Wrath of the Lich King login screen
While we’ve had some fake Wrath of the Lich King login screens before, this one is the real deal. It’s being reported on by numerous sites, and several people have confirmed its authenticity.

All the World’s a Stage: Dear Wrath
…before we get serious about this new expansion of our relationship, Wrath, there’s something you should understand about me: I may be a hunter, druid, rogue, warlock, warrior, shaman, and even a mage, but above and beyond all these things I’m also a roleplayer.

Deleting toons to make room for Wrath
In a way, I’m streamlining my character inventory the way Blizzard’s cleaning up the game in the expansion. I guess conditioning my mind for a Death Knight has allowed me to remorselessly excise my alts.

The joy of grinding
I’ve found that I tend to invest myself more in my character while actually leveling up, strangely enough, and it seems to me that endgame is the much more boring part of the equation.

Wrath boss names revealed in Achievements
Each Achievement lists its requirements for completion, so what does that mean? We now know the names of all the dungeon bosses (as well as a little from the raids)! (Warning: Spoilers!)

Token system discovered
An enterprising and clever beta participant by the name of Xabora has discovered what form the new storage system will take for tokens (such as Badges of Justice and Battleground marks), by typing /tokens and hitting return.

New hairstyles in Wrath of the Lich King revealed
Yes, you can have a Night Elf mohawk. That’s the biggest thing you should take away from the new files uncovered by Andrige, a WoW fan artist.

Lake Wintergrasp to probably last about 45 minutes, testing coming soon
Zarhym has broken out some interesting news for big team battleground players — while Blizzard is generally happy with the way AV is working now, they are looking forward to focusing on tuning Lake Wintergrasp, the new PvP zone in Wrath of the Lich King.

Crushing blows (mostly) removed in Wrath as raiding changes
We’ve known for a while that the developers have wanted to remove crushing blows, but now it looks like they’re starting the process for good.

The Eye of Sauron makes an appearance in Wrath of the Lich King
The Eye of Sauron makes an appearance in Wrath of the Lich King in the Death Knight starting zone. It goes under the name of the Eye of Acherus.

Mana and energy regeneration mechanics revamped on Beta
A change went in with the last Wrath Beta patch that’s deceptively simple, but may have far reaching ramifications for many of the classes in game: Both energy and mana regenerate on a per second basis, rather than the previous ticks.

A(nother) return to Azeroth, and all that grinding
I don’t know whether it’s a result of all the Wrath beta news coming out lately, but it seems to me that we’re already experiencing a resurgence of players around the expansion.

Breaking News: In game calendar system revealed
We managed to get onto the latest beta build of Wrath of the Lich King tonight and snap us a few screenshots of the new calendar system.

Wrath news for Discipline and tanks
One of the problems inherent in the tree for a tank healer is that their shield based abilities, Reflective Shield and Divine Aegis, deprive tanks of rage and/or mana that they’d need for being healed.

Itemization and the plight of the bear tank in Wrath of the Lich King
One of the biggest concepts coming with Wrath of the Lich King is gear consolidation. Stat are being folded into each other and classes are being changed even on very basic levels so that fewer gear types can work for more classes and specs.

Hybrid Theory: Spell Power hands on
Obviously Spell Power will not drastically change Feral, Enhancement or Retribution, but it actually does add to those last two as well to some extent. Primarily it changes the Healing and Caster specs of the Hybrid classes, obviously. It brings back a lot hybridiness to classes that… really haven’t felt that way in quite awhile.

The end of Naxxramas
We had rumored this a while ago, but now it’s been confirmed by the CMs: Old school Naxxramas is going to disappear forever when the dungeon moves up north to become a raid in Wrath of the Lich King.

The bloat
Koraa says that bloat is another term for “I can’t have everything I want” and that Blizzard actually intends to make every class tree feel a little “bloated”, forcing players to make tough yet interesting decisions regarding the talents they take and, ultimately, the talents they sacrifice.

