A lot of people have been questioning Blizzard's priorities lately. It seems that in World of Warcraft, every time a problem is brought up, the GMs usually say that it isn't a priority but will be fixed next patch. So what exactly is the company focusing on?

If you don't think that's very important, consider this: there have been quite a few players who decided they aren't going to play anymore since they don't know where the game is heading. While Blizzard has promised continual support for the MMO, many have felt that the problems are being neglected.

A player by the name of Bloodsong posted on the forums a few questions regarding what projects Blizzard is currently prioritizing so that gamers will at least have a general idea on what's happening.

List of Questions:

1. WoW or Starcraft 2?
2. Balancing classes or creating new content?
3. Raiding or PvP?
4. Professions or transportation?
5. Next patch or next expansion?
6. New races or new classes?
7. New zones or new quests?

Want to see Nethaera's answers? Click on the full article.

It seems Nethaera's Magic 8 Ball is pretty darn accurate. World of Warcraft Patch 2.1.2 is now live and available for download. Trouble is, some realms are still down due to maintenance for the opening of Arena Season 2 as well as the new patch.

According to WoW Insider, the Frenzy and Cataclysm battlegroups will also be requiring 24 hours of downtime to complete their merge. The downtime is scheduled to end at 3:00 AM tomorrow. Here's a list of affected servers:

• Azuremyst
• Area 52
• Auchindoun
• Blade's Edge
• Blood Furnace
• Coilfang
• Exodar
• Shattered Halls
• Terokkar
• The Scryers
• The Underbog
• Velen
• Zangarmarsh

Hopefully, all the affected realms will be back up before schedule so everybody can experience 2.1.2.

Blizzard Community Manager Drysc recently announced on the World of Warcraft Forums that Blizzard will be merging the Cataclysm and Frenzy battlegroups sometime in the next month.

This merging means that the Shattered Halls, Azuremyst, The Underbog, Auchindoun, Coilfang, Blood Furnace, Terokkar, Exodar, Blade's Edge, Velen, Area 52, Zangarmarsh, and The Scryers realms will now all be placed into one single battlegroup.

Drysc notes that the merge is occurring in hopes of lowering queue times. He also says that this is to "increase the number and variety of opponents for those participating in cross-realm battlegrounds and arenas."

Drysc also added that more information regarding the merge would be announced as the implementation of this battlegroup joining nears. Rest assured that we'll keep you updated about it as soon as more info is made available.

  

Well it's not really new, but this time it is official. With a complete list of blues that you can grab by helping your own faction hold the grounds of contested Zangarmarsh, Blizzard now adds the World of Warcraft Europe PvP rewards list to their official collection of rewards, along with those tangible gear from the highly competitive PvP Arena section.

So if you're a late or casual gamer who's just hit level 60, you can try a hand at patriotism by heading on over to the swamp-infested fungi forest of Zangarmarsh and visit your respective stronghold. Native Draenei and Night Elves will feel at home in the Alliance Honor Hold, while Thrallmar is the perfect refuge for native Tauren and Trolls.

But don't you all go over there at once. You wouldn't want to cause severe lag or seriously deprave serious grinders of their mobs by killing them off for no reason. So click the "Read" link provided below to check out the Rare items you could get. And remember, it's not the color that counts...

More game fixes await World of Warcraft's players as we move halfway into this week of March 19 to 25. According to Tseric, Blizzard's spokesman over at the WoW official forums, we have two hot fixes for the moment::

Tuesday:
Warbringer O'mrogg's status will now reset, after a wipe during his enraged state.
Monday:
Corrected an issue where Coilfang Ambushers would evade unnecessarily.

Going into detail on these reports, Warbringer O'mrogg - over to your right - is the second boss in the Shattered Halls wing of the Hellfire Citadel instance. Before his hot fix (at least we think it's a "he"), Warbringer had a nasty habit of keeping his enrage status activated even after parties fighting him wiped.

This proved to be a major pain for those re-attempting the instance, as enrage gave this two-headed monstrosity a major damage boost at the start of the fight. Of extra-painful note is his Burning Weapon/Blast Wave, which deals an initial 1k fire damage, followed by two consecutive Blast Waves for 2.5k-3.2k damage each.

The Coilfang Ambusher, on the other hand, is a level 70 humanoid enemy that can found over at the Coilfang Reservoir instance in Zangarmarsh. There had been a reported bug about them in the Steamvault area (also withing Coilfang), though as Tseric reports, they shouldn't be too troublesome to kill post-fix. Stay posted as the week's hot fixes get updated, which may include one for Coilfang's Lady Vashj.

