Naming Violations Rampant

Metaneria points out all the naming violations she sees in-game and wishes Blizzard would do more to control the idiocy and rampant abuse.
http://www.empoweredfire.com/2010/09/02/naming-violations-in-wow/

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Copyright Solo MMO Player at http://solommo.blogspot.com

Blizzard Cracks Down on Inappropriate Names in Arena

Apparently Blizzard has started cracking down on inappropriate names for Arena players and teams.  This is long overdue and should be expanded to PvE.
http://www.empoweredfire.com/2010/05/06/blizzard-inappropriate-names-arena-tournamen/

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Copyright Solo MMO Player at http://solommo.blogspot.com

Guidelines, Conventions and Rules on a Role Play Server

Lissana talks about role play servers, what you can expect there, the conventions, and a link to Blizzard's rules about how to conduct yourself while there.
http://www.restokin.com/2010/03/so-you-want-to-play-on-an-rp-server/

Since this must be Role Play Day*, Gazimoff wrote a long article about role play with a lot of useful links to guides, folks who wrote how to role play articles, and blogs documenting role play experience.
http://manaobscura.gazimoff.com/?p=229

*I think the creation of the Single Abstract Noun guild for bloggers on a role play server has sparked new interest in learning role play conventions, which explains all the new articles.  After all, folks must be looking for things to do while waiting for Cataclysm to arrive and many bloggers have joined Single Abstract Noun on either U.S. (Alliance) or EU (Hoard) servers.

Role Play 101 from WOW Insider.
http://www.wow.com/2010/04/04/all-the-worlds-a-stage-roleplaying-101/

The mechanics of role play vary by server.  Here are some common ways to communicate with other players whether you are out of character or not.
http://www.wow.com/2010/05/09/all-the-worlds-a-stage-the-basic-mechanics-of-roleplay/

UPDATE:  Naming conventions by class with links to help you choose a name that won't get you reported.
http://www.wow.com/2010/05/23/all-the-worlds-a-stage-common-name-conventions/

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Copyright Solo MMO Player at http://solommo.blogspot.com

Gearscore and Why We Love/Hate It (Addons)

Cold Comfort takes a critical look at Gearscore and how it supports the Great Gear Myth.  He points out the variety of gear scores various sites and addons give for the same toon, explains just what Gearscore counts and what it ignores, explains how to game Gearscore, and talks about why Blizzard probably won't ban its use.  This article has links to Gearscore and Gearscore Lite download sites and explains the difference.
http://blog.cold-comfort.org/great-gearscore-debate-09/

Here is part two from Cold Comfort, which looks at the addon Experience which shows character stats, including how many times someone has killed a boss.  He advocates using "experience" as a measure of how much of the game someone has gone through instead of looking at gear, which can come to a player who has not done much in-game through various routes.
http://blog.cold-comfort.org/inexperience-weakness/

If you are feeling particularly silly, you might be interested in Namescore, which rates character names as to legibility, appropriateness and asthetics.
http://www.nostockui.com/2009/10/forget-gearscore-try-namescore/

Dreambound feels pretty much the same way about PUGs as Cold Comfort.
http://dreambound-druid.blogspot.com/2009/10/on-pug-raids-and-gear.html

And yes, I know I've just posted four blog entries about addons.  It seems folks talk about the same topic simultaneously.  Must be something in the Internet....

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Copyright Solo MMO Player at http://solommo.blogspot.com