So this entry is officially the last one to be graded...with that in mind, I guess the appropriate topic is when players quit the game

It's not all that difficult to see players quit WoW...some people just get bored of the game while others are simply overwhelmed by real-life obligations (job, fiance, etc).

Few good-bye posts from my server, Ner'zhul
Emotive
Emotive was a well-respected mage...he has been around since WoW came out ~3 years ago and have been active. He was also ranked one of the best in Arena

Guild "Lost Anarchy"
Lost Anarchy was one of the top guilds on server until they disbanded due to guild dramas...most of the members either transferred to different servers or simply quit the game

Walle
Similar to Emotive, he was also one of the best (and most respected) players on Ner'zhul, whos been playing since WoW came out...

It's probably easy to think "Ok so what's the big deal? They're quitting a silly online game...woopy doo"
However, it's easy to get very attached to the game...you meet friends, spend hundreds of hours building up your character, quest together with friends, etc...for some folks, WoW has become a huge part of their life. Sympathies from other players certainly attest to this--they understand that it's not easy quitting WoW, so they are compelled to bid final farewell to their friend.
I also see various ex-guild members (who quit WoW) still posting on my guild forums to keep in touch with their old friends. Although we may no longer play WoW together, they still like socializing and even trying to find other games to play together (mainly Nintendo Wii hehe).

On a rather comical side to this somewhat sad phenomenon, its also not surprising to find players come back to WoW. In fact, some of my guild members are talking about coming back once again---they usually talk about how they had to fight the urge to come back but ultimately losing the (futile) battle *giggle*...one particular member (without mentioning names) actually vowed to work ridiculous # of hours per week to occupy himself (and hopefully not play WoW)...however, after few months, he couldn't resist the temptation and came back to play (although he doesn't play as much anymore, he's just probably more interested in keeping touch with guildies more).

I was watching a WoW video (created by another player) today and came across this quote
"If it hadn't been for fun people I met, I wouldn't be playing this game"
And I completely agree--it's really the people that makes me continue to play this game...even if I lose interest in game itself, I will probably stick around to socialize



I don't really want my last blog graded blog topic to be somber, so here's somewhat cheerful anecdote

SIDENOTE: On forums, there's a internet phenomenon called RICKROLL...it's basically user suckers others into clicking a link, only to be directed to THIS VIDEO. In fact, it got so popular that Blizzard banned RICKROLLING on its forums

Here's a pretty nice explanation of what Rickroll is
Credit to ROCKETBOOM


And here's a real-life application of rick roll
Credit to onethousand98


So now that you know what Rickrolling is...here's a funny anecdote of a player who Rickrolls a GM (Game Master, they usually deal with in-game problems)...CLICK HERE


And as a final note...
THANK YOU GOOGLE

There is really no specific theme for tonight...just few "random" WoW related sites

New leaked photos of upcoming WoW expansion: Wrath of the Lich King!!!
I guess I should mention what expansions are here...
It's not unusual to find expansions for computer games...what expansion packs do (in this case, WoW) is that it adds more to the game...for WoW, expansion will introduce many new zones, bosses, items, spells, skills, new level cap of 80, etc. This is actually fruitful because it gives established fan base reason to come back (and that means steady revenue source) also gives an opportunity to attract new customers...also, because Blizzard has already established a Warcraft Lore, they can simply develop new heroes/villains without having to come up another storyline from scratch...needless to say, I'm anxiously looking forward to this expansion :)

A guild manages to kill 25-man raid boss with just 8 people
If you recall my earlier post about raiding, its usually accomplished by 25 people...Gruul (the boss mentioned in the site) is Tier 4 boss (aka probably the easiest raid boss in WoW). Another previously mentioned guild, Nihilum, once managed to defeat Gruul with just 15 people (and I say "just" because when they did it, not many guilds progressed passed Gruul...so the overall gear quality was weak). Now, because numerous guilds have passed Gruul and ventured into the Black Temple (tier 6), they're pretty much OVERGEARED for Gruul, but I guess they wanted to see how many people they had to use to kill Gruul...I might suggest this to my guild if we can be bothered :D

Wow accounts for sale
It's not unusual to find people get bored of WoW...rather than letting their WoW subscription die, many people opt to sell their accounts...some of the really geared accounts can fetch a lot of money (and we're talking few hundred dollars in real life money) since it takes a LOT of time to build a character up...the cheapest level 70 character (level 70 is the cap--you cannot level past 70) were ~$100 because they pretty much had no gear...
Account trading/selling/buying isn't just ubiquitous in WoW--basically ANY MMORPG games (some of WoW's rivals like Everquest 1/2, EVE online, etc) have account tradings

A nice chart showing how WoW's competitors are doing
Not much I can say on this matter...as you can see, WoW is simply dominating the market...

