Yeah, Turpster was pretty thrilled with the way his big event went last week, and this past Saturday on the podcast, he just "rode the wave" of player support and basked in the glow of everyone cheering him on for the ding. Lucky guy. I was unable to make it this past weekend, but that didn't stop the steamroller that is this podcast: John "BigBearButt" Patricelli (he of the Shifting Perspectives) kindly stepped in and oversaw the festivities, with help and input from Amanda Dean, and they chatted about -- what else -- all the greatest news of the past week in WoW.

• John P stood up for me on Clockwork Rocket Bots -- I agree 100% with him that we need them buffable once more.
• They asked whether the Gigantique bag is worth the extra cash (short answer: no, but people who have the cash will spend it anyway).
• They chatted about Season 4 and the changes arriving with it, including that Cheat Death nerf.
• And apparently birthdays were celebrated -- if you've ever wanted to hear Turpster sing, this is the show for you. Good thing I wasn't there -- I celebrate nothing! Ever!

At any rate, it was a fun show, and you can listen to it right now over on WoW Radio's website. Thanks very much to John P for covering for meI will be back next week for sure, though Turpster may not be -- I believe he just may be at WWI this coming weekend, so maybe we'll be able to get a live-on-the-spot report out of him. We'll see -- listen to last week's show right now on WoW Radio and in iTunes, and tune in as always next Saturday at 3:30pm Eastern for the WoW Insider Show, the official podcast of WoW Insider.

Yes, we went live on the WoW Radio airwaves last weekend, and the recorded results are live on their site right now for your listening enjoyment. It was a full show -- Zach Yonzon came on to talk about Arena PvP, as did Amanda Dean (to defend her points from last week), and Matthew Rossi. Turpster was on as well, and if you weren't around on EU Sporeggar last weekend, you missed quite an event -- there were a ton of Gnomes and Dwarves who turned out to take down Turpster right as he dinged 70 on his Shadow Priest. Also on the show, we chatted about:

• The new Arena season -- why Zach things "L2P" isn't the biggest problem Hunters have in the Arena, what we're looking forward to with the new season, and why the timing on this season is actually just right
• PvE to PvP transfers and why Blizzard finally did them
• WoW addiction and exactly what we think of it
• A few things we've heard officially about the expansion -- the idea of Unified Spellpower, and what's up with Shamans.
• And finally, we answered email as usual from readers, including why I was completely wrong about the Gnome/Dwarf starting area, and what kind of good WoW and game-related music is out there to listen to.

It was a good show -- a lot of fun to make, and hopefully a lot of fun to listen to. If you have a question or comment about the show, don't hesitate to email us: just drop a note to theshow@wowinsider.com, and you might even hear it on the podcast. And if you haven't ever tuned in live to chat with us on IRC during the recording, mark your calendar: we do this live every Saturday at 3:30pm Eastern over on WoW Radio.

Thanks for listening as always, and enjoy the show this week.

Yes, It's almost Saturday yet again, and that means that our weekly podcast is going live on the airwaves of WoW Radio. This week on the show, Zach Yonzon just had to come on, because last week, apparently Amanda Dean said some things about Arena that he had to talk about. Amanda will be on to defend her position that Arena is broken, and Matthew Rossi will be in tow, possibly to keep the peace if we need him (probably not the best guy to do that, though -- he kind of likes a fight). And Turpster will join us as well -- he'll be promoting the big Dingstravaganza that he's hosting right after the show over on EU Sporeggar.

We'll talk about WoW addiction, as well as the aforementioned Arena news (and oh yeah, some season 4 thing got announced), as well as everything we've learned about Wrath so far, and what's up with these PvE to PvP changes. You should never say never, but didn't Blizzard say never?

And as usual we'll be answering your emails (theshow@wowinsider.com is the address), and chatting live on IRC at irc.mmoirc.com in the #wowradio channel. Tune in tomorrow at 3:30 Eastern on WoW Radio to hear this week's episode of the WoW Insider Show -- it's going to be a good one.

