The best of WoW.com: June 23-30, 2009

See that shocked look on Thrall's face above? That guy's the leader of the Horde, and he just read (on WoW.com, of course) that for the first time, players of World of Warcraft will be able to switch their factions -- players will be able to leave his Horde, and those dirty Alliance might come to his side. No wonder he's so shocked. That story and more in this week's most popular posts from Joystiq's Azeroth-obsessed sister site.
News
- Faction changes coming to World of Warcraft
Horde can be Alliance, Alliance can be Horde, cats and dogs sleeping together! It's lunacy! - Patch 3.2 PTR unveils Tier 9 sets
The next level of epic armor is coming to the game in the latest content patch... - Patch 3.2 PTR Tier 9 set names
...And it's got a great set of lore names to go with along with it. - Patch 3.2 upcoming Engineering changes
Big changes for one of the game's most popular professions. - Exodus punished for exploiting Yogg-Saron encounter
After a guild accomplishes a world-first achievement kill, Blizzard determines they didn't quite follow the rules.
Features
- Patch 3.2 PTR: Tauren Druid conversation may reveal lore and expansion secrets
A pair of Druids chatting in the new content patch might hint at the future of the game. - The OverAchiever: Guide to Midsummer Fire Festival achievements
Azeroth is heating up with the Fire Festival -- here's how to get everything done this week. - Arcane Brilliance: More questions than answers
Our Mage columnist didn't get all his questions answered in Blizzard's recent Q&A article about the class. - Patch 3.2 PTR: New heirloom items gallery
A pictoral look at some new heirloom items headed to the game. - WoW Casually: What Patch 3.2 means for casuals
Oh, you don't raid five times a week? Patch 3.2 has something for you as well.
The best of WoW.com: June 16-23, 2009

News
- Patch 3.2 PTR patch notes
Here's the breakdown on what'll be in the Public Test Realm very soon. - Crusaders' Coliseum details released
Blizzard gives out deets on what we'll see in the next big instance added to the game. - Patch 3.2 changes to the tiered Emblem system
3.2 will bring both new sets of gear tokens to collect, as well as some tweaks and updates to old ones. - New Shaman totem interface revealed
Shamans will have new ways to both watch and lay down their totems. - Class Q&A: Mage
Blizzard answers questions on "the iconic caster" class.
Features
- WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2
Everything you need to know about the upcoming content patch, and then some. - The OverAchiever: Guide to Midsummer Fire Festival Achievements
The Fire Festival is back, and so's our guide to get the most out of it. - Insider Trader: Patch 3.2 profession change analysis
What's new with professions? Read this column and find out. - The Queue: Patch 3.2 and beyond the infinite
Our readers ask questions every day, and we offer up answers just as often. - Guildwatch: We're not even in his guild
Another week brings another look at all of the guild drama, downed, and recruiting news from around the realms.
The best of WoW.com: June 9-16, 2009

News
- Upcoming mount changes
Required levels for mounts are being lowered, as are the costs for each. - Isle of Conquest details released
Hot new deets on the game's upcoming battleground instance. - Mountain Dew Battle-bots now live
Mountain Dew released their promotional in-game items -- come and get 'em while they're... bot? - New zeppelin and portals coming in Patch 3.2
In addition to the mount updates, Blizzard is adding a new zep to ride and a portal straight to Outland. How convenient! - Yogg Saron and Flame Leviathan nerfed tonight
Two Ulduar bosses get hit with the nerf bat.
Features
- Guildwatch: He's really, really sorry
Drama, downed, and recruiting news from around the realms. - Ten things WoW players should know from E3
Activision is bigger than ever, the MMO genre is widening, and wow, Star Wars: The Old Republic looks good. - Addon Spotlight: Essential addons for raid leaders
Our weekly column for UI addons examines some recommended installs for those leading raids. - Popular scams and how to avoid them
There are scams aplenty in Azeroth, so here's some tips on how to dodge them. - WoW, Casually: Tips for leveling on a PvP realm
Play on a player vs. player realm but don't want to die that often? Here's how to stay alive.
The best of WoW.com: June 2-9, 2009

