After today’s maintenance, Horde and Alliance players will find that the updated instances for Operation Gnomeregan and Zalazane’s Fall will be available to enter, so Horde players can head into the Echo Isles to retake the Troll homelands and put an end to Zalazane’s tyranny, and the Gnomes and their allies can muster their forces to retake the Gnomes’ home city of Gnomeregan.

The quests went live on the PTRs a while back, and today’s the day for them to go up on the live realms. Ready?

Back when Blizzard hosted the Cataclysm Press Tour, one of the unfortunate things we saw mentioned was the possibility that heroic versions of The Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep might not be ready in time for the launch of Cataclysm, and that they may have to wait for a future content patch update to give the team more time to work on them.

Well, word came down yesterday that those fears were nothing to worry about, because the two new dungeons will indeed be ready in time for the launch of Cataclysm, and players will be able to head in and see their favorite starting-game dungeons re-worked for the new world that we’ll get when the expansion comes out. Here’s the official word from Valnoth, when someone else in a thread stated that they wouldn’t be ready as fact and the reason why they weren’t available in beta:

Heroics are not ready for testing.

Heroic Shadowfang Keep and Heroic Deadmines WILL be released with Cataclysm. You will not have to wait for a later patch.

Strap on your pirate stompers kids, it’s back to Westfall for the Alliance and back to Silverpine Forest for the Horde!

I should probably consider this a spoiler, but – it’s too much fun not to share with everyone, and it’s not really much of a lore spoiler anyway.

In the Cataclysm beta, one of the dungeons that’s being re-worked for new levels and to reflect all of the changes that have taken place in Azeroth is The Stockades – and over at World of Raids they had a preview of the new dungeon last week that reveals some interesting new bosses in Stockades (yes, there will finally be BOSSES in The Stockades, that drop real loot!) including one fugitive gnoll above who’s finally coming into his own – Hogger!

Apparently thanks to the effects of Deathwing breaking free of his prison, the Stormwind Stockades has suffered a little damage and just as the guard was starting to regain control of the area, a number of new prisoners and areas of the prison have opened up, with the imprisoned running free. Of course, you’ll have to revisit your roots and head back in to put the resistance down and restore order to Stormwind, but there’ll be a bit more in store for you this time around, including three new quests and three new bosses!

Midsummer Fire Festival - Courtesy Flickr User: Ulalume

Yesterday marked the beginning of what I’ve mentioned before is my favorite in-game holiday in the World of Warcraft, the Midsummer Fire Festival. There’s just something about riding around on your mount or flying around Outlands and putting out fires and honoring other fires and collecting blossoms and everything that I just love.

Or it could just be that I like fiery things, who knows. But it also plays into why I tend to love the Lunar Festival so much too, because it involves much of the same activities. Still, the Fire Festival is here and in full swing, and the loot table has changed up a bit this year – the Scorchling is gone this year, and in its place is the Frigid Frostling.

Speaking of such things, Ahune’s loot table has been changed up, and now that holiday dungeons are included in the Dungeon Finder, there’s no reason for you to not get out there and pick up some of his sweet new gear from his recently uplifted loot table.

Are you angling for some new gear, or do you already have your Flame Keeper/Flame Warden title and pet? Are you going to be collecting blossoms, maybe on an alt this time around? Let us know in the comments!

So today’s the day: Patch 3.3.5 is going live, what many people think is going to be one of the last few patches before the release of Cataclysm. Still, this patch brings more to it than just some bug fixes and updates – there are two big reveals in 3.3.5, the new Assault on the Ruby Sanctum dungeon, and the implementation of the Real ID system, which brings Battle.net further into the game and allows you to integrate friends from across realms and factions into your friends list, stay in touch with them, and find out when they’re playing – even if they’re not playing on your server.

Here’s the lowdown:

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.3.5

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

Assault on the Ruby Sanctum

For ages the red dragonflight and its noble matriarch, Alexstrasza the Life-Binder, have dedicated themselves to preserving all life on Azeroth. Recently, the very heart of this virtuous dragonflight has come under threat.

An eerie silence has settled over the Ruby Sanctum, the red dragonflight’s sacred lair within the Chamber of the Aspects. This troubling development has led to fears that the sanctum, home to Azeroth’s largest clutch of red dragon eggs, has been breached by an unknown, sinister force. If these claims are true and immediate action is not taken, the benevolent red dragonflight might be crippled forever.

Real ID: A New Way to Connect With Your Friends on Battle.net

One of our goals for the new Battle.net is to create the framework for an online gaming experience that is even more accessible, more engaging, and more entertaining than the previous Battle.net. The newly released Real ID feature, available to World of Warcraft players as part of patch 3.3.5, is an integral part of this effort, providing you with advanced ways for forming and maintaining meaningful relationships with your friends on the service.

Real ID is a completely voluntary and optional level of identity that keeps players connected across all of Battle.net. When you and a friend mutually agree to become Real ID friends, you’ll have access to a number of additional features that will enrich your social gaming experience in new and exciting ways. Go here for more details.

General
* The Ruby Sanctum, an all-new 10- and 25-player raid dungeon featuring normal and Heroic difficulties, has been added! Players will find the dungeon entrance below Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight. Please note due to the way this patch is being applied in all regions, this dungeon will not immediately be available in North America. Stay tuned to our General Discussion forum for an official announcement on the opening of the Ruby Sanctum.

* The functionality of the Vote Kick feature in the Dungeon Finder will now behave differently according to a player’s history with the system. Players using the Dungeon Finder who rarely vote to kick players from a group, or rarely abandon groups before a dungeon is complete, will find that the Vote Kick option will have no cooldown. For players who frequently abandon groups or vote to kick other players, the Vote Kick option will be kept on a cooldown. This functionality will adjust itself as a player’s behavior while using the Dungeon Finder changes.

