Ever since it was reported that in 2.4.2, threat generated by Growl would no longer scale with pet attack power, Hunters have been trying to figure out what that means. Will it only scale with Hunter attack power? Is there any way to get Growl's threat up? Just what is the relationship between the threat generated by Growl and the stats listed on both Hunter and pet? The Mystic Hunter has been working to try and figure things out, but the stats he's found have actually been more confusing than clarifying -- he did a series of tests on the Live server and then on the Test server... and found them to be the same.

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Blizzard has announced that they will be running a new World of Warcraft fan art competition in Europe called the Frostmourne Fan Art contest.  The winner of this event will be taking home a Frostmourne replica from Epic Games and a guaranteed entry into the Wrath of the Lich King beta test along with the two runner up winners.

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One of the biggest "killer" factors in any online game would have the intermittent lag we all experience every now and then. This small annoyance plagues even the most popular MMO titles like Blizzard's World of Warcraft, as seen during a recent forum post on the WoW forums.

In an attempt to alleviate the recent flood of reports concerning high latency issues, Blizzard Poster Nickjs outlined several detailed steps on how to report such problems directly to Blizzard's technical support on the forums.

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Today is the last day of Children's Week and here is a Gallery Walkthrough of the Stormwind City quest chain. This completes our Children's Week set of galleries:

• Dornaa's Quests (Shattrath Children's Week quests, Alliance-side)
• Salandria's Quests (Shattrath quests, Horde-side)
• Grunth's Quests (Orgrimmar Children's Week quests)
• Randis's Quests (Stormwind quests)


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Back during Blizzcon last year (it seems so long ago now, doesn't it?) we started up a WoW Insider Twitter account so you folks could get updates from right there on site as the event went down. After Blizzcon ended, though, we left the account to lay dormant for a while, and we didn't post any tweets in a few months. We're back, though -- if you're on Twitter, make sure to head over there and follow our feed.

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Tactial mentions on the forums that all of the Rogues (in fact, this is true about almost everyone) are still in Tier 4. When Burning Crusade first came out and we all reached 70, Tier 4 was where it was at -- some people were excited about being in Tier 4, even if they hadn't earned it yet. But nowadays, Tier 4 ain't that great, and yet all of our forum icons shows us in the (now old) armor.

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Back in March, Mike Schramm reported on a player who paid 20,000 gold to ensure that she would receive the Amani War Bear from the Zul'Aman raid instance. It is not entirely uncommon for players to run their guildmates' alts though low level dungeons for fun or profit or purchasing raid runs or arena points. Any of these may be considered cheating by some players, some more obviously than others. Angona of Hellscream (obviously an alt) had the opportunity to purchase Black Temple gear, though her guild is currently running Serpentshine Cavern, Tempest Keep, and Mount Hyjal.

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You know, I've always wanted a bit more drawing talent, but never more so than right now, as Blizzard has just announced a new fanart contest. They're looking for the best European fanart of Arthas wielding Frostmourne.

The entries will be judged by a panel of developers, and if you win, you'll not only receive one of Epic Weapons' Frostmourne Replicas, but a guaranteed slot in the upcoming beta for WoTLK. 2nd and 3rd place runners up will also receive a slot in the beta.

It should be noted that the contest is currently being announced on the European site, and the rules state that the contest is open only to residents of France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Luxemburg, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, or Ireland. There doesn't appear to be any word yet on whether we'll get an American version of the contest, but here's hoping we see that soon. It seems likely that Blizzard had to create two seperate contests because of legal requirements, and is still working on getting the US version up.

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Relmstein of The Many Relms of Relmstein has posted an updated version of a post he originally wrote in 2006 that is one of the most concise and clear explanation of how team ratings work and how people exploit them, including how Blizzard's planned arena rule changes will help stop these exploits.

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Teams continue to vie for top position in the $200,000 3v3 arena tournament Slash Bark continues to hold on to the top spot with a rating of 2056. Last weeks second and third place teams Let's Be Friends and Jacked as F have dropped into fourth and fifth places respectively, giving way to MoB Gaming (2022) and Eclipse (2020).

RMP teams are well represented among the top contenders. The top 11 teams are all within 100 points of first place, and I wouldn't count out any of the 20 teams over 1900 ratings just yet. At this point all team rosters have been locked and new additions cannot be made.

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TotalBiscuit felt that yesterday's Moviewatch, Standing in the Way of Control, was "pretentious, all style no substance, and ugly as sin." However, I think he has Gnomechewer all wrong. This machinimator is clearly an experimenter of different ways to create his art. Call me biased, but I simply can't hate on someone that has a WoW character named "Coreyhaim", and did a spoof of a scene from Teen Witch.

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Yes, it is possible to hit two birds with one stone in Blizzard's World of Warcraft. Remember those mounts that make for faster transportation? WoW player Sheildheart and the rest of the Venom Guild will be using them to race against each other in the Venom Mount Racing Championship.

Blizzard forum member Sheildheart sent out an invitation recently to all interested parties on the European WoW forums who wish to watch the said event. Unfortunately, the race is restricted to actual Venom Guild members only, but they wouldn't mind other people cheering them on and participating in some light role-play.

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If you're looking to make money from playing games professionally, then there's one other way you can take aside from the Arena Tournament. Major League Gaming recently announced that it will add PC gaming to three of its Pro Circuit Stops, bringing with it the promise of Blizzard's The Burning Crusade.

Here are the specs of the event straight from MLG:

• Kick-off event: MLG San Diego, June 13-15th
• Other stops: MLG Orlando, July 11th-13th and MLG Dallas, October 3-5.
• Official PC Circuit game: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
• Format: 3-vs-3 - more details on rules and the official format will be released on May 15th.
• Total spots available: 32 teams
• Prizes: $22,500 per event


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2008 WoW Arena Tournament Phase 3 Begins

Registration for the 2008 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament's first qualification round is now closed and Phase 3 of the tournament has begun. Participants have been battling it out on the tournament realms for the past two weeks while fine-tuning their team composition and strategies. Phase 3 of the tournament includes a lockdown of the teams that will be jockeying for position to compete in the regional finals. To track the progress of your team and the competition as a whole, please visit the World of Warcraft Armory. For more information on the tournament, please visit our Arena Tournament information page. Good luck to all competitors!

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Bornakk visited the World of Warcraft forums earlier to announce that  registrations for the 2008 WoW Arena Tournament s first qualification round are now closed, heralding the beginning of the arena's Phase 3.

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I'm really enjoying the Heroes coming in this summer's movie lineup. I absolutely loved Iron Man, I'm stoked about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and I can't wait Christian Bale's encore Batman performance in The Dark Knight. There's been noise since Blizzcon 2007 that there will be a World of Warcraft movie. The synopsis on IMDB reads:

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The Second Phase of the World of Warcraft Arena Tournament 2008 has already started so it's already time to close the registration of the first qualifying round. Catch the deadline before it expires on 11:59 CET this May 6.

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The short version of the tells above: Renzor tried to start some drama by posting a vent recording on the forums, and when Avasa (who took the screenshot) posted against him, Renzor threatens to kick him (and, as you can see, claims Avasa "likes to create drama" when Renzor was the one who posted the vent recording). Click the image above to see the uncut convo (with some not so SFW language), and click the link below to check out the whole story, along with all of the other drama (including a bit of bank drama that will surprise you) from this week's GW.

And if you've got drama, downed, or recruiting news from your own guild or someone else's, send it along to wowguildwatch@gmail.com. Your tips keep this thing running, so thanks in advance.

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