In preparation for the rollout of Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3, Blizzard have been revamping their free Battle.net service. As part of this, and no doubt to decrease their overheads from maintaining separate authentication services, they’re also shifting World of Warcraft over to Battle.net as well. Account migrations have been available for some months already, and Blizzard announced at the recent BlizzCon ‘09 that some time in the near future, migration would be mandatory. According to MMO-Champion, an apparently accidental FAQ update to the European site has indicated that the cutoff date may be in mid-November.

Cue the crazy:

they are transferring your account from Blizzard incorporated in California to Blizzard incorporated in Oregon Such a transfer across state lines CANNOT be required and is a federal crime.

No indication whether this is a deliberate troll or not, but it’s hardly more nonsensical than the allegedly ‘legitimate’ complaints about the migration. The good news is that there is a slim chance these chicken littles might actually follow through on their threats for once, and leave the game.

Update: Blizzard has made it official, and provided a focal point for the madness. Thanks Blizzard. Thizzard.

Update 2: It’s an assault on personal liberty.

Chris Morris visits the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and writes about it for the Guardian. Some crackpots believe the LHC will form a black hole which will devour us all. Perhaps it will instead open a doorway to another dimension, ushering in unspeakable horrors and leaving Tom Jane to lament: “I just want my kid back!”

Really, there are worse ways for the species to go than to all be sucked up into a massively massive ball.