LIFE-SAPPING online fantasy game World of Warcraft's eagerly-anticipated upgrade, Wrath of the Lych King is not yet in beta. Which might seem a bit odd to those of you who have been invited to participate in pre-release testing.

WoW Insider is reporting that a number of convincing-looking emails have been sent to users, and from the screenshots it looks like a lot of work has gone into creating what looks to all the world like a real Blizzard front end, but anyone daft enough to punch in their user name and password is almost certainly in for a nasty shock.

The best advice for now is, if you receive anything that looks like it's from Blizzard and it points anywhere other than blizzard.com, worldofwarcraft.com or wow-europe.com, you should bin it immediately.

So check those URLs kids, or you're likely to find your fully-kitted level 70 ORC warrior wandering around Azeroth penniless and butt naked. µ