The first poll on the official WoW forums was mentioned on WoW Insider when it was posted a few weeks ago, but since then a few more polls have been created. While one of them is obviously just for fun, the other two are more interesting.

When asked "What is your favorite arena?" the Ring of Trials in Nagrand won out as everyone's favorite with 46.3% of the votes. The Ruins of Lordaeron received second place with a tally of 25.14% of the votes. While I didn't vote in this particular poll, my choices would have matched these results.

Admittedly, I'm pretty much a noob to the arena. Like many other players, I mostly just get my ten matches a week to scrape up enough points for some welfare epics. Probably due to this fact, I dislike the Blade's Edge arena. The ramps, pillars, ropes and bridge create a lot of variables during an already hectic fight which can lead to panic, confusion and ultimately an inglorious defeat. Even more inglorious than normal, that is. Also, this arena in particular makes it more difficult for stealthy types (my 2v2 team is composed of a rogue and druid) to get the drop on their foes because the narrow catwalk makes a convenient place for an opposing team to make a stand with their AoE and stealth detection. What are your thoughts on the poll? Do they match the results?

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

Let's talk about loot. Is any subject more controversial in the entire game? After all, the game itself is centered around loot, like it or not. Loot opens doors and conquers enemies. Without it, you'll only see a fraction of what the game has to offer at max level. Without it, you're going to struggle in battlegrounds and the arena. It's the only way to advance your character at the level cap. Currently, the best loot in the game essentially advances your character by 81 levels, to 151 (not counting certain legendary warblades). So it's no wonder that so much guild drama is the direct result of decisions about loot.

Phew there's a lot that goes into raiding! We've covered the three steps in getting ready to raid, introspection, preparation, and application, and then we gave you a raid speak glossary of terms you will need to know. But, you may ask, what can I expect on my first raid?

First, we have to make a couple of assumptions for simplicity's sake. Realize that these may not be the case, and I might very well digress into discussing other situations, but by and large I will stick to these assumptions. The first assumption is that you have applied to a raiding guild that has previously been running content and been accepted. Yes, your first raid might very well be with your own guild (I know mine was.) But the experience of a totally new group in a raid situation is vastly different from the experience of a seasoned group accepting a new member into their established routine.

The second assumption we will make for purposes of this article is that your first raid will be in Karazhan. This again might not be the case, but if you are entirely new to the raiding scene, then a ten-man instance like Kara is the place you will start to build your gear for the 25-man raid encounters. Yes, casters build their own Tier-4 equivalent gear, but like I said, these assumptions are meant to simplify the process so we can introduce a new raider into the fold.

Each week, Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the hunter class sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary.

We'd like to present for your entertainment pleasure a short movie of a hunter's perspective of the Moroes pull in Karazhan. The concept behind this project was to give hunters a visual guide for what their roles and responsibilities are, and the skill-set they can bring to a raid.

Your feedback will be most appreciated. Download the 48MB wide-screen version here.

Daniel Howell continues his quest to become the WoW-Scorsese as the hunter-pet duo extraordinaire known to lore as BigRedKitty. More of his theorycrafting and slanderous belittling of the lesser classes can be found at bigredkitty.blogspot.com.

Guildwatch is back again this week (as usual) with your weekly dose of drama, downed, and recruiting news from around the realms. After a slow past few weeks, our tipsters made up for lost time this week, and packed our inbox (at wowguildwatch@gmail.com if you've got tips of your own) full of dramatic drama, triumphant downing news, and interesting recruiting notices (we've even got a retro guild this week!).

So click the link below to see this week's column-- you may want to be sitting down for this.

Reader Gryffyn sends us this charming shot taken in one of the many rooms of Karazhan (in particular, in one of the hallways leading to Maiden). Is this the real story behind Romulo and Julianne's opera house performance? We may never know the story behind the skeletons...

Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing a copy to aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com, with as much or as little detail as you'd like to share with the world!

I've never been in a guild where we've finished all the content in the game, but I've definitely seen a difference between raiding farmed content and raiding progression. When you're working on farmed content, things are very, very different from a progression raid-- the mood is lighter, things move more smoothly, more mistakes are made (and it matters less), and there's a little less leading and a little more joking. Not that farming content is more or less fun than raiding progression, but it's a very different feel-- last night I ran Karazhan with my guild for the first time (they're farming it now), and things were very, very different from those raiding days back when we were struggling through Moroes and scared that the Wizard of Oz event might come up in Opera because we didn't have the DPS we needed.

