Yesterday I wanted to impress you all on my first Moviewatch post, so I showed you a very classy, serious movie. Today? Not so much! Instead, today I offer you a good laugh. MTGScreenie brings us his musical and comedy stylings in the form of Stuck in the World of Warcraft. This music video, set to Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," but with WoW-specific lyrics, is a comic ode to the game he loves. MTGScreenie's singing isn't going to win any awards, but I think that makes the song even more endearing and funny, especially when he strains to hit the high notes or runs out of breath because the song outpaces him. The visuals won't blow you away, but you'll see lots of amusing reminders of things you love and hate about playing WoW. Seriously, people, who doesn't love lag and ganking!

[Thanks, Terrë Yuki!]

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch ...

The expansion draws ever nearer, and many folks are working away at the last important bits of Burning Crusade content. We're looking to see Wrath by the end of this year. I've been spending a lot of time leveling alts to get ready for Wrath of the Lich king. I've noticed that this has been surprisingly easy compared to my previous leveling experiences. In the last week or so I've leveled my Warrior from 40 to 56 with very little resistance. I've probably only been ganked a total of ten or so times.

I'm beginning to think either most people have shifted their priorities from hunting lowbies to preparations for the level 70 to 80 grind. Or could it be that many of the folks who would ordinarily be giving me grief have been preoccupied playing in the beta test? It reminds me of the unofficial truce between factions immediately following the release of BC.

Has your gaming experience changed recently?

Jadefury continues to deliver with the Death Knight videos. This time, he runs around in one of the Northrend starting zones and preys upon unsuspecting Alliance. It's a bit of a gank video, so fair warning if you're not into that. He uses this level 73 Unholy/Blood build.

Jadefury himself admits, of course, that the first thing he had going for him was the element of surprise -- not only ganking, but people panicking as they had to face down an unfamiliar class. We wouldn't be surprised if PvPing with a Death Knight for the first few months of Wrath is easy if only because of that deer in the headlights phenomenon.

Still, he also showcases some very nice uses of Death Knight PvP skills. My favorite is his use of Death Grip, which looks like it's fast becoming the signature Death Knight move -- not only does it take care of people trying to run away, but he uses it as a spell interrupt in a pinch. There's also some freezing action going on as well with what looks to be Chains of Ice. Of course, having Magic Suppression probably helps a lot as well.

Of course, it's worth noting that he leapt upon people in combat (with some rather sweet looking Nerubians at that, we can't believe we'll be able to solo those, Wrath is going to be so epic), and this is only at level 73, so level 80 organized PvP may look somewhat different. Still, it's yet another good look at Death Knight gameplay to prepare all of us rerollers.

1. You get ganked while killing Bloodscalp Trolls.
2. You resurrect and wait for the perfect opportunity to exact your retribution.
3. They log onto their level 70 and one-shot your level 32 alt.
4. You log into your 70, fold, spindle, and mutilate your foe's 70 until they cry for help.
5. Their buddy joins the fight.
6. Your buddy joins the fight.
7. Half of their guild rushes to STV.
8. Your guild matches their fire power.

It's really interesting to watch something like that happen. I'm not sure how anyone who has no 70s on the server survives the most ganktastic zones in the game. I can't quite comprehend how people can feel compelled to hang out in these zones at high levels just for ganking. I imagine that they're all either bitter about their own leveling experiences, or maybe they're short.

Or so wrote Robert Heinlein in Beyond the Horizon. The general idea was that, in a country where there were serious (and officially sanctioned) consequences to misbehavior from quarters other than the police, you'd wind up with a place where people really thought hard about whether it was worth pissing someone off just for the fun of it.

Whenever I'm reading about PvP, that quote always springs to mind. People who have played MMORPG's with more "hardcore" PvP systems have mentioned that the amount of random ganking you see in WoW just doesn't seem to occur on the same scale elsewhere. WoW's PvP is pretty consequence-free. Corpse runs are annoying, sure, and being camped is nobody's idea of fun. But you don't take durability or experience loss after a PvP death, and you don't lose money or items to the attacker. Nor does the attacker gain anything from killing you (unless it's honor if you weren't a gray target).

A couple of people have posted about the Shattered Sun Peacekeepers slacking off on their jobs lately, quite possibly thanks to something Blizzard fed them in Patch 2.4.2. In their reports, they complain about Peacekeepers attacking them for no reason, sometimes not even in retaliation for attacking (or defending yourself against) a member of the opposing faction. I can actually empathize with this as I encountered the ill-placed wrath of the Peacekeepers myself when I rezzed my wife's toon in front of the Staging Area. Without having done anything other than rezz, the Peacekeepers promptly charged and made short work of me.

In my experience, I have found that the Peacekeepers around the Shattered Sun Staging Area have been slacking off. In fact, my wife's toon was ganked right in front of the building and the so-called Peacekeepers did absolutely nothing. Sensing a bug, my wife wrote a ticket and got a somewhat rude e-mail response saying that -- you guessed it -- it was working as intended. An Alliance guild on my server seemed to be aware of the fact and exploited it to full effect, killing solo players who could seek no refuge under the apathetic -- or even hostile -- Peacekeepers.

According to reports, it's a known bug -- one player even made a video to document it -- but so far Blizzard has turned a blind eye to it. I got a more sympathetic response from my GM who at least mentioned he'd look into the situation. An in-game GM even reset the Peacekeepers in order to see if it would change anything (it didn't). I don't mind gankage... it's part of being on a PvP server. But when an area is supposedly a sanctuary, you don't expect to go through the hassle of a fight. Even worse, you shouldn't have the Peacekeepers tossing your butt around when you're being peaceful yourself. If things keep going the way they are, The Shattered Sun Offensive should probably downsize or hire some more useful temps.

