With about three weeks to go, the excitement for BlizzCon is heating up. This week on the WoW Factor we are taking a look at what BlizzCon will offer us Warcraft fans. But first, some other WoW related tidbits you may have missed.

News Bits

First up, the World of Warcraft Battlechest has been updated. This new package now includes the original World of Warcraft and the following expansions: The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King and now Cataclysm. The package has also dropped the “Battlechest” subtitle and is now simply called “World of Warcraft.” It will retail for $19.99 in both physical boxes and as a digital download option from the Blizzard store. Additionally, all WoW subscribers will now have access to all of the content through Cataclysm if they haven’t already upgraded their accounts with these expansions.

Blizzard will soon be enhancing the Recruit-A-Friend system. This system allows existing players to invite friends and family to the game where the two will have added benefits including triple experience gains while grouped up to level 80, the ability to summon one another to each other’s location and granting one level to the veteran player for every two levels the recruited character gains. What the new system will offer is not quite clear but Blizzard has stated that there will be more reward choices for players and may include the recently teased Emerald Hippogryph mount. Hopefully we’ll know very soon what other rewards await. It’s import to note that this system is different than the Scroll of Resurrection program that is used to invite former players back to the game.

In an effort to increase and stabilize realm populations, Blizzard introduced a new tech with the last patch in the form of Connected Realms. So far only a few servers have been linked but Blizzard has announced the next batch of servers that will be connected in the near future. They are:

• Balnazzar and Warsong
• Gurubashi and Aegwynn
• Dalvengyr and Dark Iron
• Garithos and Chromaggus
• Onyxia and Burning Blade
• Maiev and Bloodscalp

For those of you attending BlizzCon in person or with the Virtual Ticket, the BlizzCon pre-sale has begun for exclusive BlizzCon merchandise. Just head over to the Blizzard store and log in with the same account used to buy your BlizzCon ticket and you’ll be able to browse all the goodies for this year’s event.

Speaking of merchandise, the Winged Guardian mount is on sale for $16.75 until October 22, 2013 at 11:59pm. PDT.