BooksOnBoard announced the bestselling eBooks and authors for the second week of March 2010. World of Warcraft: Stormrage moved from the 9th position last week, to # 4 Best Selling eBook.

1. Hourglass – Claudia Gray
2. Shutter Island – Dennis Lehane
3. The Pact – Jodi Picoult
4. World of Warcraft: Stormrage – Richard A. Knaak
5. The Lucifer Gospel – Paul Christopher
6. The Silent Man – Alex Berenson
7. The Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss
8. Hell Gate – Linda Fairstein
9. Shalador’s Lady – Anne Bishop
10. The Help – Kathryn Stockett

Blizzard deployed a patch for Warcraft III: Frozen Throne to crack down on al those nasty hacks affecting players in Battle.net. Simply launch the game and login to Battle.net to commence downloading the patch.

FIXES

• Fixed an exploit rendering buildings non-interactable ("tower hack").
  
• Fixed an exploit allowing a player to bypass a summon ability's
  cooldown ("summon/cooldown hack").
  
• Fixed a client crash related to workers failing to build in an
  unintended way ("new crash hack").
  
• Fixed an exploit allowing the Blood Mages's Phoenix to be resurrected
  instantly ("phoenix hack").
  
• Fixed a bug allowing players to select an invalid matchmaking race
  resulting in all the player's units and buildings becoming sheep
  ("sheep hack").

Printwarcraft.com now offers the opportunity to create your own customized World of Warcraft mouse pad featuring the character you play. Much like custom character posters, these custom mousepads use specially designed rendering technology and access to character information, allowing you to select and pose your character while adding a variety of backgrounds, logos, borders, and fonts. Custom character mouse pads start at $19.99, and are available now at Printwarcraft.com

The interface allows you to pull your character data from the WoW Armory website and chose preset poses of your character. You can drag and drop the game logos and Blizzard logo, change text plates, text font and color. You can drag and drop any of the race shields into the foreground.

We have been alerted an eAudio Book excerpt of World of Warcraft: Stormrage by Richard A. Knaak is now available at the Simon & Schuster, Inc. / Pocket Books website. You can listen to Richard Ferrone read a few pages in this excerpt. This audio sample is approximately 5 minutes in length.

You may find the audio controller below the book description.


When the world of Azeroth was young, the god-like titans brought order to it by reshaping its lands and seas. Throughout their great work, they followed a magnificent design for what they envisioned Azeroth would become. Although the titans departed Azeroth long ago, that design endures to this day. It is known as the Emerald Dream, a lush and savagely primal version of the ... WORLD OF WARCRAFT.

Many are the mysteries surrounding the Emerald Dream and its reclusive guardians, the green dragonflight. In times past, druids have entered the Dream to monitor the ebb and flow of life on Azeroth in their never-ending quest to maintain the delicate balance of nature.

However, not all dreams are pleasant ones. Recently the Emerald Nightmare, an area of corruption within the Emerald Dream, began growing in size, transforming the Dream into a realm of unimaginable horror. Green dragons have been unexpectedly caught up in the Nightmare, emerging from it with shattered minds and twisted bodies. Druids who have entered the darkening Dream lately have found it difficult -- sometimes even impossible -- to escape.

Nor are these the Nightmare's only victims: more and more people are being affected. Even Malfurion Stormrage, first and foremost of the druids on Azeroth, may have fallen victim to this growing threat. As uncontrollable nightmares spread across the world, a desperate quest begins to find and free the archdruid.

Soon nature's enemies will learn the true meaning of the name ... STORMRAGE.

Fans of the Warcraft universe are deeply curious about the whereabouts of Malfurion Stormrage these past five years since the launch of World of Warcraft, and curious of how this novel ties-in with the upcoming World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion. The novel is set after Arthas' defeat in the Fall of the Lich King content patch and just weeks or months prior to Deathwing's Cataclysm.

