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

• Omen of DOOM! moonkin DoT clipping over at Revelart's Druid Reliquary
• OutDPS answers the hunter question: What Am I Doing Wrong!?
• Too Many Annas gives advice about Romantic RP.
• A slight old, but good post by Mystic Chicanery about warlocks and painting the ceiling beige.
• Spicytuna talks about frost mages facing Lady Deathwhisper.


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15 Minutes of Fame is WoW.com's look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes -- from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.

It's easy to assume that the players behind the avatars around us in game are very much like ourselves. After all, we're all united in a love of WoW, aren't we? In practice, there may be a world of difference (both literally and figuratively) between you and that guy topping the charts in your raid or the nattily attired banker rummaging through the mailbox next to you. With something like 11 to 12 million WoW players worldwide, it stands to reason that you'll run into players who live and play the game from a very different perspective.

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Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related.

With the impending release of the Plagueworks wing in Icecrown Citadel, how about some healer tips for the two abominations? Between the two of them, I think Festergut is easy to understand conceptually but harder to execute. Be prepared to bring on the healing as it will stress the healing team.

Festergut Your raid group has exactly 5 minutes to blow him up before he enrages and blows you up. For number of healers, Drop it down to 5. If your raid group DPS is amazing, your raid can get away with 6 in favour of stability. Stock up on raid healing if the players are available for it. 1 tank healer should suffice.

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Before we delve into this story, I just want to say that everything turned out alright. No laws were broken. No authority figures taking advantage of underage people in their care. The teenager is home safe and his online lover is allowed to return home whenever she likes. Here are the facts:

• A 16 year old boy in Ontario had an online affair with a 42 year old mother of four in Texas.
• They met in WoW, but much of the affair took place in MSN chat.
• The parents knew of the relationship for over a year.
• The boy told the woman that he was 20.
• The consenting age in Ontario, Canada is 16.
• The boy had a history of addiction to WoW, had seen a counselor and was given computer privileges again as a reward for good behavior.
• She came to visit him for the Christmas holidays and asked him to meet her in a hotel.
• He asked his parents for permission. They said no.
• He snuck out at 2 am and went to her anyway.
• The parents and local authorities made a plea to the public for his safe return.
• The boy and woman were spotted together in public two days later and brought in.
• Again, the boy is home safe and the woman is not being charged with anything.


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Welcome to Lichborne, the Death Knight column. This week, Daniel Whitcomb is really regretting turning on his boombox in Acherus at the new year's party.

By now, I assume a good portion of you have managed to get on your daily heroics at least a couple times a week, maybe even have an ICC raid or three under your belt. If so, you're starting to amass enough Emblems of Frost to maybe possibly think about buying a piece of gear. Of course, the problem with Emblem of Frost gear is that it's a little bit more expensive than, say, Emblem of Triumph gear. You're not going to get away with gearing up quite as fast, at least not until all of ICC is open and you have a good group for the place. No 25-emblem tier gear here. So that also makes it important, especially for the more casual player, to pick what you buy carefully.

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Bornakk has confirmed that the next wing of the Icecrown Citadel, Crimson Halls, opens in two weeks. The next one after that will be Frostwing Halls.

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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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Before I get to your questions today, I have a question for all of you. What kind of dirty monster do you need to be to harvest the Little Sisters in Bioshock? My word, they're adorable. I mean, I have no problem playing jerky characters in games, but I physically could not hit the K key while looking at one of those poor little things. You people running around murdering them willy nilly should be ashamed of yourselves. You know who you are. I'm watching you.

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End of Arena Season 7 Coming Soon
Quote from: Bornakk (Source)We are currently planning to end Arena Season 7 as early as January 19. At that point we will go through our normal process to determine who is eligible for the end-of-season rewards. This process should take approximately one week. It's very important for players who feel that they may be eligible for the arena-specific titles and/or Relentless Gladiator’s Frostwyrm to refrain from transferring their character to another realm until after Arena Season 7 ends.

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Today's video comes from long time machinima fan, first time machinima maker Bridin. His first story uses the most classic of action tropes. The main character is just your average guy, the bad guys show up, things get bad, and your average guy is driven to become not-so-average. It's simple, but it works. Come on, who doesn't like Die Hard?

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First, thanks for all of you who applied as our new priest and hunter columnists. There were some truly awe-inspiring submissions (and a few jaw-dropping ones as well, and I don't mean that in the good way). In fact, we were so impressed that we hired two priest columnists!

Welcome Dawn Moore, our new Spiritual Guidance columnist. She will be covering all things holy and discipline. We were also delighted with the application of one Mr. Fox Van Allen and have hired him as our second Spiritual Guidance columnist, but he will be focusing exclusively on shadow priest topics. Believe me, he is as entertaining as his name implies. The priest column will run twice a week now, Sundays with Dawn and Wednesdays with Fox.

