Recently, I decided to do something with all those Emblems of Heroism/Valor that were clogging up my currency tag, and so bought myself the heirloom shoulders and Bloodied Arcanite Reaper. I soon found myself in possession of a level 80 death knight (messing about with Frost and Blood specs, waiting for 3.2 to see if Dual Wielding becomes viable again) and thus, had a dilemma. There's only three classes that can wear the Polished Spaulders of Valor and I have two of them at 80 now. So what to do?

Rather than bank them in the hopes that they'll work in the expansion (I don't think they will, because it's not like Blizzard to put out an expansion and then let you cheat your way through it the first time) I decided I'd try another paladin. The last one was horde side, and my burning vitriolic hatred of blood elves made him very, very hard to level. I mean, they twirl around when you jump! I hate that!

Noblegarden has passed for another year and everyone is now running with little orphans in tow. There were lots of changes this year - the biggest being a whole seven days of egg hunting madness rather than just twenty-four hours.

My Noblegarden was spent camping Azure Watch, being chased by purple bunnies and looking for eggs until I went more blind than usual. When I eventually managed to find enough eggs to get me my bunny wabbit (the tuxedo pants, shirt and dress dropped along with the bunch of flowers), I started looking for females in order to do the Shake Your Bunny-Maker achievement.

Now my server isn't one of the largest and I found all the females quite easily -- even a Tauren and a Troll -- but I'll be damned if I could find a single Orc female. There are some on Daggerspine, as many of my guildies had already completed the achievement, but I eventually switched to my Horde account only to experience the mind-numbing chatter from prepubescent players. In the end, I couldn't get the title and now have to wait another year. Hopefully then it won't be as chaotic.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts and experiences post-Noblegarden. Did you achieve everything you wanted?

Last night I was flying down to Un'Goro to do the Hard Boiled Noblegarden achievement. Long flights get me thinking, at least they did until I installed the Bejeweled addon. World of Warcraft has changed so much since I started playing and 3.1 has brought some of the most interesting changes: dual specs, the hearthstone timer nerf.

Now as I was flying, my guild whispered me asking for my aid in Naxx 10. Fortunately they could summon me but it reminded me of one of the biggest problems with flying in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, you can't get off a bird. Yes I know you can log out and then log back in to be deposited at the next flight point but it's hardly ideal if you need to get off right now.

Since I first started playing, I've wondered why Blizzard don't implement a handy eject button that you could use when on long flights. You could be thrown from the back of your gryphon or wind rider and gently parachute to the ground. Alternatively they could just allow you to hearthstone while flying. But I digress. Readers, I want to know if you could add one mechanic to the game what would it be?

Noblegarden is finally here and, boy, is it addictive! Knowing how everyone would be swarming all over Kharanos and Goldshire, I headed for the most isolated, least visited starter town I could think of: Azure Watch. On my low-population server, there were only about another five people after eggs and once you start spotting them hunting becomes insanely addictive. There are already people with their Spring Rabbit's Foot and the rest have just been turned into purple bunnies. I'm not sure if the latter is cute or just weird.

Personally, I'm just ambling along and doing what achievements I can, there's no hope of me getting the Violet Proto-Drake this year. But, I want to know which part of Noblegarden are you folks are most looking forward to?

Patch days are often disastrous, and in their aftermath, there is a lot to tweak, hotfix, and repair. Realms have been unstable, Authentication servers unreliable, and bugs abound.

Earlier this week, we asked you what your impressions are of live Patch 3.1, and now that you've had a few days to adjust to the changes, we want to know, how are you feeling about it now?

My pick for the most annoying aspect would have to be the new quest tracker that shows the icon of the quest item, if there is one, next to the information. Or, rather, on top of it. Somehow, knowing that I've killed 1... doesn't really help me. Is that 1 of 12? 11 of 12? 13/17? Who knows.

Despite this easily-fixable problem, I'm loving it. Thursday night raiding was smooth as silk, and not only are dual-specs extremely handy and fun, it also makes it easier to answer questions about your off-spec. How many hit points does my Tankadin have unbuffed, you ask? Give me under one minute, and I can tell you! I can't wait until the Equipment Manager is live.

How are you liking the changes and new features, now that you've had a few days to play around with them? Have your opinions changed from how you felt in the first day or two after it landed? Why?

Mounts are one of the best parts of World of Warcraft, especially the flying ones. Over the course of levels 30-80 we collect a bunch of them (so many that there's even an Achievement for it -- don't forget to check out our guide) and everyone has one or two tied to their action bars that they use every day. I've got two: the Big Battle Bear) and a Zhevra. But in an ideal world, we all have a list: the Ashes of Al'ar, the now removed Amani War Bear, the Spectral Tiger, the Deadly Gladiator's Frost Wrym ...

