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

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com’s daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Why yes, that is the most disgusting whale you’ve ever seen. Unless, of course, you’ve witnessed local authorities taking dynamite to a beached whale to get it out of the way since they couldn’t move it just by pushing the thing. That is disgusting. Whale guts landing on cars a mile away? No thanks. I’ll take the guy pictured above over that. Moonkinmaniac asked… “On the WoW calendar there’s an undead whale picture. What the heck is it? Is it a rejected project for the current expansion or possibly one for Cataclysm?” I hopped over to the Petopia link you supplied and took a look at it, and I’m going to guess it was concept art that didn’t get modeled for Wrath of the Lich King. If you remember questing in the Western Plaguelands, there was a string of quests that made it very clear the wildlife of the region was being impacted by the plague as well. Maybe not in the same ways that it harmed the humanoid races, but there was an impact nonetheless. This was probably just a concept art, but