News and Opinion

Quick tip: If you ever want to add raid icons in chat, surround the icon name with the squiggly brackets.

For example:
{moon} or {square}

Not sure how useful it might be, but enjoy =).

Here’s a few of my initial thoughts and impressions:

• Omen: I like the way it looks, but I can’t seem to get it to function for me. Maybe it’s because I’m a healer. But I don’t get any bars of any sort.
• WoWAce Updater makes my life easier for dealing with addons
• Sunwell Island is an absolute mess. It’s amazing that my server’s hit 50%. Wait, is that part timed or is it just the unlocking of the last 3 raid bosses?
• The quickest way to Mt Hyjal is to go to the World’s End Tavern in Lower City and talk to Zephyr who teleports you there directly. Although I do believe a certain amount of rep is required.
• The badge vendor is available during phase 3, from what I heard.
• Chat window appears to be buggy. No matter how many times I try, Guild Chat does not stay in one window. It appears in two. So does /say, /party and all the others. I tried disabling Prat but that seems to do nothing.
• Need help with the new daily quests? Look no further than Siha’s guides.
• Having an extra tier token drop is really nice.
• 10 gold per boss kill is nice.
• As are the 2 badges per boss. All of a sudden, getting 150 badges doesn’t seem so difficult anymore.
• Primal Nether is going at a rate between 60 – 90 gold and there are no vortexes on the auction house as of yet.
• There are always people who don’t read patch notes and resort to asking in trade, general, or guild chat incessantly about things that are blatantly stated in patch notes. I want to shoot these people.
• Magister’s Terrace appears to be the first anti-Paladin tank instance.
• My Ret Paladin got some decent upgrades without having to do anything.
• Going to set up a Pickup Group for Mag’s Lair on Saturday consisting of mostly Guildies and their alts. Hopefully we can one shot "Bagtheridon".
• Recount keeps asking me if I want to reset data every time I enter a new area.
• Came quite close to lashing out at a Guild mate. A friend said in Guild Chat that "raiding on patch days are a pain". Somehow, that earlier Guildie took it as a sign that there wasn’t going to be a raid today and decides to AFK AV. He comes back and is dismayed to find that there is a raid and no one told him about it and proceeds to lash out at said friend because he seems to think it was their fault. I never had respect for the guy in the first place. His rank is that of a Backup Raider, not a starter. So he has no right to complain even if he doesn’t get.
• I seem to have installed a new UI addon which has my name in yellow on the bottom left with yellow bars on a black background, and a black bar on the bottom right with an icon of a white sleepy alien-like thing. In the middle, I have another similarly striped black bar which has my name and functions as a targetting bracket. I don’t know what this addon is and it’s impeding my chat boxes. I can’t seem to right click or find the icon for it anywhere near the minimap and I have no idea what it’s called. Does anyone have an idea?

Matt’s note: Not WoW Related. Can mark as read.

I had just finished class and was on my way home. I’m waiting at one of the university bus loops and I see an ad taped to the glass pane on the bus shelter. I told a friend of mine to take a picture of it and send it to me later. You can’t say he hasn’t attracted interest though. It looks like he’s got at least 3 takers. I wonder if this method actually works.

It’s that time again! The Chamber of Guilds has undergone a recently management shuffle and this will be the inaugural meeting of a new moderator by the name of Gertrudis. Here’s a quick overview of one of their meetings that I have done in the past on cliques.
For those that might not be aware, the Chamber of Guilds is a gathering of some of the top minds in Guild leaders and officers exchanging ideas. This conference takes place both live on ventrilo and in game so that everyone has a chance to participate. Typically, these conferences last no more than 3 hours.

Roundtable is a cross-server, cross-faction guild that allows past, present, and future guild leaders/officers get together and discuss any issues that they may be experiencing and see how other guilds deal with it. Everything from guild involvement and events to instances and loot is discussed. This is more a “Chamber of Commerce” type situation where we exist to provide information and discussion. How you apply that to your guild, is completely up to you.

Date and time: March 29, 11 AM PST (1 PM CST, 2 PM EST)
Location: You’ll need to make an account there first, I believe. But it takes place on a WoW

There’s been several topics that have been posed for discussion for everyone involved.

• Sharing the load: Creating meaningful officer roles and delegating responsibility
• What makes a great guild website?
• Marketing your guild: How to attract the “right” recruits
• How do I get them to turn down the suck? Encouraging player improvement in the casual raiding guild

All of those are excellent topics and could serve as a future foundation for blog posts for me. I highly encourage you whether or not you are in a position of power to attend the Chamber of Guilds. Meet people and exchange ideas.

For those that might not be able to attend, I’ll be there liveblogging the entire event mostly taking down notes and thoughts from contributors.

EDIT: If you’re interested, you’ll want to look at this thread on their forums for information on how to join.