Summer's here, gas prices are up, and the economy is suffering both in-game and in real life. Ultimately, it's a "dogs and cats sleeping together" kind of situation for your cash flow. Jagoex over at Warlock Therapy has your wallet covered with "10 Ways Gamers Can Save Money." He's talking about all gamers, and has quite a lot to say for the console gamers, but his tips pretty much apply to everyone.

Of course, there are a few things you can do specifically as a WoW player to save your bank account some stress over this bleeding hot summer.

Whether your "holy grail" takes the form of your freedom, an end to loneliness, treasure, glorious achievement, or that coveted raid spot, you're sure to find entertainment this morning.

1. Team Speak + Air Traffic Control = Bad from Action Trip. This one is pretty self-explanatory!
2. Saved? from the Adventures of Blanc.
3. You no take candle! from Dark Legacy Comics. Anything with that title you know just has to be awesome.
4. A Deadly Plan from Shakes and Fidget.
5. LFG #136. I have to say that I try each week to bring you a selection from LFG that can stand alone, so that even those who do not follow it dutifully can be entertained, or even motivated to check it out. As such, I'm proud of this entry; it's funny, and very noob-friendly.
6. Ding! supports completionist ways. Sort of.
7. Let's get introduced to Teh Gladiators. If you failed to read the intro, well then you fail. Carrying on for the rest of you, here's the first and second comic. Don't forget to read the commentary beneath! It's worth the extra three seconds of effort (seriously).
8. From The Adventures of Messy Cow comes "Raid Life." Part one. Then, part two. Who recognizes this guy anyway?
9. Intense Matchup from Action Trip. I just couldn't resist!

Press through to vote on your favorite!

This week's round up of WoW-related posts on our sister site Massively covers many different angles of the MMO universe dominated by World of Warcraft. You can click on the links below or subscribe to a special WoW-only Massively feed.

The Evolution of World of Warcraft's many games
To say that World of Warcraft has changed over the last four years would be something of an understatement. Major content additions have come at a fast and furious rate, from minor class tweaks all the way up to the Burning Crusade expansion itself. The blog GameSetWatch hosts a feature called Play Evolution that looks at just these kinds of changes. In an article this past week author James Lantz laid out some of the ways that Blizzard has modifed WoW over the years.

The top ten features of MMOs
What are the back-of-the-box bullet points that make MMOs great? Which ones stand out? What features are there out there among the many, many MMOs that really speaks volumes about the potential of this game genre? Check out our gallery feature to explore the Top Ten MMO Features with screenshots, historical footnotes, and witty observations.

Worlds of Fantasy show focuses on WoW
Worlds of Fantasy is a series that has run on BBC Four for several weeks. This week's show deals with books, films and "video games" including various clips from MMOGs. Around 37 minutes in, it jumps to World of Warcraft.

Behind the Curtain: Voice Chat - why bother?
So here's a thing – I don't use voice chat in my MMOs. I understand why people use it, and why some guilds view it as a tool they simply could not function without, but I just don't enjoy using it.

Mr_elenganza has a great question over on the WoW LJ-- what headset do you use for voicechatting in WoW?

Me, I use two different audio inputs. On my Mac Powerbook, the built-in microphone actually works really well (and I hear from others who've used the new Macbooks that those work even better), so whenever I'm raiding with Teamspeak on, I'll have it on there, and just use that mic to talk.

But when I need something a little clearer, I use the cheaper Logitech headset-- there are more expensive gaming headsets out there, but the headset is really just for voice (I've also got a nice set of 5.1 speakers on my PC), so it works just fine for my purposes. To tell the truth, if I went for another headset, I'd probably try and get something Bluetooth (the fewer wires running around, the better), but I haven't shopped around too much for that-- anyone want to recommend one?

At this point, headsets are so cheap and so commonly used that "I don't have a mic" isn't really a valid excuse for not voicechatting any more (of course, it's always a good excuse if there are other reasons you don't want to speak). A nice USB headset will help you hear what's going on, and will make the experience better for people playing with you, too.

As we're looking forward to a new patch tomorrow, it's appropriate to look back at the last patch and what it added to the game. While there were also several tweaks to class mechanics and items, the main thing it added was Blizzard-supported voice chat. Earlier today, Mike admitted that he hasn't ever used the voice chat, and aside from experimenting with it a bit on the day it was released, I haven't either. I don't do pickup groups much these days, but the few I've been in haven't bothered with the chat at all. This may be due to the fact that its sound quality isn't all that great and there may be other issues as well. People being embarrassed to talk out loud to total strangers or simply being habituated to typing in pickup groups are both possible reasons why the chat may be neglected. What's your experience with it? Have you used it much?

One of the other major changes in patch 2.2 was reporting AFKers in Alterac Valley. While I personally like this change, (if nothing else, it gives me something to do while protecting a flag,) for whatever reason, it seems to have skewed the battleground in the Horde's favor (my main PvPer at the moment is Alliance). Honestly, I haven't read a lot about the reasoning behind this phenomenon, and for all I know, it's different on other battlegroups. What's it like on your server? Do you like this change?

But there are a rare few who take ERP to an extreme: they form a guild whose whole purpose is to engage in ERP, and proceed to garner a largely negative reputation for themselves. They wear their suggestive guild name like a sign above each of their character's heads, as if to draw as much attention to themselves as possible. Their members indulge in various sexual fantasies, some of which may even be extremely distasteful and objectionable, played out in an environment where everyone is encouraged to "explore" with one another in anonymity.

