If you’ve been patiently waiting for your chance to try the Diablo III beta, now is the time to check your inbox. Blizzard has just rolled out 100,000 more beta invites to players who showed their interest in the game. These invites were, as always, sent out through email, so that’s where you need to be checking.

The email also warns players to be weary of any phishing scams that are taking place right now. These types of things happen a lot, and Blizzard wants to ensure players that whenever they are contacted from the company, there will always be some sort of call sign attached. These emails, however, seem legitimate so there’s nothing to worry about.

If you managed to slip through the company’s fingers somehow, don’t worry. There will be more beta invite rounds to come. You just need to be patient, and just try not to cry. Even if they are manly tears.

In a press release just sent out, Blizzard has announced that there will be no Blizzcon in 2012. Rather, there will be a different event for them to focus on, the 2012 Battle.net World Championship. This event is set to take place at the end of this year, in Asia, with StarCraft II and World of Warcraft Arena World Championship tournaments.

With regards to this year’s Blizzcon, they had this to say: “We’re excited to be showcasing Blizzard eSports on a truly global stage this year. We’re also heavily focused on getting Diablo III, Mists of Pandaria, and Heart of the Swarm into players’ hands as soon as possible. In light of our jam-packed schedule, we’ve decided to hold the next BlizzCon in 2013.”

No specific details about the dates or locations of either the 2012 Battle.net World Championship or the 2013 Blizzcon were given. We will keep you updated on this when more information becomes available.

Update: Blizzard has posted an official page for the 2012 Battle.net World Championship Event.

According to a recent job posting on Blizzard Entertainment’s website, they might be looking to place in-game advertising into their next big MMO, currently known as Titan. In the job posting, they said that the potential employee must “(w)ork with major consumer brands to facilitate product placement and licensing within the world of Blizzard Entertainment’s next-gen MMO that enhances the gameplay experience.”

Titan is a project that Blizzard has kept under wraps since at least 2007. Very few details are known about it, although it was made known by CEO Mike Morhaime in a 2008 interview with Wired magazine that it would not be a sequel to any current Blizzard games.

If Blizzard is looking to add in-game ads to Titan, it might shed some light on what kind of a game that it is. Since it would be off-putting to see an ad for Doritos or Mountain Dew in a world like Azeroth, this might indicate that Titan may be in a more modern day setting. Of course, it’s possible that when Titan is released, it might not have any ads in it. This could just be Blizzard covering all their bases and seeing what may or may not work.

Ask anyone I know and they’ll tell you that it’s no secret I’m a World of Warcraft fan. I play the MMO like clockwork, and I even manage my own guild. When it comes to gaming, though, I’m also a pretty big tabletop kind of guy, and for that reason I’ve taken a liking to the WoW Trading Card Game (TCG). I’ve been playing for a while now, and it’s becoming almost as big of a passion as playing the actual MMO. The TCG for WoW is made by Cryptozoic, and they’ve just announced some details about the new set that’s about to release for the game, called Crown of the Heavens. I decided to take some time and detail it a bit, just so you guys can see what to expect when this new set drops!

Crown of the Heavens is the second set in the Aftermath block, coming right after Throne of the Tides. This set follows the beings of Nordrassi, the World Tree. Continuing with the introduction of Monster Allies and Monster Heroes, brand new creatures enter the fray in Crown of the Heavens, and they’re all a force to be reckoned with. There will also be some new key abilities, or mechanics, that will show up in the new set, and I’ll go over them first.

As seen with Remulos, Son of Cenarius above, one of the new abilities in Crown of the Heavens is called Harmonize. When a card has Harmonize, you pay 1 less resource to play any ally with a printed cost of 4 or more. These Harmonize abilities stack, so if you have four cards on the field with the ability then you can effectively get out 4-cost cards for nothing. Filling your deck with cards that take advantage of Harmonize can make for a very quick and painful match for your opponent.

The next ability that’s coming in Crown of the Heavens is Smash, and I can tell it’s going to be my favorite. When an ally has Smash, if it would deal more than fatal combat damage to another ally, the spilled over damage then gets dealt to that ally’s controller’s hero. For example, let’s say you have an ally that deals 6 damage. That ally is in combat with an opponent’s ally that only has 4 health. Your ally will deal fatal damage to the defender, leaving an excess of 2 damage points. With Smash, these left over damage points spill on to the opposing ally’s controller’s hero. It’s extra damage! Giving your allies Smash and following that up with buffs to their attack power can make for easy and quick skirmishes, all with your opponent’s hero taking damage the whole time!

