Some achievements will carry rewards such as tabards, pets, and other prizes, and Blizzard promises more with each new content update. Players will be able to compare their achievements with others both in-game and via the Armory.

My girlfriend just got her first character to 70 this week, and asked me what she could do now. If she can be patient it looks like Blizzard has an answer forthcoming.

Wrath of the Lich King Achievements [World of Warcraft]

I want one. Strike that, I need one. My soul cries out for it, but not so badly that I am willing to spend more than of $600 to snag one off of eBay. I'll just use the old model-swapping technique. Sure, no one else will see him and he'll make panda noises, but the screenshots will be fantastic.

Tyrael Mini Pet, Blizz Auth, Blue posts [MMO Champion - Thanks Jim!]

The pet itself will be a miniature version of the Archangel Tyrael of Diablo 2 fame who will travel with you on all your grand adventures in Azeroth! Pictures of this amazing new pet will be available on the official website soon for everybody to check out.

That's right, Archangel Tyrael from Diablo II, who now graces the main page of the Diablo III website. I need him, if only to counteract the evil forces of my Collector's Edition mini-Diablo. Sorry Leslie, nothing personal!

Worldwide Invitational In-Game Pet Redemption [WoW Forums via WorldofWar.net]

n00b World Reorder, part 1 [Cope, via Boing-Boing]

Hit the jump for comparison pictures and decide for yourself, and get a look at the full secret pic revealed!

The reason I am leaning Protoss mainly lies in the shape of the bit between the eyes, which in my opinion matches the Protoss much better than it does the Death Knight.

Then again, look at the frost emanating from the eyes. Seems to emulated the eyes of the Death Knight, and the glow even matches up.

Does this mean no Diablo III? Well, not exactly. It could very well mean that the splash page image has nothing to do with the new game being announced, lining up instead with the release date for Wrath of the Lich King or StarCraft 2. The more we see the less we seem to know. Fun, eh?

The secret images are indeed the Lost numbers, as I speculated yesterday. Now 8 joins the previously revealed 4, 15, 16, and 23, and 42.jpg is in there as well, though not commented out in the CSS file. Finally, the secret picture revealed: It's a purple penguin. Okay then. Great. I have no earthly clue. I'm just going to type Lost Vikings here because I like seeing it.

All of this, and a brand new snowflake rune for us to wonder over. Join us tomorrow when this whole damn thing actually makes some sort of sense.

The Blizzard Authenticator will be available at the 2008 Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Paris this weekend, showing up for purchase at Blizzard's online store for $6.50 in the near future.

Blizzard® Authenticator Offers Enhanced Security for World of Warcraft® Accounts

Keychain Token Generates Unique Codes Used to Help Prevent Unauthorized Account Access

IRVINE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today introduced an optional extra layer of security for World of Warcraft®, its award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Designed to attach to a keychain, the lightweight and waterproof Blizzard® Authenticator is an electronic device that generates a six-digit security code at the press of a button. This code is unique, valid only once, and active for a limited time; it must be provided along with the account name and password when signing in to the World of Warcraft account linked to it.

This optional security measure will be available at the 2008 Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational, which takes place June 28-29 in Paris, France. In addition, the Blizzard Authenticator will be made available for purchase via Blizzard’s online store in the near future for a cost of $6.50.

“It’s important to us that World of Warcraft offers a safe and enjoyable game environment,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “One aspect of that is helping players avoid account compromise, so we’re pleased to make this additional layer of security available to them.”

To learn more about the Blizzard Authenticator, please visit http://www.blizzard.com/security-token.

Thus began the first scientific conference held in Azeroth, the online universe inhabited by millions of people playing World of Warcraft. Anyone who has been part of a conference's organizing committee knows that some glitches and mishaps are just unavoidable. And as usual, the problems that actually did occur were unforeseen. It was a success nonetheless. By the end of the third day, a real scientific exchange took place, I married one of the conference participants, and within an hour of the wedding, we were all dead.

There are a lot of feel-good stories circulating about how scientists are using online games to study behavior, but this one is a lot of fun.

Slaying Monsters For Science [Science, thanks Gumblackwood!]

