Vision for the Lurker Lounge: World of Warcraft

[MongoJerry]

The Lurker Lounge: World of Warcraft Edition

Bolty hasn't mentioned it, so I'm guessing he's letting me be the one to say it. A few months ago, Bolty suggested to me the idea of becoming the Site Administrator for the new Lurker Lounge: World of Warcraft site, and over the past couple of weeks, we've had some serious discussion of the matter. Much cajolery, a heavy helping of flattery, and some complete fabrications ("Chicks dig game site administrators" -- what the heck was that one, Bolty?) convinced me to take the job. With game release a day away, it's time I formally introduce myself as your new Site Administrator and let you know what my vision is for the Lurker Lounge: World of Warcraft edition.

Vision statement: The Lurker Lounge: WoW Edition is a site devoted to intelligent and civil discussion of strategy, tactics, and gameplay issues in the game, World of Warcraft. The Lurker Lounge is not a guild, and we welcome players with any guild affiliation to join in the discussion and post content here.

The Lurker Lounge Content: The content focus of the LL:WoW will be on strategy, tactics, and gameplay issues. However, I can't provide all that content. The content instead comes from *you*. Yes, you, the person reading this post right now. Examples of potential content include: Class guides, PvP guides, guides to individual instances and zones, and discoveries of important game formulae. You don't have to be an expert in all things WoW to write something. Just spend some time experimenting with one small thing and write about that. For example, you could become the expert in "how to get to level 10 as a human the fastest" and write about that.

The Lurker Lounge "Guild": The Lurker Lounge is not a guild. Lurkers are free to and even encouraged to find and join guilds on the servers they happen to play on. However, there are many players who come to this site who do not have any affiliation with a guild and would like to play with fellow Lurkers. For these cases, we will provide a list of servers that have a higher than usual number of Lurkers playing on them. If a server has enough Lurkers playing on it, the players on that server are welcome to form a Lurker Lounge guild in order to enable better communication between the those players. The administration of these "guilds," including minutia like tabard design, are up to the players on the individual server.

Generally, I prefer a "hands-off" policy on guild issues. However, since characters in a Lurker Lounge guild will be walking advertisements for the Lurker Lounge, I would expect gameplay from anyone creating or participating in such a guild to reflect the higher standards of the Lurker Lounge community. I will provide a separate small list of Lurker Lounge behavior guidelines later, but that'll be about it for the Lurker Lounge "guild." If you would like something with more stringent behavior guidelines and more built-in safeguards, then I suggest looking into joining the Amazon Basin guild. The AB already has a history of organizing and maintaining fun and safe guilds to play in, and it seems silly to duplicate their efforts.

LL:WoW Size Issues: As is usual with the Lurker Lounge, we will make no attempt to actively publicize our existence. We will instead depend on word of mouth to spread the news of the Lurker Lounge. After all, the best way to keep out the "wankers" is to not let the wankers know about the site in the first place. However, with the game being sold to well over a million people, that word will spread and we, the old guard, need to accept that we are going to be swamped by the number of new players who will be joining us in the coming year. This is good, because we'll have an influx of new energy, new discussion, and new content coming into the site. This is bad, because we'll have the usual periodic invasion of wankers.

The site cannot stand still with the player base it has now. While we have had some good discussion during the beta, the quantity of real information provided in the forum has been low. If we want the Lurker Lounge to do to WoW what it did to D1 and D2, we need new players with good ideas to join us. That's why I feel it's important to encourage people with any guild affiliation to join in our discussion. Some of the players with the best knowledge are in some of those big elite guilds, after all, and I'd like to tap into their knowledgebase.

The site's success will be determined by how well we encourage new players with good ideas to join us and how well we discourage the "wankers" from joining us. It's for this reason that I feel we need to plan and prepare ourselves for dealing with a larger community of players now. One of the first things I want to do is get a team of forum administrators together who will monitor the forums and make sure the general policies of intelligent and civil discussion are enforced. If you would like to be a forum administrator, send me a private message and let's talk.


