Well Blizzard has announced today that World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King would be in U.S. stores on November 13, 2008. Blizzard will also release the game in Europe, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Russia. On November 14, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand will get the game. On November 18, the game comes to Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Blizzard added that information on Wrath of the Lich King’s debut in China would be released later.
The expansion will be offered in two packages: a standard edition for $39.99 and the Collector’s Edition for $69.99.
The Collector’s Edition includes the following:
- The Art of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, a 208-page book featuring never-before-seen images from the game.
- An exclusive in-game pet: Frosty, the baby frost wyrm.
- A behind-the-scenes DVD containing more than an hour of developer interviews, the Wrath of the Lich King introduction cinematic with director’s commentary and more.
- The official soundtrack CD, containing 21 epic tracks from the game, along with exclusive bonus tracks.
- A mouse pad featuring a map of the newly opened continent of Northrend.
- Two World of Warcraft Trading Card Game March of the Legion, starter decks, along with two exclusive cards available only in the Collector’s Edition.
The lives of over 10 million people will come to a screeching halt on the opening day so you should put in that vacation time request before the rush.
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Blizzard today announced that it has totally re-recorded all voice and text and translated it into Spanish for the new release into Latin America. You will now also now be able to receive “high-quality” 24/7 support in Spanish. This will launch sometime in the first half of 2008 and will also be available to Spanish-speaking players in the US and Canada at that time.
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that World of Warcraft(R), its award-winning, subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), is being prepared for release in Latin America. The Latin American localization will be based on the existing European Spanish version but will feature entirely re-recorded in-game speech. This new version of the game will be rolled out in select markets throughout Latin America starting in the first half of 2008 and will also be available to Spanish-speaking players in the US and Canada at that time.
A dedicated Spanish-speaking team is being assembled at the Blizzard Entertainment offices in Irvine, California and Austin, Texas to ensure that Spanish-speaking World of Warcraft players based in North and South America will receive high-quality 24/7 support in Spanish. Positions are currently open on the company’s customer service, quality assurance, community relations, and web teams, and a new official website for the game’s North and South America-based Spanish-speaking players is in development.
“Making World of Warcraft more accessible to gamers around the world has been a longstanding goal for us,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “Spanish-speaking players on our North American realms have already shown a great deal of enthusiasm for the game, and we’re pleased to be able to offer them a fully localized version.”
Further details on pricing in local currencies for Latin American players, as well as country-specific availability, will be announced closer to release. Also closer to release, Blizzard will provide details on language-pack downloads and character-transfer options for existing Spanish-speaking players on the game’s North American realms.
Since World of Warcraft launched in November 2004, it has quickly become the world’s most popular MMORPG, with more than 10 million players worldwide. The game is currently available in English, French, German, Korean, European Spanish, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese. In addition to the forthcoming Latin American Spanish version, a Russian version is in development for Europe.
Filed under PC News on March 26th, 2008 
Blizzard/Vivendi games up in arms over the Warcraft bot ‘WoW Glider’, the legal docs describe a legal battle that’s unfolding in US District Court over WoW Glider, a bot that automates just about anything in World of Warcraft. According to plaintiff Blizzard, the program infringes on their copyright, and violates Blizzards EULA, WoW Glider argues that since no copy of the game is used, it does not violate any copyrights. Here’s a snip with some of the details:
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.”
‘Infringed agreement’
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. More than 100,000 copies of the tool have been sold, according to Mr Donnelly. More than 10 million people around the world play Warcraft.
Mr Donnelly said the first time had had been aware of potential legal action over his program was when a lawyer from Vivendi games, which publishes Warcraft, and an “unnamed private investigator” appeared at his home.
In his legal submission, he detailed: “When they arrived, they presented Donnelly with a copy of a complaint that they indicated would be filed the next day in the US District Court for the Central District of California if Donnelly did not immediately agree to stop selling Glider and return all profits that he made from Glider sales.”
“Blizzard’s audacious threats offended Donnelly,” according to the legal papers.
