Priest/Warrior 2800 guide [Arena Junkies repost]

Arena MS Paint Rage Thread

Here are some memes from a legendary thread on Arena Junkies ^^.

Elitist Jerks Forum Rules

I’m back, hi!

I’ve always been amused by these, and I sometimes imagine how online communities would look like if these were consistently enforced :^).

Link to the archived Elitist Jerks forums

1. All posters are to make an effort to communicate clearly. In particular, all posts should be made in a reasonable approximation of proper English. We realize that a significant number of you are not native speakers, and we do not expect perfection: merely effort. Please obey basic rules of capitalization and punctuation, avoid chatroom abbreviations (“lol”, “imo”, “u”, and the like), and pay at least minimal attention to sentence and paragraph structure. This includes not starting a new paragraph for each sentence.
2. All opinions should be stated as succinctly as possible. Do not make multiple consecutive posts; rather, multi-quote and include all your ideas in a single post. Do not quote huge blocks of text to add a short reply; instead, quote only what you need to to make your point. Do not break a single quoted reply into multiple blocks; doing so needlessly lengthens your post without aiding its readability. And don’t provide unnecessary backstory: if it isn’t relevant to the question you’re asking or the point you’re making, we don’t need to know about it.
3. All discussion should be both polite and civil. Trolling or flaming in any form is forbidden. Just because someone disagrees with you does not mean they are stupid or on drugs and their personal hygiene isn’t really relevant to the discussion. Regardless of the merit (or lack thereof) of your argument, it should be made in a way that is neither insulting nor condescending.
4. Whining in any form is forbidden. Blizzard is not incompetent or stupid and they are not intentionally screwing you over and neither is anyone else. If all you’re going to do is complain, don’t bother posting.
5. Threads should be started if and only if there is some reasonable topic to discuss. If the issue you wish to discuss is covered in an existing thread, use it rather than creating a new one. If you are asking a simple question that you expect to have a simple answer, ask it in one of the “Simple Questions/Simple Answers” threads. But if you feel there is a topic of discussion not well-covered by existing threads, feel free to start a new thread to discuss it.
6. Do not post unless you have something new and worthwhile to say. Do not bump, quote for truth, cross-post, or post only to say thanks. We don’t want to hear your funny story about something that happened in your raid last night, your baseless speculation is unproductive, and your idea for a new ability really isn’t that interesting. We don’t care what gear you are hoping to get or just received. If you have an idea you’d like to share with the community, support it with analysis, testing, or both that indicates you’ve put some thought into it. (Note: Posting of a new untested spec falls under this rule, unless you have done the grunt work and have information to support your amazing new spec don’t even bother posting it here.)
7. Do not beg for hand-holding. These are forums for discussion and analysis, not for answering any question that you might happen to dream up. Search and read before posting–do not post a question unless you are fairly confident that the answer isn’t widely known or easily attainable. In particular, we do not want to take a look at your armory or WWS to tell you what you’re doing wrong and we’re not interested in making your tough gear or spec decisions for you. We expect you to use the search function and also to read the first post as well as the last 5 pages of the thread you are posting in. Chances are your question has already been answered. Additionally, do not post asking for confirmation of a simulation result. If you think there is a problem with the Sim you are welcome to PM the author.
8. All accounts must have a valid WoW profile. If you no longer play and have deleted all characters you used to have, you may select the “No WoW Account” option; otherwise, this information must be filled out for your main character. If you fail to observe this rule you’ll be permanently banned from our forums. We do not permit anonymous posting.
9. Do not sign your posts. People can see who you are from the profile printed to the left of each post, so signing your posts is redundant and simply takes up space. Similarly, you do not need to link your armory in your post, as if people wish to see it they can get it from your profile.
10. Do not respond to terrible posts. Do not respond to a blatantly awful post (a post that is in clear violation of the rules) either in an attempt to moderate them or to answer a question they posed. Your post will just be warned/infracted and removed with the post you are replying to. If you feel that a post is in violation of these rules, please report it and the moderators will deal with it as we feel is appropriate.

No New Post This Week

EDIT: See the most recent post.

In case you’ve stopped by this Sunday, expecting a new post: hey, thank you so much for coming, but I’m afraid I don’t have a post to share with you this week.

Life atop of Teldrassil has been dynamic lately.

Young night elves are getting in trouble exploring the local caves, hoping to find hidden treasures but usually running into angry furbolgs instead.

The local population of haripes came up with a peace offering and now insists on providing us with flying lessons and teaching elemental magic.

Imps should know what happens when they misbehave, but they’re bothering deer, rabbits, and other lovely animas again.

Above all, my new job in Darnassus leaves me with little to no time to deal with all these issues. I’ve been wandering the lands of Kalimdor free, without any formal obligation, for so long that I’ve forgotten that when you work, your typical day is reduced to 4 hours of free time — or less.

Because of all this, I couldn’t find the time (and the energy) to fly to Amberpine Lodge and hang out with you. I’m sorry!

Capitalist WoW vs. Communist WoW – A Tale of Two Servers

Once upon a time, in a parallel universe very much like ours, there were two private WoW servers. They had comparable populations and about the same level of development. For a while, they existed in peace since the private scene was small, players were loyal to their projects, and the general population of normies had little idea that private servers existed.

