If you've ever caught The Offspring's tunes on the radio or anywhere else, you know that their off-beat lyrics are pretty easy to work with - that is, in terms of making it relevant and hilarious as all hell when applied to machinima.

This is just what machinimist Nyhm probably thought when he made his latest World of Warcraft Machinima video, where various characters of the MMORPG rock it out to the tune of Pretty Fly (For a White Guy). And yes, the lyrics are made relevant, to explain the rather odd existence of the Draenei race.

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Tharfor (I can hear him purr, can you?) tells us today of two changes that we'll see on the PTR soon (Drysc announced this earlier):

• Bloodlust/Heroism will, again, stack with Icy Veins.
• Bloodlust/Heroism will not stack with [the new] Power Infusion, however.
  

He tells us the reasoning behind this is "...two spells increasing haste by a percentage will not stack if both can be cast on a target other than the caster..." So this appears to continue the trend we've seen of modifying haste based abilities, both in their power and stacking abilities.

For those that don't know about Shamans, Bloodlust and Heroism are Shaman abilities (Bloodlust is the name of the spell for the Horde, Heroism is the name of the spell for the Alliance) that decrease casting time by 30% for 40 seconds. It is often used in raids to get that extra "umpf" necessary to get a boss down quickly.

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It is not unusual for younger or less experienced players to approach me with questions on my PvP experience.

"Allie," they ask. "How can we avoid sucking like you?"

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There's been quite a bit of talk about the PvE vs. the PvP game lately -- with Arena PvP basically dictating the changes to drinking and Lifetap, and Mortal Strike-like abilities also taking center stage (which are almost useless in PvE), Blizzard's plan of having the same characters in PvE and PvP seems to be backfiring on them. They originally wanted to let you use all the abilities and techniques that you use in PvE in PvP as well, but reader Raul recently sent us a comment that more and more players might agree with: it's time Arena PvP became its own game, and Blizzard split the two up for good.

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Pre-Burning Crusade raiders will back me up on this: The Qiraji mount from AQ40 was pretty sweet. Not only did it look pretty cool, but the idea of summoning a giant bug to burrow up through the ground and allow you to ride it was fun too.

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Any DPS guide that has flowcharts is a winner. So it is with this Priest DPS guide from DwarfPriest.com -- not only does it include some good insight on the spells both Shadow and Holy Priests have available to them for laying down the damage, but it also includes this great flowchart, which will tell you exactly how to min-max your DPS lickety-split.

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It's a good week for posts at DwarfPriest.com, it seems. In this look at the manual for World of Warcraft, we get to see that the maps included in the original, 2004 release (which hasn't been updated since... four years later, and we're still using the same increasingly inaccurate manual) are at times surprisingly accurate to what we see in the game today. Interesting inclusions and omissions abound: the fact that Maraudon isn't on these maps but Dire Maul is just fascinates me from the perspective that Maraudon was a full patch ahead of the Maul.

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With over 10 million people enjoying World of Warcraft every day, there are many different sub cultures that have sprung up in the game. There are guilds based on religious fundamentals, democratic principals, corporate structure, and any other type of social grouping and cause you can think of. One of the more interesting social phenomena that has popped up is the adult orientated content.

Of course this content is not produced by Blizzard, and based on legal action mentioned in the article, they don't want their name attached to this content. And that is completely within their right to do so. In fact, it's a smart move for a company that wants to encourage people of all ages to play their games. However, Blizzard's objections to the subject matter have not stopped adult film producer Dez from talking with the Village Voice's Bonnie Ruberg about his film series.

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Adam did post this graph (made by Saiforune a.k.a. reader Ian over the weekend after I threw up a request on Friday) already, but considering how much info is in here, and how much work Ian put into it, I figured it deserved another look now that the contest is officially closed. So what we've got here is a standard bar graph, marking out how many people guessed which day that patch 2.4 would go to the live realms. The range of choices is pretty amazing -- the earliest people expected the patch to go up was today, March 3rd (sorry guys, I'm guessing you didn't win), and at least two people think we'll see the patch in the second half of the year (I doubt the patch will drop after October, but I guess we'll see).

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Reader Mike emailed in to ask us a question that we've long contemplated on the vagaries of Shields. Specifically, he was wondering why he and a warrior buddy both had different multipliers for block on their character window, but both blocked for approximately the same amount. Well, since I'm a prot warrior and therefore love shields and want to make little shield babies with them, I figured I'd provide some information.

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Gamers in World of Warcraft have recently found that Sunwell has been "locked," which led gamer Heel to speculate that the reason for this is that its testing in the Public Test Realms have been concluded.

Sunwell, one of the very first updates Blizzard has released for Patch 2.4, previously disallowed people from entering even if you meet the requirements of the zone. Players have been able to bypass this. But more recently, players are being ported out entirely.

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In the last two weeks we've discussed where to go for an instance and what to do once you get there. Since dungeon runs usually require five members, this week we'll talk about how to find people to go with you. Remember that the typical instance group is made up of a tank, a healer, and three DPS members. It's not always easy to find people that match those requirements.

Since there is a shortage of tanks, it's probably easiest for tank classes to find a group. That also means it's hardest if you are not a tank to find someone to play that role. The next most difficult is a healer. There's usually plenty of DPS to go around. It can take some time to make a group, but since dungeons provide excellent loot and good experience it's usually worthwhile to stick with it.

