blizzcon-2010
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BlizzCon Roundup - Friday
For those of you unaware, this weekend is playing host to BlizzCon, Blizzard Entertainment's annual fan gathering for all of their franchises. For those of you really unaware, that includes World of Warcraft. (If you aren't familiar with the game, really, there's no helping any more.) And while the Massively crew is off taking care of other important things this weekend, our sister site WoW Insider has plenty of staff on the scene covering the big stories to come out of the convention. The focus of the World of Warcraft coverage, to no one's great surprise, are the changes coming in Cataclysm. Friday has featured the panel for Dungeons and Raids as well as Quests and Lore, not to mention the unveiling of convention swag and the first round of costume photos. Click past the break for the roundup of stories, and check back tomorrow for another helping of convention news!
BlizzCon 2010: Outland and Northrend revamps eventually planned
One of the problems with changing the world in Cataclysm to bring all of the classic storylines up to date is that you suddenly go to Outland for an event that happened in the past. You also follow this up with going to Northrend and fighting back the undead which were already shown to have fallen back in the content before you ever went to Outland. Chris Metzen discussed the fact that this really doesn't mesh well and the internal Blizzard lore folks aren't really happy with it. They plan to eventually go back and make Outland and Northrend fit with the revised storyline. The problem they ran into is purely a lack of time. As an example, Wrath of the Lich King had around 1000 quests in Northrend. Cataclysm has 3500 quests without touching either Outland or Northrend. So, these changes to make the lore line up are planned, but there is absolutely no schedule as to when they will be implemented. BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
BlizzCon 2010: Quests and lore panel liveblog
Hey folks. Our people on the ground are having some major technical difficulties, so for the time being I'm taking over the liveblogging duties. This is the first time I've done it, so just bear with me if I bring the site crashing down. The Quests and Lore panel will begin momentarily. As with the Dungeons and Raids panel, we're covering this here rather than Joystiq, and you'll find the liveblog past the cut. BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
BlizzCon 2010: Patch 4.1.0 brings enhanced dungeon maps
Cory Stockton (World of Warcraft lead content designer) announced an unexpected feature that will be coming in patch 4.1.0. It has been revealed that Blizzard is adding maps for all dungeons from Burning Crusade all the way back to classic in order to match the features that the current Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm dungeons bring with them. The new information is that they're planning on taking those maps up a notch. Instead of just a stylized skull icon marking where the bosses are on the map, we'll be getting enhanced information about each boss encounter. This will include a 3D portrait of the boss, a brief bit of lore about why exactly you're fighting them and a list of what all loot drops. While all that is all well and good, this is not where the new features end. The interface will also give you a listing of what abilities each boss uses. That doesn't mean that you are given the strategy, but instead you'll be able to find out what things to look for during the encounter and react a little faster. You'll know if a debuff will be something that you must cleanse immediately or something that you'll be able to ignore for a moment while healing and then get to when you have a moment. These features will not only be for 5-man content, but will also be available in 10/25-man raids as well as heroic content. Their reasoning behind this is two-fold. First, a lot of players already tab out to check sites like Wowhead to find out loot and boss abilities. Secondly, when presented with a new dungeon a player doesn't have to have as many things explained by the dungeon guide. We'll see how this develops when 4.1.0 starts to get closer. BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
BlizzCon 2010: Classic dungeon changes in patch 4.1
The liveblog of the Dungeons and Raids panel is still underway, but Cory Stockton (lead content designer) and Scott Mercer (lead encounter designer) mentioned a number of changes for classic world dungeons in Cataclysm's first big content patch, 4.1. So far, this is what we know: They're going to keep creating wings Utgarde Keep and Utgarde Pinnacle cited as an example of a successful split. They're similar dungeons thematically, but if players had to tackle them both together they'd be pretty arduous. Mr. Mercer had an amusing phrase for the whole venture: "I did a pass through all the older dungeons, and we're doing what I call Cutting Out The Suck." Graveyards are more convenient No more nightmare 10-minute runs back from a distant graveyard to the depths of a dungeon. They're expecting a lot of new players in Cataclysm and they don't want older dungeons to be a roadblock. "We don't want dungeons to be left behind in the redo, we want them to be up-to-par with everything else." Dungeon sections with pointless trash will be trimmed. They should be "Easier for players to understand (and) easier to navigate." Dungeons that are confirmed "fixes" so far Uldaman, Maraudon, Sunken Temple, Wailing Caverns and Blackrock Depths. Uldaman overhauls The dungeon is being split into two separate wings. Ironaya will be final boss of the first portion of Uldaman; they felt that the epic feel of assembling the staff and opening her room would be a good ending. The latter portion of Uldaman will be accessed through the existing back-door entrance. Maraudon overhauls Like Uldaman, it's being split into two: The "living" section and the elemental portion with the Princess. Sunken Temple overhauls One of the floors will be cut completely, although this is a change that will ship with Cataclysm rather than with patch 4.1 Wailing Caverns overhauls "Almost every boss has its own room now." Confusing portions have been cut. Blackrock Depths overhauls Teleporters added! BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
Demons get hunted in new Diablo 3 trailer
Let's dispense with formality, shall we? You want to watch the Demon Hunter trailer for Diablo 3, and we want to help facilitate that desire. So here it is. Watch it. If you feel like it, watch it again. We won't mind. Just don't watch it with any demons in the room. It could get ... uncomfortable.
