Monthly Archives: June 2010
Would you use a maturity filter?
After observing more than a few immature trade chat arguments lately I got to thinking about the whole maturity thing again. I’ve posted in the past about how age and maturity are difficult to quickly determine over a medium like Warcraft.
If you were out in public you probably wouldn’t easily get caught up or emotionally invested in an argument with a random misbehaving child. That’s thanks to the fact it’s very easy to get a feel for what level of maturity and life experience a person is speaking from in the real world.
So I got to thinking about how you might translate that into WoW. One thing my love of statistics and data analysis has taught me over the years is that with enough transactional information it’s possible to tease out just about anything – maturity levels included!
Finding the right data
No doubt some of you are shaking your heads right now thinking stuff like “How? By the age on the account?” and “GG, people could easily abuse a system like that”. I would answer that you’re thinking too simply, for starters here are some of the factors I would include in the weighting algorithms:
1) – Age of the players account – eg game experience, this can be a good measure of an individuals emotional investment. Less investment in an account/character/social environment severely reduces the perceived consequence of any repercussions arising out of negative behaviours
2) – Number of other player accounts with this account on ignore
3) – Number of times this account reported for spam, or for maturity if such an option were added
4) – A ratio measuring public channel (general, trade) participation compared to total reports
5) – A ratio measuring public channel participation compared to instances of mature language used (eg anything that the mature language filter would ordinarily strip)
6) – Account warnings/suspension history
7) – A decay mechanism to factor in elapsed time/playtime versus negative behaviours over time.
I envision a sophisticated system somewhat like the one used by [Google PageRank]. Even though the above information is just for starters and off the top of my head I can imagine it would net a majority of the more attention starved trolls we face on our various servers.
Why a system like this is not likely to be adopted.
In the cost benefit analysis for a piece of work like this the benefits (financial, PR, whatever) must outweigh the cost of implementing the work in the first place.
While a change like this would be a positive experience for many of us (as customers) it would only stand to potentially lose money for the company when the less mature players quit.
There would be no outstanding PR benefits either. Thinking about our current WoW experience, there’s no pressure from us whatsoever for Blizzard to provide us with some kind of solution for the behaviour of OTHER players!
We only got the ‘Report Spam’ button added after gold spammers started to get worse and worse. Doing nothing in that situation WAS having a negative impact on Blizzard’s image. So before long we were gifted with a neat little cosmetic fix that a) removed the problem from our sight and b) made us feel like we’d taken action by ‘reporting’ the bad people!
Would you use the filter?
So this is the ultimate question! Forgiving my attempts at selling you on how I think the mechanics would work let’s assume it just magically does.
If players received a ranking from A to F on their maturity, and you could automatically filter chat (for starters!) based on that, would you use it? If not why not? What unforseen or unintended consequences do you think might emerge from a system like this?
I’m interested to hear thoughts from everyone on this!
Warcraft Word Jumble – SRSBusiness
This week’s shout out goes to Khaas of [SRSBusiness].
I enjoy following his blog posts and continue to be surprised by the similarities between us in terms of attitudes and game experience. We’re even the same age and have both purchased houses in the last year. The similarities go on and on – doppleganger much? :)
The jumble words are taken from Khaas’ blog and are more ‘generic’ words that arent necessarily WoW related. One of the answers is a company name, too. Nothing overly hard though and I imagine you guys will steamroll it like you usually do.
Oh, and here’s a bonus question - DST is to DBW as NT is to?
Gold Update
It’s been a while since I posted about how I’m doing with my gold. Time for an update!
Since reaching the gold cap I’ve relaxed on levels of activity but didnt by any means stop posting auctions or making gold. I bought the [Grand Black War Mammoth] drop for 10k off someone after I lost the roll since I’m a sucker for feats of strength.
I also slowly gathered the materials to craft a [Sulfuron Hammer] in the naive hope an [Eye of Sulfuras] will drop for me one of these weeks. Interesting to note the price variability (and rareness) of [Blood of the Mountain]. Definite profit there!