Ask WoW Insider: An early disappointment?
Lots of players are very excited (including yours truly), but Charles S isn’t so much. He actually stopped playing the game in March of this past year (before that, he raided as a Warlock), and he is using today’s Ask WoW Insider column to ask you, our readers, if anyone else isn’t so hot on what they’ve seen so far.

WoW Insider finds familiar faces in Wrath of the Lich King
While Northrend is a distant and strange land, there are a few friendly and familiar faces in Wrath to ease our pain. These range from joke appearances to lighten the mood, or more serious storylines being continued from WoW Classic and the Burning Crusade.

Spell pushback mechanics changed on Beta
Pushback has always been the bane of spellcasters and Hunters everywhere, be it in PvP or PvE. However, as of the latest Beta build, the eternal cast time may be a thing of the past thanks to some new spell pushback rules.

Experience needed per level for 71-80 soars in Wrath Beta
One of the more unwelcome changes in the latest Wrath Beta build is pretty simply explained: It now takes nearly twice as much experience (80% appears to be the exact number) to level. This has hit a few us on the WoW Insider Beta team by surprise.

Hybrid Theory: State of PvP in the Wrath beta
I decided to try out incredibly, insanely buggy Lake Wintergrasp when the beta realms went up yesterday, and later on I gave the new Battleground a whirl, too. Through all of this, there was one constant: Holy crap Ret Paladins are OP. No, really. I know, it blew my mind, too. Retribution Paladins. Overpowered. Hell has frozen over.

Ghostcrawler on tanking in Wrath
Tanking has been getting a good, long look from the developers for Wrath of the Lich King. And about time, too – I’d say the number one issue right now in the group PvE game is a lack of tanks.

Blizzard will likely offer free respecs before Wrath
Having been to the strangely buggy future, I can tell you one thing so far. Blizzard will do something they haven’t done for almost two years now: every character will very likely get their talent points back around the Wrath of the Lich King release.

Hybrid Theory: Healers, gear, and entering Northrend
Leveling will get you enough for the bare necessities. If you’re the type that wants to start leveling professions and gearing up immediately upon hitting the level cap though, think about going into Wrath with at least a couple thousand in your pocket, which really isn’t that hard of a task.

Rare mobs in classic, BC, and Wrath
Rare mobs are one of my favorite unexpected pleasures in WoW. It’s such a thrill to be questing or grinding along and see that silver dragon; it adds a lot of flavor to what could otherwise be some boring runs through out-of-the-way zones.

EA: You don’t need $1 billion to compete with WoW
You just need $100 million to beat it. No, we’re kidding — after Activizzard founder Bobby Kotick’s presumptuous statement a few months ago that any game company would need at least half a billion dollars to challenge World of Warcraft, EA/Mythic’s Mark Jacobs has responded in kind on the eve of their big Warhammer Online release, explaining that the number is closer to around $100 million. And that they spent less than that on their big MMO.

Raid buffs overhauled for 3.0.2
Blizzard has been promising changes to raid buffs and raid stacking for a little while. Last night, they laid all their cards on the table in a giant blue post. Here’s a run-down; all of this will be going live in 3.0.2, the pre-Wrath of the Lich King patch.

Wrath PvP gear hints at Arena Season 5
I was somewhat puzzled when the first pieces of PvP gear started showing up in the Wrath of the Lich King Beta. The traditional 5-piece set of helm, shoulders, chest, legs, and gloves (as well as the weapons) were of blue or rare quality while the non-set pieces normally obtained through Honor — bracers, belt, and boots — were purples or epic.

Bambi terrorizes Northrend
One of Blizzard’s hallmarks in the World of Warcraft has long been the subtle digs and nods to pop culture. While I know some folks feel the little references ruin their immersion, I kind of like them. This new one, lurking mildly in Northrend, made me giggle a bit in delight, though. One might even say, I muttered a faint “Squee!”

Arena points reset in Wrath for Season 5
If there was a question about how Blizzard planned to deal with Arena points in Wrath of the Lich King — which seems so palpably close — Wryxian explained their resolution to the problem of carrying over points from Level 70 to 80. The answer? They won’t. Players who hit Level 71 will have all their Arena points reset to 0 and be removed from all Level 70 bracket Arena teams.

The potential of Arena points for Wintergrasp
A new spell popped up in the latest Beta build called Wintergrasp Rewards, which indicate that there might finally be another way to earn Arena points other than to participate in Arenas. Granting Arena points through Lake Wintergrasp also indicates an interesting direction for World of Warcraft PvP.

Hybrid Theory: Yet another spell power discussion
Alright, so the question is this: If you have a choice between taking Damage gear or Healing gear in the current game right now, which would be a better choice for taking with you into Wrath of the Lich King leveling?

GC on raid stacking
Raid composition is going to change in Wrath of the Lich King. A certain part of this is obvious and inevitable: they’re adding a new class. But there is another major factor that’s changing. Currently, buffs and synergy are a large part of the reason you might choose to bring one class over another. How is this going to change in Wrath?

Wrath sound files point to world event
Spoiler Alert! The guys over at the WotLK Information Wiki have uncovered what appears to be sound files related to the world event that will open up Northrend. There are three separate monologues that have Arthas talking in villanous tones and creepy background music. Spoiler-heavy details follow!

Base mana for dummies
In Wrath of the Lich King, all spells are being reworked so that their cost, rather than being a static mana value, is a percentage of your base mana pool (this is largely to prevent downranking). But what is base mana?

Players respond to the cinematic
While fans of Arthas definitely got their fill (and it was interesting to hear Terenas’ voice echoing from the past, which hearkens back to perhaps the best cutscene Blizzard’s ever done), other players were disappointed to see that this cinematic doesn’t follow the standard “various classes and races battle it out” formula. And that only shows that this expansion will be very much more about the guy in the Lich King suit than anything else.

Wrath cinematic trailer unveiled
Is there anything left to be said? The Wrath of the Lich King cinematic was unveiled to the public earlier today on Blizzard’s sites… and it’s freaking awesome. The trailer features Arthas, the Lich King, trudging the icy plains of Northrend with the echoing narration of the late King Terenas Menethil, his father. Haunting music, a chilling narrative, and imagery that shows the frightening power of the Lich King is all packed into the short trailer.

Make your pet shine!
So I headed on over to the pet store in Dalaran and found a lot of players fiddling around with the new toy, a Pet Grooming Kit that you can use on your pet to — make it shine, just like it says on the tooltip.

New racial abilities for Wrath
It looks like Blizzard isn’t done tinkering with everything for Wrath of the Lich King. This time, they’ve turned their attention to racial abilities, which many have pointed out to be imbalanced. Kalgan dropped by the forums to answer a good question regarding the Orc racial Hardiness, which grants a passive 15% resistance to stuns. It’s been nerfed a long way from its original 25% resistance, but the poster made a good point about the game’s direction towards reduced durations instead of resistances.

Ready Check: In Limbo
Some of those with bosses yet to kill in the game are becoming despondent at ever seeing the end of the tunnel, and people with everything on farm are finding excuses not to raid once they have their desired gear under their belts.

Penguin noncombat pets appear in the beta
Well, folks, it looks like we’re definitely getting our wish. After incessant begging, peevish requests, heart-rending pleas, and no small amount of outright nagging on the part of…actually, I think everyone in the game has asked for this at one point or another, but never mind. People in the beta have started getting penguin pets!

Naxx-10 loot discovered
The class sets aren’t quite finished yet – their names are things like “Naxxramas 10 Rogue Set,” and there aren’t any set bonuses – but it’s still interesting to see what sort of stats Blizz is planning on giving us.

Macros saved to server instead of computer in Wrath
Wrath Beta tester Tiwo came across a welcome change when logging into her account on a different computer from normal. The macros she wrote and saved on the original machine were now available on the second machine. She posted to the EU Beta forums in thanks, and Wryxian confirmed the change was real.

