PTR 3.3 got a new build update with a few extra class changes and no dungeon content -- at least none reported yet. This build seems to focus more on class balance and PvP testing, thus all PTR players should focus on testing Wintergrasp, Battleground and Arenas to provide feedback on how their class is performing with these specific changes. On another note, the WoW team finally reduced the requirements of Meeting Stones all the way down to lvl 15, which means lvl 70-80 are now able to use them anywhere.

Arena:

• All abilities that have base cooldowns of 10 minutes or longer cannot be used in Arenas, down from 15 minutes.

Death Knight

• Night of the Dead (Unholy): Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 45/90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players. In addition, this talent now reduces the cooldown of Army of the Dead by 2/4 minutes, down from 5/10 minutes.
  
  
• Army of the Dead: The cooldown on this ability has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Army Ghoul damage dropped by 50%. Cannot be used in Arenas.
  
  
• Raise Ally: The cooldown on this ability has been reduced from 15 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
  
  
• Rune Strike: Threat generated by this ability increased by approximately 17%.

Priest

• Divine Hymn: The cooldown on this spell has been reduced to 8 minutes, down from 10 minutes.

Rogue (Subtlety)

• Preparation: The cooldown on this ability has been reduced to 8 minutes, down from 10 minutes.
  
  
• Filthy Tricks: The cooldown reduction this talent provides for Preparation has been reduced to 1.5/3 minutes, down from 2.5/5 minutes.

Mages (Frost)

• Fingers of Frost: This talent now triggers immediately on casting a spell rather than being delayed until the spell strikes the target.

Paladin

• Divine Intervention: Cooldown on this ability has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
  
  
• Flash of Light: This spell no longer causes a heal-over-time effect unless the player has the Infusion of Light talent.
  
  
• Lay on Hands: This ability now places Forbearance on the target and cannot be used on a target with Forbearance.

Sacred Shield: Changes made in the previous PTR build was removed. Sacred Shield is now reverted to its former state.

Infusion of Light (Holy): This talent now causes the paladin’s Flash of Light spells to heal the target for 50/100% of the Flash of Light healing amount over 12 seconds.

Aura Mastery: This effect of this talent has been reduced in duration to 6 seconds.

Shaman

• Earth Elemental Totem: The cooldown for this totem has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
  
  
• Fire Elemental Totem: The cooldown for this totem has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.

Warlock

• Inferno (Pets): The cooldown on this summoning spell has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.

General

• Meeting Stones: To use any Meeting Stone, it is only required that the character’s minimum level be 15. There is no maximum character level requirement for any Meeting Stone.

Battlegrounds

• All level 71-80 Battleground daily quests will now award 25 Arena points in addition to their current rewards.

Wintergrasp

You must now have the following ranks to build or pilot siege vehicles.


• Rank 2: Build/pilot Catapults.
  
• Rank 3: Build/pilot Demolishers.
  
• Rank 3: Build/pilot Siege Engines.

User Interface

• Group Disenchanting Option: In addition to rolling Need or Greed on items, players now have the option to elect for an item to be disenchanted if an enchanter of the appropriate skill level is in the group. Disenchant works exactly like Greed except if a player wins the Greed roll, they will receive the disenchanted materials instead. Players who choose Need will always win the item and will always beat those that choose Greed or Disenchant.

Blizzard has announced the website launch of a new World of Warcraft merchandise partner, PrintWarcraft, which offers the service of printing posters based on custom posters of your in-game character. The amount of templates available to choose from is simply staggering with 79 pages worth of poster options.

First create an account and check your email for confirmation. Then you can type in your character name and server. A few seconds later, you will see your character image wearing all the current gear. It pulls data from the WoWarmory.com website the same way FigurePrints does. Click the add button, and select the icon on the center of the page, under "My Characters. On the right column you will see your character again and beneath are options such as Create, Remove from Account, Create a New Snapshot, View Character Album, and Set as Default Character.

Posters come in the following sizes and prices:

• 12x18 - $ 17.99
  
• 24x26 - $ 24.99
  
• 27x40 - $29.99
  
• 40x27 - $ 29.99
  
• 36x24 - $24.99
  
• 18x12 - $17.99

Heroic Prints and Blizzard Entertainment have joined forces to bring you the opportunity to create customized World of Warcraft posters featuring the character you play. PrintWarcraft.com uses specially designed rendering technology and access to character information, along with a variety of backgrounds, logos, borders, and fonts, to create the ultimate custom poster. Head over and check out all the options today.

