Ever since Mike left WoW.com, the Guildwatch column was on a temporary hiatus. Today it came back into business and to the surprise (and vehement displeasure) of many, the drama section was removed!
Many readers are screaming to bring it back.
How come?
I’m curious as to why. Why do people care about the mishappenings and horrors that happen to other WoW players or guilds? Is it just sheer entertainment to read about some guy who got the Legendary bow intentionally looted to someone else? Or that this person saved everyone to raid but then gkicked the entire guild and stole the bank? Or that a top guild stole the raid ID of another lesser guild because they couldn’t do it? But then I stopped and thought further. There’s a reason why TMZ and Perez Hilton are so popular. There’s a reason why newspapers have celebrity gossip columns because people happen to find this stuff interesting! The Tiger Woods incident? Now the thing with Conan and NBC? Its all celebrity news and when interesting stuff happens to high profile people, its like whoa!
Personally, I do pay attention to the drama sections. Its nice to know at what length players will go to achieve some kind of goal. Its nice to know what those goals could be. As a GM, I pay close attention to the mistakes that other guilds and players make. Why? So that in the event something similar happens to me or my organization, I already have a response or plan of action in place. I’ll read a particular story and just get blown away the events. Then I’ll think to myself "Man, if I were the GM or if that were me in that person’s place, what would I have done? Would I have reacted the same way or would I have done something else?"
So, do you guys care about that stuff? What about it makes it so appealing for you?
A Drama blog
Now, if I were an aspiring WoW blogger looking to carve a niche for myself, I think WoW drama would be where its at. I’ve actually made plans and thoughts about starting another WoW blog that would just be nothing more than a place that links to certain drama threads or summarize different stories and events.
Do you know of any WoW blogs that center primarily on WoW drama? I sure as heck don’t. And there certainly seems to be a high demand for it.
Anyway, those plans were abandoned pretty quickly.
For one, I’d probably have to do it anonymously. I don’t imagine a lot of friends would be made going that route.
Two, there’s a lot of research and compilation that would need to be done. You gotta find a story first. Then you gotta gather the facts. You gotta figure out who is or isn’t legit, who’s telling the truth, and what’s actually going on. Lots of realm browsing to do, that’s for sure.
Three, its dependant on other guilds or people. You can’t really make stuff up. Thats kinda lame. I mean I suppose you could. A fictitious WoW drama blog? Probably more satire or creative writing than anything else.
Anyway, its not exactly a niche I’d want to get involved with. Too "hot", if you know what I mean. Plus I’m already involved with my blog, Plus Heal, NSUI, and WoW.com. I have to run a guild too. And there’s school.
If blogitus were real, I’d be chronically affected my desire to start blogs. My friends (real and online) would be unanimous in tying me down in order to make sure I don’t begin another blogging project. I simply don’t have the time for it.
But the demand for WoW guild drama appears to be there. Classifieds won’t be there to satiate your appetite for it unfortunately.
Speaking of lack of time…
In an effort to curb my WoW time, I got back into playing Magic: The Gathering again. Oh man, I’m weak :(. I blame all my friends. They started getting involved with FNMs (Friday Night Magic tournaments) and pushed me to join them.
Damn you peer pressure.
Any MTG types out there that actively play? Wouldn’t mind chatting a bit. Also, if you play online with Magic Workstation, I’m up for a game if I have time.
I’ll be piloting this.
Red Deck Wins
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Teetering Peaks
12 Mountain
4 Goblin Guide
4 Plated Geopede
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Hell’s Thunder
4 Ball Lightning
4 Earthquake
4 Burst Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Quenchable Fire
SB
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
4 Dragon’s Claw
4 Magma Rift
3 Manabarbs
(Might run Punishing Fire in sideboard instead)
Two of my friends are running Valakut ramp, one is running Vampires, another two are using mono white soldiers or something. Managed to go 5-1 pre-sideboard against Valakut, but ugh, Valakut has some serious burst.
Anyway, now that I’ve effectively cemented myself as uber geek of the week, I’ll stop for now. Depending on how often I play, I just might set up a smaller scale MTG blog or something.
There I go with the blogitus again…
Matt, I play quite a bit of MTG. If you ever need someone to play on MWS just hit me up on twitter or something.
