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An anonymous reader writes from a report via VentureBeat: The Amazon-owned, game-streaming site Twitch has announced today that it has acquired Curse, a company that creates programs like voice clients, databases, and mod managers for PC games for some 30 million users. Twitch did not disclose how much they paid for Curse. VentureBeat reports: "Twitch has more than 100 million users a month, and it has helped to popularize new trends gaming like esports and the rise of influencers and personalities who create fanbases that watch them (and donate money to them) while they play. Curse has over 30 million users a month across its website, social media channels, and desktop applications. The company hosts popular websites for hit PC games like Hearthpwn for Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft and MMO Champion for World of Warcraft. Outside of its site, Twitch hasn't made many services for gamers. It could use this acquisition to extend a reach into that field."

Today at Gamescom in Germany, Blizzard unveiled the next expansion for World of Warcraft, called Legion. The expansion will raise the level cap to 110 and bring adventurers to a new continent: the Broken Isles. This will include several new zones and be the source of a new demonic invasion. The story will delve deeply into the game world's history and let players use customizable 'artifact' weapons. To fight the invasion, Blizzard is introducing a new class, Demon Hunter, who will start out at a high level and can perform tank- and damage-centric roles.

The PVP system will be getting revamped, and they're introducing Class-specific halls and followers. The expansion will contain the requisite new raids and world bosses, of course. Small dungeons will be getting increased focus in Legion. As with the previous expansion, players will be given a free level boost for one character to the current level cap in order to get started on the new content right away. Blizzard has posted an cinematic teaser, and the full announcement trailer on YouTube. A beta test will start sometime later this year, but no release date has been announced. MMO-Champion has a post full of details known about the expansion.

Ptolemarch writes: Blizzard never officially announced it, but now it's gone: Titan, the next-generation MMO that had been in development for seven years, has been canceled. Mike Morhaime said, "[W]e set out to make the most ambitious thing that you could possibly imagine. And it didn't come together. We didn't find the fun. We didn't find the passion. We talked about how we put it through a reevaluation period, and actually, what we reevaluated is whether that's the game we really wanted to be making. The answer is no." Polygon adds an article detailing everything publicly known about Titan (which wasn't much). MMO-Champion's report mentions rumors of a new project at Blizzard called Prometheus.

JestersGrind writes with news that Blizzard has announced the next expansion to World of Warcraft, titled Warlords of Draenor. This expansion raises the level cap to 100 and introduces a new world/continent full of zones: Draenor. They're also introducing 'Garrisons,' player-built bases on Draenor that individual users will be able to customize and upgrade. Your garrison will have followers which you can send on missions, and you'll be able to invite other players over to visit and trade. The expansion will also revamp a number of aging character models. Blizzard is also making it so new and returning players can immediately boost one character to the current level cap (90), so they can immediately jump into the new content.

JestersGrind writes with news that Blizzard has announced the next expansion to World of Warcraft, titled Warlords of Draenor. This expansion raises the level cap to 100 and introduces a new world/continent full of zones: Draenor. They're also introducing 'Garrisons,' player-built bases on Draenor that individual users will be able to customize and upgrade. Your garrison will have followers which you can send on missions, and you'll be able to invite other players over to visit and trade. The expansion will also revamp a number of aging character models. Blizzard is also making it so new and returning players can immediately boost one character to the current level cap (90), so they can immediately jump into the new content.

New submitter JestersGrind writes "Blizzard has announced that Mists of Pandaria, the latest expansion of the popular World of Warcraft MMO, will be launched on September 25, 2012 and can be pre-ordered now." The game page has a good deal of information about the new expansion. The level cap is increased to 90, there is a new race (Pandaren) and a new class (Monk), and the talent system has been completely redesigned. They've added Challenge Modes for dungeons, which normalizes player gear and lets them compete to see who can clear it the fastest. The MMO-Champion website keeps track of all the minor details, if you're interested.

Blizzcon 2011 kicked off today, and the biggest announcement from the opening ceremonies was the development of a new expansion for World of Warcraft. Titled Mists of Pandaria, the expansion will focus on the battle between the Horde and the Alliance instead of a traditional Big Bad Enemy. There will be both a new race — Pandaren — and a new class — Monk. The level cap will be raised to 90, there will be "challenge mode" dungeons, and they're introducing a pet battle system. Blizzard also mentioned that people who buy a 12-month subscription to WoW will get a copy of Diablo 3 for free.

