Today Penny-Arcade is 10 years old. I remember when Gabe, Tycho and myself first spent time on the phone discussing our strips being on mpog.com and what the future held. Now it is the future. Time flies. Happy tenth buddies. I drew you a picture.

Click to enlarge.

My family spent the entire weekend field-testing the new World of Warcraft expansion. It was a really fun geek weekend of pushing ourselves to stay up until dawn, crash for a couple hours, and then get back at it. All our computers are in one room, which is littered by fast food containers and empty soda cans. It was an awesome lan-party weekend.

WARNING: WOW NERD TALK TO FOLLOW. DON’T READ IF YOU’RE NOT A NERD.

I saw very little of Northrend, the new continent of content in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Very little. Because I was too damn busy leveling my Death Knight.

Now, based on previous Ding! comic strips, you might get the impression I thought Death Knights were stupid. You’re correct in that assumption. I really did. But Blizzard really surprised me with how fun and versatile the class really is.

The opening quest line is brilliant and really hooks you. As much as I made fun of it, you really get the sense you’re going through a traditional RPG style game with your character. The small outcropping of the Eastern Plaguelands that serves as your character’s first campaign area physically changes as you accomplish your missions and the will of the Lich King unfolds. I found myself actually INTERESTED in everything the quest givers and NPCs actually had to say to me.

It’s hard to say how the Death Knight balances in the game yet. For PvP, it feels like everything you ever truly wanted an enhancement-specced Shaman to be. Still moderately great at DPS but able to tank a 5 man when the need arises. In raiding I think the unholy Death Knight’s anti-magic field will be insanely helpful on certain bosses/obstacles.

Plus leveling one is actually FUN. That’s where Blizzard truly surprised me the most. I didn’t understand why Blizz didn’t just let Death Knights start at level 70 and dreaded replaying all the Outland content from the previous expansion. However, that time leveling really helped me get a feel for the class and they obviously reduced the amount of XP needed to level from 60-70. I mean, even playing non-stop you I never have been able to level from 58-68 in one weekend before.

So yeah, I won’t be hitting the new areas probably until tomorrow. I won’t play again until I’m home from the office tonight and I have one more level to go before my Death Knight can survive the Howling Fjord. But fear not, we’re playing and will post more reviews of the game as we go.

I call it research of course.

The order for the Scratch Fury Maquettes was placed weeks ago. They are being made right now. This maquette will be limited to 500 pieces. We sold a little over 400 pre-orders so if you did not get a chance to pre-order one, don’t worry, there will still be a chance to get one.

I just sent in the artwork for the packaging. It’s an interesting process working with someone who is awake while you’re asleep and vice versa. It’s like the movie Ladyhawke. When I’m sending in the artwork, he’s a wolf, and when he emails me back to let me know that he GOT the artwork, I’m a hawke. Something like that.

The minute we have the statues on our doorstep, we’ll be mailing them out. Once all the pre-orders are shipped, I’ll put the remaining stock for sale online.

This is very exciting process for me and I’m thrilled the statue did so well. We will for sure me making new statues every year based on how well this one did. WOOT!

We’ve dug through the WW vault and found an episode that was lost WEEKS ago.

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Good news for those of you who love my 2nd comic strip Ding!. I’ve taken steps to ensure that the strip is posted on time, everytime. I hired another cartoonist.

Starting immediately, the new artist for the Ding! comic strip is none other than Ugly Hill creator Paul Southworth. Paul is a good friend and an insanely talented cartoonist. I’m honored that he agreed to take over the art chores on Ding! to take some of the burden off my shoulders. I’ll still be handling all the writing chores on Ding, while Paul tackles the pictures. This is awesome as now I can write stuff I would never draw myself. Because now…I don’t have to draw it. Paul does. YAY!

To get things going, Paul and I whipped up a 5 page comic entitled “Kissybear’s Guide to Wrath of the Lich King.” It’s running all this week at Crispygamer.com. Then next week Ding! will return to it’s twice a week schedule.