OMG Matt. I still have cards dating all of the way back to 5th edition. They are SO old now… they wouldn’t stand a chance against all of the new decks! 🙂
~Frangus
Yes, drama is very entertaining and I for one will miss it from WoW.com if it doesn’t come back. Nerdrage is fun, ninjas claiming they’re innocent are fun, people arguing for 10 pages are fun, “I’ll go grab my popcorn” comments are fun… what’s not to love? Oh, and I like it when idiots are told off in creative ways. The drama threads used to keep me entertained for hours…
P.S. I used to read a WoW drama blog ages ago, but it died off quickly. I was telling my boyfriend about Guildwatch this morning and he said I should start a drama blog… but I wouldn’t, for your reasons + one more: if I started reading the WoW forums I’d never ever get anything else done. They’re evil, I tell you.
.-= Jen´s last blog ..We’re not (all) that bad =-.
I’m personally not interested in WoW drama. I have enough stresses and strains in my real life to worry about it in my hobby 🙂 Of course, I don’t really go for celebrity gossip sites and magazines etc but then there’s an undeniably high demand for them.
My advice for anyone starting a WoW drama blog is that they should probably make sure they develop a thick skin for feedback! I can imagine it cause a few storms if a site is posting news and gossip, especially controversial ones.
If you do start a WoW drama blog though, let us know, I’d love to check it out! 🙂
.-= We Fly Spitfires´s last blog ..Would You Put WoW On Your Resume? =-.
Do you really want/need 24 lands in that aggro deck? Your curve tops out at 5 for the Hell’s Thunder Unearth. Similarly, is 4x Earthquake too many? I feel like drawing 2x EQ is pretty unexciting.
What about -1 Mountain, -1 Earthquake, +2 Act of Treason? In a field of Baneslayers & Broodmates, having 4-5 damage on 3 mana is sexy. And let’s be honest, AoT on a Baneslayer is a the blowout that you need to force through whatever remaining offense you have.
It isn’t just that WoW gossip is fun (sometimes I think it is, sometimes I don’t), it is that that was the only part of that column that was remotely interesting. Who cares if some guild I’ve never heard of on a server I’ve never heard of downs some boss that millions of people have downed before? Sure, the people in that guild might care, but that is such an infinitesimal portion of the WoW.com readership that it just seems like a waste of space.
The attempt to replace the drama with “anti-drama” like “Yeah some guy he was a DK named Bob or maybe Dazoom was in a group with me and he was nice and he stayed even though he died and we laughed oh how we laughed!!!” isn’t really an improvement either. Though hopefully as that feature is around a bit people will submit stories that are actually interesting.
I think a drama blog is silly, just as I think tabloids and hollywood are silly.
I think one’s time could be better spent. If I’m not mistaken the Forums is a drama blog, why re-invent the wheel.
I can see from an officers perspective that reading some drama would be helpful for “what if” scenarios.
–Ly
Any chance you play the wowtcg? If not, it’s actually pretty good on several fronts and worth looking into. There’s no land screw (you can face down cards as resources if you are lacking a quest/location) and the game mechanics would be familiar enough to MTG to take a look at.
Generally, the organize play rewards are better than magic at all but the top ievels. Several regional and national events that payoff quite well. The top 4 of regionals (aka realms) all received spectral tigers which you can turn around for $800 or be one of the few on the server that actually own one.
Anyways, figured I would give some wowtcg love since mtg was mentioned on a wowblog. The game (which has pve content as well as normal 1v1) is quite enjoyable and has a much lower cost to entry than MTG (people just buying packs for loot cards subsidize the ebay prices and lower the cost of singles). I play the game casually as my real competitive focus is on the wowminis games – which has a smaller player community but still amazing prizes from UDE (for example, the laptop I am typing on now and use to play wow, I won through a minis tournament – among other prizes).
“I’m curious as to why. Why do people care about the mishappenings and horrors that happen to other WoW players or guilds?”
In a word: Schadenfreude.
re: drama
I think one of the most enjoyable reads on wow.com is/was guildwatch, which covered drama quite well and appeared to be partially generated by user submissions/hints:
http://www.wow.com/search/?q=guildwatch
I love the more original WoW drama stories. Stuff that I would never ever dream would happen. Loot ninjas or stories of a GM robbing the bank the dispanding the guild are (yawn!) a dime a dozen. But every now and again, I see a drama story I really like. I have a very absurd sense of humor, so there’s something about strange tales that I find absolutely hilarious.
