World of Warcraft (WoW), the largest MMORPG, is fun. People have gone lengths and breadths to achieve higher in the game. Those endless hours of playing it comes at a cost, the WoW subscription. But once you reach a high level (say 70), and own lot of gold, and basically have all achievements under your belt, your inclination to play the game retards. The fact that you have to pay to keep your subscription alive only makes it worse. For you, it means that you're bored, WoW isn't fun anymore, and so you could join another MMORPG. For Blizzard (now Activision-Blizzard), it means losing revenue. Not that they're short of it, but no company would want to lose it.

In what can be seen as a bid to woo such players and maintain their patronage, new achievement levels have been added to the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King Expansion pack. Similar to the achievements you have with console gaming, players will now be awarded titles, gear, bragging rights for several tasks, serious thru trivial. They can be as serious as defeating scores and scores of enemies or as trivial as getting a hair-cut done. Custom animations and sounds would accompany each achievement earned and in-game pets, special clothing and titles will also be awarded. According to Blizzard, these rewards will be "purely cosmetic" and won't affect actual gameplay.

Following countless complaints of World of Warcraft (WoW) user account hijacks and misuse, Blizzard has come up with a device, a security code generator that each user possesses, the device generates a six-digit security code that the user has to enter when logging on to the WoW account. The generation pattern is unique for each user's generator and this effectively eradicates account misuse, or at least attempts to. Blizzard CEO and cofounder Mike Morhaime says "It's important to us that World of Warcraft offers a safe and enjoyable game environment", he further adds that an aspect of that is helping players avoid account compromise, so they are pleased to make this additional layer of security available to them.

Once activated with Blizzard, the authenticator offers a six-digit code that must be used within 60 seconds on a gamer's WoW account. The user has to enter this number alongside username and password. Similar methods are adopted by PayPal, banks, and other financial institutions to help protect data, PayPal charges US $5 for the PayPal Security Key.

Blizzard plans to charge US $6.50 for the device but no announcements are made as to when it will be available.

In an interview about next expansion of WoW called Wrath of the Lich King, World of Warcraft producer J. Allen Brack said that the game will "probably" undergo a complete graphical upgrade in the future. "Will we need a graphical update from the ground up at some point? Yep, probably," he said. "That's actually something we talk about every expansion," he added. "I'm positive we'll talk about it next expansion."
"A lot of people continued to play with the original client, because it was faster, or they preferred it, or were just used to it or whatever," he said. "And so for me as a game developer, the idea that we would spend so much time and energy on something and have people go, 'meh, that's not really for me,' that's not very exciting."

Blizzard is suing Michael Donnelly, the creator of the MMO Glider program, which performs key tasks in the game automatically, such as fighting and other game actions. Both sides have submitted legal summaries to the US District Court in Arizona. Blizzard says Glide is a software bot which infringes the company's copyright and potentially damages the game. In its legal submission to the court last week, the firm said: "Blizzard's designs expectations are frustrated, and resources are allocated unevenly, when bots are introduced into the WoW universe, because bots spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player would and consume resources the entire time." Blizzard argued that Michael Donnelly's tool also infringed the End User License Agreement that all parties have to adhere to when playing the game. As result Blizzard wants Michael Donnelly to stop selling Glider and return all profits that he made from its sales. More than 100,000 copies of the tool have been sold for the time being. Mr Donnelly says his tool does not infringe Blizzard's copyright because no "copy" of the Warcraft game client software is ever made. The two parties are now awaiting a summary judgement in the case.

Blizzard Entertainment has now released the long awaited 2.4.0 patch to their MMO World of Warcraft. The patch adds a new area to explore (the Sunwell Isle) with new quests, raids and dungeons along with support for a new global arena tournament and new UI improvements. You can download the patch via the game's auto-updater or manually via sites like FileShack. The full patch notes can be found here.

World of Warcraft is not known as the most friendly game with the real world. With over 10 million subscribers worldwide, World of Warcraft is the bane of gamers everywhere who want to do something out in the real world. Case in point: a former female Blizzard employee gave her husband a copy of World of Warcraft in Christmas 2004. World of Warcraft basically wrecked the man.

He would get home from work at 6:00, start playing at 6:30, and he'd play until three a.m. Weekends were worse - it was from morning straight through until the middle of the night. It took away all of our time that we spent together. I ceased to exist in his life.

