Hey hey, Wednesday means it’s time for me to look at what interested me most in the World of Warcraft this past week. In case you missed it, here’s my episode of Polygamerous, and here’s The Incredible Podcast, a relatively new podcast that I’m doing with the T. It’s good, go listen.

• I like this Hearthstone pillow a lot. I bought a black leather couch just recently, and it seems a little plain without some Warcraft-related pillows on it. I don’t know when I’ll have the time or inclination to actually pick any up, but my birthday is coming up in early May. Also, I would have liked to see that mana strudel in a closeup. I wonder what mana actually tastes like.
• I actually wrote about World of Warcraft on Joystiq this week — Activision not only went nuts on Infinity Ward, but released their annual financial report, and WoW was mentioned quite a bit in there. It’s probably no surprise that Blizzard’s WoW subscriptions, and therefore revenue, are dropping pretty quickly. As I’ve said here before, Cataclysm is the key — if they can bring back that original swell of players by promising a return to the old glory days, they can probably get another few solid years out of this game, at least until Diablo III comes out. But if Cataclysm doesn’t attract enough attention or get players intrigued enough to come back (and bring their friends with them), then I think we’re looking at the long, slow end of the World of Warcraft. Not that it’s bad for Blizzard — this game is already legendary, obviously, and they’ve got StarCraft II and Diablo and plenty of other irons in the fire that haven’t even been announced yet. But if Cataclysm doesn’t explode for them, I don’t see the game growing any more, especially with threats like The Old Republic and all of the other games stealing free time in 2010.
• This is a pretty interesting discussion that’s been running through the blogs (you can follow all of Matticus’ links to see what people are saying there). I would say that if you get /gkicked from your guild for something that you blog about, then you probably shouldn’t be in that guild anyway. Remember, it’s a game — if something makes you angry enough to really rail on someone on your blog, then it’s probably not worth the effort. And if someone goes to the trouble of /gkicking you just because of something they read, again, it’s not worth the effort to stay with them. Of course, me and my guild almost never see each other these days — I tend to sign on late at night and tend to be one of the only players on — so you probably shouldn’t take my advice anyway. But I wouldn’t worry too much if you get /gkicked for something you write. Either you shouldn’t be there anyway, or it’s not your fault, it’s theirs.
• Facebook is still waiting for their Mario, Halo, or Sonic. This didn’t get reported on any of the WoW sites (that I know of — if you saw a WoW site that mentioned it, let me know, so I can start following them), but I think it’s intrinsic to what WoW was and is. Farmville, for all of its silliness and simplicity, is an extremely popular game, and in many ways, it’s the next World of Warcraft. It’s a game that’s pulling in people who aren’t game players, and that’s exactly why Warcraft got so big in the first place. For Facebook to say that they haven’t yet had their flagship game yet is kind of a big deal. When that game does come along, my guess is that it will dwarf what Blizzard has done with this game. Don’t believe me? How many players did World of Warcraft have at its peak? 12 million? Gee, that’s cute.
• There’s some whining going on about the “dumbing down” of stats in Cataclysm. Again, I don’t think that’s bad — Blizzard is going back to basics. The game has become complicated by necessity — to keep theorycrafters interested and keep the game mechanics solid, you naturally have to add a little complexity into the mix. But Cataclysm is the big return to the old days that Blizzard is trying to pull off. I’m looking forward to seeing if they can do it. I will say that they sound like they can, and the stat changes I’ve seen seem focused on making gear more straightforward, which makes it easier for everybody. But my big worry is if they’ll keep enough of the old world to remind people what early Warcraft was like — is it possible to create nostalgia by changing everything?
• Some cool desktop calendars to help you keep up on dates during March.
• It still surprises me that people wait so long to do instances. Seriously, they’re the best part of the game. Go do them!
• I saw this community team picture as well, and had the same thoughts (though you’ll have to go find it somewhere yourself. For a game with an audience that is so diverse and varied, I was a little surprised that the community team was still a bunch of dudes who look like they love to play CounterStrike. Not that there is anything wrong with dudes like that, but even on WoW Insider, we aimed to pick up writers that represented the community.
• Finally, I don’t have much to add to this, but I think it’s an interesting idea. Maybe the Facebook Mario game will do exactly that.

That is it! Happy raiding everybody — hope you’re enjoying all of your adventures, in and out of Warcraft.