The new US President Barack Obama has assigned Net Neutrality Advocate Kevin Werbach to be new co-chairman of the FCC Department once the government transition takes effect on Q1 2009. The interesting bit of news here is that Kevin Werbach is well-known to be a World of Warcraft player since early 2006. Kevin Werbach is an observer of technology trends and played the MMO in order to study its social and economical aspects: "I play Warcraft because it’s fun. It’s taking time away from watching TV, reading books, and other entertainment pursuits. But I’m also playing because I believe MMOGs will be one of the primary forms of social software for the next decade. Defined broadly, they may become the dominant form of social software. And you can’t understand games without experiencing them first-hand."-- said Kevin Werbach in his blog back on February 2006.

Those outside USA who do not know what the FCC is, it stands for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) - charged by the commisioners appointed by the US President with regulating all non-federal government use of the radio spectrum (including radio and television broadcasting), and all interstate telecommunications (wire, satellite and cable) as well as all international communications that originate or terminate in the United States. Having a World of Warcraft player in the FCC foreshadows great potential for the MMO genre.

Blizzard EVP of Product Design, Frank Pearce, told MTV Multiplayer during the Wrath of the Lich King midnight opening there are no plans to make the Cinematic team work for the World of Warcraft film. Legendary Pictures is still seeking a film director and writer for the film, but Frank Pearce confirms the Cinematic Team is quiet busy with internal projects (obviously Starcraft II trilogy, Diablo 3 and probably the next-gen MMO).

Very little has been said about the World of Warcraft film in the past two years. Fans have speculated it could be entirely done as a CGI film, or with real actors, or a mix. Certainly what Frank Pearce commented doesn't rule out some kind of CGI in the film. Legendary Pictures has experience with special effects and CGI for the 300 film, and the recent The Dark Knight, 10,000 BC and The Ant Bully to name a few.

	Blizzard Quote:
	“[The idea] has come up in discussions but it’s not something we’ve really considered because it takes so long to generate just the brief amount of footage that we create for the game,” Pearce explained. “That department’s focus is creating the footage for the games to tell the story; it would be a huge undertaking and it’s not really something that we’re ready to do anytime soon.”

Blizzard Entertainment and 3 Point Entertainment have had a successful sale of World of Warcraft Steins since its launch back on October. For this reason, they have teamed up to release a special limited edition in Europe where the steins have been highly sought by collectors.

Blood of the Horde and Alliance United Steins Now Available for Purchase at http://www.wowsteins.com

SAN DIEGO, CA (November 20, 2008) – Following their successful October release in North America, 3 Point Entertainment today announced the availability in the European territories of the World of Warcraft® Epic Collection, a series of high-quality old world-style steins based on Blizzard Entertainment®’s massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

“The response to the steins in North America has been exceptional and we have sold out of our first and second shipments of the production run scheduled for October and November. The third and final shipment is scheduled to arrive in December for the holiday season. We have had high interest from players in Europe and are pleased to now be able to offer these steins to our ever-growing European community,” said 3 Point Entertainment president Jerry Bennington The first two Epic Collection steins, Blood of the Horde and Alliance United, depict panoramic full-color bas-reliefs of night elves, tauren, orcs, and more, illustrated by Blizzard Entertainment artists Samwise Didier and Glenn Rane. Each 11”, .94 liter authentic fine grain stoneware stein is hand-crafted by world-renowned Brazilian manufacturer Ceramarte and topped with a sculpted pewter lid. Each of the subsequent Epic Collection steins will also commemorate World of Warcraft’s iconic characters and memorable moments with the same level of artistry and quality.

Ghostcrawler has announced some pretty big upcoming changes for Feral Druids' armor and attack power. Additionally, Warlocks are in for a treat, as it looks like their Ritual of Summoning is in for a massive change - a really good one too! Read up on it after the break:

	Blizzard Quote: (Source)
	ARMOR As previously announced, we are changing the way bear armor works so that bonus armor on items does not receive the bear armor multiplier. Specifically this means that weapons, trinkets, rings, necks and cloaks with bonus armor will not be multiplied by the bear bonus. Only cloth and leather will benefit from the Bear and Dire Bear multiplier. We are compensating Ferals for this armor loss by improving the Survival of the Fittest talent. In addition to its current effects (stats and crit prevention), it will now also increase armor contribution from cloth and leather items by 22/33/66%. That should be very close to your current armor bonus. This makes Survival of the Fittest rather over-budget by talent standards, but we figured it was one talent we can be pretty certain most tank-oriented druids will have (and to be honest nearly all Ferals). FERAL ATTACK POWER We are no longer going to have weapons in the game which improve feral attack power. Instead, your attack power will scale based on the dps of the item. Practically speaking this means almost no change for any gear you currently use -- you should not see your dps change. What it does mean is that we can create the occasional dps staff that could be used by druids or hunters (or very undergeared warriors), and that Ferals may occasionaly use two-handed dps maces. We are going to convert all existing Feral staves over to this new system (but again, you should not notice any change to your dps). We are also adjusting the UI so that when druids look at these weapons, you will see what the improvement will be to your damage in forms. This does not mean we are no longer going to create bear and cat weapons, just that those weapons will be slightly less niche than they are now. These changes will be in place in the next patch. This patch will ship sometime before the 3.1 major content patch featuring the Ulduar raid.

Blizzard have released two new TV ads, one features rock legends Ozzy Osbourne, the other one has Steve Van Sandt (Silvio). Ozzy's add shows him claiming that he is the ultimate Prince of Darkness, but guess who shows up to argue with him. Steve Van Sandt's ad is more of a general gameplay advertisement, but it's still very cool.

Check them both out after the break:

It's official: Wrath of the Lich King has broken the record for the fastest selling PC game of all time! WoW's latest expansion sold 2.8 million copies in the first 24 hours of release, the previous holder of the record was another WoW product, The Burning Crusade, which sold 2.4 million in the same time period.

Now we wait and see it they manages to sell the predicted 5 million in the first month. Here's the press release, more after the break:

IRVINE, Calif., Nov 20, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that World of Warcraft(R)'s second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King(TM), has sold more than 2.8 million copies in its first 24 hours of availability*, making it the fastest-selling PC game of all time. This eclipses the previous record of nearly 2.4 million copies sold in 24 hours, set in January 2007 by Blizzard's first World of Warcraft expansion, The Burning Crusade(R). Wrath of the Lich King was simultaneously released in North America, Europe, Chile, Argentina, and Russia on November 13; Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand on November 14; and South Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on November 18.

In celebration of the launch, more than 15,000 stores throughout the world had their doors open at midnight to welcome thousands of expectant players. Several of these locations were attended by Blizzard Entertainment representatives, who met players and signed copies of the game.

As always, we’re looking to improve and expand on what we do here at Worldofwar.net. Something we would like to see are more WoW bloggers, who will have regular slots on our front page.

If you’re interested in writing about anything WoW-related, whether you feel you have a lot to say on a certain class, about game mechanics, or just about WoW in general, then please get in touch. We’re keen to get you writing as soon as possible, so don’t leave it - .

If you have any queries or questions about WoW blogging, please ask in the email, and I’ll be happy to chat to you about it.

We know many of you can’t access the Blizzard pages from work and/or school, so if you’d like to read the transcript of BlizzCon 6, you see the full thing, along with images that come with Blizzard’s original, after the break. Alternatively, if you’d like to ensure we see more of these podcasts, support Blizzard by downloading the original from here.

Yes he’s terribly annoying, and we all know it’s just another shameless publicity stunt, but Athene has released a video in response to this business about reaching level 80 first, or rather, reaching level 79 then getting banned. Hmm, if his mother is like that it’s no wonder he turned out the way he is… Catch the video after the break.

BlizzCast 6 is finally Live as a sound stream and as a transcript. Welcome to BlizzCast Episode 6!  Nethaera (WoW Community Manager) interviewed Lead Tools Programmer, Monte Krol. He talks about his career background from the early days of Atari games until he applied for a job at Blizzard back on 2000.

Karune (RTS Community Manager) interviewed Senior Art Director Sam Didier and Lead Designer Dustin Browder who explain the process behind creating Starcraft II Unit design from Concept to Creation. Bashiok (Diablo Community Manager) interviewed Senior Character Artist Anthony Rivero who discusses Diablo character design. Don’t forget to read the fans Q&A at the end.

Support BlizzCast 6 and download it.

Thanks, Handclaw

Blizzard has released a sneak preview (PDF) of the upcoming World of Warcraft # 13. The comic book is just getting better and better. Lady Prestor has been unmasked by King Varian Wrynn to be Onyxia, who escapes Stormwind with a treasure on her paws: Anduin. Varian must reach Theramore to rescue his son. This new story arc will reveal exactly what the impostor duplicate of Varian really is.  Is he a black dragon? Is he from an alternate reality?  Or even worse ... was Varian magically split into two personas? From what it looks the kindness of Varian was split into the impostor, while the bravery and cockiness of Varian was split into who we know as Lo’gosh.  Only time will tell ... grab your copy to find out. And don’t forget ... Garona will make her first appearance in the comic book. Check out the sneak peek preview.