Welcome to PrintWarcraft.com, your ultimate destination for custom printed World of Warcraft products! Here you can use our builder to create a poster featuring your very own character! Choose from a variety of poster sizes, backgrounds, borders, and art pieces to immortalize your character today!

Only here will you:

• Explore the hundreds of combinations of art pieces available with your character.
  
  
• Create something unique to your own World of Warcraft character and experience.
  
  
• Save snapshots of your character with a free PrintWarcraft.com account and create a visual history of your character as your character evolves in the in-game universe.
  
  
• and most importantly.... Print what you play!

- the PrintWarcraft Team

A new episode of the IncGamers Podcast is online ready for listening. Enjoy the usual lively banter between the guys as they discuss the week's news including Modern Warfare 2 leaked video, Amazon pulling MW2 reviews, MW2 third person mode, news on the Splinter Cell Conviction sequel, Molyneux's picks for most revolutionary games in the past 20 years, Star Wars: The Old Republic and more. The team also discuss the games they have been playing including Torchlight, RaceOn, Left 4 Dead 2 and Champions Online. Oh! And don't forget the "Special Needs Post of the Week" and the "Bullshit Story of the Week". Not to be missed! Listen here! Note: If you're easily offended it's probably not for you.

Continue Reading & Comment >>

China’s General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) posted on its official website the World of Warcraft (Shangai) application has been canceled and expects EaseNet to halt the creation of new WoW accounts and the monetizing the service. In a worst case scenario I guess they might have to operate free of charge, but it is uncertain what's happening next.

It seems the rejection of Burning Crusade is in response to the violation of GAPP's terms which specified EaseNet was forbidden to charge players without authorization and accepted registration of new users since September 19th without GAPP's permission. Only previously registered players should have been participants of the Burning Crusade beta and post-beta. GAPP is studying whether to impose penalties for this violation. For now the application has been returned. NetEase informed it has not been reached yet by GAPP to inform their decision. The next chapter in this soap opera is likely happening in upcoming days.

NetEase.com Announcement Regarding Statement by the General Administration of Press and Publication With Respect to World of Warcraft(R)

BEIJING, Nov. 2 -- NetEase.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTES), one of China's leading Internet and online game services providers, today announced that the General Administration of Press and Publication ("GAPP") of the PRC government has posted on its official website a statement that the current operation of the World of Warcraft(R) in China by NetEase's affiliated company, Shanghai EaseNet Network Technology Limited ("Shanghai EaseNet"), is being conducted without proper approval from GAPP. The statement further indicates that GAPP is returning Shanghai EaseNet's application for approval and Shanghai EaseNet should suspend charging users to play the game and not allow new account registrations. GAPP also notes in its statement that it is evaluating whether to impose administrative penalties on Shanghai EaseNet. As of the time of this press release, neither NetEase nor Shanghai EaseNet has been officially notified of GAPP's determination. Shanghai EaseNet licenses World of Warcraft(R), a massively multi-player online role-playing game, for operation in China from Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

NetEase and Shanghai EaseNet believe that they are in full compliance with applicable PRC laws and are currently seeking clarification from the relevant governmental authorities regarding this statement by GAPP. NetEase will provide further updates on the statement by GAPP as appropriate.

Ensidia have recently taken the World First A Tribute to Immortality which means complete 25 player Trial of the Crusader with all 50 attempts remaining and no raid members dying during any boss encounter.



They also picked themselves up a nice Crusader's Black Warhorse along with the achievement as shown in the screenshot above.

Gratz to Ensidia on this great achievement

Blizzard introduced a new world event achievement named Day of the Dead, which runs through November 1-2. It isn't part of the world event meta-achievement, so don't worry ... you can still get your Violet Proto-drake without completing this achievement.

To get started go to the graveyard of Orgrimmar, Undercity, or Thunderbluff (Horde). Alliance can go to the Stormwind, Ironforge or Darnassus graveyard. There you will find two NPCs: Catrina and Chapman. Talk to Catrina, and type /dance. That's the achievement. Not too hard. If you have Wrath of the Lich King installed you can go to the Dalaran graveyard, next to the Violet Citadel and the Underbelly sewer entrance. Catrina and Chapman are there too.



