WoW Insider sister site Big Download is reporting that the Activision-Blizzard merger is getting closer and closer to reality. They recently won another victory in court today, as a Delaware court struck down an attempt by the Wayne County Employees' Retirement System to gain a preliminary injunction against the deal.

We're now coming up fast the July 8th Activision shareholders' meeting, where they will vote to approve the merger. Activision has already said that they expect the merger to be official on or about July 9th, according to Big Download.

This, of course, squeaks in just under the wire for the E3 expo. Activision-Blizzard has already said they don't plan to participate, but that they will hold a press conference on or near the dates of the expo. It seems likely now that they will be officially announcing the completion of their merger.

Of course, we here at WoW Insider are hoping the merger isn't the only thing they reveal. A WoTLK cinematic and official release date or another L70ETC song on Guitar Hero would be nice, I'd say.

So it's Monday now, the Worldwide Invitational in Paris is officially over, Diablo 3 has been announced and we've got tons of new info about Wrath of the Lich King -- but where's the cinematic? We know the Wrath cinematic is coming, but there was no sign of it at all at the WWI.

Then again, if you look at the timeframes, it's still a little soon -- the acclaimed Burning Crusade cinematic actually dropped on the Spike Videogame Awards in December of 2006 (just a month before BC was actually released in January of 2007), so since there's still some time until the Wrath release, there will still be some time until the cine shows.

In fact, it's looking more and more like BlizzCon 2008 might be the place to see it. With a rumored release date of sometime in November, Blizzard's big convention in October would probably be the perfect place to show off the next, undoubtedly beautiful chapter in the fall (and maybe even redemption?) of Arthas Menethil. Plus maybe they'll put a Gnome in there this time around.

Here's something very new in Patch 2.4: what appears to be a cinematic cut-scene for the 5-man dungeon in Sunwell Plateau. I couldn't quite tell what was going on in it, but it's certainly an interesting idea with some potential. Will we only see it the first time we visit the dungeon? Can we skip it? How is it synchronized? What do we see while someone is watching the cinematic -- does it look like they just take forever to zone in? Will we see cinematics in Wrath, or maybe even retrofitted ones for BC and old-world dungeons? As you can see, I have more questions than facts here. At the moment, as you can see, this is a rather crude cutscene; something more cinematic, with dialog and such, might be nice. But this is cool as a sort of level overview, as seen in many other games (Mario Galaxy, why do you haunt me so?).

[via Blizzplanet]

Blizzard's cinematic team deserves as many awards as they can get, in this writer's humble opinion. Even back in the Starcraft days, when graphics were 2D and it was all sprites and jumpy animation, the cinematics were exquisite. And now they've been nominated for yet another award-- Blizzard says their team has been nominated to receive honors from the Visual Effects Society's 6th Annual Awards for the Burning Crusade's cinematic seen above. And I don't disagree-- even more than a year (and a few runs through ten levels of Outland) after it's come out, Illidan's growl still rocks.

And man oh man I can't wait for the Wrath cinematic. As fun as it was to see Blood Elves, Draenei, and Illidan and the Skull of Gul'dan, seeing Arthas in cinematic form again is going to be even more awesome.

Just in case you were worried, even for just a second, that the paltry ingame Death Knight video we got at BlizzCon was supposed to be the official trailer for the next expansion, worry not-- Nethaera has confirmed, just to be sure, that the best is yet to come. You may think it's silly, but I have to admit, after that ingame vid at Blizzcon, the Lament of the Highborn video, and the recent Zul'Aman video, I was just a little bit worried, way in the back of my mind, that Blizzard might be done making CGI for WoW.

I'm glad I was wrong-- I can't wait to see Arthas back in classic cinematic form. We probably won't see it until a lot later than sooner (there is still the Sunwell to release to the PTR and then the live realms), but it's good to know that we still get to see a badass CGI. Truck commercials are all fine and good, but we still haven't heard a "you are not prepared" for Wrath yet.

I enjoyed checking out this old intro from Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, and I hope you will too. Isn't it amazing how much this world has grown up? This is from over 10 years ago! Those orcs look a little different (and I have no idea where that armor drops, not to mention that gigantic shoulders have apparently grown a lot more fashionable since then), but those are our Zepplins for sure. And the Horde flag!

YOU ARE NOT PREPARED... for the wrath of gnomes, left out of the cinematic yet again.



Hilarious! Next time we get new races, I don't want the Horde to get a "pretty" race-- but I do want them to get a stubby, short, and cute one.

After premiering in spectacular cam-o-vision on YouTube, and then officially premiering on Spike's VGA Awards last night, Blizzard has released The Burning Crusade opening cinematic to the masses. Head on over to the World of Warcraft site to view the cinematic in either Flash or DivX.

The short preview starts with a voice over that lore-fiends will quickly come to understand as Illidan's. To say that he's a little upset to have been imprisoned for 10,000 years, then exiled, and then have us show up on his doorstep expecting cookies and eggnog is a gross understatement.

We're taken across the Blasted Lands to the Dark Portal before fading out and coming up on a Draenei Paladin, preparing for what lies ahead. That scene then cuts to a Blood Elf lovingly playing with a Mana Wyrm, before she consumes its arcane energies. What follows is a quick succession of battle scenes featuring the Draenei paladin, what appears to be the Orc from the original WoW cinematic, the Blood Elf, a human mage (who wonderfully sheeps his opponent), and an undead warlock who apparently has no love for the gurgly little Murlocs.

Finally, we come to Illidan, who leaps up from his Hamlet-like pondering of a skull and shows us his full glorious self before admonishing us with a loud and gravelly, "You are not prepared!"

This is a fantastic cinematic, and only makes me long for a full animated World of Warcraft movie, and makes the month-and-two-days we have left to wait for the expansion to hit stores seem like an eternity.

Now that the Burning Crusade beta is underway, will we be able to keep up with the flood of info coming out about it? My guess is no-- but we're sure gonna try!

• Arena teams can be named, just like guilds. I call dibs on "Two Men Enter One Man Leaves". Yes, I know 1v1 isn't possible but it's Mad Max, man! Also, no requirements on classes, but I didn't think there were, anyway.
  
• Tree of Life. And apparently the droods love it. Even the whiny ones.
• Dual wielding shamans will get to put one buff on each weapon, and that is awesome.
• BC will have a brand-new cinematic. Woohah!
• If you were worried about flying mounts costing 5000g, don't worry too much. There'll be lots of gold to go around, and the price may even change.

Holy moly, this Burning Crusade release is going to be a thing to see. Expect more info as we get it-- lots and lots more.