This contest is now closed. A huge congrats to our winner @Shorester!! (Please contact cherith@gamingangels.com to collect your prize!)

Thank you to everyone that entered!

We are giving you the chance to win $300 towards play time in World of Warcraft.  In case you’re too tired for math after all that post-Thanksgiving shopping this morning – that’s 23 months worth of time.  Now I’m sure you’d rather I just got on with how you can enter to win, so let me get on with it.

To Enter:

Comment on this entry and answer this question: “What is the one thing you are looking forward to the most in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm?”

And if you’re a regular here at GA, you’ll know that we try and always give you at least one bonus entry into our contests.  This one is no exception.  So, RT this contest out on Twitter using the sentence below and we’ll give you a second entry into the contest.

GamingAngels is giving away almost 2 years of WoW game time! http://bit.ly/fiDvaQ #gamingangels #cataclysm

This contest is going to run until December 6th, so you’ve got plenty of time to think about what you’re looking forward to and to comment here.

Even if you don’t win the time from us, don’t forget to pick up the Cataclysm Expansion. When you go to GameStop for your copy you can receive the Cataclysm Perk Pack loaded with special partner offers and get additional PowerUp Rewards incentives at GameStop within the first 48 hours of the launch of World of WarCraft: Cataclysm. Pick up your game starting at midnight 12/6 and start reaping the benefits of the Cataclysm Perk Pack immediately!

Here are a few examples of the available offers in the Cataclysm Perk Pack:

• 20% off select EVGA/NVIDIA video cards
• 20% off the purchase of any LinkSys Wireless Router or Cisco Valet product
• 20% off In-Stock accessories from GameStop.com
• 20% off select SteelSeries accessories
• Save $375 instantly on the Alienware M15x

To reserve your copy of WarCraft: Cataclysm, and to get complete details about the midnight events and the Cataclysm Perk Pack, please visit: http://www.gamestop.com/gs/landing/warcraftcataclysm/

I haven’t been hands on with Cataclysm since Blizzcon 2009, so I’d be excited to see what they’re going to let us do in the beta. I’m super excited to hopefully check out the entire new Goblin and Worgen starting zones as well as check out what’s new for levels 80-85. And to rejoice in flying mounts in Azeroth!

The other exciting thing that this means is the pre-expansion events may begin to hit soon, which I’ve always enjoyed (yes even the zombies for Wrath).

Via MTV

Blizzard fans, set October 22 and 23 aside on your calendar, and find some way to get to Anaheim, because BlizzCon is calling you.

The convention, basically heaven for fans of Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo, not only serves as a gathering place for fans of Blizzard Entertainment series, but also as a place for Blizzard fans to get their hands on the latest titles from the studio. Other events include developer discussion panels, tournaments, contests, and exclusive Blizzard merch for sale.

Tickets to BlizzCon ’09 sold out within mere minutes, so for ticket availability and pricing information, it’s probably best that you start refreshing the BlizzCon website. You might want to start now, actually.

The info pages really give some good background on how and why they lost Echo Isles and Gnomeregan. The story even goes so far as to explain the previous wins against Thermaplugg and Zalazane and how these were just ruses to make Mekkatorque and Vol’jin believe that they were able to defeat their enemies. I’m pretty excited for these events to take place and even more excited to know that the Gnomes and Trolls will have their own capitols again. It is a bit disappointing that the gnomes won’t be able to reclaim all of Gnomeregan (Blizz still wants to keep the dungeon around), but it’s a start!

As the first major pre-Cataclysm events to happen I’m pretty excited. I’m sure that there will be other, more dire events that will occur to herald the return of Deathwing and the imminent destruction of Azeroth as we know it. I’ll bring you the latest as I hear it so stay tuned to Gaming Angels!

Patch 3.3.3
All kinds of news has been filtering out with the upcoming release of Patch 3.3.3 (the background downloaded has been enabled!) and there are some interesting things coming in the next patch. As always MMO Champion has dug up some interesting things from the test realms. And of course you can find the latest test realm patch notes here.

