Blizzard is preparing "a new service" that will allow World of Warcraft players to change their character's faction from Alliance to Horde or vice versa, the developer has revealed.

"The basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm," the studio wrote, noting "there's still much work to do and many details to iron out."

"Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we're pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it," Blizzard added, explaining:

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won't disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules... Read more

Blizzard has revealed that the upcoming "Call of the Crusade" content patch for World of Warcraft will deliver a new player-versus-player battleground capable of supporting up to 80 combatants in the "ongoing struggle between Horde and Alliance."

Of the five battlegrounds currently in Blizzard's ultra-popular PC MMO, only one other--Alterac Valley--supports up to 80 players. The remaining four max out at 30 or below.

Making use of "devastating siege weaponry on the field," the new "Isle of Conquest" battleground will see two teams of up to 40 players each attempt to capture various points on the map as they fight to bring down their opponent's keep and general.

While Blizzard has yet to state when the patch can be expected, the developer did offer a breakdown of the capture locations and objectives found... Read more

The next major World of Wacraft patch will bring a new look for the animalistic Druid class in the form of texture options for its cat and bear forms.

"There will be five different designs for each of these forms for the Horde and Alliance," writes Blizzard. The company plans to introduce out the new designs in four screenshot installments, the first of which highlights the five new textures for the tauren bear form (seen left).

The looks will correspond to the nigh elves' hair color and the skin tone of tauren. The cow-like race will soon be able to change their skin tone at barbershops.

"Work continues on new looks for the remaining druid forms and we hope to add them in future content patches," added Blizzard.

Blizzard today updated its ever-popular MMO World of Warcraft to 3.1.2, adding a new equipment manager that allows players to easily toy with their loot, in addition to various class tweaks.

Grab the patch on FileShack for the US, UK or German editions.

For the full patch notes, click through:... Read more

Rolling its weekly charts into one monthly bundle, sales-tracking firm NPD has compiled a list of the 20 best-selling PC games at US retailers during March 2009.

As seen below, Empire: Total War has ended Lich King's four month-long reign of the monthly charts, with the Diablo and StarCraft Battle Chests continuing to hold ground.

1. Empire: Total War / Creative Assembly / $48
2. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King / Blizzard / $38
3. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $19
4. Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II / Relic / $48
5. World Of Warcraft Battle Chest / Blizzard / $38
6. World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $20
7. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Exp. Pack / EA Maxis / $19... Read more

Now available over on FileShack is the 3.0.9 to 3.1.0 World of Warcraft patch.

This latest update to Blizzard's monstrously successful MMORPG adds Ulduar, a new dungeon where you'll fell Titans and their metal minions, as this story trailer explains.

Please install Flash to view this Shackvideo

Blizzard dedicates the patch to the memory of D&D co-creator Dave Arneson.

Switching between skill builds is simplified by the arrival of dual talent specialization, dungeons finally have maps, and the Argent Tournament kicks off. All these changes and more follow in the ginormous full patch notes below... Read more

A new Nielsen report on PC and console game usage estimates that a surprising number of female World of Warcraft characters may in fact be played by real females.

In a chart comparing the PC game usage of females and males aged 25-54, World of Warcraft was the most-played "core" game for females, with over 428,621 unique female players estimated in December 2008.

The statistic is even more impressive when considering that an estimated 675,713 unique male players of the same age group logged into World of Warcraft during the period, indicating that the WoW gender gap may not be as large as some imagine.

To cull the numbers, Nielsen uses a software meter to measure game usage on 184,000 PCs worldwide. The metric program is capable of tracking over 1,700 PC games, according to the company.

The largest block of PC game players in general were females 25 years of age and older, though casual games such as Solitaire largely contributed to the bump in stats.

Animal rights group PETA is using World of Warcraft to launch a new propaganda campaign against Canadian seal hunters.

The campaign draws a parallel between the in-game slaughter of seals by Horde characters and the real-life hunting of seals in Canada.

