Please keep Dalaran level restricted   First off, I realize these are the beta forums and we are meant to be polite – but please learn to spell. Second – what does it hurt you or the other people against arbitrary travel restrictions if lower level people can go to Dalaran? Does it wound your sense of specialness somehow?   Restricting travel by level is just wrong, stupid and unfair. There are usually higher level items associated with the higher end of professions, like Shadowcloth or Spellcloth. As a level 58 who just entered Outlands you can power level the profession with the backing of a 70 and then continue to flood the market with overpriced Shadowcloth/Spellcloth/Mooncloth. Putting the level restriction on Dalaran makes that not as easy, and makes having a Grand Master in a certain profession a lot harder to come across like it should be. Also its Dalaran, its supposed to be there for the highest level players in the game, not for alts to use as a transport city.   If its anything like The Burning Crusade its a bad idea, it makes the “best in

BigRedKitty: Defaming character since January, 2007 Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. We were much too busy “earning a paycheck” and “keeping Mrs BRK in a manner in which she demands” to attend Blizzcon. But that doesn’t mean we’re incapable of scoring a major, one-on-one interview with an important someone at Blizzard. When one talks with a person who controls the fantasies and desires of eleven million people, one would expect that person to have a slightly elevated ego, and perhaps a bit of pride at all he’s accomplished. This was hardly the case. For most of the interview, our subject mumbled incoherent phrases like: “… 1800+ in 3v3 and he wants more cowbell…” “… I told him, I’m a Shaman, not a doctor…” “… and you will know my name is the Lord, when I strike down my Warglaive upon

 Scattered Shots: Getting started with talents in 3.0.2 as a Beast Mastery Hunter Before we get into the meat of this week’s column, I have a confession to make. I was tempted to make a very short column that consisted primarily of a recording of me making squealing noises that you would generally only expect to come from a giddy schoolgirl, punctuated by a bit of gibberish that might sound something like “Aspect of the Dragonhawk.” But that said, there’s a lot of other things I could talk about, and I won’t leave you hanging. It’s a busy time in WoW, and Hunters have a lot of stuff to do now that 3.0.2 is out. By now, hopefully, your server has calmed down enough for you to get on, play around with learning all your companions and mounts, and start trying to figure out talent specs. Hopefully by now, you’ve seen some of our articles on the subject, such as Big Red Kitty’s Hunter and Pet Talent overviews, and David Bowers’ guide to exotic pets currently available in game. They’re great resources, so I’m not going

Will there be any nerfs for class balance   PVP wise will moonkins armor/damage reduction be “toned down” so they don’t play like mages in plate? Or how about, again PVP oriented, will druids continue to have as much mana regen-to-healing ratio (ie little mana for large heal with large mana regeneration) coupled with the ability to regen mana in bear form with current survivability that appears to not be balanced in comparison to the rest of the healing classes in the game?   I think this covers a little bit of the balance problems that were uncovered by blizz when they charted the makeup of arena teams. From seeing all the top rated arena teams with druids, the amount of a single spec (moonkind/resto) and experience of playing arenas that would be a pretty obvious question of “is this intended or unbalanced?” to me. Again, like i said, all of your concerns seem very vague and not really backed up with facts.   Team Makeup – 2000+ rating: 2v2 Warrior/Druid 33% Rogue/Druid 21% Warlock/Druid 16% Rogue/Priest 16% Rogue/Mage 13%

So I have an extra beta invite I was fortunate enough to be part of the alpha and I also was at blizzcon. Which means I have an extra beta invite.   So the question is what to do with it.   If a blue wants to come up with something fun (a competition or anything really.) I’d be happy to hand that code off for the blue to award at their discretion.   If thats “ok to do” and the beta code itself isn’t linked to my account in any way.   Possible? Thoughts?    

