News and Opinion

General news and opinion about WoW.

SK Gaming and Nihilium: The Greatest Conspiracy Plot to Ever Unfold

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Many gamers (not just WoW players) are aware of two of the most dominant names in professional E-Sports today: SK-Gaming and Nihilum. Let me say that I’ve known about SK for many years when they were the top Counterstrike teams in the world. Likewise, I also know about Nihilum’s illustrious history along with mousesports. As such, I have nothing but the highest respect any gamer can have like a son to a father.

Although after reading the following post, my faith has wavered slightly.

An interview is conducted on World of Ming with a former professional Warcraft 3 player named Bey (not going to try to use the funky B in case it screws up a few things). His earnings are reported to be over 35000$ after playing more than 700 games in over a year.

In any case, the first part of the interview is mostly background information. Bey, the player in question, is establishing the fact top tier players establish and cultivate relationships not unlike how top tier raiding guilds on servers have their own alliances and relationships.

It gets a lot more interesting towards the second half of the interview when Bey begins talking about SK Gaming’s and Nihilum’s practices.

He states that Schroet Kommando is an extreme right organization. Here’s a few select quotes:

?ey: My sources told me that after the recruitment, they start to slowly modify the person’s way of thinking with all sort of tricks and manipulative discussions evolved around the gaming training sessions. There are also some weird occult rituals and gatherings with occult implications, but that’s where my sources stopped sharing with me, so I couldn’t find out more about it.

I suppose that this did not include normal team building exercises like mountain climbing or playing street hockey together. Since it’s in Europe, they might bond better playing soccer.

Let’s hit the nail harder on the head, shall we?

?ey: The information I have is 100% secure and bulletproof, beyond any level of doubt. So, basically what we know about SK is that their leaders are Nazi extremists, and that they don’t want us to know this, and that their logo had is based on a modified version of the swastika.

Oh, so that’s what extreme right means. I get it now. Hold on a sec, it turns out SK’s not alone anymore.

?ey: Mousesports is another German gaming organisation that shares the NAZI viewpoints of SK. Somehow even more, considering that their crown jewel is Nihilum, a guild that is made only from German, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian people, and especially because of NAZI aryan beliefs. I personally know lots of insanely good players that’s knocked at Nihilum’s door and were turned down because of racial reasons, even if they were perfectly geared and capable of filling the spot required. This was not made public of course, but that was the true reason behind it.

At least it’s nice to know that if I had applied to Nihilum I would not have been turned down because I sucked. On a more serious note, these are some really serious allegations. Bey’s just accused two of the top gaming organizations in the world that they are Nazis.

How would they have enforced their e-dominance?

?ey: The plan was simple and extremely effective, and was needed because both SK and MS wanted to control what was happening in other Bgs – they were scared to death that an outsider EU team may sweep them at Blizzcon or other tourneys (which ended up actually happening)…

…These things were backed up with whispers like “words are that SK and MS pay weekly big money to anybody that is on the 1st page of the Cyclone BG in 2v2 and 3v3.” As well as stuff like “I heard that that team was 16th last week and got paid 200 Euros to each member”.

To bottom line it:

?ey: The truth is that SK and MS payed all the first 20 teams (the ones that were on Cyclone BEFORE the hype), to queue dodge the new powerful wave of teams and to share information to all teams about the new players and their comps.

All I can say is just wow. I’m utterly amazed. I don’t even know if something like this can be made up. I don’t but it, however. There’s no empirical evidence for such an accusation and it’s still really hard to prove. How do you prove something like this anyway? You almost can’t! It’s hard!

Remember, here’s the link to the full text interview for you to read in full.

This just about rivals the DnT drama story several months ago. Anyway, I wanted to share that little story for you. What a way to open up the week, eh?

So what are your thoughts?

Load of crap or a potential eyebrow raiser and jaw dropper?

Conspiracy drama stories are simply the best! 

Deep Thoughts, by Wynthea

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I am truly blessed in that I have always managed to have consistent friends to group with in the game. My Human Priest leveled with a darling Paladin, and a Warrior has always had my back on my Troll. In fact, if I ever need to run an instance or three, all I have to do is find a willing Druid, Pally, or Warrior, and announce that the two of us will be running _____. I don’t think it’s ever taken more than 5 minutes for us to get our DPSers and go. This has lead me to a startling revelation about our class: Priests do have pets. They are called Tanks. I believe this should be added to our official class description.

Luv,
Wyn

16 Suggested (and Unlikely) Priest Glyphs

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Image courtesy of Lucretious

We’ve seen evidence of what a few of the new Glyphs look like (lucky Druids). But what exactly would Priest glyphs be? Join me today as I use a combination of mad 8 ball skills, crystal balls, and fuzzy dice to predict what our class Glyphs could look like.

