Want to hear something frightening? There will be no more class forums. Nethaera announced it a bit earlier on the official forums, and I'm still not sure what to think. They're breaking down the class forums and replacing them with role forums: Tanking, Healing, and Damage Dealing. For those players that have been afraid they're homogenizing classes a little too much, this really isn't helping.

Personally, I think this is a horrible move. The official class forums were bad enough, and now they've thrust all of the classes together. Have you seen those really cruel, gross videos where they put two scary looking bugs together in a glass cage and let them kill each other, and they'll do it every single time just because it's in their nature to defend themselves? This is the WoW forum equivalent of it. This is going to be a disaster. The walls are going to be painted with blood.

Warhammer Online comes out today. For many players, this is an exciting time, as the game looks fantastic and there have been many favorable reviews of the game. As a huge fan of PvP, I was greatly attracted to Warhammer's RvR concept and how PvP actually shaped the game world. I was really all ready to sign up and even purchase the Collector's Edition but when EA-Mythic released the specs for the game, I was sorely disappointed. Unlike Blizzard games, which are made for Macs and PCs, WAR is only coming to Windows.

So I'll be sitting on the sidelines and watching my friends try out Warhammer. I think I'll be alright, though. Blizzard recently announced that Wrath of the Lich King will be released on November 13, and to be frank it's more than enough for me. While I would've loved to try out Warhammer Online, I think I'm pretty content with the game I'm playing now. In fact, I don't think I've ever been more excited to play the game. With less than two months to go before Wrath, I think it's a great time for the MMO genre in general. How about you guys? Are you ready for WAR?

Wow. That was some big news there, wasn't it? As excited as we all were for Wrath of the Lich King, I don't think any of us expected the announcement that a pre-Wrath content patch would be unleashed upon the public in -- to quote Eyonix -- "the coming weeks". While this is Blizzard we're talking about, a few weeks isn't quite as nebulous as their traditional "soon". This can also mean that the content patch could be strategically, shrewdly timed to coincide with the launch of another game that also starts with 'W'.

If that's the case, then we can expect to see the pre-Wrath patch in about four weeks! That's nerve-wrackingly close. Anyway, Eyonix ran through a list of stuff that will come with the patch and it's exciting to see that Inscription will be in it. This means that players won't be required to purchase Wrath of the Lich King in order to take it up, unlike Jewelcrafting. There are a bunch of other stuff coming in the patch -- what's the thing that excites you most?

I know. I'm not in Beta, and yet I'm as giddy as a greedy little boy who just got hold of a cookie jar with every bit of Wrath of the Lich King information. We've seen the breathtaking Howling Fjord, bits of the Borean Tundra, and even glimpses into the lush forests of Sholazar Basin. I don't think I could be excited enough for Lake Wintergrasp, even though there's just so little information about it. Elizabeth Harper, who's playing around in the Beta, has said that Dragonblight is her favorite zone.

From what we've seen so far, it really looks like Wrath of the Lich King is going to be one hell of a game. Each of the zones -- as has been the trend throughout World of Warcraft -- has its own personality. Blizzard has said that it won't all be ice and snow, and the diversity that's been revealed up to this point seems to attest to that. What zone are you most excited to see and most eager to explore when you get to Northrend?

Some of the best and worst times I've had in WoW have come from playing with people who were not anywhere near my own age. My very first WoW friend was 20 years younger than me and we had a blast. In fact, I ended up playing with her sister and her parents too. But just yesterday I was reminded that sometimes age does matter when I pugged with a bunch of, well, real doofuses (doofii?) whose every other comment was a poop joke. I have never before logged in mid-air while between flight paths, but that's how much they annoyed me. I'm sure that some of my comments that start with "Dude..." or contain the phrase "teh awesome" are just as annoying to other people. So, anyway, it got me to wondering about the game's age ranges. I think everyone assumes that most people who play the game fall into their own age group so I thought it might be fun to find out how the ranges really do break down -- at least for folks who read WoW Insider. So spill it! No one will know what you answered, but it should be interesting to see the results.

My guild, and my realm in general, has a tank shortage. This is neither new nor unusual; in my experience, tanks have always been the most in demand on most servers (although that may be colored by the fact that my main is a healer). So I've decided to level a tank. The problem is, I've decided that a few times now, which means I currently have one of each tanking class languishing in the level 40 range somewhere: a paladin, a druid, and a warrior. And I just can't decide which one to work on, or even if I should bother as opposed to just waiting until Wrath of the Lich King comes out and I can get an instantly-level-55 Death Knight for a tank.

What do you guys think? What's funnest to level? What makes the best tank for heroics/early raiding? Which one should I drag out of Stranglethorn, kicking and screaming, ultimately into Outland and beyond?

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.

Every weekend, I'll be rounding up the best of the recent WoW-related webcomic entries and bringing them straight to you. As a change, instead of simply commenting old stylez about your picks, for better or for worse, you'll now be able to vote on them in a poll; and who doesn't like polls?

Through the week, if you find a WoW-themed comic you particularly like, drop us an e-mail or throw the link in the comments section. Here are the picks for this week:

1. Night Elf Guitar Hero
   
2. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
3. "It burns"
4. "Dwarven pick-up lines"
5. Check This Out!
   
6. Danesar of Daggerspine: Episode 14 - The Battle Begins!
   

Number one is a quickie, but some of the others will require you to take a few moments to read through them. Although, in my humble opinion, they're all worth the effort.