That's about it for now. I have some specific ideas for the site that I'd like to bounce off the community, and I look forward to hearing your ideas as well. However, I'll write about the ideas I have in future separate threads.

[Leshy]

Let me be the second to welcome you aboard then - as I presume Bolty has already done so ;)

I've loved your Beta adventure writeups - as well as the previous D2 ones -, and can think of no one better suited to take care of the WoW department of the Lurker Lounge with the required dedication and quality of standard than yourself. So all the best of luck to you, good sir! *tips hat*


This is making me more and more annoyed with Blizz's localized server policy, though :angry:

[NuurAbSaal]

YAY!

Good News IMHO

"Strength and Honor", as we Hordlings say :)

I'd like to request that you put all "The Adventures of Neriad" writeups on this site, they were an awesome read and raised my anticipation to new (painful) heights.

Good Luck!

Nuur

[Dyntheos]

Congratulations.

[smithy]

The Lurker Lounge: World of Warcraft Edition

Bolty hasn't mentioned it, so I'm guessing he's letting me be the one to say it.  A few months ago, Bolty suggested to me the idea of becoming the Site Administrator for the new Lurker Lounge: World of Warcraft site, and over the past couple of weeks, we've had some serious discussion of the matter.  Much cajolery, a heavy helping of flattery, and some complete fabrications ("Chicks dig game site administrators" -- what the heck was that one, Bolty?) convinced me to take the job.  With game release a day away, it's time I formally introduce myself as your new Site Administrator and let you know what my vision is for the Lurker Lounge: World of Warcraft edition.

Vision statement: The Lurker Lounge: WoW Edition is a site devoted to intelligent and civil discussion of strategy, tactics, and gameplay issues in the game, World of Warcraft.  The Lurker Lounge is not a guild, and we welcome players with any guild affiliation to join in the discussion and post content here.

The Lurker Lounge Content:  The content focus of the LL:WoW will be on strategy, tactics, and gameplay issues.  However, I can't provide all that content.  The content instead comes from *you*.  Yes, you, the person reading this post right now.  Examples of potential content include:  Class guides, PvP guides, guides to individual instances and zones, and discoveries of important game formulae.  You don't have to be an expert in all things WoW to write something.  Just spend some time experimenting with one small thing and write about that.  For example, you could become the expert in "how to get to level 10 as a human the fastest" and write about that.

The Lurker Lounge "Guild":  The Lurker Lounge is not a guild.  Lurkers are free to and even encouraged to find and join guilds on the servers they happen to play on.  However, there are many players who come to this site who do not have any affiliation with a guild and would like to play with fellow Lurkers.  For these cases, we will provide a list of servers that have a higher than usual number of Lurkers playing on them.  If a server has enough Lurkers playing on it, the players on that server are welcome to form a Lurker Lounge guild in order to enable better communication between the those players.  The administration of these "guilds," including minutia like tabard design, are up to the players on the individual server.

Generally, I prefer a "hands-off" policy on guild issues.  However, since characters in a Lurker Lounge guild will be walking advertisements for the Lurker Lounge, I would expect gameplay from anyone creating or participating in such a guild to reflect the higher standards of the Lurker Lounge community. I will provide a separate small list of Lurker Lounge behavior guidelines later, but that'll be about it for the Lurker Lounge "guild."  If you would like something with more stringent behavior guidelines and more built-in safeguards, then I suggest looking into joining the Amazon Basin guild.  The AB already has a history of organizing and maintaining fun and safe guilds to play in, and it seems silly to duplicate their efforts.

LL:WoW Size Issues:  As is usual with the Lurker Lounge, we will make no attempt to actively publicize our existence.  We will instead depend on word of mouth to spread the news of the Lurker Lounge.  After all, the best way to keep out the "wankers" is to not let the wankers know about the site in the first place.  However, with the game being sold to well over a million people, that word will spread and we, the old guard, need to accept that we are going to be swamped by the number of new players who will be joining us in the coming year.  This is good, because we'll have an influx of new energy, new discussion, and new content coming into the site.  This is bad, because we'll have the usual periodic invasion of wankers.