Breakfast Topic: Unofficial BlizzCon achievements If you’re going to BlizzCon, you don’t have to wait for Echoes of Doom to come out to get a head start on racking up achievements, at least according to the playful commentary going on in the forums right now. Here’s a taste of some of the humorous achievements they’ve suggested you can earn at BlizzCon. ·         I Have No Use for This - Try to sell a piece of junk to any vendor at BlizzCon ·         Ruler of BlizzCon – Survived both days of BlizzCon without sleeping, eating, and showering (Blue poster Bashiok begs you not to attempt this one) ·         Savior of the Public – Brought enough soap for yourself and at least 1 other person (takes achievement away from Ruler of BlizzCon) ·         I put on pants for this! – Worry about the fact that you’re missing a raid with your guild ·         Defender of the Throne - Order a greasy, overpriced hamburger from the convention center floor and spend at least 2 hours on the john

Overheard at BlizzCon 2008: A real, live Blue   Scene: Just outside the BlizzCon badge pickup area, the Thursday before BlizzCon, 10 minutes before 4pm badge pickup. Crowd: (Mills around, is huge, waits patiently, talks occasionally about everything from the Protoss to the weather. Throws out a random “WoW Insider rocks!” yell as we pass by — thanks for that!) BlizzCon Employee: (Steps out of Convention Center to address the crowd) Hi everyone! We’re going to open up the doors here in just a minute, but we will not be giving out badges until 4pm. So when we open the doors, in about five minutes from now, come on in and line up, but we won’t give out badges until four. Crowd: (Various murmurs of excitement, until, from in the back:) Why aren’t you wearing a blue shirt? (Laughter from all sides.) Employee: Ha, that’s funny. No, I’m wearing a black shirt today, not a blue shirt. Ok, so in five minutes we’ll let you in, and then we’ll give out badges at 4pm. (Turns and heads back inside.) Crowd: (Follows immediately, calmly

OK so we have the following new AP enchants: Enchant Weapon – Greater Potency – 50 AP Enchant Weapon – Superior Potency – 65 AP Enchant Weapon – Greater Savagery – 85 AP (only for 2H, although the spell itself isn’t labelled as such, only the description) Enchant Weapon – Massacre – 110 AP Questions/Suggestsions: I’m guessing that potency enchants are AP instead of strength now so more people can make use of them? Enchant Weapon – Greater Savagery should be renamed to Enchant 2H Weapon – Greater Savagery. Also: the bonus AP given doesn’t seem in line with the 1H weapon enchants. Massacre is a 1H enchant that trumps Greater Savagery and Superior Potency (obviously more expensive), but is it a placeholder that is actually supposed to be a proc based enchant? Or is it intended that all AP enchants are replaced with Massacre?

Not that the change is relevant in the least. Nobody is ever gonna ‘need’ to reglyph during a 5 man. so what you will see is raids sending people out and then summoning them back into the instance again. So the real cost in it all is a soul stone Yes, but I wasn’t referring to 5 mans. I was referring to the people who are very serious about min/maxing in raid and PvP situations. The fact they’d need to leave and come back is somewhat a deterrent because it takes time and if you need to wait for 12 of your 15 people to come back every fight, that slows you down greatly. If you have raided before, have you been in a situation where your guild didn’t have a repair bot and 20 of your 25 (or 30 of you 40 depending how long ago you raided) HAD to repair before they moved on? As I said, I’d LOVE for that to be the case where scribes could reglyph. I suppose it depend on how much blizzard accounts for glyphs in future encounters. After all, enchanters can re-enchant gear, and everyone can re-gem their things without a JC. I’m just pointing out a

I’ve been playing with the motorcycle mount but i’ve really gotta say it’s the most overpowered mount in the game. I didn’t even want one at first just because I prefer riding one my bird god mount, but after seeing the motorcycle in action, it’s hard to want anything else. It has nothing to do with “coolness”, this quite literally is the best mount in the game. First of all, you cannot be dazed/dismounted off of this thing. Thats a major plus by it’s self. You can’t even be force dismounted via polymorph. Secondly, you take NO FALL DAMAGE in this thing. The motorcycle has it’s own hitpoints which eat fall damage then regenerate at a very fast rate. If you fall from a high enough distance to kill the motorcycle (i fell from 200 yards), you still jump out of it unharmed when it dies and you simply make a new one. Thirdly, it’s really hard to target people driving this thing. In pvp, you end up targeting and attacking the bike, not the players. That is extremely frustrating. I don’t even know if things like