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Blizzard has just announced in a press release that the alpha testing phase of Cataclysm is over, and the closed beta testing phase has begun. According to the statement, invitations have begun being sent out to players who opted-in via Battle.net and to other players of all types from across the globe.

Blizzard has confirmed that the non-disclosure agreement is lifted. We’ll be here providing you with new info as it comes in!

The full press release is after the break.

Continue reading Cataclysm closed beta has begun

Filed under: Cataclysm

Cataclysm closed beta has begun originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Choose the adventures of the WoW.com staff as we level our characters in <It came from the Blog> on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H).

Sandwichdoc has real style. Not only was he able to do all his dance moves on top of a mailbox, he was showered with rose petals while he flaunted his nekkidness. We have more nekkid dancing as well as some advice and stories after the break. But first, here’s the schedule:

• Amy Schley as Patent, the troll rogue: Thursday, 10 p.m. EDT
• Fox Van Allen as Foxlight, the blood elf paladin: Friday, 8 p.m. EDT
• Robin Torres as Robinemia, the undead mage; Michael Sacco as Sahko, the orc warlock; Christian Belt, as Selfloathius, the blood elf warlock; Elizabeth Harper as Faience, the troll shaman; Matthew Rossi as Andrenorton, the troll mage; Michael Gray as Grayfields, the tauren hunter; Adam Holisky as Adammentat, the tauren druid; and Gregg Reece as Sandwichdoc, the troll shaman, will be making appearances as they can.

Continue reading Choose My Adventure: Nekkid

Filed under: It Came from the Blog, Choose My Adventure

Choose My Adventure: Nekkid originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Addons 101 is a four-part series for beginners dedicated to the education and understanding of what an addon is, how addons enhance the gameplay experience of World of Warcraft, some popular addons in certain categories, and popular venues in which to research, download and find addons.

For the past couple of months I have been getting emails from readers who read and enjoy my addon columns every week and love reading the addon discussions that follow in the comments, but are still very new to the idea of addons to the WoW default user interface. In addition, I am sure there are readers out there who just haven’t yet wrapped their heads around the concept of addons and what to do with these pesky pieces of code. So, as per many suggestions and adding to the ever-growing library of WoW.com 101 guides, I present the first part of Addons 101.

Continue reading Addons 101: The basics

Filed under: Add-Ons

Addons 101: The basics originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and soon, an entire flight of black dragons.

With the ease of gearing up an 80 tanking paladin, you go from being poorly geared with wonderful healers keeping you alive while you take advantage of all of the various tricks of the trade to practically soloing some of the lower-end heroics. That ability to survive anything also starts to cause your mana to run out. Pulling things at the speed you used to doesn’t do enough damage for Spiritual Attunement to do any good, things are dying too fast for Blessing of Sanctuary to be of any help, and every time you hit Consecration, you can physically feel your mana pool get smaller.

While you can pray that you get a druid in your party to hit you with the occasional Innervate, you want to be more self-sufficient, which can cause you to have to change around your tanking style to keep your mana pool filled so that you can actually use your abilities. We’ll also take a look at some of the bad ideas on how to handle this.

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: Overgeared tanking

Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It

The Light and How to Swing It: Overgeared tanking originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lore nerds, rejoice! Weeks back, Blizzard asked official forum-goers to submit questions for the CDev (Creative Development) team in this thread. Questions have been answered, and there is information-a-plenty. We learn about the ethereals’ home planet, pieces of lore about the tol’vir and the oft-reviled Obsidian Destroyer unit from Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne and World of Warcraft, why goblin shaman exist, and the origins of Varok Saurfang, to name just a few awesome reveals.

Here are some highlights:

Quote:

Q: What happened to Frostmourne after it was shattered?

A: While this is a closely guarded secret, we’ll trust you to be discreet: no one knows where the remnants of Frostmourne are now.

source

Quote:

Q: The Blood Knights of Silvermoon lack direction. None of them were seen in Northrend, and it is very unclear whether the Order still exists, or if it’s been disbanded. It’s also very unclear where the Blood Knights obtain their power, now. It used to be the Naaru, but then… remnants of the naaru. Surely these remnants are all but tapped now. Do we obtain power from the Sunwell?

A: As of the end of the Burning Crusade expansion, blood elves who wield the Light do so through the power of the renewed Sunwell. It is a harmonious relationship, no longer one of discord caused by the blood elves’ attempts to bend the Light to their will, which will likely have a positive effect on blood elf society in the long run. Look forward to updates that reflect this change in the Silvermoon and Blood Knight quests.

source

Quote:

Q: What role, if any, will Med’an play in Cataclysm?

A: Med’an will not be visible in Cataclysm; something else is keeping him occupied.

source

For the full list of questions and answers, visit the World of Warcraft official forums thread here.

Filed under: Blizzard, Lore, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm

Blizzard’s creative development team answers tons of lore questions originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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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.

I honestly expected these guys to be playable by now. This shouldn’t be taken as any sort of slam or slight on worgen … I’m very eager to see what Blizzard dishes up for our new canine PCs. But if you’ve played WoW for a while, you’ve probably run into the furbolg in Ashenvale or Felwood or Winterspring. Dating back to the time before the coming of the titans, the furbolg rank alongside trolls and tauren as native-born to Azeroth itself, with an oral tradition that dates back countless millennia. Not created by alien visitors, conquered by old gods or changed by magical pools, the furbolg have inhabited the forests since before there were three continents. Survivors of the Sundering, even to this day the furbolg live in the wooded areas of Northrend and Kalimdor, honoring the eternal bear spirits of Ursoc and Ursol.

