Last Saturday on the weekly podcast, we used the whole show to take a look at multiboxing. We had multiboxer Xzin on, along with Adam Holisky from WoW Insider, Duncor of WoW Radio, and myself, and we chatted all about this strange and interesting way to play MMO games like World of Warcraft.

• We took a look first at the history of multiboxing, including how Xzin originally got interested in it.
• We examined how exactly it is done, including not only the equipment you need to make it work, but how much multiboxers pay in account fees.
• We talked with Xzin about the limits of PvE multiboxing, including class combinations and how far you can get running a raid group by yourself
• And in the second half of the show, we get into some of the controversy about multiboxing, including whether it's fair for multiboxers to take their characters into PvP, and whether Blizzard will ever change or reconsider their decision that multiboxing is legal
• And finally we talked about the future of multiboxing -- will any MMO game every actually embrace playing multiple accounts at a time as a gameplay mechanic?


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MMO Couples is a new blog about "how people successfully combine online gaming and relationships," and it's a pretty interesting read, whether you're a fan of online gaming or romance in general. It's written by "Gabi," a woman who met her boyfriend in WoW (she tells the story on the site), and while there's not much to read through there yet, it does seem like it might be an interesting look at how couples find themselves in virtual worlds.

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He Said , She Said is a new feature at WoW Insider, which looks at the game from masculine and feminine points of view.

This week David Bowers and Amanda Dean take a look at what it takes to play a female Tauren. We all chose our characters for different reasons, potential class and racial abilities should be primary among them. Many people play only characters of their real-life gender, while others chose their character's gender based on appearance or role-playing needs. For whatever reasons, Tauren females are a vast minority. Amanda believes that in most cases it takes a real girl to roll one of these femmes, what do you think?

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The Darkmoon Faire is in town, and it's on time this month! This time around you'll find it in Mulgore, just outside of Thunder Bluff. For future visits to the Darkmoon Faire, you can always check the official Events Calendar to find out when and where!

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Lariana on Skywall has words of praise for "Heroic Countenance," a new NPC spell in patch 2.4 that unlocks you to the Heroic mode of MrT -- to get it cast on you, you have to complete the instance on Normal mode first by doing a quest to kill of Kael'thas once and for all. Basically, it replaces the Heroic reputation keys, which Lariana says were a much less interesting system than Heroic Countenance.

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In a bold move that is perhaps indicative of the direction Blizzard will be taking with the game and lore progression, Patch 2.4 saw the removal of M'uru from Silvermoon City and the displacement of Lady Liadrin from the chamber in Farstriders' Square. In a scripted event that reveals what happened to the captured Naaru, Lady Liadrin pays a visit to A'dal in Shattrath City, eventually pledging the service of the Blood Knights to the Shattered Sun Offensive. In the blink of an eye, Lady Liadrin become Exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive (where'd she get that quest, I wonder!) and leaves Shattrath wearing one of the coolest tabards in the World of Warcraft.

What does this imply for Blood Elf Paladins? Gameplay-wise, not much. Although I would've welcomed a change in the quests for Horde, the biggest changes were that all the quests that were previously available from Lady Liadrin are now obtained from Lord Solanar Bloodwrath. Obviously moved for logistical reasons, the quests are virtually identical to the ones that Lady Liadrin dispensed. The one noticeable change is in the early quest Claiming the Light from Knight-Lord Bloodvalor. In the original quest, players were to fill a Shimmering Vessel with power from M'uru, whom the Blood Knights used to hold captive. The updated quest now requires the player to draw the lingering energies from the Blood Elf Magisters rather than M'uru, indicating that what remains are mere vestiges of the power that the Blood Knights once wielded.

The salvation of Silvermoon
In the dialog between A'dal and Lady Liadrin, A'dal recounts a prophecy made by the ancient Draenei Velen, where Liadrin is destined to bring redemption to her people. It was slow in coming, although it is a welcome change in Silvermoon City whose inhabitants had, for over a year, been pledging allegiance to an entity the entire player base knew to be a bad guy. It was getting a bit silly, really. In Patch 2.4, subtle changes took place in Silvermoon City. The Arcane Guardians patrolling the city have been reprogrammed to buzz in error when mentioning the name Kael'thas, and certain Blood Knights now declare allegiance to Silvermoon rather than the false prince. Small changes, but it moves the story forward. Even the previously bland and quote-less Lor'themar Theron now says something about Kael'thas' betrayal.

