After having caused a major speculation storm, PC Gamer has confirmed that Diablo 3 is not the big reveal contained within its August 2008 issue. Apparently they’ve got two major announcements in the issue, none of which are from Blizzard, developer of the classic series.

The official World of Warcraft website offers details on the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion for the game. There is a new Death Knight gameplay information page, new gameplay features page and new wallpapers among other things.

If you’re a hardcore World of Warcraft player, keep running Windows Media Player 11 in the background then! Gizmodo reports that running the media player speeds up loading in the popular MMORPG, strange as it may sound. Blizzard knows about this and is currently investigating.

Game god John Carmack of id Software, in an interview with Gamasutra, has noted the power of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, saying that it has spurred PC gaming, all the while reaffirming his company’s support for PC as a gaming platform.

He described WoW as a “train driving all the PC sales numbers altogether on gaming,” while at the same time acknowledging that most players of “higher-end games” have moved onto the consoles, citing well-implemented console features as well as connectivity options such as Xbox Live.

However, he still believes in the strength of PC as a games platform, stating that “the PC still has a strong enough margin to make games, and we continue to support it.”

World of Warcraft junkies looking to get the fix for free now have an opportunity to experience the game free for 11 months. DirecTV and Blizzard have teamed up to offer a free subscription for the aforementioned period of time to new DirecTV subscribers.

A new “service release” for Two Worlds is now live on the game’s official website, updating the RPG to v1.5. To coincide with the patch’s release, an updated demo can also be found on the website.

New updates for StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood Wars are now available, bringing the RTS and its expansion up to v1.15.1. The updates can be applied automatically by connecting to Battle.net; manual patches can be found on Blizzard’s website.

With the Leipzig Games Convention just two days away, Blizzard has announced that it will be showing off World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and StarCraft II at the show in playable form.

Wrath of the Lich King will let players adventure in the Howling Fjord region of Northend and check out Utgarde Keep, a five-person dungeon located there. For StarCraft II, attendees will be able to experience the newly revealed units of the Terran race and play as either the Terrans or the Protoss in single-player skirmishes and in multiplayer battles on six different maps.

Though Blizzard is doing well in China, it still isn’t far away from legal problems. The company has been sued by Chinese IT company Founder Electronics who is claiming for 100 million yuan in damages for copyright infringement. Apparently, Blizzard, The9 (which runs WoW in China) and Qingwentuwen (Beijing distributor) had used five fonts from the company’s database for use in World of Warcraft without proper authorization.

Founder Electronics, the largest provider of Chinese fonts in the country, claims that the infringement of copyright was “serious” due to the fact that WoW has more than 7.5 million active player accounts. “The lost earnings of one billion yuan was a conservative estimate,” they said.

No comment has been made yet by Blizzard. This is, interestingly, the largest IP suit in China, a country ridden with software piracy.

Easily making it the most popular MMORPG in the world, Blizzard today announced that World of Warcraft has surpassed 9 million subscribers worldwide.

The game has debuted in North America in November 2004 and has since then seen steady growth thanks to worldwide launches and regular new content.

Blizzard’s latest efforts to combat gold farmers has been detailed in this World of Warcraft forum post, stating that the company has sued Peons4hire, a popular gold-selling organization operating within the MMORPG world.

According to the post, the organization is to cease its activities at once, though it is yet to do so.

Courtesy of eagle-eyed Hungarians, we now know that the recently-released Starcraft 2 has some easter eggs in the form of hidden pictures.

The two images, presented in the post, show dudes having fun, with the second showing lead designer Dustin Browder with someone else.

Blizzard has foiled the cheaters again! The World of Warcraft Community site carries word on action taken by the company against cheaters in the month of November, stating that they have banned over 105,000 accounts and removed over 12 million gold from the game’s economy that were the product of cheating and gold farming.

Blizzard Entertainment has officially announced that The Burning Crusade, the highly anticipated expansion for World of Warcraft, has been delayed to January 2007. The company hopes that the addition of a few extra weeks to the development cycle will let it “further refine the new content that will ship.”

The closed beta test for the expansion has begun earlier this month. This delay will allow these testers to continue providing feedback that will shape the final release.

Summer cleaning has been going on at full force at Square Enix and Blizzard recently, as the two companies have announced that they have banned accounts from Final Fantasy XI and World of Warcraft, respectively, doe to “suspicious” activities and cheating.

In an update on the Final Fantasy XI website, the publisher states that after investigation, over 2000 PlayOnline accounts have been either suspended or terminated July 21 due to “malicious and intentional use of third-party tools.” The update also mentions that the publisher is not friendly towards RMT (Real Money Trade) activities and will be breaking down on individuals who carry out these sort of transactions.

On the Blizzard front, World of Warcraft has been approximately 59,000 bans, as well as the removal of 22 million gold from the total economy to eliminate cheating in the extremely popular MMORPG. The company also called for players to take action against suspicious users by reporting them to in-game GMs, or emailing details to hacks@blizzard.com.

With the release of The Burning Crusade drawing near, Blizzard unveiled some details on the Draenei and Blood Elves which will be available in the coming expansion. Here’s a bit:

One legend involves the noble leader of the Draenei, Velen, and his vision. Velen’s vision was given substance in the form of Nobundo, a one-time Draenei priest who had devolved while the orcs decimated his race and tore the planet apart. Like his fellow Broken, Nobundo had lost contact with the Light, and so he ventured far into the deserts of Outland to meditate and pray for guidance.

Further details can be found just after the jump. Some screenshots showing the new classes have also been released and can be found below:

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