However, this couldn’t last, and after a series of cataclysmic events that included nostalgia, competent marketing, and France, the scene was changed forever. Tens of thousands of new players poured in, but many new servers were started as well — often, a week wouldn’t pass without a new project announcing its launch. Competition kept increasing, and the two older servers that once ruled the scene started to feel the pressure. Players were leaving for the new, exciting “fresh”, and something had to be done.

In an attempt to attract new players and keep the existing ones, the two servers introduced a number of drastic reforms, each set of reforms being radically opposed to one another. One project embraced capitalism and renamed itself Capitalist WoW, and the other went full communism, changing its name to Communist WoW. Some argued that the names weren’t imaginative, but the owners wanted there to be no doubt what their servers are about. Clear, in your face branding was key in a ruthless market the private scene had turned into.

Capitalist WoW

All gear in the game became BoE. Every time a boss was killed, the gear would be openly auctioned and sold to the highest bidder, making every run into was was previously known as “GDKP”.

Those who lacked skill but had plenty of gold could buy their way into most difficult raids, and the best tanks, healers, and the rarest type of player, excellent damage dealers, were getting paid massive amounts just to show up to raids. Most of the time, the currency was in-game gold, but sometimes they’d be paid in dollars, euros, Swiss francs, and Norwegian krones. A few players were known to be making a living solely from raiding and raid leading — including a young family of four where everyone but the baby played WoW to pay off the mortgage (which they did).

Not only gear and services, but characters were freely sold too. The project’s website had a system that allowed the trade of characters, gold, and all items that weren’t equipped. Goods could be traded in any way players wanted, and if there was a RL monetary exchange involved, the server would take a small cut of the money. The system was made in a way that minimized a chance of scams, but all trades were final, and each player was fully responsible for their own decisions. The general consensus was that if someone’s incompetent enough to get scammed, they deserve it, and occasional appeals and cries for help were collectively laughed at.

The entire in-game world was a PVP zone; all sanctuary areas were removed. To make up for it, NPC guards in cities like Shattrath and Dalaran were buffed, but a faction could still control the area with a 40 man raid or two. This, however, only happened rarely since the only reward for doing so was lulz. There was no material incentive for it.

The opposite was true for world PVP. In order to make herbs more important, all flasks were buffed by 500%, and all the raid bosses were buffed in ways that required far more damage and healing to down them. This made them unkillable without flasks, and to raise the value of flasks, the amount of herb spawns was drastically reduced as well.

That forced the guilds, previously just mere conglomerates of individuals wanting to improve their gear, to organize themselves and work together, so they could raid at all. Each guild had teams of players who specialized in herbalism, often working in shifts, who would comb the world for hours, looking for new spawns and fighting the opposing faction in the process. What used to be a boring activity now lead into intense battles that made herb-rich areas into battlegrounds: most herbalists were actually PVP-ers. Friendships were made, videos were recorded, resulting Discord rage was surreal, and above all, players had a reason to log in. Herbalists would, of course, be rewarded for their work with gold and raid gear.

Mining was just as intense. To make it meaningful, crafted gear was buffed to match endgame raid and PVP items, and the amount of ore spawns was, again, reduced. This provided an alternative way to progress: a player could choose to not raid and just play the mining game instead, which, just like the herbalist one, included lots of cooperation, PVP, and drama. Entire PVP guilds were made to trade materials with raiding guilds, so those who disliked PVP but enjoyed raiding could simply kill bosses on regular basis and trade the gear for materials.

Capitalist WoW had near-complete freedom of speech. Players were allowed to discuss any topic in whatever way they pleased, and the only reason for a mute or ban was spamming or doxing. Even so, the chat remained relatively civil since everyone had a reputation to maintain. if too many people considered you toxic, you’d have a hard time trading or getting into a good guild. If someone proved to be too annoying for enough people, they’d be dealt with by being repeatedly ganked until they shut up.

Goldshire offered a fine selection of adult RP-ers both amateur and professional. Women, men, and everything in between would mingle in complete freedom, engaging in voluntary transactions, so to speak, of their desires. While the place was mostly used for relaxation after a long night of raiding or gathering materials, there were rumors of new couples being made in the Goldshire inn or at some remote spot in Elwynn forest. Almost no one would admit actually visiting the place, but it was there, open for everyone, and oh so busy at all times.

Communist WoW

While a great game, WoW always had a problem of elitism: selfish players who can farm endgame raids and get high arena ratings. They think they’re better than everyone else and parade around with their gear — as if getting it was some kind of an incredible achievement. In reality, clearing raids and winning arena games is easy for them because they always have good gear from previous tiers and seasons. They’re also members of successful guilds that refuse to recruit anyone who isn’t as lucky as them, and so such unlucky players are left with nothing. What can a player with no gear and no friends do? They’re unfairly blocked from playing the game, and the team at Communist WoW decided to stop that injustice once and for all.

Upon being looted, all blues and epics would be transfered to the central bank. Players were still allowed to loot greens and lower quality items, but everything above that was seized and redistributed to assure maximum fairness. Redistribution was handled by the staff, and players were unable to see the contents of the central bank since there really was no need for it. After all, it was the staff that had a vision of a better server based on equality and justice, and there was no reason to doubt their judgment. In fact, anyone doing so was probably a toxic troll and/or a Capitalist WoW agitator who needed to be swiftly removed.

