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!

It's Hallow's End in Azeroth, and one of the many delightful if temporary additions to the game during the holiday is the flying brooms. But, as Kelriia Frettlar found out recently, those wishing to fly in Outland must do so with a caveat: only in fair weather.

It's a tiny detail, and one that no one would really notice, but it's an excellent one. If it is raining in Outland, as is often the case in Zangarmarsh, the Flying Broom will stop working, giving the error message "the weather isn't right for that." I am entirely enchanted with this entire concept. While I cannot test it myself (alas I only got a standard non-flying broom during my battles with the Headless Horseman) it's enough to know that Blizzard put this detail into the game. Once again I am tickled pink by the sense of humor displayed by the dev team.

I recently found a turkey model while I was wondering through the WoW Model viewer that when it is killed, turns into a cooked turkey on a plate. Although I am not sure exactly how long it's been in the MPQ files, it makes me look forward to what November might have in store for us.

Reader Eckstremus sends us this shot showing off some of Azeroth's weather patterns. (Which usually seem both mild and fleeting -- Azeroth is a pretty sunny place, all in all.) For those of you who can't recognize the location through the storm, we're looking out on the boat dock in Auberdine -- though I couldn't tell you if that's the boat to Darnassus or the boat to the Exodar.

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 a copy to aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com, with as much or as little detail as you'd like to share with the world!

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.

Well, I still haven't seen one single snowflake. not a raindrop...nothing. I've been running around Ellwyn Forest & Stranglethorn Vale all week, and it's been dry as a bone the entire time. And I even bought a nice, new umbrella for the occasion...

I guess there really are weather effects in there somewhere now, though, because MTV.com has a lengthy article on the new weather system, with some interesting bits of behind-the-scenes trivia about it from the devs. Five years in the making? Great, but can I just see it for five seconds, please?

Well, just like the rest of you, I waited patiently all day for the servers to come back online to see all the pretty new bells & whistles in v1.10; especially the new weather effects. Unfortunately for me, the forecast on Lightninghoof must have been clear with no chance of showers, because I ran all over the updated zones trying to spot so much as a cloud & I saw nothing.

How about you guys? Any of you storm chasers encounter any bad weather? Any rain in Ellywn Forest or snow over in Dwarf lands? Got any cool screenshots to share with us?