Horde Warrior for you

Horde warriors are more likely to display their rage, bloodlust, and other aggressive emotions much more freely. Of course, it's possible that a Horde warrior could have a collection of stuffed animals, write poetry, and even play hopscotch with children, but their rage lurks deep within, and the essence of their profession is to let it loose.
Alliance warriors tend to focus more on training and weapon mastery, sometimes downplaying their rage so much that you hardly even see it. Some warriors like this (even in the Horde sometimes) may be so stoic that even they do not believe that they have any emotions whatsoever, although I doubt anyone who watched them fight could really agree. Something's got to make you willing to put on all that armor and risk death every day.
The Warrior is not merely a well-trained fighter who loves his weapons and armor and takes great care to wield them well -inside each one is a boiling cauldron of rage and passion. By and large, warriors feel at home on the battlefield because it is the one place where they can express themselves, where they can finally let go of all the restraint society imposes on them and unleash all their emotions. Without his raging passion, a person would be much better suited to some calmer form of work -it is this unquenchable fire which sustains a warrior, driving him into action in the midst of mortal peril.
Orcs
The image of the orc warrior calls to mind the blood-red-eyed growling monstrosity roaring with demonic bloodthirstiness and wielding his great axes with abandon in his single-minded pursuit of nothing but death and destruction. For a time, while under the control of the Burning Legion, many orcish warriors were like this, but now even the wildest of barbarians remembers the need to rein in the anger from time to time. Orc warriors (or, at least many of them) are a civilized people when all is said and done, though you might not know it if you only saw them in battle.
Grom Hellscream is probably the most famous orcish warrior, a blademaster who combined immense skill with unbridled passion for the fight. Durotan, Thrall's father, was the very image of the restrained warrior who put the reasons for fighting above the passion of battle itself.
Trolls
Trolls are most likely to blend voodoo beliefs and ritual in with their battle. Their religion is savage and primal, and it fuels their fury with beliefs about revenge, death, and the desires of the spirits. They do not have the demon-possessed history of the orcs, but they are sometimes equally viscous. They are well known as berserkers who get more and more dangerous the more wounded and cornered they become.
The most famous troll warriors are Vol'jin, leader of the Darkspear tribe, and Zul'jin, ruler of the Amani trolls in Zul'Aman, although both of them are witch-doctors in addition to being warriors. Vol'jin is by far the more approachable of the two, known for his wisdom and intelligence. Zul'jin on the other hand is well known for his all-consuming hatred of the blood elves and anyone associated with them. Any troll warrior is likely to follow their example of intense cunning, likely with a good mix of voodoo rituals and ruthlessness thrown in too.
Tauren
Regardless of their immense size, and the apparent limitlessness of their battle fury, the tauren are among the least likely to be totally consumed by rage in battle. At all times they are connected to the earth and are intensely aware of practical concerns as well as bloody ones. A tauren warrior's sense of spirituality and religion is almost diametrically opposed to that of the trolls, and he fights to bring natural order to the chaos, even if outwardly he seems like a giant savage monster to some.
One of the most famous tauren warriors is Tagar, Cairne Bloodhoof's second in command, who helped guide and command the tauren in times of crisis. Cairne himself could also be considered a warrior, though he may also be a druid or something else instead.
Additional notes
Of course there are blood elf warriors in the Warcraft setting, but for various reasons none of them are player characters, so we won't touch on them in this article except to suggest that someone who wants to play a warrior-like blood elf choose a paladin, a rogue, or perhaps best of all, a death knight, for a similar type of character archetype.
Also, keep in mind that none of what I say in this or any other article is the one-and-only truth. This is not the one true way to roleplay -rather it is a proposed standard based on lore and common sense, to which you are welcome to contribute your own ideas and or disagreements in the comments below. These are places to begin when you think about how your race and class interact to make your character who he or she is, not limitations I'm trying to impose upon your creativity. Perhaps these articles can help you think of a reason why your character is different from the standard case. In fact, many of the most interesting characters will break these molds even as they to conform to the same lore and common sense they are based upon.
Undead
Many Forsaken warriors remember a lot of what being a human or elven warrior used to be, with all their talk about honor, justice, the glory of Lordaeron and all that. They may have been called Knights or Champions at one point, or they might have just been regular old guards and soldiers, but now all that has faded away for most of them.
Who's to say what really remains? Do Forsaken warriors feel anger and rage the same way a living person might? Undoubtedly, many are driven by a desire for vengeance against the Scourge and perhaps even humanity as well. But this rage likely does not burn in them the same way that an orc's might -rather it is cold and calculating. An undead warrior's rage not unbridled passion or anger so much as it is almost intellectual, so very sharp and chilling that it cuts like a scalpel.

Tags: warrior

Look fat with 2H mace

Those who have played female Tauren since World of Warcraft classic will recognize this as the latest iteration of the old and equally annoying "I can't get into Molten Core!" bug. Now, while I personally have no intention whatsoever of entering Wintergrasp (which, given my previous track record on such resolutions, means that one of my more sadistic friends will make sure I get stuck there within 2 weeks), I realize that there may be people among the remaining 18 worldwide players with an itch to go an ungainly killin' spree. If I were you, I would plan on being solidly part of the defense for the time being.
It's hard not to notice that female Tauren have unusual difficulty fitting through things that even male Tauren can fit through, but player Astirid from the beta forums seems to have nailed the problem; with respect to model height, female Tauren are actually the tallest models in the game (male Tauren are wider but not actually taller). This cements my belief that nobody on the development team is playing a giant heifer. I find this intolerable, this is racism, this is not to be borne. Dare I say it, this will not stand. And neither can we going through the Undercity elevator or that stupid gun shop next to the auction house in Orgrimmar.
Important news for all 20 of you playing female Tauren out there (of whom Robin Torres and I are two, so I guess it's for the other 18); beware the port to Lake Wintergrasp from Dalaran when your faction controls the fortress. Our reader Amalline wrote in to let us know that an unfortunate bug from the beta concerning the room you're ported to has made its way to the live realms. And by "unfortunate bug," I mean "hilarious joke for all those of you not playing female Tauren" -you can't get out the door.

The world first level 80 is Nymh

Wrath of the Lich King has only been live for a little under a week, and already players are tearing through its many challenges. Blizzard once said that players have a voracious appetite for new content, as soon as something is released they need to start on something else. Wrath has really driven that point home.
The first of many firsts was Nymh, world first player to level 80. WoW Insider had an opportunity to talk to him directly about his journey to level 80, and just what inspired it. Read on to see what he (and we) had to say!
WoW Insider: Hi, Nymh! Thank you for doing this, and congratulations again on being the world first level 80. First, why don't you tell us a little about yourself. I'm sure you've had to do this in all of your interviews already, but once more can't hurt!
Nymh: Hello! In short, I'm 21 and I'm actually working for the French Administration.
WoW Insider: Now, why you decide to do this? Was it your goal to be world first or just to level as quickly as possible?
Nymh: It was not really intended! The original goal was to find a way to level as fast as possible, because I knew it was not possible for me to stay awake for days without sleeping. I had a good template and a good spot to grind that I found on beta, and I calculated that it would take something like 28 hours to go to 80. Definitely, a world first was something I could reach, but it was not really expected.
WoW Insider: You've mentioned that you only really play WoW for the raid content, and don't particularly like questing or leveling up. What will you be doing until people start to catch up to you? Grinding reputation? Tradeskills? Just taking a few days off of the game?
Nymh: Well, my guildies leveled really fast too, we've actually already have cleared all the 10 players raids (except Malygos), and we will start 25 player raids tonight! So the wait was not terrible, but to answer your question, I spend a lot of time...answering questions!
WoW Insider: Obviously there are some people who have been rather negative about your world first, but we've seen a lot of people congratulating you on it, too. Would you say the overall reaction is more positive or more negative in general? How do you feel about the "get a life" comments?
Nymh: I think it is globally equal, maybe more positive than negative, but I do not really pay attention to comments...I've not done this to be recognized, I've done this for myself and my guild. So I really don't care about people saying I should get a life or stuff like that, because they really don't know me and saying things like that just because I was able to grind 27 hours is really stupid.
WoW Insider: Do your friends and guildmates that helped you get to 80 want to add anything, especially your healer? It was really nice of them to help you out, and I definitely think they deserve some time in the spotlight as well.
Pavelomm: Thanks to Nymh for the challenge, and to everyone for your consideration. Thanks for all of the encouraging whispers during the performance. Moreover, of course, thanks to all people on forums or in whispers who seemed so worried about my real life. I accept all sort of presents, my bank account number is 0439...
See ya!
WoW Insider: Any last words from you, Nymh? Either about the leveling process, or something else entirely? Any questions that we at WoW Insider can answer for you since you were so kind as to do this for us?
Nymh: Well, if you know the next numbers at the euromillions...
WoW Insider: Zach Yonzon, one of our Warlocks on staff, was curious about the spec that you used. Did you custom build your version of SL/SL to help your leveling grind along, or is it a spec you feel will be viable past that? Will you continue to use it? Do you think it would have performed well if you didn't have a healer on your side?
Nymh: The original idea of the spec was from Jynxx, Fusion guild, she made a post about a spec that has no downtime, can pull any number of mobs...I tested it and that really was the case, and I was asking myself, "What if I found a spot with unlimited numbers of monsters to pull..." I found Drakil'Jin ruins 2 hours after. Since then, the Drakil'jin Ruins have been hotfixed by Blizzard so the mobs do not give any XP.
I planned to grind as 21/41/0, but I changed my mind few hours before and decided to take Metamorphosis instead, because I had no use for Siphon Life thanks to my healer. I respecced at level 77 to take Grim Reach, Empowered Corruption and Shadow Mastery, it was way more useful than the Meta at that level.
This spec works wonders for farming/questing/grinding. I'm pretty sure it kicks ass in PvP too, as I was ganked by many Horde players on beta but I've never died with this spec. Without Pavelomm, I would be forced to use Siphon Life, sometimes AOE fear...I think I would have grinded the 10 levels in about 40 hours instead of 26.
WoW Insider: Are you happy with the speed that you leveled, or at all disappointed? Do you think it was too easy to just grind mobs?
Nymh: I'm perfectly happy with my grinding speed. It was better than what I planned in the beginning. It was not really "easy," you have to consider that I was Sunwell geared (2000 spell power fully buffed definitely helps kill things faster), I hardly spammed my keyboard for 26 hours. I had the perfect spec for it...It is not something everyone could have done.
WoW Insider: Did you keep track of how much money you made grinding those trolls? I'm sure your bags get pretty full after 26 hours of nonstop killing. Did you even bother with looting?
Nymh: No loot! No time. But I made some calculations. I have killed about 20,000 trolls, and would have been looting between 5 and 22 silver...I guess I would have made more than 5k gold with all the loot (greens/whites/greys included).

