In an interesting start, Amanda Dean wonders about those little tidbits of info that everyone knows, but no one knows. I have myself, despite playing for almost 4 years now, learned a thing or two from reading the "Helpful tips" on the loading screen. What sort of little thing do you know that you think everyone does...but might not?

For the PvP'er's among us, it seems that Ghostcrawler is hip to the problem of healing in arenas (as in, it's currently a joke...) and will be looking into it. Look for your solution "Soon" (Blizz tm)

2008 really changed the face of WoW, especially for Casual players. Robin Torres lists her thoughts on the 5 biggest changes for casuals. What are your thoughts on them?

And now, for the Warlock Buffs....'cause everyone knows the poor, maligned warlocks need buffing. ;)

100,000 seems like a big number. And in WoW, there's an Achievement attached to it. If you get 100,000 Honorable Kills, you get the Achievement. Some folks wondered how hard that one would be. But it turns out that if you are a serious PvP'er, it's not that hard at all. There's even a level 19 who has it. The trick to this Achievement, especially for the big time PvP'ers is that HK's were tracked from as soon as they were added into the game, so it was pretty easy to ret-check that, and award the Achievement. Not so much so for, say....killing C'Thun. Since you needed a piece of loot from him in the bank, or were one of the rare folks who got the quest item off of him, you didn't get the Achivement for dropping him.

 So, why are people helping Malygos? And why do we go down and beat up Sartharion? He's just minding his own business down there. Good questions indeed, and there are answers for them!

One doesn't often hear the good stories about WoW in the mainstream media. Often it's all "MMO ruins kids lives." "MMO's are eroding our social moores." Etc and so on. So it's nice to see the good side of WoW players, helping out  Katherine Allen, who's raising money for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. She's helping her fundraising by appealing to WoW players. Each player who donates $25 and leaves a comment with either "For the Alliance" or "For the Horde" gets their name entered into a draw. She'll pick 3 names from a hat, and those three folks will get 1 year certificates for free WoW. If she hit $5,500, she'd pick one name for a lifetime WoW subscription. Last time I looked...she was at $19,910!

 A lot of folks are playing WoW. In fact, according to Blizzard, 11.5 Million are! 

By now the gifts have been unwrapped, big meals consumed, and most folks are going to spend today lazily laying about recovering. I hope that none of you are going shopping in the craziness that is Boxing Day.

 My gift to all of you is an amazing video that was found by my fiancee. It is the artist's first go at making a video (but not animating) and let me tell you this. Percula has done some stunning work in the 7 1/2 minute movie, The Craft of War:BLIND.

It seems that some folks are nostalgic for the days of 40 man raids. Frankly, I'm not. I like the new 25man cap, feeling that the fights are just as epic, but it's so much less work in the game to manage. Having been a raid leader through all sizes of fights, I have found the 25man to be the best blend between challenge in game, and challenge out of game (Arranging, etc)

 Solo'ing old stuff is all the rage of late. I have nearly solo'ed Onyxia on my hunter, but ran into a few problems. I figured them out, but ran into a time issue after that. Other folks have been quite busy making old content trivial, too. Have you been out and about doing old content, thinking "It used to take us 39 other folks and 4 hours to beat this..."

 Speaking of doing things outside of the box, Instructor Razuvious has provided several guilds with an opportunity to let their creativity show. Last time it was 3 hunters trading off aggro with kiting and distracting shot. This time, it's a couple of mages with spellsteal doing the tanking work. It's nice to see that strategy options are coming more to the fore. 

If you've managed to find a Death Knight who is actually interested in tanking instead of DPS'ing, here's a good article on how to help gear for it. 

 Winter's Veil has returned once again, bringing with it a slew of new Achievements and festive winter fun!

 Here's a really nice overview of the new pvp zone, Wintergrasp. I've been in there a few times, and it's quite a bit of fun. While I may gripe about the hassle the zone creates trying to fly around the eastern chunk of Northrend, the battle itself is fun.

 Here's a pretty nice guide to help you gear up your holy pally for crit.

