Big News of the Week
Blizzcon is sold out! Shocked faces everywhere! “If you were unable to purchase tickets, a limited number of tickets to an exclusive pre-BlizzCon dinner to benefit Children’s Hospital of Orange County will go on sale Saturday, May 28 at 10 a.m. PT (BlizzCon admission included). For those unable to attend the show, in-depth coverage of BlizzCon will also be available through the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket, which is offered as a multi-channel Internet stream and also via DIRECTV in the United States. BlizzCon 2011 will take place October 21 and 22 at the Anaheim Convention Center. Tickets to the BlizzCon Benefit Dinner cost $500 USD each and include BlizzCon admission. For further information, check out the official BlizzCon site.”

Patch 4.2: We Bid Thy Keyring Adieu! Blizzard says: “World of Warcraft has evolved quite a bit since the day the Keyring bag slot was added in patch 1.11. When implemented, this Keyring provided players with a convenient way of storing dungeon, quest, and other keys automatically. Back when the largest bag was a mind bottling 18 slots – rumoured to be bottomless – the Keyring helped save precious bag space. But as things tend to do, time went on, bags got bigger, and designs for gating content (literally and figuratively) evolved through the years.”

A list of the keys that are staying in the game.

Chinese prisoners forced into WoW “goldmining” scheme, says detainee. “In what could be considered the most modern form of prisoner torture know, prisoners in a labor camp in northeastern China have allegedly been forced to play MMORPG’s like World of Warcraft in an elaborate scheme said to net prison bosses approximately $800 to $900 per day.”

Rumors & Scuttlebut
We are experiencing technical difficulties! Cataclysm Raid Difficulty Progression.

Firelands Difficulty, and the Indirect Players Buffs that are coming.

How about some Firelands Q and A!

Drop of the Week
Search for Warcraft Cakes in Google Image search (thx Bill W.)

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Big News of the Week
Cross-Realm Dungeon Finding Coming Soon. But it’ll cost ya. And according to Blizzard, everyone will come back from Rift eventually. We talk about it.

Rumors & Scuttlebut
Capping Mastery Harder in 4.2. We are in the process of trying some different numbers for various talents and mechanics on the PTR, with the goal of making it harder (or impossible) to cap mastery. What we want to avoid is making mastery worthless or causing other undesirable effects. If we are successful, we will adjust the other tanks to be relatively balanced with paladins again. If we aren’t successful, we know what the fall back position is (basically what we have now). This according to Blizzard.

We also talk about the latest Professions Q and A.

Drop of the Week
The ex-Blizzard dev hopful, Hellgate London, goes free to play! “Circa 2007 Hellgate: London was a wildly anticipated massively multiplayer action RPG. The development team responsible for the game was headed by a group of ex-Blizzard Entertainment employees who had worked on the Diablo series, and fans were hoping they could translate that same kind of addictive gameplay into the online space.

Unfortunately, the game suffered a rocky launch. Patches to fix Hellgate’s numerous (if not entirely atypical for the genre) bugs were announced and then never released. Fans began losing faith in the developer, and many jumped ship back to MMO stalwart World of Warcraft.”

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Big News of the Week
World of Warcraft Subscriptions Dropping. “World of Warcraft’s subscriber base seems to be slowly dropping off, as revealed in today’s Activision Blizzard investor call. The number of current World of Warcraft subscribers as reported by Blizzard President Mike Morhaime stands at 11.4 million, notably less than the 12 million subscriber milestone achieved by the game last October.

Morehaime says that Blizzard Entertainment’s focus is on speeding up the development of new content for existing players, assumedly in an effort to retain them for longer. Blizzard has famously taken their time with development, often waiting until only a month or two before launch to announce a release date. “ Some good bits on this over at Curse. “During today’s Activision Blizzard earnings call, World of Warcraft and its expansion Cataclysm were two very hot topics. Listeners asked a number of questions related to the game, more than any other title or franchise in the publisher’s stable.

Of note, World of Warcraft’s subscriber base has reached pre-Cataclysm levels, according to Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment. He then later stated an actual number, with subscriptions at the end of March clocking in at right around 11.4 million.

That’s down by about 5% from the announced 12 million mark late last year. Interestingly enough, that was right before Cataclysm released. In fact, it’s actually lower than the milestone reached in 2008 with the release of Wrath of the Lich King.

But one important thing to point out, and Mr. Morhaime touched on this as well, is that World of Warcraft’s subscriber base does not change linearly. It fluctuates based on content consumption, which players seem to be doing a whole lot of — at a more rapid pace — with Cataclysm. “”Subscriber levels have decreased faster than previous expansions,”" he said.

Surprising? Not really. We have to remember that when these numbers were pulled, Cataclysm was in a bit of a lull. The expansion had been out for close to four months, and most of its content had been consumed by a large percentage of the player base — aside from heroic raids.”

Druid, Warlock, and Shaman T12 show up. Oh My!!

Rumors & Scuttlebut
Black Temple Raid Instance Map. Diablo III beta coming soon, game possible for end of 2011
While not entirely wow related, this is good news for any long time Blizzard games fan. This 3rd installment of the Diablo series can’t get on my hard drive fast enough.

Drop of the Week
Are video games a form of art? “Whatever your views are, the Smithsonian American Art Museum has released a list of titles to be showcased in its exhibition “”The Art of Video Games”"–and the choices are bound to fuel debate.
The retrospective show is set to run from March 16 through September 30, 2012, and will feature blockbuster games such as Donkey Kong, Super Mario Brothers, SimCity, The Legend of Zelda, Metal Gear Solid 2, and Halo 2, as well as lesser-known titles.”

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Big News of the Week
Scott is back in wow! The problem seems to have fixed itself, and that’s ok by him. Tier 12 Models Preview – It’s Warrior Warrior time! Let’s have a look at some mounts! Authenticator field removed from the main login screen? Why was that again?

Rumors & Scuttlebut
Ragnaros doesn’t look stupid anymore. Public Test Realms for 4.2 coming online…soon! Does that mean things are coming sooner than we thought? And the Dungeon Journal laid out for all to see.

Blizzard wieghs in on the CC changes coming to 4.2
“Dungeon Finder has suffered in Cataclysm because many of the Heroics are quite difficult for uncoordinated groups. That point is almost impossible to dispute. Some of the more elite players may say, “Good! Dungeon Finder was a stupid idea.” If you don’t adhere to that argument — and we don’t — there are basically two choices: make the dungeons so easy that they don’t require communication, or make the communication easier. We like for dungeons to be challenging, but we don’t like when the challenges are logistical in nature.

You still need to know which targets to CC, which creatures are immune to which forms of CC, make sure you don’t break the CC, etc. And that is ignoring all of the many ways to fail that aren’t related to CC (such as say most boss encounters).”

Drop of the Week
Cenarion Hatchling on the Blizzard store now, for Japan Earthquake Relief. According to the official blizzard posting: “Introducing the latest World of Warcraft companion up for adoption in the online Pet Store: the wild and noble Cenarion Hatchling! This little critter is the twin of the rare Hippogryph Hatchling pet players could randomly encounter in the first World of Warcraft Trading Card Game set, Heroes of Azeroth — and he’s emerged from the forests of Azeroth to lend a helping talon to some friends in need. For every Cenarion Hatchling purchased between now and July 31, 100% of the $10 USD adoption fee will be donated to the American Red Cross’s Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami relief efforts. This support will enable the Red Cross to provide shelter, food, emotional support, and other assistance to victims of this disaster.”

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