We’re just over a month into the expansion, and it’s continuing to set new records in PC gaming. Blizzard today revealed that the expansion sold more than 4.7 million copies in its first month, which is a new record for PC games.

This comes after incredible first-day sales of 3.3 million copies, shattering the previous mark of 2.8 million — set by Wrath of the Lich King, the game’s previous expansion.

“We created thousands of new quests, introduced new lands to explore, and extensively revamped the game world for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, making it our biggest and most ambitious expansion yet,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’ve been floored by the community’s response so far, and we’d like to thank them for their continued passion and support for World of Warcraft, and for helping Cataclysm reach this incredible milestone.”

Even though this is a record, it’s an interesting number considering the game has WoW-breaks-12-million-subscriber-milestone-proves-it-s-not-dying.aspx” rel=”nofollow”>more than 12 million subscribers. It makes you wonder how many of those 12 million players chose to enjoy leveling a new character or two before digging into the 80+ content. Or perhaps sales of Cataclysm do not include mainland China since the system is set up a bit differently there in comparison with other countries.

Still, after 6 years of service, it’s testament to the quality of the content in World of Warcraft that it continues to perform stronger over time. It’s not often you’ll find a game that can continue setting records more than half a decade after it was originally released. I’d say the game may end up being the Beatles of the MMO genre.

Image via Kotaku.

Brigitte Burdine, who worked on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King as its Casting Director, and considered by many to be one of the best in the industry, was killed two nights ago in a hit-and-run accident inPlaya del Rey, a seaside community in Los Angeles, CA. She was said to be walking home from a late-night date with her boyfriend when a black sedan ran her over at approximately 1:45AM PST.

This has sent shockwaves throughout the industry, with a tremendous show of support for Burdine and her family. Unfortunately her killer is still at-large, with very little information about the accident currently available. One witness reported seeing the killer’s car come to a stop, but then take off, leaving the scene.

Voice actress Denise Gieser said, “Brigitte was instrumental in starting my VO career. I always enjoyed going into her studio to audition rather than send an MP3 because she was so awesome to be around. She was ALWAYS cheerful, smiling, positive, endearing, personable… loving. My heart hurts because of her loss.”

Burdine, 48, worked on a wide variety of video games as casting director, director, and in other sound-related areas. Earlier works also included film and television, and she’s contributed to quite a few projects as a voice actress as well.

If you feel that you’re able to provide information about the crime or the suspect, callLAPD investigator Martha Dominguez at (213) 473-0234 as soon as possible. Hopefully someone will be able to come forward and bring her killer to justice.

Image via Kotaku.

Brigitte Burdine, who worked on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King as its Casting Director, and considered by many to be one of the best in the industry, was killed two nights ago in a hit-and-run accident inPlaya del Rey, a seaside community in Los Angeles, CA. She was said to be walking home from a late-night date with her boyfriend when a black sedan ran her over at approximately 1:45AM PST.

This has sent shockwaves throughout the industry, with a tremendous show of support for Burdine and her family. Unfortunately her killer is still at-large, with very little information about the accident currently available. One witness reported seeing the killer’s car come to a stop, but then take off, leaving the scene.

Voice actress Denise Gieser said, “Brigitte was instrumental in starting my VO career. I always enjoyed going into her studio to audition rather than send an MP3 because she was so awesome to be around. She was ALWAYS cheerful, smiling, positive, endearing, personable… loving. My heart hurts because of her loss.”

Burdine, 48, worked on a wide variety of video games as casting director, director, and in other sound-related areas. Earlier works also included film and television, and she’s contributed to quite a few projects as a voice actress as well.

If you feel that you’re able to provide information about the crime or the suspect, callLAPD investigator Martha Dominguez at (213) 473-0234 as soon as possible. Hopefully someone will be able to come forward and bring her killer to justice.

No doubt influenced heavily by digital pre-orders, Blizzard today revealed that World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has shattered previous marks for first-day sales in the PC gaming market. In its first 24 hours the expansion sold approximately 3.3 million copies, making it the fastest-selling PC game of all time by eclipsing Wrath of the Lich King’s 2.8 million sold mark set in November 2008.

“We had to bring Azeroth to the brink of destruction in Cataclysm, but the result was our best expansion yet,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We want to thank all of our new, existing, and returning players throughout the world for their incredible enthusiasm and support, and we look forward to hearing what they think about all the new content.”

Interestingly, GameStop is stating that Cataclysm sold better in its first day than StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, which is a bit surprising considering the lackluster turnout at our local San Francisco midnight opening. Perhaps other locales faired better, because I expected the digital download to have a severe negative impact on box sales. Then again with Lil’ Deathwing coming out of the Collector’s Edition, that was a sure hit, and something that you couldn’t digitally download — at least not in advance from Blizzard.

With so many first-day copies sold, it will be interesting to see how the expansion fairs in its first month. Will we see WoW-breaks-12-million-subscriber-milestone-proves-it-s-not-dying.aspx” rel=”nofollow”>a majority of the playerbase own the expansion by the end of the year? Or heck, do they already own it and Blizzard just hasn’t released week one numbers yet?

