TeamSpeak

We are making the move from Ventrilo to TeamSpeak for our voice communications in the guild. I would like everyone in the guild to go to www.teamspeak.com and download the client software. That way we can talk with each other while doing runs questing or anything else.

Why the change? There is a few reasons the main one is that the way Vent is set up it only allows 8 people to connect at one time as a trial software and Ventrilo doesn’t give their full server software out to the general public even if I wanted to buy it I couldn’t. but the TeamSpeak server software is free to all non profit groups like our guild. With their full server software installed on my server we can have up to 1000 people connected at once.

Second reason is there is more options than Vent. The TeamSpeak client software allows me to create different channels each with their own codec. This way I can make a new channel just incase Jordan or anyone else is having problems connecting with their Mac computer if they have one.

The quality is the third reason TeamSpeak is better than Ventrilo. After some testing I will have a few HD channels so people can talk to each other like we’re in the same room. The lower quality channels will be there if we run in latency issues.

Quick install instructions:

Step1: Click here and download the TeamSpeak client program. For most people running Windows it will be the very first one on the list.

Step2: Once it is done installing open up team speak and click on connections and then connect. Right click anywhere under the server list and choose “Add Server”

Step3: On the right side fill out the following information:

Label: Is what ever you want to call the connection walguild will work just fine.

Server Address: ts.walguild.info

Nickname: Your name or character name or what ever you want to call your self in TeamSpeak.

put a bubble mark in “Anonymous” and a check mark in “Auto-Reconnect” leave everything else blank and click “Connect” then your all set!

If you have any questions, problems connecting or need help setting it up just ask me.

-Clark

Khagra – Guild Leader

All is fair in love and WarCraft…

No not really But I try to be as fair as possible. With the new DKP system I have some concerns come up (mainly from Shawna) that it isn’t completely fair to those who don’t play as much as others.

Now I don’t claim that it is the perfect system and it does favor those who play more often, but the point is to reward those who participate more.

But as we are a casual guild I don’t think this will become a real problem. We are only planning 1 raid per week witch should be doable for almost everyone.

But wait isn’t there only room for 10 people?? What if there is no room for me? This is what I thought about the most because it’s a real problem, if I could I would bring everyone that wanted to come. The people who are selected are based off of who is on time and if we need healers, tanks or dps. If for what ever reason your not selected to come to a run know that it isn’t because of anything you’ve done (unless your late) and that it’s only because we can’t take more than 10.  Anyone who isn’t selected to go on a raid but is ready and willing to go will get a set amount of DKP and will be guaranteed a spot in the next raid. (Remember that this is void if your late.)

I am going to try to keep the point system in low numbers each point will be worth more but you won’t have other member stocking thousands of points so it becomes impossible for others to win bids.

By giving priority to gear by certain classes and specs reduces competition in bids so your less likely to have to compete with others over gear. So people who can only wear cloth won’t have to compete with people who wear leather or plate and those who can wear leather will have priority over leather. Some classes benefit more from spirit than others namely druids, priests, mages, warlocks. where shamans and paladins don’t. Those who benefit more from spirit will have priority over those gear and the others will have priority over gear with MP5. (I will make a chart with all the classes and specs to show who gets priority over what gear.) but this doesn’t mean that if your a healing pally that you won’t get any cloth healing gear it just means that others who don’t have the chance to get plate healing gear will have first dibs on the cloth.

Main spec will always get priority over off spec gear. But this brings up dual spec, with the new dual spec system in the next patch you can swap your talents back and forth on a whim will little penalty. Witch means that your main spec could be DPS but your off spec is tank. As of our runs and priority we will consider what ever spec your using during the run as your main spec. I’ll try not to make you use your off spec more than you want to.

As for the time and day of the raid it is 8pm on Saturdays but I will re-evaluate the day to accommodate as many people as possible. You should expect a letter from me some time with a form or something so you can indicate your times your available for runs.

Remember this is to be fair as possible because I want to give people who participate more of a chance to get gear over those who don’t and to encourage people to participate more. because the random roll system is about as fair of a game as paper rock scissors is.

Clark

AKA: Khagra your guild leader

DKP Raid Rewards

I started a new DKP system so that I can reward everyone for coming to raids.  DKP stands for Dragon Kill Points IE you get points for killing dragons. 

DKP was started with the game Ever Quest which is the same type of game as WoW. When it was started the only raid bosses in Ever Quest were dragons which is why it’s Dragon Kill Points. DKP has been adopted into WoW ever sense it started and we will continue it in our guild.

The way the points work is players are awarded points for coming to raids and when ever loot is dropped they spend their points to receive the items.

There is a list of all the current DKP amounts which can be found in the link on the right side of the blog. This list isn’t up to date if there is a raid in progress, I will have the current DKP amounts during the raid if you need to know what it is. Also the DKP site should tell you what items people have received during raids and how much points they spent.

 

Getting Points:

Killing a boss:  you will receive  2, 3, or 4 points, depending on difficulty, when you help the guild kill a raid boss.

Attending: You will receive 1 point for coming to the raid. If we have any issues with people being late I might change it to only those who come on time.

Achievements: If you receive a raid achievement IE defeating a boss for the first time, while participating in a raid you will receive 1 point although if it is a more difficult one it might be 2 points.

 Accomplishments: these points will be awarded in various amounts and for different reasons. Right now everyone who reaches level 80 receives 10 points for all the effort they have put in, to help encourage people to level, and well just to start everyone out with some spending points. Other times you might receive this types of points is by recovering from a really bad pull or tanking a boss when your not tanking class or anything that normally shouldn’t work out but does that results in defeating a boss or trash in a raid.

 

Spending points:

Right now I am planning that points will be spent auction style, I haven’t decided whether to make it an open or silent auction.

When an item drops everyone will have the chance to place a bid on the item if your able to use it and it’s your main spec, IE a melee DPS druid can’t bid on healing gear and a tanking warrior can’t bid on a DPS armor. (some acceptations apply) A minimum bid of 5 points is required so that people aren’t getting gear for 1 point.

If no one wants to bid on the item then it will go to off spec but this will be done by rolls, anyone who wants the item and can roll roll for it. the winner will have to spend 3 points for getting the item. If no body wants the item for main or off specs then the item will be given to an enchanter if available to be disenchanted.

All items that are disenchanted during raids will go to the guild either for a stock of mats or to be sold on the AH all gold made this way will go into the guild bank.

Any blue drops will go to the guild bank to be sold or disenchanted. Any green drops will go to who ever is able to loot the body.

You can’t bid more points than you currently have but your able to go into negative points under some conditions. Main thing comes to mind is if some one currently has less than 5 points when something drops and they are the only who wants the item then they will get it for the minimum bid of 5 points causing them to go less than 0 points. this way no one can bid points they don’t have to win items.

Available points will count the boss that was just killed I will have the current DKP of everyone in the raid if you don’t know or forgot how many you have.

 

Note:

Please remember that we are just starting this DKP system and it is subject to change. The main point of DKP is to make distributing loot fair so it’s not just given to people randomly. The more you participate the more likely you will get the loot you want when it drops. If you have any questions or concerns please ask me I am open to suggestions, remember that I am new to this as well.

 

- Clark

aka – Khagra your guild leader.

Almost Time to Raid!!!

At long last our guild is making the final preparations to start raiding. I want to update our guild members on what they can expect to see in the near future.

 

**New Ranks**

Already in place. There are 2 types of ranks Members and Raiders.

Raiders: are members who are level 80 an wish to participate in Raids. (By Default you will become a Raid member at level 80 if you want to be removed you can ask to be a regular member)

Guildies: are people who haven’t reached level 80 yet.

Each type has it’s own ranks: Member, Veteran, and Assistant.

Members: general rank that is most common.

Veteran: those who have show their ability or have obtained better than normal gear.

