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Virgin Mobile lets you customize your family's prepaid phone plan
In the US, prepaid cellphone service tends to be a like-it-or-leave-it proposition that rarely fits perfectly, especially for families. Virgin Mobile may have a smarter approach in store; it's launching Custom, a prepaid family plan that lets you tailor usage to your liking. You can put as many as five people on plans that start at $7 each ($35 for unlimited talk and text) and scale up depending on individual needs. If Mom is a big fan of streaming music but rarely makes calls, she can pile on the data (or use a $5 Unlimited Music plan) and reduce her voice minutes; a chat-happy kid, meanwhile, can have gobs of messages but only minimal internet access. You can change the plans at any time from mobile apps, and built-in parental controls let you declare certain apps as off-limits during specified hours.
Growing Pains: How to approach gearing up your tank
I'm going to assume that if you're still reading this past the title, you're interested in talking about tank gearing for your level 80 and that you've presumably used the Dungeon Finder to level him or her as a tank, but you're certainly not rocking full T9 yet. It's generally accepted that you'll be saving up emblems for that, and of course filling the gaps for rings and trinkets and such as you can. You also may be a DPS player who wants to switch over to tanking but don't have the gear yet. First off, please, don't pass on tanking gear just because it's blue or dropped in a normal or heroic. Just because it's not iLevel 232+ doesn't mean it's not good. You should be collecting and using upgrades as they drop, even if they won't immediately put you at 35K health. Please remember also that a lot of people ran these instances and heroics back when Wrath first released with 22k or so health: despite what speed obsessed or hyper geared players will tell you, it is indeed possible to tank all the original Wrath heroics in blues. Take the Nerubian Shield Ring, for example. If this drops and you don't have better, roll need on it. Don't worry that people will lose their shard, don't let people give you grief on gear not being up to some ridiculous standard, just take the ring. It has armor, defense and stamina. If you're there as DPS but you want to build a tank set? Roll need if you don't have better. Just ignore people who give you grief over it, clearly they don't understand how important every possible upgrade is while building a tanking set.
Patch 3.3: Emblems of Triumph to be the new base emblems
The floor is being raised again. Bornakk has stated that for the time being, the intent is to have everything that drops Emblems of Conquest drop Emblems of Triumph in patch 3.3. This will certainly players allow easier access to tier 9 level gear. Players who may not be at the upper tier of raiding will still gain access to the gear and weapons that will offer them a fighting chance against Arthas. Along with this change, quests like the heroic daily will drop the all new Emblem of Frost which will be the highest level emblem in the game. There are two other methods to obtain these emblems. The obvious route will be to take down Icecrown's raid bosses. The final method is to complete the new weekly raid quests that offer 10 Emblems as a reward for defeating a certain raid boss. Hooray for accessibility! Again, be advised that things may change and these aren't finalized. Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
The best of WoW.com: June 16-23, 2009
Things are heating up both outside and in the World of Warcraft lately, as we're gearing up for a big time content release. Joystiq's sister site WoW.com has all the news you need about patch 3.2, from the latest changes and updates to when we'll actually see it out on the live realms. Read on for more about the biggest and best MMO around. News Patch 3.2 PTR patch notesHere's the breakdown on what'll be in the Public Test Realm very soon. Crusaders' Coliseum details releasedBlizzard gives out deets on what we'll see in the next big instance added to the game. Patch 3.2 changes to the tiered Emblem system3.2 will bring both new sets of gear tokens to collect, as well as some tweaks and updates to old ones. New Shaman totem interface revealedShamans will have new ways to both watch and lay down their totems. Class Q&A: MageBlizzard answers questions on "the iconic caster" class. Features WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2Everything you need to know about the upcoming content patch, and then some. The OverAchiever: Guide to Midsummer Fire Festival AchievementsThe Fire Festival is back, and so's our guide to get the most out of it. Insider Trader: Patch 3.2 profession change analysisWhat's new with professions? Read this column and find out. The Queue: Patch 3.2 and beyond the infiniteOur readers ask questions every day, and we offer up answers just as often. Guildwatch: We're not even in his guildAnother week brings another look at all of the guild drama, downed, and recruiting news from around the realms.
World of WarCrafts: Jewelry and bleach shirts, take two
World of WarCrafts returns to WoW Insider with a broadened focus to spotlight art and creativity by WoW players and fans, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music, fan fiction – and yes, (War)crafts. Share your creativity: tip us off via the tips line (attention: World of WarCrafts).Fans of Sugarrat's WoW Bleach Shirt didn't waste a moment after last week's feature to get working on their own creations. We begin this week's World of WarCrafts with another version of the bleach shirt from reader Andy (Zorren of Auchindoun-EU). "I made basically negative versions compared to hers, as the bleach isn't the outline – it's the fill," he wrote. "I based them on spray-paint stencils but had fun bleaching the designs ... and my pants ... and the tablecloth ..."... and apparently, a hip flask for his friend Criterous of Auchindoun-EU, too. "Similar method to Sugarrat's, except I cut the design from sticker paper and spray painted over it," he noted. It appears to have played a major part in a happy birthday celebration, from the look of things -- check out the photo of a happy Criterous at the very end of this article.Another bleach shirt, plus a handmade racial necklace (and Criterous' happy day), after the break.
