Ah, drama. Sorry for our long absence from posting, but we’ve been busy doing other things that are less dramatic than this site requires. However, Uldum, that most wayward of backwater realms, has really stirred up the Hornet’s nest. Now it’s long been true that self-styled “High-End” raiding guilds are competitive with one another; some directly, some indirectly. So what happens when the furthest-progressed raiding guild on Uldum-Alliance, Poor Play, manages to bring the Iron Fist of Justice to Illidan? Well, the other progressed guilds on Uldum, especially the Horde guilds, start sniping at each other. It begins, as it always does, with an innocent recruitment post from Gentlemen’s Club, the most progressed Horde guild on the server:

LF healing Priest/Resto Shaman

Sounds innocent, no? Well, it’s not long before the trolls start in:

Lolwutlol:

“Oh crap! Time for any guild not as far progressed as GC to hold onto there members! Here comes the Nova-like poaching of the ‘’gearing up'’ guilds. Somethings never change. “

And then we get the tired, weak defenses:

Ztorm:

Meh, it’s not like we’re posting recruitment threads on the forums of other guilds lol. With recruitment as hard as it is, we’re just trying to get the word out to those skilled players who may have slid through the cracks =).

Some arbitrary, player-specific sniping by low-level alts:

Dek:

Q u o t e: Things that make you go Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm……………

——————————————————————————–

Here’s Sirloine for you.

Last 30 Days: 37% of raids
Last 60 Days: 37% of raids
Last 90 Days: 41% of raids
Lifetime (02/12/07 - 10/07/07): 45% of raids

Quite a stelar raiding track record….maybe they should take you off our hands.

And then we had back to some quality complaining about poaching by anonymous cowards:

Yurtray:

42. Re: LF healing Priest/Resto Shaman | 10/23/2007 04:51:42 AM PDT

Why isnt this thread just in SB’s recruitment thread,since we all know they have the only other attuned priests on the server…what cracks skilled players fell through ,no one outside of GC knows…..

Things devolve much further below the break.

Continue reading…

Blizzcon is over, and what an event it was. Highlights include the guy (who managed to ask an annoying question at just about every panel) being booed away from the microphone for suggesting that the respec fee be increased. Retadin tears flowed like water through almost every panel, including panels that had little to do with class balance. Hearing a crowd of rabid WoWers chant “QQ” over and over as if they were at a metal concert was truly epic.

Expect drama over the Death Knight announcement, over some of the hilarious comments made by Blizzard employees over the course of the weekend (”this session isn’t for your welfare epics, this is for those who EARN their epics.”), and over throwaway comments taken and overanalyzed to their worst possible conclusion. WoW, after all, is serious business.

My photographs from the event can be found here, on Flickr. This one is my favorite, as it sums up the source for some of the most common guildie on guildie drama:

Eddie Bax and I are currently in lovely Anaheim, California for Blizzcon. We’ll throw some name badges on or something. Tell us your best drama and we’ll buy you a drink. Buy us a drink, and we’ll pretend to laugh at your stories.

UPDATE: Yes, they included hand sanitizer with the schwag. Make of that what you will.

Thanks to Todd Conflict for this one:

He writes:

“Some people don’t like that their significant other plays too much WoW, some people travel halfway around the world to pick up an underage guy half their age that they met on WoW.

Amazing.”

The story on Kotaku goes like this:

A 31-year-old Australian university student is being held in lieu of $2.35 million bail in North Carolina after allegedly flying there to pick up her 17-year-old World of Warcraft boyfriend and fly him back to Adelaide with her, Pitt County Sheriff’s officials said.

Tamara Broome, who met the teen a year ago in the game, told her roommate that her travel to the U.S. last week had been paid for by the teen’s parents so “they could sort it all out.” Broome’s parents say the whole thing was a set up.

Broome was arrested after stepping off an Amtrak train in South Carolina last Saturday. She faces more than two years in jail if found guilty.

To think, one more year and this would have just been a happy story.

See also here for mainstream news coverage.

