Big show today! Let’s jump right in!

Big News of the Week
The All New Darkmoon Faire…we break it down.

We know what the blizzcon pet is Murkablo! An ill omen streaks across the sky over Azeroth’s Great Sea, heralding the arrival of this year’s BlizzCon-exclusive World of Warcraft in-game companion: the fearsome-ish Murkablo, aquatic protégé of Diablo III’s eponymous Lord of Terror! Anyone who attends BlizzCon 2011 or purchases this year’s BlizzCon Virtual Ticket will receive a Murkablo to call their own, along with a yet-to-be-revealed StarCraft II in-game gift.

World of Warcraft Mobile Armory updated to version 3.1.0. The World of Warcraft Mobile Armory for iPhone was updated earlier today to version 3.1.0. The update adds improved mobile auction house functionality, visual tooltips in chat, additional guild features, and other general quality-of-life improvements to bring the mobile app up to par with Battle.net’s latest web interface and expected on-the-go functionality.

Rumors & Scuttlebut
Can I transmogrify my legendaries? You will not be able to transmogrify using a legendary item as either the source or the recipient of a change. This system is going to launch with fairly conservative rules, so that we can get it up and running as soon as possible and make fun improvements down the road. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that we’ll eventually allow transmogrification to use the twill set or [insert your favorite item here], but probably not for the initial launch of the feature.

Blizzard ‘very, very serious’ about console Diablo 3. Blizzard is still playing coy about Diablo 3 on consoles, talking about the possibility without actually formally announcing anything. During a Gamescom press conference, lead designer Josh Mosqueira said Blizzard is “”very, very serious about bringing the Diablo 3 experience to the console. According to Eurogamer, he followed up by affirming that the company is “”trying to build the best console team at Blizzard”" with the express intent of working on Diablo. Last year, Blizzard said it was “exploring a Diablo-related concept.” Earlier this year, CEO Mike Morhaime said the company was “doing an investigation” into the idea of Diablo on consoles. Then in June, it posted a job listing for a “PlayStation 3 Specialist”

Blizzard Dota hits the reset button!

Drop of the Week
Diablo III community site is UP! Our new Diablo III community site is now live! Welcome to your sanctuary for all the latest developments from New Tristram and beyond, featuring community forums and regular blog updates. You can post comments and share Diablo III news items via Twitter, Facebook, and other popular social media outlets, and be sure to check out the new Diablo III news feed regularly.

Special thanks to our sponsors this week: Squarespace (use code WOW6), Audible.com, Doghouse Systems, Rage Quit Relief, and Typefrag.com.

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– The MP3 File
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We kick things of with a sizable chat regarding the free-2-play movement, and where Blizzard might fit into that, including the idea that Starcraft go down the AOE road a little. But then, oh what a meaty show we have for you today! Just get listening!

Big News of the Week
Void Storage: A variety of items can be placed into Void Storage — including soul-bound items and Battle.net Account Bound items — making it the perfect location to store trophies from past conquests, as well as armor you may want to hold onto for Transmogrification. It will cost you to store or remove. NOT intended to be an extended bank of regular items you use. Includes bag searching, which will apply to regular bags and bank as well. 1000 gold to unlock.

Transmogrifier: The Transmogrifier NPC, which will let you change the appearance of any armor piece on you, while retaining the stats of your current gear. (= T12 stats, but with the Tier 2 look!). Players won’t be able to change the appearance of their armor into another armor type or class armor set, and you might have to own the armor before you can use it to swap the appearance of your existing armor. Visiting a Transmogrifier will present players with a new interface that will allow them to change the appearance of an item while retaining its original stats. This means that you can raid in your paladin tier 12 Immolation set, but look like you’re wearing Lightbringer, while priests can bring Benediction back — at least in spirit. Hunters can once again roam the jungles of Stranglethorn Vale in their tier 2 Dragonstalker set.

Raid Finder: The Raid Finder will be introduced in Patch 4.3, it will work like the Dungeon Finder.

5-Man Instances: 3 new 5-man instances will be added in this patch. One of the instance will be in the Caverns of Time, for the War of the Ancients.

New Raid: Deathwing raid will be the final raid of the expansion. You will even get to ride on Deathwing’s back during the fight, apparently to take him down over multiple phases. The project for an Abyssal Maw is gone for the moment, the storyline wasn’t convincing enough/fitting. All the 4.3 goodness can be found here!

Threat in World of Warcraft is still a threat. Also very threating. Also, hunters no longer care that much about Misdirect! The threat generated by classes in their tanking mode has been increased from three times damage done to five times damage done.

In an upcoming patch: Vengeance no longer ramps up slowly at the beginning of a fight. Instead, the first melee attack taken generates Vengeance equal to one third of the damage dealt by that attack. As Vengeance updates during the fight, it is always set to at least a third of the damage taken in the last two seconds. It still climbs from that point at the previous rate, still decays at the previous rate, and still cannot exceed the current maximum.

Rumors & Scuttlebut
Character Activity Charts! The fine folks at MMO Champion have the skinny. So turns out, no one is playing their effing DeathKnight.

Drop of the Week
Free Shipping From FigurePrints Through Sept. 15! Take advantage of this hot summer deal by getting free shipping on all World of Warcraft FigurePrints ordered now through September 15 and shipped within the United States or Canada. Discounted rates to Europe are also being offered as part of this limited-time offer. If you’ve been considering a custom World of Warcraft character statue of your own, now is the perfect time to save some cash.

Special thanks to our sponsors this week: Squarespace (use code WOW6), Audible.com, Doghouse Systems, Rage Quit Relief, and Typefrag.com.

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– The MP3 File
– The RSS Feed
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– The Zune Feed
– The Frogpants Ultra Feed (iTunes)

We start by making sure things are ok in London for Turpster. But then, we dive in!

Big News of the Week
Void Storage and Transmogrifier – Patch 4.3 Teasing? We try and read the palms of Blizzard to find out. Also, check out these awesome character gender stats!

Rumors & Scuttlebut
EA shares jump 9% on analyst optimism over upcoming Star Wars game. We try and make sense of why this might be.

Drop of the Week
SteelSeries Announces Third ‘World of Warcraft’ MMO Mouse! SteelSeries announced the next in its line of Blizzard-licensed World of Warcraft mice, the World of Warcraft MMO Gaming Mouse Legendary Edition. It’s a mouthful, we know. The new mouse is the follow-up to the equally lengthily-named World of Warcraft Cataclysm MMO Gaming Mouse ($99.99 direct, 3.5 stars). However, where the Cataclysm mouse takes after Deathwing, the Legendary Edition’s design is inspired by the Thunderfury sword of lore – though it looks more like it takes after cracked earth with fissures of lava running throughout.

Special thanks to our sponsors this week: Squarespace (use code WOW6), Audible.com, Doghouse Systems, Rage Quit Relief, and Typefrag.com.

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– The MP3 File
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– The Frogpants Ultra Feed (iTunes)

We start things off talking about the state of PVP and what Dills is finding fun on that side of the game lately.

Big News of the Week
Diablo 3 to feature player-to-player real money auction house for virtual items. Diablo 3 will sport a couple of in-game auction houses to sell items from player to player. One will be run entirely with in-game gold (very similar to the current WoW Auction House), and one will let players sell and buy items with actual money. We have a BIG analysis of this eventuality, and what it might mean for WoW in the end.

The BlizzCon 2011 Virtual Ticket is now available for purchase around the world!

Rumors & Scuttlebut
Blizzard just trademarked a very interesting “Mists of Pandaria“. And we talk a bit about this: World of Warcraft lost another 300,000 Subscribers last quarter.

Drop of the Week
The RAID finally gets a premier date! (Aug. 6th 2011), is the live stream event for The Raid documentary film. We hope that you can join us!

When: Saturday, August 6th, 2011 6 PM PST
Where: Gamebreaker.tv, Curse.com, and MMO-Champion.com
What: There will be a pre-show interview with director Kevin Michael Johnson, a screening of the entire film, and a post-show with special guests and Q&A.

Brought to you by: Curse.com, Gamebreaker.tv, and TypeFrag”

Special thanks to our sponsors this week: Squarespace (use code WOW6), Audible.com, Doghouse Systems, Rage Quit Relief, and Typefrag.com.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

– The MP3 File
– The RSS Feed
– The iTunes Subscription
– The Zune Feed
– The Frogpants Ultra Feed (iTunes)