Avoidance, or "How Do YOU Deal with Unwanted Requests?"

So I asked someone in my alliance guild (very small guild, no one else is ever on) to help me get the Lunar Festival patterns, since you need to be 50+. (The guild is called "PrettyPrettyPrincess" -- guess why I joined? ^_^)

The first person I asked in the guild said no, which is frustrating considering that, being a mage who can port them to the different cities, the entire thing would only take 10-20 minutes. And I was willing to pay 10g a pattern and the entire thing was causing me severe emotional distress (trying to grind 7 levels instead of taking care of my household and work).

So I asked No if they knew a Yes. He said he knew a Maybe and sent me off towards another person.

I in-game mailed Maybe, whose reply was promising. "Tell me what I'd have to do and I'll see if I can help." And a smiley face.

Now, when you toss a smiley face someone's way, it's like a handshake. It's a "I'm a nice person and will go out of my way to a certain extent to help you and tell you asap if I can't."

So Maybe hasn't logged back on since that smiley face 10 days ago, Lunar Festival ends next Saturday, and Maybe is a very very lucky person that I'm almost 48 and will hit 50 with no trouble. Because I think he/she's avoiding me, which would make me much more upset if I didn't hit 50 in time.

But this kind of thing is something I'd consider /gquiting over -- not people not being able to help me, or saying No, but just the "Oh, a guildmate needs help, let me avoid them like the plague."

I joined this guild partially to be left alone while leveling, but I'd assumed they had some sense of guild pride and/or manners. I'm disappointed to find out I was wrong. (A little "Yes, I've bothered to log on in a timely manner and see if I can help you" is all I'm asking for. Even just a note saying "I'm too busy washing my hair, so sorry!" would free me up to ask someone else.)

*sigh*

Alliance Sucks, or "I Should Have Listened to My Horde Guild"

This doesn't mean I'm giving up on alliance or that I hate it. I just have a frustrating story:

I'm doing some Tanaris quests, getting pirate hats and some kills taken care of, with a pair of strangers also on the kill quest. Then this team of 3-4 horde show up and start attacking us because world pvp is soooo much fun when you're trying to quest. (Not.)

We kill them once, they come back in force and kill us.

The thing is, before they come back and kill us, we see this 70 alliance rogue riding around watching. We're thinking, "whew, safe. We can quest now." Because, typically, a high level will wreak havoc on hostiles.

Then the horde group kills us and the rogue stands by and does nothing.

One of our team whispers him. Apparently, he can't help us because he's friends with this group of horde. So instead of asking his friends to stop or helping us in any way, he sits on his hands like a loser watching his own faction get ganked by his buds.

AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

VanaKOS Hatelist: "Impotent loser, anyone?"

Love is in the Air 2008, or "Unbreak My Heart, Plz"

February 10-15, 2008

Pledge Boxes: Friendship & Adoration

Get Cologne, Perfume, and Love Tokens from any innkeeper in the world. Apply perfume to attract male guards and cologne for females. Give a love token to a guard and get a gift. Adoration gifts only available once the debuff wears off (debuff continues to run down even while logged out, so you can log onto another character for an hour and then go back and pick up another Adoration box).

Friendship: Guard Card & Pledge of Loyalty only.

Adoration: Only available once an hour. Otherwise you get Friendship boxes.

• Lovely Black Dress: Rare drop at 3%, does not bind so you can find them on the AH. They'll be expensive.
• Romantic Picnic Basket: Also rare, BoP. Have a cute romantic picnic with another character (don't need to be in a group). Very charming, no real utility. To give to someone else, trade them the gift box with the basket still inside it.
• Love Rocket: Awesome firework that blasts pink heart-shaped clouds into the sky.
• Love Fool: Like target dummy, forces mobs to attack it instead of you.
• Silver Shafted Arrows: Hit someone and they'll have a creepy cupid follow them around for a while.
• Bag of Candies: Pull one out per minute. Pointless but cute little heart candies w/ inscriptions like "Hot lips." or "I'll follow you all around Azeroth."
• Handful of Rose Petals: Toss on someone and they'll be followed by a cascade of rose petals.
• Box of Chocolates: Buff food.
• Unbestowed Friendship Bracelet: Unbreak someone's heart.

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How to Get the Pretty Clothes
Quest Chain Unraveled

Start in Stormwind or Undercity.