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Any poster that leads off talking about how Feralas is her favorite zone is a friend of mine. Cuppycake (great name there as well) has an excellent post up about questing in WoW (warning: some NSFW language). On the one hand, WoW quests are repetitive -- most of them are either "kill 10 rats" or "be my FedEx guy" -- and they don't tend to tie in to or have lasting effects on the broader story of the game (the current Shattered Sun story excepted).

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Everyone playing Blizzard's World of Warcraft is already anticipating all the neat things to come in the upcoming patches and expansions for the game. However, this probably means that many different things may not properly scale once the new content goes live.

This is one of the bigger concerns running around the WoW forums nowadays. Forum poster Ancientchaos first addressed this issue and forwarded a general query about whether or not Blizzard plans on balancing out any of the supposed scaling problems found in the game.

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There has been some confusion on the use of Hunter's Mark (and its improved version) in World of Warcraft. Thankfully, Blizzard QA Hortus took some time to clarify certain issues regarding this ability.

First off, Hortus discussed what happens once a hunter reapplies Hunter's Mark or its improved version on a character. He said that "once improved hunter's mark is on a target any Hunter's Mark (improved or not) will refresh the duration of the existing mark (not overwrite it)."

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I think my favorite part about a new patch is that it always seems to inject new life into WoW. Don't get me wrong, I love WoW all the time. I think it's a great game. But there's something about a new patch that always seems to invigorate me. There's new stuff to do, maybe a new twist or two to one of the classes I play, or at least to one of the classes I play against. What's even more interesting to me is that it sometimes makes even the old stuff feel brand new.

Take daily quests, for example. Before 2.4, I'd more or less retired from dailies. I had 2 characters exalted with the Netherwing, Ogri'la, and the Skyguard. My Hunter was only about friendly with Ogri'la and the Sha'tari Skyguard when I threw up my hands and just quit. I just got way too fed up with doing the same stuff over and over again, getting knocked out the air by cannonballs and annoying birds, rescuing the same ungrateful prisoner, putting up with Khatie's shameless flirting, and all that. So, I quit. I paid more attention to my sub-70 characters, bought a Blood Elf Paladin to level 59 (only to find that the bracket is dead for PvP on my battlegroup, alas), did dungeon runs, ground some Consortium and Kurenai reputation, and all that good stuff.

Then 2.4 came along. It's really been a new lease on daily life for me. There's a lot of fun new dailies to tackle, sure, but even as I flew my Hunter up to Blade's Edge Mountains the other day to collect Smuggled Mana Cells, I stopped, looked at my map, shrugged, and took a left turn. Soon I found myself interacting with monoliths, dive bombing cannonball stacks, and lassoing Aether Rays like I was a good old fashioned cowgirl - and enjoying every minute of it!

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It seems like there have been free character migrations for Europe constantly for the past few months. Well, this week is no different. Thundgot announced the following free moves, available from today, April 9th, to next Wednesday, April 15th, all for PvP realms (I think):

• From: Frostmane, Grim Batol, Magtheridon, Twilight's Hammer
• To: Bladefist, Dragonmaw, Spinebreaker


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Wil's new license plate, as seen over on WoW Livejournal.

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This is old news really: we all know that there are 10 million of us playing Blizzard's MMORPG juggernaut. In MMOGChart's latest report however, there appears to be a little growth spurt in the early part of this year.

This is surprising when we consider the fact that WoW is three years old. In the video and computer game business, three years is considered "old", even for a game that is constantly updated. Other games would usually see a tapering off in terms of population growth at this stage. Not only is market-dominating WoW bucking the trend, it has actually enjoying a surge in its population!

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(Warning: Given that this is a movie made by Olibith, there's likely something in it that will offend you.)

On the eve of the debut for the much anticipated third movie in the Never Stay Tuned series, I thought I'd prep you with the first two films. NST is about a gnome that can't sleep, so he turns on the TV and channel surfs. We covered the first of the series in July, but I wanted to show off the second part here to refresh your memory.

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Europe: Sunwell Plateau first gate unlocked

Sunwell Plateau first gate just opened (2pm CET) on EU servers.