No doubt influenced heavily by digital pre-orders, Blizzard today revealed that World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has shattered previous marks for first-day sales in the PC gaming market. In its first 24 hours the expansion sold approximately 3.3 million copies, making it the fastest-selling PC game of all time by eclipsing Wrath of the Lich King’s 2.8 million sold mark set in November 2008.

“We had to bring Azeroth to the brink of destruction in Cataclysm, but the result was our best expansion yet,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We want to thank all of our new, existing, and returning players throughout the world for their incredible enthusiasm and support, and we look forward to hearing what they think about all the new content.”

Interestingly, GameStop is stating that Cataclysm sold better in its first day than StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, which is a bit surprising considering the lackluster turnout at our local San Francisco midnight opening. Perhaps other locales faired better, because I expected the digital download to have a severe negative impact on box sales. Then again with Lil’ Deathwing coming out of the Collector’s Edition, that was a sure hit, and something that you couldn’t digitally download — at least not in advance from Blizzard.

With so many first-day copies sold, it will be interesting to see how the expansion fairs in its first month. Will we see WoW-breaks-12-million-subscriber-milestone-proves-it-s-not-dying.aspx” rel=”nofollow”>a majority of the playerbase own the expansion by the end of the year? Or heck, do they already own it and Blizzard just hasn’t released week one numbers yet?

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We’ve had some recent news concerning WoW.joystiq.com/2010/09/09/the-overachiever-new-and-altered-cataclysm-achievements/”>achievements in categories we’ve WoW.joystiq.com/2010/09/23/the-overachiever-more-new-and-altered-cataclysm-achievements/”>already covered, and my original intent this week was to play catch-up with that in addition to finishing off the new reputation, world event, and feat of strength achievements in Cataclysm. However, given equally recent news concerning achievements that are set to become feats (and may do so as early as WoW.joystiq.com/tag/patch-4.0.1/”>patch 4.0.1), I thought it would be more sensible to cover the stuff that you’d want to do as soon as possible WoW.joystiq.com/2010/05/13/the-overachiever-endangered-achievements/”>before it disappears.

I’ve cross-checked the list of known Cataclysm WoWwiki.com/Feat_of_Strength”>feats of strength against the feats already present in game, and as far as I know, this should be a comprehensive set of current Wrath of the Lich King achievements that will become inaccessible as of patch 4.0.1, patch 4.0.3, or Cataclysm’s release (or at least, a comprehensive list as of the current beta and PTR builds).

I’ve written this list assuming the following:

• Although it hasn’t been officially confirmed that all of these will disappear in patch 4.0.1 or 4.0.3 rather than the expansion itself, for the time being, I’m guessing it’s one of the two patches you need to worry about.
• With the recent announcement of WoW.joystiq.com/2010/09/28/arena-season-8-to-end-as-early-as-oct-12/”>arena Season 8 ending on Oct. 12, 4.0.1 may hit in less than two weeks. Zarhym’s post just made it clear that the season could end as early as the 12th, not that it definitely would, and there’s still a lot of stuff to fix on the PTR and beta — but every Tuesday from hereon is a potential patch day.
• Accepting Oct. 5 or 12 as possible patch dates, I’ve included an opinion on the feasibility of getting the following achievements done as quickly as possible.

WoW.joystiq.com/2010/09/30/the-overachiever-do-them-now/” rel=”bookmark”>Continue reading The OverAchiever: Do them now!

Filed under: WoW.joystiq.com/category/achievements/” rel=”tag”>Achievements, WoW.joystiq.com/category/the-overachiever/” rel=”tag”>The Overachiever

WoW.joystiq.com/2010/09/30/the-overachiever-do-them-now/”>The OverAchiever: Do them now! originally appeared on WoW.joystiq.com”>WoW Insider on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sites like WoW.joystiq.com”>WoW Insider have been absolutely buzzing with information about the new expansion to the World of Warcraft. While we bloggers, journalists and fans are so accustomed to hearing about the upcoming Cataclysm that we don’t think twice about it, a brand new player probably has no clue what the heck is going on. So with that being said, let’s take a week and catch up our rookie brother and sisters by answering, “What exactly is Cataclysm?”

First things first. Cataclysm is the third expansion to World of Warcraft. The first two expansions were WoW.joystiq.com/photos/burning-crusade/”>The Burning Crusade and WoW.joystiq.com/categories/wrath-of-the-lich-king”>Wrath of the Lich King. So far, we’ve seen a new expansion about every two years. In between each expansion, we get tons of free content like new dungeons, raids and world events. But it’s really the named expansions that rewrite the game’s genre and endgame for the player base.

We don’t know the release date of Cataclysm yet. However, it’s safe to assume it’s at least a month away as of the time of this writing. There will be several prologue events before the release, however, that will serve as the WoW.joystiq.com/2010/09/22/pre-cataclysm-world-events-live-on-the-ptr/”>lore and story transition between Wrath and Cataclysm. There is a WoW.joystiq.com/2010/08/17/cataclysm-collectors-edition-contents-announced/”>Collector’s Edition of Cataclysm that includes some neat toys associated with it, so if you want that boxed set, you’d better pre-order now.

WoW.joystiq.com/2010/10/01/WoW-rookie-what-is-cataclysm/” rel=”bookmark”>Continue reading WoW Rookie: What is Cataclysm?

Filed under: WoW.joystiq.com/category/WoW-rookie/” rel=”tag”>WoW Rookie

WoW.joystiq.com/2010/10/01/WoW-rookie-what-is-cataclysm/”>WoW Rookie: What is Cataclysm? originally appeared on WoW.joystiq.com”>WoW Insider on Fri, 01 Oct 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome back to WoW.joystiq.com/category/the-queue/”>The Queue, WoW Insider’s daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mat McCurley will be your host today.

Ow. Ow, ow, ow. The pain, oh, the pain of it all. Heroics, my friends, are hard. Trash is hard, the bosses are hard, and my spirit was jostled from its happy Wrath of the Lich King foundations. Images of WoWhead.com/zone=3789″>Shadow Labs darted through my mind. Heroic WoWhead.com/zone=3849″>Mechanar called to me. Remember me, it spoke, remember me and weep the tears of a thousand failed runs. You are mine, it would proclaim. You have returned to the unhappy peninsula of the soul.

No, really, heroics are hard. I expect some tuning, but on the whole, there are challenges ahead for us in Cataclysm. On the one hand, I’m excited. I like challenge! On the other hand, I will never use the dungeon finder tool again. No offense.

WoW.joystiq.com/2010/09/23/the-queue-hard-mode-is-hard/” rel=”bookmark”>Continue reading The Queue: Hard mode is hard

Filed under: WoW.joystiq.com/category/the-queue/” rel=”tag”>The Queue

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This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by WoW.joystiq.com/2010/02/03/the-new-WoW-com-guest-blogger-program/”>Seed, the Aol guest writer program that WoW.joystiq.com/tag/write-for-WoW-insider”>brings your words to WoW Insider’s pages.

It’s a truth we all must face: Wrath of the Lich King is coming to a close. Whether you loved it, hated it or something in between, it is time to look forward to the new expansion. With the excitement of a whole new cataclysmic event on the horizon, one can’t help but look back on the recent past. There were some glorious moments in Wrath: the WoWwiki.com/Wrathgate”>Wrathgate quest line leading up to the Battle for the Undercity, epic battles in WoW.joystiq.com/tag/wintergrasp”>Wintergrasp, and equally epic encounters like WoWwiki.com/Algalon”>Algalon in Ulduar and the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel all come to mind.

Yet with greatness come some faults. Wrath was no exception. About three months after the expansion’s release with the start of the holiday WoW.joystiq.com/tag/love-is-in-the-air”>Love is in the Air, a bug caused the message The Ice Stone has melted! to be spammed in everyone’s chat logs. And let us not forget the fiasco that was Additional instances cannot be launched, please try again later that prevented thousands of players from entering dungeons until servers were upgraded with new hardware months after it started popping up.

There was a lot of fun to be had in Wrath of the Lich King. There was a lot to feel nostalgic about. However, Wrath was far from perfect. What won’t you miss about this expansion?

Filed under: WoW.joystiq.com/category/breakfast-topics/” rel=”tag”>Breakfast Topics, WoW.joystiq.com/category/wrath-of-the-lich-king/” rel=”tag”>Wrath of the Lich King, WoW.joystiq.com/category/guest-posts/” rel=”tag”>Guest Posts

WoW.joystiq.com/2010/09/25/breakfast-topic-what-wont-you-miss-about-wrath/”>Breakfast Topic: What won’t you miss about Wrath? originally appeared on WoW.joystiq.com”>WoW Insider on Sat, 25 Sep 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pop law abounds in WoW.joystiq.com/category/the-lawbringer/”>The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Running parallel to the games we love and enjoy is a world full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play?

We’ve all heard about the now-infamous request for Blizzard and NetEase to WoW.joystiq.com/2010/08/16/wrath-of-the-lich-king-chinas-version/”>remove all forms of skeletons and other material from the Chinese release of Wrath of the Lich King, which finally was released in China on Aug. 31, 2010. What on earth is going on with Blizzard, NetEase, China and all that jazz? This week, The Lawbringer looks at the general video game climate in China, talks a little bit about how things are different for WoW players in China, and helps clarify some of the craziness going on about that whole skeleton debacle.

WoW.joystiq.com/2010/09/24/the-lawbringer-WoW-in-china/” rel=”bookmark”>Continue reading The Lawbringer: WoW in China

Filed under: WoW.joystiq.com/category/analysis-opinion/” rel=”tag”>Analysis / Opinion, WoW.joystiq.com/category/the-lawbringer/” rel=”tag”>The Lawbringer

WoW.joystiq.com/2010/09/24/the-lawbringer-WoW-in-china/”>The Lawbringer: WoW in China originally appeared on WoW.joystiq.com”>WoW Insider on Fri, 24 Sep 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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