How could I not cover the Celestial Steed for this week’s Phat Loot Phriday? My Starry Pony has absolutely been the talk of the town ever since it went on sale this week. I went into a Warsong Gulch today . . . and my entire team was riding one.

What’s so cool about My Starry Pony? First, it’s full of stars. I mean, look at that. It’s made of stars. Of course, this was a model technique made popular by Algalon, who’s all about warning the Titans that we mortals have totally run amuck. But the design is absolutely awesome. It’s made of stars!

What else is cool about My Starry Pony? You never have to buy another mount. It scales from level 1 all the way through world of warcraft  level 80. (No way to know yet whether or not the mount will do whatever cool trick mounts do in Cataclysm.) The Celestial Steed will automatically become the context appropriate mount for your character, moving at the appropriate speed according to your level and training. It will even switch between being a normal ground mount for old Azeroth, or an airborne princess in Northrend. You will only need a single action bar button for your mount — it’ll fly or fall appropriate to the area you’re in.

The last thing that’s cool about it is that it shows up in your mailbox, even for character you’ve created. That makes it the single, easiest mount to get. Warning, though: you do still have to train the riding skill, just like you would have to with a normal, mundane, boring, not-full-of-stars mount.

While requiring the training skill means that the Steed doesn’t vastly change gameplay, its one-size-fit-all nature definitely makes it the most convenient mount, especially since you won’t ever need to spend gold on another mount. (At least, not until Cataclysm changes the rules again.)

All you have to do to get it is head over to the Blizzard Store, and pick one up for 25 bucks.

Did I mention it’s full of stars?

Like, say, the reason we haven’t seen a girl in the ads yet. Pearce says they’re open to it, and he wants some names submitted, so we’ll offer up Felicia Day as a no-brainer, and if you guys have other ideas, share away below. He also talks about server capacity, and says that at nearly every step, Blizzard has been surprised by their success. He attributes race and faction changes to thinking that realms were big enough on day one to bring everybody together who wanted to come together, but they later realized that wasn’t what was happening. He mentions China and NetEase and says they wish the process there was faster. And finally, he talks, surprisingly, about the BlizzCon Vegas that wasn’t, and seems to confirm that Blizzard was considering a Vegas show. Interesting. Where else did they consider holding the convention, we wonder?

Last night, Blizzard unveiled a new behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the Gunship Battle encounter in Icecrown Citadel. Although it’s light on technical details, it’s an interesting look at how they reasoned through both the mechanics and lore of the fight. They wanted something epic that allowed for some of the ship-to-ship combat that players have asked for, and it was a great opportunity to integrate the ICC raid with one of Icecrown’s most important quest hubs.

I’ve gone on record before saying that this is one of Blizzard’s best and most unique fights, and it’s particularly fun if you’re part of the “away team” making the jumps to and from the enemy ship. That really nails the “controlled chaos” angle they were aiming for. If you’re part of the “home team” defending your own ship, I’ll grant that the fight feels a little more by-the-numbers. Oddly enough, this is one of the few encounters where the achievement version (I’m On A Boat) actually makes it less engaging, as most raids assign static teams to the ships and either kite Saurfang/Bronzebeard or swap taunts. However, if you’ve already got the achievement or just aren’t worrying about it for the moment, all the joys of a personal explosives pack are yours for the taking.

If you’re not part of a raiding guild but get a shot at doing ICC, go for it; the first two bosses aren’t too tough, and the gunship battle is an absolute hoot.

• Talent trees
• New spells and abilities
• Recycled raid content

The talent tree comment Ghostcrawler is referring to:

No new talent points. But wait didn’t GC say they were going to go back and redo the trees? That is a misconception. All that means is that they are going to tweak stats and abilities to match cataclysm’s new stats and maybe new ones for underperforming PvP specs like subtly and moonkins. I know it’s not always good to add new abilities on top of a already fragile PvP system. However for me new abilities was something to look forward too. You could be really excited about it. Also it put a creative side to blizzard, wondering how much further the team could think ahead of us.

Ghostcrawler’s entire statement is as follows:

I was going to bump this to the General forum, but I think the talent tree comment is worth addressing in the role forums, since it applies to class design.

1) We are changing talent trees, in some cases substantially. The major focus is pruning out boring but valuable talents that passively increase say damage or healing.

2) A secondary focus is to fix the clunky areas (e.g. warlocks having two conflicting range increasing talents). We’re not going to remove old favorites or radically change the focus of the trees. You will definitely have to rethink your builds however.

3) Because you earn passive bonuses just for spending points in the tree, those fun, niche or utility talents won’t seem as expensive as they do today. We want to create a lot more choices where you are choosing utility vs. utility. We want to see far more “cookie cutter” build guides that say “Spend the last 5-10 points where you want.”

4) In some cases, trees will flat out get new abilities. These are in addition to the new level 81+ abilities.

