The 2008 North American and European Warcraft Finals will be taking place this weekend, September 6-7. These events will feature the top eight qualifiers from the 2008 World of Warcraft Arena and Warcraft III tournaments for their respective regions. Attendees will also have the opportunity to try out demos of Wrath of the Lich King and StarCraft II on-site. Admission is free, so come by and check it out if you’re in the area.

Details for each event can be found below. The map pool for Warcraft III for both events, including the four winning maps from the Warcraft III Melee Map Contest, is as follows:

• Centaur Grove
• Echo Isles
• Melting Valley
• Road to Stratholme
• Secret Valley
• Terenas Stand
• Tidewater Glades

Europe
The European Warcraft Final will be held at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Salón de Columnas, in Madrid, Spain, with doors opening at 10:30 a.m.

Here are the eight teams that advanced from the regional online qualifiers of the 2008 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament:

1. Mousesports
2. x6tence
3. Pure Cartoons
4. aAa Agita
5. Nihilum Plasma
6. Team Alternate
7. Triple Threat
8. Sik

1. ToD
2. Creolophus
3. KnOfF
4. LucifroN7
5. LiiLD.C
6. SaSe
7. Grubby
8. Happy

North America
The North American Warcraft Final will be held at the Hard Rock Cafe in Boston, Massachusetts, with doors opening at 9:30 a.m.

Here are the eight teams that advanced from the regional online qualifiers of the 2008 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament:

1. Dude I got it on FRAPS
2. duelists going for glad
3. Frag Dominant
4. Fnatic Orz
5. GOT GAME DOT COM
6. selective queuers
7. Magical Muffin Factory
8. Team FocaL dot org

1. nilk
2. KiWiKaKi
3. srs. sonkie[razer]
4. nGize. Yane
5. LastManDancing
6. nGize.ShrieK
7. h2o.Holyhuman
8. srs'Kowi[razer]

We’re excited to be able to showcase some of Blizzard’s games at this year’s Games Convention in Leipzig from 21 to 24 August. We’ll be providing playable demos of StarCraft II and Wrath of the Lich King, running tournaments and quizzes and providing some extra excitement with a Live Raid.

Many of you have participated in our “I <3 SC” Mosaic competition and now even more of you have the chance to become part of the exclusive “I <3 SC” club. Print out your “I <3 SC” signs or take out your t-shirts and join us at the Games Convention in Leipzig for the an official “I <3 SC” group picture at the Blizzard Booth. Meet up with other StarCraft fans at 16:00 on Friday, August 22.

Looking for a job at Blizzard? Our Game Masters will be at the booth ready to answer your questions about recruitment and working at Blizzard. Bring your CV along and talk to us about how you can start your career at Blizzard.

We look forward to seeing you at the Games Convention, in Hall 5 at booth number D01!

The Warcraft III 2008 invitational ladder has now ended. We’ll be inviting the top-six-ranked players from each invitational ladder to join the top two performers per region from last year’s tournament to compete in the regional finals. Please refer to the FAQ and Rules pages for information and guidelines about this year’s competition. Good luck and thank you for participating!

We have added a new planet bio, Mar Sara.

The Sara system was initially catalogued by freelance prospectors and colonized by an expedition from Tarsonis several years later. Mar Sara formed the eighth of the thirteen core colonies of the Terran Confederacy. The Sara system was unusual for having two habitable planets, but Mar Sara was always a backwater colony compared to the more prosperous Chau Sara.

Mar Sara was one of the first planets to be infested by the zerg when they appeared in terran space. It was also the first planet on which the Confederates fought the advancing Swarm to any significant extent, although most of the actual fighting was done by local militia forces.

We have added three new pieces of artwork, two new screenshots, and one new wallpaper.

The Warcraft III 2008 invitational ladder has begun. We will be inviting the top players from each regional ladder to compete. Please refer to the FAQ and Rules for information and guidelines about this year’s competition. Good luck!

European Ladder
Asian Ladder
American Ladder

Warcraft III 2008 Tournament - Last Year's Top Performers
We're pleased to announce the top two performers from last year's tournament for each region:

Americas: nilknarf, KiWiKaKi
Europe: ToD, Creolophus
Asia: Moon, Remind

Based on their performance, these players have automatically qualified for their respective regional qualifier event. They will join the top-six-ranked players from each region's invitational ladder to form the final lineups. Congratulations and good luck!

The Warcraft III 2008 Tournament is now underway and competitors are furiously climbing the ladder. Below is the schedule for the tournament:

Ladders
Open: June 30 - July 11
Invitational: July 21 - August 8

Regional Finals
Korea: August 16-17 in Seoul, South Korea
North America: September 6-7 in Boston, Massachusetts
Europe: September 6-7 in Madrid, Spain

Global Finals
BlizzCon: October 10-11 in Anaheim, California

For more detailed information, please visit the FAQ and Rules pages.

The Warcraft III 2008 open ladder has now ended. We will be inviting the top players from each regional ladder to compete in the invitational ladder. Please refer to the FAQ and Rules pages for information and guidelines about this year’s competition. Good luck!

