To tank Archavon's buttocks

As a DPS warrior, I've come to hate the very sight of Archavon, especially his hindquarters. You see, Archavon has a terrible tendency to... how do I put this delicately... he tends to fart on the melee DPS.Okay, that wasn't very delicate, but it was accurate enough: Archavon expels a cloud of noxious fumes that does AoE damage and radically reduces the chance to hit for anyone standing in it.

Hunter aspects bugged in 3.0.8

We covered a couple of known bugs in 3.0.8 yesterday, namely some animation errors (which we're anxiously awaiting being able to log into the game and grab some video of), and some problems with casting of the Warlock spell Ritual of Summoning.And now Hunters have a bug:Some Hunter aspects "behave" as if they have a global cooldown.This should not be, and will be fixed soon (we assume). Patch

When real life is greater than WoW

Believe it or not, there are things out there that are more important than a computer game. Occasionally you need to turn off WoW and go do something like eat, bathe, sleep, engage in some form of non-finger exercise, etc...One of the problems with a MMORPG like WoW is that some people often get consumed in the dynamic social and entertainment parts of the game, leaving off activities and events

Things that don't annoy me

About half a year ago I wrote the article "Things that annoy me." However, I'm in a good mood tonight:1. The music in Storm Peaks and Howling Fjord, particularly the choral portion of the former. Spooky and haunting and ethereally on edge, like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir had just glimpsed a large angry dinosaur through the window.2. The leather boots available at exalted with the Argent Crusade.

A pessimistic reminder about patch notes

There's a lot of speculation that 3.0.8 will drop tomorrow. We've got our sources that say it looks good for a release tomorrow, there have been some blue posts about it, and MMO-Champion is contending it's as good as confirmed (90% chance Boubouille says).However with the impending patch there is a very important reminder to be made: not everything we see in patch notes is correct. It's bold

Survey reveals what twinks are all about

This is interesting -- our friend Drayner over at Twinkinfo.com recently took a survey of his site's readers, and after picking up almost 1,000 replies, he's posted the results. They show a little bit of insight into the kind of person that plays a twink (a character maxed out at a certain level before 80, usually to run around in PvP battlegrounds). Specifically, they're male, under 21, play for

Dual specs and the importance (or not) of saving gold

While reading through comments on the site the other day,* I stopped at Drak's on a recent Breakfast Topic and had to think for a bit. In defense of pure classes' concerns with the upcoming dual spec system, Drak wrote that we were weighing class functionality against hybrids' desire to save gold, and that the two concerns were by no means equal.I'm still convinced that pure classes stand to gain

WoW Video: I Gave You

One of the things I think is most awesome about Northrend is the fact that it adds a whole continent of "real-world" scenes to the game. Outland was so out there that it was hard to use any of the in-game terrain for any stories other than those that took place on another planet, but Northrend is a very grounded place -- while zones like Zul'Drak and Crystalsong Forest can seem very otherworldly,

10 things I learned from a destitute alt on an RP realm

I have a few alts on an RP realm that I visit from time to time, and I remember thinking to myself at one point: "These characters are a bunch of deadbeats." I'd gotten too used to the alts on my main realm being a bunch of pampered brats, spoiled rotten by the presence of a hardworking main, so financial discipline had grown to be a thing of the past.Not so on another realm where you don't have

Steelseries WoW mouse not so wow-worthy?

Reader Richie mailed us a review of the Steelseries World of Warcraft mouse some time back, but it's gotten to the point where his frustration made him put a post up on his own blog. Some of his major concerns involve the custom software remapping his keys, such as making his character jump when he presses 'M' to bring up the map. He also claims that some of his buttons now stick, instead of

WoW polls: the toughest Heroic instance

Blizzard has posted a poll on the forums asking what players think is the toughest Heroic dungeon in the game. Unfortunately, they don't say much else besides that, so guessing the reason why will be up to us and our commenters. They want to make sure Ulduar is tougher than Heroics? They want to look for particularly tough mechanics for future instances? They just enjoy seeing players have a

World of Warcraft pom-poms

I have no idea how to describe pom-poms. I guess they're like little furry balls that you can assemble, along with the usual crafting supplies, into cute little figurines or objects. And as you might expect, since you're reading this here on WoW Insider, someone has assembled these materials into World of Warcraft-related objects, and as usual, the results are awesome.This time it's Eldrian,

When questing is the reward

I've never been a big fan of quests. I've always done them as a means to an end, whether to level up or to earn a bit of Gold. My questing rate dropped considerably once I hit Level 80, with the only quests I did consisting mostly of Wintergrasp dailies and about a week's worth of Ebon Blade dailies in Icecrown to raise my reputation. But the truth is, quests in Wrath of the Lich King have been

Arena tourneys need more Blizzard support?