I’ll start off with some of the more fun and frivolous additions with new mounts and pets that will be coming in the next patch. The more flashy of the new mounts is the Celestial Steed, a flying and land mount that looks like a constellation. There’s a video of the steed in action here, and I have to say seeing it in action makes it a lot cooler than just seeing the screenshot. Sadly I haven’t seen where players can get this mount from, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be tied to an achievement, maybe for raiding? In any case it’d make a great addition to anyone who loves collecting mounts. To also go along with the celestial steed is a Celestial Dragon pet. There is also a new two-seat rocket mount that was discovered that there isn’t any info on where or how we’ll be able to get it. Hopefully we’ll get some details soon! There also may be a new pet to buy from the Blizzard store. MMO Champion found the model for Lil XT and based on the similar name with Lil KT they speculate, and I’d agree, that this may be a new pet that players can purchase from the store. We’ll just have to wait and see on more info! And last but not least are two more mounts, the Blazing Hippogryph and the Woolly White Rhino, which were supposed to be TCG rewards, but due to the recent split from UpperDeck, this could change.

There are also going to be some changes coming to battlegrounds in the next patch. First off, marks are going to be cut from the game completely. One of the more exciting things for me because of this is not having to continue to grind for the marks for the mounts. They will now be available for 50,000 honor points per mount. And not to worry about any marks you have! You’ll be able to exchange them for a Commendation of Service, which will grant you 185 honor. The Call to Arms quests will also be no more, and will be replaced with a new interface that will list which battleground is the current Call to Arms. Along with this, the first random battleground that you do will give you the same rewards as the Call to Arms, and each subsequent  BG will net you about 15 Honorable Kills worth of points. You can choose to either do the Call to Arms or a random battleground to get the higher amount of points, but once you’ve done one of these the amount will be lowered. (Check out the nice screencap from MMOChampion) Personally I like this change and I think that it’ll bring some more people into doing the randoms at least. It’s been a hit for the dungeons, so I’m sure it’ll go fine for PvPers.

One last kind of small patch 3.3.3 update that I’m looking forward to is the change to the frost orbs that drop at the end of random heroics. I’m sure there have been some of you who have experienced everyone rolling greed (as what seems to be the expected norm) only to have the last person roll need and run off with a free orb. Frustrating yes? Well Blizzard seems to share the frustration as they’ve decided that frost orbs will now have an automatic greed roll for all! Seems fair enough to me though I’m sure there may be some complaints.

Patch 3.3.5

Yes I have an item for 3.3.5, and no I’m not sure what’s happening in 3.3.4 (DEHTA protests?). Zarhym announced the Ruby Sanctum back near the end of February and him saying that it “could quite possibly be the very beginning of Deathwing’s plan to dismantle the Wyrmrest Accord from within.” makes it seem pretty dire:

A powerful war party of the Black Dragonflight, led by the fearsome Twilight dragon, Halion, have launched an assault upon the Ruby Sanctum beneath Wyrmrest Temple. By destroying the sanctum, the Black Dragonflight look to crush those that would stand in the way of their master’s reemergence into Azeroth and to ultimately shatter the Wyrmrest Accord – the sacred bond that unites the dragonflights.

The battle that is to come will surely deal a crippling blow to the Red Dragonflight, however, it is up to you to stop this unprecedented offensive and defend the Ruby Sanctum. First you must face the assault of Halion’s servants, Saviana Ragefire, Baltharus the Warborn, and General Zarithrian, before squaring off against Halion the Twilight Destroyer, a new and deadly force in this realm.

The Ruby Sanctum will feature 10- and 25-player content, Heroic difficulties and all-new rewards! Stay tuned for more information as we get closer to its release.

It sounds interesting and another way that Blizz seems to be ushering in the Cataclysm. MMO Champion has also dug up sound clips and screen shots of the new instance.

Cataclysm

There has been some big news items for Cataclysm in the past month, some of which could still be considered part of the rumor mill as they haven’t been confirmed (or denied) by Blizzard. In the latest issue of PC Gamer UK, there is a large article about “50 reasons to play Cataclysm” which is a lot of stuff that we’ve at least read on various sites even before Blizzcon ’09. So two things, the first of which I’m quoting from MMOChampion: “Note #1 Important – The guys from PC Gamer were kind enough to give me a few more information on that. The article is NOT officially endorsed by Blizzard and is mostly the result of their own work, that means that a small part of speculation is involved.” And second, this part will be spoiler heavy so scroll down a bit until I give the “all clear.”

