wow cataclysm logo All New News and More •    Official Cataclysm Forums Open - The official WoW forums had another section added to them last week, one dedicated to the upcoming expansion. There are already a lot of great discussions going on in this new section, but not a lot of additional firm details from anyone at Blizzard just yet. This will, however, we will likely see bits of information leaked and hinted at over the course of the coming months. You should go on over and check it out.

•    Paid Faction Changes Now Live - Well, this past weeks we’ve seen some pretty significant WoW-related news, but none quite as significant as this piece! The faction change service for WoW is now available! Yep, that’s right, players will now be able to switch their characters from Horde to Alliance or vice versa. In addition to this it seems you can change other things about your character in the process including name and gender, so you get more bang for your 30 bucks. So, if you’re interested in this new paid service you can visit your account management page and take advantage of it, but please be sure to read the FAQ first as there are some mount and reputation restrictions you will want to be aware of before making the big switch!

•    Race Changes Confirmed – The possibility of changing your character’s race within it’s existing faction was eluded to during BlizzCon and seemed to be a definite per their own FAQ about paid faction changes. Now, it has been confirmed by Blizzard poster, Neth in an official forum thread that the ability to change your character’s race will be arriving soon. With the talk of racial abilities being re-vamped for the new expansion most race changes will likely happen to get better racials for your character’s class from a different race. We will see how this one goes, but with paid faction changes already in place this one doesn’t surprise me at all. Can anyone say mo money?

•    For the Horde Gets a World First - The heroic versions of Trial of the Crusader went live some weeks ago and it took no time at all for some top guilds to venture into the more challenging versions of the raid encounter. Very soon after these encounters went live European guild For the Horde claimed the world first A Tribute to Insanity-10 which is a no wipe full clear of the instance on 10 man mode. According to their website they weren’t even trying for the achievement until they had made it all the way to Anub’arak with no wipes and then decided to go for it. Congrats to For the Horde! •    ToC Jousting to be Fixed - Right now we all know that the post-jousting aggro tables are a real pain in the butt in the 5 man ToC encounter. Most groups know that the easiest way around this turning into a party wipe is for the entire group to step outside for a minute to allow the encounter to reset. Well it seems the dev team has noticed this issue too and Valnoth made a post in the forums stating that running out to reset will no longer be necessary once patch 3.2.2 is released. He doesn’t state exactly how this will happen, but a simple aggro wipe on the jousters would be enough to fix the problem.

•    Share WoW Achievements on Facebook – There is a pretty cool Facebook app out there called Achieved that will take your achievements and insert them into your Facebook feeds however you like. If you choose to go all the way and have your wall plastered with a story whenever you get an achievement, you can do that but if you want to be a bit less intrusive while still sharing the info with your friends, you can set the app to show as a small box on your profile page. The app also allows you to leave your character name out of it if for some reason you don’t want to share that info with ALL your Facebook friends. Achieved also has two versions, the free version requires you to log into Facebook for updates to happen but for a mere $.99 Canadian the app will update straight from the armory without any help from you!

•    Premonition Gets Mad Skills – US guild, Premonition has grabbed themselves another pretty significant raid achievement. This week they completed the 10-man Tribute to Mad Skill achievement which means they defeated the 10-man Coliseum raid on hard mode including the final boss, Anub’arak, with less than 5 party wipes throughout the entire instance! Premonition has established itself among the top US guilds earning other US firsts such as Alone in the Darkness and it seems they are poised to continue their streak now that all bosses in the Coliseum are unlocked. Congrats to them and good luck in the future!

•    BlizzCon Contest Winners – Every year at BlizzCon there are contests, some start weeks beforehand and some take place right there on the convention center stage. Regardless, they all take a great deal of time and talent to win, so we wanted to recognize this year’s winners. They are all truly talented and creative people! To see their amazing works of art check out the BlizzCon Contest Page.

