World of Warcraft: Hour of Twilight, which is the third content update for Cataclysm, is available today for all World of Warcraft players. We have also released the official World of Warcraft: Hour of Twilight (patch 4.3) trailer!

To recap, patch 4.3 provides players with a ton of new content:

• Raid Finder – Players can quickly and easily form a raid for a specifically tuned version of the Dragon Soul raid; works much like the Dungeon Finder feature
• Dragon Soul – The most epic 10- and 25-person raid encounter Blizzard has ever designed
• Transmogrification – Customize the appearance of your weapons and armor
• Three new 5-person dungeons – Continue the storyline of Thrall and Deathwing as players embark on all-new adventures in End Time, Well of Eternity, and Hour of Twilight
• Void Storage – Players of all levels can now open up 80 slots of long-term storage space
• Fangs of the Father – Legendary rogue quest line
• The all-new Darkmoon Faire – Darkmoon Faire has been completely redesigned and offers all-new games and rewards for players to experience

Well, back from the dead so to speak. I'd been burnt out with writing and bloging for awhile so took some time off from all of the typing.

First on my list of musings is the current guild system and what effect it has on my characters and the world at large. The guild system is a bit complicated so I'll just summarize it if possible. There are two bars that makes up the important aspects of the guild. One is your personal bar that starts out with a neutral setting and runs to exalted. The other is the guild bar that starts at level one and runs to level 25.

Your bar gets filled when you complete quests, well mainly quests. There are some other activities that most likely would also give you points, but those would relate to your guild buddies doing these together as a group I believe. Since I solo 90% of the time I never found out exactly. When you fill this bar up you move to the next rung on the ladder. This also opens personal items that you can purchase depending on certain requirements as well.

The guild bar gets filled by completing quests, doing guild activities with your buddies, such as instances, raids and battlegrounds among other things. The points awarded are varied depending on the outcome of what you are doing at the moment. When the bar is filled you get a benefit that applies to all guild members. As I said there are 25 levels so you can get quite a number of helpful things.

There are more things that make up what you see, but these two bars are very important with everything else as a side feature. My comments relate to these two bars which really have a negative effect or more like a negative outcome when it comes to playing.

My first example has to do with a small guild of 25 players that I was currently in when I was leveling my Worgen Druid, Egmund. This guild was very inactive with most players not showing up for days on end. I kept a close eye on when anyone had shown up, or had recently played, which was to say none other then the guild leader. Let me say that I leveled my personal bar to honored, but the guild bar never reached level 2 during my stay with this guild.

Currently I'm in a guild with 77 members who have reached level 8 on the guild bar. Guess what? My personal bar is neutral as my points don't carry over. How does one increase the bars performance when your character is capped at 85 and you mainly solo? Dailies is the answer and any missed high end quests. Do you know, I hate doing dailies as it's just one big grind mill.

What makes this troubling is the understanding that this type of system favors bigger active guilds who can crunch the numbers faster then smaller guilds ever could. I know, others would say that this is the way things are and just live with it, but if your one of those players that are in a Mom and Pop guild with a close knit group, then you'll know what I'm talking about.

Over all I feel that Blizzard should consider some additional alternatives that would keep a player from having to decide between staying in a small guild and missing out, or joining a guild that has achieved the benefits by weight of numbers.

If you haven't been following along (or watching tv or surfing the web....), Cataclysm was released today. Time to go out and save the world!

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that World of Warcraft(r): Cataclysm(tm), the highly anticipated third expansion for the world's most popular subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, is now on sale in stores throughout North America, Europe, Argentina, Chile, Russia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, and will be available beginning December 9 in Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

The expansion can now be purchased at retail stores on DVD-ROM for Windows(r) XP/Windows Vista(r)/Windows(r) 7 and Macintosh(r) at a suggested retail price of $39.99 USD. A special Collector's Edition packed with bonus items is also available exclusively from retailers for a suggested retail price of $79.99 USD. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is also offered as a digital download through Battle.net(r) account management for $39.99 USD.

"Cataclysm adds an incredible amount of new content for players to explore, revitalizing the game world and building on everything we've learned since World of Warcraft launched over six years ago," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We thank all of our beta testers for helping make this our best expansion yet, and we're looking forward to seeing everyone in the new Azeroth."

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the corrupted Dragon Aspect Deathwing has returned, and the world has been reshaped by the devastation left in his wake. In an effort to survive the planet-shattering cataclysm, two new playable races -- worgen and goblins -- join the struggle between the Alliance and the Horde. Players can now begin their journey to the new level cap of 85, discover newly revealed locations, acquire new levels of power, and come face to face with Deathwing in a battle to determine the fate of the world.

Link: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/cataclysm

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced plans for a limited-release Collector's Edition of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm(tm), the third expansion for the world's most popular subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft. The special Collector's Edition package, which will only be available at retail stores, will include the following exclusive bonus items in addition to the game disc:

* Art of the Cataclysm art book, featuring 176 pages of never-before-seen images from the archives of the Blizzard Entertainment cinematics department and the World of Warcraft development team, as well as progressive visuals from multiple stages of development.

* Exclusive in-game pet: he may not be a breaker of worlds just yet, but Lil' Deathwing will still proudly accompany heroes on their struggle to save Azeroth from his much, much larger counterpart.

