Lane over on WoW LJ pointed us to this article about "Playing to Win" -- the article itself is actually about Street Fighter II, but as Lane points out, the concept could very easily be connected to World of Warcraft. I remember Turpster talking about this on our podcast as well a few weeks ago: playing for fun and playing to win are two completely different things, and the difference between them can put a lot of players at odds.

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Twice a week, our writers will tell you more about themselves, and let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more About the Bloggers.

What do you do for WoW Insider?
I'm a standard issues blogger, reporting on just about everything I can get my hands on. I like to concentrate on raid and high-end PvE issues, since that's where I spend most of my time in game. I've also go a few projects in the work for our sister site, Massively. I think my first article should pop up over there next week (knock on wood)...

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Blizzard recently shrunk down Tauren weapons in World of Warcraft. Like most players, we were rather apprehensive at the end result of the graphical changes and hoped that the weapons would be returned to normal. Thankfully, this is exactly what's going to happen when the next patch goes live.

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With the amount of lore written into World of Warcraft, it's a small wonder that a lot of people enjoy running their own little role-playing fantasies on this epic MMO title.

People over at the WoW Europe forums were definitely excited when Blizzard Poster Vaneras announced that there will be a couple of role-playing tidbits sneaked into the next Blizzcast episode from Blizzard.

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With solid confirmation that Naxx will be "floating" off to Northrend (and not exist in two places at once) also comes a strong hint by Bornakk that they will be removing the ability to get Tier-3 armor pieces along with the rest of the current Naxx loot. Bornakk says that "For players who want the look and the stats of tier 3 armor at level 80, hopefully they are already farming the dungeon for them." This is a very strong indication that post WotLK, the current Tier 3 gear will be no longer available.

Before today it has been pure speculation that this removal of loot would or would not happen. The only time that the WoW Insider staff can think of this happening before (save for the holiday and special events) is with a few old mount models getting changed. And that is nothing compared to entire loot tables being removed from the game. Note that the changes in patch 2.3 to old world loot were just that – changes, not removal.

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Not to be outdone by the WoW iPhone theme, Xtina over on WoW LJ took it upon herself to use those WoW icons to create a theme for the Blackberry. This one's even a little more in-depth -- she even skinned the calling screen (which is actually easy enough to do on the iPhone as well, but we just hadn't seen it before). Plus, the best part is that this one is completely legit -- you just download the file from Xtina's page there, and you can install it using Desktop Manager.

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Regardless of whatever you think of the big Activizzard merger and what it might mean for World of Warcraft (I don't believe it'll hurt a thing, but think what you will), it's going to happen. It's literally official now, as European Union officials have finally approved the merger after several weeks of deliberating on the issue.

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Totem Talk is the column for shamans. This week, Matthew Rossi examines the great flexibility of the shaman class and whether it causes difficulty for the design and play of the average shaman. He's also trying desperately to come up with a joke for the header paragraph but aside from a 'It's over 9000' reference, he's got nothing. But hey, at least it's being posted on the right day this week.

This week, on our way into Hyjal after having given Vashj her dirt nap, I noticed our guild's shamans doing some awesome work for us kiting striders, healing through massive DoT's, and putting out incredible damage on naga's.One of the top DPS on our Vashj kill was an enhancement shaman. An elemental shaman used frost shock to kite the striders and did very well holding aggro. All in all, without our shamans, we wouldn't have gotten her down, and wouldn't have been able to go kick Winterchill and Anetheron in the groins. I've talked before about how important the shaman is for raiding and this week I've really seen it in action. Grounding totems to eat damaging stuns before Vashj can apply them to me, windfury totem to boost our melee (one of our rogues gets very cranky if he has to raid without the enhancement shaman in his group), a variety of boosts to our healing and ranged DPS... shamans bring a huge toolkit to dungeons and raids.

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Last week, Scattered Shots hit the bull's eye on which professions are best for a hunter. Today, we take aim at some interface problems hunters have, and the addons we can use to eliminate them.

A user interface is an ever-evolving work of art. You can use it one way for a long time and then suddenly find one simple addon that lets you change everything and make it much better. Especially with all the problems that show up every patch, I've begun to look at my interface as a constant work in progress. As such, I'm usually in a constant state of getting rid of old addons, enjoying the ones I use now, and looking for new ones that might help me even more in the future. Every choice of what to put in or what to take out is a conscious decision about what will help make my game play smoother, more successful, and more visually interesting.

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PlayNoEvil is a blog that claims to do "MMO security news and analysis" -- they've got an interesting post up trying their best to track gold selling prices over time in various MMOs (the information itself seems to come from MMOBux.com). The World of Warcraft graphs (US seen above, EU on the site) show that for whatever reason, in the US at least, gold prices seem to be dropping. Of course, whether that's driven by low demand (thanks to Blizzard's daily quest implementation and other anti-gold selling mechanics), or high supply, we aren't quite sure.

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Episode 9 of The Guild is up, and it's confrontation time. The guildies meet each other in RL again to take down the bank ninja Bladezz, but yet another boss battle looms deep on the horizon. Y'know, not that we don't love this series (we do), but has there ever been any actual gameplay footage here? Am I the only one that would kind of like to see them in their characters, maybe raiding into Karazhan or wherever else they're raiding?

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Drysc responded strongly to some QQ over at the forums when a poster from Kil'jaeden -- a PvP realm -- ranted about being griefed by high level characters while leveling up. Drysc's uncompromising response? Get some friends and fight back. He reasons that if players roll on a PvP server, they should expect to be griefed as part of the leveling process. It's the same philosophy that has prevented Blizzard from allowing character transfers from PvE to PvP realms. It really only makes sense. If players roll on a PvP server, they shouldn't complain about players from the opposing faction taking advantage of the fact that they're flagged for PvP.