Obviously, the moral danger here is that young people may be tempted to wander in, way before they are mature enough to understand or deal reasonably with what they experience there. We generally assume adults to be responsible for themselves in such matters, but children may very well be confused and curious, even willing to lie about their age in order to unravel such adult secrets. Indeed, ERP is a subject matter that the vast majority of players do not want to see -- least of all parents who like their kids to grow and learn from their interactions with others within the game, or at least have a safe and fun experience. Therefore, roleplayers of any sort have a responsibility to keep the public environment clean and safe for all who play there, and for the few involved with ERP guilds to do otherwise is dangerous and unethical.

A player decided to take a school assignment and turn it into a World of Warcraft machinima piece. In it, he explains what an MMOG is, as well as various aspects of WoW. Just like the title of the film states, it's a good introduction to Warcraft.

It's very well done with lots of music, humor, good editing and beautiful 1 minute intro showcasing various zones in Azeroth. Don't miss the Leeroy Jenkins reference, the examples of the perils of Voice Chat or the Village People music under the credits.

Final Grade: A+!

Previously on Moviewatch...

With the arrival of patch 2.2.3 on the EU realms today, European players should finally be getting voice chat functionality on all realms. Here's to hoping they've taken the time between the US rollout and the EU rollout to work all of the kinks out of the system -- though initial reports aren't promising. At present, voice chat seems to be working on a very limited number of realms, though Blizzard is working on the issue.

However, voice chat is working on at least some European realms -- so now I'm going to ask the European players the same thing I asked US players last week: how's the voice chat feature working for you? How's the rollout going?Tell us all about it in the comments!

My wife, as I've stated several times, is an excellent player, one of the best hunters I've ever run with and has created in me a healthy respect for women who game. When we were both raiding, the biggest problem we had was that if she ever spoke in a raid, there was always someone who would hit on her until it was explained that she was engaged to and then married to the tank, and he would have no compunction about letting the mob come over and eat said person until such time as the supposedly funny come-ons stopped.

Fast forward a year to this post on wow_ladies and poster amalana asks if the new voice chat feature is giving other women who play the same kinds of experiences she mentions: running a PuG and the other players hitting on her as soon as they realize she's a woman. To be honest, I expected this. In my experience, WoW has the same ratio of jerks to decent folks as regular life, but something like John Gabriel's Theory always seems to come into effect and there's always someone in a PuG who feels comfortable making racist jokes or blindly hitting on someone based just on ten seconds of voice chat.

Have your experiences with the new voice chat feature been positive, or are you being subjected to crude commentary and unwelcome advances?

Earlier this week, voice chat was rolled out to all of the US realms that didn't yet have it active -- meaning that by now, all of us should have access to in-game voice chat without the bother of any 3rd party programs. However, the rollout was a bit shaky, with numerous players suggesting it was causing unplayable lag. We asked our readers what their experience had been with voice chat, and while 25% clearly experienced some trouble with the system, an astounding 40% just don't care about the feature. I have to admit -- I'm in that camp as well. While voice chat is a handy feature to have, World of Warcraft has been on the market for a while now and everyone who was interested in voice chat has become accustomed to those 3rd party solutions.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that yesterday afternoon Blizzard rolled out their in-game voice chat system to a huge number of realms (183, by my count). And what this means to you is that, as of yesterday afternoon, you should have had access to voice chat. But I'm seeing reports on the functionality of voice chat that vary wildly. Some players think Blizzard made a mistake of epic proportions when they implemented the feature, and that it needs to be removed immediately. Some found the game unplayably laggy since its implementation. Others praise its quality. So now, I'm asking for your opinion on the current state of voice chat functionality -- how well did the roll-out go on your realm?

Rolling restarts are happening this afternoon on all US realms that do not yet have voice chat enabled in order to enable voice chat. I can only presume that voice chat is working well on the 42 realms it's currently enabled on, because Blizzard is adding the remaining 183 realms to the service en masse. I can't personally comment on the quality of the service, as it has not yet been implemented on any of the realms I play -- but if this round of restarts goes well, we'll all know by tomorrow. Drysc's original thread about voice chat has been updated with the list of realms that will have voice chat enabled today and Nethaera chimes in to clarify that, yes, this is all remaining realms. Restarts are expected to be finished and all realms back online by 2:00 PM PDT (that's 5:00 PM EST for you on the opposite coast). So if all goes well, expect your realm to be back up soon.

I can confirm for you that yes, patch 2.2 has finally fixed our Orc male shoulders. Finally, my Orc Shaman can hold his shoulders up proudly (ok, well, a little hunched down under all the weight, but still). I know lots of you readers are tired of hearing about it, but the saga is over: our Orc shoulders have grown back. Now I'll never mention it again.

Strangely enough, however, this change didn't make the patch notes, and when players ask why, Neth sounds a little tired of talking about it herself. She says that while the change did not appear in the official 2.2 notes, "one graphical item of which has been stated as being fixed many times now, does not make it less accurate." I've wondered before who exactly writes the patch notes, and yet again I find myself wondering what the method is behind their madness. Some patch changes, including some boss tweaks, are clearly not included on purpose. Some huge changes (like the DOTs affected by resilience change) get the smallest of mentions. And some small changes very much awaited by players, like the anti-AFK measures, get quite a bit of ink.

Now, I doubt that Blizzard purposely left the Orc shoulders change off the patch notes-- they probably just didn't think it important enough to include. But surely there are things that they do leave off of the notes on purpose, and some things that the devs might not think are big, but that whoever writes the patch notes chooses to emphasize. Whatever their method behind the madness, I can't see what it is at all.