Crave

The inside of the 'Wrath of the Lich King' retail box teases players with a challenge. The expansion to the hugely popular 'World of Warcraft' goes on sale tonight at midnight.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

For World of Warcraft players who over the years have grown accustomed to seeing busy in-world auction houses, the last few weeks may have seemed odd.

Normally bustling with players eager to buy or sell weapons, clothing, armor, or other goods, business at the auction houses has recently slowed to a crawl. But it's not because of the global economic crisis.

Rather, say WoW aficionados, players have been hoarding their gold in anticipation of the release Thursday of the game's latest expansion, , and holding off on buying items that would soon be obsolete.

This is just one example of players of the hugely popular massively multiplayer online game behaving differently as Lich King's release approaches.

The game will go on sale nationwide after midnight (12 a.m.) Thursday, and retail stores expect lines across the country.

(Credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

Wassup StarCraft fans?!! That was my Brian Tong impression. Spot on, no? Anyway, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that StarCraft II is shaping up to be a much more ambitious product than Blizzard Entertainment had originally conceived, and the company is going to be forced to delay parts of the game.

The good news is that instead of waiting until everything in the game is complete, Blizzard is splitting the game into a trilogy--each focusing on a different StarCraft race.

The first game in the series--Wings of Liberty--will focus on the Terrans. The second game, Heart of the Swarm, will focus on the Zerg, while the final game, Legacy of the Void, will be devoted to the Protoss.

According to Blizzard, each release will be a fully fledged campaign, featuring 26 to 30 missions apiece with a branching storyline that will change depending on players' choices. Each release in the trilogy will also feature the multiplayer portion, with all three races playable and balanced, according to Blizzard.

Although Activision claims the game will be released in 2009, like all Blizzard Entertainment games expect it "when it's done." Which conceivably could be 2010.

When we at Crave UK are not mua-ha-ha-ing at each other, dreaming of world domination, we like to make new things.

But before we go off and get too excited about anything new, we like to ask people what they think of it first. So the very sharpest brains in the business--at CBS Interactive, our owner--have selected you, the humble Crave reader, as the ideal demographic to offer your respected opinions on this latest wheeze to come out of the corporate megalith.

It's a show all about World of Warcraft--you know, that game where you can pretend to be a dwarf and make shoes for a living. Or something.

This is the pilot episode, so we're looking for comments and suggestions. What do you think of the idea? Did it make you laugh? Did it cover the right sort of things? Anything else you'd like to add? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Any help or advice you could give us would be very much appreciated. We'll love you always--honest.

(Credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

As a part of my morning routine, I do a little Web surfing before leaving the house. One of the pages I read is Wowhead.com, a World of Warcraft database. When I opened the page Monday morning, instead of the usual plain black background, I was treated to a Wrath of the Lich King graphic. In oversize font at the bottom of the page were the letters "In Stores 11.13.08."

After taking a second to confirm that today was not April 1, I quickly went to the official WoW page and, sure enough, there was the announcement that the game would be in U.S. stores on November 13, 2008.

On that same date, Blizzard Entertainment will also release the game in Europe, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Russia. On November 14, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand will get the game. On November 18, the game comes to Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Blizzard added that information on Wrath of the Lich King's debut in China would be released later.

About two weeks ago, the company announced that it would be releasing a "prepatch" for the current version of WoW, to bridge the gap between it and the expansion. No word yet on when this patch will be released; however, Blizzard commenced public testing on it this past weekend.

The expansion will be offered in two packages: a standard edition for $39.99 and for all the uber-geeks, like me, whose money is apparently burning a hole in their pocket even as the economy as we know it is collapsing before our eyes, the Collector's Edition for $69.99.

The Collector's Edition includes the following:

• The Art of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, a 208-page book featuring never-before-seen images from the game.
• An exclusive in-game pet: Frosty, the baby frost wyrm.
• A behind-the-scenes DVD containing more than an hour of developer interviews, the Wrath of the Lich King introduction cinematic with director's commentary and more.
• The official soundtrack CD, containing 21 epic tracks from the game, along with exclusive bonus tracks.
• A mouse pad featuring a map of the newly opened continent of Northrend.
• Two World of Warcraft Trading Card Game March of the Legion, starter decks, along with two exclusive cards available only in the Collector's Edition.

