There was a great post on WoWInsider by Robin Torres that brought up a good point I hadn’t thought of regarding the upcoming cross-realm zone feature. She calls out “fun-suckers”, or griefers, annoying people, whatever you’d like to name them. They exist in various forms and do various annoying things.

If you have ever used the Raid Finder, you know how messed up the loot system is. The unspoken rule is “if you can equip it, roll need.” You can always trade it to someone else for a piece you actually need. The loot system is changing in Mists of Pandaria for the better, but the problem speaks to a bigger point: when you are interacting with people you don’t know and will probably never see again, there isn’t a need to act with their opinions of you in mind. Before cross-realm play, it was problematic if you acted up in a group. Ninja-ing loot or other bad behavior could be reported by others to your guild and it didn’t take long for you to end up on people’s “do not group with” lists. The problem is somewhat addressed by the ignore list currently, as ignoring someone ensures you won’t be matched with them again. However, given the X million players in your region, you aren’t going to be able to block the hundreds of thousands of people you don’t want to play with. After all, the maximum amount of people you can block is one hundred.

With cross-realm zones, ignoring someone won’t make them go away. The system will intentionally create zone “phases” with the same servers over and over so that you are likely to meet the same people over and over. While the potential for griefing is lower in outdoor zones where you aren’t grouped, what do you if someone follows you around, steals your herbs, /spits, ganks your quest mobs, and so forth? You can report such players, but I wonder if the same low standard for behavior we see in the Raid Finder and random battlegrounds will exist in zones now.

Continue Reading

June is LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) month in the US and elsewhere, and Blizzard recognized it with the gayest wallpaper that they have ever released. More importantly, it means that there are going to be lots of gay pride events around the world, including in the World of Warcraft!

Proudmoore Pride has been held every year since WoW’s launch and has been primarily run by The Spreading Taint family of guilds. This year, it will be on June 19th at noon PST. Many, many LGBT-friendly guilds and players take part in Proudmoore Pride from both factions. While I don’t know an exact number, it was easily over 500 last year, perhaps upwards of a thousand, and it has grown extremely quickly year to year, likely faster than the growth of the WoW player base. The Spreading Taint family of guilds alone reports 4,658 unique members have at some point been recorded in one of the guilds over some 12,000 characters. Even if you are not interested in the parade itself, it’s still quite an event to witness this many players in one place.

Players not currently in a guild on the US Proudmoore realm, or who would like to network with the The Spreading Taint on Horde or Stonewall Family on Alliance, can join a temporary guild connected to the other guilds’ chat. Both The Spreading Taint and Stonewall Family are already comprised of several guilds, so visitors fit right it. There are lots of guilds that participate, both Proudmoore and guest guilds from other servers, so if you are looking for an LGBT friendly guild, the parade is a great place to get to know people. The Alliance players start in Theramore and march toward Camp Taurajo, where they meet up with Horde players to march toward Ratchet to take the boat to Booty Bay for a party. If you’ve ever wanted to see a time when Dalaran is empty and you may disconnect from lag in Booty Bay, this may be your only opportunity.
Continue Reading