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Watch Blizzard's fake unveiling of three new games from BlizzCon
Blizzard surprised attendees of its BlizzCon 2010 closing ceremonies with the (totally fake) announcement of a trio of new projects -- which, considering the fullness of the developer's dance card, was a pretty solid hint that all present parties were about to be viciously punk'd. If that didn't do the trick, the identities of the games certainly did: Teasing that the reveal of the company's unannounced MMO was just moments away, Blizzard's Paul Sams pulled back the curtain on World of Jersey Shorecraft, Gleeablo and Booty Baywatch. These announcements were followed by waves of laughter from the patient crowd, which were followed by waves of "great joke but what's that new game," which were then followed by waves of "no, seriously guys, we're not playing around, what's the MMO called," which were followed by waves of sadness. Then Tenacious D played! It was an emotional evening, and you can relive it by watching the video posted after the jump.
BlizzCon 2010: Update on man injured during dance contest
BlizzCon 2010 is officially over! While most enjoyed their fun and games, one player wasn't quite so lucky. We ran a report earlier this weekend about a man who had injured himself in the dance competition, falling to the stage twice and not getting up the second time around. The next day, we caught up with the dancer named Daniel, aka Darkdarius, an orc hunter from the guild <Obsessive> of Bladefist (US-H), who was thankfully on his feet and hanging out with the rest of his guild. Daniel was happy to give us a brief interview about his injury. So Daniel, what happened exactly? The footage looked pretty brutal. I was just jumping around [performing the undead male dance] and I fell. I got back up, but the second time I fell, I just heard a pop and I couldn't bend my leg at all, so they had to carry me offstage. It kind of felt a little embarassing. Did you go to the hospital immediately after? No, first I went to the first aid person at the convention center and she checked up on me. Then after that, I went to the emergency room and they checked me out, then told me that I broke a ligament in my leg. Ouch! How long are you going to be in that cast? Well, I still have to go back home to Arizona and I'm going to have to have surgery on my leg. Then I'll probably be in a brace for a couple of days. Glad to hear it's not a major break. So would you call this a BlizzCon to remember? [laughing] Yeah. I just can't wait to see all the YouTube comments! Daniel and the rest of his guild appeared to be in high spirits despite his injury and were more than willing to pose for a photo, throwing up the horns in true undead style. Thank you to Daniel and the rest of the crew from <Obsessive> for the opportunity to chat, and from all of us at WoW Insider, get well soon! BlizzCon 2010 is over! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. You'll find our liveblogs 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!
Blizzard willing to work with Bungie on MMO development
During a GDC Online panel about Halo narrative, Bungie creative director Joe Staten alluded to a hypothetical MMO from the developer when he said, "Wouldn't it be great if we could make a world that was always there for you? Wow. That would be great." In a BlizzCon interview with Edge Online, Blizzard's EVP of game design, Rob Pardo, commented on the prospect of working with the new Activision partner on such an MMO. After noting that Blizzard remains focused on its own titles, he spoke welcomely of the idea, also in purely hypothetical terms. "Activision is in the family and Bungie is doing stuff for Activision," Pardo said. "If they called us up and wanted some advice or wanted to have a conversation, absolutely, but I do that with a lot of my game developer friends throughout the industry." Asked if Blizzard would provide customer service for a Bungie MMO, he said, "I really have no idea -- that's a lot of speculation. It's possible, I guess." Pardo added that he would be thrilled to see a Bungie MMO "as a gamer." He said that before WoW, Blizzard had no MMO experience -- "so clearly if we can do it, I'm sure a company like Bungie or Valve or Nintendo, or any of those top tier developers, are more than capable of doing it." [Pictured: Microsoft's canceled "Halo MMO"]
Scattered Shots: Hunter information from BlizzCon 2010
Every Monday and Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Each week, Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. Every year, Blizzard holds the ridiculously massive BlizzCon to celebrate the hunter class in WoW, as well as provide some information about the various support classes that are in the game to enhance the hunter experience. I have returned from BlizzCon 2010 in one piece, loaded down with new hunter information and a renewed joy for the hunter class. I have to say that meeting all the people was almost more fun than all the panels and information. I got to meet Aron Eisenberg, Felicia Day and cast members from The Guild, Michele Morrow, Chris Metzen, Ghostcrawler, Oxhorn, Cranius, Legs and approximately a thousand of you guys. And everywhere I went I got to talk about hunters, discuss with you guys your opinions of patch 4.0.1 and hunter changes. My sincere thanks to all of the readers who hunted me down during the con -- meeting and chatting with you was probably the highlight of the convention. It was awesomesauce. But we're not here today to talk about how awesome you guys are. We're here to talk about what we learned at BlizzCon about hunters. So join me after the cut for a look at the class Q&A as well as some tantalizing other tidbits of hunter information gathered during the con.
