This past Monday, June 23, The WotLK Information Wiki relaunched on a new web host after having been pulled down by a Cease and Desist order from Blizzard. Darkside, one of the admins for the WotLK Information Wiki, gave an interview to Medros over at All Things Azeroth to explain what happened. The interview was conducted as part of Medros' podcast Episode 53. Some highlights from the interview include:

• Most of the information that the alpha wiki provides is a result of file and image extraction from Blizzard's publically-available alpha client.
• The alpha client files contain all the information on the spells, creatures and environments to be tested and new things are added or subtracted each time the alpha is patched.
• The alpha wiki folks set up a "sandbox" where they could fly through the new locations and spawn creatures for screenshots.
• A small portion of the WotLK info -- some screenshots, for example -- has come from Blizzard employees under non-disclosure agreements the identities of whom the alpha wiki admins protect.
• Blizzard, Vivendi, and Activision IP addresses had visited the wiki frequently since it began.
  
• The Cease and Desist order from Blizzard arrived last Friday, June 20. Over the weekend the WotLK wiki admins tried several ways to appease the lawyers and eventually settled on moving to a new web host.
• The wiki's readership is approximately 200,000 page views per day.

Go to All Things Azeroth to hear the rest of the interview. Make sure you listen to the first few minutes of the podcast to hear a very humorous and well-sung parody of Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues called Pugging Kara Blues.

[Thanks, Matticus and uber.]

All your dreams have just come true, my friend. Now you can be a murloc AND a rockstar. Thanks, I assume, to the Activision merger with Blizzard, the companies are doing a cross-promotion for their two most popular games. Starting tomorrow, June 26, you can snag a free download of I am Murloc, for Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock. You may remember this delightful little metal ditty from the video below, an ode to our favorite aggro-licous gurglers. The song is performed by Blizzard's in-house band, Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain. You can get the download from either Xbox LIVE® Marketplace or PLAYSTATION®Store as a free promotion supporting the Worldwide Invitational. If you don't know anything about Guitar Hero and have been living in a box for the last few years, you can find out more on their website or on our sister site, Joystiq.

And now, for your easy-listening pleasure, I present I am Murloc. Thank you and good-night!

Upper Deck has sent news of the newest loot items in the WoW TCG, and yowza they're neat. These will all come in the new expansion, called The Hunt for Illidan and launching July 1st.

• The Path of Illidan, which is a super common loot card (like the Pet Biscuits), and will enable players to leave glowing green footprints around Azeroth and Outland as they walk around.
• D.I.S.C.O., which creates a disco party anywhere, along with a disco ball, lights, and music.
• And finally, most interesting, the Ethereal Soul-trader, who is a full-size Ethereal as a pet. Additionally, this card is actually a whole slew of items in one -- the Soul-trader will give you currency for creatures killed while summoned, which can then be traded off for other prizes, including special foodstuffs, a special alcoholic drink, a ball of energy (to throw in people's bags and play catch with), and even the Ethereal's outfits as wearable items.

Pretty incredible. Upper Deck is hosting a preview of the next expansion on Saturday at various locations around the country, and the cards will be out, as we said, on July 1st. The Spectral Tiger Mount was great, but I think we have a new loot card winner with the Soul-trader. A mobile NPC with their own currency gained from killing mobs? Yes please.

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.

A few short days ago, Blizzard updated their browser-based music player with the fan favorite track "Power of the Horde" by Tenth Level Tauren Chieftain, now known as Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain. If you've never heard of this music player before, don't feel too bad. Most players haven't.

Heck, I hadn't heard of it until recently, which is a bit of a shame. There's a lot of great music available here, ranging from the World of Warcraft to Warcraft II. It doesn't provide all of the Warcraft music, you need to buy the CDs for that, but there's enough there fuel some nostalgia or get you in the adventuring mood. Plus, you can check out some of their old holiday specials, which lie somewhere between 'amusing' and 'hilarious.' Oh yeah, there's a dancing ogre. Those are always good. I... think.