Talk to any innkeeper and buy from their seasonal fare: 1 Cologne, 1 Perfume, 1 stack Love Tokens. (Perhaps an extra cologne or perfume, as you need 1 of each to turn in.)

A: Talk to Lietenant Jocryn Heldric in the middle of Trade District and accept his quest "Dearest Colara."
H: Talk to Deathguard Tor outside UC (60, 59) and accept "Dearest Elenia."

A: Turn in at Colara Dean by the mailbox.
H: Elenia Haydon by the bank.

A: Get Dangerous Love from Aristan Mottar.
H: From Fenstad Argyle.

Get guard cards by applying perfume (for male guards) or cologne (for female guards). Talk to a guard with a heart above his or her head and select the option "let me give you a love token." They will give you a "gift" which you can open which has a good chance of containing a guard's card.

Every now and then, your heart will "break" and you can no longer give out love tokens to receive gifts. You must either wait 1 hour for it to fade or have another player use a Ring of Friendship on you to cure your broken heart. Be generous with your rings, as others get broken hearts too.

Turn your guard card into the quest giver.

A: Take 1 Cologne and 1 Perfume to Morgan Pestle in Pestle's Apothecary in the Trade District.
H: Take 1 Cologne and 1 Perfume to Apothecary Zinge in The Apothecarium.

Return to quest givers.

A: Speak with Innkeeper Allison in the inn right behind the mailbox.
H: Speak with Innkeeper Norman on the ring around the bank.

A: Speak with Evert Sorisam in Finest Thread (in the canals beside Cathedral, across from Park).
H: Speak with tailor Mara Rennick in Mage Quarter.

Both factions now seek out Apothecary Staffron Lerent. He's in Alterac Mountains (89, 75). The run here is long and hard if you're below 20, but remember that you can get from Stormwind to Ironforge through the Deeprun Tram, which will get you a little closer.

In Hillsbrad Foothills, head to 75, 24 and take the path leading up the mountain to the north. Follow to Ravenholt Manor (where the head rogue is) and head up another mountain ramp to your right (past the sparring ring) that looks like it's going to drop off at the end. Don't go down the mountain, turn left and follow another path back into the mountains, where you'll find the guy.

Click on his cauldron to get your pretty prize. Alas, you can only choose one, but at least nobody likes the pantsuits. They look like pajamas.

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Alliance Gift Collection

Combine 5 Guard Cards into a Stack of Cards.
Combine 5 Pledges of Loyalty into a Pledge Collection.
Combine 5 Handmade Woodcrafts into a Box of Woodcrafts.

Combine those 3 collections into a Gift Collection for that city.

Do this for each of the 3 major cities until you have: Darnassus Gift Collection, Stormwind Gift Collection, and Ironforge Gift Collection. (H: Orgrimmar, Undercity, & Thunder Bluff)

Combine all 3 Gift Collections to produce Alliance Gift Collection.

Get lame prizes that you already get from Boxes of Adoration: Gift Giving.

Jewelcrafting, or "Pretty Shiny Objects"

Converted from Highlander jewelcrafting guide.

Needed
Does not include jewelcrafting supplies that can be bought from vendor.

Copper Bar: 20
Rough Stone: 80
Tigerseye: 20
Bronze Bar: 50
Silver Bar: 60
Heavy Stone: 80
Moss Agate: 30
Mithril Bar: 80
Truesilver Bar: 60
Gold Bar: 20
Citrine: 15
Elemental Water: 20
Aquamarine: 45
Flask of Mojo: 60
Thorium Bar: 185
Star Ruby: 5
Heart of the Wild: 40
Large Opal: 20
Blue Sapphire: 40
Azerothian Diamond: 10
Huge Emerald: 20


Make
Numbers are the jewelcrafting skill number.

1-20 Delicate Copper Wire
20-30 Rough Stone Statue
30-50 Tigerseye Band
50-75 Bronze Setting
75-80 Solid Bronze Ring
80-110 Ring of Silver Might
110-120 Heavy Stone Statue
120-150 Pendant of the Agate Shield (Innkeeper at Freewind Post, Neal Allen at Menethil Harbor)
150-180 Mithril Filigree
180-200 Engraved Truesilver Ring
200-210 Citrine Ring of Rapid Healing
210-225 Aquamarine Signet
225-250 Thorium Setting
250-255 Red Ring of Destruction
255-265 Truesilver Healing Ring
265-275 Simple Opal Ring
275-285 Sapphire Signet
285-290 Glowing Thorium Band
290-300 Emerald Lion Ring

The 300-375 guide kind of sucks, but it's all we have. Go here to see it.

