Last Sunday, It came from the Blog celebrated Mother's Day by taking a bunch of female Orcs to the Barrens and telling "Your Mom" jokes. I had a lot of fun and discovered that my ICFTB guildies were very creative. Daniel Whitcomb also joined us with Okasama, his Orc-Mom.
On Saturday, I was on the WoW Insider Show with Mike, Turpster, Amanda Dean and her mom, Linda Emrys and we discussed what we would be doing for the event. Turpster joked that we would be telling jokes such as "Your Mom is so supportive, she's like a suspension bridge." I contradicted him on the show, but he ended up being right to a point. Many of the jokes did begin "Your Mom is so cool..." and "Your Mom is so hot...", but there were of course plenty of "Yo mama is so fat..." and the like, as well.
Last Sunday, It came from the Blog gathered to run the Orgrimmar Children's Week quests together. Some weren't level 10 yet, but ran with us anyway. Because many of us didn't have the flightpaths (and because it was more fun) we ran together from objective to objective.
Our Orphans were very well behaved, even after we gave them ice cream. I hope they enjoyed their group field trip as much as I did.
Don't forget to join us this Sunday for the Revenge of the Orc-Moms. We'll be meeting at 6pm Eastern/Blog Time (4pm Server time, 3pm Pacific). Bring your female Orc with some form of "mother" in the name and your maternal sense of humor. I hope to see you there!
Gallery: It came from the Blog: Children's Week Gallery
You are cordially invited to join It came from the Blog for a very silly event on Mother's Day. We are going to pay tribute to the women who brought us into this world by going to the place where she is mentioned daily: The Barrens. I know, she's not exactly mentioned with respect there. But the thing about Ur Mom jokes is that they are jokes. No one in Barrens Chat has actually met your mother, let alone done that with her. And it's time we exact a little revenge for our dear mothers and show that they (and we) have a sense of humor about it.
So go to Zangarmarsh server and make an Orc Female with a name that includes some form of "mother" in it. I made one named Mutti, which is the German word for Mommy. No, I'm not saying my or your or anyone's mother looks like an Orc Female. And I don't think my mom ever sported a belly shirt, let alone a mohawk and a nose ring. These females will not be representing the way your mom looks, but instead her inner warrior (or shaman or whatever).
Come join It came from the Blog today on Zangarmarsh (U.S.) to run the Orgrimmar Children's Week quests. You need to be level 10 or higher to get the quest, but you are welcome to join us for the runaround, no matter your level.
When: 3pm Pacific (4pm Server) Today! (Sunday, May 4th)
Where: Orphanage in Orgrimmar (the Valley of Honor) on Zangarmarsh (U.S.)
How to join: Send Robiness a tell to get a guild invite
I got my warlock to 20 this morning and stocked up on shards so I can summon if you are too far away, say in Mulgore bringing up a Tauren. If you are in Blood Elf lands, take the teleport in Silvermoon to Undercity and then the Zeppelin to Orgrimmar.
Let's take our orphans on a field trip together! I hope to see you there!
Today's the first day of May, and that means that Children's Week has begun. All kinds of little snot-nosed orphans are out there begging for you to run them around Azeroth and show them the sights, and in return they'll give you one of the richest treasures in all of WoW -- a cute little noncombat pet. There's a nice Children's Week guide up over at WarcraftPets, and we've done our share of orphan touristing around here at WoW Insider. This year will be no exception -- stay tuned all week for posts about what may have changed in Azeroth for the holiday, and don't forget that this Sunday, our in-game guild on Zangarmarsh will be running around the orphans all together.
Of course, it may not be the best thing for Azerothian orphans to be running around with all you wacky player characters, but they've got to get out of the orphanage at some point, right? Go do it for the kids this week!
Children's Week will be here May 1st through 7th. But you already knew that because you saw it on the nifty Upcoming Events list in the right column. Children's Week is one of my favorite Azerothian holidays because it's fun, it's for everyone and you can clutter up your bank with more non-combat pets.
When: Sunday, May 4, 3pm PDT (4pm Server Time) [Edited to change from Saturday to Sunday]
Where: The Orphanage in the Valley of Honor in Orgrimmar (to the left of the ramp that leads up to the Battlemasters)
Server: Zangarmarsh U.S., Horde side
There will be Summoning for those who need it and don't worry about what level you are, because everyone is welcome. [Edited to add:] You may have to be level 10 to get the quest, so if you want to do more than just hang out with us, level up to 10 before Sunday.
