Putting a call out for a pure resto shaman columnist brought out the best in applicants and this time we came out with a clear winner. We know him as Joe Perez, but you may know him as Lodur, the resto shaman columnist at World of Matticus. He will be joining Michael Sacco and Rich Maloy on Totem Talk in the next week or two when we get him contracted and set up.

When Euripides of OutDPS wasn't chosen as our hunter columnist, he came back with a proposal to write a weekly column about the auction house. We liked what we saw and asked him to join us. In addition to writing for one of the premiere hunter blogs, Basil Berntsen also runs a podcast on Auction House gold making and hopefully will be making appearances on our own podcast as well. He will be coordinating with Amanda Miller on Time Is Money and Michael Gray on Insider Trader to bring you even more tips on making gold in-game.

Thanks to all who applied! If you didn't make it, make sure to check out our new call-out for guest writing.

Filed under: WoW Insider Business

You may be seeing some new names on the site soon, but don't be alarmed! In addition to the new columnists who have recently joined us, we also are starting a new Guest Writer program through Aol's Seed.com. Seed is new site designed to allow writers submit work for publication on many of the blogs Aol owns, in this case, WoW.com. (If you are interested in potentially writing for this or any other Aol site, I encourage you to set up your Seed.com account now. Seed only works for USA based writers and your real name will appear on our site.)

We're going to be using Seed in a couple of different ways:

• We'll be tapping WoW writers around the internet to write specific posts for us. In fact, you will see two this week: one from Chris Dinwiddie (aka Graylo of Gray Matter) and another from Richard Powell (founder of the LoreCrafted blog).
• We'll occasionally call out for anyone to contribute on specific topics and pick the best for publication. You may have noticed us doing one of these already! Our recent call out for tips on running random heroics received dozens of submissions and we're going through them now.

For any future opportunities, keep an eye on the site or our Twitter feed -- we're aiming to call out for your content once or twice a week. And in the meantime? Don't panic if you see unfamiliar names on the site -- after all, the next name could be yours!

To be crystal clear: we now have two ways of hiring writers. We still have the old way where we can contract writers regardless of the where they live for regular, long term writing on the site and we have this new way which we use when we only want to use a writer once or irregularly. This new way, unfortunately, is limited to writers in the U.S. The geographical restrictions for Seed submissions are unfortunate, but out of our control. If it changes, we will let you know.

Filed under: WoW Insider Business, Guest Posts

Hundreds and hundreds of applications later, we have selected (most of) our newest columnists. It was quite difficult to choose among the top entries and we want to thank all of you who applied. Your enthusiasm for both the game and our site was truly awe-inspiring.

Now, on to the new hires. As you will see below, some things changed during the application review process. There was much debate over the final choices, and we think the new writers we are bringing on are the best of the best.

Legal Columnist: We've decided to add a legal columnist to WoW.com, covering various aspects of the law as it relates to WoW and online gaming. Amy Schley, a third year law student at the University of Missouri - Kansas City, will be joining our staff and provide her insights in the area once a week. Additionally, expect Amy to weigh on hot button legal issues as they come about, like the recent string of arrests made through WoW.

Paladin: When we put out the call for a holy paladin writer, we were approached by our rogue columnist, Chase Christian. He has been raiding as a holy paladin for quite some time and wanted to know if we would consider him for the new column. We asked him to submit an application and compared it to all the others we received for the position. He rocked it. Chase will continue with the rogue weekly column and will be starting The Light And How To Swing It - holy paladin edition next week. Gregg Reece will continue to cover retribution and protection paldin topics on a weekly basis, but will be posting his column on Thursdays instead of the weekend.

Shaman: Turns out asking for an odd spec combination didn't work out for us. We were hoping to find someone who could cover both restoration and enhancement for us, but, while we received applications that attempted one or the other, we weren't hugely impressed with any that attempted both. We were very impressed with one particular enhancement shaman application. We couldn't pass up on Rich Maloy aka Stoneybaby from Big Hit Box and so we decided to hire him to focus purely on enhancement shaman.

Unfortunately, we didn't see any equally stand-out resto apps -- so we're still looking for a resto shaman. We feel that many good candidates probably did not apply due to the requirement of being an expert on the enhancement tree. Now that we are going to have three separate weekly shaman columns, we are now accepting applications for pure resto shaman. You have until Sunday, January 31, 2010 to apply. Details on our LFM page. If you've already applied once, you are welcome to reapply.

More writer selections after the jump!

Read more →

Filed under: WoW Insider Business

We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Today's edition is brought to you by Dan O'Halloran, your resident WoW.com managing editor and founder of the WoW class news aggregation site, The Daily Druid.

Feral cat guides on the internet seem harder to find than other spec guides, so I've collected a few here for those of you looking to claw faces with greater efficiency.

• WoW Wiki's Feral DPS Guide: A very comprehensive guide for cat druids covering specs and glyphs, dps rotation, gear stat explanations, Rawr video walkthrough, enchants, gems, consumables and more.
• Melee hit table FAQ for feral druids: The Fluid Druid blog breaks down why cat druids need to hit the hit cap.
• Cat Druid best in slot gear list updated for Icecrown: Kalon has actually rated a long list of top items available to cat druids for each slot, but don't we all just look at the best in slot and skip the rest?
• Best 3.3 non-tier cat gear: Kalon is at it again, this time listing the best gear you can get for the 5 tier slots if you don't have new T10 gear, yet.
• Cat dps guide for Icecrown Citadel: Lower Spire: Jacemora gives a down and dirty bullet point listing of strats for each one of the ICC bosses.