5) You will get 5 additional talent points for the new levels.

6) We are not deepening the trees. This actually unlocks some interesting opportunities. For the first time, you can reach a 51 point talent and a 21 point talent in another tree.

I’ll also add that for Lich King we just brought Naxxramas back and adjusted the bosses for 10 and 25 raid sizes. The Cataclysm raids are new content with new maps and new bosses. We’re just trying to hit the nostalgia button with mentioning old foes like Ragnaros. Ragnaros may be back, but he’s not in Molten Core.

Blizzard, perhaps jumping the gun a little, has posted the patch notes for the upcoming Patch 3.3.2 mini-patch on the official Korean site. We’ve translated them for your convenience. Lots of changes to heroic dungeons, some class buffs (warlock, shaman, druid), and some class nerfs (prot warrior). All this and more, after the cut.

Disclaimer: Translation is hard! Some of these notes, especially more complex ones, may be slightly off. We’ll post the official English notes when they’re posted as well.

Update! Warbringer change clarified (again). Ghostcrawler chimed in about it.

Dungeons and Raids

Icecrown Citadel

• The Frostwing Halls, the last stronghold of the Lich King and the Scourge, has been added, but the Ashen Verdict must break down the door first. (Does this mean we have to wait some additional time to fight Arthas?)

Halls of Stone

• Brann Bronzebeard has been working out, so he’ll run faster during the escort event.

Forge of Souls

• Devourer of Souls will cast Mirrored Soul less often.
• Trash mob Spell Reflect abilities have been changed. It now has a casting time, and will proc only twice at a rate of 75% instead of 100%.

Nexus

• Anomalus will create rifts only once.

Ahn’Kahet: Old Kingdom

• Elder Nadox’s Ahn’kahar Guardian will only spawn once.
• Jedoga Shadowseeker will initiate her volunteer phase only once.
• Some trash packs between Nadox and Jedoga have been reduced/removed.

Pit of Saron

• Dead players are now able to re-enter the instance when the Ick/Krick and Forgemaster Garfrost encounters are active.

Utgarde Pinnacle

• Players can bring down Skadi’s drake using only three harpoons, down from five.
• Svala Sorrowgrave only casts Ritual of the Sword once, down from thrice.

Vault of Archavon

• Toravon the Ice Watcher has been added to the dungeon! He awaits your challenge on 10- and 25-player difficulties.

Violet Hold

• Portals will open faster after Portal Guardians are killed.

Arena and Battlegrounds

Arena

• Arena Season 8 has started and new rewards are available!

Druid

Balance

• Earth and Moon: Now increases spell damage by 2/4/6% for the druid, Up from 1/2/3%.

Shaman

Elemental

• Shamanism: Now increases your Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning spell damage by 4/8/12/16/20% (up from 3/6/9/12/15%) and your Lava Burst spell damage by 5/10/15/20/25% (up from 4/8/12/16/20%).

Warlock

Affliction

• Shadow Embrace: Now stacks 3 times. Healing reduction effect reduced to 2/4/8/10% (down from 3/6/9/12/15%).

Demonology

• Demonic Pact: This talent now increases your spell damage by 2/4/6/8/10% (up from 1/2/3/4/5%). The benefit to party/raid members remains unchanged.

Destruction

• Conflagrate: Periodic Spell damage increased to 40% (Up from 20%)
• Empowered Imp: Damage done by imp increased to 10/20/30% (Up from 5/10/15%)
• Improved Shadow Bolt: Now increases Shadow Bolt damage 2/4/6/8/10% (Up from 1/2/3/4/5%)

Warrior

Protection

• Concussion Blow: Damage decreased by 50%. Threat level remains unchanged.
• Devastate: Damage increased by 20%.
• Shield Slam: Damage modifier from block value decreased, and scales worse at low block value levels. Players in high-end gear shouldn’t notice the change. In addition, threat generated by Shield Slam has been increased by 30%.
• Warbringer: This talent no longer allows Charge and Intercept to break roots or snares. Intervene remains unaffected. In other words, you can still Charge and Intercept in any stance and while in combat.

UI and Interface

• Dungeon Finder Party Leader role renamed (don’t know to what yet).

Item

• The Ashen Verdict now offers a Strength-based ring for classes that benefit from it.
• Tier 10 Elemental Shaman set bonus: Redesigned. Whenever Lava burst successfully damages the target, it increases the duration of Flame Shock by 6 sec.

There are so many scams going around like the Catclysm Alpha invite and the WoW Armory phishing site, that people’s accounts are getting stolen more than ever. With all of the work that Blizzard has to do to keep up with the problem, it’s no wonder they are offering the fast solution of care packages. We’ve talked about how to avoid scams as well as how to protect yourself. Here is a guide as to what to do if your account gets stolen.

