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Good news for soon-to-be World of Warcraft Achievement whores: Many of the Achievements in the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion will be retroactive, meaning you won’t need to go back and re-do old missions or tasks to earn the respective Achievements. Blizzard has been tracking all of this data, so as soon as you boot up the game, you might unlock any number of Achievements just for having played WoW and The Burning Crusade previously.

“We retroactively track any quest Achievements or any Achievement for an item which is either on your character or in your bank,” World of Warcraft designer Jeff Kaplan told MTV Multiplayer. “There are a lot of Achievements based on stuff like honorable kills or reputations. We have all that tracked.”

Kaplan explained that there are, however, certain Achievements that won’t be instantly unlocked even if you’ve fulfilled the criteria previously. “There’s a quest associated with killing Onyxia, like the turn-in-her-head quest,” Kaplan gave as an example. “We know if you’ve done that, but the problem is, not everybody who’s killed Onyxia has necessarily gotten the head and turned it in. So there’s a fairness issue. It’s like, ‘Well, I raided with these guys but Bob got the head and then he turned it in.’ And then when the Achievement goes live, his Achievement will be filled out but mine won’t. So there might be understandability issues there like, ‘Well, how come he got it but I didn’t?’ So that’s something we’re actually feeling out in the beta. I’m torn on that right now.”

Adding Achievements to a game like World of Warcraft is a surefire way to add to the ranks of perpetually pale-skinned addicts that the game already has already created. At the very least, this will make things easier on the Achievement whores.

image via MTV Multiplayer

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For the past few years, achievements have been all the rage on Xbox 360. The recent PS3 v2.4 firmware update added in support for trophies, Sony’s answer to achievements, and PlayStation Home has promised to make trophies a big deal.

So imagine the possibility of achievements in World of Warcraft; a scenario we learned would become reality with the game’s second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. As it turns out, there’s more to Blizzard’s plans for achievements than just tacking on some goals to their insanely popular MMO — Diablo III and Starcraft II will be getting in on the achievement love, too.

“Eventually, our plans are for the Achievement system to become an account-based system,” WoW lead designer Jeff Kaplan told MTV Multiplayer.

With these new Blizzard Accounts, you’ll be able to earn points to add to your “Blizzard Level,” which Kaplan admitted is “basically a gamerscore” when the subject of Xbox Live’s system came up.

“For now the points are just a WoW character score. As we graduate to that Blizzard Account system, which is right on the horizon, it will switch over to a Blizzard Level.”

He added, “Your WoW score would be just one factor that will go into your Blizzard Level. And rather than call it a ’score,’ we just wanted it to be like you’re leveling up on Blizzard games… You’ll have this Blizzard identity, and you’ll be able to see things like ‘Oh, this guy was great at Diablo III, but he never played Starcraft and he was mediocre in WoW.’ That sort of thing.”

Sounds great, but wouldn’t it be better if this were plugged into Live where you could track achievements and points across a larger spectrum than just the latest Blizzard titles?

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

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

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

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.)

Shock and Amaze? It’s a nice thought but come on, this is Blizzard. I’m sure you’re wondering what I mean by that statement.

First of all, I’m not taking a shot at WoW, its game play or the ‘up-and-coming’ new content. No, I’m speaking more of how things are run on the administrative side; specifically with regard to how often we see new expansion content for the game. And on that note:

Blizzard, without a more sarcastic way of putting it, dumps well made games and expansions on us. This is true enough, and I am not going to argue that point. However, with all the money Blizzard is pulling in from World of Warcraft (more than enough to allow their team to buy their third summer homes), for god’s sake give us more expansion content, and give it to us more often. Seriously, by the time the next expansion comes out all of us WoW players are freaking sick of the game again. We’ve closed our accounts and are debating on whether or not to start up again when new content is ready. Is there really any reason why can’t we be level 100 by now? Releasing expansion content more often keeps players playing and avoids us from grinding out SSC, BT and all the other raids countless times. More new content keeps us from burning out, getting bored or taking up origami to pass the time until the next expansion.

Read the full article

EVE Online’s EON Magazine, a quarterly publication is now available. The publication devoted exclusively to CCP’s EVE Online MMO has grown to 84 pages of glossy, high-colour news, interviews, previews, exclusive fiction and player guides. This particular issue carries an over all historical theme with pieces of fan fiction as well.

Speaking of fan-fiction, while World of Warcraft players await the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, Blizzard is inviting them to share their tall tales and adventures with the WoW community by submitting them for publication in the Gadgetzan Times.