Allegedly, this is the music that you'll hear at the Wrath of the Lich King log-in screen. I love it! It achieves just the right blend between savage and graceful, haunting and heroic, and of course it contains the main WoW motif that we all have come to know and hum at inappropriate times (or is that just me?). I've seen this file in a couple places now, and if it is fake, it's extremely well-done. Kudos to Blizzard, assuming it's not fake; this is another piece in a long line of great atmospheric music.

Acerba of Cenarion Circle started a pretty fun discussion the other day on her server boards: What type of music would typify various races and cultures of Azeroth? Sure, we all have our soundtracks for when we get tired of the in-game music, and the in-game music itself often has various themes that show again and again music to represent various concepts, but thinking about what music your character would listen to or what sounds you might here around a bonfire at Razor Hill (Well, besides L70ETC) or in a fine mansion in Silvermoon City is a really fun exercise. I'm one who often creates soundtracks for my PnP and MMORPG characters alike in order to understand this, so I find it a useful exercise for us roleplayers, as well.

Unless I am doing Arenas or for some other event that involves voice chat, I usually turn my WoW sounds off. I either watch episodes of my favorite science fiction shows or listen to music.

I have compiled the following WoW-inspired, classic-rock soundtrack for grinding.

Ozzy Osbourne - The Wizard, for the Mages of the world.
Aerosmith - Dude Looks Like a Lady, with all due respect to elves of both factions.
Ted Nugent - Cat Scratch Fever, I guess I could have gone with Fred Bear- either work for Druids.
Queen - Fat Bottom Girls, because Tauren females make the rockin' world go 'round.
Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper, in honor of Undeads.
Black Sabbath - Iron Man, perfect for Warriors and Paladins, but more for Warriors.
The Eagles - Witchy Woman, which seems to fit Warlocks.
Styx - Mr. Roboto, for everyone who's ever been stomped by the Fel Reavers in Hellfire Peninsula.
Led Zeppelin - Ramble On, OK it's about a different fantasy epic, but it's a great song.

What do you listen to while you play?

EDIT: Corrected the spelling of Ozzy, but I'm leaving it as an Ozzy song rather than Black Sabbath as the version I have is solo off the "Hot and Heavy" compilation disc. Thanks though!

Madmarv thinks that there might be a relationship between WoW players and metal or rock music, since everyone he knows that plays the game listens to metal or rock, and lots of videos use the same. But other players quickly prove him wrong-- not everyone listens to or even likes metal or rock music. And since we've got these nifty polls, why not figure out exactly what you do all listen to?

Of course, if metal/rock doesn't win (and I suspect that it won't-- my guess is you all are a pretty eclectic crowd), then the question remains just why all that crazy rock keeps showing up in your PvP vids anyway.

Skyrender over at the WoW LJ asked a simple but interesting question I thought I would pass along to you guys: What is your favorite in-game music?

Recently Blizzard added a lot of great new music tracks to the game, but some of my personal favorites happen to be the older, traditional compositions if you will. I have actually found myself missing the old Inn music, despite getting the new tracks stuck playing in my head (as is happening at this very moment, as a matter of fact.) As much as I am in love with the Lament of the Highborne, I find the music in Auberdine to be equally stirring.

Perhaps it's the simple fact that I know the original music so well. My characters grew up with that music, and it seems strange to walk into a place and hear something unfamiliar. I suppose music makes me more nostalgic than I realized.

After the Lament of the Highborne video released last week (if you haven't seen it, check our video analysis of it), I saw lots of comments in lots of different places about how much people liked the song. Lots of the Warcraft music is good, but it's true, the Lament of the Highborne song (sung by Vangie Gunn, who we saw live at BlizzCon with Video Games Live) is definitely terrific.

That's why I was so excited to see that Reggie over on LJ put together a remix of it. You can check it out over on his Myspace page (or here's a direct link to the file itself). It does get a little repetitive (he cut it all together in Reason, and looped a lot, as you can tell), but hopefully it's the first in a new batch of Warcraft remixes. I've heard the music used in all kinds of media (lots of podcasts and machinima "borrow" the official music, legally or otherwise), but I think this is the first time I've heard it remixed into a techno beat. So get to it, remixers! There's at least three soundtracks of Warcraft music out there, and while Reggie's beat sounds good, I'm sure someone else could make something that sounds even better.

