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We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

• OutDPS teaches you how to hunt Deathbringer Saurfang, and also has an episode of the Hunting Party Podcast you may have missed over the holiday.
• NoStockUI features an addon that every mount collector may be interested in.
• Oh gosh, whatever is a rogue to do with this bountiful mountain of Frost Emblems? Who will tell us their purpose!?
• Affliction warlocks and death knights, Killing 'em Slowly has a great enchantment guide for your raid gear.


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New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. For links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's, visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide.

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Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss the list of the things you should accomplish before 2011.

With 2009 fading quickly and Cataclysm on the horizon in the upcoming year, the WotLK chapter of our lives as rogues is coming to a close. Preliminary numbers from Icecrown Citadel show rogues performing admirably, especially on fights like the Deathbringer, where we truly get to focus on a tight rotation and maximum single target DPS. While much of ICC has yet to be unlocked, I am confident that we'll find the best way to tackle the challenges it will place in front of us.

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Welcome back to Know Your Lore, WoW.com's column about the story behind the game we all play.

This week on KYL, we move away from the Fall of the Lich King (although in the months to come expect more Icecrown related KYL's) and out to the larger world and the major factions that contend across it. I thought we'd start with the Alliance this week for a number of reasons, the first and most important among them being that the Alliance would not exist without the Horde, while the Horde's existence owes itself to forces transcending the Alliance. Because of this, doing the Alliance first will leave open questions that the Horde section next week will help answer.

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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 be your host today.

That's a picture of my hunter above. She can use some better gear, and hopefully this weekend it'll be her turn to get decked out in tier 9. It's just so easy and fun. Plus I really like the idea of all my 80's having their tier 9 shoulders to look at on the loading screen. That's not strange, is it?

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In the transition to Cataclysm, an increasing amount of the game looks pretty dated, and we've already see Blizzard take a wrench to a number of models like druid forms and major lore figures. I've been hoping for a while that they'll do the same with the game's earliest and most dated models -- the ones that haven't changed a whit since the classic game hit beta -- and particularly the following. All of them are a jarring difference from the graphical quality of Northrend creations, and only stand to get more so in Cataclysm:

1. The wyvern

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But the eerie lavender lava coming from the giant rift in the earth is ... delightful? Wait, that's not right. Robpaulsen of <Baller Status> on Tichondrius sent in this picture from Crystalsong Forest, which is a beautiful place until you stop and think about what exactly is causing that purple glow on everything (freaky crystal-making magic from when the blue dragons fought the black dragons.) Eating anything growing in that landscape can't be healthy -- although I suspect it tastes like grape rock candy. Deliciously jaw-breaking!

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Don't forget! We're killing dragonhawks, baking cookies and otherwise enjoying the Feast of Winter Veil festivities tonight in It came from the Blog. As you can see, my mage who does not seem to have pants in any form is waiting patiently for the party to begin. Here are the details:

• When: 11:00pm EST (8pm PST, 9pm Server) December 30, 2009
• Where: In front of Silvermoon on the Zangarmarsh realm (US)
• Who: Any level Horde character (bring your highest level for the most fun)
• What: We will be harvesting eggs, baking cookies, kissing strangers under the mistletoe as well other holiday festivities.
• How: Ask any It came from the Blog Lurker or Robinator for an invite to the guild.


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WoW Model Viewer's Christmas contest really turned out some great videos this season. Mushanga's entry was Christmas with the Critters and is probably going to be on my playlist for a long time. The movie is fast-paced, fun to watch, and full of several laughing moments. I love the premise, and the film's closing gag was surprising and painfully true.

Christmas with the Critters is the story of an old target dummy, who simply wants to enjoy the holidays by playing with his woodland friends. Unfortunately, a big bad wolf is stalking the same forest and tries to make lunch of the target dummy's friends. But the dummy won't stand for it, and hatches an ingenious plan.

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As much as I love the dungeon finder, it's not perfect. One of the ways it's most imperfect (or least perfect if you prefer) is in the way I keep getting the same instance, five, six, or even more times in a day. It's possible that if I'm capable of running seven heroics a day I'm running too many heroics in the first place, of course. Still, as a guy with two tanks, I often feel compelled to answer the call of a DPS guildmate looking for a few runs.
But man oh man, am I tired of Halls of Stone. Ridiculously, completely, utterly sick of the place. When I see the HoS loading screen pop up (and by now I'm as familiar with that screen as I am with my own apartment) I actually feel my whole body shudder with faint disgust and slight loathing. Ah man, not this place again! And always, someone's going to insist we do every single boss instead of skipping Maiden and Krystallus so I'll be in here even longer. Since I try to only drop groups when I find it absolutely necessary as part of the whole 'I'm tanking so I'm responsible' ideal I have, I find being stuck in HoS over and over again to be my own personal purgatory.

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The WoW Insider Show podcast continued along its very merry way this Saturday, and a good time was had by all. Guest co-host Matt Rossi and I discussed our favorite WoW.com stories from the first half of 2009 (with more to come this Saturday), talked a little about Icecrown progression and gating, and weighed in on the quality of Wrath's various patches. We also discussed some very romantic Saber Lash fight strategies, as you might guess by the title of this week's show.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to listen this week -- we've still got a few kinks to work out with the new format, but we're pretty pleased with this week's show and next week's should be even better. As always, if you have a question or comment for the show, email us at theshow@wow.com and you might just hear it on the air.

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Only four days left to our Twelve Days of Winter Veil contests and we're breaking out the good stuff. Today, we are giving away 1 Center of Attention code courtesy of WoWTCGLoot.com. This grants the in-game item Epic Purple Shirt. Clicking on the shirt causes you to /flex and a sparkle appear around your smile. What? You thought they'd make a teabagging emote?

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WoW.com continues celebrating Winter Veil with our Twelve Days of Winter Veil contests. Today is day four of our countdown and we are giving away a set of World of Warcraft novels written by Richard Knaak to one lucky winner courtesy of Pocket Books. The set includes:

• Night of the Dragon
• War of the Ancients Archive (which includes Well of Eternity, Demon Soul, The Sundering)
• Warcraft Archive (which includes Day of the Dragon)

The contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 18 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before 12pm ET (noon) Thursday, December 31, 2009. Please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact you should you be the winner. You may enter only once and one winner will be selected randomly. The winner will receive 1 set of Richard Knaak World of Warcaft novels including Night of the Dragon, War of the Ancients Archive and Warcraft Archive with a total retail value of US$50. Click here to read the official contest rules.

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Cataclysm - Path of the Titans
The Path of the Titans is a new form of character leveling introduced in the next expansion. The system is an expansion of the existing Glyphs and will ultimately add 10 Ancient Glyphs slots to your character.

Ancient Glyphs are new items discovered through the new Archaeology profession, at this point we don't really have many details on the professions and I will probably write a mini-post about it later.

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