Filed under: The Classifieds

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

This is survey week on WoW Insider. We have a quick player wealth survey below, and then Nick Yee needs your help behind the cut. What's the point of having a multimillion-player community if it can't be exploited for science?

This is what Xsinthis of Shadowmoon (US-A) had to say:

I'm looking for more people to complete my World of Warcraft Wealth Survey. Using this quick, painless 4 question survey I hope to answer questions about wealth in the World of Warcraft. The survey can be found here: http://www.xsinthis.net/survey Everyone is encourage to take the survey, data is needed from all walks of digital life, from the copperless lvl 50, to the players who need guild banks to hold all their gold, the more data collected the more accurate the results will be!

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

Okay, folks. Here we go. Tomorrow night, we get to enjoy the good times at 2011 BlizzCon Reader Meetup at the Anabella hotel. Live stream, celebrities, and mingling with your fellow players. What's not to love? Come hob-nob with your intrepid staff of WoW Insider writers, have a few drinks, and get ready for BlizzCon.

Did we mention the Horde and Alliance each have their own drinks? Oh yes, it's true. The Horde cocktail and Alliance cocktail are both delicious, tasty, and plentiful. You should feel free to sip from the glass of your faction and raise your mug in celebration.

New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. WoW Rookie is about more than just being new to the game; it's about checking out new classes, new playstyles, and new zones.

With BlizzCon 2011 only a little more than a week away, we got hit with an odd request. A reader is bringing a completely non-WoW -playing friend to the Reader Meetup. This is awesome; we'd like to see friends and family of all shapes and sizes at the meetup. But still, this friend knows nothing about the game. She knows the game exists, of course, but she doesn't know anything at all about it. So the question of the week is: What is WoW from a complete and total noob's perspective?

Let's start at the most basic of basics. WoW is World of Warcraft, an MMORPG based off Blizzard's hit series, Warcraft. Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games allow thousands of players to share a gaming experience, interacting with one another while they pursue the game's goals. This engenders a sense of community and camaraderie with fellow players.

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

Oh my god. Oh my god, you guys -- BlizzCon 2011 is freaking next week. Like, seriously, in a week, we'll be in Anaheim sipping Horde and Alliance-themed cocktails.

Interestingly, The Syndicate, which has played together for 14 years, has trademarked its name. This is what they say about the process:

Back in 2006, The Syndicate (www.LLTS.org) became the first online community to Trademark its name. Through development consulting and strategy guide writing "The Syndicate" came to mean much more than simply a tag within an online game. Thus the legal protections of having the name Trademarked were put in place. After five years of owning a mark, paperwork can be filed that makes the mark incontestable. That paperwork has been filed and approved and now The Syndicate® has been granted that status. Said another way, no one can come along later and claim that The Syndicate was used by them first within the online gaming space. The mark forever is limited in its usage to only the www.LLTS.org "Syndicate" group. In addition to that, The Syndicate has put several agreements in place with major game developers and publishers recognizing the mark and ensuring that its usage is appropriately restricted within their gaming worlds.

So. I guess everyone else with the name The Syndicate is infringing. Guess we better all get out there and start trying to trademark our name.

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

As I was busily working yesterday in stately Gray Manor, my good friend (and boss) Dan dropped me a message. "Do you realize," he said (and I paraphrase, because he's my boss), "BlizzCon is just two weeks away?"

I dropped my coffee with a gasp. It really is just two weeks away. We'll get to see the Foo Fighters rock the house and stand in line to buy awesome merchandise. Oh yeah, and WoW Insider is going to have one hell of a party.

Here's hoping you're packing your bags, folks. BlizzCon is getting very, very close. Two weeks will fly by before you know it, and suddenly we'll all be in Anaheim soaking in that beautiful Blizzard love.

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

There's all this excitement around here about patch 4.3. You would think there might have been some kind of news. Oh, wait, there was! While you're getting caught up on your weekly Classifieds reading, make sure you're also up to date about all the excitement on the PTR.

• An official blog post sheds light on balance changes.
• Priests and hunters finally get to see their tier 13 gear.
• New achievements have been uncovered.
• Winter's Veil is getting some new vanity pets.
• New patches get new art in the form of loading screens and maps.
• And, of course, we have new patch notes.

Looks like the game is going to get exciting again for everyone. Now's a great time to meet new people and recruit new raiders. It doesn't seem like it will be long before we're off to kill the dragon.

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

The librarian guild Where is the library on Saurfang (US-A) is doing something unique and interesting. On Nov. 17, they will meet in the Ironforge library to talk about cognition and learning in MMOs. Check out what they have to say about it:

18 November 9.00am (Australian Eastern Summer time) Crystle Martin will be talking about cognition and learning in MMOs and the constellation of information that surround them, focusing on topics of literacy including information literacy. She is the lead project assistant for the PopCosmo research group led by Constance Steinkuehler and a member of Games+Learning+Society.

You can read more about this effort, part of a regular series of talks for library professionals on gaming in libraries, on the group's event page. It's definitely worth taking the time to attend the discussion. Good luck to Where is the library on getting a good showing!

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

This video was created by Bloodvein and Myndflame on behalf of Skill Capped. Cottage is a restoration druid gladiator who is widely known as one of the best PVP players in Europe. He'll be starting a death knight and going from a brand-new character all the way to Gladiator inside a single season. You can find out more at Skill Capped itself. I've watched this movie in its entirety, and I'm pretty excited to see where the whole series goes. Cottage is definitely putting out some worthwhile analysis, and both new and experienced players can benefit from the information.

