Over on the official World of Warcraft forums Blizzard officially launched a new section in its online store for buying in-game pets. Two new pets accompany the grand opening. The Pandaren Monk (pictured below on left) sporting a handy hip flask bows in return to any player gracious enough to bow to him. You can also feel good about your purchase because Blizzard will donate half the proceeds from every Pandaren Monk purchased to the Make-a-Wish foundation through December 31, 2009.

The other new pet, Lil' K.T. (pictured above on right), doesn't make a charitable donation, but then I suppose that would be out of character for a mini-lich. His description sounds a little more active, though, freezing the little critters that scurry about and mocking PvP foes you take down.

In the official pet store faq Blizzard explains that they created this new service based on customer request. At $10 a piece, at least for these first two pets, there's certainly ample financial motivation as well. They also confirmed that more pets will be available in the near future. Knowing how excited players have gotten about previous special pets it's easy to see this becoming the new Pokemon -- Gotta' Catch Buy 'Em All!

A Chinese regulatory authority has ordered World of Warcraft's Chinese licensing partner NetEase to cease operating Blizzard's MMORPG in the country, Reuters reports, though it is yet unclear what will happen or whether it has the authority to do so.

The General Administration of Press and Publication's order that NetEase suspend account signups and cease charging is due to the firm collecting fees and allowing registrations during an open beta which began in July, according to Times Live.

The beta ran when NetEase took over from previous licensee The9 and was awaiting approval for the relaunch from the Ministry of Culture--a separate entity which recently took over aspects of online game regulation from GAPP. Blizzard ultimately had to institute several changes--including replacing dead players' skeletons with sandbags and red blood with black--before World of Warcraft relaunched in China in September.

"The chaos is mainly due to the vague demarcation of responsibilities between GAPP and the Ministry of Culture," said Chinese analyst Liu Ning. "It is not yet certain what will happen--to be honest, it depends on who will finally win: GAPP or the culture ministry."

World of Warcraft has been updated once again, with v3.2.2--the latest patch for Blizzard's insanely successful online role-playing game--now available from FileShack.

The update brings the return of fire-breathing boss Onyxia, who has now been "scaled to offer new challenges to level 80 players in 10- and 25-player modes." Loot gained from her demise has been upgraded as well, including a very rare 310%-speed mount.

Numerous bug fixes and balance tweaks are also included... Read more

No longer will the choice between Horde and Alliance be so daunting, as Blizzard today launched a service to let World of Warcraft players change their character's faction.

"Each Faction Change costs $30.00 USD (not including applicable taxes)," the company explained in an FAQ. This covers a single Faction Change for a single character."

The process, which is available through one's Account Management page, allows players to select their new race from those available to their class and faction. Those who want to switch races, but not factions, will have to wait a bit longer, as Blizzard further noted that it "will be releasing a Race Change service in the near future for this purpose."

Update: Screenshots and the announcement trailer are viewable here.

Blizzard today announced a new World of Warcraft expansion dubbed "Cataclysm" during the opening ceremony at its BlizzCon convention.

Rumors of a world-changing expansion proved true, with Cataclysm seeing a chaotic revamp of existing Azeroth zones.

"As the terrible war against the Lich King continues, the proud defenders of Azeroth fight to secure a lasting peace," said the trailer. "But there can be no peace when the world itself is devoured by rage."

Goblins were confirmed as the new Horde race, while the werewolf-esque Worgen were announced for the Alliance. New race and class combinations were promised, as were heroic versions of classic dungeons such as Deadmines. Dragon boss Deathwing will return, and the new level cap will be to 85. Cataclysm is targeted for... Read more

Beginning the BlizzCon blitz early, Future Publishing and Blizzard today announced they are to release a quarterly magazine based upon smash hit MMORPG World of Warcraft.

"Each collectable issue will be packed with engaging, entertaining and comprehensive articles that cover all aspects of World of Warcraft through insider insights and player perspectives," says the publisher of such magazines as Edge and Simply Knitting.

"A panel of international journalists" will contribute to WoW: The Mag, led by industry veteran Julian Rignall and former Official Xbox Magazine senior editor Dan Amrich.

The magazine's 148-page first issue will, among other articles, commemorate the MMORPG's fifth anniversary with looks to its past and future, and offer Ulduar raid tips.

The ad-free magazine will be available by subscription only, with one year costing $39.95 (34.95 EUR, 29.95 GBP) while two will run you $69.95 (61.25 EUR, 52.50 GBP).

Once-dreaded World of Warcraft raid boss Onyxia will return in revamped form as part of celebrations for the MMORPG's upcoming fifth anniversary, Blizzard has revealed.

Having lain near-dormant since WoW's two expansions made it a cakewalk, Onyxia's dungeon will be permanently converted to a 10-player normal raid and 25-player Heroic, scaled up and revamped to present a challenge to today's tricked-out level 80 heroes.

"We will also be updating the encounter mechanics to be more fitting for modern raiding," says Blizzard, "but we can guarantee players will get to experience the frightening horror of deep breaths once again."

New items will be added using the same models as vintage Onyxia loot for that classic 2005 look, as well as a 310% speed Onyxia Broodling flying mount.

