With the forthcoming Cataclysm, the landscape of Azeroth will change forever. Places you know and love (or know and loath) will be transformed by the events.

Ashenvale will become a very apt name for the valley full of ash it seems destined to become, whereas Desolace will go the other way and confuse tourists by not being in the least bit desolate at all. Expect the purples and greens of night elf habitat to be everywhere. Stranglethorn will remain a jungle peninsula, with the added benefit of a live volcano in the middle.

But it\’s not just the changes that we need be wary of. It is the requirements on your PC. Looking at the videos for the new zones it is clear that they are much more detailed than the existing Azeroth. A good thing. However, for those of you scraping by on an old PC, this expansion might signal the need for a change.

Multi boxers need also watch out. Even a good PC might struggle to run 5 clients at the same time. Turn those details down on the slave clients, reduce the FPS using the proprietary software you use to manage the clients, and maybe you\’ll get through.

What I notice more than anything else is the amount of movement that goes on screen even when there are no players or NPC\’s present. Clouds move, the water textures are vastly improved, smoke billows, flags flutter. It\’s all going on, and all needs rendering by your PC.

To be fair, Warcraft has never been a particularly resource intensive game, but because of that many still play the game on mid to low end PC\’s. This is where the problems may arise. It might just be a case of lowering the detail to get by. But then, the new graphics are that good – wouldn\’t you rather see them in all their glory?

Cataclysm could be many months off. SO there is no panic at all, but my advice (for what it\’s worth) is to spend the time saving for some upgrades to your PC, especially if it is a little long in the tooth.

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The Auction house is where the most profit potential is in Warcraft. The reason for this is that in the Auction house there is a lot of price variability. One day Titanium Steel is 150G a bar, the next it\’s 160g a bar (or 130g).

It is these variations that give you the potential for profit, and of course for loss. The NPC vendors do not give you a variable price, the amount of Warcraft gold they pay per item is fixed. It\’s a fair price, but if you have uncommon or better items to sell, they will rarely give you the best value for them.

Playing the auction house properly is something you should not try and do until you have taken the time to understand the variations. Is 2G for Borean leather a good price or a bad price? Unless you track prices over a period of time you won\’t know.

The first step would be to download and install Auctioneer. An addon you can get from Curse.com. This has a scan function that records every asking price for every item at auction. Before you start your career as a floor trader, spend a few days running the scan once a day to collect good data. Carry on powerleveling until you have about ten scans worth of data.

Run the scan once a day, or perhaps once every two days to avoid double counting certain 48 hour auctions. It might be awhile until you have enough data to make a decent average.

Once the scans are complete, Auctioneer will have worked out the average asking price for every item if found. When you open the auction house GUI you will now see a percentage displayed on the right. This is the ratio of that items asking price to the average that auctioneer has found in its scans. 150% means it\’s 50% over the average asking price, whereas 50% means it\’s half the average asking price.

With this information you can start to make judgements on what items are worth buying and selling at a later date (buy low sell high – just like the real world).

However, before you rush off, there are a couple of very big potential pitfalls

As I mentioned, Auctioneer records the asking price, and not the selling price. People ask stupid amounts of gold for trash sometimes. Have you seen trash items in the auction house for 1000 gold or more? It happens all the time. This can massively skew the figures that auctioneer is collecting for you.

What should be of more concern though is that the value of items changes over time. New items cost more, and then lose value over time. Blizzard increase and decrease the drop rates of certain things with every patch. A rare expensive trinket you have suddenly becomes very common and its value can plummet. Blizzard also change the stat values and level requirements of ingredients, weapons, armour and recopies all the time. This has a pretty quick effect on the value. If you are holding stock you could be wiped out very quickly.

However, to start with auctioneer is a great tool. Install it and run the scan. It certainly isn\’t the be-all-and-end-all tool for making gold in Warcraft, but it is a tool that, used properly and knowing the pitfalls, can help you along the way to becoming a World of Warcraft Gold Generator.

