The Black Market Auction House allows players to bid on special items that are not normally sold by NPCs. For example, Mei Francis normally sells mounts in Dalaran, but in this case she is auctioning Ashes of Al'ar!
The items for auction vary by server, as other servers are able to bid on Reins of the Blazing Drake, Swift White Hawkstrider, or Riding Turtle.
The auctions last for 24 hours or more and the current bid cap is 214,748 gold. This cap could be increased in the future, just like the gold limit was increased. After winning, another item is not added to the auction house immediately. The number of items that are up for auction is not the same across all servers. There is no way to tell if these are placeholder items or not, so please wait for an official announcement before providing feedback!
Some items that are going to be part of the Black Market:
[Ashes of Al'ar]
[Riding Turtle]
[Hippogryph Hatchling]

In the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria beta, we're introducing a new technology that will enable players to meet up and group with other players in under populated areas of the world such as low level zones or areas that other players may have outleveled or moved on from. This technology will allow players to form a group with other players from within a select pool of realms in order to quest just like they normally would while still allowing the social structures of their home realms to remain intact.
During the initial phase of testing we will be sharing the following zones between the available beta realms: Northern Barrens, Ashenvale, Azshara, Darkshore, Westfall, and Silithus. We are also able to split over-populated zones and will be testing this new technology on the Pandaren starting area (turtle zone).
For beta testing purposes, we will be matching up all realm types whether they are PvP or PvE. This is different than what we plan to do for the live realms, however. For the live realms we will be matching realm types: PvP with PvP, PvE with PvE, RP-PvP with RP-PvP, and RP-PvE with RP-PvE. As always, we plan to keep an eye on constructive feedback while in testing of this new technology.

The World of Warcraft®: Mists of Pandaria™ beta test has begun! Over the course of the test, we'll be inviting Annual Pass holders, press, fansites, friends and family, and opt-in beta testers to participate. This first phase of the beta focuses on the 1-10 starting experience for new Pandaren. High-level content as well as template characters will become available in future beta updates, but you can still copy over your own high level characters now if you'd like to test the new talent system.
As there's no NDA for this test, you're likely to start seeing lots of screenshots and new video around the web. Please keep in mind that the expansion is still in development — we'll be making changes to the game as the beta evolves, and what you'll see during the beta test is not necessarily representative of the final game.
Players selected to participate in the beta test will receive an email invitation directing them to download the beta client directly from their Battle.net account. As always, please be aware of phishing attempts — if you're unsure whether your invitation is legitimate, please log in to your Battle.net account to verify that there is a Mists of Pandaria beta license attached.

The final list of changes brought by the recent update of the Official Talent Calculator is finally complete and it definitely deserves a dedicated news post. However, we wouldn't be a very good website if we only did talent diffs and my very lovely team of moderators went through all the skills to list absolutely all the changes brought by this version of the talent calculator!

Blizzard Entertainment is proud to announce the 2012 Battle.net World Championship, a major global eSports event featuring some of the best pro-gaming competition in the world. Slated to take place in Asia toward the end of 2012, the Battle.net World Championship will host this year's StarCraft II and World of Warcraft Arena World Championship tournaments. Blizzard gamers and eSports fans from around the world will be invited to attend and witness some of the most skilled pro players on the planet battle it out for cash and glory.
We're excited to be showcasing Blizzard eSports on a truly global stage this year. We're also heavily focused on getting Diablo III, Mists of Pandaria, and Heart of the Swarm into players hands as soon as possible. In light of our jam-packed schedule, we've decided to hold the next BlizzCon in 2013.
More details about the 2012 Battle.net World Championship and BlizzCon 2013, including specific dates and locations, will be coming in the months ahead.