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.

Is it just us, or does it seem a little warm in here? The news was popping here at WoW.com at the tail end of the week, and the reactions in [1.Local] were explosive. In what turned out to be a freaky Friday indeed, WoW.com posted not one but three articles peering behind the scenes at account security concerns. Those of you who like to know how the movie ends before you even take your seat can cut right to the final scene -- but for those who prefer to savor the whole, winding saga over a bucketful of popcorn (with plenty of butter and salt), let's take it from the top.

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The latest buzz out of Hollywood is that the fourth installment of the Spider-Man movie franchise has hit a snag. Director Sam Raimi is apparently in the midst of some major creative differences with Sony Pictures executives over the script and the villain lineup. A little bit of drama in Hollywood is nothing new, of course, but in this case its become bad enough to delay the movie, with the May 6th, 2011 release date now in serious doubt.

But what does this have to do with WoW, you ask? As you may recall, Raimi has also been tapped by Blizzard to direct the upcoming Warcraft movie. While the Warcraft movie is still in the very early stages of production, to the point where we have almost no idea of the details beyond the fact that Sam Raimi is the director, the fact remains that you need a director to make a decent movie.

So now that Sam Raimi is tied up with script disputes in Spider-Man 4, what happens with the Warcraft movie? As you might imagine, rumors and speculation abound. Gamespot believes that this will simply push the Warcraft movie back a few more months, as current scuttlebutt suggests the Spider-Man movie will be pushed back to Summer 2011. Blizzplanet's Medievaldragon is a bit more hopeful, suggesting that Raimi will perhaps decide to work on Warcraft instead while Spider-Man 4's script is rewritten to solve the dispute.

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It could be considered a small, fine point, but I've always been a stickler about naming my characters. I've been known to sit around for days, repeatedly rerolling and renaming the same character until something clicks just right. I just can't bring myself to play a character if the name doesn't line up. For better or for worse, we only have a few basic customizable options for our character, so the name tag provides the first hints about our character to other players.

If the first impression about your character is delivered by the name you've chosen, it becomes the most customizable aspect of your character. If you use one of the many mods that let you use a surname, then you'll even have two names to choose from. But, for the purposes of this article, let's just stick to the single word that everyone sees.

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Every Sunday, Spiritual Guidance offers Holy and Discipline priests advice on how to wield the holy light and groove to the disco night. Your hostess Dawn Moore will provide the music.

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Welcome to another Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that firmly believes the frozen throne simply isn't frozen enough. Frankly, we don't think the Lich King was trying hard enough. And so we applaud the efforts of the enterprising young mage pictured above. Way to show Arthas how it's done! Also, we will miss you.

So 3.3 has been live for several weeks now, and a great many of us have farmed up more Emblems of Frost and Triumph than we know what to do with. We, as a nation of mages, have bought ourselves a whole set of really nice new gear, possibly far nicer than anything we've ever had before. And what do we like to do when we get something really nice? Why, make it even nicer, right?

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Easily one of the most creative and distinctive fights in Icecrown Citadel, the Gunship Battle is something many raiders have been looking forward to since BlizzCon 2009. As a little bonus, this fight is also the source of a certain cloak that's white and longer than your average cloak.

Here's the basic story. As you've just managed to lay waste to Lady Deathwhisper, you ride the elevator up to where you'll see the Horde and Alliance doing battle. The fight happens almost identically the same whether you're Horde or Alliance. The only difference is which faction leader you're attacking and which faction leader you're following.

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When Monday night rolls around, I have a ritual that I follow without fail: I check the official server status forums and the launch tool waiting for any word on the maintenance window for Tuesday mornings over and over again. Most weeks, I'm lucky to get it by 10 PM pacific, if not midnight. Every once in a while there's an early announcement, but that's very, very rare.

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As I promised you last week, today's list is quite robust. The list even features a new comic for us all to enjoy, and the return to weekly updates from a couple of your favorite artists. Get reading!

• Battlemasters: Let's Get It On!
• NPC: Boot Camp. NPC: Ommm. NPC: Sleeeepy.
• Torment of the Week: Perfectionists.
• Guilded Age: Page 3 of Chapter 3.
• Cru the Dwarf: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. I love Cru's dialogue with himself.
• Teh Gladiators: Fight... to the Death!
• Daily Quests: Ok, Now Play Dead. If you're a fan of Emergency Kindergarten, then be sure to read the text beneath the comic.
• LFG: #319 and #320.
• Beyond the Tree: Settling dust.
• Dark Legacy Comics: Keydar Can't Ski. I know that a lot of you were wondering why there was no DLC posted last week, and I am posting it here in case you didn't catch the link in the comment section. We do wish you well!
• Check out the new wallpaper from Complex Actions.
• NoObz: Season Break.
• Equinox is back with a new Northrend series! Here are the first two: Equinox and a Mess O' Mounts and Equinox and His Moral Dilemma. Each one is a little mini-series, so click through them.
• Fail Druid fails some more.
• The Adventures of Disgraph T. Dwarf: Disgraph's Rockin' New Year's Eve. Congrats on graduating, and looking forward to watching the story arc play out!
• Give a warm welcome back to WoW eh! with The Cold Shoulder. Glad to hear you're feeling somewhat better Kelly!
• GU Comics: Built In Maturity.


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In the wake of yesterday's rumor that the Cataclysm Friends and Family alpha will be starting this Tuesday, January 12, we should expect an increase in scammers trying to get your account details by offering phony alpha invites. We saw a lot of these for both Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King as well, and some of them were very well crafted.

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The new cross-realm dungeon finder has encouraged some folks who don't usually get groups to give raiding a try. This pug-led PuG was photographed by tauren druid Brasson, who wrote, "<quiXotic> of Thunderhorn rolled into Ulduar late on Friday night to knock out XT and claim the badges from the weekly quest. Having nearly activated his hard mode, though, and that avoided only because one of the DPS was distracted with killing adds, we decided to steamroll another couple bosses. While crossing over the freshly fallen Kologarn, I noticed that my Summer Flame had gotten caught on top of the bridge - along with everyone else's pets. Such a screenshot opportunity comes along only rarely, and could not be passed up."

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A question for the readership this morning (well, two) -- is a recent nerf to a specific class a strong incentive against playing it for you? Conversely, does a buff to a class make you more likely to play it?

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