Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The Battle.net name is no more. Today Blizzard announced that it's moving away from using the Battle.net moniker when referring to its online services. "Battle.net technology will continue to serve as the central nervous system for Blizzard games -- nothing is changing in that regard," the company wrote in a forum post. "We'll just be referring to it as Blizzard tech instead." Battle.net originally debuted way back in 1996 alongside the original Diablo, and since then has been used to power iconic games like Starcraft, World of Warcraft, and more recent titles like Hearthstone and Overwatch. According to the company, as online multiplayer has become an expected part of its games -- and as Blizzard expanded to new platforms like Facebook Live -- the name was no longer needed. "When we created Battle.net, the idea of including a tailored online-gaming service together with your game was more of a novel concept, so we put a lot of focus on explaining what the service was and how it worked, including giving it a distinct name," the company explained. "Over time, though, we've seen that there's been occasional confusion and inefficiencies related to having two separate identities under which everything falls -- Blizzard and Battle.net."

Blizzard announced today that the third expansion to World of Warcraft, dubbed Cataclysm, is set for launch on December 7th. In addition to upping the level cap to 85 and including several new high level zones, the expansion will revamp the parts of Azeroth that have been around since WoW's initial launch, bringing the 1-60 leveling experience more in line with the improvements Blizzard has made in the expansions. Cataclysm will also give players two new races to play, Goblins and Worgen, who have joined the Horde and the Alliance, respectively.

ajs writes "World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King expansion was staggered into 4 phases. The fourth and final phase, patch 3.3, was released on Tuesday. This patch is significant in that it will be the first introduction of one of the most anticipated new features in the game since PvP arenas: the cross-realm random dungeon, as well as the release of new end-game dungeons for 5, 10 and 25-player groups. The patch notes have been posted, and so has a trailer. The ultimate fight against the expansion's antagonist, the Lich King a.k.a. Arthas, will be gated as each of the four wings of the final dungeon are opened in turn — a process that may take several months. The next major patch after 3.3 (presumably 4.0) will be the release of Cataclysm, the next expansion."

ajs writes "World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King expansion was staggered into 4 phases. The fourth and final phase, patch 3.3, was released on Tuesday. This patch is significant in that it will be the first introduction of one of the most anticipated new features in the game since PvP arenas: the cross-realm random dungeon, as well as the release of new end-game dungeons for 5, 10 and 25-player groups. The patch notes have been posted, and so has a trailer. The ultimate fight against the expansion's antagonist, the Lich King a.k.a. Arthas, will be gated as each of the four wings of the final dungeon are opened in turn — a process that may take several months. The next major patch after 3.3 (presumably 4.0) will be the release of Cataclysm, the next expansion."

On Tuesday Blizzard rolled out the first major content patch for World of Warcraft since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King last November. The 3.1 patch includes the long-awaited dual-specialization feature, which allows players to quickly and easily switch from one set of talent choices to another. Action bars and glyph choices change as well. The patch also includes a new end-game raid dungeon, Ulduar, which expands upon the variable difficulty modes Blizzard has recently experimented with. The instance contains 14 bosses, 10 of which have an optional "hard mode" that players can attempt for better rewards. In addition, the patch contains a host of class balance changes, bug fixes, and UI improvements. You can see the full patch notes at Blizzard's website, and a brief trailer is also available.

On Tuesday Blizzard rolled out the first major content patch for World of Warcraft since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King last November. The 3.1 patch includes the long-awaited dual-specialization feature, which allows players to quickly and easily switch from one set of talent choices to another. Action bars and glyph choices change as well. The patch also includes a new end-game raid dungeon, Ulduar, which expands upon the variable difficulty modes Blizzard has recently experimented with. The instance contains 14 bosses, 10 of which have an optional "hard mode" that players can attempt for better rewards. In addition, the patch contains a host of class balance changes, bug fixes, and UI improvements. You can see the full patch notes at Blizzard's website, and a brief trailer is also available.