Smash comes in with a new addition of Ogres in the new set. Cryptozoic really wanted to add more huge allies into the game to make it possible for players to really deliver a beatdown to their opponents. Take this guy for instance:

He is just a brute with chunk enough to take a beating, and he only has a printed cost of 6! Ogres are going to make a big appearance in Crown of the Heavens, and they’ll bring with them plenty of destruction. There will be new Ogre allies, abilities, and even a big nasty Ogre hero for players to take advantage of.

Another focus feature of the new set is yet another race that’s been left in the shadows – Demons. Demons have shown up in the TCG before, but mainly as summons for Warlocks. This time they will be introduced as their own entities – we will see both Demon allies and Demon heroes. Here’s a look at a Demon ally, and on the card you can see a glimpse of just how these guys will play out:

So can you see the strategy behind the Demons? Basically, they all play off of your opponent’s hero having 15 or more damage on them at any given time. As long as this damage is stuck on their hero, your Demons will either gain buffs to their attack power, create more Demon Monster allies per turn, or even cause instant damage. In addition to doing direct abilities, some cards will force opponents to make decisions, and their choices will either give you the upper hand, or force them to take damage.

More Alliance and Horde cards make an appearance, along with a special location card to mark the set:

Let’s see, with nothing better to do off the first turn, or with an extra resource to use, you can certainly benefit from this card. Use it to heal your wounded allies, or start milling through your deck to get to exactly what you need. No matter what you need, the World Tree has you covered until the end.

Crown of the Heavens is set to release on February 7th, which isn’t too far away. It will have 64 Commons, 60 Uncommons, 24 Heroes, 60 Rares, and 10 Epics in its vault. If you’re looking to jump into the World of Warcraft TCG, or if you’ve been waiting to get some new features thrown at you, this new set will deliver what you’re seeking. I know I’ll be working on a new Monster deck, and going against my better judgement, I may even play Alliance. Get ready for Crown of the Heavens next month!

The internet has been raving lately over Diablo 3, and there’s been some good reason. First there was the leak from Best Buy that the game’s release date was February 1st. Blizzard rose up to squash that rumor, breaking the hearts of gamers around the world. Soon after this, a post on Twitter confirmed that Diablo 3 was in development for consoles, which sent everyone wild. Now Blizzard has stepped out of the shadows once more to put some clarification on the console port of the game, and what we can expect.

Via Twitter, Diablo fan TaNGoIX asked Blizzard Community Manager Micah “Bashiok” to “confirm or deny Diablo 3 coming to consoles.” Bashiok sent a reply that stated, “Yup. Josh Mosqueria is lead designer for the Diablo console project.” After seeing this, the net was abuzz with confirmation posts, rumors, and the like all about the great PC game coming to their favorite console. While this is good news, Blizzard is warning us not to take it too far.

In an official statement, here’s what the developer wanted us to know:

“Bashiok’s response on Twitter was intended as a confirmation that we’re actively exploring the possibility of developing a console version of Diablo III, as we’ve mentioned in the past. This is not a confirmation that Diablo III is coming to any console platform. Our focus right now is on finishing the PC/Mac version of Diablo III and making sure it’s a worthwhile successor to the Diablo series.”

Well there you have it. That’s an official statement from the company, and it doesn’t get any clearer than that. I hope that, while this statement again breaks some hearts, it clears up confusion and stops the spread of more rumors about the game. There is still hope, though. Blizzard is still looking into the console port of the game.

World of Warcraft’s latest patch, 4.3 The Hour of Twilight, has already released, and now there are some hotfixes that have rolled out for it. When patches come out for games, especially PC games, they often need some tweaking of their own to help balance the game out. With the tampering and addition of features to the game, there’s a lot of room for mishaps.

Here’s a snippet of what was hammered out with the new hotfix update:

• Killing bosses while using the Heroic Dungeon Finder should now award guild reputation and experience
• Players should now be able to complete the quests “The Captured Journal” and “The Enemy’s Insignia” at the Darkmoon Faire after having completed them in a previous month
• Pelturas Whitemoon should no longer becomes unresponsive after a player completes the quest “All’s Well”

Tons of class updates have been rolled out, including improved Serpent Sting spread for Hunters, Bladestorm will now always trigger invincibility for the Warrior, and Paladins’ Holy Radiance should now stack properly with the spells cast by other Paladins. To see the full list of hotfixes (it’s a pretty big one), head on over to the World of Warcraft hotfix post. Hopefully these fixes will help get the game back to normal and straighten out a lot of the bugs and glitches players were facing.

It’s been almost 12 years since the release of Diablo II, and with Blizzard’s habit of releasing games “when they’re done” rather than on a date speficied well in advance, many have wondered just how many more months we’ll be waiting. I certainly don’t fault them for their approach, as I’d rather have a polished game from day 1 than something that needs patch after patch.

