Here at WoW.com, we’re on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW -related links from around the blogosphere. Who likes contests? Everyone likes contests — heck, it’s a chance at free goodies. Even if you don’t win, you aren’t really out anything. Here are some pointers to various WoW -related contests that are currently running here and there: Would you like to be in the Cataclysm beta? NowGamer is giving away a staggering 1,000 Cataclysm beta keys. Check out the site for details — and I hope you like Twitter . Attending BlizzCon in the flesh? You can get free passes to the pre-screening of The Raid , a Blue Loon film about the world of raiding and what it means to be a raider. There are a whole slew of people in the WoW community giving away passes to this event; you can check the full list of giveaway sites on The Raid’s official site. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment, and you may see it here tomorrow! Be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW -related sites. Filed under: The Daily Quest The Daily Quest: Gimmie gimmie gimmie originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond — your addons folder will never be the same. This week, holy crap! There’s a bear. Have I got awesome news for you, dear Addon Spotlight readers. Today, I’ve enlisted the help of a good friend of mine to come and discuss some miscellaneous management addons that are designed to take all that information and parse it into something useful. I would like to introduce everyone to Mongor the bear accountant. Mongor is a bear that is also an accountant, and he’s my good friend. It’s time to get your life managed. Continue reading Addon Spotlight: Management addons Filed under: Add-Ons , AddOn Spotlight Addon Spotlight: Management addons originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Zach enjoys PvP in all its forms, thus celebrating when some form of PvP was introduced to the Facebook game Pirates Ahoy! Let’s continue from last week’s handy guide which was titled intentionally to play on the various meanings of “good.” This week, we’ll go through a few pointers at how to win at everything. Or, at the very least, to put up a decent fight and not go down in a terribly embarrassing fashion. That’s all one can really ask for — that one puts up a fight. Note that in most cases, the victor won’t care because a win is a win, especially in PvP . There are no moral victories in PvP, but there are educational defeats. If you’re going to lose, at the very least learn from it, right? The first rule to winning is to think you can win. If you don’t give yourself a chance to win by thinking you’re outmatched, then unless your opponent is a total buffoon, she’s already won. Don’t worry too much about class or your level differential. You must go into the battle thinking you can win or, if you’re a healer, at least survive indefinitely. It doesn’t matter if you can actually win or not, especially when you’re clearly outmatched, such as when you’re many levels below your opponent. In such cases, your opponents already expect to win, so if you surprise them with some resistance or maybe even bring them dangerously low, then you will have put some doubt into their heads. As I mentioned last week , most griefers don’t actually look for a challenge. So there, the most important rule: Believe you can win. Continue reading The Art of War(craft): A handy guide to winning at everything Filed under: Analysis / Opinion , PvP , The Art of War(craft) (PvP) The Art of War(craft): A handy guide to winning at everything originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low , the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI , a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you’re looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community . Stop me if you’ve heard this one. You’re taking on some dragon. Some really powerful spell is about to hit you and the rest of the raid. You don’t have any cooldowns to use because you had to pop them earlier. The tank who is busy yelling obscenities at said dragon just took a massive fireball to the face and is down in the red. You know for a fact that the next blow is going to be lethal and you have maybe 2 seconds to react. If you move, you may well have condemned your tank to death. If you stay and heal, you’ll end up taking some damage which could be lethal. Normally, this isn’t that big of a deal, but we’re in an age where we have so many informative addons that tell us which attacks successfully hit a player and when it happened. What’s worse is that this data means the difference between staying and getting cut from a raid (or a guild). This is a topic of one of the emails that I received from a healing shaman. So what is a healer to do? Is he wrong for making the decision to take avoidable damage to keep the raid or the tank alive? Is