The Picture of the Day

I had planned to write a rather long and thoughtful post. It’s almost finished, so you’ll see it soon, don’t worry. But something else came in my way that I just have to get out of my system.

I don’t know how it happened, but somehow I seem to have lived in a bubble, a dream world, where I believed that the WoW community was an astounding bunch of people, hosting smart, creative, differently thinking men and women, boys and girls, of all ages, from all over the world.

This environment, especially the blogosphere of course, has always inspired me. It’s kind of silly, but whenever I read for instance Tamarind and his academically influenced walls-of-text I always feel a little bit smarter myself. It’s an illusion, but in someway I can’t help thinking his smartness is sticky, that some of it will influence me when I read, think and react to his blogposts.

Or take Tim Howgego, the creator of El’s Extreme Anglin’, but also the man behind some less know, but yet brilliant essays on his personal blog. This guy is what I would call SMART, and as far as you can come from the old cliché about the fat, stupid no-lifer living in his mothers basement.

It’s a community that I’ve always been proud to be a member of and interact with.

The Community team picture

But today something came in my way that made me cringe. I started to see things as they are in reality rather than in my fantasy. There may be small enclaves of intelligent people, like Tam and Tim, but the community on the whole is still just a Boys Club.

What made my pink coloured glasses fall off was the picture that the Blizzard Community team suddenly, out of the blue, posted in a forum thread.

There’s nothing wrong about posting the photo, quite the opposite. From a PR perspective I approve - this is a way to give this mega sized and rather anonymous cooperation a few more faces than GC. Nothing bad about him, but the creation of WoW isn't a one-man show. We still don’t know who’s who, but the picture shows a bunch of pretty young, casually dressed, smiling people, who seems to be happy with what they’re doing and look pretty much as I suppose that my guildies look.

What makes me annoyed isn’t the picture, but the community reaction to it. Have you seen it? On the official forums there are already 12 pages of comments and more incoming. At the MMO Champion, it’s the same. Commenters aren’t discussing the latest incoming changes to classes anymore. It’s all about The Picture. Or rather: it’s all about ONE person in the picture: the “hot” red haired chick in the middle, Nethaera (edit: or possibly some one else, according to one of the commenters to this post).

Drooling 14 year olds

Drooling 14 year old boys, who are about to explode from a hormone overdose any minute. They’re all over the place. Is this the WoW fan community showing its real face? I’ve always found non-girls-allowing guilds quite silly or even repugnant. But suddenly I can see the need. Those males aren’t humans. They’re animals.

It’s a Boys Club. And I look at myself into the mirror and ask: what am i doing here?

It came from the bar: The Simple Pleasures.

Once again one of the guests frequenting the bar of The Pink Pigtail Inn has decided to speak up and share a story with us. As a matter of fact, this voice is getting quite familiar, since it's the same guest writer as the previous times, Holly Elizabeth from the US Feathermoon server. New or not, she's very much appreciated by the innkeeper who takes the opportunity to slack a little bit in a corner, just listening to the buzz, sipping a pint.

This time Holly has done something rarely seen at The PPI: she has included a bunch of fancy screenshots. Now, Blogger isn't exactly the best tool for doing flashy goodlooking posts with a ton of screenies. And as if this wasn't enough: Holly also wanted to provide a link to a video. "Imbed it", she said.

Larísa has been scratching her head, trying to figure out how to make the pictures and the video look if not glorious, at least decent. There's a distinct risk however that this won't work as intended. After all: this blog was made for writing walls of text, not for publishing pretty pictures. Anyway: if it looks horrible, we just want to let you know that Holly is innocent. Blame Larísa.

And now... take away your eyes from Larísa and listen to Hollly's story!


Hello again! After doing a mind numbing amount of heroics on my newest 80, grinding old world dungeons on my lowbie (it has tree form now!), and questing for a few hours on my lowest of lowbies, I started to get bored of yellow question marks and looking for dungeon queues.

It was about this time I realized something, I hadn't really just enjoyed the World of Warcraft in a long time. It had become to me, all about progression, get to the next level, get to the next item, get to the next raid, get to the next...well anything, when was the last time I, to coin an old addage, stopped to smell the roses?

I realized it had been a very long time, burning crusade long actually. I remember after grinding island dailies for many many moons, getting my slow flyer on my priest and flying for hours. Flying was so cool then! I used to tease Honor Hold and see how long I could stay with the debuff dodging the things they shot at you, dive bombing on unexpecting players and see if I could surprise them, teasing the felreaver by aggroing him then flying out of his reach! I had hours of enjoying the beautiful skies, and hitting the flight barrier and watching my mount have a heart attack.

My drood engineer made it's roflcopter and I enjoyed sitting idle in the air, watching the engines cut off (it's idle animation) it dropping only to be saved at the last second by the engines coming back on in Blizzard's sick way of saying 'we -could- have made this malfunction too!.'

So when was the last time I just really had fun looking around? It'd been a while, and I was going to fix it. The question was, where to start. I actually just spent about four hours flying around Northrend and outland, turning down every dungeon invite I got, explaining to people I couldn't run their lowbie through stocks because gosh darnit, I wanted a day to just play.

I then spent another three hours or so running around Azeroth, and I had -fun-. I went to try to find places I hadn't been before, like if you head south from Feralas via ocean, on the very southwest tip of Sillithus is an empty tauren village, and an empty cave! I had heard about it but went to see it for myself (yay for levitate.) It occured to me towards the end, when I was visiting some of my favorite places, to actually take screenshots to torture you with! And also luckily the sunnart viewpoint art add-on I use makes the perfect place to post commentary to burn your eyes!

Have you just given up with the fast paced dungeon from time to time? Maybe go farming for a pet you wanted for a while, or visit some of your favorite locations? I recommend if you do, putting on classical music (I did Pachelbel's canon in D mostly because of the rant I'm going to link below because it is -hilarious)

I highly recommend if you're getting burned out with the 'gogogo' attitude, if you find yourself longing for Cataclysm for some fresh air to just....stop, and go play in the world, it's massive! There are so many fun things, go hang out with Mario and Luigi twins in Un'goro. Explore some of the caves in sillyfish! Have fun and just see what -you- can find, or look up some of the references in Warcraft, and go find them for yourself!

Hope that made you giggle! It did me, now I'll give Larisa the spotlight back, even though it's so pretty, and warm, and makes my lunar festival drink even sparklierererest. . . nooo don't take it back, my light! my light! gah! stupid unhumanly gnome strength *sad face*

Holly over and out!

The Guy Who Wanted to Become One in the Crowd

We got a spontaneous application to the guild from someone who had found his way to us through The Pink Pigtail Inn. It was nicely written, he was dedicated, experienced, well geared and full of knowledge about his class and the game in general.

There was just one minor problem. Or I should rather say: major problem to be honest: he hadn’t read my blog closely enough to realize that we’re a EU guild on a EU server. And even though you can change most things with your characters in the game as long as you’re willing to pay for it – server, hair colour, race and even faction – you still can’t cross the Atlantic barrier. I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to. So I’m afraid he’s not likely to join us anytime soon.

The pillar who wanted to leave
However, my reason for bringing up this application in a blog post isn’t to once again complain about the ocean barriers (which I deeply hate, since it effectively keeps me from ever being able to come over and say “hi” to Gnomeaggedon). No, I’m writing about it because I couldn’t help being somehow touched by his story.

Apparently he was one of those pillars that you’ll find in every fairly successful raiding guild, one of those who keep the place going, one of those who other players put their trust into. It was just that he was sick and tired of this role and he needed to find a way out of it.

Here are a couple of quotes:

“The more I think about it the more I realize I don't wanna be a Class Leader anymore (nor Officer, nor Loot master, nor part of the loot council, nor Backup raid leader, none of it, nor even a 10-man raid leader for that matter), I just wanna be there Blasting the boss and being happy with it.”

“I'm tired of being the guy that explains the fights on vent and tell people how to survive this or that, I'm tired of being the one people come to ask where to put a talent point, what gear to get or how to enchant/gem it, I'm tired of being the one that organizes the non-official raids and that replaces the RL if he can't make it for some reason, I'm tired of being asked "[name], who do you think should get that item"... Dunno if I'm being clear enough but, for a change, I just wanna be the guy with a light blue name plate that throws colored shining things at the boss.”

Possible to step down?
I think many players who ever have been in a leading role in a guild can recognize the sentiments, even though it’s something you really can’t share with anyone except for possibly fellow officers. It comes with the job, and that’s why it’s advisable to think twice before accepting such a position.

