(this methos is 100% legal and approved by Blizzard)  I’ve taken this directly from WoWInsider, thanks for the info guys.

Pre-orders for the Cataclysm digital upgrade are officially open, and you can start downloading the remainder of the expansion’s data the moment your purchase goes through. But what if you’re awaiting a Collector’s Edition or you don’t have the money to upgrade online right now? You don’t want to be left waiting for Cataclysm to download and install on launch night.

Thankfully, we’ve got you covered. There’s an easy way to preload all the data you’ll need to play Cataclysm the moment it goes live on midnight Dec. 7. Just follow these easy steps:

1. Make sure World of Warcraft and/or the launcher and background downloader are completely closed.
2. Open up your World of Warcraft folder.
3. Open Launcher.wtf in Notepad and change the “accountType” line from LK to CT.
4. Open Config.wtf in Notepad and change the “accountType” line from LK to CT.

Now load up the launcher and you should begin downloading 700 megs or so of new material. That’s the last bit of data you need to play on launch night. Enjoy!

Remember: This will only give you the necessary files to play Cataclysm. It will not upgrade your account and you will not be able to access Cataclysm features. You still need to buy the game if you want to play on launch day.

I’ve just watched this, 6 times since posting it. This is right up there with the best Blizzard has given us cinematic wise. Deathwing look absolutely mental. Just look at that armour its epic. Words are starting to fail me here guys. If this can’t get you pumped for Cataclysm then who knows what will. I’d love to keep talking but I’m off to watch the intro for the 7th time. Wish me luck.

The first public showing of cinematic material for Cataclysm will hit the screens Sunday night during an NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings. Its a shame this is US only Blizzard should look at thorowing up some commercials during real football matches between the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea!

This is the official announcement from the forums:

This Sunday, during the Dallas Cowboys versus Minnesota Vikings NFL game on Fox (starts at 4:15 PM EDT, 1:15 PM PDT), we are debuting a new television commercial for World of Warcraft’s upcoming expansion. The commercial will feature the first look at cinematic footage from Cataclysm, so tune in to an exciting game this Sunday and catch the new commercial!

The clip above shows the new tree of life form that’s going to hit with Cataclysm.  Its a much needed upgraded to the frankly, old and crap design that’s been in the game for years.  One of the main issues I’ve had with Druids is being stuck in some form 90% of the time, it really puts me off playing the class.  Its the only class I’ve never managed to get past level 20 at least.  Its about time Blizzard got round to changing the appearance of some of the older models brining the game into 2010!

This new form really does look sweet though I must admit, sure there’s going to be 1000′s of people looking exactly the same after a while, but then don’t we all end up looking the same after we’re all decked out in tier 11 armour and above haha!

To me this is the best looking tier set I’ve seen so far.  A close second would be the old bad ass Warlock set from the Burning Crusade.  I really can’t wait to see the Warrior tier 11 and I hope they manage to top this Deathknigh effort. The Warrior helm mmo champion managed to data mine looks pretty nice with the shards of rock sticking out of it. So here’s to hoping the whole set looks legend beyond comprehension.

I’m going to go through and stick up a few posts of the amour sets that have been data mined so far. (or armor sets for you Americans ;))

Over the past few days I’d been thinking about Cataclysm and why its such an important milestone in the history of World of Warcraft.

Most people I chat to about WoW have rarely played any other mmo’s before they started playing WoW.  To them WoW invented the whole mmo industry.  In some respects it has, its launched the genre into main stream media.  My first introduction to mmo’s came in the form of EverQuest Live.  This was a very unforgiving game, there was very little in game help or anything like that.  It really was a world to explore. I then moved onto Everquest 2 back in late 2004.  EQ2 came out just before WoW went live.  Around my then circle of gaming friends there was a lot of hate for WoW and how cartoony and dumbed down it was attempting to make the mmo market.  When compared to EverQuest games at the time, WoW really did look just that, dumbed down and designed for people playing console games who wanted easy quick satisfaction.

I still picked up WoW come lunch to check out all the buzz.  Unfortunately I never followed through.  I managed to level my very first character a Dwarf Hunter to level 21 before I gave up.  I had some serious commitments going on in EQ2, I was acting raid leader and heavily involved in nightly progression raiding.  Anyway going off topic here, this is not an article about my gaming history!

What I’m trying to get at is that WoW did dumb down the mmo market when compared to EQ but was that really a bad thing?  How exactly did it ‘dumb’ down mmo’s?  This is the thing, at the time I honestly believed WoW was for dummies.  But now looking back I can’t believe how stupid I really was.  I got WoW wrong, very wrong.

Join me after the break.

To put it bluntly, World of Warcraft made mmo’s fun.  All previous mmo’s did have fun aspects don’t get me wrong or confused on that point.  What they did have a long side some fun mechanics was a whole bunch of time sinks.  It took ages to level in EQ, you lost xp when you died…..hell you could even de-level after enough deaths.  That’s not fun.  I could go on and on about systems which on the whole removed the fun aspect.  On the other hand the fear of death in EQ made people a whole lot better at the game and so the general player base was very skillied.

This is one topic WoW has issues with.

With the game being so accessible to almost any type of player you inevitably end up with droves of very poor players.  You also end up with people who love to spam chat channels with abuse and all kinds of crap.  For me this is the worst aspect of WoW.  For un guilded new players moving from older mmo’s or just more mature gamers in general the state of city chat channels can be very off putting.  I have first hand experience of this.  A member of my family (a very hardcore EQ Live raider) tried WoW. Only to then decide on giving up as group chat was none existant and general player attitudes were poor.  I don’t think WoW will ever manage to brush off this stigma.  Being the most popular its going to have the worst  community on whole, I just tihnk its unavoidable.

However as soon as you manage to get into a great guild, things can become very good indeed.  Theres nothing like having loads of like minded players to play with!

So whats all this got to do with Cataclysm you say?  Well I’ve been watching Total Biscuits heroic dungeons runs form the beta.  The difficulty level is awesome.  These are the kind of dungmeons we want.  Not only will people have to use their skills and abilities to the best of their knowledge they are also going to have to learn to effectivly communicate with each other.  If the difficulty level remains the same then you won’t be able to simply join a random group, say nothing, and blast through the zone walking away with the loot.

Heroics are  going to sort the men from the boys.  As it stands in Wrath if the tank makes a bad pull and causes a wipe, most of the dps will instantly leave.  Can you blame them?  The question is are they going to do it in Cataclysm?  If they do, they’ll find themselves never completing dungeons at all.  You are going to wipe multiple times.  You need to get used to it.

The fabled Cataclysm effect I’m hoping for is a jump back in time to the good old days of quality players and people willing to engage in conversation in groups!  People will become better at WoW in time and we should be all able to rejoice in the sea of awesomness…..with some luck!

Anyways, come on patch 4.0.1 hurry up and hit the EU servers!

Reforging has landed on the US servers and is due to land tomorrow on the EU. This is going to be a short and sweet guide on the user interface for reforging. I’ll stick up some images of the interface and breakdown the concepts and uses of reforging.

Lets start off with the concepts. Reforging allows you to change one minor stat on any item of equipment you have. By minior stat I mean secondary stats such as hit rating, haste etc. It allows you to swap 40% of any secondary stat for another secondary stat. The process of reforging is done by NPC’s in capital cities. Just ask a guard if you want to find out where they are hiding!  Its going to be great to finally get rid of all that bloody unwanted hit rating.

Check out the screenshots of the user interface for reforging after the break.

The class changes for patch 4.0.1 are listed after the break guys. This is the main systems change before Cataclysm, none of the world itself is being changed yet. This is kinda like when wrath hit, the class systems were changed to bring them into line with the new content. Anyway enough of my blabbing, hit the read more to see the full statement by blizzard.

Or hit this link to MMO Champion for the full breakdown.

We will be performing extended maintenance on Tuesday, October 12th. Maintenance will begin at 12:00 AM PDT and conclude at approximately 12:00 PM PDT. During this time, all realms and many web services will be unavailable.

Thank you for your patience.

Rishgur