World of Warcraft players patching their game today might have spotted something interesting in the patch notes – Blizzard’s tribute to D&D father Gary Gygax.

Blizzard had already announced that their latest patch, 2.4: Fury of the Sunwell,  would be dedicated to Gygax’s memory. On the official forums, it’s already being referred to by some as the “Gary Gygax patch”.

In the notes, Blizzard sneaked the following text in just below the Sunwell intro:

“In Memoriam: Gary Gygax

Blizzard Entertainment would like to dedicate the patch in memory of Gary Gygax. His work on D&D was an inspiration to us in many ways and helped spark the passion for creating games of our own. As avid D&D players and fellow game developers, we were all saddened by his passing; we feel we’ve lost a true adventuring companion. Thanks for everything and farewell, Gary. You will be missed.”

For the curious, Blizzard’s developed a mini-site detailing the patch, with art, a wallpaper and a teaser trailer for those who can’t wait for the patch to go live at 11AM PST.

Highlights of the patch will be the new Sunwell Isle area with brand new 5-man and 25-man instances, as well as special arena tournament realms for the PvP addicts. The latter is part of Blizzard’s 2008 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament with a tempting prize pool of US$120,000, $75,000 of it going to the first-placed team.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 12:37 pm under Uncategorized.

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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