Dalaran has been one of the most prominent nations in the Eastern Kingdoms since its founding, though it's actually quite small. A nation only thousands strong at its height has perhaps held more sway over world leaders in its time than any other nation, and has attracted the ire of some of the most powerful entities Azeroth has ever seen.

Dalaran, located in the heart of former Lordaeron territory, has been the center of Arcane knowledge since its creation, and could be considered the Humans' answer to Quel'Thalas, though the nation accepts Elves (and many others) in its ranks as well. Magic is Dalaran's lifeblood, and is even ruled through the strength and wisdom of its magi. Dalaran is a magocracy, a government ruled by a council of mages known as the Kirin Tor, elected by citizens of the nation. Their icon is the Violet Eye, with Violet being the motif used for the nation itself, and the color purple representing the Arcane as a whole in Warcraft (Arcane Missiles, Netherstorm).

There's been a lot of hemming and hawing lately about how Wrath is too easy. And there's no question that it is: Ensidia cut through the endgame like an epic dagger through the Vykrul, and any guild that steps into the endgame these days, even with low numbers or cheap gear, finds success. Adam suggested this morning that raiding is so easy these days that we shouldn't bother to track progression, and while Adam is a great writer and a terrific player, I'm here to disagree with his opinion: progression is exactly what the new endgame is all about.

While Karazhan was one of the (if not the) most successful instances ever, it had one big problem: it killed guilds. It murdered progression. It was a roadblock after a roadblock, so much so that it took some guilds months to conquer, if they survived at all. Ten man Naxx obviously doesn't have that problem -- anyone with a little raiding experience who wants to beat bosses in there can do so, and Obsidian Sanctum is just as easy. The problem now, however, is that guilds like Ensidia and guilds who pushed through to Sunwell in the old endgame, are finishing the content already, and wondering what's next? They were 80 two weeks ago, and now, barely a month after the expansion's release, they've toppled every dungeon they can find.

And what's wrong with that? Nothing.

AFK Pl@yers over at Myndflame have created Wrath of a Couch Potato, inspired by Seth Green's acclaimed "Robot Chicken" series. The movie runs a little over 8 minutes in its entirety, and the experience is kind of intense. I suggest watching it somewhere you can really pay attention.

I hate to gush, but I really loved this movie. It's packed with laugh-out-loud moments, and each segment lasts only long enough to deliver a solid joke. The production values are through the roof. Each scene is well framed, and put together with an eye for detail. There's more than a few quotes in here that you can expect to permeat the Trade channel's zeitgeist for the next few months. So, to be fair, if you get annoyed by people endlessly quoting good machinima films, you might get annoyed from what comes out of "Wrath of a Couch Potato."

Click here now to check out Wrath of a Couch Potato.

[via Myndflame]

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch ...

The Sons of Hodir is arguably one of the most important reputations in Wrath of the Lich King due to the items they offer. They're the only faction in Northrend that offers shoulder enchantments for PvE, in rare and epic flavors. Casters? Melee? Healers? Tanks? The Sons of Hodir have all of your shoulder enchants.

The quest chain to completely open up the Sons of Hodir rep grind is long. Really, really long. It's long in the good way, though. It's epic, and part of the chain is quite possibly one of the most fun quests in Wrath, and is as close to God of War as you're going to get in WoW. 'God of War in WoW!?' is what you're probably thinking. My answer to that? Yes. It's freaking awesome.

Each week Arcane Brilliance cooks up a feast for Mages everywhere, just like your mom does. Well...maybe your mom cooks for Druids--I don't know--but my mom always cooked for Mages. Especially at this special time of year, she wanted her little Mages to eat well and give thanks for the bounty they had been given. She taught us to always be grateful for Pyroblast, and Polymorph, but most of all, for Mirror Image. Oh, and she also taught us to kill Warlocks, but that's a whole other story.

So I assume that you're all about sick of leftover turkey at this point (at least, those of you who happen to live in America, I guess), and are ready for a heaping helping of something...Magier. Fear not, for Arcane Brilliance is here to serve a steaming pile of Mage directly to you. If you top it with enough gravy, it tastes pretty good.

Last week we went over some of the new Wrath factions and the rewards they offer for Mages. If you missed that first part, you can find it here. As quite a few of you pointed out in the comments, the stuff from those factions was a bit...underwhelming. Fear not, fellow Mages, the best is yet to come. This week, we'll hit the rest of the new expansion's reputation rewards and highlight those that you'll want to start grinding for now, if you haven't already started.

