How not to apply to a guild

With my Guild starting a Star Wars: The Old Republic branch, we have had some people apply to join the guild and for the most part the applications have been pretty standard and those people have all gotten into the guild. The other day we had one that was so outstanding that I just had to share it with everyone. When it came in, I had to read it several times to make sure I was reading it correctly. It represents everything that you should NOT do when applying to join a guild. It was so bad that my wife read the first few lines and instantly said Hell No to the app. I figure that I should rant about this guild a bit so if you have no interest in reading about an application to my guild, feel free to change the channel.

Now while I won't link the application here, I will be describing sections of it so you can understand how bad the app was. If you want to see the application you can head over to my guild site and find it for yourself. Here is a link to the blank application template, as you can see it has five sections but the info we ask is kind of important and we aren't expecting someone to write a paragraph for each question. Most people answer each question as best as they can and move on. The application shouldn't take long to fill out and most people fill it out rather quickly.

SWTOR Advanced Classes and You

I created this quick explanation for my guild and posted it on our forum and I decided that I might as well make it a blog post since I'm sure at least one or two of you people out in the interwebs may benefit from this post. So enjoy this quick explanation of what Advanced Classes in SWTOR are and what you should know before picking yours.


First off, there are 4 basic classes: Jedi Knight/Sith Warrior, Jedi Consular/Sith Inquisitor, Smuggler/Imperial agent, Trooper/Bounty Hunter. Three of the four can tank(Warrior/Inquisitor/BH) and three of the four can heal(Inquisitor/BH/Agent), provided you select the right advanced class. Two of the four can use lightsabers(Knight/Warrior and Consular/Inquisitor) and the other two use blasters rifles/pistols.(Smuggler/Agent and Trooper/BH)

You start the game as one of these four basic classes and at level 10 you decide which advanced class you want to be. Now picking your advanced classes is not the same as picking your spec tree. What you are picking is whether you want to specialize in and once you do that, you can pick your talent spec. It sound confusing but it breaks down like this: lets say you roll a Sith Warrior and you want to be a tank for endgame.

Well when you finish your class quest on the starter world(usually around 9-10) you take a shuttle to the imperial fleet and get a quest to talk to a guy about advanced classes. The info the guy gives you about the two AC choices you have is kind of vague and not that helpful. But you are given two choices Sith Juggernaut or Sith Marauder.

The Sith Juggernaut can do one of two things: DPS or Tank. The Sith Marauder can do one thing: DPS. The choice for Marauders is how you dps with dots or with fast acrobatic dps.(think feral cat or a rogue) Once you pick your advanced class you put your talent point into the tree that corresponds to what you want to do; for our example of a tanking Warrior, you'd put your points into the Immortal talent tree. Now once you pick your advanced class and are feeling all bad ass about it, you should check your inventory because your trainer will give you a bag with items related to your AC. Juggernauts attack with a 1h lightsaber so you get two generators for your offhand, you can only use one at a time in your offhand but you get two because one is for dps and one is for tanking.

The tank one will have Shield %/Absorbtion % on it and the DPS one will only have the necessary dps stats. Kind of obvious which you should be using for your desired spec. I mention this because most people dont realize that they now have this bag in their inventory so they miss out on things like the generators for the Jugger and a second lightsaber for the Marauder to Dual Wield.

Now a very important thing to remember is that ONCE YOU PICK YOUR ADVANCED CLASS YOU CAN'T CHANGE IT! You can choose to respec your talents in your Advanced Class but you can't change the Advanced Class itself. So if you decide that you don't want to be a tank, you can respec your points and go into the dps tree. You can't just go to a trainer and choose to be a Marauder instead. You are stuck with the Advanced Class you chose, so choose wisely!

There is a good breakdown over at Reddit of the AC/Specs that also tells you what WoW class each will feel like. It's a good summary so you should totally check it out if you are not sure what AC you want to go with.

The Ground Floor

It has begun. Yesterday started the beginning of the Early Access time for people who pre-ordered and already all anyone will talk about is TOR. Not being one to shy away from joining the crowd...I was able to log into the game in the morning before work and make my sexy Sith Inquisitor before being forced to go to work. Because I was part of the pre-launch guild program, my guild has been officially created and assigned to the Juyo PVE-US East server.

We are Sith and we are proud!

