The One @ WoWKindness.com

The One Joins Blizzard's Guild Mentor Program

I am pleased to announce that The One has been selected by Blizzard to be the official Blizzard Mentor Guild for the Alliance side on EU-Thunderhorn. The guild mentor program is a trial initiative by Blizzard to help improve the gaming experience of new _World of Warcraft_ players. How? In two ways:

Getting friendly, easily identified people to be on the watch for newcomers and proactively ask them if they need assistance.
Proving a guild environment in which newcomers can be fostered and mentored.

While The One has always promoted random acts of kindness, this is going to be our biggest project yet. The program is expected to run until some time in December. It's going to require everyone in the guild pitching in to make it a success. I'm sure we can do it with a little help from our friends. (-:

Look for us in our distinctive blue tabards with the kindness droplet on it on EU-Thunderhorn or do a "/who Blizzard Mentor Aliance". We're here to help!

Welcome Basil as Our Newest Officer

The One is pleased to announce the promotion of Basil/Foxglove to fill our remaining officer slot. That means we once again have a full complement of officers. Basil will be taking on duties related to raid running primarily, although he's also an excellent font of wisdom about almost anything you need to do to level, instance, or raid in WoW in general.

Comment on Basil's promotion in the associated forum thread Our Newest Officer.

Welcome to Level 25

OK, this is a bit late, but I thought I should document that the guild reached Level 25 October 4th with a push through by downing Coren Direbrew over and over again for the win. Congratulations!

Guess The Picture Contest

Popcorn's Guess the Picture contest is still open! How many of these NPCs can you identify? There are prizes to be won!

Happy 6th Birthday, The One

We had our sixth birthday party on Saturday, February 26th. We met up in Zul'Gurub, danced, heard some speeches, and went on a bit of a scavenger hunt before heading off to a desert island for some picture fun. See the pictures and read the speeches in the wiki.

Guild Meeting about Guild Cataclysm Achievement Team

An important guild meeting about Guild Cataclysm Achievement Team will be held Thursday, January 27th at 19:30 game time in Stormwind. You should be there if you're interested in being on the team or leading the team.

More details about the meeting can be found in the forum thread Guild Meeting about Guild Cataclysm Achievement Team.

Big Patch Day Today

October 13th sees the deployment of the 4.0.1 pre-Cataclysm patch. The realms will be down until at least 16:00 game time. What can you expect? All kinds of stuff. First of all, have a look at the patch notes, because a lot of stuff has changed. I've reproduced the patch notes in the wiki version of this post.

There is also an extensive list of known issues. Curse has a big info compilation page with pointers to class guides, new talent calculators, and skill lists.

If you're participating in raid instances, Ice Crown Citadel and the Ruby Sanctum have a new lockout mechanism. Basil explains this in his Flexible Raid Lockout - next patch posting. It's important to understand this or there will be much heartache.

Many classes have had their talent trees drastically changed. Expect to spend a bit of time reconfiguring, re-glyphing, re-jigging talent trees, and trying things out.

Happy Patch Day! Any problems? Let us know!

The One Win Beta Keys

The One entered Blizzard's Cataclysm guild photo contest for a chance to win 10 Cataclysm beta keys and we were successful with the following entry:

]]> A small selection of The One assembled in Hyjal and experimented for ages with getting just the right place and the right poses. I guess it paid off. While Shinytoaster, Foxglove, and I were in Denmark, several One reported they now had Cataclysm beta keys attached to their account.

Popcorn's already been busy posting pictures. It's quite beautiful, especially the new Vashj'ir area, which is all underwater.

The following people were recipients of our first batch of 10 keys:

Elsheindra
Foxglove
Breicor
Derthon
Shinytoaster
Popcorn
Kariandra
Shekin
Sathem
Novadoll

Keep an eye out on the wiki for more postings with the beta label!

Comment on this post in it's original posting on the forum.

Drachonus Promoted to Officer

I'm pleased to announce that Drachonus has agreed to join The One's officer team. He'll be in charge of 'Knowing Everything' and helping here on the website.

]]> That'll mean some changes to other officer jobs, giving us:

Dimage - Guild in-game calendar
Kariandra - Mistress of Initiates
Popcorn - Social Activities
Shinytoaster - On the Night Shift and the Guild's Number One

Popcorn and Shinytoaster also double as your local Honourbound Alliance representatives. They're your go-to guys for any questions about Honourbound activities or problems in Honourbound-run events.