Find out how to really dominate the Warcraft Gold market with our free guide. Visit Free WoW Guide Blog to download it. If you just want to comment on this or any other post visit the Warcraft Information Exchange

At a recent press conference, Blizzard unveiled the positive changes that we can expect to see with Warcraft Guilds. Introducing new ideas and features.

Most aspects of WoW progression are regularly tweaked by Blizzard. It\’s good to see that guilds are finally getting some much needed love.

These changes affect the whole way guilds operate, and for that matter co-operate. And frankly it\’s fantastic news.

Logging on for the first time after patch 4.0 the first changes you might notice is a whole new GUI for guilds. Now showing your guilds progress through the instances, and its proud new showcase of guild achievements. (And the achievement points that will go with them).

If you are in a big well known guild such as WoW Defiance or WoW Relentless, you will see the legendaries you have acquired displayed prominently. Guild \”realm firsts\” etc. There will be a CSS style news feed ticker running that will give all the latest news from your recent instance runs. Right down to prominent loots and level ups.

One area that I was particularly pleased to see was a system of bonus payments from loots being paid directly into the guild bank. I don\’t know about you, but paying my 5g a day does get a little irksome. So this new system will stop that. You can allocate guild \”talent points3 to a loot bonus that will increase the value and amount of loot you get, but this \”extra\” will be credited straight into your guild bank. Leaving you with the same amount you would always have had.

Lastly, professions are having a nice extra. You will be able to link directly into guild members professions (right down to the item level if that member is on line) No need to shout \”Can someone link me Enchanting\”, just check your guild tab and see who your enchanters are.

Their are even achievements for guilds that have maxxed out all professions. These additions to WoW progression make welcome news. It shows that both social gaming is being taken seriously, and that Blizzard is looking carefully at the current balance of professions in game. If WoW\’s ascent is to last this is an issue that needed to be addressed.

Great news for Warcraft gamers all round.

To add to the debate, and tell us what you think of these changes go to The Warcraft Blog. For the best gold guide currently available visit The Warcraft Advanced Gold Guide

I never seem to have enough gold in Warcraft. Kill mob, loot mob. Then its hope that something valuable turns up that either improves my ability to kill mobs, or is worth a few more gold pieces at the auction house. But when you are saving for that next big purchase. An epic flying mount perhaps, then it seems as if you\’ll never have enough gold.

Let\’s face it; the game opens up with more gold. Your character can look and play just how you want. You are happy to strut around in your faction\’s capital knowing you are one of the best equipped, and most likely to get the invites to those lovely loot-laden instances.

So, perhaps you have been tempted to look at the array of Gold guides for Warcraft that are on the market. If you have, then maybe, like me, you are a little confused at the messages they seem to send out as part of their advertising.

Let\’s take a look at the factors you should consider when looking for a WoW gold generating system.

1 – Is the guide up to date? Simply mentioning \”Wrath of the Lich King\” does not make the guide up-to-date. WotLK is well over a year old. Patches 3.1 to 3.3 have changed the game massively. If the website of ad-copy mentions nothing past Wrath of the Lich King, then the guide is probably not up to date, and to be of any real use it does have to be up to date.

2 – Does the website tell you what the guide contains? For me this is a major concern. A little picture of the menu system used in-guide is simply not good enough. I want a video or screenshots showing me what I\’m spending my cash on. Of course they can\’t show you everything, but more than \”Here is the menu – isn\’t it pretty\”

There should be some screenshots or even better a video of a few pages of the guide. Ask yourself this. Would you normally buy anything without at least seeing an idea of what it looked like and contained first? I know I wouldn\’t.

3 – Do be wary of excessive claims to in game wealth. Firstly, most are untrue. Blizzard have stated quite clearly in interview on the 19th December 2009 that on no account anywhere in the world (E.U, USA, Asia, wherever) has any account ever had more than one character at gold cap

Have you seen anyone make claims like this? Bear this in mind when considering buying from them. Also consider why anyone would even bother to do it. With one character at \’cap, you run out of things to buy. Unless you were planning to use the gold to do things outside the ToS, what would the point be? Hundreds of hours of extra grinding, Auction house manipulation for what? Take these unrealistic (and Blizzard denounced) claims with a massive pinch of salt, and treat anyone making them with utmost suspicion.

