Though the picture above is actually not of Northrend, we're pretty sure that's about what spring time in Northrend looks like. But enough meteorology! What's the WoW Insider team up to in game this weekend?

• Adam Holisky: /sings It's spring time, for my Death Knight, in Northrend.
• Alex Ziebart: Continuing to run Heroic Culling of Stratholme every day until Mal'ganis coughs up that freaking shield. I've gotten about twenty people their Bronze Drakes, and I suspect that trend will continue. When I'm not doing that, my face is going to be buried in this L5R sourcebook a buddy of mine gave me. I am geeking out over it harder than I've geeked out in a very long time.
• Allison Robert: Leveling my Shaman through Outland and raising a toast to the day I decided to spec him Resto. A legion of leveling Death Knights + Resto Shaman = superfast leveling!
• Daniel Whitcomb: I've been chasing Old World achievements as of late, but lately I have noticed that my bank is suffering a bit as a result (Oh no! Only 2.5k gold!). So I'm actually thinking I'll head back to Northrend this weekend and start doing dailies and fishing to build up that cash reserve again. In semi-non-WoW news, I'll also be looking at rolling a D&D 4th edition character for a game I'm doing with a few local friends, all of whom play or played WoW with me at some point in the past. Since Monks aren't out yet, I may just roll a Ranger.
• Chase Christian: Another round of OS10 3D attempts, provided everyone shows up. Also going to get a few more guild members "The Undying" this weekend.
• Elizabeth Harper: Taking a break from WoW and guild drama for some quality time in LotRO!
• Elizabeth Wachowski: Trying to put together a cohesive group to get the heroic dungeon achievements. Also, working.
• Matt Low: Hitting the great outdoors. April means good weather (which means not raining in Vancouver). Good time to put my tank gear on and play some street hockey.
• Michael Gray: I will shortly be trekking to the North Carolina Renn Faire, so I'll probably just do some light farming on a hotel internet connection.
• Michael Sacco: Trying for Immortal on my shaman yet again, leveling my rogue.
• Nick Whelan: My normal Naxx group is feeling kinda pooped. So this weekend I'll just hang out with friends.
• Robin Torres: What I want to be doing: Leveling up my neglected Mage. What I will probably end up doing: Bringing up my mining and skinning on my DK in between household chores.


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When The Queue discussed healing mods a couple of months ago, one of the fairly widespread opinions is that things like Grid had a far too complicated configuration process. Personally, I just use Grid out-of-the-box and it works pretty well for me, but a lot of raiders like customizing those things thoroughly. While the process might be long and complicated, it's totally worth it.

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Equipment Manager Delayed

This could potentially suck for folks who use Outfitter, since it was discontinued due to the new UI policy.  Hopefully it still works properly after 3.1 if you're a fan of it, because the official Equipment Manager (which was shaping up rather nicely) has been delayed and won't be included in patch 3.1.

Quote from: Bornakk (Source)

Certain issues were encountered with the upcoming Equipment Manager that could not be resolved in time for release with the next content update, patch 3.1. In order to ensure that this feature meets our standard of quality, we will be taking some extra time with the Equipment Manager and it will instead be released some time after patch 3.1. We understand that this feature is a widely anticipated addition and apologize for this minor delay.

With that in mind, here are some alternatives to Outfitter if you're looking to move on to something else that tides you over until the official Equipment Manager is ready.

• ItemRack
• ClosetGnome
• Wardrobe-AL

Arena Tournament Phase 3 Ending

Phase 3 of the Arena Tournament is coming to a close this Monday.  What's interesting is the note that the next phase won't start until Tuesday, April 14th after maintenance.  Is this another indication that 3.1 is coming out April 14th?

