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.

Reader Stalzar is worried about twinks. With the announcement of experience gain acceleration between levels 1 and 58 coming down the pike, he is concerned that this means an end of his beloved PvP characters. I have never like twinking much, that process where players maxed out the gear on a low level (mostly level 19) character for the sole purpose of living as gods in Warsong Gulch. I used to be nothing but irritated that when I attempted to get into the battlegrounds my characters were instantly trounced simply because they were not completely dedicated to PvP. I was frustrated, I was bitter.

Now that I have grown up a little Warcraft-wise, I realize that this is in a way an adaptation to the battleground system. I do think that the twinks might do better at least as far as their reputation goes, if they played in their own battlegrounds, where they would have equal footing with other twinks.

The current experience system allows a character to stay at level 19 for a very long time, enabling them to get the most out of their PvP-ness before sliding into the next bracket. Does this mean that when experience gain is boosted in a future patch the world of the twink will die out? I don't think so. This sub-culture arose because of the desire to be the best at one specific aspect of the game. Will this change things for them? Sure, but I expect that the same inventiveness that went into the creating of twinks in the first place will also spur them to adapt to whatever affect accelerated exp. would have on them.

What do you think? Will the twinks survive, or be lost to the annals of WoW history?

The end of a relationship can be a painful thing. Sometimes you see it coming from miles away, and are able to part ways while still remaining friends. Sometimes you get blindsided by the news and spend months depressed or drinking until you come to terms with it. And sometimes it's bad enough that you'll carry seething resentment towards the person for years and years.

Breakups are always tough, but they can be even tougher if both members of the couple play WoW. Suddenly, instead of your breakup being a private thing, a ton of other people are involved -- namely, your guild. Can both of you keep playing in the same guild without causing trouble? If you don't feel you can keep playing together, who gets to stay in the guild and who has to go? And if the couple are officers or guild leaders, can this tear apart your guild?

I've seen a few breakups in WoW where both members of the couple continued playing in the same guild without any trouble. However, I've seen quite a few more that ended in quitting, server transfers, or total destruction of the guild. What is the etiquette for breaking up in Azeroth? Would you find it hard to be guilded with an ex? Do you have any stories from the trenches of guild love?

I love this weird experience Lucy Dark had in game-- she came across two naked gnomes, named Frodobaginss and Samwisse, who claimed they were trying to get to Mordor. She helped them for a while-- until they started calling her Gollum.

It must have just been two guys having a little fun for the night. Have you ever done or seen anything weird and fun like this in the game? Once, my gnome warrior was fishing off the wharf in Menethil, and I was bored, so I started /yelling a sea shanty, in verse, that I made up on the spot. It got complicated-- my woman left me, and my boat sank, etc. etc., and while quite a few people ignored me, a couple of people sent laughs, and hopefully they had a good time. Ever done anything weird like that, just to give people a strange experience?

Player Unos on the European forums posed an interesting question today: if Azeroth (and the Outlands) were real what city/zone/place would you live? Is there a place you fell in love with? That matched your personality? That you were sad to leave when you out leveled?

For me, it would be Feralas. That's right, that ancient forest you never paid attention to until you had to find your way to Dire Maul. I had some great times there with friends and quests. Especially the quest line that rewarded me my Fae Drake hatchling pet who I still carry with me to this day. And the quest where you have to parachute off a crazy tall cliff. It was time of wonder and exploration and I would have liked to stay.

What about you? Where in the world of Warcraft would you call home?

Dolarhyde of the Boulderfist server posed a simple, but interesting question on the official forums today: what one buff would you give your class?

The reason I almost always choose druids in the multitude of MMORPGs I play has less to do with RP and more to do with versatility. I love hybrid classes, especially the more offensive ones that can still heal (hello shammie alt!) So when it comes to what's missing from my class, it's hard for me to put my finger on it. Hybrids tend to do so well, but to give them another major ability could water down other classes.

Many fellow druids believe this class is missing some serious crowd control ability, though we have it in limited forms through Cyclone, Entangling Roots, Force of Nature (aka treant pets), Hibernate (beast and dragonkin only) and off tanking in bear form. I'm not sure we need a Priest level AE fear or a Rogue sap. Other players have called for more aggro tools for druids, especially Balance druids. But the class is built to survive a beating and isn't as squishy as those with better aggro management abilities.

