World of Warcraft

It's been some time I posted on here, folks. College classes can do that when you are very close to graduation.

I love raiding high end instances. I get a physical high from it.

What is it about a guild that breeds cliques , is it the fact that you somehow feel you have a past with these people, are you a bunch of RL friends or co-workers that gather together to get your MMO

Squabbledawg came to Archimonde in search of high adventure and mass griefing of not only his mortal enemy the low down, dirty Horde but also his own kind, the noble Alliance.

A month or so has passed since the release of Wrath of the Lich King.

Trade - the ability to ensure wealth and prosperity throughout the kingdom. Since ancient times trade and professions have been the backbone to any empire. So much so that their presence in MMO’s is not that different. While some MMO titles introduce player-based economies there are some titles that don’t crack the potential of this concept. So how do WOTLK professions stack up with prior builds of the game? Did the development team address the concerns the community had with the profession builds from Burning Crusade? With the recent release of build 8820 on the beta servers we will take an early preview of the professions in WOTLK to see if the development team addressed some of the concerns with the player base.

So what can you do to prevent your raiding guild from falling apart? Here is a list of tips to help strengthen your guild that I will leave with you. This is all from firsthand experience.

In any successful raiding guild within WoW (World of Warcraft), you are going to encounter bosses, and all bosses drop pretty purple loot, all players want this colorful loot because it allows you to progress to the next boss and get more loot. It all sounds like a vicious circle and maybe it is, but it makes complete sense to those of us that are encircled and so inclined. Where the problems start within raiding guilds is twofold, the first is when the majority of the main-raiders get bored, switch to a new game, have RL issues, take a break from raiding completely or just plain quit the game; and the second reason is when a certain few raiders are completely geared out of an instance and ready to move on, while the rest of the raid is still working on their gear.

Let's be real here. WoW has had some competion to derail it as the current number one champion of MMO's on the market and to this day the contenders have failed. But while the next-gen MMO has not come to the market yet to dethrone WoW at this time there is an increase in the player base in WoW that is starving for something new in WoW or another MMO that will provide it to them. While asking around with various players in both the current realms and in WOTLK closed beta I started to see a list of subject matters that are on the top of most WoW players' wishlist to expand their experience in WoW. Take notes as these weak areas, if corrected, can help build more loyal players in a already 4+ year old MMO.

We all learn to love and hate the Paladin over time. When WoW was released the Paladin was the overpowered class during the early years. I remember those times as every Horde complained about the damage Seal of Crusader put out against them. In case you were in the dark during this period, Seal of Crusader was designed to increase attack speed, but reduce damage while in use. Well, the problem was that there was a bug that prevented the Crusader from lowering the damage, thus causing all Paladin players to just spam Crusader and hack away at their targets at lightning speed. It was fixed, of course, along with other Retribution talents. But soon the Paladin felt less powerful - but not in terms that the class was fixed, but more that it felt underpowered when fighting anything. It became clear when you leveled a Paladin from 1-60 as it became long and frustrating. This plagued the Paladin until the class revamp during Burning Crusade. It did feel better when leveling, but not to the point of DPS output compared to other melee classes. With this, Paladins have been looked down on as a solid DPS class, but rather just a healer with armor. This attitude towards the Paladin has focused the class as only fitting the role of a Holy healer or as an off-tank spec such as Protection. Even joining a 5-man dungeon, the Paladin was still looked at as a non-DPS class. One of my first characters I created when WoW was released was a Paladin. Going from a DPS role down to being forced as a healer, well it saddened me. Nothing against healing and helping out, but I just don’t like being forced to heal or off-tank just to get into a party or raid cause everyone views the Paladin when it comes to melee and says, “DPS? Dude it just sucks”. With the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion, I wonder, just like every other Paladin player, "How will the Paladin perform now with its new talents in the expansion for the Retribution tree?"