The same was true for mining and herbalism. Players were encouraged to gather as much as possible to provide enough materials for everyone, including players who didn’t have the time to farm (or simply didn’t learn a gathering profession). Everyone would receive resource tokens every week, and these tokens could then be redeemed for ores and herbs on the server’s website. Because the amount of materials was limited, players often had to wait for several days — or longer — for their tokens to be processed and turned into profession goods. Of course, no one complained about the so called “Titanium lines”, a term most likely coined by a Capitalist WoW infiltrator that claimed the wait for a single Titanium stack has now stretched over 8 months. Only a paid shill would try to complain about the world’s most progressive server.

All PVP was disabled due to being elitist. The initial idea was to allow it and redistribute the honor and arena points, but that turned out to not be enough. Certain players would, for some reason, continue winning the majority of games, making other players feel bad about themselves and continuing the tradition of toxic elitism that Communist WoW was determined to end. The “I hate PVP” soon become a popular maxim among the players, and anyone suspected of not agreeing would soon be reported to the staff.

Speech was heavily regulated. Any form of racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, toxic masculinity, and trans-exclusionary language was bannable — along with expressions of white, male, and cis privilege. The staff also worked hard on developing a system that would automatically detect such hate speech though its introduction kept getting delayed for unknown causes.

All actions by the staff were to promote fairness and fight elitism. Players adored them and wrote lengthy posts on forums and Discord about how great the server is, and how excellent specific staff members are at doing their jobs. Donations were optional, but were really common even though the project had no item shop. Sadly, agitators from Capitalist WoW would spread rumors about how donators are rewarded with gold, items, and even services like getting a specific player banned.

Some went even further and claimed that the server owner is trading sexual favors in exchange for a legendary weapon. The horrendous account described how a young man, in return for a Shadowmourne, agreed to move in with the owner to live under his bed while taking estrogen, slowly turning into a girl while playing WoW all day and servicing the owner at night. The rumors were suppressed, and no one dared to wonder how come there’s a ret paladin with Shadowmourne on a server where all legendaries are banned.

~ FIN ~

I hope you’ve enjoyed the post!

Which server sounds more appealing to you: Capitalist WoW or Communist WoW?

Do you think their representations are correct, or is there something you’d add?

Since we just had two serious posts in a row, the next post is also going to be a fiction piece. We’re traveling to a dystopian future where we’ll meet a famous WoW YouTuber.

See you next Sunday!

Playing for Free, pt. 2

Hi there. In the previous post, part 1, we’ve talked about how playing for free doesn’t exist, how players are paying with other things than money, and how the server staff doesn’t always gets paid in money either. We’ve then concluded that pay 2 win is just fine. If you’ve missed it, I suggest you go read it nao.

In part 2, we’re going to look into different ways in which servers can be monetized, role of non-donating players on P2W servers, and finish with relationship between fun and in-game wealth. Go go!

Monetizing Servers

First option is to do nothing: no cash shop, only voluntary donations with no tangible rewards in return. Maybe we’ll give you a “donator” tag on Discord or something, but you probably don’t want that either since you’ve donated because you’re a good person, and this is basically our business model. We enjoy not making money in exchange for our work.

Second option is a shop that only offers vanity items like pets, mounts, and toys. This gives players a concrete reason to donate while not affecting the gameplay at all, or at least not in a relevant way. You could, however, already start making the case that this is a form of P2W since hey, some players are into collecting mounts and pets, and offering an option to donate for all of it ruins their game. I’ve honestly never seen anyone claim that, but it could be done in theory, lol.

Third way is to combine the above vanity shop with some additional services that don’t affect the endgame, but allow players to skip or reduce the grind required to get there. An early example of that is Dalaran WoW with an option to donate for a level 70 on their 1x server. Sunwell allows its players to donate for a 4x XP boost. Kronos will let you buy characters that were played by other people, and Feenix, back in the day, would sell instant level 60 with a set of D1 gear as well.

This has been criticized as P2W in past, and while it doesn’t affect the endgame gameplay, which is the usual response to these critiques, it all depends on what the definition of “winning” is.

For many, winning in the game means raiding and playing arena, and rewards obtained from doing so are what the game is about. Everything else is secondary and ultimately just the grind that one must get over in the least painful way possible. However, most players don’t raid (apart from an occasional pug) and while they might play some BGs, they definitely won’t do arena (because it’s hard, and it sucks to get owned, and it breaks the illusion that you’re a good player). This has always been the case on every WoW server, retail of private.

(For instance, if every player were a raider on a WotLK server with ~3.000 average peaks, that would mean 100 raiding guilds to accommodate all those players, assuming 30 players per guild. In reality, the amount of guilds is far, far lower. This is something WoW players understand intuitively.)

For everyone who doesn’t raid nor play arena, the majority, “winning” means something different. It can be hitting max level, buying all the emblem & honor gear, or leveling professions, so for many of them, selling XP boosts alone might already mean paying to win. On the other hand, players that aren’t engaged in the game at the highest level, raiding and arena, are less likely to care whether their goals are made easier to reach by donations, especially if those donations help keeping the server online and fr… available without some sort of monetary transactions :^).