We’re excited to announce that our planned team-up with Activision, first made public back in December 2007, is now a reality. All regulatory and shareholder approvals have been granted, meaning Blizzard Entertainment -- along with the other companies that made up Vivendi Games -- is now part of a new organization called Activision Blizzard. While this transition doesn’t impact our games, websites, personnel, day-to-day operations, or development philosophies, the combined resources of Activision Blizzard will make it easier than ever for us to deliver the best games possible to our players around the world.

StarCraft: Brood War and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne are coming to the 2008 Digital Games worldwide tournament as part of the real-time strategy (RTS) category.

Digital Games is a worldwide online tournament featuring competition in thirteen titles, with the best players receiving permanent online medals. Participants can represent their countries on ladders in five different worldwide regions, and can win medals at the country, region, and world levels. Top gamers may also have the chance to attend the Digital Games Grand Final event in China as part of the Olympic Games welcome events.

Ladder play is already underway, so you can sign up and put your skills to the test by visiting the Digital Games site at http://dg.ggl.com.

We're pleased to announce the 2008 Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne Battle.net ladder tournament. The upcoming competition will follow a similar format to the previous ones, using three invitational ladders hosted on the Kalimdor, Northrend, and Azeroth realms, each initially populated on an invitation-only basis by the world's most established and successful Warcraft III players. Each will function as a standard Battle.net solo ladder, with their own rankings displays and map pools. For more information and details on the tournament, please check out the FAQ.

With this past weekend's announcement of Diablo III, now is the perfect time to revisit the dark fantasy world of Sanctuary (or check it out for the first time). The Diablo II ladder was recently reset, wiping the slate clean and kicking off a new rush to level 99. In addition, the newly released patch 1.12a lets you play without having the Diablo II CD in the drive. To download the patch, either connect to Battle.net or visit the Patch Download page, and be sure to read the patch notes for further instructions.

Diablo II and its expansion, Lord of Destruction, are also now available for direct download via our online store, making it easy to replace lost CDs or to introduce the game to friends. You can also visit the Arreat Summit for Diablo II resources and information, including detailed item listings, formulae, build templates, and more.

Learn more about StarCraft II's main characters and their complex intertwining stories in the character biography of Zeratul, the second installment of our StarCraft II character biography series. We have also added one new piece of artwork and five new screenshots.

Twenty years have passed since the cataclysmic events of Diablo® II. Mephisto, Diablo, and Baal have been defeated, but the Worldstone, which once shielded the world of Sanctuary from the forces of both the High Heavens and the Burning Hells, has been destroyed, and evil once again stirs in Tristram....

Following the unveiling of Diablo III today at the Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational, we've launched the game's official website, with information about the places, characters, monsters, and adventures awaiting you upon your return to the world of Sanctuary. Some of the site's highlights include:

• The cinematic teaser trailer shown at the 2008 Worldwide Invitational
• A 20-minute gameplay demo video
• More than 60 screenshots and pieces of concept art
• Deckard Cain's journal, narrated by Deckard Cain himself -- stay a while and listen!
• And much, much more

With this past weekend's announcement of Diablo III, now is the perfect time to revisit the dark fantasy world of Sanctuary (or check it out for the first time). The Diablo II ladder was recently reset, wiping the slate clean and kicking off a new rush to level 99. In addition, the newly released patch 1.12a lets you play without having the Diablo II CD in the drive. To download the patch, either connect to Battle.net or visit the Patch Download page, and be sure to read the patch notes for further instructions.

Diablo II and its expansion, Lord of Destruction, are also now available for direct download via our online store, making it easy to replace lost CDs or to introduce the game to friends. You can also visit the Arreat Summit for Diablo II resources and information, including detailed item listings, formulae, build templates, and more.

Learn more about StarCraft II's main characters and their complex intertwining stories in the character biography of Zeratul, the second installment of our StarCraft II character biography series. We have also added one new piece of artwork and five new screenshots.

The Diablo II ladder has been reset, wiping the slate clean and beginning the rush to be the first to level 99! In addition to the reset we’ve also released Diablo II patch 1.12a, which removes the requirement to have your Diablo II CD in the drive while playing. To download the patch either connect to Battle.net or visit our Patch Download page, and be sure to read the Patch Notes for further instructions.

We have added a new planet bio, Char.

Char was formerly one of the thirteen core worlds of the Confederacy, but it is most notorious as the primary hive planet of the alien zerg. Upon its discovery, Char was found to be an inhospitable volcanic planet with thick ash covering most of its surface and tainting its acrid atmosphere. The hazardous environment is further intensified by extremely high levels of cosmic radiation from Char's volatile pairing of binary stars, a class VI F0 sub dwarf orbiting an M8 irregular variable.

We have added a new zerg unit, the baneling.

The baneling is a creature so bloated with fluid-filled sacs that it can barely walk; instead, it moves itself by tucking into a tight ball and rolling. However, this ungainly appearance belies the fact that the baneling is an extremely dangerous organism, one of several new zerg specialists recently seen on the battlefield. When a baneling gets close enough to an enemy, the creature triggers a reaction within its volatile chemical payload that causes it to explode with devastating force and shower the immediate surroundings with searing acid.