With that said and a little gold spent I’m currently around 220k liquid with a lot more than that in materials. I’ve been enjoying using the remote armory lately too, mainly for searching for and buying cheap materials. I think it’s too inefficient to use to cancel/relist undercut auctions at this stage.
Here’s a few screenshots:
I’ve been buying up hugely on enchanting materials whenever the market takes a dip. I’ve also been buying up loads of cheap items on US-Shadowsong to transfer across with my old alts when I finally move them to US-Aman’thul with Saate.
Here’s a quick mashup of two screenshots I took this morning showing some of the stuff I’ve been saving, probably most notable in that lot is the 70 x [Pristine Black Diamond] that I’ve been buying on US-Shadowsong for 50-150g!
What’s gold progress like for everyone else? Anyone else been using the remote auction house app? Would love to hear how you’re going in the comments below!
Warcraft Word Jumble – Twisted Nether
A big shout out this week to Nibuca and Fimlys of [Twisted Nether] podcasts. Great weekly podcasts with a variety of guests! These are perfect to listen to while grinding away on your various achievements.
I wonder if anyone can guess the theme this week…? :)
For anyone curious, the awesome artwork in the background of this one was created by Asirbayam on deviantart.
New Guides – Reputation experts wanted!
This is pretty exciting one for me! After some gentle reminders from Penfold it’s time to get into a guide producing routine again.
One thing this blog has taught me well in the past year is that amongst our regulars we have a huge amount of experience and expertise when it comes to this stuff. The recent ‘user submitted tips’ I’ve been posting each week are a perfect example of that.
So I’ve decided that instead of writing guides and getting feedback after-the-fact a much better approach would be to collaborate with the experts (thats you guys!). To this end I’ve started using the new Google Wave tool to work on new guides together. It works kinda like an email or document that people get invited into.
You can make changes, discuss points, add content and even replay the document from the start. It’s pretty cool and a small group of us are already underway with a ‘Guide to Capital Cities Exalted’. I’m looking for more people to join in and add their weight to the contents so we can make these guides as good as possible.
If you’re a regular or can otherwise sell me on the benefits you’d bring I’d be happy to send you an invite! Interested? Flick me an email via the contact me section and we’ll go from there.
Ravenholdt Exalted – User Submitted Tips
Here’s the summary of the best user submitted tips for the Ravenholdt Grind! Got any more tips to add? Let’s hear them then!
- Eyetotem told us about a macro he used to delete the junkbox quest reward knives to make the process faster. You’ll have to click through to the guide to see the comments since it was a little long for here. I would also recommend using a vendor mount or engineering jeeves to sell the knives without having to move.
- Lucidshadow wasnt sure if the quest giver would accept opened junkboxes. Unlocked/opened junkboxes are definitely ok to use! You just need to make sure you leave a single item in the junkbox so it doesn’t disappear.
- Azurexia got a lot of heavy junkboxes in Scholomance while farming for Skin of Shadows. Handy to know if you’re doing the title as a rogue!
- Irinixx used the [LootFilter] addon. This addon lets you add certain items to a blacklist so they get deleted automatically. This allows you to pick-pocket with autoloot on and not have to worry about your inventory filling up.
- Sanibel levelled up a rogue for the junkboxes and learnt a great trick. You can use the LFG system to do a BRD prison run, then when the run is finished stay in the instance after everyone leaves. You can then let yourself into the Garrison and Ring of Law areas for pick pocket goodness. Oh and the best part? When your bags are full you can use the ‘teleport out of instance’ option to get straight to a mailbox!
- Ketch, Muted, Tax and Tyranis among others recommended LBRS for junkbox farming. Muted was kind enough to put together this video of the route:
That’s it for today! Next week…Steamwheedle!
Astrumcast
Zevia’s back from a trip to California!
While I was down there, I happened to reconnect with a lot of former guildmates from a guild on Kil’jaeden called Astrum Brumalis. Most of my raid leading and guild leading experience came from being a part of a guild called ASM on Vashj, and a number of the officers relocated to Kil’jaeden and joined Astrum Brumalis.
