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It must be nice to have a giant staff of writers popping out news all the time: sigh.

TCG items will come with Burning Crusade Collector’s Edition: “

Filed under: Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Expansions

WorldofWar.net has a pointer to an article on the new Escapist, in which they talk about all the extra trinkets and junk that comes with Collectors Editions of games. I still have one of those old full color cloth maps of Britannia laying around somewhere, and working at a game store a few years ago got me a few of those Jedi Knight 2 keychains.

But even more interesting, WorldofWar also points out ‘a comment from Upper Deck‘ that says what’ll be in the box with the Burning Crusade Collector’s Edition. If you can get your hands on one of those (and don’t worry– there’s supposed to be plenty to go around), Blizz will hook you up with ’2 starter decks, a full-size color rulebook and 3 foil promo cards.’ Pretty nice, even if you’re not a TCG fan.

And considering how much Blizzard pimped out the original WoW Collector’s Edition– that’s where the MiniDiablo, Zergling, and Panda non-combat pets all came from– it’s not too much of a stretch to think those cards (or something else in the Collector’s Edition) will end up conveying some pretty cool stuff in-game. If you’re planning to buy the expansion anyway and don’t mind shelling out for the extra cash, Blizzard might have some neat stuff in store for collectors.

(Via WOW Insider.)

Take this with a bucket of talk. It’s less over that top then the previous hunter rumor, but, it’s still very unofficial.

It looks like they are doing some weird switches on ranged power and crit %. It’s not clear what this will mean yet. The talents listed look more like a wish list than from Blizzard. Go take a look, and you decide.

Nothing says unreliable like the words “fake potential.” That’s part of the title to a thread over on the WOW message boards. However, the thread goes into lengthy detail about the currently unannounced new hunter talents.

It’s a long read, and it’s full of juice. It includes things like dead pets becoming spirits to fight with you and weapon specialization. I’m inclined to believe that this is a steamy pile of horse leavings, but it’s a fun read, when you are desperate for facts.

What do you think?

Get your mind out of the gutter (for the moment). This is actually a humerous epic item you can get. It lays the smack down and gives a nod to the original Diablo game.

Phat Loot Phriday: Wirt’s Third Leg: “

Filed under: Items, How-tos, Economy

Last week on our Phat Loot Pheature (ok, sorry, I know that’s annoying, I’ll stop), I promised we’d do something BOE. Now, there aren’t a lot of BOE epics out there, but there is this nice mace, and it comes with quite a history.

Name: Wirt’s Third Leg
Type: Rare One-hand Mace
Damage, Speed: 49-91, 2.30 (30.4 DPS)
Abilities:

• +9 Agility, +4 Stamina
• Looks boring doesn’t it? But wait, there’s a story here…
• Way back in Diablo, Blizzard’s classic hack and slash game, there was an NPC named Wirt, who had a wooden leg. He got killed, however, when Diablo attacked his town, Tristam, which was above the dungeons the player was hacking and slashing through.
• Then, in Diablo II, Wirt didn’t return, but his leg did. On a mission back to Tristam, you could find his body, and loot Wirt’s Leg. And not only that, but you could use his leg to find the super secret Cow Level, in which you fought hordes of armed cows (no, we’re not making this up). This is also why one of WoW’s tips says ‘There is no secret cow level’ (and why Techbot in Gnomer says something similar). And it also explains the origin of the Cow King’s Hide cloak, but that’s for another Phat Loot Phriday.
• Finally, in the Warcraft III expansion, a character called ‘The Butcher’ (another reference to a Diablo character) guards a chest with an item called Wirt’s Other Leg in it. That makes this one his third wooden leg that you can find.
• That’s why they call this Wirt’s Third Leg. No other reason, no matter how dirty a mind you have. Ask your mother.

How to Get It: This one’s not hard to get at all. All you have to do is hit up the pirates through the cave on the eastern coast of Tanaris and eventually one of them will drop a footlocker with this thing in it. You won’t have to try for too long, as this one seems to drop pretty often. Plus, from 40-45, the pirates make for good grinding anyway.

Auction Price: You want to sell this? What will Wirt think?! On most servers, you’ll be able to get rid of this pretty easy for 20-25g. If no one on the server has an appreciation of Blizzard history, you might have to drop it to 5g, but players have been able to see it for 50g before, so start higher if you want. A vendor will give you 1g 95s 77c to part with this phantastic relic! (gah, sorry, said I’d never do it again…)

(Via WOW Insider.)

