Blizzard announced the following contest on the EU WoW site today:

What's useful for generals to give orders to their troops in the heat of combat? To help a raid direct its force where it's most needed? Why, Voice Chat, of course! To celebrate the launch of the Voice Chat, as well as the Feast of Winter Veil, we're teaming up with Logitech to give out great loot. Read below to find out how you can qualify to win one of the fifty Logitech G51 5.1 Surround Sound Speaker sets, or the one hundred Digital Precision PC Gaming Headsets! To find out more about the terms and conditions of these contests, please go here.

Click here to visit Logitech's page!

To read more about the competition, click here.

Here are the questions for the competition:

1. Which new class was added in Diablo II: Lord of Destruction?
1. Necromancer
2. Warrior
3. Assassin
4. Barbarian

2. Which unit belongs to the Protoss from StarCraft?
1. Marine
2. Defiler
3. Overlord
4. Dragoon

3. King Terenas was the ruler of which kingdom in Warcraft?
1. Lordaeron
2. Stormwind
3. Quel'Thalas
4. Ashenvale

4. In what patch was the Voice Chat feature added to World of Warcraft?
1. Patch 2.0
2. Patch 1.12.
3. Patch 2.2
4. Patch 1.2

5. Which of the following games does NOT use the Battle.net service?
1. Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
2. Lost Vikings
3. StarCraft
4. Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne

If you'd like to enter, see the entry instructions and rules here.

The annual holiday season even will soon be getting underway giving WoW gamers a chance to get in the holiday spirit. Apart from the usual snowball fighting there are some new bits and pieces this year including...

----The Preserved Holly that players can get from completing special holiday quests can now be used on flying mounts. This will temporarily turn their flying mount into a flying reindeer that trails sparkles as it flies through the air

----Handful of Snowflakes-this is a new item you can obtain by /kiss-ing a Winter Reveler NPC. It will create a light snowfall above any targeted player.

----Burning Crusade Holiday Bosses-as in past years, certain bosses will be dressed in a festive fashion and will drop seasonal hats when defeated. The holiday versions of the bosses will begin on Dec. 25 and end on Jan. 2. These bosses include:

----Grand Warlock Netherkurse (Shattered Halls)

----Grandmaster Vorpil (Shadow Labyrinth)

----Exarch Maladaar (Auchenai Crypts)

----Captain Skarloc (Durnholde Keep)

----Nethermancer Sepethrea (Mechanar)

----High Botanists Freywinn (Botanica)

----This is a new gift that can be obtained from under the Winter Veil tree in Ironforge and Orgrimmar. It lets you summon a Mechanotoy non-combat pet to follow you around.

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To get you all excited, here's a bunch of new shots from this year's event.

It's been a hard process, but Wyndforge has chosen his favourite screenshots from the competition we ran recently, to win a Wyndforge Portrait:

After much back and forth, much debating and ultimately much coin-flipping (grin), I've finally decided on a winner for the screenshot contest. Drum roll please...

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Winner: "Out of the Shadows" by Dessler!

First of all, the image was just stunning. It's a perfect example of how you don't need to show off your Tier X gear, cool spell effects and crazy emotes to make a great screenshot. The atmosphere, the glowing eyes and even the title all tie in to make an awesome, dramatic pose. Congratulations to Dessler!

There was another, however. Because I enjoyed another screenshot just as much, I'm also giving a portrait package to:

Runner-up: "Silvertiger and Spiritsaber in Ashenvale" by SilverVulpecula

When I first laid my eyes on Silvertiger's screenshot, I was immediately transported to a peaceful, magical glade deep within Ashenvale. All around me were breathtaking vistas of glistening lakes, trees that rose as far as my eyes could see, and creatures of extraordinary beauty. Sorry... got carried away :) But that was all part of the magic of SilverVulpecula's image. The colors, the composition, the unwritten story behind it - all something I simply couldn't ignore. So congrats to SilverVulpecula who will be recieving a portrait as well.

Thanks again to all who participated!

The winners will be invited to meet Wyndforge in-game to have their portrait created.

Dessler's Winning Shot:

SilverVulpecula's Winning Shot:

As first place prize, Wyndforge is awarding Dessler the Photo Package: a canvas print of his portrait, along with a photo print, both 18x12. SilverVulpecula will receive the Digital package, digital images of the portrait.

We will display the finished products once they are complete.

Many thanks to Wyndforge.com, and to all who entered the competition. We are planning to run this competition again in the Summer, so if you'd like a chance to win your portrait, stay tuned.

Currently, you are allowed 10 characters per realm. Many players have that many (I know I do) so what's going to happen when Deathknights become available?

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Nethaera answered this question on the US WoW forums last night, and it's not looking very good:

We haven't made a final determination on whether there will be additional slots or not. At current, we're telling people that it may be that you will need to strategically delete a character in order to create a new Death Knight. We'll be able to better let people know the final decision once we get a bit further along.

Obviously there has to be some kind of limit on how many characters people can create on a server for population limit reasons I guess, but you'd think they would extend the number, in view of the fact a new class is being created. Let's hope so.

The Championship Gaming Series has announced its inaugural World Final taking place December 6-14 at Sony Studios in Los Angeles. It will feature the World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Arena 2-vs.-2 CGS Championship, pitting the top American and European teams against one another for a top prize of $30,000. Please check the CGS website for more details.

Additionally, Dell will be hosting a World of Warcraft 3-vs.-3 Arena Invitational tournament at the World Final. Tournament footage will be available on the Dell Lounge for those who cannot attend the event.

Dell World of Warcraft Arena Invitational
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What: 3-vs.-3 Arena round robin tournament
When: December 8
Where: Sony Studios in Los Angeles
Tournament Footage: Available online on Dell Lounge
Prizing: Grand prize for the winning team - three XPS M1730 World of Warcraft? Edition laptops and $10,000.

We've extended our "Win a Murloc Costume" competitions to run until Sunday 16th December. In view of this, we've changed the Level 1 Races from this Sunday until next Thursday, the 13th December.

Level 1 Race, Horde and Alliance
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Four active EU WoW account holders are going to walk away with a Murloc Costume by coming either 1st or 2nd place in our level 1 races, taking place on Thursday 13th December.

The EU realm of Turalyon will host the races. All participants must be level 1, of the race specified, and wearing no armor or weapons.

To take part in the Alliance race, you must create a level 1 Gnome character. The race will begin at 7pm Server time at the gates of Ironforge. The destination will be announced just before the start of the race.

To take part in the Horde race, you must create a level 1 Undead character. The race will begin at 8pm server time at the entrance to the Undercity, just outside the Ruins of Lordaeron. The destination will be announced just before the start of the race.

Players will need to join a raid group so the referees can track them on the map to make sure no cheating takes place. If your character dies, you will be removed from the raid group, and will not be eligible to win the race.

The players who come 1st and 2nd in each race will receive a Murloc Costume.

An article over on BusinessWeek.com reports that during the announcement of Blizzard's merger with Activision, the company's finances were revealed, showing how much profit Blizzard makes. It's estimated that WoW will generate $1.1 Billion this year, with a profit of around $520 Million after running costs.

MMO's do cost a lot more to maintain than other games, so there is more of a risk in developing them, but boy, do they pay off if they go well.

According to another report on gamasutra.com, WoW is continuing to grow its subscriber base at an impressive rate. Analyst Mike Hickey from Janco Partners noted:

Quote:

Churn is the number of players who cancel their subscription in the month.

Thanks to Stinkerbelle at WanderingGoblin.com.