World of Warcraft: Mr. T Commercial - Mohawk Scan
It's time for the 2nd commercial featuring Mr. T's mohawk grenade, another one will be available next week.

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Blizzard is milking Mr. T's mohawk for all its worth in yet another ridiculous commercial. At the risk of being a complete downer, I have to ask: Is anybody else bored with this campaign? I admit that I laughed and laughed at the original Mr. T WoW commercial (and probably contributed to this campaign's birth) but enough is enough. Are you advertising World of Warcraft or a line of Mr. T hair care products?

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More Cataclysm footage is trickling onto the internet from IgroMir 2009, Russia's huge gaming convention, and there was a beautifully clear (well, compared to what we usually see) video of early Goblin gameplay that merited some attention here. I have to confess; I wasn't initially enthusiastic about Blizzard's choice for a new Horde race, even if Goblins do make sense from a lore perspective. But after trawling through so many videos of their early questing experience in the Lost Isles, I'm sold. Female Goblins still aren't playable yet, but their male counterparts have some awesome casting animations and an incredibly endearing sort of waddly run. They just look so interesting and dynamic doing anything that now I'm torn over which class to roll, although I can't really take their 2H special attack seriously, so it'll probably be a caster-class of some sort. I enjoyed Necrolord_Bob's answer to our poll on which Goblin class to roll: "Priest! Priest of the Holy Temple of BOOM!"

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This is probably a good question to revisit since we're heading into a patch where lots and lots of us will be running pickup raids and groups. Souldreamer on WoW Ladies LJ asks: "just when do you give up on a raid?" It's a good question, and unfortunately, the answer probably depends on the raid itself. If, going in, you're not sure just how much DPS the raid can do, and your healer says he's actually specced prot, and you were planning on going to bed anyway, one wipe is probably enough to call it. On the other hand, if you've dropped a few bosses and have an issue with the tank losing aggro for a second on a boss, you'll probably go back for another few wipes just to see.

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Now this is interesting. Our old friend Jesta, who made the EpicAdvice.com site not so long ago, is working on a new project at EpicPlan.com, and while it's still hidden away in pre-alpha, you can see what they're up to in this thread on EA. It's a slideshow/diagramming web app, basically -- you can take maps of the game's instances, lay out icons and symbols on them as you wish, and then animate and caption boss fights and encounters. The end result is a very clear way to show off different raid strategies, and we're told the slideshows are embeddable on other sites as well (you may even see some here eventually on WoW.com).

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We've been seeing this GDKP thing sneak up on the forums and elsewhere a lot lately, and while Scott has mentioned it (in a somewhat disparaging way, in fact), we haven't really taken a good look at it yet. So let's do so. GDKP stands for Gold DKP, which is kind of a mishmash of acronyms. DKP, or Dragon Kill Points, are a very popular way of determining loot division in a raid -- the concept dates back to earlier MMOs, and involves players earning points per boss kill that they can then spend on gear. We've talked about other DKP systems before. But rather than awarding loot based on arbitrary points, Gold DKP, as you may have guessed, instead gives loot to the player willing to pay the most gold... to the other players in the raid.

The way it works is this: You go into an instance, say Naxx, and everyone knows ahead of time that it is a "GDKP run," or a "gold run," or a "cash run." You down the first boss, and Webbed Death drops. The master looter then takes bids of gold on the item (this can be done via public chat or via an addon), and whoever bids the most gold gets the item. The person who wins then pays that amount of gold (some raids have minimum bids of, say, 100g) to "the pot," and the raid moves on. Another boss drops, another item drops -- usually all items, including recipes and mats, are auctioned off -- and another high bid goes into "the pot." Then, at the end of the raid, the pot is evenly split among all members. Everybody who joined in on the raid gets an even share of the bidded gold, including people who got no items, or the Mr. Moneybags who won them all.

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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.

With raiders prancing around blue posts like nervous Nellies and even casual players holding their breath in anticipation of Patch 3.3, comments can take on a particularly volatile tone. It's times like these when we most appreciate reminders of how WoW's players, not the game mechanics, are what actually make the game the compelling community that it is.

