Our friend Medievaldragon let us know that actor Michael McConnohie will be live on the Internet this weekend -- he's going on air over at Blogtalkradio Sunday at 7pm PDT, and apparently he'll also be talking to fans. McConnohie has done film and television voicework and acting for a while, but for our purposes, he's probably best known as quite a few of the characters wandering around Northrend and Outland: King Ymiron, Commander Kolurg, Uther the Lightbringer, the Epoc Hunter, and Kel'thuzad. Oh, and he does one more voice in the game: The Lich King (remember that guy?).

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With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown. For the next couple weeks we'll be taking a look at low level dungeon runners.

Cross-realm instancing is coming in patch 3.3 and along with it will be the ability for low level characters to finally find those level appropriate groups for old world dungeons. Being that those parties will need tanks, we thought we'd take a look at what an up and coming paladin needs to know about dungeons as well as what types of gear and stats to be on the lookout for. We're going to start with tanking and then move on to healing and damage-dealing in the weeks to come.

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If you thought your Epic Weapons Frostmourne replica just wasn't quite enough of a display of conspicuous consumerism, you can now display more conspicuous consumerism by buying a display for your other display of conspicuous consumerism.

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We get a lot of requests here on the site from researchers trying to study you World of Warcraft players. Everybody with a research grant, apparently, wants to study you -- your psychology, your interaction, and the relationship you have with your avatar. We get so many requests, actually, that we usually have to pass -- we're not smart enough to choose which ones are legit and which ones aren't, and if we posted them all, we'd do nothing but post requests for survey answers all day. But I like the way alckly has done her research over on WoW Ladies LJ: she posted a question about WoW jargon, and you can see everyone's answers right away.

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Yes, our podcast is back again this afternoon at 3:30pm EDT, and this week we're welcoming Mary Varn, the creator and artist behind NPC Comic, a webcomic about a girl and her two cats who all play World of Warcraft. She'll talk with us about her work and her own characters, and since we'll also have Kelly "Cadistra" Aarons of the new Byron the Tauren Rogue comic on again, maybe they'll be able to share some insight on putting WoW-related cartoons together.

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Submitter Trixie of Saurfang writes, "There's nothing quite like camping Skoll to make a gal feel forlorn and alone. Then again, setting up a lovely pic-a-nic only to get the sandwiches all soggy with tears because no one's shown up to share it - that ain't exactly sweet either."

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I don't care even remotely about achievements. Haven't since they came into the game, to be honest. When I heard that a player in Taiwan has actually done them all, I think I blinked a few times and was confused as to why anyone would. That being said, I actually have quite a few. I don't get them because I want them, I get them because other people want them and they ask me to come help them get them. And that I enjoy doing quite a lot, actually. I like helping my guildies out, and I like doing things that I wouldn't do for my own sake for others sake, as it costs me little and feels like it balances the karmic scales ever so slightly.

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Everyone here at WoW.com headquarters seems to working on some kind of secret project this weekend. What is it? I'm not even entirely certain -- which means there's a good chance they're making it all up and slipping out of the office early for drinks. But either way, it's another weekend which means it's time to talk about what the crazy kids at WoW.com are up to this weekend -- and, well, if you're not interested in us, just hop over to the comments section and let us know what you're up to (in or out of Azeroth) this weekend.

