158 – The Instance: How I Met Your Brood Mother

The Crazy Fire-Breathing Woman Is Back
Blizzard announced the return of The Brood Mother Onyxia this week, in a big nod toward the 5th Anniversary of World Of Warcraft, which is happening in only three months. And they left no doubt that they had been sitting on this one, as they posted a Public Test Version 3.2.2 almost immediately.
 * This permanent update to Onyxia will convert the dungeon into a normal 10-player mode and a Heroic 25-player mode.
 * They will be adding new items to Onyxia’s loot table that have the same model as some of the classic loot from this dungeon, like Tier 2 helms, with stats updated to match the current level of content.
 * There will be a special new item too: a normal drake-sized 310% speed flying mount modeled after Onyxia herself called an Onyxia Broodling.
 * They will also be updating the encounter mechanics to be more fitting for modern raiding, but we can guarantee players will get to experience the frightening horror of deep breaths once again.
 * Then for a limited time, after the 5-year anniversary event officially begins in November, anybody who logs in will receive an Onyxia Brood Whelpling pet.

A Big Heaping Helping Of Rumor Pie
Several gaming news sites that report on Blizzard and World Of Warcraft took speculation closer to fact this week, crediting anonymous sources at Blizzard as having confirmed that the third expansion to WoW will be named Cataclysm, and that Blizzard will be adding two new playable races to the game next year – the Worgen for Alliance and the Goblins for the Horde. Before we say another word, we must stress that this is not confirmed in any way. Blizzard could be playing a nice false-leak joke on fan sites. It wouldn’t be the first time, as in June 2008, Blizzard inexplicably posted a big ice wallpaper image just before announcing Diablo 3. That ice led many of us astray.

Arena Season 6 Has To End Eventually

A post this week on the official forums by Bornakk gave us the following, “We are currently planning to end Arena Season 6 as early as August 25. At that point we will go through our normal process to determine who is eligible for the end-of-season rewards. This process should take approximately one week. It’s very important for players who feel that they may be eligible for the arena-specific titles and/or Furious Gladiator’s Frostwyrm to refrain from transferring their character to another realm until after Arena Season 6 ends. The following Arena Season will not begin for at least one week after the current season ends. During this time between seasons, all rated matches will be turned off and only skirmishes will be available. When Arena Season 7 begins, all team ratings, personal rating, and arena points will be wiped, but matchmaking rating and honor points will remain.”

Blizzard Is Pimping Your Crazy Guild Events
At least in the EU they are. Check out the WoW Europe events page, where Blizzard is listing in-game events being run by people like you! The list currently includes a number of player-hosted events like The Running Of The Gnomes, The Running Of The Peons, The Forest Taint RP gathering, The Running Of The Something Else. Let’s face it, people like to run.

Town Cryer
Darren G. writes: With the new onyxia raid announced, don’t you think that the game has become a little over populated with dragon bosses lately? Off the top of my head, I can think of many. We have sapphiron, obsidian sanctum, razorscale, all the blue dragons in the nexus instances, and the one in violet hold. And soon we’re expecting onyxia, the other sanctum portals, sindragosa, and in future expansions ones like deathwing. BC had, if memory serves, no dragon bosses except for the infinite dragonflight. Not to mention all the dragon mounts we all have. I doubt you could log in and sit still in northrend for 30 seconds without seeing a dragon flying overhead. In classic this would be unheard of. Also, Obsidian sanctum is way too similar to onyxias lair to be in the same expansion. I was of the impression that obsidian sanctum WAS the new onyxias lair, or at least a homage to it.

Delizaar from the wyrmrest accord server writes: I am in a guild at the moment that seems to be having a rough time with choosing officers it seems the GM is choocing them as her “favourites” not to how well they perform. I was wondering how do you choose your officers and what expectations do you have of them?..I hope to send this podcast to my guild master if you answer it hopefully it can solve some issues.

Casualty Of Warhammer
Jeremy Monken is a former employee of Electronic Arts who was kind enough to share with us his story of working at Mythic Entertainment during the final days leading up to the launch of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. As a former employee of EA, he is not at liberty to discuss any proprietary technology or internal conversations. The information presented in this article is his opinion, or was taken from news sources external to EA, or was made public by Mythic Entertainment or Electronic Arts. It is also one hell of a story.