Havok announced today that Blizzard Entertainment has licensed Havok 4.0, to use in upcoming, yet unannounced, PC and Macintosh games.

Blizzard announced plans to strengthen its current development efforts by refocusing key members of its console team on other projects within the company. This decision followed an extensive evaluation of the company's aggressive development plans.

Blizzard seems to have more in store for us than just World of WarCraft these days, as its job listings page is now looking for a level designer with "experience building levels using any popular 3D Real-Time Strategy game toolset." As to be expected speculations are all over the place with the favorites being StarCraft II or Warcraft IV, but Vivendi and Blizzard representatives declined to give any further details beyond the fact they have various projects in development, which will be announced at a later time ..

In keeping with Blizzard's aggressive stance against cheating in World of Warcraft, it banned over 59,000 accounts in the month of May, and with that removed well over 22 million gold from the economy across all realms. The banned accounts were taking part in activities that violate the game's Terms of Use, including using third-party programs to farm gold and items, which severely impacts the economy of a realm and the overall game enjoyment for all players.

Blizzard revealed today that with the release of WoW: The Burning Crusade players will finally be able to play classes that were previously unavailable to their faction: the blood elves are getting blood elf paladins, while the draenei will have access to the shaman.

Yesterday, blog site f13.net claimed to have picked up information from a presentation Vivendi did for investors that Blizzard plans to make MMOs for all of its franchises, and had a formula in place to do so in three years, with a $50 million budget. This morning, Blizzard strongly denied these rumors and said they were misquoted. While Blizzard is owned by Vivendi, they make their own game decisions, and no specific plans beyond the upcoming expansion for WoW have been announced.

In keeping with Blizzard's aggressive stance against cheating in World of Warcraft, it banned over 30,000 accounts in the month of May, and with that removed well over 30 million gold from the economy across all realms. The banned accounts were taking part in activities that violate the game's Terms of Use, including using third-party programs to farm gold and items, which severely impacts the economy of a realm and the overall game enjoyment for all players.

Games Media Properties today announced a partnership with Ubisoft to launch ClancyCon, bringing together fans of the Tom Clancy video game franchises that include Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six. At each WSVG US event, attendees will have a chance to compete in playing Clancy titles and see previews of upcoming games.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Legendary Pictures has purchased the rights to create a live-action film set in the Warcraft universe. The movie would not follow the plot of a particular game but would aim to appeal to both gamers and non-gamers. In conjunction with Warner Bros. Studios, Legendary has recently co-financed films such as "Batman Begins" and "Superman Returns."

In keeping with its aggressive stance against cheating in World of Warcraft, Blizzard have since patch 1.10 banned over 5400 accounts and suspended 10700 more for participating in activities that violate the game’s Terms of Use, including using third-party programs to farm gold and items. Such actions can severely impact the economy of a realm and the overall game enjoyment for all players.

Blizzard today announced the opening of a new World of Warcraft site in Europe that will host multiple game realms of all playing types in English, French and German. The first seven realms will be launched on Thursday, 6th April with additional realms opening shortly thereafter.

Brian Kopp, author of The Ultimate World of Warcraft Leveling & Gold Guide, filed a lawsuit against Blizzard, Vivendi and the ESA for attempting to stop him his guide, according to CNET. Blizzard had his eBay account blocked, twice, claiming trademark and copyright infringement issues. With his countersuit Brian is looking for monetary compensation; an injunction preventing the entities from interfering with his sales; and a judgment that his book is protected by the First Amendment and doesn't interfere with intellectual-property rights.

According to In Newsweekly, Blizzard has sent Sara Andrews a formal letter of apology after reviewing the incident where she was reprimanded for using the term "GLBT friendly." The policy in question would be reviewed, and Blizzard's COO Paul Sams told In Newsweekly that it would be adding a guild recruitment channel to the game where people can advertise their guilds in an appropriate fashion, and to top it off, all of its WoW GMs are getting sensitivity training.

Back in April 2005 an email from a musician who claimed he had returned from a recording session in Bratislava, with the local Radio Symphony Orchestra, started the Diablo III rumor, and now Blizzard themselves fuel speculations. A new job opening on the Blizzard website states "The team behind Diablo I and II is looking for a talented, motivated, and experienced Art Director to help lead our art team in developing beautiful, cohesive game worlds for an unannounced PC Project" Some requirements are "experience modeling and texturing a diverse visual range of characters and creatures." and "experience animating both human and non-humanoid characters"

In keeping with Blizzard's aggressive stance against cheating in World of Warcraft, it have permanently closed more than 18,000 accounts over the past three months for participating in activities that violate the game's Terms of Use. A majority of these accounts were found to be using third-party programs to farm gold and items. Such actions can severely impact the economy of a realm and the overall game enjoyment for all players. Read more about it on the official WoW website.

As part of Blizzard's continuing commitment to keep World of Warcraft free from abuse, it has permanently banned more than 2500 accounts during the last several weeks which were involved in the use of cheats and/or hacks using third-party software or were otherwise violating our Terms of Use. Blizzard will continue to take an aggressive stance to ensure that the gaming environment remains an enjoyable place for its customers by actively pursuing those who would seek to violate the principle of fair-play, as well as breach the Terms of Use and policies in this way.

A few months back it was revealed Blizzard closed down the Blizzard North office, responsible for the Diablo franchise. While people were given other opportunities inside Blizzard, several decided to venture out. Hyboreal Games is founded by Diablo developers and former Blizzard employees Eric Sexton, Michio Okamura, and Steven Woo, and several others are said to join them shortly. While details are completely non-existent, their current, and first, project is Starfall.

To better cope with the World of Warcraft's population growth Blizzard has just opened six brand new realms for the game in North America. These realms give players eager for a fresh start a chance to create new characters and begin adventuring in a new copy of the game world, and also gives first time players an opportunity to do so on equal footing with other players.

BluesNews has word that Blizzard is already accepted beta test signups for its new project, to be unveilved at BlizzCon. "We haven't yet announced what title will be tested, but we welcome you to enter your code now and confirm your spot! Along with the code located on the back of your BlizzCon card, please enter a valid eMail address that will be active for some time. As it may be a while before the invitations are sent for this beta test, we want to make sure you'll receive your invite!"

"Welcome to Red 5. We are quietly at work, building the world’s best MMO team here in Southern California. Red 5’s founders share a history of making hit games for companies such as Blizzard Entertainment. After our most recent project, World of Warcraft, we decided that we wanted to take things in a new direction and push the limits of our creativity. We’re working on something a little different from most MMOs out there, and we are excited about where our passion for games will lead us."

Early August Blizzard revealed it was closing is Blizzard North development studio, and today Castaway Entertainment announced that former Blizzard North studio lead Rick Seis has accepted the position of Technical Director and lead programmer for their current unannounced project.

Back in June we reported that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals would hear oral arguments in the Blizzard v. BnetD case, and now the verdict is in. In a 3-0 decision, the court upheld a trial judge's ruling from October, concluding the programmers' circumvention in this case constitutes infringement. The defendants in the case reverse-engineered the Blizzard protocol using tools to listen to the software's communications with a game server, and circumvent Blizzard's, amongst other things, anti-piracy server Battle.net. Read more over at CNET..

As a sign of its zero-tolerance policy against cheating Blizzard just announced that it has just closed more than 36,000 accounts on Battle.net. More than 28,000 CD keys tied to these accounts have been disabled from Realm play on Battle.net for one month, and more than 3,000 CD keys have been permanently disabled from Realm play due to repeat offenses (thanks ve3d). Read more about it over here ...

As part of this initiative to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of its teams, a majority of the staff from Blizzard's Northern California office will have an opportunity to relocate to the company's Irvine office, where they will continue work on an unannounced project. "We're looking forward to having our PC development teams together in Irvine," stated Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment. "In addition to improving our efficiency as a company, the relocation also represents an opportunity for all of our teams to have regular, direct input on each other's projects." Blizzard does not believe that these changes will cause significant delays on any of its projects in development.

Blizzard today unveiled the BlizzCon website, presenting many new details about its upcoming gaming convention. Set to take place on Oct. 28 and 29 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, Calif., BlizzCon will celebrate Blizzard's games and the players who have made them so popular around the world. Live music band, Q&A session, tournaments etc..