Zarhym has announced on the forums that BlizzCast episode 10 is out right now for your listening pleasure. In the official podcast, he talks with Lead Encounter Designer Scott Mercer and Senior Game Designer Dave Maldonado about patch 3.2 and the Argent Tournament instances released with it. Strangely, it sounds like the podcast was actually recorded before the release, but of course now everyone knows that we fight the Black Knight in the 5-man and what the dailies are all about. Especially if you've been paying close attention to the testing on the PTR, lots of the "news" about patch 3.2 won't be all that surprising.

They also look forward to BlizzCon: all of the developer panels and meetings that go on there, both from the perspective of fans (hey, we actually can be literate and reasonable instead of QQing all the time!) and from developers (turns out they are "not just blue text" -- who knew?!). It's not a super groundbreaking podcast, but as a wrapup to the release of 3.2 and a short preview to BlizzCon, it works just fine. And there's a bonus: Zarhym is offering up a contest -- answer some questions about the podcast after you listen to it, and you could win a "fabulous prize." The rules give away what the prize is: a Draenei vs. Blood Elf diorama or some action figures.

And remember, if you've missed any of the BlizzCast episodes so far, you can find them both in iTunes or over on Blizzard's site, or just read our wrapups here on WoW.com.

BlizzCast #9 was released very recently, and it's quite short this time around, only about 11 minutes long. It's short because it only covers one thing. It contains Chris Metzen reading the prologue to Arthas: Rise of the Lich King.

The prologue is centered primarily on the native races in Northrend and how they react to the unnatural storms brought on by the Lich King's inner turmoil; the Tuskarr through community and the Taunka through defiance. We also see the exact nature of that turmoil, catching a glimpse of just how much of Arthas is left in there (or Ner'zhul for that matter), and we see it all to the tune of Metzen's sultry voice.

The 8th episode of BlizzCast, the Blizzard Podcast, rolled out just a short while ago. If the only Blizzard game you're interested in is WoW, you'll probably be disappointed this time around, there's not much World of Warcraft discussion. The information is very, very heavily slanted toward Starcraft II and Diablo III.

The podcast kicks off with their usual Q&A portion. The World of Warcraft questions, answered by Tom Chilton, were aimed at Wintergrasp and the vehicle system (specifically the lack of aerial combat). That's the full extent of the WoW content here. That's all, folks. If WoW is all you care about, that's the end. For those of you that are Blizzard fans in general? Jay Wilson (Diablo III Game Director) and Dustin Browser (Starcraft II Lead Designer) cover the Q&A for their respective games.

The remainder of the podcast is a Diablo III interview with a pair of the game's developers, Julian Love (Lead Technical Artist) and Mike Nicholson (Senior Artist). If you intend to play Diablo III, it's worth a listen. It gives some insight into the developmental process of the game, and that's probably the most interesting part of these podcasts.

Episode 7 of Blizzcast, Blizzard's official podcast, came out this afternoon; it's been a couple of months since the last episode. This time, they did a little bit of a "WotLK Wrap-Up" with J. Allen Brack and Jeff Kaplan, as well as some chatting with Chris Metzen, the creative head, about what's been going on in various aspects of the story. Here are the parts I found most interesting:

• When the development on the original WoW was getting wrapped up, Outland and Northrend were both in the running for the first expansion. They decided the timing was better to do Outland first.
• There were three front runners for the hero class to appear in LK:
  • Necromancer, a ranged caster with corpse explode and such. Some of this ended up getting incorporated into Death Knight
  • Rune master: "think rogue or monk type character"
  • And, of course, Death Knight.
• JAB thinks "the first month has really validated that decision" to go with 10- and 25-man raiding.

The 6th episode of BlizzCast was posted today, and though it contains very little WoW-specific information, the podcast still contains a ton of information general Blizzard fans would like to hear. When listening to it, keep in mind that it wasn't recorded in the last few days or anything like that, it's a few weeks old at least. They mention Wrath of the Lich King still being in beta testing and Sylvanas' custom model hadn't yet been implemented, for example.

Their guests this time around are Lead Tools Programmer Monte Krol, Senior Art Director Samwise Didier, Lead Game Designer Dustin Browder, and senior artist for Diablo III Anthony Rivero. That lineup of guests really offers up a cool look at the early design and development of Blizzard games, and the guests actually offer a little insight into just how you can start working for Blizzard yourselves. They also have another installment of their Q&A portion with various developers.

Starcraft and Diablo fans will find the gameplay information in this BlizzCast more interesting than people who are exclusively WoW players. As always, BlizzCast is available for download through the official website (EU has it as well), iTunes, or you can read the transcript right on their website.

We've already talked about what was said in the latest Blizzcast: mainly profession details and music, as well as a few snippets on dungeons and raids from Kaplan (and some Starcraft II stuff). But there were some interesting pieces of information given away in an image linked on the podcast transcript page that were not discussed in the podcast, in the way of new crafted items. The image is replicated above; click for a bigger version. My favorite is definitely the Magnificent Flying Carpet. Yes, it's a flying mount for tailors, and I am pretty certain that it will be awesome.

Here's everything I found in that image that I don't remember having seen elsewhere:

• Magnificent Flying Carpet: Requires level 70, tailoring (450). Use: Calls forth and dismisses a flying carpet. This is a very fast rug. This mount can only be summoned in Outland and Northrend. Requires artisan riding skill or higher to use.
• Floral Foundations: Encrypted, requires inscription (50). A small collection of rare herbs. [No, I have no idea what this is, aside from something to do with Inscription.]
• Spring Loaded Cloak Expander: requires engineering (425). Use: permanently modifies a cloak so it can be activated by a skilled engineer, causing them to fall slowly for 10 sec. The effect can only be activated every 5 min.

This last item ties in to what Jon LeCraft (WoW's lead profession designer) was saying about engineering having items to give effects to gear, as opposed to replacing gear outright like the Parachute Cloak. Engineered enchants, basically. Overall, I continue to be more and more excited about professions in Wrath.

Blizzcast episode 4 is now live and available for listening, and with it, of course, has come a wealth of new World of Warcraft Information. Some of it is stuff we've gotten wind for before, but there's some interesting insights into the whole game. You can listen to it here and read the transcript here, or join us after the break for a breakdown of the juiciest information from the Interviews

This past week on the WoW Insider Show (a recording of which is now available over on WoW Radio), we were honored to welcome Matt "Matticus" Low to the show to talk about his career in WoW and his experience healing endgame raids. Amanda Dean was also in attendance with some Arena opinions, and Turpster and I rounded out the crew. We talked about:

• The fact that Turpster is now 69 on his Shadow Priest, and that next week, after the show, he's going to ding at a live event (stay tuned tomorrow for more details on how that's going down).
• How Blizzard changed the Death Knight descriptions, and whether that matters this early in the game
• Amanda's thought that Arena is broken, and how it might possibly be fixed again (as well as the various class representations in there and what's up with those)
  
• What we thought was interesting in the latest Blizzcast

Plus, we answered reader email (including taking a little Blizzard-inspired quiz) and chatted with Matticus about how the popular Spiritual Guidance column is going. All in all, good show -- check it out on WoW Radio's website right now, or listen in (and feel free to give us a review, good or bad as long as it's honest) over on iTunes.

And if you've got something you want us to talk about on the show, drop us an email at theshow@wow.com. We'll be back next week with Turpster's big ding event, and another show next Saturday afternoon at 3:30 Eastern.

The long-awaited third episode of Blizzcast, Blizzard's official podcast, has just gone live. Blizzard's US web sites are still down, but you can listen to it and read the transcript on the European site. As usual, since this is a Blizzard podcast and not a WoW-specific one, they spend some time covering the Starcraft universe as well, including an interview with Dustin Browder, SC2 lead designer, which I won't cover (good material on Zergs though). But later they brought in Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan, WoW lead designer for dungeons and raids, and here's what I found interesting in his segment:

• The original WoW raids were too hardcore early on; in BC they eased up on that and they hope to continue this in Wrath.
• Lessons learned in BC:
  • Heroic loot needs to be definitely better than normal-mode loot
    
  • Introductory raids need to be more friendly – he says "I don't want to say to casual players, but a little bit more accessible to people in general." Cites Maulgar and Mags as examples of less-than-friendly intro raids.
  • How to itemize raid content vs. other content

One of the biggest and most successful features of Burning Crusade has been the inclusion of Badges of Justice. Especially in 2.4, these badges have allowed even relatively casual players to get their hands on gear that comes close to the same stuff raiders are able to pull out of end game instances. While the system seems to have been mostly a success, there's still some question as to how it will evolve in WoTLK. The current 2.4 badge loot seems to have been created in part to allow a smoother gear transition between BC and WoTLK for both casuals and ubers, with badges dropping out of 10-man instances and the most powerful badge gear yet. But the question is, will this continue in WoTLK? Will we see badges off of Naxxramas' 10-man version (perhaps earning it the name Badgeramas)? Will we see loot purchasable from a Dalaran vendor that will be comparable to what raiders are pulling out of Icecrown Glacier? Or will they dial it back, or maybe not even include the badge loot system at all?

Here's yet another reason for me and all my roleplaying kin to tune in to the next Blizzcast: They will be discussing roleplaying in WoW, says Vaneras. It won't be a major topic, but there is some discussion about plans to continue development of "things that are for roleplaying."

So, I am certainly excited. I can't help but speculate where this could go. What could they have planned, development-wise? Will we see more reporting tools for RP server violations? Or will we simply see more character customization options to allow us to submerge ourselves more fully into the Worlds of Azeroth and Outland? I think my big problem is going to be holding back my expectations. They're running so wild, that I can't help but that think I'll be disappointed in what's actually said.

That said, Between this information and whatever we learn about the Ashbringer, this Blizzcast should be a great listen for all RP and lore buffs. There doesn't seem to be any word yet about when it will be released, but Vaneras' post makes me think it must be close. Stay tuned here and to the official Blizzcast page.

Lariana on Skywall has words of praise for "Heroic Countenance," a new NPC spell in patch 2.4 that unlocks you to the Heroic mode of MrT -- to get it cast on you, you have to complete the instance on Normal mode first by doing a quest to kill of Kael'thas once and for all. Basically, it replaces the Heroic reputation keys, which Lariana says were a much less interesting system than Heroic Countenance.

And Bornakk basically confirms that Blizzard agrees (well, all he says is that they'll talk about it on the next Blizzcast, but he adds a smiley, so odds are that Blizzard is down with the Heroic Countenance). They've been talking for a while, too, about making the reputation grind easier for alts and guilds, so maybe this type of spell is how they'll deal with that -- get it cast on one of your characters, and it will be cast on all of them.

The only question, then, is what to do with all those Heroic keys that we've picked up. The answer is probably nothing -- Blizzard doesn't really care, it seems, about updating old content, and my guess is that the instances in Outland won't be changing much from their current form. But in Wrath, it might be fun if the keys stayed, but opened up other, less consequential content. Instead of Heroic mode, what if a Revered rep key opened up the way to an additional optional boss, or an additional loot area per run? Not enough to make it necessary, but enough to reward those who went all the way with the reputation factions in the game.

As I mentioned a little while ago, episode two of Blizzcast was released today. It features interviews with Chris Metzen and Geoff Goodman, the second of whom was a new name to me. You can go download or listen to it, or read the transcript, at Blizzard's site, but if you don't feel like it, or can't, here's a highlights version for you.

Chris Metzen talks about story stuff, since that's what his job is: vice president of creative development. What does he have to say about WoW?

• Not that this should surprise anyone, but the story team is "looking forward to future expansions".
• The original WoW was basically a snapshot, story-wise, with not much in the way of dynamic content. The expansions get more back to linear stories.
• We'll see themes in Wrath of the Lich King like Titans, the creation of the world, the dragon flights, and why Azeroth is so central to the events of this universe.

Geoff Goodman was on mostly to be interviewed about Magtheridon, by my favorite illuminating CM, Nethaera. Here's what I found interesting in his segment:

The second episode of Blizzcast, Blizzard's official podcast, has just been released. This one is double the length of the previous installment, at just over 49 minutes. Interviewees are Chris Metzen, VP of creative development, as well as WoW designer Geoff Goodman. The interviews are followed by a reader question-and-answer segment. You can see our coverage of the first episode in case you've forgotten what happened last time, and if you need some more WoW podcast goodness, why not check out our own WoW Insider show?

Another post is forthcoming as soon as I get a chance to analyze what's revealed in this episode; I just wanted to get this news out as quick as possible.

Bornakk has sent out a request on the forums for player questions to be used in the next BlizzCast, and I can only say that I hope, hope, hope that that delivers as much comedy as it promises. As you may know if you attended any of the Q&A sessions at BlizzCon, players and their questions plus developers equals the funny.

Considering that the podcasts are pre-recorded and not live, however, so odds are Blizzard will go for informative rather than confusing and awkward, but let me tell you: the latter has its advantages for sure. If you've got a question for BlizzCast, you can apparently send it to BlizzCast (at) Blizzard dot com, and hope it appears on a future BlizzCast.

And speaking of podcast questions, don't forget that the WoW Insider Show is also a podcast that answers questions, and you can ask us questions at theshow@wow.com. Unlike Blizzard, we will include the funny ones, so send away.