Six years of marriage went down the drain, things like personal hygiene, bills, and even romance took second-stage to his World of Warcraft addiction. The poor woman eventually filed for divorce, citing World of Warcraft as the reason. Since the divorce, the woman cut back on the time she spent playing WoW. The man, however, still plays "religiously".

Blizzard Entertainment today announced plans to launch a new type of tournament competition using the Arena system in World of Warcraft, its popular subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game. The tournaments will take place on special realms that allow competitors to instantly create level-70 characters with epic equipment, placing the focus on tactics and execution rather than normal adventuring.

World of Warcraft's community continues to grow, recently hitting a new high of 10 million subscribers around the world. Interest in the award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) has remained high in all regions, with thousands of new and returning players signing up through the holiday season. World of Warcraft now hosts more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and approximately 5.5 million in Asia. "It's very gratifying to see gamers around the world continuing to show such enthusiasm and support for World of Warcraft," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We're always pleased to welcome new players to the game, and we're looking forward to sharing the next major content update with the entire community in the months ahead." Since debuting in North America on November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft has become the most popular MMORPG around the world. It was the bestselling PC game of 2005 and 2006 worldwide, and finished behind only World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the first expansion pack for the game, in 2007. In addition to being the bestselling PC game of 2007 in both North America and Europe, The Burning Crusade holds the record for fastest-selling PC game of all time, with nearly 2.4 million copies sold in its first 24 hours of availability and approximately 3.5 million in its first month.

Blizzard has issued a new World of Warcraft US/AUS patch, updating version 2.3.2 of the game to version 2.3.3. The 4.3MB update offers improved load times and more bug fixes. Click here to download it manually.

The upcoming World of Wacraft expansion (Wrath of the Lich King) will feature a large area dedicated to PvP (Player vs. Player) battles, Blizzard has revealed. A "cool part of Northrend is new big PvP zone. It's about the size of Westfall, and will be all-PvP - in no way, shape or form will we support PvE [Player vs Environment] players in it", the developer's Jeff Kaplan has told PC Zone. He continued, "It'll be optional, but it'll be completely non-instanced, have multiple objectives, siege weapons and destructible buildings". In the interview, Kaplan went on to promise that WoW adventurers will be pleasantly surprised when they first enter the new continent of Northrend. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is expected to launch this year, though Blizzard has yet to confirm when.

In a quest to nail the greatest gaming experience ever, Dell and Blizzard Entertainment, have joined forces to bring gamers the XPSTM M1730 World of Warcraft Edition notebook PC. The unique gaming notebook is available for purchase today by customers who pre-registered for early access during the "It Begins" quest. It will be available to all U.S. customers on December 11th on Dell Gaming.

The World of Warcraft Battle Chest, a complete collection of World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade expansion, is now available at retailers throughout North America for $39.99. In addition to the two complete games on DVD, the World of Warcraft Battle Chest also includes two Battle Chest Guides from BradyGames to aid you (or a friend) in the quest to level 70. Get the World of Warcraft Battle Chest at the Blizzard Online Store or a retailer near you.

Blizzard has revealed details of the first Hero class in World of Warcraft, the Death Knight. They've emerged in an official chit chat with designers working on WOW's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, which will introduce the new class. The Death Knight is a tank hybrid created to offer an alternative to the Warrior when building a group. Blizzard felt this role was essential in almost every scenario, so an extra class here was needed. Specifically, Death Knights will focus more on attack than defence - but come equipped with taunting abilities so that they can maintain the attention of monsters trying to kill the rest of the group. Death Knights will also rely on a new rune system resource to power their attacks and spells, one separate to the existing mana, energy, and rage bars. But details on how exactly this will work are yet to be announced. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King was announced at the Leipzig Games Convention earlier in the year. It will up the level cap to 80, add a new Northrend continent, introduce the Inscription profession, use siege warfare to tear down buildings, give you more character customisation options, plus oodles of new dungeons, quests and items. Head over to the official World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King site to find out more.

Some people play RPG's like World of Warcraft to escape reality. Some play them for the online community. However, the World of Warcraft ex-guild "Abhorrent Taboo" took the latter reason a little too far. The interests of the group could be summed up in three letters: ERP ('erotic roleplay'). Among other strange pleasures that should not be mentioned for the sake of decency, the guild indulged in what they call "extreme ageplay", which is where members pretend they are ages they are not. Concerned World of Warcraft players decided to take a closer look at the clan, and promptly found a twelve year old girl engaging in "erotic roleplay" with a man much her senior, who did not stop "erotic roleplay" even when she stated her real age. Blizzard took a valiant stand against this, and Abhorrent Taboo is now an ex-guild. However, they have reformed themselves under the name "Vile Anathema". Whether or not they've learned not to have ERP with a 12 year old girl remains to be seen.

