David B covered the PetEmote addon way back in the beginning of this year, and now the Great Green Hunter has posted some really great ideas for custom pet emotes, for a few different families of Hunter pets. PetEmote lets your pet automatically show up in your emote text randomly, and is really good for giving your pets a little more personality of their own -- instead of just doing what you say all the time (and eating all of the food you've got to buy), PetEmote can make it seem like your pets are doing their own thing: chasing a stray bug that passes by, flicking their tails, or "giving you a sly look."

GGH's descriptions are really great, but of course whatever goes in the "Localization LUA file" in the PetEmote addon folder is what shows up in the game, so you can customize it as necessary. If you want to say your cat "waggles his butt, ready to pounce," you can do it.

Of course, if you think of your pet as just a DoT you have to feed, you might not be so interested. But having a pet and keeping track of where it is is such a huge part of the Hunter class (though PetEmote works for Warlocks as well) that giving your pets a little more personality goes a long way in game.

[via Mania]

BRK can have his gigantic Rhinos (OK, fine, I'm getting one of those, too), but I'll take this beast -- a slavering, rampaging, murdering... baby polar bear as a Hunter pet. Seriously? How does this thing even attack? The graphics, cute as they are, don't really look like they're done -- kind of just seems like a bear with a baby mask on. But sure enough, the pet is called an Arctic Grizzly Cub, and can be found as early as 69 in Dragonblight. This may not stay tameable on the live realms, of course, but if it does, it could be the cutest thing ever to tear apart the Alliance in Eye of the Storm.

Here, have a tasty Coke. Now die!

I'm not sure how many World of Warcraft subscriptions are currently active. The popularity of the game skyrocketed and then seems to have leveled off. Player numbers have certainly been bolstered by the Recruit-a-Friend promotion. I'm not convinced that it has actually brought any new players into the game. I know several people who begun additional accounts under this new scheme, and a handful of players that have returned to the game. I'm sure there are some new rookies, but they're a fraction of the new accounts.

I'm working on my third account. My friend with recruitment benefits and I have been soaring through the levels. I was planning on starting a third account come Wrath anyway, but now seems like as good of a time as any.

Worldofwar.net announced the winners of its WoW movie poster contest today. Each winner of the contest received a Wrath of the Lich King beta key. The five winning posters, oddly, have a very sci-fi feel to them. Two of the winners, in particular, gave me a Star Wars vibe. One shows a cast of Alliance characters posed in a fashion reminiscent of Luke and Leia on the A New Hope posters and the other (pictured to the right) reminds me of an Imperial Star Destroyer on the move. Maybe it's just me, but I expected a poster to have more of a fantasy feel to sell this movie. Something that reminds me more of, say, Lord of the Rings rather than Star Wars.

I think my favorite one is the one of Arthas staring at the viewer. It looks menacing and the artwork is fantastic. (Not a big fan of the "2012," teaser date, though.) In addition to viewing the winning designs, you can also flip through a gallery of all the entries they received, including a nice one in the honorable mention category called "There is no escape," featuring Kil'jaeden which definitely has a fantasy vibe to it.

We were live on WoW Radio as usual last Saturday with our weekly podcast, and this past week we welcomed Krystalle Voecks of our sister site Massively into the mix, as well as Daniel "BigRedKitty" Howell, and of course the Turpster. Krystalle chatted with us about what's planned for the big DragonCon event in Atlanta this weekend (WoW Insider will be there, even though I unfortunately won't be), and we also talked about:

• The pending release of Warhammer Online and what it means for WoW players.
• More beta talk, including those changes to Warriors that made it into the game and BRK's favorite things about all the pets he's been trying out.
• Sylvanas' model change, and whether she's hot or not.
• And of course we answered emails, including your questions about our legendary missing show, why female Draenei broken are the only ones who wear hoods, and what exactly private servers are.

It was a fun show -- we wandered around a bit, but don't we always? You can listen to it right now over on WoW Radio's website, and of course in iTunes as well. If you have questions or comments about something we said, send them along to theshow@wowinsider.com and you might even hear them next time around.

