Wrath of the Lich King Update

Here's some more exciting news about the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Everything sounds awesome. I can't wait for the expansion.

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World of Warcraft Minis Game to be released by Upper Deck

Apparently Upper Deck is going to release a new Minis game based on WoW. This isn't too surprising considering the quality of the card game and the board game. I don't know how well those two games sold, but they are both of high quality. I'm not a huge Minis game fan, but I'm sure I'll give it a shot.

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WoW Lessons

Funny article by screenwriter, John August, deals with seven practical things learned about he real world from Mr. August's time in Azeroth. Although the article is written in a tongue-in-cheek style, it goes to show that we can learn some lessons from our time spent playing World of Warcraft. I think I'm going to go learn some more right now.

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Paladin Guide

This article is going to review The Unofficial World of Warcraft Paladin Guide by Killer Guides. The Paladin Guide will follow the same format that I used for Killer Guide's The Unofficial World of Warcraft Hunter Guide which I reviewed a while back.

Before I get into the review, a bit of back story is in order. I'd never played a Paladin before in WoW, but a little over a week ago, my server was down so I decided to start a toon on another server. I wanted to try something new. As someone who's played the Horde exclusively, I figured not only would I give the Alliance a try, but I'd got for a class I've never played before. Am I glad I did. The Paladin has been very fun for me and I've enjoyed all the new content available to me. On to my review.

First off, the Paladin Guide is 193 pages long and is in PDF format. The first thing you'll notice about the guide is the title page with a dwarven Paladin that really captures the feel of the Paladin. The Guide is very attractive and would look great printed out - although I didn't print out my guide. My favorite part of the PDF format is that everything is bookmarked for you. Very, very handy.

The writing style is very similar to the Hunter's Guide I previously reviewed. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if they were written by the same person. There are a few spelling and grammar errors, but overall the guide is well-written. I love how the guide is organized - everything flows very well.

The Paladin Guide's first section deals with character creation. For me this was helpful since I was starting from scratch. The two primary areas covered are server selection and race selection. If you've played WoW for a while, you're probably familiar with the differences between PvE, PvP, and RP servers. If not, the info is here. The race portion of the guide was quite useful to me. I chose Draenei - largely for the Heroic Presence ability. This section will be largely useless if you've already rolled your Paladin, but will be of some use if you are starting from square one.

Next comes stats and formulas. This section goes into great detail about the different stats and formulas that will affect your Paladin and tells you what stats and attributes are most important for your knight. Some of this stuff is real basic, but much of it goes into much greater depth than I was aware of. This section is very handy unless you have a very strong grasp on what all the numbers mean on your character screen.

Fighting as a Paladin is the next section. I relied heavily on this to help me understand my Paladin early on. The majority of this section deals with how to juggle your Seals and Judgments. There is also a page about buffing which is obviously one of our biggest strengths. How much this section will help you depends largely on how much you've played your Paladin. Being a new Paladin player, it helped me a great deal. If you've got lots of experience with a Paladin, this will likely be largely a refresher course for you.

Healing is naturally another of our signature abilities and the next section goes over this in detail over three pages. As someone, who primarily solos I can't speak too much to this section. The strategies seem sound to me and since the rest of the guide is well-researched, I have no reason to believe this section isn't as well.

The little bit of grouping I've done, I've generally been the tank and the section dealing with Tanking as a Paladin has been invaluable. This section tells you which Seals, Judgments, and Auras are best for tanking as well as other spell that will help you generate threat. There's also a small section on mitigating damage. Very important info if you are going to tank much as a Paladin.

If you like PvP, this next section will be one of your favorites. This section tells you how to beat different classes in one on one duels. If you play on a PvP server, you need to read this section multiple times. You'll want to know exactly what to do against each class without having to think about it so internalize the information. There is also great information about group PvP including Battleground and Arena specific strategies. Very, very handy section!

The next section deals with weapons. Details regarding what types of weapons, the use of two handers vs one handers plus shield, and which stats you should look for as a Paladin on your weapons. There's quite a bit of info packed into those two pages, but if you've been playing a Paladin for a while you probably already have a good idea about how to answer those questions.

The equipment section, dealing with armor, including what armor (also includes weapons to watch for) you should strive for at each level, is pretty lengthy and detailed. For levels 60-70, there are four different "equipment builds" depending on what your Paladin's role is, ie, Healing, Spell Damage, Melee, or Tanking. Each role is subdivided by level: 60-62, 63-64, 65-66, and 67-70. All equipment is linked to thottbot for easy reference. Finally, there is a section on Librams which is very nice as well and includes some sample macros to take advantage of your Librams. I really like this section.

Speaking of macros, the next section deals with macros and addons. I'm embarassed to admit how long I played without using macros or addons. I've since rectified that mistake. These macros and addons are specifically geared toward the Paladin. It amazes me how much easier using macros and addons can make your gaming experience. Love it!

