This is it guys. If you want to be eligible as a potential candidate for the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm closed beta, make sure your opt-ins are all set-up and updated!

How to Opt-In for Cataclysm closed beta:

1. Have a World of Warcraft license attached to your Battle.net account. Meaning, you MUST have a World of Warcraft account.
2. Upload your current system specifications to Battle.net. You will need to download and run the beta opt-in application to update your system specifications.
3. Check “Warcraft Universe” in the Beta test I’m interested in portion.
4. Click Update preferences.

And that’s it! Let me remind you though, that just because you opted-in doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll get an invite for the Cataclysm beta testing. It just means that you’re expressing your interest to be a beta tester.

Maybe if you cross your fingers and pray hard enough to the geek gods, your prayers will be answered.

Woohoo. Cataclysm Beta testing is almost here. This just means that Cataclysm is commiiiinnngggg!

Hopefully, new screenshot teasers will come out since more people will be play-testing the new expansion. I’m sooo envious of those alpha testers! Unfortunately though, it’s not open to the public and is only available to friends and family of Blizzard employees, hence the name “Cataclysm Friends & Family Alpha”. So if you get any email claiming to give you access to become an alpha, it is most probably a SCAM. Mmmkay?

Any Blizzard employee want to adopt or marry me? Haha.

I have to be honest, I’m really getting bored out of my mind in World of Warcraft at the moment. I haven’t been logging in much, except for our raid times which is around 4 times a week, for around 4 hours a day. That’s 16 hours gameplay total for a week. That used to be my number of hours played in a day, haha!

My other guildmates are getting bored, too so I’m not surprised that they’re not logging on as often as they normally do. Well, that can’t be avoided! This is the lull that happens before an expansion.

Oh, but fortunately for those who are still hopelessly addicted to World of Warcraft and can’t log off, Children’s Week is up! Going around and touring Azeroth orphans will probably entertain you for a day, and multiply that by how many alts you have, you’ll have enough to do for a week.

But that’s given that you haven’t done Children’s Week last year, because if you did Children’s Week last year, the quest line in Dalaran does not reset so that means you won’t be able to complete Children’s Week this year. Sucks!

Anyway, here are more Cataclysm screenshots I found all over the internet. Nothing too great, but I’m mildly intrigued by the screenshots of the dark, rainy towns. I wonder if those are the starting areas of the Worgen class?

News about the changes in the raiding system came out last Monday and a lot of my guild mates started shouting, “The sky is falling!” causing a bit of uncertainty in our guild come Cataclysm.

In a nutshell, Blizzard is planning to implement the following changes to the raid system when the expansion comes along:

• 10-Man and 25-Man raids will share the same lockout.
• 10-Man and 25-Man raids difficulty will be as close as possible to each other.
• 10-Man and 25-Man raids will drop the exact same loot, but 25-man will drop a higher quantity of items.
• Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel
• For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid.

My guild is a casual raiding guild (with around 20-30 regular raiders) so news of having a single lockout for both the 10 and 25 player modes came as a shock. Even though we have regular 25-man raids during weekends, we have 2 10-man raids that are very important to our raid progression, as well.

Our 10-man raids serve as venue for us to be familiar with the fights, and of course to get gear so we can be ready for the 25 man raids. The 10 man raids definitely make our lives easier since the only thing we have to worry about is the group synergy, since we already have the gear and the experience.

Basically, with the new changes, if you want to do both 10 and 25 man raid in a single week, you will need to do so on two different toons.

And for a casual raiding guild, that definitely poses a problem as not everyone has time to actually level up and gear 2 different toons so early in the expansion.

I’m sure though that the hardcore players and guilds out there are rejoicing, like, “FINALLY, we get to be L33T again!” I have to admit, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion was definitely casual-player friendly. Too casual-friendly, I think! So even though the new Cataclysm changes are appearing to be a bit hard on casual players, I personally think Blizzard is just balancing it all out for the hard-core players, too.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned after 5 years of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard is definitely an expert when it comes to game balance.

“Earn a Murkimus, Become a Vanquisher and Complete for over $200,000 in Cash Prizes!”

I thought, “What the hell is a Murkimus?” After clicking on a few links, I got the answer:  a Murkimus is an exclusive Armored Murloc in-game pet.

AMG! Let me say it again, an ARMORED Murloc in-game pet! Screw the $200,000 cash pricez, I just want the pet, haha!

So World of Warcraft PVP fanatics, the 2010 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament in the US is now open for registration. Register now to secure your slots.

For first timers, here are a couple of things you need to know on how the World of Warcraft Arena tournament works:

• There is a registration fee of $20 to join the 2010 Arena Tournament per World of Warcraft account.
• You will need a team of 3 people since the matches are in 3v3 Arena format. You can actually play 2v2 or 5v5 matches for FUN, but only the 3v3 ladder results will be rewarded.
• New level 80 characters will be created on the special Arena-only realm, and you will be able to customize them with PVP armors and weapons provided. You may create up to three (3) customized level 80 characters.
• Accounts should be upgraded with the Burning Crusade and Wratch of the Lich King expansions to be able to register in the tournament.

