We've covered the topic of an insane amount of money being paid for an Amani War Bear before, namely about 20,000g. Gold is much easier to come by now-a-days, and most people are finding it easier to amass a small fortune. This number of 20,000g for a bear mount isn't seeming all that far off.

My guild is running two bear groups through Zul'Aman a few times a week, and many of us have our bear mounts now. Those that don't are going to get it quite soon. When this is done we have some different options. We can either run some of our alts and what not through and have a character in greens-galore with a bear mount, or we can sell one of the spots on our run.

This selling thing has got me thinking. While our guild doesn't need any more money for repairs and such (we have plenty in the coffers), we can definitely all go to have a few thousand more gold individually. If we ran one person through on a run for 20,000g we'd each make 2,000g for doing 45 minutes of farm content. That's not too bad.

My friends and I discovered a nice little "bug" the other day. We were sitting around Ironforge with nothing to do other than to give a friendly ribbing to our Shadow Priest friend over that fact that she didn't have her Amani War Bear yet. We had our Mojo's out hopping around the feet of our Bears, trying not to get squished. We found out that if we blew them a kiss, we turned into a frog and our mounts grew quite a bit.

Obviously this is some kind of flaw in the model coding that allows this, but it's a fun enough and harmless enough bug that I can't stop myself from doing it every chance I get. More so, drink some Winterfall Firewater and pop Heroism for a real big frog on a bear mount.

This is definitely hilarious enough that I suggest everyone goes out and tries it at least once. Just leave my Mojo alone. He's spoken for.

I love what Kre's doing on the forums: he's calling for NPC assassination targets. And he's not all talk -- when he gets asked to take a target out, whether it be Katrina Prestor herself or the Ironforge bread vendor (who will not... shut... up!), he and his assassination crew get the job done.

My choice for a kill has already been done (Die, Fandral Staghelm!), but there are all kinds of great requests in the thread -- unfortunately, due to the code of the assassin, Kre can't kill the little kid who stole that dolly in Stormwind, as children are not viable targets. But even Drysc has been sent to meet his maker by these guys. Hilarious. If an NPC has been giving you trouble lately, they'll make sure there are no more problems, if you know what we mean.

Not all the war in Warcraft can be fought on the battlefield -- some of it has to be fought in the back alleys and in the shadows. Glad to see that Kre and his crew (Aelas has pulled off some excellent kills here, too) are going a little guerilla in the constant fight against NPCs.

This week, The Care and Feeding of Warriors tells you warriors that you are awesome. Matthew Rossi has a Tauren, Orc, Human, Draenei and Night Elf warrior at level 70. So you know he means it. Seriously, the dude loves the warrior class. Don't make the mistake of mentioning it around him, because that guy will latch onto you like a facehugger and he won't stop until love for the warrior class has burst out of your chest and sprayed the acid blood of its delight all over the room.

He's also incredibly, incredibly bad at metaphors.

As we've seen a couple of times this week, I am an unabashed cheerleader for the warrior class.

Objectivity is a good thing, of course, and like sincerity if you can fake it you've got it made. Quipping aside, however, objectivity has its time and its place, but there's no way you could bring yourself to read (nor me to write) 38 columns about warriors written with total objectivity. In my admittedly, gloriously biased view, each class column here on WoW Insider should be written with a love for that class, aiming to promote it, to praise it, to help point out where it needs love and otherwise champion the women and men who play it. This is made easier for me because, frankly, I'm nearly totally insane when it comes to warriors.

I remember, after struggling to 30 or so on my first toon, rerolling warrior back in December of ought four. He was an orc, made mainly to test out the class. After five minutes and the arrival of level four, I was hooked. You see, you get an ability called Charge. It doesn't sound like much when you describe it... you zip over and stun a target for a second. Big whoop. But oh my word, does charge make a difference when you're actually playing that low level warrior! You feel like a god! At least until the first time you charge into six mobs and are promptly annihilated. It was in those first moments of play that my adoration for this class became manifest, and has kept me rolling along in WoW ever since. Some people feel more favoritism towards a specific class than others... some of my best friends in game like them all fairly equally, and while I was leveling five warriors and two shamans to 70, they were out there leveling a useful assortment of varying classes and gaining a very broad knowledge of the game.

Lagerosi asked on the general forums if The Frozen Throne was in fact the end of the war between the Alliance and the Horde. Jheric clarified our current faction status well:

What exists now is essentially a cold war, with the two factions fighting in proxy areas such as Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin, much like the way the U.S. and U.S.S.R. would send weapons and 'advisers' to small countries in Africa and Asia.

With the transition from active warfare has come shifting allegiances, such as the Blood Elves joining the Horde after falling out with the Alliance (pretty much all the fault of one Alliance general), and Dalaran electing for neutrality.

Now, I've played a little Xbox with my WoW guildies, but when it comes to cross-game guilds, that's as far as my experience goes. I used to play in a guild in Dark Age of Camelot, but I can't remember their name, much less know if they ever brought their game over into World of Warcraft.

But Guildcafe has an interview up with Lords of the Dead, and these guys define cross-game guilding. They've been around for 12 years, playing all the way back from Ultima Online up to WoW (and now they're making plans, apparently, for WAR.

So how do you keep a guild together for 12 years? In the interview, they extol the virtues of "rules, policies and requirements," which makes sense-- you either follow the rules, or you're out of the guild before you can cause drama. In addition, LotD is able to build a strong guild leadership for every game they play-- a good leader will help any guild survive, and great leadership across games is how LotD did it. An interesting read for guild leaders and members alike-- have you been able to follow or lead a guild into or out of WoW?

[ via Curse ]

In reading through my list of video game blogs I came across a fascinating post on Got Game. Andrew Whelps discusses how he views the WoW PvP battle system to be one without honor, since the battle has no real consequence. It's a "dirty war" sort of scenario, wrapped in an idealized fantasy.

Interesting to contemplate really. The notion that our battle has no consequence to the real world is valid. We run our battles either in instances, or in the world. In the instances, we have no context as to why we must kill, only know we are there to defeat the enemy. We hate them, therefore they must die. The NPCs will respawn, the opposing faction will resurrect, no harm done. We perform brutal acts that have no affect on our environment. If we raid Crossroads or Lakeshire the towns do not burn, the landscape remains unchanged.