<spoilers>

As we’ve heard Thrall will be leaving his position as warchief of the horde to be a guardian of Tirisfal, however this isn’t as permanent sounding as it first sounded. According to this list, Thrall will just be leaving Garrosh “in charge” which does not make him warchief, but will still allow him to declare war on the Alliance and anything else he sees fit. He will be throwing out the Forsaken and Blood Elves from Orgrimmar for his own reasons. And Garrosh will also declare Cairne Bloodhoof a traitor and will execute him. Not too happy about this as I do like Cairne, but according to MMOChampion who got a hold of this issue, they say that the “seeming demise” may be linked to the revitalization of Desolace. So maybe Cairne is able to escape the fate that Garrosh would want for him and live in exile? I guess we’ll just find out when the expansion hits. There is also some talk about Deepholme and how there will likely be a battle between the Alliance and Horde in there that will involve large ships like we’ve already seen in Icecrown. On a final fun note, with the Archaeology profession, we will be seeing Harrison Jones in game, who will have a link to this profession.

</spoilers>

In other big news we received details about the mastery system and stat changes that will be released in the expansion. We’ve known about the stat changes since Blizzcon, but Eyonix made a nicely detailed post (linked above) that goes deeper in explaining their reasons for making the change and what will be affected. I think that the stat changes are a good thing since I also felt that the system was a bit too clunky, and I think that the changes will help newcomers to the game understand what they need more easily. To go along with the stat changes, I also like the proposed mastery system which will be refreshing the talent tree system. Eyonix was a busy dragon and gave us a good preview of this as well:

Here’s how the system works: As you spend points in a given talent tree, you’ll receive three different passive bonuses specific to that tree. The first bonus will increase your damage, healing, or survivability, depending on the intended role of the tree. The second bonus will be related to a stat commonly found on gear desirable to you, such as Haste or Crit. The third bonus will be the most interesting, as it will provide an effect completely unique to that tree — meaning there will be 30 different bonuses of this nature in the game. This third bonus is the one that will benefit from the Mastery rating found on high-level (level 80 to 85) gear.

One of our primary goals with Mastery is to give players more flexibility to choose fun or utility-oriented talents rather than make them feel obligated to pick up “mandatory” but uninteresting talents, such as passive damage or healing. (For examples of the kinds of powerful but boring talents we’re talking about, take a look at the talent tier just above the 51-point talent in many of the existing trees.) In a sense, Mastery makes it so every talent in (just for example) a rogue tree essentially has an invisible additional bullet point that says “…and increases your damage by X%.” This way, if you choose a talent like Master of Deception (which reduces your chance to be detected while stealthed) or Fleet Footed (which affects movement), you won’t feel like you’re giving up damage in exchange for utility.

Again this change makes sense to me, though I am a bit interested to see how some aspects are handled with different talent trees and what players find becomes a good spec for raiding or PvP. I know as a hunter I’ll be interested to see what they do to all three of the trees and to see what may wind up being the spec (or specs?) du jour. At least there’s dual specs so I can try out a couple of different ones. Eyonix later made some clarifications to the system where he discusses a bit about hybrids and how the points spent in each tree will determine what spec you are. He also says that they plan on making Death Knights less dependent on GCD and rune cool-downs, which has piqued my interests as I love playing my DK but the cool-downs and runic system can get a bit annoying. Unfortunately not much else was said on that front and it looks like we’ll have to wait to hear more info.

But all of this news coming out makes me hopeful that maybe we’ll be hearing about a beta soon! If not the beta maybe more info on the in-game events that Blizz has planned leading up to Cataclysm. Pretty sure it’s going to be massive, and I’m pretty excited for it!

In the News

In general WoW news, the 5 year anniversary mosaic has been finished! The call for entries for the BattleCry were answered and has given us quite the image to behold. I’ve always been a fan of these photo mosaics, and with 20,000 images combined plus some beautiful artwork it makes for an impressive piece. Along with the release of the mosaic, Blizzard has put up the artwork that was the base for it in various computer wallpaper sizes (even for you dual monitor people) plus mobile devices! It is a shame that the art gets cropped so you loose Sylvanas, Tyrande, Lor’themar Theron and High Tinker Mekkatorque, but my droid still got a new wallpaper.

There is also an interview on G4 with lead producer J. Allen Brack where the discussion of bringing WoW to console systems is discussed. Good points are brought up regarding the memory space needed for the game itself (which right now is around 15GB) to the control schemes being developed for keyboard gaming, so it’s no surprise that Brack said this: “I think it’s unlikely that WoW comes to the consoles. It is something that we talk about on a pretty regular basis, but someone is going to figure out how to make an MMO on a console and they’re going to be wildly successful. I have no doubt about that.” Personally I don’t know if I’d want to play WoW on a console unless I could plug in my keyboard and mouse to my Xbox. A controller based control system could work in the future, but I would still be skeptical.