As a bonus, all players who login during "a limited time" after the anniversary event begins in November will receive a special Onyxia Brood Whelping pet.

Following six weeks of downtime as World of Warcraft transitions to a new Chinese operator, the game has finally returned to service with an open beta. But players are now noticing many alterations made to the MMO, changes mandated by Chinese regulators during the downtime.

The edits include replacing piles of bones with sandbags, and changing the color of blood from red to black--reportedly leading one Chinese player to joke that his Orc character now has oil running through his veins.

Blizzard is currently moving the game from previous WoW China operator The9 to NetEase. In the process, the General Administration of Press and Publication division of the Chinese government provided Blizzard with "content adjustment suggestions," the results of which can be seen above.

Mature content in videogames is apparently a sensitive topic in China due to the lack of a traditional ratings system. Gamasutra has a rundown on the story, collating reports from MMOSite and China Tech News.

The latest patch for World of Warcraft, v3.2.0, can now be found on FileShack. The update brings with the new 80-person PvP "Isle of Conquest," new looks for the druid's various animal forms, changes to flying mounts, and much much more:

Call of the Crusade

• Since the opening of the Argent Tournament in northeastern Icecrown, adventurers have journeyed from across Azeroth and beyond to prove their worth in the heart of the Lich King's domain. Under thundering skies the tournament's participants... Read more

World of Warcraft has netted 8.6 million sales across its various releases, expansion packs and bundles from US retail, according to NPD data provided to Gamasutra.

The figure includes the base edition of World of Warcraft, the Collector's Edition, its two expansions The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, and Battle Chest bundle.

Dabbling in speculation and presuming an average selling price of $30, Gamasutra calculates that the Blizzard MMORPG's retail sales could come to a grand $258 million.

Update: Blizzard has confirmed that Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Spider-Man, Drag Me To Hell) will indeed direct the impending Warcraft film.

"Raimi has, in the course of his career, clearly demonstrated a genius for developing and adapting existing fictional universes for mainstream audiences while staying true to the spirit of the original content," Blizzard stated in a press release.

"At its core, Warcraft is a fantastic, action-packed story," Raimi added. "I am thrilled to work with such a dynamite production team to bring this project to the big screen."

The Dark Knight and 12 Monkeys producer Charles Roven has signed on to produce the film alongside his production partner Alex Gartner, Legendary... Read more

Blizzard today released a free iPhone and iPod Touch application for World of Warcraft's Armory database and character manager, available now in the iTunes App Store.

Mobile Armory allows addicts to easily peruse their characters' items, talents, calendars and more even when their shattered families manage to tear them away from the PC.

More information and a demonstration video are over on the Mobile Armory website.

Now available on FileShack is Peggle: World of Warcraft edition, a free stand-alone edition of PopCap's popular peg-pinging puzzler themed around the Blizzard MMORPG.

The 13MB download contains ten new levels starring World of Warcraft allumni including Ragnaros and the infamous Hogger himself, as well as ten new challenges.

This dangerous melding of addictions began last year with a Bejeweled add-on for World of Warcraft last year and continued with a Peggle add-on for the MMO.

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

Continuing its tradition of providing BlizzCon attendees with an exclusive World of Warcraft item, Blizzard has unveiled this year's bonus.

Grunty the murloc marine, pictured left, will be available out to all those that either attend BlizzCon 09 or watch it via pay per view.

"This tiny terror is fully armored and comes equipped with a gauss rifle, which he'll occasionally fire into the air to make sure no invisible spacecraft are swooping in to attack," Blizzard says of Grunty and his StarCraft-inspired stylings.

Tickets for this year's BlizzCon, occurring on August 21 and 22 at the Anaheim Convention Center, go on sale via the BlizzCon site this Saturday, May 16, at $125 a pop. A second batch of tickets debut May 30, with DirectTV offering the ability to watch the festivities live from either a television or internet-connected computer for $40.

PopCap today announced the release of its popular casual game Peggle as free add-on for World of Warcraft.

Strangely enough, the Peggle port is rather impressive, including WoW-themed backgrounds and a custom "talent tree" to spec out your Peggle skills.

Also provided is a new "/peggleloot" option, which allows players to "roll" for loot based on the best Peggle shot--a feature truly reinforcing the random nature of Peggle.

Both the Peggle and Bejeweled World of Warcraft add-ons can be grabbed from FileShack.

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

Not content with pimping your epic mount? Blizzard Entertainment had another World of Warcraft-related April Fools' gag up its sleeve: the PvP Dance Battle System.

"As with the Arena system, close communication and teamwork is crucial--you'll have to be in sync, both with the music as well as with the other members of your crew, to become the 'server' and not the 'servee,'" cautioned Blizzard.

Please install Flash to view this Shackvideo

Esteemed developer Blizzard Entertainment kicked off April Fools' Day with word that World of Warcraft may soon add a new "Pimp My Mount" customization feature. "Tired of your mount looking like every other raptor, wolf, horse, kodo, or nightsaber out there? Then Z to the A to the zzber (whew, that's a mouthful!) will be glad to welcome you to his shop where you can epic-ize your mount with some phat total pimpage!"

Given that Blizzard has a rich history of embracing April Fools' Day, let's chalk this one up to a celebration of the holiday. But it is World of Warcraft, so you never really know...