•    New Commendation Badge for Dungeon Daily in 3.2.2 – One of the most recent builds to hit the PTR revealed something quite interesting: The dungeon daily now gives you the option to choose a Sons of Hodir Commendation Badge in addition to the ones which have been there all along. I have already completed the Hodir rep grind on my main, so this won’t really help me out there, but I will love it on my alts!

•   Pandaren Monk Video – Now, we let you know a couple of weeks ago that the Pandaren Monk will be one of the new companion pets players can obtain once Patch 3.2.2 is released to live servers. Now there is a video of this adorable little guy! I would imagine since he’s THAT cool he will not be easily obtained, but that remains to be seen since the drop location has not yet been confirmed.

•    Your Pre-Cataclysm “To Do” List - So, sometime in the next 12-15 months our favorite game will see revisions like it has never seen before. Cataclysm promises to bring huge changes to Azeroth and there’s a good chance a lot of the old quests and reputation grinds with which we are very familiar will be gone forever or, at the very least, changed so much they will be barely recognizable. With all this in mind, many achievements and titles are taking on a sense of urgency players have never felt before.

•    WoW TCG Scourgewar Loot Available for Trial - On September 11th the folks over at Upper Deck (maker of the WoW Trading Card Game) released more information about the next expansion, Scourgewar, slated for release on November 24th. The new loot cards that will be available are Tiny (super-common loot card), this will give you a game code redeemable for 50 summons of a mini-mount which will carry you around as fast as his little legs can take him, which is no faster than your character runs, but it’s the cool that counts! Next is the Tuskarr Kite (uncommon loot card), this item will allow you to have your very own decorative kite like the ones in the Tuskarr Village which will function like the Onyxia Kite from a previous TCG expansion. This kite will also count toward your companion pet achievement…sweet! Lastly there is the Spectral Kitten (extremely rare loot card), this will be the quintessential loot card for all you collectors out there. This cutie comes with tiny little armor to match his size and lets out a haunting meow when you click on him, this is one little kitty plenty of fans will be wanting to get their hands on! You can take these sweet lootz for a test drive on the PTR by visiting Landro Longshot and using the following codes: Tiny: 3333, Kite: 2222, Kitty: 1111…have fun!

•    Cranius Music Available on Amazon.com - Cranius has established himself as one of the top WoW fan songwriters with credits such as Big Blue Dress and Darrowshire going to him, nearly everyone familiar with fan created music has heard of him. In the past year, Cranius has also teamed up with an excellent machinima partner, Legs and together they won top honors in the machinima contest at BlizzCon last month with Don’t Make Me Get My Main. All this background makes it awesome to point out that Cranius has released his music through Amazon.com on an album title Big Blue Dress, the album retails for less than $5 and includes downloads of several of Cranius’ original WoW-themed songs. For so little it’s nice to throw some support in the direction of such a talented artist! Head on over to Amazon.com and check it out!

•   Argent Tournament Gains NOT Transferable - Just as a heads up for all you faction transferers (is that even a word?) out there. Many faction reputations will transfer just fine, but that will not be the case for any Argent Tournament progress you have made. All Argent Tournament Reps will be wiped clean and you will have to start all over again after your transfer. Blizzard poster Kisirani stated that Blizz couldn’t think of a way to make this rep transfer on the technical end (understandable) so anyone who changes factions will have to make their way back through the ranks to the Champion level. Other rep grinds which will be wiped include Silver Covenant and Sunreavers, this isn’t a huge loss but an annoyance none the less.

•    New WoW Model Viewer Available - The WoW Model Viewer which is a tool used by producers of machinima as well as other graphics enthusiasts has released a new version which is compatible with patch 3.2. This version of the popular graphics program includes forms for the new Worgen race which will be arriving with the Cataclysm expansion and it also addressed many of the issues the program had previously. I have used this program for many years and I love it! I am looking forward to messing around a bit with the new Worgen forms and will be really excited when I can put armor on them!

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