BlizzCon 2010: Patch 4.1 Firelands raid and Abyssal Maw dungeon
The Dungeons and Raids panel is now in Q&A mode, and Cory Stockton (lead content designer) gave us a lot of new information concerning what to expect when patch 4.1 goes live. I've assembled everything we know below: Firelands raid This is the elemental plane of fire and an outdoor raid located in Mount Hyjal. You'll be able to mount up and run around. The final boss will be Ragnaros, and you'll fight him in a building called Sulfuron Keep. Sulfuron Keep looks very similar to the building you'll see when you fly into Hyjal for the first time (and may in fact be the same one). The Firelands raid will provide more backstory and lore on Ragnaros' presence in Azeroth. I thought I heard that he won't be moved out of Molten Core (he'll be in both raids simultaneously) but I'm not 100 percent sure. Expect 7 bosses. The Abyssal Maw The elemental plane of water. A new 5-man in Vashj'ir thematically similar to the 5-mans shipping with Cataclysm. "Oh, and it's nothing Oculus." Players will be moving around a lot in the dungeon and they're doing their best to avoid the "Oculus effect" of quirky mechanics being unintentionally annoying. The entire dungeon will be underwater. They've overhauled underwater combat and you can fight normally if you're on the floor. Most of these mechanics are already in place in the beta Vashj'ir zone, so some players will already be familiar with it. They're planning on four or five bosses. BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
Diablo 3 features PvP battle arenas
Blizzard is building specialized environments into Diablo 3 just for the beating-to-death of your friends. During its BlizzCon keynote, the publisher revealed player-vs.-player battle arenas, which will be placed throughout Sanctuary. Unlike a lot of the content in Diablo 3, this won't be randomly distributed: "they're all unique, designed with differing amounts of terrain and cover." Ranked battles will take place between two teams, with points awarded that translate to achievements and other bonuses. Other matchups, like one-on-one and self-assigned team combat, will take place out of the official ranking system. Oh, no, we just realized that Diablo 3 is a sport now.%Gallery-105825%
BlizzCon 2010: Dungeons and Raids Live Blog
The BlizzCon 2010 Dungeons and Raids Live Blog will begin soon! The pannel will begin at the following times, more or less: Eastern: 4:30 p.m. Central: 3:30 p.m. Pacific: 1:30 p.m. This live blog is happening right here on WoW Insider, not on Joystiq. The live blog right after the break.
BlizzCon 2010: Costumes and crowds
WoW Insider has been working the lines this morning and was able to chat with Hogger, Jaina Proudmoore and so many of our favorite WoW characters at BlizzCon 2010. We'll be updating the gallery as we get more pictures. The first few are just from the line before the opening ceremonies. More crazy great costumes and the people behind them as the event continues! %Gallery-105820% BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm available for download at midnight, Dec. 7
When the world is being torn asunder, isn't it best to remain inside? During a presentation at the ongoing BlizzCon 2010 in Anaheim, California, Blizzard president Mike Morhaime confirmed that the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm, would be offered in downloadable format right on time and on launch day. When the game's December 7 release date was first announced, it wasn't clear if the digitally distributed version would lag behind retail copies. It doesn't get clearer than this: You'll be able to purchase and download World of Warcraft: Cataclysm from Blizzard's site (which will accomodate pre-orders soon) at midnight, Pacific Standard Time, on December 7th. That means you can safely start questing, never having left the comforting confines of your home and risked contact with those crude human beings.
