Bashiok just announced on the official World of Warcraft forums that Rated Battlegrounds will now award Honor once players hit their weekly Conquest cap. Here are the details straight from the blue post:

"We've recently made a change in an effort to promote continued play in Rated Battlegrounds. Now when a player is at their weekly Conquest cap they will receive the full amount of Honor from kills, objective completions, victories and losses while in a Rated Battleground match. Those not at their cap will continue to earn Conquest normally, and will only earn Honor once they reach their weekly cap.

Whether you’re capped and others on your team aren’t, or you’re all capped and just want to keep playing, we hope this change will allow more flexibility for those participating in Rated Battlegrounds."

So what are your thoughts on Rated Battlegrounds? How has your team fared since the feature launched with Cataclysm?

Blizzard has kicked off a new blog series that examines the transformations of key characters in World of Warcraft, and the first entry focuses on Thrall:

"One of the most notable metamorphoses in Cataclysm is that of Thrall. Thrall He's worn many titles in his lifetime: slave, gladiator, shaman, chieftain of the Frostwolf Clan, and, most recently, warchief of the Horde. Now, as the son of Durotan puts down the mantle of warchief and takes up the simple garb of a shaman once again, we take a look back at his journey and the events that shaped him into the orc he is today."

You can read the lore behind Thrall's switch from warchief to shaman after the jump. In the coming months, Blizzard will focus on characters like Garrosh, Anduin Wrynn and Magni Bronzebeard. Which character do you think deserves a feature in this new series?

World of Warcraft Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street has written a blog entry that outlines some of the class changes that will likely be implemented in the next patch. As he puts it, Blizzard is still early in the preliminary stages and the patch isn't coming out tomorrow. This is not the final list of changes, and you can expect the class patch notes for the next patch to be much longer once it's ready to go live.

With that being said, Ghostcrawler's blog entry covers a lot of changes. He goes into detail about Blizzard's thoughts on PvE, PvP and stats, and then throws a list of class-specific changes into a "potpourri" section. Keep reading after the jump to see how the next patch will affect your characters.

Even though it was a holiday weekend, it looks like Blizzard was still busy implementing a new batch of hotfixes. Druids should note that the heal from Frenzied Regeneration has been reduced by 50%.

Want to know what else has changed? Keep reading after the jump for almost a week's worth of hotfixes.

We hope you all had an enjoyable holiday weekend! If you haven't gotten a chance to log into World of Warcraft yet, there's a bunch of presents waiting for you under the tree in Ironforge or Orgrimmar. One of the packages contains this year's exclusive gift: a MiniZep Controller! You can battle other MiniZeps and tonks using cannons and mines. The presents can only be opened until the Feast of Winter Veil ends on Jan. 2, so be sure to log in before they disappear!

If you'd like to celebrate the holidays for just a bit longer, be sure to check out Noxychu's cookies and holiday wallpaper over at Wowhead. She made an entire batch of cookies shaped like the Wowhead rocket, and her annual wallpaper shows what happens when Deathwing invades Christmas.

The holidays are fast approaching, which means the Blizzard community team will be AFK to spend time with their friends and family. The customer service staff will be sticking around to help players deal with any issues that arise. With that being said, Blizzard recently made a handful of news posts. Here's the rundown:

• Blizzard has released its 2010 holiday card (seen above), as well as a pair of festive StarCraft II and Diablo III greetings.
• The second issue of the Curse of the Worgen comic miniseries is available online and in stores.
• New free character moves are now available. Check out the source realms to see if you're eligible. Early closures aside, the offer will end on Jan. 6.
• The winners of the Cataclysm Print Ad and YouTube Commercial Contests have been announced. You can view the goblin-centric commercial winner after the jump.

It's almost time! The halls are decked, the stockings hung with care, and you've probably got some time off from work or school. It's the perfect time to get in some extra gaming, and why wouldn't you? Almost every MMO is running an in-game holiday event. With all the new zones, special items and festive quests, it's pretty much a digital winter wonderland. So to make things a little easier, we've compiled a list of in-game holiday events to help you narrow down which game to play!

Time for another round of World of Warcraft hotfixes! This bunch includes some fixes related to a bug causing Arena rating inflation. Here's some details from a separate post by Daxxarri:

• All existing items requiring 2200 rating will have their minimum level requirement temporarily increased to make those items unusable. This change is currently planned to be reverted on January 25.
• Weapons which require a 2200 rating will be unavailable for purchase.  This limitation is also planned for reversion on January 25.
• All player and team ratings for arenas will be reduced to a maximum of 1500. (Player, team and matchmaking ratings below 1500 will not be affected)
• Match Making Values for all players will be set to 1500.

You can read the full list of hotfixes after the jump.

With World of Warcraft's release of Cataclysm, many new adventurers are joining the world of Azeroth. There are tons of places to get help as you're starting out, but Blizzard has introduced a new series designed to get veteran advice out to the newbies.

The new WoW Player Tips series is asking long-time WoW junkies to share the knowledge they've gained over the years with new players. Each week a new topic will be introduced for players to comment on with their helpful hints.

The first in the series is up and is all about questing. What are some of your tricks of the trade for a first-timer navigating through the sea of exclamation points?

Blizzard has implemented another round of Cataclysm-related hotfixes, and they cover a variety of changes. For example, here's one for all you archaeologists out there:

"The search radius to find an Archaeology node from the Archaeology ability Survey has been increased. This will result in fewer searches needed while in the "green" range of surveying."

You can find the rest of the hotfixes after the jump.