Beyond that I do like to play “if I had to deal with this situation, how should I handle it?” as well. I’ve always loved the challenges of dealing with difficult/strange/socially unadjusted people. It’s like Sudoku with a human twist.
I used to play MTG a bit some years back. I had to keep myself from getting too into it though. I easily get obsessed about collecting things and MTG was a serious threat to my bank account. I swear that game is evil. Plus it’s really hard to find people who play that don’t annoy me.
I JUST made a post about this game and drama gets to me sometimes. I hear ya, you need to step back sometimes
.-= Angry Gamer´s last blog ..Getting so mad about WoW you almost unsubscribe =-.
I actually commented on that post yesterday saying that I enjoyed the break from the drama and actually like the new format.
I got voted down to blackness.
Zubrin: Nope, all my friends here are MTG players. WoW TCG hasn’t really caught on anywhere in Vancouver to my knowledge. If they switched over, I’d follow them as well.
Juz: I’d consider sideboarding those at the very least. I have to check out what the locals are like first.
But topdecking two Earthquakes one after the other is a great finisher.
Drama is a guilty pleasure alot of people enjoy, regardless of if they admit to it or not. You can help but rubber neck when you drive by a car wreck.
I’d really hate to see a segment like classifieds go to waste because they won’t provide what readers would like to see. But if someone else wants to fill the bill I’m all for it.
Matt, don’t make me re-create my Merfolk deck online and beat you into submission. I’ll do it.
.-= Josh´s last blog ..Ret FAQ for 3.3 =-.
You just scored a point with this MTG-speak. Shame I stopped playing a while back and all my decks are retro like no other.
Oh man I used to play MTG a lot. I mean, A LOT. I have so many cards, and not nearly enough decks put together for the amount that I have. I used to play at school, at friends’ houses, at the local comic book store, everywhere and anywhere that had a table and chairs and ample space to set up a playing field. My friends and I even got kicked out of a restaurant for playing because they thought we were gambling. I haven’t bought any of the expansion set cards for about 3 years now. Not since the samurai-themed ex-pac. To be honest, I miss it. But it’s difficult (and expensive) to keep up with. Besides, I have a lot of hobbies to keep up with, and those take time and money as well. I like buying DVDs and CDs, paying my monthly WoW addi…I mean, subscription…and picking up other various video games here and there (I own a DS, Wii, and PS2). My Magic playing has diminished to the point where I only really play with my cousins during family holidays. And that’s not quite enough to get me back into extreme deck-building. It is still fun to play though when it does happen.
I see your red deck and I raise you my White Weenie deck!
4 Suntail Hawks
2 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
2 Konda’s Hatamoto
3 Devoted Retainer
2 Indomitable Will
1 Samurai of the Pale Curtain
2 Call to Glory
2 Aether Vial
2 Vigilance
2 Leonin Den Guard
1 Hokori, Dust Drinker
3 Shining Shoal
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
3 Raise the Alarm
2 Eight- and- a- Half Tails
2 Sensei Golden- Tail
4 Glorius Anthem
1 Eiganjo Castle
19 Plains
No idea if this is even remotely tournament worthy, but I beat my husband’s butt with this deck, so I must have done something right.
.-= Pyoska´s last blog ..Healer Vs. PuG: A Survival Guide =-.
“Do you know of any WoW blogs that center primarily on WoW drama?”
yes I do Matt, it is called http://wowjackass.com
All of the information is provided by the site users and can be voted on up/down.
.-= Sam´s last blog ..Aegwynn =-.
@Sam: Although WoW Jackass is a good site, I’d consider it more of a directory or a listing as opposed to like a drama blog.
Now if you were to add a blog component that would randomly feature some jackass and the story behind why they’re added…
It does exist, but hasn’t seen any traffic in almost a year, and no real traffic in 2-3.
http://www.wowdrama.org/
I’m with you on blogitis. I have a lot of great ideas for new blogs, much more niche than the one I write for now, but have next to no time to get them off the ground, promoted, and read. Oh well, I’ll just have to keep the ideas in my head for later, when I make it big, have all my bills paid, and get a chance to do my work of passion rather than necessity.
.-= Professor Beej´s last blog ..A Different Kind of Roleplay in World of Warcraft =-.