The storyline of StarCraft II takes place four years after the events of StarCraft: Brood War. We have prepared a two-part overview called The Story So Far, an opportunity for you to get up to speed with the characters, settings, and developments that lead up to StarCraft II. Read about Kerrigan's treachery as the Queen of Blades, Samir Duran's hybrid experiments, and the final events leading up to StarCraft II.

Tassadar's brave sacrifice had destroyed the Overmind, but countless rampaging zerg remained on Aiur and would surely overrun the surviving protoss. Zeratul offered sanctuary on Shakuras, the adopted home of the dark templar. Although the decision was difficult, Executor Artanis and the surviving members of the shattered Conclave agreed that their first duty was to save as many lives as possible.

Jim Raynor's forces and the protoss cut a path through the zerg to reach an ancient xel'naga warp gate, the relic of an earlier age. Using the gate, Zeratul opened a connection to a second gate on Shakuras. During the battle, Raynor and some of the protoss were cut off, but Artanis and Zeratul led many other protoss through the gate to safety on Shakuras.

For more, check out The Story So Far Part 2: The Brood War. We have also added three new pieces of artwork.

We hope you enjoyed our April Fools' Day events. If you missed them, check out this year's jokes:

• New World of Warcraft Hero Class: Bard
• New StarCraft II Unit: Tauren Marine
• World of Warcraft on a Console
• Diablo Loot Piñata
• Forums: Bears and Buckets and Walruses, Oh My!

The deeds of every great hero inspire countless songs of triumph, virtue, and epic adventure. But although a heros glory endures in song, the creators of those songs are seldom remembered. After ages spent singing of the heroic exploits of others, the bards of Azeroth are finally stepping into the spotlight on their own terms, proving once and for all that while just about anyone can pick up a sword or cast a spell, only a true hero can vanquish evil with the power of ROCK! Check out this new class here!

Blizzard Entertainment is proud to announce its long-awaited return to console development with Molten Core: Unleashed!, a new console game based on the popular World of Warcraft 40-person raid dungeon. In Molten Core: Unleashed!, players will once again be challenged by the highly complex encounters of Molten Core and battle epic enemies such as Majordomo Executus and Ragnaros. Classic heart-stopping moments such as becoming the living bomb when facing the infamous Baron Geddon will be revitalized in this new version of the Molten Core experience designed exclusively for console systems. Check out the official press release for more information, and keep your eyes peeled for updates on www.blizzard.co.uk.

In the old Confederacy, terran marines were mostly criminals or rebels who had undergone mandatory neural resocialization. Freed from any previous allegiances or ideologies, these fearless soldiers stood ready to defend Confederate interests with their lives but exhibited an annoying tendency toward petty larceny, vandalism, and occasional cannibalism. Confederate authorities were unable to requisition enough reliable troopers in this way, and eventually recruiters turned to a new source of fresh meat for the grinder. Learn more about the Tauren Marine here!

The StarCraft II website has just been updated with new information about the zerg, the game's third playable race. You can now learn more about the nightmarish hydralisks and the agile and dangerous mutalisks, and can also catch up on the recent history of the Swarm. Also make sure to check out the newly added screenshots, concept art, and unit videos included in this first look at the zerg.

Over the years we have enjoyed watching our community show their creativity and create amazing maps and mods to our games. With StarCraft II we would like to encourage you to keep up the awesome work, so we’d like to give you a tool, you will enjoy working with. We have already answered questions in our Q&As but now it is your turn to tell us what your ideal StarCraft II Editor would look like!

We recently answered a number of questions from the community regarding StarCraft II. Check out part 31, the latest of the Q&A, along with the previous ones on the StarCraft II Q&A archive in the Battle.net forums.

We recently answered a number of questions from the community regarding StarCraft II. Check out part 28, the latest of the Q&A, along with the previous ones on the StarCraft II Q&A archive in the Battle.net forums.

We recently answered a number of questions from the community regarding StarCraft II. Check out part 27, the latest of the Q&A, along with the previous ones on the StarCraft II Q&A archive in the Battle.net forums.

Jim Raynor was a Confederate marshal on Mar Sara at the time of the first zerg incursions on that world. Despite bravely fighting the alien aggressors and saving many lives, he was arrested by Confederacy forces on the pretext of destroying Confederate property at Backwater Station. When he was subsequently liberated by Arcturus Mengsk's Sons of Korhal, an anti-Confederate revolutionary group, Raynor chose to fight alongside them...

Learn more about StarCraft II’s main characters and their complex intertwining stories in the character biography of Jim Raynor, the first installment of our StarCraft II character biography series.

The StarCraft II Community section of the official StarCraft II web site is now live. Here you’ll find up-to-date links to the latest developer Q&A batches, BlizzCasts, regularly updated community spotlights, latest forum discussions, and future community projects. Head over to the StarCraft II site now and check it out!