"Thrall refused to ban the slaughter of seals, despite multiple requests from the Alliance to do so, because Orgrimmar stands to make a large profit from the fur," writes PETA on its blog.

To stop the seal slaughter, the group is of course staging a violent assault on the game's seal-populated Howling Fjord zone. A short piece of machinima was also produced to get the word out:

Please install Flash to view this Shackvideo

Former World of Warcraft lead designer and current next-gen Blizzard MMO director Jeffrey Kaplan today detailed a behind-the-scenes system of drop percentages secretly added in the WoW expansion Wrath of the Lich King.

The system, called "progressive percentages," was cribbed directly from Blizzard's own Warcraft 3, which used it for critical hit mechanics. It relates to how and when quest items drop from creatures--an important issue to all WoW players.

Originally, Blizzard settled on a standard WoW quest item drop rate of around 35%, with no system in place that would tweak the percentage as players killed more enemies.

"We found that this had a lot of problems where players would run into streaks, and they only remembered the shitty streaks," said Kaplan. "So what we decided... Read more

Blizzard has released a preview trailer for Ulduar, the new dungeon included in the anticipated World of Warcraft 3.1 patch.

Please install Flash to view this Shackvideo

Shackvideo users can use the HD Stream.

Check out the full 3.1 test patch notes below the fold:... Read more

World of Warcraft developer Blizzard has unveiled the next major addition to its successful PC MMO, the Ulduar dungeon, which will arrive via the 3.1 patch.

Available to those players with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, Ulduar is described as the game's "most ambitious raid to date." It kicks off with players utilizing a fleet of siege vehicles to face off against a "massive iron army" before encountering the Flame Leviathan tank, a boss that requires combatants to rely on those siege vehicles.

In all, the dungeon will pack 14 bosses, with 11 of those having an optional hard mode that will provide additional challenge and rewards. Blizzard promises that Ulduar has a wide appeal to a variety of play styles and "has great longevity and high replay value."

The 3.1 patch and Ulduar dungeon are said to hit the public test realms "very soon." No information is available as to when the patch will go live for the rest of the realms.

By far one of the more interesting updates coming to Blizzard's World of Warcraft, dual talent specialization has now been thoroughly outlined by Warcraft developers in an official question and answer session.

Set for inclusion in the next patch, dual talent speccing will allow players to easily switch between two separate talent specs, hotbar and glyph setups. Level 80 characters will be able to gain the ability by paying a one-time training fee.

Once trained, the talent specs can be freely switched between at any Lexicons of Power. The lexicons will be available in major cities, and inscribers will be able to create an item that summons one. A new "Gear Manager" will allow players to easily switch between sets of talent-matching items.

"We will be launching the feature with just two specs, but depending on how we feel it works out, we might consider additional specs in the future," added Warcraft senior designer Greg Street.

The six people that play World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade and have not yet upgraded to the newest Lich King expansion now have the opportunity to sample the fresh content in a 10-day free trial.

An active Burning Crusade account is required for the trial. Users will also want to have a level 55 characters or above in order to experience the Death Knight class, or have a level 68 character in order to survive Northrend.

The free trial signup page can be found on Blizzard's official website, along with a trial FAQ.

The next World of Warcraft patch notes have been applied to the game's test realm, revealing a multitude of changes to the Dark Knight hero class.

The notes, available on the official WoW site, show that Blizzard is soon planning to allow players to create Death Knights on any server, regardless of where the requisite level 55 character resides.

A number of other significant changes to Death Knights, and the game at large, are included. Most amusingly, the patch removes racial restrictions for all mounts: "Night elves on mechanostriders? Tauren on raptors? You're not seeing things."

For fans looking forward to dual talent specs, Blizzard is still planning to include the much-anticipated feature the next major Warcraft update, according to a post on the game's official forums.

"We hope to have this done for the next major content patch, but it's a big feature and takes some time," said Blizzard rep Ghostcrawler in a recent forum post.

A Federal Communications Commissioner has said that online gaming addiction is a "top reason" for college drop-outs, using World of Warcraft as an example in a recent speech to the Practicing Law Institute.

