Guess who has a new job opening today! We came across a job listing on the World of Warcraft forums today, and Blizzard is looking for a new web designer to help them with their upcoming sites.

According to the announcement, Blizzard's ideal candidate for the job must possess the following:

The ideal candidate is well versed in HTML, JavaScript, and Photoshop and experienced in all manner of web-design elements, such as the design and layout of buttons, links, menus, and text.

The Web Designer's primary duties will be to help design and implement the HTML pages for our growing websites. A lot of focus will be spent on supporting existing and future Blizzard titles. The Web Designer will also be responsible for daily web updates and maintenance of existing Blizzard sites. The ideal candidate will also have a strong working knowledge of Blizzard games.

Not only do you get to work the world's best MMO, but you also get a sneak peak into the latest games just by association. Sounds like a great way to get into the games industry! In any case, we're linking you to the application in case you're interested. Why not give them your resume and see what happens?

Time to dust off that old Photoshop icon sitting on your desktop!

As a way to celebrate the coming of the WoW expansion, The Burning Crusade, WoW Insider is holding a contest for fans who have talent and little time to spare.

At the moment, three contests are open, and the call for lyrics, fanart, and Machinima entries (have I mentioned that we just love Machinima) is loud and strong. In the meantime, the lucky (and talented) contestants can expect to receive anything from a Logitech G15 keyboard, to the trademark Green Linen Shirt.

Think this is the contest for you? Then just head over to WoW Insider for the full set of rules and the full list of prizes.

December 11 will go down the history of Amazon.com as its best day ever in terms of sales. The company was able to sell more than 4 million different items, a good number of which had a lot to with video games. And who's the king of this particular videogame hill, you ask? Nintendo's handheld, of course.

The company didn't furnish exact figures for the DS Lite but mentioned that it was indeed the top seller on that day. They also highlighted the record-breaking 1,000 units sold in 29 seconds for Microsoft's Xbox 360 in their Amazon Customers Vote promotion. Mentioned too was the PlayStation 3's predecessor, the PS2, as a big seller.

In software sales, Amazon revealed that their top selling games for a single platform were New Super Mario Bros. and Brain Age, both for the DS. Sports title Madden Football ruled the multiplatform division. The MMO expansion title The Burning Crusade was the major top seller for all pre-orders. The Sims 2: Pets and art package Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 were both given recognition as well.

Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezoz couldn't help but show his appreciation to customers because of this success. "Video games were a customer favorite again this year. We are truly grateful to our customers. Happy holidays and happy new year to all from Amazon.com employees around the globe."

When it comes to games, it is needless to say how important graphics is. Sometimes though, people are so focused on this technological magic that they forget these methods actually started as concept arts. It is from this angle then that we see the importance of paper sketches and drawings being done tirelessly by artists.

During the past few weeks, PlayTR collected questions and inquiries from Tabula Rasa-dedicated sites to be given to one of the game's concept artists, Brad Jeansonne. The artist's job begins long before a team works on a specific concept. Jeansonne needed to coordinate with animators, designers and world builders to know what assets are being asked. Image research then follows before the actual sketch, whether to be done on paper or Photoshop.

"The thematic guidelines and functional style of the work have evolved from a very long process of work and re-work over the length of the project," shares Jeansonne. The artist further shares that his background as an industrial designer is mainly instrumental to his being on the TR team. "We do try to create a very different feel for each environment, and we often design little vignettes or points of interest within the environment to give you a sense of one particular culture or place," he added.

Furthermore, Jeansonne gives a rundown of typical work at the office: "Everyone on the dev team is expected to be there from 9am to 6pm, but we’re also expected to go as far beyond that as needed to finish our schedule." Aside from the overall fun, Jeansonne expresses that he loves best the laid back atmosphere in their headquarters.

Ready for yet another EverQuest II treasure chest looting? The goodies available are a classic case of "You think you can do better?"

You can check out FadetoGrey's Photoshop thread, and see if you can top the picture he made of his wizard. But if machinima is more your cup of tea, Zemfira has shared a funny clip titled "The Norrathian Chicken Dance" for all of us.

The Martha Stewart kind? Check out  the fluke's serene garden fertilized with various half elf and high elf alts who were casualties while gathering ornamental plants. Meanwhile, if you want to be next big thing in publishing, why don't you share your masterpiece just like what Jnom did with his work "Troubled Dreams."

All links to the respective threads are available via the read link.

Buy: [EverQuest II]

The fast-growing virtual world of Second Life is walking down the catwalk as its fashion industry booms. Now, instead of using needles, beads, and threads, people are using Photoshop. Some have created their own clothing line where people can buy clothes with the in-game Linden currency ($ 1 = 280 Linden). Yes, real money is exchanged.

American Apparel Inc. and Adidas have even joined the whole fashion boom in Second Life by selling virtual clothes that mimic their real-world counter parts. In fact, the American Apparel virtual store has already sold 4,000 articles of clothing to gamers.

Both professional and amateur designers are finding the fashion industry in Second Life very lucrative. It's actually one of the hottest items that get exchanged for Linden in the game. And that doesn't only include clothes, but also hairdressing, jewelry, and skin art.

In this day and age, it's not about simply living your virtual life. It's accessorizing it.

Following up our previous post on the Age of Conan design team, lead designer Ole Herbjonsen expounds more on what the other people on the design team do. This time he's putting the microscope over the item, special effects, quest, and system designers.

Item Designer
The item designer's job is twofold: On one hand he provides his colleagues (quest designers, NPC designers, scripters, and others) with the essential items they need to finish their tasks. The other side of the job is creating the various drops,  loot, item rewards, and trade skill items in the game, in addition to working alongside the NPC designers to determine drop locations and drop rates of said items.

Careful planning is a must for the item designer, as ultimately players will become quite concerned with both item design (stats, appearance, etc.) and the drop locations (where, how, and how hard the item is to get).

If you'll excuse the D&D ref, the item designer is kinda like a red mage in the sense that his job requires working knowledge of most of the internal tools used, including many of the various quest, scripting, NPC, data management, and item creation tools. A jack-of-all-trades and all-around middleman in tying together various game elements.

Special Effects Designer
This is the guy to go with when you're looking for some razzle-dazzle. The special effects designer doesn't only do the complex stuff though, as he is also responsible for the more simple effects in the game such as a burning flame. Like his Hollywood counterpart, it's the special effects designer's job to make parts of the game more alive with spell effects, elements, weather, combat impact, blood, and everything in between.

The special effects designer for Age of Conan works most of the time with an in-house tool known as the Particle Tool. The name is a bit misleading, as the tool has progressed far beyond the boundaries of particles and is now using everything from planes and meshes to animations and scripts. Other tools in the special effects designer's arsenal include 3Dstudiomax, Photoshop and in-house scripting tools.

Of course, the special effects won't work on their own without a good in-game reason, so the designer needs to talk quite a bit with other members of the design team to get an idea of what the effect is for and what it's supposed to do. The special effects designer also has to review his progress with the art team since the Art Director has final say on the visual appearance of special effects in the game.

The full article awaits after the jump!