ninjas and Nodes

What's the fairest/easiest way to go about divvying up loot when there are people waiting for it? Personally, I'm kind of a fan of the "every many for himself" idea -even though it leads to people AoEing a certain area to try and tag a mob and brings frustration to almost everyone, it at least presents a solid rule: first to hit the mob gets to keep it. If possible, I think Blizzard should always make the quest item lootable by as many people as possible, so we can all get on with our business instead of fighting with each other. But if they do want to make us work for an item, I'd rather it'd be first tag, first served -at least then there's no confusion.
This week's question for you, our readers, comes from an anonymous asker. He wants to know what the best option is for a widespread problem in this time of high realm populations and camped quests aplenty:
There's been a lot of talk on your blog about people ninjaing spawns but I'm not entirely sure that it's as cut and dried as that. Consider this: I was in the Borean Tundra and had to kill the mob on the island that's up the top of the steps. when I arrived there were around 10 other ‘toons all waiting around. I had no idea who was there first, who might be grouped, or anything else about them. The first thing I did was /s ‘group?', at which point someone invited me, and I grouped with them. Second time it spawned one of us tagged it, I looted, disbanded the group and left. Did I ninja it? If so, how was I supposed to have acted? With new people coming all the time, no knowledge of who had been there longest and no visible queueing system I'm not sure how else to behave. Thoughts?
A little more analysis after the break, and don't forget to post your own answer in the comments below. If you've got a question for our readers, send it to ask@wowinsider.com, and we'll ask it for you.
Previously on Ask WoW Insider...
This is one of the oldest problems in MMOs -it's called "camping" when there are too many players and too few quest targets to go around, and back in the day, Everquest and other early MMOs turned camping into an art form -people used to wait for hours to get a mob, and even then, once you "tagged" it, others could still steal it away. Blizzard has made progress on the issue with the "tagging" system, and the fact that they've built a mechanic that spawns mobs faster the more players there are in the area, but obviously it's still an issue in some cases.
The single best thing I've seen on the realms lately is the loot that drops for everyone to pick up -sometimes, when you kill a quest mob, a clickable piece of loot drops that even people who didn't kill the mob can pick up. But obviously that can't always be how it's done, and thus, we get situations like the one above. What do you do then?

Playing Wrath for hours

As our commenters point out, this story's been picked up by English news sites around the net, including The Local, Mail Online, and the Times Online. Additionally, the use of "Halland," below, is sic -Google's translator spelled it that way, not us.
Here's the text of the article, translated into English by Google Translator:
A 15-year-old boy in Halland was taken to hospital after having spent a day in front of the new World of Warcraft. Food-and lack of sleep in front of the computer led to that he was cramping. Now warns his father others.
- We were terrified proposed, but he is out of danger," said the father to the newspaper.
The diagnosis was that the boy was eliminated in a combination of concentrated gaming, sleep deprivation and poor nutrition. The boy had to stay overnight and take back their lost sleep.
Now, the two parents that the boy must limit their time in front of the computer. They have talked with friends who also will cut down on their computer gaming.
At the same time, teenagers around the world to play World of Warcraft as never before. The latest version of the game expected to hit all-time Sales for the game.
- I want to warn other young people and parents, "says the father to the Evening Post.
The boy and his six friends met on Saturday night to play the nysläppta Wrath of the Lich King. In one day, it was only two hours sleep and a small breakfast in front of the computer. At 14 o'clock on Sunday, the boy collapsed.
Seizures reminded on an epileptic seizure as the family alerted SOS. The boy was taken by ambulance to Halmstads hospital where he received his fluid and nutrition drip.

Wrath of the Lich King is finally here

What about the duel between Thrall and Garrosh? Why are they fighting?
Thrall is kind of a wuss and is often to slow to act. Garrosh is a jerk and doesn't think at all before he acts. Garrosh got annoyed with Thrall's hesitation to send troops to Northrend, Thrall wouldn't budge on the issue until they thought it over, Garrosh challenges Thrall's authority and drags him into a duel over it. It's just the result of the massive mess that is current Orcish society.
Personally, I'm tired of Outland and demons and fantasy-tech and I'm glad to see Warcraft going gothic again, buuuut there's one thing that I love about Outland and I'm hoping it's not gone forever. Ethereals are, like, totally awesome, and my favourite unplayable race in WoW. The question I have is, do we see these guys anywhere in Wrath? And if not, do you think that we'll see them ever again?
They're in Wrath but in a very, very limited capacity. It's not the Consortium either, it's the Ethereum. I really liked the ethereals too, so I'm kind of sad they didn't come to Northrend en masse. At least one Ethereal town would've been neat. It's about time the Goblins had some real competition. Cooler, classier, smarter competition. Hell, let's just trade out the Steamwheedle Cartel for the Consortium. Sounds good to me.
In the Pre-Wrath Event Thrall loses to Garrosh Hellscream in a fight in front of high ranking members of the horde. What does this mean in terms of political standing and succession in the horde? If Garrosh had killed Thrall would Garrosh been the new warchief? How do politics work in the Horde?
Technically Thrall didn't lose, the duel was interrupted by the Scourge. He probably was going to lose, though. In the New Horde, we can't really be sure what would happen. In the Old Horde, Garrosh would most probably become the new Warchief. In the New Horde, while Garrosh as Warchief would get a lot of support from a portion of the Orcs, it'd probably cause a civil war or schism in the Horde. People like Saurfang would not tolerate that nonsense, but there are still a lot of Orcs that long for the days of old when they could just slaughter things for a living.
I doubt Sylvanas, the Blood Elves, et cetera would be happy about Garrosh as Warchief, either. Hell, if Garrosh killed Thrall, Saurfang might just Mortal Strike him into a fine mist before he could even try to claim Warchief. We can't really say for sure. The Horde's entire society is screwed up right now. Considering Thrall keeps people like Nazgrel around as his advisors, maybe the Horde wouldn't have blinked at all and welcomed their warlord with open arms.
Just how much Old God love are we going to see in the expansion? They've got to be one of the most compelling forces at work in the WoW universe and it'd be a real treat to see Yogg-Saron manipulating the scenes against the good guys and Arthas.
Yogg-Saron is an everpresent...presence. You feel his influence all over Northrend, and his ties are everywhere. Despite that, he somehow manages to be a little more behind-the-scenes. The Scourge is up in your face and at the top of your mind, but Yogg-Saron's influence is always right there. Those of you with tradeskills that involve using metals, you've been directly exposed to Yogg-Saron. It's called Saronite for a reason. I imagine he'll be a more direct threat once he's actually in-game in whatever raid zone is on the horizon, but right now it's primarily a "presence" and not an "oh shi-" kind of thing.
I very highly recommend running Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom as soon as you're high enough level. Not only is it just a beautiful instance, it's a good look at what the Nerubians were, have become, and at what lies beneath the kingdom. Plus, the last boss is the most awesome 5-man boss I've ever seen. Seriously. Go do it.
I was working on the exploration achievements when ( came across an island in Hillsbrad named "Purgation Isle" with level 58 elite undead. Any lore on it?
Nope, not really. It's a neat place so that's kind of a shame, but there's really nothing specific about it. It was populated with elites for the quest chain at level 60 that upgraded your dungeon tier set. You just kill the dudes and loot their junk. We can make guesses as to what's there, but that doesn't make it canon, you know? Maybe it was a little abbey, or a special little graveyard, or maybe an ice cream parlor.

Tags: wrath of the Lich King

The ins and outs of guild leadership

Hello, Scott. I'm a long-time reader, long-time guild leader, first-time send-question-in . . .er.
Anyway! I run a . . . not sure what you'd consider 'small,' so let's say small (around 30 people) RP guild on Moon Guard. How feasible would it be for small, semi-unscheduled, IC raids (Naxx10 and other 10-mans) in Wrath? I know it'd be hard to do in fights, but do you think a small(ish) roleplay guild could pull it off?
I will say up front, Maciah, that unless Blizzard decides to buff some of the early raids cheap wow gold, you will have a much easier time succeeding with this type of raiding in Wrath than you did in early TBC. By all accounts (which are admittedly few at this point), Naxxramas, the Obsidian Sanctum, and the Eye of Eternity are far easier than Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, and Magtheridon.
It seems like quite a few players are in a hurry these days. They're in a hurry to be the first of their class or race to hit 80, or in a hurry to be the first on their server to clear a raid. They use the most effective method of gaining experience over time, ignoring all other options until they achieve their goal. In this environment, the role-players are definitely a breath of fresh air. This week's e-mail comes from a reader who wants to know whether "IC raiding" -or raiding in character -will be possible in this expansion.