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There is a new round of in-game fixes that have just been released. Chief among these is a nerf to Lady Deathwhisper in Icecrown Citadel and the ghost waves in normal and heroic Halls of Reflection.

Lady Deathwhisper is having her 25-man normal version changed (not the 10-man) to decrease her mana pool and to decrease the health on all the adds. This means that the shield will go down much faster for guilds currently struggling with that aspect of the encounter. Additionally, tanks get a bit of a buff here in that the Adherents will wait a little bit longer before casting, which means there will be more wiggle room in picking them up. We have a feeling the necessity of these changes will be hotly debated.

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Bornakk has just announced that Arena Season 7 is about to end. The planned end date is January 19. Avoid or delay any realm transfer plans on your arena characters until the process is over if you think you can obtain an arena-specific title and/or the Relentless Gladiator's Frostwyrm. During the one week grace period after the end of the season, rated matches will not be in effect.

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Welcome to another edition of the WoW.com Weekly Comic -- Byron the Tauren Rogue!

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All right, who ordered the Bloody Bull? Artic sent in this screenshot, which was taken during a Horde incursion into A Hero's Welcome in Dalaran. These attacks have gotten so common that the bartender has figured out exactly what drinks to make to soothe the invaders' bloodlust. Death from Above for the undead, Green and Mean for the orcs, High Jamaican Winds for the troll types, and of course Mind Erasers for the blood elves.

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Sometimes you'd like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need to know about all those other shiny MMOs! Check out this roundup of the latest news from the wider MMO world.

	Hands-on with Star Trek Online's early levels There's been a lot of Star Trek Online coverage lately here at Massively, which is only normal given the looming early February release date. This particular feature is a look at the game over the course of around seven or eight "levels" of play. Sadly, that means I haven't acquired my first non-starter ship, although that goal will soon be reached even if it costs me more sleep. Still, you should check out the brand new beta gallery, because I was still able to catch plenty of cool stuff -- plus a classic Enterprise.
	How the game of the decade haunts us Yesterday I posted the interesting find that Gamasutra readers had voted in World of Warcraft as the game of the decade, which inevitably caused a huge spark of rage in the comments. Some readers lashed out against WoW while other readers defended the game's award. Needless to say, this is a very opinionated topic on our site.
	Avatar: Why does this movie look so familiar? If you're one of the few people who has not heard the buzz about Avatar yet, we'll catch you up by saying that the film's beauty is all anyone can talk about. MMO players discussing the movie will follow that observation up almost immediately with "...and did you notice how much it looks like [insert game of choice here]?"
	The overwhelming power of community "Without you, none of this would be possible!" While this saying is true for most things in the entertainment industry, it's mandatory for MMOs. A single-player game can make that initial retail box sale and never worry about keeping anyone happy after that, if they don't want to. Sure, most single-player game developers understand that they want their customers to be happy in case there's a sequel or future downloadable content, but for the most part, they can do alright with a relatively low maintenance developer-community relationship. Of course this isn't true at all for MMOs.

	Massively's predictions for 2010 With 2009 wrapping up today and 2010 lurking creepily around the corner, we're eager to release our predictions on what the next year may bring to the MMO scene. Even though we try to keep our news relatively neutral, it's the editorials and opinion pieces that garner the most reaction from the readers. Positive or negative, we appreciate that. So for this last day of 2009, we honor it by giving our own opinions (both positive and negative) about how 2010 looks to us.
	Exploring PvP in Allods Online Allods Online, the upcoming game from gPotato has turned out to be wildly popular, hitting the ground running even in Closed Beta Test 1. They're now into Closed Beta Test 3, and while there is still lots of progress to be made (that's kind of the point of beta testing), most beta test players are having a great time exploring and learning.
	Star Wars: The Old Republic releases more intel on the Imperial Agent One of the frequently-voiced concerns about Star Wars: The Old Republic is the possibility that the non-Force classes will wind up becoming almost irrelevant. Who's going to pay attention to being a spy when you can wield an energy sword and fling lightning, right? As a matter of fact, the Imperial Agent would like very much if no one ever notices they exist.
	Near Death Studios closes down If 2009 hadn't claimed quite enough lives for your tastes quite yet -- in terms of companies, jobs, and games -- you might have a bit of a morbid approach to things. We're just over the border into the new year, but it looks like there was one last item on the chopping block. Near Death Studios, the team behind Meridian 59, is no longer simply "near" death, but over the line into pining for the fjords.
	Love's beta launches on January 7th Eskil has done it! He has completed the "List of 26" and has shut off the "join Love" screen until January 7th, when the beta will officially open up to all new players. However, if you've been with Eskil through the Alpha process, you have a small thank you gift in the form of the servers already open for you and patched up with the beta client. So, if you have had an active account this past month, log in and see some of the things Eskil has changed and/or added to the game. Things like sound -- glorious sound!
	Kidproofing your favorite MMO It's inevitable: whatever bright, shiny game you are playing, the kids will want in on the action, too. Granted, some games just aren't made for sharing with kids. (This mom saw her Age of Conan debauchery relegated to late-night sessions after the kids had gone to bed.) But most MMOs make perfectly fine sandboxes for the kids, once you've helped shape a kid-sized mini-world within.
	Do we want a caveman MMO? While it's certainly not the only genre out there, fantasy has dominated the MMO market for quite a while. Game developers looking for a change typically head in the direction of sci-fi and the future, churning out titles like Fallen Earth and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
	Massively's top 5 original features for 2009 Not only are we here at Massively passionate about covering the news, but we also deliver on unique and original content. We're out in the trenches interviewing developers, talking about our favorite games, getting inside our games and meeting the community, and giving you our perspectives on the MMO industry. Sometimes you agree with us, sometimes you don't, but we'll keep writing as long as you guys lend us your support and keep reading.
	Potential smoking gun found for Guild Wars security issues It started as a surprise. Guild Wars players reported suddenly finding themselves hacked, their accounts cleaned out, no indication of what could have caused the problem. NCsoft and ArenaNet offered suggestions, security safeguards, new measures being taken, hints that the problem lay in a popular third-party website with an undisclosed name. But with the recent rash of problems that Aion players have been having regarding security, new facts have begun coming to light, and they paint a picture that isn't pretty.
	Massively Reader's and Staff Choice Awards results for 2009 Not only are the results in for our 2009 Reader's Choice Awards, but we've also compiled our own list of winners according to what we at Massively think should win in each category. This year's vote turned into something quite interesting, we must admit. Instead of being a direct "reader's choice", it seems to be much more of a popularity contest among the fans of the largest games. This made many of you quite angry when Runes of Magic dominated every category literally overnight.