New StarCraft 2 scenarios reference L4D, DoTA, Bejeweled
We thought StarCraft 2 was a little confusing before, but imagine how perplexed we were to look inside the BlizzCon program and see descriptions of upcoming maps for the game that include references to Bejeweled, Defense of the Ancients and ... Iron Chef? Here's the text from Shacknews: Aiur Chef takes you to a remote area of the planet Aiur, where aspiring zealot chefs skilled in the arts of cooking and killing compete for the title of Executor Chef. Test your wits in the puzzler StarJeweled, which challenges you to match jewels according to color to gain energy, train troops and crush your enemy's base. You'll also be able to team up with a friend to fend off a new strain of zerg infestation in Left 2 Die (a new co-op take on the StarCraft II campaign mission "Outbreak"), as well as wage war with the most powerful heroes in the universe in Blizzard All-Stars, an explosive new multiplayer scenario. First Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright team up, and now this? Apologies to Powerman 5000, but this is what it is indeed like when worlds collide.
BlizzCon 2010: Moonkin Hatchling mini-pet going on sale in November
There has been some data-mining in the past couple weeks which found mention of a Moonkin Hatchling in the beta game files. During the BlizzCon opening ceremonies, Mike Morhaime (Blizzard CEO) announced that this new vanity pet will be available for sale from the Blizzard store coming in November. We still don't have any idea how adorable this pet will look, but if it's anything like the other hatchling pets the cuteness will be epic. They also announced that their Pandaren Monk pet when it donated all proceeds to charity when it was first available made $1.1 million for the Make-a-Wish Foundation. We're curious if this is a sign of more charity vanity pets to come in the future as that will make a serious impact for almost any cause. BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
Diablo 3 Demon Hunter class announced [update: Now with trailer!]
Update: Find the trailer after the break. During the opening ceremony of BlizzCon, Blizzard's Chris metzen just announced the final Diablo 3 class: The Demon Hunter. The Demon Hunter will be joining the previously announced Barbarian, Witch Doctor, Monk and Wizard. The Demon Hunter's character page is now available on the Diablo 3 website. It appears to be a ranged class focused on doing damage from a distance. The Demon Hunter's skills include grenades, exploding bolas, throwing knives and a fiery molten arrow. We'll have a trailer up shortly. %Gallery-105818%
BlizzCon 2010: Mike Morhaime announces number of Arthas kills
Our liveblog of the opening ceremonies is continuing over at Joystiq if you want up-to-date information, but Mike Morhaime did say something really interesting concerning current Wrath of the Lich King content; Arthas has apparently been killed a grand total of 489,000 times. Otherwise, Mr. Morhaime looked like he was enjoying himself up at the podium, and the crowd (ourselves among them) enjoyed him too. Come back! We need more genius Star Wars jokes. BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
BlizzCon 2010 Opening Ceremony liveblog
BlizzCon 2010 is upon us and, as is customary, Blizzard will use its Opening Ceremony keynote to kick off the event – of course, WoW Insider already kicked things off last night at its annual meetup, but let's not stray too far from the purpose of this post. Things get underway, right here, at 11AM PT (we've posted handy alternative time zones for you below). Check back then for all the latest from Blizzard: from the impending WoW expansion, Cataclysm, to future StarCraft 2 installments, to the much-anticipated Diablo 3. Maybe something about that long-in-development unnamed MMO? Well, that would be nice, wouldn't it? 08:00AM - Hawaii 11:00AM - Pacific 12:00PM - Mountain 01:00PM - Central 02:00PM - Eastern 07:00PM - London 08:00PM - Paris 10:00PM - Moscow 03:00AM - Tokyo (October 23)
BlizzCon 2010 Opening Ceremonies liveblog at Joystiq