Some people aren't happy about that, but I think it's a great thing. Five-player dungeons have always been trivially easy, and even in Heroic mode they never presented a terribly difficult challenge -why should the first raids of an expansion suddenly take months of effort to clear? Why not increase the difficulty over a curve instead of over a cliff? There are, after all, plenty of achievements to earn if you want to make the existing raids harder for yourself.
Do role-players ever use add-ons? It's easier to raid without add-ons than it used to be, but they can still help a great deal. That's another situation to consider.
I'm a little wary of your plan to run these raids "semi-unscheduled." It really depends on how active those 30 members are. If you can consistently field 10 balanced classes (who aren't abstaining for RP reasons), then you can probably get away without an official schedule. But even then, it can be frustrating for members who really want to see these raids. They might feel like they have to be online every single night in case a raid occurs, and that's not really a healthy situation. Even a vague statement like "we'll only raid on Sunday, Monday, and Thursday nights" can help people to plan out their week.
Even so, to clear the raids in WotLK, you can't waltz in expecting free epics. Before you clear these raids and have them on farm, you need to encourage your role-players to treat the run as a life-or-death situation. Use whatever lore you need to accomplish this -but make sure the result is that they focus on the job at hand rather than any character-specific conflicts between raid members. Also make sure the direness of the situation encourages them to come prepared with all the proper consumables, reagents, etc.
As a raid leader, you have two options. You can go into the raid blind, knowing very little of the dangers and challenges that you'll face. This is probably more realistic from an RP perspective, and it certainly makes things exciting. However, it could also be a bit frustrating if the raid is wiping frequently. So you could also come up with a plausible reason for your raid leader to know something about the bosses ahead of time. I don't know the lore enough to even attempt at coming up with such a reason, so I'll leave that to the experts.

Wrath of the Launch King

And we answered emails, including whether a listener should play through his Warlock or Death Knight, and the perils of going after Mr. Pinchy. Don't forget, if you'd like to send us email, the address is theshow AT wowinsider.com -drop a note, and you might hear it live on the show next Saturday, which we'll stream right on our Ustream page.
And finally, we're back up and running at full steam -as of right now, every way you need to listen to the show should be completely fixed and functioning. So if you've got iTunes, head over to our iTunes page to subscribe to the show and make sure to leave a review while you're there. Or, you can even listen to the show right over there on our sidebar -you'll get a new show there every Monday.
This past week on our podcast, Wrath was the topic -getting it, playing it, loving it, hating it. Our own co-lead Dan O'Halloran and rogue blogger Chase Christian joined us, and we talked Wrath of the Lich King. Dan was at the midnight launch in Anaheim, so we asked him about that -not only were there about 2000 people (and 100 Blizzard employees there), but there was a bubble sword and a hot dog-on-a-stick stand, so listen in for that. And we talked about what the starting zones were like (including two don't-miss quests in Howling Fjord) and our main annoyances with the game so far (none of which include, surprisingly, lag -despite the queues, Blizzard has really kept the game alive).

Two constants comes to fishing

You should probably get out of here as fast as possible too, and stop by your WoW screenshots folder! WoW Insider wants to see all of your unique and quirky snapshots of the World of Warcraft so we can show them to the world here on Around Azeroth. Within reason. No more sunsets, no more Battleground/Arena scoreboards, and no more scantily clad ladies. Well...maybe if they're extra scantily clad, but not that normal scantily clad. That's so 1990. Oh, and make sure your UI is turned off in your screenshots as well.
There are only two constants when it comes to fishing. The first is that fishing is always more fun if you're drunk. The second is that if you want to catch bigger fish, you need bigger bait. Unfortunately, the first sort of blurs the limits on the second. I don't know what Kevin here is trying to catch, but I'm going to get the hell out of here so I don't need to find out.

World of Warcraft players shapes and sizes

15 Minutes of Fame: Congrats on 70! How did you find yourself finally at 70? Was it the end of a long, hard campaign, or did you make a concentrated push once you neared the home stretch?

Noor: A long campaign. I've pretty much played every day. Some levels took a month, if I had to do most of it by doing Battleground dailies. Leveling this way is really daily-limited -I can't decide to go out and push for XP because I can't kill mobs for XP, and I've done every quest that I can do at my level.

Naysayers opined that Noor would give up the ghost of the tedious task of leveling without killing long before he reached level 70. But lo and behold, here we are just post-Wrath launch – and Noor's ticked right past 70, plugging steadily along toward the new max level cap of 80. 15 Minutes of Fame caught up with him to see how he was holding up on the long, slow climb to the top.
 The diminutive subject of 15 Minutes of Fame's inaugural profile, back in January of this year, spent a good chunk of change longer than a mere quarter-hour in the limelight. The life and times of Noor the Pacifist, who levels without experience from kills, garnered widespread attention not only here at WoW Insider but in an onslaught of hits from Digg, Stumble Upon, Fark and even the very cool people at Boing Boing. It seemed like everyone wanted to talk about the guy who plays World of Warcraft without actually killing anything.
What was Noor's total time played to get to level 70?

To get to 70, 59 days and 6 minutes played.
Did you find the going any easier or more difficult once you reached Burning Crusade content?

Easier, as there were new quests with much more XP available. However, there were some easy quests I couldn't get due to reputation. I can't get to Friendly with Honor Hold, which means I can't do their daily quest and a number of other quests. I can't even get to Neutral with the Kurenai.
What became the main methods of advancing your xp once you reached BC content?

Fishing was a main method. Catching a Strange Engine Part gets me 12,650 XP each time (an Alliance-only quest; Horde catch a Broken Engine Part instead, which is just a vendor item). I started fishing in Zangarmarsh around level 49, but couldn't turn in the five parts I'd caught until I hit level 55. When Blizzard announced the reduction in XP per level from 60 to 70 pre-WotLK, I started saving Engine Parts so I could turn them in after patch 2.0.3, and I turned in 21 parts -over half a level at level 65. Overall, I've fished up 99 Strange Engine Parts, for 1,252,350 XP. With the new dailies I can do at level 70, I don't need to fish for them anymore; they only get me about one-sixth of a bar now, anyway.
Two seasonal event helped enormously: the Midsummer Fire Festival and Hallow's End both had new dailies that awarded a lot of XP. The Fire Festival got me levels (and new quests) so fast I went from level 49 to 60 in less than two weeks, instead of being stuck at level 49 for a month doing Battleground dailies.
I also changed professions a fair amount to do profession quest chains at various levels. I did Leatherworking for the wild leather chain in the 30s and Blacksmithing in the 40s.
Did your strategies in PvP change any as you reached higher levels?

Not really. What I really missed was level 47-49 Warsong Gulch. I was wearing Green Whelp Armor and two Freezing Bands, so any player hitting me while I was running the flag had a better than one in 15 chance of freezing or sleeping.
What about player reaction to you in BGs -any changes there?

No. Some people think it's neat, some hate it. I've actually stopped doing Battleground dailies (except AV) after patch 2.0.3, as fishing for Engine Parts is generally faster leveling. After the first 3.0 patches came in, Alliance stopped winning AV, so I stopped that, too.
I still build my talents and equipment as a WSG flag runner, though. I was pretty well-liked as a level 49 WSG flag runner. I also use non-weaponish weapons: Mug o' Hurt (with the built-in proc to slow runners) with Icy and Crippling Poison is good for WSG, and now that I have Shiv, I can apply Crippling Poison to an enemy WSG runner with Last Month's Mutton. If I ever catch a Steelscale Crushfish or a Rockhide Strongfish, I'll use that instead of the Mutton.
Did you do any quest lines involving fights that don't kill anyone?

Yes, I just did the Repurposed Technology quest in Borean Tundra, where I have to destroy a Harvest Collector and reprogram it. I couldn't reprogram Harvesters that other players had destroyed, so I used my Gnomish Universal Remote to have one aggro the others and get destroyed that way. That's one of the 20 or so movies I have up on my blog.
Some past quests like that have been Save Techbot's Brain! (which I justified because he, too, would be reprogrammed, according to the quest text); Sunken Treasure, where I let the two Water Elementals beat on me so Professor Phizzlethorpe could work; and some quests like The Deserters and The End of the Deserters, where you beat someone up until they surrender.
How's your pacifist Priest, Reinisch, coming along these days?

Pretty well; he's level 34. He's got a few quests he can do now, though Horde always lag behind Alliance in non-combat quests. I'm working more on Noor right now, but I'll get back to him.
Both Reinisch and Noor have met other players who have tried leveling as a pacifist. Most drop out around level 10 or thereabouts, but Ahimsah, a pacifist Blood Elf paladin, has even passed Reinisch and is level 36! We've done a few instance quests together, and we're planning to do more.
We'll be able to leapfrog deep into an instance by running in, getting to a normally safe area, then have Ahimsah cast Divine Intervention on Reinisch, who will go out of combat. When the mobs reset, Reinisch can then resurrect Ahimsah. It's pretty amazing how long we can survive doing tag-team healing in dungeons, and we both have Gnomish Cloaking Devices that can be used to get out of combat.
Philosophically, was your focus on pacifism/not killing as strong at the end of the stretch to 70 as in the beginning, or did the focus shift more to alternate forms of leveling?

It was always more about alternate forms of leveling, just adding an arbitrary restriction and seeing how that changes the game for you. It's kind of like a personal Achievement goal.
Is Noor headed to 80 now? What's next?

Yes, Noor should be able to get about 90,000 XP per day doing dailies, which is more than a bar of XP a day at 70. New quests and some more dailies should keep her going, and I should be able to get the Salty title eventually (the biggest obstacles being the STV contest and the rare fish catch One That Didn't Get Away).
Any screenshots of the Big Ding?

No, hitting 70 was pretty dull. I bought a Dalaran portal from a very tired level 75 Mage on Day 2 of WotLK and did the quest to teleport to the ground and back, which left me a few thousand XP short of 70. So I explored up around the Goblin town K3 and hit 70 around there, just running around.
When I'm about to hit 80, I'll try to let people know and probably do it as a daily quest in Shattrath, unless there's some quest I can finish anywhere (like Gutrot's Level 70 Sen'jin Beach Party, where he used the staff to summon the image of Archmage Vargoth to complete a quest to ding). If there is one, I'd like to try and publicly ding 80 in the throne room of Lordaeron ...
Did you have any accidental kills along the way?

