Recently Eyonix made a post stating some reasons why buying gold is bad and effects everyone. According to Blizzard an alarming high majority of the gold comes from hacked accounts, a lot of players these days know at least one person who has been hacked and knows how devastating it can be to a player. A lot of these people have been hacked by either getting keyloggers or using power-leveling services and then being hacked months later. They also make baby murlocs cry according to Eyonix.

Blizzard has also created an informational page on this whole subject which you can view here.

You can read the original post after the jump.

Nethaera announced today on the official forums that Blizzard will be hosting a developer chat on Twitter with World of Warcraft’s director of production and game director on Oct. 22 at 3 p.m. PDT. Questions will be taken live through Twitter, so be ready to tweet at that time if you want to participate.

If you're not a Twitter fan, you'll be able to read all the answers on the official forums. "Due to the limitations of providing complete answers within Twitter, all answers will be posted on the forums in a dedicated thread, with links to the answers provided through Twitter," Nethaera said. Will you be participating in the dev chat?

Blizzard will be offering free character transfers from select high-population PvP servers starting tomorrow, Oct. 20. Players on Blackrock, Illidan, Mal'Ganis (Horde only), Tichondrius and Warsong can move to Maiev, a Pacific time zone realm, or Nazjatar, an Oceanic server. Alliance players on the Oceanic realms Frostmourne, Barthilas and Jubei’Thos can move to Thaurissa, an Oceanic server in the Bloodlust battlegroup.

The free character transfers are scheduled to run through Oct. 27 at 11 a.m. PDT, but Blizzard will end the offer before the scheduled date once the goals are met. If you're on one of the source servers and want to move, head over to your account management screen as soon as possible.

Bornakk has acknowledged on the official forums that there's an issue with candy buckets that is affecting the Trick or Treat achievements for the Hallow's End event. Basically, looting from certain candy buckets in Northrend will prevent you from looting some buckets in the Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor and Outlands. "The current way to work around this is to get the candy buckets from Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, and Outland before doing any in Northrend," Bornakk said.

Blizzard's currently working on a resolution for the problem and the team is asking players not to submit tickets on the issue. According to Bornakk, the devs are "actively working on a resolution for this and will provide more information when it is available."

When it comes to Asia, the video game industry is absolutely huge. Here in the U.S., you can't walk into kid's bedroom without seeing at least one toy or comic book based on an Asian video game property. In a similar fashion to Japan's widespread video game export of the late 80s and early 90s, the last decade has seen China and South Korea climb their way to the top of the MMO industry.

Business in China, specifically, is booming right now. Whether it's revenue coming in from monthly subscriptions, micro-transactions or the ubiquitous virtual currency like Q Coins, China's online gaming industry raked in almost $1 billion USD its second quarter, a 39.5 percent increase from last year's earnings. In total, China's online gaming industry expects to earn up to 27 billion yuan, or $4.0 billion USD, by the end of its fiscal year, according to GamePolitics.

Despite all that success, the PRC is dealing with some serious issues, both inside and out of its borders. There's a civil war going on between two of China's government agencies; both locked in a power struggle for control over regulatory duties, leaving fans of MMOs like World of Warcraft caught in the crossfire. The country's strict censorship doesn't appear to be loosening anytime soon, either, making it more difficult for even the most mild-mannered games to get into the hands of Chinese gamers.

It's not necessarily the most breaking news, but if you've ever wanted to take a tour of Blizzard Entertainment's Irvine, Calif. headquarters, a recent post at EntertainmentWeb offers more than 100 new photos of the Blizzard Campus, inside and out. Until the World of Warcraft developer begins hosting public tours (or even official "virtual" tours), the recent gallery posting offers one of the most comprehensive collections of Blizzard headquarters photos around.

The gallery features a candid, voyeuristic look at where the dutiful Blizzard employees spend their days, developing the games millions of people around the world play every day. From shots of the famous courtyard statue, display cases to the library, this gallery has it all, even down to the more mundane (but curiously interesting) worldwide WoW connection display, floor maps and random white board scribblings. There's even a few snaps of Blizzard employees in their native work environment, although you have to wonder; is this scene what newcomers have to look forward to, before they get their own measly (yet well-adorned) cubicle?

Once again, it's that time of year; from today until November 2, World of Warcraft players get to participate in arguably their all-time favorite holiday event, Hallow's End. Fabled after Halloween, all of Azeroth's inhabitants get to dress up in costumes and masks, eat handfuls of candy and ride around on Magic Broom mounts. Hallow's End offers activities for all; low-level characters get to participate in trick-or-treating at Inns, collecting candy and special items, dousing fires from hourly Headless Horseman attacks and more.

Following the pattern we've seen from the updated holiday boss from the Brewfest event, higher-level players get to face a revamped, level-80 Headless Horseman in the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard this year. As Wowhead recently discovered, the Headless Horseman's loot table features upgraded gear, on par with item level 200. Each item is a higher-level equivalent of previous gear, such as the The Horseman's Horrific Helm, the Ring of Ghoulish Glee, The Horseman's Baleful Blade and more. Of course, players can still (with any luck) expect him to drop the elusive Sinister Squashling non-combat pet, the Hallowed Helm and broom mounts like the Swift Magic Broom and Magic Broom. If you're really lucky, you might even get a chance at The Horseman's Reins, the permanent Headless Horseman's mount. Lastly, remember to complete the Hallowed Be Thy Name achievement if you haven't already; you'll get the title, "The Hallowed." Plus, it's a requisite for the meta-achievement, What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been. Happy hunting, everyone!

The maps for the upcoming raid dungeon Icecrown Citadel have been discovered on the PTR client finally. You can whet your curiosity of how the dungeon is going to be by looking at the maps after the jump.

Build 10596 has been deployed on the PTR today and with some research there has been a few interesting changes to some achievements and some new ones added. Some of them include changes to the Love is in the Air holiday that is held in February. You can read more about the achievements after the jump.

If you're looking forward to testing out the Icecrown Citadel raid, you don't have to wait much longer. Lord Marrowgar and the trash leading up to him will be available for testing tonight at 7 p.m. EDT on the North American PTR servers. European raiders will have a different test schedule, which Ancilorn said will be announced "in due course."

Both Daelo and Ancilorn said the raid test schedule for Icecrown Citadel could change at a moment's notice. Keep an eye on both the North American and European test realm forums in the upcoming weeks for the latest raid testing schedule.