If you want to pull up some quick information about your World of Warcraft character (or anyone else's for that matter), why don't you try browsing for it on your iPhone. I'm not talking about the WoW Armory. There's a quicker way for you to do that - on the new and updated version of the Warcraft Characters app for the iPhone.

Released last July on the App Store, the WoW-friendly application now features some interesting and useful additions. Aside from compatibility with Apple's firmware 2.0, the app now allows you to view a character's gear, as well as his or her's reputation status.

In addition, non-US players can now make use of the app since it provides extended compatibility for characters from all other realms, such as those from China, Korea and Taiwan. The only thing missing seems to be the talents list for each character viewed. Otherwise, as a portable Armory, this app definitely does the job quite well.

Warcraft Characters is available on the App Store for free, so go ahead and download a copy. We'll be sure to keep tabs on any further updates regarding this nifty app as soon as we get them.

---

Related articles:

• Steve Jobs: 60 million App Store downloads and rising, iPhone kill switch exists
• WoW forums: on how regularly the armory is updated

Source: wow.qj.net

Conservative Christian Investment Firm flags gay content in games

If the Gay-dar rings, don't buy it. This is what the conservative Christian investment firm, The Timothy Plan, warns for parents planning to get games for their kids. Apart from the usual gaming no-no's, such as sex, violence, and substance abuse, the investment firm also flags games with homosexual content as inappropriate and unsafe for minors.

For this, The Timothy Plan hands out a list of the 30 "most offensive" games on the market. They maintain a "Do Not Buy List" for morally responsible consumers, against publishers that trade in abortion, porno, anti-family entertainment, and vices. They evaluate games on these eight categories: Sex, Nudity, Gay & Lesbian, Violence, Language, Drugs, Alcohol, and Game Addiction. They also specified if games have "demonic" content.

The usual suspects are all here: Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) and Saint's Row 2 (Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) (both of which have a check mark on seven of eight categories - even gay content), Fallout 3 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC), and Age of Conan and World of Warcraft to name a few. If they're such phobes about gay content, I'm surprised they didn't tag Manhunt 2 with a gay title.

They made a lot of comments that made me laugh, here are a few of my favorites:

• God of War II: "This game has a sex mini-game. During the "game," you press one of the four main PS2 buttons when indicated, which causes the women to moan louder, helping them reach climax." Now that's a detailed review!
• Saints Row 2: "Homosexual Encounters: …Characters like Randy the Tranny were used in marketing the game."
• BioShock: "Strong Language: Strong profanity including the f-word , as well as numerous others we prefer to not include in this report." Wow, that's some hardcore swearing! Not to self: Get BioShock.
• Manhunt 2: "Strong Language: Strong Language: The game's first two words are "Holy F k."
• Blitz: The League II: "Suggestive Themes: Females appear in miniskirts with thong underwear only to be spanked by players during touchdown celebrations."
• Bully: Scholarship Edition: "Homosexual Encounters: Gay achievements such as over the rainbow can be reached on the Xbox 360 when you kiss 20 boys."
• Army of Two: Homosexual Encounters: (not mentioned): Somewhat homo-erotic undertones between the two main characters are present.

Well, I guess they're not looking forward to joining FLAG, but hey, this was worth a few laughs. If you wanna see the full pdf, just click on the source link below

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More on censorship and game ratings:

• Porn game company to bypass ESRB, Sony, Ninty, MS; to create own adult game industry
• Parental advisory: 5 Best Kid Friendly Games '08
• Parental Advisory Group: MK vs. DC is family-friendly

Source: wow.qj.net

Well seeming as i play a shaman. And i have a 60 shaman, i thought i would give a totem guide. How you get all the saptas to be able to use your totems.
Well here goes

