 This is a must-read from a self-described ‘geek feminist’. If you have any issues with the term ‘feminist’ then replace it with ‘critic’, and read the post. My longer-term readers will know I can get fairly upset and vocal about harassment and the poor treatment of women in guilds. Related posts from me include parents who play WoW and relationships in-game. The first article includes a link out to empoweredfire, related to guys treating women poorly in-game because they hide Mine hates gaming, not WoW per se, but all computer games. “It’s not productive.” I knew a guy who was really into golf. He went for a two week golf holiday, leaving his pregnant wife at home while he travelled to Scotland. Then, all year, he played golf every Saturday morning (at least), for what four hours or however long 18 holes takes, and would try to do some swings most mornings. He was more addicted to golf than I’ve been reflecting a little on how strongly I identify myself as being a WoW player. There are a few dimensions to it. Do you admit to being a gamer? Many players do not admit they play WoW to their non-gaming friends. If the friend isn’t a gamer, they might not understand, and it’s often easier to just be silent on the matter. If they’re a workmate, depending on your job, it could be career-limiting to tell them you’re The other day I was remembering how I played WoW with my baby son asleep in my arms. I think he was no older than a year. My wife would feed him, then go to sleep exhausted early in the evening, and I’d stay up with him. Sometimes in my arms, or once he was truly asleep I’d move him into the cot. Generally the little fella would wake two or three hours later, and I’d stop gaming, wake March 19th, 2010 | 18 comments |
 From: General chat |  Tags: allods online, parent gamer, parents, relationships, women, wow love As you know, I just got forums going. That took quite some time to implement, and a lot of planning and thinking beforehand. I wasn’t playing WoW then but was doing stuff for it, or about it. How much time do you think Tekkub, Shadowed, Shazear, ‘Kahorie‘ or Ciderhelm spend with their addons, Rawr, simulator or official fan site? How about the time Whitetooth invested in calculating the diminishing returns and cap on miss? A remarkable thing about WoW It’s pretty mortifying to type /played. If you want, log on your alts and check them too, or better yet: get the Altoholic addon which does it for you (amongst other more important features, like searchable banks and gold, all alts’ talents and such). Because I played on EU realms for two years, I’m missing a lot of hours on my Altoholic summary. I can’t log onto those characters to add their time, and to be frank I have I was thinking today about which class, or classes, I totally avoid playing. I have interest in my DK (obviously) and my Druid alt (resto). I have loved and raided with a Hunter, Warlock, Paladin and Mage. Only the Mage is on my new realm, the others are inactive now on my former EU realm, but I’d play those classes if I didn’t have to level new ones. I’ve played a Rogue to L33 or so, pretty fun really Blizzard, in the developer chat, has asked the tank community for some discussion and feedback on whether threat is fun. Q. You talk a lot about changing how we heal tanks, but will aggro ever come back as a challenging part of the game? A. Not sure. This is something we discuss a lot. I even had a meeting on it this week! On the one hand, some tanks really felt like the way to This endeavour is to make a film about raiding. Below is an HD promotional video made, featuring Darksend from Tankspot, and others. You can pledge a few dollars to help get a real film produced about our hobby by clicking on this mini-ad: Youtube video embedded after the break. First, Frost Lotus rate up 50%. Now, Frost Lotus for free from frozen orbs. I bet every orb on your AH is already sold by profiteers ahead of the market. They vendor for 5g. I have always sold mine. News. Now they’re worth something… lotus was 60g, 50% more of them should make them 40g, flooding from orbs should make them 10 to 20g, which means a flask will cost 15g or so and not be profitable. Clever AH entrepreneurs will February 20th, 2010 | 19 comments |
From: Cataclysm speculation before Beta, News discussion | Tags: free epics, gold, market, wow love Sure, Unholy’s fairly weak for tanking, but does it matter? The usual argument I hear, a flawed one at that, is “you pay your $15, you choose your spec”. That is true in a solo game. In a raid, no, you should pick a good spec that works, or you impact the other 9 or 24 people’s ability to progress. If you want to pick a useless spec, go play solo. That said, Unholy tank is not useless. It A few moments yesterday made me smile at Blizzard’s cleverness, and one wtf moment you might help me puzzle out. This quest text is brilliant. I laughed out loud. quest: adding injury to insult This quest was on my druid alt (resto/boom), now L68 and enjoying Northrend. I just started him up since I’m happy with where I’ve got Gravity up to. I only need a new cloak and trinket now for Gravity, other upgrades I’ll get from I just hit 80 on my re-roll DK, Industry. I enjoyed it as much as levelling my first DK, Gravity. Such a great class. Saw quite a few quests I hadn’t ever done before, which I really enjoyed. Hadn’t levelled to 80 on a Horde before, so there were new camps and questlines I’d never seen. Spec’d into a 5-man heroic blood spec and a DW frost dps spec. Have bought myself a few epics (tank ring, bracers and A little while ago, wow.com published a touching story about a couple who found each other in-game and fell in love. Since yesterday I posted on motivations, this story came to my mind. A few thoughts related to this are around the social aspects of gaming, guild management, relationships and the bonds that bring people together within a guild.
Nick Yee developed a four-page assessment. It doesn’t take long to complete. It rates you against 3200 other players, so it’s statistically valid, and measures you on three dimensions of why you game: achievement, socialisation and immersion. Each of these are driven by sub-factors, so within achievement are: mechanics, advancement and competition. As you’d imagine, I scored highly on mechanics because truly I love analysis and theory and how this game works. I think this is self-profile worth doing, October 4th, 2009 | 2 comments |
From: Guild management | Tags: addiction, motivation, nick yee, player, wow love Sometimes the quest storyline really makes me smile. Just completed the Hemet series in the Basin, and he’s out bragging to the guy by the campfire. Have a read. One of my favourite things about World of Warcraft. One of the reasons I came back to WoW for it, after a brief hiatus in Eve (wrote a guide, needs a maintainer btw). Something that makes me smile while doing old content. Two things actually. (1) Blizzard’s 3D model movements, graphic design quality, attention to detail and creativity, and (2) their sense of humour. The Marmot quest was one example, I mentioned in the opener on levelling spec post, but the other day this really made me grin. You get to wear a costume. Look at the design detail and thought put into this element of the game which occupies just a tiny corner of the world, and earns you 20K exp, and is then over. You do keep a smile and the memory of it, but yet what a lot of effort Blizzard put into such a passing thing. Apparently, it was originally a Blizzcon goodie, so sure, the investment of 3D time was for a greater purpose than this quest, but they used it nevertheless and makes this quest really shine. It truly is a great example of one reason I enjoy WoW. Have a close look. They have even a custom animation for its movement, including the eye boggling about. Many of you might be familiar with the incredible, voluminous and precise research carried out under the Daedalus Project, by Nick Yee. The researcher looked at MMOs for ten years before finally ceasing, just recently. His work on burn-out shows raid leaders that it’s largley inevitable, and guild member turnover is therefore a factor you simply need to accept and manage. Nick’s research is still available to peruse, and it’s a gigantic library of primary research mostly gathered through June 13th, 2009 | 5 comments |
From: Guild management, Raid leadership in general | Tags: addiction, burnout, casual, player, recruitment, wow love |
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Married to WoW, or do you date other games?
I was wondering this morning how many of us only play WoW; compared to playing a few games or possibly a few MMOs. Five years I’ve been playing Warcraft.
Five years.
That’s a long time.
I haven’t played much of any other games at all the whole time.
No other games, really
I tried Eve for a short time, wrote a guide on how to play it for other former WoW players. After a while though, I missed the
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