Looking ahead beyond Icecrown Citadel, one of the zones that intrigue me the most has been around for an extremely long time. In Cataclysm, we’re going to finally gain the chance to explore the area. I’m referring to Uldum of course. Somewhere behind its gates, we’ll be given the task of discovering and then securing the super weapon in order to keep it away from the hands (claws?) of Deathwing and from the Horde (or Alliance). So here’s the 64,000 gold question. What on Azeroth could possibly be so powerful to attract even Deathwing’s attention? Think about it. He’s one of the most powerful beings on the planet that’s still alive. Granted he’s lost his sanity a long time ago, but he seems lucid enough to go after something that can help amplify his power even further. My idea? Well we know the Titans were involved

Welcome to Know Your Lore, where each week WoW.com brings you a tasty little morsel of lore to wrap your mind around. Sweet, sweet lore. Mmmm. Have suggestions for future KYL topics? Leave a comment below! The nation of Gilneas is one of the oldest human kingdoms that still exists. Founded after the breaking of the human empire of Arathor, Gilneas was considered one of the great Seven Kingdoms, along with Kul Tiras, Alterac, Dalaran, Lordaeron, Stromgarde, and Stormwind. Gilneas is located on a rocky peninsula that juts out over the Great Sea on Lordaeron’s west coast, southwest of Silverpine Forest. High seaside cliffs keep the kingdom safe from attack by water and the foreboding Greymane Wall keeps it locked safely away from the struggles of modern Lordaeron and, by extension, Azeroth. No one has been allowed in or out of the kingdom for nearly ten years,

Dear Diary: I’ve now been stranded on this ice floe for ten godforsaken days. My tail feathers are so iced over that they crack into pieces whenever I try to move. The hunger is worse today; I think all of the penguins that were dumb enough to come over and “look at the fire” have become my dinner, and the ones that are left are too smart to get within my reach. They stay an arm’s length away, taunting me with their freshly caught fish. Curse that survival of the fittest! My hopes that the Kalu’aks will come searching for their crashed ferry and rescue me are wearing thin. I fear that unless the zeppelin crew spots me today, this may be my last journal entry. — Serthida of <Elder Tribunal> on Bloodhoof. Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your

Phasing seems to be Blizzard’s new favorite toy. It’s being used be more and more as we progress through Wrath. From the Wrathgate to those annoying out of body/spirit quests in Zul’Drak, phasing is changing how we see Azeroth itself. But it strikes me there’s once area where phasing should sometimes be used and isn’t: bosses. Specifically I mean the big guys … Kil’Jaeden, Illidan, Loken, Yoggy, Algalon and, of course, Arthas himself. The logic here is simple, these are bosses key to game lore and killing them not only takes an enormous amount of effort (or in the case of Kil’Jaeden, banishing him back to where ever he came from) but it also has an effect on the world itself. Think of the impacts the events of the Sunwell had – phasing was never implemented there, and definitely should have been once Wrath was

Being honored ingame with an NPC or an item is, I think we can all agree, the height of player cool. Not that this will ever happen to me, mind you. Realistically, the only thing I expect to get from Blizzard is a letter bomb, or possibly a bloodstained horse head for going live with that article on the Death Grip bug, and perhaps I deserve it. To this day I feel kind of bad, or at least I do until I remember my guild leader’s Death Knight sending a goblin NPC flying off the dock, and then I laugh and laugh, and realize that I am a terrible person who should probably be locked up somewhere. It’s fun to wonder, though, and I’ve settled on two wishes. The first would be making my beloved main into a Thunder Bluff NPC among the Druid trainers, kitted in full Tier 6 with an Origin of Nightmares. She would be friend and counselor to all young Druids

According to the in-game announcement, there will be two hours of maintenance tomorrow August 6th on all realms. The maintenance announcement has changed throughout the evening, but seems to have settled on this downtime. The downtime will happen from 5:00 a.m. PDT / 8:00 a.m. EDT and last until 7:00 a.m. PDT / 10:00 a.m. EDT. This of course assumes that there’ll be no extended super-fracken-duper maintenance put on top of that. And we know just how much Blizzard loves to increase their maintenance periods. If there is you’ll hear it here. While the maintenance is going on, you can check out WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.2 and read up on all the things you missed, or think you missed. There is also the beginnings of a list of bug fixes; a list that’s sure to grow over the coming days.