The book so far has proven a success in several formats and best selling top lists. One more for the record. World of Warcraft: Stormrage by Richard A. Knaak / Pocket Books swept The Wall Street Journal's Top List of This Week's Spotlight: Hardcover Science Fiction category with the # 1 position, leaving The Host by Stephenie Meyer/Brown Little behind in second place.

This list of Best-Selling books covers the week ended in February 28, 2010.

• You can purchase World of Warcraft: Stormrage at the following online stores in USA and Europe.
  
• # 126 Best Selling in the USA Top 150 List
  
• # 1 Best Selling Collector's Edition
  
• # 9 Best Selling eBook at BooksonBoard

DC Direct website announced, to the delight of Blizzard Entertainment's hardcore collectors, the new line up of World of Warcraft action figures. Among them are two highly sought: Garrosh Hellscream and Garona Halforcen. The worgen one will no doubt be a favorite too.The following action figures will be available in October 27, 2010.

World of Warcraft Series 7

• Human Paladin: Judge Malthred figure stands at 9" high.
  
• Worgen Spy: Garm Whitefang stands 9.75" high.
  
• Orc Rogue: Garona figure stands at 5.5" high.

World of Warcraft Premiere Series 3

• Orc Warrior: Garrosh Hellscream figure stands at 7" high.
  
• Troll Hunter: Taz'Dingo figure stands at 6" high.

Do you have the talent and the passion for games to join Blizzard Entertainment? Do you live near San Francisco? This could be the opportunity of your life. Blizzard Entertainment will be accepting resume and reels at the Game Developers Conference in Moscone Center at the Career Pavilion Booth Number CP 272 through March 9-13, 2010. Not attending GDC? No problem. Go online at http://jobs.blizzard.com

Four Blizzard developers will be attending GDC 2010 as speakers:

Rob Pardo
VP, Game Design, Blizzard Entertainment
Making a Standard (and Trying to Stick to it!): Blizzard Design Philosophies
Date/Time: Thursday (March 11, 2010) 3:00pm — 4:00pm
Location (room): Room 134, North Hall

Brian Schwab
Senior AI/Gameplay Engineer
AI Architecture Mashups: Insights into Intertwined Architectures
Date/Time: Wednesday (March 10, 2010) 3:00pm — 4:00pm
Location (room): Room 310, South Hall

Erin Catto
Principal Software Engineer
Physics for Programmers
Date/Time: Wednesday (March 10, 2010) 10:00am — 6:00pm
Location (room): Room 125, North Hall

Dominic Filion
Senior Software Engineer II
Designing for Performance, Scalability & Reliability: StarCraft II's Approach
March 11, 2010) 9:00am — 10:00am

Blizzard Entertainment has initiated the third wave of StarCraft II Beta Invitations to all gamers who signed up to the beta opt-in via the Battle.net Account Management website. This third wave will increase the amount of players online to stress test the servers, and the Matchmaking System.

The second wave of beta key invitations was sent barely ten days ago on February 23, 2010. At this rate, there might be at least two more waves this month. Don't lose hope then, you might be the next one. To this point, Blizzard Entertainment has not yet contacted any of the fansites for their usual Fansites Beta Key Giveaways. Make sure to check out Blizzplanet, StarCraft: IncGamers, and other known StarCraft II fansites for any updates on this matter.

However, exercise caution when opening emails. Fake emails are sent when a beta test starts to lure you to websites that look identical to Battle.net Account page in order to steal your username and password. Simply type the us.battle.net/login or eu.battle.net/login URL manually, and just copy the beta key. Play safe, and be paranoid at all time even when the email says it comes from @Blizzard.com -- that's easily faked to look legit.

Thanks, for the heads up: Kenzuki and perera.

The Frostmourne Blade Replica made of Stainless-Steel is available again for $ 529.99 and the great news about it for those who can't pay that large sum is that you can now order it and pay only $106 per month for five months via the FlexPay option. Or simply pay the whole sum if that's not an issue.

Additionally, the Alliance and Horde Tabards and Flag replicas are available too for those who would love to bring those along to participate in the BlizzCon Cosplay Contest. They are great for Halloween or costume parties, or simply as a collectible memorabilia. For the Horde! For the Alliance!

