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Gold Capped Ask an Auctioneer: My first mailbag

by Basil Berntsen on Jul 21st 2010 (2 hours ago)

Every week, Gold Capped (from Basil "Euripides" Berntsen) aims to educate players about how to make money on the auction house. For the inside line on crafting for disenchanting, transmutation, cross-faction arbitrage and more, check in every Wednesday. Also, feel free to email Basil any comments, questions or hate mail!

I've gotten quite the mail bag of questions emailed to me. I'm going to select a few and answer them approximately whenever I feel like it. Remember when writing your question that if you want to remain anonymous, all you need to do is ask!

The first question comes to us from Mahgo, from Dath'Remar (US):

I am emailing your for some advice regarding making gold on the auction house. I have most professions at max level.

I currently use Auctioneer to undercut when I am selling what I make. Do you have any advice or could you please point me for some help regarding niche markets, or how to tackle the whole market?

Filed under: Gold Capped

Spiritual Guidance: Of lore, the forsaken and shadow priests

by Fox Van Allen on Jul 21st 2010 (3 hours ago)

In addition to being the author of Wednesday's shadow priest edition of Spiritual Guidance, Fox Van Allen is an accomplished songwriter. After Dawn Moore refused to use Power Infusion on him during a lengthy raid encounter, Fox wrote the song In the Air Tonight. He mailed Dawn front-row tickets to his first concert performance, and as he reached the chorus, a bright spotlight engulfed Dawn. She cried in shame. It was awesome.

Regular readers of Spiritual Guidance know that over the last month, I've been putting together a leveling guide for aspiring shadow priests. In the last installment, I made a seemingly innocuous comment about shadow priests' being able to take the talent Shadowform at level 40:

We're able to make that fateful decision to forsake the light in exchange for causing more destruction more effectively.

I was literally describing the game mechanics; staying in Shadowform requires you to give up the spells in the holy tab. One of our commenters, aramis, used the line as a launching pad for an interesting comment that addressed a very basic question for us shadow priests: What the heck are shadow priests supposed to be, anyway?

I won't reprint the entire comment here, but it's definitely worth reading. The gist of it can be understood by reading just the first few sentences:

Mr. V-A, we don't FORSAKE the light as Shadow Priests. On the contrary, we embrace it ... We accept the light as the balance of ourselves. Life is about balance: pleasure and pain; good and evil; life and death; light and shadow.

Is aramis right? Follow me past the break as we explore a little bit of shadow priest lore, dip our toes into the cold waters of shadow priest roleplay, and try to solve an identity crisis that most of you probably don't even realize exists.

Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance

Cataclysm screenshot of the day

by Michael Gray on Jul 21st 2010 (4 hours ago)

The latest Cataclysm screenshot from Blizzard is shown above. I love the trellis. It's a trellis of death. Seems appropriate. Mostly, though, check out those gorgeous clouds.

If you've missed any of the previous Cataclysm screenshots of the day or you want to see a high-res version of today's image, check out the gallery below.

Gallery: Cataclysm Daily Screenshots

Filed under: Cataclysm

Know Your Lore: The Old Gods

by Matthew Rossi on Jul 21st 2010 (4 hours ago)

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

Before the night elves' grand civilization covered the land of Kalimdor, before the troll empire fought the aqir, before the arrival of the titans, they ruled Azeroth. Throughout the cosmos and even on alien worlds, their presence can be felt. Implacable, corruptive, powerful, creators of madness and strife, even in defeat they may never truly be defeated. They exist on many worlds and in many forms, and wherever they exist, chaos, insanity and destruction always follow. They are the ultimate manifestations of the cthonic, the primordial forces of madness that underpin sane, static reality.

They are the Old Gods. And nothing can stop them.

Harbinger Skyriss - The Arcatraz

It is a small matter to control the mind of the weak... for I bear allegiance to powers untouched by time, unmoved by fate. No force on this world or beyond harbors the strength to bend our knee... not even the mighty Legion!

source

Please note, there will be spoilers for Cataclysm in this post.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Lore, Know your Lore, Cataclysm

The Light and How to Swing It: Holy Powah!

by Gregg Reece on Jul 21st 2010 (5 hours ago)

With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and soon, an entire flight of black dragons. Please send screenshots as well as any comments to gregg@wow.com.

Well, Chase decided against using "Holy Powah!" as the title for his paladin article on the subject for healadins, so I am selfishly going to grab it.

For those of you who haven't been keeping up with paladins since the Twitter developer chat on Friday, we're getting overhauled yet again and more deeply than ever before. Not only are things being simplified and condensed again like we saw at the beginning of Wrath, but we're getting an additional resource system on top of mana. That's right, additional and on top of mana, which means we're going to be the second (or third?) mana-based class with an extra resource bar to watch.

This new system is called holy power, and no, it isn't referring to a talent in the holy tree that adds crit. It is a mixture of combo points and runic power. This whole conversation is going to take a while (and a couple of blue quotes), so let's continue after the break.

Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It, Cataclysm

Cover art for The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm

by Anne Stickney on Jul 21st 2010 (6 hours ago)

While the next novel in the Warcraft series, The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm has been available for preorder for quite some time, the book itself had no cover art -- until now. The artwork for the novel is available for viewing on Amazon, and while it's been stated that this is preliminary artwork, it looks pretty official.

The Shattering covers the stretch of time between Wrath of the Lich King and the Cataclysm expansion -- what exactly happened to cause the scenery changes as well as the situational changes that lead to the events we'll be seeing as we play through the new expansion. The book is written by Christie Golden, whose other works in the Warcraft series include Lord of the Clans, Rise of the Horde and Arthas: Rise of the Lich King. According to Amazon, the release date has been pushed back from the originally stated release date of Aug. 31, 2010, to Oct. 19, 2010 -- a little longer to wait than previously thought.

The cover image itself? A striking (no pun intended) image of the Doomhammer smashing into what looks like volcanic rock. If the cover art is any indication, Thrall is playing a major role in the book -- and Golden's already shown us on more than one occasion that she's capable of writing the character. Does this mean we'll see more of Jaina as well? How about Varian? Unfortunately there's no real summary of the book available just yet, but you can see the full cover image, as well as pre-order the novel, via Amazon.com.

Filed under: News items, Lore, Cataclysm

Encrypted Text: Why good rogues take bad talents

by Chase Christian on Jul 21st 2010 (7 hours ago)

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we discuss the effect of utility talents on a rogue's psyche.

If you've been reading my column regularly, you know that DPS should be the main focus of any raiding rogue. As a "pure" DPS class, we're really required to do amazing DPS or risk being sidelined for more useful classes. We're designed around the concept of maximizing DPS, and using spreadsheets and theorycrafting has become a core part of our class culture. I love putting my new gear upgrades into one of Aldriana's sheets and figuring out how to flex my gems and balance various stat caps. I know that there are a ton of rogues who feel the same way.

So why are rogues in the Cataclysm beta wasting talent points on Improved Gouge and Blade Twisting then? Why has the development team chocked our talent trees so full of fluff that we're forced to pick up junk talents just to progress down our trees? We don't need talents like Reinforced Leather if our healers are doing their jobs, and why make raiders pick up PvP talents like Improved Kick? Does this mean that Blizzard failed when trying to streamline the talent trees? Actually, it means exactly the opposite: they've succeeded in every possible way.

Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text

Choose My Adventure: A moment of silence

by Robin Torres on Jul 21st 2010 (8 hours ago)

Choose the adventures of the WoW.com staff as we level our characters in <It came from the Blog> on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H).

Those of you who have listened to my Robinemia streams may remember a couple times when Thor joined us by meowing for attention and keeping my lap warm. He has now gone to the great kitty playland in the sky, where he can chase lizards and eat tuna forever. And now that I've completely bummed you out, here is the rest of this week's schedule:

Anne Stickney as Annephora, the level 41 troll warrior, will be on Friday at 1 a.m. EDT (which is Thursday at 11 p.m. Zangarmarsh time)
Fox Van Allen as Foxlight, the level 22 blood elf paladin: Friday, 8 p.m. EDT
Michael Sacco as Sahko, the orc warlock; Christian Belt, as Selfloathius, the level 15 blood elf warlock; Elizabeth Harper as Faience, the level 24 troll shaman; Matthew Rossi as Andrenorton, the level 17 troll mage; Michael Gray as Grayfields, the level 17 tauren hunter; and Gregg Reece as Sandwichdoc, the level 13 troll shaman, will be making appearances as they can.

Turn the page for some lighthearted stories from Sandwichdoc and Foxlight.

Filed under: It Came from the Blog, Choose My Adventure

The Classifieds: She'll be coming 'round the mountain

by Lisa Poisso on Jul 21st 2010 (9 hours ago)

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including your shout-outs to perpetrators of the famous Random Acts of Uberness.

Have you ever wondered what lies on the other side of the mountain? What's going on down there below your flight-path flyover? Wonder no more: The Glitch Hunters have arrived to show you the unspoiled areas of vanilla WoW in all their pre-expansion glory. Contrary to their name, The Glitch Hunters explore entirely on live servers with no exploits or trickery. They use simple tactics to gain access to difficult-to-reach areas, including Levitate, Slow Fall, vehicle mounts, Death Grip and the liberal use of pally bubbles. "We're traversing the continents and documenting all the weird and unique landscapes and borked terrain before the Cataclysm revision hammer destroys them for good," explains Glitch Hunter Alyssa of Dawnbringer (US). Explore the entire series -- now some six episodes deep -- on The Explorers League YouTube channel.

If the scenery of classic WoW leaves you feeling nostalgic, wander through our growing collection of galleries devoted to zones that will soon feel the sweeping hand of the approaching Cataclysm: Undercity, Scholomance, Eye of Eternity, Shattrath City, Sunwell Plateau, Azshara, Tirisfal, Redridge, Stranglethorn Vale, Western Plaguelands, Quel'danas, Trial of the Crusader, Deadwind Pass, Teldrassil, Tanaris, Blackrock Mountain, Thunder Bluff, Feralas, Mulgore, Moonglade, Ironforge, Westfall, Darnassus, Thousand Needles.

Vanilla WoW holds many charms -- but if it's more current news you're after, let's crack open The Classifieds!

Filed under: Guilds, The Classifieds

Addons 101: The basics of customization

by Mathew McCurley on Jul 21st 2010 (10 hours ago)

Addons 101 is a four-part series for beginners dedicated to understanding what addons are, how they enhance the gameplay experience of World of Warcraft, some popular addons in certain categories, and popular venues in which to research, download and find addons.

Finally, we reach the end of our beginner's journey. We have learned a lot so far, from what addons are and how they affect the WoW gameplay experience, to some of the categories of addons and some examples. For the final installment, Addons 101 will discuss the basics of user interface customization, where to find customization options, and some addons that can be very helpful when building your user interface. In addition, part 4 will be riddled with tips that I have found useful over the years working with my own UI.

Filed under: Add-Ons