The site cannot stand still with the player base it has now.  While we have had some good discussion during the beta, the quantity of real information provided in the forum has been low.  If we want the Lurker Lounge to do to WoW what it did to D1 and D2, we need new players with good ideas to join us.  That's why I feel it's important to encourage people with any guild affiliation to join in our discussion.  Some of the players with the best knowledge are in some of those big elite guilds, after all, and I'd like to tap into their knowledgebase.

The site's success will be determined by how well we encourage new players with good ideas to join us and how well we discourage the "wankers" from joining us.  It's for this reason that I feel we need to plan and prepare ourselves for dealing with a larger community of players now.  One of the first things I want to do is get a team of forum administrators together who will monitor the forums and make sure the general policies of intelligent and civil discussion are enforced.  If you would like to be a forum administrator, send me a private message and let's talk.
That's about it for now.  I have some specific ideas for the site that I'd like to bounce off the community, and I look forward to hearing your ideas as well.  However, I'll write about the ideas I have in future separate threads.
[right][snapback]60743[/snapback][/right]

Congrats Mongo!

I have a few issues I'd like the mention. The AmazonBasin does have a rather strict acceptance policy for most people. However, the last time I checked being a member of the LL was one of the "get out of jail free" cards for acceptance.

That doesn't mean that every Lurker here has to go play with the AB crowd or even join the AB guild. I just think it would vastly improve the experience many Lurkers will have by being on the same servers as the AB crowd.

I strongly believe that every Lurker that is going to be playign WoW should be on the same servers. AFAIK, the AB is going to be playing Horde PvP and Alliance PvE. So, even if we don't have an "official" guild, I think it makes a lot of sense to just play on the same servers as the AB crowd.

This leaves certain lurkers and AB members out of luck due to the server localization C$%P.

Just keep in mind that this isn't Diablo2. It's not like we can just pick USEAST or USWEST. I think it would be a horrific situation if we have 10 players on one server, 3 on another, 7 on another.... and so on.

If we don't play together, how can we be a community?

About the forum discussion: How could we have lively discussion when only 10 or so people have access to the game? :)

I don't envy your position but I do hope you will find the experience rewarding.

Smithy0

[Tal]

Just keep in mind that this isn't Diablo2.  It's not like we can just pick USEAST or USWEST.  I think it would be a horrific situation if we have 10 players on one server, 3 on another, 7 on another.... and so on.

[right][snapback]60766[/snapback][/right]

US folks can. The game "suggests" a server to you but you can ignore that and choose whichever realm you desire. Unfortunately this leaves our European colleagues out in the cold but I'm pretty sure that the Basin will also be in the same boat.

[smithy]

US folks can. The game "suggests" a server to you but you can ignore that and choose whichever realm you desire. Unfortunately this leaves our European colleagues out in the cold but I'm pretty sure that the Basin will also be in the same boat.
[right][snapback]60767[/snapback][/right]

Yep.

I'm just saying that I don't see a reason for the LL community to be spread out across x number of servers. In fact, I think we should be playing the same servers as the AB crowd.

It's not like you have to join the AB to play with them. If we have 10 lurkers wanting to playing PvP Horde, there's absolutely no reason I can think of why they shouldn't all play on the same server.

Smithy

[Tal]

Yep.

I'm just saying that I don't see a reason for the LL community to be spread out across x number of servers.  In fact, I think we should be playing the same servers as the AB crowd. 

It's not like you have to join the AB to play with them.  If we have 10 lurkers wanting to playing PvP Horde, there's absolutely no reason I can think of why they shouldn't all play on the same server.

Smithy
[right][snapback]60768[/snapback][/right]

You've not been following some of the other discussions evidently. The Lounge is planning on coordinating our server choice with the AB crowd.

[smithy]

You've not been following some of the other discussions evidently. The Lounge is planning on coordinating our server choice with the AB crowd.
[right][snapback]60771[/snapback][/right]

Heh, I tend to do that sometimes. :)

Mind giving me a link?

