A new Scenario has been enabled for testing today. Arena of Annihilation.

Here's the map of the place and below, you'll find a short video depicting everything about it.

Click on the image to zoom in.

The place looks similar to Trial of Crusader. 

Arena of Annihilation is the same as Ring of Blood (Burning Crusade) or Crucible of Carnage (Cataclysm). You have to defeat bosses in order to succeed. It has three stages. The video below tells you more.

Patch 5.0.4 is the pre-Pandaria build, where most of the interesting things and mechanics are already enabled, yet players cannot enter the new content yet. (Pet Battles, Scenarios, Level 90, New Zones, Pandaria, New Skills, New items are inaccesible).

I've reported about the 30% buff increase in Dragon Soul a week ago.

It's very likely that this Patch will go live with the 35% Dragon Soul buff, which we can expect in late August. Every 5% addition to the buff lasts about a month before another 5% is added, so according to that we can assume Mists of Pandaria going live in September/October latest.

RESTRICTIONS: Players with an account enabled for Mists of Pandaria BETA won't be able to access the Public Test realms at any point of the testing.

This restriction is not Battl

Scarlet Halls is one of the two new 5-man wings of the Scarlet Monastery in Mists of Pandaria, and is a combination of the former Armory and Library wings of the original Scarlet Monastery.

Level Range: 28-31 (normal) // 90 (heroic)

Number of bosses: 3

Drops: Itemlevel 463

Once you enter the instance, there are two quests to pick up. To complete one, you need to kill 50 mobs inside Scarlet Halls, to complete the second one, you have to retrieve Codex of the Crusade from the last boss. Both quest reward blue items.

On the way to the first boss you have to pick up a shield to avoid attacks from the trash mobs. Nice mechanics.

The dungeon's mobs are mainly paladins/mages of the Scarlet Crusade. This screenshot was taken, while we were going to the second boss.

Armsmaster Harlan is the second boss, you can see the encounter in the video below. He summons adds, which need to be killed prior to burning him.

Here we are burning the last boss...detai

 If there was ever a MMO like Fallout 3, Morrowind or Oblivion (GTA and RDR too, but I haven't played those two)...I would never leave the house again lol. Okay maybe I would, but you get my point :P This will be a long post.

 Here is the link to the thread this was a response to, yes I know its not on MMOsite...but still a good dicussion, and we are all gamers no matter what site we are from :)  http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/294594/The-majority-of-players-will-never-like-a-sandbox-game-argument.html Excuse the rambling rant...my mind is scattered today, I'm on pain killers...and tired as heck... So anyway...to the blog. May be a bit confusing if you haven't read at least some of that topic in the thread I linked to.   Sure Fallout 3/Oblivion/Morrowind aren't TRUE sandbox games. They are more of a hybrid. But, with player made mods (as mentioned) you can easily turn then into sandbox games. I built a pretty large settlement

 Lemme say first, I don't care if its old news, I don't care if you think its ghey, i'm just simply re-posting wut i thought interesting kay?

 

Level Cap
The level cap in the next expansion will be slightly lower than expected this time around; 85.

This suggests Blizzard wants more room for expansions before hitting the level 100 cap. With less leveling to do (along with the revamped leveling listed below likely to increase the speed and ease of leveling), leveling a new race remains appealing for new and existing players alike.

Leveling from 80-85 should be a much bigger deal, the idea is to make sure that gaining a level really means something and doesn't make you feel like you just have 4 more levels to go.

New Classes
Cataclysm doesn't introduce any new classes to the game. Instead, Blizzard have offered more race and classes combinations to players. The Some of these have alreadly been datamined from the 3.2.2 Test Realms. The An Injured Colleague quest and it's new Night Elf counter-part help to introduce the lore for these new race and class combinations, so we can probably expect to see more of these for some of the less traditional ones.

* Human Hunter
* Orc

PC game sales charts are out for the week of February 15-21. Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II has unseated the mighty Wrath of the Lich King for the top spot on the list. Good job, Relic.

Lest you forget the sales power of "casual" games, The Sims 2 Double Deluxe and The Sims 2 Deluxe are at spots three and four, and The Sims 2 Apartment Life is number nine. People just keep on buying those Sims, eh?

Here's the full list:

Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II / RelicWorld Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King / BlizzardThe Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA MaxisThe Sims 2 Deluxe / EA MaxisSpore / EA MaxisWorld Of Warcraft Battle Chest / BlizzardWorld Of Warcraft / BlizzardF.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin / MonolithThe Sims 2 Apartment Life Exp. Pack / EA MaxisCrysis Warhead / Crytek /

Video provided by video.mmosite.com

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU DOWNLOAD THE VIDEO! This video is one of the most detailed preview of the some of the skills death knights get in Wrath. if you would like to see the different skills a little more up close and detailed, just download and watch this!

Here the author gave the summary:

"I can tell you that as of the latest builds some of the skills I displayed in this video have already been changed and reworked. However, this movie still should give a decent example of how the skills work. Before I see it in the comments, I did not include any active skills received through talents in this video.

I also want to say there are a lot of text screens, I designed these so you could pause the video, read over the skills then, seem them in action.

Thanks for all the feedback!

Final Note: This is my first video submitted to WCM so please go a little easy on me XD. I made sure to try and hide any lore spoilers and keep from showing content that has been beaten to death on WCM.

Thanks for watching!

UPDATE: At this point I am planing to release another video that follows along these lines once my DK hits 80 (currently 76.5 [IRL

Comic courtesy of Brady Games and Penny Arcade

ubmit your World of Warcraft related comic strips to The Royal Photographic Society of Azeroth! For the glory of the King and the honor of the illustrious Society, the RPSA shall be collecting and posting interesting and/or humorous comic strips on the Worldofwarcraft.com web site. To participate, simply use the form below to submit your work. One exceptional comic per month will receive a copy of the World of Warcraft Battle Chest signed by both Vice President of Creative Development Chris Metzen and Art Director Chris Robinson, as well as a World of Warcraft 60 day pre-paid time card. Click here to see the full rules. Submission Suggestions Please note: comics containing artwork or content that is offensive, of sexual nature, or containing obscene/vulgar language will be rejected. Please review the categories outlined in our harassment policy to get a better understanding of which kinds of content are unacceptable for this contest. We're typically looking for short and funny comics that are less than one page in length. We will still consider comics that are very text-heavy and that are not necessarily fun

The biggest update in WoW's history is almost upon us, and as we prepare to rejoin that world, take a  look at the new trailer.

Video provided by video.mmosite.com

 

e also have a contest for those of you who chose to max out in Pumpkin-Carving instead of Tailoring! In a longstanding Blizzard tradition, this year will see our fourth annual pumpkin-carving contest take place. The most creative, original, and well-designed pumpkins from the Warcraft, StarCraft, or Diablo game universes will be awarded with glittering prizes. From 12:00 A.M. PDT on Friday, October 5 through 12:00 A.M. PDT on Monday, October 29, we will be accepting submissions for our 2007 Halloween Pumpkin Contest.

Competition in this contest is always fierce; check out [2003], [ 2004], [2005] and [ 2006] to get an idea of what you're up against. And, just to make things interesting, this year you're competing for some elite loot:

The top (10) winning submissions to the Blizzard Pumpkin Carving Contest will win a pair of Logitech 51 Surround Sound Speaker System designed specifically for gamers. A special thanks to Logitech and Good Luck!

Winners will also have the screen shot that they submitted displayed in association with their World of Warcraft character name, on the World of Warcraft website located at www.worldofwarcraft.com and the Sponsor's official website located at ww