BlizzCon 2010: The view from fourth grade
There sure are a lot of blood elf women at BlizzCon. Anywhere you look, it seems, you'll spot a pair of pointed ears knifing through the crowd, which inevitably widens as eager fans stop to focus their lenses on vast expanses of uncovered blood elf skin. The blood elf population, of course, isn't nearly as high as the veritable legions of black T-shirted men, nor the masses of brunettes sporting red or blue streaks. Those stylings have practically become an official entry badge for BlizzCon 2010. What you won't find at BlizzCon, though, are kids. Blizzard has set a minimum age of 5 to attend the event, but most parents opt to leave even older kids at home. It's a pretty logical decision; $150 is a pretty steep price to pay for a child who doesn't have the patience for long programs, the endurance for long lines or the interest in ancillary things like hardware booths. Most of the few kids WoW Insider has spotted at the con have been traipsing dutifully along behind their parents, noses plastered to their Nintendo DSes or cell phone games. They're not the true WoW fans of the family -- and it shows. Not young Ethan, who plays a just-under-level-cap death knight and is a fourth-grader from Torrance, California. Ethan's attending BlizzCon with his dad this year and loving every moment of it.
BlizzCon 2010: Guilds meet up around BlizzCon fun
Players didn't only trickle into BlizzCon's realm meetup area in singles and pairs. Many guilds have used the con as an opportunity to stage annual guild meetups, flying in for an epic guild-centered weekend that includes BlizzCon not as the centerpiece but the icing on the cake. <GNERDS> of Frostwolf (US-A), together since vanilla WoW's beta, used the weekend as a hub for one of its regular real-world meetups. Some 25 guildmates gathered from as far as Washington and Texas for the meetup, including Alex Mueller (aka Sparco the holy paladin), GM of <GNERDS>. Despite the fact that none of the guild's members knew each other before playing WoW together, they're all fast friends now. "We don't call each other by our character names anymore," Alex reports. (In fact, Alex proposed to his wife, also a member of the guild, during BlizzCon two years ago.)
BlizzCon 2010: Diablo 3 Q&A panel highlights
On the second day of the BlizzCon, a handful of members of the Diablo 3 development team, lead by game director Jay Wilson, sat down to answer questions from BlizzCon attendees. There were a lot of questions asked, and a few nuggets of useful and intriguing information gleaned. Let's take a look at some of the highlights.
BlizzCon 2010: Of booths and graffiti
A graffiti wall is put up for each day of BlizzCon. Markers are provided in multiple colors and attendees are encouraged to make their marks. Hey, is that a reference to <It came from the Blog>? I wonder who put that there. /whistle innocently The show floor at BlizzCon provides fun each year in the form of interactive areas, vendor booths and large, shiny objects. No sparkle ponies, though ... unfortunately. Check it out in the gallery below. Shiny. %Gallery-105863% 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!
StarCraft 2 mods preview: ParodyCraft
Blizzard announced that it will be continuing to support StarCraft 2 and its community with the release of four developer-created mod maps. All four of the maps were on display at BlizzCon 2010, and all but one are parodies of existing gameplay concepts. In creating these mods, StarCraft 2's developers said during a panel on Friday that they were aiming not only to show off what the game's editor can do, but to put really push its limits to see where they had work to do on it. I played all four of the mods, from the complex Left 2 Die to the silly-but-addictive Aiur Chef. All of them, along with their textures and assets, will be released inside the StarCraft 2 community for free, available to play by anyone who owns the game.