The game has been in beta for several months now, which has been leading people to believe that a release is coming sooner, rather than later. And now thanks to some signage found in a Best Buy, we may have locked down that specific date.

One might be led to believe that the above image is a work of Photoshop wizardry. However, a quick look at Best Buy’s site shows the same release date, and UK retailer GamePlay has it pegged for February 3rd. This would fall in line with the usual delay in release found overseas. Don’t get too upset if this doesn’t turn out to be the true release date, as Blizzard has not yet confirmed anything.
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Right now over at the magical world of Blizzard, a stupendous sale is going on. If you’ve ever wanted to get your friends into the MMO, this is the time to do so. From now until December 19th each of the WoW games (expansions too) are on sale.

The World of Warcraft Battle Chest is just $5, which includes the original game and its first expansion, The Burning Crusade. The next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King is just $10, and the final and most recent expansion, Cataclysm, can be snagged for $20. This means that for the cool price of $35 you can gift the entire WoW experience which includes a free month of playtime.

Along with the game discounts, Blizzard has discounted the Pandaren Monk pet to $5, and the celestial mount has been dropped to $10. There’s savings to be had all over the place now! This is great for fans of the game who want a second account, as well as those who have been on the free trial and want to take their game to the next level. If you’re looking to get into the World of Warcraft MMO, right now is the time. It’ll certainly be a holly-jolly Christmas this year.

Though plenty of us are sitting in wait for the release of Diablo III, Blizzard is busy working on other stuff for us to spend money on. There are many fans of the Diablo series out there, and the more hardcore players will know that it’s much more than just clicking on monsters and socketing items. When it comes down to it, Diablo tells a thick and bloody story.

Blizzard wants players to learn more of this story, and to help with that they’ve announced a new book that will accomplish the task. The book, entitled Diablo III: The Book of Cain, tells the story about Sanctuary – the world of Diablo – from the eyes of its main protagonist, Deckard Cain. According to Blizzard, the book will be “designed to look like an in-world artifact from the Diablo universe.” It also tells of “the eternal war that rages between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells.” On top of this, the book will boast some artwork from “some of the world’s most renowned fantasy artists.”

If you’re looking to pick up Diablo III: The Book of Cain, you can snag it when it releases in North America on December 13th. For international buyers you’ll have to wait until February 7th. With this releasing next month, it’ll make a great Christmas present for any gamer on your list.

It’s finally time, and the long wait is over. The new patch 4.3 is now live for World of Warcraft. This patch has been called “Hour of Twilight,” and it includes plenty of fixes and features to keep players full of interest. The official World of Warcraft site has a list of what to expect with the patch, and here are some details from their post.

In patch 4.3, Thrall and the noble Aspects will call upon the Horde and the Alliance to help them retrieve the artifact–no longer in existence–from the distant past. Those brave enough to face the challenge will embark on a perilous journey from Azeroth’s apocalyptic End Time to the Dragon Soul’s point of origin during the catastrophic War of the Ancients. If the heroes succeed, an even more harrowing battle awaits them in the present….

Added in the patch are new dungeons and raids:

• New Dungeon: End Time

This new 5-player Heroic dungeon begins the quest to save all with a look at the desolate future of Azeroth, should its defenders fail to stop Deathwing.

• New Dungeon: Well of Eternity

In this new 5-player Heroic dungeon, adventurers travel back 10,000 years in a brazen attempt to retrieve the Dragon Soul.

• New Dungeon: Hour of Twilight

This new 5-player Heroic dungeon sets the final stage by bringing players face-to-face with the Twilight’s Hammer in present-day Dragonblight, where Thrall and the Dragon Soul must be safely escorted to Wyrmrest Temple so that the assault on Deathwing can commence.

• New Raid: Dragon Soul

Players have the opportunity to take the fight to Wyrmrest Temple and beyond, assisting Thrall and the Dragon Aspects as they seek to bring an end to the Black Dragonflight once and for all. 10- and 25-person raids will get to take on Deathwing himself, with three levels of difficulty to consider and epic gear to claim.

The patch adds a Raid Finder, which functions much like the Dungeon Finder that already exists within the game. It’s a new grouping feature allows players to quickly and easily form a pick-up raid for a specially tuned version of the current tier of endgame content. Transmogrification also appears in the patch, which allows players to customize their gear like never before: copying the appearance of one magical item onto another. Reforging has also changed and been compiled with Void Storage. With all of these new features in the game, players will finally get the playability they’ve been asking for. For more notes on the patch, head to the World of Warcraft post. You can also check out the patch’s trailer below.