Now since the game has technically not been released to everyone, it is the perfect time to decide that you want to play the game while it's still on the ground floor. You can be a trend setter with claims to having been playing TOR before it was the cool MMO to play. (Star Wars has always been cool so these claims may not work well)

Anyway... (my super awesome guild) is open for recruitment! We are a +18yr group of players who have been playing WoW together for 6 years and several of us are going to be playing SWTOR together. We are looking for like-minded mature SWTOR players who want to join a guild to have a good time ingame with adults who are fun and very sexy. (Sexyness not guaranteed)

If anyone is interested in joining such an awesome and amazing guild, please feel free to visit our website: www.AvengersofAzeroth.com and fill out an application in our recruitment forum. Don't hesitate to ask any questions you may have, either here in the comments, on our forums, on twitter, or by email. I will try to post a little more this month since I have the last week and a half off from work due to the holiday but I won't promise anything as it is a well-deserved (in my mind) break from work for me.

So in conclusion Star Wars is cool, WoW is cool, and anyone who says otherwise will get punched in the face! Now enjoy this fun classic video!

Walking on the Dark Side

November is upon us and with it comes the endless torture that is Christmas music. /shudder. Also with November comes the realization that Star Wars: The Old Republic comes out in next month, seven weeks from now to be more precise and slightly less time before the deluxe pre-order people get their early access. Now what does this mean for you? Well nothing if you have no plans for playing SWTOR, now if you are planning on playing it...you should be super excited as it is almost here.

Why am I mentioning a competing MMO when I play WoW? Well because...I'm a Star Wars nerd. I can hide it from you all no longer. As such I will be playing TOR when it comes out. Will I be leaving WoW for TOR? NO I will in fact not stop playing WoW. I plan on playing both games until one or the other stops being fun or I run out of money to pay for both. Or I die from Nerdgasm overload.

Now I know to some people out there, it's blasphemy to play anything other than WoW and to said people, I am betraying everything I claim to love because of my plan. Honestly those people are crazy.  I love WoW and have been a fan of the Warcraft Universe since Warcraft 1 was released. Warcaft 1 was actually the first game that I had ever downloaded off the interwebs (that's what we called the internet back in the day) and I loved it so much I went out and bought the legal version. I still have the game and its instruction manuals somewhere in a box in the garage, that's how much I loved reading through the manuals to learn the story of the game. If Blizzard released Warcraft 1/2 for the iPhone/iPad/iWhatever I'd buy them in a heart beat. I remember playing through the Warcraft 3 campaign and geeking out at how awesome a storyline Blizzard had crafted. WC3 was yet again another game that I pirated and went out and bought a full copy after playing it a little.

Now that I have established what a Warcraft fanboy I am, let me tell you about my Star Wars fanboy cred. I grew up watching the movies, riding the Star Tours ride at the Disney MGM theme park, wishing that I could get a lightsaber for Christmas(still wish for this one), reading the expanded universe books, dressing up as Darth Vader for Halloween, and playing many of the Star Wars games that were produced. For the longest time I equated Christmas with Star Wars because certain channels would show all three movies on Christmas day and I of course would sit and watch as much as I could before I was dragged away from the tv to do other stuff. Even though I was vehemently against the idea of having to pay monthly for an MMO, I popped my MMO cherry with Star Wars Galaxies. I couldn't resist the idea of being able to play a character in the Star Wars universe. So many good memories there. /reminisce

Anyway back on topic, WoW holds a spot in my heart but my heart is big enough for some TOR loving. When the game comes out 10 of my guildees and I are planning on playing it and we've already created a Sith guild through the pre-launch guild system that BioWare has created which I find pretty cool. Not having to start on new server on launch day and hoping that your can get all your guildees online to sign a guild charter is definitely a bonus in my book. As I said we are going Sith so if any of you readers have an interest in playing with a super awesome guild when TOR launches, feel free to app at the link above.We could always use a few more fun loving peoples in our war against the forces of dumb lightsider(run by Stop and Asros) nublets.(run by Fimlys)

Will I be tuning this blog towards both WoW and TOR? Now that one I am not sure what the answer is yet. I am still undecided if I want to talk about TOR here or at all. As the launch date gets closer I will make a decision. Maybe if I see that my readers want to hear about TOR I would do it. I still have plenty to talk about in WoW, I just sadly haven't had the time to write quality posts due to work, saddening I know.

So to recap: I will be playing both WoW AND SWTOR, I may blog about TOR, I will definitely continue trying to blog about WoW, and most important Tacos are the most versatile fruit. =D