All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles.
It's a strange feeling to look back on four years of roleplaying in WoW, more than two of which were spent writing "All the World's a Stage," and feel as though the curtain is coming down on this part of my life, just as many new things are rising up to take its place. It's a sad thing, and it's a happy thing at the same time.
Part of me doesn't want to change -- it just wants to go on having more of all those experiences I've enjoyed, which have helped me grow and become the person I am today; but the other part of me embraces these changes, and looks forward toward the experiences that will make me into the person I will be tomorrow.
The fact is that I need to put WoW on indefinite hiatus, but before I go, let me share some of the things I have deeply appreciated about playing the game, especially how roleplaying filled an important niche in my life, and actually helped make me a better person.
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.
The story's not over 'til [1.Local] has picked it to bits and pieces ... So what did the local denizens have to say about the world of WoW during the first half of the year? In fact, the [1.Local] scene itself became the news back in June, as [1.Local]: The epic rap battle comment war edition hit readers' screens: "Players disagree over Blizzard's upcoming badge changes. Rap battle ensues. Site is left terrified and confused."
epsilon343: Ahh yes, the rap battle. Nothing like mad rhymes to cool off tempers.
Higher on Killchrono's list of memories, though, was all the commotion about scamming: Aaah, I remember that run of articles about scamming. The best (and simultaneously worst) part about them were the numerous comments by phishers and scammers who tried to justify their actions by saying non-security savvy people deserved to get hacked and how they were 'doing them a favour' by showing them how stupid they were. A testament to how deplorable and vile malicious scammers truly are.
Every week (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a UI and addons blog for WoW.
I'm going to cheat.
I'm going to dip back slightly into 2008 to the point where Wrath of the Lich King came out. Priests everywhere had high hopes for their class. We were coming off an expansion where Circle of Healing Priests and Resto Shamans were the king. Since then, the other healing classes have been improved where they could hold their own in raids and compete.
Wowhead has given us a few new features for holiday presents. The navigation tabs have been tweaked to showcase some of the features and pages they've been adding recently. There's also a super-cute wallpaper by Noxychu, featuring cartoon avatars of various Wowhead employees.
More interesting, however, is the Completion Tracker, which works with their profiler and client to track your characters' endless quest to 100%. Areas tracked include quests, mounts, pets, and recipes. It's still in beta, but it seems to be working fairly well. It also lets you exclude categories that you may not be working on.
The other feature that Wowhead added is one that I'm honestly not a fan of - the little "share" button at the bottom of blog posts. I know we have it on Wow.com as well, but I still think it would be better not to have it; people are perfectly competent to submit links to Digg or Facebook or whatever without you encouraging them to do it. That's just a personal opinion, though.
It's the Sunday in between Christmas or Hanukkah and New Years festivities, which is the perfect time to settle down and read through the weekly comics:
Mobule of <For the Herd> on Proudmoore took this picture of himself modeling the only useful gnomish engineering device -- the Gnomish X-Ray Specs. His girlfriend, Kristilrae, has volunteered to serve as the test subject. Nice pic and all, but doesn't it sort of ruin the point of X-Ray Specs if you can only use them on your significant other?
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 remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val'kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here.
Tuesday, we kicked off our Twelve Days of Winter Veil contests at WoW.com Every day until January 2, 2010 we will have new prizes to give away along with new loot codes. Today, we are giving away 1 Ogre Pinata code courtesy of WoWTCGLoot.com. As you can see in the movie above, this in-game item summons an ogre-shaped pinata. After it takes a certain amount of damage, it explodes, throwing candy onto the ground. Anyone can pick up the candy and when they chew it, can blow bubbles.
To enter for a chance to win, leave a comment in this post by Monday, December 28, 2009, 12pm ET (noon). Limit one entry per person and make sure you're registered with a valid email address. We'll be choosing one winner randomly from the entrants and contact them via email after the close of the contest.
Don't forget to check back every day through January 2nd for new contests celebrating the Twelve Days of Winter Veil!
This isn't a breakfast topic where I protest. I'm not signing petitions or grumping, I'm simply looking back and saying "Gee, I wish X".
For instance, I wish there were tanking fist weapons. I love, love, love fist weapons. I'd settle for a fist that had hit and expertise on it, even. But while I'm willing to switch to a slow main hander when I have a full rage bar to dump as Devastate threat (or for huge Cleaves when tanking lots of trash) it's just not really suitable for a good 80 to 90% of my time tanking. And yet, how I love fist weapons. I have an enhancement shaman, of course, and yet fists almost never drop for him (he's using axes at the moment) while they rain from the heavens and are almost constantly sharded when I'm tanking. I've taken to just picking them up and using them for fun. I understand there will most likely never be a dedicated tanking fist, as the only class that could use it would be a warrior (Paladins and DKs can't use fist weapons, Druids can but would almost never use one over a staff since they can't use shields).
Similarly, whenever I go elemental I always end up drooling over caster swords, and there have been a few times I've heard paladin healers sigh at a dagger drop. So what I turn to ask you is, what do you wish you could use? What drop can you either not equip or just can't effectively use?
The contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 18 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before 12pm ET (noon) Monday, December 28, 2009. Please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact you should you be one of the winners. You may enter only once and three winners will be selected randomly. Each winner will receive 1 Feast of Winter Veil Collector's Set with a retail value of US$25. Click here to read the official contest rules.
And if you don't win today (or even if you do!) check back later today for loot card giveaways and tomorrow for more contests -- the prizes only get better as we count down the Twelve Days of Winter Veil!
on Dec 27th 2009 (5 hours ago)
WoW.com continues celebrating 
