From politicians to players, World of Warcraft is definitely keeping a lot of people very happy. We can now safely add Vivendi games to the list, in light of a recent press wire they sent out detailing their annual revenues.

In the said report, Vivendi states that their revenues are for the first quarter of this year were at € 500 million (US$ 685.6 million) - 68.9% higher than compared to the same report last year. The company attributed this major revenue boost to Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft MMORPG.

The Burning Crusade expansion pack reportedly sold a staggering 3.5 million copies in North America and Europe within a span of one month following its launch in mid-January.

Moving onto their second quarter report, Vivendi further reports revenues in the € 209 million range (US$ 286.5) - 29% higher than the company's reported figures from the same time period last year. WoW itself has seen considerable revenue boosts, with the current game population pegged at roughly 9 million and still growing.

 

After Hortus dropped the big bomb (of potential fun) for the Public Test Realm players over at World of Warcraft North America, you may have pinched yourself with the knowledge that the Europe realms would follow suit soon. But without blue words to reassure European gamers, they were starting to turn a bit yellow - with envy.

And then suddenly Tootamia drops by to whistle a tune that goes along the lines of: with a little patience, comes premades. Okay, okay, so it came with typos, but the meaning sticks. And if you're running a little low on the Karate Kid virtue, you could always opt for other sources. Kudos goes to Kazgarth of Moonglade, who says, "[Want to buy] patience."

When can Europe expect the official announcement? We can't say for sure, but tomorrow sounds like a good time as any, wouldn't you agree?

On July 29, CBS will be showing some of the best World of Warcraft teams in North America battle it out in 3v3 PvP at 12pm ET or 9AM PT. Among the teams featured will be Team Pandemic, Insurrection, Mob TurtlePower, and fnatic.

This hour-long special is the network television debut of WoW. This event is being held as part of The World Series of Video Games where players compete for the whopping US$ 90,000 prize pot. This is the perfect time for other competitive WoW players to sit down and take notes on the strategies being employed by the top teams in the nation.

So will Team Pandemic walk away as the champion of the WoW arena, or will a new team be taking that title from them? We'll have to wait and see how this pans out. If you're a fan of WoW PvP, then you really should watch this event and pick up a few pointers. Before you go, be sure to check out the commercial for the event below.

Enter the Tortheldrin server of North America's World of Warcraft MMORPG. Population: 20? At least that's what Horrigan over at the WoW Forums is stating, in a thread which states that the aforementioned server was in danger of becoming a ghost town.

Following this announcement was a plea for help for Blizzard's dev teams to help repopulate the server. Fortunately for Horrigan, Drysc dropped by several hours later with some good news:

We're in the process of adding Tortheldrin to the Recommended list of realms, at the same time we will be removing two realms from the list which have seen great improvements to their populations since being marked as Recommended.

We'll be continuing to monitor realm populations and taking the necessary actions to ensure a healthy amount of players and enjoyable play experience for each.

In the event you're thinking of starting up a character, try dropping by Tortheldrin - we're sure the residents will greatly appreciate it. We're not sure if this may be the case, but we could be looking at free character transfers in the near future...

It was recently announced that World of Warcraft will be featured in the Championship Gaming Series (CGS) World Championship. Every World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade player on the European and North American servers have a chance to be drafted for the upcoming season.

Blizzard Entertainment's Community Manager Vaneck posted a message on the WoW Europe forums regarding this very topic and the details on how to be a part of it. The system is quite simple really with a two on two ladder for the eliminations from June 19 to July 3, with the top five teams in each division heading up the qualifiers. This phase along with the drafting is rather complicated so here's exactly how Vaneck described it.

So if you do make it to the top, big rewards are going to be coming your way. You can expect to earn a good US$ 30,000 to a whopping US$ 100,000 annually from both the salary and bonuses, not a bad haul for playing a game you love. So if you think you've got what it takes, sign up for the ladder tournament. Who knows, you just might be the next big star in World of Warcraft.

If you want to read more on this, head over to the full article.

