It's Wednesday once more in Europe and Blizzard has been busy. After the implementation of multilingual battle groups last week, they seemed to like it so much that they're merging some more, this time on a bigger scale. Hopefully all this should be happening between 3:00am and 11:00am CEST, but judging by some of the problems experienced by Americans yesterday, this could easily changed. Just keep calm and carry on.

[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week, we contemplate whether the phrase "the agony and the ecstasy" can be properly applied to graphical improvements in MMORPG's.

So once I finished sobbing tears of joy over the new bear art that debuted last week (and looking up pictures of Bull Terriers after seeing the new version of Tauren cat form), I started tabulating reactions online, and held the following conversation with myself:

[Expand 10 Paragraphs]

Rolling restarts are currently in progress on many realms, apparently to address a talent issue that cropped up with patch 3.1.3. These restarts shouldn't take more than 2 hours across the board. Meaning that your server shouldn't be down for very long at all, because that two hour window is for the entire process. The battlegroups being hit with these restarts are:

• Ruin
• Vindication
• Rampage
• Shadowburn
• Stormstrike
• Nightfall
• Whirlwind
• Emberstorm
• Retaliation


[View Remaining 1 Lists]

It seems that Blizzard snuck this one in quietly with Patch 3.1 as not a lot of people noticed, but thanks to Saithir of angrydwarfs for pointing it out. Apparently, an NPC named Loremaster Skosiris appeared at the top of Scryer's Tier in Shattrath tending to a new library of books. The NPC tends to a host of bookshelves that act as master trainers for primary and secondary professions, saying "Here I have amassed what may well be the greatest depository of lore in all of Outland. Even the grand libraries of Silvermoon City pale in comparison." Skosiris also tells players, "please... look, read, browse to your heart's content. You'll find everything organized and clearly labeled."

[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]

I know, it's another Retribution post, but since we got hit with the nerf bat again (ever so slightly) I decided to devote one last column to the spec before I rotate back to Protection. Besides, my past month or so has been spent raiding Ulduar as Retribution (with the first few forays as Holy) so I think that's what I'll talk about for now. Rather than talk about specific boss strategies, we'll talk about the little things we can do to perform at our best in Ulduar.

Flame Leviathan
First up is Flame Leviathan. Obviously, none of the usual strategies will apply here but one key point players should remember is that the vehicles scale with gear. This means having to prepare an outfit set optimized for the encounter. One thing to note about vehicle scaling is that it doesn't look at stats, just iLevel. Optimizing a gear set for this means putting the highest iLevel item you have in every slot. For "pure" classes, this is usually their normal set-up, but for Paladins who keep several sets of gear, an iLevel-optimized outfit can be composed of healing items, a few tank items, some DPS items, and even PvP gear. Players can use AddOns such as RatingBuster to determine an item's iLevel and outfit managers such as Outfitter or Blizzard's new in-game equipment manager to quickly swap gear.

Vehicle strategies are everywhere, but Retribution Paladins who would prefer to do something familiar should hop on a Salvaged Siege Engine, which plays the most like melee. The difference is that this isn't a DPS role, and steam pressure should be kept in reserve for Electroshock to interrupt Flame Vents and Steam Rush to create some distance when Flame Leviathan targets the player. It's still more about learning the fight and vehicle roles and less about any particular class.

Ignis the Furnace Master
This is a very good fight for Retribution Paladins, despite the need to move the boss around. This is because Ignis' most devastating attacks are easily avoidable by melee -- Scorch won't be a problem as long as players manage to keep behind the boss and Flame Jets won't interrupt anything as everything is instant cast. Even the geyser knockback (or up) won't make a difference because players staying close enough can keep hitting the boss.

[View Remaining 4 Paragraphs]

Bornakk hopped on to the forums to confirm the fears of many players who don't happen to have their World of Warcraft clients handy to tell them the same thing: some realms are going to be down for a while and Blizzard doesn't know when they're coming back up. According to Bornakk, they are experiencing "additional issues" with some realms as well as issues with the launcher being unable to update game clients. They currently have no estimate for the return of the realms, which do not appear on the game client's realm list, but will provide more details at around 2:30 3:30pm PDT. A complete list of affected realms after the jump.

[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]

Kebina Trudough here, offering you the best gold making secrets they don't want you to know about! I was like you once, poor and homely, before I discovered my patented system. Now you too can fill your pockets with the good stuff without ever breaking a sweat! Why spend all your time toiling when you could be vacationing in the Hot Springs? I'm not offering these tips for 100 gold, or 90 gold, or even 50 gold! No, not even 20 gold! My system is yours for FREE! Satisfaction guaranteed or I'll give you a full refund (handling charges may apply).

Nerubian Chitins are gathered by Skinners and used by Leatherworkers, and although they show up on a number of mobs, there are only a handful of areas that are actually worth farming.

[View Remaining 6 Paragraphs]

It's the beginning of a new month, which means a new brew! This time around it's the Blackrock Lager! This is a hot hot hot beverage to kick off the summer season. Drinking the Lager sometimes procs something that sounds like it should be a Mage talent: Internal Combustion. While you have this buff (which lasts 5 minutes), your face gives off an eerie red glow like you're seeping fire out of every orifice. Except that one. And that one. Okay, you people are gross. Just the ones above the neck. After 5 minutes (or when you click off the buff), you get what you see in the image above. You belch a great load of fire! And that's it. Pretty straightforward.

[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]

As you probably know by now if you play a druid, new feral form graphics are finally coming in patch 3.2. Druids will have their choice of five different versions for each race and form (bear/cat); what form you get corresponds to your hair color for Night Elves and your skin tone for Tauren, both of which will be changeable at the barber shop.

Here's what a few of our staff members thought:
Elizabeth: "A million times better. Still not as cool as night elf, but better."
Allison: "The eyes are way too small. Still going to be glad I play a bear."
Lesley: "Those horns are evil."
Alex: "I'm gonna roll a Tauren Druid so I can play that black one with the grey mane. I'm going to RP an old grizzled war vet Druid."

What do you think?

[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]

US Maintenance Update - Extended Maintenance 06/02

[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]

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.

Just gonna let this one speak for itself. Oh, and if you want to know what today's obligatory Reading-The-Queue-Music is, it's of Montreal.

lgnorman420 asked...

[Expand 2 Paragraphs]

Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, where each week blogger and columnist Alex Ziebart answers your questions about the lore and history of the World of Warcraft. Ask your questions in the comments section below, and we'll try to answer it in a future edition.

I didn't intentionally choose today's Scourge theme. Really. These things just happen. That Dragon-specific one I did all that time ago? I didn't plan that, either. I'm just awesome enough that these things come together all by themselves. Yep. It's my pure, radiant awesome.

[Expand 3 Paragraphs]

Many realms, however, were already undergoing extended maintenance to finish some hardware upgrades. The following realms are currently expected to be playble around 2:00 PM PDT:

[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]

In addition to the realms being down, there seems to be a problem with the patch distribution servers. Today's patch 3.1.3 is not downloading for many users, myself included, on both Mac and Windows. People are seeing a lot of "tracker not responding," and downloads stalling at 10%, if they start at all.

[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]

Warning: The language in this piece is not safe for work.

You can only very tenuously call today's piece a "movie," which might disqualify it for being featured on "Moviewatch." However, Myndflame's "Adventures of Puff & Lilpuff - Episode 7" targets the same audience of WoW players who would recognize them from their epic series, Illegal Danish. I wanted to make sure Moviewatchers didn't miss out on the comedy.

[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]

JLM Pacific Epoch, the source that revealed this whole WoW China debacle to us in the first place, has continued their ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft situation in China. As reported previously, The9 is no longer in charge of WoW China. The whole thing has been handed over to NetEase, who is already running some of Blizzard's other overseas properties. The9's operations of World of Warcraft will cease on June 7th, and NetEase will bring operations back up late that same month. Yes, that's a few weeks without WoW in China whatsoever. Luckily, it's intended that character information will carry over from one provider to the next.

[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]

Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word "Azeroth" in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, gold seller ads, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran.

Gallery: Around Azeroth

[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]

These things sometimes take a while, but Blizzard has finally made the Battle.net authenticator app available in the European iTunes stores (you can download it here). As with the NA version, the app is a freebie and designed to add an extra layer of security to your account thanks to a random number generator.

[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]

Danny Whit is usually the one sitting here writing this thing up for your maintenance day entertainment, but he's out of the office today. Where is he? I wish I knew. Last time I saw him he put on a pair of shades, gave me a thumbs up, then jumped out of our office window and landed on a sweet hog three stories down. He yelled something in Greek, then rode off into the sunset. So... here I am. The craziest part of it all? The window was closed. He didn't even have the decency to open it and now there's a draft. Thanks a lot, Danny.

[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]

I'm a little biased, but I think druids are awesome. I'm sure you know my main is a druid and it's the class which I've stuck with both from a game play and lore point of view. So when the new druid bear forms were revealed I was squeeing along with our resident druid blogger Allison. As an Alliance player, I love the Tauren designs and I never even realized they had horns. I freely admit to being less impressed with the Night Elf skins. Actually, it's more like bitter disappointed. They feel boring and just a little predictable, plus they're really, really ugly.

[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]

Many traders rely on successfully identifying and subsequently exploiting a specific market that they know and understand completely. Some of the most notorious trading desks in history have been built around what might otherwise seem like a mundane concept to the average person.

In WoW, we can do the same by targeting items or groups of items that we become very familiar with. In this way, you can identify your WoW trading niche.

[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]