I haven't heard any official statement saying the LL and AB will be playing on the same servers. The part of Mondo's post that I was questioning was the part about keeping a list of servers with high LL populations.

If the servers we were playign on were set, what would the purpose of that list be?

Smithy

[Tal]

Mind giving me a link? 

I haven't heard any official statement saying the LL and AB will be playing on the same servers.  The part of Mondo's post that I was questioning was the part about keeping a list of servers with high LL populations. 
[right][snapback]60773[/snapback][/right]

http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index.p...wtopic=4697&hl=

[NuurAbSaal]

Unfortunately this leaves our European colleagues out in the cold but I'm pretty sure that the Basin will also be in the same boat.
[right][snapback]60767[/snapback][/right]

Unless some of the european lurkers are desperate/foolish/weird enough to buy the US version :)

looks like I just might be one of those :ph34r:


Greetings

Nuur

EDIT: D'oh!

Die Server werden zum nordamerikanischen Start regionsspezifisch sein. Blizzard empfiehlt daher, dass europäische Spieler sich nicht die nordamerikanische Ausgabe des Spiels kaufen, da der Zugang zu den nordamerikanischen Servern nur Spielern aus Nordamerika, Australien, und Neuseeland möglich sein wird.

[Elegantly]

Congratulations, MongoJerry! Let's hope you have a good start. :)

Elegantly


@smithy: Smithy, are you the one with the char Smithex that grouped with me several times during Open Beta? If so, it was fun. :D

[lemekim]

Good luck and have fun! I, like Bolty, will await further changes to WoW to see it's worth it before playing. Plus the initial rush does not sound too enticing either.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Once again Bolty shows his great ability at running a web site, this time by picking the best person for the job. Congrats.

The way things are going right now, neither Magi not I will have much of a chance to play for at least a few weeks, and probably will not have machines that can really run WoW until after the new year. If the game holds up till then, we'll probably join in then. So leave a little for us to discover ;)

Good luck and may the material come through a fire hose ;)

--Pete

[Thecla]

With game release a day away, it's time I formally introduce myself as your new Site Administrator and let you know what my vision is for the Lurker Lounge: World of Warcraft edition.
[right][snapback]60743[/snapback][/right]

That's great news -- there couldn't be a better person to do it, and I'm glad you're willing. :)

[MongoJerry]

I'm just saying that I don't see a reason for the LL community to be spread out across x number of servers. In fact, I think we should be playing the same servers as the AB crowd.

In my role as the new Site Administrator, I have to think in terms of not only what the site and community will be like tomorrow but also what it will be like a year from now. My expectation for a year from now is that the WoW Lurker community will be at least ten times the size it is now. This means that 90% of the people who will be posting at the Lounge a year from now won't have started with our list of servers and therefore the Lurker community will naturally be spread across x number of servers. Such is the nature of the beast.

What's more, the Lurker Lounge is not a guild (You'll hear me repeat that ad nauseam), and we welcome players from all guilds to join us and encourage players here to join guilds of their choosing, including the Amazon Basin. Lurkers of different guilds will naturally end up playing on different servers from one another. Again, such is the nature of the beast.

Finally, the Amazon Basin is limiting the choices to Horde PvP and Alliance PvE styles of play on two specific servers, a necessary step since the AB's desire is to have a large concentration of AB players on their servers. However, this choice goes against the Lurker Lounge philosophy of encouraging discussion of all aspects of a game. Some people here will want to play Alliance PvP and Horde PvE. Some will want to role play, something none of us had any experience with in the beta. Limiting our server choices will limit the experiences that the Lurker community brings to the forums here, and that goes against the general philosophy of the Lurker Lounge.

I gave this matter a great deal of thought over the last several months. One of the biggest questions I posed to myself when deciding whether to take the Site Administrator job or not was, "What is our niche?" What justifies the Lurker Lounge's existence versus the sea of other fan sites? And, since I know about the large population of crossovers (including myself), what's the difference between the Lurker Lounge and the Amazon Basin? The answer comes quite clearly from the top of the Lurker Lounge About page and at the top of the Amazon Basin front page.