Cast your vote after the jump!

I saw this poll over at the worldofwarcraft LiveJournal community, and immediately wondered how you loyal WoW Insider readers would vote, and whether it would be different from the LJers.

The original question was: "Of all the classes available in WoW, what one do you have the least interest in playing?"

Now I know Death Knight is not technically available in WoW yet, but I'm sure some people are already violently disinterested in playing them, so I put them on the poll as well.

Forum-goers have been requesting polls for a while now, with posts such as, "It's time to start POLLING your playerbase," which actually argued that Blizzard should set up in-game polling stations to ask about whether or not players really want various new features in the game. Nethaera responded to this particular post right away; her basic point was to say that "Polls can be incredibly inaccurate" -- they're fun, but there are actually a wide variety of methods that need to be used in order to get proper feedback. Furthermore, just because the popular voice thinks that the game should move in one direction, that doesn't actually mean that would be the best direction for the game to move in. The developers need to make decisions with feedback in mind, but also balanced against the hard, cold core of the reality they're facing, not the dreamland that players may have in mind. That said, apparently there are lots of player suggestions that have been put into the game, including even flight path changes and new graveyards.

But Blizzard wants to give us polls anyway! As Drysc tells the American forum-goers:

Welcome to our first test of the World of Warcraft polling system! With this new poll system we'll be able to pick the collective brains of the forum goers, and encourage discussion based on the questions they pose. While we're pretty sure that they won't always be accurate, it will hopefully still be a lot of fun. With our first poll we're asking you, the poster, the controversial and highly debated, discussed, and argued question:

Does .999~ = 1?

While we already have some great poll questions all lined up, we need more! Offer us your best questions for future polls. These can be yes/no or multiple choice, and if we like it, you may just find your poll up here in the weeks and months ahead.

There's an interesting discussion going on over on the forums about whether or not Blizzard should conduct player polls. Antiquity from Lightning's Blade can't see why they don't-- it's an easy way for them to get quick feedback about different aspects of gameplay. But Nethaera disagrees. She says (and I can see her point as well) that polls are commonly inaccurate, which is definitely true, and while she doesn't exactly come out and say it, she seems to be implying that Blizzard would rather hear player feedback in terms of discussion rather than in numbers. Just hearing that 70% of players will use voice chat doesn't tell the whole story-- more important to know would be the reasons players would use voice chat, and in what situations they would use it.

So it's not really likely that Blizzard will implement in-game polling anytime soon-- for now, they're content to get their player feedback from the forums (and, I suspect, from sites just like this one).

However. We here at WoW Insider have no such compunctions, and we love to hear your feedback in terms of numbers just as much as in the comments. And I especially like Antiquity's poll suggestion, so here it is. Yes, this isn't really a solution to what he wants-- he wants to hear in-game voices, not forum voices or WoW Insider reader voices. But it is an interesting question, and I would like to see what you all think.



(I did leave off the "All of the above" choice-- if that was on there, I don't see why everyone wouldn't choose it. This way, you're forced to choose your preference.)

Well there you go. I'd like to say that I called it (although I did say that voice chat would find a place in a lot of PUGgers' hearts), but I was surprised to see that 70% of you readers expect to use Blizzard's new voice chat feature coming in 2.2. Personally, I'd rather stick to Teamspeak (and I'm guessing my guild will do just that). And I know, from the comments yesterday, that there are lots of people out there who just don't want to get involved in voice chat, whether there's an ingame system or not.

But clearly Blizzard was right to put the time in-- there is a good majority of players ready to plug a mic in and start speaking to each other. Very interesting.

Update: You're right, commenters. Title updated from "players" to "WoW Insider readers," since that's who we actually polled. I only got a B in Stats class in college.

True confessions: I was up til about 7 this morning leveling my blood elf warlock (caster noob alert!), after tooling around in the Outlands with my 60 rogue for a while. But, you know, it was totally "work-related"! So fess up -- how late did you stay up? Are you a proud member of the bleary-eyed workforce today? Or did you catch that <cough> nasty bug </cough> that was flying around -- I think it must have spread like wildfire from all the social contact of midnight launches. Please to be inputting your answer to our lunchtime launch night poll:

How late did you stay up?
	Only a couple of hours past my usual bedtime. Gotta be sensible.
	Way too freaking late, I'm exhausted today!
	I hate you midnight launch people, I live in a yurt. A yurt next to Best Buy.
	I'm still waiting to pick up/for my expansion to arrive.
	Sleep? You mean people slept? n00bs.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

While out hunting with my undead rogue on the WoW Insider server today, I came across a Night Elf Warrior, several levels higher than me, in the process of ganking a lowly level 10 Priest, and his friend, who had already fallen. They had put up a good fight, taking about half the warrior's health, but the fight was almost over when I decided to step in at the last minute to see if I could do any good.

I figured that, even with half his health, he would take me down as well without much trouble, but to my surprise, I got a couple of lucky criticals in, and with the help of a handy health potion, actually brought him down. I can't tell you how richly satisfying that kill was was, and it got me to wondering...

Have you ever had any PvP moments in the game that were memorable for one reason or another? Ones that made you want to stand up & cheer, or ones so embarrassi! ng (like being killed by a rogue 10 levels lower than you) that you wanted to cringe? Let us hear about 'em; everybody loves a good adventure story...or a good tragedy.