It's time for another music video madness for the usually stoic World of Warcraft crowd. Last time had us headbanging to the tune of "Pretty Fly (For a Draenei)," and this time the Rogues grab the spotlight in Blizzard's new Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain music video contest, featuring their new tune "Rogues Do It From Behind."

Interested parties can join in the fun by making a music video of "Rogues Do It From Behind" using in-game footage from World of Warcraft. The submitted videos cannot exceed 50 MB in size, and should be encoded in .wmv, .mov, or .avi formats.

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Once you hit Outland and begin to surf through the materials required to not only reach 375 in your given profession, but then to proceed through making your epic sets, you might start feeling a tad dizzy. One of the main reasons for this across all crafting professions is primals.

As an example, let's consider the Ebon Netherscale pieces from Dragonscale leatherworking. In order to make the breastplate, bracers and belt, you will need, among other things: 36 [Primal Fire], 36 [Primal Shadow] and 3 [Primal Nether]. In other words, 360 [Mote of Fire] and 360 [Mote of Shadow], and this only once you've reached 375.

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This week on PLP we're covering a reader request: RetPallyJil sent us a note and said that we should cover this much-maligned mace. So here you go: the Earthshaker, hated by all guilds who've ever run Molten Core back in the day.

Name: Earthshaker (Wowhead, Thottbot, Allakhazam), a.k.a. "Shardshaker" and/or "The MC Hammer"
Type: Epic Two-Hand Mace
Damage/Speed: 175-263 / 3.50 (62.6 DPS)
Abilities:

• Chance on hit: Knocks down all nearby enemies for 3 seconds. Which is actually kind of fun, especially in PvP, and the proc goes off pretty often, too. Radius of the proc is 5 yards (melee range), and one cool thing about it is that there's no limit to the number of enemies it hits -- as long as they're in that range, they get stunned for 3 seconds.
  
• Increases attack power by 22.
• As RetPallyJil says, this weapon is actually most famous for being "the single most unilaterally and unfairly unloved and underrated weapon ... ever." There are a number of reasons why this weapon is so hated, but we can start with the low DPS -- never good for a two-hander, and while the proc sometimes makes up for not, it doesn't work well enough for a min-maxer. Plus, just who's supposed to use this weapon? Most people who were wielding two-handers pre-BC were wielding something much more useful, and the stun was more of a novelty than anything else.
• But the number one reason why this mace was so hated is probably just where it dropped -- as you can see below, it came from a boss in Molten Core. So imagine you finally get forty people together, finally organize them enough to down a couple of bosses, get to a place where (for some people) your first Tier 1 set piece might drop, and then... this "novelty" weapon. Didn't rub a lot of people the right way, and many, many shards were made with this weapon.

How to Get It: Drops from Magmadar in Molten Core, which, like I said, is probably one reason why people hate this thing so much -- if it had come from anywhere that didn't require 40 people and a few weeks of raiding, people probably would have appreciated the great proc a little more. Then again, back then, there weren't too many places to get epics anyway, and ... but I digress.

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Bornakk announced today that free character transfers are available for the following realms:

• Illidan
• Mal'Ganis
• Sargeras
• Tichondruis
• Warsong
  


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Things have been pretty slow around Addon Spotlight this week, which can be attributed to a brutal set of finals for yours truly. I was thinking it would be great if there was an addon for life that I could simply click to remove the Finals debuff. Unfortunately, there isn't anything yet, although I'm waiting for one of you savvy developers to come up with something. (Hint hint, wink wnk)

However, there is an addon that can make removing debuffs in World of Warcraft easy and efficient. Decursive 2.0 is a lightweight, subtle addon that holds great power. This mod has been around, in a couple different variations, for quite some time. In fact, it was one of the first addons I installed. Since then it has become as much a part of my user interface as any of the default tools.

Decursive 2.0 configures itself to your class and will work straight out of the box. It handles anything you can cleanse, allowing you to use it with little or no configuring on your part. Keep reading find out what Decursive 2.0 can do for you.

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After my weekly dose of Battlestar Galactica* the WoW Insider team will be logging onto the Arena Tournament Server for some hot arena action. What's hot about it you ask? Why our 3-11 record! Also hot is the spec I'll be going with - an actual honest to God Mortal Strike build.

In all seriousness, we've got a great team of people getting together that are starting to learn to play with each other. Our record will improve, and we'll have some fun while playing some great matches. So if you haven't already signed up for the Arena Tournament (it's only $20), go do so now and come over and fight your favorite authors!

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The WoW Insider Show returns to the virtual airwaves tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm EST as usual, and this show is going to be a good one: not only will Turpster and I be on, but Eliah Hecht (he of the great Death Knight review posted recently) will appear via voice, as will the one and only Matthew Rossi. And we'll be chatting about all the news in the last week of Warcraft, including but not limited to that silly rabbit who tried to trick the GMs, Naxx maybe going bye-bye, and Chilton's nonsense about nostalgia.

