World of Warcraft: Cataclysm – Alpha Leak
December 14th, 2010 | 
Author: Entire World of Warcraft Expansion Alpha Client Leaked to the Web
by Susana Polo | 4:04 pm, May 7th, 2010
Over the past few days, there have been a number of World of Warcraft news items that our official Azerothian correspondent has skipped lightly over, in a effort to keep from seeing spoilers. Only recently did she realize why there had been such an influx of information, and of what kind. This wasn’t just a few rogue screenshots, or leaked zone maps. Turns out, someone in the NDA protected Blizzard Friends and Family Alpha allowed the entire alpha client to reach the wild world wide web.
Every file of Blizzard’s incomplete Cataclysm expansion to MMO juggernaut World of Warcraft, is available for anyone on the web to download, install, and begin to mine for data. This includes every bit of the game’s new visuals, detailed information on changes to game mechanics like class talents and new achievements, and story spoilers. WoW.com (an unofficial World of Warcraft news blog) is calling it “one of the largest and most complete game leaks ever.”
Veteran WoW patch and expansion datamining site MMO-Champion (WARNING: Link is to a post that contains leaked information!) has posted dozens of screenshots of the expansion’s new areas, pictures of the 3D models for prominent new NPCs, detailed lists of new trade skill recipes, and has talent calculators available for every class.
From MMO-Champion (Warning! This link is to the same thing!):
The past 24 hours have been crazy and there are so many things left to do that I won’t try to list them. I’d like to point out a few things:
The public testing didn’t start yet, any invitation you will receive is a SCAM TO STEAL YOUR ACCOUNT.
Screenshots of all the zones are now available, keep in mind that this is an alpha test and some of them do not even have any changes yet. Blizzard will add tons of stuff in the next builds, don’t worry.
The Cataclysm based wiki of Nihilum (this one is just to their WoWWiki.com page), one of the premier raiding guilds of WoW, responsible for many of the game’s world-first boss kills, currently has a link to download the alpha client installer right on its front page.
According to WoW.com, Blizzard is currently policing their forums, deleting any post that mentions the leak and banning any player who posts leaked information. The company is famously secretive about their upcoming games, historically delaying the announcement of release dates and simply promising that the feature will be put in “soon.” StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, a highly anticipated sequel more than ten years int he making was kept secret until there was already a fully built game client, and its firm release date was announced only three months in advance. Whether or not this is truly “one of the largest and most complete game leaks ever,” it represents a huge breach of security for Blizzard in particular.
(via WoW.com)
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