Grab the Bread of the Dead recipe from Chapman and learn it. Requires Cooking. If you don't have cooking profession, go to your cooking trainer. You don't need to level up cooking to be able to cook Bread of the Dead. It only requires a Simple Flour and a Ice Cold Milk.

Go to Orgrimmar/Undercity or Ironforge/Stormwind and buy the Ice Cold Milk from the Innkeeper. The Simple Flour is sold by Trade Vendors and Cooking Supplies Vendor.

Important: Don't cook the Bread of the Dead in other cities. It's not certain if it is a bug, but if you hearthstone to Dalaran or travel via Boat or Zeppelin from Eastern Kingdoms or Kalimdor to Northrend, the Bread of Dead will disappear from your inventory. Just keep the ingredients with you. Go to Dalaran's graveyard by the Violet Citadel and stand by the Ghostly Cooking Fire located next to Catrina.

Click on the Bouquet of Orange Marigolds (hold in off-hand) or eat an Orange Marigold. Both are sold by Chapman (Day of the Dead Vendor). This will allow you to see the ghosts and spirits dancing on the graveyard. There you will see Cheerful Dalaran Spirit.



He will give you the quest titled: The Grateful Dead which asks you to cook a Bread of Dead and to give it to him. You need to cook it right there in Dalaran and turn in the quest. He will reward you with a Macabre Marionette. It is a tiny skeleton holding the classic maracas (percusion instrument) and wearing the typical Mexican hat. More details of Day of the Dead available at the official website here.

Pop Culture Reference
In real life, the Mexicans celebrate the Day of the Dead, a tradition which is celebrated from November 1-2. Mexican families gather to celebrate and to honor their dead family members, or friends. They cook Bread and candy in shape of skulls, and other ornamental food. Prepare a altar or table full of all kind of food crafted to be placed by the tomb of their deceased ancestors. The tradition has been cross-referenced with ancient Mayan and other Mexican native indian festivities which they used to dedicate to the goddess Mictecacihuatl -- known as the "Lady of the Dead" -- also known as The Catrina.

Blizzard posted the lore behind the epic-blade Quel'Delar who many class players may be able to acquire through a long quest-line involving Krasus, Kalecgos, and other important characters. The questline is already in the PTR servers. The item that starts this quest is temporarily available from the glyph vendors in Dalaran.

Quel'Delar: The Sister Blade

In ages past the great Dragon Aspects worked alongside the night elves to forge powerful prismatic blades that could be used to thwart any evil that came into the world. They would become known as the blades of Quel'Serrar. One of these blades, which had become lost in time, was recently unearthed again by brave heroes of Azeroth. Now rediscovered, Quel'Serrar is revered once more as a mighty tool of raw power.

Its sister blade, however, has not been seen for many years...

The sword known as Quel'Delar was held by the group of kaldorei who would eventually become the high elves, and it was handed down from generation to generation. Most recently Quel'Delar was wielded by the valiant high elven warrior Thalorien Dawnseeker. Thalorien fought tirelessly in the Troll Wars to defend his beloved home of Silvermoon, the Sunwell, and all of Quel'Thalas. When the Scourge swept through the lands during the Third War, Thalorien was among the last lines of defense for the Sunwell. Despite the sword's power, he was ultimately slain by the overwhelming might of Arthas and his legendary runeblade, Frostmourne. Quel'Delar was thought to be lost forever.

Following the destruction of their homeland, the determined blood elves began to regroup and rebuild. It was during this time that the battle-hardened warrior Lana'thel stumbled upon Quel'Delar, and soon afterward the greatest opportunity to use the blade presented itself: Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider raised an army and combined forces with Illidan Stormrage, who led them north to Icecrown on a mission to destroy the Lich King. Lana'thel readily followed her prince with one thought in mind -- revenge against the Scourge -- but only tragedy awaited her.

In the icy hills of Northrend, Arthas ultimately defeated Illidan and Kael'thas, and the expedition's few survivors were scattered across the frozen wastes. One by one the Lich King sought out those who had challenged him, and Lana'thel found herself cornered. Using Quel'Delar, she struck at him with all her might... but Frostmourne's evil powers overwhelmed her. Through his blade, the Lich King chose Lana'thel to serve him in undeath as queen of the San'layn, a group responsible for overseeing the Scourge's operations across Azeroth.

