Blizzard Made $295M Last Quarter, Wrath of the Lich King Dated For Second Half Of '08

Vivendi Games, which contributed some $340 million to its parent company's "very good" first quarter, continues to place much of its success on Blizzard Entertainment. The World of Warcraft developer provided an impressive $295 million to Vivendi's games division, with a good portion of that cash coming from the MMO's 10.7 million subscriber base. Vivendi says games revenue was down, year over year, with some of that poor performance due to unfavorable exchange rates. Yawn! Who cares about another billion dollar year? We're not Rob Pardo's kids! Where's the next WoW expansion, already?

Wrath of the Lich King is coming in the second half of 2008, says Vivendi's quarterly report. That's as close as we're going to get to a release date for now. Blizzard hasn't officially put a date on the expansion and it's totally realistic it could delayed, as is their wont, but we'll hold tight for a pre-December 31 release, fingers crossed.

Vivendi: Very Good First Quarter - 2008 Outlook Confirmed (PDF) [Vivendi]

A press event earlier these week has resulted in a veritable flood of new information regarding the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Most of the news floating about is regarding the Death Knight hero class, fleshing out the details of the eagerly awaited addition, as well as some information on the raids players will encounter in the frozen lands of Northrend.

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!

Some Leaked, Sneaked Lich King Screens

Blizzard's Worldwide Invitational Moves To Paris

"We look forward to bringing the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational to Europe for the first time and sharing our latest news with players there," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment.

Blizzard fanboys will rejoice today as the studio has announced a new developer video podcast that will start the first week of January. Concerning Starcraft 2 and Wrath of the Lich King, the podcast will include lots of dev interviews, fansite interaction and Q&A. We know, we know. It's another podcast on a mountain of podcasts. But the news is exciting because Blizzard is traditionally extremely tight-lipped about their project development, offering us little more than beautiful CGI movies that even the Rosetta Stone, a case of beer and a weekend can't decipher to those specific details we crave.

Here's their full announcement:

Blizzard Dishes On The Death Knight

Blizzard drops some Death Knight details in a Q&A with the design team for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. The Q&A explores the role the new class plays in game lore as well as your adventuring party. The player character Death Knights have rebelled against Arthas, joining the Horde (yay!) or Alliance (boo!) to help take down the vile Lich King. Rather than being powered by rage or mana, the Knights will use a completely new Rune System to power their offensive magic and abilities. Unable to use shields, they'll rely on magic to help them mitigate damage and generate threat, culminating in what Blizzard hopes will be another fun tanking class that will make Warriors feel even more useless than they already do.

Death Knight Interview [World of Warcraft]

If you want to get your hands on StarCraft II before 99% of the Korean population, book your plane or train ticket to Leipzig pronto, as Blizzard has enough demo kiosks to quash a Zergling rush at Games Convention. The developer also has an equally impressive number of demo kiosks for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King for anyone looking for some massive multiplayer role-playing in a massively populated environment.

You'll find me at the StarCraft II area on Wednesday, feverishly working on Part II of my long delayed hands-on StarCraft II impressions.

WoW: Wrath of the Lich King Pre-Orders Spawn

Blizzcon 07: WoW Lich King Footage

Can't get enough World of Warcraft? Of course you can't! So swim in the cool waters of these new Wrath of the Lich King screenshots. There's little in the way of action, instead focusing on the new environments in which you'll find yourself when the WoW expansion his released.

You'll recognize many of them from the recently released preview trailer shown today, but considering you'll spend a considerable chunk of your life in this virtual land next year, a few extra minutes of gazing won't be that noticeable on your death bed.

WoW's Wrath of the Lich King Trailer

Here it is, in all of its glory the first official trailer for the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion pack Wrath of the Lich King.

Warth of the Lich King [Blizzard]

More Lich King, Seige, Death Knight Deets

Looks like the the rumors are true, the next World of Warcraft expansion will indeed by Wrath of the Lich King. The expansion was confirmed in the BlizzCon Souvenir Show Guide packed into those fancy goodie bags.

The picture, taken by Highamage, shows the brief article about the new expansion which will be detailed during the show.

Some of the highlights of the article include:

*Introduction of the Death Knight as a playable dark necromatic character class.
*New zones, quests, items and monsters packed into the Northrend, an icy continent that is home to the Lich King.
*Raised level cap to 80
*New battelgrounds featuring siege engines and destructable buidlings.
*More character customization, including hair, dances and skin color.

Wrath of the Lich King [Blizzard Forums]

An FAQ for the WoW: Wrath of the Lich King expansion may have leaked onto a German WoW forum earlier today after being up on the European Union WoW website late last night. If its contents are legit, players can expect:

1. Death Knight Hero Class (starting at higher level, damage-dealing tank)
2. Level 80 character cap
3. Siege weapons and destructible buildings in PVP
4. "hundreds of new recipes and thousands of new items"

But I'm not a WoW freak, so hit the jump for the entire FAQ and some bombshells that I may have missed.