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WoW Insider serves up a smattering of reader comments from the past week, from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Readers picked some fairly off-beat topics to wax loquacious about this week. Join [1.Local] as we chew the fat over those conspiratorial, Horde-centric folks at Blizzard ... the controversy (or non-controversy?) of Arena point selling ... the virtues of dedicated banker characters ... and what we thought was a really interesting idea for PvP-oriented crafting.

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Do you guys still happen to remember last year's humorous Toyota Tacoma commercial spoof set in Blizzard's World of Warcraft? Well, it's back for another claim to fame as it recently found itself nominated in the 12th Annual Webby Awards.

The video was made infamous when espanol20 made an amusing machinima video depicting Onyxia facing up against a Paladin who just happened to have a Toyota truck as his epic mount. It certainly elicited a lot of chuckles when it was first aired nearly a year ago. The Toyota Tacoma commercial was entered under Online Commercial category of the yearly awards ceremony.

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Blizzard is offering yet another round of free character moves between realms for World of Warcraft players who feel that their current realm is a bit overcrowded. This round will begin today and will end on Friday, April 25.

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Old school World of Warcraft players have been asking more diverse instances when Blizzard's Wrath of the Lich King comes out.

While they enjoy the more linear dungeons that came in-vogue when The Burning Crusade came out, they also long for dungeons with multiple paths of progression to get to the main boss.

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Yesterday, the official World of Warcraft website announced a new Blizzard-sponsored contest to accompany Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain's new song Rogues Do It From Behind.

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Our friends at Blizzplanet sent along a mysterious little tip. Diablo3.com is not actually a Blizzard site (at least currently) -- it appears to be somehow affiliated with Blizzplanet's network (there are also links to WoW Radio, so we're checking with them to see what's up as well). But on both Diablo3.com and Blizzplanet, there is now a countdown leading up to thirteen days from now, which lands us squarely on May 1st. On Blizzplanet, there is a note that says "The Church of the Triune will be shaken in..." On Diablo3.com, the message is much more practical: "The number of days until half the web links to Diablo3.com. But why???"

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors is kinda grossed out by the innards just falling out of that big dead guy in the picture there. Tanking in Hyjal is fun but also kinda gross, and Matthew Rossi can't say he enjoys all the intestines falling all over the place. If they could cut back on that it would be great..

It's well known that I don't think of warriors as a hybrid class. The reason for this is, every single class in World of Warcraft can perform in a damage dealing role, as part of the means towards making soloing possible in the game. Not one class doesn't have some sort of 'DPS' spec, from Priests to Warriors to Paladins, and many classes (the ones who combine DPS and CC) have multiple damage trees. Another way to look at it would be to argue, as I have in the past, that there are four roles in World of Warcraft (damage, tanking, healing, and crowd control) and that every single class is a hybrid of at least two of these functions. Since this is debatable, I prefer to define as 'hybrids' the three generally accepted classes of Shaman, Paladin and Druid. (Clearly, there's no real 'right' or 'wrong' to this, a strong case could be made for the hybrid nature of any class, I'm just explaining my point of view.)

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var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Top_WoW_guild_to_stream_live_raid_on_the_hardest_content'; Nihilum, in conjunction with Xfire, will be streaming their Sunwell Plateau raid on April 30th live to internet. This is an amazing opportunity for raiders around the world to see how one of WoW's top guilds raids high end content – unedited and uncut.

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Lauren of the Mystic Worlds Blog has a new post up called "Why we Solo in MMOs," offering her perspective on why, over many years and many MMOs, she has always tended to ignore the solo game and instead go it alone. While I'm not against grouping at all -- I was very active in the 40 man raid game, and tend to run Heroics around once a week and Karazhans around 1.5 times a week across my 3 70s -- I've always felt that the solo game has a valid spot in MMORPGs, and I've often indulged in it myself. In fact, I'd bet that most WoW players do so on a regular basis these days, whether leveling up or doing their dailies.

She rattles off the usual list of reasons for going solo -- having a weird schedule, needing to take frequent "real life" breaks, not having enough time to go LFG for a dungeon, unwillingness to deal with the infamous horrible PuG group -- then takes it a step further. She believes that many people use these types of statements as excuses or defense against people who can't understand why they wish to solo in a multiplayer game, or actively flame them for it, and that the real reasons are a lot less complicated.

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Now that Baron Soosdon has landed a comfy job as Community Manager at Machinima.com, he has time to make lots of movies -- or trailers, at least! His next project is a cross-game video, Kake Buk Island, using World of Warcraft and Unreal Tournament 2004. There is an extensive list of guest voice actors tied to the project, including Drewbie (Insert cameo joke here!), Olibith, Tuesday Smith, and Vilaeryn. Since this movie seems to have a plot, yet he doesn't describe it to us, let's make one up for him!

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It Came from the Blog is now recruiting. We are a fun guild that is looking for casual members. We are always happy to help... when we're not on our mains on our regular servers. If you are interested, PST.

