If you're one of the many adventurers trekking the digital plains of Azeroth in Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft, here's some new info regarding the highly-anticipated expansion: a bevy of new details concerning the first ever Hero class in the game, namely the Death Knight. Let's check out the new info about what could be one of the more legendary classes of World of Warcraft.

So, what's been revealed? Well, first off, any player with a level 55 character will be able to create one Death Knight per realm, per account. And yes, before you ask, you can create a Death Knight belonging to any of the game's playable races - be it Tauren or Gnome. We expect the latter to be quite the popular choice, if only to see a diminutive Death Knight sowing terror upon hapless mortals.

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Back in the day, you could get 60 day playtime cards for $20 at Amazon, all the time. This appears to be the resurrection of that deal: the same cards are currently available for $20 at Circuit City. This is, as they say, a $30 value, assuming you normally pay the single-month rate of $15 per month. The cards are sold out online, but available for in-store pickup; click over to the site and enter your ZIP code to see if they're available in your store.

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Looking forward to the release of World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King? You might want to check out these new videos featuring five areas that can be found in the expansion pack: Dragonblight, Zul'Darak, Sholazar Basin, Borean Tundra, and the Howling Fjord..

You can find out more about the zones by following the links below. Check back for more Wrath of the Lich King updates!

• More on Dragonblight
• More on Zul'Darak
• More on Sholazar Basin
• More on Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord
  

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Alright, so much for Wrath of the Lich King. Everything looks cool so far and it's shaping up to be one heck of an expansion. Maybe somewhere in between Levels 70 and 80, Blizzard will throw in more creative Seals, Blessings, and Auras for the Paladin to play with. With the revelation that Death Knights will be sporting a Paladin-like ability called Presence, it's time for us to take a look at the Paladin's third core ability, the Aura. In many respects, Auras are the most defining ability of a Paladin because it's something that cannot be taken away from them. It is a Holy spell applied as a Physical buff, so it cannot be dispelled or stolen. Only the ridiculously overpowered Cyclone (you can quote me on that) removes it temporarily (it used to be permanent prior to Patch 2.2). But more on that later.

Auras are an important part of a Paladin's arsenal but are also the most underrated. If I had 1 Copper for each Paladin I've seen rush headlong into battle with Crusader Aura on, I would probably have enough Gold to train for Artisan Riding all over again. Auras are passive area-of-effect buffs that affect the Paladin and her party and cost nothing to cast. Because it is a party-wide buff, it helps to get the Holy talent Aura Mastery for more group utility. Auras can also be toggled in between eating and drinking or while mounted, but not while casting spells. As good as Auras are, however, it suffers from one major shortcoming: it activates the Global Cooldown.

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We don't know for sure yet if patch 2.4.2 is hitting the live servers tomorrow, but there's a few clues that may suggest we're going to see it soon. First is that maintenance tomorrow morning will be extended, from 3am-11am PST. Extended maintenance doesn't always mean a patch, sometimes it's for hardware upgrades or other reasons. However, if there's patch, there is generally extended maintenance.

But there is one other sign that could be a harbinger of 2.4.2. Tipster Phillip pointed out to us that the PTR servers are currently down. There's hasn't been an official notice posted on the US PTR Forums as of this writing, but there is an official notice of the end of testing on the European forums. Certainly, Blizzard's already had one false stop on the 2.4.2 PTR, but it could be that the second time is a charm.

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My wife's fortunes started off with shirts. It was her passion in the game, making shirts as a tailor and advertising them with creative sales pitches on the Trade channel. On our original server, she made a name for herself selling shirts and proceeded to the same thing when we re-rolled. Eventually, she peddled her wares enough and with such charm that she eventually dominated the market to the point where people bought her shirts (and tuxedos, of course) even though they were priced a little higher than other shirts on the Auction House. As our server's Scarab Lord once put it while asking her to craft a shirt, "I want something branded, none of this <his original shirt's crafter's name> sh**."

Although my wife hasn't made shirts in a long while since re-rolling a Jewelcrafting Warlock, she's still sometimes surprised by strangers who greet her when she comes online or talks over Trade. Total strangers would say things like, "if you don't have a <my wife's toon> shirt you fail at life" or "I would rather be naked than not wear <my wife's toon>". One even creepily asked her how our 6-month old daughter was doing (apparently he had heard it through an old guildie). It's amusing to see that my wife has carved her own little niche on our server and I realized just how we can get a little fame in the game through the little things we do.

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Terra Nova put a quick post up about putting the Blizzard vs. WoW Glider case (and the Public Knowledge amicus brief) in the larger context of whether or not End User License Agreements are "good" or "bad," but even better than the post is the comments section. Lots of MMO heavies, including Richard Bartle, show up to break down just what Blizzard is trying to do with their claim against the botting software, and what they might end up doing to the industry at large.

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Some more information on Wrath has bubbled to the surface. This is like Christmas every day for me! I'm very excited. New bits in today's installment of Facts of the Lich King:

• Some Wrath mounts will be able to take passengers (!), and ground passenger mounts will work in the old world as well! This sounds awesome -- although it might be boring to be the one who's not driving, it could also let you take a break. And being able to cart around lower-level characters in the old world will really speed up those instance runs.
• Trainers and AH will stay in the old world. Not surprising, but incredibly irritating. At best, it's a minor inconvenience and burns your Hearthstone timer. At worst, you're stuck in Stormwind for an hour when you could be doing much more interesting things, all because you wanted to respec or buy some mats. Not to mention the leveling-up process -- going back to the old world every level to train was obnoxious in BC, and it'll almost certainly be obnoxious in Wrath.


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A little earlier today, Blizzard has made a new addition to the official Wrath of the Lich King site. They've added The Nexus to the dungeons listing! The Nexus seems to be made up of three wings. The Nexus and The Oculus will be 5 man dungeons, and there will also be a 10 and 25 man raid zone that seems to be currently unnamed. It, most likely, houses Malygos himself.

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If you're a fan of World of Warcraft, StarCraft 2, or any of Blizzard's games, then here's the announcement you've been waiting for. Blizzard has finally released details regarding Blizzcon 2008 via press release.

This year's event, which will be held on October 10 and 11at the Anaheim Convention Center, is the biggest one yet. According to the press release, Blizzcon will now take up three convention halls as compared to last year's two.

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WoWWiki defines the tag as damaging a mob, thereby reserving the monster or NPC for you and your party so that only you may loot or gain XP from it. It also turns the status bar of the mob gray to other players to indicate that it has been tagged by another player. Rufushonkeriv asks an interesting question over at LiveJournal, however, about kill stealing and how it can happen in World of Warcraft. The tagging mechanism, which isn't present in more than a few MMOs, is supposed to prevent kill stealing in the game.

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You know that awesome Amani War Bear? The one that has been sold for 20,000 gold? Well, you'd better work on getting it as soon as possible if you want one, because when Wrath of the Lich King comes out, it will no longer be attainable. Currently you get it as a reward for a time-based challenge in the ten-man raid Zul'Aman: free all four prisoners in time, get bear.

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Stitchedlamb on WoW LJ wants to know: how do you do any questing as a healer? One reason WoW is such a popular game is that no matter your spec or role, Blizzard has done their best to make sure every class can play solo. But if you've ever played a Prot Warrior or a Holy Priest, you know for sure that some classes solo a little easier than others. Before the itemization changes hit in 2.3 and 2.4, healers had it pretty bad, and even after, it's tough to push out quests when all you've got is a bunch of +healing and no Shadowform to speak of.

I rolled my Shaman to 60 as Enhancement (Windfury while leveling is one of the great pleasures of Azeroth), but when I hit 60 way back when, I switched to Resto -- I like playing in groups, and being a healer makes sure you have groups whenever you want them. But when Burning Crusade came out, I still wanted to play instances, so I leveled from 60-70 as Resto.

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The lead producer of World of Warcraft, J. Allen Brack, was recently interviewed regarding the role of Death Knights in Wrath of the Lich King. He gave out more details about the role of the new hero class, its talent trees, as well as the character's racial abilities.

Brack confirmed that the Death Knight will be filling multiple roles in a party such as a raid tank which specializes in magic damage-dealing bosses but can also function as a main tank for other raids. In addition, the hero class can also act as a DPS character and summoner, sort of like a Warlock in plate mail:

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Update - The next Blizzcon has been announced, it will be held in Anaheim, California on October 10 and 11, see the Press Release

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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

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On WoW Moviewatch, we regularly ask for and blog about user submissions. However, not all of the submissions are what we would call ... impressive. Such is the case with Ask a Warlock: Episode 1 - "Why is the what?" According to his show page, though, the poor soul actually asks for feedback.

Ask and ye shall receive, young warlock! First of all, we'll start with the premise. He solicits questions on his blog and then answers them in video format. Ask a Warlock is obviously a WoW knockoff of Ask a Ninja, which is a much better production. Maybe you're trying to emulate Ask a Chola, who isn't even a real chola, but the point is that you'll need to improve your schtick. For a much better example, see Ian Beckman's Ask an Assassin.

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M'uru China first kill by Stars

Chinese top guild Stars downed M'uru at 21:27pm (GMT+8:00), 12th May. They had 1% wipe the previous night, but they finally managed to bring him down. Congratulations to them for getting the first kill in China.

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Ah, BlizzCon 2007! So many fond memories! We had the Wrath of the Lich King announcement, developers answering all of our questions, the latest on the World of Warcraft movie, and (of course) L70ETC! While there doesn't seem to be anything yet on Blizzard's website announcing a BlizzCon 2008, Buisiness Wire has a press release announcing BlizzCon 2008 taking place on October 10th and 11th in good old Anaheim California. We've contacted Blizzard to confirm, but in the meantime we're clearing out calendar and making travel arrangements. We hope to see all of you at BlizzCon!

Gallery: BlizzCon Exhibit Hall First Look

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Welcome to today's edition of Ask WoW Insider, in which we publish your questions for dissection by the peanut gallery -- now with extra snark and commentary by one of our writers. This week Nick writes in:

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IT ... IS ... TIME! Nearly two thousand of you voted in our Grand Theft Azeroth competition, and the results are in. Nyxilyn of <Departed> on Norgannon is the clear-cut winner, receiving just shy of half the votes. Runner-up goes to Sorro of <Panda Attack> on Dark Iron, who left his blood elf orphan at the mercy of Archimonde and got slightly less than a quarter of all votes.

As you may recall, Nyxilyn chose to emulate the Grand Theft Auto Series by getting a group to kite the Pit Commander to Shattrath. This resulted in much lag, many deaths, and a warning from a GM before the combined forces of the sanctuary city's NPCs brought it down. Congratulations, Nyxilyn, and wear your title of <Grand Theft Azeroth Champion> with pride!

Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

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It looks like Blizzard has been busy handing down the law to players involved in win trading on World of Warcraft's Arena. Apart from giving the Arena rules a bit of a tweak to cut down on violators, WoW Insider reports that the company has also been handing out bans.

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Just a week and a half or so ago, we wanted to know what you were most looking forward to in Wrath of the Lich King, and then last Friday we heard about umpteen million new things about Wrath. So we should probably ask again: considering what we learned last week, now what are you most excited about for the next expansion?

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