Breakfast Topic: Skeletons in the closet

It looks like Blizzard is busting out the ban hammer in full force. Last week is was on point sellers (and buyers) in the arena this week they're bashing down Glider users. There was a lot of noise on the forums last week from folks that felt they were unjustly punished wow gold. I'm sure we'll hear similar stories as a fallout from the glider events.

It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy all over when cheaters get their due. But it also makes me worry that the witch hunt might go too far. Here at WoW Insider we make it a point to be kind of hush hush about exploits cheap wow gold, since we have no desire to lead anyone astray. (This is why we said very little about things like the Fire Nova Totem or Snake Trap exploits). The way I see it is if you don't do anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about. We've all repeatedly agreed to the terms of use.

About the Bloggers: Alex Ziebart

Twice a week, our writers will tell you more about themselves wow gold, and let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more About the Bloggers. What do you do for WoW Insider?
I'm primarily a weekend blogger for WoW Insider, but I also stick my nose in during the week when I can. I am also a columnist for Hybrid Theory and wow I take turns with Elizabeth Wachowski writing Know Your Lore.For the Horde or Glory to the Alliance?
Glory to the Alliance! While orcs bug me for some reason I can't decipher, I don't really have anything against the Horde. I started playing Alliance because that's where my friends rolled and we started a pretty awesome guild there, so I stuck around and came to love it. If those people had rolled Horde instead buy wow gold, I might be playing there. Both factions have their own feel, and they're both very cool.

Forum post of the day: Epic Battleground Loot

I've heard some amazing stories about what people have done (or not done) in favor of World of Warcraft. I have to say Lils of EU: Windhammer's story takes the cake. The tale, told by her boyfriend Artimis, describes how she went into labor while playing Warsong Gulch and continued to play until the battle was complete. 12 hours later the couple became proud parents of Hayden. We've heard about weddings, proposals, deaths, and divorces, but a WoW birth is pretty darned epic.

The forum thread had many supporters and detractors for this behavior cheap wow gold. I have to agree with Mankirk of Daggerspine "Putting WSG before child birth is pro..." While many believe that the first stop should be the hospital, in this case the new mom was advised to stay calm at home as labor progressed. Nightkestrel of Vashj staunchly defended the couple's labor management decision. Childbirth is an intensely personal thing, and this story has a very happy ending.

Congrats Lils and Artimis wow gold, and welcome to the world Hayden! Be sure to check out WoW Rookie every Monday.

Sunday Morning Funnies: I'll tickle your soul

This week, we have things that suck, users and abusers, opportunists, resourcefulness, and even some creepy happiness. You know that when drawings get emotional, entertaining things happen. If you get bored world of warcraft gold, you can even read the handful of poor reviews last week's lot was given!

1. The NPC rebellion still holds, and Dark Legacy Comics's characters must fend for themselves.
2. Some people just don't like video games. Extra Life.
3. Shakes and Fidget walk into a dangerous situation and Fidget tries some magery. You know him and magery.
4. NoObz shows you how to subtly convert your friends to the Warcraft ways.
5. Supermegatopia shows us daily quests from the other side of the fence.
6. There are two great comics from Ding! this week. Have you ever wondered about some of those people who queue battlegrounds and then immediately leave world of warcraft? Are they all queue hoppers? Other people have been showing around their orphans. Some, have been using their orphans.
7. Teh Gladiators are meeting up with some old foes, and Trevor seems unusually happy. You could almost say creepily so.
8. Disgraph has given us part 2, part 3, and part 3.5 of the Orphan Saga! I'd watch the orphan, because he rocks. Also, it seems there may have been some errors last week when trying to read part one, which I sincerely recommend you do, as I laughed pretty hard.
9. You should check out the latest LFG. As a side note, which is not necessarily showcased perfectly in this week's comic as much as some others wow, I've been reading this book. Sometimes I read, you see. At the recommendation of several friends, I picked up a Terry Pratchett book, The Colour of Magic. Now, to continue my ramble, I have always enjoyed LFG's warlock the most, as I'm sure others might agree. To my delight, there is a warlock of sorts in this book that seriously reminds me of this character. Not in any way, shape or form am I suggesting they are related, but if you like one, you should like the other. /ends tangent.

The rise of disease

Death Knights. Seems like they're all the rage these days, and they haven't even been released yet. It was revealed that Death Knights start at Level 55, the only requirement being that the player has an existing Level 55 character wow gold. Daniel has even declared his intention to make a Death Knight his main when the time comes. I wouldn't be surprised to see a proliferation of Death Knights when Wrath of the Lich King is finally released. When that time comes buy wow gold, prepare to get inoculated because the class is the first to finally use diseases as a core class mechanic.