And if you missed the live show this past week, we do this every Saturday afternoon at 3:30 Eastern, so tune in live on WoW Radio's website, and you'll even be able to join us in IRC chat. Enjoy the show this week, and have a good one.

The Wii Fit board was the first object to be linked to character run speed in WoW. Now, the folks at Mana Energy Potions have raised the ante -- they connected a pair of treadmills to their computers, and set about gauging just how possible it is to run like your character.

They took a couple steps to simulate the run speed. They measured the land-speed of your average WoW character. Then, they set up a pair of treadmills to tap forward on their accounts -- everytime they moved a certain treadmill distance, their keyboard would pulse "W" to move forward. They dressed up in some silly costumes to make sure their event was as realistic as possible, or maybe just to make the pictures funnier. And then... they ran from Shadowglen to Darnassus.

The results? The experience darn near killed 'em, apparantly. They tried a few other things -- drawing a sword while running, eating, and drinking. None of it went particularly well. And while they finished the run, the pair aren't looking forward to doing it again. The author describes it as "sheer brutality."

Final result: your character in WoW is in much better shape than you are. I am shocked and amazed. Still, if I had the carpentry skills to build their rig, I think I might take my Warrior out for a jog to help get in shape.

Our good friends at WoW TCG Loot recently gave away a number of special tabards (apparently Tabard of the Void was the most popular among the choices, and you can also see some of the funny reasons people said they needed to wear a Tabard). And they kindly saved one for us, and so we're teaming up with them to give away a code for an ingame Tabard of Flame. This tabard was originally released with the "Heroes of Azeroth" TCG set, but we're giving it away now to one lucky reader.

To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post (and if you need something to comment about, you can try coming up a name for the color on this tabard -- "Flame Red" is not an option). In fact, we're making it so that you can comment once every day all the way up until Friday, August 29th at midnight Eastern. That means that, if you show up every day, you could have four chances total to win this tabard.

And we've got better news: this contest is open to anyone playing World of Warcraft in the US or EU regions. The code is valid in either region of the game and the Tabard works for all classes and levels, so if you have a character in World of Warcraft (or just know someone who does) on US or EU realms, you can enter. On Friday at midnight, we'll choose one lucky commenter to recieve the Tabard code, and they'll have to go the TCG promotional page and redeem it themselves. Please use a legitimate email that you check often to leave your comments, so we can get in touch with you if you win.

Huge thanks to WoW TCG Loot for their help with this contest -- if you want to know more about any of the TCG Loot items in the game, go visit them. Good luck!

The Arena Junkies have been pretty active lately. Last week, they published insight to Gladiator class break-downs from the first three seasons of the Arena. Now, Arena Junkies has busted out a brand new tool -- its new Arena recruitment functionality. The goal is to provide someplace for Arena fighters to locate others of similar goals, and recruit one another for teams.

ArenaArc was probably the first of this kind of channel, but Arena Junkies is definitely home to all things Arena. According to Tyveris, there's a couple bells and whistles that will help appeal to harder-core Arena enthusiast. First, the listings expire, so you can be sure the current listings are up-to-date and valid. Second, high-level Arena players can restrict searches to return only players who have 2,000 or higher ratings. Third, Arena Junkies will fill out your resume with information they already know from the Armory.

This tool should be pretty useful to AJ's forum members, and maybe even to folks who are struggling with an up-and-coming team. And as always, the AJ team is already being very responsive to their customers, and updating the tool to meet feedback. So, go check it out, read up on some strategies, and good luck in the Arena.

Alice Taylor has quite the eye for scoping out awesome gaming crafts, and just recently, she did a nice roundup (and another post) that had two great handmade WoW items in it. First up was this great-looking Sin'dorei (that's Blood Elf, in case you're not up on your Thalassian) tank top -- it was originally a T-shirt that the maker, smarmyclothes, turned into a tank top with some industrious cutting and stiching. Looks great -- at $52, the price is a little steep, but then again, this is a one-of-a-kind handmade item, so you get what you pay for.