• Alex Ziebart (@aziebart): Probably knocking out Crazy Cat Lady this weekend, which is the only achievement I still need for my proto-drake, and then another hour on Algalon. Also working on a super top secret project here on WoW.com that isn't actually exciting at all, but I really like bold text. Italics, too.
• Adam Holisky (@adamholisky): I'm working on a superduper top secret project here on WoW.com too, which is better than Alex's super top secret project. Mine is so great, it's got a duper in it.
• Allison Robert: A new computer's arriving at some point on Friday, and while most of the weekend's likely going to be spent copying files and whatnot over to it, I imagine I'll put it to some good use by, I don't know, maybe getting through a raid without crashing for the first time since April!
• C. Christian Moore: Quad boxing. I already got a set of shamans to 55 in under a week (yay recruit err... refer a friend and instance uhh...trickery). I was dumb and linked them to my main account so I can't use the insane levels to quad level other stuff, oh well. I can have tons of different kinds of 60s at least. This is my first venture multi-boxing, so we'll see how it goes. Those 5 buck WoW keys were too much to pass up. It's fun, even though you have to spend a good amount of time with macros. Look out in 5v5 next season my friends. Look out.
• Christian Belt (@ihatewarlocks): I taught my 5 year old how to play Culdcept. She's been crushing my self esteem all week long. Her deck is an unnameable horror, an eater of worlds. I will be spending my weekend in the fetal position, my xbox controller cradled gently against my breast like a broken thing, crying.
• Daniel Whitcomb (@danielwhitcomb): Mostly praying that the Oculus finally comes up as the heroic daily so I can get that achievement before it goes away for good. Other than that, I'm sort of thinking of getting back in my daily groove, but I'll be mostly praying for Patch 3.3.
• Elizabeth Wachowski (@leeatwaterlives): Giving Kingdom Hearts 358/2 or whatever the heck it's called another try, and either working on Psychonauts or trying to finish up one of my many half-finished Xbox games.
• Gregg Reece: Working on the in depth Dungeon Finder guide for patch day. Also running Onyxia and VoA on Sunday with the guild for fun and profit.
• Kelly Aarons (@Cadistra): Working on the next page of Byron, going on the WoW Insider Show, and faffing around Dragonblight. There might be some Stormwind sacking in there as well. Haven't decided yet. ;)
• Lisa Poisso (@emused): Cooking like lightning with my crisp, new Chef's Hat and my Cookie's Tenderizer – and NOT doing the cooking dailies, for a change.
• Matt Low (@mattycus): I'm not actually doing anything super secretive or super cool this weekend :(. It's the last stretch before finals and then freedom for about 2 or so weeks.
• Matthew Rossi (@MatthewWRossi): Finishing up those last few hard mode achievements for other people (I don't care about achievements but I like to help out) and then doing some BG's as a resto shammy.
• Michael Sacco: Getting my priest her last two levels to grant her the dubious title of My fifth 80, then moving on to my 72 paladin to make him number six. Also working on a SUPER SEKRIT PROJEKT. I think it's Adam's.
• Mike Schramm (@mikeschramm): Earning some mount money for my newly 80 pally after raiding with the guild Friday night.
• Robin Torres (@cosmiclaurel): I'm leveling up the Robinator in It Came from the Blog. I will also be playing this game I heard might be okay: Mass Effect. Gonna try it out.
• Zach Yonzon (@battlemasters): Relearning how to play my level 80 alts now that Patch 3.3 seems to be looming on the horizon. I'm also working on a Super Duper Secret Project Xtreme for WoW.com which is better than either Alex's or Adam's secret projects because 1) it has Xtreme tacked on to it, and 2) it's so secret that nobody, not even WoW.com, knows about it!


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Jeff Kaplan interview on GameInformer
GameInformer.com sat down with Jeff Kaplan (Tigole) to talk about World of Warcraft's past and future. It's just like any other World of Warcraft interview without anything really new (it's still worth reading!) but there is a very interesting answer here. Tigole confirms that there will be a cinematic just like the Wrath Gate one in Patch 3.3, most likely featuring the Lich King.

It's not on PTRs yet and a minor patch released a few months after 3.3 to introduce Season 8 and the Cinematic is very likely. They could always push the season 8 models and the cinematic in the final version of Patch 3.3 but I don't think they would do that without testing at least the models of Season 8 armor. (And they're definitely not here for the moment)
Quote from: Tigole (Source)GameInformer: I would agree that the game has gotten much better at showing rather than telling, but Wrath of the Lich King also saw the introduction of cutscenes to the game. It’s obviously much easier to tell the story in that, but you’re also taking the player out of the game. Do you think that those will keep showing up future expansions as well? Is it something you’ll use sparingly?

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Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products. We'll cover everything from what to use, how to use it, and why your should care.

Gathering Professions

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