This past week on the WoW Insider Show (a recording of which is now available over on WoW Radio), we were honored to welcome Matt "Matticus" Low to the show to talk about his career in WoW and his experience healing endgame raids. Amanda Dean was also in attendance with some Arena opinions, and Turpster and I rounded out the crew. We talked about:

• The fact that Turpster is now 69 on his Shadow Priest, and that next week, after the show, he's going to ding at a live event (stay tuned tomorrow for more details on how that's going down).
• How Blizzard changed the Death Knight descriptions, and whether that matters this early in the game
• Amanda's thought that Arena is broken, and how it might possibly be fixed again (as well as the various class representations in there and what's up with those)
  
• What we thought was interesting in the latest Blizzcast

Plus, we answered reader email (including taking a little Blizzard-inspired quiz) and chatted with Matticus about how the popular Spiritual Guidance column is going. All in all, good show -- check it out on WoW Radio's website right now, or listen in (and feel free to give us a review, good or bad as long as it's honest) over on iTunes.

And if you've got something you want us to talk about on the show, drop us an email at theshow@wowinsider.com. We'll be back next week with Turpster's big ding event, and another show next Saturday afternoon at 3:30 Eastern.

The weekly podcast goes live tomorrow afternoon yet again, and if you've only been listening to the recorded show, this might just be the week you want to join us at 3:30pm Eastern, both on the live feed and in the IRC chat: Matt "Matticus" Low will be joining us for his WoW Insider Show debut. Not only has he taken over the wildly popular priest column Spiritual Guidance, but he's an accomplished WoW player and blogger at his own personal site, World of Matticus. Additionally, Amanda Dean will be on with us, and Turpster and myself will both be around as usual, chatting about everything from what the Death Knight class is really for to why Amanda thinks Arena is broken, Should be a terrific show.

You can join us live tomorrow at 3:30pm Eastern over on WoW Radio, and you can chat with us live either from that site or in IRC at irc.mmo-irc.com in the #wowradio channel. Or email us -- the show's address is theshow@wowinsider.com, and we'll be answering your questions and queries from there as well. We'll see you tomorrow afternoon.

The latest episode of the WoW Insider Show is now online for your listening enjoyment over at WoW Radio, and it was an interesting show. The Internet's Veronica Belmont was kind enough to grace us with her presence, so we spoke with her about what she's been up to in the past with Mahalo Daily and more recently with Tekzilla, including her interviews with Leeroy Jenkins and The Guild, and we talked about all the most popular stories in the last week of Warcraft, including but not limited to:

• The infamous Wrath alpha leaks -- we didn't talk about specifics, but we did discuss with Veronica what this means for Blizzard, and what effect, if any, the leak might have on the expansion's release
• The Glider bannings, and all of the rumors swirling behind that one
• Whether Karazhan is for entry level raiders or not, and what that means for 10man raiding in the expansion
• And we talked about Age of Conan's release, and what WoW players thought of that game

Additionally, we answered some reader email (including trying to decide what Turpster will do to ding 70 on his Shadow Priest) -- if you'd like to send us some of that, just drop a note to theshow@wowinsider.com and maybe you'll hear your email on the next show. A huge thank-you to Veronica for coming by this past week -- don't forget to check her out on Revision3's Tekzilla every week, and if she does any more WoW-related broadcasts, you'll hear about them here for sure.

And don't forget, we run the WoW Insider Show live every week right over on WoW Radio -- stop by around 3:30pm EST every Saturday (and drop into the #wowradio channel on irc.mmoirc.com if you'd like to chat with us live) to hear everything you already enjoy about the WoW Insider site right there in audio form. Enjoy the show, we'll see you next week.

Twice a week, our writers will tell you more about themselves, and let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more About the Bloggers.

Hi there. It's nice to finally make an introduction. The name's Amanda, but you can call me mandy. With a whole generation of Amandas out there it helps to differentiate us.

What do you do for WoW Insider?

I'm technically just your average, run-of-the-mill blogger. Since coming on staff in February, I've picked up the WoW Rookie column and Blood Sport. David Bowers and I write He Said She Said together, but we're taking a little break due to educational commitments. I have the most fun writing Well Fed Buff. I really enjoy writing about intersections between the real and virtual worlds, and I love any topic that gets people talking.

