One of the most common difficulties many roleplayers face is that of finding other people to roleplay with. To help overcome this challenge, All the World's a Stage presents a guide to finding roleplayers in three parts: "finding the right realm" for roleplaying, "joining the right circle" of roleplaying friends, and "wearing the right mask" to attract other roleplayers to you.

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Acerba of Cenarion Circle started a pretty fun discussion the other day on her server boards: What type of music would typify various races and cultures of Azeroth? Sure, we all have our soundtracks for when we get tired of the in-game music, and the in-game music itself often has various themes that show again and again music to represent various concepts, but thinking about what music your character would listen to or what sounds you might here around a bonfire at Razor Hill (Well, besides L70ETC) or in a fine mansion in Silvermoon City is a really fun exercise. I'm one who often creates soundtracks for my PnP and MMORPG characters alike in order to understand this, so I find it a useful exercise for us roleplayers, as well.

So what would the cultural music of various races sound like? Tauren, to me, are the easiest to start out with. Looking around their villages and Thunder Bluff, you can see the Native American influences. Even their cultural beliefs and Shamanistic rituals reflect it to some degree. As a result, I can see their music fitting very well as well. I am sure many a Tauren Brave has wooed himself a mate with the Tauren Flute, and I imagine that the Drum Circle is an honored part of the festivities at many a Tauren council or gathering of the Clans.

Dwarves, to me, are definitely users of the Bagpipe. I can definitely see a bonny Wildhammer lass dancing to a highland reel, and when the War of the Three Hammers went down, I am certain the Bronzebeards marched forth with their pipers playing Ironforge the Brave.

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Ah Paris. The sights, the sounds... the 25 stamina bonus? If you're going to Blizzard's 2008 Worldwide Invitational in Paris then you may want to look at Blizzard's new tourist map.

The map outlines some of the more interesting places in Paris that convention participants can visit in their free time. Well, you can't expect to be in the convention 24-7.

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Blizzard has released the Russian World of Warcraft webpage over at their European site. I can't read a darn thing on it, so I'm forced to rely on other's translations of it, and some good old Google Translator action on the press release. A couple interesting things. First, they'll be releasing the fully localized version of Russian WoW in a few months. The second interesting thing is that they're actually looking for some people fluent in Russian to work for them, and this is a good thing since the Russian version of the site isn't nearly as complete as other language's versions of the site. Finally, ignore the translator error given by Google: "Our list of frequently asked questions concerning the withdrawal of Russian version of World of Warcraft." There is no withdrawal, there will be a Russian WoW.

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Many WoW players (and several of our readers) often comment that there is no such thing as a defense cap. This is true in the strict sense that there is no upper limit on how much defense you can have, nor any statistical diminishing returns. However, that's not to say that there's not a point where the utility provided by more defense starts to fall off – so there is a point where the utility given by more defense actually provides a practical diminishing return, and that point is referred to as the defense cap.

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Welcome, troops, to the final stage of your lock-step macro training. This phase is when you will learn all about modifier keys. I had planned to include conditionals in the Run Phase, but that subject will necessitate its own series of posts, so look for that in the future. From here on out, Macro Anatomy will focus more on macro development and specific macros rather than teaching you the basics. In case you missed out on the basics, go check out my Macro Primer, then you can graduate to the Crawl and Walk phases of macro development.

As I said, we'll be taking a look at modifier key, which can extend the functionality of your macros, as well as helping to cut back on how many buttons you are using on your action bar.

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Two bosses enter... but only one will get to leave in WoW Insider's series of fantasy deathmatches. We've scoured the instances of Azeroth and Outland looking for the most interesting bosses Blizzard has to offer us and picked out a group of 32 to pit against one another until we come out with a single winner in the end. And the best part -- you get to tell us who wins.

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After having the chance to actually get out there and start my Egg Hunting, I can confirm that no, there really isn't anything new for the Noblegarden event this year. That's alright though, it entertained me for awhile, and I know for a fact that the Midsummer Fire Festival has a lot more in store.

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A comment left by Argent on my article about the maximum amount of stamina got me thinking. How does player health stack and scale against NPC health? I quoted 17,500 unbuffed health as a good target for maxed unbuffed stamina, which equates to about 22,000 health fully raid buffed (possibly more depending on group, consumables, and talent composition).

So, let's take a look at what some mobs are that have around 22,000 to 23,000 health. Remember, this is as much as a fully equipped tier six warrior will probably have in raid.