Blizzard has updated the Armory with a new Wrath of the Lich King theme, and achievements and stat information for each player. It's very cool -- not only can you check out what each player has done so far (including all and recent achievements, and all of the statistics available ingame), but you can also compare players to each other, both in the stats and achievements pages, and you even get, as you can see above, the totals for everything, so you can see just how "achieved" you are.

Very cool. We've been expecting this one since patch 3.0.2 came out (if it's in the game, why wouldn't it be in the Armory?) but obviously other priorities rose to the top before now. Blizzard did a great job with it, though -- they can all head off to the holiday weekend now without worrying about the update.

And then, when they get back, maybe we can haz an official API?

Update: Just noticed that Blizzard also has a news feed on the main page when you log in that tells you about goings on and realm firsts for your character specifically, from who's downed the heroics recently to the first characters to 80 on your own realm. I wonder what they'll report on when all the firsts have been taken, but we'll have to see -- that might be an interesting feed to follow (they provide RSS for it as well).

Wrath of the Lich King introduced not only new content, but an entirely new type of item. These items are called Heirloom items, or Bind to Account (BoA) items. They aren't tied to any one character and can be freely passed from alt to alt, but they're all tied to one account, the account that bought the item. No handing them over to your friends, no mailing them to other players, no mailing them to your second account. So far none of these items are drops, but rewards for more veteran players of the Wrath content. There are two different ways of earning these items, but they dovetail nicely.

Quite simply, you need to participate in Wrath's content. Items suited to PvE are acquired via Emblems of Heroism, and items suited for PvP are acquired via Stone Keeper's Shards.

This week's show was a humdinger -- our own Matthew Rossi (author of our Shaman and Warrior columns) and Daniel Whitcomb (who writes the Death Knight class column), so we've got some terrific discussion for your up-and-coming Death Knights out there. We talked about whether they were OP, and how they're going to fit into our groups and raids, both as tanks and DPS. We also answered emails as usual (including a good one about voice acting in the game, and how the "umbrella factions" in Northrend work), and we talked about how much money Blizzard made last week, and those new commercials (which I just saw on TV the other day).

We had a great time making the show, and hopefully you'll have as good a time listening to it. As always, you can hit up any (or all) of the outlets below (and if you like the show, please do post a short review in iTunes, we'll appreciate it), or just press play right over on the sidebar (you'll find a new one there every morning).

Finally a reminder: we won't have a live show next week (November 29th) due to the Thanksgiving holiday, but we will have a new episode this week, featuring Felicia Day from The Guild as a special guest. She'll be on to talk about season 2 of her show, their big deal with Microsoft, and everything else WoW as usual. Stay tuned -- we'll post that one as soon as it's ready.

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A guildmate of mine was healing a Culling of Stratholme run last night and finally broached a question that seems to have occurred to everyone who's helped Arthas take his utilitarian moral perspective on the road: "Why are we helping this guy?"

It's a question that people used to ask about Black Morass a lot too (indeed, the first boss, Chrono Lord Deja, will ask you that himself), but Black Morass was a little more cut-and-dried. Medivh unquestionably cost many lives in bringing the first Horde through his portal, but if the orcs never set foot in Azeroth, then the world would have fallen to the Legion. The Bronze Dragonflight is unusually blunt about the cause-and-effect; war breaks out among the human kingdoms, the Alliance never occurs, the new Horde is not present at Hyjal to defend against Archimonde's forces -- indeed, the Legion may very well have swept the world without Hyjal ever occurring. So, despite the destruction wrought by the first Horde's entry into Azeroth (and you could argue, because of it), Medivh must succeed in opening the portal.

I'm not sure it's quite that straightforward with "Old Strat" -- and questions about whether it is prompt some thought-provoking questions concerning Azeroth's past, present, and future.

Each Saturday, Arcane Brilliance conjures forth a column all about Mages. You may well wonder: what does Arcane Brilliance do the rest of the week? The answer--up until a couple of weeks ago--was travel through time, righting the wrongs of the past. It was all very heroic, lent itself handily to an episodic format, and Dean Stockwell was prominently involved. Then Wrath happened. Now? Well, now Arcane Brilliance pretty much just hangs around in , ganking Death Knight noobs. Trust us, it's just as heroic, in its own way.

I trust we, as a nation of Mages, are all happily churning our way through the new content, gazing about us in wonder and amazement at the majesty of Northrend, and then nuking the crap out of that majesty. I know I am. Just about everything about the Wrath experience has been positive for me so far. The visuals are incredible, the quests are fun and rich with lore, and the music is phenomenal. I could (and have) spend hours just wandering about Dalaran, taking in the ambiance, feeling all kinds of magey. Seriously, Blizzard, I'm starting a slow-clap right now, and it's all for you.

