Look at me, peasant!

It is no surprise that Blizzard puts all sorts of cool stuff into questlines thoughout the game. Or that they always seem to have the best sense of humor when it comes to aspects of pop culture they do include within the game.

Many of you have at least heard of the newer  Old Spice ads.

Now Blizzard has brought the two together! Not only that they’ve always poked fun at their own sparkle pony!

If you’re headed to BlizzCon or you’ve purchased a virtual ticket, you probably already know that BlizzCon attendees get a special pet for coming to the show. Well, the special pet for this year has been announced, and here he is, in all of his adorable, destructive glory: Deathy, the Destroyer Murloc! (I prefer to call him Death-Murky, but whatever.)

From the Blizzcon official site:

“Death will rise from the tide!” Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain once warned — and at BlizzCon 2010, the band’s dire musical prophecy will finally come to pass. Everyone who attends this year’s BlizzCon or purchases the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket will receive an exclusive set of murlocalyptic in-game items for World of Warcraft and StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. World of Warcraft players will be joined by Deathy, a murloc companion decked out as Deathwing and doing his best to strike fear into the hearts of Azeroth’s crustacean population. You’ll also be able to display your tidal pride in StarCraft II with a Murloc Marine character portrait and a pair of deep-sea decals to emblazon on your units, each with a different terran, protoss, and zerg design.

Even Starcraft II players get in on the action? Sheesh. If you managed to snag a ticket, congratulations! (We’re still waiting on Blizzard to tell us if we can go.) If you didn’t, and don’t think you’ll make it, virtual tickets are still on sale!

Wowhead found a treat for us in the most recent Cataclysm model update, including some new models for Ysera, Thrall, and the Guardian of the Ancient Kings! Also in the new update, models for tons of new drakes and mounts, a new surveying tool that will be used with Archeaology, and more. Ysera’s model is above, although right now she’s essentially a recolor of Sylvanas with some horns added – it’s likely she’ll see a few more tweaks before release. After all, Alextraza is based off of the same model that Sylvanas is, but they’ve both been tweaked a bit so you can definitely tell them apart.

There are tons of NPC and other object models as well, including weapons and guild items, so it’s worth looking at if you’re curious what the visual dynamic in Cataclysm will resemble.

Unfortunately I can’t embed this gem here as much as I really wish I could, but trust me, it’s hilarious, and while the ROFLBear series of videos from MyndFlame (the folks behind Illegal Danish) is pretty off and on, this one is on, oh – it’s definitely on. U Face Jaraxxus is probably one of the best, most cracked out WoW videos I’ve ever seen, and I say all of those things with the most loving possible meaning behind them. Trust me, you’ll love it.

Normally I don’t think that every single release of World of Warcraft-related gear is post-worthy, but this time around Jinx! has some goodies that are worth highlighting, like the murloc shirt above! The Fall 2010 World of Warcraft line is out, and this one, “Murhol Pop Art” is a good example. Some of the others? A simply awesome “Fear Hogger” tee, some new Alliance and Horde zip-up hoodies, and a Pandaren Brewmaster tee!

And so it begins!

Kotaku reports that details on the Collector’s Edition for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm have surfaced, and like all of the collector’s editions before it, will have a boatload of goodies inside to sweeten the pot that you’ll be spending $79.99 to purchase.

In addition to the in-game pet you’ll get with the purchase of the Collector’s Edition, you’ll also get the customary artbook, behind-the-scenes DVD, and full CD soundtrack of the music of the game. Here’s the rundown from Blizzard:

· Art of the Cataclysm art book, featuring 176 pages of never-before-seen images from the archives of the Blizzard Entertainment cinematics department and the World of Warcraft development team, as well as progressive visuals from multiple stages of development.

· Exclusive in-game pet: he may not be a breaker of worlds just yet, but Lil’ Deathwing will still proudly accompany heroes on their struggle to save Azeroth from his much, much larger counterpart.