Queen Lana'thel eagerly carried out her new duties, but every time she looked at her blade, maddening anger would swell within her as she remembered her former life. She could not afford such distractions, and with a scream that echoed throughout Icecrown, she shattered Quel'Delar and flung the fractured pieces as far as she could.

Now...

The champions of the Alliance and the Horde who confront the Lich King's armies have but a slim chance of finding the pieces of this fabled blade. If they succeed, the heroes can embark on an epic adventure to re-forge Quel'Delar. They will require the strongest materials and a source of great power to make this shattered blade into the fearsome weapon it once was. Several classes can use Quel'Delar, and the sword can fit several different play styles. For any class that is unable to wield it, however, the Sunreaver blood elves and the Silver Covenant high elves will gladly take this relic of their history in exchange for a usable weapon.

The search begins soon...

The Sindragosa event is surely one of the hardest events in Icecrown Citadel with her large set of abilities in her arsenal. First, there are two pulls of trash mobs that can be individually engaged. Each group of trash mobs is composed of one Frostwarden Handler (Vrykul) and twelve Frostwing Whelps. The whelps cast frostbolts, and the handler can hunter-mark a player ordering the whelps to attack that target. It's a good idea to pull a group of trash mobs upstairs to avoid aggro on the second group.

Once these two groups of trash mobs are dealt with, the two Frostwyrms: Rimefang and Spinestalker will descend to the platform. Both can be engaged separately, no worries. You can fight one, then the other afterward. However, it is very recommended to fight Rimefang first. This is because Spinestalker has a fear ability that could send a ranged player straight into Rimefang, aggroing it into the fight.

Rimefang will cleave, ice breath, and tail sweep while on the ground. When he goes airborne he will cast three blue runes on the ground indicating that's where he will cast Icy Blast leaving patches of ice on the ground that slow down movement and cause damage over time while standing on them. Spinestalker is cake. He cleaves, ice breaths, tail sweeps, and fears without further damage to raid players other than that. Once he dies, Sindragosa will spawn in the air and engage players below. Run all the way upstairs. You will have a very small window of time after Spinestalker dies to run upstairs to drink/eat before Sindragosa lands (roughly 15 seconds).

Spell & Abilities for each of them and videos after the break.

The Icecrown Citadel: Gunship Battle seems fun, but it is not so easy with all the things going on at once in 10-players mode. People will get the hang of it eventually, but it will take some trial and error time. First, when reaching the Rampart of Skulls, you will now find trash mobs. The Alliance and the Horde NPCs are fighting in this area. You get to help your faction NPCs, and there's a Frostwyrm between you and the Gunship. The Horde Gunship is to the right, and the Alliance Gunship to the left.

Everyone should first talk to the goblin or the gnome to grab a Rocket pack. Open the inventory, and drag the Rocket Pack icon to your spellbar. When everyone is ready, talk to either Saurfang or Muradin Bronzebeard. He will start the event.

The Gunship will start moving around the Icecrown Citadel. In the air, you will see on the east side the opposite faction's Gunship approaching. All melee should stand by the center where a Warlock-like portal opens up. Alliance or Horde NPCs will spawn there. Make sure to drag them a bit back if Saurfang or Muradin haven't aggroed. They will help you clear that wave of enemies.

Very important for the tank and melee players who are too busy spamming buttons ... watch your feet. Every two seconds you will see orange runes form on the ground. These are cannons aimed at you. Within a few seconds, a rocket will land on the target. Move away asap. If you are a caster, stop casting and move. This is what kills players the most. Caution is always an advantage.

At some point when your team is fighting the mage on the enemy Gunship, a sergeant will teleport to your Gunship. The Tank should make sure the friendly boss aggroes to help, and try to keep this Sergeant all the way back, or on the front behind the engine. Make sure to tell your team to stay clear.

This Sergeant does a whirlwind that instantly kills any cloth player. In between running around dodging rockets falling to the ground, and dps'ing enemy NPCs, it is easy to walk in into harm's way when the Sergeant is casting whirlwind. Beware. This is another critical point that might cause a wipe.

When Muradin or Saurfang yell for a mage to neutralize the cannons of the opposite team, that's your queue. Set four DPS players and a healer to jump to the enemy Gunship using the Rocket Pack. Your goal is to kill the mage. This mage is channeling the spell that keeps your cannons frozen in ice. The key to this event is to enable your cannons to shoot the enemy Gunship. Eventually, the enemy will retreat.