Quote from: Aratil (Source)

Phase 3 of the 2009 Arena Tournament will be ending next Monday, April 6, at 9:00 p.m. PDT. Please keep in mind that you have until the end of this phase to complete the 200 rated 3v3 games required to qualify for prizes. Participants must also remain on their team for the duration of the tournament to ensure prize eligibility. The Arena Tournament realms will be shut down for a week in preparation for Phase 4 of the tournament (the invitational ladder), which will determine who advances to the regional finals. Phase 4 will begin on Tuesday, April 14, after maintenance. For more information on the tournament, please visit our Arena Tournament information page at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/tournament/index.xml ; to discuss the tournament with your fellow players, please visit the Arena Tournament Forum. Thank you to all of the participants, and good luck to everyone who qualified for the invitational ladder!

World of Warcraft Comic Contest Relaunches

Fun stuff.  We have another contest of our own coming up soon, so stay tuned!

Quote from: Zarhym (Source)

Where one comic contest ends, another begins. This time around we're partnering with TOKYOPOP to bring you a global contest with some fantastic prizes and industry exposure. The year-long World of Warcraft Comic Contest now begins again, and we're looking for the funniest or most creative World of Warcraft comics to post on our website.

Each month's winner will receive three volumes of Blizzard Entertainment manga, and will be considered by TOKYOPOP for contributions to upcoming volumes of both Warcraft: Legends and StarCraft: Frontline. Read the official rules and submit your comics using the links below.

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We here at WoW Insider are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

• The solo-oriented WoW Alone blog details 12 Tips to Completing the World Explorer Achievement. You'll have to scroll down the post to get to the tips.
• The Ailis in Hunterland blog has posted A Guide to Gearing Your Enhancement Shaman for Raiding. This is the first of four planned posts.
• Zaltu at One Rogue's Journey tackles two reader submitted questions: the importance of being poison hit-capped and gemming for Expertise.
• Mystic Chicanery looks at the history of Warlock class balance and where it's headed in 3.1 including best specs, best pets, spell hit rating and AddOns.
• The Shadow Weaving Priest blog has a three part series on Discipline Priests:
• How to assess Disc Healing
  
• Overhealing and the Disc Priest
• Calculating Shields and Absorption


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As promised, we're going husky this week (which means we're choosing a midlevel item that has some significance to gameplay, rather than a high-end epic item to drool over).

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Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

In yesterday's intro, I mentioned WoW Insider's April Fool's joke. Sillily (it's a word now), I didn't actually include a link to it, and there were people writing that they had no idea that we even did a joke and couldn't find it. Well, here it is! Now, let's begin, shall we?

Sorano asked...

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This is especially disappointing with dual spec coming as a major feature in the patch, and with Outfitter's author pulling the mod from distribution; people will be needing ways to switch sets quickly more than ever. Fortunately, Addon Spotlight has you covered - come on over and read all about some alternatives to Outfitter.

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Equipment Manager Update
After the hunter ammunition changes, it's time for the Equipment Manager to be pulled out of the patch because of bugs. We can assume that it will be deployed in a minor patch after the release of 3.1 on live servers. (Again, nothing official about this)
Quote from: Bornakk (Source)Certain issues were encountered with the upcoming Equipment Manager that could not be resolved in time for release with the next content update, patch 3.1. In order to ensure that this feature meets our standard of quality, we will be taking some extra time with the Equipment Manager and it will instead be released some time after patch 3.1. We understand that this feature is a widely anticipated addition and apologize for this minor delay.
2009 Arena Tournament Phase 3 Ending
Quote from: Aratil (Source)Phase 3 of the 2009 Arena Tournament will be ending next Monday, April 6, at 9:00 p.m. PDT. Please keep in mind that you have until the end of this phase to complete the 200 rated 3v3 games required to qualify for prizes. Participants must also remain on their team for the duration of the tournament to ensure prize eligibility.

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Reader Amanda S sent us this picture of a Draenei Barbie (that is a Draenei, right? Not a Night Elf? Oh yeah -- check the hooves) she says she and a friend made when they were bored. It's not the most involved craft we've ever seen, but it looks pretty good and it's an interesting idea: make Warcraft characters out of existing dolls, rather than completely from scratch. GI Joe would probably be perfect for putting together a figure of the new King Wrynn.

