Finally, Chilton sorta-kinda re-confirms that there will be a new content patch before the expansion — he says it probably won’t be a numbered patch like 3.4 or 3.5, but he says there may be some more class balances in there, new Battle.net features, and possibly even a new raid boss. But mostly it’ll just be the patch that brings us all of the world events previous to the Cataclysm shakedown that we’ll all go through. Sounds like fun. Our friends over at WorldofWar.de (who were listening live to the podcast this past weekend) recently got an interview done with Lead Designer Tom Chilton, and you can read it over on their site right now. There’s not a lot of news in there (though Chilton does gush over the Dungeon Finder, just as players have for the past week or so), but aside from the usual player housing deny and the old “we don’t know what the future holds” back and forth, but there is one fun thing he reminds us of in the second half of the interview: Blizzard is adding on to the old Blackwing Lair instance in Cataclysm. It sounds like kind of what they’ve done with VoA: Blackrock Caverns, which we heard about at BlizzCon, will be a new area (supposedly level 85 5-man,

I mean, I’ve been in some stinky zones before – the Blasted Lands are reminiscent of burning mechano-hog tires, while the Underbog has a fruity bouquet similar to a cantaloupe that’s been opened and left in the sun for a week. But seriously, this place takes the steamed mandu. It’s like…well, you’ve been here, you KNOW what it’s like. Eating becomes a Feat of Strength, my sinuses have built up their own Greymane Wall in a desparate act of self-preservation, and when I get back to the civilized lands the leftover odor pushes socializing with the opposite sex right off the hit table. So, any advice that doesn’t involve morrowgrain? (I’m allergic to it) Treadstone Human Warrior Arygos Staghelm responds: Some of us had to deal with Silithus back when it actually mattered, not when people ran around there collecting glowing sand, and certainly not now, when everyone’s traipsing around up north after some frosty ponce. If you think it smells bad now, you should’ve been there when they murdered your kid in front of you. Oh wait! That was me. Anyway. Best way to handle the smell of butt and bug is to take a handkerchief, tie it around your nose and mouth, and get the

Blue posters in the official forums have started leaving comments about the earthquakes happening in-game, which as we reported the other day, appear to be linked to in-game mobs that are potentially ushering in the beginning of the Cataclysm world event. The comments are somewhat cryptic, but that is par for the course with Blizzard. They like to tease — to hold the carrot in front of you and make you run for it. But the evidence we presented Monday was pretty solid, and it’s gained even more traction in the community and around the net; so this is an interesting follow up to it all. The comments thus far after the break. Wryxian says in response to “Did Any of you saw that? There was a shake in Dalaran…. Is this the beginning of the Cata Pre event?…Or was it just me?”: It was just you. Seriously, earthquakes leading up to some kind of cataclysm? I lol’d. The Kirin Tor want to ensure that even though their city is no longer actually in the ground anymore, it still receives the same treatment as the rest of Azeroth… or something. We try not to read into blue comments too much, since reading in-between the lines can be a crap shoot sometimes. But in this case we think it’s

We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Omen of DOOM! moonkin DoT clipping over at Revelart’s Druid Reliquary OutDPS answers the hunter question: What Am I Doing Wrong!? Too Many Annas gives advice about Romantic RP. A slight old, but good post by Mystic Chicanery about warlocks and painting the ceiling beige. Spicytuna talks about frost mages facing Lady Deathwhisper.

There is some confusion as to whether/how the Dungeon Finder matches characters according to internal gear score. To the best of my knowledge, it actually attempt to create a discrepancy between characters’ gear, so that you’re likely to wind up with a few heavily geared members ‘carrying’ lesser-geared members. This is directly contrary to a claim I’ve seen circulating that the system attempts to match internal gear scores. If the system doesn’t attempt to create disparate groups, it should, and if it does, I’m glad it does. It may be disheartening to see someone in your group in full blues or maybe even a couple greens, instead of the now-familiar suit o’ purples, but as some commenters pointed out in my post on Dungeon Finder bingo, we all started out in blues and greens at 80 (with the possible exception of some crafted gear and BoEs), and heroics were designed to be run with that gear. Where are the epics supposed to come from, for a pre-raid character? Furthermore, a less-geared character might actually need some of the gear that drops in the ilvl 200 heroics (i.e. everything except CC, FoS, PoS, and HoR), which is a nice change of pace from the usual shardfest. It may take

Every day until Saturday we will have new prizes to give away along with new loot codes for WoW.com’s Twelve Days of Winter Veil contests. Today, we are giving away 1 Disco Inferno code courtesy of WoWTCGLoot.com. As you can see in the movie above, this in-game item summons a disco ball that comes with a lightshow and disco music. Any player that clicks on it will /dance. The perfect celebration item for your next guild meeting or surviving a PUG with your sanity intact. To enter for a chance to win, leave a comment in this post by Friday, January 1, 2010, 12pm ET (noon). Limit one entry per person and make sure you’re registered with a valid email address. We’ll be choosing one winner randomly from the entrants and contact them via email after the close of the contest. Don’t forget to check back every day through Saturday for new contests celebrating the Twelve Days of Winter Veil!EDIT: Contest closed. Thanks everyone!