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Raiding warlocks have a very specific role - dealing damage. As we progress further in the high end-raiding game, one thing becomes more and more apparent. Our much-envied range of playstyles diminishes and we seem to be shoehorned, like other classes, into pretty much a single cookie-cutter spec.

The spec in question is destruction or 0/21/40 specifically. This spec capitalizes on the wonderful scalability of shadow bolt and consistently outperforms affliction when good spell hit and crit gear becomes available. For a detailed look at the 0/21/40 build, check out my "A Warlock's descent into Destruction" article.

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Well Fed Buff serves up tasty dishes to boost your HP, stats and appetite – with that special WoW twist, of course.

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Bornakk, who apparently looks like Abe Lincoln, has revealed that Naxx will be an "entry level raid dungeon" in Wrath of the Lich King, and EU CM Vaneras adds that unlike Kael'thas (who exists in two places at once ingame), it will be moving whole hog up to Northrend -- the 40 man dungeon that we have now will no longer exist.

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Griefing, or the act of taking out lower leveled characters and corpse camping them is a phenomenon in Blizzard's World of Warcraft. Many a player have found themselves wondering why others do this since these players don't get anything tangible from performing these acts.

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We've known for a while that we've been getting a gear reset in WoTLK, and just this morning, we've discussed and speculated on how it will affect people as they transition into the 70-80 game, especially alt-o-holics. Here's some news that should strike a lot of people as good: Bornakk confirmed in a thread yesterday that we really won't be seeing quite as large a gear gap in the jump from Burning Crusade to Wrath of the Lich King as we did in the past: No more doubling of stamina values this time, guys.

This should be good news for raiders who feel like their epics don't mean that much anymore (although to be honest, I was using a few of my BWL and AQ40 drops well into my late 60s, so I don't think the gear reset was that bad after all). If the gear jump isn't that bad, your shiny new epics should still work pretty well. Heck, same goes for badge runners. I've suspected for a while that the new Badge of Justice gear was meant to be a partial preliminary gear rest ahead of time, and I'd bet this more or less confirms it: If there's not going to be as much as a jump, these Tameless Breeches might last my druid longer than one might think.

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When a newbie stumbles into World of Warcraft looking for Pokemon, he has no idea what's in store for him. If only those usually helpful NPCs would talk! WoWBeef: Episode 1 - "Why Can't Humans Be Hunters?" is part of a series that will culminate in a 45-minute featurette this summer.

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To tip or not to tip - that is the question. Well, it was the question asked by World of Warcraft player Chareth on Blizzard's forums. Granted, it's not the first time that a WoW forum member asked a tipping-related question. This time, however, the question had to do with in-game tanks and a 51 gp repair bill.

Just like last time, opinions varied between Blizzard forum members. Some maintained that there's no need to if the tank was doing his or her job. Others argued that tanks with that kind of repair bill aren't doing a good job in the first place.

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Every Thursday, Shelbi Roach of The Bronze Kettle guides you in creating WoW-inspired crafts using real world mats with World of WarCrafts.

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It's Beta time!

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In an interview with Gamespy, Blizzard's Tom Chilton and Joong Kim was able to discuss some of the things they were doing with World of Warcraft's Arena Tournament. Chilton was able to go into some detail about what Blizzard was cooking up for players of Arena and about the game in general.

There were actually some notable things that were said in the interview. Joong kim said that the players of WoW actually having a good time with the Arena Tournament. He added that this is a very good indicator of its success.

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Players who like leveling alts - or alt-o-holics - may find leveling in the first few levels of the WotLK expansion difficult.

With the accessibility of epics from badges and Arenas, the average level 70 character is now a far cry from a freshly-minted 70. The gear bar has certainly been raised among level 70s, compared to pre-BC 60s. This has led some to proclaim that "epics are the new blue."

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Europe: Free Character Migration

Due to population differences between some of the highest and lowest populated PvP realms, the following Free Character Migration will be available from April 16th to 22nd:

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Latin American-Spanish Beta Test Starts Now!
Quote from: Eyonix (Source)In preparation for the upcoming Latin American-Spanish version of World of Warcraft, we are excited to invite our players to try out the beta version of the Latin American-Spanish language pack.

To participate, please download the language pack. For additional information, please refer to the FAQ

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Apparently, Blizzard's going way further than just a Willy Toledo commercial to build up support for World of Warcraft's Spanish-speaking community. Moderator Eyonix dropped by the WoW Forums earlier to announce that beta tests have begun for WoW's Latin American-Spanish language pack.

The mod is extending invitations for the MMORPG's regular gamers to try out this beta package, available for download via the announcement thread.

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It's customary for an MMORPG developer like Blizzard to sometimes bring a realm or a service down for maintenance purposes. This time, however, it wasn't a World of Warcraft realm that went down for maintenance; it was the Account Management Page.

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Who says all of World of Warcraft's bugs have to be debilitating? Player Nubrocket reports over at the WoW forums that full Holy-Spec'd paladins are getting access to the Seal of Command ability, a skill found in the job class' Retribution talent tree. 

As Nubrocjket elaborates in the bug report:

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With the initial release of Patch 2.4 for World of Warcraft, changes were made left and right. Apparently, there were some things that weren't included in the known issues list.

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Players who like leveling alts - or alt-o-holics - may find leveling in the first few levels of the WotLK expansion difficult.

With the accessibility of epics from badges and Arenas, the average level 70 character is now a far cry from a freshly-minted 70. The gear bar has certainly been raised among level 70s, compared to pre-BC 60s. This has led some to proclaim that "epics are the new blue."

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