Assistants: this rank is for people who have a wide knowledge of World of Warcraft and have proved them selves trustworthy. (This ranks main duty is to help the Guild leader keep the Guild bank clean and organized)

***Officer Chat***

I have started Officer Chat but we are going to use it as a Raid chat. Everyone that has a Raid Rank will be able to use the chat by typing “/O” this way those who are about to raid or planning a raid can communicate with out filling the regular guild chat with the raid stuff. Of course we will still notify the guild of starting raids so if your on an alt you can now we are starting.

 

***DKP System***

For those who have been around a while already have heard/know about DKP systems. For those who don’t know it stands for Dragon Kill Point. Basically it’s a point system for the guild to insure that loot is distributed fairly based on participation  rather than random rolls.

You can earn points by helping the guild kill raid bosses and for just coming. 5 man instances and heroics will use the normal rolls and not the DKP system.

I will make another post with more details on this later.

 

***Team Speak***

Right now the guild uses my Vent server but because of restrictions put in place by Ventrilo I am unable obtain a full copy of the server software and because of this my Vent server can only hold 8 people at once. The smallest raid is 10 people and my Vent server can’t hold that many. With this in mind I will be setting up a Team Speak server witch works in a similar way as Vent but it will be able to hold 1000 people at once.

More details will be posted later when they are available.

Weekly Runs

I will be planning some runs every week, usually about 3 times a week Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Make sure to check out the calendar for exact times or if it is canceled.

 

Tuesday will be a 5 man run that will eventually be Heroics once we get enough people to level 80.

Thursday is going to be the late night run starting at 10:30 PM this one will be random depending on who shows up.

Saturday will be for Raids right now we are doing low level raids and will work our way up until we can start doing Vault and Naxx.

Don’t feel obligated to show up unless you accept. If you know your not going to make it you can decline and if you know your going to make it you can accept otherwise you can just leave it if your not sure. You can do this in your calendar. Invites will be send out depending on what level you are and there might be some runs that are by special invitation.

-Clark

Let’s Talk

When Blizzard introduced the in game voice chat I was so happy that there was a voice service available to almost everyone that plays WoW…. Then I tried it.
At times it works just fine but for the most part WoW voice chat really lacks the quality that it takes to understand people on the other side. That’s why I looked into Ventrilo or Vent for short. Right now I am running a Vent service on my server that will hold up to 8 clients. It’s not as much as others but it was free so I’ll stick with that for now. So far I haven’t ran into any problems hitting the max users.

My Vent server is free for anyone to use at anytime and I would encourage everyone to do so. All you need is to install and setup the Vent client on your computer. You can download it for free at http://ventrilo.com/dlprod.php?id=1

When setting up to connect to my server you will need the following information:

Host= vent.walguild.info

Port number= 3784

Ventrilo uses a VoIP type service so you get phone quality chat. It is set up so there are several rooms so more than one group of people can have separate conversations at the same time. Right now my Vent server is underused so feel free to use it as much as you like, even non WoW related things. If you have any questions just ask I am happy to help.

I plan on using this for any future guild raids and dungeons so if you have a mic and want to participate in voice chat with everyone please take some time to download and install the vent client on your system. And even if you don’t have a mic you can still listen.

Clark-

Time for Twinks

Recently I have started a few Twinks. Just in case you don’t know what that is I’ll go over it quickly. Basically twinks are characters that have the best gear for the current level they are at. Usually they are maxed out at level 19, 29, 39, and so on… this is because the highest levels in the PVP brackets end in 9. Except for Alterac Valley which will cap at levels 60, 70, and 80, and Eye of the storm which cap at levels 70, 79, and 80. Although you could create level 60 and 70 twinks it’s not very common. Usually people only twink at these levels because 60 and 70 was the max level and they didn’t want to lose the gear they had earned when the level cap was raised.

Are twinks only for PVP? Yes but before the Battle Grounds where created people would twink for PVE reasons to see how well they could do, although it didn’t last long because they would eventually level up. Using twinks for PVP is more common because you can’t level while killing other players.