• Frostmourne Replica, Tabards and Flags Store

Blizzard deployed the third patch: StarCraft II Beta - Patch 3 (version 0.5.0.14219B) which has several changes for the Terran upgrades at the Armory and Engineering Bay; and the Protoss Zealot got a slight nerf to their unit's shields. Pretty much a balance testing. There were a few bugs they nailed down, the most important for ATI card users, and one Zerg bug (no pun) that affected Terran Reapers in a very bad way.

TERRAN

Engineering Bay

• Infantry Armor: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
  
• Infantry Weapons: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.

Armory

• Vehicle Plating: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
  
• Vehicle Weapons: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
  
• Ship Plating: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
  
• Ship Weapons: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.

PROTOSS

Zealot

• The maximum shield capacity of this unit has been decreased from 60 to 50.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where the Infestor's Neural Parasite ability could cause Reapers to lose the ability to move.
  
• Fixed an issue that could use an incorrect HDR format on some ATI cards.
  
• Fixed a crash that could happen on some ATI cards.

Wuzzup, folks? It's time for some World of WarCraft: Stormrage Giveaways -- courtesy of Pocket Books (a Simon & Schuster, Inc. division). If you haven't gotten your hands on this novel that reveals the true origin of the Emerald Nightmare and the return of Malfurion Stormrage's dreamform to his mortal body then you may wish to participate and test your luck among the winners.

Eligible participants must do the following steps to qualify for the giveaway:

1. Post in the comments below or email an answer for: What do you look forward in World of WarCraft: Stormrage?

2. Take a screenshot of your character standing alongside Tyrande Whisperwind (Alliance). Or a screenshot with Remulos in the Moonglade (Horde). Both are characters appearing in this novel. Attach or link the screenshot and email it.

Non-World of Warcraft players: For # 2, launch your favorite Blizzard game and type onscreen: I LOVE WORLD OF WARCRAFT: STORMRAGE, then take a screenshot of that with your Pint Screen button.

Deadline: Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 11:59pm EST/New York. Winners will be announced on Thursday, March 11th, 2010.

BooksOnBoard announced the top Best Selling eBooks for the beginning of March 2010. WORLD OF WARCRAFT: STORMRAGE by Richard A. Knaak showed up again among the Top 10 best sellers.

Considering it is a novel based on a video game, in a sea of novels of a myriad of genres out there, it's exciting to see the WarCraft franchise level the TOP lists in several media formats.

You will see some complaints from trolls against the author, but it's a fact most authors have virtues and flaws, like every human being. Whatever the flaw, if the story is good and the way the story is told is good -- who cares?

Some argue anything with the World of WarCraft brand in it will sell, usually the same trolls say so, which I consider is not only a blunder but baseless. If a writer is so bad as these trolls claim, people who purchased previous novels won't buy the next one regardless of the World of Warcraft logo.

All of these have been successful WarCraft stories written by Richard A. Knaak:

• WarCraft: Day of the Dragon (2001)
  
• WarCraft: The Sunwell Trilogy
  
• WarCraft: War of the Ancients
  
• WarCraft Legends
  
• World of WarCraft: Night of the Dragon
  
• World of WarCraft: Stormrage

The successful sales and reaching the TOP lists are proof that fans of World of WarCraft and Richard A. Knaak's approve, ENJOY, and endorse his writing style, and his stories. Otherwise, sales would be low reflecting the sentiment of the majority of fans, and Blizzard wouldn't contract the author again and again. Cry me a river, trollies.

BooksOnBoard announces bestselling eBooks and authors for the beginning of March.

