Ok, admit it. Dornaa and Salandria are pretty cute. They say the darndest things and they are so tiny and they are like little bundles of irrepressible energy and now I want kids of my own, damn it. But seriously, If you're like me, you've probably kept your orphan whistle a little longer than you had to and took your orphan around a few extra places.

Auchindoun? The Dark Portal? Pff, c'mon kid. I'll show you some real fun. How about Karazhan? That was actually a lot of fun, although fighting Prince Malchezaar was sort of creepy, since Dornaa was staring at me through the whole fight as I stood with my back against the wall, tanking him. She looked sort of accusing. You don't suppose Mal was her dear uncle before the whole Eredar corruption thing, maybe? Unfortunately, I don't think you're allowed to take your orphan into the arenas, but I may have to take her for a tour of scenic Alterac Valley before the whistle disappears.

Seriously, I don't care how awesome Willy is, I just want to adopt Dornaa and keep her forever. She can keep Archmage Vargoth company on all my boss kills.

I know I'm not the only one who's done this. Orphan tours are probably some of the most random fun you can have in World of Warcraft with an annual event, I think. Where have you taken your orphan?

Robin Torres has already described her day with Salandria, the Horde ophan from Shattrath Cty for the Children's Week festivities, but don't think that the Alliance gets left out. We get to escort an orphan of our own, Dornaa the Draenei. Check out the gallery below for my experiences travelling the worlds with this delightful little girl.

I'm already missing poor Dornaa, and I can't wait to travel with her again next Children's Week (even if the nearly free Lower City reputation from these quests won't mean much then with WoTLK out), and hear what she gets up to in the future. Keep writing to your big brother, Dornaa!

Auchindoun is very much hit-or-miss on its lore, in my opinion. Some aspects of it are very cool, and others are quite... lacking. This is one area in which the retcons and alterations that accompanied The Burning Crusade are very apparent. The end result gave a proper 'feel' to the environment, but makes its history a little befuddling.

The city of Auchindoun was founded as a City of the Dead by the Draenei. It was a burial place for their fallen brethren, beginning the remains of D'ore, a Naaru who had been killed in the crash of Oshu'gun. It remained this way for some time, a beautiful(though macabre) mausoleum in the heart of Terokkar Forest, second only to the Shadowmoon Valley of old and its blessed Temple of Karabor in the hearts of the Draenei of Outland.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. During the rise of the First Horde, the Bleeding Hollow Clan of Orcs laid siege to the City of the Dead, much like what happened to the Temple of Karabor(now known as the Black Temple). The Bleeding Hollow turned Auchindoun from holy ground to a fortress. The Bleeding Hollow defiled the grounds of Auchindoun quite thoroughly themselves, and this was only made worse by their ceaseless attacks on the Alliance Expedition which had worked so diligently to force the Orcish Hordes from Azeroth. The expedition, with Turalyon, Alleria Windrunner, Khadgar, Kurdran Wildhammer and Danath Trollbane at the helm, took the fight to the Bleeding Hollow rather than allow themselves to be hassled. The Alliance Expedition took their turn to lay siege to Auchindoun. The Bleeding Hollow did not last long within their fortress.

One of the two World PvP daily quests that was added in Patch 2.4 was The Spirits of Auchindoun, which is arguably the easiest of all daily PvP quests because it actually doesn't necessitate combat. The quest becomes available at Level 63, giving players leveling in Terokkar Forest a chance to help their faction take control of the Bone Wastes. Alliance players can obtain the quest from Exorcist Sullivan in Allerian Stronghold while Horde players can talk to Exorcist Vaisha in Stonebreaker Hold. At Level 63, the quest awards 186 Honor points, 3 Gold 70 Silver, and 11,650 experience. At Level 70, players are awarded 209 Honor points and 11 Gold 99 Silver.

