We've all done it. You're sitting there, grinding away, minding your own business. Or (more likely) you're in a city, leveling up a profession or selling some things at the AH. And then, over the world chat it comes: "Can anyone help me sign my charter?"

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Vhiari has released some interesting stats about the Arena Tournament realm over on his Blogspot site. What he did is take the top 5000 (due to "Armory limitations," he says) personal ratings in each bracket, and then charted them according to classes. Keep in mind that this is the Arena Tournament realm (the live realm data is also available separately), so this is more an indication of what players are doing so far on the tournament realm rather than class viability in day-to-day situations.

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I wrote about dropping Mining to take up Enchanting, and I'd like everyone to know it's going fine. I'm now at 357, being patient with the last few points to 360, opting to sell enchantments and save what little money I have after blowing quite a bit on all the materials up to 300+. Of course, now I feel somewhat compelled to acquire Enchanting formulas just so I have more options to use as I level up. The tips are a nice bonus.

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If you're interested in keeping track of the 3v3 Arena Tournament, You can look at Vhiari's breakdowns, sure, and good ones they are. But there's also another resource that should come in handy: The official ladder listings right on the official Armory. By choosing the Coliseum 1 battlegroup, you can see the rankings for the Tournament Realms. The current top 3v3 team, Outrageously Better Pros, Is a Priest/Rogue/Druid team, although the Druid has no games played. Maybe they used to be Priest Mage Rogue, which is a pretty strong combo these days.

It should be fun to watch these rankings as the tournament progresses, both to see what class and spec makeups stay near the top, and to see what outrageous and silly names people can come up with for their teams -- without breaking the naming policy, that is.

What's interesting to me is that despite the fact that the Tournament itself is 3v3 only, the 2v2 and 5v5 brackets are still in full swing, with quite a few teams. I suppose this is a sign that people really do like the idea of a good solid PvP only realm to duke it out with high powered characters to prove their worth. I have to wonder if Blizzard is watching those brackets as closely as they're watching the 3v3 bracket, or if this is a sign that they may make these arena practice realms more permanent in the future.

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There is probably no name more reviled in the realm of film than Uwe Boll -- he's the man behind such horrible games-to-films as House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark (the latter of which, I am somewhat embarrassed to say, I tried to watch). And while it isn't really news that Uwe Boll isn't directing the World of Warcraft movie (we already knew, from back at Blizzcon, that Legendary Pictures is handling it, and Boll usually uses his own financing and production companies), but this is too great a story to pass up. Apparently when Boll heard that a Warcraft movie was being made, he actually went to Blizzard to try to get it done, and they told him straight up: no, never, not in a million years.

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I re-specced to Holy again a few weeks back to concentrate on our 5v5 after quite some time of running around whacking things with a hammer. This is one of the best things about being a hybrid class. We have the option to play a particular way. Before I had decided to focus on Retribution for a couple of months, I would re-spec about 4-5 times a week depending on what our raid needed and spec Ret when I wanted to muck around in the Battlegrounds.

The trouble is, between Holy and Retribution, there is a world of difference in how to play. Granted, most of your spells will be pretty much the same, but the playing style is completely different. As much as Shockadins will protest, the truth is, Holy is a support spec. It is terrible for questing and the best thing to do is find a partner who can kill things for you. Despite the improvements to Holy Shock and the spell damage included with healing gear, the experience pales in comparison to pure DPS classes or specs. This is fine. The only real beef I have is in the disparity in play experience and the nagging feeling that, at the heart of it all, Paladins are glorified sidekicks.

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There's been a lot of talk about tank shortages, especially in pick up groups or PuG's. And at times it can be hard to understand why tanks are so reluctant to run in such groups. Luckily, Primula, a mage on Rexxar decides to help explain this all to us by starting an epic thread on the forums. Sadly, Primula's original post was deleted (by Primula), but forum poster Montar helps us understand by quoting it in his reply.

Apparently Prim was upset at the guild Steady Hand (a horde guild on Rexxar) because after a heroic Magister's Terrace run they called her a ninja for rolling on and winning an epic trinket that dropped off of Priestess Delrissa (who I always call Princess for some reason). Now, you may be thinking "Hey, Timbal's is pretty good for fire mages" but let me stop you. The trinket in question wasn't Timbal's. It was, rather, Commendation of Kael'thas.

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Arena wait times have always been a problem in Blizzard's World of Warcraft. Patch 2.4 looked to address this issue by fixing a couple of things in the queuing system. Now, the developers (more specifically Community Manager Drysc) are asking for feedback regarding the changes to see if they have had any significant effect in the game.

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A lot of gamers would know Uwe Boll. He's the guy who directed several movie adaptations for video games such as House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark. He's also the brains behind the new Far Cry movie.

Despite his long history in making movie adaptations of video games though, Boll doesn't seem to be Blizzard's prime choice for making the World of Warcraft movie. In fact, as MTV reports, they practically laughed at him when he offered to do so.

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We had a great time on Saturday at the Meet and Greet for It came from the Blog. We chatted, we debated, we leveled and some of us fished. Mike Schramm, Elizabeth Harper, Barb Dybwad, Mark Crump, Matthew Rossi and I were all there to mingle. And many of us thought that some jokes are a little mean.

I'd like to thank Ceylene for summoning fellow guildies to our fishfest at Stillwhisper Pond. It's a long run to Blood Elf territory for our young Tauren friends to make.

