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

Your fingers ache from the constant play while sweat beads down your neck. Your eyes become unfocused, the colors and background blending together until they resemble something akin to a Monet painting. Clicking at a furious speed, you slay mob after mob, all the while watching the XP progress bar as it inches towards your final goal: the level cap. Time flies. You ask yourself, "Has it really been 13 hours? No, surely it couldn't have."

You open the drapes, staring at the stars and moon with a challenging look. Their day, too, will come. No matter. Neither man, murloc, nor the perpetual spinning of the earth about the sun will stop you this day ... er, night. Pixilated blood shoots from your prey. Their cries warm your soul, adding another notch to your symbolic belt.

Then, whether expected or not, it happens. Your character is engulfed a soothing light, and the game changes forever. You've done it. After days, weeks or months of work, you've hit the level cap. You can stare proudly at your once-lowly character and proclaim your might to all of Azeroth. You're the new tough guy on the block, and nothing can stand in your way.

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Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts

Choose the adventures of the WoW.com staff as we level our characters in <It came from the Blog> on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H) the Cataclsym beta on Lost Isles (US-PvE).

It's me again, because I live to stream. And right now, I'm streaming Robidin the tauren paladin -- checking out any changes that are in Mulgore. I'll be channeling the power of the sun in a noble, cow-like fashion. Or is it the light? We don't have another Naaru tied up in a cave somewhere, do we? I guess I'll find out tonight.

Join us at WoW.com's Justin.tv channel and choose my adventures live!

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Please join us on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H) in <It came from the Blog>. Guild ranks of "Blog Lurker" or above can invite, so /whisper Robiness or any online member. You are all welcome as long as you play by our simple rules -- basically, don't be a funsucker! Visit the guild FAQ for more details.

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Filed under: Choose My Adventure

Every week, Gold Capped (from Basil "Euripides" Berntsen) aims to educate players about how to make money on the auction house. For the inside line on crafting for disenchanting, transmutation, cross-faction arbitrage and more, check in every Wednesday. For half-arsed, last-minute mailbag posts, tune in every Thursday after Basil forgot his deadline because he was buying his wife stylish side tables at large Swedish furniture stores. Also, feel free to email Basil any comments, questions or hate mail!

I have a bunch of questions and comments piled up in my poor neglected inbox, so today we're going to jump right in and address some of the good ones.

Bernake (awesome name, by the way) writes:

Previously you have established that it is not profitable it to transfer gold frequently across faction. While this is generally true, I play on a server where the Horde population playing at peak hours is no more than 600 people, less than 2,000 active on the server. I was wondering (if that) warrants a change in this policy, as the Alliance have over 9,000 active players with at least 600 on throughout the day and over 2,000 playing at peak hours on any given day. I was considering moving into the Alliance glyph market, as the Horde glyph market is quite small. I was wondering if you would support this move as well as give some insight?

I believe you're talking about this post on cross-faction arbitrage. In fact, it can be extremely profitable to move money and products across the neutral AH. I may have sounded a little negative because it is risky; however, unless you're losing a chunk of your stock to snipers or 20 percent of your gold to the neutral AH cut, it's not a bad thing to do. You can just buy to resell, or if you're having trouble finding mats on your home faction, you can use stock from the other side to keep your costs in line.

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Filed under: Economy, Gold Capped

With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and soon, an entire flight of black dragons. Please send screenshots as well as any comments to gregg@wow.com.

If you saw my column last week, you'll notice that I've been less than thrilled with the way the protection tree had been progressing in the beta. Sure, things have been getting better, but it has felt as if the whole tree is fairly unsettled. With the latest build, we're finally starting to see things get a little smoother and the mechanics to make a little bit more sense. Keeping Holy Shield up is easier than in previous builds, and a lot of depth to the types of strategies we can have while tanking has greatly improved. Also, our mastery bonus has been official revealed.

I'm going to use the same type of disclaimer that I did on the ret talents article. These may not be the talents we'll end up seeing when the expansion hits, but they're getting there. Some talents will look pretty close to how they exist currently, while others have absolutely nothing to do with their current versions. Let's go take a look.

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Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It, Cataclysm

Don't mind me, strange squishy silver blob thing. I'm just a box. A box full of stabbing. Speaking of killing, there were a few pretty interesting posts around the blogosphere recently that discussed the topic of "virtual murder" and the habit of killing things in video games:

• Tobold's MMORPG blog asks why there's so much virtual murder out there.
• The Noisy Rogue ponders the idea of killing's becoming utterly mundane.
• Jinxed Thoughts wonders what would happen if you could kill anyone in game, regardless of faction.
• On a happier, less murderous note, Big Bear Butt would like to tell you about a few of his favorite things.

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Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment, and you may see it here tomorrow! Be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites.

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Filed under: The Daily Quest

Choose the adventures of the WoW.com staff as we level our characters in <It came from the Blog> on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H).

