By  Spugnorts World

Race Changes "Coming Soon" - Well, we told you about this a while back and now we see that the button is actually on the account management page under the "Paid Services" tab (big surprise) and it is labeled with a red "Coming Soon!". This character change will be separate from the others and will be a race change within your character's current faction. Now there are a few things about this alteration that are unclear and that is whether you can do this as soon as you switch factions, gender, name, etc. or if you have to wait. Also, there is no word yet on if the Goblin and Worgen races will be included as one of the available races to switch to once the expansion is released or if we will have to wait. Waiting would make more sense to me, but hey so would staying the same faction, so what do I know?

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• Europe Has Been Robbed! - So, Blizzard has confirmed that the absence of the Catch a Wild Wolpertinger and Pink Elekks on Parade quests on European realms is in fact intentional and not a bug like previously assumed. Apparently these "get trashed and see fantasy creatures" quests were removed from the game on European realms to comply with the regional game rating requirements. What I get from that is that at least one of the countries in Europe is not willing to allow or encourage virtual drunkenness in a game played by many European teens. Personally, I think the quests are harmless and that we need to teach our kids to separate the virtual and real worlds and make the right decisions accordingly, but that's just my two cents.
• Art Event in California - The Laguna Art Museum in California will be hosting an artists forum at UC Irvine from 4-6pm on October 1st. The forum is set to include the artists featured in the museum's current WoW-based exhibit. The amazing game and book art will be displayed throughout the museum and the featured guests will be speaking about creating art and other types of media for games and digital entertainment. For anyone in the neighborhood this should be an exciting and informative event, wish I could go but I am stuck in Ohio...
• Comic Corner - This week the comics were a bit less comical than other weeks. I did manage to find a few that made me chuckle, though. First is the latest from NoObz! called Family Spirit, this one is about a guild recruiter and the potential member he is trying to suck in to his guild of all consuming awesomeness...or something like that. Next up is the latest from Mary Varn over at NPC called Dreamy where her friend gushes about this amazing guy she met, but there's just one problem...cute! Last we have one from Ctrl+Alt+Del that had me going...OMG! I have PuG'd with that druid, I swear!
• GC Taking a Break - One of my favorite Blizzard posters, Ghostcrawler (aka Gregg Street) posted on Saturday that he is going to "chill out for a while" from the role forums. These forums are the primary way that Blizzard communicates with it's fan base about upcoming changes to WoW and the reasoning behind those changes. For nearly two years, GC has been an everyday presence in the forums and has offered a great look at the inner workings of the design process for Warcraft. Now, this break comes after a recent turn to commenters getting a little too personal and making his posts about something other than the game itself...stupid annoying QQ'ing buttheads! I am personally going to miss his matter-of-fact posts and their informative, yet often humorous tone. Hopefully he will be back soon or at least in time for the Cataclysm beta!
• Cataclysm Lore and Other Details Revealed - PC Gamer UK was lucky enough to sit down with Blizzard devs and grill them on the upcoming Cataclysm expansion. They managed to weasel some pretty juicy details out of them on everything from the lore behind the new starter areas to the details behind what's going on with the Horde. In the interview, they discuss new races, new gameplay areas, new dungeons and bosses and new PvP zones. If you're interested in all these fabuloso spoilers check out the Podcast of the interview.
• Movie of the Week - Well this week I have two pretty cool movies for you. The first is called Quest Impossible and was created by Machini-Mations. This movie is a homage to the Mission Impossible style films and even uses the music from the movies. It's a well designed, action packed piece of work, but I have to say the punch line at the end ROCKS!! The next one I found this week is the second in a series we featured a few weeks ago called Ulduar: The Movie. This week Atraira has released Part 2 of 3 and it is just as visually stunning and amazing as the first part was. These videos are packed with gameplay footage as well as the lore behind the fights within the walls of Ulduar making them action packed, informative and just a true joy to experience! Can't wait for the third and final part of this series!
• Alterac Valley Bracket Changes - Some changes originally intended for patch 3.3 managed to squeak by the staff at Blizz and right into the live version of patch 3.2.2. These changes to Alterac Valley regarding bracket placement and experience made sense for arrival with 3.3 since the availability of cross-realm grouping will be arriving, but Blizz said since the changes are already there they will let them stand. To see the full announcement in the forums you can click here.
• Lower Flying Costs in 3.2.2 - Blizzard poster, Mumper (I love that name!) confirmed on the forums this week that the costs to train for flying at level 60 have been reduced significantly and as of Patch 3.2.2 Expert Riding training is going for the bargain basement price of only 225 Gold! This is quite a difference as patch 3.2 brought the same training down from 800 to 600 Gold. This was done because Blizzard would like to see more level 60's be able to afford to fly in the Outland as soon as it is possible for them to do so. Now if we could just get Blizz to slash prices like this on their paid services, we'd be all sorts of set!
• Grunty is in Da House! - Wow, I am just in a weird mood today! Anyhow, the folks who ordered the Direct TV coverage of BlizzCon '09 have begun to receive e-mails letting them know how to claim their very own Murloc Marine. The e-mail will come with a code and a URL to visit in order to get your little gun-toting Murloc pet, please be careful of phishing e-mails! The correct URL is http://www.blizzcon.com/pet, if you receive an e-mail with any other web address, discard it immediately! All players looking to redeem the pet can do so by first being sure you have a Battle.net account and logging into the site above and entering the code you're given. Once you have done this, your special little guy will be waiting for you in your in-game mailbox!
• ToC improvements in 3.2.2 - One of the best changes in 3.2.2 comes in the form of a lack of babbling on in instances, namely the Trial of Champions. When a player starts the encounter they are now presented with dialogue from the NPC which allows them to skip the announcing of names and the other garbled talk that goes on in there. Also, they have finally fixed an issue with the NPC's which occurred after you would win the mounted phase. It used to be that players had to run out of the instance to reset the fight and then run back in and move on.
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By  Spugnorts World