If you decide you want to try out the Arena and PVP, make sure you take a look at Arena Junkies. It's a community site that's been around for a while, and many experienced PVP players post to the forums. While it might take some work to find the best information, AJ is definitely a great first stop as you're getting started with the Arena.

Did you catch this awesome interview about the AFK Tavern? We were pretty excited about it; I wish I could open one around my own home. Just to cement how cool it is, check out this picture they sent us of their own roasted crocolisk.

We had a few letters this week to The Classifieds asking about what the deadline schedule is like. I need submissions in place by Monday, since I turn in The Classifieds Tuesday morning. While I sometimes squeeze late entries in through the day, I can't always promise that.

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

It's the end of summer, and school is getting started. That means plenty of people are sharpening pencils and packing bags to get back into the classroom, and a lot of guilds are in a little bit of a pause. If you find yourself needing new raiders, or if you just want to give someone a shout-out, just drop us a line at theclassifieds@wowinsider.com. We're here to help, and we'd love to hear from you!

Each blurb should be a few sentences long and include a link to your event, guild, or Armory. That link's important because it helps readers look at your information and make further judgements and inquiries.

We look forward to hearing from you!

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

Machinima and WoW filk is tricky business. Not everyone has the gumption to get up in front of the infinite masses of YouTube and show off some talent. Aily, however, has that courage. The video above is a cute performance dedicated to one of Aily's friends. Something about this little song won my heart and made me go, "Awww." C'mon, Blizzard, let's get her some pigtails already.

In only slightly related news, check out the trailer for To The Moon, which includes music from Laura Shigihara, the voice of the Singing Sunflower. This is what Laura has to say about it:

Work and side projects have been keeping me pretty busy lately! My favorite project right now is my friend's indie game To the Moon... I've been helping him out with some music for it, so that's been fun. It's a reverse chronological adventure game about a pair of scientist who traverse the memories of an old dying man in order to fulfill his greatest wish.

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

We had a few questions this week for how to actually submit tips to this column, from guild advertisements to acts of uberness and other snippets here and there.

In general, keep your advertisement to a few sentences to a paragraph long. While we have lots of space some weeks, other weeks the column can get pretty tight. More importantly to you, we find that people don't really read paragraphs longer than a few sentences. They might skim the information, but mostly you want to make sure that you keep your entire advertisement quickly consumable and easy to understand.

In terms of making your guild stand out, try and look for things that really separate you from everyone else. Most guilds try and focus on mature people who enjoy having fun, have a laid-back atmosphere, and enjoy drama-free raiding. What's more unique is the flavor of your guild chat. Do you talk about comic books, sports, or family life? What class is your main tank? What's the guild structure like?

Lastly, make sure you include links to your guild, characters, and other important bits. While I do my best to look them up on Battle.net, if I can't find the character, I can link readers to it. Make sure to scan the instructions in each section, too; we include more tips there.

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

Ahn'Qiraj: The Fallen Kingdom is a player-run event on Emerald Dream (US) to promote the idea of world PVP. It takes place on Aug 13 at 7 p.m. server time. If you're not familiar with the term, essentially world PVP harkens back to the days when we didn't have battlegrounds, arenas, or other fishbowl player-versus-player contests -- just simple, random open warfare in the middle of the PVE zones. You can find out more about this event in the official forums; this group is definitely hoping for a big turn-out.

In a whole different kind of news, Xander and Airielle of Pendragon (Proudmoore US-A) put together this cover of Part of Your World called Part of Your Raid. Xander wrote the lyrics while Airielle performed it.

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make your WoW sessions memorable.

Yes, Virginia, mage tanks do exist. While I wouldn't call them a common occurrence, this PUG member was thrilled to find himself becoming a mage tank in this instance run:

My name is Kardas, from Emerald Dream, and I'm a mage. On Tuesday, July the 12, I was running a regular Vortex Pinacle with a friend when the tank and the only other plate wearer (My friend the DK, who happened to have atank spec) dc'd. This left a Restoration Shaman named Blowmytotem of Stormreaver, and a Moonkin named Guudru from Twisting Nether, and me, directly at the begining on the instance. I a bit better geared for the instance so we said, 'What the heck, let's try mage tanking the thing'. They we're great about everything, even everytime I screwed up and got the Moonkin killed. It took about 3 hours, but we finished it, including Al'akir. They are now some of my favorite people on WoW, for everything they've done.

They deserve to get recognized for this, so I figured I'd drop a line and see if I could get this up. It would be really appreciated!

You often hear about people who hold up the old vanilla days of WoW, before any expansions were released, as some kind of holy grail. While I tend to think vanilla raiding pundits on the official pundits are wearing rose-colored glasses, the fact is that some guilds walk the walk that they're talking.

Screams of the Past is one such guild. Check out what Zwinkz had to say about their efforts:

We're the only classic guild that has remained 'pure' when it comes to raiding. Meaning anything that was introduced after Classic is not allowed when it comes to raiding that includes Glyphs, WotlK enchants, and gems. We're still bringing a great roster clearing all classic content available today including AQ40, 2 BWL Raids, 2 MC Raids a week, as well as AQ10. I feel we are the players that stand for a true classic guild.

While vanilla raiding may not be your thing, you certainly have to respect their dedication to the playstyle.