WoW News

The Latin American Spanish version of World of Warcraft is gearing up for release and will be available for purchase starting next
Friday, July 25. See the press release and
FAQ for further details.

To celebrate the release, we’ll be holding a launch event in Plaza Satelite, a mall located in Estado de Mexico, on July 26 and 27.
We’ll have activities to participate in and prizes to win, and you’ll be able to meet members of our Latin American team and other
Blizzard Entertainment employees. For more details, please visit the event webpage.

If you’re new to World of Warcraft, we suggest checking out our Getting Started guide for more information on the game.

We’ve just released a preview of the achievement system, one of the many new features that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King will
introduce to the game. Player achievements will offer new challenges, satisfy goal-oriented players, allow others to see your accomplishments
in World of Warcraft – and are just plain fun.
Learn more about Wrath of the Lich King’s achievement system on our new player achievements preview page.

After several weeks of intense competition, the 2008 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament’s second qualification round has come to an end.
The qualifying teams from the second qualifier will join those from the first to face off in their respective regional finals. Regional
finals will be held in the coming months in Boston, Madrid, Seoul, and Taipei. For more information on the tournament, please visit our
Arena Tournament information page.
Thank you to all of the participants, and good luck to everyone who qualified for the regional finals!

The newest issue of the World of Warcraft comic book series from WildStorm will arrive in stores tomorrow, July 16. Lo’Gosh, Valeera, Broll, and Thargas make their way to Ironforge via a circuitous route through the Wetlands. And back in Stormwind, Prince Anduin suspects all is not as it seems with his father, King Varian. Check out the preview pages now. If you like what you see, you can visit Wildstorm for more information, locate a nearby comic store, or subscribe to the series directly.

Here is the next honorable mention from this month’s comic contest submissions.
Remember, the contest will go on all year long, so don’t miss your chance to win
a copy of the World of Warcraft Battle Chest signed by both Vice President of Creative Development Chris
Metzen and Art Director Chris Robinson, as well as a World of Warcraft 60 day pre-paid time card.

Keep those comics coming! Check out today’s honorable mention from Teerts.

Have a comic to submit? It’s not too late to enter the comic contest. Read the official rules, and submit your comics today!

We’re excited to announce that our planned team-up with Activision, first made public back in December 2007, is now a reality. All regulatory and shareholder approvals have been granted, meaning Blizzard Entertainment — along with the other companies that made up Vivendi Games — is now part of a new organization called Activision Blizzard.

While this transition doesn’t impact our games, websites, personnel, day-to-day operations, or development philosophies, the combined resources of Activision Blizzard will make it easier than ever for us to deliver the best games possible to our players around the world. For more information, please check out our Activision Blizzard FAQ.

Today the Blizzard booth opened for public at the IgroMir convention – a major event for all the Russian lovers of interactive entertainment. Many visitors came to us to check out the latest expansion of World of Warcraft – Wrath of the Lich King, which launches across Europe on November 13. Visitors were impressed by the new hero class, the Death Knight, and with all the inhabitants of Azeroth and Outland now speaking Russian.

Our Community Team also had prepared many fun events for the visitors. Apart from playing the Russian Wrath of the Lich King beta, attendees had an opportunity to take part in contests: a quiz contest based on the Warcraft universe and a Death Knight power-leveling contest. Players could chill their ardor by taking pictures of themselves sitting on the Frozen Throne.

Don´t forget that the show is also open on Saturday and Sunday! Intriguing adventures in Northrend and more surprises await you. Lastly, remember to take your CV with you; there may be a place for you in the Blizzard family!

In preparation for Wrath of the Lich King, we will be performing an 8 hour Armory maintenance beginning on November 10, at 3 PM, Paris time (CET). The extensive changes and feature additions in Wrath of the Lich King mean that we also have to update the Armory to reflect those changes. As part of the maintenance, all character data will be reset, and character profiles will be repopulated as players log into World of Warcraft. We thank you for your patience during the maintenance.

Further information will be posted in this thread.