	Blizzard Quote:
	Hitting stores this week, the penultimate chapter to our first major comic arc sees our heroes heading off to Theramore Island to resolve the damage done by the evil usurper of the throne. Check out the preview pages for yourself. If you like what you see, you can visit Wildstorm for more information, locate a nearby comic store, or subscribe to the series directly. Also be sure to check out World of Warcraft: Volume 1, a hardcover collection of issues #0 through #7. It’s on shelves and available online now at all major comic retailers.

We got our hands on a copy of Bradygames’ new Official Strategy Guide to Wrath of the Lich King, and have written up a review for you to check out. These are the same people that made one for the Original World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade, so they know their stuff.

It’s packed with some really helpful info, for new players as well as old, so if you haven’t got into WotLK yet and you’d like some tips, or even if you’re just interested on reading up on the expansion and all the goodies that came with it like Achievements, new content, new spells & talents, the Death Knight, you might like to see:

• Full listings of Achievement
• Every Spell and Talent for every class
• Maps of all new zones
• Instance guides
  

and much more, check out our review! 

Submitted By Snodge:
Among the plethora of reviews now starting to make their appearance, Eurogamer’s 3 page review of WotLK stands out:

Wrath of the Lich King takes the best-of-breed MMO and improves everything about it. It’s a work of supreme confidence and quality that is twice as fun and ten times as beautiful as classic WOW, not to mention anything else in the genre. But above all else - in the breathtaking sweep of Northrend, in the assured, epic storytelling, in the constellation of brilliant quests - it is a grand adventure. Perhaps the grandest adventure in all gaming. In every sense, Azeroth is still the place to be.

From what I have personally seen of WotLK, I can totally agree with their conclusion!

Championship Gaming Series has announced that after only two seasons, it will be shutting down with immediate effect due to lack of profitability. The company presented eSports on TV and included coverage for many games such as Dead or Alive 4 and Counter-Strike, as well as WoW Arena tournaments. Thanks IncGamers.

Read the full statement from their website after the break.

When the newly-combined Nihilum and SK Gaming cleared Naxx 25 and Malygos over the weekend, it prompted many questions from the community about the difficulty level of Lich King; is it just too easy now?

Blue poster Zarhym responded to some of the concerns on the official forums:

	Blizzard Quote: (Source)
	Q u o t e: I understand wanting to make something more available to the general public, but i thought that was why the 10/25 man versions were made available for all raids. You are correct about the 10/25 man versions of raid dungeons being added to allow for more accessibility of the general population. That said, I think you draw an incomplete conclusion when you use the fact that the current 25 man dungeons have been cleared by the top guilds in the world to argue we’ve made this content a little too accessible to the general public. Q u o t e: I must admit, I love what you’ve done with WotLK, but it was extremely disappointing to see that all raid content was cleared by a nihilum/SK guild in 3 days. Keep in mind that guilds like this are comprised of people who have bested every raid encounter we’ve released since Onyxia and Molten Core. They’ve made it a focus for years now to conquer every piece of PvE content we put out there, and do it first. Knowledge, experience, and teamwork are built rapidly when struggling through so many different boss encounters. Now, I’m not arguing that the raid content is any easier or harder than in the past. I’ve not done any of the 25 man raids yet. I do get the feeling though that the majority of the people I’ve seen on the forums specifically arguing that the content is too easy, based on the performance or opinions of the top guilds of the world, have not experienced the content either. Is it possible you will draw the same conclusion when you’ve cleared every 25 man encounter through Arthas (when his time comes)? Of course. When your intuitions grow into experience after you’ve made such accomplishments you’ll have better ground from which to justify your disappointment. Of course we’re monitoring your feedback and experiencing the content ourselves. I reiterate that we’ll always consider adjusting content for greater ease or difficulty if we feel it is necessary to maintain a fun and rewarding game.

Apologies to all fans who got to read the news alert a few weeks ago. Richard A. Knaak has informed me that he is not the author of World of Warcraft: Deathknight. Amazon is now listing this book to be written by Dan Jolley. I considered necessary to post this as my role in the community is to inform, rather than to misinform.

