WildTangent is a company that started up around ten years ago (they originally made game plugins for Winamp, if you remember that) that's recently gotten a reputation for "bloatware." They've made deals with PC manufacturers like Dell, HP, and Acer to bundle in their software on the harddrive when you buy it. (Most users familiar with PCs find these software bundles more of a nuisance than anything else.) But nevertheless, WildTangent claims up to 20 million users worldwide, and they continue to make deals, the most recent one being with none other than Blizzard. According to a press release on their website [PDF], World of Warcraft's trial downloader will now be included with all installs of WildTangent's ORB software, which means that whenever you buy a new computer from a dealer WildTangent has hooked up with, there'll be a program already installed on your PC that will let you download and play World of Warcraft, among the many other games WildTangent has already included.

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After yet another Cracked Egg with nothing but a Cobra Hatchling in it, and the bigtime raiding proto-drakes constantly getting dropped out of the game, there's really only one other option: the Red Proto-drake, a reward for the Glory of the Hero meta-achievement. It's not easy: you've got to not only beat all of the heroics in the game, but all of the hard mode achievements for each of them. Guides like our OverAchievers can help, and a really great group to go along with helps more, but some of the achievements are so tough they need extra attention.

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I was pleasantly surprised to see the maintenance announcement for tomorrow morning available fairly early today. Most of the time, we don't actually know whether there will be maintenance or not until pretty late in the evening. Or I'm imagining that and this is the time we see it every week, who knows!

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3.2 approaches! Sort of. The PTR itself isn't up yet (at least, not as I write this), but nonetheless, 3.2 approaches on little cat feet.

I'm going to examine the 3.2 PTR patch notes line by relevant line, just because there are several changes that impact Druids while not being class-specific. If you want a quick summary without being massively spoiled, Balance is getting a huge and welcome change to the functionality of Eclipse, Cats are getting bonked by the nerfbat, and PvP-Restos are really getting bonked by the nerfbat. Bears, well...not much is going to happen to bears this patch, which is a little demoralizing given the improvements being made to Pally tanks, but that's OK. We still have our, uh, amazing Tier 8 set bonuses and...um...the best -- sort of -- tanking cooldowns in, uh, the...uh...

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Bornakk has just announced that they're currently rolling out a fix to our Midsummer woes that will reset all of the associated Midsummer quests. If you've been following along so far this holiday, it turned out that if you did all of your fire honoring/desecrating last year, you wouldn't be able to do it again this year. That meant you weren't able to get enough Burning Blossoms to purchase what you needed for the various achievements.

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BlizzCon approaches! Preparing for BlizzCon is your regular source for tips on how best to prepare for Blizzard's gaming extravaganza.

On Friday, we talked about getting to BlizzCon by air. Until teleportation technology is invented (and not deadly) or "The Big One" hits causing Anaheim to become coastal, the only other two ways to get to BlizzCon are by train or car. (Edit: Ok, there is the bus, but yeah, ugh. AishaLove is right. I can't recommend it.)

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We can't believe it either – Turpster has been let loose on WoW.com to bring you videos from in and around the World of Warcraft! You've heard him on The WoW Insider Show now see him on TurpsterVision right here on WoW.com

This past week I undertook an epic unveiling of not so epic proportions in opening up my very own FigurePrint. Fortunately for you, the lucky viewer, I've captured this live on video -- a first encounter of the most awesome kind -- which can be found below the break!

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Despite his sometimes-crass way of getting his point across, Ming is one of the best PvP bloggers around these days. When the Patch 3.2 patch notes revealed the upcoming change to resilience, I was hoping to hear his take on it. He delivered! If you haven't seen the patch notes, Resilience in Patch 3.2 will lower incoming damage across the board in addition to its protection against critical strikes. By Ming's estimates, after all other factors have been taken into consideration, the change will bring a net difference of an added 10% damage reduction in the upcoming Season 7.

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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

The last time I did an officers' patch perspective, the numbers were reversed (2.3). In that column, I talked about mage tables, spell damage being added to healing gear, and the Horde finally getting Fear Ward. It was October of 2007. Yep, a lot has changed in the past two years of WoW!

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Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a new UI and addons blog for WoW. Having some difficulty with Mimiron? Let me help!

Where do I start? There are several intriguing changes impacting the Priest class (specifically those of us that heal). On the one hand I'm partially disappointed by some of the changes. On the other hand I'm relieved because the changes could have been worse.

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The roller-coaster of "will they or won't they remove the Ulduar raid drake rewards" seems to have come to a definitive answer. The rusted and ironbound proto-drakes will be removed, but they will give us "about 1 month of warning" so you can make a final push if you really want it. The drakes are rewards for completing Glory of the Ulduar Raider (and the 25-man version).