Massively also put up an interesting article about the threat of Farmville to WoW. Granted there has been a lot of discussion after Activision-Blizzard’s annual 10k report came out about the status of WoW remaining in the forefront of MMO gaming. Now I do think that maybe Blizz needs to look at adapting to the new market, but I don’t necessarily think that casual games like Farmville will spell doom for them. It may just be the inspiration that they need to think up things like maybe a different membership model.

And if you haven’t picked it up yet, the latest WoW novel, Stormrage by Richard A. Knaak is now out! I haven’t had a chance to grab it yet but I’ll have it soon. Stormrage continues the story of the Emerald Dream where the Green Dragonflight is continuing to battle against the Nightmare threatening to take over the dream. Many dragons have been consumed by the Nightmare, emerging from the dream broken in mind and body, and it may be that Malfurion has succumbed to the Nightmare as well. The book sounds pretty intense and I look forward to reading it!

Collector’s Corner

I decided to start a new section for news about the figure series as well as any interesting collectibles that Blizzard announces. And of course I’m first going to discuss the two new plushies! Blizz released a Wind Rider Cub and Gryphon Hatchling who come with bonus in-game vanity pets. Plus when “RIDICULOUSLY CUTE!” is in the product description you just can’t pass that up. Each costs $25 and makes a great gift or addition to your WoW collection. And even though I’m more of an Alliance at heart, the Wind Rider cub is much cuter than the Gryphon.

For the action figure fans, I’ve got some news as well! If you didn’t get the chance to read my coverage of Toy Fair 2010, I mentioned that I was able to check out the upcoming figure series from DC. Series 6, which includes Sylvanas, Magni Bronzebeard and Gibzz Sparklighter, the goblin tinker. It was also recently announced that series 7 is now available for pre-order and will include Judge Malthred, Garona & Garm Whitefang. These figures are set to be released in October. Having seen all of these figures up close I have to say that they look amazing and are very well sculpted and painted. There is also the deluxe figure series, which will have the third released in October that includes Garrosh and Taz’Dingo (a troll hunter). The names are a bit odd, and as I’ve seen some people point out they couldn’t have been more obvious with the naming of the worgen, I still like them for what they are and plan on getting a few of them for my collection. I also was able to see a figure that DC Unlimited plans to release of the Lich King in the deluxe series and I’m pretty excited about that one!

Comic Relief

Another new section I decided to institute is some comic relief, as WoW is not always serious business. Below is a list of some fun things I’ve come across lately that were pretty amusing.

• Ctrl+Alt+Del did a fun comic regarding the ever debated topic of Gear Score.
• The fine folks at Master of Warcraft sat down and decoded the binary codes from the punch cards in Gnomeregan. Apparently Blizz loves subliminal messages…
• On the news that the gnomes may be going back to Gnomeregan in the future, there has been a new site that’s popped up that has some amusing graphics, poetry and tidbits all related to gnomes (they actually tipped me off to the binary translations): The Gnomeregan Offensive. I recommend checking it out and hope that they continue with the updates!

Call to readers!

If you have any tips, tricks, news or funnies you would like to send in to be included in the next State of Azeroth please send an email to steph@gamingangels.com!

This is Steph signing off until next month. Glory to the Alliance and Lok’tar Ogar to my horde brethren!

Thanks to Necrotic Designs for the awesome banner! Rawr!

Patch 3.3.2

Since last month, we’ve had the rest of Icecrown Citadel unlocked with patch 3.3.2 opening up the Frostwing Halls and letting us finally get our hands on Arthas! As always patch notes are here in case you’ve missed them. Along with this, we also have some big spoilers with the fall of the Lich King ending cinematic being leaked onto the web. Now I got the chance to watch it before Blizzard had the video pulled from YouTube for copyright, and if you haven’t made it yet, it’s pretty impressive and I think a great ending for the expansion while leaving it open at the same time.

There has also already been some drama surrounding the killing of the Lich King. On February 4th, Ensidia reported that they had received the world first for downing the Lich King in 25-man mode. However it soon came to light that they were able to do this with the help of some Saronite Bombs that through a glitch Blizzard seemed to have not caught in which the bombs help to bypass certain mechanics of the Lich King fight. Ensidia claims that they didn’t know about this, however that fell on deaf ears at Blizzard and all achievements were revoked and they were suspended for 72 hours. Blizzard did wind up doing a hotfix to correct the glitch, but it’s amazing that they wouldn’t have caught something like that. Ensidia did not rest long after the suspension and they soon killed Arthas again. And also a big grats to Blood Legion for scoring the world first 10-man Lich King kill!

