The biggest news is,of course, that it's a mere couple days to the launch of Wrath of the Lich King. Everyone is focused on doing those last few quests. Making those last few raid pushes. Hitting those last few BG's or Arenas. It's coming, and it's huge!

 To start it off, I extend congratulations to the Terenas branch of Lurkers, who put down Illidan just in time for the xpack! They were even given a MH Warglaive for their troubles.

 There is a new world event taking place, as both Orgrimmar and Stormwind are under attack by Frost Wryms and Abominations. The various faction leaders are busy repelling the attacks, and the event is quite something to watch. Head off to Orgrimmar or Stormwind Harbor to check it out.

PvP Gear in Wrath takes an interesting turn. It looks like S3 will not be available for honor, and S4 will be keeping it's ratings requirements.  It's a move to keep such gear at a limited availablity as you will 'get better gear levelling to 80." An interesting move on Blizzards part, I think. PvP tends to come specially itemized for PvP. Is Blizzard saying that questing items will have that sort of requirement, or that everyone will hit 80 in PvE gear, and be on a level, controlable playing field?

Its' an age old question, one that those who mainly play on a PvE server just can't understand, and what those who play on a PvP server can't seem to explain. "What's the joy in ganking?" Volumes could be written about this, and it seems that you are either for or against it. There doesn't really seem to be a middle ground. But some insight is offered in the 222+ comments that accompany that article. Perhaps some enlightenment will be found there.

 Now, for a topic that's a bit of a pet peeve of mine:Levelling/Questing Addons. That is, addons that direction you to quest drops, areas where the mobs are, even going so far as to put a directional arrow up for the really challenged. The way I look at it is, check the quest out. Read it (not just the summary, the whole thing) and you'll be told where to go, and what to get/do when you get there. Pretty straightforward. I've now been in both betas, and there are some unclear quests out there...but that's what the feedback button was for. I used it liberally. When I needed to. The quests I saw (going through 4 zones) were all pretty straightforward, and if you read the quest, pretty easy. Some of them were a bit trickier, but that was due to the mechanics of the quest, not difficult semantics. In the 4-ish years I've been playing, a quest has only stumped me a handful of times. A quick question in /g cleared it up, too. But there are others who swear by them. That they couldn't level without them. That they do it the 'proper' way on their main, but then use addons to level their alts faster. I do admit that has me a bit boggled...the quests don't change. Once you've done them, you will know what to do on any toon doing that quest.  So, what's your take on levelling/questing addons?

Tomorrow is September 11th, a date which means a lot to my fellow Americans. And to me. Remember it in your own way, and celebrate the freedoms that parts of the world still lack. Always be willing to fight for them, or they mean nothing.

Patch 3.0.3 is launching with tomorrow's maintenance, setting things up more for the WotLK launch happening in a few short days. 

 The PvE vs PvP debate will never end. PvP's an afterthought tacked onto an otherwise great PvE game. PvE is too easy, and if you want real WoW challenges, play against other real life people, not scripted encounters. Personally, I don't think that there'll ever be a solution that'll make even most folks happy about this. But...can PvP and PvE folks co-exist? Can a PvP oriented and focused guild make the cut?

I'm admittedly not a big fan of WoW Machinima movies. Some are pretty good, but for the most part, I don't find them of much interest. However, this one did catch my eye. It's from Lafawnduh and won first prize in Warcraft Movies Shrieking Shorties Contest. It's just a hair over 5 minutes long.

For discussion, I present...Knockbacks. Several things do it now, and several popular spells do it, too. Everyone has an opinion on these, and they are wide and varied. Is the dps gained to the person using the knockback spell worth the dps lost by any/all melee near the target mob? Are folks careful enough to properly use a knockback attack without aggroing more packs of 'friends' in tight instances? Can tanks keep their temper (and aggro) while their mobs are airborne a lot of the time? 

Rock and Roll Racing II?

That message, followed by the words "just kidding", of course, appeared in code on several of Blizzard's websites today. As you may already know, if you've been able to connect to www.blizzard.com since the announcement, Blizzard has announced its latest project, Starcraft: Ghost, a "tactical-action console game". Of course, what we still don't know is what Blizzard North has been up to lately. Starcraft: Ghost, Warcraft 3, and World of Warcraft are all being produced at Blizzard's Irvine headquarters, and Blizzard North, presumably, is working on a still-unannounced project.

Around Azeroth, a world event was started to herald the coming of the Lich King.Crates and bugs started to appear, and soon folks were turning into zombies. They were then able to attack other PC's and NPC's and infect them in an attempt to spread the plague. It started out taking 10 minutes for someone to turn into a zombie, which was ample time to get to an NPC healer or a PC healer and be cured. As the event wore on, the incubation time was cut in halves, eventually ending up at 30 seconds to zombification, and it was very hard to dispel. The interesting part to this? I've never seen a world event generate as much controversy and divide the populace as much as this one. Zombies were able to attack and 'grief' players just looking to quest, fly or AH a little. Zombied players would eventually die (as you had to keep kiling to live) which would cause a durability hit. Folks with AH alts saw that their alts stood no chance against the zombie horde, while Sunwell geared players found that they were no match for a gang of zombies. Folks who got infected on purpose got upset at folks for cleansing/disinfecting them. Folks who turned into zombies got upset at folks who killed them (prematurely). All in all, this world event seems to have really just polarized the playerbase. While I did see a few folks who claimed to be having fun (I mostly avoided the mess by staying airborne unless I had to land for something) this event really just seemed to piss folks off at each. Interestingly enough, even those who had been proponents at the start were, by the time it was around 1 minute to 30seconds per infection, saying "enough". Luckily, the R.A.S. came to Azeroth's aid and cured the plague. I do have to think that this event will be discussed for some time to come, though.

 Last night, the Lurkers and Avarice Alliance on Stormrage put down Illidan to finish off the T6 content just in time for a couple farm runs before Wrath of the Lich King launches. The Lurkers on Terenas are hot on their heels, having recently put down Kael'thas, and jumped up to 5/9 in Black Temple.

Paladins (more specifically, Ret Paladins) are taking quite a shot on the chin after being at the top of pretty much...well...everything for the last little bit. The nerfbat has swung at them, and it's a pretty solid connect. There are a lot of changes, so we'll have to wait until the dust settles to see what the actual changes are, despite folks saying that they have been nerfed "to the ground". Coming on the heels of the "hunter/physical dps" nerfs/changes as it is, Blizz must have been really unhappy with their damage. I wonder why they didn't do something about it earlier.

 Sanya Thomas returns with her demographics breakdown of WoW, returning some interesting numbers on men and women, and the races, genders, and factions they play. 

 Idiosycrasies. We all have them. Anyone who's spent much time around my main toon in WoW knows that she must have purple things. The more purple things the better. Dragonstalker? All 8 pieces of it. Winterspring Frostsaber? Third on the server (would have been second, but I had to work that weekend). Purple Netherdrake? As soon as I was 70 and able to do the quests. Hair color? Purple. Pet? The purple and black Ravager, of course. So...what is some of your toon quirks?

You can almost always look at instances and see folks doing crazy things, to see if they can. From pulling the entire instance front to back (hello, pallytank) to trying out oddies such as 5 Warlock Heroics. But as everyone knows, Raiding is srs bizniz. Folks wouldn't dream of cutting up there. Folks certainly wouldn't solo Onyxia. Especially not several classes. And raiders would never think of having a Voidwalker almost tank Illidan Stormrage. That kind of thing just doesn't happen. 

In a topic for discussion, the question of whether or not a lvl 70 should be able to create a lvl55 of any class comes up. There are several good sides to this arguement, coming down to Blizzard claiming that part of what makes Death Knights a Hero class is their ability to start at 55. Is there much class learning done at 1-55 anymore? Is someone who's come up from lvl 1 that much of a better player than someone who created their toon at 55? Interesting questions indeed.

 Achievements have hit with a massive splash, and it seems like everyone's got a favorite or twelve they are working on. Personally, I have now fully explored the entire world, and feel that I can rest a bit (There was a lot of old world running involved!). I would like to go back and get all the instance/raid achievements for killing the end bosses, as there are only 3 instances (And they are the 3 high end TBC ones) I've not seen the last boss of killed...but you wouldn't know that looking at my Achievements. I kind of especially wish that the Achievement for killing C'Thun was active on my list...but I do have the screeny to prove it. So...what are your favorites to track down and do? Which do you know you've done but for one reason or another they aren't up there? 

 Now that things for the patch are finally settling down, it's become realized that Raiding sure is easy now. Folks have gotten their UI's back in order, and are now setting about to decimate the TBC bosses as never before. I think that this month of bliss is great, giving folks who were lagging behind for whatever reason a chance to blast ahead, see some content that they wouldn't have otherwise (I'm a huge lore junkie) and get some raiding practice in before things get hard again.