Filed under: Guest Posts

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All of us have a life outside of Azeroth. People always say how much more important real life is than the game. However, if we say we are going to be somewhere in the game, shouldn't we take that commitment as seriously as one in the real world? If we tell our guild or friends we will be there for a raid or to PvP, shouldn't we do our best to not let them down? Isn't telling your WoW friends that you will be somewhere and simply not showing up without any notice just as bad as if it were your real life friends?

Since I am a tank for my guild, I pretty much have to be at almost every raid. In order to make raids when not at home I have raided on laptops and at other people's houses, just so I don't let people down. By not always playing on my home PC I have learned to be a minimalist with mods as well as learning what the minimum settings I can still effectively tank with. This has allowed me to maintain most of my real life and in game commitments.

Have you ever had to play WoW outside of your own home to fulfill your social obligations? Do you have a gaming laptop for this purpose? Have you played at a friend or relative's house on their PC? Do you have different UIs or mod setups for your PC and laptop?

Once again we're looking to you, dear readers, to help fill the WoW Insider Breakfast Topic cup with hot, fresh topics! What's on your mind (and what do you think is on other players' minds) when it comes to the World of Warcraft? Write it up as Breakfast Topic and submit your article for a chance to be published right here on WoW Insider.

We're looking for Breakfast Topics in our usual conversational style, asking the community for their thoughts on a WoW-related topic. Submissions should be between 200 and 300 words. (Watch that top end! Exceeding it substantially could get your submission thrown out, no matter how good it is! Brevity is your friend.) We're looking for strong writing in combination with topics that will spark an interesting conversation. Only the best submissions will be accepted. Multiple submissions from one author is allowed.

WoW Insider does not accept articles submitted under player names or pen names; please use your full, real name and an actual email address. Please include your email address again at the bottom of your submission -- the email address will not be published, but it makes it easier for the WoW Insider staff to contact you if there is a need for it. Artwork is not mandatory, but any you choose to include must be your own work or via creative commons.

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

No matter what aspect of WoW you prefer, we all have bad nights. Your guild has an off night, wiping endlessly on farm content. You get in a drama-filled PUG and get saved to a raid that doesn't really accomplish much. Your arena team loses most of its matches. You keep getting into BGs with half the other members AFK. We rage, QQ, maybe have an alcoholic beverage, and eventually log off frustrated and unfulfilled. However, with as many subscribers as WoW has, it is clear most of us manage to put that behind us and try again.

I'm not much of a PvPer anymore; mostly, I raid now. Lately, our guild has been struggling a bit. Lots of players are taking time off until Cataclysm. Some of the replacements just aren't as good as the people they are replacing, or they are having trouble adjusting to the way our guild does fights. A couple of weeks ago, we had the worst raid night I have had since Wrath launched, wiping for about two hours on heroic Lady Deathwhisper -- a fight we usually one-shot -- and as the raid wound down, we actually set the encounter to normal just to get past it so we could clear at least through Saurfang before we called it a night. There was finger-pointing, complaining, grumbling, and general poor morale as the night wore on, and I am ashamed to admit I joined in on some of it. As the night ended and I logged off, I was just glad it was over.

So as I logged on for the next raid, I was already dreading what would become of the continuation of the previous night's antics. However, as a guild, we decided to have fun the rest of the week, bust out some achievements for those who'd missed them, and not worry about slamming our heads against heroics -- just clear the raid and make it a short week. It brought morale back up and turned things into a rewarding and relaxing raid week, and we got back on track. So how do you and your guild or friends recover from bad nights?

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Editor's Note: This article contains heavy plot spoilers for the upcoming Cataclysm expansion. Read at your own risk!

In the heart of every player who has leveled a human character lies a special place for the gentle, rolling plains of Westfall. Despite the fallow fields and barren hills, the region has a sort of natural beauty to it that many players have found irresistible, making it a favorite for Alliance players. Given its high popularity and my own nostalgia for the zone, I was a bit worried when Cataclysm was announced. What would happen to the great zone? Would it be so radically changed that it no longer resembled what it once was? Would it go by mostly untouched, leaving it unused in the wake of more polished zones?

Fear not! The zone has retained its raw beauty and has received a number of much needed upgrades. The town of Sentinel Hill is now much more secure, with a large wall and greater defenses. The layout of the zone remains mostly the same, with the exception of the Raging Chasm. Once the Alexston Farmstead, this area is a swirling vortex of wind and dust, a remnant of the cataclysm. It adds a new feature to the skyline of Westfall, as it towers into the air at a distance that can be seen from any corner of the zone.

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"... she held off three of the bristlebacks by herself ..."

