We are getting numerous tips that servers are crashing. Blue poster Aredek says it is a realm connectivity problem and that their technicians are looking into it. Currently, there is no time for when they will have an update.

We will keep you posted as usual.

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There are so many scams going around like the Catclysm Alpha invite and the WoW Armory phishing site, that people's accounts are getting stolen more than ever. With all of the work that Blizzard has to do to keep up with the problem, it's no wonder they are offering the fast solution of care packages. We've talked about how to avoid scams as well as how to protect yourself. Here is a guide as to what to do if your account gets stolen.

Important note: The following guide assumes that you have not put an Authenticator on your account. There are no confirmed cases of accounts being stolen if they are protected by an Authenticator.

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Have you ever looked at something new on the auction house and thought "Who would pay a thousand gold for that," only to find that months later the item has skyrocketed in price and you missed a golden opportunity to pick it up on the cheap? Activision kingpin Bobby Kotick might make the same analogy. If he played video games, I mean.

The Escapist clued us in to this little story: back in 1995, Kotick was eating lunch with some folks from Davidson & Associates, and they told him that they had just bought up-and-coming software developer Blizzard Entertainment for the tidy sum of seven million dollars -- a number that a baffled Kotick believed to be ridiculous. At the time, Blizzard's claim to fame was Warcraft: Orcs vs. Humans, and ... that's pretty much it, save for a few one-off games like Blackthorne and The Lost Vikings. Kotick called them nothing more than a "contract developer" and remarked that they weren't worth seven million bucks.

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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.

This is usually the part where I try to be funny and write an eye-grabbing intro to The Queue. Today, that goes right out the window. Why? Because I'm busy. Busy doing what, you ask? Picking our new columnists! We have some good ones this time around, folks. Keep an eye out.

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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 loves himself some explosive trap.
• Righteous Defense covers tankadin leveling 51-80.
• GlazerVision Studios has made a nice YouTube video of How To Download World of Warcraft AddOns.
• The Shadow Troll asks Why do I always pick the good guys?
• Find out what's in store for the WoW TCG in 2010.


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As if it weren't enough that we have to tolerate protection warrior dominance in PvP as the first sign of the impending apocalypse, we started getting tips about a somewhat...odd-looking Russian commercial two days ago featuring Evgeni Plushenko, an Olympic gold medalist and three-time World Champion. By now, YouTube's gotten in on the joke with the Related Videos sidebar as well.

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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.

I hope you're not falling asleep on the job. Is healing getting a bit boring for you? Are you not happy with the way you're playing? Quite simply, the speed at which healers do stuff can lead to raid success or raid failure. Its no secret right? The more things you can do in a minute, the better. For DPS players, this is a fairly accepted fact. The more spells or abilities they can squeeze out, the higher their DPS goes. But what about healers? It all boils down to making the right decisions. Some healers are excellent at healing. Some are excellent at running. There are many that have a problem doing both at the same time.

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Even though Ghostcrawler promised us a moose during last week's Twitter developer chat, we haven't heard anything official or otherwise about an in-game reward for the Winter Olympics. Many people are expecting it as such a reward would follow the most recent Summer Olympics where everyone was able to earn the Spirit of Competition.

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Last week we discussed a set of achievements likely to drive the average player to the poorhouse. This week, in the spirit of consoling people who may not necessarily have a Traveler's Tundra Mammoth in their immediate future, I'd like to present a series of 5 achievements where at least one of the following is true:

• They're an unusual means of making gold in a way people wouldn't necessarily expect, or:
• It would be almost impossible not to make a pile of gold while doing them.

Now, a disclaimer; the most obvious picks here would be achievements like Got My Mind On My Money or The Bread Winner, but they're more a record of your previous looting and questing rather than being something you really have to go for consciously. I'm on the lookout for slightly more interesting ways to grow rich from achievements that are not so directly concerned with moneymaking:

Frostbitten

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Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the Hunter class.

ICC Lower Spire offers four separate opportunities for hunters to shine like the radiant beacons of death we are. In addition to the normal assortment of target switching and void zone dancing in boss fights, we even have an encounter that has many raid leaders on their knees and begging for more hunters!

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A type of machinima that we don't see very often are recruiting videos. There's certainly been a few, like the Scytheguard Recruitment Video. But they tend to be relatively few and far between. Creating a recruiting video can be a lot of work for what most guilds consider not enough payoff.

Today's video is the SABR Recruitment Ad, for the SABR Guild on the Wyrmrest Accord roleplay server. SABR stands for Special Action Battle Regiment, so the video is an apt parody for the Army Strong advertisements. The SABR version follows the same flow as the original Army video, and has the same general epic feel.

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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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Savras of <The Keepers> on Wyrmrest Accord captured this tender moment in Booty Bay, about to be completely ruined by the blood elf ninja pouncing down from above. The stale fish on the dock can't be too much of an aphrodisiac either. How many years have those things been sitting there?

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Sometimes a boss just seems to get lucky.

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