I have long awaited the day when Saristinae, the Guild Relations forum troll that gets me angry beyond comprehension, would venture out to the General forums and get flamed into a crisp. And forsooth, that day has arrived.

For those of you unfamiliar with the WOW Forums, casuals vs. raiders is one of the big arguments that always crops up on the forums. And if casuals vs. raiders could be compared to, say, Republicans vs. Democrats, Saristinae would be Fred Phelps, doggedly protesting everything without making any sense at all.

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Steal from the Consortium and give to the Broken? Ambush Illidian and hand the purple to a newbie? How will you capture the essence of Robin Hood and his campaign to fight corruption and poverty?

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Okay, let's just veer away for a while from guilds killing in-game bosses and Blizzard's continued nerfing of characters. Let's take the time to know the lore behind the World of Warcraft and the rest of the Warcraft universe through the TOKYOPOP comic book Warcraft: The Sunwell Trilogy.

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The word has come down from on high (read Drysc) that round two of the arena battles will begin June 12th. The season opener will coincide with a small patch, so if the patch gets delayed, so will the arena season. Intrigued? Yeah, me too. Still no official word on the spectator sport concept, but perhaps this patch is just the thing we've been asking for.

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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

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I'm a man of many distractions. Between a full time career, a growing family and a new writing gig at WoWInsider, I don't have as much time as I used to when it comes to my video games. When I do log on to WoW, I often look for objectives I can complete in a short amount of time, but still give me some sense of progress. Enter my new obsession: daily quests.

New factions were introduced with the The Black Temple 2.1 Patch and with it came the specter of the dreaded rep grind. But this time Blizzard has added quests that reward players with hefty reputation gains in exchange for limiting their completion to once a day. Since these appeal to me greatly, I did some digging around and found a few helpful facts that may aid you in your Outland adventures.

• Daily quests count against your total quest count in your quest log
• You can have a maximum of 10 daily quests in your log at any given time
• The timer on redoing a daily quest is not reset every 24 hours from when you complete it, but at 2am PST
• Many daily quests that work in one reputation level (i.e. Neutral) continue to work in when you've achieved higher rep levels
• Currently you must be L70 to get these quests so they give no experience


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The Warcraft universe is constantly expanding. Trading card games, sound tracks and board games abound. It seems we can't get enough of Azeroth online or off. Blizzard has tried to meet this growing demand is by creating a series of fiction novels and comic books. One of those endeavors is a Korean manga title, Dragon Hunt, the first novel in the Sunwell Trilogy that was published last year.

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Everyone's got their chat-related pet peeve in WoW. Amanda hates the term "wife aggro." There's a lot of antipathy to the term "noob." A shaman in my guild harbors a vicious hatred towards anyone who uses an "abbreviation" that is longer than the actual word in question. There are even people who hate LFG and WTB, although I'm unsure how they ever made it to 70 without their heads exploding.

I have my own major pet peeve. Arguing about it nearly got me gkicked a few months back, and even today a particular officer will rag on my "oversensitivity." I speak, of course, of the recent trend towards calling everything you don't like "gay."

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The world first kills continue. First, Nihilum brought their PTR skillz out to the live servers, and rocked four bosses in one night. Then, they dropped three more just for fun. And now, other guilds are getting in on the action.

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I've been noticing a disturbing trend on the Professions Forum lately. Basically, whenever anyone asks what professions they should take, or whether crafting jobs like jewelcrafting and enchanting are worth it to level, posters advise them to pick up mining and herbalism or mining and skinning instead. The consensus seems to be that professions are only worth it for the BOP items, or for the few people on a server who get a rare enchanting/JC/other pattern. Everything else (except the easy-to-level alchemy) is a "money sink."

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The world PVP objectives were a nice addition in the Burning Crusade. Capturing objectives in Nagrand, Hellfire Peninsula, Zangarmarsh and Terokkar Forest provided minor buffs to everyone in the zone, as well as exchangable tokens for the capturers.

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You're probably noticing that World Wide WoW focuses mainly on China so far, and this is because that's where I live! The Chinese have a very different culture when it comes to many things that Americans take for granted, and so many of the ways we play WoW are just the opposite on the other side of the planet.

Take gold selling for example. In the US, as you probably know, Blizzard has strict rules against gold selling. If you are caught selling gold, your account may be suspended or cancelled outright. Not in China, though!

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Though this video was recently posted on YouTube, based on its content, I presume it was released prior to The Burning Crusade. (I can't tell you why without giving away the ending, though!) It is, however, still hilarious.

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Remember the Countdown to Burning Crusade contests we did in the days leaning up to The Burning Crusade launch in January? Well, we thought they were so darned much fun that we're bringing them back -- for no other reason than to have fun. Every other Monday, check in with us at WoW Insider for a chance to win a 60-day game card or a t-shirt. And our first contest is starting right now!

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I suppose I've never paid much attention to the Military Ward of Ironforge -- well, beyond idling while waiting on battleground queues. So this shot sent in by reader Tom of one of the little Gnomish airplanes launching really impresses me. But perhaps I'm the only one who's never explored this little corner of Ironforge...

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Whether we are Horde or Alliance, trolls or dwarves, paladins or rogues, we all have one thing in common: our love of the game. Wouldn't it be great if we could all play the game we love together?

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The Curse guild gets the World of Warcraft world first kill on the demon Kaz'rogal. The EU-Vek'nilash guild ventured forth into the Battle of Mount Hyjal instance and beat Nihilum to the world first. Reportedly, the two kills were very close to each other, Curse led by just a bit.

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Steal from the rich, give to the poor.

You probably know whose motto that is. It belongs to Robin Hood, the outlaw with a heart of gold. Blizzard Entertainment is sponsoring a contest in connection to the BBC series "Robin Hood". Interested players will have to commit acts of kindness. No, they aren't just going to take your word for it. The unwritten World of Warcraft rule applies: screenshot or it didn't happen. What's in it for you? Well, winners get a copy of the "Robin Hood: Season One" DVD and a Robin Hood Genuine Pewter Tankard (worth about US 120).

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Well, okay, maybe not buy, but I'm all about trading stories! For example, it's my belief that some of the best World of Warcraft posts never see the light of day. Why? Because they're closeted on guild forums, safe from prying eyes. But you know you all have seen them. These threads take on Legendary Thread status within our respective guilds, and grow into in-jokes over time.

Here's one of my favorite of the recent posts I've seen on my guild's forums that has exploded into a truly silly string of "contest" posts. This original post was made by my Rogue class leader when he was looking for a Blinkstrike to call his very own.

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