Your Gunship will then move to the upper tier of the Icecrown Citadel and unload the ladder to allow pass into the next area of the dungeon. View some of our screenshots. The two videos may be watched after the break.

Another Friday, another MMO News Wrap-Up!

Halloween has pretty much hit every MMO out there right now, so take a break from killing the headless horse for a few minutes to check out my article over on IncGamers for the very latest going on in Star Trek Online, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Lord of the Rings Online, Runes of Magic and Champions Online and, of course WoW.

After the cooldown post-BlizzCon, the team behind this production has finally released BlizzCast # 11. Surprisingly, there were no developer interviews or new info about the games. Instead, all the Community Managers go chatty expressing their personal experience at Blizzcon, along with a few anecdotes. Some quite funny.

The Community Managers have said before that is not supposed to be a tool to get interviews with the developers, but a tool to allow players to get a close view of the developers and their personal experiences as a Blizzard employee. Sometimes we do get some juicy info, sometimes we get to know a developer's background before and after joining Blizzard.

	Blizzard Quote:
	Karune: Were any of you guys actually there in the crowd among the fans? Nethaera: Absolutely! Bashiok: I actually have a hilarious anecdote; it was hilarious to me, anyway. So I was out in the crowd and there was a journalist next to me, I don’t know if people at home could see this, but we actually had pyrotechnics set up in the hall so when Deathwing comes up on the screen there was this huge explosion and it just went “boom”. There was this journalist next to me, live-blogging on his lap with his laptop, and the boom goes off and he literally jumped in the air, and the laptop went flying when the boom went off. He was like “that doesn’t happen again, does it?”, and I just looked at him and I was like “no, it doesn’t”. Karune: That boom went off, actually, when I was behind stage, I didn’t even expect it to happen. It went off right next to me, I was walking by the different panels.

When it rains it pours. Paladins, Forsaken, now it's the Tanks' turn. Daelo (Lead Encounter Designer) announced a big change to dodge and tank avoidance in the Icecrown Citadel dungeon. It's dubbed Chill of the Throne. Bosses will ignore 20% of dodge chance.

From the explanation below, it seems to have some benefits. It would be best to test and experiment with this new mechanic before complaining, of course. It's not yet implemented, but plans are to introduce it in an upcoming build. Stay tuned.

	Blizzard Quote:
	Daelo: For Icecrown Citadel, we are implementing a spell that will affect every enemy creature in the raid. The spell, called Chill of the Throne, will allow creatures to ignore 20% of the dodge chance of their melee targets. So if a raid's main tank had 30% dodge normally, in Icecrown Citadel they will effectively have 10%. Why are we doing this? The high levels of tank avoidance players have obtained is making the incoming damage a tank DOES take more "spiky" than is healthy for raiding. Ideally, tanks would be receiving a relatively constant stream of damage over time. This allows healers to better plan their healing strategy, broaden their spell options, and simply give more time to react. Tanks could use their cooldowns more reactively. Instead, the current situation is that if we make a hard hitting melee boss and a tank doesn't avoid two successive swings then the tank could very well be dead in that 1-2 second window. The use of reactive defensive abilities instead becomes a methodically planned affair, healers have to spam their largest heals just in case the huge damage spike happens. We've been trying to do a fair amount to mitigate the effect of high tank avoidance on the encounter side of things during this expansion with faster melee swings, additional melee strikes, dual wielding, narrowing the normal variance of melee swing damage, and various other tricks. There's a limit to what we can do, however. So to give us a bit of breathing room we’ve implemented Chill of the Throne. Going forward past Icecrown Citadel, we have plans to keep tank avoidance from growing so high again. We'll have this on the PTR soon so players can see the effects inside Icecrown Raid. Ghostcrawler: Our original estimations for tank avoidance would have worked fine had we not decided to add extra tiers of gear to reward heroic boss kills halfway through the expansion. The Cataclysm design will keep tank avoidance at more manageable levels. The loss of defense skill counts for a lot right there. We are also considering giving bosses expertise or other ways of baking in Icewell Radiance -- basically the concept that bosses scale with gear rather than just hitting harder and taking more hits. It's an item level problem. If we added another raid tier to Lich King, we couldn't just keep avoiding avoidance and avoid it for every tier going forward. We just need a system where you avoid a Naxx boss 30% of the time and an Icecrown boss 30% of the time, the same way the Icecrown bosses have e.g. 30% larger health bars and thus take 30% more damage to kill. Otherwise the stats don't scale and bad thing happen (in this case the boss having to land so much damage to account for the fact that it misses so often). When I first learned to tank, long before I came to Blizzard, I learned that effective health is a measurement of your stamina in relationship to your armor. This is a pretty easy number to generate. It's reasonable to include say shield block and other simple forms of mitigation into the calculation. However, you cannot directly translate effective health into best tank. Avoidance matters. If it didn't, we would have no reason to nerf it in Icecrown. Good tanks don't depend too much on avoidance, but great tanks understand its value. Furthermore, your estimations of effective health become less and less accurate the more variables you try to factor in. Most saliently, you can't easily account for cooldowns. You can't compare a short duration that reduces damage by 80% to a long duration that reduces damage by 10%. Mathematically they might generate the same effective health number, but in reality they work pretty differently and each has their own benefits in certain situations, which vary depending on boss mechanics. (I'd generally take the first one though.) We purposely made the cooldowns difficult to compare from class to class. You shouldn't then be surprised when we take your effective health calculations based on direct comparisons of said cooldowns with a grain of salt. It's fine to compare health, armor, avoidance or cooldowns. I would not recommend putting too much faith in one ubernumber that you generate by combining all of them.