Now if you haven’t seen what the loot tables are, MMO-Champion has a great listing here (note: not all items from the Lich King are there yet), and aside from some armor and weapons upgrades I really want Invincible! Hey I’m working towards 100 mounts and it’d be a nice addition even though I’m still unsure about those wings.

In-Game Action

Now in case you haven’t noticed pink hearts everywhere and the talk in trade about SFK groups, Love is in the Air has hit Azeroth! For achievement junkies like myself, many have been doing the daily quests to get Love Tokens to turn in for items to help in finishing off achevement requirements. Now if you’re stuck, I’m always a fan of WoWHead.com‘s holiday guides and you can check out their Love is in the Air one here.

Now we’re doing double duity this month as the Lunar Festival is also upon us as of today and both holidays will overlap for a week. WoWHead.com also has a guide up, but it is being compiled as information is being sent in on any changes that may have happened since last year. I recommend checking in with that later in the day just to make sure everything is up to date.

Hope you all become Love Fools and Respect your Elders!

In the News

Over the past month Blizzard released a couple of interesting articles. One was on the development of the Gunship Battle for Icecrown. The battle itself is pretty interesting and gives new purpose to the Skybreaker (Alliance) and Orgrim’s Hammer (Horde) which we’ve all come to know during dailies in Icecrown. The article is a good read into how the process went, but I have to say I think my favorite part of that battle has been the invention of rocket-bear.

There is also a nice developer interview here with Scott Mercer and Greg Street where they discuss their inspirations for the Rise and Fall of the Lich King. It was interesting to read how they had initially thought that Arthas wouldn’t have such a big impact in the game as he does now. They also discuss how after Burning Crusade they wanted to change things for this patch and make the relationship between the players and the Lich King more personal than the overall looming threat of Illidan. And of course they also touch on Cataclysm at the end.

Blizzard has also added some new functionality for Facebook users with an armory app that lets you post your character’s actions to your wall for all of your friends to read. Personally I disabled most of that and keep it to look at my friends who have it installed and play on other servers to see what they’re up to. Also, there is now an authenticator app for Android users! I’m looking forward to not have to dig for my iPod touch anymore. Now how about they work on an official armory app for Android?

In future news, it was announced that Blizzard plans to add Auction House functionality to the Armory! Not only that, but they’d make it possible to use on the mobile armory for iPhone and iPod touch! But before you get too excited, Bornakk has this to say:

This is a fairly complex service to develop, due in large part to its unprecedented integration with the game, so we don’t have an exact release date yet. It’s important to note here that certain elements of the service will be premium-based, which we’ll go into more detail on once the service functionality is finalized. As with all of the services we offer, we plan to integrate the Auction House and Armory in a way that won’t disrupt the gameplay experience, and we won’t release it until it meets the quality standards that we’ve set for our other features and services.

Now I do hope that they take their time and make sure the app works smoothly. And it will be great to not have to log into the game just to check auctions.

For those who have been wondering where those snazzy Creative WoW headsets are, WoW.com reported that they have finally been listed for pre-order! There is a wireless and USB connected versions in either Horde or Alliance colors. The USB version will run you about $119 and the wireless version will be $159. Both versions are currently available on Amazon for pre-order!

Offbeat News

Apparently World of Warcraft is killing the porn industry. Well at least according to Richard Abowitz who wrote an article on The Daily Beast about the Top 5 things killing Porn for Profit. Now most of the points he brings up are valid, however online gaming is #4 on his list for the following reason:

One of the strangest challenges porn faces is competition from online games like World of Warcraft, though the connection may at first seem random. “It is all entertainment that you are getting involved in the same way as porn is entertainment,” said Aiden. “I won’t say everyone, but a lot of people in the industry play videogames. The games are competition for porn. Fans jerk off to porn and are done, but you can keep playing a game.”

Uhm… I honestly don’t think that WoW (or other online MMOs) really will have a hand in killing off porn for profit. I have to agree with Kotaku that this reason is really founded on some shaky logic.

