Just a quick question this morning, from Indigo on Livejournal: if you compared the way you look in real life to a WoW race, what would you be? Indigo would be a Female Dwarf, and I'm sure lots of people would be human. Who would be a Tauren? Actually, now that I think about it, Samwise Didier, lead singer of Blizzard's L70ETC, would be a pretty good Tauren. But only because Pandaren aren't in the game yet.

No doubts here-- I'd be an Ogre. Just the one head, but considering my height and size, you can call me High King Mike. I can definitely break out the dance, though, at a moment's notice.

Totem Talk talks about totems this week, in a stunning and entirely unexpected turn of events that no one could possibly have forseen even if said non forseeing types were actually Farseer Nobundo himself. Well, okay, he probably could have seen this coming. Matthew Rossi once again apologizes for the incoherence of the introductory paragraph. He didn't see this coming.

Okay, so you have decided to roll a new shaman. You start off in the starting area, fresh faced and ready to run around dropping totems only to discover you haven't got one yet. Confused, you run around with a mace hitting things until you reach level four, when the questgivers suddenly remember Oh, right, this class is supposed to be about dropping pointed, decorative sticks into the ground and you get your first totem quest.

The totem quests are a fun, sometimes easy, sometimes challenging way for a new shaman to get a handle on the class. Well, I think they're fun, anyway. Except that water one, that one is hard for a horde to pull off... well, to be fair it's not much easier for alliance, really. As you might expect, horde and alliance shamans have different questgivers and as such different quests in (mostly) different zones. The horde ones require a bit more travel than the alliance ones, which were put in for the expansion and, in my opinion, are slightly better in their design and play. But that's to be expected as Blizzard put the lessons they'd learned designing the original quests into play for the new ones.

Anyway, we'll talk about the horde quests first, as is fitting for horde shamans have been around longer.

Druids have some of the best lore in the Warcraft universe. Unlike any other class, this lore is often a binding area of common ground between Alliance and Horde druids, and many druids say that they will help each other regardless of their faction. Certainly this is partly because the Cenarion Circle is the official druid organization in which both tauren and night elves work together peacefully, but also this has to do with the spirit of loving nature -- a sense we bring from our real life experience that nature requires her champions to put aside other differences in order to keep the balance. Many of us who play druids in the game share a genuine concern for the environment of the earth, and the symbols used for druids in the game have a real meaning to us.

I'm a roleplayer, so learning background information about druid lore and visualizing what my character's life might have been life is useful to me. But for any player, whether you roleplay or not, it can help you get a more immersive feeling out of your game if you can really imagine yourself in your character's skin,... or fur, as the case may be.

So, if you were a druid in Azeroth, what would your life be like? The one certainty would be that a strong connection to nature would have been your primary concern from a very young age, whether as a night elf or as a tauren, but your path to becoming a druid would have been very different depending on which race you were, with great changes coming to you and your people in the very recent past.

We got into a guild discussion the other day somehow about whether God is Horde or Alliance. There is never any rhyme of reason to why you discuss such things, but how about it? What do you think about the off-the-wall subject?

I personally think God is Alliance, because in the Bible it says God pwns the cows on a thousand hillsides (Psalm 50:9-11). If God pwns the cows (read: Tauren) on a thousand hills and all the animals in the forest (read: Horde), he is clearly Alliance and has pwned all of Elwynn too, doesn't it sound like it?

No offense to the Horde, but I think this is definitive proof that God is Alliance, not that this makes you evil at all, just not on God's side. If you disagree, or can find evidence to the contrary, I'd love to hear it. Oh, and if you're wondering, I am Alliance too. A question for next time, which class would God play?

NOTE: I also have Horde characters (Tauren in fact) which I play and like very much, so I am obviously kidding here. This is for the benefit of those of you who never got the EPIC drop of [A Sense of Humor]. Cheers!

If you ran the Azeroth orphanage quests Hordeside this past week, your orphan probably asked you for the autograph of "one of the greatest heroes the Horde has ever seen." But it's not Rexxar, Thrall or even the shifty Sylvanas. No, he wants to see the quiet, unassuming, elderly leader of the tauren -- Cairne Bloodhoof. And when we polled the members of It Came From The Blog last night, that's who they wanted to see in today's KYL. So, straight from the home office in Thunder Bluff, here's Cairne!

Who: Cairne Bloodhoof, Tauren Grand Chief of the Confederated Tribes of the Tauren.

What: Tauren, as you may have guessed.

History: Not much is known about Cairne's early life. When he comes into the story of Warcraft, he was a fully grown tauren chieftain, leading the Bloodhoof Tribe by the shores of the Great Sea in the Barrens (kind of near Ratchet.) The Bloodhoofs had once been a happy, peaceful tribe, but lately they had been facing attacks from the local centaur. Plus, the centaur had been hunting the same animals the tauren had, leading to fierce competition for food. Cairne came up with a plan to relocate his tribe to Mulgore, but he knew the centaur would wipe them out as they crossed the Barrens. So they were kind of stuck.

Then one day, Cairne noticed some weird, green-skinned creatures fighting off a band of centaurs. Intrigued, he took two other tauren and approached the leader of the "greenskins." He told the new creature that they fought with savagery and valor. The greenskin told Cairne that he was Thrall, and his people were called the orcs. Thrall said that the orcs had come to Kalimdor to seek their destiny. Cairne told him that there was an oracle in the north that might help him, and Thrall casually noted that he'd noticed a big centaur army heading that way. Cairne wisely freaked out at this, and the two heroes formed up an army and headed off to fight the man-horses.

Alice from Wonderland posted this great apron Craftster dishwasher182 (I guess we know what she does after the pizza is eaten) made for her significant other for Valentine's Day. That's a great on-equip buff. Too bad it's soulbound, though-- if you want one, I guess you'll have to make your own custom printed iron-on. And bonus points to another Craftster for pointing out that the apron itself is in fact a blue item. Ha!

There's also this knitted Tauren hat, which looks great, but I can't quite see how it's supposed to be worn. How can you see wearing it with that big bullsnout hanging in your face? Also Tauren-related, this hilarious sketch currently for sale on Etsy. And there's also these handmade (not by the same Alice, though) Ankh earrings-- perfect for the shaman in your life who occasionally needs some resurrecting (see #5 in the description).

It's probably because I have no craftmaking talent whatsoever, but all this great fanmade craft stuff continues to amaze me. Keep up the good work, guys.

I agree with myrch over on Livejournal-- there's been a spec creeping up in the DPS charts lately that we might not have expected to get there. Slowly but surely, these players have been finding a niche of gear, talents, and class choice and exploiting it to the fullest. While their class is known for the other two specs, a third is definitely coming to light as one of the best DPSers in the game. The class is druid, and the spec... is moonkin.

Laugh if you want (and I certainly do when I see that dance), but moonkin (or Balance-specced) druids are doing well for themselves lately. Druid tanks have been getting all the press because of the new feral gear in Outland (and more recently, a few solid nerfs), but moonkin have been slowly building up their buffs, and using the best gear in both cloth and leather to max out their DPS. While the spec is really meant for PvP, it seems, they can definitely shine in PvE-- everyone loves Innervate, of course, but moonkin give that great crit bonus that adds a lot to any DPS raid group (definitely useful for Shaman, too, despite the Clearcasting nerf). They've got a nice armor bonus, so while they have to really be careful about managing aggro (they so far have no threat-reducing abilities), they can still take a few hits, and they have a few nice roots (Cyclone and the Tauren War Stomp, and Entangling Roots if they happen to be outside) that can hold things down until the tank intercepts. Not to mention that if need be, they're just a gear change and a shapechange away from becoming respectable offhealers, if not main healers.

Myrch lays out what moonkin need to do to really shine-- they've got to really concentrate their focus and load up on the spell damage gear (a guildie of mine, a moonkin who routinely fights mages and hunters for the top DPS spot, often wears cloth just for the spell damage), add a little mp5 to the stuff they wear, and of course watch that aggro. But more and more, we're seeing that a well-geared, well-played moonkin is a really great class to have along in almost any situation.

Since PLP has been very Outland-focused lately, I promised we'd do something that came from the old Azeroth this week, and considering the holiday, I thought this was apropos.

Name: Prairie Dog Whistle (summons Prairie Dog)
Type: Noncombat Pet
Damage / Speed: N/A
Abilities:

• Can somehow accurately predict the weather every spring. Ok, no it can't-- this Prairie Dog just doesn't have the stuff that Punxsutawney Phil has-- he predicted an early spring this year.
• But he does look cute and is a pretty easy noncombat pet to come by.
• Bonus Trivia Fact: Did you know that groundhogs can whistle when alarmed? So when you use this whistle, it's not so much that you summon a prairie dog as you call him out of the ground, ready to either see or not see his shadow.

How to Get It: If you're Horde, all it takes is a trip to Thunder Bluff-- just to the left of the bridge on the way back across from the Hunter Rise is a small shack in which the Prairie Dog Vendor (named Halpa) sells these little guys for 50s a piece. They come in any color you want, as long as it's brown.

