Ghostcrawler posted a bit this evening on the philosophical direction Blizzard is taking in Cataclysm in three important areas:

• Talent trees
• New spells and abilities
• Recycled raid content

The discussion originated from a mild QQ post about what the poster felt were the flaws in Cataclysm, and Ghostcrawler took that opportunity to clarify a few things that the community has been talking about since the initial announcement at BlizzCon 2009. Chief amongst those is that they are specifically designing talent trees now with an intention for there to be 5 to 10 talent points that can be spent where the player wants -- and that talent guides like you find in WoW.com's class columns will only go so far in the selection of the idea talent tree; the rest of the talent selection will be left up to the individual user.

Of course, this information isn't exactly new per se, but it's interesting to hear some of the refinements of it all as Cataclysm's development progresses.

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Titles; they are cool, they are wonderful, and in a not-inconsiderable number of cases, they are very hard to get. Almost without exception, every single title in the game is also linked to an achievement. Today we're going to examine how you can get (or, in some cases, how it was possible to get) about half of the 19 titles currently available from dungeons and raids. Next week, we'll cover the last half, going in alphabetical order.

If you're a skimmer, the two toughest achievements are actually at the tail end this week, and if you're currently in Icecrown Citadel, there's two currently-unobtainable titles that may interest you here (in addition to another set next week).

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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. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

Puppies. Puppies.

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With all the Season 8 / Tier 10 announcement, I missed a couple of minor announcements in the past 2 days, including a few Arena issues and a veeeery long posts about warriors stealing my hunter's gear, like my Brutality Blade wasn't enough.

Invincible FAQ
Quote from: Crygil (Source)Q. Is the mount available in both 10 and 25 Heroic?
A. Invincible will only be available in the 25-person Heroic encounter with the Lich King.

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With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown. We're continuing our looter's guide to the Icecrown Citadel. This week we're delving into the Crimson Halls. This is the vampire wing of the citadel and they're kicking it up in style. There are the pretty-boy vampires complete with glitter as well as the vampire vixen leading them. If only Buffy Summers were in my guild, this place would be cake. However, she'd probably end up in love with one of the blood princes and then they'd become good guys for a while which makes us start to care about them only to find out that it was all an elaborate ploy to trick the slayer into a ritual to turn the high school into a demonic portal to hell. Wait, I think I've actually seen that one.

Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It

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It came from the Blog: Elwynn Extravaganza

by Robin Torres Jan 28th 2010 at 5:00PM

Last month, It came from the Blog ran from Orgrimmar to Elwynn Forest in order to punch Hogger and play at the Darkmoon Faire. We took the zeppelin to Grom'gol and then ran north through Stranglethorn Valley and into Duskwood. Continuing north, bypassing the mountains, we crossed the river into Elwynn Forest. Hogger was downed multiple times and there were hijinx to be had at the Faire. Of course, it was not all fun and games. Whereas most of the lowbies were protected, the stragglers were eaten by fierce jungle fauna. And we could have done without the Alliance funsuckers who KSed Hogger as well as preyed on flagged and naked lowbies. But overall it was a good time. Below is the gallery for the Elwynn Extravaganza. Stay tuned for the Winter Veil and Battleground Bonanza II galleries. Gallery: It came from the Blog: Elwynn Extravaganza

Filed under: Events, WoW Insider Business, It Came from the Blog

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adsonar_placementId=1359129;adsonar_pid=1079767;adsonar_ps=-1;adsonar_zw=450;adsonar_zh=250;adsonar_jv='ads.adsonar.com';Thoughts on Icecrown Citadel and gating

by Allison Robert Jan 28th 2010 at 4:00PM

A month after patch 3.3 and Icecrown Citadel dropped, Lume the Mad weighs in on its raid content with mixed feelings. Icecrown's story, art, music, and general encounter design are all fantastic, he observes, but Blizzard's approach to "gating" content is having an ugly effect on raids. When you've only got 10-15 shots at killing specific bosses, small issues rarely stay that way for long. "I have to pressure people with lag to sit so as not to potentially lose a shot at killing the boss," he writes. "And when someone makes the most innocent of mistakes, people get pissed off. It's not fun for them. And it's not fun for me as a result." That's the part of the gating system -- "Raiders (having) the fear of God struck into them for wiping just once," as Lume puts it -- of which I'm not overly fond myself. A key raider lagging or disconnecting can result in a wipe on much of this content, and more particularly on the two bosses (Putricide and Lana'thel) for whom limited attempts currently exist. Both command very high DPS requirements, so even if you can easily afford the loss of a laggy DPS or two on something like Festergut (which is pretty baldly a DPS check in its own right), a single person going offline on Lana'thel-25 can wreck both the attempt and peoples' nerves. Losing 4 Blood-Queen Lana'thel attempts last week due to the bug with Kinetic Bombs aggroing her through the ceiling during the Council fight was equally frustrating.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding

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WoW Rookie: Leveling in instances, top tips for fresh 80s

by Lisa Poisso Jan 28th 2010 at 3:00PM

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. For links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's, visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide. Construction continues inside the WoW Rookie Guide, where we've put together a corner especially for those of you who are just hitting level 80 for the first time. We've already got a few of our favorite resources listed there. This week, we're adding something new and convenient for you right here. Every week (look for us on Thursdays), WoW Rookie will round up the week's best posts from other WoW.com columnists and features that touch on the basics of endgame play. From polishing your character to playing in PUGs to breaking into the raiding game, we'll help you spot the week's best advice for newer players (even if it snuck in under the radar within the class column of a class you don't play). This week's selection is fairly bursting at the seams, so we've tucked the entire kit and caboodle after the break. (Oh, one more thing before we get to the fresh 80s stuff. Did you catch WoW, Casually's guide to leveling by grouping in instances?) Next week, we'll be back to tackling rookie topics one piece at a time -- followed up, of course, with the week's best links to other pieces fit for fresh 80s.

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htmlAdWH("93219407", "300", "250"); //--> Stormrage novel collector's edition now on sale

by Adam Holisky Jan 28th 2010 at 2:30PM

The saga of Malfurion Stomrage continues in the latest book Stormrage by Richard A. Knaak. Today our friends at Simon and Schuster write in to let us know that the collector's edition is now on sale for us all, in a limited edition of 5000 copies. From the jacket: Recently the Emerald Nightmare, an area of corruption within the Emerald Dream, began growing in size, transforming the Dream into a realm of unimaginable horror. Green dragons have been unexpectedly caught up in the Nightmare, emerging from it with shattered minds and twisted bodies. Druids who have entered the darkening Dream lately have found it difficult -- sometimes even impossible -- to escape. Nor are these the Nightmare's only victims: more and more people are being affected. Even Malfurion Stormrage, first and foremost of the druids on Azeroth, may have fallen victim to this growing threat. As uncontrollable nightmares spread across the world, a desperate quest begins to find and free the archdruid. The collector's edition costs $32 and will ship the week of March 8th, 2010; whereas the normal editions of Stormrage release on February 23rd, 2010. Stay tuned to WoW.com in the coming weeks when we'll have early reviews of the book for you, as well as an interview with author and Warcraft storyteller Richard A. Knaak.

Filed under: News items, Lore

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WoW.com welcomes our new lore columnist!

by Michael Sacco Jan 28th 2010 at 2:00PM

After looking through the absolutely staggering number of applications for our new lore columnist position, we were able to narrow it down to just a few very, very good applications. Then we had to go through the painful process of narrowing those down further to find the best one. And find the best one we did. Though it was a tough choice, we're proud to announce that we've hired Anne Stickney as our new lore columnist. You might know Anne as Shade, writer of the popular lore blog Shades of Grey. With her encyclopedic knowledge of the Warcraft universe, her light-hearted style, and her intent of making lore accessible to anyone who cares to read about it, she was the perfect choice. Anne will be providing all kinds of lore-based content to WoW.com, whether it's new Know Your Lore columns alongside Matthew Rossi, keeping our older lore columns up to date, or brand-new speculation based on upcoming content. You'll start seeing these in a few weeks, once she joins our raid and helps us take down the ultimate foe -- paperwork. Also, please remember that we are looking for a resto shaman columnist -- you can find out more information on our applications page.

