Mike Morhaime just released an important security update: there was unauthorized illegal access into Blizzard Entertainment's internal network this past week. While the information retrieved is not enough for anyone to gain access to Battle.net accounts, as a precaution, they recommend players on North American servers change their passwords. See the entire letter below, or read the original here.

Has Blizzard solved the puzzle with Mists of Pandaria?

The Weekly Marmot focuses on that question and tackles the thorny issue of just what direction MoP will take Azeroth for the massive fanbase.

Capes, blades, and armor set bonuses - it's time for the newest look at Mists of Pandaria's PVP gear. The Dreadful gear, as depicted above on a Death Knight, is the lowest teir, scaling up with Malevolent and Elite depending on ranking and Honor/Conquest spent. The preview has a full model viewer, all the details on the weaponry, as well as the skinny on two new armor stats - PVP Power and PVP Resiliance. 

Prepare for pet battles, Pandaren, and the new Monk class - Mists of Pandaria is setting to launch September 25th, so be sure to request that day off from work. Unless your job is to be a videogame journalist, in which case I hope you have enough good graces to be able to blow off your boss.

Challenge Modes have made their presence known, and if you're down for the full details, our sister site Wowhead has you covered. The new mode is similar to the Herald of the Titans challenge, where you are run through a dungeon in low level gear to gain vanity prizes like transmog armor, but with the full Blizzard treatment - fully situated instances, with scaled gear, multiple versions of difficulty, and realm leaderboards with full search functions by time, the instance, and guild. The rewards and challenges are all behind the link. 

Good old Wowhead, over at our sister site, has got the skinny on the Pet Battle system coming to World of Warcraft with the Mists of Pandaria patch. You can check out the link to see the full announcement on the feature from Blizzard as well as all of Wowhead's links to pet species and abilities, but for now we've got the video preview right here.

And, in case you need it, go ahead and keep this too. 

So, yeah, if you have Raptr or not, now is a good time to sign up, because they're offering beta keys to Mists of Pandaria. Five thousand extremely lucky gamers will get a shot at the new land and new monk class, starting July 5th, but the rewards will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis. Eligibility will be based on time spent in Raptr unlocking achievements and time played, so you really don't have an excuse now. 

I still remember when cross-realm PVP was a huge thing to hit World of Warcraft, and here's another landmark that Blizzard is pioneering in their flagship MMO - cross-realm zones. Entire areas that can be explored and interacted with outside of the conventional server barrier. 

There's an entire FAQ explaining any thoughts you might have, but seriously - this is huge. 

It's here, at long last - the 4.3.4 patch for World of Warcraft. For a full list of changes, check out Wowhead, where the full notes are listed. Blizzard's main site seems to be having some issues. 

World of Warcraft has always had some pretty incredible scenery, but the draw distance has been kept relatively low - until, thanks to redditor lurker_becomes_lurkd, just now. 

It's just outright incredible looking at some of these screencaps. The game was never truly intended to be seen at this distance, but it ends up looking fantastic anyway. The sharp contrast between multiple zones in this shot, for example, almost looks like a  map drawn by a highly talented artist. Even if you don't play WoW, this is beautiful, almost Dead End Thrills level work.