WoW enters new realms in Europe

Blizzard is letting rip with new European game realms for its World of Warcraft MMORPG, thanks to the opening of a new site located in the territory which will host "multiple game realms in English, French and German".

Eight new realms are launching today (they may have in fact launched by the time you read this), with Blizzard stating that additional realms will be opened up soon. The new realms will cover all playing style bases, with player-versus-player, role-playing player-versus-player, player-versus-environment and role-playing realms available in each language.

So it says here, the opening of the new World of Warcraft site follows ongoing upgrades in hardware and software of the existing game infrastructure to accommodate the growing European player base. In addition, as part of its ongoing plans to improve and expand the game infrastructure in Europe, Blizzard will announce the opening of a further new site in the near future.

"The new site will allow us to provide a smoother, more satisfying game experience and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the players in Europe for their continued support and patience whilst we brought this new site to fruition," is the word on current realm expansion from Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment.

Blizzard opening new realms means that orc peons are shortly to re-supply games emporiums with new copies of World of Warcraft. Apparently, a hold had been put on shipments in the past weeks to "avoid increasing the load on the existing realms". The orc peons were naturally quite happy about this as it meant they could spend a few days free of getting hit with a very large stick. Sorry fellas, but it's more work for you.

In related news, Blizzard has released new screenshots from WoW expansion The Burning Crusade. We've uploaded them here for your viewing pleasure (actually, we only think one out of the three is of any cop, but don't tell anyone we said that).

Stuart Bishop