They are the silent majority on which servers stand, rise, and fall. They may not be doing anything special as individuals, but as a group, they create an environment in which the raiders and arena players can thrive, in which their rewards have value. They also keep the economy moving and provide a pool of potential future raiders and arena players, but their most important function is providing an audience for the big players, serving as the bottom half of the hierarchy pyramid on which others can then stand and enjoy their rewards.

The Non-Donating Players

On P2W servers, there’s another large group of players that keeps everything moving. Those are players who never, or rarely, donate.

Just like players who neither raid nor play arena, non-donating players create the environment in which donating players, donators, can enjoy their rewards. A donator gets a Shadowmourne and proceeds to wreck ungeared noobs, or perhaps they can now increase their arena rating by 100.

Non-donating players give meaning to donated items. If the donated for Shadowmourne were renamed to “DONATOR AXE XD”, everyone would know the weapon was obtained by donating, which doesn’t require any in-game skill, effort, or time investment. Without donating, getting a Shadowmourne requires several months of raiding in a good guild, and compared to that, the donated for Shadowmourne feels like it’s “free”.

Of course, it’s not really free because the donator, in our example, paid a good amount of money for it, and they had to earn that money somehow IRL. But real life has no (relevant) relation to the in-game world, and the only legitimate in-game currency are time, effort, and skill. Everything a player can earn inside the game comes from some combination of these three elements. Since most players are not donators, earning items in that way is the standard and, as a result, most respected. (Non-donators will use the “mommy’s credit card” meme against donators to say that the donated for gear took no effort to obtain whatsoever.)

On a server where every single player donated for all their items, resulting items would be meaningless. Everyone would know everyone else donated for everything, and there would be nothing left to respect. The only way to earn respect would be proving how the money was made, that it was earned fairly and not through “mommy’s credit card”, but that’s far beyond the scope of what WoW, a video game, is. What are players on such servers supposed to do, upload 10 hour streams of their workdays to earn prestige points?

If only a minority donates, players can never be sure if the item was donated for or not, and so the item itself keeps the prestige, the status. But even if the item has clearly been donated for, as long as it exists in an environment where most rewards are earned by playing the game, it will retain a sort of an “emotional echo”, for the lack of better term, of the original, played for item. As long as 4 Shadowmournes were obtained by playing the game, the 2 Shadowmournes everyone knows were donated for still look kinda cool. If the entire warrior, DK, and paladin population of Molten donated for it, it would be far less special.

Donating for items, apart from increasing your status, also allows you to enjoy the gameplay more than before. Playing with bad gear isn’t fun since you do no damage/healing and are easy to kill, but getting great gear opens new options and feels like playing a new, far more entertaining, game. You can now join a good guild and enter all the raids, or you can be Vurtne and 1v3 your enemies. Everyone enjoys fun gameplay, but the majority of players care most about respect from their peers: their status, their gear.

Playing for Fun

Most players don’t play for fun — at least not primarily. They play to be respected by their peers. They’ll spend weeks and months replaying the same content over and over again in order to improve their characters’ gear, which will then result in them being superior to other players, giving them a sense of accomplishment, a sense of status. Even if respect is not given directly, it’s a fact of the game: geared players are successful. They are near the top of the server’s hierarchy. No one would look at a character in full ICC 25 HC gear and say, “this guy sux” except if they said, “this guy has no life lol”, but again, real life has no (relevant) relation to the in-game world.

(Connection between real life and WoW is something almost no one cares about. A person may have a shitty RL, but that doesn’t change the fact that their in-game character is powerful. The only time where RL-WoW relation seems to matter is when people attempt to use the game as a dating app, hoping that they’ll be among the lucky few who’ve met their significant other in the game. They won’t. If you want a girlfriend, log off WoW.)

Fun does play a role for every type of player, and it has to be present in at least some amount. Yes, maybe you’ve been farming ICC 25 for months, but you enjoy the social aspect of your guild, competing on the DPS meters, inside jokes, hanging out with your friends. However, if ICC 25 stopped dropping gear, you’d never do it again in your life. Ever. If having ICC 25 gear suddenly became shameful (for some highly theoretical reason), something people would laugh at, you’d deny ever having entered the place.

The only type of player that cares about fun and nothing else is the “true casual”: someone who plays a few hours a week, if that, and doesn’t care so much about playing the game, but instead plays with the game. It’s a fun toy that can be discarded at any time, for any reason.

There’s no right way to play WoW. We all decide what our values and goals are, and no outside authority has the right to tell us otherwise. But hey, it sure is fun to pop the hood and look at why and how we do all those things.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, and I’d love to hear what you think about it.

Do you play for fun? Do you ever play without expecting any rewards?

Are you a casual player that’s ok with P2W, or are you a committed player who just wants a proper, 1x, no cash shop blizzlike experience?

See you next Sunday with a shitpost about imaginary “capitalist server” versus a “communist server” *Venezuela intensifies*!

Playing for Free, pt. 1

Every time I see someone talking about how playing on private servers is “free”, I want to HoJ them, pop wings and give them a stern talking to. But since this is a blog, we’ll have a friendly conversation instead~.

Playing on private servers is nowhere close to free. You’re not paying any money to do so, true, but that doesn’t mean what your doing is without a price. You’re paying with your energy, which is limited, and you’re paying with your time, which is finite as well.

Time and energy you spend on private servers could be used elsewhere. You could be playing some other game, you could be hanging out with friends, or you could be working or studying. The money, the experience, and the pleasure that all these other activities can offer — you’re missing out on them because of WoW.

