Where to find the best writing on the WoW forums

During the Big-Conflict-we'd-rather-not-mention-by-name I read a player comment quoted by BBC that left me a little bit puzzled.

Quoting BBC:

"One player who goes by the moniker Zwip, Ragnaros was more prosaic in their assessment of the publisher's move and wrote "elitism is the fall of man, To proclaim that you are a scrub is the realisation of true skill, for forever you are improving".

Even if I could approve with the sentiment it felt just a little bit far-fetched as a comment on this topic. Had BBC really got this right?

After a little research it turned out that they hadn't. I don't think they fully understand the design of postings on the WoW forums. The quote was in fact a signature tag, belonging to one of the thousands of players who had commented on this. And he wasn't even named Zwip. He was just quoting what - if I understood it correctly - seems to have been a particularly wise player at the Ragnaros server.

Research on signatures
This little incident made me start noticing the signatures in a new way. Previously I barely saw them. Now the signatures have taken overhand, turning out to be way more interesting and entertaining than the actual content of the forum posts. My eyes jump from signature to signature. What's written in the topic is irrelevant. The signature is the message.

They come in many different shapes and genres. Some are funny, often very self ironic, some are insightful, a few are intentional cocky or even annoying and yet others are incomprehensible, probably built on an inside joke that I don't grasp. Often they include a quote from a someone, either famous or fictive person.

Seeing all this I got a bit curios. Where did this tradition come from originally? Unfortunately Wikipedia couldn't tell. But they say that it could be regarded as a "mark of recognition or individualism", which sounds plausible to me. Even if we're posting under avatars, it seems as if we still want to show some of our individuality, stand out in the crowd and make a statement about who we are - even though we for known reasons hesitate to introduce ourselves with our real life names.

Wikipedia also told the story about a guy from the early days of Internet, who went under the nickname Kibo. Apparently he became something of a legend, thanks to the monster sized signature he used in Usenet. For a modern forum poster it looks rather bizarre, and I must say that I prefer the slimmer versions we see today.

In this post I'll give you a few of the signatures I've run into during my explorations. I don't claim they're The Best WoW forum signatures ever created. I just happened to notice them. But maybe they can serve as some sort of inspiration to come up with one of your own.

Life advice signatures
Some of the signatures are about giving general good advice or setting a motto on how to best lead your life:

"Never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level, and beat you with experience !"

"It's nice to be important, but more important to be nice."

"Life is not measured in the number of breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away."

WoW related signatures
The majority though seem to be game or WoW related though:

"You can just hang outside in the sun all day tossing a ball around... but you can sit at your computer and do something that matters!" -Eric Cartman

"Disconnected from server! I'd complain but the forums are down..."

"Almost 6 years and a total /played around 600 hours and I'm still not the craziest person you'd meet in the skinner box that is WoW. All I wanted was the mouse pads from the collectors editions. "

"We actually talked today about adding an item level 300 shirt that did absolutely nothing but mess with mods that attempt to boil down players to gear scores. :) "
--Ghostcrawler

"It's not how fast one flies through content, but how much one enjoys the game."

"I am good at healing. When i'm not stunned , or counterspelled, or feared, or blinded, or sapped, or cycloned, earth shocked, or mind-numbed, or tongued, or polymorphed, or hexed, or dead."

"I'm not geared properly, my gems are wrong, my spec is not perfect, my GS stinks and my enchants are questionable. But, I'm still having fun!"

"I'm a Gnome, short but proud. I fire up my 'nades to whipe the Goblins out!"

A short story
Sometimes those few lines resemble to a poem or even a short story. Like this bittersweet one:

"I have printed off your photo and have it sitting on the sofa next to me while we watch a DVD together. Occasionally, I throw an M&M at you and pretend you giggle and tell me to stop it."

And if you can't come up with something witty you can always cheat:

"Insert funny remark here".

(No, please don't copy that - it's so old that it isn't even funny anymore.)

Blue signatures
It isn't just the players who come up with signature quotes - many of the blue posters have it as well, and they change them every now and then - especially Nethaera, who changes hers every now and then. Here's an example of her style:

"They say dreams are the windows of the soul--take a peek and you can see the inner workings, the nuts and bolts.
~Henry Bromel"

Vaneras is more consistent, always linking to the picture of The Epic Mug of Vaneras- The Alebringer, something that appears to be drawn especially for him. An inside joke maybe?

Zarhym goes for poetry, or rather lyrics, because it comes from a song by Tool:

"Thought the sun would come deliver me, / But the truth has come to punish me instead./The ground is breaking down right under me./Cleanse and purge me in the water."

A blogger quote

One of my guildies deserves a special mentioning for picking a quote from a WoW blogger in his guild forum signature (a sign of good taste if you ask me!).

The quote comes from Big Bear Butt:

"Perhaps true Bear Tanking Attitude comes from the simple fact that, of all the classes in the game that can tank, we are the only ones that “go commando” into battle, waving our mighty wang in the enemies’ face and screaming “I’ve got a great big tonker and there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it!”

I think you can figure what class he's playing.

Another of my ex guildies, who was probably the most cocky and competitive players I've ever met, chose this quote from the hitchhiker character Zaphod - which showed that he at least had some self insight about his appearance:

"If there's anything around here more important than my ego, I want it caught and shot now!"

My signature
So what signature has Larísa got? To be honest: nothing worth talking about. I link to my blog on the guild forums; I figured that would be an easy way to be open about my blogging and direct anyone who's interested that way. On the official forums I don't have any signature at all. This doesn't prevent me from enjoying the creativity of other players though.

Many players shy away from reading the WoW forums, since there's just too much trash compared to goodness there. But I suggest you don't give up on them entirely. Lower your eyes and check out what hides under the signature line. Because that's where you probably find the best writing on the WoW forums.