I'm stumped on what buff I would give druids, but I'm interested to see what our readers would give their own class. Let's hear it.

Players have called for the ability to switch races, switch factions and even switch back to a pre-expansion classic server, but it's the first time I've heard this request. Cryogenics of the Azjol-Nerub server would like to switch the gender of his toon.

Other posters supporting his request listed a few reasons for wanting this: they don't like the animations of their toon; they created the character as the opposite sex of themselves and the novelty has worn off; they want to be the opposite sex in the game for some perceived advantage.

Since this is a change that doesn't affect game mechanics, should Blizzard implement this ability? Isn't it no different than changing the outfit or hairstyle of your toon? Or does tinkering with a cornerstone of human identity make this a bad idea? Tell us what you think. And leave out any derogatory or insulting remarks. Those will get immediately deleted.

In the age-old debate on which faction holds supremacy over the other, this topic arose on the WoW Ladies forum: which faction is the most mature, Horde or Alliance? Now, it seems to me that it's hard to pin this one down, seeing as how the population of servers varies greatly. And we're not even talking about the age level of players.

It seems more interesting to me to discuss the maturity levels of WoW players on both sides of the game. In my personal experience, I haven't seen much in the way that would indicate a winner on either side, but I also play mostly Alliance on a PvE server. Yes I've seen my share of idiots, I've grouped with them, heck I've even been them on occasion. My horde experience mostly comes from playing in our blog guild, but the It Came from the Blog members seem to be a cut above the rest, so I am not sure I can count them as a slice of the general Horde population. In your experience, have you found Horde players or Alliance players to be more mature?

[via WoW Ladies]

As we look forward to the release of Wrath of the Lich King, I've been thinking on the new resource system they are introducing with the Death Knight. The runes carved into the Death Knight's blade are not necessarily unique amongst MMOs, but they are certainly new to WoW. I wonder though, as more hero classes are added to the game, will they use the new runic system? And how exactly would that work?

I can see many classes as defined by their weapons, the Blade Master and his sword, the Archmage and his staff, so it's not too far off to expect that when we have access to new hero classes they might use this system, but they might not. Adding new novel ways that we play the game we love is one of the reasons I do love WoW so much. I admit more than a little curiosity as to how this might play out. What sort of resource system do you see being used by, say, the Demon Hunter? Would they use mana, energy, rage, runes, or something completely different? Are there any advantages to the runic system over the others?

This post at Blessing of Kings makes a simple argument: BC raids are too healer-intensive. The standard Karazhan composition is three healers, two tanks, and five DPS, which makes 30% healers. The typical 5-man, on the other hand, is one healer, one tank, and three DPS, or 20% healers. Basically that means healers are suddenly more in demand once raiding starts, and that's a problem, because there's always a healer shortage. BoK argues that this composition requirement -- 30% healers -- extends into larger BC raids, and that encounters should be made less healing-intensive because healers are hard to find. What do you think?

As a side note, it's interesting to look at heroics with regard to group composition. I would argue that heroics, like raids, work best with 30% of the group being healers, which translates into one full-time healer and one off-healer (ideally a shaman, in my opinion). This agrees with my overall impression that heroics are more like five-man raids than anything else.

Over at Shadow Gaming, Dahis tackles a simple question: what alcoholic beverage corresponds to each class/spec? Here are some of my favorites that he came up with:

• MS Warriors are like Hamms, a dime a dozen. They're also like that 40oz of Old English in your fridge because it's probably better to leave it alone than to try and down it.
• Warlocks (any kind) are like NIGHT TRAIN, kicks your ass almost for free.
• Bear Druids are like Everclear, because you think you can take one but you regret it almost immediately.
• Holy Priests are like Andre Champaign [sic] since everyone's happier when you have one.
• Hunters are like Old Crow because your grandpa (early WoW) liked it but nobody your age does.

I especially enjoy the last one for implying that early WoW players were two generations behind the current players (which certainly feels like the case sometimes). So how about it? If your class was liquid, what would it be? Personally, I'd say my holy priest is like a mint julep: far more trouble than it's worth if you're alone, but fun in a party.

