The valiant forces of Azeroth fought long and hard in the nVidia Test of Honor contest, and their prowess in battle has been reviewed. The top player from each faction on every server during the contest receives a special in-game tabard. You can view the champions of the contest here. We will be conducting the drawing for the physical prizes very soon, and everyone that participated in the Honor System during the contest has a chance to win. Congratulations to all the tabard winners, and thank you for participating in the contest!

• Hotfix Post Maintenance
• Warlock Defense?
• So how often does it Darkmoon faire come?
• What classes next Blizzard?

*Links on this news post may expire over time.

Blizzard Entertainment^®, Inc. is proud to announce the very first Blizzard Convention, to take place on October 28 & 29 in Orange County, California. BlizzCon™ is a celebration of our Warcraft^®, StarCraft^®, and Diablo^® franchises and the players who have helped make them so popular around the world. Attendees can look forward to a variety of events, including participating in question and answer panels with the developers of World of Warcraft^® and StarCraft: Ghost™, playing Blizzard games live with friends, and watching the world's best Warcraft III and StarCraft pro-gamers compete in the BlizzCon Invitational tournament.

Further details and information about ticket sales will be posted in the days ahead on www.blizzard.com.

WHAT: BlizzCon will be an ideal event for gamers from around the world to meet each other, participate in live Q&A's with Blizzard developers, and share their passion for their favorite Blizzard games.

WHO: Gamers who enjoy playing any of the games developed by Blizzard Entertainment.

WHERE: Orange County, California. Exact location to be announced at a later date.

WHEN: Friday and Saturday, October 28 and 29, 2005. The event begins at 8 a.m. PDT on both days.

G4: Video Game Television featured World of Warcraft on the show "Cheat." We're proud to offer the segment for download here. The feature is approximately five minutes and 30 seconds in length. If you want to watch this show on TV, it is being rerun on Tuesday, June 28 at 8:30 p.m. EST, 5:30 p.m. PST on the G4 channel. Check your local TV listings.

Once again, the Public Test Realms have opened their doors, allowing players to investigate and help test the upcoming changes in patch 1.6. This patch contains a plethora of class changes (particularly to Warlocks and Warriors), the new Battlemasters, and much more!

Players can participate in the test realms by creating a character or by copying their characters from existing realms to the test realms. Those who have previously copied their characters to the test realms will need to do so again, as all previous characters have been removed from the test realms. To copy your character and to download the test client, visit our Test Realm Character Copy page.

Please be aware that the test realms allow us to conduct a broad test of major content patches, and based on the results of the public test, further changes may be introduced before a patch goes live. To read more about the test realms, please review the Test Realm FAQ. We truly appreciate our players taking the time to help us test the latest changes to the game; thank you all!

Players who gain friendly, honored, and exalted reputation with the Warsong Outriders or the Silverwing Sentinels will be able to purchase new equipment and consumable items in patch 1.6! Check out the new rewards here.

We are pleased to bring you another rendition of Community Watch! This week we bring you a movie about the dead coming back to haunt the living, the real reason behind Techbot's corruption, and a guide to beating our favorite dragon, Onyxia!

• Rise of the Living Dead by Dogs of Warcraft
• Techbot's Corruption by Rhumple
• Onyxia -- Battle Plan by Pedram

Have you made or seen something that you think deserves to be on the World of Warcraft Community Watch? Send us a link at: [email protected].

*Links on this news post may expire over time and are created by other companies/individuals that are neither affiliated with nor supported by Blizzard Entertainment.

We have created a new page with some basic information and screenshots about the fast-paced Battleground, Warsong Gulch. Keep an eye on our Battleground section; we have much more on the way!

A gathering of the exotic from around the world and beyond, Silas Darkmoon has brought together the Darkmoon Faire as a celebration of the wondrous and mysterious found in Azeroth. While the Faire spends most of their time in parts unknown, they do stop from time to time in Mulgore and Elwynn forest. Anyone interested in catching this traveling menagerie should peruse this flyer.

G4: Video Game Television featured World of Warcraft on the show "Cheat." We're proud to offer the segment for download here. The feature is approximately five minutes and 30 seconds in length. If you want to watch this show on TV, it is being rerun on Tuesday, June 28 at 8:30 p.m. EST, 5:30 p.m. PST on the G4 channel. Check your local TV listings.

The weapon rewards for Alliance Grand Marshall and Horde High Warlord will be updated in patch 1.6. They are more powerful and look much cooler! You can check out their updated stats here.

Don't always have time to keep up on the latest and greatest topics appearing on our forums? Check out the links* below to read what "Blue" has been saying!

• New Felheart Models?
• New Realm Requests
• Ariel Mount Speeds?
• Upcoming Alterac Valley Changes

*Links on this news post may expire over time.

The first World of Warcraft Battle Plan by Shane Dabiri, Lead Producer of World of Warcraft, has just been posted in the forums. This announcement reviews the first seven months of the game and gives a sneak peek of what's to come!

A murloc at E3? You better believe it! Click here to view Tristan Pope's latest movie!

We've updated our popular Under Development page with new information on upcoming content for World of Warcraft. Read up on our plans to improve the game and see screenshots of what's coming!

This week we bring you a WoW Radio contest, a helpful guide for Enchanting, a movie about vengeance, and a story about a lonely Murloc. Enjoy!

• WoW Idol 2005 by WoW Radio
• WoW Enchanter Guide
• Vengeance by Ciderhelm
• The Lonely Murloc

Have you made or seen something that you think deserves to be on the World of Warcraft Community Watch? Send us a link at: [email protected].

*Links on this news post may expire over time and are created by other companies/individuals that are neither affiliated with nor supported by Blizzard Entertainment.

Blizzard and FilePlanet are pleased to offer an exclusive 50% discount on a full-year FilePlanet membership for Blizzard fans only. Benefits include fast downloads for files and patches, dedicated WoW pages with popular WoW movies ready for download and access to FilePlanet's exclusive beta programs for upcoming games. Check out the details here.

Players looking for more information on the war between Horde and Alliance will want to read our newest guide on PvP Honor, created by Blizzard Europe. It's a must-read for any prospective PvP combatant and we've posted it on our site. Check it out!

We have updated our Battlegrounds site with a new page on Warsong Gulch Power-ups. We plan on adding more battleground information pages in the near future, so be sure to check the guide updates page often for the latest news.

Microsoft Games for Windows has just released a new skin for Windows Media Player 10 that will help bring out your inner warrior, or rogue, or hunter, or mage, or druid...while watching videos or listening to your favorite songs online (such as one of the many World of Warcraft MP3s we've posted on the World of Warcraft community site). Grab the new World of Warcraft Windows Media Player skin here.

Now you can enjoy the look and feel of World of Warcraft even when log out of the game, thanks to the specially designed World of Warcraft Windows XP desktop theme pack created by Stardock. Using Stardock's Object Desktop technology, the Worldof Warcraft theme pack changes your title bars, Start menu, icons, push buttons, borders, and much more to mirror the user interface from the game. Download it here.

World of Warcraft is on its way to Taiwan later this year, and as part of that process, the Taiwan website for the game is now live!

Click here to check out the new site.

Like to adventure in your own, custom style? Then feel free to try our new Custom User Interface Toolkit! Our "CUI" enables you to customize your World of Warcraft interface to suit your very own, specific needs, and it now works within our Public Test Realm! So blaze an unhindered trail, and download our World of Warcraft CUI now.

A small bug fix patch will be applied later today to fix two outstanding bugs (listed below.) This patch does not require any realm downtime, and will not interrupt game play.

Bug Fixes

- Fixed an assertion that was preventing Mac clients from playing in the battlegrounds and causing a memory leak on PCs when they did.
- Improved error reporting to give more useful information to development.

We're excited to announce that with the addition of the new PvP battlegrounds, World of Warcraft has now reached two million worldwide subscribers! We'd like to thank all of our players for helping us achieve this milestone, and we look forward to continuing to support the game with vast new content in the months ahead. Click here to check out the full press release.

To celebrate the launch of the Battlegrounds System, Blizzard is giving away a rare, life-size mannequin of a Night Elf female.

To enter the contest, take the best screen shot you can within one of the Battlegrounds Zones and submit it using the Web page link below by June 20th, 2005.

We will run them through the gauntlet of dev team scrutiny, and will announce the winners soon after. So train your photographer's eye on the Battlegrounds and good luck!

• Submit a Screenshot

This new gameplay trailer features two teams battling it out in Warsong Gulch in a capture-the-flag throwdown. Watch as the blue team powers its way to the all-important flag and brings it home. Is that a Tauren doing a victory dance?

We have a great line up for you this week! Actiontrip returns with a valuable lesson for all of you Horde, the Catacombs Crusaders show the pros and cons of PvP, and a Paladin refuses to let VanCleef get away from justice any longer.

• PvP for Horde: Lesson 1 by Actiontrip.com
• PvP Set by Catacombs Crusaders
• A Paladin takes on the Deadmines by thisisjoe

Have you made or seen something that you think deserves to be on the World of Warcraft Community Watch? Send us a link at: [email protected].

*Links on this news post may expire over time and are created by other companies/individuals that are neither affiliated with nor supported by Blizzard Entertainment.

The Blizzard Fan Art Section has been updated with five new pieces of artwork.

he Royal Photographic Society of Azeroth is proud to announce the winners of the World of Warcraft Vintage Poster Competition, sponsored by Zboard! The competition was fierce, and hundreds of fantastic posters were submitted. Click here to see the five grand prize winners. Each grand prize winner will receive a Zboard and World of Warcraft Keyset. There were so many great submissions that we decided to create Examples in Excellence and Honorable Mentions sections to show them off!	Winners
Examples in Excellence Honorable Mentions

Download Night Elf, a musical selection from the Warcraft soundtrack.

We're pleased to announce that the latest patch has arrived, and included are the first two Battlegrounds. Nestled high within the Alterac Mountains of Lordaeron is Alterac Valley, where teams of 40 complete PvP quests, enlist the aid of powerful NPCs, and clash over strategic objectives in an all-out battle for domination. And in the Northern Barrens, on the highly contested border between Horde and Alliance territory, lies Warsong Gulch, a fast-paced capture-the-flag-based Battleground where teamwork and strategy are the keys to success. Simply log in to World of Warcraft to begin downloading the latest patch and start in on all the fun.

For additional information on World of Warcraft's Battlegrounds, please visit the new Battlegrounds mini section, which contains information about the rewards for both Alterac Valley and Warsong Gulch, as well as each Battleground's score screen!

Blizzard Entertainment is proud to announce that World of Warcraft has officially launched in China! With the Chinese Open Beta seeing peaks of more than 500,000 players adventuring simultaneously, the launch of the game in China comes as an eagerly anticipated and long awaited event. For more information, please refer to our press release listed here, or visit the Chinese World of Warcraft community site here.

Blizzard Korea has created this exciting interactive site to high-light some of the new Player vs. Player options in World of Warcraft we added in the 1.4 patch. Check it out.

We have a great line up for you this week! First up is a movie about a man seeking revenge, next is a comic about an anticipated release, and last but not least shows what it would look like if World of Warcraft hit too close to home! Great job everyone!

• Lost by Dogs of Warcraft
• Battlegrounds by Catacombs Crusaders
• Binka Invades Seattle

Have you made or seen something that you think deserves to be on the World of Warcraft Community Watch? Send us a link at: [email protected].

*Links on this news post may expire over time and are created by other companies/individuals that are neither affiliated with nor supported by Blizzard Entertainment.

After facing Onyxia and overcoming the Molten Core, the next epic challenge for high-level raid groups is the dragon-infested spire called Blackwing Lair. This mighty fortress, carved into the fiery bowels of Blackrock Mountain by master dwarf-mason Franclorn Forgewright, holds great risk and great rewards for the mighty heroes brave enough to plumb its depths. See what dangers lurk within its dark corridors in our new Blackwing Lair preview.

We have just updated our World of Warcraft Wallpapers section with a new wallpaper featuring Nefarian from Blackwing Lair.

The Blizzard Fan Art Section has been updated with five new pieces of artwork.

We know how quickly the forums move, so be sure and follow these links to avoid missing out on the latest and greatest topics!

• World of Warcraft Vintage Poster Competition
• Mage Invisibility
• Just Curious, Blizzard...

Download Orc, a musical selection from the Warcraft soundtrack.

Make sure that you keep up to date on all the latest in the World of Warcraft 2005 News Archive.