This is not an attempt to paint WoW as an unworthy activity that’s a “waste of time”. It’s up to you, to each one of us, to decide what a waste of time is — not to some outside authority. Sinc we’ve been dedicating parts of our limited lives to WoW, this means that the game is high on our list of priorities, of things that we value. If that weren’t the case, we wouldn’t be devoting all that time to WoW, and we’d be doing something else.

I love WoW to the point at which I’m not even interested in any other games (especially modern ones, ugh). A decade old version of WoW is the newest game I play, and I do it because I value it above all other games. When I’m playing WoW, the game is the most important thing in the world for me because if it weren’t, I wouldn’t be playing it. Whatever you’re doing at a given moment is the most important thing for you simply because you’re doing it.

Our actions determine our values, and they also determine our identities. You play a lot of video games; you’re a gamer. You play a lot of old school WoW; you’re an retro gamer. You write a blog in 2018: you’re insane. You actually read blogs in 2018: ❤ YUO ARE AWSOM and a part of the elite ❤

Playing on private servers isn’t free; it costs energy and time. And the time you’re paying with isn’t just any time. You’re not a 90 year old man, laying in bed in a retirement home, unable to do much apart from talking to whatever visitors he gets and operating a computer (as much as his hands, damaged by a lifetime of button mashing, allow him). You’re probably somewhere in your 20s or 30s, enjoying all the benefits that being relatively young has. If you’re a teenager, you probably think people in their 30s are old, and if you’re in your 30s, you’re aware that your energy levels won’t stay the same forever.

The time that we’re using to pay for the old school WoW experience comes out of our most energetic, most productive, most imaginative years. We all get to decide what’s valuable for us, and no one has the right to tell us otherwise, but it’s good to be aware of how scarce the currency we’re paying in is. Don’t tell me playing WoW on private servers is free. Nothing is free.

Value, Meaning, and Other Cute Concepts

Owners and the staff of private servers that aren’t pay 2 win are also not doing it for free. The amount of money they earn is small, non-existent, or they’re even covering the costs themselves, but the real prize is the emotional satisfaction of creating a project and presenting it to the world, of managing, maintaining, being a part of something greater than yourself. This is why people volunteer to be GMs, and this is why people will attempt to start servers that are destined to go nowhere.

For those who aren’t religious, the world can be a cold, meaningless place, and it’s exactly this kind of activity that generates meaning and turns our lives from wading through the darkness, staring at an empty, infinite chasm, into an exciting adventure where rewards are real and all the waifus are 3D. A chance to be a part of a private WoW project that you believe in or starting one yourself has a massive pull, and the constant stream of new servers appearing every month confirms it. Most of those servers aren’t P2W.

Some of them are. Notable examples, apart from the entire post-Nostalrius shitshow the vanilla scene has turned into, are Feenix and Molten. Feenix, at its peak, had several paid full-time employees ranging from developers to GMs and routinely sold every existing item in the game including legendaries. Molten has always been a beast that attracted the pay 2 win crowd and players who liked big population numbers and/or didn’t know any better. This resulted in the only type of community that could’ve emerged from it, but it sure paid the bills, and it continues to do so to this day.

There’s nothing ethically wrong with running a pay 2 win server. Starting a private server requires work and knowledge, and this extends far beyond technical skills. (One major issue on which I see both new and existing private projects fail time and time again is marketing.)

Owners and their teams work hard on their servers. All donations are made voluntarily by players, and it’s on them to decide whether to spend money or not — no outside authority can (or should) prevent them from doing so. We all decide for ourselves what the most valuable way to spend our time is, and the same goes for our money.

All pay 2 win projects are based on thousands of hours of development by programmers that have no ties these projects. Their work is taken, modified, and then released with a goal to make money. This is perfectly ethical as well.

Contributors to open projects like TrinityCore, projects that enable everyone to create their own private server with relative ease, do so without expecting any monetary compensation. They do it because, again, it means they get to be a part of something bigger than themselves, and they can do so in a way that’s challenging and helps the improve as programmers. It may seem unfair that their work is then used by P2W projects, and I don’t like the looks of it either, but ethically, it’s completely sound. Besides, those who contribute do it with at least some kind of remote expectation that their code will go live. If no one puts up the servers, P2W or otherwise, then all the open repositories are nothing but piles of dead code.

In reality, some sort of a cash shop is often necessary to keep the server running. Kronos, an established vanilla project, had to re-open their shop after trying to get by without it for a few months. Relying on people donating out of principle, donating just because “it’s the right thing to do”, without getting any in-game rewards in return, proved to not be viable. Kronos’ shop, however, only offers vanity items and an option to buy characters from other players, and while some might argue that this falls under pay 2 win, it’s nowhere close to being able to buy endgame epics and legendaries.

There’s no use in bemoaning the fact that most players will only support their servers in exchange for rewards. The only two times I’ve ever donated was buying full S4 gear on Smolderforge and getting the 4x XP boost on Sunwell. I will never donate just because “it’s the right thing to do” unless the server I’m playing on is on the brink of shutting down due to a lack of founds. But then again, why play on a server that’s been mismanaged so badly that it can no longer afford hosting? Especially since there are numerous ways of monetizing a server, ways we’re going to look into in the part two of this post, coming next Sunday.