Filed under: WoW Insider Business, Lore

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adsonar_placementId=1359130;adsonar_pid=1079767;adsonar_ps=-1;adsonar_zw=450;adsonar_zh=250;adsonar_jv='ads.adsonar.com';The Daily Quest: Paladins paladins paladins

by Alex Ziebart Jan 28th 2010 at 1:00PM

We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. I Am a Paladin offers tips and tricks for healing 5-mans as a holy paladin. The Hunter's Mark offers a refresher on gemming your hunter. World of Matticus discusses the Flash of Light spec for holy paladins. Listen to this week's edition of the Twisted Nether Blogcast. This week's special guest is Tristan from The Elitists. This isn't particularly WoW-centric, but happy anniversary, Anna. Click here to submit a link to TDQ

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WoW Moviewatch: Looking for Group

by Michael Gray Jan 28th 2010 at 12:00PM

Looking for Group by Michelle Madison is a fun WoW spoof of Lionel Richie's Hello, is it me you're looking for? The video was created using in-game footage, so there's not many fancy machinima techniques. This seems to be Michelle's first machinima video, so a lot of the production values are at that opening level of sophistication. Michelle did a great job of the vocals, and I enjoyed her singing. I think she managed to nail a WoW-version of Richie's singing, which is a pretty interesting trick to have pulled off. The video was fine for this level of work. It doesn't have a lot of flash-bang, but mostly exists to complement the lyrics of the song. Overall, this was a fun video to watch. I hope Michelle gets enough feedback that she continues grow a repertoire. If not, then I hope she at least enjoyed dipping her toe in the waters of machinima creation. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

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Incentives for appropriate gear types coming in Cataclysm

by Gregg Reece Jan 28th 2010 at 11:00AM

One thing that has been frustrating cloth, leather, and mail wearers for quite some time is the ability for players with a higher type of armor cherry picking through their armor. In some cases, this is due to poor itemization in the intended gear range while others are abusing gear scaling and the ability to sometimes double-dip into stats. However, this will likely stop in Cataclysm for several different reasons. Bornakk revealed on the forums that gear will start having incentives to make you wear the appropriate type of armor. This means that holy paladins who are currently rolling on cloth and mail items will have incentives to stick to plate. What are these incentives? We don't know. It could be as simple as something like the current gem socket bonus system or a little more complex like a percentage increase in a particular stat. This could even be a generic spec based set bonus that gave you something if completely geared in class appropriate armor. We won't really know until more details are released.

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Around Azeroth: Smoke and mirrors

by Elizabeth Wachowski Jan 28th 2010 at 10:00AM

Submitter Meredyth of on Ravenholdt writes, "Thanks to being surrounded by a deadly cloud at all times, the shadow priest is immune to the deadly mist traps in the upper spire of Icecrown Citadel. She inhales the noxious fumes as if they were a refreshing spritz on a summer's day. The shadow priest is also a notorious liar." Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word "Azeroth" in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val'kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here. Gallery: Around Azeroth

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Scattered Shots: Hunting the Plagueworks in ICC

by Brian Wood Jan 28th 2010 at 9:00AM

Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the Hunter class. It is well known that hideous undead monstrosities concocted by the deranged minions of the Lich King make for excellent target practice. Having rained death throughout the ICC Lower Spire and gathered up all of our rightful hunter loot, our next stop on the way to the Lich King is the Plagueworks. We are given more trash to shower us with Ashen Verdict rep, including the much sought-after Precious's Ribbon (clearly hunter loot) before stepping into the chamber of the grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous undead of yore. Join me after the cut as we take a look at the hunter tips for defeating the bosses of the Plagueworks. As always, we're going to assume that you're familiar with the boss strategies and will be looking at hunter-specific tips.

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Breakfast Topic: Fun with time travel

by Robin Torres Jan 28th 2010 at 8:00AM

I was inspired by the time travel talk from last Friday's The Queue. If you were able to kill Arthas while doing the Culling of Stratholme; you would prevent him from becoming The Lich King, but would cause a much faster spread of the plague. It reminded me of this great piece of short fiction, where going back in time to kill Hitler prevents time travel from becoming possible and is therefore strictly forbidden. I'd like to go back in time and help Mankrik's Wife escape her violent and lonely death. Do we really need another reason to slaughter those nasty boar humanoids? Besides, I bet she had some really great quests that we missed out on. If you could go back in WoW time and change something, what would it be? What do you think the ramifications of your change would be?