Filed under: Druid, The Daily Quest

Not only are we taking applications for a resto/moonkin druid columnist, a holy paladin columnist, a lore columnist and an addon columinst, but now we'd like to throw the shaman column into the mix. After over two years of throwing down shaman advice like totems at an Onyxia raid, Matt Rossi is moving on to other writing duties on the site (and continuing with the warrior column.) And, as with the other hybrid class columns, we are going to take this opportunity to split the column into two weekly installments to focus on specific talent trees.

Our very own Michael Sacco, who has recently been promoted to Editor here as well as taking over the reins of the WoW Insider Show podcast, will be writing a weekly elemental shaman installment of Totem Talk. That leaves us with the need for an restoration/enhancement shaman columnist, with a particularly strong background in the healing aspect. If that's you and you want to get paid to write about your favorite class, follow the directions listed on our application page. You have until end of day Friday, January 15th to apply.

We are no longer accepting applications. We are currently reviewing the hundreds that have poured in. I will update this post when we have selected our new columnists. Thanks!

Filed under: Shaman, WoW Insider Business

First, thanks for all of you who applied as our new priest and hunter columnists. There were some truly awe-inspiring submissions (and a few jaw-dropping ones as well, and I don't mean that in the good way). In fact, we were so impressed that we hired two priest columnists!

Welcome Dawn Moore, our new Spiritual Guidance columnist. She will be covering all things holy and discipline. We were also delighted with the application of one Mr. Fox Van Allen and have hired him as our second Spiritual Guidance columnist, but he will be focusing exclusively on shadow priest topics. Believe me, he is as entertaining as his name implies. The priest column will run twice a week now, Sundays with Dawn and Wednesdays with Fox.

As for our new hunter columnist, it was close. Damn, it was close. But in the end a decision had to be made and Brian Wood aka Frostheim of the Warcraft Hunters Union has agreed to join us. You will be seeing his column soon.

And finally, we are calling out for even more columnists to join us! Details after the jump.

We are no longer accepting applications. We are currently reviewing the hundreds that have poured in. I will update this post when we have selected our new columnists. Thanks!

Read more →

Filed under: WoW Insider Business

For the final give away of WoW.com's 12 Days of Winter Veil contests we thought we'd end big. How big? With a pack of four Steelseries gaming accessories worth $275. It includes one of each:

• World of Warcraft MMO Gaming Mouse
• World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King Mousepad
• World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lick King Z-board
• Steelseries Siberia v2 Full Size Headset

The contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 18 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before 11:59pm ET Sunday, January 3, 2010. Please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact you should you be the winner. You may enter only once and one winner will be selected randomly. That winner will receive 1 World of Warcraft MMO Gaming Mouse, 1 World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King Mousepad, 1 World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lick King Z-board and 1 Steelseries Siberia v2 Full Size Headset with a retail value of US$275. Click here to read the official contest rules.

EDIT: Contest closed. Thanks everyone!

Filed under: Contests

We're on the last day of WoW.com's 12 Days of Winter Veil contests and to keep the swag rolling, we're giving away a gift certificate that will give you $100 credit for merchandise ordered at Swagdog. We have 2 of those codes to give away and you can enter for a chance to win one of them.

The contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 18 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before 11:59pm ET Sunday, January 3, 2010. Please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact you should you be the winner. You may enter only once and two winners will be selected randomly. Each winner will get a code for credit at Swagdog.com with a retail value of US$100. Click here to read the official contest rules.

EDIT: Contest closed. Thanks everyone!

Filed under: Contests

WoW.com's final day of Twelve Days of Winter Veil contests keeps on rolling. For the last loot code contest, we're giving away 1 Foam Sword Rack code courtesy of WoWTCGLoot.com. A rack of foam swords can be summoned. From there, any player can click on the rack to temporarily gain a foam sword that can be used to duel other players or just bonk them on the head. If a player loses a duel, their foam sword will explode into confetti.

To enter for a chance to win, leave a comment in this post by Sunday, January 3, 2010, 11:59pm ET. Limit one entry per person and make sure you're registered with a valid email address. We'll be choosing one winner randomly from the entrants and contact them via email after the close of the contest.

EDIT: Contest closed. Thanks everyone!

Filed under: Contests

Today is the last day of WoW.com's 12 Days of Winter Veil contests and we're finishing big with four, count them four, giveaways. First, we're giving away two BlizzCon 2009 goodie bags, including all original contents. Winners will recieve, among other things, a code for Grunty The Murloc Marine in-game pet, the Noobz Raynor action figure and an official BlizCon 2009 authenticator. You can view the full contents of the goody bag in the gallery below.

The contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 18 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before 11:59pm ET Sunday, January 3, 2010. Please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact you should you be one of the winners. You may enter only once and two winners will be selected randomly. Each winner will receive 1 BlizzCon 2009 goody bag with a retail value of US$125. Click here to read the official contest rules. EDIT: Contest closed. Thanks everyone!

Filed under: Contests