Until then, I’d like to know what you think of this post.

Have you ever donated to a server, and was it for something tangible, or was the feeling that you’d supported it enough?

Would you pay a monthly subscription to a private server if that made it superior to everything else?

How many millionaires are playing on private servers, and how many of them are cute, fertile girls?

Let me know in the comments below!

Fresh

A Friday afternoon. One of those hot, lazy Fridays when half the people are on vacation, out of town, and the other half organizes their lives in the most pleasant way possible. Kids would run around the playground or gather in small groups, looking at their smartphones, adults would celebrate the end of workweek. Young people were getting ready to go out with their friends to get wasted, to make out with their dates, to enter the night that held an unspoken promise. Most of them, anyway — not her.

The apartment was brightly lit with blinds wide open, and smell of mint hovered in the air. A bedroom, living room, small kitchen, bathroom, and a hallway. Every surface so clean it almost sparkled with a soft sound of synthwave coming from somewhere in the background. Most likely from from the speakers set on a large table that was set with a screen, mouse and keyboard, a pair of mint scented candles, and a small cup of blueberries. On one of the walls, there was a framed, almost life-size poster of Jordan B. Peterson, overlooking the room with his sharp and fatherly gaze. Clean your room, bucko, and she most definitely has.

On the screen, there was a forum page with topics talking about different pirate WoW servers. What used to be an odd, obscure niche reserved for kids from countries where 12 € wasn’t exactly pocket change slowly grew into a scene full of professionally ran projects (with paid employees) and a growing playerbase of tens of thousands. No one expected it to happen a decade ago, but there it was, and the competition was fierce.

At least half the topics on that day revolved around a new server just about to release. The majority was excited, and whoever dared to disagree with the obvious fact that the new, fresh server is going to be amazing, that it’s going to blow up the competition and attract thousands of players, was quickly dealt with. Those unable to appreciate the new fresh would soon learn of their wrongthink, leave their boring, subpar servers, and join the others.

Of course, nothing could ever compare to the greatest server that ever existed, Nostalrix. A project that redefined the meaning of a pirate server but was now, sadly, long gone. It was only with Nostalrix when the existence of the pirate scene entered the public conscience and for a good reason: the quality, the scripting, the absence of bugs, the stability the server offered was above anything pirate community could even dream of. There were even rumors that Nostalrix was superior to the actual retail, classic WoW made available by Blizzard.

However, only a few months after its release, the server was put offline, and the staff mysteriously disappeared. Some speculated that Blizzard hired a group of Russian hackers, known to specialize in that sort of thing, led by a man named “Kaer”, to hack the Nostalrix servers. Some implied that the Russians were also responsible for the team’s sudden disappearance as “Kaer” was known to be ruthless and without morals, interested only in cold, hard cash.

Others argued that the team was paid off by Blizzard when the company realized how superior Nostalrix was to their original game. After being paid the hush money, the staff was likely employed by Blizzard as well, the theory went, and the fact that Blizzard was now working on their own vanilla servers, scheduled to be released at a time unknown, only seemed to confirm it.

Whatever the case, one thing was certain: nothing could ever replace Nostalrix. The memories of the experience, in minds of its players, were frozen in time, unable to be sullied by trolls and shills, and in a sense, forever fresh. They would keep its memory alive and defend it forever, and like quality wine, the server only seemed to get better as time passed. It continued to loom over the private scene, quietly judging, like a portrait of a dead child in a family household, all the other children never being as well behaved, as hard working, as successful as the deceased child was, and would surely have been if the tragedy had not struck.

She played with her hair, lost in thought, then realized that the new fresh server is releasing in just a few hours. The afternoon started turning into an evening, the kids still played outside, adults were relaxing, teenagers would stand in lines to buy the evening’s supply of store brand beer. She put her hair in a pony tail and got to work, almost ready for the new fresh. It’s going to be so great, it’s going to be the one, this time for real — she could feel it, and everyone else felt it, too. No one dared to say it out loud, but maybe … it might even be as good as Nostalrix was.

Night slowly descended upon the town.

Bright light. Dark room.

A sound of mechanical drums, accompanied by nothing but a repetitive synth pattern, was coming out of speakers near the computer screen, its glow being the only light source in the entire apartment.

Bright light. Dark room.

She brushed her hair aside, now tangled and greasy, and gave another look to the screen. She didn’t have to, she knew exactly what was on it: a few Excel spreadsheets, loosely organized, but full of detail.

The one opened was titled “the new NEW f r e s h” and listed the server’s population numbers: Horde, Alliance, total. The initial entries were weekly, but they soon started to multiply from two a week to at least one entry a day. The numbers looked good: the server started with just over five thousand people on the launch day and kept at the same level for weeks. It then dropped to between 4.500 to just below four thousand and more or less stayed there until the end of the table where the amount of players, on one weekday night, was 3459.

Most of the table was devoid of comments, but there were a few near the end. One of them said, “server dying?”, and the other one, “probably just holidays, actually getting lots of new players”. Next one said, “not again”, and the next, “lol ded”, followed by the final one at the 3459 mark saying, “DED KEK”.