Well, it can't all be good, and if the guide fails in one area, the Leveling Guide section is it. If you are looking for a simple guide giving you general ideas of where to go to level at different points along your path to Paladinhood, this should be fine for you. However, if you are looking for a detailed guide showing you exactly what quest to do at what point including the correct order to do everything to level as quickly as possible, this isn't the right guide for you. If you are looking for a leveling guide specifically, I recommend either Joana's 1-70 Horde Leveling Guide or Brian Kopps 1-70 Alliance Leveling Guide. Those two guides are the ones the speed levelers use to hit 70 at record speeds. This is my least favorite portion of the guide.

Back to the good parts of the guide, Paladin Quests are next. This was a time saver for me as it gives walk-throughs for the various Paladin quests from the first quests on up to the epic mount quests. Quests are also listed for Blood Elves. Strong.

The next two sections of the guide are my favorites. The first of those sections deal with talents. The talents are divided into three parts: Holy, Protection, and Retribution. Each talent is defined, described, and shows what each rank in the talent will do for you. No big deal, right? You can get that info anywhere. True, but the other data provided for each talent is what makes this section shine. First, each talent is graphically rated for usefulness in Raid vs PvP and Group vs Solo. I love this! Second, Commentary is provided giving more specific info regarding what builds the talent works best with. Each talent gets a full page. I absolutely love this section!

As you can probably guess, the next section deals with Talent Builds. There are three Holy Builds, two Protection Builds, and three Retribution Builds. Additionally , there is a Leveling build because the other builds are best suited for the end game. The leveling build will help you get there quicker. I'm still using the leveling build and am extremely thankful to have a map to follow. I figure by the time I get to my upper 60's, I can re-spec to one of the other builds. I really love this section.

Unfortunately, the guide closes with the second section of the guide that I'm not a fan of - the Money Making section. This section isn't bad, but if you are looking for a money making guide, there are much better options. Personally, I recommend, World of Warcraft Gold Secrets if you are looking for a guide to show you how to make lots of gold in Azeroth. Not the best section of the guide.

In conclusion, I strongly recommend this Paladin Guide if you are looking for a guide to show you how to play a Paladin better or if you are interested in using your Paladin for PvP. The Unofficial World of Warcraft Paladin Guide sells for $29.99 and is a great value for people serious about playing Paladins. One thing to keep in mind is that Killer Guides offers all 17 of their guides at a special package price of $79.99. I've got this package, but I've only reviewed the Paladin Guide and The Unofficial World of Warcraft Hunter Guide, so I can't speak to the other 15 guides. If they are of the same quality of these two, the package is the way to go as you will save over $450 by buying the package. Finally, as Blizzard releases new content, these guides will be updated and updates will be available free of charge.

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WoW Hunter Guide Review

I recently came across the Unofficial World of Warcraft Hunter Guide and decided I should check it out. My main toon on WoW is a Hunter so I figured I would review the guide and let you all know what I think of it.

First off, the physical characteristics. The guide is available for instant download in PDF format. The guide checks in at 173 pages. The pages are very attractive and with bookmarks available, getting around in the guide is quite easy. So far, so good!

The writing style of the guide is easy to read and follow. There are a few misspellings and typographical errors, but overall it is well written. Most importantly the information is well organized.

The first section of the WoW Hunter Guide is Character creation. I'd already created my hunter, but I read this section anyhow. Server selection is pretty basic for most of us, but it goes into short detail about the differences between the PVE, PVP, and RP servers. The heart of the character creation section is the race selection. The guide covers each of the different races that can be hunters along with each of the racial abilities and then breaks down the pros and cons of each race. Again, this information is of more use to a person new to playing a hunter. If you've already rolled your hunter it's too late to make any changes here. That said, the info is very good.

The next section is Stats and Formulas. The stats is a good refresher for those of us that have been playing for a while, but I learned some new stuff in the formula area. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on how the different formulas worked, but I had a few things wrong. The guide also tells how important each stat, attribute and formula is for the hunter. Very handy little section.

Fighting as a hunter is the next section. This is a pretty small section, but goes over some strategy that every hunter should know if they want to play their toon effectively. This section's usability will depend on how long you've been playing your hunter. I learned a bit and had a refresher on a lot.

When I first started my hunter I had some trouble understanding how to train my pet, release my pet, basically how to use my pet effectively. I sincerely wish I had this guide when I was low to mid levels just for the information on pets. A very handy portion of this guide deals with how to determine which pets are best at tanking, DPSing, and a balance of the two.

If you PvP with your Hunter, this next section will be of interest to you as it covers the hunter in PvP. There are general tips, tips to use one-on-one against each class, and group PvP tips including the Battlegrounds and Arena. I have very little experience in PvP because I didn't know where to start. Now I've got a lot of strategies and understand much better what to do in PvP. Excellent portion of the guide!