One thing you've likely noticed as you've quested your way north is that almost everything you do seems to grant you reputation with some new faction or another. If you're anything like me, your first questions were probably "where might I find the quartermasters for these factions," and "what do they sell that is made of cloth and dripping with spellpower?" For a nice overall guide to the basics of these new factions, I'd urge you to check out our own Alex Ziebart's Wrath 101 posts about the subject. They can be found here and here. After the jump, we'll be focusing on the rewards these new factions offer that are specifically valuable to Mages.

Dalaran, as we all know by now, is Wrath's equivalent of Shattrath. It's a neutral city with portals back to every other major city (each faction's four capitals plus Shattrath), it has profession trainers and a bank (but no class trainers besides Mage and no auction house), and we'll probably be spending a lot of time in it once we all hit 80. It floats above Crystalsong Forest in central Northrend. But how do you get there?

Mages can teleport there at level 71, and give portals there at 74. So that's one option. Similarly, you can get a Warlock to summon you, if they can find players around to help. Players also get quests to go there legitimately and get attuned to use the crystal that teleports you up and down at level 74, but who wants to wait that long?

Enter the Battleground summon. This is how I and almost everyone I know got to Dalaran the first time, and it goes like this:

1. Find someone in Dalaran ("/who Dalaran" is helpful for this) and ask politely if they are willing to group with you and queue the group for a battleground.
2. When you get into the battleground, /afk out (or play it through).
3. Poof! You're in Dalaran.

This works at any level, for any character (although you do need to ensure the person queueing you is in the same battleground level bracket as you; thanks to Faeries Wear Boots for pointing this out). Once there you can set your hearthstone at any of several inns for quick return, and there is a flight point at Krasus' Landing - if you grab a flight point or two in Dragonblight for connections (Mo'aki Harbor being the easiest), you should then be able to fly to Dalaran from most flight points in Northrend.

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Arthas awaits and so do your questions. Find the answers you've been looking for that will help you with your journey into Northrend and to level 80 with Wrath 101.

It's a full week after the record-breaking Wrath of the Lich King. How has it been so far? Did it all go according to plan? If you're like most players I know, you had a plan going into the expansion. Personal targets, maybe, or things you were looking forward to doing and achieving. Some of you might even have been your Realm's first Level 80 <insert class here> or <insert race here>. For the rest of us, I have to ask -- did everything go according to plan?

I must confess, I'm not even 80 yet. I had expected to hit Level 80 within a few days, but I had to wait for my wife, with whom I leveled since Day One, to get her Collector's Edition key (eventually made possible only with some arm-twisting and name-taking by our very own Dan O'Halloran -- thanks, Dan!) before I could set foot in Northrend. When my wife finally got her key last Monday, she found my pace too frenetic because I would simply accept quests and do them as I remembered them from Beta. She, on the other hand, wanted to read and enjoy the quests and level up her professions at the same time. We ended up stopping at every Cobalt Node, slowing down our leveling pace considerably.

That kind of changed things. Instead, I eventually decided to level ahead of her on my own time and just accompany her through quests whenever she played. I also stopped rushing myself and didn't mind spending some time in Dalaran's Underbelly looking for elixirs. I guess I'll hit Level 80 eventually. It's not going the way I envisioned it, but I'm actually still enjoying myself. I guess I'm the Man with a Change of Plans. How about you? How has your first week in Northrend been?

Miss hearing Turpster and I on the same podcast? I do too -- I think our show has definitely come into its own, but at this point, there's just a scheduling conflict keeping us apart (Turpster's new show is recorded at exactly the same time as ours). Worry not, however, because whenever we can, we'll try to podcast together, and here's your first chance to hear us again: Michael Zenke and Shawn Schuster of our sister site's Massively Speaking podcast invited both of us on to sit down and talk about the Wrath release with them.

It was a lot of fun -- we talked about the Wrath launch and how it went, and then went on to hit on some of the most important new features for MMO fans in general, and how Blizzard has really done some great work with the new expansion (while also simultaneously borrowing from other developers). And we confronted the topic of whether there was enough content in Wrath at all, and whether it was a bad thing that all the PvE instances have already been cleared. And finally we talked about the future of WoW, and where we might be headed next.

We had a great time (as you can probably hear), and you can listen to the show right on Massively. WoW Insider covers WoW, but Massively covers all MMOs, so if you're also a fan of Guild Wars or LotRO or Warhammer, check them out. And if you're a Turpster fan (who isn't, really?), you can also see him every week in his video series over there, called TurpsterVision. Thanks to Zenke and Schuster for letting us run amuck on their podcast -- we'll have to return the favor on the WoW Insider Show soon.