  • Glyph of Strengthened Soul: Empowers a Minor Glyph to reduce your Weakened Soul debuff by 3 seconds.
  • Glyph of Renewed Vigor: Empowers a Major Glyph to return 3% mana of your overall Renew cost per tick.
  • Glyph of the Matrix: Empowers a Major Glyph to grant your Greater Heal a chance to increase a player’s dodge rate by 25% for 3 seconds.
  • Glyph of Angelic Intervention: Empowers a Major Glyph to increase the effects and duration of Power Word: Shield, Prayer of Mending, and Renew by 20% if all 3 spells are present on a target.
  • Glyph of Certainty: Empowers a Lesser Glyph to increase the cast speed of your Flash Heal by 15%.
  • Glyph of Light’s Reach: Empowers a Major Glyph to increase the number of targets healed by Prayer of Healing, Circle of Healing, and Prayer of Mending by 1.
  • Glyph of Penance: Empowers a Minor Glyph to increase extra the duration of Shadow Word: Pain and Holy Fire by 6 seconds.
  • Glyph of Admiral Ackbar: Empowers a Major Glyph to increase all healing effects done by you by 75% if Power Word: Shield is active.
  • Glyph of Fortification: Empowers a Minor Glyph to increase player’s armor by 2000 in addition to the Stamina increase.
  • Glyph of Uncertainty: Empowers a Lesser Glyph to decrease a players movement speed by 20% if affected by Psychic Scream.
  • Glyph of Death’s Grip: Empowers a Lesser Glyph to grant a 3 second stunning effect to Shadow Word: Death and increasing the damage taken by the Priest by 50%.
  • Glyph of Mortal Recognition: Empowers a Major Glyph to grant your healing spells a 50% chance to ignore the Mortal Strike effect on a player.
  • Glyph of Focus: Empowers a Minor Glyph to avoid interruption, ignore silence effects, and reduce silence durations when casting Flash Heal by 20%.
  • Glyph of Veritas: Empowers a Minor Glyph to prevent the next 1000 damage a player absorbs if your Greater Heal or Flash Heal brings the player to full health.
  • Glyph of the Crouching Tiger: Empowers a Lesser Glyph to increase damage done by your weapons by 500%.
  • Glyph of Purity: Empowers a Minor Glyph to allow Dispel to remove an additional debuff or buff from friendly or enemy players respectively.

Don’t forget, these aren’t the real deal (yet). But these are Glyphs I’d love to see for Priests when they’re released although I admit some of these do seem a bit over powered. What about you? What Glyphs would you like to see for your class? Are they serious or just for kicks?

Myth: It Doesn’t Matter As Long as the Boss Dies

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It’s time for a good, old fashioned rant.

“It doesn’t matter, as long as the boss dies.”

Oh, but it does matter. It matters a lot.

It matters if you AFK trash.
It matters if you wipe on a farm-content boss.
It matters if people die unnecessarily.
It matters if the fight drags on for double its usual length.
And it matters because “as long as the boss dies” is the dumbest quote EVER.

Think about it. I understand the need for bio breaks, and taking an announced absence is a perfectly legitimate way to get a drink of water, relieve yourself, and be that much more focused when you return. But when you have a couple of raiders who consistently AFK their way through everything that doesn’t drop loot, it adds stress and resentment to the pressure cooker that is a raid. It’s lazy and inconsiderate. Worse, it sets a terrible example for not just new recruits but everyone else in the guild.

Anyone who’s ever wiped on a “Farm” boss can tell you that it is infinitely frustrating when that happens due to sloppy mistakes and lack of attention. It wastes valuable time, leads to full-on burnout, and can make a guild feel stunted and unsuccessful. Slacking off here can cause major problems, and even if the boss dies on the third try, that’s 30 minutes to an hour of 25 people’s time. Not to mention repair bills, wasted consumables, and loss of morale and momentum.

Okay, so say you didn’t wipe. Say the fight just lasted 12 minutes instead of 7. That’s only 5 minutes extra (Nevermind that it’s really 5×25.) Wrong. When fights double in length, the impact is the same as a wipe, just on a smaller scale. Consumables, cooldowns, and resources are STILL wasted, and more likely than not, players will die needlessly. Not to mention that’s 5 minutes worth of Arrows and Bullets. And you now have a raid-mentality that knows it’s in for a rough night, since the bosses aren’t dying smoothly. Beyond that, if you’re a guild in the position of both farming content AND making progression runs, the sooner you can get the old content finished the more time you can spend on the new stuff. Eating up minutes and hours when you have 14 bosses to get through before you can even get to the fun stuff is “srs biz”.

More than anything, I hate that this quote as it seems to embody the ultimate in epic-greedy laziness. As if there’s no difference between the boss dying in an unspectacular way vs. dying efficiently, with everyone putting out 100%. The reality is at the other extreme – the only thing the two events have in common is the dropping of loot. And if loot, rather than progression and improvement is your focus, I want you the hell out of my raid, out of my guild, off my server, and away from my game. Go play EverQuest with Jimmy.

Luv,
Wyn