News
- Beware of Blood Elves selling mounts
One of our writers' friends falls prey to the game's newest scam. - Achieved: Level 1 to 80 with no deaths
A character appropriately named Cautious reached the highest level in the game without dying once. - Revamped Night Elf Druid cat forms revealed
New looks for Night Elf Druids. - Zarhym explains Druid form color combos
Want to make sure your Druid has the form you want? Here's how. - Ensidia gets world-first Algalon 25-man kill
One of the game's biggest pro guilds downs the last major boss in the current content.
Features
- An interview with a scammer
The perp in the article above gets the WoW.com interview spotlight shined on him. - WoW, Casually: Rating the classes for casuals
Which class is best to play for a casual player? - Arcane Brilliance: Reaching the hit cap
Mages, here's how to make the most out of those spells you're casting. - The lore of Ulduar
The latest game dungeon has more than a few hooks and hints into the rest of the World of Warcraft. - The Queue: Waterfalls
Our Q&A column will actually go chasing waterfalls to find answers to your questions. Not just stick to the rivers and the lakes that they're used to.
Interview: EJ Moreland, lead designer of APB, continued
And then, just to talk a little bit more about the token system, how are those instituted? What kind of things can you advance? Let's say I build up a million dollars, what can I do with that money in the game? You say you can buy your own personal car. Does that respawn if it's blown up or something like that?
Yeah! So, basically, [in] the living city there are all kinds of vehicles you can just rip off or carjack, even enforcers can just commandeer them. But your own personal vehicles have benefits. Number one, they are completely customized to your heart's desire. Number two, they tend to be better. They tend to be more durable, better performing, and they can have these functional upgrades we talked about. So you can have a car with a ram plate on it that actually makes it to when you ram into stuff, instead of you taking a lot of damage, you're inflicting on another car you hit. So there's different kinds of upgrades. Like, for example, each car can have up to, depending on where you are at in the progression or what you have access to and how much you're willing to pay, potentially up to three of those different little tokens, those functional upgrades, on top of that to increase its power.
And that, also, is all on the interface, in your garage you go to.
Yeah! So, basically, [in] the living city there are all kinds of vehicles you can just rip off or carjack, even enforcers can just commandeer them. But your own personal vehicles have benefits. Number one, they are completely customized to your heart's desire. Number two, they tend to be better. They tend to be more durable, better performing, and they can have these functional upgrades we talked about. So you can have a car with a ram plate on it that actually makes it to when you ram into stuff, instead of you taking a lot of damage, you're inflicting on another car you hit. So there's different kinds of upgrades. Like, for example, each car can have up to, depending on where you are at in the progression or what you have access to and how much you're willing to pay, potentially up to three of those different little tokens, those functional upgrades, on top of that to increase its power.
And that, also, is all on the interface, in your garage you go to.
Interview: EJ Moreland, lead designer of APB

After the demo session, lead designer EJ Moreland sat down with us, and cleared up most of the wanted bounties we still had on the game: what's advancement like? How is the game using Last.fm? And just how will they balance out the ad-hoc gameplay of criminals committing crimes and enforcers catching them with the usual MMO process of character advancement? Read on for more.
Gallery: APB
Mario, meet Sonic (at the Winter Olympics)

That's not to say that Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics is a bad game -- its audience will probably enjoy it. Just like the previous Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, it offers multiple Olympic sports-based minigames featuring popular Nintendo and Sega characters, controlled by various Wii and DS motions. People who like buying that kind of thing (parents wandering a videogame store looking for wholesome family entertainment) will probably enjoy it. But even though most of the Joystiq staff passed on this demo (and your faithful blogger bravely attended it), it was one of the more surreal things we've seen this week. Our strange experiences, let us show you them.
Wanted for breaking the law: Vogster's CrimeCraft

***NOTICE TO ALL GAMERS***
FROM: The Joystiq Office of Law Enforcement
RE: Vogster's CrimeCraft, a "persistent world next-gen shooter" due out August 25th.
Attention: CrimeCraft is to be considered armed and dangerous, and should not be approached in a video game store. Stay away at all costs.
Last seen location: E3 2009, in the Vogster booth.
Golden Sun DS trailer summons some excitement
Looks good, no? It's gone more or less full 3D, but there's still the same exploring, summons, and (we're guessing) battle that appeared in the last few games. Camelot told us a while back that they'd love to play a Golden Sun DS game, and now that it's announced and we've seen this trailer, we can't help but agree.
In pictures: a trip around the West Hall

The doors are open, and yet instead of going in and playing all of these games we've been hearing so much about, we went ahead and took a walk around the show floor with a camera just for you readers (imagine the willpower!). So yes, even though you may be at home or work, and even though you may be disappointed that you can't come out to Los Angeles and visit the E3 floor, at least you can do it vicariously through the gallery below. Enjoy.
And oh yes: remember when they said it'd be bigger this year? They were right. The booth babes, we report completely objectively, are back.
And oh yes: remember when they said it'd be bigger this year? They were right. The booth babes, we report completely objectively, are back.
Gallery: E3 2009 West Hall show floor
Sony debuts Gran Turismo 5 trailer

Gran Turismo 5 finally made an appearance at Sony's E3 briefing in the form of a short trailer showing off the game. Polyphony Digital's latest racer will bring rally racing to the series, and while the visuals looked terrific, we didn't get to see any actual gameplay, so there's no major indications whether it'll be more like Gran Turismo 4 or more like Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.
But either way, we bet it'll be Gran Turismo. No date set for release, obviously -- we'll bring you a nice-looking version of the trailer when we can.
But either way, we bet it'll be Gran Turismo. No date set for release, obviously -- we'll bring you a nice-looking version of the trailer when we can.
Final Fantasy XIV Online is due out in 2010

There's an all-CG trailer which we'll try to have soon, and no news on gameplay or really anything else. But yes, that just happened: not only did Square-Enix announce a XIV before XIII has come out, but it's an MMO... and they're saying 2010.
Sony introduces Rockstar's Agent as a PS3 exclusive

Sony says they expect Agent to have the same effect on their platform as the original GTA3 exclusive did with the PS2, but we'll have to see. They didn't show gameplay or even a cinematic at the press conference, so even though the prospect of a Rockstar-developed PS3 exclusive sounds enticing, we'll probably have to wait quite a while for more.
Gran Turismo for PSP finally parking October 1st

The game will release on October 1, right alongside the new PSP system.
New DSiware revealed: Prehistorik Man, Six in One Translator

The full list of publishers, games, and expected release dates is after the break.













