InsaneFarmer said:
i don't believe there to be any relation between World of Warcraft content and any of the new runewords.
also duely noted: the only consistency in World of Warcraft seems to be how the servers are down daily
Perhaps it's time to change your password and set up an account for your brother.
However, to a certain extent I agree with this post. Let me clarify my position on the entire "When Worlds Collide" issue. Blizzard has a phenomenomally popular game in D2, so popular in fact that (contrary to the opinion of many on these forums) it is still selling regularly and in large enough numbers for the newbs to be easy to find on any given day. On my realm we get at least one new player EVERY day, you can even tell when there has been a software sale because occasionally the newbs, in the space of a week, fill up the channels. D2 certainly isn't selling in the numbers it once did BUT IT IS STILL SELLING. Blizzard's three titles are among the best selling games of all time and each has developed a community of players (as well as hackers) so dedicated that they continue to give advice on the individual games even after they have quit actually playing. Now Blizzard has a new title, an amalgam of two of their games WoW caters to two of the three communities by taking elements of both worlds and putting them together in a way that will, hopefully, make old devotees happy and bring in new clientele.
There is another reason that Blizzards games, especially D2, continue to maintain their popularity years after release. I cannot speak for War/Starcraft (though I have both, finally buying Starcraft last week at a sale), but D2 acts very much like a drug. The world of Sanctuary is highly compulsive, even addictive for some people, and has an effect on its players very similar to that of marijuana. It's not (for most people) addictive in the sense that there are withdrawals and cravings but compulsive in the sense that it's there so you may as well use it and waste your entire day. D2 is a very limited game, content-wise, with only five acts and the replayability rests on the multitude of different character builds. If the world of Sanctuary can be likened to marijuana, then the World of Warcraft can be likened to Heroin. To begin with it costs more, with a fee to be paid for each months "fix" (NEWSFLASH: Campus crime soars as students sell TVs to maintain WoW accounts). Visually it is spectacular and the world is not only enormous to begin with but is being added to on a regular basis. One could, theoretically, play WoW for a lifetime without ever fully exploring every area. The replayability is not in the different character builds (though that is present) but in the fact that it is an entire alternate universe. This does not shape up to a compulsive, guilty, pleasure like Diablo or cannabis but a true addiction complete with withdrawal.
Blizzard's task is to move people along and, like the drug dealer's I have heard about in America (Cannabis and heroin come from totally different sources in Australia), encourage us to take the plunge from the so-called "gateway" (D2) to the "hard" game. Once enmeshed in WoW Blizzard does not want people to go back to D2, it is a one-way street. In order for this to happen Blizzard must find a way to attract the dedicated D2 players over to the new game. This is what we have in these 23 runewords. The theme for Season 2 is an invitation to learn more about WoW. They have given us a clue that the answers we seek can be found in the pre-release material of WoW in the hope that while sorting through all that material, including but not limited to the History of WoW, we will be convinced to take the plunge and invest our time and money in the new game. It is counter-productive to this goal to put clues internally into WoW (with an exception), once they have you hooked they want you to continue to pay the monthly fee and not take a break and go and spend a couple of months looking for that Zod rune you need for one of the new runewords.
The exception to this is that WoW has been released in a public beta which can also be considered as forming a part of the pre-release material. Some parts of the beta may serve to flesh out interesting ideas outlined in the History of WoW document (and others, the History constitutes only six of the dozens of pages that make up the WoW site) and there may be artwork, especially in the places for which Blizzard has provided screenshots, that suggests a formula. One interesting thing to try may be to investigate each of the major cities with the idea of their being one rune in each city that makes up a single runeword. Another idea may be to try some crafting. IIRC in order to make, say a particular sword, you are required to gather each ingredient from a bar of iron to some magical herbs and then give them to an artisan (or do it yourself) who will reward you with the item you seek. These crafted items may be clues in and of themselves, with each ingredient corresponding to a rune. You will probably also learn much of what is in the pre-release material in the actual beta. So as a direct source of clues I don't find the beta to the the best source, but it is a likely source with the best source still being the pre-release materials. Any clues found will not be overt, we MUST think outside the square. Every time you see the word "indestructible" think Zod, "cold" think Thul, "ice" think Cham, "fire" think Ral etc.
In short, the runeword search is a ploy to get us to learn about WoW in the hope that we will make the crossover.
Does that make sense or have I muddied the waters further?
Wathombe: I saw that site a few days after Nov 2, its pretty damn hard to miss as there are so many links to it and it is even mentioned in the Australian press.
Can you add to the WoW clues page of the spreadsheet the following: ORC/ORCS, MAN/MEN, NELF/NELVES, ELF/ELVES, TAUREN, GOBLIN, GNOME/GNOMES, UNDEAD/LICH, TROLL/TROLLS, OGRE/OGRES, DVARF (I think that's all of them, see my post from before your hiatus). They are all high level acronyms and therefore good candidates.
Also HOOF might be good to add. Cairne (while we're at it CAIRNE) Bloodhoof is the leader of the Tauren and his weapon is, iirc, a poleaxe of some description so HOOF could be the recipe for Blood (using the Chaos method where all runes and item type have changed).
Given that it appears a couple of the new runewords have been, allegedly, found it may be a good idea for us to reassess some of the runewords we all immediately dismissed as hoaxes. I remember one (in a bow?) that was incredibly underpowered for a hoax, I think we reasoned that it must be a hoax because it had both ignore target defence (which does not work in pvp) and -25% target defence per hit (which does work in pvp). Perhaps some of the remaining high level runes could be used to test these.
Dream. The name of the dream-state the Druids of WoW were in was the Emerald Dream. This may indicate a Tal rune is involved (Tal = poison = emerald).
We have on the 07 list an all weapon runeword called War so adding CRAFT to the list is also a good idea, in fact I would use the first available Cham to test this one, unfortunately there are variable runes involved (Tal/Thul).
Also a suggestion about the acquisition of those high runes. The economy on Asia is very different to that of the other realms in that items have a proper value. Not long ago a friend of mine spent 40pdsc (the equivalent of 40 Um-Ist) to buy a Jah for his Enigma. My understanding is that on West one can purchase a Zod for 5 or 6 Ist. If this is the case then dividing all mid level runes into three piles is something to think about. For every 3 Ist, for example, found (via Hellforge or whatever) one should be traded for lower bulk runes as is happening at present, one should be put aside for testing and the third should be put aside for high rune trading. I would suggest handing over the "for testing" Ists and above to a nominated person for safe keeping (to keep on their own account for safety, it is easy enough to come here and say "Wathombe I require a Cham to test CRAFT"), rather than leaving them on the mules. Remember that dupe runes are useful for our purposes. They might go "poof" eventually but they will still work to make a runeword before that time.
Hmmm I'm sure I had more to say but here endeth todays essay.
With that in mind, I'd like to point you to a (possibly) faster way of collecting higher end runes. Check out the second post in this thread: 
It was just a simple console program, so it's likely that yours will be far more impressive (Mine just takes the runes tried and puts them all into a text file. Meh).