User Interface

* Chat Frame

• Players can now right-click on any chat type (Whisper, Trade, General, Party, Raid, etc.) and choose to move conversation types into separate windows. This will move that chat type to a separate tab in the Chat frame which can be undocked and moved anywhere on the screen.
  Using the Move to Whisper Window option on a Whisper will place the conversation with that player in a separate tab.
• Any time a conversation with another player is put into its own tab, the tab will glow when a new message is received.
• Hovering over the Chat Frame and using the mouse wheel will allow players to scroll through chat text.
• Players can select Classic Mode under Interface Options to keep the Chat Frame functionality closer to what it was prior to patch 3.3.5.
• The Simple Chat User Interface option has been removed.

* Friends List

• A new icon has been added to the top left of the Chat Frame which will open up the Friends list.
• In addition to its current functionality, the Friends List will now allow players to add Battle.net accounts (Real ID). Players will have to confirm that they are friends in order for a Real ID to be added. Once Real ID friends, players can communicate cross-game, cross-faction and cross-realm.
• A new Pending tab has been added where players can accept or decline a Real ID friend request, or select the Report Spam or Block Communications buttons.
• Players can now select from three statuses which will be visible to their friends: Available, Away and Busy.
• A Broadcast window has been added to the top of the frame. Players can use this to broadcast a message to all of their Real ID friends online. This message will also be displayed under the broadcaster’s Real ID information in each friend’s list.

* For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

It’s always fun to see what interesting little tidbits Blizzard sneaks into the patches for us. For example, the chat frame mods may very well make add-ons like Chatter completely useless for those of us who actively use them, but we’ll have to wait and see what the effects of the patch really are before I can call that.

Even so, RealID is the big story of the day, and once the servers are back up and everyone has the patch installed, I’m sure we’ll see the fallout from RealID very very quickly – whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. So far it looks like Blizzard is putting the right privacy options in place to keep just anyone from knowing who you are on every realm you play, but it’s still going to be interesting to see how it all turns out.

Over at Wow.com, the news came down that Operation Gnomeregan and Zalazane’s Fall are both live on the PTR.

If you’re interested in seeing what the fate of Gnomeregan is, or if you’re interested in the beginnings of the quest to retake the Echo Isles in the name of the Trolls, you can find out if you copy your character over to the PTRs now.

MMO Champion has unleashed the leak to end all leaks (until the next one, of course) from the Cataclysm Friends and Family Alpha: tons of maps, screenshots of various zones in multiple forms of completion, and tons upon tons of information about new zones, achievements, talents, and more.

There are tons of screenshots of nearly all of the new zones and instances taken from the alpha, and it’s worth noting that most of this stuff will change between now and the actual beta, much less between now and the actual launch, but regardless of who posted the information or whether it’s a carefully leaked foil from Blizzard, we get to reap the benefit! All of the details are at this post at MMO Champion, which is being constantly updated.

Looking to get your raid on when Cataclysm finally lands? There are a few very serious major changes incoming that will rock your Vanilla/BC/Wrath world that may lead to the end of raiding and dungeons as we know them…or maybe it won’t make much difference to you.

All in all, this is going to be a lot to swallow for most players, and will represent some serious and significant changes to the way they raid. Some of the highlights?

First of all, 10-man and 25-man raids will drop the same loot, just in different quantities – that means 25-man raids won’t get higher item-level gear like they currently do – a lot of people have been fighting this point on both sides, and it looks like while at first Blizzard was coming down on the side of the people who favored better gear for 25-man raids, they’ve reversed course a bit.

Second, 10-man and 25-man raids will share the same lockouts. That means a 10-man group gets the same amount of time to complete a dungeon as a 25-man group. Yowch. That would be a problem if not for the fact that also announced is the fact that 10-and-25-man bosses will be very similar in difficulty, and not the pretty big difference they are today.

Blizzard also has some plans to change up the way raids are done, and create shorter raids with fewer bosses (much like the heroic Onyxia and Sarth runs) that are still difficult enough to accomodate a large number of people, but that just have fewer bosses.

Like I said, all of this is still up in the air, and Blizzard reserves the right to change all of it, but if anything I can see it’s a pretty big leveling of the playing field between 10-man guilds and 25-man guilds and the dungeons they run. If anything, it may lend itself to the thought that Blizzard’s noticed that 10-man runs are mostly guild runs with tight social groups, and 25-man runs are largely pugs that are done for efficiency and loot. Interesting.

What do you think? Will the new announcements impact you at all?

Read Blizzard’s full announcement and leave your comments behind the jump!

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Doesn’t High Tinker Mekkatorque look badass in that shot? I mean seriously – it’s probably the best image of a gnome looking like he’s serious business I think I’ve ever seen. Seriously, don’t mess with the gnomes.

Remember when Blizzard announced details of Operation: Gnomeregan and the Echo Isles? Yup – looks like we’ll start mobilizing for the operation any week now. The call has gone out at the World of Warcraft Community Site, along with exciting new details about the Operation: Gnomeregan encounter and instance, along with what you can expect when the operation mobilizes. Get ready!

Oh – and head over to download a full-sized high-resolution Operation: Gnomeregan poster – if I were you, I’d download it, run over to Kinkos, get it blown up, and frame that puppy. It’s pretty hot.

Today’s the day that patch 3.3.3 goes live; bringing us delicious content after the fall of the Lich King, including the end of honor tokens (which can now be traded in for honor), greed-only rolls on Frozen Orbs, a new Random Battleground system, and tons of other changes!

The full patch notes are here, but here are some of the bigger changes after the jump:

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