1. Call of Earth
(A) Earth Sapta
Go into the Brambleblade Ravine, it's the thorny cave area in the southeast corner
of Mulgore. Fight through and kill shamans until they drop the water. Take the
water back to your trainer and get the Earth Sapta.
(B) Kodo Rock
Take the Earth Sapta to Kodo Rock, east of Narache. It's a relatively small,
monolith-looking thing (it looks like a column from Stonehenge). Right-click the
Earth Sapta to drink it once you're there, and talk to the elemental that appears.
He'll give you a piece of quartz.
Earth Totem
Return to your trainer with the quartz and enjoy your Earth Totem.
2. Call of Fire (Level 10)
(A) Kranal Fiss
He's in a small building northeast of the Crossroads on the Grol'dam Farm. Note
that as you head north out of the Crossroads, you'll see a small building and a
tower on the road. This is NOT where Kranal Fiss is. Go north beyond that, the
road will split to the north and to the east. Head northeast at this point, you'll see
the farm, with two buildings. Fiss is in the far building. He'll tell you to talk to Telf
Joolam in Durotar, and give you the Torch of the Dormant Flame.
(B) Telf Joolam
From Grol'dam Farm, follow the road east out of the Barrens into Durator. You'll
cross a Bridge over the Southfury River. As soon as you cross the bridge, turn
south and follow the east shore of the river. Travel a few minutes until you run
into the mountains. There is a winding path up the mountain, it's somewhat hard
to see and follow, and it's very narrow. At one point it appears to be a sheer dropoff
dead-end, but it's not. Step carefully. When you reach the top, Telf is there,
and when you speak to him, he will tell you to get some Fire Tar and a Reagent
Pouch.
Reagent Pouch
Go back north from Telf's mountain until you reach the road, and then follow it
east to Razor Hill. Once there, travel north but do not enter the ravine, head to the
right side of the path up the hill. Keep moving north until you see a cave with
some Burning Blade mobs in it. Fight your way in until you see Burning Blade
Cultists (the ones with the imp pets). Kill them until you get your Reagent Pouch.
Only the Cultists drop the pouch, so don't waste your time on fanatics or
neophytes.
(D) Fire Tar
Go back towards the Crossroads (south to Razor Hill, west to Southfury River,
west towards Crossroads). Northeast of the Crossroads (but south of the road to
Durator, south/southeast of the farm where Fiss is) you'll find Thorn Hill.
Razormane camps line the entirety of the ridge. In the eastern-most camp (the
one with the chests for the supplies quest, if you're doing it) you will find
Razormane Geomancers. Kill them until you get the Fire Tar. Geomancers are the
only ones that drop it, target them. This camp is right at the top of the hill as
you're heading west from the Southfury Bridge, just south of the road.
(E) Back to Telf
Take your tar and pouch back to Telf. He will give you the Fire Sapta. Head up the
hill past him until you reach the rock shrine. You must defeat a level 12-13
elemental and loot an ember from his corpse. He's a piece of cake, the standard
Shaman approach to solo combat will make short work of him (drop your
stoneskin totem, melee and shock him to death, bring a heal potion if you're
worried). He drops an ember, take it and the torch you got from Fiss to the brazier
next to where the elemental spawned, light the torch.
(F) Back to Fiss
Take your Torch of the Eternal Flame back to Kranal Fiss in the Barrens to get your
Fire Totem.
3. Call of Water - Level 20
This quest is ridiculous, have your Ghost Wolf purchased and on your hotbar, you'll
be glad you did. It will also benefit you to strategically bind to reduce travel time.
Recommendations for how to do this are included.
*Note - I happened to accidentally fall into Dustwallow Marsh while exploring the
mountains in southeastern Barrens before doing this quest, and I managed to find
the ogre village (Blackenwall or something) in there and pick up the flight route to
it. This ended up saving me a TON of walking time later, as I could fly to that
village and take a short jog out of the Marsh that dumps you out right near Brine's
shack (see step B). The trouble with this approach is that the critters in
Dustwallow are hellacious at this level, I got lucky. If you're brave or stupid, give
this a shot. Head into Dustwallow from the normal entrance in southeastern
Barrens and follow the road until you hit the ogre camp, then pick up the flight
route, it cuts out that nasty long run down from Crossroads.
(A) Islen Waterseeker
Go speak to Islen Waterseeker in the Barrens. She is near the water at the
merchant coast, south of Ratchet, north of the docked Bloodsail ship. Her hut is
hard to see, it's behind a big hill. If you look on the world map there's a little
finger that juts out into the water just south of Ratchet, that's where she is. She
will tell you to talk to Brine in South Barrens.
(B) Brine
She is in a Tauren shack up on a ridge on the southwest side of the Barrens, just
south of the Field of Giants, north of Razorfen Kraul (it's closer to Thousand
Needles than it is to Taurejo). Lots of level 20-24 roaming aggros in here. Ghost
Wolf and dodge them. She has a few things for you to do, first you must collect a
water sample from the pool of water just outside her hut. Do it and return.
Tarren Mill
Next you have to go to Tarren Mill. That's right, in Hillsbrad. Eastern Kingdoms.
Before you do this, Ghost Wolf and run up to Taurejo, and bind at the Inn there.
Then run to Crossroads and catch the flight to Orgrimmar, and take the Zeppelin
to Undercity.
If you've never been to Orgrimmar, go back to Razor Hill (you went through it in