All window blinds were tightly shut, the floor was covered with trash and dirty clothes, empty yogurt cartons stacked high in one of the corners. Some tightly packed trash bags sat in the middle of the room, waiting to be taken out, and the smell, the smell was something she’d gotten used to and didn’t even register and any more. Jordan B. Peterson was still on the wall, giving her a judgmental gaze every time she looked at him. She’d gotten good at avoiding it.

It hadn’t taken much effort anyway since all that mattered, her entire life, or at least the relevant part of it, happened on the screen. Back in summer, she’d been positive that the new server will be the one, that it’ll have the population, the community, the gameplay to rival Nostalrix. The server had failed, but with another new fresh already on the horizon, she hadn’t been worrying all that much. It had been only when that one started failing too, dipping below 4K online on regular basis, that she’d realized the other upcoming server, the new fresh, is her final hope.

Walls near the bed were covered with printouts of tables, detailing their population over time. She’d been starting at them for hours, half asleep, when her body hadn’t allowed her to sit any more, protesting the abuse, the incessant sitting, horrible posture, absence of movement. On one of the walls, there was a large sign, smeared with a mixture of feces and menstrual blood, spelling, “F R E S H”.

Sharp ringing. Won’t stop. Sound of men. Knocking, trying the door handle. More knocking, more voices, loud sounds, banging, cracking. They’re in. People talking, now standing around her, someone opening all the windows, so bright.

She was found in her bed, clutching the official Nostalrix teacup, now sold out and a valuable collector’s item. They had to pry it from her hands to prepare her to be transported to a hospital for the initial assessment.

…

…

…

Don’t worry, though, the story has a happy ending. It did take a long time, and she doesn’t like to talk about it, but she’s fine now — and happily playing on Retro WoW.

A Guide to Peaceful Trolling

As a chronic attention whore, I’m in a right position to guide you through a style of communication that we call “trolling”.

To define the term, trolling is a kind of posting that aims to spark a response, controversy. That is its only goal:  guild advertisements, for example, also seek response, but getting people to respond is just a way to recruit new raiders. Meanwhile, trolling is concerned with nothing but generating reactions. Higher the amount of reactions and their intensity, more successful the trolling.

It’s also possible to combine trolling with a genuine question/statement to bring more attention to it. You can say, “hey guys, I think our population is great, and people worry about it too much”, or you could go with, “stop worshiping Nostalirus shrine, your divine server had 6 million online and bext 100% script no bug, all other servur DED lmao, maybe realize how many players retail servers had and that 3K online is amazing, F R E S H is a shit meme”.

The latter is bound to create far more response because it’s edgy and plays on people’s emotions, but it’s not pure trolling, or just trolling, since it also has an element of an honest conversation. It tries to illustrate a point, and uses trolling as a tool to do so.

Meanwhile, if you say, “nice 2x xp + 4x xp weekend + 2x xp from rested = 16x XP nice (((blizzlike))) server fam” that doesn’t carry any meaningful information, and it’s just nonsense you throw out there for lulz. It’s pure, distilled trolling.

Peaceful Trolling

Peaceful trolling either doesn’t cause distress, and if it does, it isn’t severe and is entirely caused by the recipient’s naivety or limited mental faculties.

It’s peaceful for both the community in which the troll resides and the troll themselves: the community is entertained or, at worst, mildly outraged (sometimes both), and the troll gets to live in peace, not having to deal with any, or very few, of the consequences that come with toxic, unpeaceful trolling.

Now that we have our definitions in order, let’s look at the traps trolling presents and how to avoid them.

What to Avoid

1. Don’t attack individuals.

The easiest way to get a response is to tell someone, “fuck you”. This is a terrible approach though since you’ve now made an enemy or have at least moved in that direction. Your new enemy has friends, and maybe he’s an officer in a large raiding guild, or maybe you’ll meet them in a BG, and it’s gonna suck because they dislike you, and you’re supposed to cooperate in BGs, fuck. Oh wait, they’re actually running a premade, and no, you can’t join.

To be fair, insulting someone won’t lead into such drastic situations right away, but if you do it enough, you’re getting there eventually.

What I’m seeing more of in recent years is a kind of depressingly dedicated, poisonous trolling that spans over several weeks (or even longer) where a player, or a group of players, will constantly attack a person for some largely made up reason. They’ll do it while trying to maintain an image of a perfectly balanced individual who’s just having fun in a video game, lol, and why is their target complaining about being stalked and bashed since, ha ha, they’re just a normal person being entertained by funny things.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t remember seeing this until a few years ago, and I wonder what is says about the community.

What’s clear though is that acting like that is the equivalent of walking around with a massive, flashing neon sign saying, “I HATE MYSELF AND WANT TO DIE”.

The exception to “do not attack individuals” is when you’re doing it in self defense. Keep in mind that your attacker is using emotional language, and that you must respond in the same way to win — rational arguments are meaningless. In most cases, though, ignore function works well.

2. Don’t attack groups

Groups are collectives of individuals and, as such, can defend themselves far better. Everything about individuals applies to groups as well.

Exceptions to this are, again, self defense, and when the group you’re attacking is a part of the other faction. If you’re Horde, it’s probably safe to make fun of Alliance guilds and vice versa. That said, in WotLK, factions rarely come in any kind of meaningful conflict and even share a city (a floating city entirely covered in PINK); vanilla does a far better job in that aspect.