Yeah yeah, Mankrik. Gimme my quest!

"Please ... find some sign of my wife."

Woah ...

Lost in Battle was the first quest I came across that caused a personal, deeply emotional reaction in me. I love the lore and was devouring the story as I went along. Quests had made me cry, laugh, and say out loud, "How in the...? No!" That was as an observer who was loving the story, though. Mankrik's quest made me hold my husband a little tighter that night and tell him I love him a little more. Sure, I admit I've giggled at a cleverly timed "Mankrik's wife" punch line or two! I'm not going to claim to be above that. But I've looked at Mankrik standing there, a proud orc pushed to the point of begging strangers to find his wife, and then looked across the room at my own husband. It's not something I can laugh at then.

The first thing I did with my Horde death knight after turning the letter in to Thrall was run down to the Crossroads for that quest. My Alliance RP character has found the body and mourned the death of this unknown orc who was so badly beaten, and she has lamented not knowing who she could possibly go to about this. I've worried about losing Haggle and Mankrik's wife in Cataclysm. At least now I know Mankrik's wife -- excuse me, Olgra -- will finally be laid to rest. I've read what the moment says and cried. If you Hordies see an awfully friendly dwarf coming through with a bear, /cheering animals, I'm just on my way to pay my respects again.

Which characters/quests have hit you really hard? Is anybody else worried about Haggle?

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Editor's note: Elizabeth Harac, creator of this amigurumi murloc, makes these adorable critters for a charity she established, Hands of Hope, which designed to help inspire and empower children in third-world countries. Read more about Hands of Hope, and join us after the break as Elizabeth shares the pattern along with a step-by-step photo guide on how to make your own amigurumi baby murloc.

I have been doing various needlework since I was a child and Mother was trying to keep me still for more than five minutes. Last October, I had the idea that since needlework taught me a lot of things -- like self-confidence, purpose, planning, and relaxation -- it might be helpful as a skill or hobby to other people. I had seen a TV segment about a sewing program in the projects somewhere and how the confidence the girls had gained was flowing into schoolwork and other areas. My original idea was just to find ways to teach needlework to girls in third-world countries where they could use the skills to also raise money for themselves. I needed to make money to make embroidery teaching kits, so I started making amigurumi and selling them.

Then I met Betty Makoni. She was a CNN Hero 2009. She runs the Girl Child Network Worldwide. She rescues girls in Africa who have been raped, abused, sold into slavery, forced to be child brides and worse. She loved the idea of the embroidery. In May 2010, we sent 52 kits to Zimbawbwe, and we have requests now for hundreds more. The girl are teaching each other; they are making clubs and using the time to talk about dreams, planning how to reach them, and working through the trauma of abuse. As a victim of rape and abuse myself, my heart went out to these girls.

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

A few months ago, my girlfriend finally got me to take the leap and start a WoW account. I realize now that in most cases, this is the other way around. Admittedly, I did not know too much about the backstory or how to effectively play my class. Like most players (I hope), I made some serious noob mistakes, such as leaving my pet on aggressive while in The Stockades and Ragefire Chasm. Luckily, I quickly learned what I was doing was wrong.

Being a hunter means that I often played solo a lot, and I figured as long as I am leveling and not dying that often, that qualifies me as being a "good" player. However, it only took one wipe before the final boss deep within the Sunken Temple to alter my viewpoint. The group quickly began to disband, leaving me wandering the Swamp of Sorrows desperately looking for my corpse. The last member of the group remaining started blaming the wipe on me and attempting to really go to town on how terrible I was. I tried to be civil about it and why she felt that way -- or if she had any advice that would help me -- but that did not work at all. I finally lost it and went on my own rant in retaliation.

From that point on, I wanted to be the best, to know all about not only my class but my race as well. That one wipe seemingly snowballed into my seeking out fan sites and reading novels not only on lore but books taking an academic approach to the game, as well. Now I cannot seem to shake this WoW obsession.

What was that crowning moment that pushed your interest in WoW over the edge ? Was it piece of incredible lore, some jerk from a RDF group, or something different entirely?

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I would hazard a guess that a vast majority of WoW players have never even been to Azshara. Honestly, since Molten Core is no longer a major raid zone and the Runes of Fire Lords just put themselves out, there really isn't much reason to. Those of us who raided in vanilla made weekly trips there to pick up our Aqual Quintessence, and I was also an herbalist, so I would spend another hour or so out there looking for Dreamfoil because of needing a bag full of mana pots to raid in those pre-potion sickness days.

Clearly, the zone was unfinished. There was one quest hub, if you could call it that, because there were only a very small number of quests there. Blizzard tried to bring people to the unused zone later on by adding in the level 50 class quests that led up to Sunken Temple -- but really, in the process of leveling, you could basically ignore Azshara and move on.