Lunar Festival 2008, or "Patterns Are NOT Bind-On-Pickup"

Feel free to refer back to Lunar Festival 2007. The 2007 post focused on how to get pretty dresses for low-level characters on Alliance, particularly how to get to the easiest-to-reach Elders.

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Non-Gamer's Guide to This Post

As mentioned before, a Warcraft event is a temporary time-period in which the developers decorate Warcraft cities and towns for a particular real-world holiday, including special quests and goodies. Event durations can be viewed at the official site's event calendar.

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Lunar Festival

Real Life Holiday: Chinese New Year
Time Period: February 5-23 2008

Overview: A time for glowing paper lanterns, lovely Chinese-inspired clothing, and TONS of fireworks.

Coins of Ancestry: Available from Elders placed in every town around the world. One per Elder. You do NOT have to do anything to qualify for coins, you can just go up to these guys at any time and get them. Every goody available in Moonglade requires 5 coins. Go here or here for a list of Elders and their locations.

Getting to Moonglade
(In 3 Simple Steps)

This is not necessary to do before you gather Coins of Ancestry, and is pointless to do without them.

Prequest: In 3 of your faction's capital cities, in the main thoroughfare, a single reveler will have a quest for you to go check out the festivities at the Greater Moonlight portal thing.

Go to the Greater Moonlight, which will be surrounded by Festival NPCs with quests. (One of these is an Elder with a coin for you.) The Greater Moonlight is in the following locations:

Ironforge: Mystic Ward
Stormwind: Park District
Darnassus: Cenarion Enclave
Undercity: Entrance
Thunder Bluff: Elder Rise
Orgrimar: Valley of Wisdom

The turn-in quest giver by the Greater Moonlight will offer you the follow-up quest "Lunar Fireworks."

Lunar Fireworks Quest: Buy 8 Fireworks and 2 Fireworks Clusters from a vendor who will be in the same area, by the Greater Moonlight. Use them by right-clicking near one of the launchers (also in the area by the Greater Moonlight). Quest finished. Turn in and get the next one, to see the guy in Moonglade.

You get an invitation to the Festival which you can use in the Greater Moonlight as a portal to Moonglade.

In Moonglade, run north to town and then straight east to the docks until you see the guy you're supposed to talk to (53, 35).

Available Goodies

Tailoring Patterns: Festival Dress, Festival Suit

Engineering Schematics: Cluster Launcher, Firework Launcher, Cluster Rockets, Large Cluster Rockets, Large Rockets, Small Rockets

Pattern quests from Fariel Starsong in the Moonglade (54, 35). These quests are ONLY available to people level 50+ but are not bind-on-pickup (except for the rocket recipes, though the launchers are not) and are NOT only available to people of those professions (I checked with Dustfire, who is neither tailor nor engineer). This means you can get some for your friends or to sell on the Auction House (confirmed by grabbing one with Dustfire and trading it back and forth with a leatherworking friend). Each quest reward requires 5 Coins of Ancestry.

Dresses: Purple, Green, Pink

Pantsuits: Blue, Teal, Black

Food: Festival Dumplings

Shoot at Someone: Elune's Candle

These are available from Valadar Starsong (53, 35), whose daughter gives you the patterns. Any level character can get these items, but they ARE bind-on-pickup, so no sharing.

Blast from Past, or "Best Zuluhed Thread Ever"

The thread is here, on the official forums. It's a tale of pugging with a moron, much like my own rambling tales of buffoonery, and the screenshots are priceless.

If you head to post 55, page 3, I left a comment:

As an added note, Deathhand's skill at tanking is only outshone by his charm and wit with women:

Big Number Syndrome, or "Is Damage Output Just a Guy Thing?"

Non-Gamer's Guide to This Post

A damage meter is an addon that scans the combat log and adds up everyone's damage, healing, etc, so that you can look at the totals of your group.

Threat and its consequences is what makes Warcraft different from many other games. The person with the most threat is the one that enemies will attack. Certain classes, specifically warrior, are designed to produce more threat than any other class so as to keep the enemies on themselves and off of the rest of the group. This is called tanking. The main role of healers is to keep the tank alive. Any well-balanced party has a tank and healer. However, damage classes can sometimes have more threat than the tank by doing too much damage.