Karazhan three manned on the Wrath beta
Three players, two Death Knights and a Priest, have recently trio’d almost the entirety of Karazhan, minus only Nightbane due to not having completed the quest needed to summon him. Admittedly both Death Knights were using a deep Unholy build which is tuned a little high now, but they’re not wearing any high end gear, either.

Faction Champion in 8885
From the 2008 Worldwide Invitational, we learned of a new way that we’ll all be grinding faction reputation come the expansion. Namely, you will be able to become a faction’s Champion.

Blizzard reveals new Battle.net features
Battle.net is Blizzard’s oldest online service — it predates WoW by a few years and was notably used to play Warcraft 3, Diablo 2 and Starcraft online. It’s making a return with a revamp for the release of Starcraft II, with some changes that’ll impact on WoW as well.

New titles for Wrath
One title that sounds pretty cool is ‘The Hallowed’, which is obtained by completing all 18 Hallow’s End Achievements, the hardest of which might just be obtaining the rare Sinister Squashling. Then there’s ‘The Diplomat’, which many players will already receive at the launch of Beta — it simply requires getting to Exalted with Timbermaw Hold, Sporeggar, and the Kurenai or Mag’har.

Premades now available in Wrath beta
The option was just opened up to create premade level 80 characters on the LK beta realms. Up till now in the beta premades had not been available, and we don’t know exactly what kind of gear they’ll have, but my guess would be blues.

Then let them eat cake
While it isn’t the most exciting, mind-blowing, game-changing addition to Dalaran thus far, I thought the addition of a cupcake vendor was pretty cool, especially now that they’ve itemized it. The vendor has some mundane found that are still pretty fun like Dalaran Brownies and Carrot Cupcakes, which are charming but not entirely what grabbed my attention.

WoW, Casually: To Beta or not to Beta
On one hand, you’ve got a brand new class to play with. On the other hand, you don’t get to keep him. So is the Beta wasted time? Let’s look at the Pros and Cons after the break.

Wrath splash screen appears on the Launcher
Eagle-eyed readers noticed that Blizzard is prepping a new version of the launcher for the Wrath of the Lich King launch — a quick update showed up just this afternoon in the launcher software, and afterwards, when starting up, the program flashes the blank screen above, with the Lich King logo, before it then covers it up again with the current iTunes promotion splash screen.

Some Gnomes glitched in Wrath beta
Gnomes can’t handle their weapons. At least not in the Wrath beta. In a strange graphics glitch, gnomes of certain classes look as if their swords are glued to the backs of their hands instead of being grasped. The glitch occurs whether fighting or not. It doesn’t happen with Warlocks, who hold their weapons correctly, but I was able to replicate it with a Rogue and there are Warrior screenshots elsewhere on the web. Some players are even reporting that their offhand weapon is floating away and seeming to fight by itself.

Premade beta toons available again — for real
After the false alarm a few days ago, premade characters are available for copy to the US Wrath beta PvP realm Murmur. (Apparently, the realm was called “Murmer” up until a few hours ago. I guess Blizzard decided on a last minute spell check.) I have firsthand knowledge that the character copy now works because I copied three toons this morning and less than two hours later they are now playable.

Making the Racial traits more individual
Hot on the heels of word about all the new changes to racial abilities in Wrath, reader Mike sent us a suggestion he thought up to give a little twist to racial abilities in game: Blizzard could unlock some of them from a few races, and instead give players the ability to choose a few on a peronal basis — they could pick and choose certain abilities for their characters to have from the beginning.

Insurmountable random resists gone for Wrath
If you haven’t heard yet, that 1% chance to miss with spells that has always been in place that you couldn’t overcome with Hit on your gear, no matter how much you had? Kalgan confirms that it is gone. Gone like the wind! As of Wrath, at least. Are you excited? I’m excited.