your Fire Sapta quest), and then just head due north, you'll run into it eventually.
Go in and head for the big tower in the center of the first valley. At the top is the
flight master, pick up the flight route, then head back outside and go east. The
zeppelin platform is there. There are two zeppelin routes that dock here, one goes
to Undercity, that's the one you want. Talk to the goblin zeppelin masters to see
where each flight goes. The zeppelins arrive every five minutes or so, simply hop
on when they arrive, and hop off when they dock in the Eastern Kingdoms.
(If you use the Dustwallow Ogre Village approach, bind there instead of in Taurejo,
if there's an inn. I didn't think of this when I was doing the quest so I didn't
check).
Get the bat route in Undercity if you don't have it, then head past Undercity into
Silverpine (southwest from Undercity). You can follow the roads on the world map
to figure out how to get to Hillsbrad, it's pretty easy. But! Stop at Sepulcher first
and get the bat route there. You'll be coming back here at the end of the quest to
drink the Water Sapta.
Then head to Hillsbrad. It's a contested zone with lots of stuff that'll be a bit rough
on you, ghost wolf and stay on the road. At the time of this writing (12/07/04),
Alliance activity is insanely heavy in Hillsbrad on my server and they've got a
massive level advantage. You'll need speed and some luck. When you get to
Tarren Mills, fill your water flask at the well and then get the bat route here, too.
Use your hearthstone to warp to Taurejo (or Dustwallow), then Ghost Wolf and run
back to Brine.
(D) Ashenvale Water
Now you must fill your final sample. This one can be a hassle. Go to Ashenvale.
Ghost Wolf yourself and stick close to the road. Keep your eyes peeled for Alliance
people. If you're in wolf form, you're likely to be able to outrun most of your
trouble.
Follow the road until it splits, take a left (west) and stay on the the road. You will
eventually run into another fork. One way leads to a less formal path (not on the
world map), the other leads to Astranaar. You don't really want to tangle with the
level 40 sentinels in Astranaar, so take the unmarked path (south). It will take you
to the Ruins of Stardust. The fountain is on an island in the center, which is
guarded by level 22-23 swamp elementals (some are casters). Bring a friend if
you have trouble. Fight to the foutnain, get the sample, go back to Brine.
Ashenvale is also frequently populated with Alliance, be prepared for some
fisticuffs.
Optionally, on your way back, you can go east at the first fork you took and get
the wyvern route at Splintertree, and fly to the Crossroads from there. If you have
the Dustwallow route, you can hopscotch your way down there (fly to Crossroads
and then to Dustwallow) and skip all the running.
(E) Water Sapta
Brine will give you a sample of the purest water. Take that to Islen Waterseeker
and she will give you the Water Sapta and some of the last drops of purest water.
When I did this, the quests got a little tangled up and confused and I kept getting
'duplicate item' errors, but they can be ignored as long as you have your Water
Sapta. Islan also gives you the last remaning drops of pure water (double check
and make sure you have these, this is the #1 thing I see people reporting that
didn't go right when they did the quest). Now you go back to Sepulcher. At this
point, I made a pit stop in Ratchet and bound there, so I could warp straight back
to Ratchet once I was done in Sepulcher. Your hearthstone may not have reset if
you do all this quickly enough. It took me two shots at the Ashenvale Fountain due
to interference from Alliance goons so my stone had reset. Bind in Ratchet if you
want, then go to Crossroads, fly to Orgrimmar, and ride the zeppelin back to
Undercity in the Eastern Kingdoms.
Run into Undercity and take the bat to Sepulcher (aren't you glad I made you stop
and pick it up?). Now head west past Sepulcher - it looks like there's nothing back
there, but there is, keep working at it. You want to go due west from Sepulcher
until you get to the coast. The water shrine is there. Drink the Sapta at the shrine
and the corrupt elemental appears (he's a pushover, even if he's got a few levels
on you - drop your Searing Totem and a Stoneskin Totem, have a heal potion
ready just in case, get out your Rockbiter Weapon and have at him).
The elemental drops some bracers. Place those and the pure water in the brazier
and a friendly elemental appears. Talk to him and get a shard of water. If your
hearthstone has reset, activate it to warp to Ratchet and then jog south to Islen.
Otherwise, enjoy the zeppelin ride back.
(F) Water Totem
Finally, Islen gives you the Water Totem. Exhale gladly, this is the most annoying
of the totem quests, and you're now done with it.
4. Call of Air - Level 30
(A) Air Totem
This is the easiest of the quests, and I highly suspect that it won't remain in this
form forever. Talk to your trainer (for Taurens, it's the sleeping guy in Thunder
Bluff on Spirit Rise). You'll be told to head for Thousand Needles and speak to an
NPC. Chances are that you've already been in Thousand Needles. If not, go south
of where Brine is, take the lift down, and follow the road southeast to Freewind
Post, get the wyvern route here, and then head northeast. There's a cave along
the northern wall with a ramp leading up to it (there's actually two caves on the
northern wall, you want the eastern-most cave). The NPC is right outside. There's
an NPC with a fun quest inside too that opens up a series of more quests, serveral
of which are not fun at all but decent XP.
Speak to the NPC outside and she just hands over the Air Totem, implying that
she'll have further training for you later.