But what if you're recruiting for farmed content? Sara is facing exactly that situation, and she wonders if her guild will be able to find good people now that they're about to finish off all the content in the game. They're expecting loss and attrition (because some people only like to raid progress, and have no interest in farming content beyond their own needs), and trying to bring new people into a guild that's already done everything. Will they only be able to find folks in it for their own loot, or will they bring interested, knowledgeable raiders willing to do the work for the rewards?

Hopefully they'll be able to weed out the "omglootz" people from the casual raiders and the other folks interested in seeing the endgame content. There's no question that running farmed content is not nearly as demanding (and that's why some people don't like it as much) as progressing a raid, but that doesn't mean that anyone wants to take on a raid full of loot whores only bent on scoring their next Epic.

Who out there isn't enjoying some of the Brewfest events right now? In addition to the simple pleasure of free booze, the Brewfest offers some interesting rewards -- one of which, the beer goggles, is showcased above. However, in this case I really feel like the Horde have the short end of the stick. If you play Horde and put on your beer goggles, everyone turns into an Orc. If you play Alliance and put on your beer goggles, everyone turns into a Gnome. And though the above video is amusing, I can only think of how more amusing it would have been with a more Gnomish theme.

Previously, on Moviewatch...

"Dear BRK, my guild of the past eighteen months is basically evaporating. So many people have left we've dropped below the critical mass necessary to do anything. We can't even put together a five-man instance run without a week and a half of chaotic scheduling. And this happened just as I hit 70. So at the point in the game where the focus really shifts over from solo content to multi-player content, I find myself effectively without a group.

"Last night I had a long whisper conversation with a recruitment officer for a larger, more active guild, and she basically handed me an open invitation. But I don't know whether I should take it because this guild is focused on raiding. Since I essentially soloed my way to 70, I barely even know what raiding is.

"I'm not a total noob; I understand my class fairly well, I can manage my pet, we make a good team. But the two of us have very little group experience. We've only been in three instances in a year and a half of playing the game! I don't want to join a hot new guild only to embarrass myself and frustrate my teammates with my ignorance. Where should I go, or what should I do, to learn the basics of how the multiplayer parts of the game work?

"Is there some quick get-up-to-speed briefing online that will at least let me get the vocabulary down, so I don't have to say stupid things like 'What's Kara?' and 'What does attunement mean?' -- Name withheld by request --"

What is Karazhan?

Karazhan is a 10-person instance where your guild goes to beat thirteen bosses and have loot drop that nobody in your raid can use. Basically, Karazhan is a place enchanters go to level their sharding skills.

But what is a hunter's job in this place? Why are we there and what do we do? How about we go through the bosses one at a time and talk briefly about what you can expect your role to be.

This shall be quick and dirty. We expect the comments to overflow with recommendations to help provide more details.

Guild drama is a lot like falling in love. It's the most cliche thing in the world-- everyone's been through it before, usually more than once. But when it happens to you, it seems like there's nothing more important. When you're the one cursing out your guildleader on Vent for giving the loot to his friend instead of the person who rolled 100 on it (you), you feel like you're the only person this has ever happened to in this way.

And that's why I love writing Guildwatch, your weekly look at drama, downed, and recruiting news from around the realms. We can't cover everything, but we can absolutely cover everything you send to us-- tips go to wowguildwatch@gmail.com. Hit the link below to see who fell not in love, but out of their guild this week.

Dan mentioned it in a quick note earlier this morning, but this is such a big piece of news, to my mind, that it deserves an even bigger mention: in patch 2.3, Heroic badges will drop from bosses in Karazhan and Zul'Aman.

That's a gigantic change. We can only guess that it'll work the same way that Heroic instance bosses do now-- every member of the raid will get to grab their own Badge of Honor for each and every boss kill. And that is big-- currently, the badges are only available from bosses in Heroic mode dungeons, which means the only way to get them is to run Heroics.