I have seen a few wiki entries that used Blizzplanet as source. So it’s my responsibility to correct the previous misinformation. Make your updates accordingly. I did not reach Richard A. Knaak until now about the book. Originally, I saw it freshly listed over at Amazon. Knaak does have an upcoming manga about a mage, but not much can be said at the moment until the script is approved by Tokyopop and Blizzard.

Author: Dan Jolley
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: TokyoPop (July 6, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1427814961
ISBN-13: 978-1427814968

So let’s learn some stuff about Dan Jolley. He was voted Best Horror Comic of 2001 by Wizard Magazine for the limited series: Obergeist.  He was nominated for an Eisner Award on 2003 for writing the JSA: The Unholy Three limited series. A novel based in the sci-fi shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: IRON MAN: Teen Novelization (based on the 2008 film), STAR TREK S.C.E. - Some Assembly Required, Firestorm (DC Comics); Dr. Strange: The Flight of Bones (four-issue mini-series, Marvel Comics,1999); JSA: The Liberty File; Sabretooth: Mary Shelley Overdrive (four-issue mini-series, Marvel Comics 2002); Vampirella: The Choir in the Mist (2004); Warcraft Legends # 1 (World of Warcraft: How to Win Friends, short story). And a few Tokyopop mangas: Alex Unlimited, HarperCollins, The Warriors Series (The Lost Warrior, Warrior’s Refuge, Warrior’s Return).

Below are some of his comments based on his experience as a World of Warcraft player with two level 70 characters ...

World of Warcraft: Night of the Dragon by Richard A. Knaak is finally on sale at a bookstore near you. The events in this book will fit as an intro to World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

Grim Batol: its dark legacy stretches back into the mists of Azeroth’s past. But most know it as the site of a terrible tragedy—where the vile orcs corrupted the hatchlings of the noble Dragonqueen, Alexstrasza, and used them as weapons of war. Though a band of heroes, led by the enigmatic mage, Krasus, defeated the orcs and freed the captive dragons, the cursed mountain stands as another ravaged landmark within the…

WORLD OF WARCRAFT

But now Krasus—known to some as the red dragon Korialstrasz—senses the malice of Grim Batol rising once more to threaten those he holds dear. Determined this time to confront this evil by himself, he is unaware of the quests that will draw others to Grim Batol and reveal the monstrous truth that could not only herald their deaths, but usher in a terrible new age of darkness and destruction.

Good news for Russian players who play on non-Russian servers:

	Blizzard Quote: (Source)
	We are aware that many of our Russian speaking players, European account owners, upgrading to World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King have purchased the retail boxes that only work with Russian accounts. Therefore, we have decided to make the European to Russian account conversion process available again until 16 December (inclusive). http://www.wow-europe.com/migration/account-migration.html However players that would like to keep their European accounts will be able to contact our Billing team(http://eu.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=23210) to arrange this. For all the details, please refer to the forums here: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=6848316238&sid=5 You should transfer your characters before converting your account. Thus, the free character migration(http://www.wow-europe.com/migration/) from European to Russian realms has also been extended until 16 December. Please check our character migration FAQ for further information: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/faq/russianmigration.html

Bastion of English journalism, The Sun newspaper has a feature today on women who have lost their men to online games, and WoW is the central theme. Support group The WoW Widows claim that WoW and other online games are responsible for the break up of hundreds of couples, and that Relate have started training counsellors to deal with online gaming addiction.

“It feels like he is two-timing me… only with a computer”

The article follows the stories of three couples, but it’s the same deal with all of them; wife wants more time from hubby, hubby likes gaming. In all 3 cases, the women have learned to deal with their partners’ gaming habits. The usual excuses come out, like
“At least by staying in I’m helping us to save some money. If I’m spending all night on the computer it’s not like I can spend all our money in the pub.”. But should these guys get off their backsides and spend more time with their neglected partners, or are they justified in playing a few hours a night as long as they’ve done their fair share of house work?

We all expected Lich King to do well it the charts, and it hasn’t let anyone down. It’s top of the PC sales charts in the US and UK, and it’s also made an impressive 2nd place on the cross platform UK charts, as reported by IncGamers. Read more in their article:

• 1. CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR
• 2. WORLD OF WARCRAFT: WRATH OF LICH KING
• 3. FOOTBALL MANAGER
• 4. GEARS OF WAR 2
• 5. FIFA 09
• 6. GUITAR HERO: WORLD TOUR
• 7. PROFESSOR LAYTON AND THE CURIOUS VILLAGE
• 8. MARIO KART WII
• 9. PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER 2009
• 10. WWE SMACKDOWN VS RAW