What starts off sounding sad…quickly degenerates into a possible scam. There’s some nice detective work, but the thing is: why destroy a Mac to get a new Mac? It’s just not right. If this is true, this boy should be hanged.

What do you think?

MacBook Joins the Club of Igniting Laptops: “

Reader Eric has a little problem with his MacBook. The bottom left corner of the screen managed to somehow catch on fire, in turn toasting the entire left side of his notebook. Oddly enough, it doesn’t seem that this problem was caused by an overheating battery. Eric said the employees at the Apple Store were shocked and told him to contact AppleCare, which was closed at the time.

What the hell is going on with all of these laptops? It must be a sign of the times that I am now nervous when using my own laptop. Apple will surely replace his laptop, but I am still concerned about what caused this incident. Time for another recall methinks. Thanks, Eric. - Travis Hudson

Update: So there is a pretty big twist in this story that has been unveiled thanks to our commenters and the commenters on the Digg about this post. Apparently our boy Eric, aka Vanquish 2005, posted this over on Digg a couple weeks ago.

by Vanquish2005 on 8/26/06
- 55 diggs
‘yeah i hate my macbook. I am trying to get Apple to let me upgrade to MacBook Pro. Dose anyone have any ideas on how to convince them?’

Uh oh, starting to sound a litte fishy!

Now his story was sounding pretty legit until he mentioned in the Gizmodo comments below that it caught on fire again! How the hell does that happen? Then to stir up the pot even more, over on Digg he said:

…yes i was i was useing it when it happened and it got my hand on fire.

Pardon my French, but what the fuck!

If you want some more fun stuff, our buddy Vanquish has a blog where he is chronicling these events and whatnot. After being completely ridiculed on Digg he deleted the blog, but luckily the folks at Depicked worked their magic to save the cache and rehost it here.

The last little tidbit of info that leads me to believe this is a scam: last night when Vanquish was IM’ing me about the laptop and sending me pics he insisted I waited until this morning to post about it (I was planning on posting it late last night), to get the most exposure. What’s the deal, buddy? You trying to scam our beloved Apple out of a laptop?

“

(Via Gizmodo.)

Take this with a grain of salt my Mac friends, but some guy in Germany (an IT engineer) claims that a heat sensor in the MacBook lacks some needed insulation and therefore shuts the computer down when it gets too hot.

There’s a web site for people who own MacBooks with this problem.

It’s claimed that if you open the case (and void your warranty), you can wrap this wire with a bit of tape and the random shutdowns end. While I’m sure that this sounds very appealing, Apple has acknowledged that they have an issue and wants you to contact AppleCare.

If you can’t wait, and this is in-fact a heat related issue Targus makes a little USB powered fan that goes under your notebook. I use it and it’s great for keeping you and your lap cool.

Some very cool images to check out. Take a look…

Even More Burning Crusade LeaksEven more leaks are finding their way out of the supposedly ubersecret Burning Crusade Friends and Family Alpha. First we saw videos of the newbie areas, then we heard the voices of BE and Draenai, and now, using a model hacker, various sources have put together a few more spoilers about the expansion. If, like me, you want to wait until you buy the game to actually see what’s in it, don’t click on the links below. But if you’re willing to dive into unreleased and unconfirmed information because you just can’t wait to find out what might be in the expansion, have at it!

• borgseawolf over on Livejournal has put up four huge image strips of a bunch of different enemies from the game. Some of them are still untextured, but there’s a lot of interesting stuff in there, including a few new forms of mobs we already know and love.
• And YouTuber roguekitten246 has unearthed video animations of the emotes and fighting movements of the Draenai male, the Draenai female, and the Blood Elf male and BE female. Again, don’t click on the links if you don’t want to see spoilers, but I have to say that I think the Horde are going to be pretty happy to have the BEs on their side. They look good.
• Also, Eluna (who sent us the voices) also sends along a few other pics from the alpha: some freaky skelly, a felorc, a female and male naga, a race whose name we won’t mention, and the normal and epic Draenai mounts.