 In WotLK, there are no attunements, for anything. Just hit 80? You can zone in and give Malygos a poke. But is this a good thing? Especially with Heroics? You used to need Revered (and then Honered) to get the Heroic Key. So by the time you were able to do Heroics you were usually ready (gear wise) for them. But now that there's no keys, you have folks jumping right away into Heroics, and that can make a good run a pretty brutal one. I imagine that taking the keys away is a function of not having a specific faction tied to a certain dungeon (thank god) but is there some other way to 'throttle' it a bit? 

The changes are coming fast and furious these days. Here's a huge one. All old instances are now unlocked. Molten Core no longer needs any Quintessence. Any ritual now just needs one clicker (The UBRS and Uldaman one's come to mind), the "odd' keys (such as Scepters and Mallets) are no longer needed, and you don't need an Urn to get Nightbane's attention. Wow. Just...wow...

 Now that Blizz has the PTR up, they've also got a list of currently official notes for it.

It's been said that Blizzard was going to address the "tanking shortage" by making Death Knights in the first place. I'm not sure how they are succeeding in that. For every DK tank I know of, I know four that will dps only. Tank? What is this 'tank' you speak of? It was most amusing to me the other day. I was making a group for some Heroic smashing, and had myself (a hunter) and 3 plate wearers in the group...and it fell apart for lack of a tank. The warrior said he could maybe tank it, but didn't really have the gear. The DK wouldn't even consider it. The paladin was healing (and is a damn good healer, at that). But it still amused me. But are a lack of tanks the main problem? Not where I'm seeing, and not where others are seeing. It's healers that are in short supply, and I don't see any good solution to them, other than the long promised dual specs. 

 If you could change any one thing about your class, however you wanted to, what would you change? It's quite the question. Since I'm currently feeling the pinch when it comes to ammo (1.5g/stack for 28 stacks, 2-3 times a day adds up...) maybe I'd make it so that hunter specials don't use ammo. Or make an item that is an 'endless quiver' or some such. How about you? What would you change about your class?

 Raiding blind. I can't fathom it, but have known folks who insisted it was the only way to raid, and if you told them anything about the fight, they had conniption fits that you were 'spoiling' it for them. To me, part of coming prepared for a raid is coming to the raid being at least generally familiar with the boss strategies and abilities. I am very well aware that there is a difference between reading about a boss, watching a video about a boss, and actually DOING the boss encounter. But I've alwyas been of the mind that you should show up knowing what the boss is capable of, at the very least. Even something along the lines of "Oh, this is the boss that loses aggro on phase shifts, has to be kited by whoever it's 'watching' in P2, and pops ground geysers all over" is preferable to showing up and just thinking "Whoa, that guy's huge. Wonder what he does." To me, raiding blind is raiding irresponsibly to the 9-24 other folks in the raid. What do you think?

New ways of doing old things. That's what expansions are supposed to shake up. But, is that being done in a good way? Take the Heavy Frostweave Bandage book for instance. It is only supposed to drop if you are lvl 75+ and have 390 or better First Aid skill. But...it's a drop (And a BoP one at that). And that means there is the rare possibility that your toon will never see it. Now the book seems plentiful enough. I recall running Gun'Drak and having 4 books drop. But there are folks who still haven't seen it. And then there's the new way of doing Jewelcrafting and Enchanting, by which you have to buy your new enchants with tokens you get from dailies, and most new recipes take 10 days to get or so...and there are a LOT of new recipies. What do you think? Is this a good way to throttle profession progression, force guilds to have their professionals work together on what they do and don't buy? Or is this a crafting nightmare?

 In an interesting article, Mike Schramm speaks about the things that the "Children of Wrath" will never know. He's speaking ofwhat folks who have just joined the game for the first time will never need to/get to experience that those who are older did. It provides a nostalgic look at some of the changes in the game over the last 4 years.

 Every guild has one or two. The guildies who, when they quit or leave for whatever reason, most of the guild breaths a sigh of relief and hopes that's the last they've seen of so-and-so. Expansions also change all that. While a lot of familiar old faces pop back out of the woodwork for a while, a few of these bad pennies turn up again, too. There are some great ideas here for dealing with them. 

