In 2015, while testing out the latest Keepers of Time expansion, Blizzard Executive Fox Van Allen accidentally ganks his past self, undoing his own existence by causing himself to reroll paladin. Now, stuck in the year 2008, Fox must find a way to undo his mistake or risk losing everything. To do this, he tracks down the only person he knows: Dawn Moore. Unfortunately, she's never heard of him, WoW.com or Spiritual Guidance, and would much rather PvP than heal.

I've come to think of the Cataclysm beta as a disease. Each week it spreads further among the general populace while simultaneously mutating into a newer, stronger version of its former self. As the resident healer, it's my duty to try to control and contain the situation by applying my latest analysis, but overall the beta is a very resistant infection and my normal approaches are continually being overtaken. Still, I stand vigilant and celebrate my small victories; I will not leave you ill-informed, my fellow priests!

The sound of crickets fill the silence.

Yes, well then ... Shall we get started?

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Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column in which the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

Yeah, that's right. You're getting incepted so bad right now. The idea I'm incepting is "he's not using that term correctly at all."

Valorum asked:
I know it's hard to say because the cap is 83 right now, but is 80-85 intended to take about the same amount of time and work as 60-70 did and 70-80 did? For the beta testers, does 80-81, 81-82 and 82-83 feel like two levels at a time?

80-81 didn't take long for me; two hours, maybe. But then again, I was fully rested, and I was also rested until halfway through 81. There's no real way of avoiding it right now, since you automatically have a full rest bar when you log in. To put it into perspective, though, leveling from 82 to 83 takes 6.5 million experience; even with heavy questing in the appropriate zones, it's going to take a while. My bar barely moved when I turned in quests at 82.

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Filed under: The Queue

Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine how holy paladin gear is evolving.

I think that holy paladins have been pretty blessed this expansion, pun definitely intended. Our holy tree has been very solid throughout Wrath, and we've even got a few flex talents that we can use to pick up Improved Lay on Hands or even Blessed Hands. Our massive healing throughput has also made us one of the healers of choice for Anub'arak and the Lich King on heroic mode and even for bugging out Yogg-Saron's heroic mode, as well. Our progression throughout Northrend has settled holy paladins into a pretty comfy healing niche. Even with all of the development our class has seen in the past few months, a few questions still remain.

For example, why are we still using the item level 200 Libram of Renewal instead of one of the shiny new librams from the Emblem of Frost vendor? The reason is that our old libram is too strong, and our new librams are poorly designed. Specifically, the Libram of Blinding Light just doesn't mesh well with our playstyle. It forces us to use Holy Shock on a regular basis to keep it active and only provides extra spellpower. Of all the stats possible, spellpower is probably the one that holy paladins need the least of. What can Blizzard do to get things right the next time around?

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

I'll admit I have been known to participate in LARP. (I know, it makes me a horrible person, and I assure you that I'm amply ashamed of myself.) If you're not in that highly elite group of roleplayers who dress up and talk in funny accents, I'll explain for you. LARP stands for Live Action Roleplay. In this sublime RP, you physically act out the majority of your character's action, wear costumes and otherwise go for the deepest immersion possible.

In my own time as a roleplayer, I've had the good fortune to LARP in vampire games, changeling games, steampunk games, fantasy games and even cyberpunk games. I think I've LARPed just about everything you can LARP. And with relatively few exceptions, I've loved it all. If you want to have a good time, there's nothing like standing around in the woods pretending to be a sparkly vampire or an elf.

So, if you're like me, you'd be interested in playing a World of Warcraft LARP. It wouldn't be the first time I've written game rules out of virtually nothing, so I spent some time wondering about the challenges we'd have to overcome to successfully run this game. I saw four main issues. I should say that I don't consider any of these problems insurmountable, but they are issues any gamemaster would need to address.

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Filed under: All the World's a Stage (Roleplaying)

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

WoW's evolution has changed the course of both MMO game design and the landscape of the MMO player base in dramatic ways. By exploring the road most traveled, WoW has led the way from the roots of tabletop pen-and-paper RPGs and early MMO tabletop simulations into MMOs as virtual RPG themeparks.

Despite WoW's fantastic success on many fronts, in its evolution toward catering to the most common, casual style of play, it's removed much of the human interaction that made early MMO experiences special. Today's WoW is slick, seamless and streamlined. There is nothing one player can achieve that another player cannot also relatively easily achieve. Yet while players in today's WoW maintain that this thinly clad, egalitarian experience is "best," in reality, what we see is a continuous striving for distinction free from the confines of the game design itself. The ever-present GearScore sniff test has streamlined the need for player interaction to the point that interaction is barely needed at all.