Funny WoW related license plates :)
Part 2 :)
Pretty self explanatory...TRANSLATION:
NUBL2P - Noob/Newbie...learn to play (very frequently used phrase in WoW hehe)
WOWMAGE - There are mages in WoW :p
LFGPST - Looking For Group Please Send Tell (aka I'm looking to group up for [insert dungeon name or other group activity], please message me)
LFGUBRS - Looking For Group for Upper Black Rock Spire, which is one of many dungeons/instances in WoW
WTFNOOB - Uh...do I need to explain this one? :p
GGNOOB - Good Game Noob (phrase mentioned in my earlier blog post)

WoW themed cake!!! Yummy.
Cake for the Horde!!!!!!
Some fans decided to make really cool looking cakes that resemble Alliance/Horde flag...just to refresh your memory, you have to decide if you want to be part of the Alliance (simply by picking Night Elf, Dwarf, Human, Draenai or Gnomes) or the Horde (Undead, Tauren, Orc, Troll or Blood Elf) when you create your character...Horde and Alliance have never been friends...they're always in conflict

And last but not least...
Wikipedia for WoW...Wowwiki!!!

So from my blog posts, I was hoping to convey how modern computer games (WoW, which is arguably the most popular computer game at the moment) have evolved into a very social game with multiple features in the game that foster social aspects.

Now we come to one of the most interesting "spawns" of WoW--internet forums

It's basically a place where WoW players gather and post msgs and/or respond to msgs by other players...

The official site is HERE

You will initially be greeted by types of forums you can browse--WoW General, Realm forums (for your own realm), class forums, etc etc etc. On the forums, you can opt to post on your "main" (or the character you play with most often), your "alt" (alternative character you play...after all, playing only a single player all the time might get boring) or "forum troll", meaning some really low level character you post on to flame (internet lingo for posting inflammatory comments and such...generally just acting really rude behind anonimity that internet offers). Because each character is such a huge investment (in terms of time, in-game money, etc), you can easily develop a positive or negative reputation on the forums...this is especially true if you post on your own realm forums since only residents of that realm will likely carouse realm forums...people talk about anything, whether it's guild recruitment (example found here), message directed a specific person/people/guild (example found here), bartering (example found HERE), technical in-game how-tos (example found HERE), a request for in-game change of mechanics (example found HERE)...the list goes on

Sadly, the general forums are filled with really whiny posts....and derogatory comments...all because people have anonimity thanks to the power of internet. I personally stopped visiting the general forums because the amount of garbage was pretty astounding...I like to frequent my realm forums to see what some players and guilds are upto--how far are they in raiding? did anyone quit the game? any guilds recruiting?

Because we're essentially a small community, it's very easy to keep in touch with each other through the realm forums...

There was once a poor guy who wanted attention on our forums (his character name is Thunderkitty)...so he began posting a lot of useless, spam threads that basically annoyed everyone
THIS THREAD just kind of shows how much of negative reputation he developed...prior to this, I still don't know how, but somehow people found out his Myspace and posted photos of him, calling him names and such


Strangely enough, forums developed its own LANGUAGE (jokingly known as NERD language...after all, this is all possible since English is like an OPEN SYSTEM)
Some of the acronyms:
LOL - Laughing out loud (aka "haha")
WTB/WTS/WTT - Want to buy/sell/trade
WTF - What the ****
DIAF - Die in a fire
PST - Please Send a Tell (aka msg me)
FFS - For ****'s sake
QQ - Synonym for whine...it's because QQ kind of looks like someone crying (it's really hard to explain this via text)

So some of the more common phrases could be something like
"WTB Social Life, PST" (since a stereotypical gamer has no social life)
"(Angrily or jokingly directed at a player) FFS, go DIAF"
"This game is such a timesink QQ!"
"LOL WTF"
"HI2U QT" (Hi to you cutie)

You wouldn't really know how a nerd talks like unless you know one, but overall I find the whole gamer/nerd language to be fun...it's constantly changing and evolving as we speak...sometimes a new word is born

For instance
..
In Starcraft, it's pretty customary for a player to say GG (Good Game) after a match...because I said GG so much when I was playing Starcraft...so sometimes in real life, I find myself muttering "GG" after certain events

Another famous example...in a shooting game called Counter-Strike, players used the word OWNED to indicate how they've won
e.g. "He got owned" or just "OWNED. (When someone dies)"
However, a player accidentally typed PWNED (since O and P are adjacent to one another on a typical keyboard) and people actually started to use the word PWNED rather than OWNED...soon, PWNED turned into PWNT...and now it's a pretty common word used by gamers


Unfortunately it's really difficult for me to explain how gamers interact on the web--it's just wayy too complex...I hope I gave a pretty good example of how we talk on the net :D

Now we finally get to the 2nd biggest aspect of WoW: PvP (Player vs player, where players basically just fight each other rather than computer-controlled units)

Here's a really long (and arguably nerdy) article on evolution of WoW PvP system:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17820

I'm going to try to keep the explanation simple...


