Arust and I have been invited to host some WoW panels at a convention in Iowa in October. While of course I find this very flattering, I’ve been giving it some thought and I’m trying to figure out exactly what we’d talk about.
So this is my question for you guys: what should we talk about if we do these panels? If you were going to a scifi con, would you go to a WoW-related panel? What would you expect?
Allow me to first share a couple of points:
We can pretty much pitch whatever we want. And it doesn’t have to be just one panel — we can do multiple events. However, it does seem to me that we’d be better off going for something more generic-wow related rather than hunter specific. Of course, the problem here is that we’re hunter experts. We have a niche. We don’t branch out all that much. We are death dealers, yes, but the kind with pets and guns.
Also I should note that we’ve been offered a full WoW setup. We’ll have internet and computers and a giant projector and sound system to show anything that we want in game, should we choose to do something going that route.
So what do you think we should talk about?
A guided 10-man raid through whatever is current at the time? Extreme soloing adventures? Two hunters duoing MC? Or some kind of more traditional discussion format?
What would you want to hear?
My suggestion will probably be one of the more boring ones. But as an outsider looking in on your guild’s achievements/failures the most intriguing thing to me is the chemistry you guys have.
I’d love to hear stories of old that you and your raid mates have gone through all the way from vanilla to now. I think that would make a really interesting and enjoyable talk! Of course you can put it all into a hunter’s context and discuss the evolutions (or degeneration in some cases) of the class!
If you have the option of doing multiple panels, maybe you could do a little of everything. You could do a panel for beginners where you can outline basic game play and a synopsis of each class, then finishing off with 10 day free trials for everyone who’s interested.
You could do another panel on extreme soloing where you clear Molten Core and kill some world dragons. The “look how awesome we are and you aren’t” factor my turn some people off but I for one would like to see it done.
You could put together a presentation on the social aspects of the game, folks working together to accomplish in game goals. The interaction and leadership skills required to lead and succeed in current end day content. The way WoW has become an outlet for families and friends to meet in the virtual world where they wouldn’t necessarily be able to meet in the real world.
A panel on breaking the age, sex and stereotype stigma of online gaming, outlining the diversity of players, gender statistics and age ranges of the folks that enjoy playing WoW.
Last but not least, you could do a walkthrough of the most current 10-man raids. Finding the competent people to put on this type of demonstration may be difficult or even impossible in a convention like setting though.
I admit I’ve never been to a Sci-Fi specific convention so I’m going to assume that the demographic is a bit different that a gaming convention (which I’ve been do dozens). If that’s true, you have the potential to reach many different groups of people and introduce them to a game millions of people play and enjoy every day.
Trilobite
Finding a competent 10-man group is no problem — we can (in theory) just get our regular 10-man group to log on during the panel from their homes and run it with them.
as long as you all aren’t “tarded like a fox” that day :p
Greetings,
First my kudos on this site. This is the first topic in the several years playing WoW to spur my desire to comment into action.
Trilobite posted some very good suggestion. Still what I focused on was your comment that you think you may be more sucessful by keeping your topic generic to the game.and not “hunter specific” Why not both at once ? Rather than discussing hunters specificly adress how we overlap with the rest of the game. The firmly held opion, outside our class and unfortunately within as well, is that all we bring to the table is DPS. As a class are so much more than just DPS. From misdirect pulls to ice traps our talents can make most fights smoother. I believe hunters and our many skills and talents to be a terribly under utilized resourse. If you share this opinion, a convention may be a good opportunity to educate other classes on what we bring to the table beside DPS.. Perhaps present raid problem situations and normally overlooked or unused skills that can address them and the group co-ordination required to utilize them, trap cool downs for instance.
The question is can subject be presented in an informative yet entertaining enough way to capture the interest of non-hunters? .Just remember as in the game, what ever you choose to do, have fun! It’s contagious.
Draegonfly
Eight Deadly Sins
Moon Guard
I think you should start out generic, and then go with what you know.