When the enemies are focused on you, you have aggro. Having aggro is the tank's most important (one might say only) duty.

-------------

I've been sick with a bad cold and therefore unable to attend regularly scheduled instance runs, one of which my husband ran with our family and an extra guy (taking my place) who kept trying to top the damage meter.

The problem with trying to out-dps everyone else is that you aren't playing smart -- you're too busy throwing spells around to manage threat properly. Therefore, this friend kept pulling aggro from the tank and forcing the healer to concentrate on him. Luckily, the group was mainly geared in Karazhan epics and it was a regular instance, so there were no wipes. Unluckily, this probably reinforced the friend's sense that it was okay not to manage his own threat.

My husband said later, "I read something that I think is true most of the time: 'If the tank dies, it's the healer's fault. If the healer dies, it's the tank's fault. If the DPS dies, it's his own fault.'"

Our paladin friend called it Big Number Syndrome, where a person is too enamored with their numbers to realize that they're playing badly -- forcing the healers to take care of them instead of the tank.

Something similar happened when our paladin friend pugged an instance as the tank -- a hunter kept forcing his pet to take aggro, then would laugh and say, "How is a hunter going to tank like a Pally!" The healer whispered: "Poorly." Then the hunter got upset that his pet kept dying, as the single healer couldn't keep up three tanks at once.

Not managing threat properly gets you killed, but it can also a) kill your party and b) maim your raid.

I, personally, am struggling with managing my threat. Not because I want to out-dps anyone, but because I completely ignore the numbers. They confuse me. Someone posts a damage meter in raid chat and all of a sudden my vision starts swimming and I want to take an aspirin.

I just want to be able to sit back and zap things until they die. Unfortunately, you can't always do that. Certain enemies don't respond to warrior maneuvers like taunt, which means that the tank wouldn't be able to save you if you took aggro. Last night in Karazhan, someone wondered if these special anti-taunt mobs were put in to teach people how to manage threat.

I think so. I think threat is the controlling factor of dps classes -- and the mark of a good player is knowing when it's okay to top the dps charts . . . and when it's not.

For me, I need to care a little more about numbers. I have Pretty Dress Syndrome, which is the opposite of Big Number Syndrome and probably just as dangerous.

Try downloading Omen Threat Meter (which is compatible with the other popular threat meter, KLH) and practice keeping an eye your threat. It's like checking your mirrors while driving -- unnatural at first, but you get used to it.

AFK Notes, or "This Has Been Around for HOW Long?!"

Non-Gamer's Guide to This Post

When a player needs to step away from the computer, or go away-from-keyboard, they type /afk and their character is marked as AFK: Away From Keyboard.

Likewise, when a player is on but doesn't wish to be disturbed, he or she can type /dnd which marks them as DND: Do Not Disturb. This is for players who are active on their characters but don't wish to interact with others.

When someone tries to contact one of these characters, an automatic message will be returned giving their status. Likewise, the AFK or DND shows in the open friends panel.

-------------------------------

Apparently, this neat trick has been around forever, but I just found it, like a goldmine of love.

When you type /afk or /dnd, you can put a note with it.

For example:

/afk Updating blog.
equals
This player is AFK: Updating blog.

I'll add some example pictures later.

Buffs and Food, or "What Do You Need That You Can't Usually Get?"

I find that I want priests to splash their fortitude around in towns when I'm on my warrior or rogue, and that it would be nice if mages would hand out free water to my priest because it's so expensive for just one stack at 70 (2 gold 56 silver) and Dusty's always running out.

So I started trying to be a ton more generous on both my priest and mage, offering water to priests if I see them, buffing classes with mana, and using Dustfire to fortitude people, especially classes that can't use intellect buffs.

The only class I am reluctant to buff or give water to is hunter, because I honestly don't think they need it. They're the strongest class while leveling, they easily track and kill their opposition, and they can just set their pet on a target and auto-attack while their mana regens.

My question, though, is what does your class seem to always need from another class but you never get?

Mega Gank, or "Mages are Crazy Good at Running"

Ran past 3 separate groups, all of whom turned to chase me. Warlock dots and occasional dps from the shaman (who could sometimes catch up in ghost wolf) finally got me, but I took them from Astranaar to the front path of Raynewood Retreat (map).