If you aren't in the guild yet, just send a whisper to Robiness or someone else in IcftB and we'll be happy to invite you.
Come join us in making a virtual orphan's day a little brighter!
Each week, Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player who has 2 hours or less to play at a time.
This week, I answer some Reader Mail that is only a month old. Woot!
Hi Robin,
I am what I consider to be a casual player on WoW. A good session for me will last about an hour or two... Usually just long enough to gain a level before I run out of time. The current character I am working on is my "main", a level 50 Orc Hunter. One thing I was hoping to find in your articles was a way for a casual to obtain equipment when they haven't yet reached the 60s and 70s. The last time I updated my gear was in the low 30s, so it is really starting to show its date. I was having trouble finding a way to equip my character for the rest of the game until I can start on some epics. It seems the only way is to dump a ton of money in mediocre items (which is basically what I did in the low 30s), or spend hours doing instances... Hours being something most of us casuals don't have.
I'd like to thank Ceylene for summoning fellow guildies to our fishfest at Stillwhisper Pond. It's a long run to Blood Elf territory for our young Tauren friends to make.
Though we did have fun raising our Fishing skills together, we have more exciting things planned for the future. We will definitely be getting together for Children's Week and maybe even something before. Look for events to be scheduled monthly or more often.
While this is a casual, event oriented guild, we do have some members who are leveling up. Many of the members can invite to the guild, so if you are interested in joining us on Zangarmarsh, ask an online guild member for an invite. I am often on as well and am happy to have any readers join us. Look for me as Robiness or Robinelle or Robinara or Robinella or Robinique. Yes, my altitis has altitis.
Each week or so, Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player who has 2 hours or less to play at a time.
This week, I finally get around to answering an email from Mattilda:
Hey Robin,
I really enjoyed your article on WoW Insider. I recently got married and that basically killed my play time in WoW which probably isn't that bad of a thing, but I still like to play and it is normally only for a couple of hours in the evening. One of the biggest problems I have is getting a group for an instance. I have a decent guild but they are all normally busy in Kara or ZA when I'm on, and since I only play one or 2 nights a week I'm not high on the importance list to help.
I like to do dailies and busy my self with solo stuff, but in order to get neutral with the Ogrila, there are some group quests. Looking for group is not always reliable and it seems that it basically puts you with 5 year olds most of the time. So my question is you can either put in in an article or just answer via e-mail, do you have any good ideas on how to get a reliable group in a short amount of time. There may not be a way, but just wanted to get your thoughts.
It Came from the Blog is now recruiting. We are a fun guild that is looking for casual members. We are always happy to help... when we're not on our mains on our regular servers. If you are interested, PST.
I always feel bad for the guilds who are so hungry for members, they will invite anyone who sends them a tell. Yet, here I am making the same offer. If you are interested in hanging out on Zangarmarsh (U.S.) with WoW Insider writers, participating in monthly events and wearing a prize-winning tabard, then you are cordially invited to join us in the Horde guild: It Came from the Blog.
Some of us will be on from time to time, but if you want to be assured of a guild invite, please join us this weekend (Edited for accuracy):
When: 3pm PDT, Saturday, April 19th
Where: Zangarmarsh (U.S.)
Faction: Horde
How: Send Robiness a tell for invites
Check out the good times we had last year. While we have even more fun planned for our re-emergence, we would love to hear your suggestions and requests. Leave them in the comments here or email them to me at Robin.Torres AT weblogsinc DOT com. I hope to see you Saturday!
Are you new to the game and would like to visit all the major cities of your faction? Or do you have a bunch of lowbie alts (like me) that are stranded near their starting area? If so, make use of the Lunar Festival to get your lowbies out and about.
One of the great things about the Lunar Festival is that you get a free trip to Moonglade and then you can teleport to all of the major old world cities in your faction. (No, they won't let you travel to the major cities of the opposite faction. Sorry.) I found this particularly useful with my Draenei and Blood Elf noobs so that they can go out and see the world. Why would you want to get your lowbie out and about so young?