Having problems trying to log into North America's Hakkar realm? If you are, you're not alone - there have been several reports over at the World of Warcraft official forums stating that players have been forced to log out minutes after play. Here reads a sample of the incident, according to Trazz:

Having [the] same problem i just try get into the server and after 5 min playing i get to the character page and when i try to log in i get World Server Down

Blizzard spokesman Vrathris reported shortly after Trazz's post that Blizzard's techs would are already looking into the matter, although no specific ETA was given on when the problem would be fixed. Keep a stiff upper lip in case this World Server Down incident gets updated, or if Blizzard fixes the other previously reported bugs.

 

The Darkmoon Faire is one of the premier events for Blizzard's World of Warcraft TCG. The event is known for the TCG demos and tournaments.

The event visited Frankfurt last May 12-13 and is said to be headed to Birmingham this June nine and 10. The Faire will be hosting beginner tournaments with WoW TCG starter decks, so newbies can experience the joys of playing it in a mildly competitive arena. More advanced players can join the Darkmoon Faire Championship. The champion of the tournament will be taking home a custom gaming desktop or laptop computer, while runner-ups will be taking home iPods and Xbox 360s. Of course, exclusive EA promo cards will be given away for simply participating events, so no one goes home empty handed.

If you're not into the whole card playing thing, computer stations will be scattered throughout the event where you can play the MMORPG version of World of Warcraft. Excuse us while we start tuning our Dizdemona fortress deck, just in case the Faire finds itself in North America.

 

A sad bit of news (via the WoW EU forums) came in last week saying that Blizzard had temporarily disabled Azeroth's annual Children's Week. Normally scheduled for the beginning of May, Children's Week is a special event held in both Alliance and Horde, where players take part in a series of quests to look after an in-game orphan child.

But while World of Warcraft's players in Europe and North America will have to wait until further details come in on the event's fate, word is out on the PTRs that there's going to be a similar Children's Week quest series being readied in the Outlands.

There aren't too many details on this, although we currently know it involves a new line of pet rewards: a baby Elekk, Willy (baby Beholder, aka one-eyed Willy), or Ethburt (a hawkstrider?). Children's Week is expected to resume in Europe when Patch 2.1 is released, while it's still on TBD status in North America.

China's World Series of Video Games event has risen for an early start on Day Two, and managed to put a few photos shy of a hundred in their online gallery this early in the second day. While we await the results of the game brackets and details of the main events that took place, let's take a breather and soak in these life stills for a sec.

Being officially sponsored by Intel, it appears even consumer and business computing solutions giant Dell made a grand showing at the 2007 WSVG in China. They've got keyboards to monitors and even laptops touting the Dell brand all over the competition floor.

And...wait a second. Do you see what we see? It's World of Warcraft! Funny how the laptop keyboard wasn't good enough for the contestant, eh? And look, there's Team Pandemic's Power Trip! If these pictures weren't enough to get you tingly all over, budding pro-gamers in North America might want to know that the WSVG is coming to Dallas soon, with an additional game to their lineup of game brackets.

And because the majority of WSVG patrons have spoken, Gears of War for the Xbox 360 is now an official game event. It will be included into the official Dallas lineup that includes Activision's Call of Duty 2, EA's EA Sports Fight Night Round 3, Activision's Guitar Hero 2, id Software's Quake 4 and Blizzard's World of Warcraft.

Day One

Need to see more? Well then, feel free to click on Full Article below!

For those avid World of Warcraft role players or just role players in general, the Renaissance Faire might be a good place to visit.

Renaissance Entertainment Corporation hosts a variety of events in different locations in North America. As the name suggests, the Renaissance Faire is a medieval-themed event that features a market, sword wielding displays, performing troupes, and maybe a joust or two. They are currently also offering a 20% discount for tickets on the first one - Renaissance Pleasure Faire to be held in SoCal - for World of Warcraft players.

Interested? Hop over to the Renaissance Faire site by clicking the via link below. Grab the chain mail, sword, and a damsel in distress, and you're good to go. It may be a nice primer for World of Warcraft players waiting for Blizzcon.