Of course, he hasn't confirmed it, either. Ever since that German CM apparently hinted at a July 3rd start date for the WoTLK Beta at the Worldwide Invitational, people have been searching for further confirmation or denial of the rumor. Bornakk, in true Blizzard style, has been staying mum, saying only that a date for the beta test has yet to be announced.

When someone expressed fear that we'd only hear about the beta at Blizzcon, Bornakk assured them that Blizzcon is not the only place to release information, but reiterated that there's no actual start date for the beta announced yet. On a later thread, when someone said that the WoTLK Beta would start this week, he linked back to that same thread, once again not outright denying it, but saying only that it had not yet been announced.

So what does this mean, exactly?

The first WoW panel has come and gone at the Worldwide Invitational. It was focused on class abilities in WoTLK, and there was some absolutely juicy stuff, especially for Hunters. As the proud player of a 70 Hunter, I'm feeling amazingly awesome about my class right now. Two of the biggest, most universal Hunter complaints have not only been answered, but answered in a way that I think a lot of Hunter players are going to be incredibly excited about.

Steady Shot Clipping

First up, it looks like Shot Rotations as we know them will soon become a thing of the past, or at least be incredibly simplified, as Steady Shots will no longer clip Auto Shots. This is actually an issue that has gained some blue post love in the past, but it's nice to see it so directly confronted and dealt with.

There may still be a shot rotation of a type for fitting in Arcane Shot and various stings, but it looks like Hunter DPS will no longer be a complicated dance of weapon speed, haste rating, macros, and server latency. That in itself is amazing news.

Pet Talent Trees and Uniqueness

One of the other major complaints of Hunters is the lack of pet diversity. It is generally expected that if you are min-maxing, you will go for a Cat, Ravager, or Scorpid and nothing else, because they are the only pet families that have the right combination of ability and DPS to get their jobs done. Some pet classes, like Sporebats, languished due to a complete lack of useful family skills.

Despite the fact that my level 70 Hunter isn't technically my main, she's probably my favorite character. A lot of people will tell you that a Hunter is an overly easy class: sic your pet, turn on Auto Shot, and you're done. While having a built-in tank that you can even heal a bit gives you a pretty strong advantage when going it alone, I'd have to say they oversimplify things a bit.

The largest area where the complexity of the Hunter class shows is in end-game DPS. If you want to be the most effective DPSer possible, it takes quite a bit of work. The way that you must weave shots in between your auto shots is a complicated dance that requires split second timing that can mean vast differences in DPS totals between Hunters. Cheeky of the Khadgar-US server (author of the famous Cheeky's Spreadsheet) posted a very concise and well-stated summary of some of the problems with Hunter DPS on the official US forums here a few months back. The post was originally written by Lactose of the Talnivarr-EU Server, who posted it on the EU forms here, where it got some blue love today a while back.

Nethaera has posted this morning that... no, we aren't getting new patch 2.4 information yet. Not today, and probably not Monday. Disappointing, but as with all posts from Nethaera, there's usually at least a few hints hidden within. Thanks to the bit of relief she brings, the lack of real news isn't all bad.

There's been some doom and gloom hanging over the WoW community about the upcoming arena balancing, but Nethaera assures us there will be no "sweeping class changes." Whether this is a good or a bad thing is really up to you, but being the magical PvE carebear that I am, I'm certainly pleased with that. I'm sure the PvP community thinks otherwise, and would also like to eat me for breakfast.

Nethaera goes on to crush our hopes and dreams by stating that fake patch notes are, indeed, fake. Sorry, warriors, Rend is still not for tanking!

Yesterday, a player posted on the official WoW forum asking about the current state of the Doomguard and Infernal Warlock pets. It's a hassle to learn how to summon these demons, requiring the completion of multiple quests for each, and summoning them requires reagents, including the death of one of your party members (for the Doomguard at least). With all these requirements, one would think the pets would be worthwhile, but their cost and unpredictability (they have to be continually enslaved, which is on diminishing returns and may break at any time) make them worse than the normal Warlock pets.

Eyonix answers the original poster, saying that the devs are concerned about these pets and will buff them sometime in the future. That "future" may be the next expansion, but this is a better answer than the class has received on the subject in a long time. To the best of my knowledge, previous answers were something along the line of "These spells may have situational uses and will not be changed from that role". Now there is once again hope that these cool and iconic (watch the original WoW cinematic, if you don't recall) Warlock pets will become more than simple novelties.

Yesterday I posted regarding the odd drop behavior of the design for the new meta gem, the Chaotic Skyfire Diamond. Many readers commented that the gem requirements were too stringent, making the gem undesirable for them. Unlike the majority of other gems, this one required exactly two blue gems in order to activate its bonus stats. Most meta gems have quantifiers like "at least" or "more than" and players found that limiting themselves to a specific number of gems was, well, too limiting.

Today a player brought their complaint regarding this requirement to the official WoW forums and was able to garner a blue response. Drysc posted in the thread, mentioning that the gem has already been changed in an upcoming patch. Specifically, the "exactly two blue gems" requirement will be changed to "at least two blue gems". Additionally, he stated that other meta gems with similar requirements are being reviewed as well (although I know of only one other that might fit that category).

What do you think? Is there any doubt now that this will be the best meta gem for most DPS caster builds?

It's a Monday and there's a patch on the PTR. If there's one thing you can count on, it should be a post on the official WoW forums asking if the patch will be released tomorrow. And of course, the WoW populace does not disappoint us. Today's query comes from a player named Vux who has chosen an unusual multiple choice format to provide a change of pace from the normal routine. Drysc answers the post in the negative -- 2.3 will not hit the live realms tomorrow.

Many players' hopes of a release date have been based upon the fact that 2.3 is already being distributed via the Blizzard downloader. When one player asked about the early download, Bornakk simply reminded everyone that content-heavy patches, like this one, are often made available for early download. While he didn't give any further hint of a release date, he did respond with the typical blue response "soon".

While I'm sure we've all had the experience where a crucial group member went away from their keyboard at a bad time, a whole different type of disastrous AFK was brought up on the WoW forums the other day. An earthquake in the San Francisco area was cause for a lot of sudden AFKs for many posters, including Delthen who started the thread. It seems that many of the posters actually told their group that they were going away from the keyboard. Apparently they failed to read the recent article on the subject by our own Robin Torres.

Nethaera chimed in with her own story of a group member needing to leave the game due to a tornado warning, one which I've seen occur in-game myself. Personally, the worst thing that's suddenly taken my attention from the game is my dog getting sick or maybe a desperate cry for me to kill a spider that's harassing my wife. What's the worst thing that's caused you to go AFK?

Big changes are coming to the Alterac Valley battleground in patch 2.3, and, as is often the case with these things, players are already expressing their discontent. Nethaera responded to a thread on the official forums yesterday in order to address such complaints. She reminded everyone that the developers are currently monitoring the changes to AV and are tweaking the honor earned in order to keep the overall gain as similar as possible to the current rate on the live realms.

The most interesting part of her post, of course, regards a change being implemented regarding the mechanics of capturing a mine. When a mine is captured by a player, his or her team will be awarded a steady stream of reinforcements. According to Neth, the capturing team will receive about one reinforcement every forty-five seconds or so. Since I haven't played the new AV on the PTR, it's difficult for me to develop an opinion on this change. What do you think?

Update: Blizzard poster Salthem has posted a few more details of the change to the mines.