Tuesday Morning Post: Adventures in beta patching edition
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Aug 10th 2010 at 7:00AM
There is, of course, plenty of other news to catch up on. If you're waiting out this morning's rolling restarts, why not check and see if you missed anything from the past few days? Our usual roundup awaits after the break.
Hot news and features
- Blizzard still expects Cataclysm to come out in 2010.
- The Battle for Undercity is being removed in Cataclysm. It's an amazing little quest event, so be sure to check it out while you still have time.
- Spoilers ahoy! We have footage of a pretty epic badlands quest called "The Day That Deathwing Came."
- Even more spoilers abound as we take a look at the new Deepholm zone in Cataclysm.
- Major spoilers: There are faction traitors in our midst in Cataclysm.
- We also have a look at the changes to Darkshore coming with Cataclysm.
- There's yet another cute new pet in the latest Cataclysm beta data files.
- Blizzard has an interview with the designers of the new Southern Barrens zone.
- Ghostcrawler opines on bloat and choice in talent trees.
- Ghostcrawler has a few things to say about the future of totems.
- Lichborne is testing out the new unholy tree while leveling in Hyjal.
- Totem Talk has more restoration beta chatter and enhancement beta chatter, and talks about elemental spells in Cataclysm.
- Shifting Perspectives has answers to beta questions you didn't ask, as well as some balance questions you did ask.
- Spiritual Guidance tries out newbie shadow priesting in Cataclysm and Cataclysm priest leveling in general.
- Encrypted Text explores the beta from a roguely perspective.
- Arcane Brilliance has beta impressions from a mage point of view.
- The Light And How To Swing It takes a look at the latest retribution talent changes in Cataclysm and goes hands-on with holy power in the beta.
- Blood Pact discusses the latest beta demonology changes.
- Scattered Shots has a collection of Cataclysm hunter videos.
- The Care and Feeding of Warriors gives the fury tree its Wrath report card.
- Gold Capped discusses making friends with farmers.
- WoW Rookie helps you complete Loremaster.
- The OverAchiever continues its countdown of the most entertaining achievements in WoW.
- Raid Rx looks at the differences between healing gear and DPS gear.
- The Art of War(craft) looks at low-level PvP in Cataclysm.
- Head out on the road with the Northrend truckers!
- Blizzard's patrolling Moon Guard to guard against public erotic roleplay.
- Cory Doctorow talks with us in 15 Minutes Of Fame.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From goblins and worgen to mastery and guild changes, it's all here for your cataclysmic enjoyment.Filed under: Realm Status, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Susano Aug 10th 2010 7:28AM
I'd listen to the words he'd say
but in his voice I heard decay
the metal face forced to portray
all the insides left cold and gray
there is a place that still remains
it eats the fear it eats the pain
the sweetest price he'll have to pay
the day the whole world went away
BECAUSE OF THE CATACLYSM
RAAWR
Ad134 Aug 10th 2010 7:29AM
I wonder if we'll be getting a release date soon if cata's still on for this year... There are only 4 months left after this one.
Nathanyel Aug 10th 2010 7:36AM
Every time* the world "shifts into being", as you put it, I'm expecting Langoliers to eat me.
* Yes, it still happens on nearly every login/zone change, although the data should already be on my machine, right?
Pneumonia Aug 10th 2010 9:19AM
I too am getting the phasing in of graphics despite having fully downloaded anything. Its not ideal.
Jiyambi Aug 10th 2010 10:42AM
Pnemonia - if you look at the beta launcher, it still says 4 GB of data to go. I think they want us to test the streaming right now to see how it goes, but I'm not sure. I hope they'll allow us to download the rest before hand in the future, because it kinda kills immersion to see things rendering around you like that.
Nathanyel Aug 10th 2010 2:01PM
It happens even for starting zones, which likely are intended to be loaded first, among other things, and are quite populated on the beta servers, I doubt they'd want that traffic.
marla Aug 10th 2010 8:24AM
According to my launcher, the patch was finished downloading and I still continually got the "slow loading textures". I think this may be a bug...a very disturbing one.
Lissanna Aug 10th 2010 9:49AM
the new launcher is great for beta testing, since we don't know what is in the patch before we log in. It allows me to log in, check to see if there is anything new, and then head to sleep while it finishes patching. I don't see the point in logging in early if we already know what is in the patch.
baderalrefai Aug 18th 2010 10:31AM
Hey guys, I'm new to WoW. I've been playing for 1 week, Mage level 30. I started my account in the U.S, but I'm currently in the asshole of the earth the middle east :P and when i tried signing in today, i had to press the "Development" button to find the closest realm to me, but i don;t want the closest realm to me I want my server the one i started with. Please help me out here.