Guildwatch Wednesday Features Loot Auction --and Pussikat

So you are on a PUG raid and all of a sudden the raid leader starts auctioning off access to the loot....

This and other creative ways to cause angst and frenzy are in yesterday's Guildwatch, including a death knight named Pussikat who is supposed to have insulted guild members and posted a porn link somewhere (on the guild's website) and got reported to the police for harrassment. Details are unclear and/or lacking but somehow I don't want to know.

Let me quote Mike the Guildwatch columnist on this one: "Puzzler for the Day: Banefire over on Icecrown is an Alliance guild. So riddle me this, Batman, asks our tipster: why does their Thorim kill pic have Horde totems in it? What exactly are we missing there? (Edit: they changed it. We figured they would.)" Certainly not too many people on the Solo MMO Player's realm like to read but this might be noticed by visitors, don't you think?
http://www.wow.com/2009/07/01/guildwatch-paydirt-in-the-drama-mine/

Otherwise there is a lot of downing instances and recruiting but nothing on the Solo MMO Player's realm.

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

Gear Comparison Tools (Does This Sword Make Me Look Fat?)

I Sheep Things had trouble choosing gear and I wrote a comment to help that I was unable to post on the IST blog. I'll repeat what I said here in case this summary article helps someone.

Gear comparisons aren't exactly easy. I've got a bunch of sites that help, but figuring out the one that works best for you means looking at them all. But there they are.

The addon PAWN does a great job but it is quite complex to set up. You have to input scale tags into it to make it work. (i.e., Math!) You can look up all the scale tags I've managed to find by using the search box at the top left with the term "scale tags." PAWN can be downloaded via Curse.

I've heard Lootzor does the same thing without having to use an addon.
http://www.lootzor.com/

WOWhead has an item comparison tool.
http://www.wowhead.com/?compare

Gearwish List lets you find the gear you should have.
http://gear-wishlist.appspot.com/

Feral druids can use the Druid Wiki's gear methodology.
http://druid.wikispaces.com/ToskksDPSGearMethod

Character Planner helps you plan the gear you want.
http://www.chardev.org/

And this site lets you see what loot your character can use, which is another nice planning tool. Click on your class icon to get started.
http://www.wow-loot.com/

I hope all this helps. Figuring this out isn't easy which is probably why I Sheep Thing's guild mate got frustrated trying to explain their reasoning why this article is better than the other one in this situation.
http://www.isheepthings.com/blog/ups-and-downs/

Browse various realms, their players and their gear, or try on various combinations of gear/talents/enhancements/buffs/gems/ to see how stats change.
http://www.warcrafter.net/

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She Broke My Heart in the Trailer Park So I Deleted Her Stupid Warlock

WOW Insider introduces Yumfries' "Innkeeper," a sad song to lost romance. Very polished and very funny!
http://www.wow.com/2009/06/26/wow-moviewatch-innkeeper/

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Virtual Worlds Documentaries ("Another Perfect World" and "Second Skin")

We Fly Spitfires saw this documentary about MMORPGs on British TV, then found it on YouTube for us to enjoy. Note this is over an hour long.
http://blog.weflyspitfires.com/2009/06/25/another-perfect-world-watch-it-here/

Another documentary called "Second Skin" will be out on DVD and in some theaters next August. Kotaku has a five minute section up on their site.
http://kotaku.com/5304805/second-skin-coming-to-dvd-in-august

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Sargeras' Guild Application Goes Awry

Sargeras has been invited to join a guild, but first he has to fill out his guild application. Even Lords of Destruction have to do paperwork occasionally!
http://www.cwsargeras.com/2009/06/my-first-guild-application.html

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Karthias Speaks: Raid Mechanics

Andrew at Of Teeth and Claw analyzes the mechanics of raid encounters, using WOW as an example.
http://teethandclaws.blogspot.com/2009/06/anatomy-of-raid-encounter.html

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Guildwatch on Thursday!

All the upcoming patch 3.2 news didn't cancel Guildwatch Wednesday, it just moved it to Thursday this week. The drama this week is mostly guilds splitting up and reforming, and there are recruiting and instance-finishing guilds galore (none on the Solo MMO Player's realm, naturally) but the highlight this week is still the guy advertising on the trade channel that he's selling his guild.
http://www.wow.com/2009/06/24/guildwatch-system-error-beep-bop/

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Latency Effects (and Strategies to Minimize) UPDATED

The Hunting Lodge's Wertez tries to chart how latency effects hunter shot rotation. Surprise! DPS is effected by lag....
http://www.brigwyn.com/2009/06/24/1261/

UPDATE: Wertez has added a second posting about lag/latency with strategies to minimize any latency you might get in-game with hardware and software and addon tweeks. Note that his tips are for Windows machines mostly.
http://www.brigwyn.com/2009/06/25/where-does-lag-come-from/

UPDATE #2: Wertez demonstrates the use of Traceroute to check your realm latency and to look at latency of various realms if you plan a transfer.
http://www.brigwyn.com/2009/06/28/how-many-hops-does-it-take-to-get-to-the-tootsie-roll-center/

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Whose Side Are You On, Boys? Whose Side Are You On?

The Solo MMO Player was traveling to a shared Alliance/Horde city today, playing as his Tauren druid, when a Level 55 Blood Elf started tagging along.

The Blood Elf made chicken noises, laughed at the Solo MMO's huge cow druid, brushed up against him and farted, etc. during the entire ten minute trip. The Solo MMO Player said and did nothing as befits a stoic bovine druid. He and the taunting Blood Elf arrived in the destination city and an Alliance player promptly shot two arrows at the Blood Elf and killed him.

The Solo MMO Player resurrected the Blood Elf who said, "Oh. I thought you were Alliance. Sorry." Then he skipped off to make chicken noises somewhere else.

Once the Solo MMO Player stopped laughing, I asked him to look up the Level 55 Blood Elf and see if he belongs to a guild. He does. It's fairly small but it does have three Tauren players, including the guild master who is a Tauren druid....

Any wonder longtime players are quitting in droves when mid-level characters can't tell who belongs to their faction? If you hang around, you will kill yourself falling out of your chair laughing.

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BBB Keeps on Tanking

Big Bear Butt Blogger describes how he tanks with his feral bear in the Culling of Stratholme instance.
http://thebigbearbutt.com/2009/06/22/just-keep-tanking-just-keep-tanking/

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