I’ve been visiting the World of Warcraft message forums a bit lately. I’ve seen this “FTW” comment many times, there. I have seen it occasionally at other message boards and sometimes in online game chats, but I never knew what it meant. Well, actually, I had an idea what it meant, but my definition didn’t make sense in the context of the messages I was seeing.

Way back in my teenage life, I knew a guy who had “FTW” tattooed on his arm. It mean “F— the World.” I heard or saw that phrase once or twice more through the years.

So you can imagine my confusion over message posts such as:

“4 paladins in the same party, FTW!”
“Carrot on a stick, FTW!”

This term seems to be all the rage at the WoW forums. I don’t think you can read 10 posts without seeing it at least once.

But I have now learned what it means in computer gaming contexts: “For the Win.”

The more you know, the more you grow!

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I went to the Undercity last night for the first time, to close out a couple quests. That place is creepy. Just creepy. The monstrous guardians with three arms and their ribcage open, the ghostly bank tellers, the glowing green river, everything. I couldn’t find the NPCs I need to talk to for ending my quests; navigating around Undercity is frustratingly complicated. But rather than log out in that undead city, I hearthstoned back to Crossroads. Undercity is just too creepy to stay there over night.

And I still have the Scout rank on my name. I still don’t like it.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I joined in a PvP battleground — Warsong Gulch. It was a different, interesting, and fun couple hours fighting against other players rather than just against the computer-controlled monsters of the world.

I was surprised that I did decently in the rankings. I was closer to the top of the listing than the bottom. But I don’t think I’ll bother with that aspect of the game anymore. It just wasn’t my favorite kind of game. I’ve never been all that interested in deathmatch style games, either in first-person shooters or adventure games. That’s one reason why Guild Wars didn’t really interest enough.

But I’ve found one side effect of entering the battlegrounds that I didn’t know about or expect. I now have a military title: Scout. I didn’t want a military title, don’t want the title, and think it’s stupid for someone who has no real interest in the PvP side of the game. Now when someone looks at my character, they see someone who has participated in PvP. And unfortunately, I’ve learned that the title will never go away. No matter how long I go without ever going back into a battleground, my character will always retain the Scout ranking. That’ll look pretty silly when I eventually reach level 60.

“Scout” is the Horde name for the Alliance equivalent of “Private”. Ain’t that impressive?

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

The WoW Auction House (AH) is an interesting beast. Some days of the week are more busy than others (as would be expected, I guess). Sometimes an item sells immediately for a very high price, and then the next time it fails to sell for three days.

In talking with my friends about WoW, apparently I have very bad luck with the AH. They regularly sell things for a gold, but I have trouble selling the same things at all. Of my group of friends, I have about half the gold as anyone else. Leatherworking is not a good skill for making money, so far as I’ve tried. Between buying materials (thread, etc.), using materials (leather taken with the skinning skill), and wasted deposit money for items that don’t sell the first or second time, I’m lucky to break even selling my wares on the AH.

The only good thing I’m seeing with leatherworking is making gear for myself or my friends. But it takes so much to level up the skill to where I can make good stuff for use, I sometimes think I could probably save money by just purchasing it off the AH and forget about using a skill.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com