Guide Contest - Final update and Prizes
I couldn't pick all the good guides I got during the contest and I figured I could do one last update with all the guides from people who didn't win but still did a good job. If you have some free time, I strongly suggest the Guides Submission - Rare and Guides Submission - Uncommon forums to check out all the submissions.
It was ridiculously hard to pick winners for the contest and I hated every second of it. Refusing good guides just because there was something slightly better or because it didn't match the few criteria I had is like resurrecting a gnome in a raid, it really really sucks but you know you have to do it anyway. I'll probably switch to a voting system for the next contest and hope that people won't try to cheat it too much.
Also, I will (finally) send the prizes to the winner today, the reason why I delayed them for so long is mostly to make sure that none of the guide was stolen from another player/website. I figured that waiting 10 days to make sure that nobody come and claims one of the guide was the best thing to do, it didn't happen, enjoy your prizes! (It's also too late to do it now, don't waste your time trying to steal a prize with that)
General
Thanks again to everyone who took the time to submit a guide, and thanks to WoWTCGLoot.com for providing the shiny prizes.
Guild Reputation Cap
Originally Posted by Bashiok (Source)
Well, I think this is a valid complaint being that there's an initial buy-in period where you're kind of wondering why you have to level up reputation with a guild you've been in for a year, but that's sort of the nature of implementing new features like this.
You are correct in that we do not want people to join guilds, be able to immediately buy rewards that the guild unlocked, and jet. Your idea of unlocking rewards based on time spent in the guild instead of contribution isn't quite right either.
Guild rep exists to gate rewards based on someone's actual contributions to their guild, not just being some dope on the roster. Jumping in to guild dungeon and raid runs (with 80% members, [40% for 40 person raids] until 4.0.6 which drops 5 person dungeons to variable gains based on 3/5, 4/5, and 5/5), winning rated bg's, or earning guild achievements, all help earn guild rep. And yes, so do quests, should you find yourself doing them.
The point is not to force you to do things you do not want to do, but instead be rewarded for participating in activities with your guild. And it uses criteria that ideally keep it from getting too 'gamey'. We could probably say if you make a flask, give it to a guild mate, and they drink it, you get some guild rep. And then that type of action turns into a fun farming game that has nothing to do with actually encouraging guild interaction. The criteria we've set are hopefully those that are both beneficial to the guild and its members, as well as avoiding making grindy actions the best way to get rep.
As far as making it account wide, I'm not a designer, but that definitely hinders, again, the guild participation factor. Once you have guild rep set on one character, and if that then applied account wide, your desire to contribute to guild content that isn't pushing gearing your character drops substantially. However, if you have an alt that's 80, yeah you probably will want to join in on that Blackrock Caverns run being put together. Otherwise you're a jaded 85 guildie who has variable interest in actually helping someone else out (Yes, yes, I'm sure you're the most selfless and helpful person in your guild, but that scenario is too often the rule and not the exception). It could also be gamed to some degree... but I'm not sure to much effect.
As I said initially this can be a weird start conceptually, but while contributing with guild members you're gaining rep, and you'll get access to those rewards from then on. As this is still a fairly new and fairly big and complex system we're watching it very closely, and fully intend to keep adding to it and improving upon it. Your constructive feedback is welcome.
How do random dailies or fishing quests have anything to do with guild interaction?
Maybe not a whole lot directly (although there are a ton of indirect benefits), but it is a way for the super low pop guilds or very inactive guilds, and their members, to rep up. Say your guild has 10 people and of those 10 people a couple log in maybe once a week, we want there to be some way that you'll eventually level your guild, and in addition, be able to rep up and purchase rewards. It's going to be slower, for sure, but it's there.
As for your previous comment regarding flasks etc. I think I can see who contributes to the guild on a larger scale as well via the use of the Guild Bank. Isn't helping the guild aquire the mats and items that help us all do things a valid part of contributing to a guild?
Sure, but again, that can be gamed. Making guild rep a meta game of depositing mats, to remove them, launder them, and re-deposit to exalted is not the point of the system. And while it would be cool to recognize those things, there's simply too many loopholes.
