A guild on Lightbringer decided to start holding different raffles to help increase the War Effort to get the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj open. They were offering great prizes and gold from their guild vault for people who were contributing materials to the Effort and it appeared to be working, as their server began to rise in the rankings. Then a Blizzard Game Master (GM) sent the raffle organizer an in-game mail saying that what they were doing was against Blizzard game policy since it was a form of gambling.

In the end, the GM actually ended up placing a warning on the guild leader's account for performing illegal gambling.

My take on this? Blizzard is making a mistake. As much as I despised the casinos that were available early in the game and was extremely pleased to see them go, I think Blizzard is significantly over-reacting to this guild's attempts to make the new game content more interesting. While their raffle may be able to be defined as gambling by its literal definition, I really don't see a problem with how they're running the raffle. It's helping their server achieve a goal, providing a better incentive to participate in the War Effort, and increasing teamwork on the server--something that'll be sorely needed once the Gates are opened.

There's still no official word from Blizzard (a blue post), but I'll be eagerly watching this thread for an explanation (or apology?).

For all of you who are about to spend 10 hard-earned gold on a guild tabard, reader Ugkul pointed us to this handy Flash© tool that will allow you to design your tabard in your web browser, to get that design down just right before you spend your fake money.

Personally, I like the G.I. Joe Cobra symbol the best...

Compulsory nightly raids and a DKP system you can't understand without a PhD in mathematics (which, fortunately, your guild leader has)--WoW's endgame can get pretty serious, especially for top guilds. Gaming Steve posted recently on the similarities between WoW and a job, and what surprised me was the difference between these commenters' thoughts:

When you end up playing for stats or the satisfaction of getting that one thing, instead of playing for fun, its not worth it. (Varsity, on GamingSteve.com)

It can get pretty intense and demanding, but if you are working towards something you want, it makes it all worth it. (Lonin on Joystiq)

It depends on whether you find the acquisition of the latest Tier 2 piece "fun" or not, I suppose; what side of the work/fun line do you play on?

A few readers have asked about it, so I thought I'd post a quick update on how our WoW Insider guild building is going. The short answer is slowly. The long answer is that both myself and C.K. have been extremely busy the last two weeks and haven't had the time to even play, let alone build a guild. We're still very interested in having a WoW Insider guild (Horde on Akama; Alliance on Chromaggus). It also explains why you haven't seen us logging on the servers. I chatted with a few people early on, but haven't been able to get in the game for awhile now. Blizzard's problem with login times and getting booted from the servers certainly hasn't helped matters any.

So, hang in there; we are still going to have a WoW Insider guild on each server and are very interested in playing with our readers. My calendar isn't allowing me to play again until Monday evening, but I'll be on Akama or Chromaggus at that time if anyone wants to stop by and sign the guild charter or chat.

This fairly old, but interesting, article from Nick Yee's Daedalus project gives an insight into one of the "uberguilds", guilds that persist across games and aim for the top. As the first to kill Ragnaros on their server, Talon's guild is a marvel of military organisation, but not without criticism--the guild leader prefers not to let women in the guild, for example.

Talon's rules for membership are especially clear: you need to be able to take criticism, have good attendance for events, and have the "guild comes first" attitude. Many of us have just joined guilds that were openly recruiting, that had friends in, or that a party member invited us into because they liked our style--this is very different territory.

Blogger and WoW player Squidly was casting around for the funniest WoW Guild names she could find and this is the list he came up with. I've been laughing all morning. Some of these are fantastic!

• Riders of Lohan
• Pretty Pink Pwnies
• Two Dollar Horde
• Spaceballs The Guild
• Nightmare on elf street
• Power Word Drunk
• Built Horde Tough
• Oprah Windfury
• General Goods Merchant
• Gnomeland Security
• Team BubbleHearth
• And Two Stealthed Rogues
• Dwarf Priest LFG
• Sorry were you questing
• Hanging with my Gnomies
• Deeprun Tram Security
• Conquistadorks
• Garden Gnomes
• Holy Ramen Empire
• The Lollipop Guild
• Clan of Redundancy Clan
• Ctrl Alt Del
• Got Horde
• Food and Drink Vendor (Mage Guild)
• Neverland Ranch Survivors
• Rez Please
• Elves gone Wild

I think my favorites are [Sorry Were You Questing] and [Built Horde Tough], but they're all good. For awhile, I was thinking about creating a guild called [Seinfeld] and then getting people to create characters with the Seinfled characters' names, but I never did anything about it. What's the funniest guild name you've seen?