· Behind-the-scenes DVD with over an hour of developer interviews and commentaries, as well as a special Warcraft retrospective examining the rich gaming history of the Warcraft universe.

· Soundtrack featuring 10 epic new tracks from Cataclysm, including exclusive bonus tracks.

· Special-edition mouse pad depicting Deathwing menacing the ravaged continents of Azeroth.

· World of Warcraft Trading Card Game cards, including a 60-card starter deck from the Wrathgate series, two extended-art cards, and two Collector’s Edition-exclusive hero cards, marking the first appearance of goblin and worgen heroes in the TCG.

The one thing that Kotaku fails to mention is that the Collector’s Edition is already available to pre-order at Amazon! Don’t worry, if you’re not interested in the Collector’s Edition of the game, the Standard Edition of Cataclysm is available to pre-order as well!

One thing to note though is that Amazon is clear that you’re pre-ordering a product that hasn’t been released and doesn’t have a set release date – while we’re all sure that Blizzard is aiming at a 2010 release of Cataclysm, they’re not tipping their hand to exactly when that will be. Even so, get your pre-orders in now, especially if you want the Collector’s Edition.

This isn’t a video in the strictest sense: there’s no need to full-screen and pay attention to every detail here, but you should definitely push play and put your headphones on and get ready for something amazing. The orchestral opening for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is nothing short of stunningly beautiful, and has multiple homages to the music and themes for both vanilla WoW, The Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King all rolled into it. It’s absolutely fantastic.

The music you’re hearing will likely be the login screen music as well – which means if you’re willing to sit at the login prompt for as long as it takes to hear the entire piece, you probably can, but it’s likely there’ll be environmental sounds as well – this is the music they’re using for beta logins, and if it’s any indication it’s a fantastic example of the music we have to look forward to when the game is released. The music of World of Warcraft has always been a highlight of the game, and this is no exception.

Most guilds require their players to have at least some add-ons that make raiding and doing 5-man dungeons more bearable – threat meters like Omen and boss-fight helpers like Deadly Boss Mods, but while those add-ons are functional, and while they may be some of your favorites because playing the game without them can be less fun, let’s hear about some of your favorite add-ons for World of Warcraft!

What are some of the add-ons that have customized or tweaked your interface or your gameplay style to the point where if something happened to them you’d be lost, or at least looking for a suitable replacement? Are there any that have gone out of development that you miss to this day? Sound off in the comments and we’ll use your favorites in an upcoming feature!

I have to hand it to the folks at Wow.com for this one – they turned up a video of the freakin’ undead playing a guitar while riding a freakin’ raptor riding a freakin’ rocket shark with freakin’ lasers mentioned last week as the epitome of epic-ness, and the video does not dissapoint.

In fact, perhaps the only thing that could make the whole thing more epic is if the rocket laser shark raptor axe wielding undead blew the viewer out of the sky for daring to approach them. Even without that happening though, this is more than epic enough for me.

Not epic enough for you? Head over to YouTube to watch it in full wide-screen glory!

The fine folks at MMO Champion found this one – a video of a yet-unreleased and unavailable Deathwing Whelp (Death Whelp?) that, if tradition persists, will likely be the Collector’s Edition pet for Cataclysm when it’s released, likely later this year.

The Collector’s Edition for vanilla WoW had your selection of a Zergling, a Panda, or a mini-Diablo, for Burning Crusade you got a Netherwhelp, and for Wrath of the Lich King you got a Frost Whelp. It makes sense that this would be the colllector’s edition pet this time around.

Over at the World of Warcraft Livejournal Community there was some heated discussion about this just being another whelp pet to lure people into buying the Collector’s Editions, and that Blizzard should return to the way it handled the original World of Warcraft launch and give people a selection of multiple pets. What do you think? Is the Netherwhelp enough to make you want to pick up the Collector’s Edition, or will you give it a pass unless there’s something in there better than this? Leave us a comment!