The infamous South Park episode that satirized the Blizzard game World of Warcraft, titled "Make Love, Not Warcraft", recently won an Emmy at the 59th Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony. Executive Producers Matt Stone and Trey Parker, also writer and director on the episode, were honored, along with producers Frank C. Agnone II, Anne Garefino, and Kyle McCulloch, as well as Eric Stough, director of animation.

At the same ceremony, Justin Timberlake, Andy Samberg, and others were honored for their Saturday Night Live skit "D*ck in a box".

The wonderful people with a strange abundance of spare time over at 1Up have found a very interesting title in the German game rating system: a request to rate a certain "World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (GC-Demo)". The (GC-Demo) part could possibly stand for "Game Convention Demo", which would make perfect sense considering the upcoming Leipzig Games Convention and Blizzcon.

If this is a formal expansion, it will almost surely be announced at Blizzcon this weekend. Wrath of the Lich King is currently rumored to open up the Northrend section of the World of Warcraft, where Arthas and the Lich King were last seen in Warcraft 3.

MMORPG's have a distinct advantage to them, in the way you can (supposedly) escape reality and live as a completely different creature in a different world. However, this ulterior world attracts more than just people trying to escape life's harsh realities. Games such as Second Life and World of Warcraft have reported several instances of cyber-terrorism. In some instances, Australian police have found evidence that terrorists are using these virtual worlds to recruit terrorists and train them. Experts on the matter say that "terrorists are rehearsing their operations in Second Life because they can't practice in the real world". Experts also notice that terrorists "can gain training in games such as World of Warcraft in a simulated environment, using weapons that are identical to real-world armaments."

Blizzard's award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft (WoW) has reached a new milestone, with a player base now totaling more than 9 million subscribers worldwide. Since debuting in North America on November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft has become the most popular MMORPG around the world. It was the bestselling PC game of 2005 and 2006 and has remained at or near the top of the weekly PC-game sales charts for much of 2007 as well. Blizzard's Burning Crusade expansion released to critical acclaim in several regions earlier this year and shattered PC-game sales records in North America and Europe, with nearly 2.4 million copies sold in its first 24 hours of release and approximately 3.5 million in its first month. World of Warcraft is available in seven different languages and, in addition to North America and Europe, is played in mainland China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

Alan Joyce has managed to run World of Warcraft on his iPhone using Telekinesis - a program which streams video from your computer onto your iPhone. The iPhone isn't doing all the work, however - you can think of it as the iPhone being the screen and controls for World of Warcraft, run from Alan's Mac Book Pro.

See the Youtube video here.

Two people fell in love with each other over one of the most addictive MMORPGs ever, World of Warcraft. The couple spent long hours on the phone together, played through countless quests as a couple, and even talked about marriage. There were just two problems with this couple. The groom is 17, and the bride is 31. The two made plans to meet, and the bride flew over from Australia to North Carolina to pick up her dream date on June 12th. Unfortunately for her, anyone under the age of 18 is a minor in the state of North Carolina. After the groom's parents reported him as missing, the police apprehended the couple as they were trying to hitch a ride to Australia on June 26th. The groom is home, almost certainly grounded. However, the bride faired much worse. On July 11th, she goes on trial for the attempted abduction of a minor. If the bride is found guilty, she will get two years behind bars in an American jail. Australian customs is working hard to get the bride set free.

Blizzard is now offering a 10-day free trial of its Burning Crusade World of Warcraft Expansion. The downloadable trial let players try out new races and all the content in the expansion world, Outland. Players can keep most of the virtual loot after the trial ends. The trial is available through Blizzard's World of Warcraft website and players will need to have the original World of Warcraft game installed. After the free trial, players can continue playing the expansion by buying a retail box or by paying $40 online. More information on the Burning Crusade free trial is available here.

Blizzard studios has announced that over eight million people world wide have active World of Warcraft accounts, are in the middle of their trial month, or have accessed World of Warcraft in the past 30 days. This translates to roughly 2 million subscribers in North America, 1.5 million in Europe, and 3.5 million in China. The North American figures show that statistically, 1 in every 167 people owns a World of Warcraft account.