Collectors will be left out as well — most of the items will actually change form into weapons or other useless objects(cheap wow gold), so even if you have the old items, they won’t be usable in the same way. Sure, the Mallet was a pain to get, but it’ll be a little sad to see it disappear in the way we know it forever.Some may be disappointed that items we worked so hard for are now pretty much useless, but as you probably know by now, that’s the way of things when an expansion hits. The good news, obviously, is that people running through instances solo or with just a few people will be able to hit all the content they couldn’t get to before.

And if you happen to be running the content, you won’t need to worry about whether you left the Mallet in the bank or forgot the Scepter on a Princess run.Blue poster Daelo has good news for people aiming to solo old instances — Blizzard has made a few changes to the way keys and unlocks work in the old dungeons, so that you no longer need keys or multiple people to get to the good stuff. The rituals in Blackrock Spire and Uldaman only require one click now, and quintessence (in Molten Core to summon Executus before the Ragnaros fight), the Scepter of Celebras (in Maraudon), and the Mallet of Zul’Farrak (in the ZF, obviously) are no longer needed to do their jobs. Additionally, Nightbane will be accessible in Karazhan without the Blackened Urn.

Paying for transfers and changes is a little sneakier — Blizzard is slowly wading into RMT, so far successfully dodging all the sharks in the water.Blizzard has rules for their RMT, though, and Zarhym lays a few of them out: they won’t charge for any item that means anything in game — cosmetic items and looks are fair game, but actual gear or “integral services” (whatever that means exactly) is a no for them. They won’t charge for anything that was free before, so creating up to 10 characters on a realm, for example, will always come with the subscription (though adding more may eventually be possible with an extra charge). And Blizzard’s RMT comes as a game mechanic itself — they choose to charge for things not just because there’s a cost for them, but also to “curb their frequency,” to keep all players from doing them all the time.

It’s an interesting idea, and it’s definitely a lot more player-friendly than charging for things like, say, horse armor. You could also argue, of course, that something like the WoW TCG is also a kind of RMT scheme, since you have to pay real money for real cards to get in-game items (even though Blizzard has made sure those items are cosmetic as well). Read the rest of this entry »

Plus, we’ll be chatting live and answering emails as usual — you can send us a note right now at theshow@wowinsider.com. The show goes live at 3:30pm Eastern (here’s a time zone converter), but I’m usually on a little while before that, playing some music and chatting with people about what’s new in the World of Warcraft, so if you want to come by a little early, feel free. And if you can stay late, do that, too: the aftershow seems to get better and better every week.

And of course we’ve placed the stream right on this post after the break again, so click the link below to head on down and meet some other listeners in the chat. See you tomorrow for the live show!Our podcast is back on the virtual airwaves (and by that we mean our Ustream page) tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern, and we have the man himself, BRK, back on to talk about the biggest story of the past week: the Great Hunter Nerf of 2008. Turpster is also on with us, and we’ll make sure to talk about more than Hunters — there’s news about dual specs, achievements and the rewards that come with them, and of course all of the class changes to cover.

This week, Tailoring is up for discussion. There are faction recipes and dropped recipes, as well as highlights from your trainer that you won’t want to miss. Wrath of the Lich King has changed many things about the professions we all know and sometimes love. Last week, Insider Trader looked at the highlights of the Leatherworking and Blacksmithing professions, showing you what’s new, how to plan out level 80, and what you can look forward to at what points. Here is a quick summary:

Some professions have special vendors that will sell you recipes in exchange for items that you receive while crafting. Enchanters, for example, can learn new enchants by handing over Dream Shards. Fortunately or unfortunately, Tailors currently have no such resource. New and improved exclusive spellthreads for enchanting your pants. A 20-slot bag and a 22-slot bag. A slow flying carpet mount as well as an epic one. Specialty cloth for epic gear. Frost resistance gear. An 8-piece PvP pseudo-set. Exclusive cloak enchants. Special threads that you can sell for a profit. Soul shard and enchanting bags with 32 slots. Tailoring Read the rest of this entry »

We can hope for two things–that Blizzard continues to put these kinds of cheap wow gold awesome scenes in the game, and that when they do, they give those of us with nice monitors/TVs the ability to watch them all pretty-like.

Yes, yes, old news for some. For those of you among us who haven’t yet experienced this particular quest line, of course, it’s not to be missed. For those who’ve seen it in-game already or who just can’t contain themselves, though, you can stream the incredibly spoiler-heavy cinematic in full HD on Blizzard’s site now or download it directly from BigDownload. If you’re into it, there’s also a nice short story/summary of the momentous events directly under it.With the release of Wrath of the Lich King and its inclusion of world-changing phased events, Blizzard’s stated goal of ramping up their dynamic storytelling seems more and more like a success, but it doesn’t stop with quests alone. The in-game cinematic for the final legs of the epic Wrath Gate quest line really shows what Blizzard is capable of outside of CGI with the in-game engine and a bit of creative tinkering. Not to mention it’s a huge lore explosion that fuels the story for the rest of the expansion!

Raiding blind
Is raiding more fun when you figure out the strategy yourself? “It actually kind of baffles me that strategies are so easy to come by for current top-end content these days,” mused Mnemnosyne.”In the old days of raiding, especially in EverQuest long before WoW, boss strategies tended to be somewhat secret. We wouldn’t go so far as to call them closely guarded secrets, but no guild would ever post their strategy or a video showing exactly how they defeated the mobs. Guild members caught sharing the latest strategies were usually disciplined or kicked out.

“This meant we all usually had to learn at least some of each fight on our own, which was not only interesting but made for a wide variety of tactics that one doesn’t see much in WoW. Some fights have only a few potential options; others were handled in massively different ways from one guild to the next, since the trailblazers kept their strategies secret except for limited hints.

“This contrasts sharply with the fact that almost every WoW guild I’ve seen has very, very minor differences in how they handle things to every other one. Who knows how many untested and possibly even superior strategies may exist but never be discovered, because everyone follows the posted strategies of some of the first people to figure things out and rarely deviates from them?” Read the rest of this entry »

Shoveltusk Soup and Succulent Orca Stew were the two that didn’t make it back into the game, which makes one of 3.0.8’s patch notes make a lot more sense. You know, the one about Shoveltusk Meat being converted to quest items? And orcas are just Chilled Meat fodder now, it seems.The Northrend Gourmet has been a hot topic achievement since Northrend hit live realms, because it simply wasn’t possible. Four of the required recipes were completely missing. As of the current PTR build, that’s no longer true. Two of the recipes have been re-added to the game, and two recipes have been wiped out of existence. Not added to the game, but no longer an achievement requirement either.

Are there any major ramifications from removing the soup and stew? No, not really, unless you were sitting on a mountain of shoveltusk flesh. The buffs they supplied were redundant, offered by other meat as well as other fish. Sort of pointless recipes, really. This streamlines how many recipes you need more than anything else.

Kungaloosh is now taught by a drunkard in the sewers of Dalaran, who apparently has the recipes etched into his arm. And Fish Feast? I hope you like doing the Cooking daily, because it now requires 5 Dalaran Cooking Awards.

download the 3.0.8 PTR  links for the client at https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/charcopy/downloads.html point to a 3.0.1 version of WoW. This version is several months old.

To put it another way: the version you get from the official download page will be updated upon installation. Just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

This took Alex Ziebart and I a bit to realize, and we wanted to be sure that we shared this with you right away. Enjoy your PTRing!

We should note that the server names are a bit odd right now, but Alex is on the 3.0.8 PTR with his character he copied over earlier.

However once you download the version above, run the installer, and then run the game you’ll be presented with the requirement to download another patch. This patch will bring you up to the latest 3.0.8 version of PTR client.

Now that I’ve got that out of my system… let’s take a look at the three changes they’ve made to the Warrior class for PTR Patch 3.0.8.First and foremost, the one you’ll hear around the campfire the most – Titan’s Grip has had the hit penalty removed. Completely gone. It is no more. The Titan’s Grip hit penalty ceases to be. It is an ex-hit penalty!Warriors are now the most powerful class in the game. Please delete all other characters and switch to your level 13 Warrior alt you haven’t played in three years. Also, please be sure to level bandaging up quickly as 24 other warriors bandaging the main tank is all you’ll need to defeat most Wrath raiding content.

‘Ello hit penalty? Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o’clock alarm call!

/thumps-the-hit-penalty-on-the-counter

Now that’s what I call a dead hit penalty. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a good bit of changes to check out over at the PTR 3.0.8 patch notes. Be sure you do so and stay tuned to WoW Insider for more analysis of specific class changes.

The PTR client is not available to be downloaded yet, but we’ll let you know when we hear that it is. Expect that to be anytime, probably before the end of the business day on the west coast.If you want to copy your characters over to the 3.0.8 PTR I would do it soon, as in the next few minutes. The copy is currently up and working via the account management page at worldofwarcraft.com (go there yourself and navigate to account management as to ensure there’s no trickery involved in links, etc…)