Ghostcrawler posted a bit this evening on the philosophical direction Blizzard is taking in Cataclysm in three important areas: Talent trees New spells and abilities Recycled raid content The discussion originated from a mild QQ post about what the poster felt were the flaws in Cataclysm, and Ghostcrawler took that opportunity to clarify a few things that the community has been talking about since the initial announcement at BlizzCon 2009. Chief amongst those is that they are specifically designing talent trees now with an intention for there to be 5 to 10 talent points that can be spent where the player wants — and that talent guides like you find in WoW.com’s class columns will only go so far in the selection of the idea talent tree; the rest of the talent selection will be left up to the individual user. Of course, this information isn’t exactly new per se, but it’s interesting to hear some of the refinements of it all as Cataclysm’s development progresses. Ghostcrawler’s full statement after the break. The talent tree comment Ghostcrawler is referring to: No new talent points. But wait didn’t GC say they were going to go back and redo the trees? That is a misconception. All that

While it may or may not hint to the release date of the next expansion, a listing on Amazon has pegged the release of a hardcover novel by award-winning author Christie Golden entitled World of Warcraft: The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm. While that might seem like one colon too many (insert snickering here), the self-explanatory title actually sounds pretty cool. What sounds uncool, however, is that it’s a prelude. Meaning before. If you’re reading into this as much as I am (generally not a good idea), that could mean that the Cataclysm expansion will ship after August 31. After all, you’d think that Blizzard’s marketing team would want a book that reveals what happens before the Cataclysm to actually launch before the expansion hits, right? Eastern Kingdoms – Light overhaul: Tirisfal Glades Western Plaguelands Silverpine Forest Arathi Highlands Alterac Mountains The Hinterlands Hillsbrad Foothills Duskwood Elwynn Forest Dun Morogh Loch Modan questing today, it stands apart. It’s a very long journey for a young character, and when you finally arrive at the Sepulcher and find the husband’s grave, you realize you’ve come all this way to deliver a worthless trinket to someone

IgroMir is Russia’s largest gaming convention — sort of an Eastern European Electronic Entertainment Expo (E5?) — and Blizzard made an appearance there this week, showing off World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and Starcraft II. Besides the demo booths, visitors could look forward to panels with J. Allen Brack (the current WoW head honcho) and Chris Sigaty (SC2 grand poobah), trivia contests with the Russian Blizzard CMs, and goblin/worgen leveling contests. But, of course, here at WoW.com we’re mostly interested in Cataclysm news, so let’s get right to it, shall we? In his Cataclysm panel, Brack touched on two subjects — Tol Barad, the new outdoor PVP zone/quest hub, and the new guild leveling system. The Tol Barad talk was apparently nothing new, but the guild leveling talk had some good information in it. Not everything discussed here is new, but some of it is, so I’ll just reiterate what he said. After the jump, of course. Your guild will get experience for players earning rep, killing bosses, doing dailies, getting achievements, Arena and BG wins, crafting, leveling up, and more. The top 20 earners in the guild each week will have their contributions turned into XP. Previous

From what we’ve seen, WoW: Cataclysm is pretty far along in development. Blizzard had a lot to say — and show — of the game’s third expansion at BlizzCon, and every new bit of info we’ve been able to wrangle since then tells us that the game is chugging towards the fabled Friends & Family Alpha, full steam ahead. We don’t have a solid date, and likely won’t until it happens, but it’s coming. Now, when the Alpha starts, Blizzard tends to keep a tight lid on information coming out of it — even the testing period’s very existence — by judicious use of NDAs and cease-and-desist orders. It’s possible that we won’t even be able to give you information that comes out of the alpha. But all of that goes away when the closed beta starts and everybody can’t talk about it enough. So, what happens if you happen to come upon an alpha or beta invite? Well, there’s a few things you should know. The first — is that you’re a lucky duck. The rest — we’ve assembled in this handy guide, readable in its entirety after the jump. How the heck did I get an alpha invite? There are only two ways you’ll get an alpha invite. Either

In a forum thread discussing the recent prot warrior block changes and Warbringer nerf and the state of prot warrior DPS (it’s basically acknowledged as the lowest DPS among the tanks) Ghostcrawler chimes in that they intend to buff sustained prot DPS while reducing burst in PvP. However, he quickly comes back to point that at this stage in the expansion they don’t want to make any sustained mechanical changes and so, don’t expect one. The sustained DPS increase will come from buffs to existing abilities. That said, I’m a hybrid player at heart. I played a druid when I first started playing, and I play a death knight as my main now, and in both cases, I always keep a set of gear upgraded and ready for all their respective roles. Those sets include relics. I have my tanking relics and my DPS relics already. If ammo become a similar “relic” system, it might not be so bad. Being able to spice up your shooting with some procs from an ammo relic would be a great way to add a little bit of fun to the system without making it overwhelmingly unmanageable. So my question to you, dear readers, the first in a series, is this: What are your favorite and least favorite hairstyles in the game? When you

Yesterday’s Breakfast Topic asked about the new Alliance race, but today we’re here to ask about the prodigal Hordies, Cataclysm’s newest Horde race, the goblins. The announcement of the race was a bit of a surprise, but one that made a lot of sense upon further examination. I wasn’t at all excited for goblins at first, but the more I look at ‘em, the more I kinda like ‘em — especially all of the cute hairstyles that the women get. So, I know that I’ll be rolling at least one goblin. I’m thinking a warlock and … I have no idea. I’m running out of classes I don’t already have an 80 of. But it might be fun to faction change one of my existing 80s to a goblin too. They’d be my first high-level Horde character! I never fell prey to infectious rerollbelfatosis. So what about you guys? Excited to blaze new trails and be Kalimdor pioneers with your little green man (or woman)? What are you going to roll? Does your goblin have a backstory you’re building? Let us know in the comments and in the poll below! What’s your goblin going to be? Death Knight Hunter Mage Rogue Priest Shaman Warlock Warrior I’m staying fully Alliance, so I

Totem Talk is the column for shamans. This installment sees Matthew Rossi contemplating the incoming influx of gear and how current itemization affects shamans. Also, sorry but you get Alliance shamans this week. I can’t wait until I can race change to a dwarf. The thing is this: I hate doing gear lists. My editors (I like to imagine them as an old Marvel Comics cosmic entity like The Living Tribunal) quite rightly point out to me from time to time that with Patch 3.3 so close, we’re effectively at the end of Wrath of the Lich King and therefore all sorts of new loot will be entering the game. Loot from the new five mans at Ulduar 10/25 quality! Loot from the new raid exceeding all previous iLevels! We’ll be awash in the best gear we’ll ever see until Cataclysm drops and we start it all over again. And of course they’re right. It helps me to accept this if I imagine that cosmic entity spinning a giant head around with different faces on it like Reliquary of Souls. (No, sorry, we didn’t call it Reliquary of Souls all those weeks just to be corrected by Blizzard. Heck, you guys even brought it back in Icecrown.) The next couple of weeks, however, I’m going to look not at gear but at

While Terenas was doing his level best to create the Alliance, Doomhammer was replacing those he’d been forced to purge, sending for more orcs and ogres to come through the Dark Portal, making alliances of his own with native trolls, and even achieving control over the dragons of the Red Dragonflight through the Dragonmaw Clan’s control of a powerful artifact. While moving north to destroy the humans once and for all (and invading the dwarf kingdom of Khaz Modan in the process, helping motivate the dwarves and gnomes to join the Alliance, going so far as to push the dwarves and gnomes into the fortified city of Ironforge): it was during this process that the orcs made enemies of the high elves of Quel’Thalas and allies of the Amani trolls of Zul’Aman and their leader, Zul’jin. Yay, yet another name with a mysterious apostrophe in it! It’s interesting to note that Doomhammer’s northern march seems to have made as many enemies for the Horde as it gained them supporters. He got the goblins to work as mercenaries for him, took over Grim Batol and plopped the Dragonmaw there to keep watch over Alexstrasza and her brood which the Horde used as weapons, twisting life into death. There’s