Breakfast Topic: Catching the perfect Warcraft wave
by Eddie Carrington 
Nov 24th 2009 at 8:00AM
But yet, now we have another way to talk about our favorite game. Google has a new collaboration tool out for use (by invitation only at the moment), Google Wave. Right now it's still in Alpha and is full of bugs and performance issues, but it's a tool that seems to have a lot of possibilities. For example, if you search for waves by using "with:public Warcraft" you get a number of public waves ranging from general WoW discussions to server or class specific debates.
Personally, I've seen it used for Instant Messaging about patch 3.3, collaborating on documents, and even being used by people to play a role playing game. Basically, it seems like a tool that has a ton of potential. (Please understand that none of us here at WoW.com have any wave invitations to hand out.)
So here's what I'm wondering. What communities do you participate in? Do you participate in the WoW related Twitter, Facebook, blog or podcast community? Which ones? How about Wave? Are you using Google Wave to talk about Warcraft?
We'd love to know what communities you're using and think people need to use also. So grab a cup a coffee and let's talk about it.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nativebrown Nov 24th 2009 8:06AM
Bring Back TAVERNCAST!
Othor_NL Nov 24th 2009 8:28AM
Hi,
I'm currently testing Google Wave and the first Wow Related entry I found was your Wave about hunters (Calling World of Warcraft Hunters ) (First post there :-) ). I think it has potential as a medium aspeccially as a replacement for mail/IM.
For Blogs it's too open at the moment because everybody can edit your article/ comment. Sure, you can use the play history feature but with lots of PPl contributing toit, it wil get messy before long and hard to separate original content from the edited content.
It might work for small community Blogs where everbody has acces or Edit rights. For Public Blogs it needs some sort of Access Control mechanism.
Greetz,
Othor_NL
jellyphish Nov 24th 2009 8:29AM
arenajunkies FTW. PvP for life.
Lifeweaver Nov 24th 2009 8:31AM
This website actually provides most of my WoW love outside the game. There is a nice steady stream of content to read throughout the day that I like to read at work and it pretty much covers all the aspects of WoW.
I sub to a few Druid blogs which as easy enough to keep up with because they only update once a week at the most.
Last on the list is not the essential but still entertaining wow.com podcast and the other popular WoW podcast.
Demeternoth Nov 24th 2009 8:45AM
I've just started my own blog, inspired by all the bloggers I see on Twitter. I'm also very active on our own guild forum and browse the realm forums too. Twitter is great for me and allows me to pic up info about WoW quickly and easily. I'd also say wow.com is a must for me, like Lifeweaver above, I find a lot of my wow love catered for on this site.
Moppentoff Nov 24th 2009 8:50AM
I did some serious stress-testing with a few dozen people in Google Wave. After 100+ posts it becomes slightly explosive. But i'm sure the full release will be less inclined to crash your Firefox or IE.
Of course Chrome can handle it fine :3
wildcat0695 Nov 24th 2009 9:55AM
I'm on the wave, twitter, and I blog about warcraft. I'm best known as Nochecazador. I am hunter if you have not figured it out from the name.
Twitter: It's good for random rambling, news updates, and some general conversation if you can keep it sorted and going. It's quick limited blogging at it's best. I use mine as a side feed on my blog. However, you will end up reading about more things than WoW on it. And you can often attract the attention of others that you don't want the attention of.
Blog: I like to write and after reading a few blogs out there for months, decided to hop in with a slightly different perspective. Somewhat general, somewhat informative, somewhat entertainment.
Wave: I'm still learning, but Wave is full of mass potential. I don't like that other people can edit your posting. There should be an option to lock your posting. I do find it to be easier to actually have a conversation, but things are more free flowing and with the ability to insert pics/docs/questionnaires the potential is through the roof. I can see my self using Wave more than Twitter in the future.
I will not abandon any of the above, but I can see usage changing to meet certain needs.
schmO Nov 24th 2009 9:55AM
Can I haz invitez? =D
schmO Dec 2nd 2009 12:48AM
So, it turns out getting an invite is much easier than you may think. Simply search for google wave invite here:
https://services.google.com/fb/forms/wavesignup/
tamdam Nov 25th 2009 2:57PM
My raid co-leader and I have been using wave/googledocs pretty extensively to set up our schedule, plan fights, and manage group gear & professions. Its been great although it is a bit difficult to chat and manage more static content in a single wave.
joseph schafer Jan 2nd 2010 1:43AM
Couple thoughts to add to this:
1) I use it as a guild leader and raid leader to plan out fights with my officers. It works great because we can kick ideas around and hash out all kinds of details. To do this, I tend to reign over the chief strategy wave (the first entry of the thread), and others will comment as a reply. If they have valid ideas, I'll modify the original myself, incorporating their thoughts. Sometimes they'll go right in and modify it, but not often.
2) I have just stumbled across a gadget that should allow for a solution to your problem regarding threads getting too bulky when they go on forever. (first, I will say until I found this, we just simply split our discussion wave apart from our "strategy" waves and that has worked out ok...
Here's the thread to the "IM" gadget, which I'm told will be a solid solution to our problem, by containing the "discussion" in a simplified, resource-friendly window.
http://wave-retro-chat.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/chat.xml
Tresk Jan 29th 2010 4:58PM
Hello,
Recently there has been more controll added for Wave creators.
1. give users individually more full acces or read only capabilties.
2. a restore feature where you can use Playback to go back to the things you like and let the Wave grow back from there.
For those who need an invite. and want to check what it is all about. I still have a couple of dozen left. send me a message @ twitter.com/jodeknudt.
Once you can get into wave. i've started an alpha feature for keeping track of my guilds raiding progress. search with:public OAP.
or linky below. (wave users)
https://wave.google.com/wave/#restored:search:with%253Apublic+OAP
Regards.
Tresk lvl80 Druid.
Lichbear lvl80 Death Knight.