Cheers
Drunkie

A sweet farming spot is Irontree Woods. Farm the elementals and Trees for Essence of water, Core of elements, and savage frond. u can make 30 gold in 30 minutes if ur lucky (I was) and they sell quickly at the AH.

's World of Warcraft. This year's Brewfest promises to be yet another fun-filled time to enjoy all the fermented fruits of the harvest - all without the hangover.

The main Brewfest festivals will begin this September 20 and will run all the way until October 4. The venues for the Horde and Alliance factions will be held at Orgrimmar and Ironforge respectively. You also can expect smaller beer gardens to be set up in all the other main cities across the game world.

Classic events such as Ram Racing and the Barkers Quest will be making a comeback, although veteran drinkers can also expect a few new events to pop up during this time. Belbi Quikswitch and Blix Fixwidget will also be offering a new set of Brewfest prizes for any tokens you win during these special events.

Whether you choose Thunderbrew, Barleybrew, or the Ogres as the poison of you choice, it's all good clean fun during the upcoming Brewfest event. Keep an eye on this spot for more updates regarding the World of Warcraft event.

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Related articles:

• Blizzard releases new beer steins, comes in Horde or Alliance flavors
• Grab a cold one in WoW's Brewfest commercial video

Source: wow.qj.net

Warcraft Characters app for iPhone gets new update
If you want to pull up some quick information about your World of Warcraft character (or anyone else's for that matter), why don't you try browsing for it on your iPhone. I'm not talking about the WoW Armory. There's a quicker way for you to do that - on the new and updated version of the Warcraft Characters app for the iPhone.

Released last July on the App Store, the WoW-friendly application now features some interesting and useful additions. Aside from compatibility with Apple's firmware 2.0, the app now allows you to view a character's gear, as well as his or her's reputation status.

In addition, non-US players can now make use of the app since it provides extended compatibility for characters from all other realms, such as those from China, Korea and Taiwan. The only thing missing seems to be the talents list for each character viewed. Otherwise, as a portable Armory, this app definitely does the job quite well.

Warcraft Characters is available on the App Store for free, so go ahead and download a copy. We'll be sure to keep tabs on any further updates regarding this nifty app as soon as we get them.

---

Related articles:

• Steve Jobs: 60 million App Store downloads and rising, iPhone kill switch exists
• WoW forums: on how regularly the armory is updated

Source: wow.qj.net

, humans and night elves? In the eyes of Silicon Knights founder Denis Dyack it does. During an interview conducted by videogaming247, Dyack weighed both Blizzard's World of Warcraft and CCP Games' EVE Online on what he considered the superior MMO game.

Dyack admitted to trying out WoW for nearly a month when he told himself, "You know, I've got to stop this". He then came the conclusion that compared to EVE Online, the latter had more depth in terms of content and gameplay. Here's a quote from Dyack regarding his opinion on the Sci-Fi MMO game:

I was really, really big into EVE Online. I love EVE Online, and actually for me personally I actually think it s a better game. I know it s a lot harder core, but the depth of it s unparalleled and I love it. But I have to stop, force myself to stop playing those games because it takes so much time.

He was also relieved about finally finishing the development for Too Human. He said that this meant he now has time to play games of all sorts. Anyway, that apparently is his two cents regarding what he considers the better MMO title.

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Related articles:

• Video: Denis Dyack talks about Too Human, the value of game storylines
• EA Mythic GM says Warhammer won't be a WoW Killer

Source: wow.qj.net

Blizzard's take on MMOs for consoles; no WoW for consoles
In a recent interview with Blizzard's J. Allen Brack and Tom Chilton, they squashed every console gamers' hopes of seeing the highly acclaimed MMO, World of Warcraft, boxed neatly inside a console. Also discussed were several other topics regarding the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King, as well as other new content for the game.

Chilton was also rather excited about the new achievement system that they will be introducing soon. It will definitely give players something to strive for and extend their gameplay even further.