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics

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Arena points being reimbursed... for now

by Adam Holisky Jan 27th 2010 at 11:15PM

Players will be seeing the arena points they had left after season 7 ended be reimbursed in the near (if not immediate) future. Yesterday players logged on after maintenance to discover their points had been wiped, and that season 8 had not yet begun. Arena points are only wiped at the beginning of a season, not before and not during the transition between seasons. Crygil's full statement on the reimbursement is as follows: Arena points were wiped during the recent maintenance following the end of the arena season on January 19th. We initially intended to launch the next arena season this week, but it was delayed due to the minor content patch that needs to coincide with the beginning of the season having some last minute issues to resolve. Due to the delay in the arena season we are in the process of reimbursing arena points to all eligible participants. Characters will be returned to the amount they had on Tuesday, January 26th. All arena points will then be wiped when season 8 begins. We apologize for the confusion this caused and appreciate your understanding Rumors place season 8 beginning next week, although there has been no official announcement. Arena season 8 will begin with the release of patch 3.3.2 -- of which we recently discovered translated Korean patch notes.

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Know Your Lore: Intermezzo Part One - Return of the Horde

by Matthew Rossi Jan 27th 2010 at 10:00PM

Welcome once again my friends to the lore that never ends, we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside Know Your Lore. This week, we look at the aftermath of the Second War and the years between it and the Third. A lot happened in this intermezzo between the drums of two wars, because in general it seems that Azeroth basically reels from crisis to crisis. I should also point out that in at least one case, a major lore figure dies in one source and yet is said to be alive later in a previous source. If you pay attention to Warcraft lore this will no doubt not surprise you terribly. At the end of the Second War, the Alliance forces destroyed the Dark Portal in a rather impressive bit of CGI for the time. Generally, it was hoped that Khadgar's little bit of pyrotechnics would end the threat of the Horde forever, as (the theory went) there would be no more reinforcements coming in through the portal. This act effectively broke the back of orcish resistance to the Alliance of Lordaeron's forces, and in so doing ended the war, as even Orgrim Doomhammer found himself captured and chained by the Alliance. Only Kilrogg Deadeye and those few forces directly under his command managed to evade capture and remained free. This would come back to cost the Alliance. However, in the immediate aftermath of the War, the nations of the Alliance found themselves divided on the question of what to do with the orcs, many of whom had sunk into a strange despondent lethargy with their defeat. Should they all be killed? If not, what else could be done with them?

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Spiritual Guidance: Paying the hybrid tax

by Fox Van Allen Jan 27th 2010 at 9:00PM

Every Wednesday, Fox Van Allen uses his dark, shadowy powers to take the reins of Spiritual Guidance, causing severe harm to others in the form of large, yellow five-digit numbers. Holy and disc brethren, alike -- come join the dark side before his shadowfiend eats you. Fact: Priests are pretty much awesome. It's because we're versatile. We can DPS the living snot out of Lord Marrowgar in shadow, and then change to discipline so we can cover the raid in Power Word: Shields and Renews for Deathbringer Saurfang. Heck, we can even do both. We're just that awesome. But awesomeness comes at a price, my friends, and that price is called the hybrid tax. It's the term commonly used to explain why our DPS is designed to lag behind that of mages, warlocks, hunters, and rogues -- the pure DPS classes. If you're a jack of all trades, you're supposed to be a master of none. (It's cool though, they need the handout. It really sucks not being a Priest.) We can be forgiven, though, for looking at Recount or a World of Logs parse and thinking that whatever the hybrid tax is, it's just way too high. But is it really? Are we finally doing the kind of damage that we should?

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Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance, Wrath of the Lich King

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It came from the Blog: Elwynn Extravaganza

by Robin Torres Jan 28th 2010 at 5:00PM

Last month, It came from the Blog ran from Orgrimmar to Elwynn Forest in order to punch Hogger and play at the Darkmoon Faire. We took the zeppelin to Grom'gol and then ran north through Stranglethorn Valley and into Duskwood. Continuing north, bypassing the mountains, we crossed the river into Elwynn Forest. Hogger was downed multiple times and there were hijinx to be had at the Faire.

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With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown.

We're continuing our looter's guide to the Icecrown Citadel. This week we're delving into the Crimson Halls. This is the vampire wing of the citadel and they're kicking it up in style. There are the pretty-boy vampires complete with glitter as well as the vampire vixen leading them. If only Buffy Summers were in my guild, this place would be cake. However, she'd probably end up in love with one of the blood princes and then they'd become good guys for a while which makes us start to care about them only to find out that it was all an elaborate ploy to trick the slayer into a ritual to turn the high school into a demonic portal to hell. Wait, I think I've actually seen that one.

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