Due to the demand, the profit margin and the insane amount of adults and children wanting their “likeness” produced in plastic, Blizzard has upped the ante on the FigurePrints production line, and now you can order one and get it in a decent time frame!

"FigurePrints, which lets you order custom 3D figures of World of Warcraft characters, complete with gear and a choice of poses, has grown immensely since its launch in 2007 to meet the high demand for their collectible statues. Because of the increased production capacity now available, the lottery/waiting list system is no longer necessary, and you can place an order immediately."

I was thinking about ordering one. Now I know I am going to have to have one... in two weeks. Now, to get my Orc Shaman in a pose that doesn't look like he's angry at the world or like he just got punched in the kidney.

Source: World of Warcraft Official Website

With the New Year comes a new start, even for World of Warcraft characters. Blizzard poster Zarym has confirmed the following:

A fresh PvE realm allowing only for new character creation (no transfers) is coming extremely soon.

On the official realm status page, there are three news servers listed as down right now: Borean Tundra and Winterhoof for PvE and Wyrmrest Accord for RP. Zarym also said in the thread that PvE transfers are coming extremely soon.

So if you're looking for a fresh beginning, get ready to grind from 1-80 again, only this time do it along with the rest of the server. Maybe some of the earlier instances will see a surge in popularity. Then again, everybody on the server may just solo quickly to the level cap.

If you're a fan of Upper Deck games such as the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game and World of Warcraft Miniatures Game, then mark your calendars for Feb. 7 and 8. Locations throughout North America will be hosting Upper Deck Day that weekend, which will include numerous tournaments and demos.

While Upper Deck Day will have events for the Yu-Gi-Oh! and Huntik trading card games, as an Allakhazam reader you're probably most interested in the WoW games. According to the announcement, "All gamers are invited to enter the free World of Warcraft TCG beginners event and learn first hand what all the buzz is about. ... Players can earn booster packs and start building their own World of Warcraft TCG collection with their free Starter Decks. Door prizes will also be given out all weekend." You can check out demos of the WoW Miniatures game as well.

Upper Deck will be releasing locations for the event soon. More information can be found here or after the jump.

The current arena points cap sits at 5,000. This can cause problems, such as the one a player stated on the official World of Warcraft damage dealing forum: "In my situation, I'll have well over 1200 points earned next week and I'm already at 4346 points right now after the update. If I wanted to buy a 4500 point item, that would force me to waste over 500 arena points for absolutely nothing. How does this make sense?"

It seems the developers didn't think this cap made any sense, either. Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street popped into the thread with the following comment :

We understand the problem and will likely bump the cap. Look for an announcement soon.

So how are you doing with arena points? How high would you like to see the cap raised?

The European World of Warcraft site is hosting its annual Valentine Card Contest, and all you pet collecters should start creating for the chance to win a Gurkey key.

The contest starts today and ends Feb. 1. You can send five cards per household as long as you live in one of the participating countries (U.S. residents can't participate). If you're not sure where to start, check out some of last year's entries for inspiration.

As with all contests, there's all sorts of rules involved. You can read the basic information here and the full legal terms here. If any of you end up creating a card, let us know. We'd love to see them and share them with the Allakhazam community.

Remember when you first saw the opening cinematic for Wrath of the Lich King? While some players may prefer the previous cinematics for World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade since they were montages that showed numerous classes and races, I personally enjoyed the WotLK opener. It really set the stage for the expansion and felt like a short (OK, very short) film.

Many films have art books devoted to them; now this opening cinematic has one as well. The Cinematic Art of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is available now. If you're wondering whether you should pick it up, Blizzard has posted a preview of the book.

Available now, the book features over 200 pieces of artwork, detailed write-ups of the lore behind the cinematic, illustrated storybooks, two collectable prints, and behind-the-scenes "making-of" commentary from the trailer’s creators.

Do any of you own this book yet? What do you think of it?

If you've ever played a FPS (First Person Shooter), chances are you've heard the name Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel at least a few times. Widely regarded as the most successful professional gamer around, he's won twelve World Championships over five different games. We caught up with him at CES to talk about something you wouldn't suspect, World of Warcraft.

During the interview he made it clear that he's going to keep his WoW life casual, but pursue it in a business perspective by actively seeking out and possibly sponsoring World of Warcraft professionals. In my mind this is great news for would be professionals that just need a little help breaking into the space.

I think I'm going to keep it more casual but I think I'm going to go about it the professional way by finding the best players and sponsor them to travel around underneath the Fatal1ty brand and support our product line with Creative. I'm really looking forward to sponsoring some guys.

Check out our exclusive interview with Fatal1ty after the jump.

We apologize for this delayed weekly recap, but the Allakhazam team was incredibly busy attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this past weekend. You can check out some of our exclusive interviews from the event below, and you can expect to see more coverage throughout the week, including an interview with John Smedley, president and CEO of Sony Online Entertainment. He had some interesting EverQuest news to share with us, so be sure to keep an eye out for that. There's more links after the jump.

Allakhazam Features:

CES 2009: An Allakhazam Look at DC Universe Online : Editor-in-Chief Andrew "Tamat" Beegle gets a first-hand look at DCUO with Creative Director Jens Anderson. Check out our video for some in-depth gameplay footage.

CES 2009: Interview with Fatal1ty : Tamat talks to professional gamer Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel about World of Warcraft. He'll possibly be sponsoring WoW professionals underneath the Fatal1ty brand.

Pre CES: Interview with Brett Close : Tamat speaks with Brett Close, president and CEO of 38 Studios, about the project simply known as Copernicus. Close is tight-lipped about the game, but says 2010 is when we'll hear more.

An Evening with Thrall : Before conducting all these interviews at CES, Tamat was brave enough to talk to the biggest name of all: Thrall. The World of Warcraft character bares all in this exclusive interview.

I recently got the chance to talk to Myndflame's Clint Hackleman about machinima, composing music and switching between a Druid, Priest and Death Knight in World of Warcraft. While Clint kept quiet on Myndflame's future projects, he was very open with his thoughts on the machinima genre and even supplied some advice for aspiring artists. To get in the mood, I suggest you go watch "Defias Mightiest," a Myndflame production featuring Clint's original song from VanCleef's perspective in World of Warcraft. Then you can read on to find out what truly makes Clint's creativity tick (hint: it involves alpha gorillas and feces).

Togikagi: Before we get into the questions, could you supply our readers with your background in Machinima and a list of the movies you've worked on? Also, could you give us some background on the Myndflame team?

Clint: There are two of us that work on productions at Myndflame ; myself (Clint Hackleman), and my brother D.W. Hackleman. Using the power of our jewel shards, we've created many Machinima videos, but we're most well known for "Illegal Danish: Super Snacks " and our short videos like "Epic Flight Form " and "Learn 2 Play ". Some of our more recent work includes "A Hallow's End Special ", "Fruit of Elune – Underpants for Night Elves ", and the "Slim Jim WoW Machinima ". D.W. leads the visuals (video director, editing, special effects), and I do sound and music as well as many of the voice acting roles. Prominent local voice actors are Kris Haughey, Kevin Haughey, and Amanda Baker.

Have you ever had an Arena fight last longer than 45 minutes? Well, that won't be happening anymore.

In order to prevent players from attempting to reach a no decision in Arenas, and to ensure that all Arena matches are completed in a reasonable time frame, a 45 minute time limit has been added to Arena matches. At the end of this time limit if no team has achieved victory, both teams will lose 16 arena rating points. Please be aware that this loss in rating is not currently displaying properly and will instead show as a draw for both teams. This display issue will be addressed in a future update.

So how many of you have had battles extend past 45 minutes? Also, do you feel the loss of rating points is a fair penalty for not completing the fight by the time limit? Feel free to discuss it in this thread in our general forum.