Here's an interesting post on GotGame that sounds different from almost everything we've heard about professional Arena tourneys and Blizzard so far. Whenever we've talked to anyone involved with Arena tournaments, they've always told us Blizzard is very supportive of the events. But this post alleges otherwise -- they say that Blizzard is falling short of professional Arena support.There are two

Returning to WoW as a casual

John writes in on a topic that I think a lot of people can relate to. Wrath of the Lich King brought you back to the game, but now what?Hi Robin,I'm really enjoying your column and wanted to give you an idea for a future article. Right now I'm a casual gamer who's on the fence about coming back to WoW thanks to WotLK. I quit WoW soon after the last expansion because I was tired of the constant

A WoW economics course proposal

If you're like me, you're ... well, you're probably incredibly handsome and charming. But you're also probably interested in WoW's economy, given that it's the biggest and most involved metagame in WoW and a fascinating microcosm of a free-market economy.I personally think that the how and why of WoW's economy is worth a deep look, and it appears there are a lot of people who agree with me--even

We love Food Network edition

Or, perhaps, we'd love to slaughter the Food Network. In World of Warcraft, of course. This week when I asked what everyone was up to, Daniel Howell (whom you may also know as BigRedKitty) graced us with one of his infamous top ten lists:BRK's Top Ten Things to Do in WoW This Weekend10. Install IE 6 on a 80386 PC so I too can complain about the menus on WoW Insider.9. Claim I'm raising money for

Insider Trader: Patch 3.0.8

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.The upcoming patch, 3.0.8, is poised to make some real changes to professions. In the majority of cases, these are positive changes that will help you level, craft, and save on money or materials.In some cases, you may even want to consider halting the production of certain items, and focus on hoarding

World of Warcraft listed as one of the 30 most offensive games

The conservative Christian investment firm, the Timothy Plan, has released a list of the 30 most offensive games on the market. This list details the areas of sex, nudity, gay / lesbian, violence, cartoon violence, language, comic mischief, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, demonic, and game addiction as things that are against any "morally responsible" mutual fund to invest in.In other words

WoW Video: Winter Weapons

The movie is apparently based on an old war story told by Selserene's grandfather. I'm not going to spoil it here, since the story is well-conveyed by the characters in the movie. There's a recap and explanation at the end to help make sense of what's going on, in case you don't entirely get itThe movie was satisfying, like all of Selserene's work. An impatient chap, I could have gone with

WoW Guide:Gombol's Tanking Guide - Talents

If you have a Warrior and are thinking of trying out tanking, or perhaps looking to improving you current talent set up, take a look at the guide below.Tanking is something you need to get right. If you fail at your job as a tank your whole party or raid go down with you. Talent specs are crucial when perfecting your tank, so here is a guide to speccing for optimal performance; keep those mobs

Tips for Strand of the Ancients and how to win it

Eye for an Eye has a great set of tips up for the Strand of the Ancients battleground. Their tips are aimed towards Ret Pallies, but they're useful for almost anyone, and especially any melee-based classes. And the general idea -- focus on the relic and getting to it, not the players attacking you or other teammates -- is great for anyone to know.I don't know what it is about Strand and

The oldest WoW player you know

World of Warcraft seems to pull in players from the very young, to the fairly old. While the younger ones are generally pretty vociferous about themselves, a lot of the older players don't run about advertising it. (Note: I'm not making a judgement call on play-styles. I've met adults who can't spell to save their butt and younger folks who are not only eloquent, but highly-intelligent

Anthropologist digs into WoW

While we've written before about academics who are researching WoW from within, we're not sure that we've seen anyone whose primary fieldwork is the PvE raiding experience. Meet Alex Golub, Ph.D., an anthropology professor at the University of Hawaii. Golub plays a Resto Shaman in a Wrath-era raiding guild who's researching what he calls the culture of raiding -- "why people do something as crazy

WoW Video: Defias Mightiest

It might help if you know a bit about the Defias Brotherhood. (Lapdogs! All of you!) Defias Mightiest by Myndflame was originally featured (in part) at the opening of the epic Illegal Danish: Escape for Orgrimmar. This is a pretty neat stand alone music video in its own right, however. I wanted to draw attention to it, especially, because I'm excited about the upcoming release of Death Knights

