Cataclysm screenshot of the day

The latest Cataclysm screenshot from Blizzard is shown above, featuring a preview of the most evil-looking eel to have ever lived. Then again, all eels look a little creepy, don't they? I wonder if we can loot meat off of it.

Dragon roll, anyone?If you've missed any of the previous Cataclysm screenshots of the day or you want to see a hi-res version of today's screenshot, check out the gallery below.

Blizzard manga giveaway from Lorehound

Lorehound.com once again continues to offer up all things good and manga-related by putting up a fun little contest. Look at your bookshelf. Is it barren of any Blizzard/Tokyopop manga titles? Does it weep silently in the night, wishing it could be graced by the volumes of Warcraft Legends and the Starcraft titles? Hope no more, dear bookshelf, for if you enter Lorehound's Incredibly Short Story contest, you have the potential to win every single Blizzard manga title in existance.

Put on your robe and thinking cap and write a 150- to 300-word story on why you think you deserve the book collection. It can be anything: sob story, comedy, thoughtful introspective, a shopping list or whatever. Submit your story, and Lorehound will narrow down the runner-ups. From there, the community will vote on which one is the best. Considering this is nearly $70+ worth of manga, I'd say that's not a bad deal. Best of luck to all who enter!

WoW Moviewatch: Cenarion Circle Promotional Video 2.0

It's always nice to see roleplayers create machinima as tie-in to their stories and efforts. It's also keen to see various guilds create promotional videos, to try and draw in new players. This video seems to raise the bar even further by being a promotional video for an entire server!

Brian Planas created the Cenarion Circle Promotional Video 2.0 to encourage curious roleplayers to check out the multi-faction opportunities on the Cenarion Circle server. It certainly seems like a friendly group from the film.

The video itself stretches on a bit, but I imagine a lot of that is the loving, detailed attention Brian was giving each scene and group. I wonder if it might get a better response by being a little shorter, but everyone tends to have their own taste about that kind of thing.

Around Azeroth: The end of the line

To conclude Nostalgia Week, we present this picture and letter from Ebbandflow of the Windrunner server. "Here's a shot I took of Org after a long day of grinding dungeons," he writes. "Watching the dust settle on this old city that will soon be unrecognizable really brought home to me the changes that are about to occur. The sun is going down on the old to be covered in a blanket of night forever, but with that will come new adventures and new challenges. It's time to let go of the familiar and embrace the unknown."

Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word "Azeroth" in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val'kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here.

WoW on iPad via streaming

World of Warcraft on the iPad? Apparently, thanks to an interesting service called Gaikai. Gaikai, currently in beta, is a new technology that will let you play any game online in your browser. Here's how it works -- Gaikai hosts the games on their servers and worries about the hardware and software updates, then they stream the games to you through your browser. They call this technology "Streaming Worlds." What does this mean for the average WoW player? Well, when you have a computer that otherwise looks seemingly impossible to play WoW on such as the iPad, you can use Gaikai to stream the game via Java, Flash or Silverlight to your computer, resulting in the screenshot shown above.

While the screenshot is amazing, there are doubts to its credibility since iPad's browser doesn't support Flash. Unfortunately no video of the game in action was provided. However, the concept surrounding Gaikai, and the implications for browser-based games that are graphically intensive like World of Warcraft are fascinating.

Children's Week Dalaran orphan quest broken

Reports on the official forums this morning are that those who completed the Dalaran orphan's quest (Oracle pet/Wolvar pet) last year are currently unable to start the quest again today. Blizzard has already chimed in with a response:


Aredek -- Children's Week not workingI'm terribly sorry about the delay in getting back to you all regarding this issue; however, this is an issue we are presently looking into. At this time, players who completed the Dalaran Children's Week quests will be unable to re-accept the quests. We hope to resolve this issue as soon as possible, but we do not have an ETA to provide at this time.

We will surely let you know as soon are more information becomes available.

Thank you all for your patience!

source

This annual reset glitch has happened a few times in the past with other seasonal events. This issue should not be affecting the Stormwind, Orgrimmar or Shattrath orphan quests. It should also not be affecting those who are doing the Dalaran orphan quest for the first time. More information about the current seasonal event can be found in our Children's Week guide updated for 2010.