Now here is something a bit more interesting. Recently someone posted images of a man who was at a Panera Bread playing WoW on an iMac, and Gizmodo was able to track him down and do an interview about why he has decided to take his iMac on the go and play out in public. The man, who seems real nice, doesn’t have internet at home and uses the iMac as it gives him a larger screen to play on. He seems to have a good relationship with the workers at the Panera he goes to, and he sits where he wouldn’t bother other customers. Heck I wouldn’t mind raiding while sipping on some of their soup!

And to round out this month’s offbeat section, I give you this great find from Kotaku where a Russian cologne ad has been heavily influenced by WoW. Both videos are on the site and it’s actually pretty funny. Maybe that’s the cologne Arthas prefers…

World of Warcraft Official Magazine

Since the first edition of State of Azeroth, Gaming Angels was contacted about checking out the official WoW magazine, and after seeing my first column thought it would be a great fit for me! So I quickly received the first issue, and I was actually very impressed. If you’re a dedicated WoW player, this is a great magazine for you to subscribe to. The first thing is that there are no ads to flip past. This makes it great as from cover to cover the magazine is chock full of information and interviews for you to read.

I really liked this first issue as it has some great retrospectives as it talks a lot about WoW’s 5th anniversary. There’s a great timeline of events, and an article on the 12 things you can’t live without but in the beginning didn’t have. But along with all of this reflection is talk about the current expansion as well as the upcoming Cataclysm. The interview with Mike Morhaime was one of my favorite reads as it’s a really nice in-depth article about the past, present and what he would love to see happen in the future. And for you arena junkies, there’s even a nice spread about managing your line of sight in the various arenas. There’s also two great articles on two of the Battlegrounds: Isle of Conquest and Arathi Basin.

I highly recommend signing up for a subscription. If you sign up before February 28th you’ll even receive the 1st issue! Each magazine is released quarterly (so 4 per year). A 1-year subscription will run you around $40 and a 2-year is $70. And if the first issue is any indication, each one will be chock full of information for the hardcore raider, PvPers and casual players. I will also have a special section in my State of Azeroth once I receive the latest edition so I can fill you all in on the highlights!

Media fun

I decided to include a small section where I will include some interesting videos/songs/artwork that I come across each month. I also would love to encourage you readers to email me with any screen shots, artwork or videos you may find that you’d like to see featured!

First on my list for this month is the song “Invincible” that was released after a new panel from the WoW Battlecry mosaic was released. No, it’s not about Arthas’ horse, but it’s a beautiful and haunting melody. Fitting for the ending of one heck of a villian.

Second is the talented Isolte (great blog name!) who is behind the great songs “Shut up and Grind,” “Altoholic” and “Ninja Raiders.” All three songs are available on her site for download. There are even music videos that accompany them which have some great machinama in them! They’re linked for your amusement below:
Ninja Raiders
Altoholic
Shut up and Grind
I also have to say it’s awesome seeing the Draenei being used a lot in the videos!

Call to readers!

If you have any tips, tricks, news or funnies you would like to send in to be included in the next State of Azeroth please send an email to steph@gamingangels.com! I’m also looking for any girls who are guild masters of an all female guild or members of an all female guild to do an interview with! If interested you can contact me at the above email address as well.

This is Steph signing off until next month. Glory to the Alliance and Lok’tar Ogar to my horde brethren!

Thanks to Necrotic Designs for the awesome banner! Now in Love is in the Air flavor.

Patch 3.3

Before the holidays, we were treated with the final big patch to Wrath of the Lich King, Patch 3.3, that allowed us into Icecrown Citadel so that we can finally get our hands on Arthas. This patch was highly anticipated and so far seems to have delivered with regards to the major points. I thoroughly enjoy the three new 5-man dungeons that you can battle through. I think that it was a neat idea to have these dungeons that not only expand on the story, but they also drop some fairly decent loot. I think my favorite of the three is Halls of Reflection, even though it can be a pain to get past Falric and Marwyn without an experienced group and good strategy. Now I’ve only experienced this as Alliance and fighting with Jaina, but from what I’ve heard battling with Sylvanas is also quite the treat. Though I can’t forgive Blizzard for changing her voice. I really hate the new voice.

And of course there are the new 10 and 25 man Icecrown Citadel raid instances. Blizzard is rolling out this final raid section by section with only The Lower Spire and Plagueworks available for players to fight through. There is also the big gunship battle that you participate in where you have to fight against the opposite faction to reach the top of Icecrown citadel before the other faction does. As someone who’s more of a casual player I’m unfortunately not up on my gear as I should be to make it to ICC, however I’m working hard on it and should be able to make it eventually! I’ll probably be happier to wait because then I can play more wings of the citadel instead of waiting for the next ones to be unlocked.

