Just wanted to share this amazing CGI of a Night Elf by artist Max Kor.  Is she a hottie or what?

This weekend’s refuted news story is…..this one. I’m sure you recall the story of how a man was severely beaten for griefing a World of Warcraft character. It seems that this little hoax was apparently perpetrated by the folks at Fun Tech Talk.

The really sad thing is that it wasn’t a stretch at all to believe that such a thing could happen.

As if Blizzard doesn’t have enough ways to grab your money, they’re offering a WoW themed credit card. You can choose to show your WoW colors with 13 different designs, including characters from both the Horde and Alliance. As an incentive, Blizzard is offering a playtime credit equal to 1% of every dollar spent on the card. In addition, after your first purchase, you receive a free month of play.

Hey, if you’re going to play anyway, you ought to at least get something free. Of course, I kind of wonder how the chicks will dig the guy trying to pick them up at a bar by paying with his WoW credit card. That should be an…um…interesting conversation, especially if she’s not a gamer. At least it scores some serious geek cred.

Gank not, lest ye be Ganked. Bet Bronco Carson wasn’t feeling all that uber when a 3 man gank-squad broke into his house and laid the hurt on him. Seems Carson was getting his World of Warcraft jollies by repeatedly killing the toon of his attacker’s wife. Carson ended up with a couple busted arms and a computer that now has the processing power of a Belgium waffle.

To the Attackers: If you had 2 buddies willing to help you why didn’t you handle this

in-game?

Victim: Don’t mess with another mans wife dude.

Noobs: Don’t try this. Just sit in the corner and cry.

If the U.S. were this hard core, ESPN might look totally different.

According to this article on qj.net, there was a line of two thousand people who waited outside the doors, but could not get in. The total attendance for the first-day matches was 25,000, which is more people than a lot of counties in Ohio.

Games for the event include World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, CounterStrike, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, Quake 4, Fight Night, and apparently Guitar Hero 2. With $50,000 up for grabs, it should be a good show.

The next World Series of Video Games is to be held in Louisville, Kentucky from June 21, 2007 – June 24, 2007. We’ll see how that goes, though I’m betting it won’t draw half the crowd. At some point I realized that, well, lots of people were better than me at video games. And they’re all from Asia.

Ever wonder where all that gold comes from? The answer is China, or at least if you’re talking about World of Warcraft.

This BBC news story gives an interesting glimpse into the gold farming scene for World of Warcraft, even though it’s really nothing new. One part I found surprising was the fact that Blizzard canceled over 100,000 accounts because of this, though one might assume it was the accounts of the gold farmer.

So the question remains: Are you against gold farming, or did you buy that Mount with U.S. Dollars?

Blizzard developers are set to test the World of Warcraft battleground matchmaking system on the Public Test Realm. Since nothing gets testers involved like the chance to put the hurt on the development team, they offer themselves as bait. On May 4 at 2:00 PST the devs will be waiting in WSG for all challengers. Beware, they have been known to bend the rules.

If you’ve got a thing for WoW, or any other online game for that matter, GuildCafe has made connecting with other players that much better.

Their new “Favorites” feature allows members to promote any article, video or game content they want to share with other gamers, according to a press release sent out today. Take a moment to browse around and spread your views and opinions about what’s out there on the net to your fellow gamers–maybe even tell them about one of the articles we posted on here, eh? Yeah? Okay, I got nothin’.

Hot on the heels of the announcement of Tabula Rosa’s closed beta, Richard Garriott, executive producer of Tabula Rosa, said in a recent interview that World of Warcraft will help, not hurt, their player numbers.

“We commonly get the question, is World of Warcraft a big competitor that might hurt our sales? It really turns out to be quite the opposite. In the case of the MMO genre, when people sign on to play one of these games – while it’s true that they generally only play one, maybe two at the most, no one plays any particular MMO for more than a year or so,” said Garriott. At least to some extent, I would agree with him. However, I have seen that many WoW fans will try something new, then return to Azeroth/Outland. Tabula Rosa will need to be polished on day one to woo those players away. If I recall correctly, didn’t Brad McQuaid say the same thing in reference to Vanguard? Wait, SOE isn’t running Tabula Rosa, are they? Oh, then it doesn’t apply. Nevermind.

If you’re hopelessly addicted to World of Warcraft, this may be a bittersweet post for you. According to their jobs page, Blizzard is looking for a few good folks to work on the creation of a “next-gen” MMO. Currently, they’re searching for an engine programmer, a tools programmer, and a technical artist. Now, I have no clue what a “next-gen” MMO is. It could be the oft-rumored World of Starcraft. It could be WoW 2. It could even be nothing more than a console port of WoW. Whatever it is, I’ll make you a bet: It’ll sell like pizza at a Weight Watchers convention.