Of course, whether Heroics or Karazhan are harder for you depends on your experience and your raid, but my sense of the general consensus is that most guilds are already farming Karazhan, while Heroics are only being run by small groups of really experienced players just to get the badges. And when you don't need to get the badges from Heroics any more, what reason is there to go in there?

None other than Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan answered multiple questions concerning the new PvP trinkets announced for Patch 2.3. Here's a summary of his comments:

• All versions of the trinket have a click effect to gain 1750 max health (kind of like the old lifegiving gem effect), along with a passive effect (your choice of 47 spell damage, 40 spell crit rating, 80 attack power, 40 melee crit rating, or 88 healing). (source)
• They cost badges of justice, which will also be available off Kara and Zul Aman bosses. (source)
• They're open to all classes. The click effects share a cooldown though, so you won't be able to stack that effect. (source)

One player was very unhappy that he would be forced to PvE just so he can got back to PvP'ing. Kaplan responded that experiencing different parts of the game isn't such a bad thing and stood his ground on that decision. I wonder if he'd feel the same if he forced PvE players into PvP for better gear.

I like it when people spend a little time to gussy up their guild's raiding pictures. A good, detailed guild kill picture (like the one from Order of the Raven on Aggramar above), is like a nice little postcard, a souvenir for everyone on the raid. If your guild has a particularly nice or well designed kill shot, send it to wowguildwatch@gmail.com (along with your drama, downed, and recruiting tips as always) and we might have a whole gallery of them to show off next week.

In the meantime, click the link below to get your weekly dose of drama, downed, and recruiting news. It's all the guild action you'd want, without ever signing a charter!

Over on the Subcreation forums, Alcaras calls for the death of raid lockouts in a well-written plea to the Blizzard devs. He makes some really strong points-- he calls raid lockouts (or raid cooldowns, as I usually call them) just fake barriers to keep players playing, and lampoons Blizzard for keeping people from playing together the way they want to. Keeping players confined to just one raid per week helps contribute to "the Karazhan Mistake"-- guilds are split, whether they like it or not, and gaps are created between the folks who can raid one night and the folks who can't.

The point of raid lockouts is simply to keep raid farming from happening-- guilds could farm Gruul over and over again, or run into Serpentshrine, down Hydross, and just keep it up for the whole afternoon, picking up Epic after Epic. But as Alcaras points out, guilds already farm-- the 5mans (including Heroics) are already farmable, and no on is arguing that Heroic gear is too easy to get. Plus, things are getting pretty silly-- some groups are running three or four Karazhan groups weekly. How much more would they really run it if lockouts were removed?

Of course, eventually, Alcaras will get his wish. Blizzard has a habit of eventually tuning down and opening up the lower dungeons-- that's what happened in UBRS (originally a 15 man dungeon), and Scholomance (originally a 10 man dungeon). Sure, it likely won't happen anytime too soon, but eventually, Karazhan is going to be nerfed, and the lockdown removed. But I tend to agree with Alcaras, at least for the first few high end raids-- the only real consequence of opening up the lockdowns is that more players would get to experience raiding content more often, and in my mind, that's a good thing.

[ via Tobold ]

Seeya from Dethecus has an interesting question for us to answer this Saturday morning: What's the total number of times you've visited the instance you've seen the most of?

Most guilds raided Molten Core many, many times to gear up everyone that needed it, and back at 60, I spent many weekends plowing through the lava packs down there. I've also run Shadow Labs many, many times since BC dropped, and Steam Vaults and the Arcatraz have also seen me go through quite a few times. Nowadays, Karazhan is probably getting the most traffic, although the cooldown on it probably keeps people going through there as often as they'd like. And don't forget lowbie instances-- I've been through SM and Deadmines on every character at least a few times.

But for me, the instance I've been through the most times overall is definitely UBRS. There were days, when I first hit 60, when we would run it twice a day. I've tanked it, healed it, and DPSed it. I've learned it, taught it, marked it, master looted it, done every quest in there and seen every drop. I've seen a hunter pull Drakk, a Mage pull Drakk, a Warrior tank them all, and even seen a Rogue do the pull. I can't count the number of times I've seen Eviscerate IX drop, and at one point, I could probably list off both all the pulls and Rend and Nef's dialogue to you-- without being near a computer. UBRS is my instance, and I'd put my runs through there at almost 100.

So what's the instance you've run the most, and how many times have you been through?