Give an introduction to the three main roles in raiding, and then talk about who does what in your group and how it pertains to the character types (why mages don’t tank).
Then give some detail about how strategy is the only way to survive in raids.. Talk about some different strategies on one naxx boss or one ulduar boss.. pick your favorite… one that requires skill and if a bunch of premades show up, it would guarantee a wipe.
Lastly, video what it looks like in the game.. some screen shots of the room, the boss, the boss’s abilities.. If I were you, I wouldn’t do anything live.. it’s too contingent on everything working right and if you wipe, you’ll look bad.
If you need to add more time in, maybe think about talking about starting out as a class.. how important the right gear is, show some numbers.. talk about hunters and dps and what you do to evaluate your effectiveness. ( I know the training dummies don’t exactly give a 100% clear picture of how good your damage is.)
Good luck, though!
Have a moderated debate on whether or not elves should be removed from gaming. I’ll be rooting for Arust. Post youtube links plz!
:p
Guild Halls (cities). 1 vs. 1 arenas. Plus, Any chance of putting up some Naxx and Ulduar boss fights on this site?
What we know:
1 – You are presenting to a scifi convention crowd
2 – You were invited to speak as people knowledgable about WoW
Reasonable assumptions are that there is a known interest in WoW by the convention sponsors, and that conventiongoers will take time out of the convention that they have paid for to listen to you. It is also reasonable to assume that most people attending your seminar will be existing WoW players, or gamers interested in what all the fuss is about. I’d break the session into distinct sections, and let the audience know what you will be discussing. We do not know the audience size, but I would consider getting more hardcore as time progresses.
1 – Who are you and why are we listening to you?
2 – What’s this Warcraft thing all the kids are playing?
3 – (to audience) So how many of you have played WoW? Are playing regularly? (adjust presentation accordingly)
4 – Level 1; maybe a Level 10 Hogger run?
5 – Dungeon run – Advanced instance gameplay from a Hunter perspective
6 – Class-specific discussion, theorycraft, etc.
I would give a brief introduction of WoW, a fantasy-based game with science fiction underlying themes (eg Outland) and a story that has been developing over the course of more than fifteen years. Wow expands that universe with eight playable races and multiple character classes from a third-person perspective using a traditional paper-doll equipment system and experience gained from killing monsters, called mobs, and completing set tasks called quests. The world is massive and filled with other players, 11.5 million of them across over a hundred servers worldwide. Three primary roles, damage dealing/healing/tanking. Show them a level 1 character with the simple abilities of hacking and slashing or casting a couple spells, something not a Hunter. The game is approachable, and eases you into its layers of depth and customization, blah blah blah. Game is massive, holidays, vanity pets and items, four continents, tons of cities, factions, races, professions, etc. End intro.
If I were attending a scifi convention, I would probably attend a WoW presentation if only to watch someone else play. So I would quickly swap from the introduction of the universe by logging out of your level 1 toon and into an 80 waiting at an instance portal, or halfway to a dungeon boss. You go through some trash, talk about what the various people in the game are doing, and about the character you are using. Explain the dual-spec system. Show them how moving a few points even in the same tree can change the entire style of play. Show them different pets. Show them your user interface, then the custom addons you use in order to make your class more efficient. Suggest addons for the audience that can benefit every class, like Omen, gatherer, auctioneer, titanpanel, deadlybossmods, etc. Tell them why you have specced the way you did, and chosen the weapons and pet(s) you have. Introduce the importance of working as a group by telling a great story about a wipe. Everyone loves to hear about a great failure while watching you succeed on-screen.
Loot the boss and talk about the importance of loot and etiquette in-game. Tell a story about loot drama, your guild, and about a ninja. Move on through more trash and hit another boss.
I would definitely not show two hunters on-screen. I would want to show two of the three group roles, if at all possible. You have limited time and I would assume that, while the group may have familiarity with WoW for the most part, they are not all going to be there to hear about Hunters. Showing something like the challenge of healing in an instance or tanking shows how different the game can be for everyone.