• Archaedas, Level 40 Elite, Uldaman
• Princess Theradras, Level 51 Elite, Maraudon
• Timmy the Cruel (Timmeh!), Level 58 Elite, Stratholme Live
• Highlord Omokk, Level 59 Elite, Lower Blackrock Spire
• Magister Kalendris, Level 60 Elite, Dire Maul West
• Maleki the Palllid, Level 61 Elite, Stratholme Undead
• Novice Astromancer, Level 70, Tempest Keep the Eye (pulled in packs around Solarian)
• Culuthas, Level 70 Elite Demon, Netherstorm
  


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I've been looking through patch 2.4's loot tables fairly frequently, and just the other night one piece in particular really jumped out at me. Angelista's Revenge. Yes, good ol' Angelista is back yet again.

There's no lore or backstory for Angelista, she's not really a lore figure at all. Like Foror and Styleen, Angelista is a just a little plug for a Blizzard employee, or friend/family member of a Blizzard employee. We don't know exactly who she is, but it's fun to see all of the signs pointing to her that crop up. Ahn'Qiraj, Stratholme(see above), Blackwing Lair, and now the Sunwell.

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I've talked about the anticipation of 2.4 going live and the pending consequences to your addons package before. Now the folks over at WoWInterface.com have developed an addon survival guide that may help ease the transition to Patch 2.4. With their migration to a more powerful server system and the option to go into ultra-low bandwidth mode, WoW Interface is looking to face the 2.4 addon battle head-on.

Their new Patch 2.4 Survival Guide is a concept that many of you many find useful on patch day, in fact you may find that it changes the way you find and update addons. Although many players (including myself) have made the transition to auto-updaters, this page serves some very unique needs.

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Sometimes you stumble across a nondescript machinima that ends up being really well done. The creator will be a first-timer, but will have picked up on the techniques used by those thoroughly skilled. They might even have video editing skills as part of their real job.

I recently came across one such film, Crossing Over. However, those looking for fancy special effects will possibly be disappointed. lagspikefilm spins the tale of an adventurer that finds himself in some unusual places.

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Ever wonder what became of the old level 60 raid bosses? Does Nef sit and play poker with Rend Blackhand? Who will C'thun laser beam now? Ferana of Draenor-EU revisits the good old days before arenas, adamantite and Monstrous Kaliris with a 2006 picture of Hakkar the Soulflayer eating a Chain Lightning bolt.

Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? Because we'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

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Perhaps you guys have already noticed that when you join 2v2 skirmish queues, you can't leave it. It prohibits you from joining any other queues - a very problematic situation indeed for players in World of Warcraft.

This bug was reported by Billpop from the Draenor realm. He also noted that it's been happening to some his characters in the game.

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We at WoW Insider felt that, in honor of Easter/Noblegarden, we'd go looking for some of the best Easter eggs in Burning Crusade. This is by no means an exhaustive gallery of all the little nods you can find in BC; it's really almost impossible to go anywhere without running into a programmer's sly joke. I had to limit my gallery to things that could be seen by toons who'd outleveled some of the really good quest-related ones ("How To Serve Goblins" was great) or who had ready access to the Blood Elf/Draenei starter areas.

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"The great feast of Noblegarden has long been celebrated by the races of the Alliance and recently adopted by those of the Horde. On this joyous day, it is customary for the nobles and lords from each race to hide coins, candy, and the occasional treasures within special eggs painted to look like wildflowers. These eggs are then scattered around the major cities for the citizenry to find. From heroes to commoners, and everyone in between - the feast of Noblegarden is meant to bring communities together to share the joy of life and friendship."
-The Official Event Calendar

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World of Warcraft players who are awaiting the release of patch 2.4 will be glad to know that Blizzard has opened a new page over at the game's official website dedicated to the said patch, titled "Fury of the Sunwell."

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var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Blizzard_maps_Paris_in_World_of_Warcraft_style'; Blizzard has released an interactive map of Paris, done in the style of World of Warcraft. Paris is the location for the World Wide Invitational 2008, and the map is a real gem. If you click on any of the locations, a tooltip will popup with two facts about it. One fact is real, and one is an in-joke tied to the World of Warcraft.

When I found this, myself and several other writers were laughing out loud at them. While it's not as good as a Wrath of the Lich King map (to quote fellow writer Alex Ziebart, "Holy cow, is that a map for Wrath?" *looks closer* "Oh... it's just Paris. Lame."), it's still pretty darn funny and cool.

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