Those who have been playing World of Warcraft since before the first expansion was released ( cough the beginning of time cough ) would remember the changes that took place after The Burning Crusade went live. The weapons and items quality change for example. Some players in the WoW Forums are wondering whether the same thing will happen on the next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.

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You've got friends, or at least you tell people you do. In fact, through your days of rolling PUG's, random premades and adding that Resto Shaman who saved your behind in STV, you've got a long list of friends. If you're anything like me, it can be weeks before one of your randomly added friends checks in with you, giving you plenty of time to forget why they were your friend in the first place.

Enter AuldLangSyne, an addon that combines the functionality of CT_PlayerNotes and FriendsFacts. I have also been able to replace Fubar_GuildFu and Fubar_FriendsFu with this one, so it has come in quite handy. Let me just take a second to show my deep appreciation for developer's who add Fubar or Titan Panel embeds to their addons.

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Phase 3 is now in full swing on many servers, including mine, and this time, we're working on taking the Sun's Reach Harbor as well as opening up the long awaited badge loot vendor. How do the quests stack up this time around? Does the near flawless run for great dailies from Quel'danas continue? I've had a few days to try out the runs, and I have to say that there's a few rough spots, but you can continue to grow your list of dailies with confidence as the new phases come on.

Taking the Harbor

If there's an alternate name you can give to phase 3, it's probably "the Elf-killing phase." You can even claim you're killing Elves when you kill the Naga for Smith Hauthaa - heavily mutated Elves, yes, but Elves all the same. To start with, there's the plain old straight up Blood Elf-killing quest Taking the Harbor. The nice thing about this quest that, while the Harbor is generally camped, very few people consider heading over to Dawnstar village (to the west of the first quest area) and ripping things up there.

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Let's get one thing straight: in Eye of the Storm, capturing towers is more important than capturing the flag. I don't care how shiny and cool the flag is, that's not where the points are coming from. Well, okay, maybe some of it, but if you don't have any towers to begin with, the flag isn't worth squat. For the past week or so, I've seen a disturbing trend from the Horde on my Battlegroup -- there seems to be a growing fascination with fighting at the middle of the map, right where the flag is.

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We all have pieces of gear that we don't want to do away with. For me, it's mainly my Quel'Serrar sword – thousands of gold spent on it pre-bc makes it (adjusted for inflation) the most expensive item I've ever purchased. I'm never going to be getting rid of it.

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With the weekend slowly settling in, now would be a good time to kick back and relax with a good movie... a World of Warcraft movie, that is. Nihilum's very own guild leader Kungen shows off his superior tanking skills as he and the rest of the guild take on the second boss Brutallus, found on the Sunwell Plateau.

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The release of patch 2.4 was epic by anyone's standards. New content accessible to every level 70, new items, new high end raids, and a new instance. Magisters' Terrace is the newest addition to the WoW 5 man instance family, and has a lot of great goodies in it for the intrepid traveler.

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Avast! anti-virus, which is used by millions of people around the world, recently upgraded to version 4.8. Unfortunately, it seems that this upgrade has caused many WoW players to have a drastically lower play experience.

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People of the  World of Warcraft forums were rather apprehensive with all the talk on the general stability issues of the Arena Tournament Realm. Forum poster Leiferio first noted this problem and called out Blizzard to make a statement regarding the matter.

Fortunately, it didn't take too long for Blizzard to respond to the query. Community Manager Eyonix was quoted to have said that: "The arena tournament realm is currently very stable and you should experience little to no lag".

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V'Ming, a lock who spends his time between Arenas laughing ominously in AV, tanking Olm with his own minions and pondering troll fashion from Zul'Aman, is away on a hellish vacation. He won't be able to brag about 8k Shadow Bolts this week because, as Amanda noted, he's acting as a practice piñata for the WoW Insider weekend interns.

Vims is away this week, so I took the opportunity to sneak into his Warlock's sanctum and play with his toys. For this week's Blood Pact, we're going to take a look at the notorious SL/SL spec that's so popular in PvP. SL/SL stands for Soul Link / Siphon Life, the two talents which are the cornerstones of this build and define its playing style.

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Every week, Arcane Brilliance strives to make us all a bit Mage-ier. This week, we shine our spotlight on two stats every Mage should have, but far too few of us know enough about: Spell hit rating and spell haste rating. Last week we saw that patch 2.4 has made these two ratings a bit easier to obtain on gear, and this week we'll find out why that should make the Mage nation a happy place.

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The story of the amnesiac human, Lo'Gosh will continue in the sixth issue of the World of Warcraft graphic novel series, which WildStorm has announced will be on sale this April 16.

This issue will, of course, still be written by the immortal Walter Simonson. As always, the issue is 32 pages long, and will be available for US 2.99.

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Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Kara or BT, everyone can get in on the action and down them some bosses. This week, a bear talks about... bears.

Since the introduction of Zul'Aman many raiding guilds have been fascinated by the time trial; defeat all four animal bosses within 45 minutes and the last prisoner will gift you with a scary-looking bear mount, plus the adoration of your entire server. This article will take you through preparing for, and succeeding at, the Zul'Aman timed run.

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As many servers approach Phase 3, we're going to be one step ahead as always and make sure you're all prepared the day Phase 4 hits. It'll be some time before anyone reaches it I'm sure, but if you're anything like me, you always want to know what is on the horizon.

Phase 4 concludes the taking of Quel'Danas and the progressive content, thus some of the quests are simple things like putting the finishing touches on the new Shattered Sun Stronghold. However, there are still a few things that need some work. This phase will focus on an Alchemy Lab and a super cool statue to plant in the middle of the freshly taken town.

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Submissions are starting to trickle in to our inbox, and some of them are quite surprising. Brysan wrote in about his machinima experience, outlining the journey from wee newblet to intermediate hobbyist. However, he'd like some constructive feedback on his latest piece, a PvE video of his guild's Illidan Stormrage kill.

Having graduated from Windows Movie Maker up to Sony Vegas and WoW model viewer, he wanted to make a video that was more artistic than boastful. Brysan managed to come up with an entertaining storyline with what I felt was a decent voiceover and nice visuals. Since he's looking for ways to improve, I'll note that sometimes the lipsynching is off, the aspect ratio changes randomly, and the metal soundtrack made me want to cry, but that last one is more personal than anything. Make sure to include credits for any music you're using in the future!

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If you sent in an essay for Blizzard to review so you could get into the Arena Tournament, we've got a small tidbit of info for you: you're going to have to be patient.

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Prancing around Quel'Danas for my daily quests day in and day out has reminded me of something I've very dearly missed. Weather! It rains very frequently in Quel'Danas, and combined with all of the action going on around the island, it has a very strong feel of being alive.

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When CSI: Stormwind comes around here in about three hours, all they'll find is a bloody axe and a manifesto about the effects of industrialized forestry on the human condition. Social, of the guild <FortyTwo> on Whisperwind-US, captured (but only in a screenshot) this peon that has had just about enough of chopping wood for ... what is it, now, three and a half years straight? Might be time for a proletariat revolution, or at least a new union leader.

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For some reason on my home server, Eldre'Thalas, when folks see a tank standing around in Shattrath without anything to do, they immediately start sending tells asking if I want to go tank such-and-such an instance for them. I don't mind it when my friends or guild mates do it, but it does get a little annoying when complete strangers do it constantly.

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2.4 Known Issues List

Hortus is maintaining a rather long list of 2.4 issues that will be fixed in a future patch.

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Epics replaced by Greens in WotLK
Items in WotLK will be powerful enough to fill the gap between high-end raiders and new players who want to join them once they're level 80, however the difference shouldn't be as big as what we saw between BC and WoW Classic because it looks like Blizzard doesn't plan to change any major stat like what they did with Stamina.
Quote from: Bornakk (Source)One of the goals in expansions is to level the playing field a bit for players and we like providing extra opportunities for players who (just as an example) want to get to high-end content but are currently far behind on things.

Keep in mind that the availability of higher level items is greater than it was before the launch of The Burning Crusade.

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 While a lot of World of Warcraft players are anticipating the release of the Wrath of the Lich King update, Blizzard forum member Shiv is thinking of doing the reverse. Shiv wondered if there's any way to downgrade a WoW account back to its pre-Burning Crusade form. Shiv also mentioned preferring not to sell the current account and purchase a new one.

Majority of the Blizzard forum members offered the same basic response: no, it's simply not possible to do so. Two WoW players, Progenitor and Guus, spoke of alternatives. Progenitor suggested that Shiv pay UK 8 "for a code of Ebay" and then download the game client from Blizzard. Guus recommended that Shiv buy the basic World of Warcraft client from stores - the price of which is about that of one month playtime.

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If you're planning to participate in World of Warcraft's Arena Tournament, then we have some important news for you. It'd be a good idea for you to get used to using the basic User Interface and select custom macros to get through the tournament, because Eyonix mentioned that you'll have to make do with the basics once the live event happens.

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