Gladiator Ninchuu is one of the new breed of Hunters doing battle with success in the last two seasons. While Burning Crusades could be considered a dark time for the class, confining the masters of ranged weapons to the slow, highly technical "drain team," Wrath of the Lich King has introduced several different interesting possibilities for the Hunter.

Ninchuu took the time to talk with us about the Hunter class, how they relate to other classes, and how he conducts his time in the Arena. He's got some especially great tips about how Arena hopefuls should be aware of their mindset when stepping foot in the virtual squared circle.

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The second day of competition at the Major League Gaming 2009 Pro Circuit has just wrapped up, with SK Gaming leading all teams with a 5-1 record followed closely by eMazing Gaming and Europe's Ensidia with identical 4-1 slates. The entire event was streamed live through MLG's site, as well as GotFrag and MMO Champion, and if you missed them there are short recaps of the matches over at GotFrag, as well as a brief match overview. The Arena Tournament uses a best-of-five format where no maps are played twice, which is a great concession to the fact that some team comps play better in particular maps.

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This installment of All the World's a Stage continues the discussion about the layers of roleplaying, still taking a break from the series of roleplaying guides about how to roleplay your race, class, and professions. Last week, we looked at how to interact with strangers in roleplaying environments, on "the surface layer."

So there you are -- you've got a character who is gregarious and gets into roleplaying groups relatively easily. Your character's way of interacting with others makes it easy for other people to recognize you as a roleplayer, and even encourages them to come out and roleplay with you, even if they're not that much into roleplaying themselves. You've followed some good advice about finding roleplayers -- maybe even joined an RP guild -- and you're meeting characters you think are interesting, and you really hope they think your character is interesting too.

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Each week Arcane Brilliance chats a bit about Mages and all things Mage-related. You may wonder what Arcane Brilliance likes to discuss the rest of the week. Even if you don't wonder that, Arcane Brilliance is going to tell you: It's still Mages. Yes, Arcane Brilliance pretty much talks about Mages constantly, even when it is wildly inappropriate to do so: at the dinner table...during business meetings...in church...at funerals...off-topic on completely unrelated message boards...Arcane Brilliance doesn't get invited to very many parties, in case you were curious.

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Recently, I wrote about a scam involving selling Spectral Tiger Mounts, but I never thought I would be able to actually interview the guy responsible. Luckily, this particular scammer was willing to discuss the scam candidly with my husband and I. He ended being very like a Ferengi in his attitude toward what he calls "business". Here is the story.

Late last night, The Spousal Unit saw someone spamming Trade Chat, supposedly offering a Spectral Tiger Mount for sale. Since he knew two people that had been scammed by this, he called the seller a scammer in Trade Chat. The scammer sent him a tell and they proceeded to debate the issue in whispers. TSU called me over to show me the conversation, so of course I had to log on and pursue the interview further. Following are both interviews, copied over from in-game whispers.

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Our podcast is back yet again this afternoon, and it's sure to be a good one. Turpster and I will welcome our bloggers Lesley Smith and Robin Torres on to talk about the biggest news in WoW from the last week: we'll touch on the new Druid forms and what we all think of those, 3.1.3 and how it's worked out so far, players with amazing achievements in game (like the level 1-80 no deaths guy, and Ensidia's big finish), and scams you might want to look out for ingame. And if we have time, we'll talk about one of the stranger stories to come out of the WoW community lately.

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You have probably seen the new Night Elf cat forms by now, the last of the four feral forms that are going to be revamped in patch 3.2. Reaction to them has been mixed; many players love them, while many think they leave something to be desired in the ferocity department. As our newest columnist Eddie put it, "You have to love the little 'bells' on the colors. Just like a nice little kitty cat." I fall on this side as well - they look more delightful than dangerous.

Of course, several of our writers are extra-excited about these newest forms; Zach and Manda both promise that they are rolling druids just to get access to them. Sailer Moon Cosplay Cat and Scene Kid Cat are their picks, in case you were wondering.

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Alex Ziebart: I'm going to playing a sweet game called 'oh my god my poor garage.'

Elizabeth Harper: I'm officially not going to be here.

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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!

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(Source)Recent In-Game Fixes - 06/05/09
Quote from: Crygil (Source)06/05/09

• We’ve made some adjustments to the siege engine and demolisher in the flame leviathan encounter in order to make them more effective.
• The tower of life’s adds have had their health reduced.
• The Ancient Water Spirit in the Freya encounter should now be vulnerable to interrupt effects.
• Life Sparks will no longer chain their Shock spell.

Compensation for Players on Select Realms
Quote from: Zarhym (Source)As many are aware, the below realms were down for an extended period of time on Tuesday while we implemented some network improvements, applied a minor content patch and performed weekly maintenance. Unfortunately, the network improvements caused unforeseen issues that led to an excessive period of down time. Given that these realms were not playable for a period of time that exceeded our expectations, we will be crediting all accounts with characters on these realms with 24 hours of game time within the next two weeks.

Please check the Account Management page after the two-week period to verify the game time has been successfully added to your account. As always, thank you for the patience you displayed during Tuesday’s extended maintenance period.

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I've met people who use consistent naming schemes, which is helpful because it makes it easier to tell which alts go with which mains. I've met people that get the same color shirt on all their alts, although it's hard to see under all that armor. Some people like to take the same leveling path every time (like me), some people like to shake it up.

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Via Guildox, we've just gotten word that Gentlemens Club of Korgath-US, Hordeside, has just become the world-first achievers of Herald of the Titans. This achievement requires that you defeat Algalon on 10-man difficult with no gear about a 226 item level. In other words, they were not wearing a single piece of Hard-mode Ulduar 25-man gear (While we haven't looked closely at their armory, the achievement would allow for normal mode 25-man gear, though even normal mode 25-man weapons would be off limits).

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