A few. Noor has a few kills from throwing Bombs (intended for their Stun/Freeze effect) in Battlegrounds, and when she tried to distract some Murlocs in Wetlands using her Battle Chicken so she could pick locks, her Engineering was so high that the Chicken was level 60 and wiped out about four of them (there's no off switch on the Chicken). She also accidentally clicked on a Scourge Cockroach when running around Stormwind during the zombie event, which turned her into a zombie. (As a zombie, Noor kills things and actually got the Gnoll drop item quest Gold Pickup Schedule near Hogger).
Noor also gets credit (and a little XP) for kills from Battlegrounds or when grouped for taking the Bone Waste Towers for the Spirits of Auchindoun daily. Noor will also actively fight Horde in that daily if she has either the Evil Twin or Soul Split: Evil! transporter accident debuffs. Finally got to use her Goblin Rocket Launcher ...
I also accidentally got my Unarmed skill to 2 (when I was on a naked Mining run; I always wield some non-weapon like a Fishing Rod or Blacksmith Hammer now) and my Dagger skill to 2 (by absent-mindedly Sapping an Orc to help a Night Elf get to Ironforge; I had just found out earlier that I can Sap Horde players in Battlegrounds without having my weapon skills go up, and I was so used to sapping Orcs that I totally forgot myself).
Any support from other characters or players?

Ving made my Green Whelp Armor and things like Lockpicking gloves, +Stealth boots and Herbalism gloves. He's the head of the Bare Necessities guild, and I might do some WSG premades with his guild eventually.
Wildbill made some of my Engineering items (you can often use Engineering items levels before you can make them) and made Flash Bombs for me, until the recipe finally turned up on the Auction House.
Wildbill also told me about a daily quest, Gaining the Advantage that I couldn't get. After Googling around, I figured it out. The quest code only offers it to level 70s who have Master Mining/Skinning/Herbalism, but not Grand Master, because it's pre-WotLK. So just on Monday, I dropped 450 Grand Master Mining -to take up Mining! After grinding back up to 275 to get Master Mining, I could get the quest, but I'll have to grind a bit more until I can actually mine in Outland. I won't go to Grand Master until this quest is fixed; XP is more important than mining.
Pureblade and Lucyindasky are two players who often do the Spirits of Auchindoun daily with me.
Phobomancer is a Horde player who would /cheer at me when he saw me, so I figured he saw the first WoW Insider story on me. When we ran into each other in Shattrath during the zombie event, we ran around until we could both turn into zombies and finally have a conversation (vomiting to keep our health up). Hey Phobomancer, if you read this, /beckon me next time you see me.
Also helping was Ahimsah, a pacifist BE paladin.

Tags: World of warcraft

Where's the upgrades

As much as I appreciate keeping the epics on, it is a little disappointing that I may not actually get new gear for ten levels (indeed, many of the folks who cleared the PvE content already were dressed in their old gear as well). Dressing yourself in clown greens is embarassing, but having no upgrades at all is a problem in the opposite direction. Bornakk says to be patient and that we'll find upgrades soon enough (and I have, to his credit, already seen a few nice rep items that I'd want, even if I don't have the rep to buy them yet). There are upgrades out there.
But so far, I've only hit a few sidegrades and hardly any clearly better gear than what I had before. How about you? I have to agree with Lowangel: where's the upgrades? We all knew that the gear dropping in Northrend wasn't quite going to be as huge a jump as it was when we headed off to Outland, but I was only dressed in late Karazhan gear, and at this point, close to 73, I've upgraded one thing. I thought I'd get a little upgrade -time and time again, I've picked up soulbound quest items, only to have to vendor them off because they don't have the hit I worked to get or the extra Agility on top of the Stamina I've already got.

The questions of part 2

How does Blizzard account for all the wanton slaughter of Dalaran folk by the Horde? How would a hordie get into Dalaran because of this?
Elizabeth answers: Not being Chris Metzen, it's tricky to answer this question. Dalaran was not treated kindly by the Horde in the Second War and even today in Silverpine Forest and Hillsbrad Foothills, Horde questlines encourage the killing of Dalaran's mages. So how exactly is Blizzard working around this minor problem? WoWWiki claims that Dalaran has been neutral since the Lands in Conflict RPG sourcebook, but provides no additional details. How Blizzard is going to make lore mesh with reality? We aren't sure yet, but we're keeping out eyes open.
Allie adds: On the live realms there's really no reference that I've seen to the old Horde's treatment of Dalaran, or the current Horde's dispute with the Dalaran mobs wandering Silverpine. Either the Dalaran mages of Northrend are pragmatists and know they can't do anything about Malygos without Horde assistance, or they've forgiven and forgotten, or -well, I dunno. They're certainly aware that the vast majority of the current Horde had no involvement whatsoever in the previous wars, and that the Kirin Tor would not have existed without the contributions of the Blood (formerly High) Elves. So it's complicated.
Have you seen much of the Nordic influence that Wrath is supposed to have? I know you've discussed the Vrykul and the Val'kyr before, but I'm wondering if you've seen any more esoteric or obscure references? I'd find it mighty entertaining if there was a baker who sold Kransekake, or a cooking recipe to make Lutefisk.
Elizabeth answers: I think this question pretty much floored most of the team -because none of us really experts in Norse mythology. Your friend and mine, Alex, had this to say about Norse influences in the expansion: There are the jormungar, of course, and the Avatar of Freya in the Sholazar Basin. The Avatar of Freya is a vaguely Druidic being that is battling the Scourge and Freya is one of the Titans. The Titans themselves are heavily inspired by Norse and Greek mythology.
Allie adds: Yes to krumkake. No to lutefisk. And I don't mean ingame, I mean out of game. Fish that is prepared with an ingredient usually used in commercial cleaners terrifies me.
In BC, we were treated to such disgusting quests as picking through Talbuk poop, fetching rotten eggs that cause you to projectile vomit, and rescuing Corki. What sort of unpleasant tasks will Blizz make players slog through in their desperation to get to 80?
Elizabeth answers: Of course Wrath has its own unpleasantries to deal with.... Daniel notes that there's a quest in which you get to sort through your own, uh, leavings in order to recover some seeds. Matticus tells us there's an Alliance quest in Borean that had something about Gnomes and a downed pilot -you had to feed wolves because the wolves ate some fancy Gnome things and have to poop them out. Aren't you looking forward to the expansion now?
As a Retribution Paladin, I rely on both spell crit and melee crit. Now that they are essentially one ability, does intellect and agility add together for one crit percentage?
Elizabeth answers: Not quite. While spell crit and melee crit as they currently exist on gear have been changed to a single critical strike rating stat, the critical strike you gain from stats seems to remain the same. So intellect will still improve your spell crit and agility will still improve your melee crit -it's just gear with critical strike rating that will affect both. (This is currently reflected in the mouseover tooltip for intellect on your character sheet, which specifies "sepll critical strike." The mouseover tooltip for agility only specifies "critical strike," but improved agility does not presently improve your critical strike chance with spells.) Check your talents -though some talents (like Paladin's Conviction) now help with both spell and melee crit, not all crit talents are multi-faceted!
Can a warrior with Titans Grip dual-weld this fishing pole with another one for extra +fishing?
Alex answers: Nope. Titan's Grip doesn't actually let you dual wield any two-handed weapon. It specifies two-handed axes, maces and swords. It excludes things like staves, and I don't believe Fishing Poles have any classification at all. You can't use melee abilities with one equipped.
Allie adds: Not being able to dual-wield fishing poles is a smart move on Blizzard's part, because the rest of the game would have exploded from the sheer blinding awesomeness of it all. Then again, I say that as a hardcore fishing enthusiast.
How much gold roughly would you get from questing 70-77 (until you unlock the flying mount)? I was wondering if it would it be worth farming money beforehand or would the money from questing be enough.
Elizabeth answers: I'm not 77 yet, so I can't exactly address the question as asked, but I can tell you that I've made about 400g leveling from 70 to 72. That's just from questing, vendoring trash & unneeded greens -and it includes some stupid deaths, plenty of repair bills(I blame Dalaran for many of them!), and training a couple of professions (35g to train a primary profession to the next skill level and 100g to train a secondary profession to the next skill level).
Allie adds: I finally started keeping track of how I was doing gold-wise while leveling. On the beta I leveled a lot through instance runs because the demand for healers was so high; on the live realms I've leveled mostly through questing. Between 70 and 76 so far (remarkably fast for me but my guild starts raiding next week) I've made somewhere in the region of 2K gold after training, repairs, professions, etc., mostly through questing and keeping my bags as open as possible to sell vendor trash. As Elizabeth observes, that part's key; Northrend vendor trash and greens sell for a LOT.
Is the Death Knight starting zone in the past? Some of the events and people in the instance has made myself and some friends wonder if you're starting in the past and once you leave its the current?
Elizabeth answers: After a lengthy chat with Daniel on this subject, I think it's safe to say that we agree that th Death Knight starting zone is slightly in the past to anyone playing in Wrath. By the time you leave the instance, you'll have caught up to the events of present-day Azeroth.
Are there any good spots for AoE leveling between 70 and 77?
Elizabeth answers: Zach recommends Zul'drak as an awesome place to farm, AoE-style. "The Undead are all so clumped together, especially east of Ebon Watch." Alex suggests that in the Howling Fjord at Valgarde and the Horde outpost above Vengeance Landing, they're under siege from an endlessly respawning stream of Valkyr. They award XP and they're pretty weak. As for level 80 money-grinding stuff, that'll probaby be something in Icecrown or Storm Peaks- level 78-80 mobs, but those zones aren't in the game yet.
Allie adds: Drakil'jin Ruins in Grizzly Hills used to be the site for AoE grinding, and that was in fact how Nymh managed his world-first-to-80 feat. Blizzard has since caught on to this technique and the mobs no longer give experience.