Well there you have it. Confirmation on when we can expect the lives of 10 million people the world over to come to a screeching halt. Now, to put in that vacation time request...

The Death Knight in all his overpowered glory.

(Credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

Hot on the heels of its new expansion's cinematic debut last week, Blizzard Entertainment on Monday announced that it will release a World of Warcraft patch "in coming weeks" that will include features from its second expansion Wrath of the Lich King. Blizzard said the patch is designed to "bridge current game content with that of the expansion."

Among the additions players should expect:

New talents and spells for existing classes
The implementation of barber shops for players
Two new arenas featuring more dynamic terrain than previous arenas
Guild calendar
The hunter pet skill revamp
A new profession: inscription

Blizzard said these are just some of the major highlights.

Blizzard did something similar in late 2006, before the release of the first expansion The Burning Crusade, when it allowed players to access new talents for their current characters. That expansion included two new races that were not available in the "prepatch." Here's hoping, however, that it finds it in itself to release the new Death Knight class in the forthcoming prepatch. This would at least give new Death Knight players some time to level and learn the ins and out of the class.

Blizzard Entertainment has recently opened up the beta for its forthcoming expansion to 'World of Warcraft,' 'The Wrath of the Lich King.' According to people familiar with the beta, the expansion offers some big improvements and appears likely to sell millions of copies.

(Credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

Since its launch in the fall of 2004, Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft has shattered expectations at every turn.

Prior to its release, no American massively multiplayer online game (MMO) had ever reached what was then seen as the magical million subscribers level--even major hits like EverQuest and Ultima Online. Yet almost before anyone could blink, WoW, as it's known, had surpassed 4 million paying users and now has more than 10 million worldwide, and at $15 a month for most users, it may well be bringing in more than $1 billion a year.

Then, prior to the January 2007 release of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, no one had ever heard of the kind of nationwide midnight madness lines associated with iPhone and Xbox launches for a game expansion. Sure enough, however, people lined up at game stores everywhere for hours for the right to be among the very first to buy Burning Crusade, and the update went on to sell millions of copies.

And now, with the second major WoW expansion, The Wrath of the Lich King, in beta testing, Blizzard is getting ready to prove yet again that when it comes to American MMOs, it is the undisputed gold standard.

"It's just beautiful," said longtime WoW player and Lich King beta player Katrina Glerum. "The game really feels epic in a way that The Burning Crusade didn't....Burning Crusade felt like an extension of the (original) game. This really feels epic, and that you're part of something grand."

I woke up this morning to news that France's Vivendi has agreed to buy a controlling interest in Activision, perhaps creating the world's-largest independent video game company.

The new entity will be known as Activision Blizzard--a suitable name based on the fact that Activision has the best-known video game brand in the new company, but that Vivendi's Blizzard Entertainment unit also produces World of Warcraft, one of the most successful massively multiplayer online games of all time.

But what is not clear is whether the new company will be able to achieve something that is clearly part of Vivendi's rationale for making the $18.9 billion deal: to become the most visible video game company in the world.

For that, I think, it is still going to need to go through Redwood Shores, Calif., the home of Electronic Arts.

EA may have its problems, what with laid off employees, questions about its ability to create hit original games, and a stock price that had dropped into uncomfortable territory earlier this year before rebounding. But there can be little doubt that it is the best-known brand in the business.

Its games are everywhere: Madden, The Sims, Harry Potter, Need for Speed and so on. But more than that, I think that the name Electronic Arts, or the abbreviation, "EA," are short-hand in many people's minds for the video game industry.

Which isn't to say, of course, that neither Activision nor Vivendi nor Blizzard aren't household names in their own right.

But to me it's pretty certain that, in the United States, at least, EA is the far-better known brand, and will continue to be so for some time.

And in that regard, the new Activision will have to work very hard to associate its hit franchises--Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty and so on with its brand name in the same way EA's games are with it.

I'm sure that there are those who will argue with my assessment, or even the premise of this story, but when a company like Vivendi spends as much money to make a splash with a transaction like this, you can be sure it's not entirely about the bottom line. It's about perception.

And in this case, I think EA is still going to be top dog in the perception game for some time.

Especially if it decides to follow Vivendi's move by making a major purchase of its own.