Guild Construction, or "You Should Let Other People Do This For You"

Non-Gamer's Guide to This Post

A guild is a player association gathered under one name (which shows up in brackets under the character name). Each guild has its own private chat channel, text color defaulted to lime green, and the ability to give different players more or less power within the group.

The position names can be changed to something more creative, but are generally: Guild Master, Officer, Senior Member, Member, Initiate. Each position has different powers and permissions. Initiates are often not allowed to talk in guild chat or access the guild bank.

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Starting Your Own

In my tips post, I advised new players not to start their own guild unless they already have friends ready to join:

if you are alone in the game and know no one, your guild will be just you and the random people you pick up along the way (usually the people who know as little about the game as you do, because experienced players will belong to more well-established guilds)

If you decide to form your own guild (the pull is strong, Obi-wan):

In all the major faction cities, there's an NPC who sells Guild Charters. You'll need to buy one, and then have other players sign before you'll be officially recognized as a guild. Whatever you do, don't go around randomly shoving your guild charter in peoples' faces. This is considered rude and annoying, and you should be beaten with sticks if you do. (WoWWiki)

Beside the guild charter guy (Guild Master) will be the Tabard Vendor. The Guild Master is the one who lets you design the guild's tabard, and the vendor is where you buy it.

Guild Charter: 10 gold
Tabard: 1 gold
Change Tabard Design: 10 gold

(Tabard design auto-changes when you change guilds. So hang onto your "blank" tabard and it'll update for you.)

Tabard Design:

These are my kinds of tabards. Simple, straight lining, no complicated colors, and cuteness up the wazoo. These are, however, the kinds of tabards that attract players who think they're funny, not players who want to advance in the game. (I got around it by getting my family to use the pink one as their twink guild tabard. ^_^)

Here is an assortment of tabards that a successful guild would rather have. The point is to make it simple and appealing, with colors and symbol that are acceptable to many different people. Stay away from glaring, unconventional colors and any symbol that seems gimmicky. (Many thanks to Merciless Tabard Viewer.)

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Naming

I've seen some guilds that design their tabard first and name the guild after the tabard. Like the black-blue tabard design above might be for a guild called "The Blue Octopus." Which isn't creative at all -- it's just describing the tabard. Creative would be giving the guild a nautical theme like "Baby Seal Clubbers" (real guild name) and carrying the theme through the hierarchy (Commodore, Captain, First Mate, Deck Hand, Swabby).

A great guild name will relate the guild's purpose: raid, family, social, raid-family (mine), PvP, or roleplaying (guild types from WoWWiki). But most guilds will work with whatever name they can get, and that's fine. Just stay away from anything that will alienate possible recruits.

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Recruiting

This is the part that people get disappointed on. They spend hours creating their guild in detail but don't have the members to fill in the infrastructure adequately. For new players without the levels, funds, or friends to make this work, the climb is uphill and will take a lot of work and time. (For example, my guild is a family raiding guild but even though we came in with friends and family, and those people brought their own friends and family, it's taken us a year to acquire, without active recruiting, a solid group large enough to thrive.)

Random recruiting is dangerous because you're going to have to be ready to kick out anyone you invite, and some people just don't have the toughness it takes to enforce rules of their guild (*cough*me*cough*).

But.

There's a chat channel for guild recruitment. Just type: /join guildrecruitment

When advertising your guild, give people its type (raid, family, social, raid-family, PvP, roleplaying), purpose, atmosphere, etc.

If you're a new player, your guild purpose will probably be a leveling guild -- a guild for people leveling to have others to level with. You won't want to invite high levels until you become more established at level 70, because high levels will be bored and possibly start complaining about having no one to instance with.

Example: Green is the New Purple -- Leveling social guild hoping to grow into a raiding guild. Casual atmosphere, friendly people. Looking for members lvl 20 or lower. More details at [short website url, where you will have rules and guild infrastructure].

Make your spiel into a macro, and don't be too wordy. Suggestions for guild website: blog or site ($) or forum.

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Infrastructure

Every organization must have leaders in order to make things work smoothly. The smaller the organization is, the less leadership it requires. The larger the organization, the more leadership is required in order to spread the work evenly. A leveling guild should only require a guild master until the guild master starts having trouble with handling guild business on his/her own.

According to WoW Insider, officers should be chosen for (in order of most to least important) maturity, generosity, communication skills, emotional intelligence/control, and game knowledge.

