Massively^™

The moment everyone's been waiting for -- aside from a release date -- is finally here, Wrath of the Lich King US beta opt-ins are now available! All you're required to do is sign into your World of Warcraft account and make a couple clicks and bang, you're done. Do be warned that you'll only get an email if you're actually accepted into the WotLK beta and not a simple confirmation email for entering.

We can't imagine that it'll be very long before the beta actually starts now that Blizzard is accepting both EU and US entries. Once the beta does begin information about what we can expect from World of Warcraft's next expansion should begin to flow even more freely. It's possible that we'll see the beta begin before Blizzcon 08, so make sure to get your submissions in fast, while the clickin's still good!

Snafzg over at the GREENskin blog followed up on Tobold's recent interview with Blizzard's J. Allen Brack. Blizzard has previously clarified their method of creating expansions for World of Warcraft, but his reiteration of the production process has prompted some thoughtful responses. Snaf notes that, as Mark Jacobs and the folks at EA Mythic have made a few of their thoughts on expansions for Warhammer Online clear, some useful comparisons can be made.

His most interesting point, this blogger feels, is analysis of the strength of the two IPs.He characterizes the Warcraft IP as weaker than Warhammer, due to the relative brevity of its content. We've got several ideas about what future Warhammer expansions might include, but (as Snaf notes) Blizzard "currently has no idea of what will be in the expansion after WotLK". Couldn't that possibly be a strength? Northrend was a given, an almost inevitability in Warcraft's future, but now the company has a thousand different plot threads to explore and no "required" content to cover.

Interesting to think about, either way.

We've seen bits and pieces of Blizzard's upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, but the people over at Computer and Video Games.com were lucky enough to get a complete run through of the major locations of Northrend, and some of the many, many quests we'll all be doing when the expansion goes live.

Northrend is a cold, harsh land, and its inhabitants are likewise not people with whom you trifle. When you step off the ship or zeppelin, you will be immediately enlisted in the ongoing war against the enemy faction as well as the numberless legions of Arthas' followers. Check it out, and prepare to be astonished.

This past weekend Blizzard's Worldwide Invitational, also known as "BlizzCon Europe", had PC gaming fans throwing up the horns. Massively's sister site WoW Insider was onhand with pen, camera, and laptop from keynote to closing shop. World of Warcraft news was plentiful, of course, with a huge amount of information revealed about the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion. If you read one writeup, you should probably tackle the Developer's Panel. Class changes, big picture ideas and more are all covered in that one talk. There's also some great information for raiders in the Dungeon discussion, and a lot of promising talk about PvP for those folks.

Every class got a mini-Christmas, with plenty of love for Death Knight fans, Shaman raiders, and every single Hunter out there. We also recommend checking out the goodie bag, Turpster's hilarious interpretive dance, and (if you're into that sort of thing) there was some big non-MMO news dropped at the event's keynote. Check it out.

Tobold, an astute MMOG blogger with some Blizzard PR clout, was also in attendance, and with press badge in hand grabbed a short interview with World of Warcraft's Lead Producer, J. Allen Brack. In the interview they discuss hero classes, WoW's expansion schedule, the shortage of tankers and healers players encounter when putting a pug together, and more. No earth-shattering revelation is exposed but it is a worthy effort at picking one of the top brains working on World of Warcraft.

Massively's sister site WoW Insider is currently hard at work at the Worldwide Invitational, Blizzard's big to-do in France. They were onhand this morning for the big announcement, and though it's not really Massive we have to admit we're still pretty excited for Diablo 3. But you're here for MMO news, which the WI team has for you in spades. Representatives from Blizzard offered up a heaping helping of Wrath of the Lich King information, with some great info for just about every class. You're going to want to head to WoW Insider for the full monty, but here are a few highlights:

• Fury Warriors will be dual-weilding 2H weapons.
• Rogues will get a new AoE.
• Priests will get a new crowd control spell.
• Shaman totems will now affect an entire raid.
• Hunters (as if they weren't cool enough) are going to see pets having talent trees of their own. A complete revamp of the pet system.

Make sure to keep your eyes on WoW Insider all weekend for more Blizz-related news.

Gallery: Worldwide Invitational 2008

What does it mean when Blizzard teases us so? Well, it could mean many things. This very type of teaser has been used for several other announcements in the past, so your guess is as good as ours. If we had to wager an educated guess, we would say that a closed beta start date and release date is about to be announced for Wrath of the Lich King coinciding with the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational. Although we'd also love to think that Blizzard was close to announcing their next MMO, but that probably won't happen for a very long time.

Then again, as far as we know Blizzard has never teased us about a release date. So if you want to start making your wild guesses now, that piece of information is a good place to start. If it's not WotLK-related, our second guess would be an announcement that Diablo 3 is being "thawed out" for everyone in the near future. Yeah, we know it's a (lame) stretch -- but that's half the fun of it!

Update: After some poking around, we've discovered something interesting. Out of all the Blizzard websites, diablo.com is the only one that points our browsers to this splash page. Simple coincidence or subtle hint? We'll let you guys be the judge.

Update 2: Apparently diablo.com has pointed to blizzard.com for a while now. It looks like simple coincidence is much more likely in this scenario.

I've wanted to do a post on Dungeons and Dragons Fourth Edition for a while now, but I just couldn't put my finger on what I wanted to talk about with it. The rules are very much made in the vein of World of Warcraft -- you can tell that by just opening up the book, going to the classes and seeing all of the various powers that you can obtain by leveling -- and the whole system feels a bit more MMO-ish than normal. The funny part is, if you're expecting a "D&D Fourth Edition blows" rant, you're not going to get one.

