Really big World of Warcraft news today, friends. (Why do I write so much about WoW? Oh, you know, it’s just the biggest, most successful MMO in history. Not writing about it would be like covering tech with mentioning Microsoft or Apple.) Blizzard is now selling in-game pets that you can buy with real money, $10. We’re talking cash money. Dollar dollar bill, y’all.

Clearly nobody has any idea what’s going on in China regarding World of Warcraft. The rules over there are such that Blizzard just can’t open up shop, but has to contract a local company to run the game for Chinese users. Fair enough, and Blizzard has contracted NetEase to do such a thing. The problem is that NetEase keeps running into problems getting the game’s expansion pack, The Burning Crusade, approved for public consumption.

Back before I started playing World of Warcraft (because of something that was work-related, incidentally), I used to tease my then-roommate about playing it well into the night, every night. I was a freshman at a certain horrendously expensive school, and my gaming started and stopped with my Xbox; I had no time for time-sink PC games. Not my roommate, no sir. The day the game came out—he had also been part of the beta—he plopped into his small, uncomfortable chair, Sunkist in hand (man alive did he love Sunkist for some reason), and quested well into the night away.

Really, really big news today for World of Warcraft players. Today’s the day that Zygor’s leveling guide hits version 2.0. Leveling guides are used by players to hit level 80 (or, soon, 85) as quickly as possible so they can more quickly enjoy the endgame content. Think of them like GameFAQs or the old school Brady Games or Versus Books strategy guides.

Yup, another airline is poised to offer in-flight Wi-Fi. United Airlines has said that it will start use of Aircell’s Gogo service beginning with flights between New York and California. It’s $12.95 for laptop access for the duration of the flight.

We all know that real world officials have used games like World of Warcraft to monitor the spread of infectious diseases, like trout flu. But what’s new to my eyes, broken pieces of junk that they are (I wouldn’t be able see Jupiter even if I were five feet away from it), is that researchers are using them to study economics. It’s simultaneously a bad and good idea.

Chinese gamers can once again feel the joy of buying an epic on the Auction House for 100G, then selling it for 300G to some sap. Yes, World of Warcraft is officially, 100 percent back in China. This is clearly huge news that’s totally worth your time of day.

Blizzard released some interesting information about the inner workings of World of Warcraft recently at GDC Austin. During their keynote speech, they talked about the history of the Warcraft games, and what exactly made their game so successful where others have failed. It’s an interesting read overall, however what we found amazing is the actual hardware required to run the game.

Tomorrow, Saturday, September 19, is Pirates’ Day in World of Warcraft. “Commoners wearing pirate garb have appeared in all the world’s cities with the news that the Dread Captain DeMeza and her crew have landed in Booty Bay and declared it Pirates’ Day!” Great, yes, but I say we take it one step further: let’s bring Pirates’ Day to the Real World.

In case you missed it, Blizzard made some big announcements the other day. Yep, an MMO is releasing another expansion set. However, this one is going to completely reshape the entire World (of Warcraft), and that’s really the best possible thing that they can do.

Halloween is rapidly approaching, and many of you are no doubt looking for a cool costume to show off at various social gatherings. Me? I’m leaning toward being iTunes— a fat and bloated CD with a blue music note as a hat. But that’s me; maybe you’d actually like people to understand what you are? How about this, then: a Blood Elf or Night Elf?

Despite the fact that Blizzard has warned us, there have been some fake beta invite emails starting to go out for the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm. In fact, they tried to catch the CrunchGear crew this morning with their little fake email and site.

Good news, everyone. It looks like Blizzard has finally defeated the Door Boss. That is, you should no longer, or not as frequently, run into the “additional instances cannot be launched” glitch. It truly is a time for celebration.

The World of Warcraft faction change went down yesterday. That is, for $30 Blizzard will take your Human Warrior and turn him into an Orc Warrior. It’s handy, yes. But the fun doesn’t stop there! Blizzard is prepping a service that’ll change your intra-faction race. That means you’ll be able to go from a Blood Elf Warlock to an Undead Warlock.

The World of Warcraft faction change service is now up and running. It costs $30, and will take your Alliance Priest and turn him or her into a Horde Priest. You can go from any race to any race: Human to Orc, Human to Blood Elf, Human to Troll, you get the idea.

The Door Boss is a new phenomenon in World of Warcraft. You face him when you try to enter an Instance, only to find the error message, “Additional instances cannot be launched, please try again later.” It’s quite annoying when all you want to do is run through, say, BFD once before you go to bed.

It’s sort of a shame that the Azeroth we all know and love will be going away with World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the game’s next expansion. To that end, one brave soul has taken it upon herself to collect desktop wallpaper-sized images of the old game world.

It was only a few days ago that I gently chided Apple fans, telling them to “hold their horses” with respect to Snow Leopard’s release date. One Blizzcon later, not only have I re-rolled another character (a Warlock), I’m now trolling message boards, comment pages, and the like looking for more and more information about Cataclysm, the upcoming expansion pack. The most important bit of information still eludes me: its release date.

Time to clear up all the rumors people. The opening ceremony at Blizzcon just ended, and it ended with a bang. Thankfully, much of the speculation has been cleared up, and we finally have some answers about the new races, new areas, and some stuff that hadn’t been leaked.