Here's another visual treat for World of Warcraft players who enjoy watching machinima videos based on the game's rich lore. Entitled "Adventures in Exploiting", the movie was produced by Elphaba and takes a look at some of the restricted areas in the game. If you're interested in taking a look at it, you can head on over to the full article after the jump.

Many veteran players look forward to the Feast of Winter Veil in World of Warcraft. Those who are excited to find out what this year's Christmas event brings will be happy to know that Blizzard has already announced this year's list of events and loot.

Want to know more about the event? Check out the full article for more information about the World of Warcraft Feast of the Winter Veil 2007.

Heads up, Blizzard players. Forum moderator Salthem has come out with an updated list of reported 2.3 issues that is a lot more extensive than our previous issue report a couple of weeks back.

There are a lot of new issues here, including some potentially annoying ones that have to do with pop-up messages showing up or events that lock up the client, but all in all, you can expect these reported issues to be resolved in due time.

Note, however, that isn't the complete list of issues that Blizzard is working on at the moment. In any event, you can find the list of reported issues after the jump!

Yep... issues. Tons of them. After the jump!

 

Via World of Raids, we found out that the patch notes for World of Warcraft's 2.3 Public Test Realms have been updated with some new additions and some tweaked. We've noticed that these changes haven't been reflected in the original post we made for the 2.3 patch notes, so we're posting the changes below.

You can find the full set of current patch notes through the source link below. In the meantime, here are the updates and additions to Blizzard's patch notes:

General

• Silence effects now have diminishing returns when used on PvP targets.
• You can now obtain a tiny Sporebat pet with exalted Sporeggar faction.
• An Azure Whelp pet now drops from the blue dragonkin in Azshara.
• If you are seated and try to use abilities that require you to be standing, you will stand up and use them. This can be disabled with: /console autoStand 0 .

The rest of the changes can be found after the jump!

 

Undocumented changes are quite a tradition with Blizzard since the major builds in Azeroth - even all the way to the Outlands. And with version 2.2 of the newest patch for World of Warcraft touching realms worldwide, there was bound to be another share of changes that were overlooked and missing from the official patch change list.

Now aside from those changes listed at the official WoW boards, there are tons of other user-contributed lists at other WoW-centric sites. Let this fact serve as a disclaimer that some of the changes may or may not reflect in the other existing lists. Also consider that some entries may have only been tested to certain extents and could not be factual in untested instances.

What follows is the list as provided by numerous contributors in the World of Warcraft Forums. Get ready for a lengthy read, and you may feel free to pick out choice changes to test out for yourself.

World

• New music added to Honor Hold as well as the inns of Ironforge, Stormwind, and Ratchet
• Cho Threadstrong has new sayings he shouts at the fruit vendor (poor fruit vendor)
• Griftah unceremoniously ousted from Shattrath. Now sadly selling his fine wares (at unreasonably cheap prices!) in Terrokar Forest, just outside of the city's south-eastern tunnel at 36, 30 (Thanks, Meadows)
• Flavor text added to goblins at zeppelin flight points
• Chests in Tempest Keep: Mechanar have had their spawn locations change slightly making it impossible (or more difficult...never underestimate a players's tenacity) to solo
• Boats received new music (again? confirm?)

The  list runs longer at the full article!

World of Warcraft music fans, gather around. We've got news about the rockstars from the Horde, Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain (L70ETC).

Smarba from the World of Warcraft Forums posted that L70ETC will be back at Shattrath City regularly. Blizzard poster Drysc confirmed this bit of information and went on to say that Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain will be "a permanent fixture of the Darkmoon Faire now, and you'll be able to enjoy them in Elwynn and Mulgore as well".

To ensure that you catch them at the said event, be sure to check up with the heralds in Ironforge, Orgrimmar, and Shattrath City. Here's to hoping that the WoW band learns a couple of new songs now that they're traveling with the Darkmoon Faire.

World of Warcraft (WoW) guild Goon Squad is at it again. In case you're not familiar with them, take note that this is the same group that raided Ironforge back in December 2006 and started a hostage scenario a full month before that. This month, the group was back in Ironforge with a little number but with more finesse.