Furbolg have long been cordial, if not actually allied to, the kaldorei (night elves) who share their forest home. Furbolg are, as you might expect from humanoid bears, powerful physically. But they’re also gifted seers and shaman and clearly even understand the druidic arts to some extent. While the Stillpine who inhabit Azuremyst Isle have forged an alliance with the draenei and the ones in Felwood and Ashenvale were once friends to the night elves, it’s worth mentioning that the furbolg have no real animosity toward the Horde, either; they simply haven’t had that much contact with them aside from a faint respect for the tauren.

However, recently the scattered furbolg tribes on both Kalimdor and Northrend have come on hard times. The furbolgs of Ashenvale and Felwood have been in many cases twisted by the corruption of the Burning Legion, which left scars on their forest homes and in their very spirit, while in the ancestral furbolg home of Grizzlemaw, the corruptive force of a primeval terror has tainted even the very bear god the furbolg honor.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: The furbolg

Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore

Know Your Lore: The furbolg originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we discuss the new loot dropping in the Ruby Sanctum.

In one of the worst Patch Tuesdays in recent memory, Blizzard took down a large number of their North American servers for a full 24 hours of maintenance. At the same time, all European servers were offline while patch 3.3.5 was applied and the Real ID system was implemented for our friends across the pond. However, for those lucky enough to have their servers excluded from this massive maintenance window, a surprising gift awaited them. The portal to the Ruby Sanctum was open.

Ruby Sanctum fills the role of being the last salute to Wrath‘s raiding scene before Cataclysm. It’s a short, single-boss instance, designed to start ushering in the lore of Deathwing’s imminent release. Those of us who had a chance to fight against Sartharion will be familiar with this type of dungeon. Since it’s such a small raid, the total loot table is relatively small, and there’s only a few pieces of interest to us leather-wearers. However, the loot that is there is worth some discussion, as it fits into a few very particular roles.

Continue reading Encrypted Text: Ruby Sanctum gear for rogues

Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text

Encrypted Text: Ruby Sanctum gear for rogues originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you remember, we first talked about Sluggles Epic Adventure: Adventures in Random Dungeon Land a few weeks ago. Bloodvein Movies promised to chart his progress as he pursued his own completion of the Pocketlitx of Doomhammer Gnome Challenge. It seems like his attempts to level a gnome to 80 before BlizzCon have been going pretty well, but he’s run into the same challenge as the rest of us. Specifically, he’s had the challenge of dealing with other players in the random dungeon finder.

This movie is pretty funny, and I enjoyed it. I’m already a fan of Propostris, of course. I was especially impressed by the vocal work done by Priestess Rawrbug, who was both convincing as a gnome and a pleasure to listen to. Bloodvein Movies saturated his script with enough humor to support its fast-paced narrative, and I appreciate that he didn’t drag this episode longer than needed. It’s great work, and I’m eager to see what Sluggles finds in the future.

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Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: Sluggles Epic Adventure: Adventures in Random Dungeon Land originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PC Gamer posted an interview with Tom Chilton where he discussed the possibility of World of Warcraft eventually going free-to-play. He clarified that there are no active plans for this now, but he can imagine a future where it would be possible.

As massively multiplayer games become more mainstream, a common tactic to compete with WoW is to make the games free to play while charging microtransactions for in-game content. It makes games more accessible, and in theory can make publishers enough revenues that they can be profitable. If enough games break even this way and WoW starts losing momentum and market penetration, instead of shutting down, it would only make sense for Blizzard to keep the game available for the residual income. The original EverQuest is still live, for example. Instead of leaving vast empty realms populated by a very small number of nostalgic gamers, however, making WoW free-to-play could keep it residually profitable for longer.

While WoW will undoubtedly lose the majority of the market share some day, this day is not close. Warcraft is past the red-hot growth phase of its life cycle; however, it’s still the largest player in the market. Chilton acknowledges that there’s no reason for Blizzard to make this change while this is the case: “We’re not spending a lot of time thinking about it. It’s not something that’s a reality for us in the near future.”

Filed under: Blizzard, News items

Tom Chilton can imagine a future where WoW is free-to-play originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 11:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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They already get self-cleaning public toilets, over a thousand distinct kinds of cheese and Kelly Brook. This time around, Europeans get more cool things by way of J!NX, those purveyors of geek couture, who have released three new World of Warcraft shirt designs exclusive to Europe. One design features a poster promoting an arena match between a gnome and a tauren in the style of a bullfight. It’s nice and funny, but probably not something I’d mind not being available in my region. On the other hand, the two other designs feature the upcoming new races of Cataclysm — the worgen and goblin, complete with claw scratches for the former just to add a little more badassness. If you’re a fan of the promotional art for these two new races, this probably isn’t good news if you live in one of the other six continents.

For the Europeans, the shirts are available for ordering at €17.99 to €20.99, depending on your size. The shirts are available only in black in both men’s and women’s sizes. For everyone else — or everyone else in the United States, anyway — get back at the Europeans by walking into a nearby Hot Topic and pick up an exclusive Save the Murlocs shirt. Sorry Asians, Africans, Australians, South Americans and even that one lone dude living in Antarctica — we’ll have to make do with all the basic stuff.

Filed under: News items, Worgen, Goblin

J!NX releases exclusive shirt designs for Europe originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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