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Neophyte warrior Meryl of Aman'Thul has a story to tell. While waiting for a three-hour tour from Booty Bay to Ratchet, Meryl glitched out, force-quit the game, and ended up in a no man's land underneath Arathi Highlands. "Arathi!? How bizarre!" she writes "But it doesn't end there. So I resurrect just outside Hammerfall, fearful for my life at the hand of its fearsome guards ... and find that there aren't any. The only mobs around are ... wait ... are those Savannah Prowlers? Why is the game telling me I've discovered Ratchet? Why did that lion fall from the heavens?" In this particular picture, Meryl is about to be crushed by a falling Barrens meteorite, transplanted from across the sea by the magic of glitchery.

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Happy Pilgrim's Bounty! Before you rush off in excitement to check out the new holiday, why not spend a few minutes reading through some of your favorite WoW-related webcomics?

• Battlemasters: A Small Party.
• Cru the Dwarf: We'll Meet Again.
• Dark Legacy Comics: Profit!
• Experience Points: AFK.
• NoObz: Sixth Commandment.
• Teh Gladiators: Such Tuneful Words, Like Penguin Squak!
• NPC: Podfans. Also, Stream Fright and Oh the Humanity. I love his last response!
• Daily Quests: All's Fair in Love and Warcraft.
• LFG #305 and #306.
• Dungeons and Draenei: RP Servers.
• Beyond the Tree: Descent.
• Complex Actions: Cutting Out the Middle Man.
• Slash AFK: Turkey Fun.
• Check out this WoW-themed comic from FoxTrot.


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Pilgrim's Bounty, WoW's brand-new holiday, has gone live on all servers by now, and players worldwide are busy inhaling huge quantities of cranberries and stuffing in pursuit of the Pilgrim title and the uber-adorable turkey pet. I have to admit -- I was kind of worried that the first day of the holiday would be a nightmare along the lines of Noblegarden's egg-camping hell, but was pleasantly surprised by the fast respawn rate of the Wild Turkey mobs and the sheer number of them. I'm also optimistic that the holiday will encourage more people to level cooking, because once you're got the requisite cooking skill for the achievements, the Pilgrim title and turkey pet are fast, easy, and fun (or they would be, if I could just find the ever-elusive Dwarf rogue).

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Around the feast areas, at least on my own server, I've seen the same questions keep popping up about the new holiday, Pilgrim's Bounty. I thought it might be helpful to try answering them here. By necessity, these are a little general; if you want a closer look at getting the holiday achievements, please read our updated guide to Pilgrim's Bounty achievements.

Help! Where do I go to get started?

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Pilgrim's Bounty Guide
The Pilgrim's Bounty world event is now on live servers and I guess it's worth a small Achievements guide. First let's start with the description from the official site.
Quote from Blizzard staffWe invite you to celebrate Pilgrim's Bounty with us. It's a time for reflecting on your journeys and good fortune, sharing plentiful food, and stories with friends.

You can partake in wonderful Pilgrim's Bounty feasts near major towns by sitting at a Bountiful Table and enjoying the foods you find there.

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It's time once again for Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that would like to thank its readers profusely for the deluge of screenshots it received last week. Arcane Brilliance sent out the call, and you guys responded in droves. There were so many, in fact, that it was an impossible task to select just one for the column. Arcane Brilliance finally went with this one, apparently of an undead pimp of some type, simply because it made Arcane Brilliance chuckle. Also, the column this week is about leveling through Outland, and this is a pretty good representation of how your mage will look throughout that leg of the journey: like the mutant love-child of the entire cast of Saved by the Bell.

Seriously... you guys are awesome. Sooooooo many good pictures to use. I may have to start writing like 12 of these a week, just to have an excuse to use all of them. Thanks again, and keep them coming. Even if I don't get to use them, I just enjoy browsing through them. So many mages, so little time.

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