When asked about the hardest challenge the developers have encountered so far, Brack answered that the insertion of the new Death Knight class was the biggest hurdle they've faced. However, with the beta phase for WotLK well underway, modifications are still being made to the new character class before its official release with the new expansion.

One of the more interesting things they discussed was Blizzard's take on MMOs made for consoles and social networks. This doesn't necessarily mean gamers should hope for a console version of WoW soon. Brack specifically mentioned while this may work with other MMOs, this setup wouldn't really work with World of Warcraft. I guess this just means we'll just have to play WoW as it was meant to be played: on a PC.

You can view the full interview conducted by play.tm by following the link found below.

---

Related articles:

• World of Warcraft devs hint at graphical reboot, speak on ten man raids
• Blizzard's J. Brack Allen on the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion

Source: wow.qj.net

While there's lots of strats out there for making gold, it's easy to overlook the obvious and simple. Rogue Pickpocketing is one of these often overlooked abilities that can make you more gold than you realize… often in very short amounts of time.

Taking 5/5 in Master of Deception is a good option anyway, but it definitely helps in thievery. Get Nightscape boots as well (craftable by most mid-upper level LW) as they add +1 bonus to stealth. 30+ mobs seem to carry an average of 2-3s each, plus mana and healing pots, as well as merchant fodder that sells for 1-2.5 silver each. At higher level mobs, you'll even snag the occassional gemstone, and virtually all mobs will often give a Junkbox or Lockbox, which is invaluable in increasing lockpicking skills.

Go to an area full of NPCs that have pickable pockets. These include, surprisingly enough, skellies, ghouls, and other undead, Furblogs and timbermaw, and virtually any humanoid attackable NPC. But here's a special little spot I've found where I make easily 5-10 gold in 20 minutes or less.

In BRD, after your group leaves, you can stay behind by yourself WITHOUT getting booted back to your hearth spot. THIS WORKS ONLY IF YOU SUCCESSFULLY DID THE ARENA, although you can try it with a higher probability of aggro otherwise. Go to the gallery that holds the spectators for the Arena (Ring of Law). They will not aggro you if you successfully defeated the challenge, and you can stealth and pickpocket the entire gallery (approximately 40 NPCs) with ease, with each npc holding between 3-4.5 silver. That alone is 1.2-1.7 gold, but I get 4-6 Superior healing pots, 4-5 Heavy Lockboxes, merchant trash (another 20-30s), AND a Star Ruby EVERY TIME.

Hi again folks,

K, first off, my blatant moan to get additional votes for my post

This may be the final guide in the series as though they seem to get an awful lot of use, I'm really not sure on whether or not people are finding them valuable. However the people that did read, vote and feedback on the last two tutorials have inspired me to write a third. This one's for you lot:

Being a (insert class here) from 40-50.

Ok, first of all, it's any class now, the reason I say that is because any class can solo in WoW if you have even a shred of skill with your class. If you didn't have that skill, you'd probably not have made it to 40 so I'm going to assume you can manage even level mobs one on one. To highlight this, when I wrote the first two guides, I was a hunter. I'm now also a warrior, and's had no trouble following this strat, even as a defensive specced tank, one of the worst (if not THE worst) soloists in the game.

We left our hunter/(class) bouncing around places like stranglethorn and gnomeregan, floating off to southsore and alterac now and again for maximump xp. Here's where to go from there (again, imho)…

Freshly dinged 40!

OK so you made it, well done, hitting 40 is almost like finishing a very long grind and quest. The quest for your mount. If you read the other threads on here you should also have the money for it by now but in case you dont, some quick tips are:

Sell resources, leather, ores, enchanting dust, herbs… it all sells pretty good on the AH.
KEEP! Those grey weaps that drop, even grey armour sells relatively well but weapons in particular are often more valuable than their green armour counterparts of the same level.
Dont be afraid to go farm for cash, a particularly good spot is Rock Elementals in Arathi, but it's farmed to hell so perhaps somewhere else is just as good for you. (I found the basilisk loot in STV quite valuable).

OK, that's enough about Mounts, once you've finished prancing around your chosen city in front of the AH on it, get your head together and prepare for what some might call a "real grind", having come from SWG to WoW I would question anyones definition of a grind in WoW but that's another matter.

One thing I will say about grinding, up until now, it was a choice whether you wanted to quest your way on through or do some grinding to speed your passage to the next level. From 40 on in, there's not so much of a choice, in order to level quickly you will HAVE to grind. To quest your way from 40-50 would probably require the completion of every quest in the game in this level range, and by the time you'd found and done them all, you'd have been 60 by grinding. Quest by all means, it's a good way to pick up nice items, but do your homework, if the quest reward sucks ass, or can't be used by you. The don't wate your time unless you really want to do the quest.