However your feelings toward a job can change over time. People get burned out and should be able to step down, letting someone else have a go at trying their leadership skills. The question is: is it even possible to do it? Can you leave your duties and remain in the guild in a new position in the background?

In theory and the best of worlds, the answer is “yes” of course, but in practice I think it’s quite hard. Being a true leader isn’t just a technical thing where you set a certain rank in the guild management settings. It goes far beyond that, and if you’ve once been chosen for a certain role in a group - not by being appointed, but by gaining their trust - it’s if not impossible, at least very hard to change it. It takes a huge effort from everyone involved and a lot of communications if you want to step down to become one of the foot soldiers hiding in the shadows.

A clean cut, a new start in a fresh guild is probably the easiest way to go if you really want to succeed in your mission to gain a lower rank.

Enjoying the crowd position
I don’t know what will happen to this applicant. He seemed a little bit unsure himself, not 100 percent certain that he really wanted to leave his guild. And isn’t that typical by the way? He’s feeling responsible to the very end, even though it apparently had turned the game into something more stressful than his ordinary job.

I can only wish him good luck and hope that he’ll eventually be able to play again from a perspective that he enjoys fully.

And to all the rest of you, who like me are just ordinary raiders without any special rank, I’ve got a message: Even if you’re not aware of it, I bet many of the officers wouldn’t mind changing with you. You see: the truth is that officers aren’t just people with high status. Most of all they’re servants. We in the faceless crowd are actually the privileged ones, we who don’t have to worry about anything else but nuking the boss and watching the pretty yellow numbers on the screen. Enjoy what you have!

VoA Achievement Request: A Triumph of Stupidity

A guildie of mine couldn’t get a pug spot in VoA. Why? He didn’t have the achievement for the latest boss. The fact that he had cleared three wings in ICC or that he had ridiculous good gear, spotting four pieces of T10 and belonged to one of the most successful and well established raiding guilds on the server didn’t matter. “Link achievement or no invite.”

I know I probably shouldn’t write another rant about this, it’s like beating a dead horse, as I think you English people put it. Everyone knows about the Link-achievement and Gearscore stupidity that has invaded our game, sucking the fun out of it. But I just can’t refrain from having another go at it because it makes me so mad and I need to get it out of my system.

The VoA embarrassment
Asking for achievements as a qualifier for an invitation to VoA is nothing but insane. The instance is so ridiculously easy that it’s embarrassing. Embarrassing for Blizzard, who put it up in the first place, without any proper design, just reusing some old models, not putting any effort whatsoever into the environment. And it’s embarrassing for the players, since it’s the essence of a loot oriented playstyle, where challenges and efforts mean nothing.

VoA is far easier than many, if not all of the five-man heroic instances. Totalbiscuit did a lust murder on the topic in his last Blue Plz Show, and I can’t but agree on everything he said. That place IS an abomination. It’s disgusting, it’s lazy design, and it’s actually an insult towards any raider who has spent a number of nights wiping on pretty challenging bosses in ICC to just hand out those tier pieces in a weekly lottery.

So thinking closely about I maybe should congratulate my guildie for not being invited to that horrid place. He hasn’t missed anything, except for the opportunity to become incredibly bored with a boss that, to quote Totalbiscuit, is just standing there doing NOTHING, just waiting to be looted.

Nevertheless – I can’t blame him for wanting to see the frost dude at least once with his own eyes. Content is content, right? So when I ended up in a 10-man pug for VoA this weekend (greedily collecting the last few frost emblems I needed for a crafted upgrade – I promise, I won’t make it a habit to go there) and there was a spot open, I quickly managed to get him invited. He got his achievement and I guess it will do as an entrance ticket for the 25 mans in the future. If he ever wants to do it again that will say. I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.

But to all those little boys with small egos and probably even smaller… well you know… to those disgusting little creeps, I just want to say that you should be GRATEFUL if a player of the calibre of my guildie wants to join your run. I despise you when you request achievements and a skyrocketing gear score for such a pathetic mission as to clear a place that doesn’t deserve to be called a raid instance, since it’s nothing but a loot machine. If anything you should be begging for him to come and help you out, because he’s far better than you deserve.

Awwww. Feel the rage!