This last week on the WoW Insider Show, which is now available for listening on WoW Radio, we celebrated Mother's Day by inviting on both Amanda Dean, and her mother Linda Emrys, who is herself a WoW player. We also had Robin Torres on, who not only writes for us here at WoW Insider, but also is the mother of a two-and-a-half year old. Turpster and I were both on, but we didn't do much more than ask questions this time around -- the ladies got in some good discussion about what it's like to play WoW as a mother, how this game might actually help you raise children, and what it's like coming to WoW as someone who doesn't have a lot of gaming experience. If you're a casual gamer (or just know someone who is), the show should be really interesting to you.

And even if not, we were able to squeeze some great Wrath of the Lich King discussion in there after all of Friday's revelations, including what's up with the Death Knights, how 10/25 man raiding will change, and all of the other zone information we heard on Friday, from Dragonblight to Grizzly Hills to how what we see in the Borean Tundra gives us clues about what the next expansion might be.

I thought it was a pretty good show, but if you have other opinions (or any opinions, really), feel free to share them by emailing us at theshow@wowinsider.com. And don't forget that while you can listen to the show either in WoW Radio's archives or on iTunes, you can also hear us live every Saturday afternoon at 3:30pm EST/8:30pm GMT.

Hope your Mother's Day was excellent, and enjoy the podcast!

For tomorrow's WoW Insider Show (which you can hear live at 3:30pm EST on WoW Radio), we're doing something a little special for Mother's Day: we've got mothers! Amanda Dean is actually bringing her mother on the show, and Ms. Emrys, (aka SpaceLady) is a WoW player herself, so we'll chat with her about what it's like to come to games via World of Warcraft. Robin Torres will also be joining us, and she's got little ones of her own, so she'll tell us what it's like to be a WoW player while also running your own little "guild" in real life. And Turpster will return after his absence last week -- all we can say about him is that he's a bad mother... shut yo' mouth.

Plus, we definitely can't ignore all the Wrath of the Lich King info that dropped last night, so we'll definitely be talking about vehicles, Death Knights, the 10/25 man instances, and all of the other huge information that Blizzard dropped on us like a ton of level 80 bricks. And as usual (as if all that wasn't enough), we'll have reader mail, which you can send to us at theshow@wowinsider.com, and we'll be chatting in IRC as well at irc.mmoirc.com in the #wowradio channel.

Whew! It's a mother of a show. Make sure to tune in tomorrow afternoon, Saturday, at 3:30pm EST over on WoW Radio. See you there.

Let's get one thing out of the way: this isn't an epeen-stroking session. When you go into the Tournament Realm joining a 1382 team that went 3-11 on its debut week, you have to set your expectations right. Aside from Amanda Dean, or Mandy, who's professed an enjoyment for Arenas, the WoW Insider team is composed of people who don't have extensive Arena experience. We also have Adam Holisky, who doesn't consider PvP to be the 'real' game (whatever that means), and Amanda Miller, who covers our Sunday Morning Funnies. I do a fair amount of Arena on live myself and our team is rated enough to garner us Season 3 swag every two weeks or so. You do the math. But here's the thing -- Arena is a team game. Like every team sport, it relies on synergy, teamwork, and communication. The top players in the world know this, and team leaders replace underperforming members regularly with a dose of nerd rage for good measure. That's just competitive Arena play.

On the other hand, WoW Insider's venture into the Tournament Realm is more of a journalistic exercise than anything else. For one thing, I'm not even eligible to actually participate in the actual tournament because my country isn't on the list, so my expectations of going far in this tournament is nil. To be perfectly honest, that's a good thing. Ironically, I feel a lot less pressure to perform on the TR with the WoW Insider Team than I do on live. In fact, I even ventured to play as a Retribution Paladin only because I can. I had initially created a Restoration Shaman named Insiderzach but since Mandy was running with a Restoration Druid, I thought I could have a little fun with running double melee with Adam so I made a Paladin. After all, it is my favorite class.

Last night, the WoW Insider arena team stepped into battle for the first time on the arena tournament realms, and it was immediately apparent that things were going to be quite different from our experiences on the tournament test realms.

For starters, there were way fewer people. I also noticed that, contrary to my expectations that everyone shelling out an extra $20 to play here would be a hardcore arena-goer, there were many people on just to have fun. General chat was full of people who didn't know where to go, how to allocate their talent points, and even people who hadn't formed teams yet!

