Site Name

World of Warcraft: The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm by Christie Golden has perhaps the longest name of any WoW novel to date, and definitely the largest amount of colons. The Shattering tells the story of the events leading up to “the shattering,” the event where Deathwing emerges from Deepholm and causes mass destruction across Azeroth. This is the first time a WoW novel has been released to advance the story in preparation for an expansion (namely Cataclysm), and seeing the events of The Shattering occurring in parallel with in-game events is quite exciting.

The Shattering is the first of three novels describing the events of the Cataclysm. We learn about the politics of the Alliance and the Horde leading up to Cataclysm and how the Twilight’s Hammer cult and other evil organizations seek to cause havoc in preparation for Deathwing’s arrival. The story alternates between Horde and Alliance events, intertwining them at times when the events happen to overlap. Read more…

Before you know it, Cataclysm is going to be hitting store shelves, sooner, rather then later. How are you getting prepared? The following is an article to aid you along in some areas you may have overlooked thus far. Allow me to give the standard disclaimer at this time. The following article will contain blatant spoilers, reader discretion is advised. If you’re the type that wants everything brand new when you play the expansion, then this isn’t the article for you. On a side note, for those of you, like me, and whom thirst for information, and have never understood those people who like the expansion to be as fresh as possible, and perhaps you want some insight on how the other half lives? I’ll direct your attention to a really well written article a few months back, by fellow Rawrcast writer, and fellow guild mate, Plectical: Head in the sand. For now, enjoy The PvE perspective: Pre/Post Cataclysm checklist. Read more…

When you think about WoW in broad strokes, the general trajectory from launch to Cataclysm has been a movement from a fairly hardcore game to a much more casual experience. Raid content has become more accessible, the leveling experience has been sped up and simplified and many of the more punishing class mechanics have been removed from the game. Most importantly, the time that we spend in game has changed significantly.

Step back and look at the amount of time that you have spent playing end game content in WoW during this expansion. Each raid that was released had both a 10 and 25 man version, and depending on your dedication as a raider, you probably experienced both versions frequently (for myself and many folks that I play with, we raided both almost every week). With the new raid lock out system, players can no longer double up. You can transition from one raid lock out to another, but you certainly can’t do them both in the same lockout period. Read more…

This is part two, of a two-part mini-series on the topic of re-rolling. If you missed part one, you can find it here. To briefly recap, in part one, we focused on when it’s right to re-roll, in this article we will focus on the why. It wasn’t until I started talking with other individuals, listening to the Rawrcast pod cast, then writing a pro’s/con’s list, and started writing this very article, that I had a epiphany on the topic. I will share this “epiphany” with you, the readers, later on. If you read part one, you know that I‘m not just pulling this topic out of thin air, it‘s something that has plagued me for weeks/months now. Along the way, there are many pitfalls to stay away from, but on the flip side, there are some very valid reasons to re-roll. I’ll investigate both with this in depth look at, The PvE perspective: Why is it right to re-roll. Enjoy Read more…

For those of you not familiar with the term “re-roll” it refers to a point that you change focus from your main character, to an alt. There is a veritable smorgasbord or reasons as to why one would re-roll, which I intend to cover in part 2 of this article but for now we will focus on the when. With that explanation out of the way, in weeks leading up to patch 4.0.1 I have asked myself this very question, no less then several dozen time. Furthering my opinion that the topic needed a harder look on this weeks podcast several people called/wrote into the show, asking about this very topic. So with out further a due enjoy The PvE perspective: When is it time to re-roll? Part 1. Read more…

Send your questions to the hugesack@rawrcast.com or leave a message on the 9-line at 559-949-RAWR(7297)!

I ran across this while reading one of my favorite hunter blogs, Huntsmanslodge.com. It looks like GC is all spirit-beasted out and looking pretty fricken awesome. It looks like he is a level 85 crab, with HoT and an agl and str buff. It looks pretty, and I can only imagine how much this guy is going to be farmed.

I imagine that this is going to be one of those rare mobs that Blizz turns out on the “Have fun trying to figure THIS spawn out guys.” Like the spirit bear that I still have not tamed, some mobs just don’t seem to have any rhyme or reason to their spawn timers. My money is on this mob getting killed over and over again as hunters compete over him.

Anyway, there isn’t a whole lot of information out on him. Are you going for him?

Ever wonder if BRK has anything to do with all of the new BM builds in the Beta?

Woaw! 11 hours later we just got back to the hotel after day 1 of BlizzCon!

This is just a quick update to let you guys and girls know how things are going.

I can say Blizzard has really outdone themselves this year. All of the panels have been an absolute blast (especially the WoW Lore panel, although that could be me being  slightly biased) and when I say we got hold of some awesome lore details, I mean it. If you didn’t catch the Lore panel at Blizzcon or on the live stream, I’ll make sure to cover everything we heard on Lands of Lore.

In terms of breaking news, there wasn’t a whole bunch this year. Sadly the elusive mystery IP remains unknown, but theres always next year eh? What we did find out however was the last class that will be coming to Diablo 3, the Demon Hunter. Think Sylvanas but with dual wield crossbows, she kicks ass! If you’re at Blizzcon you can give her a whirl.

There is also a bunch of community mods for SC2 that are playable including a Peggle mod which rawks! Of course the latest version of the Cata Beta is playable and I get more and more excited the more I see of it. Apart from that, there are the guys from Razr here, Jinx, Richard. Knaak (who writes some of the WoW books) and TONS of other stuff. Read more…