While many of us don’t play WoW any more or only play sporadically, the guild leader, Hojowameeat – also known as Mike – happens to do a podcast with a couple other officers from the guild. They were kind enough to treat me to a guest spot on their 5th episode on my last day before flying back up to Seattle so make sure to check it out!
Here’s a direct link to the MP3 (right click, save-as):
Some topics discussed (among many others) include:
– What everyone’s been playing recently
– Gamers and piracy
– Star Trek Online
– WoW
– Downloadable Content
Enjoy!
Warcraft Word Jumble – WoW Confidential
Here’s the World Jumble for this week! I’ve been chatting with Kraklin of [WoW Confidential] a bit in IRC lately and it’s been quite refreshing to swap ideas and thoughts on our different blogs.
When I’m putting together a jumble I come up with the four words first then figure out the rest from there. This week when I was jumbling up the letters in word #2 I had a good laugh when I arrived at a certain two word statement.
It pretty much summed up how a lot of people feel about #2 but let’s just say was not appropriate to use. Let’s see who else accidently arrives at it hehe.
Darkmoon Faire Exalted – User Submitted Tips
Here’s the second round of ‘best of’ guide tips. This week’s round focuses on the Darkmoon Faire and the best way to get together your card decks.
Again this is a great chance for everyone to post feedback and updates on how they feel things have changed over the year for this particular grind. Have a read from what I’ve put together and correct or add anything you think might help fill the gaps.
- Hollock found that [Dense Stone] was an extremely cheap way to get to 2000 friendly by making [Dense Grinding Stones]
- Tickingbomb bought as many herbs as possible from classic through to wotlk (except silverleaf, peacebloom and earthroot). He also bought lots of [Eternal Life] and [Primal Life]. He found that it was often difficult to get these at reasonable prices so saved enough gold to buy in bulk whenever cheap lots came up.
- Deenmark suggested only turning in level 80 decks and then reselling the trinkets to recoup the gold. This method takes longer but helps you save.
- Muted used the gold earned from selling random Dire Maul drops to finance a lot of the grind.
- Pentudo commented that Talonsworn Forest-Ragers can be herbed for the best BC herbs and 2-5 motes of life each. There are 4 per reset, he parked his herbalist alt there and did a circuit every 20 mins or so.
- Irinixx found the most satisfying part of the grind was making heaps of gold selling the trinkets received after turning in the decks.
- Aliana provided the following advice on her AH/herbing technique – “When deciding upon herbs to farm, check the AH and see what cards people tend to post. If lvl 70 cards prevail, farm trees in Skettis. If there’s an abundance of lvl 60 cards, farm Winterspring. There’s no guarantee of even distribution of cards you will create, so you’ll want to complete your decks through the AH anyway, and it can be a pain if you choose the wrong type.”
- Shiny noticed that the Classic Vanilla decks have no “extra mat” (mote of life/eternal life) so might be a bit faster to make.
- Healthstone spent a lot of time herbing in Sholazar. “You get a lot of Eternal Lifes and Frost Lotus (which you can sell). Sure some of the herbs like Goldclover, Tiger Lily, and Deadnettle don’t mill into as many Icy Pigments, but I was able to farm about 50 stacks in 2 hours. Most of those stacks being Adder’s Tongue (which has same mill chance as Icethorn and Lichbloom).
Next week – Ravenholdt!
My PC Setup
So since starting my 5-boxing team a few weeks ago I’ve had a few friends ask me about my PC setup. Since the last of our furniture for the new house arrived recently we ended up taking some photos over the weekend. I thought it might be a good opportunity to share one of my PC setup with you guys!
The basic setup is triple monitor (22″ 27″ 22″) with the 27″ my recently acquired [BenQ M2700HD]. Using a [Das Keyboard] which is awesome, one of my favourite keyboards so far. Trusty old [Logitech G5 Mouse] and a [Belkin n52te] for all my extra button needs!
If anyone’s curious about my apparent fascination with Coca-Cola, the pictures on the wall are all original advertisements. I’ve got a decent collection of Coke ads with the oldest dating back to 1892, a few years after they got started, which refers to the product as a “Brain and Nerve Tonic” – the more you know hey? :p
..and here’s a closer look at the screen layout:
