One of the things that jumps out at me while reviewing September is that it was a fantastic month for Moviewatch. Apart from that players were occupied with the new version of Onyxia, the Argent Coliseum, still discussing some questions raised by BlizzCon, and arguing over whether Garrosh was a jerk or what.

WoW Moviewatch: Warrior's Dream: My nomination for the best Moviewatch of the year. A lovely film, well-made, beautifully scored, and it crammed a thoughtful story (and insight concerning the sometimes-uncomfortable perspective on ourselves granted by nightmares) into 5 minutes.

Faction change service now available: A feature players had been wondering about getting for years suddenly went live. Did things go crazy? Maybe a little.

A critical examination of Garrosh Hellscream: Garrosh, as we'd previously observed, is not among the more well-received NPCs these days. Rossi asks -- how did this guy go from the demoralized Orc we see in Nagrand to the arrogant jerk we find in Northrend?

Ask a Faction Leader: Garrosh Hellscream: On the subject of Garrosh, personally I found this AAFL to be among the funniest in the series. If that whole Warchief bid doesn't work out for him, Garrosh has a bright future as an interior designer.

Yogg-Saron in blues: A sterling rebuttal to the idea that epics make the player.

Conclusions from the WoW.com faction transfer survey: We've heard (unofficially, of course) that our reader polls tend to be a fairly accurate gloss on numbers Blizzard sees internally, and we decided to ask readers if they'd used the new faction change service and (if so) what they'd done.

12 reasons why you don't want to play a priest: Matt Low turns a critical eye to his beloved class and admits -- not all is rosy.

WoW Moviewatch: Ulduar: Defiance: We'd really been impressed by the trailer, and Atraira delivered.

Drama Mamas: My GM is a succubus: Fascinating Drama Mamas about a GM unwittingly destroying her own guild, but guaranteed to enrage you if you're a female player who hates her attention-ho counterparts.

Additional instances can now be launched: One of the headaches plaguing Wrath has been overcrowded instance servers -- or, more accurately, Blizzard's efforts to keep them from being overcrowded by limiting the number of people who can occupy them at one time. By September, they'd completed a long, arduous process upgrading the servers to reduce the odds of the dreaded "Additional instances cannot be launched" message from appearing.

Why Blizzard should make authenticators mandatory on Battle.net accounts: A strong argument for more widespread use of authenticators, which would not only cut down on the stress experienced by Blizzard's customer support, but would also reap benefits for players (in addition to the near-immunity to account hacking) in the form of faster tickets. Waits for a Game Master these days number in the days-to-weeks, and it's almost entirely due to the number of compromised accounts.

WoW Moviewatch: How to win at PvP: Wowcrendor hits battlegrounds, Wintergrasp, and arena with hilarious results.

Ready Check: Onyxia: Rossi, an old hand at the original Onyxia, faces her later incarnation and returns to school readers on why standing in front of her is only for the quick or the dead.

WoW Moviewatch: Quest: Impossible: One of the most polished and well-made 2009 Moviewatch features.

The Queue: Trinket-palooza 2009: A lot of people had fun with this edition of the Queue, where we listed raid trinkets from the classic game that you might still get some use from at 80.

The Colosseum: A basic guide to the Arena rating system: The rating system for arena is a pain in the ass to navigate. Michael Gray walks you through it.

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Tags: 2009-wow.com-best-stories, 2009-Year-in-review, best-of-wow-com, best-of-wow.com, featured, wow.com-year-in-review, year-in-review

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Features