The numbers of sales Wrath

That's right -Activision's own Call of Duty: World at War beat out Wrath for the number one spot, but before you start worrying whether WoW has lost its charm, don't: not only was Wrath an expansion pack (expansion packs obviously don't sell as well as standalone games, sequels or otherwise), but the Call of Duty game has already outsold its prequel, the extremely successful Call of Duty 4, by a 2:1 ratio. Unfortunately, we don't have numbers yet, but all indications are that, in the UK alone, Wrath did almost as well as a game that outsold last year's best selling game. That all make sense?
If not, hear this: Blizzard made a lot of money last week, and pretty soon we'll hear how much. Even more amazing, Activision Blizzard, who owns Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and World of Warcraft, accounted for a full 25% of all UK game sales last week. The merger has already paid off.Unfortunately, as of this writing, Blizzard hasn't yet released actual numbers for Wrath sales last week (we were expecting around two million, but we'll see what they say eventually). But that won't stop us from guessing -the list of top ten games sold last week in the UK is out, and Wrath...is number two.

The Championship Gaming Series

The CGS featured five games during its two seasons, Counter-Strike: Source, Dead or Alive 4, FIFA 07, and Project Gotham Racing for Season 1; with FIFA 08 and Forza Motorsport 2 taking up the latter two slots in Season 2. Although not included in seasonal coverage, the CGS also recently promoted World of Warcraft Arena tournaments, with Europe's Nihilum winning the 2008 Championship. Arenas were also included in the CGS-run College Gaming League. A full statement from the league can be found on their site.
In a (not so) shocking announcement on their website, The Championship Gaming Series revealed that they will be ceasing all operations immediately. The International gaming series, which expanded to every continent except Antarctica this year, is shutting down after only two seasons. The professional gaming league, which aimed to promote eSports in a flashy, televised format, was patterned after professional sports leagues with player drafts, team managers, and city-based teams.

Supercomputers around the world

While I was at BlizzCon, I met someone who worked at Blizzard in their IT department, and the stories he told me (all off the record, unfortunately) about how gigantic and powerful their systems are were just mindboggling. I had to ask if he knew of anyone or any other industry shooting information around at the scale that Blizzard does, and with the one possible exception of Google (who also run digital information around at a staggering rate), we couldn't think of anyone doing things at this scale. Not even financial networks and health care information (things, you'd think, that would be much more important than your level 73 Hunter and his gear) have these kinds of systems running.
Very, very interesting. I'd imagine that much of what Blizzard does consists of secrets they'd like to keep (hence the reason the Blizzard employee asked me to keep much of what he told me off the record), so it's not likely we'll be able to know all that much about how they do what they do (until it's all turned off, anyway -maybe someday we'll see a tell-all detailing how WoW was played). But man -everything I've heard about how the game is run involves unbelievable amounts of information running inside lots and lots of servers and wires. The architecture of what Blizzard has done in terms of size and scale rivals anything Arthas has constructed in Icecrown.
The New York Times has an intriguing story up about supercomputers around the world, and, as we've heard before, some of the most powerful computers ever created are being used...to run World of Warcraft. The9, which is the company that Blizzard has licensed the game to in Asia, runs more than 10 supercomputer systems, hosting at least a million players online at a time. Some of the other tasks listed for these supercomputers include flight simulations and animation rendering -the same type of computer that designed the wing of the plane you're flying in might have calculated just how much gold you should have after repairs.

Running them all as you level

I don't want to spoil the mechanics of the encounter, so I won't. Saying something is going to happen is kind of a spoiler in itself because saying "Hey, watch this!" sets off all kinds of alarms, so it'll dull the edge a little. I think it's worth to make sure people actually do this dungeon, though. Do it! Go! Right now! You can start doing this dungeon at level 73, maybe a little earlier if you have good gear from The Burning Crusade.Wrath of the Lich King has a lot of new dungeons, and hopefully you've been running them all as you level. Personally, I find them all pretty awesome, but Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom is the first one that completely blew me away. Overall, I'd say it's not as good as Halls of Stone or Halls of Lightning, but Ahn'kahet has certain elements that make it one of my favorites.
Not only is Ahn'kahet visually stunning, but it gives you a glimpse into the story of Yogg-Saron and his relation to the Scourge and other forces. It's a little repetitive in some places (the first boss is a bit boring), but it also houses some of the best 5-man bosses we've seen yet. The final boss, Herald Volazj, is the embodiment of the technical advances Blizzard has made with the gameplay in Wrath of the Lich King. I almost feel bad mentioning him at all, because I've been running Ahn'kahet repeatedly with people who have never done it before. Seeing them wig out the first time they do the boss is awesome.

Miss out on the fun with wotlk

In Wrath, Blizzard implemented a new UI and system for their vehicles, and some bar mods haven't been updated to reflect these additions. Or they have, and players haven't updated on their end. As far as mod updates go, this is one of those things that counts as a big deal. If your bar mod is suppressing the vehicle UI or preventing your action bar from switching over to the vehicle's abilities, you're not going to be able to complete a lot of quests, and those ones tend to be the most fun and unique. Naturally, some quests are buggy, but a vast majority of them aren't. If you're consistently running into issues with vehicle combat, please, check your mods for your sake. A lot of the quests are way fun, so before writing them off, check things on your end first.
If you absolutely must have a bar mod and yours isn't Wrath compatible yet, you might want to check out Dominos. There are other updated bar mods, absolutely, but this one seems the most popular recently. If you'd rather stick with something else, just hit Curse or whatever and check for updates. You'll be glad you did.
If you've been having a lot of problems completing quests in Northrend that require you to control a siege vehicle (or something similar to a vehicle) you may consider turning off some of your mods. I know, that sounds like a canned GM response to a ticket, right? Well, it's true, and something you may actually want to try. While questing in Northrend, I started to notice a lot of my friends, guildmates, and random people in various channels were complaining about broken quests that I had finished no more than thirty minutes before. How could they all be broken? I just did them! It took awhile, but we eventually figured out it was their mods. Specifically, their mods that modify how your action bars look or work.

The Changes for Bear armor and FAP in 3.0.4

Feral attack power will be removed. Instead, attack power in feral forms will scale based on weapon DPS. As with the armor change, this should make no actual difference to your performance - the conversion will be such that your DPS remains the same. What it does do is make it so some staves might be useful to both hunters and druids (for instance), or some two-handed maces might be useful to feral druids. In Ghostcrawler's words: "This does not mean we are no longer going to create bear and cat weapons, just that those weapons will be slightly less niche than they are now."

These changes will be coming sometime before 3.1 (Ulduar), which I've been referring to as 3.0.4 (though perhaps 3.0.x would be more accurate).
Both great changes in my opinion; the armor change should give us more viable options for tanking jewelry and weapons, instead of being forced to hold on to whatever has armor. And the FAP change will just mean we don't always have to DE a feral piece if the one or two ferals in the raid already have it; and conversely, there won't necessarily be only one weapon in a given raid that's of use to ferals (I'm looking at you, Stranglestaff).
When last we met to talk about a big Ghostcrawler post, he previewed that they were working on changing the bear armor bonus so it didn't work on jewelry, cloaks, and weapons any more, and on doing something about feral attack power (as seen on feral staves). He didn't have details at the time, but said he'd get back to us. As GC is a crab of his word, he's now come back to let us know exactly what's going to happen, and when.
Only cloth and leather armor (excluding capes) will benefit from the armor multiplier on bear forms. This means armor from trinkets, rings, necks, and weapons will not be multiplied. However, Survival of the Fittest is gaining the additional effect of adding an additional 22/33/66% to your armor from cloth/leather. Net armor should stay the same.

Inscription Fun For Renaming Hunter Pets

I haven't had the time to check into all the glyphs and inscription stuff that has been coming out in the beta patches but from what I've seen, it really looks like another fun profession. That's why I decided that I'm going to make the druid I'm leveling now and Inscriptionist when the Wrath of the Lich King expansion comes out.

One of the things that caught my eye a few weeks ago while browsing through the new Inscription stuff that has been coming out is this nifty thing they can craft called Certificate of Ownership. Basically it's something hunters can get to rename their pets every 7 days. I'm sure there are a lot of hunters who wish they could rename their pet. maybe you named it something silly and now you want a serious name or something. Maybe you want to turn Snuggles into Spike. Or maybe you want it the other way around, turning a serious name into something cute. Whatever the case, with Certificate of Ownership, it's now possible. I'm sure this is something warlocks wish they could use for their demon pets but alas I don't think that will ever happen.

Now if only this worked on player names, my druid could sure use a name change but I'm too cheap right now to pay for the paid name change service.

Hunter and Paladin WoTLK Talents Available In Wowhead!

As the rest of the classes got a look at their cool new WoTLK talents, hunters and paladins were made to wait quite a while. But at last, they're finally here, again thanks to Wowhead. The paladin trees got quite a bit of a shake up, which probably was one of the reasons why it look longer to come out.

Click here to see the WoTLK Hunter talents.

I'd have to say that the new hunter talents look really nice. I don't play one but I understand enough about them to say that the new stuff will make a lot of hunters drool. Survival hunters will drool on the Hunting party talent, making them quite useful in raids by regenerating mana, rage, energy and runic power. This also helps their mana pool problems. Marksmanship's Chimera Shot will allow the hunter to be a bit more versatile, consuming various stings to fit the situation needed. BM's Aspect Mastery also improves on the hunter's need for the situation by buffing the various aspects the hunter could use.

Click here to see the WoTLK Paladin talents.

The Paladin talents got quite a shakeup, especially for the holy and protection trees. Imp conc aura is now in the holy tree while divine strength is in prot. Various talents have shifted tiers within their trees too. I noticed a lot of focus on Judgements for the holy tree, which is strange because it's something I don't normally use a whole lot as a Holy Paladin. Beacon of light is quite interesting since it heals the whole raid but not for much considering it's a small amount spread over 15 seconds.

Retribution's most interesting new talents are probably Conviction and Divine Storm. With all the focus on the Judgements for the holy tree, some people are already speculating on going holy/ret for conviction since it's assumed the increased crit chance will also apply to heals. Divine Storm is interesting since it not only affects more than one target but also heals the 3 raid members for 20% of the damage.

