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

• Youtube superstar MrVoletron has released another remix, which you can see embedded above or over on his channel. Be warned, the beginning of this one is a little ear-shattering. Turn your volume down.
• Here's yet another review of the World of Warcraft magazine, this time from Azure Shadows.
• Empowered Fire compares Icecrown Citadel trinkets for mages.
• Shades of Grey connects a few lore dots and speculates on what the Cataclysm may bring. Is it just the beginning?
• With the introduction of the dungeon finder, could that design be used to improve queueing for battlegrounds? Cynwise thinks so.


[View Remaining 1 Lists]

We heard about this last year at BlizzCon but Zarhym has reaffirmed that Cataclysm will not feature any new capital cities that are considered a sanctuary. There will not be a new Shattrath or Dalaran. I personally believe its safe to assume that the present faction capital cities will see a few facelifts. Maybe a small cave in or something at Ironforge? Perhaps a toppled tower in Stormwind?

[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]

Bornakk hit the forums this evening to announce the second Twitter Developer Chat. It will take place Friday, January 15th at 5:00 PM PST. Like last time, questions will be taken via Twitter and answered on the forums. Senior game producer J. Allen Brack and lead systems designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street will be the ones answering your questions. Instructions on how to submit questions and all of that sort of thing can be found over in the forum thread.

[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]

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 recent Hunger for Blood and poison coefficient nerfs.

If you have been anywhere near a WoW forum or news source in the past week, you'll certainly have heard of the largest rogue nerf seen in WotLK. Hotfixed into the game on the 8th, this nerf hit both Assassination and Combat, though Mutilate was hit far worse. I've seen rogue pundits claim that the sky is falling, and death knight forum posters shouting that the nerf was well deserved. To put it in the words of a forum poster now quoted in Ghostcrawler's signature: "blizzards solution was F) destroy the sun."

[Expand 2 Paragraphs]

Welcome once again my friends to the lore that never ends, we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside Know Your Lore.

In the past two weeks we've talked about the formation of the Old Horde on Draenor, and the resulting rise of the Alliance of Lordaeron to oppose them. Unfortunately we were forced to give the actual events of the wars slightly short shrift in the interest of being done someday. So this week, we cover the First War. (Note: there are spoilers for the original Warcraft game and several books and comic books contained in this post. Be warned if you continue to read it.)

[Expand 4 Paragraphs]

The Classifieds brings you weekly updates on guild recruiting, rankings, splits and merges, progression and more. Have guild news or a Random Act of Uberness to share? E-mail The Classifieds.

Welcome to our first installment of The Classifieds, an evolution of our former Guildwatch feature. As more and more players move into endgame raiding, we thought it fitting that our guild news should evolve, too. The Classifieds gives you more of the news you can use: who's progressing, who's marking milestones, who's recruiting. But it's not only about guilds. Because we're all down there in the trenches of Dungeon Finder groups at every opportunity, The Classifieds lets you send a shout-out to that player who made your last PUG a thing of real beauty (whether through pure technical finesse or a winning attitude). And if you're curious about how WoW intersects with the world at large, we'll be passing along links to academic research studies seeking participants, as well.

[Expand 1 Paragraphs]

Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy death matches. Welcome to the quarter-finals of the Original Five-Man Wrath of the Lich King season. Grab a seat, and let's get ready to rumble!

In a barrage of wings, Ley-Guardian Eregos confronted Skadi the Ruthless in the skies over the Thunderdome last week. Let's just say it was no party for Mr. Skadi. Eregos took the match with a stinging 75.3% of the spectator vote, sending the hapless Frost Vrykul plummeting from the match. We'll get a view of the beat-down after the break, plus we'll set up this week's battle between Loken and Xevozz.

[Expand 5 Paragraphs]

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.

We'll dive right into The Queue today. No fliffity fluff gobbley gloucke. Straight up answers.