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Get ready to put a few more awards on the (ever-growing) shelf, Blizzard -- MI6, which is a conference about marketing video games, has nominated Blizzard in no less than six different categories for all of their marketing of Wrath of the Lich King. Everything from the Wrath of the Lich King launch campaign in general to the Diablo III logo specifically has been nominated for an award. The TV spots have gotten special attention, too -- the entire "What's your game?" campaign is nominated, as is the Ozzy Osbourne spot in two different categories, for best writing and oustanding TV or theatrical ad.

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I'm learning to dance. By which I mean, I'm learning various semi-ballroom or formal dances that are not characteristic of my native and well-honed ability to flop around on the dance floor like a seizing fish out of water. My fundamental problem with dancing is that I don't have any rhythm. None, nada, zip, zilch. I can notice a "beat" if it's being hammered on a drum, without any distracting vocals or "music" being played on top of it. But if that beat disappears for a millisecond, I instantly return to trampling my partner's feet.

As a result, learning to dance has been a challenge. It's a little crazy, actually. There I was, struggling with the box-steps for a Waltz when a subtle inspiration hit me and my Draenei fiancee. For the box step, you kind of move around in a box. (It's not just a clever name.) But it's done on a three count. Very similarly to how you might call out Heigan's Safety Dance.

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Warning: This video is longer than your average, and definitely includes language not suitable for the workplace. It's not all potty-mouth, but it's got some cursing and strange sounds.

Do you remember Insane Gouge Crits, by Buddhist? Well, the master of PvP Parody is back with another installment in the ongoing struggle to be Rogue Hokage. Behold Buddhist 3v3: Ming Must Die!

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We've received several additional pictures of last night's chaos on Spirestone. Nick, Failicus, and Chimmychummy all sent in shots of the madly spawning mammoth vendors Mojodishu, Drix Blackwrench, Hakmud of Argus, and Gnimo. A quick visit to the Spirestone forums shows that the vendors were not despawning when people dismounted from their mammoths. A poster on the Customer Service Forum suggests that as Spirestone had been having server issues all day, this may have been a deliberate attempt by a few people to crash them and force a restart. Or, of course, it could have just been an unintentionally hilarious bug result. More pics below the cut!

A sea of green text. Looks like Horde is dominating this game.

Will the NPCs get banned for violating TOS? F U, indeed.

It ended when the vendors committed mass suicide in the fountain. (Not really.)

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So we had a brief correspondence with Tobold and he asked a very good question concerning WoW deflation, a topic near and dear to our hearts. We put together our best attempt at tackling this huge subject and, on his suggestion, will share that answer with you now.

He initially asked, well…it’s a great question so let’s just leave it in his words:

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Last week, Blizzard released their very first piece of iPhone software, and it wasn't a mobile mailbox or an ingame chat client as some of us had hoped. Nope -- out of the blue (get it?), they introduced a replacement for the hardware version of the Authenticator, and they released it for free.

I've installed the software on my first-generation iPhone and have been using it for a little while now. And while it's not much more than barebones -- if you're expecting anything other than an application that periodically gives you numbers, you'll be disappointed -- it's definitely a worthwhile substitute to buying a dedicated Authenticator.

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This is Bedrock. He is what many might call "Achievement obsessed." (Yes, I know, there's a slightly different word most folks use, but this is a family blog.) He's the kind of chap who's run Stratholme about five million times, desperately hoping for the Baron's horse to drop. And yeah -- he's even on his way to the "Insane" title.

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Earlier today I reported that Noblegarden had been rescheduled.  On the PTR, with the latest build, it's currently set to start on April 26th.  This means that we'll likely see patch 3.1 go live either on April 14th or April 21st, though the 14th is most likely since that's when Blizzard plans to end the Arena season.  Obviously this can change if needed, though.

New General Vezax Loot

Yesterday I forgot to mention this with all the April Fools stuff going on, but General Vezax was beaten by quite a few guilds on both 10 and 25, and a decent amount of his 10-player loot table has been discovered now, as well as another Hard Mode-25 item.  The full loot table is below; anything discovered yesterday is marked with *NEW*.

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