For the second Tuesday in a row around the same time (9:00-9:30 pm EST-ish), the US Retaliation battlegroup has crashed. Blizzard has confirmed that it's performing urgent maintenance on the hardware of the affected realms, and they'll provide an update at 11:00 PM EST/8:00 PM PST. Hmmm. Makes you wonder if whatever caused last week's crash was accidentally rolled back during server maintenance earlier today.

The following are the affected realms:

Area 52, Auchindoun, Azuremyst, Blade's Edge, Blood Furnace, Coilfang, Dawnbringer, Exodar, Fizzcrank, Galakrond, Ghostlands, Grizzly Hills, Shattered Halls, Terokkar, The Scryers, The Underbog, Velen, and Zangarmarsh.

My guild's on Retaliation and has consequently found itself without something to raid for the second Tuesday running. Last week their solution was to take off to Mug'thol and do a level 1 Hogger raid, complete with designated tanks and healers, damage meters, and -- to top things off -- a bonafide ninja looter of the Malachite drop. Our server might be down, but our hallowed traditions remain.

So hot on the heels of the best mob noise in game discussion, I thought I'd ask another question: What about the animations? We probably don't think about it too much, but the sounds and animations of PCs and NPCs alike probably end up making a lot of atmosphere we take for granted. It fills out the world and makes it feel more immersive, more real.

With that in mind, the noise topic got me thinking of what animations I really like. There's a lot of them that at least deserve a mention, from the howling of Coyotes to the nervous skittering of the Silithid. In the new animations, we get stuff like Stinker's escapades and the wildlife of Grizzly Hills going on with their every day activities.

Beyond that, even PC animations can have their awesome looks, such as a Draenei twirling a Polearm to attack or a male Blood Elf dying with Shakespearean dramatics. Ethereals also have some pretty graceful moves overall, even in the way their bandages move and their energy pulses.

What animations and graphics have you encountered in WoW that have made you stop and say, "Hey, that's pretty neat?"

One of the things I think is most awesome about Northrend is the fact that it adds a whole continent of "real-world" scenes to the game. Outland was so out there that it was hard to use any of the in-game terrain for any stories other than those that took place on another planet, but Northrend is a very grounded place -- while zones like Zul'Drak and Crystalsong Forest can seem very otherworldly, there are zones like Howling Fjord and Grizzly Hills that seem much more normal, if no less beautiful.

Today's Moviewatch definitely isn't a crafted masterpiece -- even the creator says it only took him about two hours to make, but it does show how haunting some of this Northrend landscape is. Just the cliffs of the Howling Fjord are enough to complement this stark little song and give it an extra dimension. I can't wait to see some more of the machinima that comes out of the new Northrend locations.

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

Previously on Moviewatch ..

Each week, Arcane Brilliance invites Mages everywhere over for brunch. We serve muffins, sweet rolls, croissants, and enough mountain spring water to wash it all down. Then, for dessert, Arcane Brilliance conjures strudel for everyone, because who doesn't like strudel? If you raised your hand, you, sir or madame, are a dirty, dirty liar. Everybody likes strudel.

About a billion years ago, when Warlocks still ruled the world, back in those dark days before Arcane Barrage, spellpower, and elementalist specs--in that bygone era before Death Knights appeared in Azeroth, bringing with them their ridiculous magic resistances and eighty-seven different ways to silence or interrupt--Arcane Brilliance brought you a series of Mage leveling guides. In those days, we didn't have any of this crazy "rock music" you kids listen to now, and when we fought Illidan, we had to chain pot. We walked naked twelve miles to school through nineteen feet of snow while fending off wolves and dinosaurs with our bookbags, and we liked it.

Things are different now. Nowadays, when you hit level 70, your experience bar doesn't vanish, never to return. We have ten new levels and an entire new continent to adventure our way through, new talent points to spend, new gear to pick up, and several fresh and exciting ways to barbecue zombies. It's an exciting time to be a Mage, and Arcane Brilliance is here to open a portal to level 80 for you.

If your Mage is at some other point along the leveling continuum, you can find the previous leveling guides here, here, here, and here. You can find the new one by clicking the words "read more" directly following this period.

It's the day after Christmas. A fair portion of our readership is only now getting Wrath of the Lich King installed on their computer, especially after the gift exchanges of the last few days. Over the weeks since Wrath's release, we've had quite a bit of content to ease you through your first steps into Northrend. With this latest wave of people hitting the frozen shores for the first time, it's a good opportunity to look back on a lot of that.