OK, now we get to the meat and potatoes of this WoW Hunter Guide - the talents. The talents are broken down by to three sections - Beast Mastery, Marksman, and Survival. There is one page devoted to each talent and there is a lot to like about this section. Each talent has a description that tells what the talent does, followed by a ranks section that tells how the number of ranks invested will affect your toon. But you can get that anywhere you say? You're right, but the next two parts are great. The next area covered is usefulness. Usefulness details how helpful the talent will be in Group vs solo play and Raid vs PvP. Very, very good stuff. The final section is commentary in which the author expresses his views on the talent. I agree with almost all of what he has to say. I LOVE this section.

OK, I'm pretty sure you can guess what's next. Builds! This guide includes three builds each for Beast Mastery, Marksman, and Survival - that's nine builds overall. The builds show what talents you should have at level 70. I'm thinking seriously of re-speccing my hunter after reading this section.

The next section probably isn't overly useful if you've been playing your hunter for any time since it covers Hunter Quests. For the most part it provides a walk-through for how to complete your pet taming quests for each race. It's very useful it you haven't done this yet, but that would mean you are under level 10. The only other quest is the Green Drake Quest, your level 52 quest. It's a very good spoiler for the quest so use it if you are at ready for this quest.

I'm least inclined to use the following section of any in the guide. Not that it's bad, but I've got much, much better information from two other sources. I'm referring to the Leveling Section of the guide. In very general terms, this guide shows you were to go to level from 1-70 for Alliance and Horde. I much prefer Joana's 1-70 Horde Leveling Guide and Brian Kopps 1-70 Alliance Leveling Guide since both go into very specific details of exactly what you need to do to level the quickest.

Next, the guide takes a look at some of the equipment you should be looking for as you level. The guide takes a look at what weapons and armor are best at 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, then every two or three levels after that. Each piece of equipment is linked to wowhead.com so you can easily take a look at what each piece gives you.

If good equipment makes life easier for your toon, then add-ons and macros make your life easier. This chapter looks at add-ons that are good for the hunter as well as some commonly used macros. There are links to the add-ons too. Another outstanding feature of this guide!

The final section is one of my least favorite. It deals with making money with your hunter. Much like the leveling section, the reason I'm not so fond of this guide is because I've got one that does it better, World of Warcraft Gold Secrets. Don't get me wrong, there's good stuff in here, but if you are serious about making gold, there are better options.

Overall, this guide is very good. It's well written, very well organized and covers everything you could want to know about your hunter. The Unofficial World of Warcraft Hunter Guide sells for $29.99 and is a great value for people that want to have a deeper understanding of the hunter class. One thing to keep in mind is that the folks that publish this guide, Killer Guides, offer all 17 of their guides at a special package price of $79.99. I've got the package, but this is the first product I've reviewed. I can tell you though that if the rest of the guides are as well done as this one, the package is the way to go as you will save over $450 over buying them individually. Finally, each guide will be updated as Blizzard releases new content. If you are interested in playing a hunter or if you have one and want to know how to play him or her more effectively, check out this WoW Hunter Guide.

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Work at BK or Raid?

This blogger posts that he'd rather work at Burger King than participate in end game raiding in WoW. That's a bit extreme, but I get his point. The end game can seem like a job and often the rewards are minimal, but I'd take raiding over going back to work in fast food any day.

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WoW Makes the News Again

World of Warcraft makes the news again as this story examines the addiction of a teen that plays WoW up to twelve hours in a row. The reporter interviews the teen, his mother, and a mental health professional. Part of me feels bad for the mother, but part of me wonders why she allows his behavior to continue. If my kid was punching holes in my walls due to frustration with a game, my kid would be done with that game. Likewise if my kid dropped out of school and didn't have a job, he'd be given a deadline to go back to school and/or get a job. What do you think?

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PoP Culture in WoW

This blogger found 14 Pop culture references in World of Warcraft. I'd heard of some of these and am not aware of some others, but very interesting reading. The comments post even more easter eggs that Blizzard left for us.

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WoW on your Cell Phone?

I can't see this working, but some are predicting your will be able to play a "lite" version of World of Warcraft on your cell phone. Call me crazy, but that doesn't sound fun in the least. The screens are too small and theirs no way you could have nearly as many options as you do on your computer. I wouldn't even give such a game a shot. Would you?

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Ron Paul's World of Warcraft March to Freedom

For you political junkies, here's a video of the Ron Paul March. I'll be honest, I didn't watch the whole thing, but I know some of you will so I thought I'd post it.

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Ron Paul World of Warcraft March covered by Game Politics

Well, if Ron Paul is going to have a march in WoW who better to cover it than GamePolitics.com? It's an interesting read on the Texas Republican running for President taking his campaign to the virtual world of Azeroth. I don't know much about Ron Paul other than that he seems to be unconventional. I never thought I'd see a Republican Presidential campaign looking for votes in WoW. Heck, I never thought the Democrats would do that. Not sure how much it helps, but it does get Mr. Paul some free publicity.

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