Top of my list? While I love dragons (and have my eye on a Twilight Drake), the mount I really want is a unicorn. Yes gentle readers, an actual unicorn. Not a striped zebra crossbreed found wandering in the Barrens but a pure white beast of myth. Last week, while exploring the Argent Tournament in Icecrown, I finally found one. Granted it's technically a 'Quel'dorei Steed' but it's a unicorn - with an Azerothian twist. I only hope Blizzard decide to turn this vehicle into an actual mount -- and soon because I will grind anything to get it.

Anyway, it got me thinking about mounts (and don't forget we have an awesome guide on the subject). I have a friend who collect everyone going (he's got ninety nine at the moment) and strives for the Ashes to complete his collection, others are still using their race-specific epic mount or gryphon/wind rider. So I ask you, readers, what mount do you want the most? It doesn't matter if it's an old mount now removed, a ridable version of your favourite Azerothian animal or just something straight out of myth, speak up.

It's been a long old twenty four hours but the US servers have had Patch 3.1 running life for a little while now. I can just imagine the thousands of people swamping Ulduar, the Argent Tournament and every class trainer from Azuremyst to Thunderbluff will be stood on by thousands of toons trying to dual spec.

Now over the last few weeks Breakfast Topic has been, quite understandably, a little Patch 3.1-heavy. We've asked about your most anticipated feature, whether your guild is ready and where your toon will be when the realms restart (just in case you were wondering, Serisa is waiting outside Ulduar to see if the above happens on live as well).

So if you're lucky, you've had a few hours to poke around and take a look, I want to know what your impressions are of The Secrets of Ulduar now that it's gone live?

3.1 is looming ever closer and most of the players who aren't storming Ulduar are probably going to be hitting Icecrown for the Argent Tournament thanks to the promise of new mounts and, of course, the zone-specific pets!

Now I love pets, I once gave a guildmate all my gold and asked him to go all the way to Netherstorm to get me a Blue Dragonhawk Hatching. Admittedly, I don't have that many and while I normally whip out Frosty or Mini Tyrael when we're in instances, I'm usually found exploring Azeroth with a much simpler pet, my Orange Tabby Cat.

It seems like most of the WoW Insider staff - bar Alex and his roomba thingy - have pets and until two months ago, I had an ancient orange kitty called Jerry (known universally and beloved as The Ginger One). Sadly I had to put him to sleep but being followed by a virtual cat makes me wish we had more personalisation options in game.

Hunters can name and feed their pets but why can't we do the same with our non combat ones? Yes we can brush them, put them on leads and play ball but it's not really the same thing is it? At the same time because I now have a pair of cats, I'd love to be able to summon several kitty minions who would follow me into battle.

Anyway, here's a morning question for you: do you have virtual forms of your real world pets? If yes, do you have a particular one? If you don't, is there a particular non-combat pet you'd like to have? Would you like just one? How about many?

It doesn't take Mind Vision to determine that I'm really, really excited for 3.1, and of all of its features, the Ulduar raid has me enthralled the most. I love new raids, and after all this time running Naxx, I'm ready to move on to a bigger and badder place. It doesn't hurt that everything I've heard about Ulduar sounds great! 14 bosses, hard modes, optional bosses, getting launched onto the back of a giant fire-breathing robot ... I honestly can't think of any negatives about the place. I guess it's just what I needed.

Of course, I haven't played it yet. But soon, very soon, the PTR will go live and I'll be able to bask in all of its brass-and-marble glory. And you won't be able to shut me up about it if you try. If you can't beat me, though, you should consider joining me there.

I'm aware, of course, that raiding's not for everyone, and that some people don't want encounters spoiled for them before they go live. So what about you guys? Are you looking forward to checking out Ulduar for yourself on the PTR? Gonna wait until it hits live WoW to try it out? Or do you just not care about Titantown too much?

THESE QUESTIONS AND MORE ANSWERED (BY YOU) IN THIS, THE BREAKFAST TOPIC.

Man, WoW just throws so many items at us. They're greens, blues, and purples. They're vendor trash and they're enchanting mats. They all fill up our bags and our hours in the game. They drive our raid attendance and our questing time. And some, out of all of those thousands of items, mean something to us. We've all got our cherished items, ones that we can't bring ourselves to get rid of.

This breakfast topic isn't about what we don't want to get rid of, though! This is about what we can't freaking get rid of no matter how hard we try.

The General forums were graced with Blue presence in a thread asking just what the oldest item you still use is. The OP mentioned that theirs was Dabiri's Enigma, a tanking trinket they've been trying to get rid of since they day they got it back in Netherstorm. Unsuccessfully, of course.

What about you guys? What have you been trying to replace, upgrade from, or downright throw away since Light-knows-when?

One of the things that's often surprised me while reading forum threads concerning dual specs is just how wide the gulf is between pure and hybrid classes' perspective on the issue.* Pure classes are worried that they are increasingly obsolete in an age where a hybrid can easily respec between tanking, healing, and DPS. With the damage differences between hybrids and pure DPS shaved fairly thin in Wrath, they've got a point, and it's not that unusual to see resentful players asking why their class -- which cannot choose a different role -- has to risk losing a raid slot to a class that can.

By contrast, most of the hybrids to whom I've spoken see dual specs -- not as a competitive advantage, but rather as relief from the financial drain of constant respecs. 50g may not seem like a lot of money in Wrath's economy, but it adds up, to the point where you realize that the two hours you spent doing dailies will only net you about 20g after, say, respeccing to heal a heroic and then respeccing back to tank or DPS for the night's raid. Thus hybrids are equally resentful about the demands made on their time and e-wallet that pure classes don't have to worry about.

It was an interesting time in Azeroth yesterday. Thousands of people on each server showed up to fight against the scourge invasion. The masses were tagging mobs left and right, all in hopes to get some elusive Necrotic Runes.

All this open PvE fighting has brought up an interesting question, one that many people have some strong feelings on. What is the appropriate way to tag mobs? Is it okay to camp spawn points and AoE immediately in order to grab some scourge? Is it okay to take away another person's Shadow of Doom? What about if you accidently tag something you shouldn't have? Do you give them some gold in exchange?

I have to admit, after trying for over two hours to summon a Shadow of Doom and tag it, my group decided to go a different route. We went to a new spawn point, summoned all four, and threw out as much AoE as possible. Our thought was that doing this would mean we'd at least be able to get one Shadow (we ended up getting them all). This of course upset everyone else that was there – but we had tried for a while before hand to get a single one. And we did summon all the Shadows ourselves.

While this might be a questionable activity to some, it's what we did. But what would you do? How have you handled, and will you handle, tagging these mobs?

One of the best (and sometimes worst) things about online gaming are the people and the connections you make with them. Everyone who logs in has at least one thing in common with everyone else, we all play World of Warcraft. A small common interest is sometimes all it takes to bridge the gap between people and become friends. So this morning I'm interested in how you view the people you play WoW with. Are they just another member of your guild who you log in with for an hour or so a day, or something more? Does your guild or online community have real life get togethers? Have your online friends ever became close real life friends, or even perhaps a significant other? I'm interested in hearing your take on managing online friends with your offline persona.

Myself? I started online gaming back in the Quake 1 Team Fortress days, moved on to Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot, and now WoW. To this day I still game and talk with a handful of my old clan members. In WoW, I've been fortunate enough to still be in the same guild I was in on day 1. I've known some of these people as long if not longer than some of my offline friends. Managing the relationships forged online versus off can sometimes be difficult, can you truely know someone without having ever met them face to face? Let's hear your stories and thoughts!

If you're anything like me, ever since the beta talents for Wrath of the Lich King were leaked, you've been going to your favorite talent planner and seeing what new spells and abilities you're going to get. A few days ago we asked what new talents got you excited, but now that you've had more time to study the new talent trees, do you see a respec in your future?

We all know that beta means any and all talents could be shuffled around, buffed / nerfed, or even removed completely, but knowing what we do at this very moment, what's your game plan? Will you fine tune your existing spec or completely change your play style and try a new tree?

Myself, I'm eager to learn exactly what "exotic pets" are going to be, but I really like the extra pet talent points, so my Beast Master Hunter looks like he's staying put. Just incase though I've mapped out an appealing Marksmanship build that might be a nice change of pace. My Mage on the other hand might be forsaking his fellow Ice Mage brethren for an Arcane build. That tree recieved a lot of love and looks really interesting and new. Finally, my Enhancement Shaman my just be shelved if Death Knight looks as fun as it seems to be. So what are you leaning towards? New build? New class? Let us know by leaving a comment.

I should be more specific: why is this hard for me? Because for lots of people, leveling a hunter is the easiest thing in the world, to hear them tell it. It's a super easy class that has high DPS and a tanking pet to keep it alive. I should be blowing through the levels.

Instead, I've just recently managed to get my draenei hunter, who I created back when TBC launched, to level twenty eight. In the time since I've created this character I leveled my original warrior to 70, created a new draenei warrior and leveled him to 70, and leveled a draenei shaman to 70, plus went back and leveled two horde (warrior and shaman) to 70 and created a BE paladin and got him to 65. I leveled a paladin to 65 faster than I could level a hunter to 28! What is this, bizarro world? My orc and night elf warriors both hit 70 and I created them more or less as alts to play with RL friends on different servers, which means they get played once a month at most, and yet, here is my hunter, a year into the expansion (over a year, in fact) and I am just now heading into the 30's. And to be honest the only reason I even cared enough to level him this much was because I wanted to get him a mount.