Participants of the 2010 WoW Arena Tournament will have the chance to win the following prizes:

Global Championship

• Winning Team – $75,000
• Second Place – $30,000
• Third Place – $15,000

Regional Finals

• First Place – $15,000
• Second Place – $6,000
• Third Place – $3,000
• Fourth Place – $1,500
• Fifth to Eight Place – $600

Woohoo! Exciting. So to those who are joining the 2010 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament, good luck!

Read more: 2010 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament Information

Four years later, I have two level 80 Priests (Undead and a Blood Elf, I re-rolled to a BE because I wanted a prettier toon and race change wasn’t available yet, hehe), a level 80 Blood Elf Paladin, a level 80 Tauren Druid, and a Blood Elf Hunter that is stuck at level 77 plainly because I’m too sick and tired to level her up.

Suffice to say, with those many Horde alts, I pretty much have all the Horde quests memorized to a ‘T’, and I will probably jump of a cliff if I have to go thru the Wrath of the Lich King quest for the Horde side AGAIN for the nth time.

However, since things are becoming slightly boring and routinary in WoW, with people just waiting for the Cataclysm Expansion, the only thing to spice up your WoW life is to level another alt. But since the thought of leveling another horde makes me want to puke, I had this great idea of leveling up an Alliance toon!

Hence the birth of Zeexie, my pretty Draenei Shaman! I’ll eventually transfer her to Horde when I reach level 80, though. But for now, I’m appreciating the Alliance scenery and slowly enjoying leveling her to 80.

Some thoughts about playing for the Alliance side:

1. Alliance player aren’t all the bad. I had this misconception that Alliance had more annoying players since there was this misnomer that more kids play Alliance. I’ve beginning to think that’s not entirely true ever since Horde got the Blood Elf race and all the kids transferred to Horde side. So far, the Alliance Trade Chat has been quite friendly and actually made more sense than Horde Trade Chat.

2. Blizzard definitely spent more time on designing major Alliance towns. I don’t know if its the novelty of a new experience, but I personally think that Alliance towns are waaaaay prettier than Horde towns. Definitely way bigger, too. And I don’t know about you, but the mere fact that Alliance has the Tram trumps any mode of Horde transportation! I’m so envious! Horde zeppelins are cool, but I prefer the pretty Alliance boats.

3. Gnome and Dwarf Tanks are annoying. They’re just so tiny!

4. The prices for items in Alliance Auction House seem to be cheaper. Probably because there are more Alliance players? More supply, so cheaper prices?

So far, that’s my life as an Alliance player! I still yet have to fully experience being an Alliance, like in PVP and in raiding so I can’t really say I’m an expert on Alliance life yet. But so far, I’m having a great time.

How about you? Have you ever switched from Horde to Alliance, or vice versa? Which “community” did you like more?

Well, most of the classes anyway. Class changes for the Shaman, Priest and Warlock were released yesterday April 7, while today, the class changes for the Warrior, Death Knight and Rogue are coming out.

Tomorrow, April 9, you can look forward to the Cataclysm class changes for the Hunter, Druid and Mage. And unfortunately for Paladin players, you are going to have to wait for another week because Pally class change previews will come out on April 16. That’s a pretty long wait so I’m guessing the Paladin class is going to undergo some major changes!

If you want to read more on the class change previews of the specific class, here are the links:

• Death Knights will tank as Blood in Cataclysm
• Death Knight Class Changes
• Shaman Class Changes
• Warlock Class Changes
• Priest Class Changes
• Paladin Class Changes
  
• Warrior Class Changes
• Druid Class Changes
• Hunter Class Changes
• Rogue Class Changes
• Mage Class Changes

Also, Blizzard will be modifying the Dispelling Mechanics for a bit. Some of the changes that could happen will be the following:

• Protection and Retribution paladins will lose their current ability to dispel magic.
• All shaman will lose dispel disease and dispel poison in exchange for Restoration gaining dispel magic.
• Restoration shaman, Restoration druids, and Holy paladins will need to talent into their defensive magic dispels.
• Shadow priests won’t be able to remove disease in Shadowform.
• Mage, hunter, and warlock will retain their current dispel mechanics.
• When possible, we’d like to combine dispels into a single action. For example, the druid ability to dispel curses and poisons might be a single spell with a Restoration talent that also allows it to dispel magic. This part of the design isn’t finalized, however.

From the looks of it, Blizzard is trying to veer away from the jack-of-all-trades model the classes turned into, when Wrath came in. While I totally think this is a great idea to make the gameplay more interesting, I just hope that it doesn’t make the game extremely complicated to play.

If I remember correctly, gear planning for Paladins during Vanilla days was horrible! I just hope that the gameplay doesn’t go back to that kind of complexity.

Gosh, just reading about the upcoming Priest Class Changes are giving me goosebumps! I definitely can’t wait for Cataclysm.

But before I found out that there was a loading screen bug, I thought my add ons were the culprit for the slow loading time. Currently,  I have the following add ons installed:

• Atlasloot Enhanced
• Auctioneer
• Deadly Boss Mods
• Decursive
• GearScore
• Mik Scrolling Battle Text
• Omen Threat Meter
• Rating Buster
• Titan Panel
• X-Perl Unit Frames

I was so annoyed the other day that I actually considered just uninstalling all my add ons, or maybe at least trim it down to let’s say, 5 add ons max. You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to decide which 5 add ons to keep!

