Sunday Morning Funnies: ‘Stache

This week, I have a treat for you; a nice, long list of comics, with some of my brilliant commentary. Well, you’ll have fun with the comics anyway! Daily Quests: From the people who brought you Emergency Kindergarten! The Battlemasters: The Bang and the Clatter. Don’t forget to read the accompanying notes. I, too, am enjoying the use of spell icons to tell the story. To the WoW community, they are interchangeable with text descriptions, and I’m sure if we could type using them, we would. I also love the fact that it’s an “inside” means of communication. Ctrl+Alt+Del: Bringin’ the Deeps. That mountain of gold is awesome. Ctrl+Alt+Del: Fail Druid strikes again! Thanks for the tips guys. How quickly can you spot the fail that doesn’t get pointed out (directly) in the comic? Scroll back for a few more while you’re there. Dark Legacy Comics: The Collaboration. In the latest LFG, there’s some scantily clad kissing action. If that doesn’t get you to click, I don’t know what will. Teh Gladiators: Tyrande, My Love! More after the

Patch 3.2.2: Priest changes and bugs

Attention all raiding healing Priests, this is a public service announcement. There is a serious bug regarding the Power Word: Shield glyph at the moment which appears to be an unexpected consequence of patch 3.2.2. Stratfu has managed to confirm the bug listed on MMO Champion. This bug could wipe your raid. I urge raid leaders and guild leaders to inform Priests the Priests in your guild so that they’re aware of it So how does it work and what does it do? The screenshot above is a World of Logs analysis on damaging spells I’ve cast. You’ll see the standard Priest DPS spells on the left. But the right side shows abilities like Shield-Breaker, Swipe and Fireball. Sorry guys, unfortunately we did not gain every spell or ability that every class has access to in the game. It’s best if you read on to find out more details. Step 1: Cast a glyphed Power Word: Shield on a target Step 2: The next action/attack will be credited to the Priest along with any extra side effects What does that mean? Effects like taunt will be credited to the Priest. Which means that if I shield a tank and

Breakfast Topic: It’s Brewfest Time

Good Morning, and welcome to Brewfest, everyone! All aspiring Brewmasters, brush off your Ram riding skills and prepare for some fun. If you need a refresher on how to race those Rams, check out our Ram racing tips from last year. This will be one of your main sources of tokens, so you’ll want to make sure you’re good at it. For a quick rundown of how to get each achievement, you can read up on our Overachiever’s guide to the 2009 Brewfest. Of course, if you’re just one to take it a bit more casually, there’s nothing wrong with that either. There’s plenty of fun to be had. If you’re heading down to Coren Direbrew’s place for a shot at a mount or trinket, be sure to check out some of the other fun stuff at the Grim Guzzler. Also worth noting is that we should see a lot of Violet Protodrakes popping up in game today, especially with the removal of the Brew of the Year achievement. My main is a Death Knight, so I’ll have to wait for Hallow’s End, but if you were dilligent with your achievements last year, it should be pretty simple to get

Chinese WoW wraps up closed beta, to start charging soon

It looks like the long saga of World of Warcraft’s transfer of operatorship in China is almost finally over — NetEase has announced that the closed beta period is done with, and that they’re just about ready to open up normal registration and bring the game back to for-pay status. They’re still pending government approval there, so they’re not quite online and running yet, but they have closed off registration to new players, and will only bring it back online when they’re ready to start charging yet again. Of course, their pay scheme there is different from here in the US and EU — they often charge per hour to play rather than a constant monthly subscription. But however they decide to charge, NetEase seems sure that by the end of the month, things will finally be back to normal in China’s version of Azeroth. Meanwhile, the former operator of the game, The9, has announced that they are extending by a month the option for former players to get refunds for their prepaid game cards. That option was originally planned to end on September 7th, but players

The Queue: Too soon

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. I’m going to kick this edition of The Queue off with a little request: Before you ask a Cataclysm question, ask yourself if it’s something WoW.com will actually know about. We don’t have the game in front of us (yet) so we probably can’t tell you what gear has which stats or what quests have been removed or updated. We can certainly guess if you want us to, but right now we can’t do much better than that. Fedwick asked… “Is there any word as far as who will be doing the Character Intro narration with the passing of Tony Jay?” Tony Jay’s replacement is Earl Boen, who has an eerily similar voice. He’s already done voice work for The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King in his place. You old school gamers might also know him as LeChuck. jorSbalZla asked… “Is there a mobile compliant wow.com that I can’t find a link to?” You’ll

Around Azeroth: Fear me

Ho there, travelers! Drop your weapons and reach for the sky! Yes, you ought to cower in fear, for I am an infamous highwayman. With my mighty glowing knives, bad-ass cracked-skull tabard, bandit-style mask and impractical mohawk, I present quite the intimidating figure. Hey! I said reach for the sky, not run toward the exit! I’ll stab you in your kneecaps if you don’t … oh. Hey there, nice giant. (Thanks to Vomitt of <Shakedown Mafia> on Stonemaul for the screenshot!) Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word “Azeroth” in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to

WoW Rookie: How not to be a noob

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW’s newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit the WoW.com WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to’s. This week, WoW Rookie would like to share a little gem of an article we discovered that delivers a catch-all of collective wisdom on rookie mistakes. If you’ve ever agonized over how to act and what to do (and how not to act and what not to do) in your first group, or your first instance, or your first Battleground, or your first raid … Be still, restless heart; the answers are here. What’s to learn from this oh-so-savvy article? Start off with a listing of common tactical mistakes categorized by role (tanks, healers and DPS); these are the Learn2Play basics that aren’t necessarily things you’ll learn leveling up on quests and the occasional instance. Next up, listings of things you should and shouldn’t do between pulls in a group, when part of a raid group or duking it out in a Battleground. A final