Alliance can get these too, but it's going to take a little more time and money-- you'll have to create a Tauren alt, run him to TB, buy the prairie dog, and then sell it through the Neutral AH (probably your best bet is to do a ghostrun to Tanaris).

Getting Rid of It: Sells for 12s 50c to vendors, and will bind after you use it to summon the little guy for the first time. Happy Groundhog Day!

Update: qsh points out that the Ratchet to Booty Bay trip would be much easier than ghostriding the whip (if you know what I mean) down to Tanaris. Good call.

Sure, anything that looks vaguely like Dr. Zoidberg probably can't be TOO good, but you have to admit that the draenei are almost preternaturally nice. They're all about healing the environment, and helping the needy, and preserving the light. The undead Kendoch of Blackrock says that their goodness has really turned him off from playing one, since it ruins his suspension of disbelief.

Other posters add that the Tauren are also pretty much perfectly good, except for the Grimtotem tribe, and that the Draenei might be very nice, but the Eredar -- who are about the same thing, genetically -- have messed up the entire universe.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Draenei are fairly extreme in their pursuit of goodness, and in the Warcraft universe, any kind of extremism leads to bad things. Humans who got too extreme in their pursuit of the Scourge became the Scarlet Crusade. Going to "any lengths" to stop the Burning Legion led Tyrande to free Illidan, and we all know how that turned out. And the Draenei HATE the blood elves -- one of their early quests leads a Draenei chief to exclaim, "They must be wiped from the face of the earth!" More than a little creepy.

I know many members of the Horde refer to Draenei as filthy hippies or goody-two-shoes, but what do you think about the Draenei? Is their goody-goody exterior true to form, or is any race that makes sexual jokes about gnomes and the Staff of Dominance hiding some naughty secrets?

Alice from Wonderland linked to this guy, a homemade plush Tauren Shammy (named Proudhorn after the maker's boyfriend over on the Stonemaul server), complete with a little mace and a bark shield. I suppose someone less masculine than me might call it "adorable," but being as I play a Shammy and all, I call it awesome! Little known fact: she actually hit 300 tailoring by making this.

And don't get me wrong, I'm totally impressed, but if you're taking requests, I'll take a Bloodfang UD rogue next. And hey, Slow_Rabbit, how's that Crochet set coming?

You've got to have a favorite. Maybe they have a racial you just can't live without, or perhaps you particularly fancy one of their hairstyle options. (And, hey, with as long as you're likely to be stuck with the character, it had best have a look you like!) I have a fondness for Trolls, myself -- though I think that may be just a way of rooting for the underdog, with the Troll's less appealing racials. (If I were thinking practically, how could I turn away from the immensely helpful racial skills the Undead have?) So, tell us -- do you have a favorite, and why?

Just like you probably are, I'm currently sitting around not playing the game. My realm (T-horn represent!) is in the list of servers Blizzard pulled offline last night and won't put back up until late tonight.

And the complaints on this, as you can imagine, are many and varied. My guild was especially distraught, as we were all excited to run AQ20 this evening. Nimrodel of Earthen Ring isn't really happy that the advance notice Blizz gave was easy to miss. A few of the servers, including Laughing Skull, already had an upgrade-- why are they going through this again? And I can't think of another "upgrade" that caused all of us to lose our friends list. Sure, it's not the end of the world, but it is a little inconvenient at least. And we don't even have the new hunter talents to console us-- although Neth seems very happy to sell books to bored players. Maybe this is all a grand scheme...

There is a silver lining to all this. Drysc has acknowledged that Blizzard will be "providing compensation" for those realms currently undergoing the 36 hour upgrades, although he won't say how much until the maintenance is over (presumably because it may go on even longer than planned). That's nice, but I won't lie-- I'd rather be in AQ. Meanwhile, feel free to come join me in a few spirited rounds of iSketch! Look, I drew a Tauren!

You might remember the Chinese Coke ad that featured the band S.H.E. as World of Warcraft characters-- it showed up here on the site a while back. Apparently that ad campaign was so successful, they're doing it again, and this time the Orc that attacked in the first ad returns with friends-- a Troll and a pretty well-done Tauren. Get it? "Well-done Tauren"?

This is the first in a series of levelling guides, aimed at new and experienced players as an answer to the eternal question "Where do I go next?". It's aimed at a questing player who will mainly play solo, although people levelling with buddies will find much of it relevant.

Levels 1-5

This is the most straightforward stage of the game. At level 1 you arrive in a newbie zone, complete with everything you will need for the next five levels or so. The zones are dependent on your race: