We've been sitting on this one for a few days now to let people have their fun before we draw a little too much attention to it, but there's a rather interesting bug in the patch 3.2.2 client: you can glitch out the model being loaded for your character upon login, and switch it with that of another character. We don't know how long it's been around or how long it will stay, but watch the video above (which is pretty large, our apologies) for a demonstration.

The WoW.com staff has confirmed it works, though the timing required is very precise. You need to be quick, but being too fast hitting one or the other is just as bad as being too slow. A few of us found that we had to slow down our fingers to do it properly, because "fast" to a hardcore FPS gamer is very different than "fast" to a casual MMO gamer. Click first, hit enter second. Not the other way around.

Whether this falls into exploit territory or not, we don't really know. What we do know is that the model 'swap' is only visible for you on your client, nobody else sees it, so nobody else should be impacted by it. It's also only graphical, no benefits carry over from one character to the next. You might see your epic iLevel 258 shield on your level 1 rogue, but you won't have the stats. You can't be a Horde draenei to anybody but yourself, so no screwing with people in battlegrounds. You can't be a unique snowflake like an undead paladin to anybody but yourself.

It's a whole lot of fun to see what a draenei rogue would look like, or a gnome druid. Check out the gallery below to see what came out of WoW.com's experimentation, and a few from our friends, too.

Feeling a little disconnected with Day of the Dead? Is your head not fitting on your neck exactly right? No, it's not because of my lame attempts at two puns right there, but it is because of a series of known issues being acknowledged by Blizzard today. The major ones are as follows:

• Macabre Marionette disappearing when changing zones (Fixed!)
• Players being disconnected when retrieving Bread of the Dead or Candy Skulls from the mail, auction house, and guild banks (Fixed!)
• The Day of the Dead costume may not last the full 12 hour duration

Blizzard doesn't want you to contact them about these issues, since the GMs can't help you with them. And while the disconnection issues, if it happens to you, could hinder your ability to complete the quests associated with the one day event -- it will not stop you from dancing with Catrina to get the achievement.

The full announcement from Blizzard after the break.

Update from the blues: "Update: Novermber 1, 2009 - 9:15 AM PST - A hotfix has been applied which will prevent various Day of the Dead items from disappearing while changing zones or retrieving items from the mail."

Well it's finally happened -- as of next month, you'll be required to have a Battle.net login to get into the game, so you might as well head over and merge your account up right now. It's not like we have a choice in the matter any more, but that doesn't mean lots of players still have apprehensions about the process. Naissa puts some of the concerns together clearly over on her blog -- putting all of her accounts under one username scares her, and that's a legit point. Not only can Blizzard presumably cut access to all of their games for just one (or even one false positive) ToS violation, but presumably, one hacker could now gain access to all of your Blizzard games with one hack. The online profile is another concern -- Bungie already has something like this running with Halo, and from my online profile, you can see clearly just how bad I am. With the Armory, there's a level of anonymity (you can't see your account name, just character names), but if Blizzard starts posting profiles under account names -- or even worse, "Real IDs," which are apparently real names -- that's one more layer of separation lost. Surely, they'll have to have a way to opt out of that.
Of course, the changeover isn't all bad.

Before you ask:

No, it still doesn't work going into or out of the flag rooms in Warsong Gulch.

Places it does work:

Going into and out of most other doorways. Up stairs. Through a great many smaller objects. Over unusual terrain, far more frequently than it used to. Overall: it works a lot more often than it doesn't work.

See, in case you missed it (as I did until helpful tipster James pointed it out to me this morning), Ghostcrawler dropped by a thread on the Damage Dealing forums (ironically titled "Blink Will Never Be Fixed") to drop this bombshell on us:

"There was a fix to Blink crossing terrain (such as indoor to outdoor) in 3.2.2."

I don't know about you, but I've been vigorously combing the book of Revelation for other signs of the coming apocalypse to be on the lookout for, just so I'm ready. Details after the break.

Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple Rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.

Okay, I'm a bit of a music buff. I love Bob Dylan, one of the most influential American singer/songwriters of our time. Here's some listening music while reading -- you can probably guess what it is. I selected it primarily because the song title goes well with our discussion -- and I love Dylan's brilliant live performance in Budokan. It's a bit much if you're not a Dylan fan, I'll freely admit.

Patch 3.2.2 has a myriad of PvP changes in it; I am stunned to see so little conversation on the interwebz about it. In fact, I've written so much about these changes that I was advised to split the article into parts. A lengthy article here on WoW.com is approximately 1000 words -- this article was over 3,000. (No, not over 9,000.)

I'm going to split up this article into three parts.

1. Overall changes
2. Class changes
3. Bug fixes and Glyph Changes

Check out what's a-changin' after the break.

Each new patch seems to bring about its own unique bugs, and Patch 3.2.2 is no different. As of Tuesday evening there are significant lag and server stability issues plaguing Azeroth worse than that night Jaina spent with Arthas plagues her, but that should hopefully be resolved with the rolling restarts tomorrow (5:00 a.m. PDT / 8:00 a.m. EDT). The lag, not Jaina's problem. That's going to take... well, she should see a doctor.

There are currently two major issues Blizzard has announced.

The first is a series of display problems, which Blizzard recommends you do the standard deleting of the WTF, Cache, and Interface folders. Before you do that be aware that removing the folders will delete all your add-ons and add-on preferences. In my experience, you're better off deleting the Cache folder and then updating all your add-ons, or just disabling add-ons which are out of date.

More detailed instructions for Windows and MacOS X can be found in Syndri's post on the official forums.

The other issue that items which are tradable under the BoP rules are not able to be socketed. This appears to not be affecting everyone, however there is a work around in the following steps:

We've been getting a steady stream of tips and tweets in about the stability issues plaguing nearly every server tonight, and Blizzard has finally confirmed that something isn't working right.

Most people are experiencing extreme lag both in instances and out in regular zones. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it all, just constant server-side lag that impairs things like looting, completing quests, using items, buy items, or trading things to other players.

Pretty much every wonderful thing that could have lag to it does; including the lovely 30 second mount cast.

Hopefully the rolling restarts that will be taking place tomorrow morning at 5:00 a.m. PDT / 8:00 a.m. EDT will fix this. Although I'm hopeful that there would be some quick resets tonight to apply a hotfix or whatever else Blizzard needs to do in-order to make the game more playable.

We'll update this post with any additional information if we get it

One of the more confusing and misunderstood aspects of the Heirloom XP bonus and leveling system that has been going around lately has been their application in PvP Battlegrounds. Some people say that the 20% combined XP increase from the chest and shoulders applies, some say it doesn't. Lots of smart folks provide answers, but until now there really hasn't been an answer on the part of Blizzard -- who has the final and authoritative say on everything.

So let's lay it out real simple for everyone, courtesy of what Zarhym said in a series of posts over the weekend:

• Heirloom items currently do not provide an XP bonus in Battlegrounds.
• Heirloom items should provide an XP bonus in Battlegrounds in Patch 3.2.2.

This is great news for those of us who like to power level our alts from 71 to 80 in the span of a couple days of playing via Alterac Valley farming. It's now going to go even quicker. That's a good thing, right?

The confusion of Heirloom's XP powers while in Battlegrounds is likely a result of the newness of the XP gains you can get in Battlegrounds. Eventually all that confusion will go away, and Zarhym's clear statements this weekend certainly helped with that.

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2n - 1 go left, 2n go right. I don't see enough DoTs! More DoTs now!

Are you ready for the return of Onyxia? With the Brood Mother being revitalized as a 10 and 25 person raid, you'll need to be sure you know everything that's coming at you. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2.2 will make sure your set for the next patch!

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I'm sure a lot of us have had this experience: You finish up jousting down the three champions in the first encounter of the 5-man Trial of the Champions, then all hell breaks loose. Your tank goes to lock down the Warrior, but in the meantime, the Rogue, who fell on the other side of the coliseum, makes a beeline to your healer, who was the person who dismounted him. Then the Mage, who's on yet a third side of the arena, starts blasting down your Mage who never seems to get any stamina on his gear. Your tank tries to rein everybody in, but since the bosses still have the aggro they built up from the jousting stage, they're near impossible to peel. Everyone dies.

Reader Catsby sent along news of an issue that's apparently plaguing Mac users. Blizzard has confirmed that people using Macs with Nvidia 7300GT and 7600GT graphics cards in them (you can see what you've got by going to the Apple, "About this Mac," and then hitting more info) are having issues with framerates, especially around water and during boss fights (which is exactly when you want the graphics to mess up, right?)

Unfortunately, there's no fix yet -- Blizzard says the issue is known and reproducible, and they're working to put a fix in "the next patch" (originally they say it'll be in a PTR patch 3.2.2 build, but a hint at the end of the thread suggests we may see it even sooner than that). So if your Mac has one of those graphics cards installed and you're having this issue, just sit tight -- Blizzard is working as fast as they can to get a fix out to you.