We've gotten word from the folks at Blizzard about their awareness of latency issues both in the world servers and in Naxx. The following is an email we received that we thought we'd share with you all.

You killed your raid content mobs, you topped out your player versus player (PvP) rewards, you leveled to the cap only a month after the last expansion and, in only a few weeks (or days), the newest content addition to the game is coming out; the dreaded expansion.

Most MMOs that offer expansions which increase the level cap cause depreciation of old content. Let me explain. While features or content are not removed, and backwards compatibility is maintained, the content previous to the expansion often becomes obsolete or out of date. There is little reason for players to go through old content when there's obviously a new and better way of doing things.

Blizzard has prepared for Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK) by making previously challenging raid encounters significantly easier, forcing some folks to cry foul as their hard work becomes "cheapened". The drops now pull from the same loot tables as they did before the change, but with significantly less risk and challenge.

So my question to you is, do you care?

Some of the folks on our World of Warcraft board discussed this very thing last week, and the replies, barbed though they were, elicited strong responses on either side.

Due to the overwhelming popularity of the newest expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, and the absolute hordes of players descending upon Northrend, Blizzard has just announced that there is a new feature available for all of you who have not yet taken the plunge into the frozen wastes yet. As discovered and posted over in our WoW General Forums by Kelnoen the Malevolent :

So with the release of WotLK and all the mayhem the midnight event brought out, GameStop has joined in the fun by offering a pre-paid one year gamecard and a hot quad-core gaming behemoth to the winner of their newest costume contest.

Wrath of the Lich King is live and I'm sitting in a Denny’s uploading screenshots from one of the funniest launch events that I've had the opportunity to attend. After fifteen hours of ‘CE Camping’ in a Fry's parking lot in Anaheim, I've returned with 'phat lewts', new friends and a few great stories. Please bear with me as I attempt to share with you my day at the official WotLK launch event. I'm rather tired.

To be completely honest, I had no idea what to expect Wednesday morning when I started my, now epic, journey to Fry's. I knew there would be players already in line but there is no way I could have prepared myself for what John Fitch, who was at the front of the line told me. "Yeah I've been here since 9am PST on Tuesday. By the time I get into the store I will have been here around 39 hours ." said the Hello Kitty enthusiast that you'll hear all about as soon as I transcribe our full conversation. To make his wait a tad more bearable, anyone who asked about what he was doing was informed that he was waiting in line for the new Hello Kitty game. As you can imagine, John had his fair share of weird looks. At one point in the evening he gathered a mob of people to circle the building shouting "Hello Kitty! Hello Kitty!" Some of the things we gamers do to entertain ourselves…

Now camping out over night in a lawn chair is hardcore, but I'm not sure if it tops Eugene Gray who checked out of a hospital earlier in the day to come down and wait in line against doctors orders. Hardcore? Most certainly! That wasn't enough so he brought out his Frostmourne replica. More to come about this badass later as I also sat down with him to get the whole story.

Log in!

The Lich King's armies from Northrend have begun to invade the rest of Azeroth and a battle is waging within Orgimmar. Most of the action is within the Valley of Honor where Thrall and Lady Sylvanas both fight side by side to repel the invasion. This is only the start of the events that will lead up to the launch of Wrath of the Lich King on November 13th.

The event seems to be repeating itself every 30 minutes so you have plenty of time to check it out. There is one piece of information that was made perfectly clear during this event, the Horde prepares for war!

Please join us in our forums to discuss the event and make sure to send us new information as the event unfolds!

There's quite a bit of talk around the industry, looking at not only how many copies Blizzard can sell of Wrath of the Lich King, but how fast! Gamasutra has quotes from a Janco Partners analyst.

The analyst is also "impressed" at the fact that World of Warcraft 's subscriber base has grown to 11 million even amid economic anxieties and two recent major releases, Age of Conan and Warhammer Online , neither of which have appeared to slow the game's momentum.

Based on its existing subscriber base, says Hickey, "We expect the upcoming release of WoW ’s expansion pack... would yield a sell-through of roughly 5 million units in the first month."

Have you pre-ordered yet? Or will you wait to order the expansion?

This one discourages me folks. If there's anyone who could stand up to retailers and show them that digital distribution is the future, and what customers want, it would be Blizzard. But today's official forum post by Claudiog confirms that there may or may not be digital access to WotLK content right at launch.

There have been no announcements made regarding the digital download release of Wrath of the Lich King (including my own). My statement simply declared there should be no expectation for it to be available on launch day. No expectation =/= "Unavailable"

My statement was made so that in order to ensure the installation of the game on launch day it is best to have a physical copy of the game in your hands. Nothing more. =)

For all information regarding the release of any of our products I would urge you to wait for announcements made by our PR or Marketing departments.

Let's hear it for decisive stands there folks!

Well, it's been a fun run for all of us but it's official, the beta servers are now closed in preparation for the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King release on November 13th.

The Allakhazam WoW team would like to thank all of you who participated on our site by using the wowreader to help us upload data for the xpac and providing so much content for our wiki. If I could mass rate up all of you and get away with it, I totally would!

The Wrath of the Lich King Friend and Family Alpha has just come to a close.

By Eyonix:
"The Wrath of the Lich King alpha test has now come to a close. We'd like to thank all of you for your participation and invaluable feedback on the game. The World of Warcraft team is hard at work preparing for the next phase of testing, and each of you will be invited back to participate. We're also happy to inform you that we will not be wiping characters as we transition from alpha to beta. However, all current alpha characters will be locked for a short period of time, allowing new players entering the beta sufficient time to catch up.

We look forward to seeing you all again in the Wrath of the Lich King beta test."

Looks like the beta is just around the corner.