Interestingly enough, just like the Halaa quest, The Spirits of Auchindoun do not require the factions to take control of the Bone Wastes, merely for players to assist in the capture of one tower. For most Level 70s, this is extremely easy, particularly with a flying mount. It takes about 1-2 minutes to capture one tower, so it's possible to complete the quest immediately and turn it in at the nearby camp. It's arguably the easiest 12 Gold to earn in the game, the only caveat being the timing of the quest, which can only be completed every 6 hours. The quest can be completed in a raid and can be shared, making it easy to PUG the quest with nearby allies in the zone. Note that in order for the objective to count, you must see the tower's slider move from uncontrolled to your faction. If you are on a flying mount, make sure that you've landed.
As detailed in one of my earlier articles, control of the Bone Wastes grants a zone-wide buff, the Blessing of Auchindoun, which grants +5% to all damage dealt and +5% experience gain. The buff also allows the capture of Spirit Shards within the Auchindoun instances of Mana-Tombs, Auchenai Crypts, Sethekk Halls, and Shadow Labyrinth. Once captured, the Bone Wastes remain under the winning faction's control for six hours and cannot be captured again, making The Spirits of Auchindoun one of the few time-sensitive quests in the World of Warcraft.

Relmstein has a good post up about how Blizzard's world PvP has evolved over time, and what we might expect from Lake Wintergrasp, the PvP zone in Wrath of the Lich King. When world PvP began, it was very much an ad-hoc environment, which lead to a lot of 1v1 battles that eventually escalated when wandering guildies or alts showed up. As Relmstein says, the large majority of battles started with that stealthing noise (that used to inspire chills in the spines of those on PvP servers), and ended with an all-out brawl with no rewards but to get the other guys back.

Nowadays, world PvP is much more organized, in the sense that there are specific objectives and goals to go after. The original reward was a zonewide buff (in Silithus and the Plaguelands), but Blizzard eventually morphed this into something more permanent -- in Auchindoin, you fight for a buff that earns you tokens for rewards, and in Halaa, you fight to get the rewards themselves.

Which leads Relmstein to suspect that Wintergrasp will have direct rewards of its own, almost equal to the gear you get from endgame dungeons and Arena PvP. He predicts that it will be token-based (not a bad idea, considering all the badge changes Blizzard has put in lately -- in fact, Blizzard might even cut a corner and have Wintergrasp reward players with WotLK's version of badges directly), and that it will be updated with each Arena season, to keep players fighting there. All good ideas -- Blizzard has definitely innovated (successfully or otherwise) in the area of World PvP rewards, and we'll look forward to Wrath to see what they come up with there.

First there was dot shock. Then there was a new PTR build, and for a time, all was peaceful. Now, witness the birth of a new era of Shaman protest: re-rolling. Yes, the Shaman forums are abuzz with posters pledging to re-roll any class but Shaman, on Auchindoun, Horde side. And yes, they have named their guild none other than <Dude Wheres My Shaman>. I'll forgive them the lack of an apostrophe, if only because I really like the movie.

To be honest, I don't have enough Shaman experience to know much about the issues here. But I do know a neat idea when I see it, so I logged on to Auchindoun with a newly-minted, creatively-named character, and conducted a very fun group interview with all the ex-shamans there to find out what they were so riled up about. Chat log after the cut (edited for length and grammar -- there was a lot of them, and they were more than happy to talk).

Here we see the moon rising through the fog to light the remains of the Draenei holy burial ground in the middle of the Bone Wastes in Terokkar Forest. It's a haunting scene, but none the less lovely for it. Reader Astiael of <Three Day Ban> on Ysondre, who sent it to us, says it's his desktop wallpaper, though I think I'd want something a little less dismal to stare at, as often as I stare at my desktop.

Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth.