I highly recommend not making any officers until you actually need them. This will give members more time to rise to fill guild needs on their own, and will keep guilds from an over-abundance of officers sitting around doing nothing. It will also keep you from the drama of having to kick someone out of an officer position so you can fill it with someone better suited.

Possible Positions

Guild Master: This should NOT always remain the person who created the guild. Sometimes someone else has more time, energy, and skill to make the guild run smoothly. Our guild started with a council of 5 leaders and eventually one rose seamlessly as the most dedicated and the most willing.

Bank Officer: Always your most trustworthy and level-headed player. This officer controls the distribution of the guild bank according to the guild's rules (and you should have rules, so that no one abuses their privileges).

Raid Officer: The more raids you do during a week, the more of these you'll want. The main raid officer has a huge job researching boss fights, keeping raiders in line, and bringing extra supplies for anyone who forgot theirs. A raid officer must be tough, knowledgeable, organized, and always, always prepared. Raid officers also must deal with Master Loot Distribution, which can be a touchy situation, so the officer must be fair and have a distribution chart to follow.

Recruitment Officer: This person mostly advertises for the guild and gets to know recruits so the guild can make an informed decision whether or not to accept the new player.

PvP Officer: Has played multiple classes in Player vs. Player situations and concentrates his or her efforts on the game's PvP system. Mostly available for advice, this officer can also schedule city raids and battleground preforms.

Class Leader: Members who are extremely knowledgeable about all aspects of their class (warlock, druid, priest, etc) are often asked to be the class advice-dispenser. They are the go-to person for anyone with specific class questions.

Senior Member: In my guild, this is for any officers who retired (who weren't fired). These members are proven to be mature, reliable, and who have and continue to serve the guild selflessly.

Member: Your most numerous catagory. All those who belong to the guild, who are no longer initiates.

Initiate: Players who are brand new to the guild. Most players are given a 2-4 week trial period to determine if they are right for the guild and if the guild is right for them.

Probation: Players who are undergoing punishment for bad behavior.

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Rules

Joining: Are you going to let just anyone join, will you only allow people with recommendations in, or will you have a strict application process?

Punishment: Define penalties for specific behavior. This way, if your BFF does something dumb, you have policy to follow for how to handle the situation.

• Ex: If members have asked another member to stop negativity, inappropriate jokes, or spam in guild chat, and Player has not responded, Player will be banned from Guild Chat for ____ days/weeks.
• Ex: Players must give the guild a 1 week notice and acceptable reason before /gquit. Players who wish to reenter the guild, having given neither appropriate notice nor an acceptable reason (define acceptable vs. unacceptable reasons to leave) will have to reapply as a new applicant and submit a public apology for the guild's consideration.
• Ex: Ninja-looting shall be punishable by probation for one offense and /gkick for a second offense.

5-Man Loot: Though individual groups may agree upon a different method, it's good to have standard looting rules. Most guilds allow rolling greed on anything bind-on-equip and need on anything that is needed. If an enchanter is present, the accepted method for bind-on-pickup items is that anyone who doesn't need it passes, the enchanter always greeds, disenchants item if won, and group members /roll on the disenchanted materials.

Raid Loot: Typically, the Raid Leader will hand out loot (using Master Loot) and thus needs a guide to go by. In my guild, people who want an item say so in raid chat and say for what spec (main or off-spec). If more than one person wants the item, we go through this list to tie-break (tank > healer > dps):

1. for main spec and has not received loot that night
2. for main spec and has received loot that night
3. for off-spec and has not received loot that night
4. for off-spec and has received loot that night
5. disenchant to guild bank

Bank Withdrawls: Policy for your bank officer, so he/she can know what to dispense and what not to dispense. Some people have a credit system, where members can do certain useful things for the guild (running others' alts, recruiting needed classes, donate money or needed items to the guild, group to help another member, raid, etc) for points which they can use to get items from the guild bank. Our guild is more lax, but we also have fewer people willing to ask for things. A general policy of ours is that you can get mats for enchants/etc on any gear you use to raid, because then it helps the guild.

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That's all I can think of at the moment. ^_~ Feel free to fill in anything I missed.

Best and Worst Names of 2007, or "I Don't Know Why I Collect These"

You know my stance on names. These are the old and new names of 2007. Some are good, some are bad, and some are just plain stupid.

Guild Names

Selling on the AH, or "Jerks are Easy to Manipulate"

(Click on image to see full size.)

I've heard him talk about doing this but never had the privilege of seeing it in action. ^_^

Youshutup has died, or "The Single Oddest Argument I've Ever Had, Ever"

I guess he was just in the mood to argue. I can't explain it any other way. It was just so . . . confusing. Especially considering I was the defense most of the time for LM.

Feast of Winter Veil, or "Cute Outfits, Yay!"

Feast of Winter Veil is an event, a temporary Warcraft world holiday that reflects a certain real world holiday. In this case, Christmas. It lasts for 2 weeks over the Christmas holidays.

New Clothes

Tailors on alliance side will find a pattern for the above cute red suit in their mailbox (say hello to Klaudia, my mage). Horde tailors get the green suit, which Dustfire is modeling. There were issues with uneven distribution of the patterns, so if you have a tailor and haven't gotten the pattern, like my Klaudia, you can find the recipes on the Smokeywood Pastures vendors (who appear ONLY during Feast of Winter Veil) in Orgrimmar and Ironforge. Not sure if they'll do it the same way next year, but Smokeywood Pastures is neutral and therefore horde and alliance can fight their way to buy the opposing outfit recipe.

Leatherworkers will find a pattern for Winter Boots in their mailbox. Though a leatherworking recipe, the boots are cloth and wearable by anyone. (Dustfire is also modeling these boots.)

Outfits and boots have no bindings, so you can trade, loan, borrow, and sell these outfits to your heart's content.

There are issues with the suit looking "skanky" on girls. In the middle of taking the picture to your right, I had to /ignore a guy for making suggestive comments.


My stance on the clothes is thus: I found them in WoW Model Viewer and made that Christmas Klaudia image a few months back, then searched to see if they were available in-game. From what I could tell, they weren't, and I was a little disappointed. So I was very excited to see that now they are, because they're something I specifically wanted.

I just have to hide from boys while I'm wearing them. O.o

Green and red Santa hats have a chance to drop from any boss in the game during these two weeks. These hats are bind-on-pickup, so you have to be there to get it.

Tricks

/kiss a holiday reveler in any inn, and they'll give you something fun like snowflakes to shower on another player or a +20% spirit increase item that you can only use on another player.

Winter Veil Disguise Kit: Turns you into a snowman. Requires a snowball to use. Supposedly shows up in the mailbox, but I don't know anyone who's gotten one, though I've seen it.

Quests

Gather your quests in the hubs of Ironforge and Orgrimmar.

• Treats for Great-father Winter: (Goal: 1 milk & 5 gingerbread cookies.) Get 5 [Small Eggs] and buy milk from a food & drink vendor. Get 5 [Holiday Spices] from a special holiday goblin vendor. If you're a cook, get the gingerbread recipe from that same vendor, or ask someone else to make it for you. Turn in.
  
• Reason for the Season [A/H]: (Goal: Talk to someone.) You'll be sent to talk to some famous leader after the first part. Easy.
  
• Stolen Winter Veil Treats: Go to the snowman at 35, 72 Alterac Mountains. You'll then get You're a Mean One, where you have to kill the level 36 Abominable Greench. Watch out for higher level horde and alliance if you're on a PVP server!
• Metzen the Reindeer [A/H]: Levels 45+. Best done as a group quest. Rewards the non-soulbound [Preserved Holly], allowing you to transform your current mount into a reindeer 5 times, lasting until you dismount. Flying mounts give you a flying reindeer, which leaves a trail of sparkles when you fly. ^_^

Pets

All found in [Gaily Wrapped Present], which are available for pickup under the trees in Ironforge and Orgrimmar on and after December 25th.

• Snowman Kit: Will /wave and /dance back at you, but does not follow you.
• Green Helper Box: Male gnome in green Christmas outfit.
• Red Helper Box: Female gnome in red Christmas outfit.
• Jingling Bell: Small holiday reindeer pet.

All require a [Snowball] to summon. Snowballs are sold by Smokeywood Pastures goblins in any major city, 10c per snowball. Also, buy extra snowballs to throw at friends. ^_^

Gifts

Gifts under the trees in Orgrimmar and Ironforge are available starting December 25th to the end of the Winter Veil holiday. Each type of gift is marked with a quest-giver's exclamation point (!) and can only be picked up once. Pet items can be traded, bought, or sold if you didn't get the one you want.