The following would be my Top 5 Add ons for WoW:

• Deadly Boss Mods – definitely a must if you are a serious and hard core raider. Deadly Boss Mods has come a long way since it also has warnings for 5 man dungeons now.
• Decursive – if you are healer, or a class with a decursing ability (like mages), this is also a mandatory add on to have. From the name itself, it will make decursing a piece of cake.
• Titan Panel – being the obsessive person that I am, Titan Panel helps me see all the information about my characters in a glance, from my money to the durability of my armor.
• Omen Threat Meter – While this is a useless add on for a healer class, it is definitely a must for tanks and dps classes.
• X-Perl Unit Frames – I definitely think it is a must to have a unit frame add on (especially for healers), and my choice would be X-Perl Unit Frames. I guess I like how it was designed since it makes it easier for me to see which people are getting damaged and those who are needing heals. There are however better unit frame add ons out there, like PitBull and Grid.

If WoW had an add on limit, what 5 add ons would you install?

First and foremost though, if you don’t know what GearScore is, it is an add on that allows you to gauge a player’s gear level. It removes the need to manually inspect a player’s gear by clicking on him and checking out his gear, or by alt-tabbing and checking out the WoW armory.

All you have to do is mouseover a player in the game and it will scan and calculate the player’s gear level and show you the player’s gearscore via a tooltip

At first, I found it to be a really great add on since I used it in gauging myself. I was able to see how much better geared I became every week. Basically, it was mostly for self satisfaction.

But lately, ever since it became popular, more and more people are taking gear scores  a little too seriously, to the point that it’s not even funny anymore.

Imagine being kicked out of a Forge of Souls (FoS) dungeon simply because you have less than 5000 gear score. I know that maybe a little extreme, but yup, it HAS happened to me before! Imagine getting kicked out in the middle of the run, and you’ve already been saved to the instance! I wanted to scream and pull my hair out since I wait for 15 minutes to get queued and I end up getting prematurely kicked out of the run.

Just because you have low gear score doesn’t automatically mean you’re a noobie. I’ve seen a lot of people with extremely high gear score do poorly compared to a toon with a lesser gear score when it comes to the damage or healing meters.

Admittedly, I’m guilty of being too discriminating when it comes to gear score sometimes. Like last night for example, at Pit of Saron. There was this druid tank who had 3000 gear score. I wanted to kick him out because I thought his gear was pretty low. But lo and behold, I was pleasantly surprised to see he could hold aggro pretty well! He a very good tank given that he was under geared. The healer was working overtime though to keep him up since his health points were pretty low but we still were able to clear instance with no wipes. Just proves that gear isn’t everything.

So to those who are very discriminating when it comes to GearScore, I think you should take other things (like damage and healing meter performance) into consideration first before judging that someone is a noob simply because of his low gear score. Probably when it comes to major runs like 25-man Ice Crown Citadel, it is okay to be critical, but when you are just running 5 man heroic instances, omigod, just relax!

Probably one of the biggest change that is going to happen when the Cataclysm expansion comes out is the implementation of the Mastery Stat System.

For those who have been stuck in-game and have not even browsed the internet about the upcoming expansion, Blizzard is bringing in the Mastery System, a set of new game mechanics that will allow players to make their chosen talent trees more unique.

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. – MMO-Champion

Pretty interesting, I must say. I believe it’s going to make gameplay a whole lot more interesting and fun. The Mastery Stat System will allow similar specced toons to become better in different things and to be played differently. It actually reminds me of the days of Vanilla WoW.

I remember the days when it took 2-3 different priests to buff the whole raid. Not because buffs then we’re given per party, but it was because some priests had better or more improved Power Word: Fortitude. Same with Divine Spirit. Back then, you really had to sacrifice whether you want to be a better healer, or contribute more to raid by giving better buffs. You really had to think about how you want to spend your talent points. Back then, you can really feel and see the difference between a Discipline priest and a Holy priest.
Nowadays, I feel like the classes are too “all-around”, if you know what I mean. If you gear similarly-skilled players with the same level or kind of gear, they will more or less perform the same during raids. For me, there’s no sense of uniqueness and that’s what I missed during the days of Vanilla WoW.

It’s like the game is getting too “formulated” and strategies for killing a boss are getting too linear.

I remember the days when not all rogues can sap mobs because a rogue may or may not have Improved Sap. It definitely made the game more fun to play since you had to think of different strats. The proposed Mastery Stat doesn’t exactly work that way but I think it’s definitely going to promote diversity when it comes to developing your toons and they way you play them.

Well, that’s my ‘initial’ rambling and understanding about the Mastery Stat System. There’s actually no definite explanation on how the Mastery System exactly works, so we can only muse and speculate the moment.

[ Image via MMO-Champion ]

As of this writing, I am currently at 1.75MB of 77.3MB of Patch 3.3.3. Still a long way to go! If you’re on the same boat as I am and you’re noticing that your download is a bit slow, don’t panic, fellow WoW geeks. The patch download is only for preparation when WoW 3.3.3 actually goes live, which will probably happen in a couple of weeks. Like maybe next week, or next next week, or next next next week. I can’t really give a definite schedule since even Blizzard itself hasn’t given a specific date on when it’s going live. But at least we know Patch 3.3.3 really does exist! (Yes, Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus!)

Here are some of the few things we can expect from Patch 3.3.3:
PVP

• Increased Honor for an Honorable Kill for characters of all levels.
• Random Battleground system. Quite similar to the LFG system for dungeons and pretty much works the same way. No more Daily Battleground quests as well. Instead, you get bonus rewards for choosing the Random Battleground option

Dungeons and Raids

• Players can FINALLY skip initial introduction in Culling of Stratholme as long as you’ve completed it at least once. (Thank the geek gods! Good bye Arthas babblings!)
• World Event bosses are now accessible through the Dungeon Finder. We can finally get a chance to acquire those very rare World Event items even though they’re not in season!
• Dungeon Deserter debuff increased to 30 minutes from 15 minutes!

General

• Several raid buffs have their ranges increased to 100 yards, up from 45 yards.
• You can now trade your Frozen Orbs for other trade goods.
• Tier-10 4-Piece Set Bonus adjusted for some classes.

Looks like we’re in for a lot of goodies this coming Patch 3.3.3! For a more detailed look at the patch notes, you can visit the Public Test Realm Patch Notes.

Just the other day, I heard people talking in trade chat about how the Blizzard Authenticator was only good for getting the Core Hound mount. I was intrigued, since in my opinion, I think the Blizzard Authenticator was a good way of keeping your account secure. I thought they were just the usual whiney Azerothians who had nothing else to do but whine about how Blizzard is messing up the game in one way or another.

But apparently, someone created a trojan that could actually intercept the authenticator codes and enable the hacker to change your password, empty your account and sell your stuff! How interesting! The trojan works the same way key loggers work.

When you’re infected with the trojan, the following happens:
When you log in your WoW account and you’ve entered your authenticator code, the trojan will intercept the code, send it to the hacker and send a wrong code to Blizzard. When that happens, you’ll get an error and the hacker will get the correct code and use that code to access your account.

Tsk, tsk, and just when we thought our beloved WoW accounts (which we’ve probably spent a good chunk of our life on) are safe!

To know whether you have the trojan, be sure to check if you have the file name “emcor.dll” on your computer. It will probably be at “C:\Users\(Your user name)\AppData\Temp”, but if you don’t find it there, try to do a whole scan of your PC using your virus scan just to be sure. Better safe than sorry!

While this might discourage you from spending $6 on an authenticator, I would still suggest you get one. While an authenticator might still get hacked, it still gives added protection to your accounts. Also get/invest on a good virus scanner. Or atleast regularly scan your computer and update your virus scanner religiously so that your computer will be protected.

With the introduction of the new LFG system, Blizzard has changed the way of leveling from level 70 to level 80. Before patch 3.3.0, the best way to power level to any level is by questing. Just by doing quests the whole day and in the most efficient manner. If you don’t understand what I mean by ‘questing in the most efficient manner’, check out the quest leveling guides made by Joana. Her guides can get you to level 80 in the fastest way possible!

But with the new LFG system, people are leaning towards leveling thru instances. Just queueing the whole day, doing the same instances over and over until you ‘DING!’

While some people like to grind instances to level, I normally level by power questing. But after leveling let’s say, 3 or 4 other toons, you kind of get sick and tired of doing the same quests over and over and OVER, and reading the same stories and lore again and again.

I just finished leveling another toon to 80. I leveled this toon by instance leveling and it just makes me think of the pros and cons of leveling a toon by either power questing or by going to instances.

Leveling by Questing:

• You get more money from the quest rewards and by selling the item rewards that you don’t need.
• If you’re careful enough, you spend less on repairs since you can avoid quests that are too hard to do.
• You don’t need to wait for anyone else.
• You get more reputation by doing quests for the different factions

Leveling by Instances:

• You get better gear from instances.
• You get to know how to play your toon in a raiding environment. It took me a while to get used to tanking on my paladin since I was playing him as retribution from level 1 to 80.
• You get emblems and other cool items like mounts (i.e. Oculus and Utgarde Pinnacle)
• No need to run all over Azeroth since all you have to do is queue. But then you have downtime since you have to wait in queues.

For now, I’ll probably be leveling with instances, unless I plan to level an alliance toon (since I don’t know the Alliance lore yet). But when Cataclysm comes, I’ll probably go back to power questing again!

Another World Event is up! The Lunar Festival is basically the WoW version of our Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is usually celebrated on the first day of the lunar calendar of the year. And for this year, February 14 was the start of the lunar calendar. Fascinating how Valentine’s Day and the Chinese New Year coincided, don’t you think so?

Anyway, there’s really nothing new about this year’s Lunar Festival. Same old, same old. All you have to do is visit all the Elders in ALL of Azeroth! I kid you not! As a Horde player, I had to brave the major Alliance cities namely Ironforge, Stormwind and Darnassus just so I could visit the Elders stationed there. Same thing for Alliance players. You have to go deep inside Orgrimmar, Undercity and Thunderbluff to get the coins from the Horde Elders.

Here’s a nice guide from WoWHead to make your traveling a little more efficient. Trust me, it’s going to make your life a whole lot easier!

After you’ve visited all the elders in ALL the zones, you’ll have enough Coins of Ancestry to buy yourself a Lunar Festival Dress or Pant Suit to complete another achievement.

You’ll also need to kill Omen to get Elune’s Blessing, but that’s pretty easy to achieve. You don’t even need a group. Just hang around as a group is killing Omen and when it dies, just stand on the corpse and you’ll get the blessing as well.

Well, that’s pretty much it for the Lunar Festival. Not exactly my most favorite World Event since it requires soooooooo much traveling! In the guide I shared, it said it’ll only take you 4 hours. Don’t believe it! It took me around 6-8 hours just to finish the whole thing, rawr! And since I’m a sadist, I decided to do it the whole day! Big mistake. I got a WoW overdose and had to take a day off from the game, hehe!

The Lunar Festival will be around for 2 weeks, so take your time in trying to complete the achievement!

It’s time for another world event if you guys haven’t noticed the sappy decorations in-game and people running around with hearts on the heads or little Peddlefeets following them around!

The Love is in the Air world event started a few days and I’m relieved they made a couple of changes to the activities. I remember the Valentine’s Day even was quite different last year, like you had to collect cards and stuff. I didn’t bother doing them since it seemed so hard and bothersome. This year, they made the [Fool for Love] achievement a bit more bearable to do.

Anyway, one of the more interesting changes they made is the addition of the new holiday boss called the Apothecary Trio. I’ve been religiously killing this boss since the world even started hoping to get the Big Love Rocket mount. Unfortunately, it hasn’t dropped for me.

I’ve tried pugging the Apothecary Trio boss yesterday and I wanted to bang my face on the keyboard like 100 times. The experience was horrible. The Apothecary Trio wasn’t your typical tank and spank fight and had a few mechanics you had to understand. Pugging it probably wasn’t the best decision but if you are desperate, here are the steps how to kill the Apothecary Trio, explained in the simplest way possible.

1. Talk to the quest giver. You will get a Standard Apothecary Serving Kit which contains two potions: the Cologne Neutralizer and the Perfume Neutralizer.
2. At the start of the fight, the tank and the healer should drink the Perfume Neutralizer, while the dps should drink the Cologne Neutralizer.
3. The tank will take Apothecary Hummel (purple aura) and face it away from the group. DPS group will take down Apothecary Baxter (green aura)first.
4. When Apothecary Baxter is down, dps should drink the Perfume Neutralizer and start killing Apothecary Hummel.
5. By this time, Apothecary Frye is running around and throwing vials of perfumes and cologne on the group. You can avoid the clouds, or just step on clouds with the same immunity. Adds will be spawning, too, but you can just ignore then and concentrate on getting Hummel down.
6. When Hummel is down, take down Frye, and then that’s it!

Hopefully, all the people in your group will have their summons and you can repeat it 4 more times! Aside from getting a chance to get the Big Love Rocket mount, you can get The Heartbreaker, the Toxic Wasteling (pet), the Vile Fumigator’s Mask or the Forever-Lovely Rose. You can also get a ilvl 226 neck piece which is similar to the badge reward ones!

Its the day after patch day! I call Patch 3.3.2 the 5-Man Dungeon Nerf patch. If you haven’t read the latest patch notes, the latest patch mostly dealt with the nerfing of some of the 5-man dungeons.

The Forge of Souls

• The Devourer of Souls will now cast Mirrored Souls less often.
• The Spell Reflect ability has been altered on several creatures. It now has a cast time, only has 2 charges, and has a 75% chance of reflecting spells.

The Nexus

• Anomalus will now use the Create Rift ability only once, down from 3 times.

The Old Kingdom

• Elder Nadox now only gets one Ahn’Kahar Guardian during the encounter.
• Jadoga Shadowseeker now only ascends once during the encounter.
• Several enemies between the Befouled Terrace and The Desecrated Altar have been removed or had their pathing altered.

Utgarde Pinnacle

• Skadi the Ruthless can now be removed from his drake with 3 harpoon strikes, down from 5.
• Svala Sorrowgrave now casts Ritual of the Sword 1 time during the encounter, down from 3.

I personally think the nerfing of some of the dungeons is a good thing. Badge farming is going to be so much faster, therefore making it easier to get better gear for our toons. And for those players who only log-in to do their Random Heroic Daily, its going to be faster for them to get their daily Frost Emblems x 2 as well. I know a few players who try to sneak in an hour of WoW playtime while at work, hehe!

My fiance was wondering why Blizzard making the game easier. He personally thinks its destroying the game. But I think that Blizzard is only doing this because the new expansion is just around the corner, and by nerfing something every patch day, it’s going to help new players actually catch up with the veterans, in terms of experiencing game content.

One of my guild mates got hacked a couple of days ago. Unfortunately for us, she was one of the officers of our guild. Our guild bank ended up getting hijacked. The hacker was able to steal all our pots, flasks and food buff that we have been saving for months. And then we were left with a measly 20k gold. I’m not sure how much gold we had originally but I definitely think we had more than that in our guild bank.

My guild mate on the hand had most, if not all of her toons (alts included) stripped down to the bone! And to think she was one of our main tanks in the guild. Ouch! The hacker also hijacker her account and change her password so she couldn’t access her account at all.

With that being said, I want to remind all WoW players to try to keep their accounts secure and here are a few tips on how to.

1. Change your password regularly. This does not only apply to World of Warcraft. It’s actually applicable to all your accounts online, especially the more important ones like Paypal, credit card accounts and bank accounts. Its healthy to change your password at least once a month. And when changing passwords, remember to make them ‘strong’ by using combinations of words and alphanumeric characters.

2. Use a different email from your regular email. As much as possible, don’t use the email that you are using for your social networking sites as these sites are prone to security breeches.
3. Buy an authenticator. Blizzard is selling these gadgets called authenticators. They are small, tiny gadgets. As small as a keychain. You link one to your account, and every time you log on, you press a button and it gives you a series of numbers that act as the password. Without authenticator, you will not be able to log in your WoW account. With that said, make sure that you don’t lose the authenticator or else, you will have to email or call Blizzard so you can be able to access your account again. The authenticators cost around $6 if I’m not mistake. But if you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, you can actually get the World of Warcraft Authenticator App for free!

Anyway, do you have a special way of keeping your WoW account secure? Tell us how!

Considering that you have a couple of alt toons already in WoW, I have 3 ways for you to earn money fast in Patch 3.3!

And if you have alt toons like me (I’m sure you do!), these tips are going to be most applicable to you!

3. Sell Your Emblems For Gems. I try to regularly do Random Heroic Dungeons on all my toons ever since that feature came out, and as of now, I’ve amassed quite a number of Emblems. Like on my priest, I really don’t need any Emblem of Triumphs anyway. So the number just keeps on growing and growing and growing. Last week, my Emblem of Triumphs were around 300+. So what I did was buy gems worth around 200 emblems. I got around 10 pieces of gems. Then I used my other alt which was a JC to cut the gems and sold them gems on AH. Each gem was priced roughly around 180-200g so I pretty much made around 2000g on those. Not bad! If you don’t have a JC, I’m sure you have a guildmate or friend who can help you out.

2. Sell Your Emblems For Primordial Saronite and sell the Saronite! With my priest, I make it a point to save my Frost Emblems for the tier 10 gear. But with my other alts, like my druid and my paladin, I use them as Frost Emblems farmer so I can buy Primordial Saronite to sell. Just the other day, I bought two (2) Primordial Saronite with I sold for 2300g! If you do Random Heroic Dungeons everyday, you get 2 Frost Emblems then do the Weekly Raid Dungeon and you get 5 additional more emblems for the week! It’s pretty easy to get 23 Emblems of Frost for the Primordial Saronite. What if you want to gear up your alt toons? Don’t worry, you’ll be getting a lot of Emblems of Triumphs as well, so you can use to buy gear for your toon. If you don’t need any more gear, go to tip #1, haha!

1. Sell A Battered Hilt! One of the fastest ways to gear up your toon aside from farming for badges is to keep on running the new Ice Crown Citadel 5 man dungeons. The normal mode drops level 219 gear epic gear, while the heroic mode drops level 232 epic gear. Chances are, if you’re there practically 24/7, you’ll have have higher chances of having a Battered Hilt drop! Hopefully you win it too. A Battered Hilt is an item that starts a quest so you can get a nice epic weapon for the melee. But pfft, screw the weapon! Do you know that each Battered Hilt costs around 15,000g in the Auction House! Woohoo! Moneeeyyy! Shiniesss!

I currently have three (3) level 80 toons that I regularly play: my priest (my main toon specced with both healing spec, hehe), my druid (tree/boomkin) and my pretty little paladin (retadin/tank). I use my paladin and my druid to farm for badges. And honestly, it’s safe to say that these tips worked for me! In just a matter of (2) weeks, I’ve managed to earn around 15,000 gold with just following tips #1 and #2. I’m currently trying to sell the Battered Hilt I’ve managed to snag in one of my PUG runs. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get rid of it soon. More money for meee!

Last weekend was my guild’s first official 25 man of the year. We’ve been raiding ICC 10 mans beforehand though, so we were able to breeze thru the first 3 bosses of the first wing of the Ice Crown Citadel, namely Marrowgar, Lady Gaga Deathwhisper and the Gunship Battle.

When we reached Deathbringer Saurfang, however, we spent a significant amount of time wiping and wiping and wiping (probably around a good hour or so). I guess it was a bad combination of being undergeared and management of the Blood Beasts. Well, wiping isn’t exactly that bad since it was a progression run. And usually, my guild and guild mates are pretty good in handling the nerves and stress during wipes.

But OMIGOD, can I just tell you, that there was one thing that totally sent us all off the ledge of Deathbringer’s Rise.

I swear to the geek gods, the Saurfang Father and Son Duo TALK TOO MUCH! I was already half-wishing that I was the one being deathgripped by Deathbringer Saurfang so that my suffering would end, haha.

But seriously though, I personally think that the Blizzard team is going a little too overboard with their cut scenes and dialogues. Its cool during the first few times (gives you goosebumps!), but if you hear the same thing over and over (and over and over), it kind of makes you go insane. I probably have it imprinted in my brain that “Dranosh” means “heart of Draenor” in Orcish.

But yeah, that’s definitely one thing I noticed with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. All the NPCS talk too much! There’s Arthas in CoS (Culling of Stratholme), then the NPCS in ToC (Trial of the Champion), the Lich King in ToC (Trial of the Crusade, before the Anub’arak fight), Lady Sylvanas in the new ICC 5-mans. (Anyone else?)

I love the Warcraft lore, but I hope Blizzard comes up with a patch update soon and gives us an option of skipping all those cut scenes and dialogue. I know it’s possible since they were able to do it for ToC 5.

But for now, I guess I’ll have to figure some way to keep sane while listening to Saurfang Father and Son duo blab on and on and on.

Admit it, like most people, you probably drop from your daily dungeon group when you see the Oculus loading screen come up after you get teleported to a dungeon via the new LFG system. And this will result in the annoying 15 minute dungeon cooldown, preventing you from queuing for the next 15 minutes.

I’m occasionally guilty of this, especially when I’m in a hurry and I just want to do the random daily dungeon for the Emblem of Frost quickly. I do the Random Heroic Dungeon on three toons everyday so sometimes I just want to get it done and over so I can do other things.

You know, when you really think about it, Heroic Oculus isn’t exactly that hard anymore, unlike before. It’s been extremely nerfed and it’s actually really quite easy if everyone knows what to do. But the idea of summoning and dismissing your drake to get around a dungeon gives you this really uncomfortable feeling that just makes you want to avoid the dungeon altogether, hehe!

As for me, the first time we did Heroic Oculus during its earlier months, we spent a total of 3 hours inside the dungeon and spent hundreds of gold for repair bills. That pretty much left a bad taste in our mouth, and every time we see or hear Oculus, we kind of remember how it was.

But anyway, Blizzard has decided to give a little incentive to people who decide to brave Heroic Oculus when they get it from a random heroic dungeon queue. After you’ve killed Ley Guardian Eregos, each player will get a loot bag as a special reward. The loot bag will contain the following: Emblems of Triumph x 2, rare gems and a chance to get the Reins of the Azure Drake. (You can also get the Reins of the Azure Drake from Malygos in the Eye of Eternity as well, for both 10 and 25 mans)

So how’s that for a bribe? Is it enough to make you go in and raid Heroic Oculus? Maybe, maybe not!

Official Blizzard News: Oculus Loot Improvements

[ Image courtesy of WoW Head ]

I can’t really say I’m elitist, but if I were to run chain heroics or join a 10 man or 25 man raid,  I would definitely prefer to run with my guildmates than with PUGs (or Pick Up Groups). For one thing, it’s less painful and if you do end up wiping and dying a lot, it’s not that stressful since you know you’re on the same level as your guildmates. In a PUG, you never know who’s super hardcore and who’s casual. And if a hardcore player joins with a casual player, you know that their ideals will never match.

But just because I have a preference, it doesn’t mean that I won’t ever join PUGs. In fact, I believe that PUGs aren’t THAT bad. Here are my reasons:

1. You get to meet new friends. Well, that’s pretty much self-explanatory! World of Warcraft is played by a million people of different races (and I’m not talk about Horde or Alliance races!) It’ fascinating when you get to talk and bond with people who are so different from you!

2. It’s better than waiting for hours and hours for guildies to show up. If you come from a small, tight guild, you know what I’m talking about!

3. There’s always a diamond in the rough. Some of the best players in our guild, we discovered them via PUGs. Sure, there are a lot of noobs in PUGs out there, but there are also a lot of players with great potential! If you’re a guild who needs to recruit people, then joining PUGs are the best way to go! In a PUG, you’ll be able to gauge their skills and their personalities, too. Especially when you keep on wiping.

4. PUGs are always good for entertainment. If you get stuck with a noob PUG, just suck it up and enjoy the ride. Second to guild chat, PUG chat is probably one of the most entertaining things in World of Warcraft.

5. PUGs are an excellent venue for improving your skills. I speak from experience as a healer. If I always ran with my guild who are pretty much leet great players, I probably won’t learn much as a healer. I’ll probably just slack off, and heal mindlessly while I watch TV, hehe. But if you always join noob PUGs, you’ll end up trying your best to keep everyone alive!

So join a PUG today! But don’t say I didn’t warn you!

I can’t say I’m an expert alt leveler, but I can definitely say I’m experienced in leveling an alt very fast, all by myself! I’m sharing with you guys 10 tips on how to get your alt to level 80 ASAP!

• Use a leveling guide. If you have money to spare, get yourself a leveling guide. The less time you decide which quest to do first, the faster you’ll get to 80.
• Use Light-Headed. With leveling add ons like Light-Headed, knowing where to go will be easy as pie. Just click the link of the coordinates and you’ll find where you need to go next.
• Use Heirloom Items. The faster you kill things, the better. And 2 pieces of the Heirloom Items (the chest and the shoulders) will give you each 10% more experience points when you kill mobs and when you submit quests. That’s 20% additional more experience points!
• Skip Group Quests. Unless you have a big bad level 80 nanny with you, then looking for groups to do group quests will definitely slow you down. Skip them.
• Arm your toon with bags with the most slots. The less times you go to town to sell stuff, the better!
• Don’t bother  with leveling your profession yet. Like I said, while leveling you need to tunnel vision! Level, level, level!
• Buy Cold Weather Flying Book at lvl 70. After the last patch, the Cold Weather Flying Book is now bind on account. You can actually buy the book with a level 80 toon and mail the book to your level 70 alt. Questing with a flying mount will definitely make going around way easier and faster.
• Use Auto Loot. Again, like I said, tunnel vision. Kill, loot, kill, loot, submit, quest, quest, quest.
• Always log off at an Inn. Blue Bar is GOOD, Purple Bar is Bad!

And the most important tip…

DO NOT TALK TO ANYONE. No guild chat, no PM chat or any other chat. Every second you type out something in chat, adds a second longer to your levelling! The only people you should talk to when you’re levelling are the NPCs and yourself, hehe.

I would say that my biggest noob mistake happened during Vanilla WoW days. My former guild was still raiding Molten Core back then and we’ve been spending weeks and weeks trying to get Ragnaros down. These were the days when summoning stones didn’t exist and every time you wipe, you have to run ALL the way back to wherever you wiped. These were the days when shaman ankhs and warlock soulstones were called “wipe-prevention tools”.

So after 3 hours of raiding on day 2, we reach Ragnaros. The Raid Leader briefly explains the fight for those who aren’t familiar. We all buff up (I remember the days when buffing was only group wide! Talk about spending so much reagents!). Soulstones weren’t given out yet since we had a couple of shammies in the raid.

We pull. Phase 1. Good!

Come Phase 2. We all /faceplant.

But that’s fine. A shammy anks up and starts ressurrecting people.

Take 2! Take 3! Take 4!

By this time the Raid Leader has asked the warlocks to put soulstones on healers. On the second to the last pull, the Raid Leader said, “Soulstone on Veeka pls. Make this pull count, it’s the second to the last!”

We pull. We all /faceplant.

I click the soulstone button, and pop up. I target another healer, click my ressurrect button and wait for the spell to finish.

Spell finishes.

And I get hearthed to town.

AUGH! Apparently, my res button was beside my hearth button and I clicked it accidentally!

So that’s my biggest noob mistake EVER.

Lesson learned: Never place your resurrect button near your hearth.

Luckily for me, my guildmates were forgiving enough that they found it quite funny. Or else I would have probably cried if they started screaming at me on vent.

Thank the geek gods I’m a female gamer!

Have you guys seen the new in-game pets at Blizzard Store? They’re soooo cute! I can’t decide which one to get! The pets are bought with real money, so if you have a couple of dollars to spare, then you’re in for a treat!

There are two (2) kinds of pets available at the Blizzard Store, the Pandaren Monk and Lil K.T. Both pets cost $10. The Pandaren Monk is like a little martial arts expert that makes weird sounds like Bruce Lee, while jumping up and down and making weird martial arts poses. Lil K.T. on the other hand kills nearby little critters and laughs out diabolically every so often. I personally like Lil K.T. more than the Pandaren Monk. There’s just something about tiny little creatures trying to be evil, haha!

Oh, if you buy a Pandaren Monk before December 31, 2009, 50% of the proceeds will be donated to charity. I’m just not sure which one, hehe.

But you know, as much as I’m thrilled about being able the new in-game pets, I’m not sure how I feel about it being purchaseable with real money. I feel like Blizzard is being a sell-out, for a lack of better term, haha. But hey, business is business!

Read more about the new pets at the Pet Store FAQ!

1. Cross Server LFG – Just like the PVP Battleground, we will be able to group with other players from other servers in the same battlegroup! I’m a little intrigued with this feature since it was also mentioned that it works the same as entering a PVP battleground. If you use the LFG tool, you will be teleported inside the dungeon, same way when you queue for a battleground. Does this mean that we’ll be doing away from summoning stones in the future?

2. Vote to Kick Feature – Ah, thank God! Finally a way democratic and easier way of getting rid of annoying people in a PuG! 4 votes, and you’re out!

3. Disenchant Feature – Another interesting feature! As long as you have a disenchanter in the group (with the appropriate skill level, of course) you will get the Disenchant option when it comes to rolling for loot, aside from the usual Need and Greed. And obviously, if you roll for Disenchant, you automatically get the enchanting mats if you win the roll.

4. Smart Match Making System for LFG – This feature will help lessen the headache you can get from forming PuGs. It’s not a guarantee though, since you might still end up with annoying and immature players. However, least experienced or geared players can be assured that they’ll be paired up with atleast ONE experienced or geared player. Lucky for the noobs, unfortunate for the uber player!

5. Weekly Raid Quests – They’re scrapping out the current normal and heroic dungeon dailies. This actually makes me a bit sad. I actually look forward to doing heroics dailies, boohoo. Anyway, the NPCs in Dalaran will instead give out weekly raid quests and raiders will have to kill random targets from any raid dungeons from Naxxramas to Ice Crown.

Can’t wait for Patch 3.3!

I’m practically done with my achievements. I just need to go throw some stinky eggs at the Alliance town and I’m all set. Then I can parade all over town with my “the Hallowed” title… since that’s the only thing I’m going to get, aside from a crappy pumpkin head gear (which I totally hate by the way, blech) and a pumpkin pet.

While it’s great that the Headless Horseman mount is free for everyone (but OMG, drop rate low much?!), what I don’t understand is why the Horseman’s Horrific Helm can only be used by plate wearers! The Horseman’s Baleful Blade on the other hand can be used only by tanks and sword handling dpsers. Sure, a mage can equip the sword but what the heck is he going to do with +26 agility?!

Unfaaaaiiir, I tell you. *whiney voice* I want a helm that laughs like the Headless Horseman, too!

Oh, in case you guys don’t know, I play a blood elf priest in WoW. So yah, Hallow’s End World Event is an injustice to all clothies! *rallies*