With every new expansion comes a new mob to hate. Pictured here is my most hated mob for The Burning Crusade. Found in the Shadow Labyrinth of Auchindoun, these Fel Overseers hit cloth really hard, and have a very annoying Intimidating Shout fear effect that is annoyingly resistible and resets aggro on the tank until the tank is back in melee range. When I say "annoyingly resistible" I mean that I often resist it, and the tank doesn't, so the tank is halfway across the room and I'm being stabbed at for for 1,200 to 1,900 hit points per swing, with a very nice critical hit one time of 4,796. My favorite part is how this thing is classed as a "demon", but immune to both Banish and Enslave.

The best method I've found for dealing with them is to make sure everyone is in very short range, so everyone gets feared, including the healers. Hunters are excused if they can feign fast enough to achieve the same effect. This generally means the mob will follow the tank around. Since there's no warning, and he hits so hard, trying to stay in berzerker stance to have anti-fear abilities up is somewhat hazardous. The cool down on the fear is very short, on the order of 30-45 seconds, so even fear ward and berzerker stance will eventually be on cool down when the fear hits. If I don't get feared, I either will try and drain-tank the big guy, or simply run after my tank, so the tank is in melee range as soon as the fear fades. Either way has about a 75% success rate, where success is me not needing a rez at the end.

So, The Burning Crusade has been out for about a month now, have you found a new most annoying mob?

Blizzard has been telling us for a while that they will be launching new realms when the Burning Crusade hits (they'd be crazy not to). But what they haven't told us was how many, which kind, and most importantly, what their names will be. Haven't told us until now, that is. I present to you the following post from Drysc:

• We'll be launching the following six realms with the release of The Burning Crusade expansion on January 16, at 12:01 AM EST.
  
  
• Nagrand - PvE, Oceanic - Bloodlust battlegroup
  
  
• Velen - PvE, Pacific
  
  
• Coilfang - PvP, Pacific
  
  
• Terokkar - PvE, Central
  
  
• Exodar - PvE, Eastern
  
  
• Auchindoun - PvP, Eastern
  
  
• The majority of these realms will be placed in a new battlegroup, the name of which has yet to be announced. These are new non-transfer realms and as such the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj will be closed and they will not be open to character transfers for six months.

Six realms seems a little skimpy to me; I think it's a safe bet that they'll be opening more either with the BC launch or shortly afterwards. The names follow the trend of BC-themed names that we saw with the European servers, which is cool. I like the new flavor they bring to my realm list. Speaking of the names, Drysc tells us that Auchindoun is pronounced "Aw-kin-dune." Good to know.

Will you be rolling on one of these new servers when you get the expansion, or staying with your old home? Me, I could never leave Shadow Council, but I'm sentimental like that.

Blizzard has posted an interactive map of Outland, the new lands showing up in the coming soon (we're told) expansion.

Lots of groovy interesting stuff on there, including some new instances. The Black Temple and Hellfire Citadel we know about already, but Gruul's Lair sounds exquisitely interesting, and the crypty Auchindoun (centered in the middle of a massive crater) should be amazing. There's also cities for each faction marked in the zones, and more than a few cities marked "Faction," which undoubtedly hints at the locations where lots and lots of World PVP blood will be spilled.

But maybe the most interesting thing on the map is a neutral city labeled, mysteriously, "Area 52," up in the southeast of Netherstorm. That lends a flavor I didn't expect to the new world, although it's one that seems likely, if you've been listening to what we've heard of the Draenei lore so far (and I do mean heard). Anyone want to take my 50g bet that we'll see an X-Files cultural reference in the NPCs when the expansion hits?

Update: Looks like I was a little too fast on the PVP judgement: Tseric says Faction towns will be new faction homebases like Light's Hope (Argent Dawn) and Timbermaw Hold (TM Hold, obviously), while Neutral towns will be both places like Gadgetzan and World PVP objectives. Basically, don't read too much into the map before you see the game itself.

Update2: Two more things-- one, check out the comments for a fun easter egg. And two, Pallysucks points out that the BE paladin is wearing the one set of pally armor in the game without +Str on it... and wielding a 2hander.

[ Thanks, Dave! ]