I love our Blizzard fans, they’re the best in the world. But they can get pretty angry...I’ve gotten sixteen-page diatribes.

Completely understandable. We can totally see how the same kind of energy they display scouring the source code of a splash marketing page can be misdirected as pure, white-hot nerd rage.

Blizzard: "Our Fans Can Get Pretty Angry" [Next-Gen]

While we're certain that Blizzard is enjoying the 10 million or so World of Warcraft subscribers forking over $13 to $15 each month in fees, it would be interesting to peek into the alternate universe where WoW was funded by ads.

While we're on subscriptions, Pardo said that one of the reasons behind MMOs failing to take off on consoles is the bite that console makers want to take out. In addition to a "lack of hard drive space, and difficulty in certifying patches" taking a percentage off the top is, literally, laughable to Pardo. Many more Pardo-isms at the full report.

Paris GDC: The Rob Pardo Experience [Gamasutra]

(Well, pretty sure Blizzard does. Good for Blizzard.)

I agree with the commenters over at WeGame. This definitely needs a sequel, if only for more Arthas.

World of Workcraft [WeGame.com - Thanks Chilly!]

So what the hell does it all mean? Ice with barely legible runes certainly sounds like Wrath of the Lich King, though outside of some hidden features or perhaps an official release date I can't imagine why they'd tease that. Many of you seem to think it's Diablo III: Diablo on Ice. Me? I'm going to go for those bearded bad boys who come from the land of the ice and snow, World of Lost Vikings. Hopefully we'll know by this weekend, when the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational does Paris. Until then, let the speculation fly!

GamePolitics brought Stevens to our attention, and MMO site Wandering Goblin followed up with a detailed interview that reasonably depicts Stevens as neither a fringe/novelty candidate nor, as a parent, permissive to the point of self-caricature when it comes to games.

She's a mom and a laywer. That's enough motive and opportunity for making an informed decision on her own kids' entertainment choices. And far be it from me to lecture Republicans on their values (but I will anyway) she adopts what is truly a conservative principle regarding video games in the home: "You get to be the legislator, you make the laws of your home. Don’t abdicate that responsibility to the government."

As for her gaming habits, she says her father introduced her to WoW three years ago. She has three characters and recites their stats like she would her children's scout badges. Stevens can be found on the Alexstrasza server but eschews PvP as she's usually gaming with her kids and helping their characters.

Says candidate Stevens:

WoW is the sum total of my experience. We’ll get Lich King when it comes out. The boys play Xbox live, Halo and Call of Duty series, though Guitar Hero is getting quite a bit of play now. As a parent, I will not allow GTA in my home – that is my choice. If you’d like to play it in your home, go for it.

If she wins in November, she'd join Sen. Ray Tenorio, level 70 Dwarf Priest of the Guam legislature, as known MMO-gaming lawmakers. However, Stevens' opponent, Deb Heinrich, is a two-term incumbent and vice chair of the General Assembly's appropriations committee (which is joint House and Senate). Not sure how things shake out in Connecticut, but typically that's a tough resume to beat. Stevens herself is an attorney and was a prosecutor for the Manhattan District Attorney. Thus ends my handicapping of the race.

The WoW-Playing Candidate [Wandering Goblin]

An Amber Alert was issued for Julian last week, but authorities caught up with the two alleged WoW fans earlier today. Incidentally, Jones was driving a 2008 Chevy Aveo with the license plate OMGROFL. True story. It's one of those rare runaway/kidnapping situations we can all laugh about. Good times.

Missing Boise teen found safe at Wash. campground [KTVB - thanks, Patient]

While I have enough work to kill an ox this weekend, I took some time last night to play with this delightfully silly side-scrolling WoW sendup. Here's one introduction to a quest: "Now that you've begun to get the hang of that most fundamental of skills - killing shit - and started to properly become a bit more class conscious, we can tackle a slightly more disturbing problem." Karl Marx even makes an appearance (never mind the Mario appearance pictured above). It's worth checking out if you've got some extra time to waste this holiday (in the US) weekend.

WTF?! [via Grand Text Auto]

Looking for new reading material? A new book is out examining WoW, and is available from Amazon for the nice price of $19.77 (not bad for a book coming from an academic press!). I'm personally really fond of edited volumes, and this one sounds pretty interesting — both in the contents and background of the research. Scott Rettberg, one of the contributors, explains:

Hilde G. Corneliussen and Jill Walker Rettberg ... edited this volume, which is the first book-length anthology to carefully read the culture of the world’s most popular massively multiplayer online game. The anthology is the product of a unique collaboration. The volume’s contributors all played the game together for a year in a guild of academics known as “The Truants” before writing their chapters, each of which examines the game from a different theoretical/analytical bent. There are thirteen chapters in the book.

According to the publishing blurb, they're cutting a pretty wide swath here:

The contributors examine the ways that gameworlds reflect the real world—exploring such topics as World of Warcraft as a "capitalist fairytale" and the game's construction of gender; the cohesiveness of the gameworld in terms of geography, mythology, narrative, and the treatment of death as a temporary state; aspects of play, including "deviant strategies" perhaps not in line with the intentions of the designers; and character—both players' identification with their characters and the game's culture of naming characters. The varied perspectives of the contributors—who come from such fields as game studies, textual analysis, gender studies, and postcolonial studies—reflect the breadth and vitality of current interest in MMOGs

I'm currently up to my neck in reading on Japanese imperialism, but this is definitely on my list of to-dos this summer.

Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader [GrandTextAuto]

As far as we know, this story is a hoax. There have not been any arrests here, and we're not aware of any convictions like that in this county.

Did a 13yo buy hookers with dad's credit card? [Stuff.co.nz, via GamePolitics]

Chengdu's Shuangliu county has arrested two virtual item and currency traders, surnamed Li and Zhang, focused on tapping out The9's (Nasdaq: NCTY) licensed MMORPG World of Warcraft (WoW), reports Chengdu Evening News. Police arrested the pair after Li reported Zhang for unfair revenue distribution. Going into business last August, the gold miners accumulated more than 20 employees with 20 computers to generate RMB 1.6 million in seven months of dealing.

Oopsies. I'll be nosing around for more on this story (like exactly what the pair was arrested for), but if any intrepid readers come across anything, send it my way. As Steve at PlayNoEvil notes, "Turn up the Irony Meter to 11. After all, with all of the complaints in the US about gold farming, it takes the Chinese to stand up and do something about it."

WoW Gold Miner Offers Himself Up To Police [Pacific Epoch via PlayNoEvil

Every player with a character over level 55 will be able to create one Death Knight per realm. The new character will start at level 55 with a full compliment of abilities at their disposal, the reasoning here being that anyone who has leveled that far will be able to get the hang of the new abilities quickly. Anyone who has ever played with a recently eBayed character can tell you this is a complete falsehood, but it'll be amusing to watch at least.

Speaking of amusing, Death Knights will also gain the ability to raise fallen enemies and comrades as ghouls to continue the fight. If you raise an ally in this fashion they will get a choice of whether or not to take control of their violated corpse. Good times!

Death Knights will also be the first character class that harnesses the power of disease, so expect to see +disease items going for a premium in the auction house come the expansion's release.

Other new information involves the raids present in WofLK, which instead of forcing players into 10-man or 25-man groups will come in two varieties each. That means that any raid dungeon in the expansion will have a 10-man and a 25-man option, with the drops for those gathering a bigger group being relatively more powerful.

This feature alone is worth the price of admission for me (like I wouldn't have bought the expansion anyway). As a more casual player (my current guild has 2 people in it), I regret that I've never gotten a chance to see some of the bigger raid instances from past updates. Scaling the raids is an excellent way to let folks experience all the expansion has to offer while still rewarding the big raiding guilds for performing the enviable feat of keeping 25 people from tearing each other's throats out every five minutes.

Incidentally, not one raid boss has been created yet. I'm sure they'll get around to that eventually.

Another fun fact, Northrend will have it's own flying mounts, as well as allowing players to use their Burning Crusade flying mounts in the new zones, while the old world still remains sadly flying mount free due to design constrictions. Maybe they'll come up with some suitable lore reason for this. Whirring sky razors infesting the two main continents perhaps? The Blizzard writers are nothing if not resourceful.

There really is a ton of information out there from several different source, including GameSpy and Curse.com, so I'm extremely grateful to the folks at MMO Champion for rounding up all the pertinent information in one place. Hit the link below and prepare to spend the rest of your Friday reading about Wrath of the Lich King.

Wrath of the Lich King Preview [MMO Champion - Thanks Wingsoverglory!]

Online subscriptions exceed $1 billion a year, says NPD [GI.biz]

I got in contact with Paul Sams of Blizzard, and he said, 'We will not sell the movie rights, not to you...especially not to you. Because it's such a big online game success, maybe a bad movie would destroy that ongoing income, what the company has with it."

I wish I could see the numbers, but my guess is that it probably already has peaked - but it's still a great business.

"The real significance of this case is, 'What are the rights of the [virtual world] community members when they go online?'"

IGE's attorney seem to be familiar with the agreement, having argued in court papers that players don't have the right to even bring forth this lawsuit. It's sort of like a person trying to sue a thief who swiped the lawnmower he sometimes borrows from his neighbor. Still, they are ready to fight if need be.

"The stakes are high and our intention is to address [the lawsuit] in court," Miller said.

"We believe that shutting down gold farming and real-money transfer is in the interest of all World of Warcraft players and that a victory in this case would have a positive long-term effect on the online gaming industry as a whole," said Paul Sams, Blizzard Entertainment's chief operating officer

We'll keep you posted in case anything ever comes of this whole mess.

Video game fan asks court to ban real sloth and greed from World of Warcraft [South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com]

This will help us to develop an emotion and gaming questionnaire to help distinguish the type of gamer who is likely to transfer their online aggression into everyday life.

Terra Nova has mirrors of the summary judgment motions, as well as a quick little wrap-up; Rock, Paper, Shotgun gets to the nitty gritty and also has a poll (question: 'Should Blizzard crush Glider?' options: 'Aye! Bots = cheating,' 'Nay! Grinding = misery,' 'Ayenay! Blizzard should provide a levelling service themselves' - thus far, 'Aye!' is winning), and PlayNoEvil has some analysis up from a security standpoint.

Blizzard v WoW Glider: Interesting, no? [Terra Nova]; Democracy Inaction: Blizzard vs Bots [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]; World of Warcraft Warden vs. Glider - Which is the Lesser Evil? Who owns my computer? {PlayNoEvil]

Wired's David Thier contends that in-game plagues like Corrupted Blood provide real-world insight into terrorist tactics that traditional computer sims can't. Why? Artificial intelligence is little match for genuine human intelligence, which may (or may not) be better at exploiting holes and vulnerabilities.

MMOs may also give better insight into "civilian" behavior, but fails in the sense that real world death and in-game death don't quite have the same impact.

Watch out, sexless griefers. Someone may be keeping an eye on you. Now back to less fear-mongering...

World of Warcraft Shines Light on Terror Tactics [Wired]

Portal Brain Age 2 Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass BioShock Puzzle Quest Rock Band Super Mario Galaxy Wii Sports The Witcher WoW: Burning Crusade

And now that the industry has become so successful at creating high quality, more polished sequels, will any of these titles really be in play a decade from now?

The Future Of Videogames [Forbes via WiiWii]

One Shenzhen gamer, 28-year-old Dong Jun ... said he used to spend 400-500 yuan per month on the immensely popular ... [WoW] but has since initially reduced his expenses with a free game called Chi Bi ....

"With Chi Bi I only pay for upgrades and not many of them," Dong said. "I quit WoW because I was spending too much money on it and it was also ruining my dating life. I like the history and tradition and action in Chi Bi also. It's more familiar."

Another mainland game fanatic, 30-year-old Janson, said he also swore off WoW in favor of free domestically designed games due to financial pressure and his professional work load. "I was paying 200 yuan a month for WoW and too many hours," he said. "It was affecting my job performance."

There's no doubt that the domestic companies are growing by leaps and bounds — and the free—to—play model probably has something to do with that. Will Western companies start changing their business practices to appeal to the hugely lucrative Chinese market? Or will WoW et al. fall by the wayside in the face of an onslaught of domestically produced games?

Profits high from China's online 'opium' [Asia Times Online]

Originally retailing for $29.95, one recent auction just closed for $365 plus $8 to ship. Another is currently bid up to $105 with hours left on the listing. I'm the first to regret not ordering a cube for my own collection, but this Beanie Baby madness has got to stop. It'll give us all a bad name (as well as a vicious reputation within the collectibles circuits).

Unopened Weighted Companion Cube Plush [ebay]

This may disappoint some people with this, but the game I'm looking forward to in 2008 is Smash Bros [Brawl]...[and] now that I finally managed to crack my way into Outland, I'm now psyched for the next WoW expansion.

It's worth listening to just to hear Jonathan Mak call Everyday Shooter a "celebration of geometric sexuality." And, of course, I don't know that any Kotaku readers have overlooked any of these three games—but in case you have, yeah, it's time to check them out. I just wish that the radio piece said a little less about GLaDOS, since her evolution of character is one of the most fascinating and surprising (yet gloriously inevitable) elements of Portal. Still, hopefully well-written stories like this on NPR help these games sink into the mainstream consciousness as much as they have our own.

Video Games that Got Away [npr]

Why are prices so low? Just like any other industry, businesses are competing for marketshare, driving down prices all while powered by an increasingly skilled workforce. And overseas labor = cheap labor. So, friendly Kotaku readers...have you ever been tempted to let capitalism go to town on your Night Elf Mohawk?

Q&A/Essay: 'Smith Sam' Talks Warcraft Power Leveling History [gamasutra][image]

Here's their full announcement:

Blizzard is spear-heading its approach to Community Fansites and fans in 2008. It's going full-throttle with a internal Developer video podcast which will bring you interviews with Starcraft 2 and Wrath of the Lich King developers, fansite community interaction with developers, as well as fansite Q&A on video.

The first BlizzCast episode will air online through Blizzard's website the first week of January. Fans will be able to submit questions to the developers through the fansites, who will forward the feedback to community managers: Karune and Nethaera. Fans may win some juicy Swag at the end of each BlizzCast episode. Again, this ongoing video podcast series is produced by Blizzard.

This is an amazing effort that will bring the developers and the community closer. The best of it all is that each BlizzCast (video podcast) transcript will be fully localized to many supported languages reaching hundreds of thousands of Blizzard fans across the globe. This is basically a monthly BlizzCon presentation broadcasted directly to you via hot-download. The audience of BlizzCast Episode 1 and upcoming episodes will be monitored. These is an experimental in-house project. The more fan audience supporting these BlizzCast episodes, the better it will get, as more resources will be put to produce future episodes with full coverage of the development cycles of Starcraft 2, future World of Warcraft expansions and content patches, as well as the two unannounced games. Spread the word across forums online, and share the hype to encourage production of BlizzCast episodes for years to come. Tell all your friends online, at work or school to download episode one the first week of January.

BlizzCast Episode 1

* Interview with Sam Didier (Art Director SCII): Concepting Art for the StarCraft and Warcraft Franchises
* Interview with Jeff Kaplan (Lead Designer WoW): Highlights of Sunwell Plateau and Patch 2.4

(At the end)Sweepstakes/Giveaway: Lots of SWAG :)

BlizzCast Episode 1 on First Week of January [blizzard]

Most MMO's, however, have relatively punitive death penalties because they are designed for players that want to be challenged, not just engaged. The theory goes that if a game doesn't punish you for playing poorly, then your rewards for playing well will be hollow and without much significance. That's true to an extent ... but of course, that's only true if "playing well" is your motivation for playing the game.

But the death penalty has other side-effects, too. If the penalty is lenient, players find themselves experimenting with more tactics, exploring the landscape more, and poking into nooks and crannies of the game. If the penalty is harsh, they tend to stick with the strategies they know. Good survival strategies become more valuable, and in many games, players find that grouping together makes for a better survival strategy. So we often find that strong death penalties correlate with more grouping.

It's an interesting little piece on the ramifications of one bit of game design. I always like seeing pieces like these - especially when the discussion spins off to different territory entirely.

What's in a Death Penalty? [Elder Game via GameSetWatch]