Each year, a group of gaming media outlets (including CVG, GamesRadar, and several others) puts on the Golden Joystick Awards. The nominees are chosen by -- well, we don't know who -- but the winners are selected by popular vote. Yesterday, the short list (or the nominee list, if you prefer) went live, and voting began.

EVE Online, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, The Lord of the Rings Online, and Age of Conan are all nominated in the "Best Online Game" category. World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King expansion even broke out of the genre by receiving a nomination for the "One to Watch" award. However, the big MMO on the list this year is Age of Conan. It has additionally been nominated for PC Game of the Year and Ultimate Game of the Year.

If you want to be part of the process, go pick your favorite MMO from the list for the Best Online Game award, and if Wrath of the Lich King or Age of Conan strike your individual fancy, vote for them in their other categories as well. Or you could just not vote for any MMOs at all. Your choice.

There's a tendency for everyone in the MMO industry to speculate how well an upcoming MMO will or won't perform and whether or not it'll take a chunk of the World of Warcraft pie. While that's all good and fun we sometimes forget that a game's success can be determined by some simple modifiers. The Warhammer Online blog WAAAGH! has taken some time to think about those modifiers and what they mean for EA Mythic and their newest MMO coming to market.

It's essentially a list of ten things that WAAAGH! feels will either make or break Warhammer Online. After looking over the list with a steady eye our conclusion is that everything listed is something that EA Mythic has most of the responsibility for handling. Well, except for the marketing. Electronic Arts will be taking care of that for the most part, although we would hope that EA Mythic gets some say in how that's handled. As for the parts of the equation that EA Mythic cannot control -- such as timing, market climate, WotLK release -- we suppose they'll just have to hope for the best.

In a recent interview over at CVG, Blizzard's senior producer on the Wrath of the Lich King project, J. Allen Brack, talks a bit about how the newest WoW expansion will be better than anything we've seen yet. He says that 95% of the team that worked on Burning Crusade have remained and are working on WotLK. This is an important distinction, as it means the team is happy. As Brack says, "It's a testament to Blizzard culture, the success of the game and the environment we've created."

This interview also touches on the state of PvP in WoW. The CVG interviewer makes some humorous remarks on the changes that have been made to PvP since it was first introduced, and asks if this trend will continue into WotLK. Brack believes that with the expansion's new Lake Wintergrasp area, players will enjoy the siege weapons and destructible environments it will introduce. Let's hope he's right!

World of Warcraft, with around ten million customers, is one of the most popular MMOs out there. So what does this mean for a game seeking to expand on unrivaled success? Many of those ten million players enjoy a good show on the floors of the arena. With many players donning gladiator armor and doing battle, why not promote the events and make a sport of it? In an e-sports interview with Gotfrag, Blizzard talks about success and offers up their strategy for keeping their games fresh in our minds.

According to Blizzard, the arena is what started it all for World of Warcraft e-sports. Players became involved and eagerly pursued fame and glory on the sandy floors and battlefields throughout Azeroth and Outland. Many new changes and concepts, some based on player feedback, are being placed on the desk of developers and programmers for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. So expect to see some new fights and new ways of mopping the floor with our opponents. To bring the action to more gamers, Blizzard is experimenting with some new broadcasting technology. We might eventually be able to see ourselves, standing gloriously over our fallen foes, on millions of computer screens across the world. That makes winning (US)$75,000 from WoW arena combat so much more glorious.

World of Warcraft seems to be the focus of virtual law, lawsuits, angry gnomes, and all sorts of fun these days. Not only is a player suing IGE due to their gold selling practices, but Blizzard also took MDY, makers of the glider program, to court. Now, MDY and Blizzard are moving closer to getting this battle finished.

The arena of choice is the US District Court of Arizona and the two sides put forth their best efforts and finished their replies. Now we just have to wait for the federal justice system to make a decision on summary judgment. As Virtually Blind's Benjamin Duranske points out, that could take some time. Nonetheless, a few people are following such lawsuits closely since this is new territory for the courts and the MMO industry. Some fear the cases bring the federal government onto virtual turf, others think it is time for an end to cheating and want government help, and a few players are indifferent and just want to get their characters to level 70 before Wrath of the Lich King arrives.

As World of Warcraft slowly progresses to the release of Wrath of the Lich King, the juicy tidbits keep hearthing our way. Blizzard recently took some time to release some more information concerning Northrend within Wrath of the Lich King. There are a few glimpses at new dungeons, some notes on vehicle combat, and some new screens of snow and ice. The big feature is an entirely new site devoted to the new class, the Death Knight.

Not surprisingly, the updates come rather close to the release of Age of Conan and are filled with content information and a nifty little Death Knight animation. The new WotLK gameplay features talk about some rather major changes to quest mechanics and, most importantly, raid mechanics. For the hardcore raider in you, the instances now carry a 10 and 25 man raid that are the exact same instances, but offer different ways to advance. Players taking on the 25 man content will get better rewards, but the shift is meant to allow more folks to absorb the new content.

If some extra power is needed, the new Death Knight class will be a welcome friend (oddly enough) in any raid or group with his all powerful skills. Unlocking this class of doom is an easy task. Simply have a level 55 character and the class is open to you. Then you create your Death Knight and start raising skeletons to do your bidding! The expansion is still in alpha testing, but make sure to check out some of these changes before you are left in the cold.

PvE: Mannanan, Ajuju, Badisattva, Damballah, Hanuman
PvP-RP: Hyperborea
PvP: Bluesteel, Shadowblade, Scourge

This is fantastic news and offers clear-cut proof that AoC is selling like hotcakes and players are eating it up. It will be very interesting to watch whether or not AoC takes a big number of players away from World of Warcraft or if the growth tapers off after the first few months. Staunch WoW players can find a few compelling reasons to give Age of Conan a chance before WotlK is released, and why you might end up liking it.

[via, Kill Ten Rats]