Has your character done it all? Do they have interesting stories to tell? Well tell them to the new and improved Gadgetzan Times! This illustious goblin-run newspaper is looking for new journalistic blood and wants you to tell your stories. But, since we all know nothing is happening at the Dark Portal these days, fan-fiction is the name of the game.

For fan-fiction and submission guidelines, visit the submission page main WoW website.

via EVE Online; TenTonHammer

The second expansion pack for World of Warcraft is due out in the second half of 2008, according to Vivendi. In financial details released today, Vivendi stated not once, but twice that Wrath of the Lich King will arrive during the second half of 2008.

Still no exact “yes or no” coming from the Blizzard camp on this though, so just sit tight until we get an exact release date.

Two other things were also revealed today, one was that as of March 31, 2008, the WoW subscriber base had grown to 10.7 million since January’s report of just a paltry 10 million.

The other thing that was announced, according to this, was that a Blizzard staffer hinted around that the Wrath of the Lich King expansion will include polar bear mounts. Nice.

Via: Shacknews; Image: Worldofwar.net

With the Wrath of the Lich King expansion on the way for the World of Warcraft, Blizzard is preparing players for new content. The latest article focuses on The Nexus; an instanced dungeon for a party or 10/25 man raid.

The article gives the back story for The Nexus War. The author spins a tale of the blue Dragon Aspect, Malygos and his quest to stop what he deems the abuse of magic by the mortal races of Azeroth.

Determined to forestall a catastrophe, Malygos decreed that the world’s unbridled magic must be reined in by any means necessary.

Now Malygos uses the Arcanomicon to locate and tap into the ley lines, diverting the magical powers that course beneath the earth to his home base in Northrend, the Nexus. Once harnessed, the energies are focused through the Nexus’ ascending rings and blasted into the Twisting Nether. Malygos’s redirection of the ley lines has carried disastrous consequences, however, splintering the world’s crust and opening unstable rifts: tears in the very fabric of the magical dimension.

Players will be working with the red dragonflight, which is charged with preserving life.

The site has a number of screenshots from The Nexus as well as a short video showing off MOBs players will encounter in their assault upon the home of the blue dragonflight and Malygos.

via The World of Warcraft

Blizzard’s Jeffrey “Tigole” Kaplan, one of World of Warcraft’s Lead Designers, gives WoW players a glimpse of what lies behind the blue curtain for the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Representatives from the MMOGamer, TenTonHammer and Curse all got the chance to submit questions to Kaplan for this podcast interview.

Most of the questions concentrate on raids. Kaplan talks about the duel raiding system for 10 and 25 man raids.

The goal with the 10 and 25 thing is not that we want to have sort of easy-mode, and that’s 10, and hard-mode and that’s 25, we do want to have two separate, clear progressions, and even within those we want to have easy 10 and 25 raids, medium 10 and 25, and hard 10 and 25. We want to have progression through those.

He speaks specifically about the with problems balancing everything out for the duel raiding system for the Four Horsemen; comparing it to Naxxramas.

Kaplan does talk about other aspects of the new expansion, touching on PvP content, item inflation (or building a bigger shoulder pad) and content for the average WoW player. You can listen to the podcast interview, or for those who prefer to read a transcription of the piece you can find it up on the MMOGamer.

Activision has published results for the company’s 2008 financial year and the numbers are pretty impressive. Raking in over $2.9 billion in net earnings gave them a 92% increase in monetary gains over last year’s figures. Activision’s net income stands at $344.9 million, up from $85.8 million last year and kudos goes out to Guitar Hero III and CoD4 helping them out by bringing in one billion dollars each in sales.

Head honcho Robert Kotick stated during a conference call following the published figures:

“During the fiscal year, we were the number one US console and handheld publisher in dollars for the first time ever, according to The NPD Group, and we grew our worldwide share of the console, handheld and PC markets year over year.”

Also mentioned during the conference call was the confirmation of a fifth Call of Duty game, the reinvention of the Tony Hawk series, the announcement of a new Marvel: Ultimate Alliance title and discussions relating to Guitar Hero 4 and its holiday release date.

This means that Activison will be another contender for number one publisher next year, especially considering that they have merged with Blizzard. Just think of the money they will earn when Wrath of the Lich King is unleashed upon the world.

Via: Eurogamer

Hey buddy, want some WoWcrack? You know you do. Its cheap too, and when I say cheap, I mean free. Follow me into this dark alley and I will give you the goods - make sure no one sees you and that you are not followed or else the deal is off. You aren’t packing heat or wearing a wire are you? Ok cool, let’s do this then.