Comment on this post ("on the wiki"):http://www.wowkindness.com/confluence/display/BLOG/2010/07/29/Drachonus+Promoted+to+Officer

Contact Us

Are you an existing Guild Member with a problem on the web site, accessing WoW, or something else which requires contacting the guild? You have two choices:

Send an in-game message to one of the Guild Officers or to Elsheindra (Guild Mistress)
Send an e-mail to one of the Guild Officers or to Elsheindra. All officers can be e-mailed using their name @WoWKindness.com. For example, OfficerName AT WoWKindness DOT com. Due to spam, Elsheindra's is now just "Elsh" at the same domain.

If you're interested in the Guild and you're not an existing member, please feel free to use one of the above two methods to contact Elsheindra, the Guild Mistress.

The Great One Guild Cataclysm Contest Event

Event: The Great One Guild Cataclysm Event
Date: Monday, July 5th
Time: 20:30 Game Time

As you know, Blizzard has been ramping up, preparing to unleash a Cataclysm upon Azeroth. In both the US and the EU realms, guild leaders can submit a contest entry for their guild to win 10 Cataclysm beta keys. Derthon and I thought it might be cool for The One to enter, mostly because it involves doing things we love to do: being silly and taking pictures of it. How can we lose?

]]> Blizzard said:

Guildmasters, it's time to earn you and your guildmates a gaze into the Cataclysm! Gather your friends, head over to your favourite spot and showcase your impressive photography skills. Every week, for five weeks, the 100 most impressive screenshots will earn you and your guild 10 keycodes to access the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Beta!

What are you waiting for? All you need to do is take a screenshot of you and your guild showing off your creativity in terms of breath-taking landscapes, lighting, impressive camera angles and epic poses. The only requirement is that the word "Cataclysm!" is displayed in a chat bubble together with your character and guild names! Please remember that submissions missing the chat bubble and guild name tags will be ineligible to win.

The Guildmaster will then proceed to send us the screenshot and their selection of 10 Battle.net account e-mail addresses using the dedicated webform.

Here is some advice to help you with your submissions:

Use the environment to your advantage! Points of interest, dungeons, even bosses are there to help you.

Pimp your screenshot by setting the in-game graphics settings to the max! There is no need to worry about your frame rate since the submission is a still image.

We strongly encourage you to disable your addons while taking the screenshot. Keep the default interface on and capture your picture of awesomeness!

Don't forget to read the contest rules

Derthon has picked out some awesome location and {person:Popcorn} will be coordinating costumes. All we need is for you to show up and help us be fantastic!

So, please be online Monday! We'll also be pairing it up with some kind of grand Guild Hide-and-Go-Seek with leaderboards that Popcorn is organizing either before or after this. Details on that will follow in a separate message.

See you there!

Elsheindra

Comment on this message in the original forum post.

Officer Demotion

I have an unpleasant announcement to make about something that I don't think ever really happened in the guild before. Sonarakbadak, long-time member of The One, was recently demoted from his position as officer (social events) in The One. Sonarakbadak left the guild with his main character, transferring to Horde and another guild, without a word to any of us before or since. While we don't insist that members talk to us before they go, it's nice if you tell us first. As an officer, just transferring or leaving is not acceptable. That's why he was demoted.

Comment on this message in its forum message.

The One's Fifth Birthday Bash

On February 25th, the guild will officially have been 5 years in World of Warcraft. To celebrate, Sonarakbadak, social officer, with his capable committee of 'S'-workers, has been working on a special adventure. Fireworks, squirrels, tonks? What will it entail? Nobody knows for sure, but if you're One, then you're definitely invited to participate.

Event: The One's Fifth Birthday Bash
Date: Sunday, February 28th, 2010
Time: 15:00 Game Time

Sonar tells me that you don't need to do anything or bring anything, but I reckon pirate costumes are always good.

Arrrrr! We're One!

Comment on this message in its forum message

Once Again Accepting Applicants

The holiday season is now safely passed. We did accept a number of new people recently, but we still have a few spots left over for additional new members before we hit our limit. So… if you're interested in a guild about to celebrate its 5th birthday (and there will be a party!), who love to dance, and who actually talk about things (sometimes strange things, granted) in guild chat from time to time, consider applying now!

Guild Meetings Again On Thursdays

Guild meetings have started again. This week's meeting will be on Thursday at 19:30 Game Time at the Gilded Rose Inn in Stormwind.

I will be unable to attend as I'll be off at an evening workshop, but some of the other officers should be present to hold the meeting.

Comment on this message in its forum message