This post originally appeared on Massively from Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post.

This week, World of Warcraft saw subscriptions rise to 7.4 million ahead of its long-awaited pre-Warlords of Draenor patch. Meanwhile, news rolled in from EVE Vegas, where CCP and players discussed the ships of the Rhea update, the allure of spaceship spreadsheets, the importance of community involvement, and the new player experience and potential for permadeath.

Read on for a look at the rest of this week's top MMO stories.

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Filed under: MMO Roundup

Looking to build toward 150 toys for the Toymaster achievement? There's an easily obtainable toy in Townlong Steppes, but it's quite hidden, and also ... kind of disturbing.

In the caves beneath Niuzao Temple lurks an ancient watcher, apparently from the same Titan brand as Archavon. His name is Huggalon the Heart Watcher. He looks just like the Wrath-era raid boss, if you ignore the giant purple bow on his head. And you should.

To find him, enter the caves on the west side of the island. Take the first right and follow the right-hand walls. Just before you pass through an entrance lit by glowing beetles, you'll see a small passage up and to the right. At the end of this passage, Huggalon waits. You won't see a rare icon on your map because he is not a rare spawn.

He's easily soloable in Siege of Orgrimmar gear, but feel free to bring friends if you might need backup. He does hit hard against cloth and has a decent chunk of health. Or, you can give this lonely giant the hug he yearns for and walk away.

If you opt for murder, you'll be rewarded with the B.F.F. Necklace. You can place it in your toybox and then choose a player to be Friends Forever! with once per day. But honestly, who wants to be friends with a cold-blooded killer like you?

While you're in the cave, keep an eye out for Fragment of Dread, part of the Riches of Pandaria achievement.

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Filed under: Mists of Pandaria

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Two weeks from today, I'll be joining Anne Stickney to begin our road trip down to BlizzCon. We had a blast last year, and we're planning for bigger and better this year. I'm excited. You should be excited, too.

RebeccaChallenger asked:

Are people still getting ejected from Ordos when they try to get to him without the Cloak?

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Queue

Are giant, square '80s sunglasses the new Azerothian trend? I hope not. Some things don't ever need to be revived. "With the new model updates, I noticed the mercenaries by Mortwake's Tower are looking just too dang cool for their own good," writes submitter Revy of Moon Guard (US-?). "Only they would be able to pull off a look this good."

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Filed under: Around Azeroth

Well, you've had almost a week to play around with the new version of your favorite class. Now that it's had a bit of time to settle in, have you come to terms with your less crowded action bars?

As a hunter, the ability I miss most is probably Scatter Shot. It was one of the most iconic hunter abilities and it just feels weird not to have it anymore. I've had several instances lately where I wanted to press it only to be reminded again that it's gone. Second place would be Kill Shot for the survival specialization. I realize all specs had to be trimmed down somewhat, but I personally think they took it one step too far with with survival hunters.

The ability I miss least is probably Serpent Sting. In most cases I would cast it at the beginning of a fight and never bother with it again, which I think made it a prime candidate for pruning. The ability still exists in passive form for survival hunters, but I'm glad it's gone in its old form. Second to that would be Aspect of the Hawk. Remembering to have an arbitrary button toggled on for 20% more damage wasn't exactly compelling gameplay.

What about your class? What do you miss? What don't you miss?

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

First featured in the Burning Crusade expansion, the enigmatic naaru have been a constant, benevolent life-force in World of Warcraft -- strange creatures with some sort of eternal crusade against the darkness of the Legion. It was the naaru that saved Prophet Velen and his people when they were on the cusp of being claimed by the dark promises of Sargeras, the naaru that helped them flee, the naaru that taught them the Light. And it was the naaru who seemed to be playing a much, much longer game than anyone else, when Burning Crusade reached its end and the full scope of M'uru's plan was revealed.