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Recently we created guides to help WoW Rookies understand how instances work and their role in them. Author Palintheist over on Livejournal has done the same with a funny, informative guide to running instances for players new to World of Warcraft. Some highlights:

"Mob: No need to ask the Godfather for forgiveness - a mob is a word for monster. Also known as creep."

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We've mentioned this a couple of times on the WoW Insider Show already, but just in case you've missed it, here's a reminder that Duncor and Cadwallion of WoW Radio are going to be interviewing Vis Maior, the guild that is cleaning up the bosses on the patch 2.4 PTR server so far, this Friday, March 7th at 7pm EST. And they're looking for questions from you -- if you've got something you want to know from the guild, just drop your suggested question in this thread over on the WoW Radio forums.

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Machinimist Nyhm of Hard Like Heroic and Ni Hao fame is at again. This time he mashes together a 9 year old Offspring song with the lore of the Draenei to explain why those blue skinned Alliance freaks are always on the run. Bonus: Davey Jones squid face reference!

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Blizzard activated another batch of Season 4 items on the PTRs. They are not available to players yet. Stay tuned for more updates !

Season 4 Weapon: Brutal Gladiator's Greatsword

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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

Anyone who has an unguilded bank alt can appreciate this scenario: You're in the auction house, minding your own business, when without any warning the whole auction interface goes away, only to be replaced by a guild charter that someone wants you to sign. It's pretty annoying and rude when people do that without asking first. If you're not in a guild, it can happen to you anywhere.

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I got a call from my mom on Friday night that she was having an emergency and needed me to call. It turns out the emergency was that she bought World of Warcraft and needed some instruction on how to play. Since I was at work, I told her to get started by reading up a bit on the WoW Rookie until I could spend a little more time with her. I was excited and somewhat terrified. I really hope she likes it and doesn't get too frustrated the first week.

My mom isn't what you would call a gamer. I'm not going to tell you how old she is, but she could tell you where she was when Kennedy was assassinated. She's a master Euchre player and a wiz at Scrabble. Her video gaming experience is limited to Bejeweled and online versions of card games. She used to love me watch play Tetris, but would respond like the controller was made of lava when I tried to hand it to her. I invited her to join Dungeons and Dragons sessions, but she always declined.

I moved 2,000 miles from my native Michigan for graduate school about five years ago. Since then my interactions with my mom have been limited to phone conversations and the occasional short visit. I'm really glad to get to share this time with her.

I've often suggested that my mom give WoW a try. In the following interview I found out why she finally decided to play the game. I also wanted to find out more her perspective as a brand new video game player.

What made you decide to join the 10 million other WoW players?
My reasons for joining the wow community are many and varied. I am a life long sci-fi and fantasy fan and playing in a world where some of those things come in to play has a lot of appeal. Also being relatively newly divorced, I find myself with time to do things just because I enjoy them. Also my roommate has been an RPG player for a long time, it looked like fun. I chose WOW specifically because my daughter speaks that language and I wanted to be able to understand and relate to what she was talking about. The final push came from listening to a WOW Insider podcast. These people were having too much fun to resist.

What was your expectation of the game?
My expectation of the game is an escape from the day-to-day realities of life. It does that remarkably well, drawing me into a whole other world that has very little to do with my real life and responsibilities.

What races and classes did you consider?
My first thought was Paladin or Druid because in most of my many books they are the most powerful and noble people. I also gave some thought to Mage for the same reasons.

What did you pick and why?
I finally settled on an Undead Warlock mostly because of the reading I did on WOW insider Rookie posts and some encouragement from my daughter. After I met the Imp it was all over. I love that little guy!

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We know about the Undercity, but apparently there is an underside to Stormwind as well. Player Bashfullsson of the Dragonsbane Guild on the Dragonblight EU realm provides us with a look at the beloved Alliance city that you may not have seen before. From this angle, it makes you wish that Blizzard would introduce a floating city to the game. Oh, wait a minute.

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I'm not entirely sold on leveling trade skills in World of Warcraft. By leveling up professions you can create armor, weapons, and goods that theoretically benefit your character. With a little luck, you can even make some money from your trade. It usually takes a major investment maximize your professions and get the goods that you want. In most cases I prefer to wait until I've reached the level cap to start professions.

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Bad luck has struck on the denizens in World of Warcraft, namely Shailom from the Area 52 realm. He was able to encounter a certain bug after he transferred a copy of his character.

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You guys will probably recall Hortus' previous announcement regarding a water texture bug that was spotted over at the World of Warcraft Test Realms.

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Felmyst loot table

Blizzard dediced to switch some items from trash mobs to Felmyst such as Borderland Fortress Grips, plus they added several items (Leggings of Immortal Night, Harness of Carnal Instinct) to Felmyst loot table.

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Another week of 2.4 testing is starting ! Obviously the amount of new items/quests is much lower now that most of the content is known, however keep in mind that the Season 4 items are included in this patch and 99% of them are still unknown (see this post for the few items already discovered on PTRs), it wouldn't be surprising if Blizzard decided to activate them on PTRs at some point just to balance a few things. This post might be updated in a few hours depending on how fast I can work with Photoshop ^^

of the Shattered Sun ...
Ever wondered what's the point of leveling your Shattered Sun Offensive reputation to exalted if you don't need the epic jewelcrafting patterns or the shiny Tabard ? I never took the time to talk about it, but there is actually a nice reward for people reaching Exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive : a new title ! The only thing you'll need to complete this quest (beside being Exalted) is a "small" fee of 1000 gold, that's the price to pay to be "............ of the Shattered sun" ! (Screenshot from Elitistjerks Forums)

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