Blizzard Entertainment today announced that Wrath of the Lich King, its second expansion pack for World of Warcraft, has sold more than 2.8 million copies in its first day of availability, making it the fastest-selling PC game of all time. The record was previously held by the studio’s other expansion for WoW – The Burning Crusade – released back in January 2007, selling nearly 2.4 million copies during its first day at retail.

“We’re grateful for the incredible support that players around the world have continued to show for World of Warcraft,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “Wrath of the Lich King contains some of the best content we’ve created for the game so far, and we look forward to seeing even more players log in to experience it in the days ahead.”

The expansion adds a whole new continent to explore, the Death Knight hero class and more. World of Warcraft, prior to the launch of the expansion, had more than 11 million players.

Speaking at the London World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King launch, Blizzard’s Paul Sams and Lee Spark answered questions about their unannounced MMORPG they have been tight-lipped about so far. That stance didn’t change, as they would reveal no information on the project, though they did point out the reason for the silence: it is early in development.

The duo also fielded questions about console development, which they shot down, noting that there is a “lot more that can be done on a PC.” They also talked about paid character customization in WoW, which they pointed out acts as a deterrent for users for wanting to jump between appearances and whatnot.

Said Sams: "We want to give you the ability to do this, but we don’t want you to do it all the time. The same thing goes for paid character transfer, we don’t want people bouncing back and forth. It serves as a tool for people to do it, but also as a deterrent to not do it too much, and also allows us to have the staff to be able to continually manage the population.”

Best Buy has announced plans to hold a midnight launch for Wrath of the Lich King, the upcoming highly anticipated expansion for World of Warcraft, in New York city on November 13.

Beginning at 8pm on Wednesday, gamers can gather at the Times Square Best Buy to meet with Blizzard’s Mike Morhaime and Frank Pearce; G4’s Geoff Keighley will also be there. The event will be host to interviews, prize giveaways and more.

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.

In news that shocks no one, Microsoft announced that the recently released blockbuster Halo 3 has raked in more than $300 million in first-week sales worldwide. This makes it one of the biggest entertainment properties in the world and replaces Halo 2’s past record.

The game has since then gone on to become the most played Xbox Live game, having more than 2.7 million gamers logged in during the first week, nearly one-third of the 7 million members of the service. It also racked up more than 3.6 million hours of online gameplay, and even more.

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.

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.

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.