Lurker Lounge: Getting the most from your favorite games. This is the goal of the Lurker Lounge. A site dedicated to die-hard gaming, studying a game down to every tiniest detail. Statistics, game mechanics, and in-depth strategies are what make news here.

Amazon Basin: A Community of Friends Playing Games

The difference between the two sites can also be shown in how they started. The Lurker Lounge started with "Bolty's Diablo Strategy Central" that hosted the strategy guides of Jarulf and others. The Amazon Basin started with the formation of an amazon-only guild for Diablo II. The Lurker Lounge's emphasis has always been discussion of strategy and game mechanics, while the Amazon Basin's emphasis has always been the guild and playing together in game.

If we don't play together, how can we be a community?

I chuckled when you said that, because that's a very "Amazon Basin" thing to say. The answer, of course, is that we form our community right here in the forums through our lively debates and discussions of all aspects of the game.

In the end, the Amazon Basin's emphasis has always been creating a guild experience that doesn't suck. The Basin is a better alternative to sites like LoD, Fires of Heaven, and DiE. On the other hand, the Lurker Lounge's emphasis has always been the discussion of strategy and gameplay mechanics on forums that don't suck. In a way, the Lurker Lounge is a better alternative to sites like the official Blizzard forums and worldofwar.net.

Over time, I've felt the drift of the Lounge toward being more like the Amazon Basin, and at first, I thought along those lines while thinking of what I thought the Lurker Lounge should look like. But every time I thought that way, I had a gnawing sensation in my gut that this was the wrong way to go. There's no need to duplicate the efforts of the Amazon Basin, since the Basin has that niche well covered. The niche that isn't well covered, however, is a general strategy site with intelligent and civil discussion. That's the niche that the Lurker Lounge filled for Diablo and Diablo II, and I feel that it can fill that niche for the World of Warcraft as well.

I hope that this gives you a better idea of what I'm envisioning for the future of the site. I'm finding that as I shift to the role of Site Administrator that I'm having to step back and take a larger and longer term view of things. As for your worries about playing together tomorrow at release, Cathan at the Amazon Basin has already said that they plan to post the AB server list both at the Basin and at the Lounge at 11am tomorrow, so people here who want to play with the Basin crowd will know then where to go. As for everyone else who might want to play a different style of game, play in a different time zone, or play with friends or guildmates they know, we'll keep some lists of where people are at and see if we can consolidate the community somehow so that we here in the old guard can play together as much as possible.

[Lord BEEF]

Congratulations MongoJerry! I'm looking forward to good dicussion here. I loved your write up on the great masquerade, maybe I'll have to chronicle the horde quests that lead up to the Onyxia key when I get leveled back up again :)

I'm BEEF from closed beta and I'll try to contribute here whenever I have any amazing insights :)

[MongoJerry]

I'm BEEF from closed beta and I'll try to contribute here whenever I have any amazing insights :)

I'll take half-baked insights right now! :lol:

[LochnarITB]

This is not unexpected news. As I read all the information you have shared, I felt you were already assuming the role and anticipated the formal announcement. I look forward to many interesting discussions, under your reign, as I pursue what will finally replace that pesky crack addiction. :lol:

[LochnarITB]

What's more, the Lurker Lounge is not a guild (You'll hear me repeat that ad nauseam), and we welcome players from all guilds to join us and encourage players here to join guilds of their choosing, including the Amazon Basin.  Lurkers of different guilds will naturally end up playing on different servers from one another.  Again, such is the nature of the beast.
[right][snapback]60800[/snapback][/right]

While I understand your desire to differentiate the Lounge from guild sites, I would ask that you not put so much emphasis on it so as to discourage a Lurker Lounge guild. Although I have no desire to join any other guild, I would join a Lurker guild without hesitation. It is my one and only community on the net and I would like to be able to have a formal declaration of that community within the game. Even if it is considered duplicating the AB, I also think it would be good to have a forum dedicated to doing the business of a Lurker Lounge guild. Perhaps I am the only one who feels this way, but I wanted my viewpoint known. Is anyone else of the same mind?