! This week sees the arrival of several new in-game additions that should help smoothen the transition into Wrath of the Lich King's new game mechanics.

And it looks like we're gonna need them - some of the revamps will force us to seriously reconsider the builds and tactics we've been using since we've started playing WoW. Well, enough dawdling, down below are this week's highlights.

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The good news: WotLK will be introducing some new agility mechanics that should help give classes like shamans and rogues more leeway in the sort of gear they can equip. The bad news: Remember that spankin' new armor set you blew all your gold on the other day?

Link: Not in the patch notes: Wrath of the Lich King's new agility mechanics confirmed

We'll say this much about Blizzard's goody bag: it's the gift that keeps on giving. Aside from that rare pet we mentioned earlier, those who visited either the BlizzCon and WorldWide Invitational are all set for another surprise that should compensate their admission tickets and air fare.

Link: Wrath of the Lich King: Blizzard now accepting WWI 2008 and BlizzCon 2007 beta codes

You've seen the signs: Stormwind Harbor is just one of the many ways the live servers are readying for Wrath of the Lich King. That aside though, Blizzard is also making some in-game adjustment that should make your grind mover faster.

Link: World of Warcraft: faster 60-70 leveling permanent
Link: WoW mounts and vanity pets to no longer eat up bag space in Lich King

Having trouble trying to envision what your character's build will look like be when they re-specc for the expansion's new talent mechanics? Don't worry - Blizzard's get a new tool that should make your theory crafting just a little easier. Just be on the lookout for other talents that haven't arrived yet - some of them look particularly lucrative.

Link: World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King beta talent calculator released
Link: Wrath of the Lich King: Exotic pet talent under works for hunters

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This week's batch of updates indicates that while we can't join the beta servers just yet, Blizzard is at least giving us the means to make some very important preparations. The talent calculator, for one, should help us prepare our class' builds in light of WotLK's new talent mechanics.

The agility revamp is going to be a mixed bag though. While plenty of players may welcome this news, some are already griping about how they're going to afford yet another armor set just to maximize on it. And the headaches won't end with the armor - there's also the matter of getting the appropriate enchantments, gems, and other important components to ensure your gear will survive combat. In short, it's going to be a logistics nightmare.

In the long run, though, let's hope this could just be the birthing pains of an overall better gameplay experience as soon as Northrend finally shows up on the map.

Source: wow.qj.net

World of Warcraft: rolling restarts for U.S. and Oceanic realms (July 31)
We're not sure, but it looks like Blizzard hasn't quite cleaned out all of World of Warcraft's bugs following their previous maintenance run. Bornakk visited the WoW forums earlier to announced that they will be applying a series of rolling restarts for the U.S. and Oceanic realms to implement a game hotfix.

For the North American subscribers, your restarts are expected to begin on Thursday, July 31 at 5:00 a.m. PDT. The Oceanic Realms will be getting their restarts on Friday, August 1 at 5:00 a.m. AEST (July 31, 12:00 p.m. PDT). The realms are expected to be down for no longer than 15 minutes, with the entire process lasting just an hour.

Bornakk didn't give any exact details on the nature of the hotfix. That's all the information we have for the moment, though you'll want to drop by again in case we run into any related updates. And lest we forget, you'll want to log out at the closest inn before the restarts begin to avoid any unexpected problems.

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Related articles:

• WotLK beta forums: changes planned for Death Knight's disease mechanics
• World of Warcraft: extended maintenance for July 29
• World of Warcraft: Rolling Restarts for U.S. and Oceanic realms

Source: wow.qj.net