Yes, as you may have noticed in the update on our post the other day, it's confirmed: NetEase will be taking over operating the World of Warcraft in China as of June -- their new homebase over there can be found at wow.163.com. And while we originally reported that The9 would be turning over their software, hardware, and staff to run the game, apparently that's not completely true. IDG News Service is reporting that NetEase will be setting up their own network of servers to run the game. That's a big undertaking -- it likely means that things will be bumpy for the first few days of the transition (though Blizzard is clearly confident that NetEase can handle it, having run a few other games in the market before). And it also means that some of the supercomputers we've reported on before that are owned by The9 will go to... well, we're not sure what.

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Yogg-Saron Kill With Voice Over Guide

This is a fairly cool video that roccs sent note of to me this weekend -- made initially for his guild, Pretty Maids of EU-Ravencrest.  Instead of the typical "kill video" that plays music and just lets you watch a guild defeat an encounter, roccs decided to create a visual guide with voice over.  The result is what you see below.  Pre-emptive warning: this video does have some adult language in it.

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Looks like quite a few of those players who threatened to complain about Blizzard ended up doing so: over on the local Better Business Bureau website for Blizzard's region, our favorite game developer has earned an F. The BBB says that they've been given this rating "for reasons such as that they have failed to respond to complaints, their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law's licensing or registration requirements, their complaints contain especially serious allegations, or the company's industry is known for its fraudulent business practices." Ouch. We don't really know that any of those things are true about Blizzard's way of doing business, but there are certainly many people on the forums every day who claim that the first two especially are major issues.

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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.

• Another blogger is calling it quits. This time it's Hoof 'n Healz giving their goodbyes. Farewell, o Resto Shaman!
• Soap Bubble has been making some progress in Ulduar and has a few tips for Healers that are preparing to face Kologarn.
• Mirror Shield is feeling a little bit of raid fatigue after a flurry of raiding, but the boss kills just don't stop.
• Herding Cats found Flame Leviathan prep to be a little like... well, herding cats, and they've pieced together a basic strategy for Razorscale.
• Matticus has a strategy of his own for Razorscale. Healers, you'll probably want to check this one out.
• Tachyon gave Ignis a pass and moved on to Kologarn. They managed to bring the giant down, and you can watch the whole thing in the video above.


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

As an officer or a guild leader, doing favors for your friends is one thing. The situation described below goes way beyond that. This one just blows my mind. Let's jump right into it.

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Here's this week's episode of the WoW Insider Show, in which we recapped patch 3.1 and all of the class goodness and new content included in there, as well as the Ulduar cinematic and that fact that Gnomes have been historically dissed by Blizzard's machinimists. We checked in on your emails as well -- we got some Rogue theorycrafting in the mix thanks to our Encrypted Text writer Chase Christian stopping by, and we checked back in with Duncor of WoW Radio for the first time in a while on both which tank is the best and whether leather-wearing casters should get cloth upgrades or not.

Was a good show -- you can give it a listen at any of the links below, or just subscribe to us in iTunes to get the show automagically every Monday. We'll be back live on the air next Saturday, and we're climbing ever closer to a few big goals: in just 14 weeks, we're set to hit our 100th show, which will definitely be a nice anniversary for us, and we're only 600 followers away from hitting our goal of over 9000 followers on our Twitter account. So join up there if you haven't yet, and I'll get the tux out to the cleaners in anticipation.

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Greetings fellow Warlocks! Welcome, to our wicked weekly: Blood Pact! Here, heretical happenings are heard, diabolical deeds are done, and alliteration is always awesome. So continue to sit at your computer, continue to read your monitor, and enjoy the ramblings of Old Man Sentai as much as you're able.
I've dreaded the coming of 3.1 for awhile now. I love the new features of course. Being able to switch to a spec with replenishment any time my raid needs it will certainly be handy, and Ulduar will be a nice change of pace once I get in there -- even if I really wanted to get a few more Naxx achievements done before moving on. What I don't love is the new Affliction. There's so few buttons I feel like I'm playing Burning Crusade style Destruction. (Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt...)

3.0 Affliction's rotation went something akin to Shadow Bolt > Haunt > Corruption > Siphon Life > Curse of Agony > Unstable Affliction > Immolate > Shadow Bolt Spam, followed by dot refreshments as needed, and Drain Soul once the target was below 25%. There was some variation based on whether or not the group wanted Curse of Elements, or whether you liked your short duration dots to go up first, but on average that's how it was.

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In a world where the battle between the Horde and the Alliance is fought out in grueling games of Capture the Flag and King of the Hill, the AFKPlayers are back with a believable and entertaining new battleground. Check out their new machinima, Major League Azeroth.

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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. Adam Holisky will be your host today.

Welcome back to the Queue. We offer you service with a smile.

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It looks like the quality of interior design in Azeroth continues to improve. First an astute reader finds a dead-on parody of American Gothic, and now Daranara of Zangarmarsh has discovered this campy velvet masterpiece in Icecrown. "Okay so, I'm putzing around the Argent Tournament grounds on my hunter, right?" Daranara writes. "Just seeing what's what and such. Suddenly I come across what might be either on-site armor inspection, or possibly approval of all those wayward night elves and their human pets, I'm not sure. Either way, not the sort of thing expected of a jewelcrafter's tent."

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How you uh, how you comin' on that Argent Tournament you're working on? Huh? Got a big, uh, big stack of Valiant's Seals there? Gotta, gotta nice little title you're working on there? Your big achievement you've been working on for one week? Huh? Gotta, gotta compelling lance?

Well, if you have been working on the Argent Tournament dailies since Tuesday's release of patch 3.1 then you're set to become some of the first Champions today, earning your home city's achievement.

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Patch days are often disastrous, and in their aftermath, there is a lot to tweak, hotfix, and repair. Realms have been unstable, Authentication servers unreliable, and bugs abound.

Earlier this week, we asked you what your impressions are of live Patch 3.1, and now that you've had a few days to adjust to the changes, we want to know, how are you feeling about it now?

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Iron Council Hard Mode - World First Kill by Deus Vox
Tonight, Deus Vox managed to take down the Iron Council in hard mode (Steelbreaker last). Even if these encounters are supposed to last a few weeks it looks like a lot of them are going down ... maybe the buffed version of Thorim or Freya will be enough to hold back most of the raids. The next reset will probably be very interesting.

Loot
A new item has been discovered : Sapphire Amulet of Renewal (Neck - Spell), check the Iron Council Loot Table for the other items.

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Assembly of Iron Hard Mode Kill

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I'm back again for another week, guest-writing once again for David Bowers. Today's All the World's a Stage is themed in honor of Mr. Bowers, for whom today is a special day. Everyone at WoW Insider is wishing him the best and it's in the spirit of the festive and celebratory that we take a little bit of time to talk about the roleplay wedding.

Last week, we talked about some tips for setting up a roleplay event. These included a small series of steps that would help you formalize and execute an actual plan for such a gathering. Today, we're going to focus in on a specific kind of roleplay event -- the "roleplay wedding."

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