The whole crew is here, ready to nail down the latest in Anzerothian goodness. Shall we begin?

How you will roll in 4.3, two new TV spots hit the spot, happy birthday to wow, future Blizzcon plans, MoP talent calculator is out, and get Starcraft II on the cheap today, and MORE! Your emails, calls, and some interesting side talk about Skyrim, and the future of leveling systems in RPG’s.

Special thanks to our sponsors this week: Audible.com, Doghouse Systems, Rage Quit Relief, and Typefrag.com.

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Dills is back, and all three of us are ready to rock! Skyrim might just inform a bit of the conversation today, but not too much, we promise.

Mass layoffs turned out to be a mass lie, Vivendi sells a bunch of Blizzard stock, new WoW ad airing this sunday, 4.3 valor changes and what that means, 1000 guilds have killed heroic Rag, your calls, your emails, Gamestop wants to save new WoW players some money, and Minecraft Stormwind is something to behold!

Special thanks to our sponsors this week: Audible.com, Doghouse Systems, Rage Quit Relief, and Typefrag.com.

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

Dills is in Vegas, but that did not stop us from chatting it up about WoW, even on Skyrim day.

Big News of the Week
WoW subscriber numbers down to 10.3 million players. During today’s Activision Blizzard investor call, it was announced that WoW has a total of 10.3 million players. This is down from the 11.4 million subscribers announced in March 2011. That means that 1.1 million players no longer play the game, a decline of about 10%.

In the call, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said that the majority of the subscriber loss happened in the east. There was no mention of specific subscriber numbers in the United States. Blizzard also declined to provide a subscriber forecast.

-Most of the subscriptions were lost in China.
-There is normally an increase in subscriptions around December.
-The decreased profit came from all of the games in development and no launches occurring.
-There will be at least two major releases next year.

Patch 4.3 now available on the Background Downloader. In an effort to save my PM box from imploding, I had to do a breaking news to tell everyone that the Patch 4.3.0 is now available on the background downloader for both EU and US players.

It doesn’t actually mean much, it just means that we reached the point where Blizzard is comfortable enough to release most of the static assets to the live client while they finish polishing the PTR one. There was no release candidate build on the test realms and I don’t really see the patch happening right now, you can all calm down.

Rumors & Scuttlebut
Some Q and A is just what the doctor ordered (bits from the Class Design & Balance Q&A). Plus, Patch 4.3 – The New Darkmoon Faire is on Test Realms!

Drop of the Week
Get your replica wardrobe on! The very first class armor sets from the old level 60 5-man dungeons are back in the game, or at least replicas of them are back and you can buy them for Transmogrification purposes!

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
– The iTunes Subscription
– The Zune Feed
– The Frogpants Ultra Feed (iTunes)

Dills has no internet today, but that did not stop Scott and Turpster from doing voice impressions of him. Plus:

Big News of the Week
Big Number Syndrome – Hey, our stats are growing exponentially. If you look at everything from the Strength on a weapon to the damage being done by a Fireball crit or the amount of health the Morchok boss has, they look downright absurd compared to the numbers for level 60 characters in the original shipping version of World of Warcraft. It’s not exactly a surprise that we were going to end up here, and we knew where we were going every step of the way, yet regardless, here we are.

Guardian Cub Tradable Pet Now Available! – “Now available in the Pet Store: the new and titanically cute Guardian Cub companion. Orphaned by its titan creators, the fledgling Guardian Cub has taken wing to look for a happy home. Adopt one today and it will stay by your side through thick and thin, following your character just about anywhere your adventures take you—even into the skies of Azeroth.

The Guardian Cub is the Pet Store’s first tradable pet, meaning it can be swapped between characters in-game or given as a gift to guildmates, friends, family, or that special someone (after a cooldown period — see below). Due to his finicky nature, each Guardian Cub will only give its allegiance to one owner, meaning it’s a one-time-use pet that permanently binds to a single character. Be sure to choose a master wisely.”

AHSPY is tracking how the cub is doing on your servers.

Rumors & Scuttlebut
Patch 4.3 Dragon Soul Raid Mounts. One of the latest PTR builds added 2 mounts to the Dragon Soul loot tables, the Life-Binder’s Handmaiden drops from Madness of Deathwing (last encounter of the Dragon Soul raid) in Heroic Mode. People defeating Madness of Deathwing in normal mode will be rewarded with Reins of the Blazing Drake.

Patch 4.3 World Map and Minimap Improvements. “The minimap has an improved menu and will let you track a couple more things, including archaeology and questing areas. You can now track areas on your minimap, archaeology sites and quest objectives areas will now be displayed directly on the minimap! The world map now (finally) shows the level of regions on mouseover.”

Drop of the Week
The World of Warcraft Annual Pass has been expanded to include more countries and is now available in Russia, Switzerland, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and more.

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)