Protection's most talked about talent in Divine Guardian, which is useful for paladins of any spec but most especially for tankadins and healadins. 15% of all damage taken by the raid within 30 yards redirected to the paladin while his/her bubble (divine shield) is up has a lot of applications and has a lot of paladins drooling over this talent. I can see this as one of the talents that will entice paladins to spec into the Protection tree, aside from Blessing of Kings.

Click here to see the WoTLK talent trees of all classes from Wowhead.

Cutest Hunter Pet Ever?

It seems like every pet hunters can tame so far have nothing that caters to players who love cute and cuddly things... at least no until Wrath of the Lich King comes out. The Artic Grizzly Cub shown in the videos above is such a cute little thing that it makes me think that's what a gnome druid bear form should look like if only gnomes could be druids. I'm actually getting thoughts about playing a hunter because of this cub. Nothing beats the panda cub non combat pet in terms of cuteness but for me this takes the cake as the cutest tamable pet ever.

60-70 in 23 Hours!

I still remember when the Burning Crusade expansion first came out there was huge news of someone who leveled from 60 to 70 really really quickly. It took him just 28 hours to get all the way to 70. This was such a big deal because it normally took the rest of us a few weeks to do the job. Personally, it took me a little more than a month. Well this guy’s record just got beaten by a Chinese player named “SilverDragon” from the guild . TBC was recently just released in China and “SilverDragon”, a troll hunter, got from 60 to 70 in just 23 hours.

One side of me says congratulations for breaking the record. It truly is a huge feat that I really can’t imagine someone doing. It’s just crazy! This brings me to what my other side thinks about this feat. This is plain and simply a very dumb thing to do. First of all the game wasn’t designed so that you get from 60-70 in a little more than a day. It’s designed so that you can enjoy the content leveling your way to 70 at a much slower pace. I can say that while it took me longer than others to hit 70, it was fun because the leveling process in new zones doing new quests is fun. Of course there’s also the more obvious reason why this feat is stupid. Treasure your health! Don’t compromise it because of a game just to set a record!

Click on image to enlarge

Hunter "Deadzone" Could Be Trashed

The deadzone is probably the main reason why hunters hate doing arena battles. Line of sight issues are another but that's another story. For those who don't know, the deadzone is the spot in between the hunter and his/her enemy wherein he/she is too close to use ranged attacks while also being too far to use melee attacks, thus making the hunter unable to do anything. It's something all hunters complain about and finally after all the complaining, the deadzone might be a thing of the past soon.

I'm guessing this will be implenented in patch 2.3 since it's the awesome patch! No sure word on when though since Kalgan didn't say anything in his post

We're planning to shrink the min range on ranged attacks to reduce or eliminate the "dead zone". The only point to the dead zone was to ensure the min range on ranged weapons was enough such that ranged weapon attacks wouldn't be used while also being melee'd (at least by mobs... players have a bit of slush built in).

I'm guessing this still doesn't mean hunters could use their ranged weapons at point blank range. That would be way unfair. But this change would mean that hunters won't need to be so far away from their target to use them. If hunters could use their ranged weapons at point bank range, the devs would have to take away some of their abilities like wing clip to even things out.

Woe is my mage who will not only get his ice barriers dispelled by a hunter's arcane shot but will not be able to take advantage of the deadzone either.

Wowhead Has Some Hunter Love!

The new talent trees for WoTLK are out in Wowhead (still the alpha versions) but hunters and paladins are still left in the dark about theirs. Thankfully, Wowhead has a few new features for hunters to cheer about.

The most interesting new feature for me is the new talent calculator for hunter pets. As you might know, hunter pets will be switching from the training points system to the talent tree system in the next expansion. there's a calculator for every pet type - raptor, cat, boar, ravager, you name it!

Wowhead also has two other tools in choosing the pet that you want. They care about your individual criteria in choosing your favorite pet so they gave hunters a pet comparison table to show how each pet stacks up with the others stat -wise and also a 3D pet gallery to let help you make the aesthetics choice. After all, we do want our pets to look the way we want them as much as possible.

These tools will definitely make choosing your pet and optimizing their utility easier. The best thing is that you can do all this even before actually doing them in game. This way you can show your choices around to some people and ask their opinion and make the necessary changes without any consequences in the game.

Now if only the new hunter and paladin talent trees could come out sooner...

Soloers and changes quest items

Collectors will be left out as well -most of the items will actually change form into weapons or other useless objects(cheap wow gold), so even if you have the old items, they won't be usable in the same way. Sure, the Mallet was a pain to get, but it'll be a little sad to see it disappear in the way we know it forever.Some may be disappointed that items we worked so hard for are now pretty much useless, but as you probably know by now, that's the way of things when an expansion hits. The good news, obviously, is that people running through instances solo or with just a few people will be able to hit all the content they couldn't get to before.
And if you happen to be running the content, you won't need to worry about whether you left the Mallet in the bank or forgot the Scepter on a Princess run.Blue poster Daelo has good news for people aiming to solo old instances -Blizzard has made a few changes to the way keys and unlocks work in the old dungeons, so that you no longer need keys or multiple people to get to the good stuff. The rituals in Blackrock Spire and Uldaman only require one click now, and quintessence (in Molten Core to summon Executus before the Ragnaros fight), the Scepter of Celebras (in Maraudon), and the Mallet of Zul'Farrak (in the ZF, obviously) are no longer needed to do their jobs. Additionally, Nightbane will be accessible in Karazhan without the Blackened Urn.

The virtual airwaves in wotlk

Plus, we'll be chatting live and answering emails as usual -you can send us a note right now at theshow@wowinsider.com. The show goes live at 3:30pm Eastern (here's a time zone converter), but I'm usually on a little while before that, playing some music and chatting with people about what's new in the World of Warcraft, so if you want to come by a little early, feel free. And if you can stay late, do that, too: the aftershow seems to get better and better every week.
And of course we've placed the stream right on this post after the break again, so click the link below to head on down and meet some other listeners in the chat. See you tomorrow for the live show!Our podcast is back on the virtual airwaves (and by that we mean our Ustream page) tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern, and we have the man himself, BRK, back on to talk about the biggest story of the past week: the Great Hunter Nerf of 2008. Turpster is also on with us, and we'll make sure to talk about more than Hunters -there's news about dual specs, achievements and the rewards that come with them, and of course all of the class changes to cover.

Blizzard is slowly wading into RMT

Paying for transfers and changes is a little sneakier -Blizzard is slowly wading into RMT, so far successfully dodging all the sharks in the water.Blizzard has rules for their RMT, though, and Zarhym lays a few of them out: they won't charge for any item that means anything in game -cosmetic items and looks are fair game, but actual gear or "integral services" (whatever that means exactly) is a no for them. They won't charge for anything that was free before, so creating up to 10 characters on a realm, for example, will always come with the subscription (though adding more may eventually be possible with an extra charge). And Blizzard's RMT comes as a game mechanic itself -they choose to charge for things not just because there's a cost for them, but also to "curb their frequency," to keep all players from doing them all the time.
It's an interesting idea, and it's definitely a lot more player-friendly than charging for things like, say, horse armor. You could also argue, of course, that something like the WoW TCG is also a kind of RMT scheme, since you have to pay real money for real cards to get in-game items (even though Blizzard has made sure those items are cosmetic as well).
Real-money trading is one of the most debated aspects of MMO gaming at large -some games don't actually charge a monthly fee, and instead what they do is sell ingame items for real world money. Want that hot sword for your character? Put in your credit card and pay up. Blizzard, obviously, has never really subscribed to the idea, since a lot of players think it's unfair to make how much money you have in the real world a part of the game you play. Nevertheless, there is a lot of money to be made in selling virtual items for real money, and Blizzard has come up with their own form of RMT in terms of server transfers, name changes, and now gender changes as well.