For some classes, level 40 brings with it some nice goodies, namely plate or mail armour, if you've been saving this stuff up for now, you're a clever monkey, go put it on, it'll help with the rest of this guide immensely.

40-43

For these first few levels you have a few options, varying in loot/xp and safety as you might expect, the best options I found were:

Scarlet Monastery - You may have already done it by now, but the experience gained in a round trip of SM is still pretty damn good at this level, and the loot off the bosses is not to be sniffed at either.

STV - If you've followed the last two guides then there's a good chance you're sick to death of this place, but even so, for the good ol grinder among us, here's some good choices for xp in this range:

Stranglethorn Tigresses (37/38)
Elder Mistvale Gorillas (40ish)

I pretty much exclusively killed these two types of creatures whenever I wasn't in the mood for an instance of questing. The xp is good and both have some drops that sell well, most notably the Coarse Gorilla Hairs which sell very well indeed.

With the added green/blue items dropping very occasionally, you should find them quite enjoyable, what's good about the gorillas in particular, is that they spawn fast in a relatively small area so grinding on them is easy.

On Hitting 43, there's one place that can't really be rivalled for experience, loot and general fun. It is of course:

Uldaman

This instance is a fairly straight forward affair with troggs and dwarves ruining what's otherwise quite a nice cave.

The noticeable difference of Uldaman over other instances, is that there are some of your first level 500 bosses thrown in for good fun. Namely the bosses Ironaya and Archaedas.

I'm not going to go into strategy on this dungeon as many will choose not to go, or wont be able to without a good group. Suffice to say, the levelling xp in an instanced dungeon is always going to be good.

If that's not your cup of tea here's my real top pick for xp at 43+

43-46

Wastewander pirates in Tanaris. It's as simple as that, these guys are ridiculously good for levelling. They range from 40-41 with the occasioanl 42/43 mage thrown in to keep you on your toes. You can pick up a quest in Gadgetzan to go kill them, and whats more you can keep on turning in their water pouches for 380xp a time. I was turning in 40 or so at the end of an evening which was paying out 3-4k experience on top of grind experience.

To add to this, these guys commonly drop mageweave meaning you can max up your first aid and minimise your down time whilst hunting here. They also drop "Moonberry Juice" pretty commonly, keeping all the people with Blue Bars happy with it's 1395 mana regen. They also very commonly drop scorpid leather patterns, with scorpid scales available in the same zone and tailoring supplies in gadgetzan. If you're a hunter leatherworker, you can come into Tanaris in Leather, and leave wearing full scorpid mail!

Furthermore… these pirate camps very commonly spawn treasure chests, they don't contain great stuff all the time, but I've had blues and green items from them with good success. I also have a good stock of Superior health potions and greater mana potions as a result of camping here.

Further still! These pirates are just a minute or two away from a Graveyard and a City so you can buy bullets, sell your loot and even rest overnight if you so wish to.

These reasons, should be enough to keep you killing here until you reach level 46. But where do you go then? The answer is simple…

46-50

More pirates. Yeh you heard me, just to the south east of the first batch of pirates you've so mercilessly slaughtered is a hidden cove. By now you may have already been in here to kill "Andre Firebeard", a bounty on his head can be gotten from Steamwheedle Port.

In this cove, you'll find 44-45 pirates and once again, the benefits from above can be applied, there's more xp more loot, more chests and best of all, these guys respawn real fast. Maybe 5 minutes on each mob max. By the time you've cleared all the way down to the fort, you've usually got the majority of them back up behind you again.

You can grind here perfectly, stopping to hand in loot is your only burden, and you could easily forego that if you were really wanting to gain xp. In just a few nights of hunting here I made an average of 20 gold a night and levelled extremely quickly.

This should keep you all going right on up to level 50 if you can keep your mind focsed on killing quickly and can stomach the grind.

Some nice deviations from this if you do get bored are:

40+:
STV, Scarlet Monastery, Alterac, Badlands
43+:
Uldaman, Alterac (Elite Ogres), Feralas,
46+:
"Dont deviate!" but if you must, Zul Farrak, Southern Tanaris, Parts of STV,

The grind is long and hard from 40-50 and will take even the hardest of players a few solid days of playing to acheive. You can probably grind the whole lot in around the 60 hour mark if you have the stomach for it, but not many can grind for so long.

Some handy pointers:

Sell your mageweave on the AH if you have stacks of 20, it sells fast and you can afford to sell it a little under the competition when you're getting it this easy.

