Hallow's End was exactly random enough

Now that Hallow's End is over for another year, it's time to settle up. We already asked whether you got what you wanted, but according to the informal polls (and the feedback I've been hearing), quite a few people didn't actually get everything they were trying for. As we mentioned on the podcast the other week, many people who said they did everything they could probably didn't (did you really go trick-or-treating every hour of every day during the holiday?), but it's not too far a stretch to suggest that maybe the drop rates for some of the hardest items to get (the Horseman's helm and the Sinister Squashling pet seem to be the toughest, though I heard a lot of stories about hard-to-find toothpicks, too) are a little bit lower than they should be for fairness.

Not so, says Bornakk -- he said while the holiday was ongoing that the drop rates were fine, and now that it's over, he says they're still fine. That doesn't mean Blizzard won't change it for next year, but it does mean that they don't have any current plans to change the holiday at all. "The randomness," as he says, "can win sometimes."

Our condolences if you were trying for an item and didn't get it -- even on a 50/50 coin flip, there's still a chance to see one side 1000 times in a row. We sincerely mean this one: better luck next year.

Print Warcraft opens its doors

The newest in Blizzard's ever-expanding line of customizable merchandise, Print Warcraft just opened its doors to the public. Like FigurePrints, the site allows you to create merchandise based on your in-game characters, this time art like posters and prints.

While we've been having a bit difficulty accessing the site, likely due to launch-day growing pains, we know that the service allows a ton of customization options. Start by selecting your character, realm, and print size. Then choose from a number of templates, borders, backgrounds, character poses, pets, and more! The prices range from $17.99 for a 12x18 print to $29.99 USD for a 40x27 poster.

If you're actually able to place an order, please let us know how it comes out when you get it in the mail! If the price is right and so is the quality, it might be a decent Winter Veil gift to deck somebody's walls with. Or yours.

Curse Client v4 now in open beta

Curse has recently released version 4 of their addon client to open beta.http://www.curse.com/articles/curse-en-news/599024.aspx This is a major overhaul from their current client both in looks and functionality. It adds features such as change logs, settings backup, addon package creation, and a healthy dose of added security.

While it still does have some features only available to premium users, it is much less nagging about the process than their v3 client is known to be. Adamar (PC version) and Kaelten (Mac version as well as the addon OneBag) are the developers behind this new version and have been working with ckknight to help integrate some of its features into WoWAce.com and CurseForge addon development sites (both of which are owned by Curse Gaming). This allows players to report bugs via the new client and have them show up as support tickets in the addon sites for the developers to track and work with.

We've put together a couple quick galleries of what both the Mac (thanks Mike!) and PC versions of the new client look like as well as delving into some of the cool new features that are available with premium membership.

Patch 3.3 PTR: Patch notes updated

The official patch notes on the forums have been updated for an incoming PTR build. We've got the addition of arena points to high level battlegrounds as well as class changes for mages, death knights, paladins, shaman, and warlock.

Some of the major points coming out of this iteration of the patch notes include:

Meeting Stones: To use any Meeting Stone, it is only required that the character's minimum level be 15. There is no maximum character level requirement for any Meeting Stone. All level 71-80 Battleground daily quests will now award 25 Arena points in addition to their current rewards. Divine Intervention: Cooldown on this ability has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas. Army of the Dead: The cooldown on this ability has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Army Ghoul damage dropped by 50%. Cannot be used in Arenas. Lay on Hands: This ability now places Forbearance on the target and cannot be used on a target with Forbearance. The new notes after the break.

General:
Meeting Stones: To use any Meeting Stone, it is only required that the character's minimum level be 15. There is no maximum character level requirement for any Meeting Stone. Battlegrounds:
All level 71-80 Battleground daily quests will now award 25 Arena points in addition to their current rewards. Wintergrasp
You must now have the following ranks to build or pilot siege vehicles:
Rank 2: Build/pilot Catapults. Rank 3: Build/pilot Demolishers. Rank 3: Build/pilot Siege Engines. Death Knights:
Army of the Dead: The cooldown on this ability has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Army Ghoul damage dropped by 50%. Cannot be used in Arenas. Raise Ally: The cooldown on this ability has been reduced from 15 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas. Rune Strike: Threat generated by this ability increased by approximately 17%. Mages:
Fingers of Frost: This talent now triggers immediately on casting a spell rather than being delayed until the spell strikes the target. Paladins:
Divine Intervention: Cooldown on this ability has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas. Flash of Light: This spell no longer causes a heal-over-time effect unless the player has the Infusion of Light talent. Lay on Hands: This ability now places Forbearance on the target and cannot be used on a target with Forbearance. Sacred Shield: Reverted back to the live realm version. Infusion of Light: This talent now causes the paladin's Flash of Light spells to heal the target for 50/100% of the Flash of Light healing amount over 12 seconds. Aura Mastery: This effect of this talent has been reduced in duration to 6 seconds. Shamans:
Earth Elemental Totem: The cooldown for this totem has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas. Fire Elemental Totem: The cooldown for this totem has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas. Warlocks:
Inferno: The cooldown on this summoning spell has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas. UI:

Group Disenchanting Option: In addition to rolling Need or Greed on items, players now have the option to elect for an item to be disenchanted if an enchanter of the appropriate skill level is in the group. Disenchant works exactly like Greed except if a player wins the Greed roll, they will receive the disenchanted materials instead. Players who choose Need will always win the item and will always beat those that choose Greed or Disenchant.

Patch 3.3 PTR: Meeting Stones for all

Great news for players of all classes and levels (well, levels above 15)! In the latest official patch notes update for the Patch 3.3 PTR, Blizzard added the following line:

Meeting Stones: To use any Meeting Stone, it is only required that the character's minimum level be 15. There is no maximum character level requirement for any Meeting Stone.

Now that's a change that's been a long time coming. Ever tried to get your level 80 guildie to Deadmines to help you carve a bloody swath straight to Van Cleef? It's a pain! Ever tried to get your lowbie to a high-level zone without a portal? Also a pain! This completely removes the restrictions on using or activating summoning stones so long as you're above level 15.

Now you'll be able to bring whoever you want to any dungeon summoning stone with just two people. A fantastic quality-of-life change, very likely added to ensure that interest in rerolling remains steady until Cataclysm comes out, but who cares? I'll take it! Who wants to run me through ZF?

--

Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

http://wow.com/guide-to-patch-3-3

All the World's a Stage: The voices of every race and class speak in RP

All the World's a Stage has been a voice for roleplaying in WoW for over two years now. I didn't quite realize it at the time, but the article entitled "So you want to be a bad guy" was just about at the 2 year mark for this column! To celebrate belatedly, today we'll review some of the other websites about roleplaying in WoW out there. If you like All the World's a Stage, you'll probably enjoy these as well.

In addition, you will find that some of these websites have similar, but unique pages with information about roleplaying the various races and classes of Azeroth. So for those of you who would like to have a reference to all these articles in a single place, I've collected them all together in one list at the end of the article. This list includes my own articles, as well as those of all the other websites I'm about to mention which follow on the same theme.

Blogatelle

The first blog on my list is Blogatelle, started by my one of my friends I met through roleplaying in the game. Even though this blog itself is discontinued, there's lots of good stuff to read there. Probably most notable on the site are the "Play Files," in-depth articles about each of the playable races from a roleplayer's point of view. They're similar to my own "So you want to be..." articles on each race, except that they focus more on the way the different races view one another instead of the history and lore behind each one.

In addition to the Play Files, Blogatelle did a series called "Do it Different," about which was also like another part of my "So you want to be..." series on each class, except that instead of trying to focus on some of the basic things every roleplayer of each class ought to know as I did, they focused on how to try and break the stereotypes that people often got into when they played these classes. Again, scroll down to the end of the article to see a list of specific links for your race and class.

RP Made Simple

Another great website for WoW roleplaying is the famous "RP Made Simple" blog, which has a great approach to roleplaying that really does make it seem simple! If you're a beginner roleplayer looking for inspiration or guidance, definitely have a look at his RP Survival Guide, a collection of articles written just for you, to help you get familiar with all the basic ideas and terminology of roleplaying. There's also a series of introduction articles about each race in this guide, which gives more basic factual information, as well as lots of links to other sources (including some of my own articles) where you can find out more.

He also has some more advanced stuff in there, such as his "What's Lore Got to Do With It?" post, and especially his "Tinkering With Abilities," post, in which he almost makes a new class by combining Rogue abilities with Gnomish Engineering technologies, and coming out with something really clever on the other end, the Gearmaster!

Compass Studies

A new addition to the WoW blogosphere was added just this summer, Compass Studies features a combination of everything from personal thoughts about roleplaying to in-depth tutorials on how to use the latest greatest roleplaying addon, to in-character fiction by the author of the blog.

One article that caught my attention talked about how to avoid becoming a Mary Sue, which is really its own sort of half-demonic/half-vampiric disease that can catch you unawares and cause you to suck attention out of other people at every opportunity. I wrote about the same thing, and it was neat to see Compass Studies' point of view on the matter. To be more accurate, her (or his?) article is actually about how to recover from the Mary Sue disease once you've already been seduced by it without even knowing, and it has lots of good guidelines.