"You might find it alarming that one of the top reasons for college drop-outs in the U.S. is online gaming addiction--such as World of Warcraft--which is played by 11 million individuals worldwide," said the FCC's Deborah Taylor Tate, according to GamePolitics.

Tate prefaced her gaming-related comment by declaring: "With the explosion of educational resources available online, one might think parents would be 100% pleased with the internet's role in their children's lives. But a late 2006 survey that showed 59% of parents think the internet has been a totally positive influence in their children's lives--down from 67% in 2004."

GamePolitics notes that the connection between World of Warcraft and college drop-out rates has been made before, not to mention this week. A Sunday report in the Duluth News-Tribune quotes a University... Read more

It's an undeadly sort of week for NPD's PC gaming sales chart, with Blizzard's World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and Valve's Left 4 Dead taking the top spots on the US list for the week of November 16-22.

Sadly, PC juggernaut Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy has finally fallen from the chart, replaced by the Spore and Fallout 3-beating EverQuest II expansion The Shadow Odyssey.

1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King / Blizzard / $40 (average)
2. Left 4 Dead / Valve / $46 (average)
3. Call Of Duty: World At War / Treyarch / $50 (average)
4. The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff / EA Maxis / $18 (average)
5. EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey / Sony Online Ent. / $50 (average)
6. Spore / EA Maxis / $49 (average)
7. Fallout 3 / Bethesda / $50 (average)
8. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $20 (average)
9. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collectors Ed / Blizzard / $69 (average)
10. The Sims 2 Apartment Life / EA Maxis / $20 (average)

Blizzard announced today that its second World of Warcraft expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, sold over 2.8 million copies during its first day on store shelves, causing the company to declare it "the fastest-selling PC game of all time."

According to Blizzard, that feat was previously held by the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, which launched in January 2007 and sold 2.4 million copies day one.

Adding the frozen continent of Northrend, the Death Knight Hero class, an increased level cap and other new content to the MMO, Lich King hit November 13.

Released in 2004, World of Warcraft currently has over 11 million subscribers.

The second expansion pack to the number one game on the planet has been released.

Yes, Wrath of the Lich Kingfinally hit stores tonight, after a year of anticipation, a lengthy beta period, a cool introduction, a scripted attack, and many conflicted feelings.

While I don't have the time to play MMOs much anymore, I did spend a good while in the Lich King beta, and I was pretty impressed. The Death Knight class was a lot of fun, and the new talents were similarly entertaining. Northrend is also generally more interesting to explore than Outland--though I still think Blizzard is having a hard time topping the freshness of the original zones.

What are your release plans? Who's taking the day off? Remember to be discreet.

A world event has been triggered in Blizzard's World of Warcraft, with various scripted events providing a prelude to Thursday's Wrath of the Lich King expansion release.

The orc capital of Orgrimmar is currently under attack by the Lich King's Scourge forces in an event that repeats every 20-30 minutes.

After the forces are beaten back, Thrall and Garrosh Hellscream have a disagreement over whether to invade the Lich King's home of Northrend. Thrall urges prudence, while Garrosh advises an immediate assault. The argument grows heated, and the two eventually do battle, Garrosh nearly winning before The Herald of the Lich King announces another attack.

Reports also show that Stormwind Harbor is under attack, with King Varian Wrynn and others putting up a defense.

Click through for a short video of the invasion.... Read more

Much like it did for The Burning Crusade, Activision Blizzard today announced special midnight signing events for the launch of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

Though many stores are expected to open at midnight, Blizzard Entertainment developers and executives will be at four locations -- found at the end of this story -- on November 13 to sign players' copies of the expansion pack. These stores will also have more copies of the Collector's Edition.

Europeans will not be left out, as Blizzard team members will also head to Paris, London, Stockholm, Berlin, Madrid and Rotterdam. Details of those launch events will follow at wow-europe.com.

Click through for the North American midnight signing event locations... Read more