All of my stuff is premo and pure and it is a new strain of WoWcrack sure to please even the most discerning of tastes. It is called Wrath of the Lich King and I have nine different types.

• The first one is an interview with designer J. Kaplan & Producer J. Allen Brack about what World of Warcraft’s upcoming expansion has to offer.
• Next we have the first footage of air-to-air battles featuring vehicle combat.
• I also have an extended look at new zones (Northrend) and more vehicle combat
• Here I have the Howling Fjord which is one of Lich King’s two starter zones, including the Utgarde Keep instance and the new Tuskar race.
• Then I have this sweet bit of stuff that contains footage of the Borean Tundra which is the Lich King’s other starting zone, along with Howling Fjord. This clip shows both the Alliance and Horde towns, and the Nexus level 71-73 instance.
• Dragonblight is some really good stuff too where you can catch a glimpse of Wyrmrest Temple, the Nerubians, and Naxxramas.
• Like trolls? Then you will love Zul’Drak - the former troll empire has fallen on tough times. It’s not just for ice trolls any more.
• Sholazar Basin is the sister zone to Ungoro Crater. That crashed ship? Hemet Nessingwary’s. Good times to be had with this one
• Last but not least I have the Grizzly Hills where the Venture Co. has set up shop in Northrend, and so have the Furbogs (they live in the fallen, mini-world tree).

So what will it be then? You will take all of them? You are hardcore indeed my friend! Make sure you tell your friends about me, and as long as they are not narcs - I will do my best to supply them with more WoWcrack when it becomes available. In the meantime, if they need more information on my wares, they can check out previous posts on Wrath of the Lich King here. You can also get more of the goods after the break.

Enjoy my friend, but just be careful you don’t OD on all this WoW.

Read the full article

The World of Warcraft Insider has an article on the latest expansion for the Burning Crusade; Fury of the Sunwell. The Sunwell is the culmination of the Blood Elf and Draenei storylines. It will the reveal the fate of the final member of the triumvirate of Illidan, Vashj, and Kael’thas. Players will also be introduced to a new “ultimate bad guy.”

World of Warcraft lead producer J. Allen Brack and art director Chris Robinson give players a lot of info on both Fury of the Sunwell and the Wrath of the Lich King. However the focus is on the evolving art style of the game and how it works with settings, scenery and architecture. They talk specifically about the style for the Sunwell and therefore the Blood Elves at the height of their power and the contrast with the style of the Northrend area. Items and armor for both these areas will be thematic and will be easily recognizable by players as trophies from a specific area.

For the full picture of the Sunwell and a preview of Northrend, check out the insider interview on World of Warcraft.

Blizzard has clinched an agreement with The9 and Soft-World the insures China will be getting the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion. The9 handles Blizzards WoW support in mainland China while Soft-World is its contact for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. More details about the release of the expansion will follow at a later date.

via World of Warcraft

While this doesn’t help to peg a release date for the second expansion for World of Warcraft, we know that Wrath of the Lich King is at least in playable form. Blizzard staff and an extremely lucky select few (accompanied by a nice NDA, of course), are – right this very second, as I’m typing this and as you’re reading this – running around, killing things in Northrend that you’ve never even so much as dreamed of.

WoW Insider was able to confirm the news last week through anonymous sources. As I said, this isn’t indicative of the game being a certain number of months away from release. Blizzard rarely releases things too early, so don’t expect to see Wrath of the Lich King rushed out before the holidays.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t hope they do get it out by then.

Tickets for the 2008 Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational Tickets are now on sale. Gamers from all over the world will be converging on Paris, France June 28-29, 2008 for this special event. Attendees will be treated to Q&A sessions, eSport competitions and a chance to get some hands on experience with World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and StarCraft II.

Tickets are priced at €70 / £55 for both days. You can order your tickets on the official Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational website.

World of Warcraft players are already in hot anticipation of what the next patch upgrade could bring. So of course, Blizzard’s just adding fuel to the fire by releasing a new trailer showing off the Sunwell Plateau. The devs are also billing this as the hardest raid instance in the game until the Wrath of the Lich King is released. Personally, I don’t play WoW though, so all this video shows to me is that Blizzard can still make a better Warcraft video than anyone else on the web. Well, except for this one maybe.

The World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King site has been updated with an article on Dragonblight. There’s also screenshots and a brief video to go along with it. The footage is incomplete, but it gives you a good idea of the open country. The city is more fleshed out though.

Learn more about the final resting place of the dragon flights, the shrines imbued with their power and the forces players will face in Dragonblight on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.