1 Shalador’s Lady – Anne Bishop
2 Broken – Kelley Armstrong
3 Shutter Island – Dennis Lehane
4 Fantasy in Death – J.D. Robb
5 Witch & Wizard - James Patterson
6 The Lucifer Gospel – Paul Christopher
7 The Pact – Jodi Picoult
8 Scarpetta – Patricia Cornwell
9 Stormrage - Richard A. Knaak
10 Anathem – Neal Stephenson

Update - 11:00pm EST: I reached NVIDIA's PR for an official statement and they replied within the hour. Read their response and feedback from many gamers here.

Original post - 5:20pm EST: I want to warn all of our visitors who are participating in the StarCraft II Beta and play World of WarCraft to refrain from installing the latest NVIDIA WHQL 196.75 WHQL-certified drivers. As posted, in the StarCraft: IncGamers fansite, If you already installed it, uninstall it and downgrade to the previous version. Yeah, it's that serious. Many players are reporting their PCs or graphic card have died. It also affects all Blizzard games, so heed the call and safe your hardware's life.

According to Blizzard's Tech Support the latest NVIDIA drivers are causing fan control to not work correctly and causes massive overheat. StarCraft II Beta might kill your PC or card literally. A fix is already in the works. Stay tuned for further updates.

	Blizzard Quote:
	We're getting reports where users are getting intermittent low FPS after installing these drivers. It seems that it is related to the fan control included in these drivers not working correctly and is causing the video card to overheat on 3D applications. This will affect Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 Beta. Please uninstall the drivers and revert back to the older ones. Windows XP: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_196.21_whql.html Windows XP 64-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp64_196.21_whql.html Windows Vista/7 32-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_32bit_196.21_whql.html Windows Vista/7 64-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_64bit_196.21_whql.html More information can be found on threads such as these: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=161525 http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=161503

The drums of war and battle cries fill the battlefield. Heroes unite against the evil of Arthas the Lich King, rallying toward the Icecrown Citadel. Blizzard Entertainment has proclaimed Mission Accomplished. Thanks to your contributions, the #Battlecry Mosaic is (work) complete, revealing exclusive artwork.

The Battlecry Mosaic website celebrating the 15 years of WarCraft and 5 years of World of Warcraft now displays the full Battlecry wallpaper in several sizes and formats for download.

The web page now offers an interview with Tom Chilton and Forum MPV Palehoof. A new music theme titled "Tournament Battle One" is available too.

WORLD OF WARCRAFT:STORMRAGE continues escalating the top Best Selling lists on its first week since its release date: February 23, 2010. The USA Today Top 150 Best Selling Books Database places World of WarCraft: Stormrage in the position # 126 -- based on sales through February 28, 2010.

There are only 5,000 copies of the WORLD OF WARCRAFT: STORMRAGE Collector's Edition signed by Richard A. Knaak and wrapped inside Leather Gift Box. Last week, I reported it was announced the # 1 Best Seller by Premiere Collectibles. An eAudioBook and a Kindle version are available at the link provided below. It was also # 8 Best Selling eBook at BooksonBoard.

• Read our World of Warcraft: Stormrage review (with minor spoilers)
  
• Order World of Warcraft: Stormrage (Hardcover) online in USA and Europe.

The World of WarCraft team recently revealed during the Twitter Dev Chat there are big plans for Blasted Lands in World of WarCraft: Cataclysm. There will be a big opening in the eastern mountains of Blasted Lands giving access to its border coastline with a new play area around the coastline, and who knows, maybe even an island like Hrothgar in northern Icecrown Glacier.

Some fans who never played a WarCraft game before WarCraft III might yell foul play with opening the mountains to have a sea access. In fact, it is the other way around. Blasted Lands was formerly known as Black Morass in WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness (1996,RTS game) and you can see that by going to Caverns of Time: Black Morass. That's where Medivh the Last Guardian opened the Dark Portal to allow Gul'dan's Horde to enter Azeroth.

If you haven't played WarCraft II, the in-game map for Black Morass was surrounded by lots of water. The image to the right is how the mini-map looked like. In the center of the round isle was the Dark Portal. It required the construction of transport boats and battleships to cross from one side to the other.

