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How to Get the Crusader Title in World of Warcraft

MD Weems — Fri, 20 May 2011 18:45:56 +0000

There are many aspects of World of Warcraft that make it incredibly addictive. It has the effect of making players want to “keep up with the Joneses”, so to speak. Tier gear, rare mounts, and achievements are just a few of the addictive traps Blizzard has built into WoW.

One of the newest ingame status symbols is the coveted Crusader title. Obtaining this title proves to everyone who sees you that have put in the work and you know what you’re doing. It’s a title that carries prestige and most people want it so they can also become a highly toted elite player in World of Warcraft. Not to mention earning the Crusader title also grants you access to purchase items only available to this group of elite players.

Living Among the Elite

There’s no question that players look at other players who have earned their Crusader title with respect. It has the same effect of a player who is decked out in many hard-to-get items. They’ve put in the work and time to aquire those things, and many people wish they could do the same. Besides the status of becoming a respected player in WoW, there are other benefits of earning your Crusader title and living among the elite.

Once you earn your Crusader title, you will have access to purchase items that are only available for sale the those who have earned the Crusader title. One of these items is the Argent Pony Bridle. Once you become a Champion at the Argent Tournament, you will receive a companion who you can summon to follow you around. That companion is essentially useless, until you purchase the Argent Pony Bridle.

The Argent Pony Bridle, when used, allows your companion to serve as a Bank, Vendor, or Mailbox, allowing you to access those things anywhere, without the need to go to a main city first. It’s a very nice item to be able to purchase, as it makes your companion incredibly useful, and can only be acquired once you have earned your Crusader title. Another major benefit of earning your Crusader title is it opens up the option to purchase Heirloom items by doing dailies alone, so they are much easier to acquire.

Earning Your Crusader Title

By now, you’re probably begging to know how you can earn the Crusader title for yourself. The requirements to earn the Crusader title are that you must earn the achievement Exalted Champion of the Alliance or Exalted Champion of the Horde. Unless you know exactly what you are doing, earning those achievements will prove to be difficult, tedious, and extremely time consuming.

You can try to brave the trenches and figure out for yourself how exactly to earn your Crusader title. However, myself, I would prefer to have guidance with someone walking me step-by-step through the entire process, making it a breeze. That’s why I set out in search for a guide that would help me earn my Crusader title quickly and easily. Zygor’s Dailies & Events Guide is the guide I finally chose to help me. It proved to be a much needed breath of fresh air, compared to other guides I tried during my search.

With Zygor’s guide, not only do they walk you step-by-step through the entire process of earning your Crusader title, but they show you how to get Hairlooms and make gold with dailies quickly and easily, as well. So, if you are in the same boat I was in, knowing what you want, but no idea how to go about obtaining it, I highly recommend Zygor’s Dailies & Events Guide to help you. Like me, you will not be disappointed with the results, I promise you. Want to get your own copy of Zygor’s guides? Click Here!

How to Get Heirloom Items Fast in World of Warcraft

MD Weems — Sun, 15 May 2011 18:44:04 +0000

As World of Warcraft continues to expand larger and larger, with the level cap increasing over time, it’s becoming more and more difficult for people to have multiple characters at max level. Everyone would like to have characters of all classes at level cap, but it is terribly time consuming to be able to do that.

Luckily, Blizzard has introduced, with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, a new type of item to help players level their alts quicker and easier than ever before. They are called Bind on Account items, or Heirlooms. In order to have access to get Heirlooms, you must already have at least one level 80 character, for the most part.

Power and Extra Experience

There are 2 awesome benefits of getting and using Heirloom items. The first benefit is they scale to your level. So, as you gain levels, the Heirloom item stats (armor, damage, etc) increase as well. This is really cool because it makes it unnecessary to upgrade most of your gear. Heirlooms have good stats, armor, and damage for your current level, so they keep you powerful and able to do quests quickly, which is a huge plus when trying to level up some alt characters.