Weapon skills: You can use the teleports to go to the Weapons Masters in each city and get all of your missing weapons skills. Don't forget training weapons skills costs 10 silver each, so if you are new to the game or just the server, you may need to make some money before you take the trip.
Yes, once again it's time for our weekly(-ish) IcftB get together-- our guild over on Zangarmarsh is still hopping around like toads eating jumping beans, and it seems like there's quite a few people hanging out almost every day now. But we still want to try and keep up the events, because it's always fun for us to get together as a big group and make a splash.
So our next guild event is going to be next Monday, July 16th, at 6pm server time (I believe that's 8pm Eastern). We're going to be doing quests of all kinds-- elite quests, group quests, instance quests, solo quests, lowbie quests, chain quests. You name it, we're going to do it. If you've had a quest sitting on your IcftB character for a while, but haven't finished it, Monday night will be the time to get it done. Or if you're interested in helping out some of the other characters with finishing their quest (and catching up to your level-- I'm looking at you, Feralpuppy, who's somehow level 65 already!). Of course, some quests will be in instances, so we'll also do some instance running. And there will likely be some BGs in there as well, as long as I can make it to 29 by then.
If you haven't joined us on Horde side Zangarmarsh, please do (just send a tell to anyone in guild), and hopefully we'll see you Monday night for some questin' good times.
The Midsummer Fire Festival has come and gone -- but a group of enthusiastic readers in our It Came from the Blog guild got together celebrate the last night of the festival by running the Eastern Kingdoms festival quest. Our trip to the Eastern Plaguelands, the Hinterlands, Searing Gorge, and Blasted Lands was an absolute deathfest at our levels (ranging from 7 to the 30s) -- but I think everyone had fun, learned a bit about Azeroth's geography, and netted some swanky looking shoulders in the end. And, hey, even if you missed out, you can enjoy our adventure vicariously, through screenshots!
Our journey, for those of you who wish to re-create it for your own amusement, started in the Undercity. From there we went through Western Plaguelands and into Eastern Plaguelands to pick up the first flame. (Most of us travelled on to pick up the flight path at Light's Hope Chapel.) Then we went back through Western Plaguelands and cut down to the Hinterlands (yes, there's a path near the bridge to Scholomance that sends you out right near Aerie Peak.) After picking up the Hinterlands flame, we continued on to the Horde flight path at Revantusk Village and then jumped into the water and swam south, down to the Wetlands. From there we ran through Loch Modan (meeting a friendly Gnome near the Thelsamar graveyard), through the Badlands (picking up the flight path at Kargath), and into Searing Gorge for the third flame. From here, we ran through Blackrock Mountain, into Redridge, through Duskwood, Deadwind Pass, and Swamp of Sorrows, finally winding up in the Blasted Lands for the forth flame. Finally, success!
Don't forget, if you don't happen to already be out and about and looking at real fireworks this evening, the celebration will be happening in Azeroth as well. This evening, I believe every hour on the hour, firework displays can be seen over all the major cities in Azeroth (Booty Bay has been my favorite place to watch in the past, but I'm interested in seeing what happens in Shattrath this year as well). Additionally, there will be free booze outside the city gates, so get drunk and party!
And if you haven't done the Midsummer quests yet, don't forget that IcftB will be running all over the world this evening also-- that will kick off around 8:00 pm EST. No matter what you're up to today in-game or out, have a great and safe time, and happy Fourth of July from all of us here at WoW Insider!
First off, I'd like to thank everyone who participated in our tabard design contest! We have some excellent entries, which the WoW Insider staff has combed through for the best of the best -- and now it's your turn! I know we had a tough time narrowing things down to ten finalists -- every entry would have made a lovely tabard. (If you don't believe me, check out our gallery of entries, including commentary from some of the designers.)Take a look at our finalists and pick the one you'd like to see as the official It came from the Blog tabard! Polls will be open for 48 hours, so you have until Monday at 9:00 AM EST to get your vote in. And remember, the top three winners get to take home a "I'm Only Here Because My Server Is Down" t-shirt! Voting, after the jump!
Today's the first day of May, and that means that 
Don't forget, if you don't happen to already be out and about and looking at real fireworks this evening, the 
Subscribe
