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.

Noting how successful the game is, Funcom sent out word that the Collector’s Edition of Age of Conan is now completely sold out throughout the world. In fact, in some regions the edition has been sold out for weeks. Additional boxes were made to meet demands, but they were sold out as well.

In addition, Funcom mentions that sales of the standard edition are also impressive, stating that they have shipped around 700,000 copies of the game on day one. As a result of massive interest in the game, the company has ordered additional servers to accommodate the extra players.

“Everyone in Funcom is delighted and humbled with the historical pre-order numbers for Age of Conan. If the information we have is correct, they represent the highest pre-order number for any global launch of an original PC game, ever, including the original World of Warcraft launch,” said Morten Larssen, Funcom’s VP of Sales & Marketing.

However, on the development side there’s a small hitch. The company was forced to ship only the DirectX 9 version of the game, noting that the DirectX 10 version will be released later this year. They believe that the DX10 client wasn’t up to snuff and is taking extra time with it. This is good news for gamers as Funcom has mentioned that it will include even more features in the DX10 version than originally planned.

The DX10 version will premiere at the Leipzig Games Convention this August; it will also be shown off at the NVISION event in California in the same month.

Stormfront Studios, the developers of the original Neverwinter Nights game, has been honored by The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences at the 59th Annual Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards ceremony. They have been recognized for the groundbreaking MMORPG that made its debut on AOL and was offered from 1991-97.

Don Daglow, who led the design of Neverwinter Nights, accepted the award for Stormfront and its publishers. “These games are not just entertainment,” he said. “They build new kinds of communities and create deep people-to-people relationships. They influence people’s lives in the same way as great books, inspiring movies and iconic television shows, and we’re grateful to the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for this honor.”

The series has been pretty successful, spawning successors in the form of hit games from BioWare.

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.

ArenaNet sends word that music from Guild Wars has been chosen to be performed as part of “PLAY! A Video Game Symphony”, a worldwide symphonic tour featuring music from a number of games, which kicks off on January 19, 2008.

The company notes that it is a great honor for them and the game’s composers. The music of Guild Wars is also featured on CD in special edition packages of the game.

Developer Auran and publisher Gamecock sent out word that Fury will adopt a new business model of “free to download, free to play” with the December 14 release of the “Age of the Chosen” update.

“FURY was built around giving players options that suit their play style and their wallet,” said Tony Hilliam, CEO of Auran. “With the AotC update, we are introducing a new player category called “Chosen”. As one of the Chosen, players can access all game types, equip all weapons and unlock all 400 abilities - and they can play as much as they like absolutely free. This is a fantastic opportunity for players to jump into battle with their mates and discover the frenetic pace of the fastest RPG combat ever. Chosen will earn less gold and essence, and will not be able to trade with other players.”

Chosen players will be able to purchase gold from the game’s store or upgrade to “Hero” status to earn more essence and gold. The add-on also features two new game types - Carnage and 1v1 Elimination.

Korean developer Gravity Co. (Ragnarok Online) has opened a new studio in the US, employing former Blizzard North developers. Dubbed L5 Games, the California-based studio is a subsidiary of the company’s North American arm, Gravity Interactive Inc.

“We intend to develop online games targeting the North American market, one of the fastest growing online gaming markets, with the outstanding developers of L5 Games who have a successful track record and thorough understanding of the culture of the North American market,” said Gravity CEO Il-Young Ryu.

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.”

There’s news for underwear perverts - NCsoft has announced the formation of a new development studio in Mountain View, California that will be dedicated to develop the City of Heroes property, which, the company mentions, is now owned 100 percent by NCsoft. The previos ownership was split between NCsoft and Cryptic Studios, the original developer of the project.

The new studio will be built around key members of the City of Heroes team from either companies, including the art, programming and design team leads.

“We’re happy to announce that NCsoft has acquired full ownership of the City of Heroes IP,” said Brian Clayton, NCsoft executive producer and manager of the new studio. “Our plans are clear. We are now in a position to make a major reinvestment in the City of Heroes product line. With our existing Cryptic and NCsoft team as the core, we will be able to run our current service without any interruption to our players, expand our studio to deliver triple-A content, and take City of Heroes to new heights.”

