All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles.

Some time ago, I had my first look at Warhammer Online, and wondered if that game treated roleplaying any differently from World of Warcraft. I wrote at some length about the significance of a written warning whenever someone signs up for a roleplaying realm for the first time, but I also noticed that Warhammer actually had another very special feature that could be beneficial for WoW roleplayers, namely the "Tome of Knowledge." Playing around with this a little bit made me think about how Blizzard could make something similar, which would go a long way toward enriching the experience of the game, not only for roleplayers, but for all players. Warhammer's Tome of Knowledge is not without it's flaws, of course -- I can surely imagine a better one for WoW to adopt, but at the moment WoW has nothing at all like it, which is unfortunate.

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Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.

In last week's [1.Local], we snarked around a bit about the most common "mistaken identity" emails we receive on the WoW.com news and comments lines -- issues for a video game company, a cable company, an ISP and even a gym. "Looks like we just keep diversifying," observed Eddie Carrington. "I think the next business should we should get into is event planning."

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In among all of the "omg fake pets for real money" scandal from this week's announcement, we may have missed something big: the Pandaren are now live in the World of Warcraft. The Pandaren are my favorite Azerothian race, even though they're essentially a joke -- Samwise Didier just loves pandas, and he made art for an April Fool's joke that Chris Metzen loved so much they decided to include the bears as real characters in Warcraft III. Since then, they've become fan favorites (not least of all, especially for me, because alcohol and ale are a big part of their culture), but we've only seen hints of them in World of Warcraft. There was a rumor going around a while back that they would never appear in the game because China didn't allow depictions of violence against the bears, but that was just a rumor. Still, the Pandaren have existed in WoW only as a Blizzard in-joke. We assume they're out there somewhere, but until now, no one has ever seen one.

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Before we get into the interview all the way, though, I wanted to take a moment and mention that we're always interested in interviewing new, highly ranked Arena players. Just drop a line to gray AT wow.com. I'll follow-up with an in game mail to verify that the character is actually the interviewee, and we'll get things under way.

Without further ado, let's jump behind the cut and talk to Crinox.

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I think this is an interesting post by Grancran over on the official forums. We've already talked about how Blizzard is revamping the newbie experience in upcoming releases (including the next patch and the expansion), but he wants to know: for whom? Sure, there are going to be lots and lots of people going through the starting experience again when the expansion rolls around, both because of the new class combinations and the new races, but all of those people have already played the game. Why update a tutorial system when the majority of gamers have already played WoW?

It's an interesting question. Neth answers pretty tamely, saying that we were all noobs at one point, and that they want to make the starting areas as welcome as possible. But the question remains: is Blizzard expecting an influx of new players at some point in the future?

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Aside from the usual laughs and story developments, this week's hot topic seems to be the new virtual pets for real money feature from the Blizzard store. There is also some amazing artwork this week, so read on!

• Battlemasters: Pulling Rank. This marks the end of the Prologue.
• Dark Legacy Comics: YARRRRR!
• Daily Quests: It's Better Not To Ask.
• World of Warcraft, eh?: A Little Birdie Told Me. I absolutely adore the artwork in this one! I always enjoy the artwork, but this one is amazing!
• NPC: Introducing... - I love the first frame in particular. Keyboard Chloe - I like her ideas. Kitty Tips.
• Teh Gladiators: This is... The Barrens?
• NoObz: Fourth Commandment.
• Beyond the Tree: Acquired Taste.
• The Adventures of Disgraph T. Dwarf: Tiny Fists Of Panda Fury. All I can say is - awesome.
• LFG #301 and #302.
• GU Comics: Oh, Is THAT All?
• Dungeons and Draenei: Public Test Realm 3.3.
• Experience Points: Followers.
• The Scout Report #87.


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Pop quiz, hotshots. This picture is:

A view into the secret tunnels hidden below the major cities that allow the Horde to sneak in unseen and kill all the Alliance faction leaders.

How Garrosh Hellscream looks at the world.

A poorly designed kaleidoscope.

The result of Tsiva of <Insurrection> on The Sentinels suffering from an acute graphics card meltdown in Dalaran.

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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The new random dungeon feature in patch 3.3 promises to change how we PuG. Not only will you be able to run the same heroic more than once in a day if that's how the luck of the draw works out (a feature that would have been very handy for me back in the days of farming CoS for a fist weapon, which of course never dropped for my shaman) but we'll be able to get fabulous prizes (well, if you're into mini pets anyway) for doing so. Like many curious folk, I went onto the PTR myself to try it out I logged onto my death knight (not a premade, so warts and all) and signed up for a DPS slot, figuring that would be the longest wait. Amazingly it popped almost immediately and we were soon pugging our way through the Pit of Saron, with no major glitches aside from a tumble I myself took off of a cliff during a fight.

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