The best of WoW Insider: August 5-12, 2008
The Joystiq Podcast — ... We can't exactly decide whether this freaky-looking Dwarf makes us want to play as a Death Knight more or not, but he does look freaky. This was just one of the hundreds of images and impressions coming out of the Wrath of the Lich King beta this week on Joystiq's sister site WoW Insider. Below are our top posts from the past week, and as you can see, there's lots and lots of Death Knight and Wrath beta news to be had. ...

The best of WoW Insider: August 19-26, 2008
The Joystiq Podcast — ... It's "The King and I" in the World of Warcraft lately -- the Lich King is everywhere, and this past week we moved even closer to the release of the most popular online game in the world's second expansion. Joystiq's sister site ...

Online retailers point towards a November 4 release for Wrath
WoW.com — ... . So any speculation about Blizzard's release dates, is, by its nature, pretty useless -- if Blizzard wants to announce at BlizzCon that Wrath isn't coming out until January, they will. ...

EA: You don't need $1 billion to compete with WoW
WoW.com — ... and Wrath of the Lich King. And no matter how long your development cycle or how big your budget, you can't compete with three years of people working around the clock to make the game better for live players. ...

SteelSeries and Blizzard partners offer BlizzCon Sweepstakes
WoW.com — ... , and apparently they're releasing one for Wrath, so you might get one of those as well). There is a checklist that you can leave unchecked to supposedly keep the sponsors from contacting you, so even if you don't want your info opt-ed in, it looks like you're in the clear. ...

Chilton: We want "to outdo ourselves in every respect"
WoW.com — ... . His main point is that Wrath is bigger and better than before -- more, better, cooler content. Intercut with lots of cool video from the beta (though some of it was seen as far back as ...

Write a Wrath of the Lich King story, win BlizzCon tickets
WoW.com — ... -- to enter, you've just got to punch out an original Wrath of the Lich King-related story, at least 700 words, and send it over to him on his blog. ...

The best of WoW Insider: August 26 - September 1, 2008
The Joystiq Podcast — Filed under: Online, Meta (about Joystiq), MMO Of course, if you know Blizzard at all, you know it doesn't really like the whole concept of "release dates" -- the developers prefer to say they'll release the next WoW expansion "when it's ready." But a bunch of retailers have recently ...

WoW Insider on WIUX's Canoodle Strudel
WoW.com — ... for your listening enjoyment. It's a long show (about two hours), but we hit on pretty much everything there is to talk about in the World of Warcraft, from what it's like to start out in the game, to what's going on in Wrath, what it means to be "human" in Azeroth, and how easy ...

Icecrown Citadel confirmed in post-release content patch
WoW.com — ... that the last instance of Wrath of the Lich King will be pushed off past release to a content patch (likely 3.1 or 3.2, if we had to guess), which means we won't ...

Kungaloosh drink honors Disney's Adventurers Club
WoW.com — ... This one's just for the Disney World fans out there -- down in the Orlando resort, there's apparently a club on "Pleasure Island" called the Adventurers Club that offers shows and drinks every night for Disney's adult visitors. Just like most of the stuff at Disney's theme parks, the club has quite a following, and apparently Blizzard devs are part of it. One of the Club's signature drinks, the Kungaloosh, has made its way into the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. This unofficial Disney newsletter has more -- apparently the drink is a cooking ...

The best of WoW Insider: September 2-9, 2008
The Joystiq Podcast — ... It's dancin' time in Azeroth -- the Wrath of the Lich King expansion is just around the corner, and we couldn't be happier. News is flying off the beta, all the classes are getting upgrades, there's new content to explore, and it all just makes us so happy we can't help but get on down. Here's the top stories from the past week in Warcraft, courtesy of Joystiq's sister site, ...

Wrath splash screen appears on the Launcher
WoW.com — ... Eagle-eyed readers noticed that Blizzard is prepping a new version of the launcher for the Wrath of the Lich King launch -- a quick update showed up just this afternoon in the launcher software, and afterwards, when starting up, the program flashes the blank screen above, with the Lich King logo, before it then covers it up again with the ...

World of WarCrafts: Raid art
WoW.com — ... With Wrath looming over the horizon, the instances we currently spend all of our time inwill become obsolete. The dusty halls of ...

The best of WoW Insider: September 9-16, 2008
The Joystiq Podcast — ... Huge news this past week from the World of Warcraft -- not only did PvErs get a break from Blizzard, but we heard about the Wrath of the Lich King release date and Collector's Edition, and the Public Test Realm gave players their first open preview of what the new talents and abilities will be like. News is coming fast in the world of WoW, and if you want to stay on top of it, check Joystiq's sister site ...

Gamestop listing for "WorldofWarcraft Gaming Mouse"
WoW.com — ... and Wrath of the Lich King, but as you can see, there's also a listing for a "WorldofWarcraft Gaming Mouse." There's no company listed, so we don't know who might be making it, and no other features are listed except the price, which stands at a hefty $99.00. There have been ...

The best of WoW Insider: September 16-23, 2008
The Joystiq Podcast — ... Yes, motorbikes have made it into Azeroth -- in the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion, engineers will be able to make Harleys, and anyone who can get their hands on one will be able to drive it (though getting your hands on one might not be so easy). But that's not the only big news floating around sister site WoW Insider this week -- check the links below for news about ...

New items for old Honor
WoW.com — ... I've put all the items after the jump in case you can't reach the forums here during the day, but these items are about what you'd expect -- cloaks and trinkets, at or maybe slightly better than the gear you'll be picking up early on into Wrath of the Lich King. If you haven't ground out PvP gear yet (or grabbed some epics from the high-end raids), you may get a level or two out of these, but you'll definitely have replaced them by the time we all hit 80. There are no prices or timelines on when these items will be released, either -- we'd imagine that they'll come ...

Lume the Mad reviews WotLK and its changes
WoW.com — ... coming to World of Warcraft in the form of the game's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. If you're a regular reader of WoW Insider, there's nothing really new here -- odds are you already know about all the changes (and have a strong opinion of some of them). But as a nice wide general overview of what's going on with the game, Lume's little writeup is very thorough. ...

Scourge Invasion to return?
WoW.com — ... or otherwise, we don't know for sure. As much as players have learned about how Wrath might kick off, Blizzard is still holding their cards close on this one. ...

"Leading the Cavalry" achievement lowered to 50 mounts
WoW.com — ... in the latest beta build. Seventy-five mounts is a lot, and even though, yes, we didn't actually count any of the mounts coming in Wrath of the Lich King (surely there are plenty there), Tauren especially ...

Launcher updated again, 3.0.2 soon?
WoW.com — ... Today's downtime is all about hardware upgrades, apparently, so Blizzard is definitely gearing up for Wrath. We saw lots of hardware upgrades in the ...

The best of WoW Insider: September 23-30, 2008
The Joystiq Podcast — ... News Spoiler: Angrathar, the Wrath Gate Don't click that link if you don't want the story ruined, but s. is about to hit the f. in Northrend. if you know what we mean. Ask a Beta Tester: Multi-passenger mounts and Enchanting Our beta tester (one of them) answers your questions about what's going on in the Wrath of the Lich King beta. New items for old Honor Blizzard's about to wipe all Honor and marks off the map, so here's what they're offering to let you buy before everything goes ...

Patch 3.0.2: Echoes of Doom
WoW.com — ... Blizzard has named the last content patch before Wrath of the Lich King -- it's "Echoes of Doom." They've created a page for patch 3.0.2 in t ...

Polymorph: Black Cat, Serpent found in Dalaran
WoW.com — ... Both spells seem to be level 60 spells, strangely enough, so if your 60 Mage has 5000g just sitting around or has a rich alt willing to pay the price, you could be using them then. WoWWiki also says the prices are rep-related, so if you do a little grinding for the Kirin Tor, you might be able to pick them up for cheaper. And don't forget that this is Wrath -- 2500g is likely only a few days of dailies anyway. Polymorph on! ...

Ask WoW Insider: Is PvP gear still worth it?
WoW.com — ... But on the other hand, I'm mostly a PvE-er, and who knows -- doing the PvP to buy PvP gear could be worth it in the long run. You might even get more gold out of selling items you'd normally be equipping in Wrath. Readers, what do you say to Treecow? ...

The best of WoW Insider: September 30-October 7, 2008
The Joystiq Podcast — ... to celebrate Blizzard and its games, and Blizzard developers will share their wisdom with us about Wrath of the Lich King, Diablo 3, and ...

WoW Insider's BlizzCon Bingo 2008
WoW.com — ... BlizzCon Bingo game is back for its second year -- last year whether you won or not depended on what you saw, but people mostly were able to complete the necessary five across, with or without the help of the free space. This year, things are a little tougher, mostly because we just don't know what Blizzard is going to do -- will they announce the third expansion? Will they announce a new IP? Will they announce anything, or just treat the whole weekend as a Wrath preview? Whatever happens, make sure you print out your bingo ...

BlizzCon 2008 Breakfast Topic: We need your questions
WoW.com — ... And we need your help -- let us know what you want us to ask Blizzard. Is there a class question you need an answer to, or something that's been bugging you since launch? Want to know something about Wrath of the Lich King that we haven't heard yet? ...

The best of WoW Insider: October 7-14, 2008
The Joystiq Podcast — ... hit the live realms today, and next month, Wrath of the Lich King, the second WoW expansion, sees release. And throughout everything that's happening, WoW Insider has you covered -- here's our biggest stories from this weekend's convention and today's patch release. ...

Bejeweled 1.02 is out
WoW.com — ... Unfortunately, the endgame got nerfed so much that odds are you won't die in raids until Wrath, so that part of the addon probably won't get used much. But my flight paths have felt empty without the gems to match since Tuesday -- the new version of Bejeweled is the most welcome addition to my addon folder. ...

Phat Loot Phriday: Swiftsteel Bludgeon
WoW.com — ... if you're melee DPS in need of a nice Epic mace in Black Temple, and you're not first in line to grab any of the really great ones that come from the bosses. Not everybody gets to wield Warglaives or the Syphon, not right away. How to Get It: Drops from Black Temple trash, and seriously, have you been in there after the patch yet? It's a free-for-all. Blizzard's big solution to having no one see the endgame was to nerf it to oblivion before Wrath so everyone could get in there and get all of the Epic looting out of their ...

Wrath lockboxes appear in Karazhan
WoW.com — Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Expansions, Raiding, Wrath of the Lich KingWe did a run through Karazhan last night, and not one but two of these popped up -- Froststeel Lockboxes apparently require 375 Lockpicking (the current limit is 350), and so we have no idea what this might hold. The Ashbringer? Frostmourne? It's Wrath gear for sure, but it could be anything! No, only joking -- of course it's probably just some Northrend green vendor trash (although item ...

Wrath manual hidden in latest WoW files
WoW.com — Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Expansions, Wrath of the Lich KingIf you just can't wait to read the Wrath of the Lich King manual, Maeglin of Khadgar made an interesting discovery -- it's already on your computer. Inside your World of Warcraft folder, if you go to the Data folder, and then "enUS" and Documentation, you'll see a PDF file called Manual_WLK. It's the Wrath manual in black and white -- there are good writeups in there (spoiler-free, as far as I could tell) on the story so ...

The best of WoW Insider: October 14-21, 2008
The Joystiq Podcast — ... has begun as well, bringing players of all kinds out to the Scarlet Monastery's Graveyard, where the Headless Horseman holiday raid boss calls home. Yes, times are good in Azeroth, but what's that in the Autumn air? A cold wind is about to blow in from the North... ...

The Argent Dawn spreads word of the Lich King's arrival
WoW.com — ... Call us destructive, but we're kind of hoping for the second. Stay tuned for more news of the world event leading up to Wrath of the Lich King as we hear it. ...

Ghostcrawler: Healing is next for an update
WoW.com — ... It's also interesting to note that Death Knights are a tanking class, and tanking got the revamp in Wrath of the Lich King. While some healers probably won't want to wait all the way until the next expansion, could this be a hint that we're looking at ...

Zombie incubation time halved to five minutes
WoW.com — ... of the walking undead. I thought it was going to take a while for this whole thing to play out, but things seem to be moving pretty quickly. Blizzard likes to drop new patches and holidays, it seems, on Friday night/Saturday morning (so weekend players can experience them), so keep your eyes open in Azeroth this evening -- we might finally find out just what this zombie business is all about. Zombies have entered the World of Warcraft in the Wrath of the Lich King world event! Check out our tips for eating brains, our ...

The scourge of the Scourge
WoW.com — ... Blizzard is making sure that this is an event that everyone feels -- in the past, you could avoid most of the world events just by staying out of certain areas or certain zones. But at the same time, that made some players feel it wasn't immersive enough -- why have a world event if it doesn't affect the whole world? And so this one does -- no matter what level you are or where you play, whether you got eaten by a zombie or downed Tenris Mirkblood, you know that the Lich King is coming. And some folks, who play the game casually or at a low level, just ...

The best of WoW Insider: October 21-28, 2008
The Joystiq Podcast — Filed under: Online, Meta (about Joystiq), MMO The World of Warcraft was hit this week with something no one expected: zombies! In the lead-up event to the Wrath of the Lich King expansion release next month, someone (probably the Lich King himself, what a ...

Slorkuz tells you how to win Arathi Basin
WoW.com — ... , if nothing else). When Wrath actually releases, Wintergrasp will probably be the place to be, and I'm just plain tired of WSG and all the shenanigans in AV, but AB still seems to have some fun in it. ...

The Lich King is Twittering
WoW.com — ... No idea who's behind it, but I know a few WoW bloggers who twitter pretty often, including a few WoW Insider contributors. Whoever's tweeting for Arthas, they're doing a nice job, promising "cold deaths" to everyone, and steadily counting down the days until his Wrath is upon us. ...

The best of WoW Insider: October 28-November 4, 2008
The Joystiq Podcast — ... , the biggest game release for WoW fans comes next week: the Wrath of the Lich King is finally upon us. And Joystiq's sister site ...

Patch 3.0.3 on Big Download
WoW.com — ... There are all kinds of reasons you might not be interested in using Blizzard's official download client, so there you go -- for whatever you need it for, the patch file is yours. Now it's just, you know, that expansion disc I'm waiting on for next week. ...

Deals are slim for Wrath of the Lich King at retailers
WoW.com — ... We've got our first Wrath of the Lich King deal to report, and unfortunately, it's less than impressive. Apparently, if you ...

The new WoW Insider and the launch of Wrath of the Lich King
WoW.com — ... And of course, we'll have what we always have: unprecedented coverage of this game and its players. Stay tuned for all the Wrath previews we can post -- we'll have looks at all the new zones in Wrath of the Lich King, your guides to which quests to look for while leveling, walkthroughs of all the new instances, where and when to get your new addons, and we'll let you know exactly where to spend your next ten talent points and what to do with your new talents and abilities. If you need to know something about Wrath of the Lich King, it'll be on this ...

Analyst: Wrath will sell five million copies
WoW.com — ... No matter what, Blizzard will make a lot of money, and very likely break all records anyway next week. Wrath of the Lich King will be huge. ...

Gamestop makes another funny
WoW.com — ... for the early preview, but now that we're getting closer and closer to the Wrath of the Lich King release, they've posted another funny ...

Tracking the BoE market in Wrath
WoW.com — ... have started up a blog on one of the most popular problems in World of Warcraft: making money, and lots of it. The truth is that it's not hard to do, whether you're working with professions, trying to hang in the AH, PvPing, or just starting out, but everyone's got a tip to share, it seems, and WoW Economist is no exception. This time around, they've got a good short analysis up of what might happen to green BoEs in Wrath of the Lich King. Once upon a time, there was actually a good market for BoEs on the ...

Wrath shipped to stores, copies being sold early at 7-11
WoW.com — ... We're getting multiple reports that Blizzard has shipped Wrath of the Lich King out to stores -- one of our readers in Australia ordered the CE and actually got his edition shipped to him already (the game will install, but won't run yet), a few Gamestops around the country have confirmed that they have copies in store (though not for sale yet), and a few people have told us that they've already picked up their copies at 7-11 (notorious for suddenly selling games, and then very recently ...

The best of WoW Insider: November 4-11, 2008
The Joystiq Podcast — ... It's almost here! A whole continent of new content in Northrend, a brand new class in the Death Knight, and ten more levels of the greatest MMO ever created. Wrath of the Lich King, WoW's second expansion, releases on Wednesday night, and Joystiq's sister site, ...

Watch live Wrath of the Lich King installation and gameplay on WoW Insider this evening
WoW.com — ... . We've also placed a copy of the stream after the break on this post, so come on back here just after midnight central time to watch us take the first few steps into Wrath. ...

The best of WoW Insider: November 11-18, 2008
The Joystiq Podcast — ... Wrath of the Lich King is open for business. The game's second expansion showed up on store shelves last week, and Joystiq's sister site WoW Insider has been covering (and playing) it ever since. Whether you're a Northrend newbie or have been playing since beta started, odds are there's news you need on our site. Check our most popular links below, and keep up ...

Armory updated to include stats and achievements
WoW.com — ... with a new Wrath of the Lich King theme, and achievements and stat information for each player. It's very cool -- not only can you check out what each player has done so far (including all and recent achievements, and all of the statistics available ingame), but you can also compare players to each other, both in the stats and achievements pages, and you even get, as you can see above, the totals for everything, so you can see just how "achieved" you are. ...