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Ooh. Things are getting excited as the next spectacular World of Warcraft patch – patch 3.3 is getting closer. Here’s some interesting news to still your eager for more adventure:
• Patch 3.3 Release Date Speculation – With things progressing pretty steadily on the 3.3 PTR, everyone is already beginning to speculate about the patch’s release date. However as Blizzard have only begun testing a small part of the long awaited raid of Icecrown and we’re still waiting to see the spectacular 5-man encounter with Arthas himself in Halls of Reflection. As been mentioned, this is supposed to be the last major patch before the release of Cataclysm, expect it to take a good amount of weeks before we can conquer Arthas. Maybe even as long as in December or after New year, only time will tell.
• Patch 3.3 New Spirit Beast? - The data-mining masters have come up with an interesting tidbit for us this week (especially for Hunters). In the patch 3.3 PTR data files there is a model of a blue, glowing ethereal bear, looking very much like a bear form spirit beast! This idea certainly makes sense since we already have 2 cat form spirit beasts and one wolf form one, the bear would seem a perfect fit to begin to round out the collection. Now, don’t get too excited as nothing has been confirmed yet, but You’d better believe we’ll be watching out for some confirmation on this one!
• Patch 3.3′s New Tutorial System – Patch 3.3 has seen some changes while on the PTR that aim to improve the starting experience for new characters most likely in preparation for the release of Cataclysm next year. Now, in addition to streamlining the first few levels, increasing mana regen at lower levels and allowing Rogues to dual wield from the very start Blizzard has also added a new tutorial system for beginners. This system will have larger windows than the old one and will contain pictures and other visual aids to help players know where to go, what to do or which buttons to press on the UI. This gives us yet another good example of Blizzard doing things to continue to draw in new subscribers.
• New LFG Interface on the PTR – With the latest build of the PTR, Blizzard has included the new Looking For Group interface which is currently in the works. If you remember correctly an announcement was made at BlizzCon in August that they would be implementing a more permanent fix to the “Additional Instances” error players were pretty consistently getting a couple of months ago when attempting to enter instances. Well the beginning of this solution is finally on the PTR now.
• New and Updated Achievements on the PTR - There were some changes pushed to the PTR this week which included the addition of some new achievements and also some changes to existing ones. One of the most exciting, I think is the new title that was added for PVP season 8 and the new Frostwyrm pet also available to season 8 arena players.
• Ulduar Drakes Not Being Removed (Yet) – Blizzard poster, Bornakk was able to clear something up for us this week that a lot of guilds still working on their Ulduar Drakes have been wondering…will they be removing this reward with the release of Patch 3.3? Well the answer he gave was no. Blizzard has not changed anything about their previous policy regarding the drakes, there will still be a one month notice before these achievement rewards will be gone forever. I’m kind of thinking that since they have stated that they have no “current” plans for the removal of the Drakes, that there is a certain percentage of guilds or players that they would like to see get them first.
• Icecrown Raid Tests Continue – This past week on the PTR, players have continued to test the available bosses in Icecrown. This week the Festergut and Rotface encounters were made available and also (after some waiting) the Icecrown Gunship Battle was available for testing as well. According to Blizzard sources Festergut and Rotface are part of the Plagueworks wing of the Citadel and were created by Professor Putricide. These two are abomination type creatures so we can expect serious ugliness and disease from them I’m sure. As for the Gunship Battle…This is soo cool! I mean who doesn’t want to fight an epic airship battle alongside the greatest faction heroes ever?? Oh and did I mention there are jet packs?? Way cool! Anyhow, later this week players will also be able to test Sindragosa and Valithria Dreamwalker (US realms) and Lady Deathwhisper and Professor Putricide (EU realms).
• Race Change Service Delayed - Many WoW fans are growing a bit impatient over the lack of availability of the race change service. The option for this has been a part of the Account management page for a while now with a “coming soon” label on it. Many players figured this would be released along with or shortly after the faction change service was implemented and yet we are still waiting. In a thread over on the forums this week, Blizzard poster Zarhym responded to a post about the subject saying that they are “still working on it”. Well, obviously! If there is one thing we know it’s that Blizzard (like the rest of us) likes money, so as soon as a paid service is up and running properly players can be assured that it will be online and ready for them to spend their hard earned dollars on! Zarhym also goes on to say that they are focused on the Battle.net conversions and making sure the account services there are able to support the entire WoW population along with the paid services already offered.
• Arctic Furs Post 3.3 – This week we learned that on the PTR, Arctic Furs are now being sold by Braeg Stoutbeard. Braeg is the recipe vendor outside of Legendary Leathers in Dalaran and he currently has the impossible to farm furs for the low price of 10 Heavy Borean Leather. Now, since these furs are needed for everything from leg armor to motorcycles and as a skinner I probably only see one of these every week or so I think most people will agree that this is a VERY welcome change!
• Will 3.3 Bring Cross Faction BoA Item Transfers? - Blizzard poster Zarhym stated this week that they are aiming to allow Bind on Account (BoA) items to transfer between factions as of patch 3.3. This would mean that your characters of the opposite faction on the same account could receive BoA items through the mail or some other means not yet indicated. This is huge news for players leveling alts of the opposite faction or even players with high level characters of both factions. Please remember though that this is something the devs are AIMING for so we may see it but we also may not…but I do hope so!!
• Rate Anything in Azeroth With WoW Ratings – We came across a new site this week called wowratings.com, it’s a site which is basically a database of everything in World of Warcraft from bosses to zones to game features and NPC’s where players can rate all of these things on a scale from 1 to 5. the ratings don’t actually mean anything but it’s pretty cool to see what people think overall. Do other players love/hate the same things you do? Head over to wowratings.com to find out and remember this is not designed to be a resource so much as it is designed to be a source for player opinions and honestly to be a bit silly so have some fun with it!
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