Unless you've been hiding under a rock or just haven't played in a while, you know that Patch 5.3.0 dropped this week. The Escalation patch has quite a few features packed into it, including a new battleground, new arena, four new scenarios, epic questlines, and some changes miners and herbalists might appreciate (yes, you, too can mine and herb in Pandaria, low-skill gatherers!). Blizzard has posted a great roundup of their own on the official site, including content overview, developer tidbits, and links to interviews.

More news:

Time - Article on the continuing decline of Warcraft's subscriber numbers.

Blizzard’s turning heads that probably shouldn’t be turning today off news that World of Warcraft – the most successful online roleplaying ga…

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In case you missed it, we put together the highlights from the Q&A and were nice enough to sort them for you . Keep in mind this is not the full transcript, but it does cover roughly 90% of the material presented.

Your Blizzard crew:

• Desvin: Brian Holinka; Senior Designer, PvP
• Fargo: Dave Kosak; Lead Quest Designer
• Ghostcrawler: Greg Street; Lead Systems Designer
• Watcher: Ion Hazzikostas; Lead Encounter Designer
• Mumper: Cory Stockton; Lead Content Designer

• 1 Arenas
• 2 Battlegrounds
• 3 Crowd control
• 4 CRZ
• 5 Item levels
• 6 Item upgrading
• 7 Lore
• 8 LFR
• 9 Pet Battle System
• 10 Phasing
• 11 Playable races
• 12 Professions
• 13 Quests
• 14 Scenarios
• 15 Seasonal events
• 16 Server population
• 17 Tabards
• 18 UI
• 19 Miscellaneous

Is there a possibility of Arenas going cross realm?

Will there be any spectator mo…

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From the halls of ...

Good people of Azeroth, lend me your eyes!

We'll be hosting a live World of Warcraft developer Q&A open to the community on Thursday, April 25 from 5:30-6:30 p.m. PDT. Designers Dave Kosak, Ion Hazzikostas, Brian Holinka, Cory Stockton, and Greg Street will be available to field your questions about Mists of Pandaria gameplay and design, patch 5.2 and beyond. This will be a moderated chat on the Cover it Live platform hosted on the front page of our official site. Community managers Bashiok, Crithto, Daxxarri, Rygarius, and I will be there to filter your submissions for the developers.

We receive thousands of questions each time we host these events, so please be patient with us and bear in mind that we won't get to every…

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Blizzard Entertainment released their newest endeavor recently at PAX East: Hearthstone, the free-to-play online card game!

Players will be able to battle head to head against the AI, random opponents, or even their Battle.net friends. A variety of heroes can be chosen, from to , all corresponding with the players' favorite classes. Pair your heroes with devastating abilities, terrible weapons, and fearsome minions to dominate the gameboard - boards emulating the appearance of Orgrimmar or Stormwind!

A handful of game modes will allow players to learn at their own pace, challenge friends and foes, and delve into the practice of deck-building. Additional decks and cards can be acquired via these modes, through achievements, and even visiting…

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Yes, today marks the release of Patch 5.2.0, The Thunder King. A whole lot of new changes and additions have come down the line, so here's a list of Blizzard links that showcase all the great, recently added content!

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