Is it just me, or have we had lots of EU-only contests lately? First, Lesley gives away some loot cards for the EU, and then Turpster gives away some more. This is July 4th, and it's about time we served the North American side of the globe! (Canada, we missed Canada Day, so we'll throw you in the mix, too). Courtesy of our good friends over at WoWTCGLoot.com (be sure to visit them if you need to know anything about the TCG Loot cards), let's give away some loot codes!

We've got 10 in total that we'll give away to ten random commenters on this post before tomorrow night, Sunday July 5th, at midnight. There's an Epic Purple Shirt, two Sandbox Tigers, three Papa Hummel's Pet Biscuits, and four Party Grenades up for grabs -- to enter, just leave a comment on this post, and since it's Independence Day, how about telling us what your favorite kind of firework is. I was always partial to the black snakes -- most people though they were boring, but I knew how the big ones blew up, and I never really understood just how those darned snakes worked.

One comment per person in the US and Canada only, please, and do be sure to use a real email address when you comment (that you check often) so we can get in touch with you ASAP if you win. Good luck to everyone, and happy Independence Day!

The Eastern Kingdoms were flamed and we had fun doing it. Our It came from the Blog event last Saturday was actually two events: an all levels event followed by a mounted/flightpathed event. Many players took my advice and created Death Knights, giving the lowbies plenty of protection for the run through dangerous territories. Mike Schramm, Allison Robert and Daniel Whitcomb all joined in on the fun.

The lowbie event honored all of the flames from Falconwing Square to Hammerfall, with a couple of desecrations on the side. The mounted event took to the flightpaths and completed the Flame Keeper of Eastern Kingdoms achievement. I also got the unofficial achievement for running into every fence along the way. Running + typing = hard.

A pictorial journal of our fun is in the gallery below. And I used the wow.com addon to upload my activity for the event. I wish I had used the in-game blog feature to annotate it, but I will next time. If you use the addon to upload your It came from the Blog activity, it will show up in the guild log as well.

I'm thinking of trying video for future events. Maybe Turpster can give me some pointers. Allison does a good job with her videos, too. Would you watch It came from the Blog videos?

After you listen to the WoW Insider show today, join us for some Midsummer fun:

• When: Saturday, June 27th, 5PM Eastern (2PM Pacific, 3PM Server time)
• Where: The Midsummer Fire Festival site in the Court of the Sun, Silvermoon City on Zangarmarsh, U.S.
• Who: Any Horde character who is not in the service of the Lich King. (Death Knights are recommended as long as they have finished their initial quests and have been accepted by Thrall.)
• How: Just send a tell to Robinella or any It Came from the Blog member to get an invite to the raid and the guild.

Expect fun, fire, experience, and lots and lots of running/riding. Our goal is to grab an achievement or two, as well.

We hope to see you there!

I warned you this was coming, and now it's almost here! Join us for WoW.com's It Came from the Blog Midsummer Fire Fun and let's go desecrate some Alliance flames! For the Horde!

Actually, we have a lot of players who normally play Alliance -- this isn't a jingoistic event. It's just an excuse to get together and have fun. We may even pick up an achievement or two. Here are the details:

• When: Saturday, June 27th, 5PM Eastern (2PM Pacific, 3PM Server time)
• Where: The Midsummer Fire Festival site in the Court of the Sun, Silvermoon City on Zangarmarsh, U.S.
• Who: Any Horde character who is not in the service of the Lich King. (Death Knights are recommended as long as they have finished their initial quests and have been accepted by Thrall.)
• How: Just send a tell to Robinella or any It Came from the Blog member to get an invite to the raid and the guild

More info is after the break.

It's that time again!

Patch 3.2 is due to hit the PTR any day now. We've been getting a ton of official information over the past week, and that always happens right before the PTR goes up.

For Patch 3.1 we compiled everything on the site into WoW Insider's Guide to Patch 3.1, and quickly found out that people enjoyed it. So we've done the same for you all this time, creating WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2.

At least once a day, usually in the morning, the guide is updated with the latest Patch 3.2 news. When tons of breaking news comes out during the day, we're updating it quickly then as well.

So check it out, enjoy the patch news, and stay tuned here on WoW.com for all the latest!

[Guild Recruitment - City] It came from the Blog is now recruiting. We are an ultra casual guild where WoW.com writers join in scheduled events with readers. We have a tabard and even a Guild Bank (though usually empty). PST to Robiness if interested.

With the Midsummer Fire Festival coming up, we think it's time to revive the activities of our very own guild: It Came from the Blog. We will be announcing the date and time of our desecrating fires run soon, as well as other events that may or many not coincide with in-game holidays.

If you want to join us, make a Horde character on Zangarmarsh U.S. and ask an ICftB member for an invite -- many have the ability. I will also be popping in and out on one of my characters: Robiness, Robinelle, Robinella or Robinara. (Perhaps you see a trend?)

Events in the past have been for any level and the Midsummer Fire Festival get-together will be the same, but it is always easier to get around if you are mounted and/or old enough to defend yourself against mobs along the way. Also, there will be some events that are designed for higher levels. If you are interested in joining us, I recommend making a Death Knight on Zangarmarsh and getting it through the initial quests, so that it will be available when we start up again.

For more information about It came from the Blog, please read our FAQ.

We had our long-awaited video version of the podcast last weekend, and it was a hoot: Turpster and I dressed up and drank champagne together, Robin Torres showed how to inflate your Frostmourne, Lesley Smith came to us live from England, Duncor showed off his famous gigantic cowboy hat, and Patrick Beja showed that he can out-spiffy us any day. Unfortunately, because of the way we did things, we didn't end up getting a good recording of the whole thing -- you can see a few clips of the beginning over on Ustream, but they only have my camera (and the audio is rough -- I didn't realize it sounded that bad at the time). Dotorion also Frapsed a bit of the beginning, which should give you a little taste of the multi-camera mayhem.

But in the end, it was pretty much a one-time thing you had to be there for live. Lightning in a bottle, if you will. The good news is that even if you didn't see the show, we've still got a treat for you: Turpster premiered a brand new video (put together by our good friend Ninthbatter) that we played at the end of the show, and that you can watch online right now. Turpster has also recently updated his own site, where you can find all the songs he's ever made, including our WoW Insider Song, and "Just Can't Wait," which is a song that he, I, and BigBearButt recorded a while ago before Wrath's release. So even though you don't have a new podcast to listen to today, you can tune in there.

It's Memorial Day in the United States, a time when we celebrate the memories of our fallen soldiers by visiting memorials, breaking out the BBQ grill, and jumping into all of the swimming pools opening for the summer around the country.

There's a lot of interesting things that have happened the past few days here at WoW.com. Our new site is in full swing, and you can read about all the changes we've done.

One of the major additions to the site is the WoW.com profiles, which bring the famed social networking features right into WoW via our custom add-on. Check out what some of our users are already doing: Yamara34 just started up a brand new guild over on Proudmoore, and Mogri got lucky on the fishing daily.

A few major details about patch 3.2 were released on Friday, along with some clarification points by the blues. There is no indication when patch 3.2 will hit the PTR, but we're on the lookout for it. With a new 5-man dungeon, and a new 10/25-man raid, it will be sure to make a splash.

In addition to the new dungeons, patch 3.2 will nerf Jewelcrafting a bit. This is an unwelcome change for many players, and it has all the JCers up in arms.

We hope that everyone has a great time celebrating Memorial Day, and make sure you do it safely. For those of you not in the US, have a great Monday anyway!

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Welcome to the new WoW.com! Check out WoW.com's site documentation for information on the new profiles and add-on. Be sure to let us know if you experience any problems during our beta test. And don't forget to check out all the latest World of Warcraft news!

Reader comments – ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.

Welcome home to WoW.com. Moving into a new place can be hectic, but we think our new digs at WoW.com are pretty darn comfy. In addition to a fresh face and identity for WoW Insider, we've introduced the beta launch of WoW.com Profiles. Show off your characters with a profile on WoW.com. By downloading the WoW.com addon, you can also keep all of your friends up to date on what you're doing in game, and make blog posts and upload screenshots directly from your game client.

Not a big fan of the social media scene? You don't have to change a thing – WoW.com offers all the old content you know (and hopefully love) so well. "If I'm being honest, when I first saw that the site had changed, I didn't really 'feel it,'" commented reader Retropally. "After days of it sinking in, I'm loving it. The new theme is awesome -- and really, nothing has changed in the way of the posts that are written ..."

Join the [1.Local] gang and add your thoughts about our new look and social features -- and hop on across the fold to see what else readers were chatting about during the past week.

It's been a couple of days since our big makeover and things seem to have gone down quite well. We've had loads of comments (indeed Alex Z is currently recovering from being Tech Support Guy after fielding bug reports for a day straight) and the new-look has gone down quite well. Of course, this isn't the first time we've had a new look but this time it's not just a cosmetic revamp. I like to think of WoW.com as WoW Insider meets Facebook with a little of Livejournal thrown in for good measure, we're not just a site, we're a community. Cliched, okay, you got me there.

Anyway now you folks have had a couple of days to get used to the changes, what do you think of our new look and, more importantly, all the cool features? Are there any you'd like implimented in the future? Have we missed something out?

First of all, I need to thank each and every one of you for participating in our Beta launch, and providing your comments, bug reports and suggestions. Keep them coming!

We have had many questions today, which has helped us refine our Help Guides, and prompted us to write up a FAQ. Because this is a Beta test, you can expect that we will add to it as the site develops.

We would also like to request that before you send in your questions and bug reports, you check out the aforementioned official FAQ to see if we've already written up answers.

And don't forget to hop onto Twitter, because we're using our page as a platform for giveaways, news, and launch-related information!

Since the new site went live last night, an awful lot of our comments have been from here in the EU. Hundreds of our lovely readers have been having some problems, namely they can't find their characters using the on-site search engine.

There's a simple reason for this. Because so many of the shiny new features are in beta, the search function is currently only taking info out of the US Armory, not the EU one. It will happen at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later. Just hang on in there, you have not been forgotten.

As Liz said in her earlier post this morning:

Please remember, WoW.com Profiles are still in beta -- while we already have lots of ideas for the future, we want to hear from you about what we're doing wrong (or right!) to help us improve it. And before you even start protesting, we're aware that Profiles currently only work with characters in the US armory. (Though, to readers not on US servers, you can certainly create an account and participate on WoW.com Profiles -- you just aren't able to add characters. We're starting small with this beta run, but hope to have the ability for everyone to join us soon!)

Ladies! Gentlemen! Children of all ages! We, the writers, editors, and innocent bystanders at WoW Insider would like to welcome you all to our new home: WoW.com.

Our new domain serves a broader purpose than saving your typing fingers a few characters, though. You've probably already noticed our new, more streamlined design -- all the better for providing you with more content and less clutter. But in addition to the content you all know and (hopefully) love, we'd like to introduce you to the beta launch of WoW.com Profiles. By creating a profile on WoW.com you can:

• show off your characters
• make blog posts & galleries to share with others
• communicate with your guild & your friends
• let everyone know what you're up to in the game we all love
• by downloading the WoW.com addon (for PC or Mac), you can also keep all of your friends up to date on what you're doing in game -- and make blog posts and upload screenshots directly from your game client.

Sound interesting? Head over and sign up (you can use an existing AIM or Facebook login) and start getting involved in the WoW.com community! (Having trouble? Take a look at our getting started guide or send us an e-mail explaining the problem. We'll help you figure it out!)

Please remember, WoW.com Profiles are still in beta -- while we already have lots of ideas for the future, we want to hear from you about what we're doing wrong (or right!) to help us improve it. And before you even start protesting, we're aware that Profiles currently only work with characters in the US armory. (Though, to readers not on US servers, you can certainly create an account and participate on WoW.com Profiles -- you just aren't able to add characters. We're starting small with this beta run, but hope to have the ability for everyone to join us soon!)

Thank you to all of our readers for your support and unbridled enthusiasm over the years! Though the site may have changed, the WoW Insider content you're all familiar with isn't going anywhere. As WoW.com we plan on continuing to provide you with the latest news and community from the World of Warcraft.

- the WoW.com team

Tickets are only going on sale today, but already people are planning the most important part of BlizzCon: the parties. There's a whole crew of people planning to meet up at the Hilton, and if the past few years are any indication, all of the restaurants and bars around the area will be hosting roaming groups of World of Warcraft and Blizzard fans after the show every night. Whether you're meeting up with your guildies or just sitting down with random strangers to talk about whatever Blizzard announced previously in the day, partying at Blizzard's big event is always a good time.

Most plans are still up in the air, though we do have one event for you to mark on your calendar: our regular WoW Insider meetup will be held as usual on Thursday night again this year (that'll be August 20th). We haven't quite figured out a location yet -- unfortunately, I think we've finally outgrown The Lost Bar, as last year it was not only packed to capacity, and not only did my throat wear out from yelling to the crowd, but the bar's lone bartender has soured us on going back there. We're looking around for someplace a little bigger, preferably with a stage and a mic, where the drinks can flow freely.

Wherever we end up, it's sure to be a hoot -- we'll likely have giveaways, WoW Insider editors and staffers aplenty will be in attendance, and, probably the best part, you'll get to meet all of the fellow readers who fill the comment fields next to you. If you're grabbing tickets today (or even if you're just planning to be there anyway), stay tuned as we get closer for more news on where the meetup is going down.

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BlizzCon 2009 is coming up on August 21st and 22nd! We've got all the latest news and information. At BlizzCon you can play the latest games, meet your guildmates, and ask the developers your questions. Plus, there's some great looking costumes.

BlizzCon tickets will be going on sale tomorrow, Saturday May 16th. While no specific time has been announced when they go on sale, there has been some conjecture. But it should be taken with a very small grain of salt.

WoW Insider will be up and running from 8am EDT onwards tomorrow, bringing you everything as it happens. This includes posting and twittering the moment the ticket sales go up.

For additional BlizzCon information, check out our recently released Guide to BlizzCon 2009. All the latest information will be kept there, and of course, right here on the main site when the news breaks.

And if there are any ticketing problems... well, we'll be covering that too. Here's hoping for the best.