The second, and probably most important, benefit is that some Heirlooms increase the experience points you gain from killing mobs and turning in quests by 10%. If you have 3 Heirloom pieces that give a 10% experience boost each, that’s a total of a 30% experience boost for your character while leveling to level 80. So, if it usually takes you 6 months total, real time, to level your alts, you could level that same character in about 4 months total. Just having Heirlooms could save you 2 months of your time! That’s pretty amazing, if you ask me.

Getting Your Own Heirlooms

The most popular way of getting Heirlooms, hands down, is by doing dailies. Getting a full set of heirlooms can be done pretty quickly by doing dailies, if you know what you’re doing. The whole point of heirloom items is to save you time. So, not only do you want to save time after you get your Heirlooms, but you should also look into saving time while in the process of getting Heirloom items.

The way to do that is with an optimized route of all the dailies you need to do in order to get the items to trade in for Heirlooms. Obviously, you can figure out your own path for doing this, but if you’re like me, you’ll want a guide written by professional gamers for the sole purpose of getting dailies done quickly.

There is a certain guide I use for all my dailies needs. It’s called Zygor’s Dailies & Events Guide. In their guide, they show you step-by-step how to get Heirloom items. As a bonus, they walk you through speed runs for making gold with dailies, as well as getting your Crusader title, which is needed to buy Heirlooms if you want to be able to buy them by doing dailies alone. If you want to get Heirlooms, gold, and your Crusader title fast, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Zygor’s guide.Click Here! Good luck!

Getting Back A Hacked WoW Account – What To Do

MD Weems — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 05:05:38 +0000

Every WoWHead’s worst nightmare is to have their World of Warcraft account hacked and stolen. Because when this happens, you know that everything on all of your toons will be gone and you’ll find them all standing naked somewhere – stripped of everything. Even with the best protection, even if you are super careful with everything on your computer and account, getting a WoW account hacked can still happen to the best of us… take me for example. I’ve been playing World of Warcraft for over 4 years now. I’ve had more accounts than I really care to mention, leveled tons of toons to 60, 70, 80 and now 85, and played every race that there is currently on the game. I probably know WoW better than I know what all is in my own damn house… yes, I know that’s sad… But, even I can be hacked. Thank goodness that Blizzard has streamlined the whole process of getting back a hacked account.

Two weeks ago, after the Tuesday update (before the Shattering), I checked my email after purchasing the Cataclysm update and found that there was an odd email from Blizzard saying that my email had been changed. Ok, freak out time – as I didn’t change my email! So, I immediately jump on the Battlenet site and try to get my account back. The problem is that you can’t use their automated thing to re-do your password, because, Hello, you don’t have access to that account! So, I sent in the online ticket request, and sat biting my fingers waiting.

Now, I currently have two accounts. The one that got hacked happened to be the one that I have a guild on with 4 tabs. With Cataclysm coming up, yes, my guild bank is stocked to the gills with specific items. All of my toons on that particular server are pretty rich as I’m an auction house fanatic. So, immediately I know that they’ve already cleaned out my toons as well as the guild bank. While I don’t have a large guild at all, (just me and two RL friends), we all use the bank to store things in as they place things in, I sell them for them, and shoot them the gold afterward. It’s a great system – and we trust each other, which is nice.

Ok, back to the hack. After waiting for about four hours without hearing anything, I get impatient and call Blizzard. It does take me seven minutes on hold to get to a person, but when I do, he is absolutely amazing on the phone from what I’ve experienced from their customer service previously. Within five minutes, I have my account back and he’s already entered tickets to get all my goods back on my toons and I’m logging in to my account again. Now, this was so easy because I am the owner of the account, I know the secret question and answer, and blah blah blah. If you don’t have this, yeah, there is no way in hell you’re getting an account – so NEVER give out this information to anyone.

After I get off the phone, it’s only about two hours and my mail boxes are full on all of my toons with everything that was stripped from them. Then, another hour and everything from the guild bank is back in my mail box. Amazing! Needless to say, I’m a happy camper now. And, needless to say, I purchased an authenticator right after that.

