The mind of the Engineer is an engine: always running, always in need of service. For the quizzical tinker, puzzles and games are the lubrication of that engine, allowing the Engineer to relax the gears in his head while employing their ceaseless motion upon diversions, that the mind's mainspring might be fully wound and its cogs sheened with oil when again the Engineer returns to the bench. Also, we like playing with toys.

As is often the case, Engineering's innovations in the field of toymakery and diversionology set us ahead of our counterparts in less distinguished professional fields. Herein, we will discuss two of Engineering's least appreciated and most rarefied devices: the combat robots.

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Sure, QQing can get old after a while, but as long as you do it creatively, a good whine is always welcomed. That's why this forum thread, offering up prayers in many religions for Warlocks after their troubles with Lifetap, is so funny. Yeah, it's Warlocks whining -- they've been doing that for a long time. But it's Warlocks whining in a creative and interesting way, so that makes it much better.

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After Skellum of Dalaran posts on the forums asking just where all these PTR changes are coming from, Nethaera sobers us all up about what the PTR is all about: progressive testing. She says that Blizzard has said from the beginning that there will be changes in the notes, and that things we thought were the end of the world in the beginning have changed or been completely removed. Welcome to the perilous world of progressive testing.

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Even a Warchief has to sleep sometimes but his bedding has to be totally awesome for him to do so. I think that these sheets and blankets would certainly fit that bill and make even the mighty Thrall sleep well at night. Made by a girlfriend of a WoWer these sheets are any Hordey's dream. (Get it...dream, sheets?)

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Totem Talk is about Shamans. Matthew Rossi would just like to say "What the heck, did we just get buffed, did I miss a meeting where they decided that shamans get buffed now, holy Puck!" Puck is Matthew Rossi's cat. Yes, he named one of his cat's Puck and the other Aurora. Eventually he supposes he will have a whole host of pets named after members of Alpha Flight. You'll notice they have a team member named Shaman.

If you managed to miss yesterday's post about changes to the PTR, let me link back to it. Okay, now that I've done that, let me shamelessly copy and paste the pertinent information. (My apologies, Eliah.)

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Class changes
Quote from: MMO-Champion Shaman

• Flametongue Weapon now reduces the effectiveness of healing spells on your target by 50%. Lasts 5 seconds and refresh every hits. (Screenshot)
  
• Toughness now Increases your armor value from items by 2/4/6/8/10% and reduces the duration of movement impairing effects on you by -10/20/30/40/50%.
• Shamanistic rage now let you regenerate mana equal to 30% of your attack power instead of 15. Duration reduced to 15 seconds. (Was 30 seconds)


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I'm one of those odd players who likes to play multiples of the same class. I've got a tauren, human, night elf and draenei warriors at 70 and to be honest, my human currently way out-gears them all. Not only does he sport T4/T5 level gear for tanking, his DPS gear is also at that level even though I rarely DPS with him. Now, this isn't a problem, exactly. It's not that I dislike having good gear for the content.

It's that I hate playing my human.

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As I mentioned a little while ago, episode two of Blizzcast was released today. It features interviews with Chris Metzen and Geoff Goodman, the second of whom was a new name to me. You can go download or listen to it, or read the transcript, at Blizzard's site, but if you don't feel like it, or can't, here's a highlights version for you.

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In the wake of the most recent PTR change to Flametongue Weapon applying a -50% healing debuff over 5 seconds and -- it now appears -- the Flametongue totem itself doing the same for others' melee attacks, a number of forum threads have popped up questioning the increasing number of these debuffs in the game. The funniest asks, "Is there some sort of Mortal Strike non-proliferation treaty that stops me from having Mortal Strike on my priest?" (short of Hex of Weakness, I guess). Suggestions include an MS effect on Crusader Strike, "MORTAL SHEEEEEEEEP!", and "Mortal Portal" for mages.

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Arenas
Quote from Blizzard staffQ: Who cares about arena?

A: I enjoy it myself, even when I lose. It's interesting and challenging to try new strategies against other players and even learn from mistakes I've made.
Arena may not be for everyone and if it's not for you, that's OK. For others, it's a fun way to spend some time and test their mettle against others.

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Twice a week, our writers will tell you more about themselves and let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more About the Bloggers.
What do you do for WoW Insider?
I'm the writer behind Insider Trader (although as of this week, I'm inside trading it to the capable Amanda Miller), 15 Minutes of Fame, Gamers on the Street and the occasional Well Fed Buff. Behind the scenes, I'm features editor for the Joystiq MMOs, which means keeping an eagle eye on MMO nooks and crannies for offbeat stories, special series, fresh column ideas – all the chewy goodness that keeps WoW Insider and Massively readers munching on stories in between the latest news bulletins.

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As Matt Rossi is analyzing in more detail, the attunement requirement for Karazhan has been removed, although at least one person in the raid does need to have the key to get in the door. How do we know? New patch notes.

Here, in full, is everything that's changed in the latest iteration of Blizzard's official test realm patch notes, brought to you, as always, by the power of diff. Much of this has been covered on WoW Insider already, because Blizzard is slow to update the patch notes; the stuff that looks new to me is in bold (which in this particular case is only that the new Mortal Strike-esque effect on Flametongue Weapon applies to Flametongue Totem as well).

• Removed: "The benefits of drinking out of combat have been delayed. It will now take five seconds before the full benefit of the mana regeneration will come into effect." (now restricted to arenas only)
  
• [Druid] Lifebloom will no longer cause error messages when interacting with Spellsteal or while the Druid is under the effects of a Mind Control.
• Mage
• Improved Blink: This talent no longer reduces the mana cost of Blink. Instead, it increases the chance for all attacks to miss the Mage by 25% for 2/4 sec after Blink is cast.
• Icy Veins no longer stacks with Power Infusion (as well as Bloodlust/Heroism from the last patch notes)
• Mana Shield: This spell will now get a percentage of the Mage's bonus to spell damage as an additional effect.


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Last week David discussed finding and training your pet. This is a great time to start practicing threat management. When you attack a target in a group, your target will be threatened to varying degrees by everyone in the group. This becomes really important later in your career, when you will more often be facing targets in instances, or larger targets which require a full group to kill. Take advantage of the early levels of Hunter to practice threat management, and bring more to those groups than they might be expecting.

Most classes have to group with someone before they ever have a chance to think about, much less practice, threat management. But we have a built in tank: our pet. We can practice this as clumsily as we need to, dying as often as we have to, all without an audience to mock us. Your pet'll never mock you. He's your best friend! Just don't ask what he tells the other pets when you're not listening.

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The second episode of Blizzcast, Blizzard's official podcast, has just been released. This one is double the length of the previous installment, at just over 49 minutes. Interviewees are Chris Metzen, VP of creative development, as well as WoW designer Geoff Goodman. The interviews are followed by a reader question-and-answer segment. You can see our coverage of the first episode in case you've forgotten what happened last time, and if you need some more WoW podcast goodness, why not check out our own WoW Insider show?

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Two bits of news about soon to-be-Blizzard's-overlords Activision: first, a group of investors are apparently planning to sue Activision about the whole merger thing, apparently saying that Activision didn't do enough to cash in on the deal. They're complaining that in the deal with Vivendi (Blizzard's owners), Activision settled for an "unfavorable minority poisition." The company hasn't responded yet, but if this lawsuit goes forward, we could find out a whole lot more about the exact terms of the deal between the two companies.

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That's what the fine folks at MMO Champion are telling us, anway - on the PTR, the attunement process for Karazhan has been removed. Or more accurately, altered... in order to get into Kara, one person in the party has to have the Master's Key, making Karazhan more like Upper Blackrock Spire.

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Recently there's been a rash of complaints coming from the Mac user population playing Blizzard's World of Warcraft. It seems that a recent bug has caused an atrocious slowdown in some of the newer areas of the latest 2.4 PTR.

WoW forum poster Dotful first noted the problem when her character experienced getting only around 4 FPS while playing on the PTR, with even slower frame rates upon reaching the Sunwell areas. Several other Mac users on the forums also confirmed this.

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In the recently held Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium 2008, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick shared some insight on what it would take for a competitor to take down the current golden boy of the MMORPG world, World of Warcraft.

It's apparent that he has nothing but respect for Blizzard's MMORPG and the number of loyal gamers it has attracted. He threw out a ball park figure of what he feels would be the amount of money needed to rival the game, and even then he wasn't so sure:

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Check yesterday's news, if you missed the new additions (professions) and class changes.

PTR Patch Notes Updated

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The developers of Blizzard's World of Warcraft have released another update for the game's public test realms. Perhaps the biggest change is the removal of Karazhan attunement allowing parties with only one master key for the raid a chance to run it.

Each class also had some pretty big skill changes making this list a must read for those on the PTR servers. Finally, expect a few minor changes to the World Environment.

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PTR Notes update - Karazhan attunement removed
Test realm patch notes on both EU and US official sites have been updated, I guess the most surprising addition is the Karazhan attunement being "removed".
Quote from Blizzard staff Druid

• Lifebloom: the healing coefficient has been reduced. This spell will no longer cause error messages when interacting with Spellsteal or while the Druid is under the effects of a Mind Control.
• Nurturing Instinct increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 10/20% while in Cat form.


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Players on Blizzard's World of Warcraft forums have reported new bugs concerning the Mind Vision ability. Apparently, this skill cannot be used in patch 2.4.0 Arenas and it also cancels drinking potions.

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Many of you may be familiar with EngBags and Tbag, two addons that sort and organize your bag space for you. These are great little programs that can keep your inventory squeaky clean, but what about something for those of us who just want one bag frame without sorting and with little configuration out of the box?

Fear not, my friends, Bagnon is here to solve your dilemma. It has been mentioned by WoW Insider before, and many believed it had fallen through the cracks into obscurity. Given your newfound hope for something simple yet elegant, I'll move right into its features and options.

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As predicted, Enhancement Shamans got some nice buffs yesterday, including the addition of a Mortal Strike-like effect of reduced healing to the Flametongue weapon.

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Every Thursday, Well Fed Buff will be serving up the tastiest dishes to boost your HP and stats, just in time for your weekend gaming.

Hands down, the best recipe in all of World of Warcraft is Savory Deviate Delight. I will hear no arguments or opinions on this. I decided to try making it for dinner. I don't know what happened. All of a sudden there was a loud "Yaaarrr!" And my friend turned into a pirate in a puff of smoke. It was absolutely incredible. Your results may vary.

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Lifeskool highlighted machinima as part of their Gametrotting series last year. According to Jun Falkenstein, of Stone Falcon Productions, those interviewed were asked to speak to the audience as if they'd never heard of this emerging medium. While most coverage of gaming and machinima tends to miss the mark, I found this documentary to be humorous and quite informative.

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Oshu'gun, the largest known diamond in the universe, means many things to many people. To the ethereals of the Consortium, Oshu'gun means profit. To the Orcs of old, it was holy ground. To the Draenei and the Naaru, Oshu'gun is a transdimensional spaceship that was used to save a dying race from their doomed homeworld which had been overrun by demons. Sweet.

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Our good friend (and co-worker) BigBearButt posted this the other day, but it never made it to us (and it's probably because it doesn't seem to be working for US players quite yet). Be Imba! is an awesome little site that purports to do what Dan's new column also does, which is make one character as good as it can be.

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Here's a quick heads up for the guys just getting ready to head back into World of Warcraft's Public Test Realms. Blizzard has recently updated the PTRs with a new build for patch 2.4, bringing with it several new changes.

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Fancy making a fresh new start for yourself and the rest of your guild in World of Warcraft? Bornakk dropped by the WoW forums earlier to announce that they're opening up a new PvE realm within the Emberstorm Battlegroup, named Cairne.

 
The Blizzard CM further explained that this new server is currently designated as a non-transfer realm, which would probably explain why it didn't show up in the recent free migrations announcement.

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Chances are, authors and artists will appreciate your support. The same is true for fans of Blizzard's MMORPG World of Warcraft and its corresponding Trading Card Game.

So if you are one of those, you may want to hop on over to Huntington Beach, California this Saturday for a book signing event involving "World of Warcraft: The Art of the Trading Card Game" art book.

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Little did we know the Draenei racial ability in Patch 2.4 was going to be juggling! No, not really, just a clever screenshot utilizing an ooze corpse that died at an interesting angle. Still, that juggling thing would be pretty sweet, eh?

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The chances of owning your very own Spectral Tiger in World of Warcraft are slim indeed. With the latest Spectral Safari Screenshot Contest launched by Blizzard,however, you just have to take a really good safari picture to win your very own Spectral Tiger.

Alongside the Spectral Safari Beginners Tournament of Upper Deck Entertainment, Blizzard will be holding this very special contest from February 26 to March 5, 2008.

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Sometimes all the nitty-gritty details on the gameplay of Blizzard's World of Warcraft could leave players bewildered and in the dark. As for player Shadowess, she wanted help in understanding the whole concept of expertise rating.

Shadowess asked what exactly does it do and what it affects. Some of the players addressed her concern by saying it reduces that chances of a player's attack to be dodged and/or parried by 0.25 .

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Here's a new one for Community Manager Hortus' recently updated list of World of Warcraft PTR 2.4 issues. Player Groat over at the WoW forums reports that the 28-slot Spellfire enchanting bag is not functioning as it it should be.

As Groat elaborated, enchanting-related items that were supposed to go into the spellfire bag by default were instead dropping in the normal bags. The glitch only seems to affect items that don't have a partial stack already in the spellfire bag.

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I love playing in the Arenas, but I'm getting kind of bored with the same three maps. I was very exited Ruins of Lordaeron map was introduced with Season two. It was something new and exciting. It's still my favorite, but now its just as dull as the other two. I wish they would introduce a new fighting ground for Season four.

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A new build has been deployed, as usual this post will be updated multiple times if something changes.

Additions
- 4 Alchemy stones have been added to Alchemy !

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The PTRs just came back up about an hour ago from a new build being applied; some people were able to get on earlier, but any information they found is liable to be buggy. Here's what's been found since the realms came back online for real:

• Shaman:
• Flametongue weapon puts a 50% healing reduction on the target for 5 seconds, refreshing with every hit.
• Toughness: each point in the talent now reduces the duration of movement-impairing effects by 10%, in addition to the previous effect of increasing armor. This means 50% reduced duration at 5/5.
• Shamanistic Rage changed; now reduces all damage taken by 30% and gives a chance to regenerate mana equal to 30% [was 15%] of your AP. Lasts 15 s [was 30 s].


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