Computers - Setup of the Month (by chaud)
chaud's setup of the month is one week early this month because of the release of the new CPUs, it's a pretty good time to upgrade and I guess a lot of people will be interested in the article. (The next one might be in 2 months instead of one now that the big wave of upgrades is done)
Read if you plan to upgrade - New CPUs and GPUs are not coming anytime soon, so now is a good time to buy. New SSDs are coming later in Q1 that might be of interest if you are not ready to buy just yet.
Don't hesitate to post any feedback in the comments of that news post, and don't forget to visit the Computer Forum for any extra questions!
Component Puppy Dolphin MonitorASUS VW224U 22-Inch Widescreen - $150ASUS VW246H 24-Inch Widescreen - $221KeyboardMicrosoft Digital Media Keyboard 3000 - $25Cyborg V.5 - $37MouseLogitech MX518 - $35Logitech G500 - $50SpeakersLogitech S220 2.1 Speaker System - $23Logitech Z313 Speaker System - $40 Component Narwhal Unicorn MonitorDell E2311H 23-inch LED-backlit Widescreen - $332Dell UltraSharp U2410 24-inch (IPS Panel) - $556KeyboardLogitech G110 - $66Razer BlackWidow (Backlit)- $70MouseRazer Deathadder - $47Razer Naga (Buttons on the Side) - $71SpeakersCreative Inspire T3130 2.1 Speaker System - $50Logitech Speaker System Z523 - $84
Component Puppy Dolphin CaseNZXT GAMMA Classic - $40NZXT GAMMA Classic - $40Power SupplyOCZ ModXStream Pro 500W - $65Corsair 650TX - $80CPUAMD Athlon II X4 635 AM3 - $99AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition - $150HeatsinkCooler Master Hyper 212 Plus - $28Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus - $28MotherboardGIGABYTE GA-770T-USB3 AM3 - $93GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H AM3 - $135Memory4GB PNY Optima DDR3 10600 - $354GB G.Skill Ripjaws F3 4GB 12800 DDR3 - $75Graphics CardXFX 5770 - $145XFX 6850 or EVGA GTX 460 - $190 / $229Hard DriveWestern Digital Caviar Blue 500 GB - $44SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB - $60DVDLite-On LightScribe 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $22Lite-On LightScribe 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $22Total$571$780 / $819
Component Narwhal Unicorn CaseCooler Master Centurion 5 II - $54Cooler Master HAF932 - $137Power SupplyCorsair 650TX - $80Corsair 750HX (7 Year Warranty) - $130CPUIntel i5-2500k - $233Intel i7-2600k - $330HeatsinkTuniq Tower 120 Extreme - $59Noctua 6 NH-D14 - $85MotherboardASUS 1155 P67 P8P67 Pro - $201ASUS 1155 P67 P8P67 Deluxe - $248Memory4GB G.Skill Ripjaws F3 4GB 12800 DDR3 - $754GB G.Skill Ripjaws F3 4GB 12800 DDR3 - $75Graphics CardXFX 6870 OR EVGA GTX 470- $240XFX 6970 - $380 OR EVGA GTX 570 - $370Hard DriveWestern Digital 1TB Caviar Black - $98Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black - $98SSDNoneOCZ Vertex 2 120 GB (Review) - $223
OR
Corsair Force 120GB (Review) - $230DVDLite-On LightScribe 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $22Lite-On LightScribe 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $22Total$1062$1723
Reminder - Curse is still recruiting!
Curse is still recruiting and you should definitely apply if you think you have the skills required to join the company! A few positions are now filled but we're still looking for skilled people for the jobs below.
Comics
Nerfnow.com has an interesting (or depressing?) comic on MMORPGs last week!
More...
I couldn't pick all the good guides I got during the contest and I figured I could do one last update with all the guides from people who didn't win but still did a good job. If you have some free time, I strongly suggest the Guides Submission - Rare and Guides Submission - Uncommon forums to check out all the submissions.
It was ridiculously hard to pick winners for the contest and I hated every second of it. Refusing good guides just because there was something slightly better or because it didn't match the few criteria I had is like resurrecting a gnome in a raid, it really really sucks but you know you have to do it anyway. I'll probably switch to a voting system for the next contest and hope that people won't try to cheat it too much.
