One more major WoW-related blog has closed its doors. Too Many Annas, among others, notes that Blogatelle has called it quits, saying that Sean and Jess over there both feel they've come to the point where they've run out of things to say. While the blog itself is definitely a nice achievement -- it was an excellent blog centered on roleplaying (we've mentioned it before here on the site as an excellent resource for RPers) -- they will unfortunately leave a number of series behind, including the Katafray project, which followed a roleplaying Paladin up through the levels in Azeroth. As Anna says, they definitely deserve a hat tip, both for giving the RP community a solid and steady blogging voice, and for being accessible enough to bring in new RPers.

[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]

Perhaps the biggest news in the past week -- aside from 'Cataclysm', that is -- hasn't been Patch 3.2 itself but a service Blizzard has apparently been working on for some time. Paid faction changes. We received quite a number of tips about it and even saw our story make a cameo on Attack of the Show. Players have been asking for something like this for a while, and there have been incidents of entire guilds rerolling from scratch to defect.

Of course, with the shocking news comes a lot of questions, so Nethaera hops on over to the forums and answered a few concerns that players had. The biggest bummer for me was that I couldn't change race within my own faction! So... let me get this straight... I can change faction and become a totally different race but I can't swap my Blood Elf Death Knight into an Orc? Blasphemy! Unfortunately Blizzard doesn't think choice of race isn't something you can regret unlike faction choice. Anyway, more answers after the jump...

[Expand 1 Paragraphs]

Ready Check is a twice-a-week column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. Today, we step back a little and look at endgame in the context of sports.

[Expand 4 Paragraphs]

Our friends over at The Guild are hard at work on season 3 -- if you've been following their Twitter feeds, you'll have seen that shooting is underway en masse, and while we haven't yet heard when they'll be done, it sounds like they're already keeping some long hours over there. Such long hours, in fact, that tempers are apparently flaring on the set -- as you can see above, director and editor Sean Becker has become a victim of Felicia Day's (substantial?) wrath, and been fired from the show.

[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]

It's July 1st, which means you can head out to Nagrand and pick up your free gems the nearest mailbox and pick up this month's brew, assuming you have a Brew of the Month membership! This month we have the Stranglethorn Brew, which is certainly more interesting than the various "teehee you farted/burped/barfed/burped again" brews. Upon drinking the Stranglethorn Brew, you get a buff called Jungle Madness! Exclamation point included. It causes your character to hallucinate for awhile, and be attacked by spectral Jungle Gnomes. If you don't have a Brew of the Month membership, you can watch a video from Wowhead poster VBub that shows the brew in action at the end of this post. Just click the 'read more' link at the bottom.

[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]

We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

• Grey Matter really dislikes the Moonkin set bonus on the recently unveiled Tier 9 armor.
• Pink Pigtail Inn has a pretty convincing argument for why "more epics" does not equal "new content."
• Burnout? With all of the new patch 3.2 information coming down, Pike doesn't know anything about burnout.
• Rhii of ISheepThings, on the other hand, isn't real happy with the World of Warcraft today.
• And finally, Sydera over at World of Matticus waxes philosophical about exploits and how Blizzard is punishing them.


[View Remaining 1 Lists]

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

That's a trailer we haven't seen in awhile, huh? It's relevant today, I promise! Besides, a little nostalgia is always fun. If I have one grievance with Wrath of the Lich King's cinematic, it's that they didn't give us an incredibly corny catchphrase to spout for nearly two years.

Discolando asked...

"Is there any substance to the rumor I've recently read that patch 3.3 will contain another yet unknown raid instance, and patch 3.4 will contain Icecrown Citadel? It does seem more logical to 'finish' the expansion with the advertised antagonist instead of a deux ex machina like patch 2.4 gave us."

Patch 2.4 was the result of a few things going not-quite-right with The Burning Crusade. First, Wrath of the Lich King was taking longer than their original time tables said they would, especially considering how rapidly they put out Burning Crusade's raid content. They front-loaded all of it. Black Temple, the raid zone that was supposed to be the pinnacle of 25-man raiding in BC, came out in patch 2.1 just a few months after the launch of the expansion. It was almost a full year between the release of Black Temple and the release of Sunwell Plateau. That's a pretty long time with no new 25 man content. If they didn't do Patch 2.4's raid, it would have been almost a year and a half between Black Temple and Wrath of the Lich King.

[Expand 1 Paragraphs]

Blizzard trademarks "Cataclysm"
A few days ago Blizzard filed a trademark for "Cataclysm" on the United States Patent and Trademark Office website. Cataclysm was registered for :

• Entertainment services, namely, providing on-line computer games; providing computer games that may be accessed via a global computer network; and providing on-line information in the field of computer gaming entertainment
• Comic books, computer game strategy guides, trading cards, coloring books, adhesive stickers, rub-on transfers, notebooks, stationery-type portfolios, posters, greeting cards, calendars, instructional leaflets in the field of computer games, computer game instruction manuals, catalogs in the field of computer games, advertisement boards of paper or cardboard, photographs, art prints
• Computer game software and related instruction manuals and guides sold together as a unit; downloadable computer game software; interactive multimedia computer game program; mousepads

Below is a small extract of the Latest Status Info on the Trademark Applications and Registrations Retrieval (TARR) Website

[Expand 2 Paragraphs]

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Blizzard_files_trademark_for_Cataclysm'; Is "Cataclysm" the name of Blizzard's next-gen MMO? This Tumblr blogger has uncovered trademark applications filed by Blizzard in the fields of computer games, paper-based products, and online entertainment services. Those trademarks are on the USPTO's website, and we can confirm that Rod A. Rigole has been employed by Blizzard as legal counsel previously, so these trademark applications, all filed late last week on June 26th, are all real.