Aside from Undead Priests and their Devouring Plague, there are no player abilities that inflict the disease Dispel Type. So far, two disease-based abilities have been revealed: Blade Strike and Blood Strike. Designed to work off each other, Blade Strike is an attack that applies a disease on the target in addition to base damage while Blood Strike deals damage based on the number of diseases on the target. Death Knights are also able to raise Ghouls to fight for them and are projected to have an ability that applies a disease on their targets. Load up on Airborne, because it's going to get pretty toxic in Northrend cheap wow gold.

60-day cards for $20 at Circuit City

Back in the day, you could get 60 day playtime cards for $20 at Amazon, all the time. This appears to be the resurrection of that deal: the same cards are currently available for $20 at Circuit City. This is, as they say, a $30 value, assuming you normally pay the single-month rate of $15 per month wow gold. The cards are sold out online, but available for in-store pickup; click over to the site and enter your ZIP code to see if they're available in your store.

Personally, I'm not going for it, because the closest Circuit City is about 15 minutes away, and also because I like to pay for a month at a time and then cancel my account. That way, if I happen not to be able to play for some amount of time after my subscription is up cheap wow gold, it doesn't renew until I need it and go renew it manually (which takes all of two minutes), and so I save a few bucks. But for those with more regular play schedules, this looks like a good deal.

WoW Insider Show: Mother's Day edition live tomorrow

For tomorrow's WoW Insider Show (which you can hear live at 3:30pm EST on WoW Radio), we're doing something a little special for Mother's Day: we've got mothers! Amanda Dean is actually bringing her mother on the show, and Ms. Emrys, (aka SpaceLady) is a WoW player herself, so we'll chat with her about what it's like to come to games via World of Warcraft. Robin Torres will also be joining us world of warcraft gold, and she's got little ones of her own, so she'll tell us what it's like to be a WoW player while also running your own little "guild" in real life. And Turpster will return after his absence last week -- all we can say about him is that he's a bad mother... shut yo' mouth.

Plus, we definitely can't ignore all the Wrath of the Lich King info that dropped last night, so we'll definitely be talking about vehicles, Death Knights, the 10/25 man instances, and all of the other huge information that Blizzard dropped on us like a ton of level 80 bricks. And as usual (as if all that wasn't enough), we'll have reader mail, which you can send to us at theshow@wowinsider.com buy wow gold, and we'll be chatting in IRC as well at irc.mmoirc.com in the #wowradio channel.

Whew! It's a mother of a show. Make sure to tune in tomorrow afternoon, Saturday, at 3:30pm EST over on WoW Radio. See you there.

Ready Check: Applying and Trialling

Ready Check is a twice-weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau wow gold, everyone can get in on the action and gear up people in T6 who then leave for the next rung up the ladder.

Following on from our column about recruiting, in this Ready Check we're going to talk about applying and trialling with a raiding guild. Anyone looking to change guilds and start raiding different content cheap wow gold, or guilds interested in different methods of recruiting and trialling players, read on for more on the subject.

Applying for a new guild can often seem very much like applying for a job, and the interview and trial process also have strong parallels to the real world. Not every raider out there is an experienced job-hunter, so we'll look at a few concepts from the world of work to smooth out your raiding experiences. If this all sounds like too much work for you, bear in mind there are other options out there -- there are more casual raid guilds and alliances who will give you a shot just after a quick chat, for example wow, so whatever your needs in the raiding world there should be something to fit. Finding it, however, isn't easy -- which brings us to our first point.

Blizzard developers are out there

An interesting discussion went on in the Community Service forums yesterday concerning the role Blizzard developers play in those very forums. A poster was obviously attempting to troll and start some argument, asking if the Blizzard devs actually do read what people write or pay attention to the community at large. Kisirani wow gold, a Blizzard developer, responded that indeed they do.

A few interesting things came from subsequent blue posts that help outline the roles of the developers and community managers. First, it is the job of the community managers (CMs as we call them) to do just what their title says: manage the community cheap wow gold. This includes the forums and everything that goes on in there. Kisirani tells us that they regularly collect feedback and suggestions and pass them along to the developers. Kisirani makes it a point to say that they don't have enough time to read everything themselves, and if they were to read everything the game itself would not be developed – and again, this is where the community managers come into play.