It was somewhat odd to find there was no bodies of water in Badlands and Blasted Lands when World of Warcraft launched in 2004, but that's how the developers designed it. Blasted Lands had the excuse that the demonic magics used by the warlocks setting camp around the Dark Portal and some of Draenor's itself drained the life out of the Black Morass, even the demons who reside in the Tainted Scar. The only body of water respected was that around Caer Darrow (Scholomance), except for two smaller islands missing in World of Warcraft where the Caer Darrow lake exists. (as shown to the left)

Blasted Lands will likely have new life if the Cataclysm caused the mountains to crack allowing water to run into the inner-land. We have not seen any concept art or previews of this place yet. There's a possibility this and other areas might get a new name, however. It won't make much sense to call it Blasted Lands anymore if nature has crawled back to this arid zone.

The developers mentioned in the Dev Chat there is going to be a big area in the Tainted Scar for the Worgen race. That's enigmatic in many ways. Why would the Worgen wish to be in a place formerly inhabited by demons, and why so close to the Dark Portal and Karazhan?

The Worgen found in Duskwood were pure breed summoned accidentally there by the Defias deserter nicknamed Jitters who found the Scythe of Elune within the Roland's Doom mine. While the Worgen race are cursed Gilnean humans. One thing does sound good with the revamping of the old world. The Scythe of Elune story arc might return in earnest. And where there is the Scythe of Elune and Worgen, the Dark Riders of Karazhan aren't too far.

Remember that crypt near Karazhan, Morgan's Plot? It was never opened to the players, but back in the day (before Blizzard fixed it) players could die by the gate, and resurrect inside the crypt. It was pretty big -- suggesting it might be a 5-players dungeon someday. I have gone a bit far from Blasted Lands here, but it's still good to mention the proximity of the Worgen area in the Tainted Scar with Karazhan. There's where the Dark Riders were reported to be residing, but the only Dark Rider we ever met in the Karazhan dungeon was Attumen the Huntsman. Could the other Dark Riders be hiding within Morgan's Plot?

Maybe. Maybe not. I would like to describe what's inside Morgan's Plot, but that would be breaking some rules as it is not an accessible place in the game. One thing to note about Morgan's Plot is that Aegwynn chose that place to be buried at -- as seen in the last issues of World of WarCraft comic book. She died in Ahn'Qiraj Temple, sacrifcing in order to save her grandson Med'an and all of Azeroth.

Will we fight a risen Aegwynn there if this dungeon ever opens? One can dream, right? I would like to see Aegwynn back. We never got to see her in the game. She only appeared in World of WarCraft: Cycle of Hatred by Keith R.A. DeCandido and joined Lady Jaina Proudmoore as a counselor, friend and mentor. Aegwynn appeared in World of WarCraft: Rise of the Lich King, by Christie Golden, still in Theramore, and in the Wildstorm Comics book. Seeing as she resurrected Medivh, before WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos, would be fitting if she's brought back by her son or grandson -- of course, after players dispense some beating to her sorrowing spirit within Morgan's Plot. Ya'know, like Thorim and the other Watchers who don't really die in Ulduar, and come to their senses and join us instead against Yogg-Saron.

Maybe after this Morgan's Plot encounter, we can permanently see her -- via phase technology -- back at Jaina's side in Theramore, unlocking a new NPC with a myriad of quests. Ok, that's a bit too much theorycraft.

Electric Playground interviewed Julian Rignall, editorial director of the World Of WarCraft: Official Magazine. Subscribe online to get the magazine at their official website.

1 year (4 issues) for $39.95
2 years (8 issues) for $69.95
* Shipping and handling included.

• A deluxe, high-quality, collectible quarterly coffeetable publication.
  
• Every issue has 148 pages - and NO ads. It's more like a softcover book than a magazine!
  
• Every cover features unique, specially commissioned artwork created by a top Blizzard approved artist
  
• Only available through subscription - you cannot get this at retail.

Activision Blizzard released their Form 10-K Annual Report for the fiscal year ended on December 31, 2009 to inform their investors several strategies to milk [increase the revenue] of all the franchises across their portfolio.

