I've never been in a guild where we've finished all the content in the game, but I've definitely seen a difference between raiding farmed content and raiding progression. When you're working on farmed content, things are very, very different from a progression raid-- the mood is lighter, things move more smoothly, more mistakes are made (and it matters less), and there's a little less leading and a little more joking. Not that farming content is more or less fun than raiding progression, but it's a very different feel-- last night I ran Karazhan with my guild for the first time (they're farming it now), and things were very, very different from those raiding days back when we were struggling through Moroes and scared that the Wizard of Oz event might come up in Opera because we didn't have the DPS we needed.

But what if you're recruiting for farmed content? Sara is facing exactly that situation, and she wonders if her guild will be able to find good people now that they're about to finish off all the content in the game. They're expecting loss and attrition (because some people only like to raid progress, and have no interest in farming content beyond their own needs), and trying to bring new people into a guild that's already done everything. Will they only be able to find folks in it for their own loot, or will they bring interested, knowledgeable raiders willing to do the work for the rewards?

Hopefully they'll be able to weed out the "omglootz" people from the casual raiders and the other folks interested in seeing the endgame content. There's no question that running farmed content is not nearly as demanding (and that's why some people don't like it as much) as progressing a raid, but that doesn't mean that anyone wants to take on a raid full of loot whores only bent on scoring their next Epic.

Who out there isn't enjoying some of the Brewfest events right now? In addition to the simple pleasure of free booze, the Brewfest offers some interesting rewards -- one of which, the beer goggles, is showcased above. However, in this case I really feel like the Horde have the short end of the stick. If you play Horde and put on your beer goggles, everyone turns into an Orc. If you play Alliance and put on your beer goggles, everyone turns into a Gnome. And though the above video is amusing, I can only think of how more amusing it would have been with a more Gnomish theme.

Previously, on Moviewatch...

"Dear BRK, my guild of the past eighteen months is basically evaporating. So many people have left we've dropped below the critical mass necessary to do anything. We can't even put together a five-man instance run without a week and a half of chaotic scheduling. And this happened just as I hit 70. So at the point in the game where the focus really shifts over from solo content to multi-player content, I find myself effectively without a group.

"Last night I had a long whisper conversation with a recruitment officer for a larger, more active guild, and she basically handed me an open invitation. But I don't know whether I should take it because this guild is focused on raiding. Since I essentially soloed my way to 70, I barely even know what raiding is.

"I'm not a total noob; I understand my class fairly well, I can manage my pet, we make a good team. But the two of us have very little group experience. We've only been in three instances in a year and a half of playing the game! I don't want to join a hot new guild only to embarrass myself and frustrate my teammates with my ignorance. Where should I go, or what should I do, to learn the basics of how the multiplayer parts of the game work?

"Is there some quick get-up-to-speed briefing online that will at least let me get the vocabulary down, so I don't have to say stupid things like 'What's Kara?' and 'What does attunement mean?' -- Name withheld by request --"

What is Karazhan?

Karazhan is a 10-person instance where your guild goes to beat thirteen bosses and have loot drop that nobody in your raid can use. Basically, Karazhan is a place enchanters go to level their sharding skills.

But what is a hunter's job in this place? Why are we there and what do we do? How about we go through the bosses one at a time and talk briefly about what you can expect your role to be.

This shall be quick and dirty. We expect the comments to overflow with recommendations to help provide more details.

Guild drama is a lot like falling in love. It's the most cliche thing in the world-- everyone's been through it before, usually more than once. But when it happens to you, it seems like there's nothing more important. When you're the one cursing out your guildleader on Vent for giving the loot to his friend instead of the person who rolled 100 on it (you), you feel like you're the only person this has ever happened to in this way.

And that's why I love writing Guildwatch, your weekly look at drama, downed, and recruiting news from around the realms. We can't cover everything, but we can absolutely cover everything you send to us-- tips go to wowguildwatch@gmail.com. Hit the link below to see who fell not in love, but out of their guild this week.

Dan mentioned it in a quick note earlier this morning, but this is such a big piece of news, to my mind, that it deserves an even bigger mention: in patch 2.3, Heroic badges will drop from bosses in Karazhan and Zul'Aman.

That's a gigantic change. We can only guess that it'll work the same way that Heroic instance bosses do now-- every member of the raid will get to grab their own Badge of Honor for each and every boss kill. And that is big-- currently, the badges are only available from bosses in Heroic mode dungeons, which means the only way to get them is to run Heroics.

Of course, whether Heroics or Karazhan are harder for you depends on your experience and your raid, but my sense of the general consensus is that most guilds are already farming Karazhan, while Heroics are only being run by small groups of really experienced players just to get the badges. And when you don't need to get the badges from Heroics any more, what reason is there to go in there?