There is also a new faction that players can earn rep with that rewards players with new recipes and rings. The Ashen Verdict was created with an agreement between Tirion Fordring and Darion Mograine where the Argent Crusade and the Knights of the Ebon Blade have set aside their differences during the attack on Icecrown Citadel until the Lich King is defeated. Players can earn rep with them by killing trash mobs and bosses in the citadel. MMOChampion has a great listing of all of the reputation rewards here!

The other new thing that is probably my favorite is the Dungeon Finder system. Not only can you queue your level 80 characters to run heroics and raids, but even your lower level characters can queue up for low level dungeons. Running your first random heroic of the day will net you two Emblems of Frost and some gold. After that you receive Emblems of Triumph. For running a random pre-Wrath dungeon you will receive a spoils bag that will include level-appropriate rewards. Running either of the daily random dungeons is a great way to get some good loot, save up for tier gear and even pass the time while farming materials or reputation. I tend to wait in the queue for DPS and work on my Wintersaber reputation. And for my low level mage the dungeons are a great way to get a good amount of XP and level up!

As always, the latest patch notes can be found here.

In the News

There have been a couple of interesting news items in the past month or so that have caught my attention. The first one being Blizzard helping cops track down a drug dealer via WoW. Police in Howard County, Indiana were on the hunt for Alfred Hightower, a suspected drug dealer who had a warrant for his arrest out since 2007. In their investigation, the police discovered that Hightower played WoW (or as they were initially told “some warlock and witches’ game”). When petitioned, Blizzard did get back to the police with information that included Hightower’s IP address, account information and history, billing address and online screen name and preferred server. Penny Arcade even did a great comic regarding the incident.

Another news story that popped up and had me laughing was regarding a man who was told by his wife that it was his Orc statue or him. Now as discovered by one of the members of Fark.com this wasn’t just any orc, this is Thrall from Warcraft III who is also unfortunately out of stock for those interested. So Robert Cushnie was forced to give away Thrall to someone else. “She said there wasn’t any room for him in our life. I’ve had him for six years but Dee means more to me, so he had to go.”At least it looks like he went to a good home.

In-Game Action

It was noticed in the past month that there have been some strange earthquakes rocking the major faction cities. This led to some remembering mobs from the PTR that were seen called Shakers. In the live game now they’re of course invisible, but they are most likely the harbingers of Deathwing coming back to Azeroth. Blue poster Wryxian was seen commenting on posts in the forums with cryptic answers my favorite being the following:

It was just you. Seriously, earthquakes leading up to some kind of cataclysm? I lol’d.

*the earth shakes a bit* o.O

Now it’s always good to try and not read too far in-between the lines with blue posts, but I think that this probably the beginnings of the pre-Cataclysm events since Blizzard isn’t denying what’s going on. The one funny aspect is that these quakes also happen in Dalaran, as yanno, floating cities high up in the sky can feel such things.
Rumor Mill

In breaking rumor news, WoW.com posted that their sources have said that the Friends and Family alpha for Cataclysm will begin on January 12th. This news came about when the wowleak Twitter account posted the image of a Cataclysm disc to their feed, which has since been said to be a fake. WoW.com is still sticking to the story that the alpha will occur on the 12th.

Call to readers!

If you have any tips, tricks, news or funnies you would like to send in to be included in the next State of Azeroth please send an email to steph@gamingangels.com! I’m also looking for any girls who are guild masters of an all female guild or members of an all female guild to do an interview with! If interested you can contact me at the above email address as well.

This is Steph signing off until next month. Glory to the Alliance and Lok’tar Ogar to my horde brethren!

Thanks to Necrotic Designs for the awesome banner!

This patch will also bring to close the story of the Lich King for all of the Lore fans. I know that I’m excited to see how everything plays out both on the Horde side as well as Alliance as heroes going through the dungeons will be accompanied by Sylvannas and Jaina respectively. We will also find out the fates of Bolvar Fordragon and Dranosh Saurfang. Both heroes seem to have been brought back to serve the Lich King, with Bolvar possibly fighting against the Lich King’s will.

