Darkmoon Faire Live, Patch 4.3 Profession Changes, Blizzard Contests and Internships

[chaud]

Darkmoon Faire Has Begun
The brand new Darkmoon Faire started today and the new games await! You can get there via the locations where the old fair used to be, right outside of Thunder Bluff and Stormwind.

The daily quests now give just 1 x Darkmoon Prize Ticket each instead of 5.

Patch 4.3 Profession Changes
We didn't plan on posting profession changes, but people are still confused about epic gems and still profiting off of Maelstrom Shatter, so it is time for another update! Patch 4.3 brought several new professions changes, including new crafted items, gems, and spells.

Blacksmithing

Type	Name	Reagents	Source
Legs	Pyrium Legplates of Purified Evil	8x40x4x8x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Legs	Unstoppable Destroyer's Legplates	8x40x4x8x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Legs	Foundations of Courage	8x10x4x8x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Wrist	Soul Redeemer Bracers	4x30x2x4x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Wrist	Bracers of Destructive Strength	4x30x2x4x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Wrist	Titanguard Wristplates	4x10x2x4x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone

Enchanting

Level	Name	Reagents	Description
515	Maelstrom Shatter	1x	Splits a Maelstrom Crystal into two Heavenly Shards.
515	Formula: Enchant Weapon - Executioner	6x10x6x30x3x	Sold by Dealer Jadyan. Not limited quantity

Inscription

Level	Name	Reagents	Description
105	Glyph of Shadow	3x1x	Alters the appearance of your Shadowform.

Leatherworking

Slot	Name	Reagents	Source
Legs	Leggings of Nature's Champion	8x40x4x8x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Legs	Deathscale Leggings	8x40x4x8x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Legs	Bladeshadow Leggings	8x20x20x4x8x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Legs	Rended Earth Leggings	8x25x10x10x4x8x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Wrists	Bracers of Flowing Serenity	4x10x10x10x2x4x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Wrists	Thundering Deathscale Wristguards	4x20x30x2x4x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Wrists	Bladeshadow Wristguards	4x20x20x2x4x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Wrists	Bracers of the Hunter-Killer	4x20x20x2x4x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone

Tailoring

Slot	Name	Reagents	Source
Legs	World Mender's Pants	8x8x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Legs	Lavaquake Legwraps	8x8x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Wrist	Dreamwraps of the Light	8x4x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Wrist	Bracers of Unconquered Power	5x4x	Dragon Soul Raid Zone
Chest	Black Silk Vest	5x4x	World Drop?

Jewelcrafting

Level	Name	Reagents	Source
510	Vicious Sapphire Ring	1x4x8x	Jewelcrafting Trainer
510	Vicious Amberjewel Band	1x4x8x	Jewelcrafting Trainer
510	Vicious Ruby Signet	1x4x8x	Jewelcrafting Trainer
520	Vicious Sapphire Necklace	1x5x8x4x	Jewelcrafting Trainer
520	Vicious Amberjewel Pendant	1x5x8x4x	Jewelcrafting Trainer
520	Vicious Ruby Choker	1x5x8x6x	Jewelcrafting Trainer

Epic Gems

Epic quality gems were released in Patch 4.3 however they are not obtainable through prospecting ore this time. You can obtain them from:

• Bosses within the Dragon Soul raid.
• Mote of Darkness, which are obtained from the first 7 boss' in Dragon Soul, are used to purchase a Crystalline Geodes from Dasnurimi on the ground floor of Wyrmrest Temple within the Dragon Soul raid that reward either an uncommon, rare, or epic gem.
• Essence of Corrupted Deathwing drops from Madness of Deathwing in Dragon Soul and are used to purchase Elementium-Coated Geode from Dasnurimi on the ground floor of Wyrmrest Temple within the Dragon Soul raid which obtain either a Shadow Spinal (Purple), Lava Coral (Orange) or Queens Garnet (Red).
• Patterns are purchaseable from vendors in Orgrimmar & Stormwind. Purchasing a Tome of Burning Jewels costs 4 x Illustrious Jewelcrafter's Token and rewards a random epic quality JC pattern, or you can purchase individual specific patterns for 5 x Illustrious Jewelcrafter's Token per pattern.
• Currently Jewelcrafting only gems are not being upgraded.

Archaeology

Archaeology leveling speed was also increased, now granting 5-9 fragments per dig. The number of fragments required to solve an artifact has also been decreased slightly. The Archy addon that we previously reviewed has been updated for 4.3 as well!

Fishing

Fishing leveling speed was increased with Patch 4.3, now taking roughly half of the time to level 1-525. El of El's Anglin did the leveling and made a nice graph.

Summer 2012 Blizzard Entertainment Internships

What’s better than playing Blizzard games? Shaping them!

Blizzard Entertainment’s internship program is designed to give college students an opportunity to work directly with development teams and business operations departments to gain hands-on experience.

We have opportunities in departments throughout the company, including development, licensing, eSports, publishing, and quality assurance.
Internship Program At-A-Glance

• Applicants must be currently studying at a university or college in the United States and planning to return to school in the fall of 2012 after the internship
  
• 12-week paid opportunities during the summer
  
• Located at Blizzard headquarters in Irvine, CA
  
• Applications must be submitted no later than January 31, 2012

If you’re a student, or know of one who’d be interested, head on over to the Internships page to submit your application!

Blizzard Entertainment's Student Art Contest

Blizzard Entertainment's university relations and World of Warcraft development team are proud to present their first-ever student art contest.

If you’re a current university or college student you could be one of three grand-prize winners to be awarded a package containing a t-shirt, a free year of World of Warcraft, a Blizzard notebook containing an original sketch, and a three-month mentorship with a World of Warcraft artist! Submissions must consist of a 3D modeled and textured set piece, fit for use in World of Warcraft.

Check out the link for more information, official rules, and submission form.

The submission deadline is January 15, 2012. Good luck!

Blizzard Holiday Dessert Contest 2011

Most people enjoy the holiday tradition of sharing a meal with family and friends -- and delicious desserts are a big part of the reason why. This year, we're hungry to see you spread holiday joy from your kitchen by cooking up sweet culinary creations -- and finishing them off with a Blizzard touch.

Simply prepare and decorate a Warcraft, StarCraft, or Diablo-themed dessert. Take a picture of your creative confection and submit it, and you might just find something special under your tree from Greatfather Winter!

We will handpick three of the most inventive, hearth-warming, or funny entries to win awesome prizes:

First Place

• Wilton Ultimate Decorating Set
  
• Marauder StarCraft II Gaming Keyboard
  
• Banshee StarCraft II Gaming Headset
  
• Spectre StarCraft II Gaming Mouse

Second Place

• Marauder StarCraft II Gaming Keyboard
  
• Banshee StarCraft II Gaming Headset
  
• Spectre StarCraft II Gaming Mouse

Third Place

• StarCraft II Zerg Edition Messenger Bag

We're waiting to see what delightful, dazzling, and delicious submissions you whip up. The contest begins on November 29. If you're ready to put on your apron and get cooking, you can find the contest rules here.

[denisgsv]

nerfed fishing and archeology :| kinda sad was nice to have something which needed a bit of dedication

[MatteoG]

Yay for archaeology buff!

[furydeath]

90% of the time motes of darkenss get you a green gem -_-

[The Ogdru Jahad]

I'm kind of sad arch and fishing got nerfed...they were built for those people dedicated to them...long ass grinds for only the people dedicated. Yeah, flame me all you want.

[Vargus]

Linking the to the Darkmoon PTR Preview is a bit deceiving, as the number of tickets you get is lower on Live

[Sting]

I've been spending my entire day doing archaeology today and I can assure you that the digsites still spawn randomly and not closer. If they do, it's not significantly noticeable. Also, I didn't notice a decrease in the fragments needed to solve artifacts at all.

[Deleted]

Kinda Sad about the Arch and Fishing nerf

[keldoen]

Poor engineering. No goggle upgrades, no new guns and in fact, Nothing new at all. Man i should change to blacksmithing.

[seru]

we need other way to obtain epic gems than raid!

[Sewaddle]

I've leveled fishing to max once and arch to max twice, these are good changes in my opinion

[Deleted]

and for the alchemy ?

[Djheffer]

So are epic gems available from raiding only?

[greyghost]

Fishing and Archaeology leveling rates didn't need nerfing, what needed nerfing was the Guild Achievement for fishing.

I've got characters in huge, level 25 guilds that normally have more than 50 people on at one given time, any time of day... and they just in the last two weeks got the fishing achievements to make the Fish Feasts.

The guild I actually raid with isn't even close to getting it yet, even with 2-3 people devoting time towards leveling it when they can (an hour after raids, normally). There is minimal incentive to fish from pools, which is what the guild achievement demands. This is because the best food that people want (lavascale minestrone, sagefish tails or fortune cookies) don't involve catching fish from pools. The achievements could've been done in WotLK, maybe, but definitely not now. To work on this guild achievement in this expansion is a grind for just the sake of the achievement which runs counter to Blizzard's design intent. Screwing with the leveling rate won't fix it.

---------- Post added 2011-12-04 at 11:45 PM ----------

we need other way to obtain epic gems than raid!

Agreed.

This shuts out gems for PvPers... I'm not a big PvPer myself, but I don't see why they can't get reasonable access to gems like people who Raid.

You can also argue that the gems are even allowed for Raiders who aren't able to do a full clear of Dragon Soul off the bat. This week, my guild only got 2 epic gems from 20(!!) geodes. That isn't even remotely CLOSE to what my guild needs in preparation for progression.

[Deleted]

Sad about the fishing nerf. Archaeology I can live with, but it's still too drastic.I hate the 'catering to the casuals' line, but I feel like this applies here. You actually had something you could spend ages to level, rather than needing instant gratification.

[Pumps]

nerfed fishing and archeology :| kinda sad was nice to have something which needed a bit of dedication

Totally irrelevant, every thing was east to get in no time EXCEPT that damn flying mount, which depends on 3 dice rolls with miniscule probably all coming out right - THAT is freaking insane and hasn't been fixed.

[KaoGen]

Seriously complaining about making arch easier? what do you get from it thats actually USEFUL now? VOTS recipe... and a few BoE 359s... great.and fishing sure doesnt matter, how many people care about the level, rather then the achievements.?

[Izzirez]

Wonder why the Haste/Mastery cloth bracers take 5 cloth but the spirit/haste take 8...

[pocky_rin]

Did I read a little while back that they buffed archaeology so that if u have every fossil rare, fossil sites are less likely to spawn? While this is awesome it's killing me at the darkmoon faire, i need to hand in fossil frags and I can't get any digsites to spawn lol.

[Desdonde]

I'm kind of sad arch and fishing got nerfed...they were built for those people dedicated to them...long ass grinds for only the people dedicated. Yeah, flame me all you want.

Uhh what? I'm sure if someone took a poll, the majority of the population did NOT enjoy the length of time it took to develop these two professions.

You need to have some amount of grind factor, but these blew it way out of proportion, the buffs are very welcome for my alts.