[Expand 3 Paragraphs]

Fox Van Allen steps out of the shadows every Wednesday to take control of Spiritual Guidance, telling you all you need to know to melt faces with expert precision.

The era of patch 3.2 held some dark days for a shadow priest. The fights in Trial of the Crusader were definitely not built for shadow priests, especially in heroic mode. We scaled terribly with new gear. Our tier 9 gear was questionably designed. Every class has their own problems, but the problems that besieged shadow priests were bad enough to negatively effect raid performance. It wasn't hard for shadow priests to get left behind.

[Expand 4 Paragraphs]

Probability is a greatly misunderstood area of math that impacts most areas of WoW gameplay, but none so intensely debated as drop chances. You don't have to be a math expert to want to know how many times you need to kill a boss to have even odds of seeing that drop you're seeking. Unfortunately everyone seems to be saying something different about how probability works.

If you hope to get the rare Deathcharger's Reins mount from Baron Rivendare for example, we know that it has a 1% drop chance. That means that every time you kill the Black Baron you have a 1% chance of getting the mount. 1% on the first kill, and 1% on the 100th kill. However, over the course of 100 kills, you have a much higher probability of getting the mount. But not 100%. Never 100%.

[Expand 3 Paragraphs]

Don't Trust a Rogue is a collaboration between Candidá and Theandrin, featuring additional vocals by Bulltastic. There's guest stars included in the video from the guild Rise of the Dawn on the Khaz'Goroth server. I'm not sure how much machinima experience these folks have. I'd really like to know, because this video was absolutely awesome.

The lyrics themselves were strong, funny, and felt naturally written. It's a parody song, of course, but I wouldn't have realized that fact if I didn't already know it. The video was brilliantly put together, with very effective scene layouts and character staging. All of the vocal performances were spot-on. I was especially impressed by Bulltastic's tracks, since they really helped the pace of the overall video.

[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]

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.

I received a plea for help via email from a discipline priest. Here's the gist of the email: Hi Matt

[Expand 6 Paragraphs]

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Man_faces_criminal_charges_after_WoW_account_selling_scam'; According to The Associated Press, 23 year old Christopher H. Bouffard accepted $760 in 2008 from at least two people in exchange for WoW accounts. Bouffard then failed to turn over the agreed upon accounts, leading to a police investigation. He has now been charged with two counts of grand theft and one count of scheming to defraud. Bouffard is currently being held in jail until he is able to post a $20,000 bail.

[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]

In the news today: A study from Oxford University reports that fat stored in the buttocks and thighs is healthier than fat stored in the abdomen, since the lower body fat produces several disease-fighting hormones. Perhaps this helps explain why the curvier Lady Sylvanas has managed to live so long, while regular skinny undead seem to die at an alarmingly fast rate. Erogüro of <Queens of the Pwn Age> on Suramar paused to admire the Lady's trim waistline during a recent Halls of Reflection run.

[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]

Oh, you know what I mean. There's five folks in your Dungeon Finder random group. One is signed up as a tank, one is signed up as a healer. Only, the 'tank' is in full DPS plate with nary a shield nor a ghoul in sight (nope, that there's a ret pally/arms warrior, sure enough) or the 'healer' is in full PvP gear and has Flametongue on his healing weapon. You all stand around, waiting for someone to equip gear that would allow them to tank the instance (preferably the tank) but he seems as content to wait it out as everyone else.

[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]

Cataclysm Alpha release date
Lately we saw a bunch of rumors about a potential alpha test of Cataclysm starting this week and judging by the amount of mails I received, a lot of people got excited. Time to clarify a few things!

First of all, the Alpha test of the expansion will not start this week and probably won't start before some time. At this point I'm not even sure if there will be a Friend and Family Alpha test, this phase of testing doesn't seem to be very important and the amount of players on the server isn't high enough to get things really tested. After a few weeks of testing you can usually connect to the server in the morning, type /who 1-80, and realize that you're the only one connected.

[Expand 5 Paragraphs]