Important note: The following guide assumes that you have not put an Authenticator on your account. There are no confirmed cases of accounts being stolen if they are protected by an Authenticator.

Did the thieves put an Authenticator on your account?

If no, then follow these steps:

1. Try to recover your password: Attempt to retrieve your password using Blizzard’s password retrieval form. If they didn’t change the email address registered to your account, you will receive the password in your email.
2. Change your password: Immediately change your password to something you don’t use anywhere else and is strong (not a word found in the dictionary, has numbers that are not related to any dates that are important to you). I would also recommend throwing in a capitalized letter or two, but Battle.Net passwords are not case sensitive. (Neither were non-Battle.Net WoW passwords, by the way, so this is not a change.)

If the thieves did put an Authenticator on your account, join the club. It’s what they do these days to buy themselves time to rummage through your bags and pimp your characters out to scam others. Do the following as soon as possible:

• Post on the Technical Support forums: Go to the official Technical Support forums and find the latest blue post that has something about the Authenticator being added. As of this writing, the current one is at this link, but they get locked after a while and a new one is started. You don’t have to enter an Authenticator code to post in the forums, so post from your compromised account in the thread that you need to have the Authenticator removed.

Contact Blizzard by email and by phone.

Even if you have posted on the tech support forums, I still recommend you contact Blizzard redundantly. Just make sure that you mention the other methods you have contacted them as a courtesy.

• Email: You can either email Blizzard directly at WoWAccountAdmin@Blizzard.com or by using their web form.
• Phone: Call the appropriate number for you from Blizzard’s Support Number list. You may be put on hold for a while and/or be asked to leave a voicemail.

Let your guild know.

While you are spending time getting your account back, the thieves are pilfering the guildbank and sending your friends/guildies tells to go see this really cool video you made. Get on your guild forums and/or vent and tell your guildies to demote and ignore your characters until you get your account back.

Follow Blizzard’s instructions.

Blizzard will contact you with instructions on how to restore your account. You may have to provide notarized documentation, which can be scanned and emailed or faxed. Follow the directions carefully, as any missing steps or information will result in even more of a delay.

Get an Authenticator.

You can either order the keyfob or download an app for your mobile which is cheap to free. If you do not have a mobile which is currently supported by Blizzard and are having trouble getting an Authenticator shipped to your location, then see if a friend, family member or guildie can get one and ship it to you. The device is the same globally and therefore can be activated on your account, even if it is bought by someone in the U.S. and mailed to you. But please do get an Authenticator so you never have to go through this again.

In before the “only stupid people get hacked” comments: very intelligent, prepared and careful people get hacked every day. As social engineers get more sophisticated, new security holes are opened up in our lives all the time. I don’t normally do this when I write about Account Security, but any comments that are insulting will be deleted. If you really feel that strongly about how superior you are to someone who has been hacked, please go tell your mom. I’m sure she’ll be very proud of you. But the rest of us are not interested.

I might be overstating that argument a tad, but a believable character can be a complex little critter. And the most complex emotion of all can be . . . love. (I had to take a moment here not to bust out in “What’s love got to do with it?”)

Love stories are hard. I think they’re actually the hardest story to roleplay successfully. It’s incredibly easy to take your roleplay in the direction of a sticky-sweet romance. And then, for everyone of those stories I’ve seen, I’ve equally seen a cold, hard, son-of-Illidan whose heart was torn asunder, and
he wil no longer be capable of love.

So, if these are the two ends of the love spectrum, how do you successfully hit the middle? What’s the believable range? What’s the viable, interesting roleplay stories, when the whole idea of a love story is so fraught with pits and traps?

Love is a big word. Sure, most people might think of the love between two people, the kind of innate emotion that leads to marriage, children, and a house in suburban Stormwind.

But the first kind of love story that I always find convincing is that between siblings. Malfurion and Illidan themselves are a fascinating sibling love story, because for all of their arguments, struggles, and wars — they were brothers. They (presumably) loved one another, and that familial relationship built an innate stress and tension into their interaction.

Your sibling relationship isn’t limited to rivalry, however. Consider a story about a sister who brought her brother to Northrend to war against the Lich King . . . and is now horrified to discover her brother has become a Death Knight. He’s risen again, and is still fighting the “good” fight. But he’s kind of undead, and a palpable reminder of how she led him to this dark place.

My favorite familial love story was one of my first World of Warcraft roleplay experiences. On a whim, I randomly decided that my paladin was a father, spurred to go fight the hated Blood Elves because they’d killed his son. It wasn’t a simple war kill: instead, the son had been another paladin, killed when the Blood Elves attacked the temple in Stratholme.

Okay, so familial love is a fairly easy story to write. But it’s admittedly not a traditional “love story.” As much as I might wish it so, no one thinks of the love between father and son when they hear the words “love story.”