Inevitably, the comments bring some LuLz:

“on a side note where are all these lonely 30 something women that keep trying to screw around with underage guys? Don’t they know you can just go to a bar or frat house and at the very least be some guys last resort.”

“I like the whole paying her flight to get her arrested. That’s a bit like buying a car for your kid’s stalker and then getting pissed that they *might* end up in the trunk.”

“Ah, the perils of nerd love.”

” At least it really was a chick.”

“curse you parents! that was his first and only chance in hooking up with a woman, now he’s doomed to do unimaginable things to the night elf dancing animation >.> again.”

” But were they Alliance or Horde?”

Soley asks over in a Livejournal post (locked, but can be seen with a membership in the community):

Let’s say you pissed off your girlfriend enough that she went and deleted your main. Once you get the toon restored you realize that you’re armorless, weaponless & goldless. What, in your experience would be the best way to go about earning some quick money/gear?

Just curious because it just happened to me.
Whoops!

100 plus comments later, some sage advice emerges:

“What a whore. I don’t care how mad my boyfriend and I get at each other, we know full well you don’t fuck with each others toons.”

“Dude, if she’s sadistic enough to do that to you, dump her ass.”

“I don’t know what to suggest that doesn’t involve duct tape and a taser.”

“Type /girlfriendquit

If this is how she is now, forget long-term.”

“It’s
just
a
fucking
non-existant
data.

In the form of 0s and 1s.

If that is more important than a relationship, I don’t know what to say.”

And then it gets blown up onto the general forums (now deleted), and the livejournal “stupid free” community for 400+ comments. WoW, truly, is srs bizness.

“stupid free” choice quotes:

“Sweet gods of fuckery, the number of people calling “dump the whore” there are frightening.

Makes me glad me and the Beloved Hubby know when to step back from the WoW and actually talk…”

“The number of people who are like “WHAT A SKANKY MEAN BITCH, YOU DON’T DO THAT SHIT TO SOMEONE” and then in the same breath are like, “YOU SHOULD POST HER NUDES OR SOMETHING” make me wonder if some people EVER get away from their computers.”

“What a bunch of socially inept retards. It’s nice WoW is more important than tappin’ that ass. My boyfriend is completely obsessed with Socom but he knows having a real life and getting pussy is more important than a fucking video game.”

seejay shares with us the following bit of drama:

Calculator from the guild Progeny on server Drenden ninjad the T4 chest off Magtheridon. He then promptly transferred servers to Dalaran, became Panzor and joined the well-known guild Gaia.The guild leader from Progeny pops over to Dalaran to warn Gaia, as Panzor is currently raiding in Gruul’s with the guild.

He also posts to the Dalaran forums, warning the server about the existence of the ninja.

Responses range from:

• Progeny are idiots for running with free-for-all loot on!
• We were in the middle of a raid, why are you bugging us to warn us about a ninja in our guild??
• Progeny is a bunch of idiots, so who cares if someone ninja’d from them?
• Leave your drama Drenden out of Dalaran!
• We knew he was going to ninja the item and we encouraged it!
• We’re not kicking him from our guild, we know him in real life.
• Don’t punish all members of Gaia for what one jerk did!
• Gaia’s full of ninja’s and jerks anyway, let them keep him.
• It’s just one item / bunch of pixels / a video game, get over it!
• Various expletives

Overall, people seem to miss the point of “HAY! NINJA! WARNING WILL ROBINSON!” even when Panzor shows up and admits to the theft.

Also, Dinuan shares this recruitment thread from Retribution, an Alliance guild from Mal’Ganis. They’re looking for a hot asian chick.

you must think you are a feline creature in real life and make sure everyone else is aware that you are one as well. (often engage in conversations using words like meow and rawr and just go *scratch scratch kitty is here* on people rather than saying “hello”.

Finally, in the ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’ department, Sterno shares this excellent YTMND of a kid crying over having to go to bed just as he gets an instance group together. Kids crying over games always seems to be popular. There’s some great quotes once the parents get involved about the kid just damaging himself.