Keep some "emergency" tools on you, Swiftness potions, Superior healing, Greater mana pots can all bail you out of some untimely deaths.

Pull! Use proper pulling tactics to ensure you fight only one enemy at a time.

Don't be afraid to run. It's quicker to run out of aggro range than it is to run back from the GY. Corpse runs can seriously affect your morale, making the rest of the grind harder.

Right, best of luck to you, may your grind be swift and painless.

As always, spelling is not my forte when typing at speed so if you spot anything terrible, correct below and I'll correct above.

's Public Test Realm has taken the backseat in favor of the Wrath of the Lich King beta, it doesn't mean Blizzard has totally ignored the test server altogether. The European servers have recently been wiped to make room for the new 3.0 build of the PTR, according to Blizzard poster Tigole.

Tigole also mentioned that some patches were on the PTR for over two months already and should receive some major testing once it goes live. In addition, 3.0.2 will be sure to arrive some time before Wrath of the Lich King 2.0.1, similar to when the pre-Burning Crusade patch was implemented a month before the actual expansion was released.

Since there are still a lot of people trying out the WotLK beta, this means people who want to test out the new updates in the PTR will have a lot of free space on the Realm to do so. Also, Tigole mentioned that none of the classes are done, so anyone willing to sign up for the PTR will be more than welcome.

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Source: wow.qj.net

Eve of the Leipzig Games Convention: setting up the booths
Leipzig is looking pretty spiffy this year, and I'm really looking forward to it, considering how much of a downer E3 turned out to be. Anyway, the good folks at 1UP have posted a new bunch of photos from the site of the Leipzig event as the booths are being set up for the big shebang tomorrow.

My personal favorite are the promotional figures for Lego Batman made up entirely of Lego blocks. Several major booths worth of noting is the not-little-but-big LittleBigPlanet booth, Blizzard's World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Tomb Raider: Underworld, and Mirror's Edge. You can see who else is coming to the show by clicking on the pics below.

For more pics from the site, follow the source link below. As expected, there's no sign of Nintendo, who has decided to go on a roadshow rather than join the rest of the group.

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Source: wow.qj.net

Herbalism Guide

First off, a bit of background to this guide. This is the second guide that I've written for WoW Professions, I do not pretend to be the most knowledgeable of players, and am defiantly not one for playing for massive swathes of time. However, I do tend to persist at things until I have a good understanding of how things work.

My main character is a level 60 Tauren Shaman (go cows!), I dropped Skinning (very easy to level) and picked up Herbalism, for one reason - cash. Although all server economies vary alot (and I do mean alot!), high level herbs sell for enough to make it worth spending an hour picking them and selling them on the auction house. At the top end, a stack of herbs might sell for 10g/15g (or more), and getting a couple of stacks in an hour isn't too difficult.

If you have picked up Herbalism at level 5, then you can largely discount this guide as a way of skilling up. By picking Herbs where you are currently levelling, you should naturally improve your skill in Herbalism. Instead this guide is really intended for people who have already reached a high level, and wish to either change or pick up Herbalism as a profession.

There are a few things that you can do to speed up levelling Herbalism. First off, is that Tauren receive +15 Herbalism as a racial skill - not (in my opinion) as good as Human's bonus to reputation gains, but better than a kick in the teeth if you take up Herbalism Next up, there are two glove enchants that provide a small bonus to Herbalism (+2 and +5). These bonus's don't make much difference, but will mean that you can go from one area to another just that little bit quicker. One tip that I can give, is that if you have a set of gloves with either +2 or +5 enchant on them, only use them if you can pick herbs you otherwise wouldn't be able to. By not wearing them, you can eak out more skill ups than otherwise (eg, if you have a skill of 195 and Herb goes grey at 200, wearing a set of +5 gloves will mean there’s no chance of a skill up, not wearing them gives you 5 potential skill ups and a stack or so of herbs). Finally, Druids and Shaman have a distinct advantage over other classes as both have a travel form. In Ghost Wolf form, you can actually pick herbs (no need to come out of it), and Druids can flick into Travel Form and back again, with no time issues. If you are using a mount between each spawn of herbs, then you have the extra 3 second cast time to summon your mount after each pick.

To grind out a gathering skill from 1 to 300 is a relatively simple process for a level 60. Very few mobs will give you real jip, and most won't even aggro you. For Herbalism, I reckon that a 4 or 5 hour solid grind would be enough to sort you out (excluding travel time).

