Rawrshach of <Shindu Belore> on Deathwing writes, “While trying to rid New Avalon of its Scarlet Crusade taint, Rawrshach finds himself surrounded by an unusually high concentration of ghouls. Not exactly his idea of a party, but when you’re an undead cow, you kind of have to take what you can get.” Come on now, tauren make the best death knights. Where do you think the concept of tainted beef comes from? *rimshot* 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@gmail.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

Hey, remember back in vanilla WoW when warlocks were the most powerful, feared, and complained-about-on-the-forums of all the classes? Synar of <High Solstice> on Stormrage does, and he’s ready to bring happy days back again by taking out the warlock’s main archrival class and gear competitor. However, his attack on the mage trainers at the Wizard’s Sanctum does not appear to have had the desired effect. “Sadly, his show of protest went unnoticed and the Mages went along with their business of staring blankly into their bookshelves,” he wrote. 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@gmail.com with a copy of your shot and a brief

World of Warcraft was almost universally praised by critics[51] upon release, following a period of high anticipation before launch.[54] Although the game follows a similar model to others in the genre[14] and was noted for having many familiar concepts from roleplaying games,[53] the new approaches to reduce pauses between game encounters was well liked.[22] A common example was the new approach to character death; in previous MMORPGs a player would suffer a high penalty for character death, while in WoW a player would be able to recover and start playing quickly.[14] Combat was another area where “downtime” or pauses between play were reduced. By allowing all character types to recover from damage taken, players could return to combat quickly.[22] It was felt that these changes in pacing would make the genre more accessible to casual players, who

As excited as the Chinese community may be with the imminence of Wrath of the Lich King — it was on the covers of most gaming magazines in the past months — WoW players in China are going to have to wait just a bit longer for the latest expansion. According to a report, World of Warcraft China distributor The9 plan to delay the release of the expansion until March or April after initial plans to launch on February 19. The delay would be due to a “policy supervision” and it’s likely that the launch will come after the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), both of which happen on the first week of March. The report also said that the game’s fame — as well as recent bad press about Blizzard — was also to blame, subjecting it to greater

After finishing off their “For the Alliance!” achievement, Xeptor of Area 52 and his comrades just couldn’t wait to show off their new bear mounts. So they had an engineer drop a MOLL-E right there in Silvermoon and clustered around the mailbox to pick up the bears for a triumphant ride out of the city. Unfortunately for us schadenfreude fans, while they were all sorting through their mailboxes and mount tabs, a Horde revenge raid completely failed to show up and massacre them. Sometimes life has no sense of dramatic timing. EDITED TO ADD: According to a raid member, the effort was led by Monkeyfoo of <Lost Soldiers of Darkness>, as well as a collection of PUG members. The member added that Monkeyfoo and LSOD pulled off “one of the better Alliance/Area 52 bear runs that I have seen,” adding that they patiently explained

The Daily Quest continues to provide links to great WoW-related news around the Internets. World of Ming explores why Rogues are the least represented class in Season 5 PvP and what he did to try and ear a Top 100 ranking. Blizzard blues explain why there isn’t going to be an attunement quest for Patch 3.1’s Ulduar raid instance. Keybindings for Warriors are explored on the Darraxus blog. Also, keybindings for Paladins over at Out of Mana. Can WoW save the planet? Kotaku has a piece on an environmental scientist who believes he has a plan to do just that. A Druid competing in PvP is interviewed about his thoughts on where the class stands in this season. Blessing of Kings looks at the importance of Strength for Retribution Paladins and how to balance it with other stats. The Penance Priest blog has a sure fire method to heal raid members through