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As you may recall, during yesterday's Around Azeroth, I requested submissions for today's Glitchstravaganza -- a celebration of all things glitchy in WoW. The response was so good that it was difficult picking out the top five. I gave consideration to UI placement, uniqueness of the bug, and overall visual impact of the picture. I cropped a couple, as we had some technical difficulties with the gallery on this one and had to rely on the smaller shots instead.

Finally, we had five photos that dealt with five different bugs. An honorable mention goes to Fulminate of Dragonmaw-US, who sent in the sixth-best bug: the arakkoa to the right of us, who appears to have mated with a member of the Consortium and gone into a sort of half-existence.

Ready to move on to the top five? Read on past the jump for the contenders, and the final poll, where you can pick your favorite of the featured glitches (including the first one.) Polling continues until April 24; the winner will be honored next Friday.

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While looking over the new "fake" pet skills page at Petopia earlier today, one of the biggest things that struck me is that the whole Thorns skill that the temporary Crab pets get for the lowbie Hunter taming quests would be a great thing for normal Crab pets to get. Right now, They're stuck learning nothing but Claw, placing them right near the bottom of the pet pantheon - very close to Sporebats, who can't learn any special abilities at all.

My two high level Hunters tamed a Carrion Bird and a Boar, respectively, so I'm lucky enough to have a good selection of skills to use, but I think there should be more options for people who love their offbeat pets like Sporebats or Hyenas or Crocs. They can even use some of the old rumored alpha skills for pets that popped up around the time of Burning Crusade's alpha. I'm hoping that Blizzard shows more types of Hunter pets some love in WoTLK with a wide selection of new skills, be it thorny shells for Crabs, a Cannibalism-type skills for Raptors, or anything else that lets us see Hunters fighting alongside fewer Cats and Ravagers (or in the case of arenas, Scorpids).

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Having trouble trying to find the cursor on your World of Warcraft GUI the minute the action gets intense?Then you may have the same problem as player Nethermind, who's asking if there's a way to make the cursor contrast more with the background screen.

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If you were asked to choose between the Horde faction or the Alliance faction in Blizzard's World of Warcraft, which side would you choose?

That was the question that WoW player Talle threw at Blizzard forum members recently. Players from both sides of the equation were quick to respond. 

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When you've met with success in one endeavor, it's only natural to want to pursue another one. That's what Tokyopop and Blizzard will be doing, in fact.

The two companies have announced a three-year plan that involves two of Blizzard's most popular franchises: World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2. Tokyopop and Blizzard said that the success of the manga series Warcraft: The Sunwell Trilogy inspired the idea.

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Naxxramas in Wrath of the Lich King

A little more information has become available regarding Naxxramas in Wrath of the Lich King, which we would like to share with you:

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L70 Elite Tauren Chieftain Music Video Contest! Rogues do it from Behind !
The Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftains have just released their latest hit: Rogues Do It From Behind! In honor of this occasion, they would like to invite you to create a music video for their newest song. So, grab your movie cameras, head out into the wilds of Azeroth and Outland, and film some sneaky rogue action!
Quote from: Blizzard (Source)We invite you to participate in the Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain Music Video Contest. Simply create a music video using footage from World of Warcraft and the original song, "Rogues Do it From Behind" and submit it to us, via our submission page. Videos can be no bigger than 50 megabytes in size and must be recorded in .WMV, .MOV, or .AVI formats. The winning videos will be featured on our official website and the following prizes awarded:

    * Three (3) Grand Prize winners will each receive one (1) Logitech G51 5.1 Surround Sound speaker set.
    * Five (5) First Place winners will each receive one (1) Logitech Digital Precision PC Gaming headset.

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World of Warcraft gamer Rumpenissen asked Blizzard whether levelling guide books are allowable or not. The concerns? Rumpenissen is thinking that the e-books may be breaking rules and that gamers who can't afford these books may be at a disadvantage.

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Since the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, plans to raise the level cap in Blizzard's MMORPG to 80 and bring a slew of new equipment, there are worries regarding game balance issues that may arise. Case in point, a player on the WoW Forums who expressed concern over characters becoming statistic powerhouses.

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One of the less sought after truths behind countless mysteries in Blizzard's World of Warcraft, that of the Infinite Dragonflight in the Caverns of Time, may actually be unwrapped when Wrath of the Lich King goes live. Or at least, people want such to happen.

Over at the World of Warcraft forums, intrigue is building up as players discuss the Infinite Dragonflight. As a Dragonflight trying to alter the past, little is known about the grim creatures which appear on two instances set in the Caverns of Time.

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Sometimes it's just not your day. Some people consider themselves to be just plain unlucky. Gainus of Icecrown posted a thread on "Murphy's Law," as it applies to World of Warcraft. Murphy's law states "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way." This particular adage is regularly applied in situations of irony and coincidence, in much of Western Culture.

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