One of the things I really don't like about World of Warcraft, or any other MMORPG, is the waiting that is involved in getting a group together. This can be a real problem in raid environments, where it often times can take half an hour or more just to get the group set. I've been a raid leader before, so I know that they are busy and there isn't much they can do about the time we all just sit there on vent chatting with each other.

One of things that I've recently came across to help ease the wait is a little in-game game of bricks, a.k.a. breakout. Breakout is the game that I used to play back in elementary and middle school on the old Macs* where you'd bounce a ball around, breaking (you guessed it) bricks. The ball is bounced off a small platform that you move with your mouse. Pretty simple, and mindlessly entertaining.

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All the World's a Stage is a source for roleplaying ideas, commentary, and discussions. It is published every Sunday evening.

WoW Insider is not Mount Sinai, and I am certainly not the Burning Bush, but there is a need for a clear, concise list of "do's and don'ts" which new and experienced roleplayers can refer to in times of need. I therefore submit the following commandments as a guide and a reference to roleplayers throughout the World of Warcraft.

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Running 5 man instances is the bread and butter of gearing up any PvE character. There are some short instances, and some longer ones. There are some bosses that are ready for fun, and others that like to die fast. Many people consider it a universal truth that all you need to do these instances is solid crowd control. When you're faced with a pack of six or seven level 70 elite mobs, the last thing you want is one or two of them running loose.

But what can you do if you don't have any CC available? Are you just out of luck? Nope! There are a few tricks to running instances without CC, and if you pay close attention, you won't miss the lack of sheeps at all.

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There have been a few records set recently. Some are people claiming to have leveled to 70 the fastest, some are groups of players downing a boss on the PTR before anyone else in the world, while others are PvP records yet to be made. Everyone likes to say "we broke a record." It makes them feel good, gives them a sense of purpose and measurable accomplishment, and generally will put a smile on their face. Even I've done that here at WoW Insider occasionally: "Hey, we had a record number of hits that day, cool!" (No, I'm not going to say when that was, I'll leave it up for you all to comment on and guess.)

With all these record breaking accomplishments, it begs the question: do they really mean anything? Does it matter if you've leveled up to 70 in the time that most people are still working on getting the Deadmines quests done? Let's take a look at what records do and do not provide.

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Very early in patch 2.4's progressive development on the PTR, the ability to send raid icons over chat was implemented. The syntax is pretty simple, you place the name of the icon in those funny looking brackets, like so: {circle}, {star}, etc.

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Booty Bay's Fishing Contest started just an hour ago. I don't participate every week, far from it. Once a month, tops. I've been doing this since the contest started, and I just can't seem to pull off a win.

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If it were up to me, I'd call this "forum post of the month," but I guess March is still young and that would probably be premature. At 2,600 words, this is one of the longest forum posts I've read in its entirety, but it was entirely worth it. In fact, it was so well-written that it didn't feel like a wall of text at all. Alright, but what is it about?

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Hortus, the spinning whirly jig wearing gnome, announced on the forms today that the PTR will be closed until further notice. This closure is in order to encourage more people to test out the TTR, which will remain open for the time being.

This is important news. First, it signifies that Blizzard is at least comfortable in stopping the testing of PvE content. This might not be the best news for those that were still engaged in PTR activities; or for those that think there are still serious concerns regarding the content and class changes. We might be seeing the Druid Cyclone nerf stay.

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It's pretty rare we get a geek trip like this. IGN's Jessica Chobot got to take a tour of the Blizzard studio, giving us a peek at the insides of the company that gave us franchises like Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo.

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The Burning Crusade has a lot going on in it. In the very first zone you run into the Burning Legion, the Ilidari, the Fel Orcs, the Broken, the Forge Camps, the Mag'har, the Arakkoa, and so much more. This is a pleasant change from so many Azerothian zones seeming very static, fighting the same type of thing from one end of the zone to the other.

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When I first saw this video, I couldn't believe how horrible the rapping was, or why it was in such a low voice. Curious, I checked out the music video that it was parodying, Concentrate, by Xzibit. It turned out that Nyhm's version is actually better by a long shot.

Nyhm, rebounding from his disastrous Pretty Fly for a Draenei, decided to make a video, Assassinate, for the rogues. Apparently, he likes to hide out on alts and has grown to love the class. The machinima is designed to fit around the song. While not flashy, it does the job just fine.

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If you have been following Macro Anatomy, you should be comfortable with macro basics by now. If not, you may want to consider taking a moment to review what we have covered thus far. For the rest of you, welcome to the next installment, where we'll be covering a commonly used, but powerful macro type, the /castsequence command.

This slash command will allow the user to specify a given sequence of commands, tied to a single button. As a reminder, this will not facilitate one-click sequences, but will require you to click or press a bound key for each iteration in the sequence. This also means you'll be timing your input in step with the Global Cooldown.

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Player Cosmokramer of the Vanquish guild on Kul Tiras realm was slogging through the fens of Zangarmarsh when he spied this waterfall. Being a gnome, he knew it he had to take his opportunities to bathe where he could get them.

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It's Sunday morning, and if you're not sleeping in after raiding with your guild until 5 a.m., then allow us to deliver "teh funneh". This week's selection is small, but competitive, and includes a new strip from The Night Council.

• Zergball by Action Trip Comics. Sure, we can't play Zerglings, but we wish. Besides, just queue up Arathi Basin and you'll learn what it means to Zerg.
• Mana Berries from Dark Legacy Comics.
  
• There can be only one from Shakes and Fidget.
• Mage Pattern Baldness from Monkey Punchers.
• From The Night Council comes Stable Slots. Thanks TomWolf!


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In World of Warcraft, Priests are supposed to still able to cast Pain Suppression even if they are already silenced. Apparently, that's not the case anymore in the game as posted by Twoshea from the Echo Isles realm.

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Here's some interesting news that you guys would probably find useful in Blizzard's World of Warcraft. We received word that the Season 4 items you guys are seeing have been modified by the developers.

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In World of Warcraft, Priests are supposed to still able to cast Pain Suppression even if they are already silenced. Apparently, that's not the case anymore in the game as posted by Twoshea from the Echo Isles realm.

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I've noticed something a bit unexpected and confusing over the last few months: apparently, the way my server generally deals with loot in 5-mans is strange. Rather than rely on the in-game roller, we pass on all loot, and let people call need on a piece. Then we all roll need or greed on the stuff. If there's an enchanter in group, they can disenchant the loot for the winner on a greed roll and hand over a shard. Lately, though, since Blizzard started allowing server transfers, it seems a lot of the new 70s have come in and told us that this method is a bit weird. Why don't we just use the in-game rolling system? Why should enchanters be expected to automatically be willing to shard gear for non-enchanters without compensation? These are questions that are really alien to most of our server community, but there they are.

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