Let's say the grid goes down tomorrow. Or maybe The Pattern catches up to Blizzard and it happens to fry that small part of a server that houses your character because it really is you they're after. (Admittedly, there are more realistic ways that you can lose your WoW character, but that kind of takes the fun out of this topic.) From a philosophical point of view, how would you feel? Any kind of loss -- even an electronic one -- may inspire grief and all its stages. But no doubt you spent a lot of time, effort, and money leveling that character so in a way it's part of yourself. You've probably thought about what it would feel like to lose your main.

But what would you be like without your main? Would you lose a bit of confidence? Would your coworkers sense you withdraw just a bit? Or would you feel free, finally able to, I don't know, learn how to surf? Would you be any different at all? Would it be something you could (or would even want to) talk to your non-WoW friends or family about? I wonder if roleplayers would have a more difficult time -- or would it be easier because they are like actors? For me, since my main is much more powerful than I am and also provides me with a lot of laughs at his expense, I would feel just a little bit smaller and weaker. It would also be freeing. I don't think I'd level another main, but I might just try something new. Would the loss of your main have any impact on who you are on a daily basis?

Ever since Blizzard introduced the new perks to the Recruit-a-Friend system, I've had it in mind that I might want that Zhevra mount for my collection.

Now that Blizzard has unveiled their Swift Zhevra screenshot gallery, it's coming back into mind. Unfortunately, I've actually "recruited" four people since I began playing, all of whom I conveniently forgot to send the proper link to, so I have never received any benefits at all. It also means that I have no one left to sweet talk into helping me get a Zhevra.

Are you planning to convince a friend to join the ranks of either the Horde or the Alliance, to the tune of some free playtime, a Zhevra mount, the ability to summon their character to you, and pick up triple experience for both monsters and quests, up to level 60?

In addition, what do you think of the Zhevra mount? Do you adore it, or do you think it is silly, or out of place, lorewise? If you do recruit someone, will it have anything to do with the mount?

If you haven't already checked out the list of updated racial abilities, you should. Some have been nerfed, others were buffed, and new ones, like the "Voodoo Shuffle" were added.

While racials are a nice bonus, they can weigh heavily on your racial decision when rolling a given class. For example, many Horde warriors roll Tauren because of the 5% health increase. This conflicts with rolling the race that you'd prefer combined with the class you desire.

There has been much speculation about what it would be like to be able to choose your own racials, and reader Mike even came up with a talent tree method for doing just that.

If you were given the power to choose, which three or four would you choose, and why? Keep in mind the overall balance which generally includes a passive ability, an active one, and one or two minor buffs to stats such as resistances, health, or professions.

Responding to a shared blogging topic over on Blog Azeroth, Aendi from the roleplaying blog Voodoo Ventures recently wrote an entry on how to choose a class. This is certainly a subject that's gotten a lot of play in the WoW community, but Aendi's is an unusually thoughtful look at the problem that results when a player's poured a lot of time and effort into a class that might be a bad choice given the player's goals in the endgame. In one of most succinct and painfully accurate points I've seen on the subject, Aendi asks -- is seeing endgame content so important to you that you're willing to play a class you enjoy less, or is the class you play so important that you're willing to sacrifice a possible shot at content?

It's no secret that classes and specs are not the same when it comes to the likelihood of getting Gladiator or raiding all the way to Kil'Jaeden. You may love your Hunter, but arena's not that kind to them at present. Your Warlock might be endless fun to play, but the guilds on your realm are probably swimming in them. And if you've ever cruised past the recruitment forums, you've probably noticed that they all seem to want the same thing: healers (and lots of 'em). If you were the sort of person who sat down, looked at the content in the game that you wanted to see more than anything else, and picked your class and spec solely with that goal in mind, your path forward would be fairly clear...but you might also become one of those people who logs off their primary toon as fast as they can after raid, or after their 10 games for the week, and goes to play the alt they'd secretly love to be playing as a main.