While formal plans for the IP are still slated to be announced in the future, it was implied that a sequel to the popular MMO is being developed right now.

The pre-order program for Pirates of the Burning Sea has begun, offering gamers who purchase the MMORPG an invitation to access the game up to 15 days prior to the launch, a pet, exclusive weapons and an original soundtrack CD containing 60 minutes of pirate-themed music.

This page marks the call for recruits for the culmination of beta testing for Tabula Rasa, one that will see 10,000 keys given out on a first-come-first-serve basis. The beta wrap-up event will indeed feature the assassination of General British, lead designer Richard Garriott’s in-game avatar.

A rogue team of Tabula Rasa agents will be playing and challenge you to take on General British himself on Friday 26th October 2007 from 19:00h to 21:00 h BST (20:00h to 22:00h CET). As always, stay vigilant… you never know what surprises lurk around the corner…

Do you have the guts to take down the man?

Well, do you?

NCSoft and Destination Games send word that they will reward participants in the Tabula Rasa beta test by giving them an exclusive in-game emote. Here’s the deal: “Your characters will receive access to /throat; use it to show n00bs that you’ve been blasting Bane before blasting Bane was cool.”

The reward will be given only to those who login to the beta anytime between October 25 and October 26. It will become available starting at the end of November around Thanksgiving.

Brand new content and a new zone for Flagship Studio’s upcoming free MMORPG Mythos have been announced today. The expansion to the closed beta program will see the introduction of a new zone, Bloodbristle Heath, and the outpost town of Tulin’s Hope. They will roughly double the size of Mythos’ universe and will also add new levels, monsters, quests, items and skills. Gamers are invited to apply for the closed beta here.

The game is in development at Flagship Seattle, a subsidiary of Flagship Studios, which has just completed Hellgate: London. Mythos offers players three races - human, satyr, or gremlins - to play out in a fantasy world. The game, once released, will be free to download and play.

Adding a new layer to Anarchy Online, Funcom has launched virtual item sales within the game, allowing players to purchase items ranging from hover-bikes, social clothing, and pets to luxury apartments with real money. However, it is said that this will not affect gameplay balance.

The game will employ a points system that can be purchased in blocks of 10, 20 or 40 USD/EUR, where 100 points is equivalent to 1 USD/EUR (unfair for Europeans). As an example, a new hover-board starts as low as 300 points, but players can also purchase an entire range.

“This kind of system puts the choice in the hands of the players by allowing them to take as little or as much of the new content as they like,” said Craig Morrison, Game Director on Anarchy Online. “It really adds an extra dimension to what we can provide in terms of fun social items, designed to look cool while being something players don’t feel forced into. That extra element of choice has allowed us to add a much broader range of items than we might if we were simply targeting it into a self contained expansion.”

Paying subscribers of the game will get a set of monthly points included in the subscription price, with longer pricing plans like 6 and 12 months getting extra points.

On the official Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising website is word that the MMORPG set in the Roman Empire is on “indefinite hold” and that the development team is moving on to work on Star Trek Online. Scoop:

Loyal and faithful community members and Beta testers, thank you for your support, help, and understanding during the Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising development process.

The development team established some very lofty and ambitious goals when the initial work was started on Gods & Heroes. Recently, we took a step back to evaluate the competitive landscape, the game’s current state, and the overall goals for our organization. And while we are truly proud of and pleased with what we have created in Gods & Heroes, we also realize that achieving the level of quality and polish that we are committed to will take a significant investment.

The Perpetual team is faced with a unique challenge of simultaneously developing both Gods & Heroes and Star Trek Online in addition to growing our Online Game Platform business. After assessing all of Perpetual’s opportunities, we have made the decision to put the development of Gods & Heroes on indefinite hold.

I want to express my overwhelming gratitude to the community, engineers, designers, artists, animators, and the game services team for the support and effort that has gone into Gods & Heroes.

Moving forward, we’re shifting our collective focus, resources and development efforts to Perpetual’s Platform Services division and Star Trek Online, thereby ensuring that the game lives up to the high level of expectation set by the dedicated Star Trek fan base.

Again, I would personally like to thank all of the Gods & Heroes supporters who have been with us from the beginning. Hopefully, your continued support will be as valuable to our future endeavors as it was with Gods & Heroes..