World of Warcraft at Allakhazam.com

For as long as I've been playing World of Warcraft, I've always wondered what it would be like to be given the opportunity to interview one of the most popular characters within the game. This week I had that very opportunity and found myself scratching my head in confusion. Thrall wasn't what I expected at all.

Tamat : Hey Thrall! Thank you for allowing me into your private quarters to have a small chat. ....Why are you looking at the ceiling?

Thrall :  Lok'tar human!  As Warchief of the Horde I struggle daily to maintain a balance between our shamanistic ancestry and modern fashion trends.  Do you think "Clefthide Brown" or "Zhevra Gray" would look better in here?

Tamat : Ummm, I don't know. I'm here to interview you, not answer questions about skinned hides! Anyway, what are your thoughts on the semi recent re-discovery of Northrend?

Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street has outlined some possible Warlock PvE changes on the official damage dealing forum. Ghostcrawler said they're "generally happy" with Warlocks for PvE, but they're still looking into a few changes. In my opinion, one of Ghostcrawler's most interesting comments is regarding shards:

"Get shards into a place that is more interesting and less of a hassle. We have two models we're considering. One is very cool, but a huge change to gameplay, which might mean it has to wait. The other is more of a quick fix that we'd do until we can implement the very cool model."

A very cool gameplay-changing shard model? My curiosity is piqued. You can read the rest of the possible changes here or after the jump. They involve simplifying Affliction's rotation, adding quicker damage since fights aren't lasting long enough for DoTs to shine, improving demons and fixing "awkward places" in talent trees.

Did you attend any Wrath of the Lich King midnight release parties in Europe? If you didn't get the chance, Blizzard has posted a video of the festivities.

November 13 marked the release of Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion of World of Warcraft, and, in true Blizzard style, it was a night to remember. Players gathered at various locations around the world to enjoy the special midnight openings held for the release, and, thanks to them, it was a wonderful success!

You can find this video and others on the movies page of the Official WoW Europe site.

There have been blue posts on both the NA and EU official World of Warcraft forums both yesterday and today discussing how Ulduar will be handled on the PTR. Daelo and Vaneras both basically said the same thing, which is that Ulduar won't be constantly available on the PTR like Naxxramas was in the Wrath of the Lich King beta. It will be enabled only when Blizzard has something specific to test.

That being said, there's going to be a LOT of encounters to test in both 10 and 25 player modes. There will also be a whole lot of "hard modes" and achievements to test. We're shooting for most all of the encounters to have "hard modes" that allow raids to increase the challenge and reward level if they're up to it. We're pretty pleased with how Sartharion and his drakes worked, and we're going to expand on that idea extensively in Ulduar and future raids.

Looks like guilds won't have as much opportunity to completely learn the raid while it's on the PTR, although I'm sure many will use the testing windows to gain as much knowledge as they can on Ulduar.

Happy New Year's Eve! World of Warcraft fans have a lot to look forward to in 2009, including patch 3.1. In addition to dual spec (hopefully), the update will bring with it Tier 8 sets and Ulduar weapons.

Boubouille of MMO-Champion has provided preview screenshots of most of these items in one handy post. Druids, Paladins, Shamans, Warriors and male Rogues are going to need to wait to see their Tier 8 sets, but the rest of the classes are up there.

As Boubouille warns, any of these items could change since they're still in the beta phase. Regardless, what does everyone think about the armor and weapons? Remember, there's no concrete date set for the release of patch 3.1.