Last night marked the launch of Cataclysm, the third expansion for Blizzard's World of Warcraft. Cataclysm includes: two new races, both of which have their own starting zones; five new high-level zones that span the new 80-85 leveling content; seven new five-man dungeons (plus two heroic versions of classic dungeons); three end-game raids; a new profession; two new PvP battlegrounds; and one world PvP zone. In addition, Cataclysm features a revamp of Azeroth, the portion of the game world that went live when WoW originally launched in 2004, providing a much improved leveling experience for new players and alts. MMO-Champion posted a comprehensive collection of information about the new content. Of course, Cataclysm's launch has brought the video game addiction debate back to the fore.

ajs writes "World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King expansion was staggered into 4 phases. The fourth and final phase, patch 3.3, was released on Tuesday. This patch is significant in that it will be the first introduction of one of the most anticipated new features in the game since PvP arenas: the cross-realm random dungeon, as well as the release of new end-game dungeons for 5, 10 and 25-player groups. The patch notes have been posted, and so has a trailer. The ultimate fight against the expansion's antagonist, the Lich King a.k.a. Arthas, will be gated as each of the four wings of the final dungeon are opened in turn — a process that may take several months. The next major patch after 3.3 (presumably 4.0) will be the release of Cataclysm, the next expansion."

An anonymous reader tips news that Blizzard will be requiring all World of Warcraft players to use Battle.net accounts to log into the game starting on November 11th. After that time, players who don't switch will be unable to play the game. Some time after the transition is complete, players will be able to "participate in cross-realm chat in World of Warcraft, create real-life friends lists, and communicate across different games." More details on the new Battle.net and what it will do are available in our Blizzcon wrap-up and interviews from August. Naturally, the idea that the new Battle.net is getting closer to deployment has sparked speculation that the StarCraft II beta might come along soon.

ajs writes "There has been no official announcement yet, but a number of moves by Blizzard Entertainment seem to indicate that the next expansion for World of Warcraft could be titled Cataclysm. Speculation began when Blizzard trademarked Cataclysm recently, and then later when a test server briefly popped up with the word 'Maelstrom' in its name. If true, the name would fall neatly into the WoW lore and expected expansion list. The Cataclysm is another name for the Great Sundering, an event that created a swirling vortex of water and mystical energies (the 'Maelstrom') that has appeared on the world map in-game since release. There are also indications that early design work included some of the islands in this area, which has long fueled anticipation of a Maelstrom-based expansion involving the former Night Elf noble, Azshara, queen of the Naga and the Goblins whose main city is in the south seas."

On Tuesday Blizzard rolled out the first major content patch for World of Warcraft since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King last November. The 3.1 patch includes the long-awaited dual-specialization feature, which allows players to quickly and easily switch from one set of talent choices to another. Action bars and glyph choices change as well. The patch also includes a new end-game raid dungeon, Ulduar, which expands upon the variable difficulty modes Blizzard has recently experimented with. The instance contains 14 bosses, 10 of which have an optional "hard mode" that players can attempt for better rewards. In addition, the patch contains a host of class balance changes, bug fixes, and UI improvements. You can see the full patch notes at Blizzard's website, and a brief trailer is also available.

The much-anticipated second expansion to World of Warcraft, entitled Wrath of the Lich King, launched on Thursday, introducing a new continent, raising the level cap to 80, and bringing a wealth of new items, spells, dungeons, and monsters to the popular MMO. Crowds gathered and lines formed outside stores around the world leading up to the release. Massively has put together a series of articles for players wishing to familiarize themselves with the expansion, and CVG has a piece discussing the basics as well. It didn't take long for the first person to reach level 80; a French player called "Nymh" reached the level cap on his Warlock only 27 hours after the expansion went live. Not to be outdone, a guild named "TwentyFifthNovember" managed to get at least 25 raiders to 80 and then cleared all of the current expansion raid content less than three days after the launch. Fortunately for them, the next three content patches are each expected to contain new, more difficult raids.

Mini-Geek and many others tipped news that Blizzard has announced the release date for Wrath of the Lich King , World of Warcraft's second expansion. It will be in stores on November 13th in the US and Europe. They've also released details about the contents of the Collector's Edition. Wrath will be preceded by a large content patch, which will expand the talent trees and include many of the gameplay changes set for the expansion (including the consolidation of spell damage and healing into 'spellpower,' achievements, and a new profession). The patch was installed on the public test realm yesterday, and the current patch notes are available.

Blizzard has announced they will be releasing a sizable patch to prepare for the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion to World of Warcraft. The patch, similar to one they released prior to the first expansion, will include the new profession (Inscription), new talents for each class, and two new arenas. The patch will be up on the Public Test Realm "soon," according to a Blizzard rep, but it will require significant testing before reaching the live servers. Blizzard developers Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack gave a related interview recently to Videogamer in which they mentioned that a graphical reboot for World of Warcraft "may never be necessary." We've been following the development of Wrath of the Lich King for a while now.