Zarhym has confirmed on the official forums that a new heirloom item called Tome of Cold Weather Flight is planned to be added in patch 3.2 that allows your alts to learn Cold Weather Flying at level 68. You can only purchase the tome with a level 80 character on the same realm, faction and account to mail to your alts. Each tome costs 1,000 gold and is consumed once it's used. "It's a small perk for those who have reached level 80 and like leveling new races or classes," Zarhym said.

As always, the functionality of the tome may change as testing progresses. You can discuss the topic in this thread in our general forum and read Zarhym's original post below.

Last week, we reported that China passed a law that prohibits the sale of virtual currencies. The story has made quite a few laps around fansites and blogs throughout the last few days, mainly billed as "China Bans Gold Farming," or some such title. While there's a bit of truth in that aspect of the story, it's not the whole truth. There has been a considerable amount of misunderstanding surrounding the issue, even from otherwise-reputable sources.

Quite a few news sites and bloggers jumped the gun (for the sake of fairness, I won't link one specific site, since I can't link them all), interpreting the new law as the absolute end of most gold-selling companies. It was also predicted that the new law would prohibit a China-based MMO publisher from selling virtual currency to its own customers, regardless of third-party "farming" outfits. In an effort to peel back the outer layers of this story (and differentiate fact from fiction), we'll take a closer look at the new law and the impact it may—or may not—have on the MMO industry.

It's been more than a year since the "Gadgetzan Times" last issue was released (Blizzard's lore-inspired, fan-fiction World of Warcraft newsletter). It's finally back with a few feature stories, classified ads and a crossword puzzle. Unless you're a role-player or a big fan of WoW lore and stories, you might not get the biggest kick out of the mock newsletter (although some fans wish it would come out every month).

 The newest issue features a fanfic story, "Tales from Azeroth," along with another called "Chronicle of War." The "Classifieds Ads" are just a stab at humor, and you can actually download the "July Crossword" as a PDF file and fill it out yourself. If you're a fanfic author, Blizzard is always accepting submissions for the newsletter (and with all the budding writers out there in the role-playing forums, it raises the question as to why it takes so long for these issues to come out). Check out this link to submit your work on the official website.

A few months ago we linked to an interview Tom Chilton gave to WoW.com about patch 3.2 and beyond. Chilton is the game director for World of Warcraft and has been working with Blizzard since 2004. In a more extensive pair of interviews, Chilton spoke with VideoGamer.com earlier this year about patch 3.2, and once again about the "future of WoW."

The interview is divided into two parts; since the patch 3.2 "first section" is a bit dated now, you might get more enjoyment out of the "Part Two" interview, in which Chilton looks into his crystal ball and predicts where WoW is headed. It's a pretty extensive interview; even though it's a couple months old, it's still a relevant and interesting read.

Chilton talks about the new zones in Azeroth we still have yet to see, the philosophy behind introducing new classes and races (he mentions how Blizzard considered a "drakonid" race) and expansions after Wrath of the Lich King. He also mentions the ways in which the MMO industry has evolved, and how the new free-to-play and micro-transaction models might influence Blizzard (and even WoW) in the future.

MMO-Champion has posted a preview of mounts that will be available in patch 3.2, such as the Argent Warhorse and the Quel'dorei Steed. Boubouille has also shared a bunch of new companion pets you can expect to see in Call of the Crusade, including eight new raptor pets.

You can discuss the mounts in pets in this thread started in our general forum.

Bornakk has stated in a post on the official forums that the dev team is changing how items and titles are obtained in the 2 vs. 2 bracket in Arena Season 7 due to player feedback. While Blizzard feels 3v3 and 5v5 are the best options for competitive players, they're still going to give players access to the current season of gear in 2v2 in patch 3.2 with three exceptions:

• The current season's weapons won't be available for purchase
• The current season's shoulder armor won't be available for purchase
• You won't qualify for the Gladiator title or rewards unless you earn the rating in 3v3 or 5v5

You can discuss these changes in this thread in our general forum.

Longtime World of Warcraft players might have noticed a new and somewhat "un-Blizzard-like" trend that has been developing during the past six months. Newer players probably haven't picked up on it, because they don't have much past experience to draw on. But whether you've noticed the change on your own or read about it in forums or fansite blogs, you'd be hard-pressed to try and deny it: Blizzard has been releasing new content and patches at break-neck speeds, faster than ever has before.

Perhaps as proof that you'll never be able to please everyone, two distinct camps have popped up; those who love it and think the new pace is what it should have been all along, and those who feel that all this content is just too much, coming too fast. At risk of starting a flame war, I think it's a really interesting topic to consider. World of Warcraft is the world's most popular MMORPG, and Blizzard earned part of its rock-solid reputation by giving fans consistency throughout the past four years. Drastic changes to such core paradigms aren't something we'd expect from Blizzard (whether it's for better or worse). What's the bigger picture? What can we predict by examining some of these new trends? More importantly, how will it affect you as a customer?

Blizzard has created an under development page for the Tier 9 class sets that will be released in patch 3.2. You can currently check out the Alliance Mage (above), Priest and Warlock sets, as well as the Horde Hunter and Shaman sets.

So what do you think of the designs?

Blizzard has posted its newest class Q&A session with Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, and this one focuses on Warlocks. Ghostcrawler covers numerous topics, but one he emphasizes is an upcoming revamp of the soul shard system: "This is a big change, beyond the scope of the 3.2 patch, but we are confident -- CONFIDENT -- that the new system will be something warlocks finally enjoy." The team hopes to talk about it more at BlizzCon, but Ghostcrawler says they want to "make shards fun and remove the hassle."

Ghostcrawler also says the team thinks Warlock pets are too fragile now, so they'll be adding resilience to pets to "fix it right." You can read the full Q&A below and discuss it in this thread in our Warlock forum.

Bornakk has posted an update on the instance capacity issue that causes players to receive a message stating additional instances cannot be launched once the limit has been reached. According to the post, Blizzard is "in the process of modifying our hardware setup to allow for more instances to be active without negatively impacting the performance of these instances." Of course, this will take time and testing to complete.

Bornakk said the instance capacity limit was only supposed to be a short-term solution, and emphasized "this issue currently a top priority for us, and we are working on resolving it as quickly as possible." You can read the full post below.