Yep, as expected after the test realm ended, patch 2.4.2 has hit the live servers, and is now available for download and installation. Daniel did a terrific roundup of what you can see in the new patch this morning. The patch notes aren't available online yet, but the only change I can see between the PTR notes and what's live is that the Druid Natural Perfection change didn't go through -- otherwise, everything else is in there as expected, including the Arena changes and the Growl changes (whatever they are).
Enjoy the new patch (and if you're an Outlands Hunter like me, enjoy your new pet!). This might be the last one we get for a while.
Not to be outdone by the WoW iPhone theme, Xtina over on WoW LJ took it upon herself to use those WoW icons to create a theme for the Blackberry. This one's even a little more in-depth -- she even skinned the calling screen (which is actually easy enough to do on the iPhone as well, but we just hadn't seen it before). Plus, the best part is that this one is completely legit -- you just download the file from Xtina's page there, and you can install it using Desktop Manager.
Of course, we haven't actually heard from Blizzard about any of this stuff yet -- odds are that as great as their icons are, they're not real thrilled with seeing them used in other places (a friend of mine who just recently saw me playing World of Warcraft shouted out in surprise, "Hey! Those are the icons from that game on Facebook!" I didn't bother telling her about the real DotA or Warcraft III). Then again, both of these are completely fanmade and free to download -- surely themes like this, that let Blizzard fans show off their loyalties, can be let through the loopholes.
Our latest podcast is now available to listen to over on WoW Radio's website-- in it, Chris Jahosky, Turpster, and I all chat about everything there was to chat about in Warcraft the last week.
Chris Jahosky of WoW Insider was on, and so we chatted about his being a Paladin, and about his ongoing graphic novel, available right here on the site.
We answered a little reader mail, including how to deal with having a non-RP name on an RP server
We talked about the new Sunwell deets revealed last week, and what we're excited to see.
Plus lots more. If you hear something interesting and have a comment, feel free to email us at theshow@wowinsider.com, and let us know what you think about anything and everything.
And stay tuned-- the WoW Insider Show goes on the air every Saturday afternoon at 3:30pm EST, so there's just a few more days until you can listen to us live again, and get your audio fill of everything going down in the World of Warcraft.
Here's just a sample of what listeners are saying about our podcast (now in its 15th week, and going live on the air once again tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm EST): "Quite entertaining."
"It's probably the best WoW radio content out there right now."
"Highly recommended."
The WoW Insider Show is just like this great website you're visiting, only in audio form (and with a considerable dash of WoW Radio's Turpster, which will definitely add spice to any meal). If you haven't gotten a chance to listen live yet, please tune in tomorrow at 3:30pm EST over on WoW Radio-- not only can you hear our voices as we speak, but you can also join us on IRC and actually interact with the show as it goes down. We'll be chatting about the boy-meets-moose story, the WoW laptop (and whether it's worth it or not), Activision Blizzard, and both how to beat a warlock, and how to lose in Alterac Valley.
If you can't make it, no worries-- the show is also available to download on WoW Radio's site and on iTunes every single week. But if you can tune in tomorrow, we'd be thrilled to have you.
The first official installment of patch 2.3 is now available to the Blizzard Background Downloader. While it may still be several weeks until the patch is activated on the live realms, this is nonetheless a sign of hope for many players who have been eagerly anticipating the new content. I have no doubt that the patch release date guessing game will come up at least once in guild chat while I'm online tonight. (I might even be the instigator.)
Many people I've grouped with in game have complained of extra latency while the Downloader is running. If you start to notice this problem while playing tonight, you can always alt-tab out and suspend the download. Also, you can always access the options for the Downloader through the WoW Launcher which, in turn, can be enabled/disabled from your login screen. Additionally, if you'd like to start downloading without starting up WoW, you can use the Background Downloader icon in the WoW folder on your hard drive. For further questions, be sure to check out the Blizzard support page for more help on the subject.
