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PUTIN REAPPEARS The Russian president has kept a fairly low profile at the World Cup considering he’s more or less the man behind the tournament. Vladimir Putin attended the opening match a month ago in Moscow, a 5-0 win over Saudi Arabia that kicked off a surprising quarterfinal run for the home team. That’s evidently the only soccer he’s seen in person, though he has hosted a handful of events involving FIFA officials in and around Red Square, including a Saturday evening concert at the Bolshoi Theater....

With just 16 teams remaining at the start of knockout play on Saturday, December 3, this is where heroes are truly made, and where champions are crowned. Defending champions France are alive and ready to protect their crown, while 2018 semifinalists England are also through. We run through all eight Round of 16 matchups below. Some featured teams that haven’t faced off in decades, while others present clashes of familiar foes....

This year’s tournament will see more than 100 prospects suit up for their country, including the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Rasmus Sandin, the Arizona Coyotes’ Barrett Hayton and the Winnipeg Jets’ Ville Heinola and David Gustafsson who have seen NHL action this year. World Juniors primer: A team-by-team guide to the 2020 under-20 championship Here’s a team-by-team breakdown of the players that will hit the ice in the Czech Republic for all 31 NHL teams from Boxing Day to Jan....

The Trading Post is a special market World of Warcraft players can visit in their faction capitals that offer unique weapon and armor transmogs, pets, and mounts for purchase. This inventory changes monthly, but players can freeze an item to save it for the next month. The Trading Posts themselves will physically change each month as well, showing off the new inventory on armor racks, and keeping mounts in its stables....

Dragonflight is introducing a new form of reactive flying called Dragon Riding. Though Dragon Riding is only available on the Dragon Isles, the new winged dracthyr race in Dragonflight can use the Soar ability to access a limited form of Dragon Riding on a five-minute cooldown in any zone. RELATED: World of Warcraft Releases Adorable Dracthyr Emojis for Dragonflight World of Warcraft made this decision mostly due to balance concerns outside the Dragon Isles....

Eternity’s End will take players to the First Ones realm of Zerith Mortis, where they must confront the Jailer and put an end to his cosmic schemes. The 9.2 patch for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands goes live on February 22nd. RELATED: World of Warcraft Game Director Says the Faction War is Over Beyond a new zone and a plethora of new content to focus on, Eternity’s End heralds the return of class-specific Tier Sets, unlockable through the Sepulcher of the First Ones raid....

The latest big World of Warcraft hotfixes patch brings a list of changes that impact classes, dungeons and raids, and the Suramar zone. One of these changes is the removal of the reputation gate for selected quests, which should make leveling through the zone much more enjoyable. Suramar still won’t be a cakewalk for players without stealth or mobility, but at least they won’t have to grind the dailies over and over just to unlock the next piece of the story....

But if returning to the game’s roots with World of Warcraft Classic has proven anything, it’s that the game has evolved considerably over its 17-year history. Each of WoW’s eight expansions have made significant changes, altering players’ expectations along the way. RELATED: World Of Warcraft: 10 Mistakes New Players Make (& How To Avoid Them) The Burning Crusade (2007) The Burning Crusade was the very first expansion for World of Warcraft....

As more gamers are stuck at home thanks to social distancing and stay-at-home orders from states and countries, some people are finding a lot more time time to visit Azeroth and spend some with their mains or begin leveling up new alts (even moreso on retail servers, thanks to the experience bonus available). One unfortunate side effect of this traffic is that World of Warcraft: Classic servers are experiencing some unfortunate wait times....

The upcoming patch titled Eternity’s End has been confirmed as the final chapter of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, and will be adding an expansive new end-game zone as well as updates to existing features. While this is no doubt something to look forward to for fans of the franchise, players are already looking ahead to what comes after Shadowlands wraps up. According to new assets found in some leaked flies, the next World of Warcraft expansion could include some dragon-related content, giving fans a reason to be excited....