Still, despite the fact the vendor areas had a drastically reduced population, the queues were amazingly short, as Adam points out. Often, I was reading that my team had joined the queue at the same time I was clicking to enter the battle.

WoW Insider readers are a talkative bunch. All of us here at WI monitor our own posts for comments, but there's not always time to keep up with what's happening on all the other posts. And if those of us who hang around here all the time can't keep up, we wondered how much our readers were missing, too?

Enter [1.Local], our new roundup bringing you a smattering of the zingers that may have gotten buried in the peanut gallery. We'll serve up both the sublime and the ridiculous, the thought-provoking and the just plain silly -- definitely a cut above Barrens chat (although we do admit that "Barrens Chat" was a strong contender for the feature's title).

This week's reader comments ranged from thoughtful ruminations on gender and modern culture's definition of "beauty" to an ongoing tussle over what constitutes success for an MMO. Be sure to dive into the comments area and add your own thoughts – unlike your mama, we like us some hot, fresh backtalk.

Warning: Some offensive language mentioned after the jump.

Man, with all the patch 2.4 news flying around today, you might feel a little overwhelmed. Well, worry no more, because just when you need something a little silly and lighthearted, the WoW Insider Show comes right along, with Episode 30 now available on WoW Radio and iTunes. This past Saturday, Turpster and I, along with Amanda Dean and Elizabeth Wachowski of WoW Insider, had a sit down to talk about all of the biggest news in the past week of Warcraft, including, but not limited to:

• Our favorite trinkets (mine I picked only because the tooltip uses the word "fecundity")
• What "counts" in terms of leveling as fast as possible
• Elizabeth talked to us for a bit about the lore of the Burning Crusade, and both the high and low points of it
• We chatted about the best starting areas in the game (there was a strange split over the Dwarf/Gnome area for some reason as well)
• And finally we hit on Amanda's Azerothian General Election, which you can still vote on right now -- Thrall is still winning, so Alliance, you better grab your sword and fight the Horde.

We did check in reader email, too, and Turpster says he's headed to 70, so we asked for your input on what kind of reward (or punishment) we can give him if he makes it before Wrath -- if you have a suggestion, email us at theshow@wowinsider.com.

And speaking of Turpster, you've got to see his new TurpsterVision over at Massively today -- it's a spectacular tale of a galaxy long ago and far away, if you know what I mean.

If you listened to the show last week, you may have heard that this week's podcast was supposed to be all about multiboxing, with a special guest, but unfortunately we've had to postpone that show (so look for it at some point in the future). But worry not, because this week on the podcast we're bringing back fan favorite Elizabeth Wachowski (and we're going to ask her to talk about some of the lore in the Burning Crusade), and other fan favorite Amanda Dean, who is always insightful. Fan super favorite Turpster will be on as well, and fan not-so-favorite Mike Schramm, also known as me, will be present and accounted for, too.

In addition to the lore stuff, we'll chat about racing through the game, getting your loot stolen, and why it's a good thing that the Alliance sees "kek" instead of "lol" from the Horde. Plus, we will answer your reader questions, which you can send to us at theshow@wowinsider.com, or ask us personally on the IRC channel during the show: that's at mmo.irc.com in the #wowradio channel.

Should be fun -- the show starts right at 3:30pm EST, so be there and bring your ears, too.

The 28th episode of the WoW Insider Show included myself, blogger Amanda Dean, Druid columnist John Patricelli and Turpster in an hour of lively discussion on this week's hot topics. Stories covered included:

• The debate raged on over when, or even if, is it acceptable to go afk without notice?
  
• The latest rollbacks on the PTR for Warlocks and Shaman and why players shouldn't be ready to quit over temporary tests on that server Blizzard so cleverly dubbed the Test server.
• The effects of the Lifebloom nerf and how Blizzard may have not seen the results they were looking for.
• Amanda Dean talks about introducing her Mom (hi Amanda's Mom!) to WoW and how she is handling her first few levels in Azeroth
• Each participant on the show gave their personal opinion on what playable race they would choose if a new one were introduced to the game.

If you missed the show, there are plenty of ways for you to listen today including the Flash player on the WoW Radio site, free iTunes download or mp3 file. And you can listen in live every Saturday at 3:30p ET on WoW Radio.

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