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The Overpull has won a triumph return over Teh Overpull. Therefore I will begin this week with a salute to the overpull, in all undercase letters, because the overpull must be different. It must be cutting edge. Whats that? We get message? the overpull is now known as theoverpull. after the new naming of aol.. Why, why must it be so hard to type this? I will never know.
theoverpull. has a lot of good stuff in it this week, good happy stuff full of happy fun time learning. Were bringing the PTR roundup to a close this week, talking about news and frustration, and as always have an awesome lore corner ready and waiting for you.
Heres the lineup this week
Sorry about the tardiness guys, but I was hoping beyond hope 3.3 hit today. Alas, it did not.
Someone beat WoW. Yes, thats right, on a Taiwanese server they have every single achievement in the game except BB King which was recently added to the game. That means it is possible to do everything in WoW and reach a point where the only thing left is to min/max gear and farm gold. Until you hit the gold cap, that is.
Of course, WoW is a big winner in that you can alt. Yes, thats right, alt, and then all of a sudden all of those things youve done are now uncompleted and the cycle continues.
There is no news this week, other than a sparse telling or two. There were some server outages, the fifth year anniversary which well talk about in the weekly musing, and the Pilgrims Bounty event. Oh and Mohawks.
Did you have fun with Pilgrims Bounty? My adventures led me city to city as a level 58 trying to sit in each seat, taking turns running myself and someone else through the instance wherein someone released when they died at the Talon King. If I was an angry person I would have went into their room and deleted WoW for something like that, because that instance is still painful 10 levels later.
Here is my review of the holiday. I find it to be a 7 on the scale of the most fun youve ever had sitting at 10 and reading WoW erotica in front of a large crowd at 1. Well, thats a weird scale, but I found it to be the most rewarding for instant gratification. You instantly gain 320 cooking within no time, even if you dont want the meta, and that itself means the most to me. Any holiday event where you get this instant sense of character development is really good.
However, there is always an issue. Ill use the recent Halloween event as a comparison. The Halloween holiday requires persistence, yes, and requires travel. Its time consuming, but in no way painful. You log in during your spare time and collect your goody bag. Within no time youre loaded up with the items and call it a day. With Pilgrims Bounty, its a difficult and arduous journey through the world, sitting on tables and spamming buttons, and involves Darnassus which youve already heard my complaints about.
I relate this achievement to something between Brewfest and Halloween. Its got a very high practical use to it, like Halloween, with free buff food and immediate cooking skill but it also has that high annoyance factor. Finding rogues is the hardest thing to possibly do when theyre either already turkeys or just not around. The trips to the enemy cities are annoying and some cities like Darnassus are impossible to get through to get to the tables for everyone but stealthers. Im sure many will read it as whining, but I aim to have fun in my games. I dont aim to hike it through an enemy city to sit on a stable or run the bird man instance again.
In other news, the Guilds 3rd season ended with Codex going mental. Surprise.
The PTR is closing soon, 3.3 could hit at any time, and there isnt much to talk about. So with that I close the PTR section of theoverpull. until further notice. Any PTR news will be contained in the normal section.
This weeks comic is a true story. I know, because I was there.
Here you go:
Urf...WoW withdrawals.... sigh'
Withdrawing from WoW is tough.
This weeks question is: how did you join your guild?
Join us on the forums to answer.
I always join a guild made between me and my friends, but I went and did some research for this one. Here are my findings, published here in theoverpull.
Reality is subjective and in World of Warcraft we can often lose ourselves to thinking the game holds a static meaning. Sure, we all assume that raiding and purps are the endgame and that PvP is its own entire little minigame within WoW, but we would be wrong to assume that it was the end of the possibilities. There is a lot more life and depth in the game than the static world we often attempt to dictate that WoW has.
EVE Online has no real story nor does it have any instances or dungeons in the traditional sense. It doesnt have an Arthas in space chilling in his house waiting on you to stop having a tournament and to come to him and fight. It just has space, spaceships, and the freedom to let players dictate their own game. WoW, on the other hand, does have Arthas, it does have a story, and it does have breadcrumbs leading to a life of arenas or raiding as your de facto endgame with farming (gold, achievements, whatever) as a secondary goal. Writers like me often wax poetic about how this is what makes WoW good (or to some bad) and is what keeps players going.
However, let me ask you a question. What if you were not in your guild right now thats capable of raiding, even if it was Naxxramas? What if you were incapable of setting up a winning arena team? What if you were a step below a casual? Stuck in a world where even the welfare purps were overpowered. What if you were that guy, you know, the one you constantly gank with ease in the battlegrounds or just one of the filler people in Orgrimmar that no one knows?
Theyre like ghosts and the world is full of them. You see their guild tag, but have no clue what the guild is. You see their gear and its a mix of blues and epics, epics you probably never even heard of. You see their achievements, they were 80 half a year ago, but there they stand a complete enigma. Theyve made no progress in the world. Its as if theyre NPCs filling the world up to give it a sense of mass.
The truth is though, that these people play an entirely different game. They dont play the game that you and I play. They dont play World of Warcraft: Gear is Cool. They play a game where egos are set to fight, people are at war, and any second now they could lose everything. Its not the story missions Im referring to, they play a social game.
The rabbit hole starts eerily with those screams and shouts in the Barrens. You know the ones. They offer tabards and guild bank slots to any and all that would join. On the surface, Im sure the majority of us ignore them and scuff them away as a joke. As a guild full of lowbies all aiming to take the first ginvite they get and leave around level 40 (assuming they dont quit) when they make friends in Scarlet Monastery who invite them to their guild. In some cases its true, but sometimes its far from it.
I joined one of these guilds on a Priest I was leveling because the guy sounded genuinely desperate for friends and a guild tag would stop the invites. However, after joining, I soon found a world that exists separately from our own. A world filled with intrigue, mystery, and war.
I was soon to find out that these guilds are like jobs at mega department stores. The guild leader is the store manager, his officers are the department managers, level 80s are the full time workers, and the lower levels are the part time workers. Make anyone above you mad and youre out. Fail to do your job within the guild and youre out. Work hard and youll be rewarded with little to no compensation and a job that feels like itll never be done.
The guild leader was a charismatic guy. He talked, a lot, and had a good head on his shoulders when it came to recruitment. After all, he recruited me of all people. The guild ranks were well established, and like I said they were the focal point to your work within the guild. You start at the bottom and if you do a good enough job you can get to the higher ranks. Higher ranks mean more bank access, more grepairs, and more trust.
Within a short period of time within the guild I was made aware of a war when someone screamed those mafia guys are camping me! in guild chat enough times that I was dizzy with the text movement. The guild leader ordered everyone to come to the barrens immediately. Curious to what the spectacle was about I made my way to the barrens from Orgrimmar. There, I saw it, their rival guild circling the defenseless noob on their mounts.
I stood and watched, then pondered what the problem was. They werent Alliance. They werent enemy creatures. They were just players on our side circling around this guy. However, to these guys, these people were the enemy. I was quick to find out that they were at war with this guild and this guild was at war with them. They had a few allied guilds to their cause, but this was personal. This lowbie was one of the officers alts and he was fuming.
Within no time, members of this guild went to action. They dispatched someone to Org to begin trade spamming that The Mafia (thats not their name, but well call em that) were ninjas. That explains a lot of the ninja spam you can read in /trade these days. Then, they quickly began flinging insults back and forth like children, as if they were engaged in a turf war. Almost, as if, they were roleplaying.
Roleplaying they were, in a non-descript way. They werent taking on the role of anyone but themselves and there was no fictional story about it, but they were enacting a story. A story that was weaving right in front of my eyes. Before long, The Mafia was outnumbered, thanks to the guild leaders latest efforts in recruitment, and ran away with their tails between their legs. In victory, the guild leader congratulated many of the members, many of whom received promotions. People were ecstatic, even the level 80s.
Now, much like a department store, the turnover rate was obscene. Promotions were required to keep the members happy. They worked hard, helping the guild master, running lowbies through instances, and more to achieve a higher rank. In reality, the rank means nothing. You dont get anything tangible from it, except for a new note next to your name in the guild list. Yet, these players still strived to get it.
As a matter of a fact, not many things mattered to the players in the guild other than their guild rank. Gear didnt matter and having it wasnt a reason for a guild rank increase. After all, theyre not in a PvP war and an 80 can run alts though instances in greens and blues. Gold doesnt matter either, unless its being poured into the guild bank which is perpetually in need of funds for repairs and more bank slots.
Its as if the players get stuck, progression wise, and resort to creating their own new endgame. One where theyre at war with rival guilds and their worth is dictated not by gear score or arena points, but by their rank within the largest and most powerful guild. Like I said, reality is subjective and its all based on your perspective. To these players Arthas might as well not exist nor Yogg-saron.
In the end, the guild like many of these guilds, collapsed. The story being told ended as no one logged on and everyone fled to another guild to repeat the same begging for promotions and seeking more bank tabs that have nothing in them. In the end, I remain in the guild, a few people log on (even 80s) who I assume are too lazy to find another one. I sit there and think of all of the excitement and action that went on for one short week before the store closed shop and the employees went to the next place thatd hire them with no questions asked.
So with that said, how did you join your guild? Have you ever danced like this guild to guild?
Answer on the forums!
The Forsaken, the name is known by some fantasy fans as the most powerful and loyal servants to the Dark One in The Wheel of Time series and as a billion other things in almost every other book. The Forsaken is fantasy as Syndicate is to the first guild name to show up (next to any combination of dragon, knight, and SSJ). In WoW theyre simply the undead who are free from the Lich Kings grasp. Lame, huh?
This isnt as awesome as the queen of elves who gained her position by her power and how pretty she looked. Nope. Its pretty cut and dry. Basically the undead were all controlled by the Lich King. In his great and almighty power, he is capable of essentially controlling the movements of the undead with his mystical icy gaze or maybe a magic mirror who knows. It just happens. Illidan, who was fighting for what is just and right at the time, went and tried to melt Northrend to destroy the Lich King by using the Eye of Sargeras. Oh, by just and right, I mean he was following the orders of the Burning Legion. Gotcha.
That weakened the Lich Kings grasp on his minions, the undead, who then regained control over their minds again. A big baddy, named Sylvanas, gathered up all of the free undead and led a campaign against the scourge and almost ganked Arthas as he was fleeing back to Northrend to go chill with Anub. She then went and killed the last of the human forces in Lordaeron and danced happily as they built the Undercity. One of the most annoying cities out there that actually has a purpose.
Now, see the undead are just that. Theyre not dead, but theyre not living either. They retain all of their old memories just fine and dandy. A quest called Until Death Do Us Part is a good example of this. You go from Thunder Bluff with a pendant from an undead lady who wants you to leave it on her husbands tomb. You travel all the way to Silverpine and drop it off, the quest then ends, and there is no more heard of it. Its just that cool.
There is also a good bit of insanity stuck in the mix. They seem to have a pre-deposition towards insanity, given the high number of strange and weird quests they give. They even make the plague that rocks the Wrathgates socks. Its even asked a lot what are the Forsakens true intentions? You go and kill a Tauren Druid during one of their quest lines like its nothing.
Well, that question is answered in the Wrathgate, where many of the Forsaken are appalled that the apothecary went and attacked members of the Horde. Its shown there that they have a split loyalty. Many are loyal to the Horde while some, a small faction, want to purge the world of the living. Vengance is heavy in their hearts.
Thats the lore corner this week and concludes The Overpull. Stay tuned next week for more awesome news, funny stories, lore, and questions rolled together in your ultimate WoW newsletter.
-David "Xerin" Piner
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