Mr Donnelly says his tool does not infringe Blizzard’s copyright because no “copy” of the Warcraft game client software is ever made.
Blizzard has said the tool infringes copyright because it copies the game into RAM in order to avoid detection by anti-cheat software.
For all you WoW addicts out there Blizzard has released a new patch for World of Warcraft, bringing this up to v2.4.0. The patch includes a new location called The Sunwell Isle along with new 5-player and 25-player instances, as well as dozens of bug fixes and game-play tweaks.
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I was going to do an intro for this story that I found on Wired, but I can not stop laughing to even come up with anything. Keep reading and you will know why.
Hans Jørgen Olsen, a 12-year-old Norwegian boy, recently survived a moose attack by feigning death, “just like you learn at level 30 in World of Warcraft.”
In WoW, “feign death” is a skill acquired by hunters at level 30 that allows them to take a page from the possum playbook, collapse to the ground, and convince their enemies — who lose all ingrained animosity in the process — that they’ve died.
According to Norwegian site Nettavisen , Hans and his sister apparently enraged one of the local moose (mooses? meese?) during a walk in the forest near their home. After shouting at the gigantic creature to ward it away from his sister, Olsen dropped to the ground, and presumably his lifebar plummeted to zero.
[Source Wired]
Game publishers Activision and Vivendi Games will merge their companies into one and be renamed Activision Blizzard. The result will create a company with revenues of $3.8 billion in 2007. The deal is expected to be made official in the first half of 2008. What does this say for Sierra only time will tell, but I am here to say I don’t think sierra will be around much longer.
Activision, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI) and Vivendi (Paris: VIV) today announced that they have signed a definitive agreement to combine Vivendi Games, Vivendi’s interactive entertainment business — which includes Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft®, the world’s #1 multi-player online role-playing game franchise — with Activision, creating the world’s largest pure-play online and console game publisher. The new company, Activision Blizzard, is expected to have approximately $3.8 billion in pro forma combined calendar 2007 revenues and the highest operating margins of any major third-party video game publisher. On closing of the transaction, Activision will be renamed Activision Blizzard and will continue to operate as a public company traded on NASDAQ under the ticker ATVI. Activision, one of the world’s leading independent publishers of interactive entertainment, is best known for its top- selling franchises, including Guitar Hero®, Call of Duty® and the Tony Hawk series, as well as Spider-Manâ„¢, X-Menâ„¢, Shrek®, James Bondâ„¢ and TRANSFORMERSâ„¢. Blizzard Entertainment, a division of Vivendi Games, has projected calendar 2007 revenues of $1.1 billion, operating margins of over 40% and approximately $520 million of operating profit. Blizzard owns the #1 multi-player online role-playing game franchise, World of Warcraft, which currently has over 9.3 million subscribers worldwide. Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, Warcraft®, StarCraft® and Diablo® games account for four of the top-five best-selling PC game titles of all time. Vivendi Games also owns popular franchises, including Crash Bandicootâ„¢ and Spyroâ„¢. Pro forma for calendar 2007, Activision Blizzard expects to generate approximately 70% of its revenues from owned franchises. As a result of the business combination, Activision Blizzard expects to have the most diversified and broadest portfolio of interactive entertainment assets in its industry, positioning the combined company to capitalize on the continued worldwide growth in interactive entertainment.