A few thinking people
Thanks God there still are a few thinking people out there, who gives me some kind of hope for the future of mankind. There are players who make their own judgements, based on knowledge about the game and all the classes, players who look upon Gearscore requests as an insult. A few days ago I saw someone advertising an ICC pug, saying: “If you link your Gearscore I’ll put you on ignore”. More of that, please!

Can This Sugar Kick Really Last Until November?

Something's been going on for a while in the Blogosphere, but it wasn't until last week that it became clearly viewable: the small, but distinct signs that we've hit the next phase in this expansion. We're approaching the No man's land - the time when you're done with the current content, but there's nothing new incoming anytime soon.


Decrease of Energy Level
There's been a distinct decrease of energy and activity in the community. Our dearest hunter blogger Pike is leaving. Not because she's done with the game - she still assures that she's as hooked as ever - it's just that real life is calling her. Still the effect is the same. It's sad to see the veterans go.

Others are not quitting entirely, but are openly talking about cutting down their time spent on WoW radically. Nibuca wants to spend more time on other hobbies, Mike Schramm is going into an hibernation period, Brigwyn is having doubts about his future blogging and Dechion is most of all longing for Cataclysm. To be honest this WoW lethargy debuff seems to have effected more or less everyone, at least in the part of the Blogosphere where I dwell. Last week it was as if people had run out of things to talk about. The blog roll showed more and more blogs not updating for days or several weeks. And once they update, the bloggers are rather talking about other games such as Star Trek and Starcraft 2, which still have some novelty aura around them, than about WoW. It's as if the spark is gone now that the initial enthusiasm for random dailies have worn off, and the holiday events are more or less the same procedure as last year.

Candy to cranky children

However, just as I was about to write a post complaining about the lack of spirit, something happened that cheered us up radically. Blizzard seems to have felt the same vibes as I did, and quickly tossed out some news about incoming patches, and especially about the next raid dungeon - Ruby Sanctum . They're tossing a piece of meat to the barking dogs. We don't have any clear schedule for it, but the very knowledge that it will come is enough to make us excited.

Actually it reminds me a bit of what happens if you give candy to cranky children. Their moods will instantly raise to a distinctly higher level. And that's nice of course. The only problem is that it's far from sustainable. The jump-up will inevitably be followed by an equally sudden and deed fall-down, as soon as the effects from the sugar kick has worn off. The cranky child will be back - and this time he or she is in even worse shape than before.

And I'm afraid that this decrease of atmosphere will come far sooner than we would like. Remember Onyxia? It didn't take many goes before we decided that we were done with her again No one's doing her, no one's talking about it. I fear Ruby Sanctum will be about the same, with the difference that there is a hardmode available.

What to do until November?
Back in October Elinia, my former bartender, did a prediction that Cataclysm would be released on February 1 2010. He was dead wrong of course. I guess it was an effect of wishful thinking. Being a non-raider he was running out of content way earlier than a raider like me.

Long after it stood clear that the prophecy was wrong, readers of the PPI have kept discussing this issue in the comments to that post. It's been suggested that it won't be launched until November. And even though I'm an normally an optimist I wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to be right. It makes sense to release a game with Christmas sales not too far away. At least it makes more sense than if they'd try to sell Cataclysm in August/September, when there's still summer temperature and everyone except for the most dedicated enthusiasts would rather spend time outdoors than powerlevelling their toon to 85.

I can understand the reasons for Blizzard not to rush the expansion. It's not only about timing to maximize the sales; they've got a reputation for high quality to care about. So far the playerbase has so far been very forgiving about the slow pacing of content, as long as they keep up their standards. This time around the community as well as the expectations are bigger than ever. Perfection takes time to execute.

However, I can't help feeling slightly worried about the long wait. Let's say we get this new raid instance in April. I don't think that's a rather realistic guess. And let's say that it keeps us occupied for a month or two, as a complement to ICC to give us more variety in our weekly raiding.

What will happen next? It's just like with my rogue when she was combat specced - I pushed that adrenaline rush button and it really improved the game play for a while, but it only lasted ever so long, and when it was gone it was gone and it felt kind of empty.

There's an evident risk that players - among them probably some bloggers - will go on a hiatus, at least until the 4.0 pre-patch of Cataclysm, which we could expect a month before it will be launched. I don't blame them, but I'll miss them.

