This is, I have to say, is one of the coolest things I’ve seen… and it’s on my server!

Cassie mentioned it to me, I’ve been oblivious lately to general chat… but I am so taking part tonight!

Remember that whole ‘Isle of Quel’danas’ thing we were so excited about way back when? Tons of new daily quests? A new instance? A new raid area? A new badge vendor?

Pretty cool, right?

All the servers scrambled to be the first to do tons of daily quests, as each new stage of content in the Isle of Quel’danas had to be unlocked by server participation.

And what happened?

As soon as the new Badge of Honor reward vendor got unlocked, everyone stopped caring.

Well, a couple stages or so AFTER the Badge lady is the gem vendor recipe lady… she has a quest for you to do. It’s a damn cool quest, I loved it.

You get asked to go retrieve some stuff from the high plateau of southwest Hellfire Peninsula.

The catch is, what you gotta retrieve is buried… and it requires a sensitive sniffer to figure out where the tender roots you want are located.

It’s a damn truffle hunt!

You have to fly up to that plateau… you get to tame a Ravager as your pet! Just like hunters get pets! You get him as a combat pet to send out to whack stuff, the whole thing. Very fun! C’mon, isn’t that reason enough to go?

And one of the Ravager’s special abilities is to sniff out these tender truffles… I mean roots… and then you scavenge the suckas and return to the Isle of Quel’danas and turn them in.

And if you do this quest enough on your server, the gem recipe vendor lady will… have gem recipes to sell. Epic gem recipes. NICE epic gem cutting recipes.

Windburn is, of course, a maxed out Jewelcrafter with many rare recipes, such as Solid Star of Elune and Runed Living Ruby. I wants those Epic recipes.

But… I checked last night, vendor is still at 95%. It’s heartbreaking!

And I mention this to my wife, and she tells me that one of the best guilds Alliance side on Kael’thas, as far as friendliness and progression are concerned, Vendetta, has gotten sick of it too.

And they are taking action!

Check out this post on the Official WoW Kael’thas realm forums made by Showtyme of Vendetta;

In an attempt to hasten the arrival of the gem-vendor, Vendetta will be holding a quest lottery. The rules are simple. A member of the team will be in Shattrath ready to share the quest “discovering your roots”. More team members will be at Razorthorn Rise clearing out mobs and uncovering roots for you. Simply pick up the roots you see on the ground and fly back to shat and port to Quel’Danas. Turn in the quest. A final member of the team will be at the quest turn ready to port you back to Shattrath where the original team member will be waiting for you. In exchange for doing this we will give you 3g and put your name on a spreadsheet. You can do this as many times as you have toons per day until the vendor opens. Every time you do it on a main or alt you receive another chance to win the grand prize, which is a ZA Bear mount!!!!So its a win for you and the whole server, you get 3g per day per toon that does the quest and each time you do it your name is added into the pool. Once the vendor reaches 100% the event will be complete and the lottery will be held. The winner will be notified in-game via mail and there name will be posted in this thread. The bear run will then be set up for a time convenient for the winner and the server can finally get the gems they need!!

Any questions contact Showtyme in game. The offer will start Wednesday the 25th at noon server time. in front of the portal to Quel’Danas. Good luck!

Now that’s hardcore awesome…

I love the idea of working together like that. And would I love a bear mount? Sure!

But I am going to participate in this on all three 70s I have, NOT in desperate hopes of a bear mount, I have the awesome birdie mount from Heroic Sethekk halls to love. Okay, if I won Windshadow the Bear tank WOULD be riding a warbear. It is mandatory. Sorry, I slipped into some bear-on-bear daydreaming there. My bad.

But no, I’m going to take part each day because this is just an awesome attempt by a guild of great folks to get some hustle going! Get that damn gem lady in bizness!

If you’re on Kael’thas, and you’ve been blowing off the quest… please go out there and get some move on!

First, and I think it’s official now, the votes have cast Orphan vs Illidan as the winner.

This means that Logan of Fear, Dot, Dot, Dot is the grand champeen and prize winner of the ‘Take your Orphan to work day’ contest.

Congratulations, Logan!

The much loved ‘Orphan drowning in steaming pool of lava’ screenshot was created by none other than Squirrelz, the husband of Nasirah of Alts Ahoy. He definitely deserves a big round of applause, and while he doesn’t get to wave his epeen as the best in this contest, he will also get a button as a consolation prize.

Squirrelz and Logan, make sure you email me at bigbearbuttedone AT yahoo DOT com to send me your address info so I can get your prizes mailed out.

You know, one of the reasons I love blogging is that I get to write lines such as “The much-loved orphan drowning in steaming pool of lava screenshot”.

I want to see what kind of search results lead people here after that one.

And I can picture in my minds’ eye the CSI episode where an investigation leads the cops to cluck their tongues in disgust over the incredible sicko on the internet that would be so terribad as to write that. Cause, like, I must actually want to drown real orphans in lava.

And you KNOW that’s how it would be portrayed. And I would be turned into a fat white guy that failed high school living in mom’s basement and afraid of ‘grrls’. Eating cheetos.

Hollywood has never met a stereotype it didn’t like. And I don’t like cheetos, they’re too crunchy. I prefer cheesy-POOFS.

Hey, remember how CSI:Miami treated people who played first person shooters? In that one episode loosely mocking the developers of Grand Theft Auto as publicity hungry mass murderers, organizing players to rob banks and kill folks to bring more publicity to their video game to rack up sales? Huh? Do ya?

Of course, I stopped wathcing CSI: Miami when they killed Speed. (Rory Cochrane, who I loved in Empire Records. I still quote him from that movie a lot. What do I quote? When he tells his boss that he is doing a superb job. And keeps repeating ’superb’. Craxks me up. Anyway, I digress. I know he wanted to leave the show himself, but when he died, I lost interest. And how the hell did I get on that topic?)

Anyway, people think I make this shit up. I wish. Just ask Penny Arcade about crazy people that assume all game players are violence-driven freaks. Of course, THEY went and created a wildly-successful children’s charity in protest. Me, I just complain. Rock on.

Anyway, moving on, and damn I’m cranky today…

Okay, so this Saturday there will be another wonderful episode of the WoW Insider show. And this week I WILL be on it.

I have no choice.

You see, I’m hosting it this week. It’s gonna be the Big Bear Butt show. I’m kinda gonna have to be there. They don’t let you host one without being there. I said I’d phone it in from the jakuzzi, but no dice.

It’s gonna be awesome!

Who are my co-podcasters?

I have absolutely no idea yet!

What are our topics?

I have absolutely no idea yet!

Well, I do have an idea, since the WoW Insider show takes readers emails for the first section, covers the top viewed WoW Insider articles of the past week, and then ends with some shout outs and IRC fun. So you can pretty much be sure that I’ll be reading some viewer mail, I’ll be talking about WoW Insider hot topics, and then doing some shout outs.

Did you know that the readers of WoW Insider control the content of the podcast? It’s true! The articles that are read/viewed the MOST, and commented on the most, become the topics we choose from. It’s that simple. Scary, huh? The power you wield?

Why, if a couple hundred gamers formed a coalition to pick one topic and hammer the shit out of it for a week, it would be guarenteed to be on the show!

[Hmmm… gotta write that down, that’s a good idea, how many people do I know?]

Anyway, I’ve got a lot of organizing still to do, but I wanted to warn you in advance… no Mike Schramm this week on the podcast, so the organizing is gonna be rocky as hell. I hope the Turpster will be there, since I personally love his sense of humor, and there is something about those European and Asian accents that I enjoy hearing in conversation, and there will hopefully be other guests.

Will Matt of World of Matticus be on? He hasn’t done a WI podcast before, but he certainly has the option since he writes the Priest column over there now. I don’t know, I think that would be pretty fun. Get the inside scoop on one of the new WoW Insider column writers. And see if we can’t get him to drop the professional facade long enough to rant about Hockey. That should be good for some ‘color’.

Or maybe I can go it alone, and just ramble on drunkenly for an hour about the way things were back in the good old days, before this damn graphics card thingie changed computer games for the worst. Back in the glory days of MUD, damn it! Now THAT was an MMO!

And Zork! You’re in the dark, and you’re gonna get eaten by a Grue, mother-f&*(er! Now THAT’S tension! That’s fear, damn it!

Or maybe I can just be a good boy and run a nice, clean, respectable show.

I guess you’ll just have to tune in and find out!

So, I have gone and looked at all of the submissions for Childrens Week. thank you to everyone that sent in your screenshots, they were, for the most part, very cute or very funny.

But in all things, it has to come down to a decision.

And this is one that I can’t quite make.

Not without your help.

You see, I got two that are just… I love ‘em. But I can’t quite decide which one I love more.

So I’ve got a little poll on the left of the page, and I’m taking your feedback.

Take a look at these two screenshots, and then go ahead and vote for the one that you like the absolute bestest.

And I ain’t saying who did which, since, well, this is about which is the neatest and stuff, not a popularity contest.

But I’ll post the winner’s names and stuff once I got some good poll results.

But regardless of who eventually wins… thank you again to everyone that sent me your screenshot… you guys rock!

Old School Blackrock Depths action

Orphan vs Illidan - Cage Match!

Hey, I’ve had some fun shots mailed in at bigbearbuttedone AT yahoo DOT com, but the field is still wide open.

If you haven’t done both your Outlands and Azeroth orphan quests yet, why not try to take them somewhere.. special? And fun? And take a screenshot and send it in?

The deadline for the contest is this Thursday night, so git ‘er done, folks.

Free rep, and free non-combat pets. Just have some fun, see the sights, and enjoy deliberating over what you like.. Eggbert? Itty bitty elephants?

 These only come once a year… and I know I like my elephant very much. So what are you waiting for?

You can do the Azeroth chain of orphan quests at level 10, and the Outland chain of orphan quests at level 60, and the whole Outland chain grants you 1660 Lower City rep.

The contest! 

In the spirit of The Scout Report, I’d like to challenge my wonderful, light hearted readers to go out there with your orphan and take a screenshot of you and your orphan in… imaginative locations. No guidance from me, do your best to come up with something truly fun.

Email me your best screenie (and no floods of shots, please, pick the one you like best) to bigbearbuttedone AT yahoo DOT com and next Friday Cassieann and I will pick the ones we like the best.

Along with displaying the ones we like the most, Cassieann and I will decide which is the overall winner, and the artful dodger will get a 100% Feral Druid button and bragging rights.

The bragging rights might be worth more, but hey… we do what we can to have fun.