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While it would seem like common knowledge that PvE to PvP transfers in World of Warcraft currently aren't allowed, it takes a single post to remind us that not everyone reads the transfer agreements and numerous warnings (such as above) that Blizzard gives when they make the switch from a PvP server to a PvE type.

You see, Tinkler's got a problem, and it looks to be one that can't be solved by Blizzard representatives. It seems Tinkler had a character which he leveled up to 70 on a PvP realm, and then he moved to a PvE realm to be with a friend. He wants to move back to his old PvP realm, however, and that's where the problems start.

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Over at the European World of Warcraft official forums, Berzerak from the Trollbane realm reported that he spotted a peculiar thing with his buffs.

According to the player, he found out that while Blood Craze was active, Enrage wasn't. Furthermore, he said that Blood Craze procs and is able to give him back health after getting hit by a critical strike.

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As many a World of Warcraft old-timer (we use the term loosely) will tell you, one of the parts about the old Ahn'Qiraj raids was getting to ride those cool-looking Qiraji bug mounts.

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You might recall, if you've followed WoW Insider in the past few months, that I've been a relatively strong advocate of the making sure naming and RP server policies are enforced and have felt that if the community's going to be made to it, we should get better tools for the job. While I even got in a very productive conversation with Belfaire about it, I'm not holding my breath on a lot of my proposed tools and reforms seeing the light of day. After all, I work for WoW Insider, not Blizzard itself, and hey, not everyone agrees with me on how this stuff should work. Which is cool. Variety is the spice of life and all.

That said, for policy reporting curmudgeons like myself, Wachunga of the Maelstrom server has created a pretty good tool: the NameViolation addon.

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One of the great shames of the Burning Crusade is that new levelers tend to miss out or skip the Plaguelands. They may be more steeped in lore than any other zone in the game, and with the upcoming release (one hopes) of Wrath of the Lich King, they're certainly the most relevant.

Arhianrod from <Solace> on Ysera sends us this skeletal picture from the Ruins of Andorhal, one of the most painful sites in the game to quest in vanilla WoW. Arhianrod suggests that the adult poisoned the child and then killed herself with a knife to spare them both from the encroaching plague or undead attacks.

Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? 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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In light of the recent inquests against our least favorite races, mobs, mob abilities, or tankadin writers, it seems only fitting to ask; what is your least favorite daily quest?

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If you think you're all alone wondering about the details on the Arena Tournament for Blizzard's WoW, well, you're not. Kryos posted three questions over at the official World of Warcraft forums regarding the tourney. Here are his questions:

When will the period practice end exactly?

Does he need to formed a group before the end of the practice period?

If he has three characters, can he have three groups as well or should they just be in one group?

Fortunately, Blizzard blue poster Bornakk was able to answer each and every question mentioned above. For the first one, he said that the practice period will be ending on April 22 when the server maintenance begins.

It actually will be one week longer than the two week period that was originally stated before. For the second question, Bornakk advised that the team should be formed and ready at the end of the practice period and before the Phase 2 of the Tournament.

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Nothing really exciting today for the moment, the 1st gate of Sunwell Plateau will probably unlock today for European Realms and we can expect a first kill from the top guilds *cough*SK ?*cough* here if everything goes well.

Also, nothing is confirmed yet but according to the first rumors the http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com activation a few days ago could be related to the beginning of the very first alpha of WotLK. It will be restricted to developers working on WotLK and a few other people and I doubt we'll get any leaks from that, however it should be followed by the Friend & Family alpha with a lot more people involved. Of course, keep in mind that none of this is officialy confirmed.

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Well folks, today we have a basic lesson in knowing your state's laws. Over on the World of Warcraft Arena Tournament Forums, Vertigan was wondering why Maryland was excluded from eligibility in the Arena Tournament.

Vertigan actually spent some time training on the Tournament Test Realm and was dismayed to find out that he was actually ineligible to play.

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Here on GW, we mostly focus on guild drama, obviously -- every week, we hear about GMs /gquitting with as little style as possible, ninjas cleaning out the guild bank, and friction between guild members. But guilds are really only a part of the ingame drama -- people can find silly things to fight about all over Azeroth. Think the fishing tournament is tame enough to avoid an argument? Think again.

