Blizzard Account Administration told not to restore hacked characters
In a stunning revelation from a veteran account administrator at Blizzard, WoW.com has learned that account administrators are being told by Blizzard managers not to restore people’s characters and items after their account has been ransacked by gold sellers and keyloggers. Instead, account administrators are being told to give people a “care package” and get them to accept the package in lieu of total account restoration. If the player does not accept this care package, they are then forced to go into a character restoration queue that is consistently several days to weeks long. According to sources familiar with the situation, this “care package policy” has been implemented in order to lighten the work load of those Blizzard employees who perform account restorations. Similar policies have existed at other times account compromises have been high, such as during the transition from Vanilla WoW to The Burning Crusade.
Patch 3.3 and shamans, part 1
WoW.com has an interesting article on Shamans, and we all know how the 3.3 patch changes can dramatically affect the most common multiboxing team of all. Totem Talk is the column for shamans,. Matthew Rossi ran ICC twice this week and will probably run it on 10 man twice more, and yet managed to take possibly the worst screenshot of all time, which he shares with you above,. Can you find the three shamans, including himself, in it? He sure as heck couldn’t. But it’s got a skunk bear up front. That’s nice. It’s been an interesting week all told. The new five mans and new raid are out (well, first four bosses of new raid, anyway… having both tanked and been melee DPS on Deathbringer Saurfang, I have to say, it’s an interesting mechanic but I’m already heartily sick of Blood Power, and I don’t look forward to healing it) and we’re seeing a couple of new mechanics and a new set of shorter cooldowns. I have to say, so far I really like the reduced cooldowns on our elemental totems. Now all they need is a pet bar, and not to die in two hits from any mob in sight. (I exaggerate slightly. Very slightly.)
WoW Guild Leveling – Yup, it is coming in Cataclysm
This may be old news for some, but it happens to be the first time I’ve heard about it.  Blizzard released a couple videos about guild leveling for Cataclysm. Your guild will get experience for players earning rep, killing bosses, doing dailies, getting achievements, Arena and BG wins, crafting, leveling up, and more. The top 20 earners in the guild each week will have their contributions turned into XP. Previous contributions won’t factor into a particular week’s XP, so every member of the guild has the chance to be a top earner each week. Guild experience, once accrued at the end of each week, will be converted into guild currency, which can be used to buy a myriad of items, including reagents, tabards, pets, profession recipes, heirlooms, and Guild Talent points. Guild Talents will be things like a Mass Resurrection spell on a 30-minute cooldown, removal of reagents for buff spells, and increased gold drops in the world and instances. Guild leaders can respec guild talents, though the method and cost (if any) is currently unknown.