You may have already heard this one, but I figured it would be a good thing to post on Talk Like a Pirate Day. Our friends over at WoW Radio recently dropped a new track from Captain Dan, "rising star in the field of Pirate Hip-Hop," called "Deadmines Battle." You can listen to it over on their website-- it features some trippy beats, a little Casio jamming, and rhymes all about everyone's favorite pirate instance. My favorite part of the song, just like the instance, is Mr. Smite, of course.

WoW Radio also says Captain Dan's new album hits today (it's called Rime of the Hip-Hop Mariners, which I, being a Coleridge fan, find very funny)-- there's more tunes and information about that over on their Myspace page.

Avast ye maties, thar be some good rapping off starboard side! Now get back to yer deck-scrubbing, ye scurvy dogs, afore I keelhaul the lot of ya! Yarrrrrr!

There's a rather atrocious radio station that I pick up sometimes when I'm "station surfing" in the car that has an equally annoying jingle that advertises itself as playing "The Music of Your Life." I'll pause here so you can all run to the medicine cabinet to grab the nausea medication of your choice. Personally, I like the pink stuff, but I digress.

It's no great secret that World of Warcraft players usually turn off the in-game music within moments of installing the game. Some listen to mp3 players while they play, or perhaps they have a stereo blaring nearby in the background.

But what about the music of your class? What about a class theme song? What do you listen to when you're staring at the big boss at the end of the raid and you want to get your groove on? I posed this question to some paladin friends on another server. Their suggestions for the paladin class were "I Can Go The Distance" sung by Michael Boulton (the theme song from the Disney animated "Hercules") and – more amusingly – the chorus from "The Power" by Snap!

That's just a couple of ideas for one class, but what about the rest? What about races? It's time for you to sound off with your suggestions.

The music drives me nuts (is it actually from a Lemmings game?), but the video is pretty funny-- somebody took 40 green-haired gnomes lemmings all the way into Undercity. They don't list a body count, but I'd imagine it's pretty high-- that spider rips right through them.

Gnome raids are an old tradition by now, but if you've never done one, this is a pretty good approximation of exactly what it's like-- lots of gnomes dying, a huge swarm of little legs and feet. The fire festival part was especially cool, but it's too bad a raid like this can't do anything really amazing-- I doubt they'd ever consider this, but how cool would it be if Blizzard implemented some lower level raids? Something that required like 60 level ones or 40 level 20s would be perfect for fun guilds like this one.

[ via LJ ]

Perhaps because of the upcoming VGL concert at Blizzcon, Erin over on WoW LJ asks about who wrote the WoW soundtrack and what else they've done. If you've got questions, we've got answers.

Most of WoW's original soundtrack was written by Jason Hayes, who's worked with Blizzard since Starcraft. His most famous piece for Blizzard is probably "A Call to Arms," which probably still gets your heart pumping. He also wrote a lot of the original game's ambient music, including the Ironforge theme that we hear all... the... time. Here's a nice Q&A with Hayes, and while Hayes now works with other videogame companies (including NCSoft), he's also working on his own album, called Mosaic.

But of course he's not the only composer working for Blizzard. Glen Stafford (director of the Audio Department) and Tracy Bush also have written a lot of the music for WoW, as have Russel Brower, Derek Duke, and Matt Uelmen (the last three composers put together music for the Burning Crusade expansion, and Uelmen has won awards for his work on Diablo and Diablo II). Here's an interview with just Uelmen, and here's an interview with Stafford, Uelmen, and Hayes all together.

Unfortunately, I couldn't see that anyone but Hayes is working on other projects, unless L70ETC gets picked up by a record label-- while the members of that band are shrouded in mystery (besides lead singer Samwise Didier and Blizz Prez Mike Morhaime), I'd be very surprised if the Blizzard music team didn't have a representative on there.