To the uninitiated, Ironforge is not that easy to penetrate. It is the capital city of Alliance-member dwarf race. In the lore, many dwarven strongholds fell during the Second War between the two factions but Ironforge was never breached. In this raid, Goon Squad used the Flask of Petrification, the alchemist-created item that protects players from any physical attacks or spells.

After the effect of the flask wore off (as you can't do anything while it is in effect), the fun for Goon Squad began. Alliance members fell to their knees, bloody and weakened, and... just watch the video clip, ok? It was posted by user avenger919 and we promise that it is fun, given that you're on the right side of the fence.

As you've probably seen, I'm one of those recovering Blizzard fans. I've been at it for a while, then stopped to get my bearings and figure out why I couldn't stop playing before. Now that I think about it, I realized that by equating World of Warcraft as something more than a game, I allowed the game to hold power over who I was.

Well, maybe it's time we all broke free from the thrall of Thrall and whispers of Whisperwind. Here are 10 things to help WoW-addicted gamers to distinguish between observations we find in real life and the illusions of WoW.

10. Conjured Bread and Water.

While it's true that there are people who do beg for bread and water in real life, note that there are no mages who can conjure those up in the real world. If someone asks for alms, help them get to a shelter or give them food or money, but don't expect to hand them thin air and say, "BREAD!"

NOTE: Claim does not hold true for Jesus Christ, though he could presumably multiply bread and fish and possibly transmute stone into bread rather than conjure it up from nothing.

9. No one in their right mind would really dance like Michael Jackson

Um... this should be self-explanatory.

8. You never end up face-first from a fall in WoW.

Not everyone notices this, but take it as a minor fact. You will always land on your feet at the end of that hundred-foot drop from Ironforge to the ground.

The full article awaits after the jump!

The World of Warcraft, like any online community, has its own dialect. Now, for the neophytes that find themselves befuddled by the world (of Warcraft)'s diverse set of slang that goes beyond your typical "LOL" or "WTF" abbreviations found in many an MMORPG's vocabulary, help is on the way.

Eliah Hecht has just come up with a comprehensive list of WoW's recurring game lingo, and aside from normal abbreviations like DPS (Damage Per Second), also delves into the more intricate (but essential) slangs. Here's a sample of the Outlands:

• OL: Outlands:
• BE: Blade's Edge
• HFP: Hellfire Peninsula
• HH: Honor Hold
• NS: Netherstorm
• SH/Shat: Shattrath City
• SMV: Shadowmoon Valley
• Tero: Terokkar
• TM: Thrallmar
• ZM: Zangarmarsh

For the WoW gamer just learning the ropes, look at this as a part of the growing compendium of beginner's guides to help you young 'uns get around in the realms, all the more with the new discoveries The Burning Crusade offers.

The full list awaits after this jump!

In light of a massive exodus of people flocking through the Dark Portal and into the Outland, you can't help but wonder what's left in Azeroth? Is "the Old World" still even there? Well, yes it is, apparently. You get a bunch of people having their own "boring crusade" and bosses talking about the lack of mobs.

rufbo from Curmudgeon Gamer decided to resurrect his WoW account, and since he didn't have the Burning Crusade expansion, had to settle for good old Azeroth. Unsurprisingly, it's not the same "good old Azeroth" that he once knew. What he saw reminded him of expansions of Ultima Online.

When UO started throwing in expansions, the old worlds very quickly started clearing out.... a bustling urban center [turned into] an absolute ghost town, made all the more eerie as the wandering NPC robots grossly outnumbered humans for the first time in my experience. That's happening now in WoW. Ironforge is nearly empty... auction houses, banks, city square, all nearly empty on my server.... I couldn't tell if my "new video card" was providing much better performance or if there simply wasn't anything to render!

Should Blizzard be worried? rufbo even playfully suggests that Ironforge should host a bingo night for gamers. On a good note though, he thinks that they should create expansions that are backwards compatible so that "players with expansions should continue to flow through old hotspots (possibly with new buildings in cities accessible only if you have the expansions, etc)."

Yes, equilibrium point will break even given some time, but for now, to those who are in the new frontier, let's use this time to reflect on our roots and where we've come from...