So we've talked about the WoW that wasn't in terms of what was planned for Wrath that never got implemented, but that brings to mind another question: What about the WoW that could have been? Namely, where could the game have used another instance or raid, even if Blizzard didn't make any plans for one?

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So here we are. It's been a while since Patch 3.3 started, and we've had a suspiciously early downtime announcement to boot. The holidays are winding down, and most of us, including, one would assume, the Blizzard devs, have finished our eggnog and put our noses back to the grindstone. As of this writing, there's no official word either way, but I'm feeling pretty optimistic about waking up to news of a new section of ICC being opened, or at least a nice mini-patch full of some bug fixes -- say, to certain borked class cooldowns. We can't say for sure, though. All we can say for sure is that the realms are down, and will be for a while, until at least 11 AM pacific time.

With that in mind, it's a good time to catch up on the news. As usual, we have a roundup of some of the best articles from the past 7 days or so. We're shaking off the holiday drowsiness and getting into full gear to help you get through the next phase of ICC, find out when we'll see more Cataclysm news, and more. Join us in the server downtime vigil and read on.

Hot News and Features

• Check out yesterday's list of in game hot fixes.
• Blizzard's been making a few coy remarks about Cataclysm and those in-game earthquakes.
• With the new year upon us, check out the last few installments of the 2009 best of WoW.com as picked by our staff.
• Allison is tired of looking at a few ugly things.
• Blizzard recently helped police track down a WoW-playing fugitive.
• Moviewatch takes a look back at the machinima highlights of 2009.
• The new Death Knight Manga is out from Tokyopop, and we have a review.


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Oculus Loot Improvements
Quote from: Zarhym (Source)To encourage players not to shy away from the many invigorating adventures to be had in The Oculus, we have applied a change to enhance the rewards players are provided when selected for this dungeon via the Random Heroic option in the Dungeon Finder. Once Ley-Guardian Eregos is defeated, one loot bag per character will be provided in his chest in addition to the current rewards. Each loot bag will offer players rare gems, two additional Emblems of Triumph, and a chance of being rewarded the Reins of the Blue Drake. These fine treasures could be yours should you honor your fellow party members by besting the challenges contained within The Oculus! Keep in mind, however, that these extra loot bags will only be awarded to each party member if Oculus is selected by the Dungeon Finder when players choose the Random Heroic option.

In light of this change, the Reins of the Azure Drake will now have a chance of dropping in both 10- and 25-player versions of The Eye of Eternity.
Blue posts
Two more posts for today.
Quote from Blizzard staff Warrior (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Rage starvation in heroics
Rage is what playing a warrior is all about. When you don't want to have to worry about managing rage, you're saying you don't want to be limited by your class resource and just want to be able to hit whatever button you want whenever you want.

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Despite the nerfs in Patch 3.3, it's pretty obvious that whole lot of people still hate Oculus, enough so that they immediately bail when it comes up as a random dungeon. Apparently, it's a substantial number of people doing this, enough that Blizzard's taken notice and taken action.

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