We taped our podcast a little early this week, on Wednesday night, and rather than having you wait all the way until Monday for it (not to mention that Pirates’ Day will gone by then), we figured we’d post it up for you today). Matt “Matticus” Low was kind enough to join us (he writes the Spiritual Guidance and Raid Rx columns), and while Turpster was on a business trip, he did end up making it to provide us with his usual sparkling insight. We talked about that wacky 2v2 team rating and what it means for Blizzard’s Arena system, the Abyssal Maw and what else we’ve heard about Cataclysm’s dungeons and raids, and whether being in a guild really can calm you down (Matt, our only guildleader on the show, says no). has been criticized in the past for some of their design ideas (the work they do, just in terms of an art and

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com’s (almost) daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Today we’re going to hit a bunch of quick, short questions, which means today’s edition of The Queue might be a wee bit short compared to some of Allison’s epics. Picture above completely unrelated to anything written below. It just looks pretty freaking sweet, doesn’t it? ikandiman asked… “I have been trying to get the last Brewfest achievement for my Warlock, but every time I get smashed and jump off the elevator in Shattrath (with my Skyguard’s Drape to slow fall) I never get the bloody Drunken Stupor achievement. Had no problem with my mage and paladin. What gives?” I could be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure the source of

The latest edition of Blizzard Insider, Blizzard’s very sporadic email newsletter (and no relation to our old name, WoW Insider) has been released. Issue 32 features a note that the Starcraft II: WIngs of Liberty site has been revamped, blurbs about the mobile Authenticator and the Armory app, and some calls to buy their merchandise. More interesting for WoW fans, though, is an interview with Scott Mercer (Daelo), WoW’s lead encounter designer, and Greg Street (Ghostcrawler), a crab who needs no introduction. They discussed the arc of Arthas and the Lich King from Warcraft II through World of Warcraft (congratulations again to Blood Legion on their 10-man world-first). Please note that here there be spoilers for some details about the Arthas fight, so stay away if you want it all to be a surprise. The interview is fairly short, and a nice read if you

Handclaw of the Scrolls of Lore Forums has uncovered something very intriguing in the Patch 3.3 PTR data files: New Tauren skins. Specifically, it looks like tribal war paint covering the face, arms, and chest, taking the form of bleeding wings on the chest. There’s red, white, and blue color versions for both males and females. There’s quite a few Tauren fans on the WoW.com staff, and we’ve been having quite a few conversations about the new Tauren lore and their place in Cataclysm, so you can bet this new discovery has us all atwitter. What could it mean though? There’s a few possibilities. For starters, there’s the introduction of the Sunwalkers, the Tauren Paladins and Priests, coming with Cataclysm. We’ve been getting progressive story bits about many of the new class and race combos as the patches progress, so it seems very

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com’s (almost) daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I’m taking a break from piecing together the video from WoW.com’s recent run of the Forge of Souls to whip up a brand new edition of The Queue for you guys to read this afternoon. I went to Twitter for most of today’s questions, so don’t be surprised if they’re pretty short! AngerFork asked… “Theory time: Since Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep are coming back as Heroics, do you think any other dungeons will come back as Heroics? If so, which?” I don’t think there will be many more, if any at all, when Cataclysm launches. I figure they’re turning these into Heroics for one of two reasons. One, they’re updating them to

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com’s (almost) daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Embedded video has absolutely not relevance to anything in this edition of The Queue. Why did I use it? Because I like the music. Do I really need more of a reason than that? Nope! Now let’s jump into the questions. Some of them came from right here on WoW.com, and others came from Twitter. Lavoz asked… “With Cataclysm, the blood elves will finally have access to the warrior class. Is there any information as to what order they will belong to? Will they be a part of the Blood Knights, or will we refer to them as Spellbreakers?” We haven’t heard anything about whether or not blood elven warriors will have any special sort of story behind them. As far