If you see a guide advertised with these claims, then I direct you to Blizzards interview of 19th December 2009. Blizzard, the games producers. The people who own and manage every official WoW server, say it has never happened. Make your own mind up.

Also understand how easy it would be to make it look like you had done this by logging onto a private server and just editing your character with whatever you wanted. Heck, you can even set up a server on your own PC.

A tell tale sign is the lag that most private servers suffer from. They run on a shoestring budget, are laggy as hell, and often have 75% downtime. Have you seen any videos for gold guides where the promo has been shot when the server is laggy? Surely if it was genuine, they producer of the guide would have waited ten minutes before making a promo vid that would be the centrepiece of his marketing? Hmm, of course, if it was shot on a private server, he probably had no choice.

If a sales ploy started with something I was suspicious about I almost definitely would not go on and buy that item. Inconsistencies such as claims that there was \”Orange lag\”, when the on screen monitor is clearly showing green, or introducing a level one alt who for some reason has talents not obtainable until level 40. These things should concern you.

4 – To protect yourself, make sure whatever product you choose comes with a full 60 day guarantee. If it doesn\’t state that there is a full money back guarantee, then there almost definitely isn\’t one. Ensure that the payment is processed by a reputable company like Paypal or Clickbank

5 – See if the huge list of bonus items being offered is really worth it. Many of the extras are described as things that you could probably get from Thottbot or WoWWiki anyway, (for free). The best guides offer you some extra\’s you couldn\’t just google and find for free yourself in five minutes.

Happy gold hunting.

Download your free Warcraft guides on topics such as gold making, levelling and professions; visit Free Warcraft Gold Guides if you want to discuss this topic, go to Warcraft Guides

Have you looked on the Warcraft forums recently? If you have you can\’t fail to have noticed the amount of interest the next expansion is provoking. Hardly surprising given how good it currently looks.

One issue that has not been addressed is the time scale. Blizzard are famous for \”ready when it\’s ready\” and that\’s to be commended, but in this case it does leave a few questions unanswered.

Ok, Cataclysm seems a long way off. Patch 3.3 has been out a while, yet the vibes we are getting from Blizzard is that there will be no major content additions between now and Cataclysm.

Let\’s read that again. \”No major content additions between now and Cataclysm\”

If you look over the patch history since the games release in 2004, it shows that major content has been added approximately every 4 months. I am counting the expansions as major content updates, not just the \”one tenth\” increment patches.

I\’ve checked retail and e-commerce sites and found that the most optimistic date for Cataclysm is \”Quarter 4 2010\”. The average date is \”November 2010\”. Optimistically ten months between content additions. Probably a year.

No content additions for a year? Don\’t get me wrong, I play in a pretty progressive guild and we have some way to go in the Icecrown, but a year?

I can assure you of one thing, not just progressive raiding guilds, but just about everyone and their donkey will have exhausted the Icecrown well before November 2010. Will we all be sitting twiddling our thumbs with BiS items for all our characters for months waiting for the next content?

Does Blizzard expect us to wait for months with no new content? Are we just to keep paying the subscription and wait?

No, read between the lines here. Blizzard will not let us run out of end game content. It is the game\’s lifeblood,. both for the players and for Blizzard financially.

There are two possibilities.

Patch 3.4 will come out. Probably introducing more Troll lore and getting the Worg back-story moving or…

4.0 And Cataclysm will be out much earlier than expected.

Mentioning either of these in Warcraft forums will get you called all the names under the sun. But understand this. Blizzard will not let the game run out of content for high end players (i.e, most players) It just won\’t happen. Running out of content would be a financial disaster for Blizzard, and they know this.

Of course if you have thought of another way let me know, the comments box is open.

Please comment on this article at Blizzard face Cataclysm choice Or for our selection of free downloadable Warcraft guides visit us at Free Warcraft Guides