You want the truth? I can’t tell you the truth, 1:

Jholland of Mal’Ganis is mystified as to why his gold has been taken away:

Let’s start this out by getting the facts on the table.

- I had ~950 gold 4 days ago, as well as last night. ALL of which I got from quests, grinding, and all of that other stuff that you do while leveling
- I was suspended for 3 days for “Intended Exploitation of the Economy” which was never clarified as to what I did that got me suspended, as it happened when I was offline.
- Over last night, my 950 gold has disappeared.
- I talked to an in-game GM about what happened and was told that it was seized for the “Intended Exploitation”

Now, what I assume is what was considered “Intended exploitation of the economy” was just me sending gold back and forth to my alt, Holand, a character of mine in Orgrimmar who I keep there. I sent him the gold because I was looking at the auction house to see if there was anything I wanted. If not, I’d just go back to leveling.

I got the suspension and thought that maybe it was justifiable, I’ll let it slide, I could use a few day break anyways. But now that they took my money as well it’s kind of getting to the point I can’t ignore it.

If a Blue could help me out, it would be greatly appreciated.

Blue (in the form of Batta) helps him out, alright:

This gold was not seized by Blizzard Entertainment, Jholland. We found that some people decided to level your characters while logging in from a foreign land. It appears they also decided the gold you had was useful to them.

I strongly suggest not giving your account information out to a third party again, Jholland, particularly after already having received a hefty account penalty for this infraction.

Surely you can get to 70 on your own… if you haven’t already.

The half-truth, the lies, and nothing but the not-quite-accurates, 2:

Amulet of Misha makes what seems to be a valid, if over-angry complaint about losing a tradeskill being lost upon moving servers.

GG bliztard, transfer servers lost all my profession including 375 tailoring with epic patterns, and 375 mining… Put tickets into GM’s and they said “they couldn’t do anything”.. I could of cared less about mining but 375 tailoring with epic patterens was hard to get. I had to relevel tailoring to at least 350 in order for my spellfire set to be usable.. Even tho I told the GM how can I have compelete spellfire, If I didnt have 375 tailoring… I got a Idea for you instead of saying on your website, “What GM’s can help with” why not just say we are limited to only transporting your charcter when you fall through the world, and if someone calls you a bad named. Dont put “Missing Profession” cause you guys dont help… and to think I pay you guys to play a game and you don’t do @!#* to help

After a reply expressing sympathy, Blue (Kaone) strikes again!

Hello Amulet,

I believe you may now be misrepresenting this issue as our fault. Looking at your petition history I notice that you made a ticket to a Game Master shortly after your transfer to the realm of Misha.

‘I just unlearned the wrong skill, i meant to unlearn mining not tailoring, please plase let me have it back i worked so hard on my spellfire set’

I understand that making such a mistake can be distressing and I wish you the best with re-leveling it up to 375.

Many choice funnies follow, in both threads. And in today’s lesson we learn: Blue are like Santa. They see you when you’re sleeping, they know when you’re awake, they know if you’ve been hiring power-levelling services or hitting the wrong ‘unlearn’ button, so tell the damn truth already.

Congratulations to our winners, epilogue and Chapsticky! Kingfox will email you soon with details of your prizes.

The winning posts were: Kids crying over loot

and Guild drama.

As a side issue, we’ve got plenty to drama to come, thanks to the people sending it in, I’ve just been too lazy to format it. Stay tuned!

Because Kingfox is lazy, evil and wishes me ill, I have taken it upon myself to collate votes for the drama contest we had a while back, so as to distribute these gamecards burning a hole in our pockets:

The three posts we received are:

1. Raid leader ninjas guild.

2. Kids crying over loot.

3. Guild drama.

Please send an email with either 1, 2 or 3 in the header of the email to baxdrama@gmail.com to vote for your favorite.

EDIT: Voting finishes midnight EST, Friday May 18, or whenever I decide to cut you off, whichever comes first.