I hated the original Azshara because it was out in the middle of nowhere and fairly poorly designed. It was hard to get to places because of all the rocky cliffs, and passages up and down from the beach to the cliffs were too few and far between. It could even be dangerous at level 60 before The Burning Crusade's stamina inflation; lots of mobs feared and or put debuffs on you, and there were elites wandering around over huge portions of the zone.

Sadly the few fond memories I have of old Azshara are gone, as well. When Azuregos was up in vanilla, the entire zone would become a raiding guild, PvP fight zone as the top Horde and Alliance raiding guilds fought over who could tag him, killing flagged members of the group who got him, hoping to wipe them and inflict them all with the debuff. It could get fun and entertaining -- and one time, it even caused our server to be shut down.

Well, that has all changed come Cataclysm.

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

With all this focus on new disasters, races, and abilities coming in Cataclysm, it's easy to forget about all the awesome things our characters can do right now. Mages can teleport, fury warriors can dual wield two-handed weapons, shaman can turn into a Ghost Wolf. Ghost Wolf --- that even sounds cool.

My main toon is a holy paladin. Although I did level most of the first 60 levels as holy (yes, it went very, very slowly), I blasted through the last 20 levels and the instances that fill them as retribution. At level 80, I wanted to get into raiding. A friend somehow got me in one of the better raiding guilds on my server and -- guess what? -- shortly after, I got volun -- told to go holy if I wanted a raiding slot. I admit, at first, I wasn't a great healer. I was using a very small portion of my toolbox. I took Holy Light spam to a new level and did almost nothing else. After a time, I discovered Beacon of Light and spent much of the next few weeks declaring it was the best spell in all of WoW. Two tanks taking damage? No problem, 'cause now my Holy Light spamming was twice as effective!

Now I'm leveling a rogue and falling in love with a brand new skillset. Cheap Shot and Kidney Shot are fast becoming some of my new favorite character abilities. Are you more partial to the biggest damage/healing/threat increase button, or does pushing someone off an edge with Typhoon just make your day? What abilities do you enjoy the most?

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

We all have people in our guilds who are better at WoW than we are. They have amazing reaction times, are great leaders, or put up amazing numbers on the damage or healing meters. But often we know little about the person behind the keyboard. Since my guild is full of mostly adults, we talk a lot about real life in guild chat and on our guild forums. Some of the stuff is merely about TV shows we are watching or books we are reading; seriously, we have a 15-page forum about MMA from all the UFC fans in our guild.

Occasionally, however, truly major life events are discussed, some of which are sad and some are inspiring. We have used the forums to say goodbye to a few members for reasons ranging from personal tragedy, to moving and changing jobs, to simply getting tired of the game.

Some of the stories inspired me to make changes in my own life. One of our guild members talked about his diet and how through exercise and cutting out some fast food, he has lost nearly 60 pounds. This caused me to start watching how much I was snacking during raids and got me back to the gym. Another guild member went back to college for his master's degree, and this led me to look into what it would cost for me to go back and get my culinary degree. Two of our guild members got engaged, and this led me to realize I had better start thinking about ring shopping before my girlfriend gets fed up with me.

Do you ever discuss important real-life events with members of your guild? Have any of their stories made you examine your own life? Have any of their advice or personal insights inspired you to make changes or tough choices in your life?

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

Lord of the Rings Online went free-to-play. "Free" is a questionable term, since they charge you for a fee for features you can technically live without but are still fairly important; things such as the gold cap, the ability to gain rested XP, and certain instances and PvP options require a fee. You get an enhanced version slightly above a trial, but you are still limited in what you can do in the free-to-play version of the game.

While playing a game, I want to play the whole game, have the entire experience, and not feel as if I have been shortchanged by being on a limited version. Personally having purchased some of the Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age DLC, I would still have to pay for the added functionality. Not being able to fully advance my character and see large amounts of content would irritate me more than the cost would. Not being allowed to make use of content would make me feel like I was missing out.

I want the choice of whether or not I do this instance, raid, or battleground. Could you imagine attempting to zone into Icecrown Citadel and seeing a message that says, "Requires a V.I.P. membership"? WoW has sold us a few items for extra money that are not required, but not having a Lil' XT or a sparkle pony doesn't affect your game functionality.

LOTRO offers things like more bag spaces and removing the gold cap and even priority login for those with V.I.P. accounts. So if World of Warcraft decided to follow the LOTRO model and go semi-free-to-play, would you just play the free portion? Would you pay for the V.I.P. portion? Would you buy the other nickel and dime upgrades they have on top of that? Or would you quit WoW altogether, feeling as if Blizzard had shortchanged players by making us pay for things like bag space, PvP and raid availability?