The long wait for Cataclysm
In my mind I'm already preparing for a very, very long wait for Cataclysm. I can't rely on the community buzz or an abundance of new extra content to keep up my energy level and enthusiasm for the game. If I want to play all the way into the expansion, I have to find out the fun stuff, the lust, the sparkles, the motivation by myself - especially when we've reached the point when we've downed Lich King and done the hardmodes that are within our grasp.

So what to do? Well, I can always go back to my things-I-want-to-do-before-I'm done-with-WoW-list. It's actually really good. Yesterday afternoon I rolled a troll shaman, and to my own amazement I had a ton of fun just casually doing the quests in the starting area. I pondered over how to use totems - without looking at advice on EJ and other places, just trying to figure it out for myself. I died quite a few times and I haunted the lands in the form of a ghost, with a smile on my face. I got lost in the very first cave, just as I did with Larísa so long ago in Don Morogh. I admired my discrete tusks and I enjoyed the game music in the troll villages, suddenly falling in love with this race, just out of the blue.

It's new content. A LOT of new content, just waiting for me to come and devour it. I don't know how long this sugar kick will last me, but it definitely looks promising.

What about you? Do you think you can keep up your passion for WoW if Cataclysm won't come until November?

Chaotic ventrilo in Paragon raids

I've understood that Scandinavian people often are considered to be somewhat introvert. We may be talented for organization and efficiency, but when it comes to socializing we fail. We're shy, if you put it nicely, plain silent and even boring if you're more blunt.

Is it true or just prejudices? Well, I guess there was a grind of truth in it historically. On the other hand, the national borders and special features seem to fade away these days, not the least thanks to the modern global life style, where we take for granted that we interact with people from all over the world on the daily basis, in MMO:s and otherwise.

Some people don't like to blend up with other nationalities though. And apparently Paragon, the guild which in the moment I'm writing this is closest to grab the world-first kill of the heroic Lich King, is one of those.

Paragon inerview

In the latest issue of the Swedish WoW Magazine Level, they have a very well timed interview with one of their officers, Lazeil, who tells a bit more about the guild and how they're raiding. I didn't know a thing about them, so it was quite an interesting read. What especially brought my attention was the fact that this guild is entirely Finnish. But this doesn't mean that the raids are silent, on the contrary. I'm quoting Lazeil:

"We have chaos. Complete chaos. If someone wants to say something you plainly have to shout louder than anyone else. My sound input is a bit higher than the one everyone else, because if I'm leading the raid I must make myself heard somehow, so I normally shout a lot. There's so much noise, people shouting out what's happening, who's making an error, but somehow it works for us. New members are always wondering what the heck we're doing, but we love it. I remember when we were raiding Algalon and I was at home with my parents. I screamed so loud that they came to me and slammed the door. It's as one of our new members said: "You don't GET the chance to speak at the vent of Paragon - you TAKE it".

To be honest it wasn't quite the image I would have of our neighbors in the east. On the other hand they DO live up some other expectations. A high consumption of alcohol is a part of the Finnish raiding culture, according to Lazeil.

I'm somewhat surprised I must admit. Like the interviewer, I would rather have expected a guild of this caliber to have a military discipline in the vent channel, where only the raid leader and a couple of assistants were allowed to talk. And they're Finns! They're not supposed to be talkative. In our guild we have only one Finn and I still don't know how his voice sounds.

A ventrilo culture

I guess that in every guild a ventrilo culture will develop naturally over time, regardless of nationality or how far progressed the guild is. Our guild is multinational and I suppose somewhere on the upper part on the raiding scale. We're definitely not any elite guild, but we take our raiding seriously. And our vent is often so silent that it happens that I start worrying that vent has stopped working for me. I have to whisper a fellow raider just to make sure: "Am I missing something on vent right now, or is it just silent?".

Sure, we do get assignments, we do coordinate stuff and we are allowed or even encouraged to speak up in appropriate times, providing some entertainment during corpse runs. But most of the time people don't say anything more than necessary, and to be honest I find it peaceful and even necessary for me to keep my concentration. The kind of chaos that Paragon has would have a seriously bad impact on my ability to perform. But to each one his own.

Yesterday night we finally got Putricide down, after some weeks of frustration. I honestly think we would have gotten him earlier, if it hadn't been for the lag feast we've been suffering from for a while. Anyhow, it was a huge relief for everyone, and of course there were some happy cries at vent, but far from deafening.

And I couldn't help wondering how it sounded when Paragon got their first kill of him, over a month earlier. If their normal state of vent is chaos, what is it like in the moments of triumph? Tinnitus warning I suppose. They've definitely got another vent culture. Not because of their origins but because they're just a different kind of guild.

Blizzard's Secret Club for Selected Guilds

Did you know that Blizzard has a special program for selected guilds?

I bet you didn't, since they don't market it very much. I happened to stumble upon this as I was exploring one of the darkest corners of Blizzard's official European website, the part which they have dedicated to community related information. Upon further investigation I found a similar page on the US equivalence, where they also linked to a list of the participating guilds. (I dcouldn't find any list for EU, so I guess we're just not good enough.)

Currently there are four guilds in the world who are subjects for this special treatment, if I should believe in the list. And why shouldn't I? Admittedly there isn't any "latest update" information, which I really think this kind of website should have, but you would expect a company as Blizzard to keep their information correct and relevant, right?

The privileges
So what privileges do those four guilds enjoy? Well, among other things they get:

• "Eligibility to participate in upcoming beta tests" and
• "Invitations to live online chat sessions with Blizzard game designers".

Wow. Who wouldn't want that for your guild? Especially since they also add the exciting sentence: "Additional features and benefits to come!". I wonder what that would be. Let me guess... an exclusive vanity pet? Guided private tours in the Blizzard HQs? An authentic GC pony? The sky is the limit.

And how do you become a member of this illustrious club?

It seems as if you qualify by doing good deeds for the community. If you read the list of examples they provide, it's apparently a merit to participate in constructive discussions at the official WoW discussion forums. The guild relations section is especially mentioned as a place where you should be active. You can also write fan fiction, create gaming guides that you make available for the community or do WoW-related movies.

They don't mention running a WoW blog, but I suppose that the work that some of the more prominent and informative kind of bloggers do would count as a merit. "Anything else that demonstrates a genuine willingness to help other members of the World of Warcraft community is welcome", as Blizzard states.

How to apply
I know there's more than one guild out there hosting a bunch of bloggers, making movies, guides, even podcasts, guilds that would be more than willing to become beta testers and have exclusive chats with the designers. And of course you're wondering: how do we apply?

I'm sorry to tell you: you don't. They seem to have a "don't call us, we'll call you" approach to the recruitment to the program. On the EU info page, they put it like this:

"Once enough members of a particular guild begin to stand out in this fashion, the leader of the guild will receive an invite via the email address registered to his/her World of Warcraft account, along with further details".

Kind of exciting thought, isn't it? Which guild leader wouldn't become extremely flattered to get such a recognition from Blizzard themselves? And to such an exclusive club! Only four guilds in the entire world are included in this!

To be realistic though, would you really trust such an e-mail if you got it? I probably wouldn't. It's a never-heard of program with benefits that sound very much like the ones that are offered in the scam letters filling our spam boxes. Probably I'd rather tear it into pieces, trying to erase every trace of it from my computer to prevent those bastards from stealing my account. Sad, isn't it?

Does it exist?
Honestly, I'm not certain that this guild program still exists. My website browsing instinct tells me that this looks more like the leftovers from an idea they had once upon a time. It never took off, it was replaced by something else, faded away and they've just forgotten to remove the information. Why else would they be so silent about it? There are also more evident signs that the information is old. The European article mentions the "now Guild Relations forum", and as far as I know this has been around for years. On the other hand the four guilds that actually are on the list seem to be active and running, which speaks for that they at least pay some attention to it, otherwise there would probably have been some dead links around.

Alive or not, I think it's a bit of a shame that the program is dwelling in the shadows. There's nothing wrong about the idea as such. It wouldn't cost Blizzard that much effort to handle out some beta keys and possibly chat a couple of times with the players who build and maintain the community. Day after day those players enhance the gaming experience without getting as much as a "thank you" in return.

The question is: why not pick it up again? I reckon there's a beta for Cataclysm incoming in a not too far distant future. They say that they plan to encourage guilds, for instance by the idea of guild levelling. Wouldn't a selected guild program fit pretty well into this? All it takes is a brush-up of the webpage and a little bit of marketing.

By the way Blizzard gods, in case you're stumbling upon on this post as by a miracle: I wouldn't mind if you sent an invitation letter to my guild master. It's perfectly OK with me. I won't sue you. No kidding.