You asked for it, so I'm delivering the next installment of my series on the scenic flight points of Northrend. If you missed my previous posts on lower Northrend, go check out the Alliance Wrath Flight paths guide or the Horde Wrath Flight paths guide, as appropriate. Today, we'll be looking at Grizzly Hills, the next zone after Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, and Dragonblight level-wise. There aren't a ton of flight points there - just two each for Horde and Alliance.

Horde:

1. Kragh, at 22,65 in Conquest Hold, in the west part of the map, is your first stop in the Hills, more than likely.
2. Later on you'll get some quests to take you over to Camp Oneqwah, whose flight master is Makki Wintergale, at 65,47.

Alliance:

1. Just over the river from the Horde's Conquest Hold is the Alliance base of Amberpine Lodge, with Vana Gray at 31,59. (A reference to a certain long-running game show, perhaps?)
2. After doing some quests there (or if you just get bored) you'll be sent over to see some familiar faces at the Westfall Brigade Encampment. Samuel Clearbrook will pack you on a gryphon at 60,27.

Depending on rest XP, how many instances you do, whether you do both starting zones, etc., you might be getting your own wings back as early as Grizzly Hills, which really speeds things up. However, if not, or if you're still stuck on a pokey old normal-speed flying mount, be sure to catch my next installment, on Zul'Drak.

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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.

I have to thank you, other players on my realm. If it wasn't for you, I probably wouldn't have reached 450 Skinning already. Yes, the garbage of dead mobs that you leave behind becomes my profit -- when you leave that worg corpse or the dead drakonid behind, I'm all too happy to run over, skin it, and clean up that little mess you've made, while sticking a little gold in my pocket as well. Matthew is right there with me -- he calls it poaching, though we're both referring not to stealing, but to simply skinning the leftover mobs of all those players before us.

Truth be told, I probably poached more than ever down in the mines of Netherwing Ledge -- there were always players killing down there, and what they didn't skin, I did, both for the quest skins and for my own Knothide. But in the expansion, things are even better -- everywhere I go, there are fields of leftover mobs, and even when someone is able to kill a mob before I get there, I hover over them to pick up the skin afterwards.

Matthew has put together a list of all the great places to pick up extra skins -- I'll agree that Coldarra is full of poaching options right now, as is Kamagua on the other side of the continent. Grizzly Hills, also, is not only full of creatures to skin, but lots of leftover corpses as people quest across the zone (though odds are that if you keep up on skinning, you'll be 450 by then anyway). Think of it as a service -- we're the garbagemen of the realms, cleaning up your kills so the next can spawn and the circle of loot can go on.

Where, if anywhere, is the quartermaster for Valiance Expedition? I'm almost revered and I'm curious to see if there are any rewards available.

It's been a few days, you know how this goes by now. You ask your questions in the comments section below, I answer them in the near future. Got it? Good.

jared.daniels asked...

I just got to level 72 last night and realized that I have five different dailies that I can do in Northrend. Should I bother doing all of those every day, or just focus on the last one that I uncovered? And if I do go back, how long should I do them before I drop them for higher-level dailies?

Our topic for today comes from one of our readers, Grindal. He (she? Sorry!) wrote in suggesting we ask all of you a question. What did you level first? Did you level your main right away? Did you try out an alt in Northrend? Did you roll a Death Knight? Heck, is your new Death Knight your new main?

Personally, I went straight to my main. No questions about it. I hit the Howling Fjord and started questing like crazy. Eventually I rolled my Death Knight with the name I had been reserving for months now, but I didn't really play it at all. I just wanted to start accumulating rest. That's about all I did on all of my alts, actually. I made sure my 70s were in inns. That's it. Beyond that, it's been all Shadow Priest all the time. I was lucky in that I got into Northrend a little bit ahead of the crowds, so I'm usually a zone ahead of most people. I just finished the Dragonblight last night just as the masses rolled in, and now I have the Grizzly Hills more or less to myself. Once people start flooding that zone, I'll be over in Zul'Drak.

How are things going for all of you?

They've already opened a new realm for transfers, but Bornakk just let us know that a brand new US realm will be open for character creation tomorrow morning (Pacific time). I assume he specified Pacific time so they're not held to opening before noon Eastern, which would be pretty early for those west-coast dwellers. The vitals on the new realm:

• Name: Grizzly Hills
• Type: PvE (normal)
• Time Zone: Pacific Eastern
  
• Battlegroup: Retaliation
• AQ gates closed, closed to transfers for 3 months.