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

All of us are anxiously awaiting Cataclysm's going live. Wrath is winding down and people are anxiously anticipating the new content. Some want new raids, some want new dungeons, some want new quests, some want to make goblins or worgen. Some of us are just really excited to see the changes to the old zones, and some just want to get right into the level 80 to 85 content.

I myself am in the beta. I have played it as it has evolved since the friends and family alpha, and I have watched some of the zones go from buggy and near unplayable, with quests not yet implemented, to being far more fleshed-out and nearly ready to go live. I love Hyjal. It has an epic feel; you are right in there battling to reclaim the zone from the Twilight Cultists and the elementals. Deepholm is equally amazing. In the revamped zones, I thoroughly enjoyed the CSI-inspired murder quest chain in Westfall. I have made both a goblin and a worgen and must say, the goblin starting area and Azshara should not be missed. Everyone should make a Horde character and complete the Azuregos and Kalecgos quests in Azshara. On the other hand, I feel Gilneas is a little overscripted and Darkshore is still a little odd.

There is a lot of the world I want to see when Cataclysm launches, but there are places I want to see more than others. Where are you most interested in exploring when Cataclysm comes out? What do you absolutely have to see, and what quests do you want to do? What particular zone excites you the most? Or are you just in it for new dungeons, raids and new shiny epics?

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Editor's Note: This post contains spoilers for the upcoming Cataclysm expansion. Read at your own risk!

Looks like the Wetlands just got a little wetter. (What the -- who took my sunglasses?!) The swamplands of Khaz Modan have gotten some updates -- some for the better, some for the worse, and some for the downright awesome.

Dun Algaz The familiar twisting tunnels leading from Loch Modan to the Wetlands have remained intact, including the halfway-point town of Dun Algaz, still overrun by the Dragonmaw. Like many areas that haven't changed a whole lot, the questing here has been changed up slightly but mostly made shorter. In this case, your objective is retrieving some precious cargo -- and if you didn't guess alcohol was involved, you've forgotten that you're in dwarf country.

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

I had a friend who would take every opportunity she was presented with to engage in world PvP. We could be in the middle of questing together and suddenly I would notice that her orc huntress was nowhere to be found. Come to find out that some poor Alliance player had wandered into her minimap and was being hunted down by her and her pet wolf.

In theory, world PvP works. Throw a bunch of people together in a big world and let them have at it. In practice, though, it isn't that cut and dried. The first toon I rolled was on a PvP server (because that was where my gaming friends were), and coming from a FPS gaming background, one of aspects of the game that excited me the most was the prospect of duking it out with the enemy in epic battles and guerilla hit-and-run skirmishes. Then reality hit me. What I thought was going to be honorable combat was actually more like gang warfare. Behind the veil of anonymity, players became bullies, targeting weaker players for their in-game gratification -- which in turn lessened others' gameplay experience and created the wrong kind of tension.

The flip side is the fact that people not interested in being targeted at every turn can roll toons on PvE servers. But what about toons that are already on PvP servers? Transferring off may be cost-prohibitive for some and others may not want to leave behind the friendships they have forged. Still others may see the problems with world PvP just an irritant and not worth the trouble of transferring.

As for my friend the orc? Well, being constantly ganked and griefed got too much for her and she transferred to a PvE server. So what is the solution? Should there be in-game consequences for dishonorable actions like ganking and griefing? Or is world PvP perfect just the way it is?

This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

As the dust begins to settle in the wake of the great patch-aclysm of 2010, it's time to look back with a little perspective and see exactly what we've been left with. The most immediately visible effects revolve around the drastic changes to many of our favorite classes, but frankly, a bit too much hubbub has been made over these already. The WoW community is -- to put it delicately -- a rather passionate bunch, so we tend to react strongly to the need to relearn our classes. Realistically, though, it's just a matter of figuring out which playstyles suit us the most, adapting to them and hoping we don't lose any friends and guildies as casualties of evolution.

Damage numbers are also relatively meaningless at this stage in the game. While we're sure to see some frustratingly unviable specs in Cataclysm like we have in the past (*cough* PvE subtlety), for the most part, the developers can tweak code through patches and hotfixes to ensure that we all eventually see appropriately-sized numbers flashing before our eyes.

Since the order of buttons we press to succeed is in a constant state of flux anyway, we'll eventually forget that X skill or Y talent even existed. But some things will stick with us longer. I believe Patch 4.0.1's legacy depends more on permanent game changes that we'll one day take for granted.