151 – The Instance: Put your fist in the air!

3.2 Goes Live On The Public Test Realms
And just look at all this new stuff! Right now as we speak, players are fighting in Isle Of Conquest on the public test realms for victories that will be… well, wiped away just before the patch goes live to the rest of us. But it looks like they’re having a lot of fun, and this week was replete with updates to our understanding of the forthcoming Call Of The Crusade: -A new VoA boss coming – Koralon the Flame Watcher. -There’s a new 5-man dungeon: Trial of the Champion, and it looks like it’s going to have a completely different set of bosses for the two factions. -It basically looks like the bosses that the alliance will fight are the horde champions, and vice versa. -There’s a new holiday in there! Pilgrim’s Bounty looks to be a Thanksgiving-style holiday, from what’s been seen in the PTR code. -Looks like a new title – “Pilgrim” and a new pet. A turkey, of course.

If you’ve not yet seen Blizzard’s sneak peek at Crusader’s Coliseum, the new end-game raid dungeon coming in WoW 3.2, click on the link earlier in this sentence!

Video Games Live! They’ve been putting on concerts of game music for years, and you may have had a chance to see them perform at BlizzCon in the past. Their upcoming show in Houston with the Houston Symphony on July 18 has been expanded to an all-day celebration called Gamer MusiCON 09 that will feature a separate concert of music from Blizzard Entertainment games to kick off the afternoon in addition to the regular Video Games Live! performance in the evening. The festival also includes an interactive panel and Q&A session with Blizzard Entertainment music composers and an on-stage costume contest. For more information on Gamer MusiCON 09, or to purchase tickets visit this website.

Don’t Overlook The Death Knight Q&A As we anticipated last week, the Blizzard Community Development team is continuing with their series of articles where major designers answer questions about parts of the game. This week, Blizzard posted the Death Knight Q&A with Ghostcrawler.

To PvP Or Not To PvP
That is the question… of The Midsummer Fire Festival. A regular controversy erupted with yearly precision again this year as players all over the world positioned themselves in wait next to the holiday fires, PvP gear equipped and finger on the trigger. But we’ve seen a fair amount of backlash against PvPing during the Fire Festival in places and ways that are specifically impossible the rest of the year.

What Else Could Proc?
We’re carrying on a discussion here that started with the news piece from our last episode about changes to the Chef’s Hat coming in 3.2. We got an e-mail from TheLittleOne on Smolderthorn that just crystallized the possibilities. TheLittleOne wrote: “I just listened to your comments regarding the Chef’s Hat which has prompted this thought. How about if the Chef’s Hat had the ability to ‘proc’?” Indeed.

Town Cryer
Halfhand from Blackrock wrote:

I play a newish lvl 80 Death Knight. I didn’t do BG’s, or much PVP at all, but worked hard to level up. As such, my gear is a bit lackluster and my stats are a bit low. My problem is I need to get into heroic raids to get better gear, but I can’t get into heroic riads because my gear is so poor. Same goes for guilds. I can’t seem to find a guild large enough to do raids that might help me get gear, because it seems all of the larger guilds want me to be geared already. I am willing to suffer noob abuse in a guild, and spend hours helping low lvl’s in the guild advance as a team player, but can’t find a guild that is, well, as GREAT as yours sounds! Any suggestions?

Drop Of The Week
A Pet Or Two For Your FigurePrint

FigurePrints took a big step toward bringing WoW completely out of your PC and on to your desk this week with the release of FigurePets – small models of non-combat pets from World Of Warcraft that you can put around the FigurePrint of your character. FigurePets™ are limited edition FigurePrints® depicting the in-game companion pets from World of Warcraft®. They are produced using the same high tech process as FigurePrints and are released in limited edition sets, three pets at a time. Once the sale period expires for a pet, that pet in that pose will never be manufactured again. This means these pets should become as rare and valuable as the rarest pets in the World of Warcraft. If you order now your account will be credited with a 10% discount on your next purchase of a regularly priced FigurePrints statue.