he better off just taking the damage so that he doesn’t look bad? Either way, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. Lots of players don’t understand that these are some of the decisions that have to be made. Continue reading Raid Rx: A rock and a hard place Filed under: Analysis / Opinion , Raid Rx (Raid Healing) Raid Rx: A rock and a hard place originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Welcome to the Lawbringer, Wow.com’s weekly guide to the intersection of law and the World of Warcraft. I’m Amy Schley, a new law school graduate and your tour guide through the rabbit hole of contracts, copyrights and other craziness. Greetings again! We’re on part three of an examination of the various legal documents to which we must consent in order to play our beloved World of Warcraft . Parts one and two examined the End User License Agreement ; this segment will look at the Terms of Use (“TOU”). The first thing you’ll notice as you examine the TOU is that it is quite similar to the EULA. This is by design — while one of the EULA’s provisions is to agree to the Terms of Use, the repetition increases the likelihood we’ll actually read it. There are quite a few differences, including the code of conduct and the naming policy. Continue reading The Lawbringer: A rookie’s guide to the TOU Filed under: The Lawbringer The Lawbringer: A rookie’s guide to the TOU originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

As you’ve probably already read, players will be able to purchase 310 percent flying speed from trainers in Cataclysm . While this is good news for people who hate raiding, think arena was shat into existence by the most sociopathic among the development team, or spent School of Hard Knocks trying to drown themselves in the nearest body of water, the bad news is that buying your way to super-fast flying will run you a cool 5,000 gold. Outrageous, says this dyed-in-the-wool cheapskate. For anyone else who’d rather die than part with a centavo of hard-earned gold, the good news is that having even a single 310 percent flyer in your stable is enough to get you the skill free. Fortunately, there’s plenty of time to snag yourself one of these coveted mounts before Cataclysm hits, and just as fortunately, each mount is the reward (or subject) of an achievement. Strategy guides for obtaining each of the remaining 310 percent mounts is definitely beyond the scope of this article (although I’ll probably devote an edition of OverAchiever to nabbing the Rusted Proto-Drake , above) but we can take a visual tour of the fast flyers that any hard-working player can still get in Wrath of the Lich King . Continue reading The OverAchiever: Pimp thy ride Filed under: Achievements , The Overachiever The OverAchiever: Pimp thy ride originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide . We’ve told you how to get ready for your first raid — and now, we’re going to help you actually get your hands dirty, in a new series for beginning raiders in Ready Check . We fired things up last week with Raiding 101 ; look for additional installments in future weeks (including today!). Beta access being what it is (up and down — and when it counts most for deadlines, the latter), we were unable to complete the Horde companion piece to last week’s Alliance newbie zone revamps in Cataclysm . We’re still working on that for you … In the meantime, since we’ve got you revved up for Cataclysm news, we’ll round up more rookie-centric details found scattered across the site over the past month. Spoiler No. 1: Cataclysm spoilers ahead; proceed at your own risk. Spoiler No. 2: This week’s content has been posted previously, elsewhere at WoW.com. If you’re an assiduous reader, this week’s content will not be new news for you. Continue reading WoW Rookie: More Cataclysm changes for newbies and leveling players Filed under: WoW Rookie , Cataclysm WoW Rookie: More Cataclysm changes for newbies and leveling players originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Every week, we present you with the WoW Insider Show podcast — an hour’s worth of WoW community discussion, covering everything from the week’s top stories here on WoW.com, to emails from our readers, to what’s been going on with our particular characters in Azeroth. Along with your hosts, WoW.com Senior Editor Michael Sacco and Contributing Editors Matthew Rossi and Mat McCurley , we also feature rotating guest hosts, whether regular WoW.com contributors or personalities from other sites. Want to have your question answered on the air? Email theshow@wow.com ! Get the podcast: [ iTunes ] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes. [ RSS ] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator. [ MP3 ] Download the MP3 directly. Warning: This episode has a lot of Cataclysm spoilers. Don’t listen if you don’t want to be spoiled! Continue reading WoW Insider Show Episode 155: Not doing much besides getting murdered Filed under: Podcasts , WoW Insider Show WoW Insider Show Episode 155: Not doing much besides getting murdered originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Welcome to Scattered Shots , written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast . Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim . A question that I’m getting asked with increasing frequency these days is: “I’ve done everything there is to do in Wrath , Cataclysm doesn’t even have a release date, and I’m bored! I’m sick of ICC and I’m not in the beta. What can I do to enjoy WoW ?” The end-of-expansion doldrums are hitting us all, and they’ve teamed up with summer in a flanking maneuver sure to leave almost every raid sign-up sheet a sad and empty thing. As the expansion winds down, we’re left in a limbo-land. It’s not yet close enough to Cataclysm to start preparing ourselves for the new expansion, but we’ve already conquered all the challenges of the old expansion. If you’re looking to breathe new joy and excitement into your WoW time, I’ve got a solution that just might work for you. Set your uber-geared badass Kingslayer away for a moment. You’ve done everything there is to do with your hunter for now. Instead, take a look at the class with fresh eyes, with a horde of bearded friends at your side, and learn what epic really means by rolling a new level 1 hunter! Continue reading Scattered Shots: A cure for the end-of-expansion doldrums Filed under: Hunter , (Hunter) Scattered Shots Scattered Shots: A cure for the end-of-expansion doldrums originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Some days are better than others. Other days are worse. Some days, you just want a palate cleansing. I’m in that kind of mood today. That makes today a great day to look back and revisit Yume’s musical video, Polystyrene Dream . The ethereal view still appeals to me, with the various and surreal imagery and wonderfully cadenced music. But then the jarring behavior of the characters is still just a little odd. Probably, no one knows what’s really going on except Yume, but I still enjoy the trip into absurdity. Interested in the wide world of machinima ? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch ! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at machinima@wow.com . Filed under: WoW Moviewatch WoW Moviewatch: Polystyrene Dream originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read  |  Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Welcome back to The Queue , WoW.com’s daily Q&A column in which the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft . Adam Holisky will be your host today. The above image is what the new Cataclysm launcher looks like. It’s shown in mid-patch, with enough data downloaded that I can play the game at least respectably. It really looks quite slick, and I love the additions of the amounts that need to be downloaded. Lagothan asked: “Soooo, any predictions on the release date for Cataclysm ? Please don’t say ‘soon’ or I will be a sad panda.” Continue reading The Queue: Predicting the Cataclysm release date Filed under: The Queue The Queue: Predicting the Cataclysm release date originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

The goblin engineers run a pretty competent zeppelin service, with only the occasional incident of dropping everyone through the floor of the ship to their watery graves. And I’ve never seen a gnomish mechanostrider waiting for a tow truck on the side of the road. But something about this new engineering mount has me worried. Maybe it’s the fact that it looks like it was built from whatever washed up on the beach in Tanaris. Maybe it’s the loose rockets right next to the open flame. Or maybe it’s the large death toll attributed to goblin engineering projects. Thanks, but I think I’ll stick to the ground for now. (Thanks to Klangkor of <Game Over> on Greymane [US-H] for the screenshot.) Gallery: Around Azeroth Want to see your own screenshot here? Send it to aroundazeroth@wow.com . We strongly prefer full-sized pictures with no UI or names showing. Please include “Azeroth” in the subject line so your email doesn’t get marked as spam, and include your name, guild and server if you want to be credited. Filed under: Around Azeroth Around Azeroth Beta Edition: Oh, the humanity! originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed , the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. I want to share with you all a story. Once upon a time, there was a WoW noob who was known as Donaldserrot the human warrior. I’m pretty sure the only thing he did right was Brewfest. But he had fun, at least until he either grouped up with other players (who made fun of his gear) or went to the Outland (where the mobs showed him how bad his gear was). It was at this time that Donald reached the