Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, the column that answers your questions about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. Click the Comments link below, ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!

Aydinn of Cenarion Circle wrote in to ask...

My question is (which may seem obvious to some), who is the goblin statue at Booty Bay? Why does he deserve a statue?

Answer: Thanks for writing in! Good to hear from people from my home server. That statue on Janeiro Isle might be of Baron Revilgaz, the overseer and top dog of Booty Bay. He deserves a statue because... he wanted a statue, and he's freaking Baron Revilgaz. He runs the show. Really, though, it's kind of a generic Goblinoid figure so it could be nobody at all.

At one time, it was a statue of a Human Priest. It's a nod to a really cool landmark here in the real world. It's based on Christ the Redeemer, a statue found in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. You may recognize it from an episode of Lupin III. Eh? No? ...oh. Oh well. It's a pretty awesome sight to see in real life regardless of whether you put faith in what it represents or not. The in-game model was likely changed from a Human to a Goblin to back away from the religious overtones while keeping the reference, and Goblins fit the area better anyway.

While Blizzard has made some steps to homogenize the playstyle of the Horde and Alliance a bit with the whole Paladin/Shaman swap, they've also done a bit of experimenting in the Burning Crusade with allowing people to make choices about certain paths, namely the Aldor and Scryer factions.

While patch 2.4 has bought as an "end" to the Aldor/Scryer rivalry lore-wise, the mechanics remain the same: You cannot enter the other side's tier without being attacked, you can't use the other side's bank, and the item and shoulder enchant vendors will still only sell to those with proper faction. In addition, there's a new twist to the sides from this patch: At exalted reputation with the Shattered Sun Offensive, you can purchase 4 different neckpieces that have seperate bonus that depending on whether you're Scryer or Aldor.

With so much to look forward to in patch 2.4 and WotLK, Arcane Brilliance would like to take one last look back at the road behind, mostly to see if there's a Rogue back there waiting to stab us. It's a little late, perhaps, but here's a look at the year that was, from a Mage's perspective.

2007 was a splendid year. Someday, when our children's children are grown, we will bore them with stories of 2007, and perhaps refer to it as "back in the day," or "the year I dinged 70," or "the year I learned never to mix chili with microwavable burritos in the hopes that their powers will combine to form 'Chilitos,' the perfect food." Here at Arcane Brilliance, we like to think of it as the "Year of the Mage." We also like to think of 2006 as the "Year of the Mage," and frankly we think of 1902 the same way, so take that in whatever way you wish. Basically we like Mages here, and 2007 was a fun year for those well-versed in wizardry. Not everything was magelicious, though. The highlights--and lowlights--after the jump.

This question actually came from Guild Chat in <It came from the Blog>. A few evenings ago, there was some question about the best spec to level a Druid with, and while many people returned Feral, just for ease of soloing, it actually brought up another point. You see, our little Insider guild on Zangarmarsh is very much focused on being completely laid back. This means we have no intent of running endgame raids, or anything of that nature. Obviously, this means you can level as hybrid or off-spec as you like -- points in all three, or points in none if you're out to try something completely off the wall!

But this got me to thinking about a guild I had been in. Once upon a time my main was a Mage, who I took to endgame on a combination Arcane/Fire spec that I had an absolute blast playing. Once I got to endgame, I specced her Frost as all Mages at endgame were then expected to spec for raiding. After raiding for a while, I got incredibly bored with her. I wound up switching full-time to my Rogue when the chance came. Now that Burning Crusade is out (and my Rogue is comfortably at 70 with my Druid catching up) I've finally taken my Mage off the mothballs. After speccing her back to Arcane/Fire, I'm having a lot of fun tearing around and burninating the countryside with her again.

For those of you who have ever switched a spec for a guild/group/battleground, how did you feel about it later on down the road? Did you miss being able to tinker with your build? Did you resent having to do it? Did you get bored with it? And for those of you who say that you would never spec for a guild's progression, would anything ever induce you to reconsider? Have you ever switched back, progression be damned -- or even left a guild over being required to keep a certain spec?

Hello once again, Build Shop readers. Today I think we will do a Mage build. I've noticed an increasing number of Mages running around with a lot of points in Arcane, and I've been wondering why. So let's see if I can dissect Xykon's build and see what makes it tick. Xykon hails from H-Gorgonnash-US, and had quite a bit to say about his talent choices, which I always appreciate. Mage is one of the classes I've played the least (I think my highest is 20-something), so I'm not going to have as much to say about this as I have in the past. This means I'm relying on you, friendly commenters, for some of the deep analysis.

Xykon's goals with this build: a strong DPS for World PvE and Raiding, with secondary goals of overcoming resistances and survivability. Although the majority of his points are in Arcane, he describes this build as a Frost build and says I primarily only use frost spells, with an occasional instant cast from the other two schools (fireblast and arcane explosion). Broadly speaking, this build goes down Arcane, grabbing all the stuff that would help damage and a little bit of survivability along the way, and goes for all the nice Frost stuff that boosts crits and crit chance and freezing and all that nice stuff.