Questions or requests from the audience.
That’s my two cents, and it’s based off a lot of assumptions, but I hope it was helpful, brought up some ideas, or both. Good luck!
Your topics may depend greatly on what patch is out by October. With that said, I’d suggest the following:
- Stay ‘Wow general through the hunter’s scope.”
- Demonstrate the different specs and builds – BM, MM, SV – and their different applications in the game. This will allow you to touch on PvP, Arena, and PvE (raiding).
- Spend some time discussing the game dynamics like professions, the economy, social opportunities, festivals, and teamwork.
- Discuss guilded vs unguilded. Why do you need a guild? Why not?
- The most powerful demonstration of how well Blizzard puts the game together is in understanding how much effort they put into making each fight ‘difficult buy not impossible’ at each particular character level and for the number of players in the fight. For example:
— What makes a 5 man raid different than a 25 man?
— How does going thru classic dungeons teach you skills for Ulduar?
— Why can’t 25 players with good gear complete a fight until they have great gear?
— Why can’t a level 80 hunter raid with a level 78 tank? (aggro)
— Why do some raids take a few hours while others take days?
WoW is a very complex and complicated game. Think about what happens when you really try to explain it to your buddy who thinks you just ‘fight stuff online’. This isn’t a medieval version of HALO. This is a whole different experience. There’s a lot to talk about and a lot to discuss.
Last – a few words of advise… because there is so much to cover and opinions vary so much, you should think about how you control the conversation and flow. I’d imagine that the session(s) could get out of control fast if you don’t have new topics to move to or don’t keep the flow consistently moving. Good luck!
Hrist.
nuff said
Unfortunatly importing a Hrist to Iowa would prove to be overlty difficult.
Convention specs:
400-500 people about 1/3 -1/4 overlap with local gaming conventions.
offhand I’d say that 50-100 people at the con play or have tried WoW and maybe 1/4-1/2 of those people might be interested in WoW related programming. of Varying skill levels and interests.
and the Convention organizer is a WHU reader, sometimes Hunter and Occasional MNK raider
–Talasien
“Hunter’s Change: A Panel offering a guided tour of the past, present and future of the Hunter Class in WoW”
– Share the old stories — Epic bow quests, “Pulling” for an MC raid, Kiting Baron, Jump shotting, Tanking Ayamiss, sucking in PvP
– Share you current highlights — Volley ftw, Raiding Ulduar, sucking at PVP
– Share you hopes/visions for the future — Ammo changes, expunging gnomes from WoW, sucking at PVP …
I would stick with a more general thing about wow and the society , mateship and friends it creates for all ages, the challenges it creates and the team work it takes to beat the end game but also how its possible to solo most of the content to. Storys about your runs will always get peoples attention but it would be good to have a dungeon run video so you could talk about what each class is doing as the video is playing. Remember some of these people may of never played wow or thought it was just a kids game but i seem to find more adults play than kids these days , for example one of my best friends on wow loaded it for his kid to play and is now higher than his son and plays it more often. How it can be a game the whole family can play and enjoy . It would be good to go into more detail but i would be looking at the audience feed back if your losing them stick with the general thing if there intrigued and want to know more going into more detail . Basically your acting as a sales/spokesperson for wow and wow gamers so depending on how the audience is reacting I would push my speech towards them if there losing interest go down a different road as there is alot to talk about but it wont interest everybody as each individual has his or hers likes and dislikes.
I bet talking about your theory about WoW getting you laid would draw a bit of a crowd.