The Ashen Verdict Quartermaster within the Icecrown Citadel dungeon (10/25-players) offers Blacksmiths, Leatherworkers and Tailors a brand-new source of income or personal gear through the sale of patterns and plans. You need to reach Honored with the Ashen Verdict faction to get access to some of these patterns, and some of them require revered. Considering most of each trash mob grants 10 reputation, the grind won't be that bad in comparison with WoW Classic dungeons.

We have added the reputation rewards from the Ashen Verdict Quartermaster to the Worldofwar.net Wiki and a bit of lore about who the Ashen Verdict are as revealed by Highlord Darion Mograine.

There was a slight change to the dungeon testing schedule for Europe. The Europe Friday test on Rotface seems to be cancelled. Instead of Professor Putricide, Eur-ope players will test Rotface on Thursday, Oct 29 at 18:30CET. All other schedules for USA are unchanged until further notice. Remember that schedules won't necessarily be punctual. Today, for example, the dungeon was opened an hour and a half later from the intended time.

	Blizzard Quote:
	We are scheduling raid tests in Icecrown Citadel for October 26-30. The schedule is as follows: US Servers Thursday, October 29 at 7PM EDT / 4PM PDT – Sindragosa Friday, October 30 at 7PM EDT / 4 PM PDT - Valithria Dreamwalker EU Servers Thursday, October 29 at 18:30 CET – Rotface Only normal difficulties will be tested, although 10 and 25 player raids will be available. The Icecrown Citadel raid test schedule will be very flexible, and can change at a moment's notice due to build status, bugs, and server issues. Remember that this is the test server, so things can, do, and will break from time to time. Check this forum for the latest Icecrown Citadel raid testing schedule information in the weeks to come.

Things are getting pretty nasty for all World of Warcraft players who have either a low-end computer or an old ATI graphic card sold between 2000-2005 or earlier you are out of luck. ATI has announced they won't support DirectX 9 graphic cards any more. All these models won't have support or patch updates under Windows Vista or Windows 7. And if you are acquainted with how Blizzard games work, you need the latest graphic card drivers in certain WoW patches whenever they make graphic changes or enchancements.

It's a good time to upgrade your computer with a new video card or start planning to get a 2010 computer system to catch up with current technology to make sure your gameplay won't be affected in upcoming months.

AMD has moved a number of DX9 ATI Radeon™ graphics accelerators products to a legacy driver support structure. This change impacts Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Linux distributions. AMD has moved to a legacy software support structure for these graphics accelerator products in an effort to better focus development resources on future products.

The following products have been moved to the legacy software support structure (including Mobile and All-in-Wonder Variants):

ATI Radeon 9500 Series
ATI Radeon 9550 Series
ATI Radeon 9600 Series
ATI Radeon 9700 Series
ATI Radeon 9800 Series
ATI Radeon X300 Series
ATI Radeon X550 Series
ATI Radeon X600 Series
ATI Radeon X700 Series
ATI Radeon X800 Series
ATI Radeon X850 Series
ATI Radeon X1050 Series
ATI Radeon X1300 Series
ATI Radeon X1550 Series
ATI Radeon X1600 Series
ATI Radeon X1650 Series
ATI Radeon X1800 Series
ATI Radeon X1900 Series
ATI Radeon Xpress Series
ATI Radeon X1200 Series
ATI Radeon X1250 Series
ATI Radeon X2100 Series


Note: AMD’s DirectX 9 ATI Radeon graphics accelerators are not officially supported under Windows 7. If the user chooses to, they can install the ATI Catalyst Windows Vista graphics driver under Windows 7. Please be aware that none of the new Windows 7 graphics driver (WDDM 1.1) features are supported (as the Windows Vista level graphics driver is limited to WDDM 1.0 level support). Using the ATI Catalyst Windows Vista driver under Windows 7 is not officially supported by AMD, and as such AMD will not provide any form of customer support for users running in this configuration

Any customers using a combination of a ATI Radeon™ HD 2000 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 Series, or ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series product with any of the legacy products listed above in a single PC system must use the ATI Catalyst 9.3 or earlier driver. All future ATI Catalyst™ releases made available past the ATI Catalyst™ 9.3 release will not include support for the legacy products listed above or any of the features associated with those legacy products.

AMD may periodically provide Windows XP and Windows Vista driver updates (for the products listed above) for critical fixes only. No new features will be provided in future driver updates. The Linux ATI Catalyst™ driver will only be supported in Linux distributions prior to February 2009 for the legacy products listed above.

The WoW Team has announced a new change effective when Patch 3.3 is released. Any dungeon or raid group will be able to auto-disenchant an item straight from the loot distribution system -- the one that gives you the option to roll or pass. Thus you no longer need an enchanter to do the deed.

Some enchanters will feel their role has been displaced, but to be honest I am an enchanter and sometimes when someone asks if anyone is an enchanter, I stay quiet. Sometimes it is bothersome, or your bags are too full. On the other hand, those who stay silent and don't identify themselves as an enchanter means the party or raid won't have access to the disenchanted items to sell them on the Auction House. A waste of resources. This feature might be welcomed and worthwhile.

	Blizzard Quote:
	As we mentioned in the recent post explaining the new Dungeon System, disenchanting will work a little differently in all 5 player and raid dungeons when patch 3.3 is released. We have seen a consistent pattern where players eventually need very few items from dungeons and they result to disenchanting as much of the loot as possible since those materials that can be obtained continue to have a lot of worth. When the new Dungeon System is launched, the default user interface will give players the option to automatically disenchant items that they obtain in 5 player and raid dungeons. This option will avoid the hassle of having items picked up by an enchanter first to redistributed later and overall will make the process much smoother. Also, with the inclusion of cross-realm-instancing in the dungeon system, there will be restrictions on trading items similar to the restrictions that are currently active in Battlegrounds. If the Dungeon System is used to complete a group for a dungeon then non-temporary items will not be able to be traded in the instance. This makes it so items like enchanting materials will not be able to be traded in the dungeon and using the new user interface option will be the only way to distribute disenchants. There will be some exceptions to this restriction though as Bind-on-Pickup items will continue to be trade-able to those present for the kill for a short duration and completely pre-formed groups that don’t use the Dungeon System to form the group will still allow trades. To maintain the importance of the profession itself, the disenchanting UI option will only be available for groups that have a character with the necessary level of Enchanting to disenchant the items that are obtained. We are very excited about the upcoming improvements in the new Dungeon System and don’t forget to check out the full preview here for all the details: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=11155682684

It's a sad day for Paladins, or is it? The latest PTR build shows that the iconic Lay on Hands spell can no longer be used on yourself. After a HUGE uproar on the forums, Ghostcrawler made an appearance to settle things down a bit. It seems the change wasn't permanent, but there's no guarantee it won't be brought back in.

Why? Well, Blizzard feel that Paladins kinda have the best of all worlds, describing them as a "one-man army". They were originally a support class, but the game has changed a lot over the years, doing away with support roles and making each class much more independent.