Burning Crusade marked the second known occasion that the naaru willingly stepped into the lives of mortal races to pull them away from darkness and reach salvation -- although it's entirely possible they have done this before with other races, on other worlds we've never seen. This has always been presented as the noblest of causes. Yet despite all these altruistic actions, we really know very little about the naaru, where they came from, or ultimately why it is that they feel they must fulfill this task. Yet while Warlords of Draenor largely concerns the orcs and the Iron Horde, there are still a few clues -- just enough to expand that perception of the naaru a little more and raise a few more questions in the process.

Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition. The following contains speculation based on known material. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore.

Please note: The following Know Your Lore contains several spoilers for Warlords of Draenor.

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Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore, Warlords of Draenor

It's always fun to see different interpretations and visualizations of well-known events in lore. Today's Moviewatch is the story of Sylvanas' fall, put together by Youtuber Jaley Muffinz. The story is pretty straightforward, and one that we've seen told before in a variety of different books, short stories and novels: Sylvanas Windrunner defends the forests of Quel'thelas from Arthas as long as she can, and isn't allowed the mercy of death, instead transformed into the banshee who eventually reclaimed her body and became leader of the Forsaken. Sylvanas' Legacy isn't really covering new content here, it's simply retelling one of Warcraft's classic tales.

This seems to be the first large-scale project for Jaley Muffinz, and it's a pretty ambitious hunk of history to tackle, but Jaley does a good job for a fledgling effort. The models are awkward at times, but the film does use the older models, and there's a limit to what those models are capable of doing. Jaley also rounded up a variety of voice actors for the various roles in the film, and they do a decent enough job for people that don't do this on any kind of professional level. It's a little rough around the edges, but for a first effort on something of this scale, it works well enough, and shows plenty of potential for future projects down the road. I'm hoping we'll see more of Jaley Muffinz as time goes on here -- it's going to be fun to watch those skills develop and progress.

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Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

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Filed under: Machinima, WoW Moviewatch

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Filed under: Blizzard, News items

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Anne Stickney (@Shadesogrey) is answering all kinds of questions today.

On the discussion of dancing in WoW, Nocjin and jonmynard reminded me of the existence of the above video, which is still pretty awesome, even with the old models implemented. I'm just wondering what it would look like if it used the newer models. Far less flipper hand, for one thing!

ISO1600 asked:

QftQ: Why oh why do old, easily-soloable raids still have weekly lock-outs? They obviously want us to farm them for transmog, and I REALLY want a Hammer of the Naaru, but only being able to run the Lair once a week sucks.

Because all that stuff is still content to be completed. We are powerful, yes, but our characters are not gods, and should not be able to just mow over all prior content with no limitations in place. If you were able to just run in for a four hour stretch and smack bosses around until you got your hammer, that would pretty much eliminate any reason for you to go back and continue to do that content. Transmog managed to create new uses for old content that didn't exist before -- they aren't going to remove that aspect of the feature, not when it's so wildly popular.

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Filed under: The Queue

Sunday Morning Funnies is your weekly list of WoW-related web comics.

This week, in comics: Dancing! Punting! And snacks! Plus: We're even trying salad!

On the list this week, From Draenor With Love finally unveils the first page of Chapter 4, which absolutely starts to deliver on the anticipation set up in the final page of Chapter 3. Dark Legacy Comics has a speaking-in-rhymes comic up, in which the characters explain how they have been languishing for lack of new content. Plus, NPC is starting up a new storyline, which looks to be both D&D and WoW-related, and maybe Halloween-themed too.

Of the comics that have been missing recently or don't update every week, you'll want to note that Sara & Kleeyo and The Warchief's Command Board both posted new content. Unfortunately, we are short a couple of updates from Experience Boost this week because Russell has been laid up with a stomach bug. Hopefully your recovery is already well underway, Russell!

We are also still missing Contested Territory, but a recent comment suggests that Maiu is doing well but working long hours at her day job right now. We can expect updates to return, for sure, although on a once-per-week schedule.

And if you missed us last week, you'll want to note that we have a new comic on the list. Be sure to check out Guardians of the Garrison, which has posted its 9th comic this week.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor, Comics, Sunday Morning Funnies