Jean-Bernard Lévy, Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Executive Officer of Vivendi stated: “This alliance is a major strategic step for Vivendi and is another illustration of our drive to extend our presence in the entertainment sector. By combining Vivendi’s games business with Activision, we are creating a worldwide leader in a high-growth industry. We are excited about the opportunities for Activision Blizzard as a broader entertainment software platform. We believe this transaction will create significant value for Activision Blizzard and Vivendi stockholders. In Activision, we have found a partner with a highly complementary business and strong operating team. Bobby Kotick and Brian Kelly are industry pioneers, well known for creating shareholder value. The combined strength of the existing management teams at both companies will set the stage for further profitable growth of Activision Blizzard. We look forward to being an active and supportive majority stockholder in a company that is poised to lead the worldwide interactive entertainment industry in the years ahead.â€
René Penisson, Member of the Management Board of Vivendi and current Chairman of Vivendi Games, added: “We are very confident that by combining forces, Activision Blizzard will set the highest standards in quality, reputation and profitability, and will bring together the best creative teams in the industry. The combination of this unique product portfolio with highly professional employees gives us great confidence in the growth prospects for Activision Blizzard.â€
Said Robert Kotick, Activision’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: “This is an outstanding transaction for Activision and our stockholders, as well as a pivotal event in the continuing transformation of the interactive entertainment industry. By combining leaders in mass-market entertainment and subscription-based online games, Activision Blizzard will be the only publisher with leading market positions across all categories of the rapidly growing interactive entertainment software industry and reach the broadest possible audiences. By joining forces with Vivendi Games, we will become the immediate leader in the highly profitable online games business and gain a large footprint in the rapidly growing Asian markets, including China and Korea, while maintaining our leading operating performance across North America and Europe. Activision stockholders will benefit from significantly increased earnings power and the recurring nature and predictability of subscription-based revenues, while also having the opportunity, if they choose, to receive $27.50 per share for a portion of their shares in the post-closing tender offer.â€
Kotick continued: “Vivendi Games provides Activision with unique strategic and financial benefits and will allow us to leverage our franchises into emerging online opportunities as Blizzard has done so successfully. Activision has been very focused on margin expansion, and this transaction will meaningfully increase our overall operating margins as we expand our franchises online and in new geographies. Diversifying our revenue base among subscription-based online, console and PC formats, as well as wireless and casual emerging opportunities, gives us the broadest platform to capitalize on industry growth. With Blizzard’s successful franchises, such as World of Warcraft, StarCraft and an exciting pipeline of yet-to-be announced titles, Vivendi Games’ and Blizzard’s management team will join with Activision’s strong and experienced leaders to become an even more powerful force for innovation in online and offline interactive entertainment across a wide range of platforms. This transaction also provides a unique relationship with Universal Music Group – the world’s largest music company – which will benefit Guitar Hero and further extend our sizable leadership position in music-based games.â€
Mike Morhaime, President and Chief Executive Officer of Blizzard, added: “Blizzard’s industry-leading PC games business, with a track record of nine consecutive bestsellers and a global subscriber base of more than 9.3 million World of Warcraft players, is an exceptional fit for Activision’s highly profitable console games business. From our interactions with the Activision team, it is clear we have much in common in terms of our approaches to game development and publishing. Above all, we are looking forward to continue creating great games for Blizzard gamers around the world, and we believe this new partnership will help us to do that even better than before.â€
 According to a post on blog On Warden, new updates to a World of Warcraft cheat detection software, Warden, could, in theory, be used by Blizzard to install malicious software on the users computer. The post says several times, “Blizzard has not, in my opinion and to the extent of my knowledge, broken laws with Warden’s use in World of Warcraft. Nor do I believe they would knowingly and willingly do so.”
The writer claims to be one of the foremost experts on Warden outside of Blizzard employees and has “first-hand knowledge of Warden through reverse engineering nearly every minute detail of the software since its inception.”
Full Disclosure: the On Warden blog’s about me only has a link to Lavish Software, which develops WinEQ2, a program that allows “forcing the game into windowed mode, session-switching hotkeys (two-way cycling and global activation), custom window titles, custom eqclient.ini and eqlsPlayerdata.ini for EQ1, automatic CPU Affinity setting and more.”
Warning: technical language after the jump.
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Filed under PC News on November 13th, 2007 World of Warcraft patch 2.3.0 has been released, updating v2.2.3 of the game to v2.3.0. The 281mb download introduces a new level 70 instance called Zul’Aman, over 50 new quests to Dustwallow Marsh, Guild Banks, changes and bug fixes, while also adding new gear and items for PVP Arena Season 3.
Offline Download:
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