RoleCraft

Jim H. Moreno is another roleplaying blogger who's been around even longer than I have. I originally contacted him way back when I was thinking about writing All the World's a Stage in order to get some other opinions about all those questions I had running around in my head. He was writing his Wordpress blog RoleCraft for a long time until he got hired to write a column of the same name on the Warcry network. His column started out mostly about WoW, but now covers topics related to roleplaying in any MMORPG.

Jim has written not one, but two articles about other WoW roleplaying websites out there, with some good links in there, some of which I haven't seen before. He's written a critique of the way Blizzard handles roleplaying in WoW, how to run instances and roleplay at the same time (here was my take on the same topic), and covered all manner of other topics as well. Have a look and see what you like.

Dramatis Personae

Another site about roleplaying which I've always liked, and which I felt had a lot in common with my own interests, was Dramatis Personae. Their articles about the various races and classes of Azeroth were what inspired me to do my own series on the topic. They have a forum you can join also, which has a lot of great people and ideas in it.

The Race/Class Information List

As I promised, here is a collection of links to lots of different articles about the various races and classes of WoW, by each of the various authors mentioned above:

Alliance

Humans: All the World's a Stage - Blogatelle - RP Made Simple - Dramatis Personae Dwarves: All the World's a Stage - Blogatelle - RP Made Simple - Dramatis Personae Gnomes: All the World's a Stage - Blogatelle - RP Made Simple - Dramatis Personae Night Elves: All the World's a Stage - Blogatelle - RP Made Simple - Dramatis Personae Draenei: All the World's a Stage - Blogatelle - RP Made Simple - Dramatis Personae Horde

Orcs: All the World's a Stage - Blogatelle - RP Made Simple - Dramatis Personae Tauren: All the World's a Stage - Blogatelle - RP Made Simple - Dramatis Personae Trolls: All the World's a Stage - Blogatelle - RP Made Simple - Dramatis Personae Undead: All the World's a Stage - Blogatelle - RP Made Simple - Dramatis Personae Blood Elves: [All the World's a Stage, part 1 & part 2] - Blogatelle - RP Made Simple - Dramatis Personae Classes

Death Knight: All the World's a Stage - [Blogatelle, conjecture & considered] - RP Made Simple Druid: All the World's a Stage - Blogatelle - Dramatis Personae Hunter: All the World's a Stage - Blogatelle - Dramatis Personae Mage: All the World's a Stage - Blogatelle - Dramatis Personae Paladin: [All the World's a Stage (see also: Blood Elves)] - Blogatelle - Dramatis Personae Priest: All the World's a Stage - [Blogatelle, Holy & Shadow & Discipline] - Dramatis Personae Rogue: [All the World's a Stage (Horde & Alliance)] - [Blogatelle, part 1 & part 2] - Dramatis Personae Shaman: [All the World's a Stage, part 1 & part 2] - [Blogatelle, part 1 & part 2] - Dramatis Personae Warlock: All the World's a Stage - Blogatelle - Dramatis Personae Warrior: [All the World's a Stage, Alliance & Horde] - [Blogatelle, part 1 & part 2] - Dramatis Personae
Tradeskills:
(As far as I know, the only in-depth coverage of roleplaying tradeskills is what we have in this column)

Mining Herbalism Skinning Alchemy Blacksmithing Engineering Leatherworking Tailoring Enchanting Jewelcrafting Inscription

China's GAPP halts WoW review, calls collecting subscriptions "illegal behavior"

Just when NetEase was finally getting back to business in China (they were even planning for a Wrath release next month), they hit a huge snag: China's General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) office has apparently halted their review of the game and told the company to stop collecting subscriptions and signing up new subscribers. They've also passed on the company's application to go into business, and have called the new subscription signups "illegal behavior," threatening even suspension of the company's Internet service.

We're not sure what happens from here -- an official from the country's Ministry of Culture has also said that the suspension of the review is "not appropriate," especially since the content under review had already been approved while the game was being run by The9, which may mean that it will be overturned just as quickly as it went down (and the game will be back in business before long). On the other hand, Netease may have jumped the gun -- they've been collecting subscriptions for a while, which they apparently weren't supposed to do without official GAPP approval (and we've heard before that GAPP might just want to delay the release of foreign games as long as possible). We'll keep an eye on the issue -- most analysts are saying that despite the threats, this is just another roadbump for NetEase, and they should still be back to collecting payments for the game soon.

Update: Stranger and stranger -- NetEase has released a statement saying they've gotten no official word from GAPP outside of the official press release. When you consider that along with the Ministry of Culture's comments, it seems that the government isn't quite sure whether they're approving the content or not.