Now, given the nature of the news this week, I could just throw up a picture of the BlizzCon sign as my header and be done with it. But I'm not going to do that. Instead, have a picture of Jaina Proudmoore. I have to admit, between the state of Dustwallow Marsh and the incidents at Undercity and Dalaran, I lost a lot of faith in Jaina. She just didn't seem to have any dignity or grace anymore. The woman I admired in Warcraft 3 was gone. But Christie Golden changed that. In The Shattering, she let me respect Jaina again, as a strong woman who still loves the Alliance but won't give up on peace, standing up to her King and even, if needed, to Thrall, even as she maintains strong friendships with both of them. Thank you, Christie. Thank you for letting me love Jaina again.

Anyhow, with that bit of rampant fanboying out of the way, I should warn you that we do have the usual 5-11 a.m. downtime this morning. Luckily, between BlizzCon and patch 4.0.1, there's plenty of news for you to catch up on. You can start with our usual list, after the break.

BlizzCon news and features

• BlizzCon 2010 actually started bright and early Thursday morning for these line campers. Luckily, they had a pretty pricey food cart to keep them company soon enough.
• Check out our gallery of the BlizzCon 2010 goodie bag.
• The opening ceremony had some small tidbits of news for WoW players, including news on immediate playability for the Cataclysm direct download and news of a new Moonkin Hatchling pet coming to the Blizzard store in November.
• Hey guys, did you know we've killed Arthas a lot?
• Check out our gallery of costumes and other BlizzCon sightings.
• Check out our liveblog of the WoW dungeons and raids panel, which revealed the patch 4.1 Firelands raid and the Abyssal Maw dungeon, as well as some patch 4.1 classic dungeon changes and enhanced dungeon maps.
• The devs mentioned that they might want to revamp Outland and Northrend at some point as well.
• Check out our quests and lore panel liveblog.
• While at BlizzCon, we also scored interviews with authors Christie Golden and Richard Knaak.
• Check out our pictures of the BlizzCon 2010 art gallery
• We were also present for the BlizzCon 2010 costume and dance contest. This year, some guy took the term "break a leg" a bit too literally (and got carried off by a dude who looks way too much like Keanu Reeves). We caught up with him later to get the full story.
• DirecTV had a few surprise interviews with Blizzard developers Tom Chilton and Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street.
• Check out liveblog of the Class Q&A panel.
• We also liveblogged the WoW open Q&A panel, where we learned that we will be seeing the Emerald Dream in game at some point.
• We also have a first hand account of the Defense of Orgrimmar live raid.
• We have a look at what was revealed at the Warcraft cinematics panel.
• We have galleries of the 2010 BlizzCon store and vendor booths.
• It is said that the blues walked among us at BlizzCon. Did you see any?

Other hot news and features

• Crashing on the Headless Horseman's pumpkin? There is a workaround for that.
• Blizzard has released the official system requirements for Cataclysm.
• Check out our first-hand account of the battle against Omnitron, one of the new Cataclysm raid bosses.
• Spoiler Alert: Read up on what happened to Garrosh and Cairne in The Shattering, the new WoW novel.
• Feel a bit sicklier in patch 4.0.1? There's a reason for that. Armor mitigation has been nerfed in patch 4.0.1.
• Have no fear, lowbies and newbies, Blizzard does plan to keep an eye on low-level class balance.

Class news and guides

• The old class-specific quests are going away in Cataclysm.
• Hunters got a DPS hotfix recently.
• Blood Pact runs down what the patch 4.0.1 warlock needs to know.
• Totem Talk has a patch 4.0.1 restoration survival guide, a guide to enhancement macros and a look at stats and reforging for elemental shamans.
• The Light And How To Swing It offers protection and retribution builds for patch 4.0.1 and healing in patch 4.0.1.
• Lichborne has a guide to death knight regemming and reforging in patch 4.0.1.
• Encrypted Text looks at the rogue combat tree's missing damage.
• Spiritual Guidance opines on the state of the patch 4.0.1. shadow priest and talks to priests at BlizzCon.
• The Art of War(craft) looks at patch 4.0.1 druid PvP talents.
• Scattered Shots looks at maximizing hunter DPS in patch 4.0.1 heroic dungeons and a recap of BlizzCon for hunters.
• The Care And Feeding of Warriors looks at patch 4.0.1 arms DPS.
• Arcane Brilliance looks at patch 4.0.1 potpourri for mages.

Items, dungeons, professions, PvP and more

• Raid Rx discusses getting your guild to stand in the glowing stuff.
• Addon Spotlight looks at more patch 4.0.1 compatible addons.
• Here's a runthrough of Dun Morogh as it appears in Cataclysm.
• Gold Capped looks at crafting queuing addons.
• Blood Sport offers up more gladiator secrets. This time, they're dirty.
• WoW Rookie looks at finding a guild for Cataclysm.

Odds and ends

• Blizzard has announced the winners of the 2010 Global Writing Contest.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

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