Heads up people, as we ready another helping of QJ.NET's World of Warcraft Weekend Warrior! Following up on last week's Wrath of the Lich King Open Beta opt-in sign-ups, current speculation now holds that its launch might be closer than we think.

There's also the newly founded Activision-Blizzard merger, which could promise some hard-rocking new contributions to not just World of Warcraft, but all other games under the sphere of influence of these two industry players.

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If last week's beta invites are any indication, it looks like we're getting closer to the launch of WoW's Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Adding fuel to the speculation is a recent report that the WotLK's box art has been spotted in the open.

Link: Rumor- Wrath of the Lich King packaging revealed?

Admittedly, nobody likes it when they have to log off from WoW courtesy of Blizzard's weekly maintenance runs. It is for the best however, as this procedure ensures that the game's always running smoothly. For the residents of WoW's European realms, it also promises a fresh new server, while North America gets a new round of migrations.

Link: World of Warcraft Europe: Blade's Edge realm now open for business
Link: World of Warcraft: Free character migrations for July 10
Link: World of Warcraft: Scheduled maintenance for July 8

Novint's Falcon may look like it belongs on Serenity's cockpit, but if the company has its way, it will be helping you get medieval in the World of Warcraft. The company's recently announced that it will be releasing software that will enable the controller to be compatible with WoW's controls. That is, if you're willing to spend for Falcon's hefty US$ 189.90 price tag.

Link: World of Warcraft drivers for Falcon game controllers coming soon

Nobody likes fighting an ogre. Especially one that comes back to life after you've supposedly killed it. This happens to be a problem that's recently been spotted over at the Barrier Hills, when Gordunni Back-Breakers quite literally popped back up after their demise. Thankfully this issue has been identified and is on its way out.

Link: World of Warcraft Bug: Gordunni Back-Breakers

Given how much trouble it takes to farm for a flying mount, we imagine everybody would be understandably upset if they realize they can't bring their ride over to Northrend. Fortunately,  Bornakk was at the forums recently to clarify Blizzard's plans for flying mounts in WotLK. In a nutshell, yes - you can bring your coveted Nether Drake over from Outland, albeit at a considerable higher level cap.

Link: Bornakk talks flying mount implementation in WotLK

 

Recent speed bumps aside, it looks like Activision and Vivendi's merger is now official, with the resulting entity now dubbed Activision Blizzard. The move appears to have been met with the approval of Activision's stockholders, with the total transaction amounting to around $18.9 billion US dollars. They get a cool (no pun intended) new logo too.

Link: Call them Actizard: Activision-Vivendi merger gets official
Link: Activision Blizzard finally completes transaction for merge

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Whoa, WotLK's box art is out? Its a little too early to tell at this point if it's the real McCoy though, especially given we haven't even gotten into the game's open beta yet. Besides, given Blizzard's penchant for taking their time with game development, who's to say that the illustrations - just like a lot of WotLK's content - aren't due for revisions? It would be cool to see some new art though, given the box is fronted with an illustration we've already been seeing for the past several months.

Activision's merger with Vivendi is one of the biggest news to hit WoW recently. Bigger than Arthas and Ner'Zhul's "merge" even, if you get our drift. While Activision has previously stated it won't be touching WoW in the near future, who's to say that might not be able to drop in their own ideas for the game's future developments.

Blizz, you may want to give that joke Bard class another look. Between your dev skills and Activision's experience with Guitar Hero, that might actually be a great idea. Next to implementing the Pandaren of course. Did we mention that Activision also owns the publishing rights to the Kung Fu Panda video games?