On Tuesday Blizzard rolled out the first major content patch for World of Warcraft since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King last November. The 3.1 patch includes the long-awaited dual-specialization feature, which allows players to quickly and easily switch from one set of talent choices to another. Action bars and glyph choices change as well. The patch also includes a new end-game raid dungeon, Ulduar, which expands upon the variable difficulty modes Blizzard has recently experimented with. The instance contains 14 bosses, 10 of which have an optional "hard mode" that players can attempt for better rewards. In addition, the patch contains a host of class balance changes, bug fixes, and UI improvements. You can see the full patch notes at Blizzard's website, and a brief trailer is also available.

It's been a busy day for the folks at Blizzard, who have released major announcements for several different games. The next Diablo III class has arrived: the Archivist. Despite their frail appearance and hunched, labored movement, they are quite deft at launching Quest Bolts at nearby foes, or conjuring a whirling Lore-nado of spinning books. Loud monsters can be silenced with a devastating Shush attack. Blizzard also put Starcraft II's latest unit on display, the Terra-Tron, which is a giant, robot uber-weapon assembled from the buildings in your base. Finally, for World of Warcraft they announced two features that have been requested by players for years: a battle of dances, where you can show off your avatar's hippest moves, and the ability to 'p1mp' your mounts. (Not sure exactly what that means, since I don't speak elvish, but there's a Nightsaber with a cannon — holy crap!)

bugnuts writes "Blizzard has announced a policy change regarding add-ons for the popular game World of Warcraft which asserts requirements on UI programmers, such as disallowing charging for the program, obfuscation, or soliciting donations. Add-ons are voluntarily-installed UI programs that add functionality to the game, programmed in Lua, which can do various tasks that hook into the WoW engine. The new policy has some obvious requirements, such as not loading the servers or spamming users, and it looks like an attempt to make things more accessible and free for the end user. But unlike FOSS, it adds other requirements that assert control over these independently coded programs, such as distribution and fees. Blizzard can already control the ultimate functionality of add-ons by changing the hooks into the WoW engine. They have exercised this ability in the past, e.g. to disable add-ons that automate movement and facilitate 'one-button' combat. Should they be able to make demands on independent programmers' copyrighted works, such as forbidding download fees or advertising, when those programmers are not under contract to code for Blizzard? Is this like Microsoft asserting control over what programmers may code for Windows?"

The much-anticipated second expansion to World of Warcraft, entitled Wrath of the Lich King, launched on Thursday, introducing a new continent, raising the level cap to 80, and bringing a wealth of new items, spells, dungeons, and monsters to the popular MMO. Crowds gathered and lines formed outside stores around the world leading up to the release. Massively has put together a series of articles for players wishing to familiarize themselves with the expansion, and CVG has a piece discussing the basics as well. It didn't take long for the first person to reach level 80; a French player called "Nymh" reached the level cap on his Warlock only 27 hours after the expansion went live. Not to be outdone, a guild named "TwentyFifthNovember" managed to get at least 25 raiders to 80 and then cleared all of the current expansion raid content less than three days after the launch. Fortunately for them, the next three content patches are each expected to contain new, more difficult raids.

This year's Blizzcon saw 15,000 gamers descend from 27 different countries to take part in two days of discussions, tournaments, and sneak peaks at upcoming releases. Several big announcements were scattered among a raft of new details about Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 and Wrath of the Lich King. The new information went a long way toward drumming up interest for what already appear to be worthy successors to old favorites. Read on for more.

As the convention prepared to get underway Friday morning, people showed up early to get a decent spot in line. When we arrived at about 9:30, we walked for a good 15 minutes to track down the actual end of the line. When we reached the spot where we thought it would be, we instead found a large parking lot filled with a sea of people. The line snaked back and forth across the lot, and it grew ever larger as we watched. Periodic cries of "For the Horde!" were heard, with a resulting roar from the crowd. Inflatable World of Warcraft themed beach balls from the Blizzcon Goody Bag were sent flying around to relieve boredom (at which point we found that WoW players aren't so good at keeping beach balls in the air). Some convention-goers walked around in elaborate costumes, pausing frequently to pose for pictures. Once everyone got inside and seated for the opening ceremony, Blizzard President Mike Morhaime came to the stage and welcomed us to the convention. It wasn't long before he got to the day's first big news — the unveiling of Diablo 3's third class, the Wizard. We were shown a cinematic for the new class, as well as one for the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. They were particularly impressive on huge screens with the volume high enough to shake the walls. Shortly thereafter, we were turned loose to partake of all the presentations and entertainment Blizzcon had to offer.

