Allakhazam poster Brisin has shared a good cause with us in our World of Warcraft general forum. Katherine Allen, a Blizzard employee, is going to be running in a marathon to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, an organization that provides funding for cancer research and helps cancer patients pay for their treatments.

While this is an important fundraising effort by itself, Allen has sweetened the deal by enticing WoW players with the possibility of receiving one of three 1-year time cards if they donate $25 and leave "For the Alliance!" or "For the Horde!" as a comment on her fundraising page. And one lucky player will get free WoW for life since she broke the $5,500 mark!

Allen's initial goal was to raise $5,000. She's already shattered that and currently sits at $15,555. You have until Jan. 5 to donate if you'd like a shot at the free WoW time. You can read her full post here or below.

Oh, Brisin got this information from Ctrl+Alt+Del, a great web comic for gamers. If you've never read it before, here's one about Wrath of the Lich King to get you started.

Today I am happy to announce that Allakhazam.com has officially partnered with Blizzard with our acceptance into their Fansite program. As you know, we've always supported World of Warcraft and Blizzard has returned the favor. On the official World of Warcraft website Blizzard stated: "We would like to welcome Allakhazam to the program. Allakhazam has offered gamers a variety of game information over the years and has continued to grow and support the World of Warcraft community." We're honored that our commitment to the community is being recognized in this way.

"So what does this mean?" you ask. It means we're in the position to work much more closely with Blizzard than ever before. We'll be able to provide our users better content, new features and promotions that wouldn’t be possible before now. Plus, there are always the bragging rights that come with having Blizzard recognize your favorite website!

To all of you who've supported us over the years, this is your victory. It's our loyal users who make great accomplishments like this one possible. For that, I speak for everyone at Allakhazam when I say: Thank you!

Feel free to chime in on the celebratory thread in our forums.

Episode 6 of BlizzCast, the official Blizzard podcast, is now online, and it contains an hour of interviews regarding World of Warcraft, Starcraft II and Diablo III.

In the sixth epic episode of BlizzCast, we spend a day with a developer and find out what life is like for World of Warcraft Lead Tools Programmer Monte Krol. Next, we take a look at StarCraft II unit design from concept to creation with Senior Art Director Samwise Didier and Lead Game Designer Dustin Browder. In our third segment, Bashiok spends some time with Anthony Rivero, senior artist for Diablo III, and discusses "bridging the gap" in the series’ character design. Bornakk wraps the episode up by answering some questions from the community.

You can download an mp3 of the show here or read the transcript here.

Due to the overwhelming popularity of the newest expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, and the absolute hordes of players descending upon Northrend, Blizzard has just announced that there is a new feature available for all of you who have not yet taken the plunge into the frozen wastes yet. As discovered and posted over in our WoW General Forums by Kelnoen the Malevolent :

I’ve had the opportunity to conduct some fun interviews over the years but sitting down with Jeffrey “Tigole”  Kaplan felt like I was hanging out with an extremely knowledgeable gamer, not a big wig at a major studio. From the moment I met him he had this pleasant aura about him which made it extremely easy to talk about our previous lives as hardcore ‘EverQuesters’. Once upon a time Jeff was the GM of a guild that many of you reading have likely heard of, “Legacy of Steel”. He’s used his love and knowledge of gaming and the end result is World of Warcraft.

The following is from my talk with Jeff Kaplan on Wednesday night at the official Blizzard Wrath of the Lich King Launch event in Anaheim, California. Special thanks go out to Humphrey Cheung from TGdaily.com for the pictures and to Blizzard PR for sneaking me inside Fry’s.

Allakhazam : Hey Jeff, thank you so much for agreeing to talk with us tonight. We know there is a lot going on so we appreciate your time.

Jeff : Well I really appreciate being here and I'm a huge fan of Allakhazam so it's my pleasure.

Allakhazam : Thank you! So what were some of the major challenges you had developing Wrath of the Lich King?

So with the release of WotLK and all the mayhem the midnight event brought out, GameStop has joined in the fun by offering a pre-paid one year gamecard and a hot quad-core gaming behemoth to the winner of their newest costume contest.

Wrath of the Lich King is live and I'm sitting in a Denny’s uploading screenshots from one of the funniest launch events that I've had the opportunity to attend. After fifteen hours of ‘CE Camping’ in a Fry's parking lot in Anaheim, I've returned with 'phat lewts', new friends and a few great stories. Please bear with me as I attempt to share with you my day at the official WotLK launch event. I'm rather tired.

To be completely honest, I had no idea what to expect Wednesday morning when I started my, now epic, journey to Fry's. I knew there would be players already in line but there is no way I could have prepared myself for what John Fitch, who was at the front of the line told me. "Yeah I've been here since 9am PST on Tuesday. By the time I get into the store I will have been here around 39 hours ." said the Hello Kitty enthusiast that you'll hear all about as soon as I transcribe our full conversation. To make his wait a tad more bearable, anyone who asked about what he was doing was informed that he was waiting in line for the new Hello Kitty game. As you can imagine, John had his fair share of weird looks. At one point in the evening he gathered a mob of people to circle the building shouting "Hello Kitty! Hello Kitty!" Some of the things we gamers do to entertain ourselves…

Now camping out over night in a lawn chair is hardcore, but I'm not sure if it tops Eugene Gray who checked out of a hospital earlier in the day to come down and wait in line against doctors orders. Hardcore? Most certainly! That wasn't enough so he brought out his Frostmourne replica. More to come about this badass later as I also sat down with him to get the whole story.

With BlizzCon coverage popping up across the net, it was excited to see the video taken by StarCraft Wire which has a few mentions of Blizzard's unannounced "4th project" which is the unnamed MMO.

The interview covers just about every project Blizzard has going on, and is worth the watch!

Blizzard poster Ghostcrawler has responded at length to a question regarding competitive DPS between pure damage classes and hybrids.

In a nutsell, Ghostcrawler said that the development team is attempting to keep every damage class' DPS comparative for raiding flexibility. Ghostcrawler gives the example of filling a raid with enough classes to bring great buffs, then stacking the rest of the raid with rogues. That's something the development team is trying to avoid.

If a certain class is routinely getting bypassed for raiding, we will definitely take steps to address that. Such steps might include buffing dps or changing the mechanics so that they have a more desirable buff or utility.

Read Ghostcrawler's full post here, or click the "More..." button below. Also, discuss the topic in our WoW forum.

Here's a friendly reminder that BlizzCon 2008 begins this Friday, Oct. 10, at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, Calif. According to Blizzard poster Zarhym, the submission window for all contests has closed.

Jay Mohr will be hosting the live contests, comedian Patton Oswalt will entertain the crowd, and Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain and Video Games Live will provide a wide array of music. Oh, and of course there's two full days of gaming.

If you won't be in attendance at the sold-out event, check out DirecTV for over 16 hours of broadcasts. Also, check the official BlizzCon page for more information.