I consider myself a World of Warcraft veteran. I started in December 2004, soon after release, playing with several friends from high school. By the time I hit level 60 on my Paladin, on the Eredar server, the honor system had just been introduced and, of all us who started together, I was the only one still playing on the server. I continued off-and-on over the years, experiencing a cycle: a new expansion would be released, I'd be obsessed with the game for a few months... and then I'd just stop logging in. The Burning Crusade was amazing, Wrath of the Lich King was even better. But over the summer, something happened that had never really happened before. Of my own volition, I simply stopped playing.

Do you like the sound of playing a quick Warsong Gulch match with your guildmates or practicing your 2v2 moves on a specific Arena map? Blizzard just announced that it will be adding a War Games feature with the start of Arena Season 9 to let teams hone their PvP skills in a setting of their choosing. Groups on the same realm will be able to challenge each other to compete on specific or random Battleground and Arena maps simply by typing a command line. Statistics won't be recorded, so you don't have to worry about your wins and losses.

For more details on War Games, including how to type out the command, check out the full Q&A after the jump.

As you may expect, it turns out Blizzard sold a lot of copies of Cataclysm on launch day. The company just announced that it sold more than 3.3 million copies (including digital pre-sales) of the third World of Warcraft expansion in the first 24 hours of its release, making it the fastest-selling PC game of all time. Of course, the previous record was set by Wrath of the Lich King in November 2008, which sold 2.8 million copies in 24 hours.

Blizzard also announced that more than 15,000 players attended official Cataclysm launch parties throughout the world, and that statistic includes Malgayne from Wowhead. If you haven't seen them yet, check out his pictures from the launch party at Fry's Electronics in Fountain Valley, CA and his exclusive video of a new song from The Artist Formerly Known as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain!

In his latest blog entry, World of Warcraft Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street decided to focus on the differences between primary and secondary stats. Primary stats are the main ones: Stamina, Strength, Agility and Intellect. Secondary stats include haste, dodge, crit, and so on. Here are Ghostcrawler's main points:

• It's intentional that the primary stats are better for your character than secondary stats.
• Secondary stats are meant to be more interesting than primary stats and should let you mix up your playstyle.
• Some exceptions: Hit and expertise have real caps; you only need enough Spirit to feel comfortable with your mana regen; and Mastery may need some tweaking since it's a new stat.
• Blizzard doesn't design every item to be perfect.
• The developers may mess with primary stats more in the future to make secondary stats more attractive.

For more details straight from Ghostcrawler, check out his entire blog post below.

Have you been dealing with login queues since the launch of Cataclysm? Does the revamped world make you want to have a fresh start on a new server? Blizzard is currently offering one-time free character moves from select realms until Dec. 22, so check the list after the jump to see if you're eligible.

It's important to note that Blizzard can close any of these transfers at any time if the target realm becomes full. If you want to take advantage of the offer, it's a good idea to do it as soon as possible. For more details, check out the free character move FAQ.

The ZAM Network is growing! We are extremely pleased to unveil SC2Ranks.com, VindictusDB.com and TorchlightArmory.com, some of the most well-designed, informative, and accurate websites for StarCraft II, Vindictus and Torchlight! These three games are among the most popular PC games to be released in the last few years, and each site features its own impressive set of tools to help the gamers they serve. While you may come to ZAM to learn more about World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy or EverQuest, we're guessing that one of these new sites may focus on another game you're interested in.

Improving and enhancing the gameplay experience of gamers and online communities has always been the single most important goal at ZAM, and all three of our brand new sites continue this trend. Both Shadowed and Premixedpie, the founders of the sites, will continue to run their day-to-day operations and be the faces for their communities; some of you may recognize Shadowed from his efforts on WoW Interface and he's done a great job with SC2 Ranks. Any of you that frequent the Vindictus official forums may have heard of Vindictus DB, but if you haven't you'll find the same sort of terrific database experience that you've come to expect from ZAM's properties.

That said, the staffers here at ZAM are excited to further the vision of each of these sites. With over 10 years of experience in databases and resources, we're eager to bring our expertise to these sites while keeping the core of what made them great in the first place. So, if you dream about destroying Zerg, drop-kicking gnolls, or crushing endless waves of spiders with your bare hands, go check out SC2 Ranks, Vindictus DB and Torchlight Armory. Let us know what you think, and please shoot us your thoughts here or in our feedback forum!

Community Manager Nethaera recently announced on the World of Warcraft official forums that guild achievements no longer reward guild experience. Basically, guild were leveling faster than Blizzard intended. Since the team doesn't normally offer rewards for earning achievements, they decided to best way to address the problem was to remove the bonus guild exp from achievements. You can read the full post after the jump.

How has your guild fared with the Guild Advancement system? What are your thoughts on the new feature?

Wowhead's Malgayne already shared his pictures from Blizzard's North American midnight launch party for Cataclysm, but it turns out he had an extra surprise up his sleeve: an exclusive video of a new song by The Artist Formerly Known as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain! For those who don't know, the band is made up of Blizzard employees, including Art Director Sam Didier on vocals and president and co-founder Mike Morhaime on bass.

The new song is called "Warriors of Azeroth" and, as the title suggests, is dedicated to all you warriors out there. Crank up the volume to 11 and watch the video after the jump!

Wowhead's Malgayne was at Blizzard's North American Midnight Launch Party for Cataclysm last night. The event was held at Fry's Electronics in Fountain Valley, CA and was host to an impressive list of Blizzard's World of Warcraft development team. Activities included a performance by The Artist Formerly Known as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftan, a dance contest, and WoW dev signings.

So what's new about all this? Pictures! Malgayne has posted an impressive array of first-hand pics from the event. Head on over to Wowhead to check out all the pictures from one of the most exciting nights in WoW gaming history.

Last night during all of the Cataclysm release madness, Blizzard announced on the official forums that it has changed the way experience is calculated to make sure that players are focusing on the appropriate content for their level. Once you reach the maximum level for an expansion, you will only gain 10% experience for killing creatures from that expansion.

What does this mean? Basically, you are no longer able to grind out a few extra levels on easy mobs before moving on to the zones for the next expansion. Don't plan on AoE grinding in Northrend to hit 82 for a boost in the Cataclysm zones. However, this will change not affect quest experience gains.

Nethaera also remind us later in the thread that Blizzard would "like to revisit Outland to make it a better experience to move into." You can read all of Blizzard's relevant posts after the jump.