Also, I will (finally) send the prizes to the winner today, the reason why I delayed them for so long is mostly to make sure that none of the guide was stolen from another player/website. I figured that waiting 10 days to make sure that nobody come and claims one of the guide was the best thing to do, it didn't happen, enjoy your prizes! (It's also too late to do it now, don't waste your time trying to steal a prize with that)
General
- Warcraft: Lore Guide
- How To: Keybind
- How to Gain the Undying Love of Your Healer - WIP
- Post Crowd Control, Interrupts, and your group.
- Gear Shopping List
- Multi-Core Cpu Architecture and WoW / Lag and Graphical tweaks
- Persephone's Guide to Making Raid Videos
- Deciphering Macros
- Practical Priest's Guide to Leap of Faith
- Binkenstein's Elemental Shaman Guide: 4.0.3
- How to successfully use Mind Control as a form of Crown Control
- Auction Grinding 101 - An In Depth Breakdown Of The Auction House
- Money via Maelstrom Crystal
- Archaeology Guide - Tips From the Trenches
- Farming for fun, profit, and beating down the bots!
- Tol Barad Mining and Herbalism Guide
- "Wolverine was already taken" - a guide on naming your character.
- Nomnom: The Gnome’s Guide to Visiting The Most Beautiful Alliance Cities!
- Yarr!! A guide on how to look like a bombastic Pirate in World of Warcraft
- Your Very Own Mini Jouster
Thanks again to everyone who took the time to submit a guide, and thanks to WoWTCGLoot.com for providing the shiny prizes.
Guild Reputation Cap
Originally Posted by Bashiok (Source)
Well, I think this is a valid complaint being that there's an initial buy-in period where you're kind of wondering why you have to level up reputation with a guild you've been in for a year, but that's sort of the nature of implementing new features like this.
You are correct in that we do not want people to join guilds, be able to immediately buy rewards that the guild unlocked, and jet. Your idea of unlocking rewards based on time spent in the guild instead of contribution isn't quite right either.
Guild rep exists to gate rewards based on someone's actual contributions to their guild, not just being some dope on the roster. Jumping in to guild dungeon and raid runs (with 80% members, [40% for 40 person raids] until 4.0.6 which drops 5 person dungeons to variable gains based on 3/5, 4/5, and 5/5), winning rated bg's, or earning guild achievements, all help earn guild rep. And yes, so do quests, should you find yourself doing them.
The point is not to force you to do things you do not want to do, but instead be rewarded for participating in activities with your guild. And it uses criteria that ideally keep it from getting too 'gamey'. We could probably say if you make a flask, give it to a guild mate, and they drink it, you get some guild rep. And then that type of action turns into a fun farming game that has nothing to do with actually encouraging guild interaction. The criteria we've set are hopefully those that are both beneficial to the guild and its members, as well as avoiding making grindy actions the best way to get rep.
As far as making it account wide, I'm not a designer, but that definitely hinders, again, the guild participation factor. Once you have guild rep set on one character, and if that then applied account wide, your desire to contribute to guild content that isn't pushing gearing your character drops substantially. However, if you have an alt that's 80, yeah you probably will want to join in on that Blackrock Caverns run being put together. Otherwise you're a jaded 85 guildie who has variable interest in actually helping someone else out (Yes, yes, I'm sure you're the most selfless and helpful person in your guild, but that scenario is too often the rule and not the exception). It could also be gamed to some degree... but I'm not sure to much effect.
As I said initially this can be a weird start conceptually, but while contributing with guild members you're gaining rep, and you'll get access to those rewards from then on. As this is still a fairly new and fairly big and complex system we're watching it very closely, and fully intend to keep adding to it and improving upon it. Your constructive feedback is welcome.
How do random dailies or fishing quests have anything to do with guild interaction?
Maybe not a whole lot directly (although there are a ton of indirect benefits), but it is a way for the super low pop guilds or very inactive guilds, and their members, to rep up. Say your guild has 10 people and of those 10 people a couple log in maybe once a week, we want there to be some way that you'll eventually level your guild, and in addition, be able to rep up and purchase rewards. It's going to be slower, for sure, but it's there.
As for your previous comment regarding flasks etc. I think I can see who contributes to the guild on a larger scale as well via the use of the Guild Bank. Isn't helping the guild aquire the mats and items that help us all do things a valid part of contributing to a guild?