Diablo 3:

In designing the Wizard, the Diablo 3 developers made a conscious decision to focus on what they call "high magic." They said the Wizard was designed with a brash and ambitious personality in mind; she would not choose the safe, easy, or common way to do things. So, when they were looking at possibilities for the first spell a player would use, the designers chose to avoid something like a fireball or frostbolt. Rather than having an elemental attack, they wanted a more "pure" magic attack. As a result, they chose Magic Missile. They explained that Magic Missile was easy to customize and modify; it would make more sense for things like homing missiles, or launching more than one at a time. Another important spell in that regard was Arcane Orb. Functionally, it appeared somewhat similar to Diablo 2's Frozen Orb, but despite being further down the "Arcane" talent tree than Magic Missile, it defined the look and the type of damage for that tree. The Arcane tree has several interesting spells, including Slow Time, which drops a giant permeable orb on the ground which, as the name suggests, slows time within it. Projectiles and enemies inside the orb become very easy to dodge and avoid. The developers said it was originally Stop Time, but that created difficulties for multiplayer balance. Disintegrate is another great new spell within the tree, dubbed a "face melter" by the designers. It launches a continuous beam of energy that you can sweep around the room at your leisure. The longer it hits an enemy, the more damage it does per second, and it has quite a range. Some familiar spells will be returning from Diablo 2, such as Charged Bolt and Teleport. The Blizzard spell will be back as well, which the developers say they paid particular attention to, given that it shares a name with their company. It will be part of the "Storm" skill tree, along with Frost Nova and Electrocute (the new Chain Lightning). The theme for that tree is control of the weather, which was chosen because it "feels epic." The last tree is "Conjure," and its focus is the creation of tools. Hydra is returning as a Conjure skill, and you can make weapons with which to smite your enemies. Shacknews has a look at each of the actual trees and the skills within.

The skill system for Diablo 3 went through a lengthy design process, and the developers admit that it's not quite finished. Most importantly, they will be implementing the ability to respec, the lack of which was one of Diablo 2's biggest weaknesses. They wanted players to not worry about misplacing points. In Diablo 2, it was common to hold onto skill points as a character leveled up, thus decreasing the actual reward for leveling. They wanted to encourage players to get the rewards and immediately enjoy them. Blizzard went on to show us about a half-dozen experimental implementations of the skill system, and how they weighed the pros and cons of the methods used in the previous Diablo games and World of Warcraft. They tried out a radial skill tree, skill "wheels," skill cards (dropped by monsters, which you could combine in different ways to acquire particular abilities), and even a humorous "horadric cube" three-dimensional skill tree. As they tested all of those, they found their design philosophy of "different but worse isn't better; better is better" coming into play, and went back to what worked. The system they currently use is an evolution of Diablo 2's skill trees. There are a few major differences. First, in order to move down to a more powerful tier, you need to spend a certain number of points in the previous tiers. To get Hydra, a 4th-tier Conjure talent, you need to spend at least 15 points in the Conjure tree. Second, the developers decided that not all skills needed huge point investments. They didn't want players dumping 20 points in one skill, moving to another, and doing the same. As as result, activated abilities now tend to take just one point to acquire. Passive skills, such as a percentage-based damage increase, have room for many points, and will be the primary method of advancing to further tiers. The goal was for players to have six activated abilities in common use; they felt that Diablo 2 forced players to focus on just two or three, to the detriment of the gameplay experience.

The Rune system also received a complete redesign. Instead of socketing runes into gear, you'll use them to modify your skills. Each skill can be affected by one rune at a time (which seems to preclude the possibility of runewords), and each rune affects a skill differently. The goal for this was to diversify gameplay even further. Two players with the same class and spec can still use abilities that look and behave quite differently depending on their rune selection. The runes are replaceable, and they will have tiers of power, and corresponding drop rates. The developers say it will change your gameplay as you level, and encourage you to experiment with different runes. They also showed us several examples of how the runes work. First was Teleport. It's primarily a defensive spell; you use it to get away from enemies quickly. However, if you put a Striking rune on Teleport, it will deal damage where you land, effectively making it an offensive spell. Another rune caused what they likened to a "transporter malfunction," spraying destructive energy around the Wizard. Another example was Skull of Flame, a Witchdoctor ability. Normally, the spell is sort of like tossing a grenade; it hits an enemy and explodes, and that's the (very entertaining) end of it. With the Multistrike rune, it will hit enemies, explode, and bounce to the next enemy. With a Power rune, it will leave a small pool of fire where it explodes. The last example was Electrocute. A Multistrike rune will increase the number of jumps, and a Lethality rune will cause targets to explode when they are hit. All in all, it looks extremely fun, and quite cool.

