Speaking about World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King during a conference call yesterday, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime stated that the expansion, will launch between October and December of this year. That is not only unsurprising, but pretty vague as well.

“We have said that it will be coming out this year. I can tell you it’s not coming in the July to September quarter.”

Sigh. With the amount of hype and excitement that has been surrounding this expansion, you would think that they would be a little more concrete with the details, but alas, no.

It looks as if the last quarter of the year is going to be full of competing MMOs, what with WAR: Age of Reckoning launching, the LotRO: Mines of Moria expansion, and now Wrath of the Lich King expansion all coming out around the same time. Gee, I wonder who will be the ultimate winner in sales?

As if we needed more proof of how popular WoW still is, the Wrath of the Lich King beta is not only testing rather well according to Morhaime, but recently we learned that one desperate gamer even went so far as to spend $1000 on a beta key. Talk about not having a life commitment!

Thanks: Shacknews

Blizzard has announced the launch date for the Russian language build of its wildly popular World of Warcraft MMO. The fifth European language build of WoW will go online August 6, 2008.

“The launch of the Russian-language version reflects our continuing commitment to make World of Warcraft even more accessible for gamers throughout the world,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment®. “We also hope that providing a fully localised version of the game will further enhance the gameplay experience for our enthusiastic Russian community.”

Russian players will have the option to download and subscribe to a dedicated Russian account giving them access to Russian realms only. European WoW players will be able to download the Russian language pack or convert their existing account to a Russian account. Free character transfers to specific Russian realms will also be available for a limited period of time.

The Russian build of WoW will be available for Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher. You can visit the Russian WoW site for more details.

via Business Wire

Scalping has transformed over the years from those guys standing outside every concert and sporting event to those guys who snatch up all the good seats mere seconds after they go on sale online. And now this detestable (yet profitable) art form has evolved once again to include video game beta keys. Apparently, keys for the Wrath of the Lich King beta are now selling on eBay for huge amounts of cash. Most of these are selling for around $400, but one seller pocketed over $1000 for his key. Not too shabby for something that was given away free at some past Blizzard conventions (the ones obtained through the “opt-in” program can’t be sold, since they’re tied to a person’s account). So if you’re really anxious — and I mean really, REALLY anxious — to get into the Wrath of the Lich King beta, you might as well head over to eBay to see how much of a dent that’s going to put into your wallet. Or you could just wait until the full thing is released; you know, like a sane person.

Via Eurogamer

Anyone interested in diving into any of Blizzard’s games can pick them up at a discounted price today at Amazon.com. The Gold Box Deal of the Day is the World of Warcraft Battlechest, which hacks $13 off the usual $40 price tag down to $27.

The Lightning Deal (which are side deals that last only a few hours each) as of this writing is the Diablo Battlechest, which also has $13 taken off the usual $40 price. $27 is a damn good price for either of the Battlechests, even if Diablo is pretty dated. After the announcement of Diablo III, I hopped back in for a few days and still had a great time, even if certain things (like resolution support as high as 800×600 — whoo!) annoyed me a bit.

Looking at the descriptions for the three Lightning Deals that Amazon still has in store, it looks like Burning Crusade, Warcraft III, and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Looks like a good way to stock up on a backlog of Blizzard games, even if a few will be missing. Starcraft, anyone?

You can watch for those deals to pop up throughout the day right here.

The World of Warcraft is offering players a chance to check out the new talents that will come online with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

These talent trees should give you a good idea of what to expect from WotLK. However, the talents in the beta are more recently updated than those on the web, and of course neither one is written in stone until launch. Of course Blizzard has been known to tweak things after launch too if game balance is in question.

You can access talent calculators for each class, including the Deathknight, on the World of Warcraft website.

Want to get into the the Wrath of the Lich King beta test for World of Warcraft? Then it looks like you have two options at this point: either get yourself into the “Opt-In program” Blizzard has going on or build a time machine to take yourself back to last year’s Blizzcon or the 2008 Worldwide Invitational (if your mom won’t let you travel more than a month back in time). At those two events, it seems attendees were given some mysterious serial keys, but weren’t told what they were for. Well it took them almost a year, but now Blizzard has revealed that those keys will give you access to the Wrath of the Lich King beta. If you still have a key, they’re urging you register it immediately to guarantee your access. And if you threw it away some time over the past few months, believe me when I say, “Dude, that really sucks.”

Via WoW Forums

A World of Warcraft patch was released on FileFront this morning. The patch will update the US edition from v2.4.2 to v2.4.3.

I am assuming that the release notes are included with the download, as I could not find them anywhere for you. However, Blizzard did send these strange little screens over with the patch, so I am assuming it has something to do with Santa or Winter festivities – just because of the hat – or very strange cosplay for your characters. I have no clue because I do not play it.

Get the patch by hitting the badge below, or by clicking this link.

Blizzard has opened up a new forum for World of Warcraft to serve its Oceanic community. Before players begin to post on the Oceanic WoW discussion forum, Blizzard has a couple of recommendations involving rules, common sense and etiquette.

Community forums work best when participants treat their fellow posters with respect and courtesy. Therefore, we ask that you take the time to read through the forum Code of Conduct before posting.

Code of Conduct:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/policy/forum-coc.html

Also, please use the search function at the top of the page to find information on a topic before posting a question. Your fellow community members will appreciate it.

If you are new to massively multiplayer online role-playing games, please take a look at our guide on how to start your adventures in World of Warcraft:

Getting Started:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/gettingstarted.html

Now play nice kids.

via World of Warcraft

Most of the attention Blizzard has been getting recently is because of Diablo III (and rightfully so, in my humble opinion), so you may have missed the latest news regarding Wrath of the Lich King. If you’re interested in participating the game’s beta, you can now head to the account management section of the WoW site and opt-in to have a chance at being selected as a beta tester when the time comes.

Today we opened the Wrath of the Lich King Beta Opt-In program, which gives players a chance to win an invitation to the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King beta. For The Burning Crusade beta, we randomly invited players from the entire World of Warcraft community. With the Opt-In, our goal is to strengthen the beta-testing process by inviting only those players who have expressed active interest in participating.

Keep in mind that opting in doesn’t guarantee you’ll be selected for the beta. And players who’ve previously been promised beta access through a promotion or contest (such as by purchasing the Dell XPS M1730 World of Warcraft Edition notebook) don’t need to worry — you’ll still be entered into the beta automatically when the time comes.

To opt in to the Wrath of the Lich King beta, visit the link below:

https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/beta-opt-in.html

I opted in even though none of my characters would be able to survive in Northrend, so if I somehow end up being lucky enough to be selected, that should be a good indication of this being completely random. (But I’m not holding my breath.)

Apparently Blizzard has another unannounced game in the making according to a recent session during last weekend’s Blizzard Invitational.

According to the video posted above, Rob Pardo not only talks a bit about Diablo III, but also mentions a separate development team working on an as of yet unannounced project and that the recent job listing for a next-gen MMO had nothing to do with WoW.

The speculation that this could be the much rumored StarCraft MMO is sure to get more heated with arcane comments such as these, but then again it could be a completely new franchise which would be interesting as well.

“The idea of a new franchise is very intriguing to employees of the company,” explains Blizzard COO Paul Sams [Actiontrip]. “Are we ever going to release a new one? I would absolutely say we will at some point. I just don’t know when that day will be quite yet.”

The video posted above, has English subtitles for a reason according to the email sent to us from Onlinewleten, it was so loud in the background. Enjoy the trailer.

Thanks: Onlinewelen