end. There wasn’t much more he could do as he was, and he didn’t have the desire to fix things, so he retired. At that time, a new WoW nooblet showed up. Donhorn was different and decided to try to learn more about not just his druidic class but also his tauren history. He knew of the trials Donaldserrot had gone through and knew that in order to go the distance, he’d need to train. Continue reading Breakfast Topic: How far did you expect to take WoW? Filed under: Breakfast Topics , Guest Posts Breakfast Topic: How far did you expect to take WoW? originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including the famous Random Acts of Uberness shout-outs to players who make WoW memorable. One of the best things about WoW is the friendships you make along the way. It looks like this group has done plenty of that. Long, awkward silences between new acquaintances? Not this gang. The Ancient Order of Wisdom on Arathor (EU-A) has had a very busy week. We celebrated our fifth anniversary yesterday with a “Cattle Run” — a bunch of level 1 taurens doing the run from Mulgore to Thrall (made more interesting since half the guildies there are very much pro-Alliance and didn’t know exactly where to find him!). Naturally, we had to do this on a different realm due to the number of altoholics we have. There were a few hiccups on the way … (by “hiccups,” read grizzly deaths), but there was much laughter on Vent and prizes for the winners! In recognition of this rather superb achievement, we also had the first ever guild meeting last weekend. “Wisfest” took place in York — and had a weekend where real life was a parody of WoW . An ancient walled city with dungeons and ghost tours! Naturally, we had to sample some of the local ales. Fifteen of us turned up to meet and gel our online friendships into something more. I’m very appreciative of all those that came — in particular Stony, who travelled all the way from Belgium. We had an absolute blast! Needless to say, Wisfest 2011 is already in the calendar for next year. Let’s crack open The Classifieds … Continue reading The Classifieds: Wisfest and lots of hiring Filed under: The Classifieds The Classifieds: Wisfest and lots of hiring originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and soon, an entire flight of black dragons. Please send screenshots as well as any comments to my email at gregg@wow.com . Before we get on to business, I need another batch of screenshots for headers if anyone feels like tossing a couple my way. A lot of abilities have been either renamed, revamped or removed in the Cataclysm beta. This is part of a consolidation process to remove a lot of buttons off of our bars. Other abilities were changed to remove durability and healing from retribution. However, in the interest of explaining where things went, I decided it might be best to make a list of our lost and renamed abilities, for those of you who haven’t been able to keep up with all of the changes. Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: Where did they go? Filed under: Paladin , (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It The Light and How to Swing It: Where did they go? originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Gold Capped (from Basil ” Euripides ” Berntsen) is the column that will teach you how to brutalize your auction house competition and teach them the meaning of the term “opportunity cost.” OK, last week I claimed that I’d eventually make it through my emails. I now realize that taunting you guys is probably a bad idea, because this week’s inbox made it clear that I’ll never dig myself out of the Sisyphean pile of emails I’ve accumulated. I assume that the winding down of this expansion has everyone trying to prepare themselves for the next expansion by hoarding gold, the only thing that will still be really valuable after the gear reset we have in store for us. Snowmane writes: I have around 1,100g, and though it fluctuates up to 2,000 at some points, recently, I’m at a low. I am a 450 alchemist and a 250 jewelcrafter, though that’s on hold due to lack of funds to buy things to level with. I’ve looked at different ways of making money with my profession, but none seem to work. I just don’t understand how people can make all this gold and easily equip themselves with things needed for raiding, when I can barely afford gemming and enchanting new piece of gear. Continue reading Gold Capped: Ask an auctioneer — auction house PvP Filed under: Economy , Wrath of the Lich King , Cataclysm , Gold Capped Gold Capped: Ask an auctioneer — auction house PvP originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we discuss some of the awesome rogue items that help define our class’ image. I remember the first time I was ever kicked from a guild. At the time, my main character was my very first rogue, who was a new level 60. I browsed around the realm