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We reported the launch of Blizzard’s World of War Pet Store a few days ago, and it appears now that the Pandaren Monk pet (which runs $10) is sold out.

Only the insanely loyal Blizzard population could conjure up a sold out status for a virtual item. In reality, as the headline states, the virtual sellout is due to a system error on the Blizzard’s side. A buggy Blizzard launch? What has this World of Warcraft come to? Read more…

Morgan Webb joins the ranks of the raiding elite. The beautiful X-Play co-host sits down with several key members of the Blizzard staff to talk about their hugely successful MMO World of Warcraft as it approaches the five year anniversary benchmark. Read more…

Here is a video fly through courtesy of the boys and girls over at Joystiq. Hit play and you will see before and after footage of The Barrens, Ashenvale, Darkshore, Desolace, Stonetalon Mountains, Gilneas, and the Lost Isles. Sit back and hit the play button already.

That’s right. According to a recent interview appearing on the DirecTV live broadcast of the show, everyone who plays World of Warcraft will be able to experience the new zones and alterations made to Azeroth. This also means that once the Cataclysm hits, you won’t be able to access the old quest chains any longer.

Ok guys, I found some food and I am about to start live blogging the Cataclysm panel in a few moments. Make sure to hit refresh repeatedly to get my updates. Here goes. Read more…

Mike Morhaime takes the stage after an introduction that asks show attendees to respect each other and not act like a bunch of tchotchke hungry douche bags.

Mike talks about how awesome Blizzard is, before taking a brief pause to resume talking about how awesome Blizzard is.

He talks about how this years tickets sold out in less than one minute — less time than it takes Ret pallys to storm the forums after a nerf. Read more…

Have you seen Sacha Baron Cohen’s new movie Brüno? Did you like it? Well, if you did then you’ll probably love Blizzard’s new Alliance specific tier 9 gear — if not, then I suggest you re-roll Horde, which will soon be much easier as Blizzard announced their intent to let players change their faction.

Seriously though, as a former art major, it doesn’t take long to figure out that more time and thought was put into the Horde tier designs than the Alliance. Either that or one set was thrown together after a company rushed out to see Brüno on their lunch break. Read more…

The latest batch of World of Warcraft PTR Patch notes are in, and the 3.2.0 patch features a few changes that will likely be viewed as welcome improvements.

In addition to the class changes, 3.2 will also enhance the in-game professions of WoW players. Miners will get more health from toughness, Skinners will see an increase in crit rating, and that 100 Dalaran cooking award chef hat will increase your cooking speed. Chef Flash to the rescue!

See the rest of the changes after the jump. Read more…

The last batch of BlizzCon 09 tickets have come and gone. If you want guaranteed access to the show now, you’re going to have to down some serious scalpers — BlizzCon tickets are phat loot, and they won’t come cheap.

The good news is, there will likely be a lottery/contest of sorts for you to try your luck at as well as the tried and true DirecTV televised version of the event.

So, do you really think you have what it takes to be the number one dancer? You better check yo’self before you wreck yo’self then, son. Prove your skill in Blizzard’s new April Fool’s joke for World of Warcraft: the PvP Dance Battle System.

The new “Dance Battle System” will allow players to custoize their crews, see available dance moves through the custom action bar, and more. Read more…

It appears World of Warcraft developers, Blizzard, may be working on fifth game, said to be a new IP.

Two new job listings have surfaced on Blizzrd’s job oppurtunities page looking for a Software Engineer in Client and in Gameplay under the category of ‘Unannounced’. The job description mentions they need the gameplay engineers “to focus on graphics and other client systems for an unannounced title.” Read more…

Tired of the constant nerf fest that is Blizzard’s World of Warcraft? Or maybe you are just looking for a break from Azeroth that doesn’t involve getting a job or anything remotely related to life in the “real world”.

Well, if you answered yes to any of those questions and at one point in your life pictured yourself in tightly fitting spandex, then Marvel and Gazillion Entertainment quite possibly have just the thing in store for you.

The two parties agreed on a ten year deal to create a Marvel Universe based Massive Multiplayer Online extravaganza. That’s right – Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and many others will soon be masquerading as quest givers in a game near you.

If quality is your concern, fear not. Gazillion is adequately equipped to create Marvel branded crack as their team of big wigs boast time spent at corporations such as Apple, Blizzard, Microsoft, and Pixar.

So forget those tired old exclamation points you are used to seeing and get ready to let your spider sense point you in the direction of the next quest giver — it’s bound to happen. Read more about the updated deal announcement over at marvel.com and check back with Ripten for more updates.

Chances are, that if you have played World of Warcraft for any substantial period of time, you have heard the name of a few helpful addons used by many of loyal subscribers. In fact, the majority of WoW gamers today are lost without them.

If you don’t believe me, ask a few what they do the moment a new patch comes out or they transfer their character to a test realm. My guess is that the majority scramble sites like curse.com looking for updates to these very plugins. So why then has Blizzard recently (last Friday) changed interface their policy to no longer allow these third party developers from charging for their work? Read more…

One of the latest posts on MMO-Champion reveals the tier 8 World of Warcraft stats and set bonuses. In addition, you can check out the latest plot to rain on your fun parade changes that will likely hit your talent tree in the 3.1 patch. As always, when you are done, you can head on over to the WoW class forums and bitch up a storm hoping someone in blue will give a damn. Check out the goods here.

If you’ve ever had a rich mining node ninja’d from under you after clearing the mob of surrounding trash, then you will likely welcome this change with open arms. Blizzard is instituting a mining change in their upcoming World of Warcraft patch — specifically, you will now be able to mine any node with one shot.

If you haven’t leveled a druid with epic flying you are going to want to get on that shit ASAP.

Source: WoW Insider

Once not too long ago, Blizzard joked about World of Warcraft coming to consoles in the form of a game called World of Warcraft: The Molten Core…for the Atari 2600.

Now some folks at Gamer’s University have been crazy enough to take that joke and roll with it so far as to create a playable game out of it, with “glorious” 192i resolution, 8-way directional control (!) and “revolutionary AI that reacts to your every move (which can be in any of 8 directions, remember?)”. I’m not sure how close it is to the real Molten Core having never done that raid, but it’s still pretty hilarious. Read more…

I got this lovely care package from Blizzard today, but as most World of Warcraft gamers know (especially those who got the game early), it doesn’t mean very much, because Northrend won’t be accessible until Midnight EST.

Well, that’s just 10 minutes away now. Mount your mounts, sharpen your blades, and load up on mana pots bitches — it’s time to explore Northrend!!!!

Update: 12:15am and Northrend looks pretty broken as you can see below. I took the boat from Stormwind Harbor and the game booted me. When I signed back in I had to work my way out of the boat because I was stuck halfway in the floor.

Once on top all I could see was floating trees and lots of fog. One brave soul jumped off the boat and I’m pretty sure he is still falling. So much for the big “WoW” moment…

You know how you always say that you want developers to try new things? Be creative. Live on the edge. Show you stuff you’ve never seen before. Yea? Well, you’re full a shit.

You don’t want that — you want to feel at home, comfortable, and in command — and you’re not the only one. Many residents of the Azeroth, in the popular MMO World of Warcraft, are not the least bit amused by Blizzard’s attempt to transition into the Lich King expansion. Read more…

It was a good show while it lasted, wasn’t it? Hey, let’s try another MMO. Oh this one has good PVP, it has cool innovations like public quests. But wait – there’s a new WoW patch? Okay, screw this, let’s play WoW.

That’s essentially the way Blizzard COO Paul Sams would tell you the story of how the folks who immigrated from World of Warcraft to Warhammer Online are already back to their previous MMO of choice.

We’ve seen a significant number of people, well over half, that cited Warhammer as their reason for leaving – they’ve already returned.

You think you’re out but then they just pull you back in. More thoughts from Sams after the jump. Read more…

If there’s a downside to Blizzard’s monumental success with World of Warcraft, it’s where they go from here. With reaction to the company’s future endeavors ranging from the justifiably negative to the mostly positive, there’s certainly a fine line to walk for the company.

For their upcoming “next-gen MMO”, Blizzard’s got to win a whole new audience over while not cannibalizing their own properties – what’s their game plan then? Make something different, according to Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime.

We’re not trying to replace World of Warcraft with this new MMO. We’re trying to create a different massively multiplayer experience, and hopefully World of Warcraft will still be going strong when that one is released.

Sounds interesting – let’s just hope they don’t sell a different game for every race. Read on for more Morhaime. Read more…