Level 80 characters aren’t considered twinks because all the gear and enchants are meant for their current level. Twinks will use gear and enchants that you wouldn’t expect to have on a character for 40+ more levels. This where twinks get the advantage over non twinks.

Right now I have a level 19 rogue twink and just to give you a comparison as to what kind of difference there is between a twink and a non twink I will compare my rouge to a basic rogue at level 21.

My Twink
Health 1,321
Dodge% 41%
Attack power 261 138
Crit% 29.2% 9.9%
Weapon damage 37.5 (Main hand) 16.6 (Main hand)
Agility 182 71
Strength 61 45

Regular Rogue
Health 556
Dodge% 16%
Attack power 138
Crit% 9.9%
Weapon damage 16.6 (Main hand)
Agility 71
Strength 45

The difference between a twink and a non twink is so huge that my first attack (which is usually the hardest hitting attack for rogues) will sometimes kill a non twink on one shot. Some people think that this is unfair to the non twinks and if you have ever gone into any lower level battle grounds as a non twink like I have it seems that way but now that I have played as a twink I have found that both teams usually have a balance of twinks and non twinks playing and although hard, it’s not impossible for non twinks to beat twinks.

What does it take to make a twink? There are 2 things to consider when creating a twink fist is your gear. Because you can’t level past a certain level you must plan ahead of time what gear you want to have. If the item is a quest reward you must be ready to do that quest at the lowest level possible and sometimes you will need to do runs at the lowest level possible because the worst thing you can do to a twink is to level past your goal level. If you need help picking out what gear is best for your twink you can always ask me. I’ll be glad to help you pick out and get the gear you want.

The second thing you’ll need to consider is what enchants you want. At level 19 and most of level 29 you can’t use the best enchants out there. Each item has what is called a level item you usually don’t see this number but you can look it up at www.wowhead.com or there are some addons that will tell you what the item level is in game. Most enchants require, item levels of 1, 35, and 60. There is only 1 item that can be used by level 19 twinks that is above level 35 that is “Nat Pagle's Extreme Anglin' Boots” which are cloth which means they can be used by and class and are the best item for any level 19 twink to have because they can have enchants that were added during the burning crusade expansion. You can looks these up or I can tell you where and how to get them and any other enchants/gear if you would like.

What should you focus on as a twink? A big part of being a twink is having huge amounts of health so a lot of your enchants will give you health or stamina. But you will need to choose what to focus on; either surviving a long time or dealing a huge amount of damage.

One last thing I need to cover. With the release of Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard introduced “Bind on Account” items that can be passed back and forth among your own characters on the same realm. Some of you may be familiar with the “Baby Blizzard Bear” pet which was given to everyone near the end of last year. The main items that can be very useful for twinks are Shoulders, Weapons, and Trinkets, that can be passed to your Twink. More important are the Trinkets because they are nearly impossible to get at level 19 and even 29. Other is the shoulders because they are much better than any other shoulders you can get at those levels.

I haven’t really covered how to make a twink because it is different for every class and spec so if anyone is interested in creating any level of twink please talk to me I would love to help you out and it is more fun to play twinks with others. I am also working on making a level 29 shaman twink. Have fun and see you in the BGs.

Clark-

Mind your manners

I want to take a moment to go over a little “WoW Etiquette” and yes believe it or not it’s a real thing. There are no official rules enforced by Blizzard regarding how dungeons or raids are to be conducted but just some unwritten ones that is supported by most players. There is only 2 ways to learn this etiquette, first is to read it somewhere, like here for example. The second one is the way that I learnt it, the hard way. After my druid hit level 70 I started to do raids and other such things to improve my gear. I quickly learnt that when you’re in a “PUG” or group of people who you don’t know they aren’t very reserved when it comes to chewing you out if you do something wrong. This is where the Etiquette developed.