Read Ghostcrawler's thoughts on the changes to Paladins, including the Aura Mastery and Sacred Shield change, below:

	Blizzard Quote: (Source)
	As you can see, we are trying some different things with some paladin mechanics. The Aura Mastery change (to 6 sec duration) is one we think is appropriate. If I had to guess, this one will stick. We are trying some things with Sacred Shield to make it more of a Holy tool and less useful for Ret and Prot (without being totally irrelevant). I don't have a lot of faith that the implementation on the PTR is the one we'll go with for a couple of reasons, but our overall goal is to make Ret less tanky and the Holy tree feel like it's the right one to focus on for healing. I would expect a Sacred Shield change of some kind though. I wouldn't worry too much on the Lay on Hands change at this point. I don't want to promise we won't change the spell for 3.3, but our intent was to revert the others only change before it went out to the PTR, which is why we didn't patch note it. We have already changed it back on our local builds. The paladin class isn't just supposed to be for support anymore, but at the same time, the original intent for many paladin abilities was to help the group. Over time however they have contributed into making the paladin into a "one-man army," able to play offensively, defensively and heal without say the stance changing or shapeshifting or sometimes event talent specialization required of other classes. Many of the LK balance problems we've had with the class are because of that core issue. With that said, we're just not sure a Lay on Hands change really accomplishes much from a balance perspective, while it feels bad to lose such an iconic ability. We just don't think the bang for the buck is there on this change, which is why we reverted it. But I'm not going to promise we won't touch it. In fact, I'm not going to promise anything with this post. Please don't dredge it up later to try and argue against any upcoming changes. I'm just trying to clear up some confusion.

Blizzard announced the Race Change service is finally available to all players who wish to change from Blood Elf to Undead (for example) or from Human to Draenei. The point of this service is to change your race within your own faction. This service won't change you from Alliance to Horde and viceversa. That's a different service. Your race change costs $ 25.00 plus the applicable tax.



Can you pick just any class? That's the tricky part. Make sure the race you wish to change to is compatible with your class. This might change when Cataclysm goes live, but for now if you are a Blood Elf Paladin and you wish to change to Undead, that won't be possible since the Undead race has no paladin class.

The Race Change service lets you change a character's race to another race within their faction. The full range of customization options offered by the Character Re-Customization service is included as well. Each race change costs $25.00 USD.

Things to know before you start:

• Under normal conditions, a race change should be ready immediately after rendering payment and completing the steps in this process.
  
• You can select a new character race only from those in the same faction that have the character's class available. You cannot change a character's class.
  
• A character's current home city reputation level will switch values with their new home city, and their home city racial mounts will convert to those of their new race. Refer to the Race Change Translation Table for more details.
  
• A realm transfer is not included in a race change.
  
• A character can change races once every 3 days.
  
• Please refer to the Character Race Change FAQ for answers to common questions about this service.

	Blizzard Quote:
	The new World of Warcraft Race Change service is now live. After purchasing a Race Change for a character, a player can choose any race of their same faction that is compatible with the character’s current class. For more information on the Race Change service, please read the FAQ, or visit the Race Change page to get started.

You might remember last year we reported on the cool, yet expensive, latex WoW masks that you could buy? Some of them are actually quite good, if you're willing to shell out over $100 in some cases. This year, in addition to the existing Orc, Tauren, Elf and Forsaken masks and kits, two new over-the head masks have been added; a male Draenei mask and and Illidan mask.

They're both very high quality, and will set you back around $93 for the Draenei, $140 for the Illidan one (both seen below).

Check out the full range at buycostumes.com.

This gotta be the funniest quote from a game developer ever made about Blizzard's addictive World of Warcraft. Ken Levine (Bioshock) told IndustryGamers the top 10 favorite games he is playing and World of Warcraft is his # 1 on the list. He is currently working on a secret unannounced game for 2k Boston -- probably taking some ideas from Blizzard. The funny part is when he says:

"Okay, it’s time to admit it. I’m a WoW whore. You know when Pacino says “Every time I think I’m out, they pull me back in?” Well, WoW has just done that to me for the 5th time in as many years. Damn you WoW. Damn you to hell." -- said the game designer.

Wait until Blizzard releases World of Warcraft: Cataclysm ... if you are one of those infidels who quit WoW, you know you will be pulled back. Flying through Azeroth, Worgen and Goblin races playable. Gilneas, Uldum, Mount Hyjal (present), Grim Batol. Tol Barad and Gilneas PvP. An all-new underwater region which means ... swimming mounts. Deathwing ... oh yea, you are getting pull back, WoW 'ho. Blizzard is yo' Pimp.