That story, and more, are in this week's GW, which you can read by clicking the link below. And don't forget to submit your own tips to us, whether they be drama, downed, or recrutiing news. Wowguildwatch@gmail.com is the address, and any tips you send to it will be much appreciated.

DRAMA

• LnF (no idea what that stands for) on EU Proudmoore-H finally had enough members again to face Illidan, but after a number of wipes, they had most of the raid drop right around 5%. Eventually it was two raiders, and then just Maeiv herself, but on the final speech, "whoops Illidan disappears" says our tipster, "and never came back. So no loot, no quest finalized, and no respawn. So is this a kill?" He says yes, but I'd say no -- as any mobster will tell you, there's no proof unless you've got a corpse. They're waiting on GM feedback, but my guess is that they'll have to go back in and redo it for it to count.
• More guild-based faction fighting: over on Onyxia, a few Horde guilds got together 3 40man raids to take down Stormwind and Ironforge. Smacks from Dumb Dirty Dogs, we hear, even stayed in IF just for the fishing -- at least until he got caught by Alliance two hours later.
• This isn't exactly guild drama, but "Stranglethorn fishing tournament" drama is almost as good. I agree: "come say that to my toons face, twinker boy," is a pretty silly thing to say in General chat.
• We didn't see it until today, but the folks in Grim Legion on Kirin Tor emailed us this past week with an amazing plan: they wanted to clear out all the Heroics in the game within 24 hours. Doesn't seem too hard (especially if it's not all the same five guys), but it would be interesting to see how long it would take and how it would work. Unfortunately, they never emailed back to say how it went -- if you read this, guys, email us back and let us know what happened, or just send it to the tipline -- that's a much better way to reach anyone other than GW.
• Hitmeplz, former GM of Pandemonium on Windrunner, discovered that a "goodbye forever" post on the guild forums didn't get him enough attention while leaving the game, so he decided to delete everything he could, including the guild forums and DKP. He would have deleted everything, except apparently his deleted his own access to the DKP listings before he could get rid of all of them. So not only is he a total jerk, but he's a failure at being a jerk, too.
• This thread, about two ninjas from Blind Fate on Khaz Modan, seems pretty boring on page one -- the guy is accusing two dudes of ninja-ing while he can't really seem to provide actual, pictoral proof (in the guild log, all that shows up with the withdrawals is "NULL," because the two have already transferred). But page 2 redeems the thread completely -- one post after the original accuser decides he's said enough and the issue is settled, the accused shows up to stir up the pot completely again. After that, his old guild shows up, and things go downhill from there. Great drama.
• Kin and Destination Noob on Azuremyst were caught cheating in the Arena. This kind of idiocy is rampant, unfortunately.


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Attention US gamers onBlizzard's World of Warcraft: the first gate leading to the Sunwell Plateau has now been opened, making Eredar Twin, Grand Warlock Alythess and Lady Sacrolash fair game to any and all strong adventurers.

The twins will wait just beyond Sunwell Plateau's First Gate, Agamath. They will stand in the way of anyone who wants to advance to the Second Gate, Rohendor.

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Blizzard's World of Warcraft gamers are complaining that the Nightfall Battlegroup is experiencing a severe downtime. What makes this worse for all affected parties is that WoW Arena Tournament 2008 is upon the horizon. It's that time of year for some serious player-versus-player (PvP) action.

Blizzard blue poster Vaneras has just acknowledged the downtime for the Nightfall Battlegroup. No reasons were handed out, just some sympathy for the ill-timing. Vaneras assures them that Blizzard is out to fix it.

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"[World of] Warcraft has peaked," said Jack Sorenson, head of development at THQ. THQ, the gaming studio currently developing the sci-fi themed MMO Warhammer 40k, is not planning to take on Blizzard's phenomenal MMORPG, but instead intends to compete with it when World of Warcraft enters its downward slope. He added:

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If your uber guild has freed Kalecgos, beaten Brutallus, and felled Felmyst, and you've been a little bored, here's some good news for you: Agamath, The first Sunwell Plateau gate is now opened. This means that the Eredar Twins, Grand Warlock Alythess and Lady Sacrolash, are now fair game. Good luck to all the guilds aiming for a world first!

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