How to Transition the role

Last night was my first 25 man as fury. We raided Sarth and Naxx. My DPS was tolerable, but not where I'd want it to be and the fault mostly lies with my gearing, as I'd been focusing most of my attention on tank gear and have lackluster DPS gear for the moment. My hit rating is adequate, but my crit and AP both need to come up. I knew that going in, though. I also need to relearn my rotations so that I'm makingt the best use of Bloodsurge (especially when the changes come in) but that will come in time. The primary task before me now, and one that faces any warrior, raider or not, who decides to change from DPS to tanking or tanking to DPS is to unlearn my habitual playstyle and learn a new one, and in some cases to make sure you don't assume that you can just jump in and do what worked for you before.
Both DPS and tanking have been changed pretty significantly for warriors, and trying to revive my old style of DPSing would be absolutely futile.It was a decision made harder by the glory of prot spec in its current form, but as Adam's post this week pointed out, fury is getting some nice changes that will make it even more viable, and when you come down to it, I have wanted to dual wield 2h weapons for years now. When an old friend of mine ‘put the band back together', so to speak, and told me that the guild I'd raided all the 40 man original raid content with was back and that they were looking for a fury warrior for Wrath, it took a lot of time for me to decide what to do. Changing guilds was hard, as the guild I'd raided with in TBC was an excellent one and i know they'll have lots of success in Wrath, but in the end I felt like this was a move that would help keep the game fun and interesting for me.
The first task is, of course, to relearn gearing. (Well, okay, the first task is to determine if your current guild is willing to let you switch or if you have a place to go that is, but we'll just assume that is the case.) While I plan to still collect a set of tanking gear in case things change down the road (since every single time I've ‘gone DPS' I've ended up tanking again) my priorities for badge gear and what I roll on is now DPS gear. I also have to relearn what's good: Armor penetration has been heavily nerfed which was a change from the last time I was paying attention to DPS gear while picking up offset gear while raiding in SSC and TK, something I stopped doing once we moved into Hyjal, BT and Sunwell because I was never DPSing, only tanking. At present my goals are to maintain 360 hit rating while increasing my AP and crit rating, looking to badge loot like the Mirror of Truth and the Bladed Steelboots for the most immediate bang for my emblems now that I have a solid set of 2h weapons to build around. I might go for the Death-Inured Sabatons instead, the problem being that I was grinding Kirin Tor rep for the tanking gloves which I now no longer require, but that's what dalies and tabards are for. If I were arms instead (which I've considered) my priorities would change...the same stats, but I'd weight hit less as the amount of hit I have right now would absolutely remove misses entirely. In either case, while I'm focusing on crit and AP right now, I also need to start finding expertise to try and get to 148 expertise rating as soon as I can arrange it.
So we have gearing to relearn (and to be honest, all warriors should try and be familiar with tanking and DPS gearing in case you need to fill one of the roles you don't normally) and change our playstyle. With Dual Specs constantly looming on the horizon, it can only benefit any warrior to start looking at being up to date on more than one role in order to maximize the benefit we get from it. Also, and this is something that older players like myself really need to watch out for, don't just assume you can jump back into a role because you used to play it extensively. All three warrior specs have an extra 10 talent points in Wrath from the BC days, and if you were a tank back in vanilla WoW but have been DPS ever since, you cannot just slap on tanking gear and go. You need to familiarize yourself with your new abilities...prot in particular plays nothing like it did in the old days...and don't just assume because you tanked C'thun that you can just tank anything that's coming your way now. (Also, tanking a tentacle doesn't really count as ‘tanking' C'thun, nor does wailing away from inside his stomach, and you were probably 31/5/15 or 31/0/20 back then, admit it. There was no Devastate, no Shockwave, things were very different.)
When all of it falls into place, though, changing your role can really help you enjoy your class more. While I still love tanking and expect to go back to it eventually, I'm absolutely thrilled to death to be throwing myself into packs of mobs and throwing cleave and whirlwind around, and can't wait to see how fury looks when the changes go live. It's a good time to be a warrior.
If I were going from DPS to tanking, my problem would be the same but the specifics would differ. Are you gearing for threat or for survival? Do you want to gear for survival through high stamina or high avoidance/mitigation? Most tanks I know assemble at least two sets (closer to four in some cases) to balance all of these factors, and if you're moving to tanking from a DPS role where you probably have one set of gear for that role which contains your highest stats, moving to the role of tanking where your ‘best' set might not be the set you want to wear for a specific fight can be a bit of a paradigm shock. I've seen tanks new to tanking become overwhelmed by the options on gear and wonder why you'd want certain stats. It takes a while to learn about things like parry gibbing for example, which I don't think is as much of an issue in Wrath as it was. Nothing you're tanking can crush you and you should be uncrittable, meaning that a hasted counterattack simply isn't going to hit all that hard...if a boss' normal swing is for 6k on plate, being parried will still be pretty bad, but when your tank has 32k or more health it's simply not as critical as it was back when you could cause a crushing blow for 10k and you only had 20.
Outside of the gearing issue, the major issue is simple and yet takes some of us (including me) a while to get used to. We both have to unlearn our current skill set and prevent our current habits from creeping in. I'm not saying forget how to DPS if you become a tank, but when you're tanking you shouldn't be constantly trying to get behind the mob, you shouldn't be in berserker stance, and more importantly you should be making sure you know what your cooldowns are and what they do for your current role. Don't miss a Shield Block because you've not yet familiarized yourself with how it works now. LIkewise, as DPS you need to get used to moving around a lot more even on fights like Patchwerk (we were using the strat where the melee DPS runs in and out of the goo next to him in order to ensure that the soak tank takes the hatefuls.) I'm not used to being behind a mob, so I had to stop myself several times from crossing in front of them or even worse, standing in front to attack. I also had to learn that abilities like Death Wish and Recklessness are to be used whenever possible, especially on bosses, as more damage is exactly what I'm there to do. Meanwhile, seeing my name at the top of Omen? It's bad now! I actually wiped us on a drake because I instinctively tried to go balls out on threat. DPS meters, yes, I want to be high on those. Threat meters? Bad warrior! Wicked, naughty warrior!

Wrath of the Lich King Gate trailer

We can hope for two things-that Blizzard continues to put these kinds of cheap wow gold awesome scenes in the game, and that when they do, they give those of us with nice monitors/TVs the ability to watch them all pretty-like.
Yes, yes, old news for some. For those of you among us who haven't yet experienced this particular quest line, of course, it's not to be missed. For those who've seen it in-game already or who just can't contain themselves, though, you can stream the incredibly spoiler-heavy cinematic in full HD on Blizzard's site now or download it directly from BigDownload. If you're into it, there's also a nice short story/summary of the momentous events directly under it.With the release of Wrath of the Lich King and its inclusion of world-changing phased events, Blizzard's stated goal of ramping up their dynamic storytelling seems more and more like a success, but it doesn't stop with quests alone. The in-game cinematic for the final legs of the epic Wrath Gate quest line really shows what Blizzard is capable of outside of CGI with the in-game engine and a bit of creative tinkering. Not to mention it's a huge lore explosion that fuels the story for the rest of the expansion!

Tags: wrath of the Lich King

Tailoring is up for discussion

This week, Tailoring is up for discussion. There are faction recipes and dropped recipes, as well as highlights from your trainer that you won't want to miss. Wrath of the Lich King has changed many things about the professions we all know and sometimes love. Last week, Insider Trader looked at the highlights of the Leatherworking and Blacksmithing professions, showing you what's new, how to plan out level 80, and what you can look forward to at what points. Here is a quick summary:
Some professions have special vendors that will sell you recipes in exchange for items that you receive while crafting. Enchanters, for example, can learn new enchants by handing over Dream Shards. Fortunately or unfortunately, Tailors currently have no such resource. New and improved exclusive spellthreads for enchanting your pants. A 20-slot bag and a 22-slot bag. A slow flying carpet mount as well as an epic one. Specialty cloth for epic gear. Frost resistance gear. An 8-piece PvP pseudo-set. Exclusive cloak enchants. Special threads that you can sell for a profit. Soul shard and enchanting bags with 32 slots. Tailoring
The bulk of your patterns will come from your tailor, although there are some world drop shirts as well as some must-haves that can be purchased from select faction quartermasters.
You will also be able to purchase Northern Cloth Scavenging from your trainer for a few gold, which will help you find extra cloth. Where others might have found two on a corpse, you may find three or more. In fact, when you are grouped, keep an eye out for humanoid corpses after your party members have looted them. Sometimes you will find cloth just for you.
Here are the highlights to help you plan your profession leveling:
400

From 375 to 400, you will be using a fair amount of cloth to level, but you will learn to craft Green Workman's Shirt and Yellow Lumberjack Shirt at this interval, which will cost much less cloth to help you hit 405 than any of their orange contemporaries. Unfortunately, as they begin as yellow, you are depending on luck to carry you through.
You will be able to train the ability to craft Imbued Frostweave, which is going to be expensive, considering the need for Infinite Dust. Of course, if you took Enchanting, as many Tailors do, this should be no problem, unless you are trying to level both at once. You won't actually need the cloth until much later, though.
You will also learn two new spellthreads to place on pants that at first will seem underwhelming. You will notice that Azure Spellthread is the same thing as the exalted Scryer and Aldor threads, Golden Spellthread and Runic Spellthread. The Shining Spellthread is the same as well, although it awards spirit in place of stamina.
Making these might seem pointless, as they will probably cost you more to make than their Burning Crusade counterparts. If you can spare the materials, you might as well make a few while they give points, because the finished threads are used at 405 to craft your very own, much improved, threads.
405

Visit your trainer in order to learn how to sew Master's Spellthread and Sanctified Spellthread. These can only be placed on your own pants, and are significantly superior to the old threads. Each of these will consume one of the early Northrend threads, as well as some crystallized elements. These are not leveling tools, as you will not craft an actual item to keep, as these are spells that work like Enchanting.
410

At this point you will learn how to craft a 20-slot bag, Frostweave Bag. You will also be able to craft yourself a slow Flying Carpet. This mount is not consumed when making the Magnificent Flying Carpet, so there is no pressing need to create one.
If you do not have epic flight, then this will be a fun item to craft, and should count toward the achievement, Leading the Cavalry, which awards you with an Albino Drake mount.
415

At this skill level, you will train the ability to make the three specialty cloths that mirror the Outland specialty cloths. Moonshroud is similar to Primal Mooncloth, while Spellweave and Ebonweave stand in for Spellcloth and Shadowcloth, respectively.
Each can be made once every four days, and they are not on a shared cooldown. You will create one piece of cloth for each, and an extra piece depending on what your Tailoring specialization is. Just as before, the cloth must be made in special places, and you may require help in order to accomplish your goals.
420 and 425

This point is a bit of a milestone for many crafting professions, as it opens up the ability to create frost resistance gear. Such gear is a common guild requirement for the last section, the Frost Wyrm Lair, of the Northrend entry-level raid instance, Naxxramas.
Glacial Slippers, 420 Glacial Waistband, 420 Glacial Robe, 425 Also available at 420 is your embroideries. This is a concept that is completely new to the game as of Wrath of the Lich King, and allows tailors to enchant their own cloaks. There are three options available:
Darkglow Embroidery. This is likely going to be the choice of healers, as well as spellcasters in general.

Lightweave Embroidery. Holy priests and holy tailoring paladins (yes, there are a few) might choose this for their damage/PvP sets.

Swordguard Embroidery. This is great for tailoring attack-power junkies. I'm sure there are some out there. Now that you have that out of the way, you can start crafting your 420 PvP set.
Frostsavage Belt. Frostsavage Boots. Frostsavage Bracers. Frostsavage Cowl. Frostsavage Gloves. Frostsavage Leggings. Frostsavage Robe. Frostsavage Shoulders. At 425, you will also train the ability to craft your epic flying mount, the Magnificent Flying Carpet. If you farm your own cloth and Iceweb Spider Silk, your mount won't even be very expensive.
Knights of the Ebon Blade

You will need to be revered and have a Tailoring skill of 435 in order to purchase and create the Abyssal Bag, which is a 32-slot soul shard bag for warlocks.
Sons of Hodir

If you can reach exalted with this faction, and you manage to level Tailoring to 445, you can purchase the pattern, Glacial Bag, which grants 22 slots, which is as many as the famed Gigantique Bag sold by Haris Pilton for 1200 gold a piece in a bar in Lower City. Check out our guide to hitting exalted.
Wyrmrest Accord

Once revered, and with a skill of 440, you can purchase and create a Mysterious Bag, which grants Enchanters 32 slots of pure profession goodness.
Faction Recipes

Argent Crusade

At exalted, with a skill level of 430, you will be able to purchase the ability to craft Brilliant Spellthread. This is the equivalent of your exclusive Sanctified Spellthread, but can be sewn onto the pants of other players. This will cost them a fair bit more than it will cost you to enchant your own, which is a nice bonus. It should also make you some money!
Kirin Tor

Once exalted, with a skill level of 430, you can purchase the recipe for Sapphire Spellthread, which works in the same way as the Brilliant Spellthread above, and is the equivalent of your exclusive Master's Spellthread.

Tags: level 80, wrath of the Lich King

The players of all shapes and sizes

If you're not raiding, then, what are you doing with your game time?

Running heroics and getting ready for the arena season.
Did you play in the Wrath beta?

Yes. I was in the Friends and Family Beta for a short time before it went public.
Share with us your view of WoW as an e-sport.

WoW as an e-sport currently is actually pretty awful. Tournaments are using Season 2 gear on level 70 characters, with Patch 3.0 talents. This means that damage is really, really, really high. Arcane Mages at the moment dominant the tournament scene because of such high crits.
What sort of tournament scene exists for WoW Arena players, beyond working on Arena rankings in game?

There are several tournaments for WoW out there. Two, for example, are the Electronic Sports League (ESL) who have a world wide tournament, the finals being in March 2009, and Major League Gaming, a console-centric league who expanded to PC earlier this year with WoW.
Do you anticipate making a career from gaming?

Yes. I have hopes that working and going to school for five years will look good enough on a resume that I can get hired for a gaming-centric print magazine one day.
You hit 80 so quickly, yet you say you don't raid with your guild due to work and school commitments. What kind of a raiding schedule does Void maintain?

I powered my way to 80 during an easy week (right after mid-terms), hitting 80 on Sunday night. I don't really consider that too fast, being that many members of my guild hit 80 on Saturday morning. Void has been clearing all of the 25-man stuff every Tuesday. It's not so much that I do not choose to raid. I just don't find it that fun, and I have been so hot/cold in the past with when I play WoW that my guild does not want to gear someone who will most likely take a break from the game in the future.
Does ArenaCast focus strictly on professional tournaments?

Yes. There are not a lot of amateur tournaments out there for WoW. We hope to begin covering the upcoming Arena season, though, in WotLK.
How does one become a "professional" WoW player, anyway?

It is kind of a funny question. There is no committee that gives you a license or anything like that. Showing up to a tournament would be enough to label yourself as a professional WoW player, but I think getting a sponsor to pay for your trip and lodging would be a better judge of a professional player.
As far as numbers (of pros out there), I would guess 20 to 30 would be a ballpark figure. In the United States, you have teams like Pandemic, Fnatic, Evil Geniuses, GotGame and Gravitas. Europe and Asia also have their big-name teams.
How do you keep up with all the changes and balance issues in PvP? Do you need to stay immersed in PvPing yourself, or can you stay abreast through reading, watching matches and analyzing?

Keeping up with the changes and balance issues in PvP is an ongoing process. Personally, I have been able to read and watch matches analyzing them, but several of my colleagues do actively play Arena at the highest level on their respective Battlegroups.
What should players who are interested in becoming more competitive in Arena play do in game? Any sites or podcasts or resources you recommend out of game?

If you're looking to learn more about the professional scene in Arena, first off you should listen to ArenaCast (come on, I have to promote myself!). If you are interested in watching a weekly videocast, tune into ESL.tv. It is European, but don't hold that against them, ha ha. They do their live shows every Wednesday but also have video on demand if you miss an episode.
But really, paying attention to sites like ESFIWorld.com, SK-Gaming.com, Gotfrag.com, ArenaJunkies.com, etc., for announcements on tournament realms (private realms where teams can play with tournament gear to compete against some of the best out there) and general discussion about professional Arena play.
Wait a sec -private tournament realms? Blizzard seems to be putting the hammer down on private servers. Will this impact WoW e-sports?

Blizzard is in full cooperation with any organization that runs a tournament. Ninety percent of the time, a Blizzard rep is on-site at these events -the companies are not running illegal servers, but official, pre-made Blizzard servers.
These tournament realms are very the same realms that Blizzard uses for its own Arena tournament. Along with this, Blizzard also has a spectator client that the e-sport organizations have been allowed to use in order to broadcast matches. Hopefully in the future, this add-on will be released so anyone can watch a live Arena match. There are problems to be worked out, of course (allowing people to spectate matches could factor into when you want to queue for Arena, etc.), but hopefully there is a way around it.
Meet JP McDaniel, a 22-year-old college journalism major and podcaster for ArenaCast. JP has combined the game he loves with school and work in what he hopes will be a springboard to a print journalism career in gaming. He's managed to roll his main up to 80 in the midst of podcasting, news updates, tournament travel and his studies. We talked with JP about his road into e-casting and his perspectives on where e-sports -and competitive WoW, in particular -are heading.
Main character Moogol

Server Mug'thol

WoW player since Release

Guild focus Everything

Other gaming interests I play every major release for every console, but WoW is the only MMO I play currently. I do, however, try to play the other games, but I find they aren't as polished as WoW and end up eventually quitting.
15 Minutes of Fame: You're a podcaster and freelance e-sports writer. Sounds pretty glamorous -what does that mean you end up doing in terms of day-to-day and week-to-week work?

JP McDaniel: My week-to-week activity is usually different each week, except for a couple things. On Wednesday afternoon, we usually record ArenaCast, our WoW podcast (now live Wednesdays at 6 p.m. CST). On Sunday afternoon, I write my weekly report for CEVO.com. Other then that, each day is random on what exactly I will be writing as news comes up throughout the week at different times. I stay very busy, though – that's one constant, I suppose.
Walk us through a typical production of ArenaCast.

My role on ArenaCast is producing, hosting and then editing and promoting each week. At first, it was a little much, but I have learned how to deal with it and usually can get the show posted and promoted with an hour after recording. A usual recording is somewhat staged, somewhat free form. I don't like to do too much planning beforehand, but a couple bullet points are always helpful in guiding discussion.
How did you get started in e-sports podcasting?

It's kind of a funny story. I had been wanting to do a podcast for a little over two years now. I listen to several other podcasts such as 1UPYours, Giant Bombcast and of course GFWRadio. But there has never been a podcast in e-sports, and I always talked about doing one. My friend and co-host of ArenaCast, Sam Lingle, got tired of my talking about it and said either do it or never mention it again. A week later, we were recording the ‘cast. I have plans on branching out to do other casts for ESFIWorld.com in the future, as well.
Plenty of players out there would love to get involved in the work and projects you do. What sort of skills and background do you need in order to be a successful e-sports journalist and podcaster?

It's kind of funny. Most of everything I have learned was on the fly and from someone else. About three to six months after learning things on the job, I would learn some of the same things in school (my major is journalism). Also, as with anything else in this world, consistency and hard work are the two best things to propel you forward in any industry. I guess I also owe a lot to my friends in the industry. Contacts are everything in the gaming world, and I was lucky enough to have some.
How do you manage to combine travel with school?

Very carefully. I am kind of lucky I suppose that most of the events I travel to all take place Friday through Sunday. Most of my teachers in college also do not mind me missing class for work, especially because it is journalism-related. I have had some very stressful weeks, though, where I have to travel and come back on two to three hours of sleep to take a mid-term.
Tell us about how gaming and podcasting balances with the rest of your life right now. Are you a student first, gaming writer and podcaster second -or do you consider yourself far enough into a gaming career that school has to work around gaming to some extent?

I try to balance it out, really. I think I put first what needs to be done the soonest. If I have a paper due for class on say, Tuesday, and an article that needs to be up Tuesday night, I'll do the paper first for school, then work. Its all time management, I guess. One day it could be school and the next, work.
What's your PvP background, and how does that play into the work you do?

I played Dark Age of Camelot heavily, and that was my first brush with the PvP world. I was in one of the top 8v8 groups on my server (LOL a roleplaying server – don't ask, I don't RP at all). From here, I moved to Archimonde when WoW was launched and was lucky to play alongside people from Nurfed, etc. When Arena was released in TBC, I played a lot in Season One, running 2345 composition. I quit however during the entire second season, but came back in Season 3 and got to top 10 in 5s and 2200ish in 2s.
I think in the line of work I do, having knowledge of the game is one of the most important things. It is kind of like the sports analysts now -most of them are ex-pros. Albeit I am no pro, I still know most aspects of the game.

Restaurant open up with Warcraft theme

The food itself is even based on the game, and while CCTV.World of Warcraft continues to find ways to trickle beyond our virtual lives and into our day to day real lives. com reports that the menu is named after denizens of WoW, I wonder if they borrowed anything from the in-game recipes. The food shown in CCTV's video definitely looks Chinese in style, so I doubt you'll find anything there you would see in our very American Well Fed Buff, but that's probably a good thing. Personally, I'd love to see a menu. I'm also curious if this restaurant was given the go ahead from Blizzard or the9, or if they even need it.
In Beijing, a new restaurant has opened up with a Warcraft theme, from the decor to the food. The entrance, which you can see above, is designed to look like the Dark Portal (The Burning Crusade's intro screen) and the interior walls are lined with artwork from the game and shots of characters in epic gear. TV screens throughout the restaurant play footage of the game, too.