Let me cover need and greed rolls. Need rolls are meant for people who need that item for any reason like a profession or for an upgrade to their gear. This is stuff that the person who rolls need is going to use. Greed is for the people who don’t need it for anything other than for selling to either the Action House or to vendors. Need rolls will always supersede the greed rolls so if someone rolls a 100 on a greed roll and another rolls a 1 on a need roll the need will always win over greed’s. This way if no one needs the item it will just be given to the highest greed roll. (Rule No. 1: Never roll need on an item you don’t need.) That is what will piss people off the most, trust me I know.

There are some classes that can only wear cloth others can wear leather, mail, plate and so on… sometimes if you are one of those classes that can use mail, leather, or plate you will see an item that is better than what you got but it is cloth or something less than what you can wear. It’s alright to roll need on them because armor is the only thing different about what type of armor it is. But it’s polite to ask before you need that type of gear. This mostly the case with casters because armor is not that important to casters but, sometimes some mail gear will be better than plate for some melee classes. (Rule No. 2: Ask before rolling need on an armor class that is less than what you can use.) The only reason this rule applies is because people who wear cloth never get the chance to roll need on any other types of armor. It just makes things fair to them. Always be nice to them and roll greed if they need them.

Is there ever a time to pass on rolls? The answer is yes but very few times. The most common is when you’re doing a run that is a much lower level than your own. It is polite to just let the lower level people if any divide the loot among themselves. The only other time I’ve seen passing. If there is a name for this type of loot method I don’t know what it is called so I’ll just call it “Enchanter Loot”. This still keeps the standard loot system but everyone passes except the enchanter unless the items needed by someone. Then if that is the case they just need and the item goes to that person instead of the enchanter. At the end of the run all the items that are received by the enchanter is disenchanted and divided among the players. The alternative method is for everyone to roll greed then the enchanter rolls need if no one else does. The down side of the second method is that the enchanter has to stop and wait for everyone to roll that way he/she knows wither or not to roll need. The main thing is that the stuff that comes from disenchanting is more valuable than the item it’s self. There are times that the enchanter would like to keep all the stuff they get to further their profession. That is alright but it’s best to only take the BOP items that are not needed because those items are only going to be sold to a vendor where as the BOE items can be sold on AH or given to other characters. This brings us to (Rule No. 3: Arrange how loot is going to be distributed before the run starts that way there isn’t any conflict or assumptions.)

Well enough about loot there is some other things to cover. You should all know by now that the mobs that you find in dungeons all much different than the mobs you will find out side. Main thing is that they will do tons more damage, in some of the higher level dungeons some of them can kill you in a single shot. This is why every raid has a tank. Warrior, Druid, Paladin, or Deathknights are the only classes that can tank, and even then they have to have the right spec and the right gear to do so. Because of this tanks are usually made the leader by default there are a few times that other roles will lead the run either because they are more familiar with the run or because the tank doesn’t want to lead. Tanks usually lead because they are going to be the ones to pull the next group of mobs to be killed. There are a few times that the tank won’t pull usually these pulls will be done by hunters because they have an ability called “Misdirect” which will cause the mob to attack the tank instead of the hunter. But usually the tank will ask for this type of pull. (Rule: No.4: Never be in front of or pull groups unless you’re the thank or are asked by the tank to pull them)

Get to know other classes. You don’t need to know everything about every class and spec but it’s always good to know what type of gear they use and what their main abilities are, this way when rolling on gear or making pulls you can kind of expect what other people are going to do. This isn’t a rule but it’s good to know so you know why people do the things they do. Again at some point I’ll make a post on what classes and specs use what type of gear and what is best for them.

This is all I’ll cover for now. This isn’t caused by any single event or single person. I do not want to lecture or chew anyone out for anything I just want our guild to be able to quest and runs and raids that we do and hopefully avoid any conflicts. Just know that this all comes from my own experience of getting ripped into by other player for making simple mistakes they expect everyone to already know. And remember that everyone is at different levels of knowledge and ability in this game and to be patient and also be patient when someone tells you if a mistake is made, it happens to everyone and just take it like it is. The last and probably most important rule is, (Rule No.5: This is only a game and should be treated as such.)

Clark-