Due to a very busy news day yesterday I waited with posting the "regular" blue posts and comics that was made available, since season 4 being announced, Winners of the Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain Contest and MLG 3 vs3 Arena Tournament Broadcast certainly were more important.

Check out todays and yesterdays Blue Posts:

The latest posts by Blizzard employees, also covering yesterday.

Why Season 4 will begin June 24th and 25th

It's a design decision based on when we feel there's an appropriate amount of people snagging items from the highest end PvE encounters. How was it a lie?

Eh, I should state there's probably other factors involved too, but PvE progression is really the main point.

[Source]

Boat Vendors coming back anytime soon?

We would like to return them to their posts when and if we can. Due to safety precautions on the vessels, they were removed, but hopefully the engineers will get the kinks worked out so that they can return and continue their jobs in relative safety.

[Source]

No plans to change the token/pvp gear exchange

We have no plans to change the token/pvp gear exchange.

[Source]

Shaman Totems will be in the physical school

Totems are in the physical school now.

[Source]

Blizzard Website Maintenance and Upgrades completed

We've recently completed an extensive upgrade on our web infrastructure that will allow us to provide new features in the future, along with increased performance and security for our players. All web-based features and services are once again online and available for use. We apologize for the longer-than-anticipated downtime for the website, and we're taking steps to ensure future upgrades are completed in a timelier manner.

[Source]

US Extended Maintenance

All U.S. realms will be offline for scheduled maintenance tomorrow (June 10) from 5:00 a.m. PDT until 11:00 a.m. PDT

Priest healing for beginners

A player by the name of Leathor made a nice post where he explain healing as a Priest for beginners.

As a follow up to my levelling as Holy guide, I figured I'd write a small guide to healing as a holy priest, to help those of you out there who are new to this whole priest thing. Now as I always say, I don't claim to be an expert at priesting, in fact, I prefer not to be considered as one, but I want to share my own experiences with you to help you towards becoming a better healer.

The keyword in this is "Beginners", meaning that this guide is not directed towards those of you with tons of healing experience and lots of knowledge, but rather towards those that has just recently started healing and/or raiding, and wants a few tips on how to do it.

I have also written a guide to Healbot, which is my choice of Healing addon, which I will post after this guide.

I don't know anything about PVP healing or Shadow Priests, so I'll leave that up to people who actually do that kind of stuff. :)

Check out the whole guide!

Compressing Macros Guide

This guide will show you how to compress your macros, so you won't reach the macro limit.

Have you ever reached a Macro Limit and was unable to complete your Uber Macro?

Here are some Tips you may find useful to save those precious few macro characters!

IMPORTANT NOTE: All spells and macros here are purely EXAMPLES and are not 'decent' or 'to be used' macros. So please don't say "Why did you do <this> macro when its completely useless or could be done better?"

Replacements:

• Use "/use" instead of "/cast". It works exactly the same, but is one character shorter!
• Use "/userandom" instead of "/userandom"
• Use "/s" "/p" "y" "/w or /t" "/g" etc instead of "/say" "/party" "/yell" "/whisper" "/guild" etc
• Use "[btn:#]" instead of "[button:#]"
• Use "[mod:###]" instead of "[moderator:###]"
• Use "[worn:####]" instead of "[equipped:####]"
• Use "[form:#]" instead of "[stance:#]"
• Use "/cast <Spell>" instead of "/cast <Spell>(Rank #)" if you want to cast the maximum rank of that spell
• Use "/use ##" instead of "/use <ItemNameHere>" when using an equipped item (EG: trinket). Info here: * http://www.wowwiki.com/InventorySlotId
• Use "/use item:#####" instead of "/use <VeryLongItemNameHere>" when using a non-equipped item (EG: Mount)
• Use "[bar:#]" instead of "[actionbar:#]"
• Use "[nostance:3]" instead of "[stance:1/2/4/5]". Same goes for other similar situations like: "[equipped:One-Handed * Axes/One-Handed Swords/...etc]" is far better if it was just "[noequipped:shields]"
• Use "/run" instead of "/script"
• Use "/tar" instead of "/target"
• Use "/a" instead of "/assist"

Formatting:

Reduce the use of repeated spell names. For example:

• /cast [target=targettarget,help][help][target=mouseover,help] Flash Heal
• Is much shorter and works the same as:
• /cast [target=targettarget,help] Flash Heal; [help] Flash Heal; [target=mouseover,help] Flash Heal

Reduce the use of repeated slash commands. For example:

• /cast [stance:1] Retaliation
• /cast [stance:2] Shield Wall
• /cast [stance:3] Recklessness
• Is much shorter if it was written:
• /cast [stance:1] Retaliation; [stance:3] Recklessness; Shield Wall

• Do not use: /cast [help,exists] Flash Heal
• Because [help], [harm], [dead], [party], and [raid] all include the effect of [exists].

Reversing the order of conditions may produce a shorter macro:

• /cast [noequipped:shields] Revenge; Shield Slam
• Is shorter if reversed:
• /cast [equipped:shields] Shield Slam; Revenge

The full guide can be read here.

Model Edit is now detected

Recently the detection support of World of Warcraft's Warden was improved further. It now detects if you run a model editing tool and it forces the user to restart the computer (and turning off Model Edit) before they can play the game. Using a Model Edit program is against the World of Warcraft ToS.

Video: WoW Sequel a.k.a World of World of Warcraft

The Onion, a satirical newspaper featuring world, national and community news, reports the release of WoW sequel titled 'World of World of Warcraft'.

The Onion made an amusing video showing us the sequel to World of Warcraft, the name of the sequel? World of World of Warcraft.

var FO_66 = { movie:"http://dev.curse-gaming.com/static/flash/flvplayer.swf", width:"500", height:"350", majorversion:"7", build:"0", bgcolor:"#FFFFFF", allowfullscreen:"true", flashvars:"file=http://videos.cursebeta.com/stream2/premium/1633.flv&autostart=true" }; $("#flvplayer_66").click(function(event) { UFO.create(FO_66, "flvplayer_66"); $(this).unbind('click'); });

New Comics

Blizzard published a new comic strip submitted by a fan.

Comicstripclub have published several new comic strips since the last time. They are quite funny!