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When you've just released an expansion pack that sold more copies than most major stand-alone releases, all in less than 24 hours, you know you're sitting on a goldmine of a franchise. Blizzard, of course, is aware of this, what with World of Warcraft getting a licensed miniature game and a coming feature film adaptation.

And speaking of the feature film adaptation, we have some elusive news about that. MTV's Multiplayer blog had a chat with Blizzard's Frank Pearce about the project. The scoop is that the studio, Legendary Pictures, is still looking for a screenwriter and director. Obviously, that means the movie is very early in development.

MTV also asked Pearce if Blizzard's own world-renowned CGI animators would be involved in producing the special effects for the movie. Pearce said that the suggestion has "come up in discussions but it's not something we've really considered because it takes so long to generate just the brief amount of footage that we create for the game."

GameTrailers put together a three-part series of Warcraft retrospective videos in the days leading up to the launch of World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and WoW was the focus of the third and final episode. In over 20 minutes, the video looks at the early MMOs and influences that led to the creation of WoW, the project's beginnings in discussions between Blizzard guys while they were playing EverQuest, and of course, the game itself.

In addition to listing the distinct features that made WoW successful, the restrospective provides an overview of its post-launch history, up through The Burning Crusade's launch. Everything from Onyxia raids to the ever-changing PvP Honor system is covered. If you're a hardcore WoW addict, little of it will be new information, but if you're just getting started or a casual user, you'll probably learn a thing or two. See the vid embedded after the break.

[Via WoW Insider]

Everyone's got an expansion out right now -- EverQuest II has The Shadow Odyssey, The Lord of the Rings Online has Mines of Moria, World of Warcraft has Wrath of the Lich King, EVE Online has Quantum Rise -- there's no end to it, but then that's the point, isn't it?

Well, you'd think that, anyway. Word on the street is that there are already Death Knights at level 80, and all the raid content in Wrath has been completed. One player reached level 80 in only 27 hours. Over a year of development for one week of content? Are MMO players just too damned hardcore, or did Blizzard aim too low? How much content should you be getting for $30 or $40 and your continued subscription, anyway?

There are some folks out there who (to continue using WoW as an example) are still hacking through The Burning Crusade's content, or even the classic stuff. How do you think a balance can be struck between those folks, and the crews who have already bested all the Wrath content?

In an interview with videogaming247, Turbine bigwig Jeffrey Steefel said that he expects The Lord of the Rings Online to become the second viably successful western MMO in Asia (after World of Warcraft), should his team get the Chinese launch right. The two MMO-playing communities have historically had very different tastes, but Steefel believes western devs are finally figuring out how to break into the east. "That's where a big part of the global gaming market is and it's been that way for a long time," he said, "but we're only just now figuring how western games can begin to tap into that market.

Steefel also noted -- as many of Blizzard's competitors have been keen to do -- that much of WoW's growth in recent months has been in Asia, not in America or Europe. Guess he's hoping to capture a little of that Blizzard cross-cultural mojo when his game launches in China and Korea. We're aware Asia is a long way away for most of our readers, so for those of you who could care less: check out our own interview with Steefel for subjects a little closer to home. Shameless, aren't we?

Aventurine's Darkfall has been in development pretty much since the dawn of time (alright, since 2001, but that's not far from the dawn of time for the MMORPG genre), and we have on more than one occassion wondered whether or not those promises of an eventual beta test would be fulfilled. Turns out that for some, they have been.

The developers have posted a large collection of quotes from beta players' feedback. They claim it's representative, and it's mostly (but not all) positive. Sounds like players are impressed with the hugeness of the world and a solid crafting system, but a bit turned off by a complicated and unconventional control scheme. The devs say they're working on it.

If you fall into Darkfall's hardcore Ultima Online-esque PvP niche, feel free to scan through to see what you've apparently been missing out on for the past seven years.

So we heard a couple months ago that The Chronicles of Spellborn would be released in North America and the United Kingdom on November 27th, coinciding with the continental European launch. Turns out it's been pushed back -- kinda. The European launch will still commence on the 27th, but the North American closed beta will begin on that day, with the actual, final launch occurring sometime in January.

Sure, we're a bit disappointed, but chances are we'll still get to play the game soon. Acclaim, the game's publisher in the region, went out of its way in the press release it sent us to stress the "Freemium" business model -- a newbie trial area will be available to all players, who can reach level seven before they have to upgrade to a premium subscription at the usual $15/month rate.

The idea of an unlimited free trial area with a level cap isn't fresh -- both Meridian 59 and EverQuest II have done that, but it's not a bad way to sample a game to decide if you want to invest your hard-earned cash in it. Might be worth trying just for Jesper Kyd's soundtrack

The samples on the website (which include two WoW tracks) are impressive, and should entice hardcore Warcraft fanatics to pick the full package up online. There's a standard edition for $29.95 that just includes the 90 minutes of music, and the pictured-above "Legendary" edition (geez, even video game soundtracks have CEs now) which includes the music, a making-of DVD, a "32-page color booklet" (whatever that means), and nine bits of artwork on cards. That'll cost you $49.95.

Sure, other MMOs have gotten soundtrack albums, but we're pretty sure this is the first time we've seen a soundtrack for the entire catalog of an MMO developer other than Square-Enix; Final Fantasy fanatics proudly challenge even the Warcraft guys and gals in sheer enthusiasm.

[Via Kotaku]

Nymh, Human Warlock of the EU server Drek'thar (and the real-world country of France) became the first World of Warcraft player to reach level 80 by working with an out-of-group Priest to spam area-of-effect attacks against rapidly-spawning mid-70s mobs, inspired by the technique of another World of Warcraft Warlock player named Jynxx, who eloquently explained the concept in a video (Note: probably won't make much sense if you're not a WoW addict already).

Time from 70 to 80: 27 hours.

Nymh did a lot of research and trial-and-error exploration of options in the Wrath of the Lich King beta test in order to be ready for the gauntlet after the EU launch, which of course came a little bit before the North American one. We'll note that the first-to-level-70-after-launch trophy went to another French player last year. Vive la France, no?

[Via WoW Insider]

It happened with The Burning Crusade -- players had spent months raiding at level 60 to get the very best gear, and when TBC came out, people were getting green drops with better stats than the best raid drops after only a couple of levels. A lot of hardcore players were annoyed, while some just accepted it as the natural motion of things.

We've got at least three big expansions coming up in the next few weeks -- Wrath of the Lich King for World of Warcraft, Mines of Moria for The Lord of the Rings Online, and The Shadow Odyssey for EverQuest II. With the level caps going up in WoW and LotRO, we're expecting a similar situation to what we saw with TBC. How do you feel about this? Can it be avoided, should it? Maybe it's good to level the playing field now and then. Let us know!

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What do you do for Massively.com?
I'm a core blogger. That means I'm one of a handful of writers who keep the regular flow of content going, hit news when it comes up, and sometimes do featured articles.

What's your favorite MMO?
My all-time favorite is Meridian 59. I still haven't played a game I liked half as much as that one. It was a completely different kind of game, and there hasn't been anything even remotely like it since. It was horribly flawed in many ways, but I'm sad no one -- except maybe CCP with EVE Online -- has refined what it tried to do.