What is the Royal Apothecary server on the PTR in World of Warcraft? A lot of players have been asking about it and were wondering why there were six level one characters on it and no one else. Well, when we first saw it, we were discussing the possibilities of the people at Blizzard conducting experiments on a Gnome-Tauren hybrid.

Thankfully, as the discussion became increasingly disturbing, Hortus from Blizzard's QA gave some information on the server. "This server is being used for a special project, I would not suggest accessing it with the wowtest client as it is set up on a different build and there may be stability problems." A special project...that piqued the interest of other players on the forum even more. Blizzard poster/Moderator Tigerclaw further clarified the existence of the server.

I think some new server-side hardware / software configurations are being tested, nothing relating to 2.1.2. It's not running the same build as the proper 2.1.2 server and is not being kept in sync, so crashes and other oddities can occur if you log on there with your PTR build.

 
That said, I would have to stick with the Gnome-Tauren hybrid theory and a great cover-up scheme by Blizzard on this genetic experiment. Seriously though, they're probably doing exactly what Tigerclaw said and outside interference may actually slow down their progress, so logging into the server may not be the best move on any player's part. Be sure to keep checking back here for more updates on World of Warcraft.

After dishing out Item/Enhancement mods and Totemus for Shamans, it's about time that we give some love to the Rogue class. And what better way to do that than feature some World of Warcraft Rogue mods. So we'll start the love-sharing by talking about KarrionTerenas' Poisoner. Simply put, this mod will let you apply poisons to weapons from a minimap menu.

Just like any mods, this isn't entirely free of bugs. One of its known bugs is that if there are already poisons on the selected weapon you will get a popup confirmation dialog. If you choose "No", your cursor may still have the poison selected; to sort this out, hit escape or right click in open space to.

On the other hand, Isognomy's Rogue Mod - Sabella 1.0 Beta 2, aims to put the things a rogue needs and uses right at your fingertips. You can see the status of your flash powder, blinding powder, poison, and bandages. The mod author shares something personal about this mod. Apparently, it was named after her daughter, who died during childbirth. This mod is a way to immortalize her.

And the odd-mod out for this batch is Phanx's Titan Panel [Factions] v1.2.7. A Titan mod which gives easy access to your faction information with a Titan Panel entry. It shows the following info:

• Show reputation percentage, raw reputation, or both.
• Monitor a faction on the panel.
• Hide inactive and/or exalted factions in the tooltip.
• Optionally sync with Blizzard's faction watch - the faction you're watching will automatically be monitored on the Titan Panel.
• Show how many stacks of runecloth you'd need to turn in to reach Exalted reputation with your faction's other races. Perfect for those interested in another race's mount.

Download: [Poisoner]
Download: [Sabella 1.0 Beta 2]
Download: [Titan Panel [Factions] v1.2.7]