Here's a quick update on how our guild building has been going. C.K. started the guild charter a few weeks ago and we have a few signatures, but neither he or I have had much time to play over the last week or so. We'll get it going eventually, but it may be awhile. In the meantime, if you'd like to play along on Akama with us, here's our Akama names:

SERVER: Akama. (this server will be where we play our WoW Insider horde characters).
Damien = Dab (undead warlock)
C.K. = Cks (undead warlock)
Josh = Kulain (tauren druid)
Mike = Groon (undead rogue)

SERVER: Chromaggus (this server will be where we play our WoW Insider Alliance characters).
Damien = Dab (human warrior)
C.K. = Cks (dwarf hunter)

And here are the characters we play on other servers, which we may or may not be on at any given time, including quite rarely. I'll update this list as other WoW writers get me their info on characters (if they wish to publicize them).

SERVER: Gorefiend
Damien = Shuffle (dwarf paladin)
Damien = Floss (night elf rogue)

SERVER: Argent Dawn
C.K. = Chaosyeti

SERVER: Bloodhoof
Josh = Krios (gnome warlock)
Josh = Kulain (night elf rouge)
Josh = Kelmor (dwarf hunter)
Josh = Kamoox (night elf priest)
Damien = Shuffle (gnome mage)

SERVER: Shadowmoon
Josh = Kulain (undead rogue)

SERVER: Shadowsong (EU)
Jennie = Arjuna (night elf druid)
Jennie = Kerowyn (human paladin)

SERVER: Dragonmaw (EU)
Jennie = Selenay (tauren shaman)

SERVER: Venture Co. (EU)
Jennie = Arjuna (tauren hunter)

SERVER: Cenarion Circle
Mike= Wakeman (paladin)

SERVER: Lightning Hoof
Mike = Greenslade (Alliance hunter)

SERVER: Emerald Dream
Mike = Slubbergull (troll priest)

Please feel free to add any or all of us to your friends lists on any servers listed above that you might play on, and particularly on the two servers we've indicated where we'll be building WoW Insider Horde and Alliance guilds. Hope to see you in game!

The coffee chat today was about family and those among our families that play WoW. Both of my coworkers have large families and they each have quite a few that enjoy the addiction we call WoW. My first coworker, Peter, has such a large following that they have their own chat room that is always busy. His brother, his sister-in-law, two of their three kids, and multiple cousins - they all play on a daily basis. I used to be in a guild with everyone until it fractured, but we used to joke we should just change the guild name to Pete's family.

My other coworker, Jeremy, also has a large family that enjoys the game. His parents and all his brothers/sisters (and their spouses) play the game. His family is spread across multiple servers, but they guild together on the servers they are on. I currently help him run the guild on Bloodhoof.

Are couples and family a common thing in WoW? How many family members do you have playing?

You may love it, you may hate it, but if you're in a guild chances are you've used it -- voice chat.

One of the most popular programs for voice chat is Ventrillo, and finally a version that works with Macs has been released. Revel in the new-found knowledge that Konan, the uber level 60 tank in your guild sounds like a 13 year old who's voice is cracking, because that's exactly what he is!

I'm not crazy about voice chat because the chat tends toward the inane and reminds me of a phone call that never ends, but it will increase your effectiveness in team situations, such as taking on Molten Core or fighting in the battlegrounds. I'm willing to use it for that, but I keep it turned off otherwise.

Today's topic is flight paths! My group found itself needing to get to Desolace but none of us had the flight path there and so we asked around for a mage to portal us there instead.

Is this a common occurance for players coming up through the ranks? One of my coworkers is in a large raiding guild and his alt is now level 40, so I asked if perhaps he could have someone in his guild help us out by giving us a portal to the new flight path.

Do you guys abuse guildmates in this way? Do you consider this cheating? I personally don't because I feel it is relying on the good nature of your guildmates to help yourself go further in the game.

A portal is also a much faster way to get from Theramore to Auberdine, a flight path so long I can watch an episode of Wonder Showzen and still make it back in time to land.

I have a level 54 dwarf paladin character that has never been part of a guild. There was a time when I couldn't walk through Ironforge without being asked a dozen times if I wanted to join a guild, especially as my character reached higher and higher levels.

For that particular character (my main), the goal has been to get him to level 60 without the the help of guildmates. Explaining to this politely to a few people who've asked me to join their guilds has been met with some puzzled replies.

Being part of a guild can be beneficial. Guild members often give lower members gold and appropriate items to help them get started. Guildmates often help each other out in solving or completing quests, or defending against a ganker. But being part of any group also has disadvantages. My very first WoW character joined a guild and it was very poorly run with infighting, disrespect, and an extremely chatty guild channel.

We'll be forming a guild related to WoW Insider for readers to join if they'd like. We've selected two servers (one Horde, and one Alliance) to build characters on. Once all WoW Insider bloggers have created characters on these servers, we'll have a post with their names as well as which servers (realms). Stay tuned!