I'll be streaming my adventures as Robidin the tauren paladin tonight on WoW.com's Justin.tv channel. This week we have stories from Prupher, Shockbroker and Robinemia.

Schedule

• Robin Torres as Robidin the level 1 tauren paladin: Wednesday, 11 p.m. EDT Note: This will be streamed.
• Amy Schley as Patent, the level 24 troll rogue: Thursday, 10 p.m. EDT
• Anne Stickney as Annephora, the level 42 troll warrior, will be on Friday at 1 a.m. EDT (which is Thursday at 11 p.m. Zangarmarsh time)
• Fox Van Allen as Foxlight, the level 22 blood elf paladin, Lisa Poisso as Prupher the level 10 tauren druid; Michael Sacco as Shockbroker, the goblin shaman; Christian Belt, as Selfloathius, the level 16 blood elf warlock; Elizabeth Harper as Faience, the level 24 troll shaman; Matthew Rossi as Andrenorton, the level 17 troll mage; Michael Gray as Grayfields, the level 17 tauren hunter; and Gregg Reece as Sandwichdoc, the level 16 troll shaman, will be making appearances as they can

Turn the page for this week's adventure recaps. Spoiler warning: some Cataclysm lore will be referenced.

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Filed under: It Came from the Blog, Choose My Adventure

German entertainment site Gamona landed an interview with World of Warcraft Game Director Tom Chilton at Gamescom 2010. They cover a myriad of topics including Tol Barad, guild leveling, the state of the various classes in the Cataclysm beta and the reasoning behind Facebook integration into their games. But perhaps the most interesting piece of data is that according to Tom Chilton, Cataclysm needs "a couple more months" of work. While that might seem terribly obvious to some, it's the closest thing to an official timetable we've heard from Blizzard or a Blizzard employee beyond the aim for releasing in 2010.

A "couple more months" would set the launch firmly after BlizzCon and leaning closer to the holiday season. Mike Morhaime recently confirmed that the expansion was still on track for a 2010 release, so we're most likely looking at a November or December launch. I, for one, look forward to another middle-of-winter midnight release.

Head on over to Gamona.de for the full video interview.

Filed under: News items, Cataclysm

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we talk about the brand new version of Sprint in the beta.

I'm freshly back from slaying elementals and cultists alike in the Cataclysm beta, and I'm here to bring you some good news. I already talked about how Vanish was finally fixed and has managed to stay fixed on the beta servers. The mechanic they're using is a two-stage process, similar to how a space shuttle launches. The first stage is a buff called (unsurprisingly) "Vanish," which isn't actually Stealth, but a pseudo-Stealth that keeps us out of sight. The Vanish buff only lasts for 3 seconds, at which point regular Stealth takes over. We can't leave Stealth for those 3 seconds because we're not actually in Stealth anyway, which is a pretty elegant way of fixing the problem.

I'm rambling again, as Vanish is fixed and you've already heard about it. Blizzard's newest gift to the rogue community comes straight out of our de facto wish list, again. General mobility worries have been heard from rogues since warriors received Intecept, which is to say we've been complaining about it since Day One. An oft-suggested change has been halving Sprint's cooldown and duration, and it seems that the dev team actually took the idea to heart. As the screenshot above shows, Sprint is now on a 1-minute cooldown.

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Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text

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Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore, Cataclysm

This week your shadow priesting expert, Spiritual Guidance columnist and ace attorney Fox Van Allen, took on his hardest case yet: defending fellow columnist Dawn Moore against charges of murder! The trial was quick -- after presenting the same Rime-Covered Mace to the judge as evidence five consecutive times, Dawn was instantly declared guilty and hauled away. She was last heard muttering something about "the scent of fresh lemons ..."

I have this recurring vision of a grand council of shadow priests. We sit around a gigantic conference table in a dark, shadowy dungeon somewhere. We talk shop and strategy. We share recipes for roast gnome. We discuss our plans to conquer the world.

Then some joker mentions Dispersion, and the whole damn thing falls apart.

"It's a waste of a 31-point talent! We're being screwed!"

"Sit down, jerk, Dispersion is just fine!"

An epic fistfight breaks out. And the haters wind up using Dispersion to soak up the blows. Hypocrites!

Now that we know Dispersion is firmly set as our 31-point talent in Cataclysm, some old wounds are getting reopened. A lot of priests were never truly sold on Dispersion when it was first introduced, and while it's slowly gained acceptance (and more usefulness -- remember when it was garbage in Ulduar?), emotions still run high. A contingent of shadow priests loves the utility of the ability and the lore behind it. A contingent despises it for eating up the slot of some mythical perfect ability that's yet to be designed.

It's the shadow priest equivalent of Roe v. Wade. And we're going to jump right in the middle of it after the break.

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Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance