The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Relentless, Furious, Deadly, Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters on the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Frostwyrms. We're especially focused on the people who play these games, to further shed light on the world of the PvP player. If you'd like to be interviewed for The Colosseum, please feel free to contact us -- be sure to include your armory as a link!

We're in for a real treat this week. We interviewed Jhazy of Blackrock, one of the few players in arena history to achieve a 3,000 rating in 3v3. More impressive yet, he's done this on the very competitive Bloodlust battlegroup, and is currently holding that #1 spot by a margin of more than one hundred points. Jhazy's team STRAIGHT TO THE TOP is a protection warrior + marksman hunter + holy paladin composition. As a team, they are holding down the world's #1 3v3 spot!

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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.

I decided to take a break from gems this week to discuss a style of priest healing that is becoming popular among raiders: discipline raid healing. Though the concepts behind it are extremely simple to understand and execute, this style of play seems to have slipped under the radar of many players despite its amazing potential. Tag along with me after the jump and I'll fill you in on the basics and benefits of disc raid healing. Holy priests, I'm talking to you, too.

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Character roleplay tends to be rooted in fundamental human emotions. Rage, fear, friendship, curiousity, and hope are all well within the spectrum of your character's feelings. And without getting into a bunch of sophomore psychology, I'd argue that all these emotions are fairly key to hitting the difference between a believable character. Without acknowledging and displaying these emotions, your character is simply a cardboard cutout -- a silhouette moving through the game without any real motivation or gravitas.

Love stories are hard. I think they're actually the hardest story to roleplay successfully. It's incredibly easy to take your roleplay in the direction of a sticky-sweet romance. And then, for everyone of those stories I've seen, I've equally seen a cold, hard, son-of-Illidan whose heart was torn asunder, and
he wil no longer be capable of love.

So, if these are the two ends of the love spectrum, how do you successfully hit the middle? What's the believable range? What's the viable, interesting roleplay stories, when the whole idea of a love story is so fraught with pits and traps?

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Everyone seems to be weighing in on the new late night wars between Conan and Leno -- I'm firmly on Team Conan. Leno and his chin have had their time in the spotlight, they can take themselves elsewhere. And according to the launcher screen Blizzard might be siding with Conan, too.

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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.

Sometimes, you just have that maddening compulsion to make your wish list of various things you want to acquire. I've got one on Amazon for a woodworking shop and another of things I want on WoW (which does happen to include a pony, Ghostcrawler). However, with the last of the loot being divvied up in these final days of Wrath, let's go through Icecrown Citadel and make a shopping list of gear we'd kill for.

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This week, we have a new addition to the list, The Daily Blink. You'll also find zombie chickens, snacking kitties, a comic relief talbuk, a 'chef,' and shoulder armor, all out looking for some noms.

• From Pocketkitten: Cooking Fail.
• NPC: Teaching 101. NPC: Chickens Gone Wild. NPC: Fear of Projection.
• Torment of the Week.
• Check out the latest from Guilded Age and Teh Gladiators.
• Daily Quests: Lasherweave Bites.
• LFG #321 and #322.
• Beyond the Tree: Walking the Diggers.
• Dark Legacy Comics: Surgery.
• Complex Actions: Fairy Tales and Wet Dreams.
• Equinox vs Chillwinter.
• WoW eh: Mr. Know-it-All. Love that last frame! I also love how you did a better job at rendering the Taunka than Blizzard did.
• Sparkly Doom: If WoW Was Life.
• The Daily Blink: Save Illidan!


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Attention worshippers: your god is vastly inferior to the insect god. With eight legs, it can light fires, smite unbelievers, and deliver commandments with maximum efficiency. It also has the ability to paralyze and devour competing deities, which your run-of-the-mill supreme being lacks. All bow to the insect god! (Thanks to Krem for this Old Kingdom screenshot.)

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I am having way too much fun with the new armory features. My favorite part? Getting to set the pose my character takes when players start looking me up. There are so many to choose from. There are the dance poses, the wave, the bow, the salute and so forth. I figure the top left one demonstrates my athletic ability. We dwarves are known for our jumping prowess after all! I suppose I could just moon the viewer with the top right one. That wouldn't be appropriate though, would it?

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