Drysc responded strongly to some QQ over at the forums when a poster from Kil'jaeden -- a PvP realm -- ranted about being griefed by high level characters while leveling up. Drysc's uncompromising response? Get some friends and fight back. He reasons that if players roll on a PvP server, they should expect to be griefed as part of the leveling process. It's the same philosophy that has prevented Blizzard from allowing character transfers from PvE to PvP realms. It really only makes sense. If players roll on a PvP server, they shouldn't complain about players from the opposing faction taking advantage of the fact that they're flagged for PvP.

As Drysc explains, "the rules of war are based around attacking when the odds are in your favor". This could mean when opponents outnumber you, outlevel you, when you're low in health and/or if you're engaged with multiple mobs... the question isn't whether it's honorable or fair. It's war. In a PvP server, everything is fair game. There are no rules, and players certainly shouldn't bother sending tickets to GMs asking for any help (or sympathy). This should probably be common sense, but Drysc's somewhat provocative response is something of a surprise -- to many players a welcome one. While I'm all for etiquette (ganking a fisherman is just plain rude) and a personal sense of honor, players who roll on a PvP server know what they signed up for. Shape up or ship out -- character transfers, after all, are just a click away.

When I'm soloing, I very rarely take advantage of PvP in the environment. I'm usually too busy leveling or grinding for cash to start a land war. I've even been known to help out an ally in distress. About the only time I attack unprovoked in the environment is when there is a quest monster close by that I need to fight.

And by honor I don't mean the honor-as-currency system that's currently in the game -- I mean a sense of personal honor as in, there are things you make a conscious decision to avoid doing just as a moral gesture.

I thought of this recently after a truly miserable losing streak in Arathi Basin. I wound up in three consecutive matches with a full complement of 15 Alliance players to 7 or 8 Horde (with both sides being PuG's, mind you). Being out-numbered and out-gunned sucks no matter what, but it's made immeasurably worse in places like Arathi Basin and EOTS due to the dwindling number of sites you'll have to rez when your side is being utterly destroyed. There was one particularly awful game where the Alliance decided to see how much honor they could get from us before the inevitable 4 or 5-cap ensuring their victory, and simply zerged us in the graveyard as we rezzed (or tried to). The feeling was made worse by knowing, having also played Alliance in BG's, that Horde would almost certainly have done the same thing had the situation been reversed. PvP is the subject of a lot of emotional dicussion in the WoW community as a result of situations like these, and I think we can all agree that it's not the losses that drive you nuts so much as knowing that the game is full of places and times where no amount of strategy or skill will keep you alive.

There are a lot of things in PvP that I just don't like being a part of.
I don't attack fellow Druids unless I'm attacked first (yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but a surprising number of Druids subscribe to this). I don't join in when an enemy player is obviously being dog-piled. I don't /spit on opposing players or do other rude emotes, and I don't participate in griefing. There's not much about WoW's PvP system that's really all that fair to begin with, especially when compared to games more explicity designed around PvP combat, but in the back of my mind there's still that notion that your opponent should at least have a sporting chance. I risk being called a hopeless carebear for this statement, but I think "honorable kills" are a lot more enjoyable when there's a measure of actual honor involved.

The biggest objection to this idea was the possibility of sky-ganking. Ganking however is a fact of life on a PvP server. I try to avoid going to Azeroth whenever possible, partly because it takes so long to get from place to place. Sure it would take a great deal of coding, but I would love to see this explored further.

If nowhere else, flying should be an option in Moonglade. That way Druids could try out their fantastic flying skills as soon as they get them.

Do you think we should be able to fly in Azeroth?

Many of us that have played the game every day over the years have developed some habits of sort. One of the habits that I've found myself doing night after night is logging off in the same spot. For me, this spot is at the staff vendor in the Aldor section of Shattrath. I find myself logging off here almost every night since I hearth back to Shat when I'm done raiding, and then go and repair immediately (less I get yelled at for not being fully repaired).

I can imagine that there are some better spots than others to log off at. In particular the PvP servers I'm sure pose certain pragmatic limitations on where you can disembark from the game. In the PvE world, I could (if I wanted to) log off anywhere in the wild. Save for the wandering aggressive mob, I would be just fine. However, I don't think this would be too good in a PvP environment.

As it turns out Zebulon had a run-in with a shifter who really knew how to use his class abilities. As he was flying back from Skettis daily questing high above Terorkkar Forest, Zebulon, who was playing a Rogue, was ambushed by a Druid in Swift Flight Form. The attacker flew above him and shifted into caster form. The Druid cast Insect Swarm and began spamming Moonfire as he dropped toward the ground. The altitude permitted the Druid to break combat and return to flight form. Because of the speed boost from epic flight form the Druid was able to make another pass. Damaged, dotted, and desperate, Zebulon searched for a safe body of water to drop into. The plan was to dismount into the water, Cloak of Shadows, and then Vanish from the attacker. No luck- HK for the Druid.

As we generally do here at WoW Insider, we make it a point of reading many other news sources to bring you the newest and freshest news we can possibly find. But I have to admit, in the middle of surfing around, I stumbled across one article that has brought me back to a question I've wondered about several times before. In short, why does the mainstream media add World of Warcraft into articles when WoW really has very little to nothing to do with the topic they're talking about?

Take, for example, this article from the Washington Post. In the article they say

"In World of Warcraft, the most popular online game, with an estimated 8 million participants worldwide, some regions of this fantasy domain have grown so lawless that players said they fear to brave them alone. Gangs of animated characters have repeatedly preyed upon lone travelers, killing them and making off with their virtual belongings."