Now, the reason that this is so great to me is because in the Spring of 2008 I had my account hacked. I’ve had this account for almost two years, and I had gotten my favorite Warlock and DK of all time both to 80 and geared up. This was before the battlenet accounts and when it got hacked, the hackers managed to change the secret question so I no longer knew it. I never got this account back – and at least the account is locked and gone so the hackers can’t use it for gold selling either. On top of this, the people that I spoke to at Blizzard (two different customer service reps), were very hateful and rude to me. They did nothing but talk down to me as if I was a five year old that had no idea what I was doing, and I got no where with either of them aside from being pissed off when I hung up. I still grumble to this day about that account and that incident made me quit WoW for almost 9 months. So, to see the changes in their customer service and processes now is an amazing change for the better.

If you find yourself in the “hacked” category, don’t panic. I completely understand that you will panic, as I did, but calm yourself and then do yourself a favor and call Blizzard’s customer service line. Even if you have to wait on hold for ten minutes, it’s well worth it. Their customer service now is excellent in my opinion, and they will easily take care of you and help get you on the road to a full recovery of everything you lost. Keep in mind that hackers are coming up with brilliant new ways to get your account information, and you need to be scanning your computer daily for bots, keyloggers, and other spywear that can jack your info.

Pilgrim’s Bounty Information, Tips, And Tricks

MD Weems — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:36:23 +0000

Personally, I love the different World Events that WoW holds throughout the year. And, this year, I’ve noticed that some people aren’t up to speed on the Pilgrim’s Bounty event that is currently going on in Azeroth. This is basically a celebration of Thanks – with plenty of food. To help all of you out, I’ve taken the info from the World of Warcraft website on the Pilgrim’s Bounty and placed it for you here on FRPG, along with some helpful tips and hints to get you moving along faster in the achievement process. Enjoy!

Keep in mind that the main part of this information (in italics) is from the World of Warcraft website itself, the tips and hints are my own personal things I’ve learned in the game:

We invite you to celebrate Pilgrim’s Bounty with us. It’s a time for reflecting on your journeys and good fortune, sharing plentiful food, and stories with friends.

You can partake in wonderful Pilgrim’s Bounty feasts near major towns by sitting at a Bountiful Table and enjoying the foods you find there.

If you’re interested in learning the Pilgrim’s Bounty’s recipes, speak with an NPC outside any major city. Stuffing and potatoes are easy enough to put in front of a fire, but if you want to cook a turkey, you’ll need to catch one first. Unsling your trusty Turkey Shooter and prepare for the hunt.

Features

Type: Seasonal Holiday

Date: November 21 – 27

Locations:

Major Cities (Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdom Only): Stormwind, Ironforge, Darnassus, Exodar, Orgrimmar, Undercity, Silvermoon City, and Thunderbluff

Minor Towns: Goldshire, Kharanos, Dolanaar, Azure Watch, Razor HIll, Bloodhoof Village, Brill, Tranquilien, Ruins of Thaurissan, Shadowprey Village, Falconwing Square, Stonard, Hammerfall, Revantusk Village, Light’s Hope Chapel, Wildhammer Keep, Chilwind Camp, Southshore, Tarren Mill, Sepulcher

Bountiful Tables

Bountiful Tables are the centerpiece of the Pilgrim’s Bounty celebration. They are tables loaded with food and surrounded by interactive chairs that allow you to eat and share food with other players via the action bar.

A Bountiful Table is laid out with five different Pilgrim’s Bounty foods, one in front of each chair. Each chair has an unlimited supply of one food, and they are conveniently labeled: The Sweet Potato Chair, The Turkey Chair, The Stuffing Chair, The Cranberry Chair, and The Pie Chair. While in a chair, you may eat as much of that food as you like, as well as pass servings of that food to other players sitting in the chairs. Share the bountiful feasts with your friends!

If you eat five helpings of any single food, you’ll gain benefits unique to that food. In addition, if you eat five helpings of every food, you’ll gain the Spirit of Sharing which lasts one hour and increases reputation gained by 10%. This is accomplished much faster if you work together with your fellow feasters at passing food to one another.

***Tips: Holler at any of the other players around you if you have not gotten the “FOOD FIGHT!” achievement yet. To get this achievement, you need to target the player sitting down, and hit the “1″ hotkey to fling food at them. I have tried it without targeting the player and it seems to not work. Targeting them has worked every time after the second or third fling on 6 different toons of mine.

Daily Cooking Quests

Pilgrim’s Bounty also plays host to a series of daily cooking quests designed to help chefs master their craft with seasonal recipes plucked from a Bountiful Cookbook. These quests require players to travel between the major cities of Azeroth and to fill the stomachs of armies with seasonal food. The reward for these quests is a Turkey Caller, a prize that ensures that the accomplished pilgrim will never go hungry again.

Pilgrim’s Bounty Dish Cooking Level

Spice Bread Stuffing 1-100

Pumpkin Pie 100-160

Cranberry Chutney 160-220

Candied Sweet Potatoes 220-280

Slow-roasted Turkey 280-340

***Tip #1: ALWAYS make over 40 of each item. You will have to turn in 5 for one quest and 20 for another, and when you move to other locations to complete the other parts of these daily quests, you will need more to turn in as well. This saves you the time of making them when you get there, or not having the items you need to make them and having to go all the way back.

***Tip #2: Even if you have a toon that doesn’t have their cooking up, you can level it with these daily quests. Pick up a recipe book from the vendor, open it and take out the recipes. Learn the ones you have the skill to and then start these quests. Here’s the fastest way to do it: start with the spice bread stuffing and make enough to get you up to 100. You can easily do this even if you’re starting from level 1, as the spice bread you need is level 1 and so is the stuffing recipe.

When you have the stuffing done, you can turn that quest in and then move on to the next area to get the cranberries you need. Again, make enough to get you up to 220 at least. Keep doing this for all of the different items and you will easily level your cooking up to Master level in no time.

You will need a toon that is high enough to get the 300+ cooking skill, but even lower level toons can do well on these.

***Tip #3: The turkeys are a pain in the rear to get. But, you simply need to run around the area that they are in and shoot them quickly. You’ll find a ton of other players here trying to get their turkeys, so it’s a big competition! Good Luck!

Pilgrim Items

Pilgrim’s Hat

Pilgrim’s Attire

Pilgrim’s Dress

Pilgrim’s Robe

Pilgrim’s Boots

Turkey Shooter

***Tips: Always take the Turkey Shooter because you need them for an acheivement that involves shooting rogues of different races. This is a hard one to get, as you have to have one turkey shooter for each shot you take, meaning that you can’t use it over and over again. Once you have that achievement done, you can always get the other items later on.

Achievements

Here are the achievements that you can get with the Pilgrim’s Bounty event:

Darkmoon Faire Fun On The WoW Website

MD Weems — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:10:03 +0000

I’ll admit that I don’t always take a gander at the World of Warcraft website to find out what’s going on and then look like a noob in game when I ask something stupid. I have a feeling that there are more of you out there like I am, simply log in and go – without knowing the latest news. So, to help you out, here is one sweet change to the WoW website that you simply must see: the Darkmoon Faire site that will allow you to do some extremely fun things.

At the top of this screen, you will notice several different buttons. All of these are interactive features that will let you do several different things. The first, Azeroth’s Fortune, will give you the opportunity to discover your fortune by choosing three cards. Once you choose them, you will see what the cards are, and discover your fate. This is a fun little game and you can play it over and over, even picking the same three cards each time will give you a new fortune every time. It’s fun. Of course, everything has something to do with Cataclysm.

The next one, Discover Your Destiny, will allow you to choose your faction, then go through a test of 10 questions that will help you discover your true inner class. Now, you have to pay attention to the questions and the different answers at the bottom. Normally, I do these things and they are nowhere near the class I actually play or what I really like in the game. Here’s the funny thing about this one: I have played a Warlock in WoW since 2006 and was really amazed that is what my destiny came out as. Pretty cool if you ask me! Of course, I didn’t do it twice – go for it and see what your true destiny in game is…

Then, you have the image contest and the video contest. These are fun to check out, and you can choose your faction, then share and like the ones that you like the best. When you do, you’ll gain points for your faction that will show on the sliding scale on the main page. As of right now, the Horde is in the lead – only barely though – For the Horde! You can also upload your own images and videos to the site for a chance at winning as well. There are so

If you haven’t checked out this cool interactive area on the WoW site, then you are really missing out. Make sure that you do and that you don’t miss out on any of the sweet fun that can be had here.