Ideally we get the perfect intersection of a class we love to play that's able to accomplish its goals in content we want to experience, but it doesn't always happen -- and if you have to choose, the decision is a pretty personal one. So I ask you: class or content?

Just this morning, a good friend of mine asked me a pretty fun question: If you were a quest NPC in WoW, what kind of quests would you give? What about if your guild was a faction like Honor Hold or the Cenarion Expedition, what would their purpose be? What kind of daily quests would 'your' faction offer?

I actually really enjoy this question, because it's one of those things that you can let your mind soar with if you're a roleplayer. My main (and my guild) are very anti-Scourge and pro-reclaiming (and colonizing) Northrend, so Wrath is a fun time, and perfect for envisioning my guild in that sort of position. My character would probably do something dungeon-related, maybe in Icecrown, where the Scourge population is thickest. I could definitely see an escort-style quest, where my usual 5-man group in NPC form fought alongside a 5-man group of players in a Zul'farrak style encounter, fighting off waves of undead. After that encounter, those NPCs would 'hold off' more Scourge while the main party forges ahead to take out the boss and save the day.

BlizzCon is a mere month and a half away, and I can just imagine the excitement building up. With Wrath certain to be released this year, there has got to be some big news about the expansion during the convention. Who among you are going? Better yet, who among you are going and joining a contest? If I actually managed to get tickets to BlizzCon (or at least be in the United States in October...), I would have wanted to join -- alright, maybe just check out -- the costume contest. I know, it sounds silly, but some costumes are actually pretty cool.

For sure, when BlizzCon rolls around, WoW Insider will put up a gallery of the costume contest entrants. But there are contests that don't require you to be at BlizzCon. Quite a few of them are online contests like the poster making, songwriting, and movie-making. Will you be joining any of them? Everybody loves swag, after all. Even if you aren't, what entries are you looking forward to seeing this year?

Since the beginning of The Burning Crusade, I've wanted playable Ethereals. I don't care which faction or what classes, I just want to play an Ethereal. Heck, if all you could do with an ethereal character is walk around and emote, I would still roll one. I don't know why I'm so infatuated with them, but I pretty much like most things about them. Their design, their towns, the Consortium's debonaire way of operations.

The other Burning Crusade race I want to play is an Arakkoa. Specifically an Arakkoa Priest or Paladin. I don't like the birdmen as much as the blinkymen, but I found myself incredibly intrigued by the few Light-following arakkoa scattered around. I wanted to learn more about them, but there wasn't anymore to learn, unfortunately.

Now that I'm in the Wrath of the Lich King Beta, my new fascination is the Vrykul. Aesthetically, they are by far the most awesome race in WoW, and they're steeped in Norse lore which is just awesome. Their women look like they could destroy me with their bare hands, and the men seem like they have enough hair customization options to put a player race to shame. If these became a player race, I would reroll so fast.

Do you guys have any races you would just love to see playable? I have a lot of friends that would adore the chance to play a Goblin but I couldn't do that personally. Not a fan of Goblins. Are you after something a little more 'out there' like Nerubians? Are you a fan of a race from another setting that you'd love to be added to WoW?

Back in June on my guild alliance's forums, one of our members posted a thread asking us a fairly simple question: What are your WoW goals? Being an alliance that covers a wide variety of playstyles, the posed goals were just as varied. The most common goal across everyone was to get an Amani War Bear, but these goals were everything from killing Illidan to getting their first epic flying mount to getting the Gladiator title.

The thread was bumped just the other day so we could all see our progress on the goals we posted oh-so-long ago (in internet time). It was pretty cool to see, since many of the people that posted completed most of their pre-Wrath goals. It's really fun to see everyone actually achieving the things they've wanted, no matter how big or small.

Personally, I still have a few goals I'd like to meet before the expansion rolls around.

• Kill Kil'jaeden. Almost there!
• Get an Amani Warbear for my Paladin alt
• Get an Orb of the Sin'dorei for my Priest.
  

The first one I want far, far more than the others. The mount and the trinket are pure vanity (especially since my Priest already has a bear), whereas the Kil'jaeden kill is something I'd really love to see my raid accomplish together. I'm going to go ahead and pass this question on to you guys: What are your pre-Wrath of the Lich King goals? How about goals that don't have a time limit on them? Do you just want an Ironfoe one day, like a certain Paladin friend of mine that shall remain nameless? I'm sure quite a few of you have your hearts set on a Deathcharger.

A pretty fun forum thread caught the attention of Bornakk and many, many regular posters as well. The player Course of Medivh-US asks a question: If your character said one last thing upon dying, what would it be? A majority of the responses were comedy answers, and only a handful leaned over to the serious side. The jokes were pretty hit or miss, but I got a few laughs out of it. Among my favorites...

• "Haha, you fool! You fell for one of the classic blunders, the first of which is, "never get involved in a land war in Kalimdor." Only slightly less well-known is this; never go in against a Gnome when death is on the line! Hahahaha... *dies*"
• "Pat? What pat?"
• "wwwwwwwwssssssssssddddddddaaawdssssd"
• "Et tu, Brutallus?"
• "With my dying breath, I curse Kalgan!"

Being an RP nerd, my characters would probably say something more serious. My Priest would lament her failures or regret she couldn't have done more before the end. My Paladin probably wouldn't say anything. She would just harden a defiant glare and pass on. If we were leaning to the silly side, my Shadow Priest would probably say something like, "Whoops, shouldn't have hit Shadow Word: Death there." Actually, I probably say that a lot already... but let's not talk about that. Let's extend this to you guys: What would your character say with their final breath? Heck, how do you envision your character taking the final spill? Old and grey on their deathbed, going peacefully? Being cut down in glorious battle? Blowing themselves up while skilling up Engineering?

If you're the type of player that always wants to be prepared, this pre-Wrath/3.0 period is a pretty good time to get started on that. The big thing most of these types are concerned with is gold. It's more or less been proven to be true that even if you're completely broke going into Wrath, you'll be just fine in the end regardless. Still, gold is on a lot of people's minds looking towards the future.

Everyone has a different opinion of how much gold is 'enough' gold. I tend to hang out with players that are pretty big on min-maxing, the people that are always prepared, so my sense of what's 'enough' is a bit inflated. I'm sitting on roughly 10,000 gold right now, and I only recently started feeling like it was 'enough.' I'll be hemorrhaging gold at level 80 leveling professions and getting my gear up to par, so I'm sure most of that will be gone in no time. I could also get the gold very, very easily once I've hit level 80, and not have any issues. I just had that urge to be extra prepared that wasn't sated until I hit 5 digits. It actually wasn't too hard to get. I just farmed herbs here and there, and it just sort of accumulated.

How much gold do you think is enough gold, especially when we're heading into an expansion? Are you content to sit down in the single digits, and go out and run a daily quest if you need to repair your armor? Do you gather up as much gold as possible and sit on it?

So we're expecting the new pre-Wrath content patch any week now, and with it a whole flood of new mechanics and abilities, such as raid buff stacking. It should be interesting to see how all this new stuff fits in to the current Burning Crusade end game, and how people adapt to it as they prepare to plunge into Wrath. Of course, many will probably get a head start on Inscription, while others may already have a new haircut picked out.

Myself, I'm looking forward to playing around with the new changes to my Hunter. Disengage and the new Freezing Trap mechanics are looking delicious enough to me that I may just see if I can get back into Arenas for a few weeks to check them out. I'm also pretty interested to see how the Aspect of the Viper changes feel on some big boss battles. It'll be nice to have to essentially have no mana regeneration worries ever again, assuming the current version stays as is.

What about you? Given everything we'll likely see in patch 3.0.2, what are you looking forward to doing while you wait for Wrath?

The latest Beta build had a slew of new titles for players to drool over. Of course, most of them were exactly that... titles to drool over but not obtain since most of them were rewards for being the first to Level 80 or first to skill up to 450. Technically, there can actually be more than one person who is 'first' as there's a one minute window when the Feat of Strength is accomplished. Still not very forgiving, and not exactly very casual and quite contrary to the "we want players to enjoy Northrend and not skip content" mantra Blizzard has been repeating as a justification for not having flying mounts for the first seven levels in the expansion.

What do you guys think of the new titles? Frankly, I think a lot of them are pretty darn cool. But seriously, in all likelihood, these first-to-Level-80 characters will have little to no experience of Northrend. Your realm's first Archmage is likely to have no standing with the Kirin-Tor, for example. The first Paladin to Level 80, your realm's so-called Crusader, will most probably have grinded and not actually done any quests for the Argent Crusade. Perhaps Blizzard will have some retroactive titles, such as Conqueror / Justicar or even Scarab Lord, which wasn't implemented until after most AQ gates had been opened. What're your thoughts on the new titles?

On this fine Sunday morning, we're going to play a game of 'what if.' As you may or may not know, The Four Horsemen is an encounter in the Naxxramas raid dungeon, loosely based on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In the Scourge, the Four Horsemen are basically the top dog Death Knights, the best they have to offer. We don't know a ton about each of the Horsemen, but we know enough to know that they're pretty hardcore.

What if the Lich King and the Scourge were to win the war in Northrend? What if they totally whooped our butts, and wash over Azeroth unopposed, then moved on to bigger and better things like taking out their adversaries the Burning Legion? With all of the heroes of Azeroth at their disposal to raise as the Undead, who do you think would be the new Four Horsemen? Pick from anybody in Warcraft history, alive or dead. Death is meaningless to the Scourge, after all.

My picks? Highlord Bolvar Fordragon, High Overlord Saurfang, Anduin Lothar, and Tirion Fordring. Obvious choices? Yeah, probably. You gotta admit though, those four riding on the side of the Scourge would be pretty bad news for whoever is on the other side of the battlefield. I considered Uther as well, but personal preference puts the other four on top. So what are your draft picks? Don't worry about lorelol or anything like that. Comedy answers are fine. Picking people just because they're cool is fine, too.

I've been playing WoW, and writing for WoW Insider, for quite a while now. So it came as something of a surprise to me to learn that I could hearth, after a fashion, when my hearthstone was on cooldown. You see, on a post of mine a couple of weeks ago, someone introduced me to the concept of "ghetto hearthing": get in a group with any random person, zone into an instance, and drop group. 60 seconds or so later, you're automatically teleported back to your hearth point.

The beauty of this is that Stormwind and Orgrimmar both have instances in them, so it provides very easy travel from those cities back to Outland, for those trips to respec or check the AH. Anyway, when I finally understood that I could hearth back from Stormwind any time just by popping into the Stockade, I felt like a big noob for having waited out all those cooldowns for the past year or two.

Have you had any big noob moments recently?

One of the coolest things about the World of Warcraft are the various NPCs that we see all over the place. Players who've played Warcraft 3 get an extra thrill when meeting characters from the popular RTS, for example. There's Thrall in Orgrimmar, whose life story has been all over books and re-told in past Blizzard games. In Dalaran, the overrated Rhonin and his wife, whose lives have been chronicled over several Richard A. Knaak books, make an appearance. Lor'themar Theron first appeared in the Warcraft manga and subsequently showed up in Silvermoon City when The Burning Crusade was launched.

Of course, not all NPCs get the benefit of books or comics to tell their story. Our favorite Griftah only has his story told through the game. Then there are those NPCs whose origins come from somewhere closer to home -- real people who have made some impact on the game one way or the other. These include quest giver Ahab Wheathoof, who is an homage to young fan Ezra Chatterton, and Dalaran pet supplies vendor Breanni, who is a nod to the creator of the popular WarcraftPets site devoted to vanity pets. There are many, many more NPCs in the game world we all love. Whose story would you like to know more about? Is there an NPC that has piqued your curiosity? What could be the story behind the unassuming Kaja? How about we learn more about Cro Threadstrong and his hatred for apples? There are so many stories in WoW... which one would you like to hear?