Guild goes to Scotland, survivor tell the story

The third annual Tribe LAN has been completed, and all the participants try to recover best they can - it's only a year left until the next one. The previous two meetings was held in Sweden, but this time we invaded Scotland, just like in Braveheart. And we got totally crushed, also just like in Braveheart.

You travel all the way to Scotland and you buy American whisky...

- Heard more than once when a bottle of JD's was sighted.

We from Sweden gathered at the airport and had a few beer as we were waiting for the rest of the people, and then we had some more when they arrived, and some even more with the food (pay more, get less). After that we felt we had to stop, since we didn't know how drunk you had to be to not get on a airplane.

It's fun to see the faces behind the voices, and some can really surprise you as you get your inner pictures and expectations listening to their voice for years. You can have a imagine of some seven feet giant who wrestle with bears for a living and have arms as thick as your thighs, and see some tiny thing that could be your ten year younger brother half starved to death. Or the other way around. Imagination can do funny things.

During the entire LAN we didn't play that much WoW, we were busy doing other things. I can't recall what exactly. Drinking was probably one of them.
We did two groups speed running Karazhan against each other (which my group won of course, protection paladins for teh win) on the first day. I barely remember something about us doing Blackwing Lair late one night. I think we only were around 15 people and we had really fun running around in chaos on Razorgore. When we finally managed to destroy all the eggs and had Razorgore in tank and spank, the encounter bugged a bit and we had orcs respawning again. But down he went, and we barely had time to loot before we wiped on the orcs that piled up. Vaelastrasz would probably also have fallen if we didn't ninja pull him five times as we were positioning.

Other than WoW there was everything that could be expected when our guild comes together. We had drinking, singing, some drama, and plenty of laughter. A tank and a priest had a fight with toothpaste which led to some awkward moments when the cleaning personal showed up on the last day and wondered why there were toothpaste all over the walls.

This was the third annual guild meeting and it was the best so far. What is funny is that every guild meeting we play less and less WoW, next time we probably wont play any WoW at all. Location for the next meeting is under discussion, with Netherlands and Czech Republic as options.

At the writing of this post, no pictures or video have been released on the interwebs. I will see if I can post some harmless pictures when they do. If your looking for the real, hardcore stuff you probably have to be a member of Tribe and confirm that your age is above 16 18 20.

Sandwenches and some wizards

Wizard Sandwenches Wizards and Wenches here reporting live from the beach.

Ok, I'm not really at the beach. I was just looking for a excuse to post a picture of girls in bikini.

I would probably be offended by the ridiculing my blog's name if I weren't baffled why I hadn't seen this one coming. I almost feel like the guy who set up the company Who Represents domain name (this is a true story, you can't make this up) whorepresents.com. Almost.

Since I have got plenty of comments about the name of the blog I thought I would explain the origin a bit. It's what my Age of Conan guild (on Soulstorm EU, gank them when you see them) is called, and fortunately they turned down my name suggestion of "Gutbuster Brigade" (from R.A. Salvatore's books, damn uncultivated plebs!) and went with Wizards and Wenches.

I was planning on doing the homepage for it, as I had done with my World of Warcraft guild (from which most of the members came). I worked out a design, very similar to the one I'm using here now, but didn't get too far on the coding bit. We were looking forward to a bright future of massive siege battles, decapitations, boobs and epic dungeons, but I lost interest in AoC somewhere down the path. Instead I started a blog to air my frustration with AoC and express my yearnings for WAR.

Tomorrow: Scotland and my third annual World of Warcraft guild meeting. Expect amusing stories, frustrating drama, and embarrassing pictures when I return. Who will beat "The Toilet Sleeper" this year?

What do you mean there are no such things as sandwenches?!

WAR's June Newsletter

The June newsletter is being sent out in Europe as we speak. While I await the actual newsletter (damn you Gmail!), some stuff is available on the site.

• Jeff talk about standards and standard-bearers in the video of the month. Basic info about the heraldry and standards presented nicely, but nothing new under the sun.
• The guild Mongbat attack the Mythic keep... er, office, and plant their banner, thus claiming the ke- office as their own. Way to go, now they will never finish the game...
  
• Two new scenarios are explained, with plenty of nice screenshots.
• The White Lion is discussed in the Grab Bag
• The Bastion Stair is being explored, also that with plenty of nice screenshots.

And more.

Talk around the water cooler

WAR guild beta incoming!
Warhammer Alliance reports that beta invites for guilds in EU will arrive within a month.

Free month ended for AoC - stay or cancel?
The free month of Age of Conan has ended, and now it will be revealed if the game have hooked the players, now that they have to pay for subscriptions. Funcom have not spared on the champagne as the game have been very popular and broken a few sales record. In box sales that is. For MMO's it's the constantly paying subscribers that matter.

Massively asks "has AoC has earned your money for another month?", and got some mixed responses, but the "cancelled" people seem to be in favour. Most people who announce they will stay put a lot of faith in improvements. I cancelled a long time ago, and didn't activate my account when the free month ran out. I have not closed the door on the game entirely however, I might try it out in a month or two.