BlizzCon 2010: Retro Arcade
Blizzard released Lost Vikings almost two decades ago and has been making games ever since. Obviously proud of the company's history, BlizzCon has an arcade to play the older titles. The games, their years of release and their promotional posters are in the gallery below. %Gallery-105858% 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 preview: Blood, guts and loot
Playing Diablo 3 is like being a little kid again with a pile of birthday presents laid out before you. You race to get to the next monster, environment and level-up, tearing and ripping and cutting everything open in a mad dash, hellbent on one thing: the precious gold and XP inside. The previous Diablo games, both undisputed classics, were frantic click-and-loot fests with an action RPG sheen, but Diablo 3 ups the frenzy quotient further, blessing every single click with satisfaction both instant and deep. The game's matured a bit since we saw it last year -- the build at BlizzCon this weekend showed off the game's final class, the Demon Hunter (or "Huntress," in this demo), as well as a new 3-vs-3 arena mode and an updated UI system. There's still a lot of work to be done, but the development is definitely progressing, and the game's core gameplay is up and running. And it is as rewarding as video games get. %Gallery-105818%
BlizzCon 2010: Starcraft 2: Secrets of the Masters panel
Yesterday afternoon at BlizzCon, Blizzard's own Starcraft 2 masters Dustin Browder, Greg Canessa, David Kim and Matt Cooper gathered to host the Secrets of the Masters panel. Seasoned Starcraft veterans won't glean much from the information they had to offer, but that's okay -- Dustin Browder himself made it clear that this panel was just for the noobs. That being said, the panel kicked off with Greg Canessa explaining how the Battle.net leagues and ladders system really worked behind the scenes, which is information even veterans wanted laid out nice and clear. He also went on to explain a few new features coming to Battle.net aimed specifically at the most hardcore of the hardcore Starcraft 2 players.
BlizzCon 2010: Warcraft cinematics panel
CATACLYSM WARNING: There are spoilers here. The BlizzCon 2010 Warcraft cinematic panel took place Sunday morning and featured the answers to some of the most common questions about Cataclysm cinematics. Of course, you might have seen the big news about the amazing worgen cinematic. This video is intended to take place in the in-character timeline right as you learn your character's fate in Gilneas. It provides you vital information about how your character was captured after joining the furry crowd and how it came to be in stocks in the middle of the town square. The cinematic is fantastic. It's leagues different from the goblin cinematic. The goblin story is fast-paced and action-packed. The worgen story, by comparison, is moody and dark. It highlights the humanity of the worgen and sets the genre away from simple, raw adventure into something deeper and meaningful.
BlizzCon 2010: The official BlizzCon store
The official BlizzCon 2010 store is where you went in Anaheim to get some epic loot. T-shirts, pennants and even water bottles could all be had by BlizzCon attendees. Most of the items ran out by Sunday afternoon, which meant that you had to risk the hours-long lines. But check this stuff out. It was totally worth it. %Gallery-105859% 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: Diablo 3 panel covers Artisans, armor models and atmosphere
The Diablo 3 crafting sanctuary panel, much as the name suggests, did introduce a look at the new Diablo 3 item crafting system. However, it also covered quite a few interesting inside looks at the philosophy and process of the upcoming Blizzard game. As game director Jay Wilson puts it, Sanctuary is a world at war. It's been 20 years since the events of Diablo 2, in which the 3 prime evils were vanquished, and hell has been preparing for revenge ever since. The development team has been working on building that world under siege, and this panel was meant to reveal a little bit about how they've been going about doing that.
