stories and opinions from all around the World of Warcraft. This additional weekly podcast helps keep you informed and up-to-date on everything you need to know.

This week we cover:

[hide]Various patch 4.2 hotfixes[/hide]

[hide]Authenticators now on Windows Phone 7 devices[/hide]

[hide]Blizzard explains and apologizes for PvP Season 10 gear debacle[/hide]

[hide]No spirit cloth coming from Firelands[/hide]

The regular podcast will return tomorrow next Tuesday! For those wondering where this week’s was, well, you can blame my MacBook’s hard drive, which crashed to the extent that I can’t recover anything. We’ll be back with the full show next week — and a new computer, too!

Get the podcast:

[[hide]iTunes[/hide]] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.

[[hide]RSS[/hide]] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.

[[hide]MP3[/hide]] Download the MP3 directly.

Listen here on the page:


Filed under: [hide]Podcasts[/hide], [hide]WoW Insider Show[/hide][hide]The WoW Insider Show’s Weekly News Update[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Sat, 09 Jul 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

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Breakfast Topic: The pros and cons of collision detection


This [hide]Breakfast Topic[/hide] has been brought to you by [hide]Seed[/hide], the AOL guest writer program that brings [hide]your words[/hide] to WoW Insider’s pages.

One of the first things I noticed when I migrated from Final Fantasy XI to World of Warcraft six years ago was the lack of collision when running through another player character. In many MMOs, characters and NPCs are treated as solid objects. As a result, PVP and PVE are more dynamic and challenging, but this also causes problems when there is an enormous crowd in front of the auction house.

There are many pros and cons for collision detection, but I think Blizzard was smart in keeping it simple. With World of Warcraft’s tens of millions of players, events like The Gates of Ahn’Qiraj would have been even more hectic if players could not run through each other. Bosses like [hide]Valiona[/hide] and [hide]Theralion[/hide] in The Bastion of Twilight, where you have to stack up (for the Meteor) would be so much more challenging if stacking up took collision detection into account.

On the other hand, things like PVP would be much more engaging. Imagine Warsong Gulch in a game of Capture the Flag. Players would literally form a barricade around the flag carrier and protect him until they die. Honestly, I do not PVP much, but I know this would change up the dynamic of the game greatly. As for whether it would be for the better or for the worse, I will let you guys decide in the comments.

What are your thoughts on collision detection? Do you like how it is right now, where everyone can stand right on top of each other and run through players? Or would you rather it be more solid and realistic, but possibly more frustrating?
Filed under: [hide]Breakfast Topics[/hide], [hide]Guest Posts[/hide][hide]Breakfast Topic: The pros and cons of collision detection[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Sun, 10 Jul 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

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Around Azeroth: Frazzled nerves

[hide][/hide]
Look, it’s the inside of your brain! Watch out, neurons, here comes a clot! [hide]Deathbain[/hide] of [hide]Untraceable[/hide] on Bleeding Hollow (US-A) writes, «I was standing before [hide]Beth’tilac[/hide], fully buffed and raring to go and put in some attempts in, when the raid leader decided to explain the fight and make sure everything was in sync before starting. During his explanation, I was zoned out and just admiring the amazing design of the Firelands, and I noticed this egg sac stuck above us, waiting to hatch and kill us all at its mother’s command.»

Gallery: [hide]Around Azeroth 3[/hide][hide][/hide][hide][/hide][hide][/hide][hide][/hide][hide][/hide]

Want to see your own screenshot here? Send it to [hide]aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com[/hide]. We strongly prefer full-sized pictures with no UI or names showing. Please include «Azeroth» in the subject line so your email doesn’t get marked as spam, and include your name, guild and server if you want to be credited.
Filed under: [hide]Around Azeroth[/hide][hide]Around Azeroth: Frazzled nerves[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Sun, 10 Jul 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

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The Queue: Dwarves!


Welcome back to [hide]The Queue[/hide], the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

I am unreasonably excited about The Hobbit movies, especially after seeing the new photos of the cast in costume that have been coming out. Above are Oin and Gloin. Gloin is Gimli’s dad, in case you can’t see the resemblance.

Iaim asked:

Where did the ‘Working as intended.’ meme come from? I’ve been seeing it a lot recently in the comments…

It’s a phrase with long history in the software industry, not just World of Warcraft. Generally, a user will come to the company with an issue with the software, something that seems to be wrong, and the developer may respond that the issue is not actually a bug, that it’s actually working as intended. Blizzard doesn’t generally use this phrase when dealing with customers directly, since boy howdy do players hate hearing it, but it still finds its way into conversation sometimes. I believe it’s still in one of the preformatted emails you’ll receive from GMs when reporting something that’s, well, working as intended.[hide]Continue reading The Queue: Dwarves![/hide]Filed under: [hide]The Queue[/hide][hide]The Queue: Dwarves![/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Sun, 10 Jul 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

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