None other than Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan answered multiple questions concerning the new PvP trinkets announced for Patch 2.3. Here's a summary of his comments:

• All versions of the trinket have a click effect to gain 1750 max health (kind of like the old lifegiving gem effect), along with a passive effect (your choice of 47 spell damage, 40 spell crit rating, 80 attack power, 40 melee crit rating, or 88 healing). (source)
• They cost badges of justice, which will also be available off Kara and Zul Aman bosses. (source)
• They're open to all classes. The click effects share a cooldown though, so you won't be able to stack that effect. (source)

One player was very unhappy that he would be forced to PvE just so he can got back to PvP'ing. Kaplan responded that experiencing different parts of the game isn't such a bad thing and stood his ground on that decision. I wonder if he'd feel the same if he forced PvE players into PvP for better gear.

I like it when people spend a little time to gussy up their guild's raiding pictures. A good, detailed guild kill picture (like the one from Order of the Raven on Aggramar above), is like a nice little postcard, a souvenir for everyone on the raid. If your guild has a particularly nice or well designed kill shot, send it to wowguildwatch@gmail.com (along with your drama, downed, and recruiting tips as always) and we might have a whole gallery of them to show off next week.

In the meantime, click the link below to get your weekly dose of drama, downed, and recruiting news. It's all the guild action you'd want, without ever signing a charter!

Over on the Subcreation forums, Alcaras calls for the death of raid lockouts in a well-written plea to the Blizzard devs. He makes some really strong points-- he calls raid lockouts (or raid cooldowns, as I usually call them) just fake barriers to keep players playing, and lampoons Blizzard for keeping people from playing together the way they want to. Keeping players confined to just one raid per week helps contribute to "the Karazhan Mistake"-- guilds are split, whether they like it or not, and gaps are created between the folks who can raid one night and the folks who can't.

The point of raid lockouts is simply to keep raid farming from happening-- guilds could farm Gruul over and over again, or run into Serpentshrine, down Hydross, and just keep it up for the whole afternoon, picking up Epic after Epic. But as Alcaras points out, guilds already farm-- the 5mans (including Heroics) are already farmable, and no on is arguing that Heroic gear is too easy to get. Plus, things are getting pretty silly-- some groups are running three or four Karazhan groups weekly. How much more would they really run it if lockouts were removed?

Of course, eventually, Alcaras will get his wish. Blizzard has a habit of eventually tuning down and opening up the lower dungeons-- that's what happened in UBRS (originally a 15 man dungeon), and Scholomance (originally a 10 man dungeon). Sure, it likely won't happen anytime too soon, but eventually, Karazhan is going to be nerfed, and the lockdown removed. But I tend to agree with Alcaras, at least for the first few high end raids-- the only real consequence of opening up the lockdowns is that more players would get to experience raiding content more often, and in my mind, that's a good thing.

[ via Tobold ]

Seeya from Dethecus has an interesting question for us to answer this Saturday morning: What's the total number of times you've visited the instance you've seen the most of?

Most guilds raided Molten Core many, many times to gear up everyone that needed it, and back at 60, I spent many weekends plowing through the lava packs down there. I've also run Shadow Labs many, many times since BC dropped, and Steam Vaults and the Arcatraz have also seen me go through quite a few times. Nowadays, Karazhan is probably getting the most traffic, although the cooldown on it probably keeps people going through there as often as they'd like. And don't forget lowbie instances-- I've been through SM and Deadmines on every character at least a few times.

But for me, the instance I've been through the most times overall is definitely UBRS. There were days, when I first hit 60, when we would run it twice a day. I've tanked it, healed it, and DPSed it. I've learned it, taught it, marked it, master looted it, done every quest in there and seen every drop. I've seen a hunter pull Drakk, a Mage pull Drakk, a Warrior tank them all, and even seen a Rogue do the pull. I can't count the number of times I've seen Eviscerate IX drop, and at one point, I could probably list off both all the pulls and Rend and Nef's dialogue to you-- without being near a computer. UBRS is my instance, and I'd put my runs through there at almost 100.

So what's the instance you've run the most, and how many times have you been through?

Welcome to another day, everyone! This week, WoW Insider celebrates the middle of the week a little differently than the rest of you -- by locking two World of Warcraft raid bosses into an arena and only letting one walk away. In our round of fantasy deathmatches, two bosses will enter, but only one will get to leave. And the best part of the entire affair? You get to watch from the sidelines and tell us who won!

This week we'll be considering a fight against Blackwing Lair's Chromaggus and Karazhan's Shade of Aran. Curious about how these two fight -- or ready to voice your opinion on which would come out ahead? Read on!