forums for any guilds recruiting and found one that seemed to fit my schedule. I started raiding with them, and everything seemed to be going great. Well, it was going great, until I decided to argue with a hunter about weapons. The raid had a Core Hound Tooth drop for them in Molten Core, and a hunter had used his DKP to win the item. I saw him walking around Ironforge with it the next day. I argued with him that a rogue should’ve had first priority for it, since it’s one of our main weapons. His stance was that any weapon a hunter could use was a “hunter weapon,” or else Blizzard would’ve made it so that they couldn’t use it. His other weapon was an Azuresong Mageblade that he claimed boosted his Serpent Sting and Arcane Shot damage. It turns out he was a high-ranking officer of the guild, and our spat was grounds for a /gkick. Luckily for us, there are a few items in game that rogues can take claim of. These items were designed specifically with us in mind and have become instantly recognizable symbols of our class to everyone. Continue reading Encrypted Text: Iconic rogue items Filed under: Rogue , (Rogue) Encrypted Text Encrypted Text: Iconic rogue items originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Blizzard has just announced via its Warcraft Twitter account and the forums that the Customer Support team now has its own Twitter . The full text of the forum announcement is below: Auryk You can now follow all Blizzard Entertainment Customer Support news and updates on Twitter. Just head over to @BlizzardCS, (http://twitter.com/BlizzardCS) for the latest Support related news, events and more. We will be providing constant updates during Tuesday’s maintenance and service outages. Additionally, you will be able to view updates to our Queue Times for Game Master interactions, account investigations and escalated tickets alike. source No word if the intermittent outages of the authentication system that were recently being experienced will be reported on this new Twitter account, but I think this is a step in the right direction for further increasing the communication from Blizzard to its customer base. Filed under: Realm Status , Blizzard , News items Blizzard customer service now has its own Twitter account originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read  |  Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Choose the adventures of the WoW.com staff as we level our characters in < It came from the Blog > on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H). Note: The video above and the stories on the next page contain Cataclysm spoilers. You have been warned. Above is the video of last Wednesday’s stream, in case you missed it. Turn the page for recaps from Prupher, Robinka and Peenk, as well as the latest about the level 60 raids. Schedule Robin Torres as Robinemia, the Forsaken huntress: Wednesday, 11 p.m. EDT Note: This will be streamed. Amy Schley as Patent , the level 28 troll rogue: Thursday, 10 p.m. EDT Adventurers who play when they can Fox Van Allen as Foxlight , the level 25 blood elf paladin Lisa Poisso as Prupher , the level 11 tauren druid Michael Sacco as Shockbroker, the goblin shaman Christian Belt, as Selfloathius , the level 16 blood elf warlock Robin Torres, as Robinemia , the level 29 Forsaken mage Matthew Rossi as Andrenorton , the level 17 troll mage Michael Gray as Grayfields , the level 17 tauren hunter Gregg Reece as Sandwichdoc , the level 16 troll shaman Continue reading Choose My Adventure: Death, dust, dwarves and distractions Filed under: It Came from the Blog , Choose My Adventure Choose My Adventure: Death, dust, dwarves and distractions originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Good news, everyone! I’ve fixed the poison slime pi — wait. We’ve got other good news! Heroic Shadowfang Keep and heroic Deadmines, which were said at the Cataclysm press event to have been scrapped until a later patch, are now slated to be in at release! Valnoth has confirmed that the new versions of these classic dungeons are being released with Cataclysm . Valnoth — Re: Now when Valnoth said ALL dungeons… Quote: Heroic SFK/Deadmines are not being released with Cataclysm, but with a patch after it goes live. Heroics are not ready for testing. Heroic Shadowfang Keep and Heroic Deadmines WILL be released with Cataclysm. You will not have to wait for a later patch. source Players can now expect Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep to join the heroic ranks of Throne of the Tides, Blackrock Caverns, The Stonecore, The Halls of Origination, Grim Batol, Vortex Pinnacle and The Lost City of Tol’vir when Cataclysm releases. Filed under: News items , Cataclysm Heroic Shadowfang Keep and Deadmines will be released with Cataclysm originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read  |  Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments