You're a pet and mount maniac. You've hunted down every noncombat pet you can find, gotten a lucky roll on every rare mount you can possibly pick up, and after long last, you've earned both the "Lil' Game Hunter" and "Mountain o' Mounts" achievements. But still, you want more for some reason. More pets, more mounts, more achievement points.

Good news: Bornakk says that there will still be more to find. While he says they won't be upping the achievements every time they bring out a patch that has more pets and mounts to collect, they will definitely add in new achievements periodically for collecting both noncombat pets and mounts (and, though he doesn't say so, we'd assume they'll add in extra rewards besides the achievement points, including extra pets or mounts to be earned at each level).

So if you are in fact a collecting master and have already earned the 75 pets and 100 mounts (a much easier feat than it used to be) for both maximum achievements currently in the game, just be patient. There'll be new goals to go after soon.

We were just talking about this on the podcast last night -- Turpster's tip a week or so ago was that going for the Crusader title in the Argent Tournament actually puts you at a disadvantage, because if you keep from turning in the last Valiant quest for the achievement, you don't lock off having the ability to do both Valiant and Champion quests together, thus, as you can see in the thread, earning an extra 36 gold a day, which adds up to 1000g a month. After you earn the ability to represent every city, you can't do the Valiant quests any more (instead, you have to earn city reputation through the Champion's Writ, which costs you 10g from the opposite reward). In short, right now, if you're leveling through the AT quests, stay away from the Crusader achievement until you have all of the city reputations covered, and all the gold you want.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), Bornakk says that Blizzard probably will make a change here soon to smooth everything out. But how they'll do that isn't quite clear -- they could leave the dailies (or some form of them) open even after you get the achievement, or they could beef up the achievement reward to make up for it. Not a hard fix either way. But yes, until then, you might want to rethink racing to the Crusader achievement, as there's more reward to be had by waiting.

Blizzard never fails to exceed expectations on April Fool's Day -- in the EU, they reported on a brand new Pimp My Mount option (featuring tiger-mounted gatling guns), over on the forums, they RP'd the place up a bit, and now on the North American page, they've announced the game's newest feature: a Dance Battle system. They say that sometime soon in the game (that is, if this wasn't April 1st), players will be able to have dance-offs around the world, culminating in a huge dance tournament to take place in Kael'thas quarters in Tempest Keep. Wait, isn't that guy dead? Players will be able to form crews, which can then battle each other using player controlled dance moves and a vehicle-like interface.

Of course, none of it is true, which is an extra poke in the heart to fans who really are waiting for the new dance system. We doubt it'll have a battle component, but the interface and the rewards are pretty intriguing -- so close to what we're really hoping for, and yet so far. And yes Blizzard, nice Lonely Island joke hidden in there. It was, in fact, a horror film.

There's even a trailer for "Azeroth's Best Dance Crew (hosted by Acy Slater)," though we looked closely and didn't see any really new dance moves in there, either. But it's cute, and (maybe this is what Blizzard intended) only whets our appetite for the real new dances, supposedly still coming soon.

Banana Shoulders has a really excellent guide to just what the Argent Tournament is all about. I played it for the first time the other night (while we were streaming live from the PTR), and it's a strange little mix of minigame, questing, and rep grind. The Argent Tournament has set up north of Sindragosa's Fall, and there are three basic stages: first, we've got to help them build the place (which will send you to quest in other parts of the world), second, you'll be moving up the ranks from Aspirant in the tournament to Champion, and third, you'll be acting as an Argent Tournament Champion, and picking up Champion's Seals to spend on various rewards and items.

The tournament itself involves a minigame of mounted combat -- you can ride around on a mount, lance equipped, that has a few different abilities. There's a ranged attack that will let you break down an opponent's shield, there's a Defend ability that will let you build up your own shield, and then there's a Thrust melee attack that just does damage, and a Charge attack that will do damage as well as break down your opponent's shield. And out of combat, you can fully heal your mount or challenge someone else to a duel. The Aspirant quests teach you all of this, and then the Valiant quests really put your knowledge to the test as you move up through the ranks, fighting NPC mobs as challengers to the title.

The Argent Tournament definitely seems like a lot of fun -- as I said way back when, the whole event seems like a one-stop shop for picking up rep and items in Northrend, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if Blizzard plans to add more events and more daily quests on to what we're building up there. Banana Shoulders will be posting part three of their guide soon, and of course you can stay tuned to WoW Insider -- as we get closer to the patch 3.1 release on the live realms, we'll have everything you need to know about the Tournament and then some.

Emblems of Conquest are the new Emblems of Valor - that is to say, they drop from the 25-man version of Ulduar and enable you to buy ilvl 226 stuff. This much we knew. What we haven't known, until now, is what exactly they'd let you buy.

With this latest PTR patch, the gear sold for Emblems of Conquest is now availabe. The names are placeholders ("Emblem of Conquest Healer Neck"), and the stats may also be relatively placeholder-y as well, but it's something to look at, anyway.

Currently up are:

• Runed Orbs for 15 EoC; these are like Frozen Orbs and will be used for crafting.
• Necklaces for 16 EoC.
• Belts and gloves for 23 EoC.
• Legs for 32 EoC.
• Deadly Gladiator gear (38 EoC for hands and shoulders, 48 EoC for head, legs, and chest).
• Tier 8.5 chest and head tokens for 48 EoC each.
• Emblems of Valor for one EoC.

You can see the stats on everything over on the inimitable MMO-Champion, although I don't think the tier 8 vendors are implemented yet, so we still don't know the precise numbers on those. What I'm really anxious to have confirmed is that we'll be able to buy tier 8.0 with the Emblems of Valor that drop out of 10-man Ulduar - if that's not the case, I will be one very upset raider. And what's with some of those prices? 38 badges? Really?

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Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.

MMO Champion has posted some of what are believed to be rewards from the Argent Dawn Tournament coming to the servers, and they are pretty awesome. All of the rewards will apparently be purchased with a new currency called Champion's Seals, and those will be earned from doing dailies, some instanced activity (likely a type of mounted combat -- think PvP-esque, but against mobs), and all of the other various tasks the Argent Dawn is lining up for us. The Tournament itself will appear in 3.1 (and Alex has already posted a great gallery of what it looks like on the PTR), but other activities won't appear until a later content patch.

There are epic weapons for everyone (right now priced at 25 seals, though that may change -- the weapons seem to be a little higher 5-man Heroic level), as well as blue boots, belts, gloves, and neckpieces for most classes and specs (all just 10 seals -- about equivalent to the Revered options the endgame reputations). Additionally, you can get tabards for each faction city (at 50 seals, that seems expensive, but they could have a special proc or ability granted with them), you can buy specially colored faction mounts for 100 seals, and at the top of the heap is an Argent Hippogryph for a whopping 250 seals. Seals, it seems, will also be able to be exchanged for reputation commendations, so if you just want to rep up with a certain old faction rep, you can do that, too.

Pretty enticing. We have yet to see how exactly seals will be earned or how easy they'll be to come by, but it seems like Blizzard is planning to make this a catch-all option for endgame in terms of picking up rep, mounts, or gear. Just like the champion tabards let us choose just how we could earn rep for the endgame factions, the Argent Tournament appears to be a chance for folks at level 80 to pick up whatever rep or options they like by doing whatever the Tourney offers.

I agree with Relmstein: Cooking is awesome. Unlike, say, fishing (which I said on the podcast last week will never really stop being boring, since boring is "working as intended" for that one), cooking has really transitioned over the years. Back in the day, it was kind of a silly way to make new foods to eat, in Burning Crusade it became a pretty solid extra buff to have, and it Wrath it has really become a necessity for anyone looking to make their characters and their raids the best they can be.

Plus, as Relmstein notes, there's added functionality -- the feasts let you lay out an entire meal for your party, and the addition of the Dalaran cooking quests (and the recipe rewards) have turned the daily cooking quests from just a few extra gold and mats per day into a whole currency system on its own. Fooding it up ingame has become a minigame of its own, and with food giving out such diverse (and significant) stat bonuses, not to mention that it often fetches great prices on the AH, there's no reason for your level 80 character to not have worked a little bit on leveling up cooking.

Sold yet? One of the last things I did at level 70 was level up both cooking and fishing using El's Angling's great guide, and though it took me the better part of two weekends in a row, it's paid off many times over since. Cooking has definitely moved from kind of a fun third profession to mess around with to something that will seriously benefit you as a character in quite a few ways.

This past week on the WoW Insider Show, we were thrilled to welcome our friend Michael Zenke of Massively.com -- in addition to his experiences in Wrath so far, we talked with him about a few other MMOs WoW players might be interested in this holiday season. Matthew Rossi was also on, and he brought his terrific insight on Warriors, Death Knights, Shamans, and itemization for pretty much all of the classes in the new expansion. And we welcomed back our old friend Turpster to the show -- you didn't think he'd be gone for long, did you?

It was a good time, so good in fact that we had trouble reeling ourselves in to finish in time. But we hit on all sorts of subjects, including a look at the reputations in Wrath and what their best rewards are (the Oracles' Mysterious Egg is great), and we even got a short chat in about whether there's still a tanking shortage or not (the good news: there mostly isn't). You can follow any or all of the links below to listen to the show in its entirety (and do subscribe in iTunes if you use that -- you'll get the show automatically every week).

We'll be back live next week as usual, 3:30pm Eastern on Ustream. In the meantime, if you have a comment, question, or tip for the show, send it along to theshow@wow.com, and you might hear us talking about it then. Enjoy this week's podcast!

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Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we'll be talking about Heroic gear available in Northrend.

So, I have been hearing that many of you have put in the time and effort to level your Rogues to 80. Congratulations to all of you who have the perseverance and dedication to stick it out and focus on the goal! You do us Rogues proud. It takes a special kind of player to pull those all-nighters on the road to Icecrown. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those players.

I've been leveling casually through Northrend, exhausting every single quest in a given zone before moving on to the next. In addition, I've been focusing on leveling my tradeskills to 450 and also helping my friends and family as they quest as well, with a little bit of World PvP mixed in when the opportunity presents itself.

However, that hasn't stopped me from looking ahead at all of the "badge reward" gear available for us in Dalaran. I guess we should start calling it "emblem gear" or something, but it just doesn't roll of the tongue. Whatever you call it, I've compiled a list of the 5/10 man loot that is of interest to us subtle shadows. Read on for the details.

Phase four of the zombie invasion has unlocked quite a bit of cool stuff in the game. Out in Light's Hope Chapel in Eastern Plague Lands sits an Argent Dawn Quartermaster. In order for him to even show you his wares, you need to complete the "Under the Shadow" quest from Commander Thomas Helleran who is nearby. There is also another quest called "Shadows of Doom" that you should complete along the way.

For the "Under the Shadow" quest you need to collect 10 Necrotic Runes. These runes are an uncommon item (though they are very common in drop rate) which you can get from killing any undead / scourge mob around a necropolis spawn point. You can find the zones these necropolises are in by looking for a purple skull on your continent map. Be forewarned though, there's a lot of people farming these items and you'll be hard pressed to get any without a group.

The "Shadows of Doom" quest requires you to kill an elite mob, a Shadow of Doom. These mobs don't hit very hard but are rather difficult to get a hold of unless you're in a group with a plan. In order to make a Shadow of Doom mob appear, you need to give 8 Necrotic Runes to a priest NPC near a necropolis spawn point – they're in the same area you'll pick up the Necrotic Runes from. To complete the Shadows of Doom quest, you'll only need to kill one Shadow of Doom.

While we know that Honor is not going to be reset as we once thought it would be, we do know that all your Arena points will be reset once you reach 71. But for now, both Arena and Honor points are still available to us if we put in some effort, and some rewards are still purchasable with them. The question is, how much time should we invest in them now, and are these rewards worth the time?

You can save Honor points, of course, until you reach level 80, even though everything at that stage will be much more expensive, and you won't be able to buy as much with what you earn today. Is this inflation enough to make you just wait till later to PvP in battlegrounds? Or do you want to hit 80 with us many points stored up as possible? Do any of the current PvP rewards look attractive enough for you to purchase them now instead of waiting?

The Arena is a somewhat simpler proposition. Any points you have will be gone as you start leveling up again, so you have to spend them now. Are they still worth earning? If so, will you spend them on gear? Or will you buy the special PvP gems in order to put them in gear you get later on?

I've been leveling up fishing lately (hit 373 last night, along with 375 cooking, thanks to El's great guide), and I've actually found it pretty fun. It's a little too boring to do it without something going on in the background (last night it was the Cubs game, as depressing as that was), but it's kind of fun just to throw a line into some random water or pool and see what comes out. That said, the rewards could use a little tuning -- while events like the STV Fishing Tourney are fun (I've done it twice now and haven't won it yet) and offer some nice items, fishing itself even at the highest levels just isn't as rewarding as, say, running dailies or Heroics. The only reason to run it all the way up is really just to say you did -- while there's a promise of a Mr. Pinchy somewhere out there, there's no real fishing endgame in the way that there is for the rest of the game.

Which makes Qann's suggestion intriguing -- he says that high level fishers should have access to certain areas via boat that offer them tougher fishing challenges, and better rewards for it. A boat could shuttle you out to a remote island or location, where only certain fish could be caught or found. And we don't even really need a boat -- just more events like the STV Extravaganza (where certain fish that appear in special pools can be turned in directly for items) would be great. And why is it that the best items obtained through fishing are apparently scrolls? Why can't we fish for Badges, or even have a fishmarket, where fish can be exchanged for gems, crafting materials or other rewards?

Even Blizzard admits that there's a lot of work to be done for fishing, but it doesn't seem too hard -- if they're giving out epics for holidays, fishermen and women who make it up to 375 should deserve some good loot for their hard work as well, whether it's through Deep Sea fishing, keys that will unlock special chests, or just a vendor that will take all of those Barbed Gill Trout off your hands and give you something worthwhile in return.

Well so much for the honor wipe. As you can already see from the comments on that post, players have all kinds of opinions about this -- some believe that Blizzard should have gone through with the wipe, giving everyone a clean slate as the expansion started. Some players disagree, saying that honor is honor -- if you earned it, you should keep it. Some players are unhappy that the prices for level 80 items are going to be raised as part of the non-wipe, leaving new players in the dust. And even other players are just angry because they listened to Blizzard, and already spent the honor they thought they were losing anyway.

So the question this morning isn't how you feel about the Honor non-wipe, since odds are you've already expressed that. But it is: where do we go from here? Are you going to step up Honor farming in the hopes of picking up new, expensive items right away at level 80? Or are you just done with the system completely, and planning to worry about what's available at level 80 when you get there?

You should keep in mind that for all of the gnashing of teeth, we still don't know for sure how rewards will worth in Wrath -- Tigole has even said that tuning is still happening, and so any tweaks Blizzard may make might actually turn out to make the whole thing easier on everyone. But now that you know the Honor isn't going anywhere, what's your plan before the expansion?

Shellyw has a good question on the forums: what quests do you always skip? Blizzard is pretty good about the rewards system -- even if a quest is a pain to get through, they'll usually make the reward worth it. But there are quite a few quests in the game that just don't have anything you want, and just aren't worth the time putting into them.

Green Hills of Stranglethorn is mentioned early on in the thread, and I couldn't agree more -- any of those collecting quests I usually just give up on, as it's usually easier to just sell the pages off inside that zone to someone who is actually doing the quest. I often skip a lot of group quests as well, especially while leveling. While the rewards for those are usually very good (and they're often the end of long chains, which means both XP and items that come from them are great), it's often tough to find a group, so they usually sit in my quest log until grey and then get abandoned.

And occasionally, especially when I need space in my quest log for newer quests, I just plain skip anything that doesn't give an item that I need. If there's a choice of quest rewards, and none of them fit my class or spec, I'll just abandon the quest entirely to replace it with a quest that works better for me. What quests do you find skippable? How do you do triage on quests when your log fills up?

I was somewhat puzzled when the first pieces of PvP gear started showing up in the Wrath of the Lich King Beta. The traditional 5-piece set of helm, shoulders, chest, legs, and gloves (as well as the weapons) were of blue or rare quality while the non-set pieces normally obtained through Honor -- bracers, belt, and boots -- were purples or epic. The blue items were tagged 'LK Arena 1' items and the purples were tagged 'LK Honor' items, which were easy enough to decipher.

However, MMO Champion uncovered an epic quality 2-handed mace tagged 'LK Arena 2', which is a rather curious item considering the game files already have LK Arena 1 2h Mace. What does it mean? At this point, not much. A lot can change from now until Wrath finally goes live, but if we were to put some weight into the item nomenclature, it might indicate that Blizzard plans to tier Arena gear similar to how they plan to create two separate tiers for 10- and 25-man dungeon items.