187 – The Instance: Bag Passion

Cataclysm Details Are In Full Effect
In what can only be perceived as a sign that the beta is imminent, Blizzard dropped a veritable ton of information on us this week regarding the forthcoming third expansion to World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm. We got raiding news, PvP news, new art to look at, and all sorts of new controversies to traverse.

Simplifying The Badges System Is Complicated
Blizzard Community Manager Bashiok broke the ice on possible changes coming to the game in Cataclysm with regard to those bits of currency you earn when you defeat dungeon bosses or win battlegrounds. In the first part of his post on the forums, Bashiok said: Our primary goal when approaching badges in Cataclysm is to address a lot of the confusion that comes with these currency systems. To that end we’re changing badges to a more straightforward point system, similar to the ones we’ve used for a while for Arenas and Battlegrounds. Bashiok noted that your path to obtaining PvP gear may change pretty dramatically in Cataclysm, saying: The Rated Battlegrounds and Arenas will be sharing this same point type. Because of that, it will in fact be possible to get the best PvP items without setting foot in Arena; however, more powerful armor and weapons will of course require more Conquest points, so players who win their matches more often will still gear up faster. We’re removing personal rating requirements on almost all items; they’re definitely removed for weapons. This wasn’t enough, and Blizzard Community Manager Bornakk followed up with another post clarifying the situation about weapons: There will be two tiers of PvP weapons in Cataclysm. The lower tier weapons will correspond in quality to items found in the latest raid tier on normal difficulty and cost only Conquest Points. The higher tier weapons will correspond in quality to items found in the latest raid tier on Heroic difficulty and will have a minimum personal rating requirement in addition to costing Conquest Points. All of the highest-stat PvP armor, including shoulder and head pieces, will cost only Conquest Points and have no rating requirements.

Town Cryer
Jeff H. writes: Besides the barrens and thousands needles, where will be the best places to take pictures before Cataclysm?

Making Pets Easier
This one starts with an e-mail from Russell E., who wrote: Is there an addon out there that will randomly select a Non Combat Pet for me? How about the same for my mounts? Why yes there are, Russell, and we’ve got just the suggestion for you and every player in the game.

MiniPet is our favorite mod for summoning a random pet with one key click. It does more than that. But you don’t need a mod. You just need this macro:

/run CallCompanion(“CRITTER”,random(GetNumCompanions(“CRITTER”)))

GoGoMount is our favorite mod for mounting on one key click. It picks the best mount for the situation you’re in, every time.