Putting the Theory (Craft) into practise. (Dues paying and team playing)
As a long time reader / disciple / initiate / pupil and fellow crafter i think a spot on turning all the mundane hardwork into in game PURPLE would be appropriate. For me over the past 6 months there have been a few posts that stick out in my mind and combing these would give a insight into the MORE THAN JUST A GAME element of WoW
a) Starting maybe with builds / in game mechanics (your peice on Aggro management is the backbone of WoW gameplay i.m.o.) and moving onto putting this together into shot rotations and raiding.
b) While the WHU is, as it should be, focused on death deaelers, cap peelers and hard-core meter stealers lots of whats written here targets roles within the raid / team dynamic with a focus on playing for the team WIN.
c) Prep and paying dues. Again the article on raid prep (‘Dont bring your bear to my dinosaur fight’ is now a mantra within my guild) touches on what WoW is all about, or a least should be. We (Hunters) demonstrate this through dps at ALL costs, but tanks pick up the repair bills and healers the grey hairs that go with Kologarns grip and Ignus pot. The concept of turning up and putting it out there for your fellow raiders is what keeps it interesting for me and what keeps me coming back and paying (and building) the repair bots
The AV would let you show the outcome of all the good stuff done at the dummy and on XL / pen and paper and how the team dynamics work
You could stage manage good and bad pulls (my guild could help with 50% of that), show how the same team can WIN or ==<>== based on simple adherence to duties. It would be a chance to set up some epic fail…(I’d love to see a 25 man re-enactment of the Hunter over Agg pull) and get some raiders together to show just what can be done when the dues-o-meter starts to peak.
Anyway..my two penneth……..
As someone who attends Cons on a regular basis and actually goes to panels… I’ll throw in my two bits.
I suggest you set up your first session to get the “Meet the WHU guys” or you’ll NEVER get past that in all your other sessions. Satisfy the fans and whet their taste for the other panels. It’ll let them get your temperature and you can direct them to any other panels you have that meet the needs of folks who want something particular. It also lets the “chatty Kathys” who only know how to talk about their characters or experiences get thier yah yah’s out.
Panels are very organic conversations and the art of running a panel is keeping to topic and guiding the audience back to it when they eneviatably stray. It also lets you pose questions to the audience, get feedback, and then move the conversations along based on both your desire and the audience’s.
IMO – Topics:
How to Raid without going broke & What no Raid Leader EVER wants to Hear.
WoW 101 – Classes, Races, and why is it addictive?
WoW Culture – PVP, Kids, Raiding and internet slang.
WoW Worst Case Scenario – “What Not to Do” or “Why your Pets always on Passive.”
The Art of Pugging and networking new guild members.
WoW and the American Dollar; How expensive can WoW be and why “Farmers & Gold Sellers” spoil the game?
A true panel is a two way flow of info, not a class. I’d avoid technical IMO. A good rule of thumb is “Never feed the bears or rules lawyers”; they’re both ungrateful and just end up biting you in the ass in the end.
Oh, the hotel resturaunt is important. Breakfast/Lunch in the hotel; you meet some nice folks and celebrities there. It just happens, no planning that and the curious behave well
On that note, I hope the con is giving you a guest guide to help you out as well. They can serve as a buffer for the truly inept fans who don’t get that you are a person and not just a celeb or source of info.
Have fun you guys =)
Personaly I would love to see Frost and Rusty try to put together a Real Life PuG for Uldar or Naxx lol but as I won’t be there to enjoy it properly I’ll be sure to be on for the demo when/if it does happen
i just want to reinforce what Dorianchika said about the talks, they are interactive and to treat them as a class without an edge of humour will be difficult.
Also, please try and throw in a comment to any newer players to the effect that NOBODY likes ZF and constantly begging for a boost in /g or /w will not get you one, i for one would love to see that stamped out.
Most of all enjoy doing it and tell us how it goes, Good Luck!
On an unrelate note, i would love a WHU post on “How to raid without going broke” if you have some ideas!
I know i don’t.
It might be easier to show some movies instead of live action. Raids tend to take quite some time, time that you probably don’t want to wast during your panels.
I suppose I would start out generic and feel/ask where the audience wat’s to go with the discussion.
Have fun