Basically, when the game first game out, there was no "PvP" system...you either played on realms where you were free to engage opposing faction at any time (You have to pick either the Alliance, which basically appeals to the mass market with races like Gnomes...Night Elves...Humans...Dwarves...Draenei, or Horde, which includes the Undead, Tauren, Orc, Troll and Blood Elves) on PvP realms or if you wanted to be left alone and quest, you had to play on PvE realms

Just to clarify, on PvP realms, world PvP (where people just fight each other in the world with no real purpose or goals) is encouraged...whereas in PvE realms, you can't freely attack opposing faction like in PvP realms


With that out of the way...Blizzard realized that PvP was a very popular activity, so they wanted to implement reward/progression system related to PvP....along came Honor system

In other words, if you kill any member of opposing faction (because you can't kill members of your own faction), then you receive honor...honor is then used as a currency for you to buy PvP gear...with that, now there was PROGRESSION and COMPETITION for players, which is what really makes games fun--if there is nothing to look forward to, then why should you continue to play the game? Not to mention, everyone loves a bit of competition :)

Throughout the course of the game, Blizzard implemented more features to cater to players that thrived in PvP environment--Battle Groups where massive groups duked out in a map, world PvP objectives and rewards, and finally, Arena, where players form teams of 2/3/5 and fight against other players.


Again, I'm going to say that I cut out a LOT of details because it could've gotten quite extensive and boring...however, one PvP system, Arena, is worthy of more attention

Sidenote: I should have mentioned this, but in the game there are 9 classes total, each being able to specialize in 3 types of talents...so for instance, there are the heavy-armor wielding Warriors, who could specialize in Protection (absorbing damage), Fury (Pumping out maximum damage with double weapons) or Arms (The most popular talent set up for PvP)...there are also leather wearing Rogues, who likes to specialize in stealthing and ambushing enemies...basically, if you look hard enough, you will eventually find a play style you like since there are basically 27 to choose from

Arenas are THE MOST competitive PvP system there is--you have to form the right combination of teams and practice to succeed...more successful your team is, more arena points (similar to honor, its the currency to buy arena PvP gear, which is the best PvP gear there is in the game) you can get, better gear you can get sooner, etc. There are "flavors of the month," meaning hackneyed setups that seemingly EVERYONE seem to use due to explosion of popularity...what does this really mean? Does it mean that the game isn't balanced enough?

Interestingly enough, Blizzard occasionally steps in and makes adjustments to classes, but what usually happens is that these popular setups usually fade away and another popular setup comes into light...in other words, the game sort of balances itself out because as a new popular setup comes into light, counters-strategies are formed and in comes even "better" team setups...

Blizzard recently started to sponsor official Arena competitions with real cash prizes...more information found HERE. In the end, WoW caters to those who enjoy PvE (aka raiding bosses) and those that enjoy shooting laser at other players faces (metaphorically speaking).


And of course, here are few random videos, showcasing what Arena is like
Credit to Warcraftbabii:


Credit to Masterbrax1:



If you remember my earlier blog post, the most popular WoW video website was THIS ONE...some of the most respected and skilled players tend to record themselves and publish it on the website for entertainment and educational (aka novices can watch how the "pros" do it) purposes...then they can visit websites dedicated to WoW arena such as THIS (probably the most frequented WoW arena website) to discuss strategies and such...

That's the gist of PvP environment of WoW :)

APRIL FOOL'S DAY!


This post isn't strictly gaming related, so to speak, but Blizzard always has some April Fool's jokes and such...so here are some of AFD stuff :)

Blizzards new game!? SNAP

New hero/class for WoW

Ah yah, Tauren Marine in SC2!!!

Diablo loot table adjustment keke

Flying Penguins! (not game related but I found it to be amusing)


WoW insider's coverage of AFD

WoW insider's recap of past Blizzard's AFD jokes

Nihilum, world's #1 (and Blizzard even acknowledged them) guild, has their fun with AFD

Zelda Movie!? (IGN's AFD)