P.S. Don't drink if you're underage, etc. You can still play along in the comments though.

There's been a lot of talk recently about how twenty-five "unnamed peons" shouldn't be able to take down lore figures like Vashj, Illidan and Arthas. In many people's minds, we're all just rank and file soldiers in Azeroth's armies, killing boars and cleaning up the streets while the real lore heroes do their work.

But they're wrong. You are a hero. Even if you've never killed Illidan, saved Zangarmarsh, or stopped the plans of the Black Dragonflight, you've done some pretty extraordinary things in your time. Unless you just grinded to 70 on buzzards, and even then, you could probably win a medal for buzzard extermination.

I'm not a hardcore raider -- the biggest boss I killed before the expansion was the Twin Emperors, and my guild is currently starting SSC and TK. But now that I think about it, my rogue has done a lot in her 70 levels of existence. She's defeated two of the children of Deathwing and hung their heads up by the gates of Orgrimmar. She's become the Queen of the Ogres, showed Thrall his true heritage, and saved Stonebreaker Hold from Illidari invasion. She's killed the servants of Illidan and has been personally challenged to face him. She's helped keep the world together by stopping the timestream from being altered. And she's the hero of numerous small, Horde-oriented tribes and encampments in Azeroth and Outland, where she's saved babies, cured diseases, killed enemies and stopped environmental destruction.

Do you think your character has accomplished a lot, or will you still consider yourself unworthy until you slay that big bad boss you've been working on? Are we heroes, or just foot soldiers?

It's been over a year since Blizzard began doing paid character transfers from server to server, and I'm still not sure how much of a success it's been.

On one hand, it's definitely changed the WoW environment. Guildless raiders can now apply to hundreds of potential guilds, instead of just the few on their server. People who rolled on a random server, only to find that their friends had rolled on another, can join their pals without having to relevel. And long-abandoned alts can finally be dusted off and brought into the light.

But there's a dark side to transfers, too. I frequent the Customer Service Forum, and a good number of the posts there have to do with unauthorized character transfers, character transfer screwups, or the like. (The rest of the posts are divided between "Why can't I swear in general chat?" "How can I become a GM?" and "Do something about the AFKers in Alterac Valley!") People are still unhappy that they can't transfer from PVE to PVP servers. And transfers can hurt. More than one guild has broken up because some of its officers decided to ninja-transfer to a better guild, sometimes taking the guild bank with them. People transfer in anger and then realize that they have to wait a long, long time to come back -- or sometimes can't come back at all.

I've never transferred, and probably will never do it. In spite of the idiots, trolls, and ridiculous flame wars, Magtheridon is my home server, and I'd feel lost without any of the people I've grown to know over the past few years. Have you ever transferred? What do you think about the service?

At the Lore panel at BlizzCon Chris Metzen mentioned that some old faces will appear in new ways in future content. We can expect Sylvanas to make an appearance, Bronzebeard will lead us to unlock the mysteries of the world's creation, Hellscream will lead the Horde into Northrend. Keeping this in mind, what heroes would you like to spend more time with? Is there anyone you would especially love to see again?

Yessir, we've been quite difficult to find as we wander the floor at BlizzCon, but one lucky reader was able to manage it. Heather Nielsen caught Elizabeth Harper Friday as she stood in the lobby of the convention center. Heather, who plays Ricol the pally on the Cenarius realm, received a copy of the Warcraft Archive for her leet hunting skills. For the rest of you intrepid readers, take heart. Mike Schramm and I are still out there toting our phat lootz for those that are clever enough to track us down. Find the bloggers and receive some very cool prizes!

Update: Both Mike Schramm and I were able to give out our prizes during the Saturday session of BlizzCon. Thanks to all you intrepid readers who came to hang out with us. We saw your smiling faces all over the con, and it made our time there even more enjoyable. On to next year!

Update 2: In the photo is the Find a Blogger winner #2, Erin Martell who plays Trystania the gnome mage (yay mages!) on Eitrigg. She's been reading WoW Insider for nigh-on forever (read 2005) and I was so excited to get to meet her in person. Erin got a copy of "Hacking World of Warcraft, and I am honestly jealous of her because I wish I could have kept the book for myself."