HI! I'm BACK! I've taken a break from WoW for the past few months because well... nothing much is happening if you aren't just raiding ICC, and the orphanage quests were bugged this year so there was no way to get the minipets for that event this year! :(

So I recently logged back in to attend the Flame Festival Event and try to achieve the [40 exalted reputations] achievement that I've slowly been working on for about six months. And finally completed it yesterday! Hooray!

In other news, Cataclysm has dropped a few features, which you probably know about if you read mmo-champion.com which makes me think Blizz may have over-promised at last years Blizzcon, telling us about all these big plans and how the next WoW was going to come out before the next Blizzcon. It looks quite doubtful now...

So I guess for the next few months it will be just about tieing up loose ends in-game and working on stockpiling a decent amount of gold for the expansion. I'll elaborate more on this later. But for now, have a good week!

Going from Super-Rich to broke :(

The other day I finally realised several goals for my character. Obtaining a Tundra Traveller's Mammoth costing 16000 gold. And finally getting the final book to recieve my Kirin Tor Familiar Elemental Pet! Now I feel I can relax and not spend every spare moment grinding for gold! Unfortunately now I'm low on funds, but the dailies should help me with that over time.

In other news, Patch 3.3 will be hitting within the next two weeks I suppose. Which is probably why a lot of raiders have slowed down their raiding quite a bit, to the chagrin of many a Guild Leader. Everyone is just eager to stock up on those emblems of Triumph and get their gear easily methinks.

I've also revised my idea of when Cataclysm is going to drop, based on the news that happened last week in which a Las Vegas convention centre mistakenly pinned Blizzcon at their place in July, which I think probably means Cataclysm will be released sometime in April or May, which will allow Blizz to use the new Icecrown Citadel content coming in Patch 3.3 to be gated to its full extent.

Will there be a WoW Patch 3.4 ???

My guess is that Patch 3.3 will drop sometime in November. Now, if you recall, Blizzard said that 3.3 is going to be the final content patch for WOTLK. But Blizzard also said at the time that during BC, patch 2.3 would be the final major patch of that expansion. But as we all saw, the players ran out of content faster than Blizzard expected, and the 2.4 Sunwell patch was released with a lock out system to drag out the content before WOTLK was ready for release.

So let's make a rough guess and say Cataclysm will be released next year in say... June or July, to be cautiously optimistic. Now if that's correct, then that would mean that the space between the last Major content patch and the Cataclysm expansion will be about 7-8 months. If we feel like Blizzard will wait till "the game is done", this wait becomes longer.

Now to put things into perspective, Patch 2.3 in Burning crusade dropped on Live servers in November 2007. Now if Patch 2.4 did not get developed before the pre-release patch for WOTLK, then WoW would be without a major content patch for, wait for it.... 10-11 months.

With 2.4 added to the roster however, this drops back to a more modest 5-6 months.

Will the 3.3 patch be able to drag out content for that long? Will Blizzard rely on small additions to the Argent Tournament in order to keep people playing? What can Blizzard do to keep people interested until the middle of next year?

Will Blizzard even try and rush things out the door in order to hold on to the player base? Or do they already have this content lull planned to allow people to go to the competition and get the other games "out of their system" before we come back to Cataclysm? Nah, that sounds just crazy... .... or is it?

Blizzcon is over! 3.22 now approaching!

So Blizzcon is over, most of what was leaked about the expansion ended up being true, although if you ask the lore nerds, they'll say that Blizz stole their ideas or the leaks were dead wrong. /rolleyes

To be honest I was surprised at the fact Worgen were actually getting an ability that allowed them to change from human to Worgen at will, with no bonuses. I was mildly shocked. Simply because I never expected Blizzard to do something that was almost completely for RP and Lore reasons and nothing else.

Coming up with the new patch is a revamped level 80 Onyxia Raid, which should be fun, and starts us off on the road to Cataclysm, with mostly revamped old content instead of new shiny content.

Some people might say that because its not new content its a waste of money and not worth it, but to me it shows that Blizz actually recognises that the Old World needs a spit and polish to compete in the current MMO marketplace. It also comes to light that Blizz can always think up a reason to either do one thing, and then change their minds and think up a perfectly reasonable reason to the opposite.

My Mage has been at level 80 for some time now. I've slowly been working away at increasing my guild rank in order to access some of the higher tiered raids on offer at the moment. But at the moment I'm stuck doing runs of Nax 25 with my guild, which is actually not so bad since I haven't been in there in about 3-4 months or so now.

What started off as a side project has now expanded, I now have 86 minipets and 65 Mounts ATM. My favourites at the moment is my Ravasaur Hatchling and my Ammen Vale Lashling.

I have to say though that despite all the whining and predictions of doom, patch 3.2 has been quite healthy for the game. It kinda gives me a bit of the BC vibe, except much, much easier lol

Enough ranting for now, I should post more often to avoid the wall of textyness.

Dur MMO-Champion was trolled by SA Forums?!

So, I'm sure most of you by now have heard the news about the new WoW expansion leak and are, like many people, wondering if its true, and what it means for WoW in the future?

In my honest opinion I think that it's true. Why? Because if it was a fake leak, and just a red herring, it would probably be a let down for a lot of people. Secondly, it's probably the best idea Blizzard have ever had for WoW, I mean it just makes sense on a marketing point of view and a business point of view.

For example, you have a large amount of game content that is going completely unused by the general playerbase for the moment. Why not put a lot of those old art assets to good use? You have entire zones that can be reworked, flight will now be allowable in the old world, update the older questlines to reflect how far Blizzard has come with the game.

And at the same time you are encouraging new and old players to join to see if the game from 1-60 has improved, possibly gaining even more customers. So I think it's simply a great idea, and basically the only option they had considering the next gen MMO's such as Champions, APB, and Star Wars are boasting far more interesting gaming systems from day one, while WoW still had its 2004 Lvl 1-60 grind.

Another point is, previous WoW creator interviews have backed up what the leak is saying: "Garrosh will be the new leader of the Horde and Thrall will leave"? That reflects a comment I recall hearing during a WoW interview, with the creators wishing for an end to the peace that seemed to exist between Alliance and Horde, and wishing for Thrall to disappear from the scene.

Community Managers on the WoW forums have repeatedly stated they would be interested in revisiting the Old World of Azeroth over the past year, never hinting that they are working on it, nor that they had no plans to do it. Many lore buffs have already figured that Maelstrom and the Emerald dream will probably be the focus of the next expansion. Even Goblin and Worgen have been confirmed by several sources over the past few weeks.

Anyone who has read MMO-Champion before knows that the Webmaster does not simply post random rumours, and he has already stated that his information has been confirmed by several separate anonymous sources.

So if you are still not convinced by this, then I would simply say to you that I would like to hear what you have to say about it this time, next week. :)