There’s probably about a dozen different romantic love stories. They meet-and-swoon, the meet-and-hate-then-swoon, and the meet-and-starcrossed are probably three of the most common. I see a lot of hate towards the meet-and-swoon, since it’s probably the biggest cliché of them all. But, still, it’s valid, and it’s a viable choice for folks who just want to get into the nitty gritty of their love story.

The meet-and-hate is a lot of fun, though. It helps if both players are prepared for the roleplay, already girded up and set to really tear into one another. Basically, two characters meet, and start off their mutual life despising the other. Maybe one character has a long-term resentment of the other character’s race – after all, it’s not like all of the Horde and Alliance races are filled with fluffy bunny love for one another. (Or do we really think the Tauren and Undead are BFFs?) Once you’ve established a good hatred for one another, write some circumstances that start forcing the two character together.

Maybe the two characters get pinned down in a foxhole, dodging Scourge mortars and attacks. They’re stuck in that hole for days or weeks, slowly forming a begrudging respect for one another. Or, perhaps, the two characters are sent on some kind of secret mission for their faction. And through peril and adventure, they slowly come to love.

The meet-and-starcrossed story is a little more difficult to make convincing, because it relies so heavily on a certain amount of deus ex machina. Think of Romeo and Juliet (for which I’ve named this roleplay method, obviously). It takes a lot of setting and theme to make that story work out. Two noble houses hating one another, and a certain amoutn of fate and luck for Romeo to score a ticket to Juliet’s house.

These options are much more commmon in World of Warcraft, however, because of the elegant metagame themes. Characters are constantly be tied to one another through question, instances, and overall war themes. You can use similar techniques to hook two characters up as you would if you were writing a meet-and-hate, except your two characters don’t innately hate one another.

These are just three ways to help get your characters’ love stories off the ground. They shouldn’t describe everything about your ongoing storyline. Most roleplayers tend to prefer organic stories; which is to say they slowly form and build over time, according to the in-game actions you take.

But, it sometimes helps to have a general idea of “theme” for where your love story is going. For example, you might decide you’re not looking to tie all of your roleplay down to obligation to one other person. That makes an awful lot of sense if you’re a casual, intermittent player. (After all, if you’re married and living with someone, that requires a darn lot of communication between the two players about what your two characters are doing.)

So given that fundament, maybe you don’t want this relationship to work out. Then you’ve got to chart out how the love story ends. Does it go down in flames when one character commits adultery? Do they casually, slowly drift apart? (It’s not me, it’s you.) Or, even worse, does tragedy strike, and one character dies. (And again, bring one character back as a Death Knight for that added angst!)

Love stories have a lot of meat to them, because it plays with such fundamental human emotions and needs. Exploring these options can significantly enhance your roleplay, althought it will almost definitely take a hefty level of maturity to navigate those murky waters. I’d really love to hear some about how your experiences with these stories have been – drop by the comments, and let me know what your best relationships have been like in WoW.

We had a great time on the WoW Insider Show podcast this week, where my co-host Matt Rossi and I were visited by guest hosts and former WoW Idol winners Daryl Brewer and Fatty. We answered your emails live (Rossi predictably talked forever about choice of tanks for one reader, while Fatty and Daryl weighed in on what they don’t want to see in Cataclysm), shouted out to the chat channel, and (of course) talked about WoW.com’s top stories of the week. Eventually.

A special thanks to Daryl and Fatty for being on the show this week — you can check out Daryl’s music on his Last.fm page, and for fans of Fatty, you can grab her “Daily Heroic” EP on iTunes and CDBaby for under five bucks, or check out the rest of her work at thesixtyone.com/fatty.

The Icecrown Citadel raid overview here on WoW.com has been updated with even more information on the bosses contained in the Plagueworks, which has opened this week. You’ll find summaries on the new bosses along with links to other resources like loot, videos and detailed strategy for Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide. If you’re just setting foot in the instance now, don’t worry as there are resources for the first bosses in the Lower Spire.

Enjoy and good luck!

Ah, Winter Veil — the sights, the sounds, the jingling bells from the reindeer mounts, the curses emanating from players trying to tag the Abominable Greench mob, and the massively inflated prices for Small Eggs on the auction house. While this may not rank on the level of Great Auntie Marge’s annual fruitcake for the family party, WoW has its own set of holiday traditions — some more respected than others — and all of them were out in full force over Winter Veil. Moreover, this is only the second year that the achievement system has been active for the holiday, and lots of people are still putting time in on What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been for both mains and alts. This year, a new achievement popped up to take advantage of the 2009 Winter Veil gift (a genuine Red Rider Air Rifle!), although players seemed unenthusiastic about the rifle’s inaccuracy and cast time.

So how did the holiday go for you? Did you finish the Merrymaker meta if you still needed it? Were you suicidally foolish enough to go for BB King? Did you shoot your eye out, kid?