New Cataclysm Launcher In WoW

MD Weems — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:54:16 +0000

For those that haven’t tried to log in yet with today’s patch 4.0.3, you will love the new World of Warcraft Cataclysm launcher that was released. Gone is the Wrath of the Lich King launcher with the wonderfully cold snow and ice, and in is Deathwing on top of burning buildings – super sweet in my gamer opinion. Change is normally good… and it is here in WoW today…. ok, as far as the launcher goes!

For those that haven’t seen the new launcher, here are a couple of screenshots that you must see!

See you in game!

World of Warcraft Patch Notes: Patch 4.0.3

MD Weems — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 02:21:10 +0000

Ready to see what the new patch holds for you tomorrow in WoW? Check out the official patch notes here!

World of Warcraft Client Patch 4.0.3

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

General

Much of the data being downloaded in patch 4.0.3 will pave the way for the shattering of Azeroth shortly before the release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm on December 7.
The leader of Wintergrasp raids can no longer kick players from the raid (this change will also apply to Tol Barad in Cataclysm).
When in a Looking For Dungeon group, using an instance portal to that instance will now take players to the Looking For Dungeon entrance point instead of the normal destination of that portal. This will make it easier to return to the instance after dying in an LFD group.
Honorable Kills are no longer awarded for killing players below level 5.

User Interface

Added pets to the new raid unit frames when displayed in party.
The default UI Scale has been altered so it will be set at a 1:1 pixel/texel ratio. This will result in a smaller UI appearance for higher resolution monitors.
Players may now adjust the local “Lag Tolerance” time for better precision of spell timing. This is an advanced-users-only feature found in the Interface Options (Combat) panel.

Bug Fixes

Macros now handle spell variant transitions better. For example, Trap Launcher causes a different version of Frost Trap to be cast. Previously the macro system was not handling this transition properly.
Queuing in Looking For Dungeon for a different wing of the instance a player is already in now works properly. For example, a party can now queue for Scarlet Monastery – Library after completing Scarlet Monastery – Graveyard.
Killing High Interrogator Gerstahn before killing Emperor Dagran Thaurissan in a Blackrock Depths – Upper City random Looking For Dungeon run will now provide the proper reward. This also applies to Archmage Arugal and the Crown Chemical Company bosses in Shadowfang Keep during the Love is in the Air holiday event.
Repeatedly inspecting other players should now function correctly.
Area heal-over-time effects should no longer cause players to stand up.
Male blood elves have received a crash course in dancing and now know to stop dancing when they run.
Drake mounts have gotten bored with gliding and will flap their wings again when flying forward.
Druid Flight Form now properly appears in the Spellbook before Expert Riding is learned.
Sunfire’s damage-over-time effect now deals damage at the same rate as Moonfire’s damage- over-time effect.
GM Ticket messages should now displace buff icons instead of obscuring them.

World of Warcraft Client Patch 4.0.1

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

Cataclysm Systems Patch

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will be in stores on December 7, 2010 and the time has come to prep for the official launch by implementing its first major patch. Players can experience many major game and user interface systems updates in the first official patch for the upcoming third expansion, patch 4.0.1.

General

Cataclysm Launcher Update
- The new Cataclysm Launcher allows you to stream game data while you play. This will reduce the time you spend downloading, installing, and patching World of Warcraft. We’d like to get your feedback on the toolset and gameplay experience. Please head to the forums here for additional information.
Reforging
- Players can now visit special Reforging NPCs in capital cities located near Enchanting trainers. 40% of any one secondary stat on an item can be allocated to add a new secondary stat to the item. The stat being added cannot already exist on the item. An item cannot have more than one reforged stat at a time, though the Reforging of an item can be undone and changed.

Dungeons & Raids

Flexible Raid Lock System
- Icecrown Citadel and Ruby Sanctum now use the new Flexible Raid Lock system. This system provides the opportunity for a character to defeat each raid zone’s encounters once a week. A character may now complete the encounters during the week with different raids of either 10 or 25 players.
- Learn more about this feature by visiting our official forums here.
Icecrown Citadel
- The Chill of the Throne effect has been removed.

Currency

PvE Currency Changes
- All Emblems of Frost and Emblems of Triumph have been converted to new Justice Points.
- Any dungeon or raid which awarded these emblems will reward Justice Points instead. Anything below Emblems of Triumph, including badges from The Burning Crusade dungeon and raid content, have been converted into gold and sent to players via the in-game mail system.
- Any bosses players defeat that are level-appropriate to them award Justice Points.
- All items that previously cost emblems or badges of any type now cost Justice Points.
- Higher-tier Valor Points will be awarded to players who kill dungeon and raid bosses in the latest tier of PvE content after the launch of Cataclysm.
PvP Currency Changes
- All Arena Points, Honor Points, Battleground Marks of Honor, Stone Keeper’s Shards, Venture Coins, and Spirit Shards have been converted into new Honor Points.
- Honor Points will be awarded instead of these currencies, with the exception of Arena Points.
- Higher-tier Conquest Points will be awarded to players competing in each of the latest Arena or Rated Battleground seasons after the launch of Cataclysm.
For more information on the changes to the currencies and conversion rates for each type, please visit ourCataclysm forum.

Classes: General

Many class talents, spells, and abilities have been overhauled, added, or removed.
All spell and ability tooltips will now display damage averages rather than minimum and maximum damage potential. This feature is on by default but can be changed via the Display settings under User Interface options.
Ammo has been removed from the game.
The character levels at which classes gain new spells and abilities have changed.
Many item and class stats have been changed or removed.
Mastery rating has been added as a new stat which provides unique benefits for characters based on class and talent specialization. Mastery rating does not currently exist on items in the game, however, Reforging can be used to add Mastery rating as a secondary stat to existing items.
Rage has been normalized.
Spells and abilities no longer have multiple ranks and now scale with character level.
Talent trees have been altered. All player talent specializations have been reset, allowing for free re-specialization.
- Each specialization has been reduced to a 31-point talent tree.
- Players will now get a total of 41 talent points to spend.
- Players will be asked to choose a specialization at level 10. Doing so will result in the unlocking of a spell or ability unique to that specialization, as well as one or more passive bonuses.
- Once a talent specialization has been chosen, players may only place points in the primary tree until at least 31 points have been spent there.
- The initial announcement regarding these talent tree changes can be found on our Cataclysm forum.

Death Knights

A dedicated tanking tree (Blood) has been implemented.
The effects of Blood Presence and Frost Presence have been exchanged.
The way in which runes recharge has changed.

Druids

A new Eclipse mechanic has been added for druids.

Hunters

Five pets can now be stored with the hunter at all times. Any one of these five pets can be summoned via the Call Pet ability.
Focus has replaced mana as a new resource.
Hunters now start with a pet at level 1.
The Stable will now store 20 pets. If a pet is moved into the Stable, its talents are wiped.

Mages

There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for mage portals. Clicking on the Teleport or Portal buttons will expand the list of choices available.

Paladins

Paladins now have a new resource bar.

Warlocks

There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for warlock pets. Clicking on this single button will open up the list of available pets to summon.
Soul Shards have been removed from the game as items. Instead, they now exist as a resource system necessary for using, or altering the mechanics of certain spells.

Items

Resilience no longer reduces the chance a player will be critically hit by an opponent.
Durability: cloth, leather, and mail now have as many points of durability as plate, making the repair cost on death much closer to equal for all classes.

Professions

The glyph system has been updated to now feature three different types of glyphs. Many class glyphs have been added, altered, or moved to different glyph types.

User Interface

Spell Alerts have been added to notify players when procs on select spells and abilities occur. A visual notification will display around the character and the activated ability will be highlighted on the action bar.
The Guild Interface has been redesigned to incorporate additional functionality, including new sorting and organizational options.
The Arena Teams pane has been improved.
The Character pane has been redesigned. Character stats can now be shown or hidden via the Show All Details/Hide All Details button on the bottom left. When shown, all character stats will be visible in a window to the right of the pane. Stat sections can be reorganized by clicking and dragging them up or down the pane.
The Professions panes now have more filtering and search functionality, as well as buttons to easily link recipes in the chat frame.
A Professions screen has been added to the Spellbook to better display the details of a character’s primary and secondary professions.
Many of the yellow System Messages that would display in the chat frame when leveling up have been removed.
New text animations now alert players as they level up, also providing information on when new talents, spells and abilities are available.
Professions and Class Trainers windows have been altered to more clearly display available and upcoming purchases.
New Raid frames are now available. They can also be used in place of the standard 5-player party interface via the User Interface options.
The Spellbook interface has been improved for greater ease-of-use and visual appeal.
For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

Graphics

Improved water and lava rendering system (Video Options – Liquid Detail on the Graphics Panel)
Dynamic Sunshafts effect (Video Options – Sunshafts on the Graphics Panel)
Multi-monitor support (Video Options – Monitor on the Graphics Panel)
OpenGL Hardware Cursor support for Windows (Video Options – Hardware Cursor on the Advanced Panel)
Experimental support for DX11 (enabled by passing ‘-d3d11′ on the command line or adding SET gxApi “d3d11″ to the Config.WTF file)

Hallow’s End In World of Warcraft

MD Weems — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:39:33 +0000

It’s that fun time of year again when Blizzard sets out Hallow’s End in World of Warcraft. Who could pass up the opportunity to be zapped into a pirate, a skeleton, or more? And what’s with those masks? Of course, who could forget some of the excellent treats that you’ll find in your bags as well as trick or treating the innkeepers of Azeroth? Well, if you aren’t familiar with Hallow’s End, then you need to learn all you can about it. Here is the official information from the World of Warcraft website on Hallow’s End:

**NOTE: The following information was taken directly from the Blizzard web site for World of Warcraft:

Observed by both the Horde and the Alliance, Hallow’s End is the celebration of the break between the Forsaken and the Scourge. Many tricks and treats await adventurers seeking holiday fun, including defeating the Headless Horseman, visiting inns and cities for fun items such as masks and costumes, and eating way too much candy in one sitting. Read below for more things to do during spooky season on Azeroth!

Features

Type: Seasonal Holiday

Date: October 18 – October 31st

Location: Cities and inns throughout Azeroth and Outland

Trick or Treat!

Every year during Hallow’s End, adventurers celebrate the time when the Forsaken broke away from the Scourge. Heroes for the Horde and Alliance can speak with any innkeeper and get a Treat Bag with a fun surprise inside! Open it as soon as you get it or else it will fade away. Be wary, though. The innkeepers are just as likely to trick you, changing your perspective on life.

In addition to the innkeepers with their tricks and their Treat Bags, adventurers can purchase sweets from vendors in Orgrimmar and Ironforge. If candy isn’t quite your thing, no problem! Every inn has a tub prepared for a game of Bobbing for Apples. Also, Jesper, an orphan in Stormwind, and Spoops, an orphan in Orgrimmar, are both sick and can’t join in the Hallow’s End festivities themselves. Brave adventurers can make these two children feel better by speaking with certain innkeepers and bringing the treats they give you back to the orphans as a gift.

The Wickerman Festival, which takes place outside the Undercity every evening, promises fun for the Horde and the Alliance! For those interested more in tricks than treats, Darkcaller Yanka wants members of the Horde to throw stink bombs at the Alliance town of Southshore. Sergeant Hartman in Southshore encourages members of the Alliance to do their best to stop the Horde lest they be stuck cleaning up the stink! To get back at the Horde, he’ll also ask you to crash the Wickerman Festival outside of the Undercity. Everyone is advised to sharpen their blades, tighten their girths, and prepare for battle!

Candy Buckets

What would Hallow’s End be without excessive amounts of sweet, sweet candy? Candy Buckets (prominently marked with an exclamation mark) are located in inns throughout Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, and Outland. Reach in and help yourself to a handful of assorted candy, which you then open by right-clicking it in your inventory. In addition, each candy bucket grants an experience point reward, or for maximum level characters, gold compensation. Note that you can only hold one Handful of Candy at a time, so make sure you open it before looting another candy bucket. Find all the candy buckets in each continent for achievements, and another achievement is earned by looting every last candy bucket in the land! If you’re wondering which candy buckets remain on your list, open up your Achievements panel and look for the relevant achievements under the “Hallow’s End” category, which itself is listed under “World Events.”

