Wojtek sent us this thread in which he posted a long series of emails between him and Blizzard about the ninja of an Onyxia Drake. There’s a lot of back and forth, but eventually, the bottom line is that Blizzard was not able to help him, whether that’s because he didn’t have the information right, they couldn’t find what they needed in the chat logs, or they just didn’t want to. Later on, the thread is locked, and Wojtek is given the usual feedback address for the GM actions.

So what does all this mean? We’ve heard in the past that Blizzard will occasionally help with ninjas, and we’ve even heard unofficially that if you get the main looter in a PuG raid to state the looting conditions ahead of time, Blizzard can go back, look that up, and then reward loot based on who really deserves it. But of course, all of that is unofficial, and there are so many variations and issues in situations like these that there can’t really be a hard and fast rule — sometimes Blizzard can help, sometimes they can’t.

So basically, the one hard and fast rule that we’ve got is to watch your own back — make sure the rules are clearly stated, and only go raiding with people you trust. Blizzard will probably help when they can, but from GM to GM, their policies (and the way they feel that day — that seems to be what it boils down to sometimes) will likely differ. Ninjas happen — as long as there’s less loot to go around than people in the raid, they always will. And it’s important to remember that even if you do get some loot stolen from you, and even if Blizzard doesn’t help, there’ll always be another instance to conquer and another drop to get.

The good folks at the Orange County Register got invited to Blizzard’s official WoW anniversary party that took place last Thursday on their Irvine campus, and their report is now posted. It sounds like quite the event — lots of free food and beer, head honchos regaling employees with their tales of the early days, and Rob Pardo suggesting that just like geek culture helped define this game, this game might help define geek culture going forward.

The picture gallery included with the piece is a good browse, too — you can see all of the Blizzard heavyweights hanging out together, and the great spread set up on the campus. The Register’s also been asking Blizzard about their memories of the game — they’ve got more memories from Samwise, launch day stories from Shane Dabiri, and some thoughts from Pardo and Frank Pearce (who, strangely enough, at first didn’t believe that Blizzard belonged in a hardcore niche market like MMO gaming — he didn’t want to make “a game that never ended,” he says). All good stuff. Congrats once again to Blizzard on five years, good to see they celebrated in style.

Monday wasn’t only the fifth anniversary of World of Warcraft, it also kicked off the 15th anniversary of the Warcraft property at large (which makes sense — you might remember that the original WoW intro started off with “Ten Years of Warcraft”). And so Blizzard has created a brand new minisite to commemorate the occasion — they’ve got a full video interview with many of the staff members (no women, though, Blizzard — what’s the deal there?), and there are other Blizzard and community interviews coming as well. They’ve also got a feature called the “Battlecry Mosaic,” in which they’re inviting fans to take pictures of themselves showing Horde or Alliance pride with printable logos, which will then be assembled into a mosaic of up to 20,000 pictures. That should be a sight to see — it’ll eventually all be posted online, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see something like it at the next BlizzCon also. Neth also says that whoever reaches set limits on pictures will get a faction exclusive piece of art revealed. Sounds fun.

I thought for a moment that this was what the Warcraft twitter account was referring to the other day, but they specifically said whatever they were talking about would be revealed on 11/25, and obviously that’s still in the future. So we’ll have to see what else appears this week. Still, the minisite is an excellent homepage for Blizzard’s look back at their first and biggest franchise. Especially if you’re a Warcraft fan, it’s a must-see.

Blizzard updated the launcher again today without warning and hopefully without incident — unlike Monday, when everything went awry, errors abounded and people were unable to connect.

There is no indication that patch 3.3 is anywhere near downloading or anything other than a small tools patch. There has also been no word from Blizzard yet on exactly what this patch does, but it is required if you want to log into the game. The patch is very small and only takes a handful of seconds to download and apply.

We’ll keep an eye on this issue for any problems, but as of this writing, all is well.

In a short (but not necessarily sweet) announcement, Zarhym announced on the official forums that the recently opened Blizzard pet store are now regional. This means that pets purchased from, say, the European store can only be redeemed on European World of Warcraft accounts. He doesn’t go into detail other than to say that pets that have already been purchased from one region and redeemed in another region are not affected by this change.

While it’s a curious move on the surface, it effectively restricts players from Europe purchasing their Pandaren Monk and Lil’ K.T. from the US store where the pets are cheaper at $10 compared to €10 or £10 in the EU (roughly $15). Interestingly enough, the pets are priced at ₩12,000 in the Korean version of the store, which is about the same price as in the US ($10.3). It’s unclear why the European version of the pets — along with a few other Blizzard store items — are more expensive, a fact that makes Turpster huff and puff and blow Azerothian houses down.

Obvious business reasons aside, it also creates a minor inconvenience for people who would like to give the pets as gifts to players in other regions. However, considering that many vanity pet codes have been regional in the past, such as those given away during Blizzard special events, it’s not a surprising move. Then again, this whole foray into microtransactions was a bit of a surprise, so we’ve learned to never underestimate those folks from Irvine.

Backhand of Justice has an interesting post up about something we’ve considered for a long time: who will overtake World of Warcraft. Way back before this year started, game developers were challenged to come up with an MMO that could take on WoW’s influence and popularity, and while there have certainly been some interesting MMOs announced and released (Star Wars: The Old Republic, which isn’t out yet, and Aion, which is, are probably most in the forefront at the moment), it just hasn’t happened. WoW is still the juggernaut it’s been for almost the full five years, and with Cataclysm coming in 2010, that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon.

So now, two months from the end of 2009, let’s just say it: it’s not possible. World of Warcraft is an aberration, an extremely well-made game that happened to be in just the right time and place (the casual game explosion, the adoption of MMOs and subscription model gaming, the “mainstreaming” of fantasy/sci-fi geekiness) to become an uber megahit. In short, game developers simply can’t recreate WoW, at least not on purpose. As BoJ says, that doesn’t mean they can’t try — there are certainly lots of original and interesting games and MMOs out there, and it’s completely possible to be an MMO that isn’t WoW-sized and be successful. But as for the actual question of beating WoW and its worldwide audience, game developers have pretty much moved on.

I don’t necessarily agree with everything we highlight here on WoW.com, but just because a post seems wrong doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting to talk about. Such is the case with Loregy’s latest post — they suggest that after all is said and done, the much beloved (whoops, not) Garrosh Hellscream will end up at the wrong end of our weapons. They say that the big fight between Garrosh and Thrall (rudely interrupted by the Wrath of the Lich King) means that Garrosh is in for a whooping at some future point. Matt basically said as much in his post a while back — Garrosh is a flawed hero, to say the least, and it’s likely that sometime here, those flaws are going to catch up with him, possibly in the form of us players.

Now of course whether that’s true or not is an entirely different question from whether that’s what you want or not. Kisirani has already said that there are sides of Garrosh we haven’t seen yet, and Blizzard could go either way with him — either put him through some troubles and teach him to learn some lessons (right now the guy is pretty dumb), or do what Loregy is suggesting and turn him into a raid boss (wouldn’t be the first faction leader with such a fate, to be honest). Personally, I think Garrosh is headed for a little redemption — all he really needs, to my mind, is a little experience and humility, and, as I understand it, war can teach those pretty well.

The webcomics community seems like a pretty cool bunch, specially when they all pitch in and help each other out. One of my favorite webcomics, PvP Online, often features guest artists to fill in for creator Scott Kurtz when he’s away at some convention or just down with some bad bug. Just recently, he coralled the immensely talented Ramón Pérez, the genius behind Kukuburi, to do a guest strip while he was down with the flu.

That’s nice, you say, but what’s this got to do with World of Warcraft? Well, see, Gabe from Penny Arcade (aka creator Mike Krahulik’s alter ego) apparently picked up some kind of bad bug during their PAX or Penny Arcade Expo, and some well-known comic folks such as Bill Amend and Kris Straub stepped in to help. The highlight is that World of Warcraft’s art director, Samwise Didier, the man largely responsible for the look and feel of many of Blizzard’s games also pitched in his contribution.

It has nothing to do with our favorite game, but it’s freaking Samwise doing a freaking Penny Arcade strip! I mean, I don’t really have to explain why I’m posting this, right? One of our favorite WoW icons doing a guest strip on one of our favorite webcomics (that occasionally tackles WoW) is so full of win it almost makes Saurfang cry. These sort of crossovers are so cool, you almost wish these webcomic creators would get sick more often. Ok, not really, but you know what I mean.

3 Point Entertainment (makers of the official World of Warcraft steins) has released a brand new stein, modeled after the epic Brewfest mug the Tankard o’ Terror. As you can see above, this beauty of a brewholder is much different from the other mugs — it’s made to look exactly like the ingame item, even though that means it’s more angled than curved and a little bit primitive-looking. It’s also a huge piece of stoneware, standing over nine inches tall and weighing four pounds. I don’t know that you’d ever want to drink anything out of it, but I guess, fittingly for a tanking tankard, if you hit someone over the head with it, they’d feel it.

Alex will be able to tell us what that’s like, as he’s already got one ordered. This mug is also much cheaper than the other mugs — it’s only $39.99 (as if “only” was a fitting adjective for a purchase like this), which means that 3 Point has probably heard your complaining here in our comments sections and decided to offer up a lower price point option. I won’t be going for this one, but the idea of replicating Azerothian cookery in real-life is intriguing. I might buy a Cookie’s Tenderizer if I had the chance.

The Twisted Nether folks have been a huge part of the WoW community for a while now — I finally got to meet both Fimlys and Nibuca in person at the last BlizzCon, and of course we’ve mentioned them and their work here on the site before. They’ve recently announced another big project, in coordination with Stompalina over at Rawrcast and our own Eddie “Brigwyn” Carrington, author of the Scattered Shots column and curator of The Hunting Lodge, and it sounds exciting. Azeroth United is an “Internet media community” centered around World of Warcraft, so it’ll be a hub for sharing news and support around not just bloggers, but all WoW-related fansites and online resources.

It sounds like their first project will be a large-scale charity drive, much like the Children’s Week auction that Brigwyn put together earlier this year. More news on that, we’re told, is coming soon, and we’ll keep our ears open to see what they’re up to. We’ve seen the power of the Warcraft community before, both in making a difference with donations and and uniting under a common flag, so a project like this is sure to be fun to watch. Stay tuned for more when we hear it.