If you're on one of the newer World of Warcraft servers, you may have noticed a distinct inability to log on and check your leetness quotient in the past few hours. That might be because of an unexplained downtime that Blizzard is working to fix at the moment.

The following realms were affected by the unexpected downtime:

• Area 52
• Auchindoun
• Azuremyst
• Blade's Edge
• Blood Furnace
• Coilfang
• Exodar
• Shattered Halls
• Terokkar
• The Scryers
• The Underbog
• Velen
• Zangarmarsh

As of 2:27 a.m. PST, Drysc has noted that there may be an additional two hours of downtime for the affected servers as Blizzard's engineers work on the problem. We'll try and keep you posted, but for now, you can also watch the thread we're linking to for more information.

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!

For the Dungeons and Dragons (and probably Final Fantasy Tactics) fans, Rogues are synonymous with the following words: scalawag, bandit, pickpocket, thug, thief. However, if you happen to reside in World of Warcraft's boss-hunt-and-raid-intensive environment, the name takes on a more damage-intensive meaning as the party's primary heavy hitter (alongside the mage).

But while rogues are taking a more aggressive stance in-game, Elizabeth Wachowski decided that the class needed a quick reminder of why they should be getting their much-neglected Lockpicking skill to 350. Here are some of the more practical (and humorous reasons):

1. You can be nice and open locked chests in instances. I open them for my groups with the reasonable "fee" of me being allowed to take anything that would really be an upgrade for me, which never ever happens. On the other hand, if you're in some jerky pug with a priest that announces that all rogues are useless, a tank who can't hold aggro for anything in the world, a mage who pyroblasts your saps, and a warlock who's AFK half the time, feel free to announce that you can't pick the chest. Wait for them all to hearth out and then sneak back and take it. Consider it a "jerk fee."
2. You can get a largely endless supply of blinding powder by picking the junkboxes you get from pickpocketing humanoid mobs. You can also sometimes find some neat stuff in them, like gnome effigies.
3. It takes about fifteen minutes to level from 300. Just go to the broken camp in the south of Zangarmarsh, sneak around, and pick all the little chests. It's as easy as pie!

We got sold on the "jerk fee" comment and the gnomish effigy. So, if you think your dual-weapon wielding back-stab wonder is in need of some serious polishing up, head over to Zangarmarsh for the said training.

 

Yeah, another bug alert today. Well, that's what our news hamsters are churning up, so we better post about it. Anyhoo, user Grogkar, posts in the WoW Europe Forums that while using Track Humanoids, he was able to see "dummy" entities on the minimap, that is, "stuff that isn't actually visible in the game." Now before you folks think, "Ooh, spooky, he can see dead people," Grogkar actually means that you're able to see things like spawning points, event triggers, etc. ... You know, the technical stuff.

Grogkar notes that the most noticeable example of this bug is the ability to track what he calls "Alliance Guard Alarm Bots" in their settlements. He speculates that these normally invisible  "bots" are responsible for summoning guards with a flying mount when getting close to the town.

He also notes that he was able to track Imp spawning portals in the Shadowmoon Valley.

When asked by Shaantie, of Blizzard EU Quality Assurance, where exactly he saw those invisible entities on his minimap, Grokgar replied that he can't give the exact location on Imp portals, but he does note that one can easily check for the "Alarm Dummies" in Telredor (Zangarmarsh) using Track Humanoids.

No word yet from Blizzard on their course of action regarding this supposed bug.

If you're looking for a fix to the server down incidents plaguing us because of The Burning Crusade, look away. However, if you still fancy to know what's been done to make World of Warcraft's gaming a little more enjoyable (not that it isn't), read on. Blizzard's Nethaera has just announced some recent Hotfixes for the live realms, which you may notice on your next grind session:

• Khorium has been added back into the game.
• Lady Palanseer in the Hall of Legends and Captain Dirgehammer in the Champion’s Hall have returned and are now selling level 70 PvP rewards.
• The drop rate of Draenei Prayer Beads for the quest "Digging for Prayer Beads" has been increased.
• Fixed an issue where players were not getting rested experience in Shattrath on select realms.
• Reduced the respawn time of the Zangarmarsh quest targets: Boglash, Lord Klaq, and Blacksting.

Yes, we're happy to see Dirgehammer's back in action too - not to mention the thought of those level 70 goodies that will be up for grabs with this fix. Just a gentle reminder for the gamers before you get back to exploring the new regions. Happy hunting!