The following is a rough list of where I would recommend to pick herbs and at what skill levels. Please use your own intelligence when it comes to picking herbs! Grey herbs won't ever give you a skill up, so unless you want/need them, leave them alone. Don't go into a new zone until you can pick at least 50% of the herbs available. Download and install the gatherer add-on and gatherbook (use this to download a large file with every spawn point), this will allow you to make educated guesses as to what areas to go to, to collect different herbs.

1-100 - Durotar.
Couldn't be simpler, just go the length of Durotar and collect anything you can. Herbs are close together and to be honest, pose no real difficulties. You can quite happily stop Durotar at skill level 75, and go onto The Barrens. However with the very high concentration of herbs, I actually found it quicker to carry on until 100 (where almost everything goes grey).
100-150 - The Barrens.
Begin in the Northern Barrens and then head south. Although there are lots of spawn points, I found that most herbs seemed to appear in clumps of two or three and then a big gap between them. As such using a mount isn't a bad idea.
150-200 - Alterac Mountains and Arathi Highlands
Two options that to be honest, arn't too different from each other. Arathi has more spawn points, but is slightly larger. However I actually preferred Arathi Highlands as it allowed me to do Arathi Basin Battleground runs and flick back to picking herbs with no downtime
200-240 - Tanaris
This was the slowest place for my grind but I wanted Firebloom to level up enchanting The spawn points are miles apart and its frankly in the middle of nowhere. Better alternatives would be Stranglethorn Vale (for those not on a PvP server!), Dustwallow Marsh or Swamp of Sorrows.
240 - 280 - Feralas and Swamp of Sorrows
Feralas has an abundance of Sungrass and the Swamp of Sorrows an abundance of Blindweed. Simple really. By now you are picking herbs that sell for OK cash. As such, I'd recommend sticking to a single zone and try to get stacks of the same herb as this ought to bring in more cash (whole stacks rather than part stacks).
280 - 300 - Varies
To be honest, I'd say that there isn't a single area that is better than another for the last 20 skill levels. Winterspring is nice once you hit 290, as there are only three different herbs there that sell for good money. The Eastern Plaguelands has an OK amount of Plaguebloom. Pretty much, do whatever you fancy, providing you're getting skill ups, who cares!

On the Auction House
OK, some pretty fundamental ground rules for using the Auction House.

First off, know your punters and your opposition! If you are wanting to sell something as a regular event (such as Herbs) check the Auction House every night for a week or two, for the item you are selling. Look for patterns. If there appears to never be your item on the Auction House every Monday, Tuesday and Friday, but its overloaded on a Wednesday and Saturday, then you've already spotted a trend that you can exploit. Next up ensure that you know what professions and recipies require your item. One example of this is the herb Wildvine. Wildvine is used in Alchemy, Tailoring, Blacksmithing and Leatherworking, it drops from other herbs when you pick them. Now the greatest single quantity of Wildvine used in one recipie is 6. Others use 1, 2 and 4. As such, selling a stack of 7 Wildvine is not as desirable as a stack of 4 or 6 to most punters. Not all customers have big blobs of cash to spend, and if somebody just wants to make an item that requires 4 Wildvine, why do they want to spend extra gold on 3 more when they're never going to use them!

Next up is overloading. If you've spent 4 weeks farming Icecap from Winterspring, and have ended up with 40 stacks of the stuff, don't be so stupid as to stick all of it onto the Auction House all at once. As well as costing you for each listing, it will actually lower the cost of that herb as your opposition undercuts you, and customers see that there is now an abundance of it available.

Don't forget that many players have real lives. During the weekend, the Auction House goes mental and items are bought and sold every minute. During the week, this is much, much slower. Having said that, never be afraid to try selling items in the week. If the regular farmer of an item only plays at the weekend, and there’s a person out there who plays every night, then you've found your corner of the market!

Finally, don't forget the basics. If you are farming for a specific profession (herbs for Alchemy, ore for Mining, etc), then identify the most basic item required and farm it like mad! Selling Copper Ore at 50s for a stack of 10 will make you quite a bit of cash over time

Blizzard has already confirmed their presence at the Leipzig Games Convention, but Kotaku recently found out an extra bit of information pertaining to Blizzard's presence at GC. Specifically, Blizzard will be showing off some new media for convention-goers to drool over.

According to Kotaku's report, Blizzard is planning on unveiling the opening cinematic movie for Wrath of the Lich King at the event.

Following the airing of the opening movie, the company will also host a Q&A session, presumably to answer questions folks may have on the cinematic.

Playable demos, an opening cinematic, and a forum for questions. Sounds like the Blizzard media machine is going full force at Leipzig. Keep checking QJ for updates from Leipzig as it happens.

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Related Article:

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Source: wow.qj.net