The candies themselves confer temporary beneficial effects upon eating them. One of the candies, G.N.E.R.D.S., are associated with one of the new Hallow’s End achievements – while under the effects of the G.N.E.R.D.S. buff, get 50 honorable kills on enemy players in player-vs-player combat. If your supply of G.N.E.R.D.S. is exhausted, you can obtain them from other players or from the auction house, as they are not soulbound.

The Headless Horseman

Adventurers who find themselves in Goldshire, Azure Watch, Kharanos, Brill, Razor Hill, or Silvermoon City may stumble upon the Headless Horseman as he flies over the town, inciting terror in the populace and setting their homes and buildings ablaze! Those who are brave of heart should talk to the Costumed Orphan Matron nearby to learn how they can help douse the flames and bring down the headless horror. Successfully fending off the Horseman’s attacks by extinguishing the fires is a daily quest. This quest is best attempted when other players are in the vicinity, as the intensity of the flames is too much for one player to reasonably handle.

Another daily quest leads players into the Scarlet Monastery in search of the dreaded Horseman. Heroes who wish to vanquish this scary shade once and for all can find his shrine located in the Scarlet Monastery graveyard. Once there, adventurers can summon and defeat him, ending his terrifying travails for good – and earning some fun and useful rewards in the process, including epic armor, seasonal broomstick mounts, a special pet, and even the Headless Horseman’s mount!

Rewards

Additional Information
Hallow’s End Pumpkin Treats – Eating these tasty treats can cause one of the following effects:
Grow in size by 30% and turn orange
Turn Ghostly…boo!
Turn into a skeleton with water breathing
Turn into a pirate with faster swim speed
Pumpkin Bags – Level 51-60 humanoid monsters have a chance to drop a rare 16-slot bag. Elite monsters have the highest chance to drop this handy prize.

WoW MMO Gaming Mouse From SteelSeries

MD Weems — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:56:22 +0000

Looking for some new gear for your PC just in time for the holidays? Well, SteelSeries – a trusted name when it comes to PC gaming equipment – is now offering a World of Warcraft: Cataclysm MMO gaming mouse. This sweet mouse has 14 different buttons for customizable controlls, and is created to look just like the armored exterior of Deathwing the Destroyer.

The sweet thing about this mouse is that you’ll find some excellent functions that work all with the game to deliver an even faster response time from your toon. Plus, you’ll be able to assign macros from inside the game directly to the mouse. You’ll also be able to save up to ten different toon profiles on the mouse, so that you can easily switch back and forth without much work at all. Of course, the cool thing is that along with the exterior that is specially designed for the game expansion, you’ll have a choice of around 16 million colors of different illumination options as well that you can customize to your liking.

The set up for the mouse is also extremely easy with over 130 preset game commands that you can simply drag and drop. You’ll also find that it works with all of the different versions of the PC game, for both MAC and PC.

Those going to Blizzcon will be able to see the mouse at the SteelSeries booth and you’ll be able to snatch one up in December when Cataclysm hits shelves around the globe.

New Cataclysm Video Trailer

MD Weems — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 17:26:12 +0000

If you don’t read up on the World of Warcraft website much, then you might be missing out on some sweet Cataclysm information. Don’t feel too bad though, as even I’m guilty of that same thing. So, imagine how much I wanted to kick myself when a friend told me that I had to check out the new Cataclysm trailer on World of Warcraft’s YouTube. Well, I had to take a look as she gushed about how freakin’ awesome it was.

Well, let me tell you, if you’re playing WoW and you haven’t seen the trailer, you seriously need to stop what you are doing and check the trailer out NOW. It will make a lot more sense of what’s going on in game right now, especially with the earthquakes. You’ll learn what’s causing the earthquakes in the trailer and you will also learn about the huge dragon on the cover and on the new loading screen.

So if you haven’t seen the new trailer, make sure that you head over and check it out right now… don’t wait…. we’ll still be here when you get back….