Our Cataclysm Correspondant Is…

Not me.

We have two World of Warcraft accounts at our house, and mine was not the one chosen for the World of Warcraft Cataclysm beta.

My daughter’s was.

I’m not sure how they pick who gets into the beta at this point in the cycle.

It might be just completely random.

It might have something what sort of system you are running.

If the latter plays into it at all, there is no doubt my daughter had a big edge over me in getting picked.  My Windows XP system is pretty generic.  There are probably a lot of WoW players out there whose systems cover pretty much the same ground.

My daughter though, she plays on an Intel-based iMac running Snow Leopard.  That puts her in a much smaller pool of potential beta invites.

If they are looking at systems.  It might just be random at this point.

But however it is being chosen, they chose the right person in our household.

Since the moment I explained that there was such a thing as the Cataclysm beta, my daughter has wanted to be a part of it.  She has been checking Battle.net every couple of days for weeks and weeks, and this week she was finally rewarded.

The first thing I did was explain to her about what a Non-disclosure Agreement (NDA) was and how she couldn’t talk about being in the beta or tell people about it.

Then I looked around and realized that the NDA restrictions must have been dropped.  I mean, Two Hammers over at Game Bunny got into the beta the same day and has screen shots posted already.

So I changed my tune and told her she could have some extra play time if she agreed to be the TAGN Cataclysm beta correspondent.

She agreed.  And while I have heard lots of details being shouted over her shoulder at me (Hunters get pets at level 1! Each race has a default pet!  Gnomes can be priests now!  Goblins can have blue hair!) there has been precious little in the way of written detail.

She has taken some screen shots.  We have somewhat different sensibilities when it comes to screen shots.  So while I am okay with the Goblin starter area beach scene:

Note the blue hair

I’m not sure the rubber ducky in the water trough is really expressing the grandeur of the Cataclysm expansion:

Is that a wind-up key or an antenna?

Okay, I would have taken that picture as well.  But I would have taken a lot more pictures in addition.

And while she spent more than an hour driving around the Goblin starter area in what looked like the Goblin version of a Bucket-T (less chrome, more… what is that, lime sheet rock?) trying to run down NPCs and shouting in joy, she didn’t take a single screen shot.  But Leper Gnomes?  Those we have screen shots of.

Leper gnomes... why did it have to be leper gnomes?

All in all, the expansion sounds like quite a delight for my daughter so far.  I’m just going to have to get her to take her correspondent commitment a little more seriously.  I at least need a screen shot of a goblin shouting, “You’ll hear from my lawyer!” as she tries to run him over.

Tonight we’re going to copy over her main character so she can see about flying in old Azeroth.