Bornakk points out the parallel with the Arena mount rewards, and says that this is no accident: these are supposed to be rewards for the "top tier" of raiders, and letting people earn them with more powerful equipment from higher raids would defeat that purpose. Therefore, he says we should expect it to go this way in the future, as it was with the Naxx drakes.

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Quite a show on our podcast last weekend -- while, despite lots of pre-show tweaking, I still wasn't able to get audio set up correctly, we were still able to get all our guests on. Both Lesley Smith and Chase Christian joined us to talk about all of the patch 3.2 changes we've heard about on the coming PTR, including Chase's thoughts on Rogues getting Axes, what the Coliseum will be like and the changes to Emblems in raids and Heroic instances. We also talked for just a bit about the Midsummer Fire Festival, which is on the realms right now. Turpster will be doing it, as he's still in the chase for the holiday achievements, but the rest of us are pretty meh.

And we talked about our plans for BlizzCon (live streaming ahoy!), and even gave away some loot codes. The contest from during the show is over and done with (so please don't bother emailing us about Yogg Saron any more), but just so you weekly listeners aren't out in the cold, we'll do this: two random commenters on this post before Wednesday the 24th at midnight will win a loot card code each. That's right: comment on this post (using a real email) before Wednesday at midnight and you'll have a chance to win a Footsteps of Illidan loot card of your own, thanks to our friends at WoWTCGLoot.com.

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Yay for more Argent Coliseum news! Our European brethren get the lowdown on the Argent Coliseum with a brand new under development page highlighting what is to come from this patch 3.2 raid and dungeon instance. As we were already given to believe, it's similar to the Ring of Blood/Amphitheater of Anguish questlines from BC and WotLK. Also, in order to access the 'hard mode' 10 and 25 man heroic versions of the raids, you apparently first have to defeat the normal mode version.

• In the "Heroic" version of the Crusaders' Coliseum, you and your raid only have a limited number of attempts for each raid lockout period, and each time your raid wipes, one of your attempts will be used up. To embark on the epic Trial of the Grand Crusader, you must first prove your worth by clearing either the 10 or 25 player version of the Crusaders' Coliseum's normal mode. After you have dealt the killing blow to the coliseum's final heroic mode boss will you be able to collect the Crusaders' Tribute, and the fewer attempts you needed to complete the Trial of the Grand Crusader, the better your reward will be.


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Tipster Kerri clued me in to the Jesse Cox Voice Actor Video Demo on YouTube. This is definitely not the sort of movie we'd regularly feature on Moviewatch, of course, but it points out an interesting facet of machinima that we don't usually talk about. Namely, this video shows off the skills of the voice actors.

Many times, a video can be visually impressive, but less-than-stellar voice acting can detract from the overall experience. Jesse Cox has worked with Myndflame in several videos, as well as starring in Divided Soul. By watching this demo reel, you can very clearly see how much character and technique he brings to his roles. I think it can't be understated how important it is to a machinima to have actors who can speak their lines fluidly, believably, and without awkward moments.

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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. Adam Holisky will be your host today.

Patch 3.2 is bringing about a lot of questions. Many cannot be answered yet, however we know the general direction of things from comments left by Ghostcrawler and others. I don't think that we have heard all the surprises in Patch 3.2, and we probably won't for a little bit.

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Glory of the Ulduar Raider Reward Changes
Quote from: Bornakk (Source)The rusted and ironbound proto-drake rewards for the normal and heroic Glory of the Ulduar Raider meta achievements will be removed at a future date. We currently do not have an exact date they will be taken out, but it is possible they will be removed when patch 3.2 comes out or at some point after that. When we do decide to remove these mounts we will provide about 1 month of warning so players will have time to make some final attempts.

These mounts are designed similar to the Arena Gladiator mounts as rewards for the top tier of raiders and we will remove the rewards once we have introduced enough new and more powerful equipment to make the completion of these achievements easier than originally intended. Since these rewards are designed for such high-end game play, we currently plan to continue removing any similar rewards we make available in the future.
Argent Crusader's Coliseum
Quote from: Blizzard (Source)The time to strike at the heart of the Scourge is drawing close. Clouds blanket the skies of Azeroth and heroes gather beneath battle-worn banners in preparation for the coming storm. They say even the darkest cloud has a silver lining. It is this hope that drives the men and women of the Argent Crusade: hope that the Light will see them through these trying times, hope that good will triumph over evil, hope that a hero blessed by the Light will come forth to put an end to the Lich King's dark reign.

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