I really don't know why, but lately my friends and I are trying to get each other to do something stupid with content we've already mastered. Last night I found myself talking to a good friend of mine and the conversation went something like this:

Me: "I'm bored. What are you up to?"
Her: "Aran."
Me: "Remember to move during the flame wreath."
Her: "And stand in the blizzard, right?"
Me: "Yeah, so you're cold when the flame wreath hits you."

Now obviously this is the exact opposite of what you want to do. But the sheer absurdity of it makes me laugh. I mean, who among us hasn't seen flame wreath and thought, "Hey, it'd be really funny if I moved right now. Everyone would probably want to kill me... but still, it'd be a great Leroy moment."

I don't think I'm alone in this. I've heard other people joke about it as well. That makes me feel good; proves that while I'm a geek, at least I have some company. But what I really want to know is what you all think about this. So here's what I want. Leave a comment with a piece of absurd advice that only WoW folks would understand.

Then, next weekend I'll pick the top five or so and we can all vote for the most absurd piece of WoW advice. No prize for the winner or anything like that, just bragging rights.

So tell us all - what is some of the most absurd and funny advice you can think of?

For some reason on my home server, Eldre'Thalas, when folks see a tank standing around in Shattrath without anything to do, they immediately start sending tells asking if I want to go tank such-and-such an instance for them. I don't mind it when my friends or guild mates do it, but it does get a little annoying when complete strangers do it constantly.

So I've come up with a solution: spirit and intellect armor. Whenever I'm doing anything other than fighting, I'm wearing bright yellow spirit and intellect armor that I got off the AH. I spent about a hundred gold on this dastardly set. It looks awful, it smells awful, and it's a great repellent for annoying unsolicited LFG tells.

I got the idea from looking at people's gear who are apping to my guild. Some of it was just plain nuts – spirit gear on Warriors, "of stamina" gear on Priests, things like that. Of course, they might have just been logged out in that gear the same way I'm logged out in mine right now. But when you're apping to a guild and one of the requirements is to log out in PvE gear for the next week, well, too bad so sad for them.

Bornakk posted a poll on the forums the other day asking what everyone's favorite April Fool's joke from Blizzard was, and surprisingly (to me, anyway -- I thought Tauren Marines would win for sure), the Molten Core Atari game is winning. There's no question that the bears joke was great (it does make sense), but I thought the game looked a little boring. Blizzard fans disagree, however -- people like the pixelated versions of the old MC bosses.

Which brings us to the question of whether Blizzard could actually do this. Boffo says he'd shell out $10 to play this game, while other people say they'd spend as much as $30 to actually see it on retail shelves (or, more likely, as a download). The game looks like a version of Asteroids more than anything, and the trailer (on purpose, probably) don't really make it clear what the rules are. But it looks simple enough to put together -- maybe a weekend's work by a dedicated coder with some MC runs under his or her belt.

Instead of a release, though, it'd be more fun to see this implemented as a minigame somewhere. We already know that Blizzard is planning to do some mobile work, so maybe they could release this as a fun distraction for the iPhone while planning something bigger. Incorporating it into the main WoW game somewhere would be a fun possibility as well. I can't think of any other time when a Blizzard 4/1 joke actually made it into real life (Two-headed ogres aren't actually playable yet), but they might as well start here, right?

It's now safe to go back to the forums -- the "lolcats," "lolwut"s, "lolz," and all of the other nonsense Blizzard put in players' posts have been deleted, finally. Blizzard hasn't given any hint why it took so long -- of course there's the chance that they just let the joke go on long enough (and trust me, you shouldn't be too angry at anyone who pushes an April Fool's Day joke longer than you think it should go), but it seems a little more likely that the folks in charge of the joke stumbled a little bit -- for a while there, it seemed like we might have "lolz" forever.

But no, things are back to normal, and all of the "lol wut"s that you see on the forums are players' own fault.

Nehthaera today wanted to let a lot of the naysayers out there know a thing or two about their April Fool's jokes and the issues with the servers. She tells us the obvious, more or less: the people who do the April Fool's work are completely separate from the people that do the server and development work.

So these elaborate and well done jokes have exactly zero impact on the servers. They don't have anything to do with maintenance, with patch 2.4, or with Wrath of the Lich King (well, unless you actually believe there'll be a bard class). This means they could have done nothing for April Fool's, and things still would have been as difficult as they were yesterday.

I want to give Nethaera two thumbs up for her post. I really enjoy it lately when GMs and CMs lay the smack down about issues like this, especially to whiney forum posters.

The prank was criticized for supporting the belief that World or Warcraft players are lazy and obsessed. I can understand the complaint, but I admit to tabbing out while waiting for arena queues to order pizza online at least once or twice.

Well, I think this collection of jokes on the official forums is absolutely hilarious -- combining my interests in both World of Warcraft and pirates -- but quite a few posters seem to feel the thread I'm about to point you to is quite groan-worthy. So if you don't feel like you can take yet another pirate pun, you may want to stop reading now. But for those of you who enjoy this sort of pure goofiness, have I got the forum thread for you. Poster Grinbomb gets us started with this joke:

Q: What did the pirate spec his mage?
A: Arrrrcane.

And the madness continues from there:

Q: What's a pirate's favorite lore character?
A: Arrrrthas.

True Bloodsail Buccaneers will be amused. The rest of you should go on with your lives elsewhere. (And for those of you wanting to show your allegiances, there's always this fine shirt from J!NX.)

Here's a few of the highlights:

General Notes

* Changed flight points to make them go the scenic route more often
* Adjusted flight point costs to reflect the longer distances. Longer distances = more money.
* Poor players will no longer be able to speak. Sorry. No begging or gold website advertising.
* Will of the Forsaken will be removed, due to popular opinion. Replacing it will be Emo Feelings of the Forsaken, which makes the /dance emote cooler. I mean, coolioo.

So for a Forum thread that is full of silly fun (or perhaps just full of weird, depending on your sense of humor) head on over to the Shaman forums and check the "2.2 patch notes" out.

[via the Shaman Forums]

Skosiris of Wowhead graciously let us know that they are being bought by Blizzard, for no less than nine million dollars! This is great news for my favorite WoW data site. In addition, Skosiris and Evilseed will be joining Blizzard as WoW's new lead class designers. They promise the following immediate improvements:

• Removal of the Hunter class
• Implementation of Pandaren as a playable race
• New Engineering schematic for Mages to let them create an actual vending machine

Kudos, Wowhead, for making it big-time. I hope this doesn't affect the quality of your layout, though; make sure not to let Blizzard's web designers near your site. And as far as Hunters go -- it's about time!

Another April, another round of announcements from Blizzard. It's like Christmas, only more entertaining. Let's see what we have in our stocking, shall we?

First off, we finally have a way to hide ourselves from the Armory, in the form of the epic Tinfoil Hat. Not only does it prevent the Armory from indexing your data, it also hides you from in-game inspection, keeps you out of /who, and features an on use effect preventing mind control. You might have to slum it a bit to gather the 99 tin bars, but the joy of farming the tears of trolls will surely make it up to you. It's also required to gain access to the WoW forums, much like the Drakefire Amulet for Onyxia's Lair.

Secondly, we have a first look at Blizzard's next game! Set in the Warcraft universe we all know and love, Warcraft: Heroes of Azeroth lets us see the epic struggle in a whole new way. This prequel to WoW lets us command buildings and units from an all-new top-down perspective, taking control of four races (night elves, orcs, humans, and undead). It takes PvP and PvE to a greater scale -- we'll get to command whole armies at once! And tying into WoW's mechanics are powerful heroes, who gain experience and items to progress in potency; these include WoW greats like Thrall and Jaina Proudmore. All in all, should be a fun new look at this great story and setting.

Finally, we have a new attunement chart, this time for the Black Temple. It seems to take you through every instance in Outland a few times, as well as the Molten Core, the world dragons, BWL, and Onyxia's Lair. I for one am glad that this doesn't follow the pattern of attunements to places like the Eye, which are simply too easy to get into. Can you say free epics? In all honesty, I would have expected Deadmines to be on this attunement path somewhere, but perhaps it'll be patched into it later. Finally, after turning in a few Badges of Justice (500) and Marks of Honor (100) and fending off an Illidari invasion for a moderate six hours, the Black Temple awaits. I reckon I'll be attuned within 24 hours of the patch; how about you guys?

Normally, I wouldn't take a second glance at a post with a title like this. However, the little Blizzard icon next to it, indicating a response from a Blizzard employee, compelled me to investigate further. And, if you're in need of a good laugh, perhaps you should take a look at Eyonix's explanation of how many World of Warcraft forum posters it takes to change a light bulb:

1 to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed
6 to share that they were the first to read and respond to the light bulb being changed
5 to convey disatisfaction for failing to be the first to read and respond to the light bulb being changed
14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently
7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs
7 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs
5 to flame the spell checkers
3 to correct spelling/grammar flames
6 to argue over whether it's "lightbulb" or "light bulb" ... another 6 to condemn those 6 as stupid
2 proclaimed industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term is "lamp"
15 who claim that they were previously in the industry, and that "light bulb" is perfectly correct
19 to post that this forum is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a lightbulb forum
11 to defend the posting to this forum saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts are relevant to this forum
36 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique and what brands are faulty
7 to post URL's where one can see examples of different light bulbs
4 to post that the URL's were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URL's
3 to post about links they found from the URL's that are relevant to this group which makes light bulbs relevant to this group
4 to discuss how Paladins need to be fixed
5 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy
13 to say "do a Google search on light bulbs before posting questions about light bulbs"
1 to respond to the original post 6 months later to start it all over again.