3. Don’t attack the server you’re playing on

This should go without saying, but it’s still something people manage to fail at routinely. Even the most chill and benevolent GM won’t tolerate their project being slammed for very long.

A Clarification

Before we continue, I want to point out the reason I’m using the term “attack” since, one might say, you don’t always have to attack something or someone with maximum, brute force to achieve a result. You can just mildly tease, you can make humorous remarks, or just bury the insult under several layers of irony.

Yes, you can do all those things, and it’s still trolling, but the fact is that global chats move fast, players’ attentions are divided, and most of them don’t have the capacity and/or patience to analyze your shitpost that you’ve been refining for hours. It’ll just get blown away in the never ending stream of diarrhea. Your goal is to produce solid turds that stick out of the bland, brownish landscape, so to speak.

This means your trolling has to be aggressive, direct, and easy enough to understand. There’s room for complexity too, as long as your message is still clear, but if you really feel like making nuanced posts, start a blog. Really, you should do it: the private WoW server scene is growing, and there are no blogs that cover it (that I’m aware of). It’s an untapped market, a F R E S H niche. We’ll add each other on our blogrolls, and it’s gonna be great.

What to Do Instead

1. Attack Ideas

Ideas, unlike people and groups, can’t bite you in the ass, and are therefore the perfect target. Sure, you’ll get blowback by players who disagree with you, but you’re not attacking them directly, and if they start acting like you are, you can always point out the fact that you’re not, that they’re just triggered over nothing.

It can be something related to WoW or something from RL. Go and claim that heavy metal is the only legitimate form of music, and that all electronic music made without physical instruments is just, “pressing two buttons, no talent”. Also, mentioning that pit bulls are dogs bred specifically for killing and should have no place in civilized society tends to generate surprising amounts of response.

As for WoW-related stuff, since I mostly play on WotLK servers, my favorite is to roleplay we’re back in 2007, playing retail Wrath, and complaining about how the game is now easy, vanilla was so much better, and how those “wrath babies” have no idea what WoW is about. Bring back the days when epics were epic.

2. Make Fun of Yourself

Posting all that ridiculous shit will, ideally, put you in a position of a somewhat deranged clown, and some people will attack you directly for it. When you’re insulted for trolling, the best way to react is to show that you don’t care: either ignore it, or agree with them. When someone calls you a retard, say, “wtf my iq is actually 91 and thats several points above the cutoff for being mentally retarded ok”. (You can also just demonstrate your moral superiority, since you haven’t ever personally attacked anyone, and respond with “rude”.)

Most of the time, all you have to do is say say nothing, and your attacker’s (usually emotionally charged) attacks will soon start to work against them.

3. Broken English

dis trend vas star back in idk 2012 on peenix forume, and it was aim to emulat ruski englsih))) sinc den it died somewat but is stil fun to maek funny write ))))) one soem levul, it is mak fun out of playur with bed England since such playurs meny time also bed at gaem & cause meni problem for oter playzur

personly I find chaleng to write bik rusia english coz there line after vich it no longer undrestandabl and is art to get clos to dat lien but NOT kross it)

Closing Thots

Quality trolling is about knowing where the line is and then dancing around it. Do it right, and you’ll never ever get banned, and over time, you’ll be able to get away with more than an average player. When hordes of lemmings will be getting cut down for posting ANAL spam (banned or muted for several hours), you’ll walk among the slaughter, unscathed, with your, “guys, where do I find The Annals of Darrowshire?”.

Timing is everything. What you write has to remain visible for at least few seconds: look out for guild ads spam, they often come in waves, and shut up if there’s already a discussion going on. In my experience, the US crowd tends to be more banter-friendly than the EU one even if that’s far from being a rule.

I’m posting this on a Sunday afternoon, so I hope I’ve gotten the timing right as well. Let me know what you think about the post in comments: what do you think about trolls, do you think that trolling is indeed a art, or do you think the global chat should be reserved strictly for LFG and WTB?

About Amberpine Lodge

This is a gaming blog, focusing on private WoW servers from vanilla to WotLK. Back when these versions of game were live, a part of official WoW experience provided by Blizzard , internet was a vastly different place, and blogs were popular.

I write about the private WoW scene, a majestic mess of nostalgia, innovation, legitimately fun experiences, and, for sure, autism. I don’t care about modern gaming, and everything after WotLK is no longer WoW.

Me

I’m Liebe, a level 33 Night Elf druid that spends her days either working in Darnassus or PVPing in STV. Every Liebe on all private servers has been played by me (with exception of Gamer District). I’m not German, but I know what “liebe” means.

I’ve written thousands of posts (of, admittedly, varying quality) on Feenix and Corecraft forums. Both of them are now defunct, dead and gone, along with all my work. On Reddit, posts can either be deleted or downvoted into oblivion — I need something I can control, and this is that place.

Why the Amberpine Lodge?

The lodge is located in Grizzly Hills, an area Alliance players come to after reaching level 73. The initial grind is over, but there’s so much left to come. This is where a lot of WoW players are in their lives right now.

The building also overlooks the Venture Bay, a contested area in which the factions battle all the time. The lodge is a place to chill and reflect on things while the war is just a short flight away.

Lastly, Amberpine Lodge is perhaps most known for its latrine quest, and I feel like its presence completes the picture nicely: in the end, this place is about fun with a series of reasonably intelligent shitposts.