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Let's get one thing out of the way: this isn't an epeen-stroking session. When you go into the Tournament Realm joining a 1382 team that went 3-11 on its debut week, you have to set your expectations right. Aside from Amanda Dean, or Mandy, who's professed an enjoyment for Arenas, the WoW Insider team is composed of people who don't have extensive Arena experience. We also have Adam Holisky, who doesn't consider PvP to be the 'real' game (whatever that means), and Amanda Miller, who covers our Sunday Morning Funnies. I do a fair amount of Arena on live myself and our team is rated enough to garner us Season 3 swag every two weeks or so. You do the math. But here's the thing -- Arena is a team game. Like every team sport, it relies on synergy, teamwork, and communication. The top players in the world know this, and team leaders replace underperforming members regularly with a dose of nerd rage for good measure. That's just competitive Arena play.

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WoW Rookie is brought to our readers to help our newest players get acclimated to the game. Make sure you send a note to WoW Insider if you have suggestions for what new players need to know.

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Yes, that pic above is the priest's robe, direct from Arena season 4 (you can click on it to see a bigger version), and here is the priest's helm from season 4. As the story goes over at World of Raids, a player on EU Arathor accidentally deleted some season 1 items, and a GM then accidentally gave him season 4 items in replacement instead. The items were taken right back (duh), but their IDs were activated on that realm, so anyone with a little item ID knowledge could pull up the stats.

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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

Welcome to part 3 of my ongoing, in-depth, casual raiding how-to! For parts 1 and 2, click here and here. Last time I talked about communicating your raiding intentions and policies and emphasizing individual preparation prior to a raid. A few people in the comments felt that some of what I recommend doing is a bit too much to ask of casual players. To that I say, every guild is different. It's up to the officers and raid leaders to decide how hard to push the envelope. Only you know your members and the type of experience they're looking for. I can only tell you what has worked for me. But I will also say this: If you push your members a little harder than they're used to, they might surprise you by how they improve their performance in response. If you never push, then you'll never know. You can always back off next time if it becomes a problem.

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We all started from somewhere. Baron Soosdon was kind enough to show us his humble beginnings. While Baron's first effort, Twill for the Kill!, was better than most, it isn't even one tenth as good as his current movies. He admitted to us that he had a vague idea of what chroma keying was, but didn't know how to properly use it in a machinima. We hope that this encourages you to keep trying, even if your freshman project isn't the best!

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Ah, I remember hitting level 20. My warlock learning to summon a succubus ... my rogue doing the pain-in-the-tuchus poison quest .. my shaman getting her epic gryphon and flying through Deadmines on a suicide mission to kill Van Cleef. Wait, the last one is just an acid flashback.

Being able to control a flying mount on Azeroth is a pretty common bug -- I've had it happen myself -- but usually I just fly around freaking people out until I disconnect soon after. Belexus and Nocturnalas, a father/daughter team from <Defying Armageddon> on Doomhammer, decided that not even an errant flyer would keep them from doing their planned Deadmines run-through. One wonders if the Defias saw that bird coming and cleared out ahead of time.

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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Welcome to today's edition of Ask WoW Insider, in which we publish your questions for dissection by the peanut gallery -- now with extra snark and commentary by one of our writers. This week a level 60 writes in:


I'm a newbie to World of Warcraft and got hooked to it quickly, after trying the 10day trial, and find myself frequently checking WoW Insider for latest news and updates.
I'm going to ding lvl 60 within the next couple of days and was wondering what is there to do at level 60 (besides upgrading to the next expansion). What can i do at level 60 that I couldn't do at levels 56+
i can upgrade my mount/armor/weapons ...... but is that it?

I like dungeons a lot, they are fun and I noticed that I've become eligible for raids at level 56, however I haven't done one yet.... so maybe that's it..... Raids.
I'm using this page as a guide http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/03/24/wow-rookie-raid-101/

I see all the cool things you can do at level 70 and I could possible get the upgrade and work my way up to it, but, what else can I do at level 60?

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What's your favorite time of the week to get some good WoW gaming in?

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Two new Season 4 priest items activated

A player on the Arathor realm (EU) accidentally deleted s1 items, and a GM gave him back by mistake 2 parts of the S4 priest Brutal Gladiator set (chest and head), thus he activated the ids for these 2 items. Here is the original screenshot showing that priest with s4 gear on him.

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New Season 4 Item discovered - Satin Robe and Hood
Looks like someone pushed the wrong button again, the Brutal Gladiator's Satin Robe and the Brutal Gladiator's Satin Hood have been activated on a server (EU-Arathor), it's the result of an error made by a GM who gave the wrong item to someone (and as I write this news, it's probably already fixed).



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Hot off the internet today are potentially new leaked images from the alpha of Wrath of the Lich King. WoW Insider has learned from an inside source that these are very similar to what the actual alpha looks like. While this isn't a solid confirmation, it is about as good as we'll get for any leaked screenshot for the time being. Again, this is not a direct confirmation that what we're seeing is true, but it's good enough for me to take as legit.

The images are of various places around what looks to be Utgarde Keep. This is also reflected in the screenshot of the "Discovered Utgarde Keep". Additionally, there is a very real looking screenshot of the alpha installation package. Sources tell me this is very close to what is on the docket at Blizzard, again lending credibility to these leaks.

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