While not all players know much of finances, NASDAQ, or Exchange Commision babble, this fiscal year report slipped an interesting clue at what's cooking behind the neosteel-reinforced walls of Blizzard Entertainment.

The overview section of this Activision Blizzard investors document might imply the Irvine studios has more than one Diablo game on its tinker table. In short, Diablo III might not be the only Diablo game in development, or there are early plans for more in the future. Here is an excerpt from the report released on March 1, 2010.

"Blizzard has released two expansion packs to  World of Warcraft;  World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade  and  World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. Blizzard is currently developing new games, including a new expansion pack to the World of Warcraft franchise  , Cataclysm  ,  StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty,  which will be released with the new and improved Battle.net, and [sequels] to the Diablo franchise."

There is another quote that commits to produce more MMOs in order to retain the customer base amd to prevent them from moving on to one of the competitors.

In the past, some players have theorized Blizzard would never cannibalize their own MMO flagship, World of Warcraft, but more than cannibilize, they would be retaining and recycling their own subscribers; while at the same time cross-promoting their porfolio of games through the new Battle.net built from the ground up to interlace all their game communities into a single solid one with social-networking in mind. Here is another quote from the Activision Blizzard report:

"To remain the leader in the MMORPG category, it is important that we continue to refresh World of Warcraft or [develop new MMORPG products] that are favorably received by both our existing customer base and new customers."

Blizzard Entertainment is currently developing a Next-Gen MMO that hasn't been officially titled nor unveiled. It's likely to be announced in a future Blizzard Worldwide Invitational. Both, Starcraft II and Diablo III, were formerly unveiled there, and Blizzard offered a playable demo at BlizzCon.

The nature of the Next-Gen MMO is unknown, but Blizzard has stated its experience and gameplay differs from what players are accustomed in World of Warcraft, enough to make them two different beasts that would hardly compete with each other.

Blizzard Entertainment is currently developing five games:

1. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
2. Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
3. Diablo III
4. Untitled Next-Gen MMO
5. Brand-new IP game (unofficially confirmed to IncGamers a few months ago to be using the World of Warcraft engine for testing purposes until they hire a programmer to craft its own engine. Some might speculate it's a third MMO).

Blizzard Entertainment, among other things, is known for expanding the experience immersion of their customer base by licensing their IPs and co-developing the stories. Blizzard's Creative Design team, led by Chris Metzen and Mickey Neilson, and companies such as Pocket Books, TOKYOPOP and Wildstorm work together to bring the WarCraft, StarCraft and Diablo universes to the novels, mangas and comic books markets.

These are not products based on stand-alone stories separate from the games.  Blizzard actually make these stories tie-in with the games' upcoming content.  Once these novels go on sale, months later the developers introduce the characters and plots of these books into the game.

In keeping with the steady trickle of new character art, Bashiok today revealed the male wizard.

	Blizzard Quote:
	The wizard class page has been updated with a close-up view of the male wizard’s in-game model. See this rock star of the mages up close and personal by visiting the wizard class page: http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/characters/wizard.xml We’ve also added two screenshots depicting the male wizard to the screenshot gallery: http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/media/screenshots.xml

Source

I have to say, the concept art definitely looked a bit more masculine:

The WoW Developers mentioned at BlizzCon 2009 there would be changes to Character stats and items in the upcoming Cataclysm expansion, but until now they had not deployed the official plans with all the thorough details. Today Eyonix revealed they will remove MP5, Defense, Spell Ranks, Weapon Skill.

They are removing Attack Power, Spell Power, Armor Penetration and Shield Block from all items. Their plan for Cataclysm items is to ONLY contain any of the following:

• Stamina
  
• Spirit
  
• Intellect
  
• Haste
  
• Block Rating
  
• Parry
  
• Mastery
  
• Armor
  
• Resilience
  
• Strenth, Agility, Hit Rating, Expertise and Critical Strike Rating

Check out the whole list of changes and descriptions after the break.