Dancing, in WAR?!
First they say there won't be /dance in WAR, but when we see a list of emotes, what do we see? /dance! Well, actually what it does is saying"[player] refuses to dance", so that's ok. And a future favourite emote: /waaagh

Blizzard will announce a new game? Woot!
While Ron Pardo couldn't answer the rumours of a Diablo 3 during a keynote speech at GDC in Paris, he more than hinted when he said the following:

So you want me to announce the game before our announcement? No offense, but I think there's like 300 people here, and I'll be ripped apart by 8000 people there [at the Invitational] if I pre-announce it - but it's going to be really exciting. I think everybody here will be really excited about the announcement.

From WoW Insider.

What WAR is all about - video
A new video featuring Jeff and Paul talking about what make WAR special, and some really nice quality ingame footage. Embedded below. Thanks Keen and Graev for the find.



Meanwhile in another part of the world...
And around the writer's personal water cooler, the talk is all about my preparations for my three day meeting in Scotland with my WoW guild (third annual) next week. So much whiskey to consume, so little time. It will be awesome.

Trading guilds in WAR

"WTS level 25 guild, two months old, not used much. PST"

In your average MMO, being in a guild is nothing more than a extra chat channel and a guild tag under your name. Some games offer advantages, such as guild housing, guild banks, and taking keeps, but that's nothing that moving to another guild will keep you from doing.

But what happens when your guild is facing trouble and players leave the guild to look for greener pastures? The remaining people log in one day and find that the once glorious guild with a hundred members now lie in ruins with just a dozen people. The remaining people in the guild then have a few options: they can take leadership of the guild and invite new people, hoping that the good name will help them; or they can follow their brethren and quit the guild, finally ending it.

Warhammer Online will introduce guild levelling, where your guild gain experience and levels as the players in it do. Taking your guild to the highest level (40) is not something done overnight, and offer interesting advantages, such as bonuses to your banner, wielded by the standard bearer on the battlefield.

This will maybe offer a new, third option. Christian Bales says in a interview by Massively:

If a guild does experience some sort of upheaval, where it's a very large guild, lots of progression, and it's relatively high level within the guild system, and then it sort of fades away, trickles down and suddenly there's only a very small number of people left, we don't take away any of the benefits they've earned. They keep all of that. It's what they've earned as a guild!

Which means that a guild that's been around for a long time, and have gained the maximum guild level, will be worth something. Players that have been around the guild since the beginning will feel a certain pride and ownership of the guild, and simply leaving the guild to start another might not be as easy as before.

One new possible option, that might or might not be common, is to sell your guild to someone. Levelling up a guild to the cap for all the great benefits take time, and if you have plenty of gold, why not just buy a guild that has all these things? While it's uncertain if you will be able to rename your guild as easily as in Age of Conan, even with a name not of your choosing, taking control of a high level guild will be tempting.

Then there is the possibility of rebellions. People who have been in the guild for long and don't like how it has turned out, seize leadership and remove big parts of the guild. After all, they think, why should the people who levelled the guild have to leave to start a new one? Time will tell how drama friendly the new guild system will be.

<A°)))>< Drama Fish feast on drama.

A End and a Beginning

I recently quit World of Warcraft, and started a new career in Age of Conan. Why?

I started playing in the open beta back in '04. I rolled a paladin and managed to level him to 41 or something before beta closed and we were pushed into retail. That means my first and last characters were paladins, which I find fitting. I have always been drawn to the holy warriors in games. Not that "holy warrior" is no way near a proper description for WoW's paladin.

Over the years since the game launched I have been playing almost non-stop. No farewell posts and staying away from the game until the addiction fever kicked in. I have levelled five characters to 60 (priest, hunter, druid, rogue, warrior) and two characters to 70 (paladin and hunter). That's quite many characters, considering some can play for years with the same. I enjoy the feeling of starting from scratch too much, I have the same problem in most games that include character progression. I don't even want to start talking about my time with Baldur's Gate.

I'm in the perfect guild, which I have been in for soon three years. I also did the website for the guild, design and coding, take a look. Everyone is friendly and mature (in a sense). The average age is quite high, probably somewhere around 25-30 if we ever bothered to check. I started in it with my warrior, then switched to paladin when Burning Crusade was released. And a level 70 hunter alt also in the same guild.
I was class leader for the paladins and officer, so quitting was not something to be done lightly. But raiding has become so mind-numbingly boring, healing on trash in Mount Hyjal and Black Temple is not as exciting as I was thinking before I entered those places.

Then Age of Conan was released, and as I had played the closed beta and experienced the game for a while, I did the easiest thing a gamer addict can do: switch game! My plate and shield wearing paladin in World of Warcraft is now a plate and shield wearing guardian in Age of Conan.
Wrath of the Lich King seems promising, but I will remain cool until I see what they plan to do with the game and paladins if I will ever officially return to WoW. I have play time for another month, so I might pop in and see how it feels.
And then there is Warhammer. The more I read and see about it, the more I want to play it. The guys and girls that is making it really have a Vision (unlike, for example, Age of Conan - they just did a MMO), and I can't wait to experience it.

My guardian is named Leto and is currently playing on EU Soulstorm (PvP). Wave if you see him, or you might find yourself face down in the mud with a red mark the size of my shield in your face.