Endgame aside, there are also going to be some other major changes. The one that I’m very excited for is the cross-realm PUG system. I think that implementing the ability to queue for PUGs (QQing about ninjas and bad players aside) will ultimately be a good thing. I know that sometimes I have an issue trying to find a group for some heroics, or a group that will even stick together for chain heroics. Being able to queue and get partnered with people for these will make things a bit less painful when I want to do heroics. Along the same lines, [Looking for Group] chat channel will now be available in all cities like General and Trade, so now you don’t have to be in the LFG module in order to be in that channel.

Another cool addition is the new Kalu’ak Fishing Derby which will happen every Wednesday beginning at 8pm. Elder Clearwater will be waiting in Dalaran for the quickest player to return with a Blacktip Shark. The first player to return with the Blacktip Shark will receive a reward, and players who also return before Elder Clearwater leaves will also receive a reward. Also because of this new fishing event, the “Master Angler of Stranglethorn” achievement is being changed to “Master Angler of Azeroth” which can be won by doing either the Kalu’ak Fishing Derby or the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza.

Tier 10 armor will also be introduced this patch, and as a hunter I’m not too thrilled with my rhino armor. In general none of the new T10 sets really popped out to me, but I do like the Mage, Priest and Warlock sets. MMO Champion has a great guide here with pictures of the new sets as well as stats and cost. Along with the new Tier comes a new legendary weapon: Shadowmourne. This new weapon is only acquired after completing a quest line, and will be sought after by Warriors, Paladins and Death Knights. There is a great guide on MMO Champion for the questline and videos are included as well!

This will prove to be one hefty patch, and this is further indicated by the lengthy PTR notes on the official site. I only advise that some of this could change once the patch goes live, but I could be wrong. You can always keep track of current patch notes on the official site here.

Hopefully we see this patch drop tomorrow! What aspects of the next patch are you looking forward to? Are there things you think should be changed or just not included?

In parting I want to share this amazing video that was created by Kinaesthesia from Vodka (US-Alterac Mountains) that I saw. It’s a really good preview of the 5-man dungeons and is very spoiler heavy for those concerned by such things. I’ve put it below for those not caring about spoilers to enjoy!

StealthySlyth wrote a great birthday tribute about World of Warcraft. Blizzard is also celebrating with a launch of a anniversary celebration site.

On the site they’ll have interviews, video feature and a place to send your picture with your battlecrest. Just make sure you’re screaming “For the Horde” or “For the Alliance”.

Also Blizzard is offering all gamers that logs into the game between now and Sunday, December 6 at 11:59 p.m. (realm time) will receive their very own Onyxian Whelpling non-combat pet, along with a special message from the development team. So make sure you do that before time runs out.

Granted I started playing during the Burning Crusade expansion, my guildmates who have been around since the beginning have told me about the “old days” and what it was like trying to do one of the 40-man raids. How much different leveling was back then, and how “kids these days have it easy!” I was interested in it back when it first came out, but after hearing about that $15/month subscription and how much time had to be put into the game, well my broke college student self just couldn’t afford it.

But I eventually was convinced to try it out, fell in love with it, and have been playing now for almost two years. And even in that time a lot has changed. You couldn’t get mounts until 40 for example, and it cost somewhere around 30+ gold to learn the ability and buy a mount. Now you can train at 20 for your first mount and it’s a paltry sum to do so. There are also shiny achievements that you can earn right off the bat. And Wrath of the Lich King has added in a cool new area and interesting storylines to the lore.

Very old official interface

It’s also just fun to see how things have changed look wise, from the character models to the user interfaces. Addons, which were for the most part nonexistent in the beginning now flourish, and raiding guilds require certain ones in order for you to run with them.

WoW has definitely made an imprint in pop culture, both positive and negative. And they’ve even received the honor of being mocked in an entire South Park episode. Now with their commercials featuring Mr. T, Ozzy and William Shatner they’re reaching out to more people and the world of Azeroth continues to grow.

Now we have the Cataclysm expansion to look forward to which will completely change Azeroth as we know it. Enhancing the game, changing the environment and creating new quests, this is an example of the kinds of things Blizzard is doing to keep things fresh and new for players.

So congrats to Blizzard for making it five years with World of Warcraft! And for you players, what are your fondest memories from WoW over the past five years? Do you have a character who is that old? Are you also a member of the group who started way back when and want these kids to know how you had to walk both ways, through the snow uphill both ways in Dun Morogh to get where you had to go? Share your memories in the comments below!