World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Collector's Edition Announced

An exclusive in-game pet, art book, mouse pad and trading cards are among the goodies that will be included in "limited-release" Collector's Edition of World of Warcraft's expansion pack Cataclysm, Blizzard has announced.

The retail-exclusive edition will be released in both Windows and Mac flavours, and run you $79.99. Blizzard promises to announce a release date "in the months ahead" to update the broad "back half of 2010" release window given in February.

The Collector's Edition full list of fancy features and perks follows.

• 'Art of the Cataclysm' art book, featuring 176 pages of never-before-seen images from the archives of the Blizzard Entertainment cinematics department and the World of Warcraft development team, as well as progressive visuals from multiple stages of development.

• Exclusive in-game pet: he may not be a breaker of worlds just yet, but Lil' Deathwing will still proudly accompany heroes on their struggle to save Azeroth from his much, much larger counterpart.

• Behind-the-scenes DVD with over an hour of developer interviews and commentaries, as well as a special Warcraft retrospective examining the rich gaming history of the Warcraft universe.

• Soundtrack featuring 10 epic new tracks from Cataclysm, including exclusive bonus tracks.

• Special-edition mouse pad depicting Deathwing menacing the ravaged continents of Azeroth.

• World of Warcraft Trading Card Game cards, including a 60-card starter deck from the Wrathgate series, two extended-art cards, and two Collector's Edition-exclusive hero cards, marking the first appearance of goblin and worgen heroes in the TCG.