Ready for the thrilling beginning of BlizzCon 2010? If you're as excited as we are, you'll want up-to-the-minute coverage of the announcements, speeches, and general awesome news at the BlizzCon 2010 opening ceremonies. Check out Joystiq, our sister site, for the BlizzCon 2010 Opening Ceremeonies liveblog. If you're not sure what time the keynote takes place in your time zone, don't worry. We've got you covered. You can find the time zone best representing your location, and check out the time on the chart below. 08:00AM - Hawaii 11:00AM - Pacific 12:00PM - Mountain 01:00PM - Central 02:00PM - Eastern 07:00PM - London 08:00PM - Paris 10:00PM - Moscow 03:00AM - Tokyo (October 23) Once again, you can find the opening ceremonies liveblog by clicking here. BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
BlizzCon 2010 goody bag packs miniature world-splitter
Click to see more goodies Sure, Deathwing might pose a huge threat to the World of Warcraft, but we don't see much harm in all the little Dethlings BlizzCon 2010 attendees will receive and evetually take home. What's the worst that could happen -- they crack the plumbing? As part of this year's goody bag, con questers will receive a miniature Deathwing (pictured), an in-game Murloc pet with Deathwing mask, an account-hack preventing Blizzard authenticator and other various trinkets. The in-game murloc pet for WoW appears to have become a goody bag standard for BlizzCon, with last year's attendees receiving the little gurgler wearing a StarCraft 2 marine uniform. %Gallery-70612% For all this weekend's BlizzCon 2010 coverage, keep it locked on WoW Insider.
Breakfast Topic: BlizzCon Day 1 anticipation
BlizzCon 2010 is finally here and the schedule's pretty packed for opening day. If you lucked out on a BlizzCon ticket (and had the resources to make it out to Anaheim), you might be hard-pressed to choose which panel to attend, given that there are two stages where panels happen simultaneously. On top of that, the world's best StarCraft II and World of Warcraft arena players duke it out on separate areas, as well. After the opening ceremonies, there'll be a showcase of Diablo III gameplay concurrent with a showing of StarCraft II cinematics; these are followed by a World of Warcraft dungeons & raids panel and StarCraft II secrets of the masters; after those, there's a panel on WoW quests & lore, as well as a discussion on SC2 custom maps and editor; finally there's a live raid for WoW and a Q&A on the SC2 storyline. To close the first day, there are the costume, song, and dance contests which I'm fairly certain will be on everyone's itinerary. One easy way to go about BlizzCon would be to just follow one game, such as World of Warcraft, and attend all the relevant panels. If you're like most folks who play Blizzard games, however, you're probably a big fan of everything they churn out (you're looking at BlizzCon, after all), which means picking the best panel to attend can be a bit of a dilemma. Happy problems aside, if you didn't have to choose which stage to sit in front of -- like those of us who picked up the DirectTV stream -- what part of today seems the most exciting? Personally, I think I'd have to go for WoW quests & lore. Now that we're already at Cataclysm, I can't wait to see what they've got in store for us, story-wise. Is there anything you're really looking forward to today? Or are the cooler events (e.g., the class panel) happening tomorrow? What do you think Blizzard's got up its sleeve? BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
Live from the WoW Insider Reader Meetup!
The WoW Insider reader meetup is tonight! And we've got a live steam for you this evening, covering all the anticipation of BlizzCon 2010 and the fun of the WoW community. Tonight's live stream will be ran by Mike Sacco, Anne Stickney, and Fox van Allen. We'll be interviewing a ton of special guests, giving away more prizes than we've ever given away before (both on the live stream and in person at the Anabella), and answering viewer email and questions. This promises to be one of the best nights ever on WoW Insider! Listen and watch the live stream above or directly on our Justin.tv page. The live stream will begin promptly at 10:00 p.m. EDT / 9:00 p.m. CDT / 7:00 p.m. PST. And if you're anywhere in LA or near BlizzCon, don't forget to stop on down to our meetup at the Annabella hotel on West Katela Ave near the convention center. We're giving away over $6,000 in prizes tonight! More information on our announcement post.