* Behind-the-scenes DVD with over an hour of developer interviews and commentaries, as well as a special Warcraft retrospective examining the rich gaming history of the Warcraft universe.

* Soundtrack featuring 10 epic new tracks from Cataclysm, including exclusive bonus tracks.

* Special-edition mouse pad depicting Deathwing menacing the ravaged continents of Azeroth.

* World of Warcraft Trading Card Game cards, including a 60-card starter deck from the Wrathgate series, two extended-art cards, and two Collector's Edition-exclusive hero cards, marking the first appearance of goblin and worgen heroes in the TCG.

Read more »

Link: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968987278&sid=1&pageNo=1

Here's the scoop, straight from the source:

Hello everyone,

I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as the ability to rate posts up or down, post highlighting based on rating, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.

I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.

In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard's success from the beginning.

Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment

Link: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/cataclysm

Blizzard Entertainment announced today that the closed beta test for Cataclysm(tm), its highly anticipated new expansion for World of Warcraft(r), has begun. The company has started issuing invitations to participate in the testing process to a wide range of players from around the world who signed up via their Battle.net accounts. While enjoying an early look at the game, beta testers will provide valuable feedback to help Blizzard Entertainment find bugs, address balance issues, and polish the new content.

"Our focus with Cataclysm has been to build on the knowledge we've gained through the previous expansions to deliver the best, most compelling World of Warcraft content for our players to date," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "Gathering focused feedback during the beta test will go a long way in helping us reach that goal when we launch Cataclysm later this year."

Cataclysm is the third expansion for World of Warcraft, the most popular subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game in the world. The first two expansions, The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, each shattered PC game sales records upon their release. In Cataclysm, the face of Azeroth will be forever altered by the return of the corrupted Dragon Aspect Deathwing. Players will explore once-familiar areas of the world that have now been reshaped by the devastation and filled with new adventures. In an effort to survive the planet-shattering cataclysm, two new playable races -- worgen and goblins -- will join the struggle between the Alliance and the Horde. As players journey to the new level cap of 85, they'll discover newly revealed locations, acquire new levels of power, and come face to face with Deathwing in a battle to determine the fate of the world.

For more information on World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, please visit the official website at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/cataclysm. To set up a Battle.net account and sign up for a chance to participate in the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm beta test, please visit the official Battle.net website at http://www.battle.net.

My WoW playing has been intermittant at best lately. My main character is an 80 human shadow priest named Kattina. I have a few levels on my DK and my Warlock is 75. The rest of my crew are all under 45 so they don't get to play with new content.

I finally got patched to 3.3 and then got to log in last night. I'm looking forward to seeing the new stuff. I have hopes that it's a most standard dungeon experience. My Argent Tournament ventures didn't go that well. I never could get the hang of jousting. I had to get guildies to dps my opponent while I kept my horse alive just to get past that particular quest. I tried jousting so many times, I pictures the horses crying when Kattina came trudging back from the jousting area. I'm sure they drew straws and the loser had to take Kattina on her next round.

I had a heck of a time finding the entrance to the new stuff last night. Jaina might mention to her assistant in Dalaran that 'enter on the side of Ice Crown Citadel' isn't particularly helpful when the thing is freaking huge. A guildie was helpful enough to tell me to look under the first E in IcE Crown Citadel on my map. I talked to Jaina (I'm almost sure I'm spelling that wrong)..I talked to Ms. Proudmoore and she gave me my next task. Give the guys guarding the entrance are 80 elites, I definitely need friends. Hopefully tonight I'll find someone that doesn't mind running it again.

Kattina's side project as I putter around has been getting the dungeon achievements for all of the old world instances. I finished Mauradon and Zul'Farak last night. Zul'Farak went incredibly fast - probably 15 to 20 minutes total to kill the boss. And for once I didn't lose any of the people I was rescuing (at least not until I killed them myself). I just have Dire Maul left. I think that one will take a bit more time since I have to clear all three wings.

Link: http://www.wowsteins.com

Charge of the Great Dragonflights Stein Now Available To General Public

Taverncraft, a subsidiary of 3 Point Entertainment LLC, today announced the next stein in its Epic Collection series based on Blizzard Entertainment¹s World of Warcraft®. The new stein, entitled Charge of the Great Dragonflights, exclusively debuted in August at BlizzCon® in Anaheim. The Charge of the Great Dragonflights stein prominently features the Dragon Aspects from the award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game -- Nozdormu, Alexstrasza, Malygos, Ysera, and Neltharion -- and is illustrated by premier fantasy artist James Zhang.

'The response at BlizzCon regarding the new Charge of the Great Dragonflights stein was incredible,' said 3 Point Entertainment President Jerry Bennington. 'The Dragon Aspects on the stein are beautifully rendered and we are eager to get these in the hands of the World of Warcraft community for the holiday season.'

Charge of the Great Dragonflights is the fourth release in the Epic Collection series of World of Warcraft steins. Previous steins in the series include Blood of the Horde, Alliance United, and Rise of the Lich King.

Each Epic Collection stein stands over 10" tall, is handcrafted from authentic fine-grain stoneware, and features panoramic bas-relief sculpting and a solid pewter lid. The World of Warcraft Epic Collection steins, including the new Charge of the Great Dragonflights stein, are currently available at www.wowsteins.com for a retail price of $89.99 each.