Looks like we got a little ahead of ourselves. Before we see 2.3 on the PTRs, we're going to see 2.2.3, a small patch that is supposed to bugfix a lot of the sound problems that players are having. Patch notes are complete below, and I'm betting that if the Kael event isn't fixed yet, a fix for that will also be included in this patch. We can only hope that we'll see a small PTR appearance for 2.2.3 (so test it extra fast, folks), and then the gloriousness of 2.3 will grace us with its presence.
PTR 2.2.3 Patch Notes
Clients utilizing OpenGL video modes will no longer experience graphical anomalies and missing textures after minimizing/maximizing the window.
Fixed an issue that caused Fel Eye Stalks during the Legion Ring event to not despawn when the event is completed.
Fixed an issue where zoning after mounting and summoning a pet was disconnecting players.
Fixed an issue where the Shift key would get stuck in game.
Using a /equip macro while affected by certain crowd control spells will no longer cause the items in the macro to be stuck in your inventory.
A big thanks to everyone that tuned into the very first episode of the WoW Insider Show-- lots of good times were had as WoW Radio's Turpster, and Dan O'Halloran and I discussed everything from whether it's OK for a guild leader to ninja a mount to whether we'll fly in Northrend before level 78 or not, all the way back to why gold farming might be OK. Actually, Dan stands alone on that last one-- you can listen to the show, right now, over on WoW Radio's homepage for it to find out exactly what happened. And it's also in iTunes-- here's the link for the iTunes Store if you've got iTunes installed.
Congratulations to listener Chris S for randomly winning the Murloc suit giveaway! Stay tuned for many more giveaways on the show. And if you have comments or suggestions for the show, our email address is theshow@wowinsider.com.
And the WoW Insider Show rolls on-- this coming Saturday, September 8th, at 3:30 pm EST, we'll have our second episode, and you'll be able to listen live over at WoW Radio just like last week. We'll cover everything that's happened in the World of Warcraft over the past week, as well as keep you entertained and give you exclusive insight on everything we write about here at WoW Insider.
So thanks everyone who listened in this week, and be sure to check us out on every Saturday, kicking off at 3:30pm EST.
For those of you who didn't want to wander through the extremely long transcript for the Stratics House of Commons Dev Chat in the last post, I thought I would point out one extremely pertinent bit. According to Tigole, Kalgan, Drysc and Eyonix, patch 2.1 is going live tomorrow morning to all servers.
If you've been holding off on running the torrent, or meaning to look for that patch mirror site but never got around to it, you might want to get that download started. In either case, patches generally mean strange bugs and rolling restarts, if not an extended downtime in the first place. Best to prepare for an extended WoW jones now and some frustration as the bugs get worked out of the system.
What kind of things do you do on patch day? Have any particular things you do on maintenance Tuesdays like the WoW LJ community does with their Caturday - Servers Screwed thread? Share your tips and save your fellow WoW players from boredom tomorrow!
Edited to add: Yep, Drysc confirmed extended downtime:
We will be performing extended maintenance on May 22 for all realms.
Rejoice! Now we North American types can also upgrade and download the Burning Crusade! I was heading over to www.worldofwarcraft.com just now and was hit with the following message:
You can now buy account upgrade keys and download the game client for World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade directly through the account management section of www.worldofwarcraft.com. With this new direct online upgrade method, you don't even need to leave your desk if you decide to upgrade to The Burning Crusade and join more than two million players who are already adventuring beyond the Dark Portal.
I was chatting with Elizabeth Harper about why they might choose to offer direct download now, and not at launch. Here's what I came up with:
Offering direct download at launch might irritate retailers.
Offering it now might get a few people to buy who weren't motivated enough to go out to the store.
It probably costs them relatively little to do this.
What do you guys think? Was it a sensible business move to wait until now for this? And how many of you are going to buy, now that you can do it without moving more than five or six muscles?
Blizzard did say that they were looking into digital distribution, and now they've made good on that promise. You can now pay for and download the expansion in your bathrobe in the warm sanctuary of your own pad (because game stores have such a stringent dress code). From Crezax, who is indeed, as his signature claims, "so hot right now:"
You can now buy and download The Burning Crusade online. No need to wait in line at your local store, just click (http://www.wow-europe.com/account/) to buy and download The Burning Crusade from the comfort of your own home! Whether you journey through the Dark Portal as a seasoned adventurer, or witness the wonders of Outland as one of the two new playable races- the blood elves and the draenei...
Cut because we all know what the Burning Crusade has to offer, don't we?
No word yet on when or if this is coming for North America, but if you're in Europe, you don't have the BC yet, and you want it but really hate going out, now's your chance!
Edit: There is some strangeness going on. The forum thread I found this in no longer exists, and apparently the link Crezax gave does not have any way to buy BC online as promised. A premature announcement on Crezax's part, maybe? (Thanks, Pete, for writing in.)
Edit 2: "It seems we encountered a small problem with that feature, so it is taken down for now." (Crezax)
The folks over at Computer and Videogames have a short interview with Blizzard Senior VP of Product Development Frank Pearce in regards to the Burning Crusade expansion. Beyond stating that they are looking at letting the expansion be purchased via download, no new info is revealed in the interview. Don't let let that stop you from reading it though, as it is an interesting little chat. Pearce gives some insight on why certain decisions were made in creating the Burning Crusade, which is nice. But he ducks some of the more interesting questions asked, which is not so nice. I didn't expect him to answer the questions he ducked, as he is just a guy doing his job, which in this interview is creating a little hype without letting the cat out of the bag.
As far as the download thing...well, it is interesting to note, although not what I would consider groundbreaking news. Even if the expansion is available via download, I will still probably go to the store and buy the shiny box. I am lame like that. However, I am sure some of you will be happy not to have wander into Best Buy come expansion day if Blizzard decides to go that route.
One thing I did find sort of interesting is that he once again confirms that hero classes are nowhere on the radar. This news will surely annoy the "What's up with hero classes?" crowd. I imagine Blizzard wishes they never mentioned hero classes in the first place.
So check out the interview if you want to get hyped further for BC. And we all want that, don't we?
I spent a while on the test realms yesterday checking out all of the new goodies in the 1.12 client. Some of these, like the new floating combat text feature, have come directly from popular community-created addons. I think, in may ways, I prefer the addons that are integrated game - that way, come patch day, the features I use regularly simply work, without need to tinker or download new code. However, custom addons provide a level of flexibility that's not present in Blizzard's own UI. With floating combat text, specifically, I may continue to use the original addon - Scrolling Combat Text - because I prefer being able to customize a little more than Blizzard's addition allows me to.
And what about all of you? Do you like to use addons - or even the sort that can't play when their addons aren't working right? Or do you prefer the low-maintenance of the default UI? And, whichever side you're on, do you like or dislike these new additions to the default UI?
If you happened to attempt to multi-task while playing Warcraft today, you may have noticed the Blizzard Background Downloader running, downloading a file with an unusually generic name of "wow-patch." So was some kind of patch released today? Well... no. However, there's an official post explaining exactly what is happening here. Before the background downloader was implemented, on patch day millions of people would be attempting to grab the patch at the same time - and my experience with this has been entirely negative. With the background downloader, whenever you log on to play, you'll be checking for updated files and start downloading them (very slowly - as to not interrupt your play-time). So as Blizzard finalizes parts of the next patch, the downloader is already grabbing them, which means that come patch day, you should already have most of the patch, making getting patched up quick and painless. I guess we'll wait and see how well it works in the end...!
Not to be outdone by 
Our latest podcast is 
The first official installment of 
Looks like we got 
A big thanks to everyone that tuned into the very first episode of ![[Raise your hand if you're sure!]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.wowinsider.com/media/2007/05/patch21.jpg)
For those of you who didn't want to wander through the extremely long transcript for the Stratics House of Commons Dev Chat in 
Rejoice! Now we North American types can also upgrade and download the Burning Crusade! I was heading over to 
The folks over at 
I spent a while on the test realms yesterday checking out all of the 
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