I have to say, though, it would take quite a reroll locust to start over from scratch tomorrow, when the rest of us are leveling Death Knights or enjoying Northrend. Who's going to go check it out?

Apologies to Paulo Coelho fans for borrowing his title, but we have two Alchemy-related questions to start us off today, in addition to questions on Blacksmithing, cinematics, and dailies:

Horizons asks...

Do the alchemy specializations in wrath still work the same way as they do now in BC? For example, will I still have a chance of getting 5 wrath potions even when I'm leveling starting at 375 such as Wrath Elixirs or Icy mana potions? And will transmute spec ever be fixed?

Yup, alchemy specializations work the exact same way in Wrath. As a potions master, I've already procced a few, but don't expect to see the Runic Mana or Runic Healing potion recipes until...I want to say it's 410 Alchemy. You'll skill up on the array of new elixirs like Elixir of Mighty Thoughts and Elixir of Mighty Agility until then, but do save mats for the new Alchemy trinkets that become available at (I think) 400, like Mighty Alchemist's Stone. We'll have more information soon on materials you'll start getting in Northrend that you'll want to set aside for crafting.

Welcome to Ask a Beta Tester! We're not going to waste any time today, and just jump in feet first with Jerematic's question...

Are there any other world PvP objectives, beyond Wintergrasp?

There aren't any objectives as far as things you can capture, no, not really. However, there are little PvP areas in certain zones. For example, there are PvP quests in Grizzly Hills. You take the quest, you are PvP flagged as long as you have the quest, and you have to complete it in a nearby area. In the Grizzly Hills example here, the Horde and the Alliance are duking it out in a massive logging camp that they've chased the Venture Co. away from. Have you ever wanted to ride down a river on the back of a huge log? Wrath'll do it for ya.

Chalios asked...

I'm a prot pally and I was wondering that since Blessings of Kings is going to be 2% stat increase base with an extra 8% on the improved version, will Greater Blessings of Kings start off with 2% as well at base and scale with the improved version or will it still be 10% and provide me with an extra 4 talent points?

The Greater Blessing will work the same way regular ol' Blessing of Kings works in Wrath. 2% per talent point. You don't get to skip out on spending 4 talent points.

Hi there, and welcome back to Ask a Beta Tester after its little Sunday break! If you're new to the column, then just 'welcome' instead of 'welcome back' and if that's the case allow me to explain! Have a question about the Wrath beta? We have an answer! Probably. Just ask in the comments section below, and we'll try to answer you in a future episode. Now, let's get started!

CactusHam asked...

I noticed on the Description of the Shaman's Maelstrom Weapon (and maybe its in other places as well, but this is where I saw it) that in addition to requiring axes, maces, staves and daggers it also requires "One handed Exotics, Two Handed Exotics" as well as "miscellaneous". I'm curious about what seems to be a new weapon type? Is this a new weapon type? If so, what classes can use "exotics"? And what exactly is an "exotic?"

Exotic weapons are unique NPC items. If you've ever used something like WoW Modelviewer, the Exotic category contains things such as Maiev's huge chakram thingy or whatever it is. It's not something players will ever get their hands on. It's sort of like the armor sets you see on Wowhead and Thottbot that have the listing of which races can wear it, and races such as Fel Orc and Naga are listed. That doesn't mean we'll get playable Fel Orcs and Naga, it means if they're putting together an NPC that uses those racial models they can use that armor to play dress up with. Fel Orc did technically come into play at the Netherwing Ledge, but meh. Yeah, that's right. Meh.

Welcome back to Ask a Beta Tester! I've plugged in more music for you above, this time from Icecrown Glacier. If you're feeling kind, you should go give some love to the guy that posted them later on. For now, though, we're here to answer your Wrath of the Lich King questions!

Sorano asked...

While killing mobs in a dungeon that normally gives rep for a faction, for example: The Wyrmrest Accord, if I am wearing the tabard representing the Warsong Offensive, will I gain reputation for both Wyrmrest Accord and Warsong Offensive at the same time?

Contrary to the original description of the feature, you only get rep with one faction at a time. Personally, I think that's a better design. If you're working on a particular rep, you can still help friends out in random unrelated Wrath dungeons without feeling punished. If you only received half of the rep gains, you would still want to go to Violet Hold for your Kirin Tor rep instead of Utgarde Pinnacle, just for random examples. Going to Utgarde and getting half of the payoff just feels punishing. Feeling punished for helping friends sucks.