Again, hacking the code like this is definitely against the Blizzard TOS and may even be illegal, so we can’t confirm or guarantee any of these pictures or movies are exactly what you’ll see in Burning Crusade. Even if they are real, there’s a huge chance things will change before the game is released, so take these with a grain of salt. That said– wow these look awesome!

(Via WOW Insider.)

Here’s some tastely Burning Crusade goodness for you people…

Draenai and Blood Elf Voices Leaked: If you’re in the mood for more Burning Crusade spoilers, Elüna sent along a page that links to leaked voice files of the Draenai and Blood Elf male and female characters from the upcoming expansion, including their /charge, /silly, and /flirt emotes, and a few others.

Personally, I’m not real impressed with the ones I listened to (I have to save a little bit of the new content for the game, right?), but maybe that’s because I’d rather hear them in context rather than from leaked .wav files. But a few of them are pretty good, and go a long way towards fleshing out the cultures and personalities of the two new races. True RPers probably won’t be real happy about the pop culture references that show up (one of the funnier Blood Elf female /flirts actually makes a pretty good meta-game joke), but these leave little doubt that the same quirky Blizzard charm we’re used to is coming with the expansion.

And there’s one more thing I noticed about one of the voices. This one’s really a spoiler, so I’ll put it after the jump…

[ Thanks, Elüna! ]

Anybody else recognize the Blood Elf male voice actor? Think pizza and heroes on a halfshell…

That’s right, I do believe the male Blood Elf is none other than Cam Clarke, who famously voiced Leonardo in that standby of my childhood, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. He was also Die Fledermaus in the great Tick cartoon, Simba in the Lion King, and some character called He-Man (don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him). It’s no wonder I recognized him– he’s one of my favorite voice actors.

(Via WOW Insider.)

Well it’s a fact. Hunters are one of the best solo classes out there. They travel with their tank. To some it’s like getting extra hit points. So the point below is particularly noteworthy. How will Blizzard bring the Hunter’s signature feature back into the end-game? Personally, I’d like to see the ability to tame epic beasts like devilsaurs. That would show bosses Or…How about a skill that casts giant growth on a pet for 15 seconds? Bring on the stomp damage!

Still no hunter BC talent/skill love: “

Filed under: Hunter, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Expansions

With every other class either having their skill and talent info released or leaked, poor hunters are left as the only class with absolutely nothing to go on.

What scares me the most is that two more classes are confirmed to be getting some sort of pet (mage water elemental through talents and the shaman earth and fire elementals through skills) and, from the various leaks coming out, it is possible that druids (summon treant) and priests (champions) might be getting a sidekick as well.

Where does all this leave the hunter pet?

As it is hunter pets are virtually useless in endgame raids, most raid leaders will insta-kick you just for bringing them out. With other classes getting pets of some sort, Blizz is going to have to seriously rethink the purpose of hunter pets. Are they simply extra dps? A DoT that needs to be fed and dies in about 20 seconds. Or are they meant to have more functionality that increases their worth during high-end content.

The 8/8 Cryptstalker set bonus is evidence that Blizzard doesn’t think to highly (or much at all) of hunter pets.

For 59 levels my pet was my sidekick and essential to my success, however the minute you hit 60 your pet gets left behind even though you learned your class with him at you side.

So is the delay in releasing hunter Burning Crusade info scaring some people out there or do you have confidence Blizz is just holding back a pleasant surprise in store for hunters?

Natually, I just respec’d my NE this week. Sigh…

Free Respec for Everyone On Expansion Release: “

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Expansions

We actually had this confirmed the other day, but I didn’t put it up because I thought it was already obvious. Because people are still asking on the forums, yes: everyone (all classes) will be getting a free respec when the expansion releases, whether you choose to purchase the expansion or not.

Which is probably good news if you’re planning to respec near the end of this year, and didn’t want to spend the 5g. But as I said, with all the new talents coming out, rumored or otherwise, how could you not respec? It is pretty momentous that they’re handing them out across the board– I don’t recall Blizzard ever having done that before. But considering how much they’re changing everything, it’s only the right thing to do.

A better question might be this: What will the world of Azeroth be like for the week after the expansion, when everyone comes back to find new and varied talents, and almost everyone has to L2P again? Will free respecs make us all noobs again, or will players be more than ready to jump in and use what they’ve been given like pros?