Sure, but again, that can be gamed. Making guild rep a meta game of depositing mats, to remove them, launder them, and re-deposit to exalted is not the point of the system. And while it would be cool to recognize those things, there's simply too many loopholes.
Computers - Setup of the Month (by chaud)
chaud's setup of the month is one week early this month because of the release of the new CPUs, it's a pretty good time to upgrade and I guess a lot of people will be interested in the article. (The next one might be in 2 months instead of one now that the big wave of upgrades is done)
Read if you plan to upgrade - New CPUs and GPUs are not coming anytime soon, so now is a good time to buy. New SSDs are coming later in Q1 that might be of interest if you are not ready to buy just yet.
Don't hesitate to post any feedback in the comments of that news post, and don't forget to visit the Computer Forum for any extra questions!
Peripherals/Monitors
Component Puppy Dolphin MonitorASUS VW224U 22-Inch Widescreen - $150ASUS VW246H 24-Inch Widescreen - $221KeyboardMicrosoft Digital Media Keyboard 3000 - $25Cyborg V.5 - $37MouseLogitech MX518 - $35Logitech G500 - $50SpeakersLogitech S220 2.1 Speaker System - $23Logitech Z313 Speaker System - $40 Component Narwhal Unicorn MonitorDell E2311H 23-inch LED-backlit Widescreen - $332Dell UltraSharp U2410 24-inch (IPS Panel) - $556KeyboardLogitech G110 - $66Razer BlackWidow (Backlit)- $70MouseRazer Deathadder - $47Razer Naga (Buttons on the Side) - $71SpeakersCreative Inspire T3130 2.1 Speaker System - $50Logitech Speaker System Z523 - $84
Puppy and Dolphin
Component Puppy Dolphin CaseNZXT GAMMA Classic - $40NZXT GAMMA Classic - $40Power SupplyOCZ ModXStream Pro 500W - $65Corsair 650TX - $80CPUAMD Athlon II X4 635 AM3 - $99AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition - $150HeatsinkCooler Master Hyper 212 Plus - $28Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus - $28MotherboardGIGABYTE GA-770T-USB3 AM3 - $93GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H AM3 - $135Memory4GB PNY Optima DDR3 10600 - $354GB G.Skill Ripjaws F3 4GB 12800 DDR3 - $75Graphics CardXFX 5770 - $145XFX 6850 or EVGA GTX 460 - $190 / $229Hard DriveWestern Digital Caviar Blue 500 GB - $44SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB - $60DVDLite-On LightScribe 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $22Lite-On LightScribe 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $22Total$571$780 / $819
Narwhal and Unicorn
Component Narwhal Unicorn CaseCooler Master Centurion 5 II - $54Cooler Master HAF932 - $137Power SupplyCorsair 650TX - $80Corsair 750HX (7 Year Warranty) - $130CPUIntel i5-2500k - $233Intel i7-2600k - $330HeatsinkTuniq Tower 120 Extreme - $59Noctua 6 NH-D14 - $85MotherboardASUS 1155 P67 P8P67 Pro - $201ASUS 1155 P67 P8P67 Deluxe - $248Memory4GB G.Skill Ripjaws F3 4GB 12800 DDR3 - $754GB G.Skill Ripjaws F3 4GB 12800 DDR3 - $75Graphics CardXFX 6870 OR EVGA GTX 470- $240XFX 6970 - $380 OR EVGA GTX 570 - $370Hard DriveWestern Digital 1TB Caviar Black - $98Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black - $98SSDNoneOCZ Vertex 2 120 GB (Review) - $223
OR
Corsair Force 120GB (Review) - $230DVDLite-On LightScribe 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $22Lite-On LightScribe 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $22Total$1062$1723
Reminder - Curse is still recruiting!
Curse is still recruiting and you should definitely apply if you think you have the skills required to join the company! A few positions are now filled but we're still looking for skilled people for the jobs below.
- Senior Accounting Manager
- Client and Web Services Developer
- Linux System Administrator
- PHP Web Developer
- Python Web Developer
- .NET Web Developer
Comics
Nerfnow.com has an interesting (or depressing?) comic on MMORPGs last week!
More...