Reader Arcadin, GM of xyxxy guild on Frostmourne (US) sends in this shot of a hidden image under Karazhan. Says Arcadin, "I'm not saying how I managed to get this shot because I don't want Blizzard to nerf this sneaky way into Karazhan bypassing the bloodbath that often surrounds the front door."

Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth.

Who knew a piece of cloth on your back could be so badass?

Name: Ruby Drape of the Mysticant
Type: Epic Cloak
Armor: 105
Abilities:

• +22 Stamina, +21 Intellect
• Improves spell hit rating by 18 (hot for a cloak)
• +30 spell damage and healing, which is even hotter, especially for an item from Karazhan. There are better caster cloaks in the game, but they're all from higher level raids, so get this one and you'll be set for a while.

How to Get It: As Kirk might say, KarazhAAAAAAAANNN!!! Prince Malchezaar, one of the last bosses in Medivh's tower, drops this baby. In fact, getting there is only half the battle-- because this cloak is so great, you'll probably have a harder time winning the roll to get this than you will actually defeating the Prince. It's around a 10% drop, which ain't bad, but every Mage, Shaman, Warlock, and maybe a Moonkin or two are going to be after this cloak, so it's really more luck than anything.

But the good news is that once you get it, you're pretty much set-- there are sidegrades coming up, but there's really nothing that matches up to it until you hit Kael'thas.

Getting Rid of It: Disenchants into a Void Crystal, and sells to vendors for 3g 71s 96c.

Krystal is a guild leader over on Skywall, and she's got a cool idea for how to get all of her guildies geared up and knowledgeable about Karazhan-- a "Karazhan exchange program," where Team A (the veterans) trades a person with Team B (the newbies) every week, which gives both teams a chance to learn and show more about what they know with each other.

It's an interesting thought, and I'm curious-- do a lot of guilds do this already? To tell the truth, I've been kind of absent from my guild's Karazhan runs lately, but from what I've heard, we pretty much keep things separate-- Team A has their progression, and Team B has theirs. But regularly mixing up the teams seems like a good plan. Sure, with one newb on Team A, their progression might slow a little bit (and there might be a little drama coming out of forcing a certain veteran onto Team B), but by switching things up, it seems that overall both teams will benefit, and especially when you're headed for a 25 man instance (where you'll need both teams and then some), that's an ideal situation.

What's your guild like? If you have two Karazhan teams, do you mix them up periodically, or does Team A stick to themselves, and make Team B learn the bosses on their own?

AFK Gamer's got a great post up about what he calls "The Karazhan Mistake." At BlizzCon, and now in Leipzeig, Blizzard has been patting themselves on the back for the 10man raid of Karazhan-- it's clearly the most popular raid in the expansion (does that have anything to do with the fact that it's the first raid most guilds do?), and so they say the 10man raid idea of theirs is the bomb. Along with the new Zul'Aman, we can expect to see more 10mans in Wrath of the Lich King.

But AFK says they've learned the wrong lesson. While Karazhan is definitely popular, creating a 10man raid in the guild progression path (remember, UBRS didn't start as a 10man, and it wasn't really a progression instance) was a mistake. It's more or less where all the guild drama and frustration in the expansion has come from-- guilds with only 10 people are rare and far between, and so most guilds have to schedule and run multiple raid IDs just to get everyone through there. And now (eight months after the expansion has dropped), while most guilds have finally got Karazhan (and all that raid coordination) down pat, they're dealing with another problem: beefing back up to 25 for the rest of the raids. Blizzard's making guilds jump through all these hoops, and deal with all of this group A/B drama, and they're citing Karazhan as a success?

AFK's solution is a simple one: lower the cooldown on raid IDs. (His other solution is to have raid IDs be guildwide, but letting only 10 people in a guild run Karazhan weekly is a terrible idea.) That would more or less take the raid out of progression (in essence, turn it into UBRS), and let you go there whenever you had 10 people ready and willing, leaving the real raiding to the 25 mans.

Personally, I love Karazhan. It's a great dungeon with some cool bosses and lore, and Blizzard's right: it's how raids should be done. It's just too bad that, by creating a great 10 man in a world full of 25 man raids, they caused guilds (especially guilds just starting to raid) so much trouble.w

[ via Mystic Worlds ]

We've profiled movies of a Paladin soloing Blackrock Depths. We've even seen one solo Blood Furnace. Now, ten of them have banded together to tackle Karazhan. And they manage to clear it all the way until the last two bosses, Nightbane and Netherspite. Not bad for a class that constantly beats up on itself for being gimped.

The video is 26 minutes long, but enjoyable. The first part is RP related to the quest and the fights are at double speed. The music choice is very good IMHO and the humorous moments really help move it along. The shot of all 10 Blood Elf paladins dancing naked on the table was definitely a highlight. These are 10 players definitely enjoying themselves. Check it out.

Previously, on Moviewatch...