Prancing around Quel'Danas for my daily quests day in and day out has reminded me of something I've very dearly missed. Weather! It rains very frequently in Quel'Danas, and combined with all of the action going on around the island, it has a very strong feel of being alive.

Zangarmarsh has rain as well, but I can't think of any other zone in Outland that has weather effects that come and go. Sure, some zones have Infernal rains and such inside and outside of them, but that isn't really the same. It's a constant, it's static. When you go to that zone, it will be there 100% of the time. Azeroth's weather wasn't like that. After it was added, of course. It might be raining in Stranglethorn, it might be sunshine from horizon to horizon. When it was raining, the zone had an entirely different feel. You were doing the same things, but it just felt different.

I brought this up with some friends of mine a few times before, and we tried to think it through with logic at first. You know, the atmosphere is different, so maybe other zones in Outland can't rain. It's an alien world, so who knows? Even if you play the 'alien world = no rain' card, I think there are some awesome weather-related things you can do. Read on for my thoughts on the matter!

We had two similiar comments drop in on the tipline in the past few days that both are pretty interesting ideas that WoW does all right with, but could probably do a lot better. Foxtir dropped us a note the other day voicing an opinion about the night and day cycle of World of Warcraft. As you may have noticed, WoW does have a night/day cycle already-- when it's midday, the light looks very different from the middle of the night (and my favorite zone in the whole world is Hinterlands in the evening). But Foxtir wants an even more obvious cycle-- during the day, Stormwind should be bustling, while at night, the weirdos could come out, and maybe even some Defias could be found in the city. It would be cool to see the day and night cycles have a gameplay effect as well-- in Warcraft III, they definitely did, but in WoW, I don't know that the day/night timing has any effect but the lighting.

And Jasperwind sent another note saying basically the same thing about the weather-- we've got the occasional rain and snow, but what if weather affected gameplay somehow? Or even more extreme forms of weather, he suggests-- what if earthquakes scared mobs away for a matter of time?

Let's give Blizzard credit where credit is due-- most games don't have a night/day cycle (much less a realtime cycle), and many games have no weather at all, or implement it badly (and anyone who's ever experienced a freak storm in Tirisfal will agree that Blizzard didn't do that). So WoW is already ahead of the curve in both cases. But in an MMORPG where we pay monthly, we can always expect more. And it would definitely be cool (and add a little more strategy to the game) to have these cosmetic changes affect the lives and actions of the characters we play.

No, this week I'm not featuring WoWspaces that have lots of good information or reaction on the upcoming patch. Considering we're featuring oodles of 2.3 news lately, I thought it would be fun to show off 2.3 WoWspaces. (I'll let you figure out which one is the .3 of a WoWspace) These are some of the generally off-the-beaten-desk variety pictures that we get. That said, on with the show!

The first WoWspace this week (pictured above) features one thing we haven't seen featured in a WoWspace until this week -- feet! This WoWspace belongs to Bork. He writes:

While playing WoW on a TV is not a new idea, It did take me quite a while to get it to the point where I wasn't leaning over my coffee table the whole time -- at least, not without a big ugly book for a mouse pad. I had to scale up the interface in the config so I could actually read the tiny text in the interface. (the GUI stops you at one) Bartender 3 also helped since scaling up the interface made the bars render off the side of the screen.

I have my keyboard all taped up to a product from laptopdesk.net. I tried many things but this was the lightest and easiest. I also couldn't stand gaming with the wireless products out there so I have a standard wired keyboard and mouse (lots more blue tape holding it down to the carpet).

Anyway, just wanted to share in case someone else is trying to get this to work in their living room. I actually gave up and moved everything into my bedroom twice because of a sore back, but now it works well.

For those who are interested in the other non-traditional WoWspaces for this week, click on the link below and let's continue on!

Maybe I haven't spent enough time adventuring in Zangarmarsh (I do seem to jump straight from Hellfire Penninsula into Terokkar Forest on most characters), but I've never seen the sky quite this shade of pink. However, reader Humata of Twisting Nether (EU) managed to snag this impressive shot of the brilliant Zangarmarsh sky.
Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth.