Trouble getting support in World of Warcraft today? Don't take it personally. Blizzard's Irvine offices experienced a minor earthquake earlier, and were evacuated as a precaution. The evacuation caused a brief outage in the availablity of both phone and in-game customer service. Games and servers were not affected. Everything (and everyone!) is fine, and business is back to normal. An earthquake at Blizzard? Sounds like the apocolypse, to me!

So here we are, the Wrath of the Lich King is now in Beta and players have received their invites. Seeing as how I managed to appease the gods of Azeroth enough to acquire one, I thought I would start off my examination of this new expansion by delving into the new class that everyone is talking about&hellipthe Deathknight.

So for those in the know and maybe not in the know, the Deathknight is a hero class, serving the twisted designs and plans of the Lich King from his massive fortress above the Eastern Plaguelands, the Ebon Hold. From here, this Lich King and his army of Death knights plots and schemes the destruction of the scarlet crusade.

To join the fight, I opted to play an undead, seemed fitting considering the nature of the area and the lore behind the Lich King. My new deathknight, Melenemesis, started on the platform where the Lich King stands, flanked by his two Valkyries. After talking to him, he then sent me to meet with Instructor Rasuvious and construct my signature weapon, the Runed Soulblade.

Project Lore encounters a tough boss in Heroic Mechanar . The guys come face to face with Nethermancer Sepethrea. Will they extinguish those dastardly flames of hers or get burned to a crisp by her flaming dragon breath? Watch and see the strat on how to deal with this hot headed red head as Project Lore takes on the second boss in Heroic Mechanar.

The folks over at World of Warcraft have updated their armor sets page, adding the new Brutal Gladiator sets for arena season four.  Holy smokes, do they look fantastic! Check all of the new sets out here .

The final section of episode 2 is now live!

Project Lore concludes its journey into Heroic Slave Pens by facing Quagmirran. Will they kill the fungal lord or get stuck in their own quagmire? Get strats and info on the big bonus boon for this final fight in the Slave Pens.

Our very own Tovin is reporting from Comic Con in awesome San Diego, man I wish I was there, but since you and I are not, we can read all about it below!

Comic-Con came firmly into San Diego with a packed pre-show viewing yesterday for those who pre-paid 4 day registration, industry professionals, and press. I mentioned several times that the craziness on the floor, and the amount of people, were simply overwhelming. I was laughed at and told to wait until today to see anything worth complaining about. I laid in bed a long time this morning, afraid to get out there and see that!

We have entered a great partnership with DECA Entertainment and Alex Albrecht (of Diggnation and Screen Savers fame) to bring you a new weekly video series -- Project Lore . Alex and his 4 guild mates have set up a full video studio to film their way through the various instances of World of Warcraft. Each week we will be bringing a new 3 part episode, giving you both an in game and out of game view of their WoW experience.  They will be working their way through the dungeons of the Outlands over time.

The videos are both entertaining and educational. If you have never seen the dungeons, they are a great way to get a look at what you are missing. If you have played the instance before, it gives you a great opportunity to either learn from their strategies or laugh at their mistakes.

To check out this week's trip through Hellfire Ramparts, head to this link .

The Wrath of the Lich King Friend and Family Alpha has just come to a close.

By Eyonix:
"The Wrath of the Lich King alpha test has now come to a close. We'd like to thank all of you for your participation and invaluable feedback on the game. The World of Warcraft team is hard at work preparing for the next phase of testing, and each of you will be invited back to participate. We're also happy to inform you that we will not be wiping characters as we transition from alpha to beta. However, all current alpha characters will be locked for a short period of time, allowing new players entering the beta sufficient time to catch up.

We look forward to seeing you all again in the Wrath of the Lich King beta test."

Looks like the beta is just around the corner.

Its that day again ... Patch day!

There are lots of changes in this patch, one of the big changes is that the required level to get your first mount has been reduced to 30, including class mounts.  Rogues have had their "Cheat Death" skill significantly changed.  Warlocks have had the skill "Curse of Shadows" completely removed, "Curse of Elements" has been adjusted to effect Shadow and Arcane as well as Fire and Frost.

Keep reading for the full patch notes

So we ran across an interesting little discussion over at the O-Boards regarding the upcoming release and the feelings of ennui related to The Burning Crusade expansion. The discussion, found here , is between a "blue" (Blizzard mod) and several of the users who frequent the boards there.