EoHs (not) exchangeable for EoVs at 10:1 on the PTR
Update: This post is incorrect. Sorry about that. As mentioned in the comments, the actual change is one EoV for one EoH, which makes a lot more sense. In the latest PTR build, updated tonight, the Emblem of Valor quartermaster will sell you Emblems of Valor (the 25-man raid, ilvl 213 emblems) for the price of ten Emblems of Heroism (10-man/ilvl 200). This is something we talked about way back last summer, when they introduced the idea of having multiple levels of badges; this way, 10-man raiders can eventually get the 25-man gear, it just takes a very long time. One EoV can not be traded back for ten EoHs, by the way. I do think that exchange rate might be a bit high. The cheapest items (rings and cloaks) cost 25 EoVs, which would be 250 EoHs if you paid for it entirely that way. That's (just under) 16 weeks of full Naxxramas clears. If you've been clearing Naxxramas for 16 weeks, you're probably pretty bored of it and ready to move on to Ulduar (which will hopefully be released by then), at which point any EoH-EoV trade-up is meaningless, because you're not getting EoHs anymore.
Order and Destruction guild heraldry art collected
It seems that plenty of Warhammer Online fans are excited about the standards and heraldry aspects of the game. Some of us here at Massively feel the same way. In fact, we've just come across a slew of guild heraldry images, for both Destruction and Order, which are certainly worth a look if you're into the customization aspects of Warhammer Online.Check out the hundreds of examples and combinations (we're not exaggerating) of Destruction guild heraldry that Atole of Monolith has put together, grouped by color, shape, pattern and emblem. For a look at the Order side, you'll probably want to see this equally impressive collection of guild emblems. Take a look below the cut for a sampling of each. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
DSicons come to save the art-impaired
Do you sigh with jealousy when you see someone with a super-hot emblem in Mario Kart, but find yourself stumped when faced with the tiny, pixelated icon box? Then this may be your lucky day, friends, because DSicons is here to save you. You can get anything from the triforce to a hunk of cheese, and DSicons shows you blown-up pictures and just which colors to use so you can do it on your own with their helpful guide. We're pretty attached to the Transmetropolitan-influenced emblem drawn with love by the man of the house, but must admit that the peppermint emblem is pretty snazzy, particularly for someone with our musical tastes. For those of you who really want something special, DSicons also offers custom-designed icons for a fee. If you can imagine it in a 32x32 pixel box, they can draw it for you.[Thanks, soulanger!]
New Halo 3 emblem: it's a pirate
The winner of Bungie's Halo 3 Design an Emblem contest has been revealed and the winning design is a pirate! Out of hundreds of entries Noah Watkins' pirate design was chosen not only because it's pretty, but because it was the ying to the ninja emblem's yang. Bungie also said that they received submissions that were duplicate in their subject matter, so they reworked the basic concept and will be including the new designs into Halo 3. So, we'll have to see if we are keen enough to spot these community inspired works of emblematic art come September.
Fire Emblem Wii site opens for business
Fire Emblem is not like Ice Emblem in that it is, well, hot. When a small portal opened, leading to just a subsection of its fiery domain, we could not resist.The official site for Fire Emblem: Akatsuki no Megami has opened for business, and yes, its entirely in Japanese. For your viewing pleasure, though, you might check out this bitchin' opening cinema, and some excellent box art. We're such suckers for box art. In any case, any FE fans out there owe it to themselves to journey to yon fiery realm. You won't be disappointed.(And what the hell was Bahamut doing in that cinema?)[via NeoGAF; thanks Creamsugar!]
Fire Emblem: Goddess of Dawn rumors
Some nice folks over at GoNintendo have submitted some scans and a rough translation for the upcoming Fire Emblem: Goddess of Dawn for the Wii. Though we follow the FE story about as well as we can save a dying victim using pretend surgical skills (damn you, Trauma Center!), some details might interest those masochists among us: Sothe is Mikaya's younger brother, though they aren't blood-related. The nations of Gallia and Begnion are at war. Lots and lots of war. The game will be divided into discrete portions, and the first will focus on the "Dawn Group". An additional story synopsis can be found after the break. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance was one of the unheralded masterpieces on the Cube (we didn't mention it, we know!), and we greatly look forward to the sequel.