Warcraft: Legends: Troy Lewter Interview

TOKYOPOP Editor Troy Lewter sat down with NEO Magazine writer Lesley Smith to discuss all things Warcraft and StarCraft, giving him all the details on TOKYOPOP’s 22-book publshing program with Blizzard Entertainment, the creators of World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, and many others.Tomorrow the latest issue of NEO - issue 51 - hits newsagents across thecountry. Within its shiny pages is a

Top 5 casual improvements in 2008

2007 truly was the year of the casual, but 2008 continued the trend of Blizzard developers to make more content accessible for those of us with limited playtime. The biggest patches for us (and everyone else) were 2.4 and 3.0.2. And there was that little expansion that happened. Overall, there is more for us to do in less time. Here is my list of the top 5 WoW improvements for us this past year.5

WoW Comics

Here's a couple of good WoW comics from the last few days:Noobz Online share some New Year Resolutions with us, and it looks like Teh Gladiators are in trouble again...

Snowshaman!

This is brilliant -- after Anna jokingly asked for pictures of Snowshaman, she actually got one. Niyahti and her husband built this snowshaman, complete with two totems (though we're not sure which ones they are -- Wrath of Air and Frost Resist maybe?). Sure, it loses a little something in the translation from polygons to frozen water, but remember the medium. Considering it's handmade with snow,

WoW Tattoo

Here's another tattoo, this one faction-independent. Adikchun on Zul'jin (who is a Forsaken Priest -- maybe Alliance don't get tattoos?) sent me this one after we posted the big Horde tattoo the other day, and while yes, she plays Horde, she says she got the Sprite Darter pre-BC because it was the only pet that only Alliance could get. I'm not quite sure I understand the logic there, but it is a

Ulduar and Blizzard's "hard modes"

We're only a day into 2009, and we've already got an update on one of our predictions. Vaneras has appeared on the EU forums talking about Ulduar's difficulty level and he says that yes, it will make a PTR appearance, and yes, it will be hard, but probably not in the way that we'd expect. He says that Blizzard is pleased with the way the "Sartharion with no drakes" worked, so they're planning to

The Care and Feeding of Warriors: The Year 2008

At this time last year, I wrote about the launch of The Burning Crusade and rage normalization as the big, defining change in the warrior class. Let there be no mistake. Even two years later I am still furious at rage normalization. I was so angry then that I picked normalization over expertise as the big change to the class, which in a way was fair, as it wasn't clear yet just how important

New Year's Resolutions for Hunters and for Blizzard

The New Year is considered by many people to be the time for a fresh start, a time to wipe the slate clean of past missteps, or just to make some changes to your life to make it even better. In that spirit, I'd like to propose some Hunter-related resolutions for both Blizzard and for Hunters in the spirit of promoting peace, harmony, and understanding in the new year for all Survivalists,

Teen arrested for making suicide threat to a GM

After a 17-year-old in Fairfield, Ohio told a GM "he was suicidal and the game was the only thing he had to live for," the Blizzard rep called 911, and the kid was apparently arrested, according to the Middletown Journal. We've seen this before -- Blizzard won't put up with suicide threats -- but as far as I know, this is the first we've heard of an arrest coming about because of it. Apparently

Nielsen says WoW still tops the list

GameCyte has gone over the Nielsen ratings for 2008, and they're basically saying exactly what we've heard with other sites like GamerDNA: that WoW commanded PC playtime this year. On a list with such oldies on it as The Sims, CounterStrike, and even Blizzard's own Diablo II, World of Warcraft sits at the top of the charts with an average of 671 minutes (about 11 hours) played per week. This

WoW Movie: Tinkle's New Year

Hopefully, we all had a pleasant night last night. X-Cross, the same chap behind Kippos, put this together to wish all of us a happy New Year. It's just a short shout out, with a few jokes along the way. And, of course, a male gnome in goggles and a dress, which can be quite the little humor in and of itself. It'll fit in nicely with some other pieces to help us get our holiday spirit going in

Top 10 Blizzard-related Moments of 2008

With 2008 now coming to a close, we figured we'd put together our Top 10 Blizzard-related Moments of 2008 for you, as a look back at everything Blizzard gaming from the past year.10. Fury of the Sunwell ReleasedPatch 2.4 released on March 25th, 2008 to much fanfaire. Titled "Fury of the Sunwell," the patch was comprised of much more than just a new raid instance. It was truly the culmination of