 One thing I've noticed in my years in WoW is that trinkets were few and far between. There were some outstanding ones, and some good ones, and a lot of 'meh' ones. But there weren't that many in general. Now it seems that the devs are going nuts with trinkets, and every other quest rewards one. And a lot of them look pretty good. I've got a bank bag full of trinkets now, as I try to sort through the useful and not useful ones. Anything else you've noticed is appearing around Azeroth like crazy?

 It's been 4 years and 2 days since WoW first launched, and Blizzard celebrated their 4th Anniversary in style giving folks who logged on a Feat of Strength Achievement, and an Account bound non combat pet, the "Blizzard Baby Bear". It's a nice touch, I think. If you've been playing since the release, you've given Blizzard $720 bucks (Assuming you paid $15/month, and not some other deal). With that in mind...do you feel you've gotten your money's worth out of Blizzard? I haven't given them $720 personally, but I have given them pretty close to that amount. Looking back and thinking about it...I've gotten my money's worth.

 Ghostcrawler addresses that "AoE fun times" with a short post detailing a couple changes to Shaman, Druids ,and Rogues. 

 With the xpack has come a bunch of new materials to harvest. Of course, there are going to be ninja's and the like who wait for someone to clear out a pat and take the node. At worst, they pretend ignorance that you were going for the node, at worst they mock you some and thank you for taking the pat for them before heading off. Is there some way to deal with these kinds of folks? A debuff of some sort is suggested (can't mine/herb for the next 15m?) but...how would you apply it. How would it the game know if someone was a ninja or not? Is there some way to 'fix' this, or is it just groan and move on?

 Wow is serious business, and this xpack means business. There are a ton of mobs to kill, plagues to spread or defeat, undead everywhere, but there's got to be some time for fun somewhere, right? There are a lot of funny things in this xpack, if you know where to look.

Does torturing someone make you a bit queasy inside? How about helping to make a plague designed to kill whatever it comes into contact with? Does someone else's callous reaction to a mistake you may have made hurt? Are you ok with slaughtering untold numbers in your quest for what you feel is right?What about the helpless, those who ask for mercy, don't fight back? Is it alright to kill them?

Morality issues are cropping up with renewed vigor in Wrath. There is a vocal minority who feel that Blizzard has gone too far now, asking the above of it's players. Have they? There are many sides to this argument, with folks saying that it's an adult game for adult players, so thank god for a little mature content. Or how come someone has been able to hack and slash through untold numbers of enemies for whatever reason, but when it comes to torturing some information out of someone, that's not ok? Some folks say that as long as the person you are attacking can attack back, then it's ok. Some roleplayers are having a lot of issued with the new Death Knight starting zone, and some of the things asked of you there.

It's a moral grey area, of sorts. It's been said that the PC's are being taken down the same path offered Arthas himself. What would you do to save those who you love and care about, or what would you do to save the world from evil? Still others say that Blizzard is just running out of quest ideas and is now trying to shock it's player base. Some folks are quite up in arms about this, what they feel they are being forced to do by Blizzard, while others say that it's just a game and if, for some unknown reason, doing a quest in a game for adults makes you feel uneasy, that you should either not do the quest, or just log off and find a 'softer' game more suited to your tastes. Some folks say that this is just a game, and it's not like they can fling fireballs around, drain souls, shoot with nearly unerring accuracy or take ears for trophies out of the game, while others really empathize with what their characters are/have to do in the game.

Personally...I can't see where all the fuss is. But then, I don't really empathize with my toon. I'm playing to be around the friends I've made and see a great storyline unfold. I enjoy getting into complex fights, and seeing how the world of Azeroth is developing. When I did the torture quest, I blew through it without really a second thought, as I saw where and how it fit into the picture of the overall story. Azeroth is a world at war with a madman who's driving goal is to see everyone dead so he can resurrect them from the dead to serve him. I could see doing whatever is needed to stop him, and worrying about whether or not you could sleep at night when the threat is over.

So...what do you think? Has Blizzard gone too far? Are they trying to give us the “Arthas' experience”? Are they running out of ideas? Is the darker direction you may have seen in WoW driving you from the game? Is this “just” a game, and what we do/how we act doesn't matter?

And already, there is a ton of news.Many of us stood in lines, waiting for our copies. Others just sauntered into the stores at some point and were able to score copies. Which is an interesting debate. Is it worth it to pre-order your copy? Not a single person who didn't pre-order had a problem getting a copy, and some even got their hands on Collector's Editions, which, as a pre-orderer, I couldn't do. So, it begins to beg the question, is pre-ordering worth it for a major release?

 Wrath hasn't been out that long...and already all the PvE content has been beaten. The super uber guild (who haven't even released their super uber name yet) that has been formed out of both Nihilum and SK-Gaming has already (2-4 days into the xpack) beaten everything there is to offer on the PvE end. Yes, in 3 days they leveled to 80 and blew all the raid content away. This is going to do nothing but spark up the casual vs hardcore argument big time. While they are paid to play WoW (must be nice) they have kind of shot themselves in the foot here. There's now nothing really for them to do for how long? It took 2 years to get WotLK out, and the next xpack is probably about as many years on the horizon. Sure there will be content patchs. They already have a list of some of what's coming. But...still, that's not much for them. If they can do this, that fast, will anything patched in be of a challenge, unless it's 'broken' when patched in? This is...quite the time in WoW. Folks can say that they knew Naxx as it's a recycled instance, or that the challenges for the truly hardcore lie in the undermanning Achievements. But if TBC was "way too hard" and excluded the casual players, has/will WotLK swing the other way, and open the door for anyone in a pug to go in and beat up major content? And, while the hardcore are a 'smaller' player base, if this is the case, Blizz will likely lose them somewhere before they can 'toughen'  things up again enouigh for them. So...where IS WotLK  heading?

 Robin Torres asks "What's your favorite part of WotLK so far?" and I think that's a good question. I find myself reveling in the 'newness' of it all. New places to go and see, new things to do, new quests to quest, new gear to Dressing Room and look at, and just so much to see and do. How about you? What's your favorite part so far?

 The world's first level 80, an EU warlock named Nymh, (No, not the movie maker of the same name) talks about what he's done. Thing is, and this came up last xpack too, but, while the method he used isn't really 'cheating', is it 'fair'? Basically, he'd tag mobs, and his friends would kill them, so he'd get the xp without the same kind of work of someone doing it 'solo'. It's not nearly as bad as those who have several people level the same toon up, but does it really 'count'?

 Mike Schramm deals with a question all of us likely have (or have our own answer to) that we've had to deal with in the last few days. What's the proper protocol for tapping a camped mob? How do you know what order folks showed up for? Does it matter? Just FFA and whoever scores the tap 'wins'? How do you deal with this kind of situation nicely?

 How are folks' realms holding up? Aside from the massive queues (with reports up to 1900 people on some) how are things? I have found that my realm is pretty stable and secure. There are a few odd hiccups, and there is some more lag than usual (of course) but all in all, the realm is doing pretty well for being a popular and original one. Memory may have blurred it, but this seems a lot better than the TBC launch. So, what's going on, on your realms?

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?

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? 

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.

There is new Blizzard news on all three game fronts today. Mostly thanks to BlizzCon happening over the weekend.

Diablo III kicks off the announcement of the Wizard class. Looks to be pretty good here.

It was also announced that StarCraft II would be 3 seperate games. There seems to be some confusion over just HOW this will be done, as I've seen articles that state it'll be one game and two expansion packs, and I've seen articles that say it'll three seperate games (with the same multiplayer abilities in all three games).

In WoW news, Patch 3.0.2 has hit today. This is the "pre-WotLK" patch,  bringing you pretty much everything that is WotLK that isn't Death Knight related, or Northrend. The linked patch notes look a little old to me, as they are missing a few changes, but they are the notes you'll get when your download finishes.