And second was this Murky hair bow -- to tell the truth, I have no idea what a hair bow does (it must tie hair back or something, right?), but I am a huge Murky fan, or at least a fan of /punting the little guy, so any article of clothing with him on it, no matter what it's for, gets my approval. The bows are two for $11, and it looks like there's only one in stock, so SugarPopRibbons is probably making them to order. But I'm sure if you're patient, you can get your hands (or hair, I guess) on one.

Seen any other great WoW crafts, on Etsy or anywhere else? Let us know!

Well, sort of. Our favorite wiki celebrates the recently concluded Olympics in Beijing by hosting a Worldwide Invitational card giveaway (which has a Beta key and Tyrael pet) called the WoWlympics which ends today at 11:00pm UTC. The contest is fairly simple -- visit their site and look for clues that jump from one page to the other. It's a fun, informative scavenger hunt that won't take ten minutes (alright, I'm lying, it took me about an hour or two because I got completely stumped with No. 2). Have fun with it and try not to cheat and look for the answers all over the web, although lore nerds might find it a real breeze. This is one of your last chances to get into the Wrath of the Lich King Beta, as well as one of the very few chances you'll get to own a dancing miniature angel, so shoot the guys over at WoWWiki an e-mail before 11:00pm UTC. Tell 'em we sent ya.

Canoodle Strudel is a radio show about gaming, hosted on Indiana University's WIUX radio station (they're the ones who put together all of these custom Soul Caliber IV videogame characters), and the guys there have kindly invited WoW Insider on their show tonight. I'll be on the phone with them from Chicago to talk gaming, World of Warcraft, MMOs in general, and all the big news out of Wrath of the Lich King starting tonight at midnight Eastern.

It should be a good time -- even if you're not in Bloomington, Indiana, there is a live stream on their website that plays really well in iTunes, so if you're awake around midnight this evening (finishing up those dailies or farming those last few motes), feel free to tune in and check it out. We're not sure if they can do call-ins, but even if not, you can always send us a tip with a suggestion of what you'd like to hear and I'll do my best to get it on the air.

The show starts around midnight on the East Coast (and goes pretty late, I believe), but if you're up for some late night Sunday Warcraft discussion, definitely tune in.

Update: Time zone fixed.

Another Sunday is passing, and with it, summer break. Soon, raids will pick back up, we'll see a return to relatively child-free hours on the servers, and the weather will start to cool off. Here are this week's funnies, to help you stay in a summery spirit.

Humor

• Reality Bites from Extra Life.
• GU Comics emotes. /Flex
• On NoObz this week, old games like Pac Man are compared to new games.
• On Ding! Kissybear is taking advantage of the new Recruit a Friend features.

Humor with a continuing plotline

• This week, the characters of LFG attempt to pass through Customs.
• On the Road to BlizzCon this week, the furry pair makes their way to Silvermoon City, with Sin'dorei Scheming, part 1.
  
• Teh Gladiators is at a crossroads. Just not "the" Crossroads.
  

Reader Vid is from Croatia ("the homeland of Niko Bellic from GTA IV," he says), and he sent us this t-shirt he found in his closet. He's had it for a few years, but just recently noticed the emblem sitting on the chest pocket -- if it makes you want to grab your sword and fight the Horde, you're right. It's a slimmed down version of the Human Kingdom of Lordaeron symbol (although most of Lordaeron is now held by the Forsaken, but no mind -- the blue and gold are a widespread symbol of the Alliance).

Of course, how that symbol ended up on a cruise t-shirt, Fordragon knows. If the Lordaeron insignia is a reference to any real symbol in real life, we couldn't find it. Vid says the patch wasn't added by him, and it's been on the shirt since he owned it. Interesting -- either someone at S&A is a Warcraft fan, or there's a real-world link here we're missing. That's a nice t-shirt you got there, cousin!