Of course, that doesn't confirm that we're actually talking about the next-gen MMO, or that Blizzard is planning on releasing a game called "Cataclysm" at all (StarCraft: Ghost was also trademarked, and we all know what came out of that). It could be another WoW expansion (though you'd think that WoW would be in there somewhere if that was the case), or it could be a completely separate game. Not that we know of one, but Blizzard certainly is working on all kinds of projects that we haven't yet heard about officially.

[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]

The Moon has aligned with Mars, and the cosmic energies have infused this week's Blood Pact with diabolical tidbits of Warlock-related content that will sear the souls of mortal men! This week, Blood Pact invites you to sit in on an actual gaming session...

Nick W.: I'd like to roll a Craft(Writing) check to make a column.
Game Master: Alright, make your check.
*Click clatter of rolled dice...*
Nick W.: I rolled a four...
Game Master: You create an episode of Blood Pact.
Nick W.: Damn!

[Expand 4 Paragraphs]

This morning's EU loot card giveaway had over 1500 entries! Not bad for the hottest day of the year and midweek! I'm quite impressed and there were some pretty funny comments in there as well. A lot of people want the giant, er, male rooster.

[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]

Faction-Change Service - Q&A
The Faction-Change announcement has been updated with a Q&A
Quote from: Nethaera (Source)We wanted to give everyone a very early heads-up that, in response to player requests, we’re developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. There’s still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we’re pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it.

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won’t disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used. The number of variables involved increases the complexity of implementing this service, but we plan to take the time needed to ensure that it lives up to expectations before officially rolling it out. We’ll go into much more detail on all of this here at http://www.WorldofWarcraft.com as development progresses. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know that because this type of functionality requires extensive internal testing well in advance of release, you may be seeing bits and pieces of the service in the test builds we use for the public test realms moving forward.

[Expand 1 Paragraphs]

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.

It takes all kinds (of players) to make a (game) world - but now that Blizzard is shaping game content specifically to slingshot players into endgame raiding content, it's easy to get the impression that raiding is "the" way to play WoW. New players seem expected to sail through the levels and zip gleefully into PuGs or a raiding guild. All those "accessible" raids and achievements and gear are suddenly sounding more and more like "requirements." DPS minimums, required achievements and Armory checks serve as your credentials to get into groups. Everywhere a new level 80 turns, there's something new to measure up to.

[Expand 4 Paragraphs]

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a new WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. Let's talk about assigned group healing.

Group healing is one of those assignments that's often necessary but also easily forgotten. Many raid leaders whether they're leading pickup groups or guild raids often forget to establish specific group healing assignments. I include myself in the category of forgetful leaders.

Group healing back then

[Expand 7 Paragraphs]

Today's WoW Moviewatch is the first music video created by MozQ. It's a music video called Esc4pe and features both original characters, and a guest appearance by L80ETC. Mozq is the author who previously created Keep Browsing and Keep Browsing 2. Both of those movies were pretty well received, so it was exciting to seem something new from MozQ. I think Esc4pe lived up to those expectations, even if I'm not quite sure how I should be pronouncing the movie's name.

[View Remaining 5 Paragraphs]

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we talk about how to play a Rogue in 3v3.

As part of the new design for the upcoming Arena Season 7, Blizzard is planning to remove the ability for a player's 2v2 rating to count towards their eligibility for the current season's rewards. This means that unless you're playing in the 3v3 or 5v5 arena brackets, you won't qualify for any of the newest gear. As a class who's dominance has always been most prominent in the 2's bracket, I believe this change hurts the Rogue the most.

[Expand 4 Paragraphs]

Picture it: you're raiding along with a PuG run by a guild called, say, Logos et Ethos. Things are going well -- your first piece of loot drops, and people start rolling on it. But then the master looter from the guild throws this in guild chat: "we will begin the bidding at 100g." Yes, apparently it's an auction run, and they didn't tell anyone. The scene above unfolds -- people curse out the guild, leave the raid, and Poemaster pulls out the caps lock to try and keep his guild's secret fundraiser going.

[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]

Long, long ago (college) in a galaxy far, far away (Wisconsin), my best friend and I came up with an interesting thought experiment. We would build an open-plan zoo, with plenty of different environments but no barriers between the exhibits. All the animals would be allowed to mingle, and we would let the food chain take its course. Who would be the true king of predators, the tiger or the polar bear? Could piranhas devour dolphins? And would a colony of fire ants be able to defeat a nest of killer bees? These are the sort of things you think about when you're a political science major, while the engineering and science students are busy learning useful things that will make them money. Soterios of <Better Than You> on Hydraxis has solved at least one of these hypothetical questions -- panthers will always defeat penguins. But what about penguins armed with assault rifles versus panthers with chainsaws?

[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]

Earlier this week we reported on Nethaera's stunning revelation that faction changes were in the works. Yeah, I was just as amazed. It might just be an idea at the moment, a work in progress which we might not get access to until a patch or even the next expansion. The logistics are mind-boggling. Would this be a literally blending of species into factions so Humans could join the Horde and Taurens the Alliance or would your character literally be transformed into another species? How exactly would the lore work around that? We've had character customisation for a while now and the ability to change gender but changing faction and possibly even species. That a whole new kettle of fish.

[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]

I hinted at this the other day but Upper Deck International here in the UK has given WoW.com a set of shiny, brand spanking new loot cards from the latest Fields of Honor TCG expansion, which went on sale yesterday.

We're giving them away to you, our lovely EU readers. All you need to do is leave a comment in this post before 5PM GMT (6PM CET) today, July 1st, 2009. One of the Big Giant Heads (aka our beloved editors) will then randomly choose which of our three lucky readers will win one card each. Be sure to comment with an e-mail address you check often and have easy access to, because that's how we will be contacting our chosen winners with the codes.

[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]