However, World of Warcraft game director Ion Hazzikostas is confident Dragonflight will meet its goals. Game Rant participated in a group interview with Hazzikostas about Dragonflight and its new alpha testing. During the interview, Hazzikostas outlined what World of Warcraft was doing differently this time around, and pulled back the curtain on the development process of the game. He also spoke on some of the biggest inspirations for Dragonflight, and some of the best ways players can prepare to explore the Dragon Isles....

Blizzard likes to experiment with all sorts of new features, but it tends not to expand upon them past their basic form. Features like Warfronts, Artifact Weapons, Class Order Halls, and Torghast are expansion selling features that Blizzard builds a majority of the content around. Each of those are a major part of their expansion’s lifespan, but they are quickly dropped by the next expansion in favor of whole new features....

The duckling battle pet can be earned when players visit the Ohn’ahran Plains–one of the new zones in Dragonflight. During the quest, players help an ancient by the name of Gracus care for a group of young ducklings. RELATED: World of Warcraft: Dragonflight Pre-Patch Event Bugging Out at the Last Minute [UPDATE] Gracus can be found in the Shady Sanctuary of the Green Dragonflight in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. The first quest, Some Call Me Bug Catcher, has players collect beetles to help Gracus feed the ducklings....

Dragonflight Legacies is the next installment of World of Warcraft’s animated shorts it has released as companions to its various expansions since Mists of Pandaria. The series revolves around Nozdormu, Aspect of the Bronze Dragonflight, sharing the history of dragonkind with Dracthyr Scalecommander Emberthal. RELATED: Guild Wars 2 Ad Pokes Fun at World of Warcraft: Dragonflight In the final chapter, Nozdormu leads Emberthal into the depths of her own memory so he can view a moment in time beyond his knowledge....

As if most World of Warcraft players didn’t have enough to do leading up to the Cataclysm, the live event that began today introduced a number of new quests for Alliance and Horde players. The quests revolve around investigating a doomsday cult that is growing in Azeroth’s cities. This involves listening to a number of ‘Harbingers of Doom’, collection their end of times pamphlets, and eventually infiltrating the cult itself....

Getting killed by a rival player is a World of Warcraft rite of passage, and many consider it to be a key element of the game. But with the scope of the story growing beyond the planet of Azeroth and into other planes of existence, faction-based PvP is starting to feel less necessary than it once did. Players now have four otherworldly Covenants to choose from, and the tensions between them feel much more compelling than the tensions between the Alliance and the Horde....

In the beguiling opening moments of “Spider-Man 2,” we learn that Peter Parker is not just a freelance photographer now but also a delivery boy with seven and a half minutes to get a stack of pizzas 42 blocks uptown. Peter makes a go of it on his moped, encounters gridlock, then busts out that cool Spidey suit and delivers the damn things swinging by one hand. He’s late anyway....

At the start line on December 15, 2013 will be the fastest man and woman of 2013, four men and women out of the top 10 of 2013 rankings and 7 men out of the top 15. Among the men will also be the 2012 World half marathon champion and the women’s bronze medalist, besides the defending men’s and women’s champions and the 2nd placed man and woman from 2012....

Miura played 54 minutes for Yokohama FC in their home win against FC Gifu on Saturday afternoon. In a role that relies more on finishing ability rather than speed or physical endurance, King Kazu was the lone striker in front of 2 attacking midfielders. Although not finding the net himself, the Kanagawa prefecture based team would go on to win 2-0. The 52-year-old shows no signs of hanging up his boots soon and asserted his intentions to challenge for a first team place earlier in a pre-season press conference....

Blizzard has gone on record many times in the past few years explaining that WoW is still plenty profitable and there is no need to reevaluate the subscription model. One part of the game that the company is less thrilled with is the third-party gold market. Since the game’s launch, gold farmers have been turning a real-world profit by selling in-game currency in exchange for real world dollars (on whatever your country’s currency of choice is)....