195 – The Instance: Wanna Touch My Beta?

Lifting An NDA Is A Great Workout
Blizzard blew the doors down on this joint this week with the opening of the last major raid dungeon before the coming Cataclysm, and the sudden release of the beta version 4.0 of that forthcoming expansion to the world. The non-disclosure agreement has been lifted, and that means that beta testers are free to share pretty much anything they like about Cataclysm from here on out.

Your Guild Looks Kinda Perky
Along with the Cataclysm beta comes the full prediction of what guild talents are going to look like after the world is partially destroyed, and this week we learned that Blizzard is tentatively calling them Guild Perks.

Much like we discussed last week, guild perks will be improvements to aspects of the game that are somewhat more cosmetic or generalized, and will be available to everyone in the game who is in a guild, can join a guild, or can create a guild and go earn them.

The Real-ID Is For Complain And Worry
As we’re recording, Blizzard’s Real-ID system has been released exactly 13 days, and is now the subject of about 5000 e-mails to The Instance, and about 5000 man-hours of discussion in our guild chat.

Despite the massive FAQ Blizzard posted on the system, complaints and concerns have been rolling into the game forums on worldofwarcraft.com non-stop since Real-ID went live. We’re going to try to break down the concerns into categories, and discuss them as calmly as possible. Please folks, don’t try this at home.

Town Cryer
Soapy from Andorhal writes: Hey, I was just wondering if you guys think that Blizzard might add some new servers with the release of Cataclysm. And if so, do you think they will offer free character transfers?

Go Get Something Legendary!
This is the eighth in our limited series, wherein we’re highlighting things for you to do in WoW that you might not ever get to do again after the Cataclysm.

That’s right. We’re crazy, and we’re suggesting that you build Thunderfury, Blessed Blade Of The Windseeker!!