BlizzCon 2010: Day 2 round-up
Day 2 at BlizzCon 2010 saw the two most traditionally popular panels (the class Q&A and the general Q&A) go live, but there was plenty at the convention to keep you busy even if you were among the two or three people there not interested in developer panels. Liveblogs We liveblogged the World of Warcraft class Q&A and the World of Warcraft open Q&A panels and transcribed two previously unannounced DirecTV interviews with Greg Street (Ghostcrawler) and Tom Chilton. If you're looking for player complaints, developer snark or news on future game changes, you'll find 'em here. People, interviews and events Matticus caught up with Andy Salisbury for a preview the WoW magazine's third issue, and Anne Stickney interviewed both Richard Knaak and Christie Golden. Robin Torres put together a gallery of the items Blizzard auctioned off to benefit Child's Play, one of them a painting of characters in the upcoming DC Horde comic series. We also took lots of pictures of this year's art gallery. On a non-Blizzard note, someone took a nasty spill during Friday's dance contest. Friday recaps Lisa Poisso observed some happy realm meetups, we recapped an impressive costume contest, and Matticus wrote about the live raid and Paragon's ill-fated defense of Orgrimmar. Future content The Emerald Dream (or should we say Emerald Nightmare?) was confirmed as a future addition during the general Q&A. We don't know if it's going to be an expansion, a patch, a raid or something else, but developers promise that seeing it "is a matter of when, not if." New worgen cinematic The cinematic panel was a lovely peek at how the Blizzard team created the recently released Cataclysm cinematic, but it was also notable for the debut of long-missing cutscene that will power the Gilnean leveling experience forward. Revenge of the login dragon Angry about being voted out in favor of players' favorite candidate for warchief, Abesik Kampfire, the "login dragon" makes an ear-shattering return for the Cataclysm login screen. Closing ceremonies The Warcraft III and StarCraft II tournament winners were crowned (the WoW tournament was still in progress), and Paul Sams, Blizzard's chief operating officer, even started to talk a little about the company's new MMO ... or so we thought. %Gallery-105863% %Gallery-105843% %Gallery-105842% %Gallery-105858% 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!
Breakfast Topic: What was your favorite moment at BlizzCon?
This year's BlizzCon was a little more sedate than last year's, but there was still a fair amount going on. We found out a little about patch 4.1, saw the cutscene that's been missing from the worgen starting area and the new Cataclysm login screen, and are perhaps still a little farshikkert from the reader meetup. As with any BlizzCon, there were some intriguing, thought-provoking and funny moments, and we're interested in hearing your favorites. For me, it's a toss-up between the following, both of them from the general World of Warcraft question-and-answer session yesterday: Ghostcrawler's quip about the new alchemy two-person mount in Cataclysm: "Have you heard about the new alchemy mount? It'll be hard to get but fun to see who gets it first. It's awesome ... Who doesn't want to mount their friends?" A question came up on faction balance from an Alliance player on a Horde-dominated server, and the developers felt that more needed to be done to make the Alliance "cooler," that the "mythos and psychology" among players had developed to favor the Horde for PvP prospects. As the developers' answers ended, someone in the hall screamed, "Give us Saurfang!" 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: Closing ceremonies
As BlizzCon 2010 comes to an end, Paul Sams (chief operating officer of Blizzard) started out the ceremonies. A series of intentionally bad gamer jokes followed as he got the crowd ready. He then took it to a serious note and thanked attendees both attending in person and at home. Blizzard used this opportunity to bring out the tournament winners. Warcraft 3 winner Remind (night elf) from South Korea and StarCraft 2 winner NEXGenius (protoss), also from South Korea, were presented with $25,000 for being grand prize winners. They will also be getting an eSports ring customized to their game that's the size of Superbowl rings. The WoW Arena tournament was still going on at this point (*aAa* vs compLexity.Red), so there was no winner to announce for it yet.
BlizzCon Roundup - Saturday
This year's BlizzCon is not one of startling revelations, but instead a chance for players to meet with and engage the developers, as well as celebrate Blizzard Entertainment's three long-running and much-loved franchises. But that doesn't mean there's nothing for World of Warcraft fans to learn from the various panels and interviews, so of course the team from WoW Insider is on the ground and reporting on every detail of the convention. And just like yesterday, we've distilled all the stories into a handy digest format! Focusing on Q&A panels and interviews, today's highlights include a talk with the two most prolific authors of World of Warcraft novels: Christie Golden and Richard A. Knaak. There are also transcripts from the two major Q&A panels, and some interesting tidbits from the designers -- including the long-awaited confirmation that the dance studio feature promised for Wrath of the Lich King has not been quietly forgotten. Read on past the break for a roundup of the day's coverage!
BlizzCon 2010: WoW Magazine issue 3 revealed
I managed to have a quick chat with Andy Salisbury of the World of Warcraft magazine. The big thing, though, is that issue 3 shipped Thursday the 21st. Subscribers will have many articles to look forward to in regards to Cataclysm. Some highlights right after the jump.