In fact, it might be this very streamlining that has caused this MMO behemoth to slide away from the real magic of the early MMOs, to become a sanitized gaming experience that only barely acknowledges its need for virtual face-to-face gameplay. I miss the real interaction with my fellow players that speaks to the oldest traditions of what spawned MMOs: tabletop RPGs. I want player interactions to drive the game experience, from raiding to crafting to questing. The biggest villains and heroes of an MMO should be players, not pre-scripted heroes and playerless cut scenes. The next big MMO, I hope, can make this happen.

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Filed under: Guest Posts

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

Today's post was supposed to be an introduction to the Wildhammer, a dwarven faction that will be responsible for bringing the shaman class to the forefront of dwarven society; however, plans have changed. As I was writing the article, I kept going back to the comments on last week's post and addressing issues and concerns brought up by readers, as well as thinking about the people out there who believe that the storytelling is "shoddy" or "unbelievable." So I'm putting the dwarves aside this week -- don't worry, they'll be back next week, I promise!

Some of Blizzard's decisions regarding new class and race combinations make more sense than others -- as stated last week, hunters aren't a big stretch for the imaginations of most players. Some take advantage of expanding upon existing lore, like the development regarding the forgotten eye of the Earthmother, An'she. There was a lot of commentary and discussion on the tauren paladin article regarding whether or not these decisions make sense, but what people seem to be overlooking is it's not a matter of whether or not these changes make sense.

What it is about is storytelling -- the construction of a believable story that progresses in a fashion that isn't too out of bounds. While the draenei race was a stretch in many player's minds, the basic fundamentals behind their introduction and integration into the Alliance during The Burning Crusade wasn't as far-fetched as people first thought. Yes, the original story of the draenei involved one of the biggest "whoops" moments in Warcraft's history -- but even the misstep with lore could be explained in a logical fashion when looked at in the correct light.

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Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore

Filed under: News items, Arts and Crafts

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Filed under: Around Azeroth

Good morning, comic lovers!

• Grats!: All Aboard the Hype Train!
• Torment of the Week: That's Fair!
• Beyond the Tree: Ramp Up Going Down Also: Seize the Defias
• Travels with Tenthunders: Quaint Customs of the Practice Humans
• Fourth Wall: The Nearly Perfect Plan
• Slash AFK: Farm Moar Also: lvl6
• LFG #383 and #384
• Tales from the Crossroads: Whatever Floats Your Boat
• Byron, the Tauren Rogue!
• Coffin Minis: On Second Thought
• Coffin Comics: Wowland-Comics
• Drunken Pirates Guild: Happy Birthday
• Dark Legacy Comics: Cute
• GU Comics: Collector's Edition
• Teh Gladiators: Bow to Your New Master!
• The Warcraft Hero in: Penny for our Jokes
• AFR: Furry Friends
• Complex Actions: Ruff Times for Roflbelf. Also: Gnoble Goals and Gnot Quite Getting It Also: Practice Safe ERPs
• Daily Quests: Perception Isn't a Blood Elf Racial
• Guilded Age
• NPC: Valuable Member
• Check out the latest Out of World

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor, Comics, Sunday Morning Funnies

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

There is nothing better than sharing a common interest with friends, but what happens when you find yourself alone in Azeroth for long period of time? You and your friends used to spend hours playing together, raiding or simply sharing idle banter in private messages or even the dreaded trade chat. But lately, it seems that you are the only person playing. Your friends, for a multitude of reasons, simply can't find the time to play anymore. Now you're alone in a big world with no one to talk to and nothing to take the edge off the quest grinding. So what do you do?

Guilds: a toon's best friend Whether it's on a RP, PvP, normal or mixed server, a guild can keep you entertained and chatting throughout that hard grind to 80. When you find yourself stranded in an area where there isn't another living soul in sight, it's always good to know that one /g away is a group of people who will, more often than not, love to hear how things are going, both in game and out. It's a warming feeling to see that the minute you log on, another person is there to greet you with a friendly "Hey, _____."

General and trade chat If a guild is not your thing, it's always nice to take a few minutes between quests to sit in a capital city and share in some banter with your fellow players. General chat is full of other players discussing either the game itself, movies, music or a multitude of other topics. Even trade chat can be fun if you keep up with the latest internet memes, though after a period of time, it came become annoying.

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Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts