Of course, there's every chance that Blizzard will simply disable current heirlooms for characters past level 80, to prevent precisely this behavior. They've done level-based nerfing before, with items like the Riding Crop and enchants like Crusader.

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Videogamer.com has a nice long interview with World of Warcraft Producer Tom Chilton about everything from patch 3.2 and the Argent Tournament to the future of the game at large. They caught up with him at the Warcraft Regional Finals 2009 tournament in Germany this past week, and in part one, he talks about the upcoming patch and what Blizzard is expecting to get out of it. He says the Isle of Conquest battleground is their most "epic-feeling" instanced PvP setting since Alterac Valley, and that they want it to feel nuts, with players fighting each other via air and land. He also mentions Arena, and says that it was originally designed to be "a fun side PvP activity" that they went a little overboard with during Burning Crusade. Finally, he talks about twinks, and says that neither Blizzard nor twinks, apparently, want to see other players crushed by those who have the time or money to max out their low level characters. Even twinks, says Chilton, want to see competition against each other, and the option to turn XP off will let them do that. I'm not sure I agree with that last one -- many twinks seem to beef their characters up just for the chance to lay waste to "normal" players, but Chilton says Blizzard believes otherwise.

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

This queue is certified Panadaran free.

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Brajana at Mend Pet has kicked off a month-long donation drive and giveaway to support the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She says that since Blizzard has decided to finally give out some more stable slots to Hunters in the last patch, what better way to celebrate than by helping some real-life animals. She has a link on her blog for you to give as little or as much as you'd like to support the SPCA and their cause, and if you choose to put the donation "in honor of" Mend Pet (just follow the instructions on her post), she'll enter you in a drawing to win some prizes. What prizes, you ask? Apparently those are still being worked out, but we're sure they'll be great. And it's a great cause anyway -- do you really need prizes to show some pet shelter love?

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This got somewhat lost in the news shuffle over the holiday weekend, but Blizzard has posted another issue of their extremely irregular Gadgetzan Times fan-fic-oriented newsletter, for the first time since May 2008. This time around it consists of two pieces of short-form fan fiction, an amusing "classifieds" section, and a slightly half-hearted crossword about the dungeons of WoW.

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World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music and fan fiction. Show us how you express yourself by contacting our tips line (attention: World of WarCrafts) -- not-for-profit work only, please.

Getting started can be the most difficult step for WoW newbies and WoW "WarCrafters" alike. Showing your artwork to other people – or even having the gumption to create any in the first place – can be intimidating stuff. Discovering someone who's willing to show you how it's done or even share his creative process represents a major inspirational coup. Swedish WoW player Jason at wowatar.com is one of those creative wellsprings. He's created a small drawing site filled with WoW-related nuggets that inspire, instruct and delight.

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Good times as always on our podcast this past holiday weekend -- while Turpster was away, we Americans took over the show, and declared our independence the only way we know how: by talking about the most popular stories in the World of Warcraft this past week. Adam Holisky, Alex Ziebart, Michael "Belfaire" Sacco and I answered your emails, and then chatted about Blizzard's addition of faction changes to the game (and who'll go for it), patch 3.2 and its extendable raid lockouts and universal armor tokens, Exodus and Ensidia and how Blizzard has dealt with both, and of course, that sneaky Cataclysm trademark and what it might mean for Blizzard's future releases.

Whew! If it sounds like a full show, that's because it was. It even went on longer than usual, so you can enjoy the extra-long WoW Insider Show at any of the links below (including clicking on the iTunes link to subscribe directly there). We won't be back next Saturday -- instead, we're setting up for a special Thursday evening show this week at 6pm Eastern, so those of you who can't make it on Saturdays can instead tune in on Thursday night to chat and listen live with us on the Ustream page.

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The other night I was chatting to a friend of mine on Skype and she casually mentioned -- because she knows I play WoW -- that she was about to roll a character (Elfly) for the first time. Elfly had had an account for a while but had never been able to try it out while at university and now she has the whole summer stretching out in front of her. Yes, I suspect you know where this going, especially when she twittered a few hours later expressing her new-found love for Azeroth.

But there's a catch. Like me, Elfly is disabled. I'm a VIP (disabled shorthand for visually impaired person) and she's (in her own words) a blindy (shorthand for, well, a blind person). This means we play with our noses touching the screen and get lost. A lot. To give you an example for what the world (in-game or real) is like for me, nip to your nearest Azerothian tavern and quaff flagons of mead until you get completely smashed and the screen goes all blurry, alternatively just click here. Anyway, between the pair of us, we're so blind that we both think Blizzard should insert white canes and guide dogs in patch 3.3's game files. Though, given the game setting, maybe that should be an ornate white staff of sightlessness and a guide wolf?

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

Last week, our very own Michael Sacco broke the news that raid lockouts will be extendable after Patch 3.2. Reading through forum comments about this exciting new feature, I found the varied reactions quite amusing.

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It's become almost a cilche that when you see a machinima trailer, you must take it with a healthy grain of skepticism. Very commonly, the exciting movie that's been promised by the trailer will never actually come to fruition. Dtbn has bucked that trend, however, with the release of The Avenger.

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That hot time of the year, the Midsummer Fire Festival, has now ended. Once again the denizens of Azeroth go about their humdrum lives without any brilliant fires and spirited naked flame-ladies dancing to and fro on the bridges of Ironforge. Life is boring. The Ice Stone Has Melted.

But alas, not for I and my tabard! After a good half day of solid grinding I trekked my Paladin throughout the dunes of Kalimdor and the lush forests of the Eastern Kingdom, extinguishing the flames of the bastard Horde and honoring those of the blessed Alliance. All was done well, so say we all.

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After another hard day's grind at the PvP factory that is Warsong Gulch, what's a dedicated Hordie to do? Have a nice, relaxing nap back home in safe territory. Ordruun of <RRT> on Tichondrius shares this peaceful bedtime scene with us, straight from the heart of Orgrimmar. What's the thread count on those things? Luxurious!

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Living in Europe and playing WoW has one major perk over the US, thousands of players from a dozen countries get to play together. Of course we have realms specifically for people who speak Russian or French or English but it's quite common to find people who don't speak one of the major EU tongues on an English realm. For example, my guild's Assistant GM is French and he effectively learnt English by playing WoW.

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Tier 9 Armor Models Video - Alliance Plate
Now that the models posted a few days ago have been confirmed as Tier 9, it's time for a small video preview of the Alliance Plate armor sets! The Horde Leather sets are also available in the game files but there are too many bugs for the moment to release a video, you'll have to wait for the next build.