I am pleased to announce that there is now another way to get into the beta for World of Warcraft: Cataclsym. The first way is to opt-in, which means you have the chance to be randomly selected for a key. The second way is to take part in the Guild Contest for Cataclysm beta.

There will be 5000 beta keys given out through June 7th to July 12th and 100 winners will be chosen every week. The Guild Master must be the one that submits the essay. If a guild is selected in this contest then the GM will receive 10 keys to distribute among the guild.

The essay must be 50-250 words in length (in English) and explain why the guild should be in the World of Warcraft: Cataclsym beta. Guilds are allowed only one entry and the essay itself must not have any comments that are obscenities, lewd, profane, etc.

All essays should should be emailed to: blizzardcontest@blizzard.com.

One of the biggest turnoffs the MMO genre has is the time factor because lets face it, if you don’t put in a lot of time into an MMO game you’ll fall behind. This time investment turns off a lot of gamers because they don’t want to go through the grinding and farming that goes on. Luckily for them there is a web based, free-to-play MMO that only takes 5 minutes to to hit max level!

The 5 Minute MMORPG is a game that prides itself as being the only MMO that doesn’t require countless hours to reach max level and is grind free.The game is actually quite fun to play and is extremely easy to pick up. There’s also a “lag” factor that the 5 Minute MMORPG incorporates which makes the game unique but I’ll get into that later.

Controls

The controls are very simplistic. Arrow keys are used to move your character across the map. “A” is used to swing your sword and “S” is used to shield yourself from an attack. Holding down the movement keys makes you move faster because it will que up the given commands.

Game Play

Here is where the game really shines. I mentioned earlier about a “lag” factor. The way the game plays out is as you move around the map you see projected images of yourself. This is the “lag” factor that the game implements. The challenging part of the game is trying to predict where a character goes and then pressing “A” to hit them with the sword. This may sound easy but it’s hard to do because all the movement and action commands you give have like a 2-3 second delay. Also the lag factor is based on how many players there are in the game.

As you move around there will be items that pop up around the map. The items look like rubies, treasure chests, etc. Moving over these items gives you a few levels.

End Notes

The 5 minute MMORPG is a very unique game that gets rid of the grind factor that all MMOs have. This game isn’t meant to replace a “real” MMO but rather be a fun game to play every now and then. The “lag” factor makes the game play a very unique and fun experience. Originally I wasn’t expecting much from a free and web based game but it defied my expectations. I would recommend this to any gamer since it’s so easy to pick up and play. The PvP action is just hilarious if you play with a group of friends. So go ahead and try it out!

The Remote Auction House is a feature for Wold of Warcraft that will allow you to access the Auction House from an iPhone and from the web. This means that you can buy/sell items and do all your Auction House things without being logged in to World of Warcraft.

Currently this feature is in open beta testing. If you want to try out the Remote Auction House by using a web browser go here. The iPhone version of this feature can be downloaded here. Also there will be a limit on the number of transactions a player can do. The beta has a limit of 25 transactions a day but the live service will have a 200 transaction limit per day.

The Remote Auction House feature will cost $2.99 a month once beta testing is finished. More info about this feature can be found by reading this FAQ.

World of Warcraft:Cataclysm is now open for closed beta opt-ins. As some of you may know the alpha was only available to friends and families of Blizzard employees. The only requirements needed to participate in the beta is to have a Battle.net account that has a World of Warcraft account tied to it and details about your system specifications. After doing that make sure you check the box for World of Warcraft beta.

More info can be found here.

If you have been playing a warlock as long as I have some of these changes and new spells for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm seem lackluster. For all you warlocks out there I know you guys have heard the term “magelock” but these Cataclysm changes make us even more “magelocky”.

The New spells

After going through Wrath of the Lich King and experiencing our “new” spells, I wasn’t really expecting much for Cataclysm. Turns out I was right. Our “new” spells are recycled, slightly modified versions of CURRENT mage spells.

Our new spell Fel Flame is a modified version of the mage’s Frostfire bolt. Both are instant cast and use two different schools of magic. The only real difference is the after effects of getting hit by the two spells. The mage spell will slow you and deal damage over time (DoT) upon hitting you. The new warlock Fel Flame will refresh one of two warlock DoT’s meaning immolate or Unstable Affliction has to be on the target for it to even refresh. Mage spell wins hands down because it adds a DoT and has the slow for utility.

The second new warlock spell is Dark Intent and again it is another copy of a mage spell that we warlocks will get in the NEW expansion. Dark Intent is a modified version of Focus Magic except warlocks need to be a little bit more selective on who to cast it on. The mage spell gives a flat out 3% crit to any caster while the warlock one will only give 3% crit to casters who do periodic damage and healing. I have to admit though the benefits we warlocks will receive from Dark Intent does sound nice. Currently mage’s get 3% crit if their target crits but Dark Intent will give us extra damage for 10 seconds which can stack 3 times.

The last spell warlocks will be getting is Demon Soul. There isn’t much information about this spell yet. It’s supposed to be a self burst cooldown which depends on what minion you have out. It sounds awfully like the old Demonic Sacrifice spell that warlocks had back in Burning Crusade which kind of makes it another recycled spell.

Soul Shard changes

Probably one of the most annoying and at the same time the one major thing that sets us apart from other classes is Soul Shards. Warlocks have been asking for shards to stack for a long time and now Blizzard is changing it so we don’t even need to carry 32 of them around with us anymore (we get a free bag space!).

So apparently we are only going to be allowed to use 3 soul shards (or should we call them runic shards now?) in a single combat encounter. It will be displayed in our user interface sort of how deathknight’s runes are. If you use a shard and a certain skill together you get some sort of bonus effect. I don’t know exactly how this will work out. The examples that Blizzard gave seemed really lackluster so again we’ll have to see how it plays out. Personally I think that shard usages are fine the way they are right now.

Changes to mechanics

One of the things that I am actually looking forward to is that warlock spells will now benefit from haste and crit. Our DoT’s will now crit and have additional tick damage which is a very nice change.

Two of the warlock curses: Curse of Agony and Curse of Doom will now be Bane of Agony and Bane of Doom. Now warlocks can put up a bane and a curse on a target. This is a quality of life change, although
most warlocks would probably have wanted one of those two spells becoming a bane instead of both.

Closing Thoughts

The warlock changes that we are given so far is a huge disappointment. What do warlocks have to look forward to? Our new spells are far from new and our class is getting a revamp and turning into a cooldown based class like a deathknight. I mean go read the new mage new spells and compare them. Mages get a flying orb that deals damages and a line of ice that snares and hurts people while we get modified mage spells.

It feels like Blizzard doesn’t know what to do with warlocks and are now trying to turn us into some weird mage+deathknight hybrid with a pet. Am I the only one that thinks warlocks are getting the short end of the stick in Cataclysm?

Saying you have beaten a game is usually reserved for single player games and not for MMOs like World of Warcraft but there are rare instances where MMOs are beaten.

Recently a player by the name of Caspi has beaten World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. It sounds ridiculous but check out Caspi’s armory. He has completed every achievement in the game giving him 1054/1054 achievements completed. This means he has beaten the Lich King on 25 hard mode, got a Gladiator title in PvP and completed every difficult achievement in the game.

That’s about the closest anyone will get to beating an MMO.

The next expansion of World of Warcraft will have a lot of changes to the current game and player versus player (PvP) is no exception.

One of the biggest change to World of Warcraft’s PvP system is the introduction of the PvP point system. Currently to get high end PvP items you need honor points, arena points and a high personal arena rating. The new system in Cataclysm will introduce Conquest points which is explained here:

PvP

* Honor Points — Low-tier, easier-to-get PVP points. There will be a maximum cap to how many you can own, but no cap to how quickly you can earn them. Earned from most PvP activities.
* Conquest Points — High-tier, harder-to-get PvP points. There will be a maximum cap to how many you can own, and a cap to how many you can earn per week. Earned from winning Rated Battlegrounds or Arenas. (currently called Arena Points)

In other words the current Arena points will now be known as Conquest points and there will now be two ways to receive these points: Arena and Rated Battlegrounds.

Another big change to the PvP system will be the remove of almost all personal rating requirements on PvP items. The reasoning behind this is because Blizzard believed that rating requirements was a rich-get-richer syndrome.

More info on these changes can be found here.

Recruit-A-Friend (RAF) is a program that Blizzard implemented for World of Warcraft to give new players an easier time leveling and current players a way to bring in their friends and level alternate characters. The way it works a paying account sends out a referral to a friend and that person gets a free trial of World of Warcraft. If that person purchases the game and starts paying the subscription fee both players get triple experience as long as they level together and can summon each other. Of course the person that sent the referral gets additional perks like a free month of WoW and the exclusive Zhevra mount.

Just this week Blizzard announced that there would be a mount change in the Recruit-A-Friend program.They will be replacing the Zhevra mount which you received after doing RAF with the X-53 Touring Rocket. This is great news for mount collectors because as I mentioned before in this post, these rocket mounts are extremely rare but now there is an easy way to get one. I wish that they would upgrade the Zhevra mount to the X-53 rocket but unfortunately that won’t be happening.

Blizzard is set to release two powerhouse games this year: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and StarCraft 2. To celebrate these two games being released Blizzard has unveiled another World of Warcraft in-game pet much like the old Tyrael in-game pet that was made available a couple of years ago. Tyrael, for those of you who don’t know, is a character from Blizzard’s Diablo games and the pet was given to those who attended the 2008 Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in France.

The new StarCraft 2 based in-game pet for WoW will be the mini Thor. To get this exclusive pet you don’t need to go to one of Blizzard’s events like in the past but you do need to pay a little extra to get the Thor pet. People who purchase the Collector’s Edition of StarCraft 2 will be given a code to unlock the Thor for WoW. As of now the price for the Collector’s Edition is $99.99.

Recently the Blizzard store added two new in-game items for World of Warcraft. Before these new additions were added the only in-game items that were sold were the pets: Pandaren Monk and Lil’ K.T. Well now the Blizzard store has added another new pet and also a mount! The new in-game pet will be Lil’ XT. Lil’ XT is one of the first bosses in Ulduar and will retail at $10 at the store.

Now what most people are excited about is this mount. This is the first mount that has ever been sold at the Blizzard store. The mount is called the Celestial Steed. When the mount was first introduced it was widely speculated that the mount would drop off Algalon (special last boss in Ulduar) or from a new boss in Vault of Archavon. The Celestial Steed will be a flying mount that will scale with your character’s current flying speed. The Celestial Steed will cost $25.

And also since the mount was introduced at the store yesterday there were rumors going around that there would be a limited number of the Celestial Steed at the store. People were reporting that there was a 10 hour que to buy the mount. This blue post clears up the rumors about the mount being a limited time only offer.