Another thing the developers wanted to do in Diablo 3 was to make everything more "visceral," to give it an exciting visual impact that would keep the player interested in watching everything that goes on. The Wizard was designed as a "light show," with lightning, huge glowing tornadoes, and destructive beams of energy. Witchdoctors use more indirect magic. Instead of spraying fire, they'll summon a horde of bats, set them on fire, and funnel them at an enemy. Similarly, instead of creating a Wall of Fire, the developers took it another step toward crazy and gave Witchdoctors Zombie Wall, which is exactly what it sounds like. In order to keep Barbarians interesting, they'll be able to call on the power of The Ancients for certain special attacks. Another area of particular focus was death animations. Since players will be wading through a sea of monsters, Blizzard wanted to keep the monster deaths from becoming stale or part of the background. So, Diablo 3 will feature a variety of death scenes for each monster. Some deaths will be dependent on damage; the more you do, the messier things get. You'll also see what are called "critical deaths" that tend to feature explosions. Certain skills will have their own death animations; acid will melt an enemy, and Disintegrate will do just that. Rare and special monsters will have interesting animations with extra detail. There is also the possibility for unique player deaths from bosses.

A variety of other features were discussed, such as the inventory system. Gone is the grid system of Diablo 2. Weapons and armor now seem to take up a uniform amount of space, and the amount of total space was increased. What's more, there are now bag slots, and bags which drop off monsters. Playing through the demo level, I quickly acquired three bags which gave me an extra slot apiece. Larger bags will drop in later levels. Also, items have a color-coded background, so it's easy to see which are junk, which are rare, set pieces, etc. A question mark is visible over items that have yet to be identified. The belt system has been replaced by an action bar similar but much smaller than the one in World of Warcraft. It has room for several skills and potions. Potions themselves are much less common; instead, many monsters drop health orbs that will refill your red orb between fights. The developers wanted potions to be used in emergencies, not for nigh-invincibility throughout the game. They say the change opens up more avenues for challenging the player without simply dumping a ton of damage on him. They felt that escape was too easy in Diablo 2. You needn't worry that this change will result in annoyingly long corpse runs, however. The new checkpoint system goes a long way toward making recovery easier. As you go through dungeons and the outside world, you'll frequently come across checkpoints that mark your progress. When you die, you'll respawn at the nearest checkpoint. This keeps the corpse run short and solves the problem of having a hundred monsters waiting for you after you fled up a flight of stairs. Another player-friendly change will be the "toning down" of elemental resistances and immunities. They won't be gone, but they won't be the same brick wall they often were for some classes in Diablo 2.

The difficulty system and the Act system will be very similar to those of Diablo 2. Maps will still be randomly generated with non-random elements. Blizzard was keen to point out the inclusion of scripted events in Diablo 3. The events will range from mini-cutscenes to actual events in which the player can participate, and they're included in levels randomly, so different play-throughs can give you different experiences. In the demo, one event was simply witnessing two NPCs come together and discuss some of the back story of the first quest. Others may involve escort quests and town invasions. And, if players want to ignore these events, they're welcome to. The goal was for the events to help bring the Diablo 3 world to life. Another way they're trying to do so is including more destructible elements of the environment. There are spots where you can knock down walls, chandeliers, and other objects. The best part is that knocking down a wall onto an enemy will deal significant damage. It's a fun progression from smashing barrels. Another addition is the inclusion of kill streaks and experience bonuses. Every so often while smashing through a group of monsters, you'll see text in the bottom right corner of your screen saying "23 Kills! New Record! 300 Bonus Exp!" It'll be interesting to see what else they do with it.

After looking at the game, playing it, and discussing it for two days, we're looking forward to it more than ever. It appears to be as much of an improvement over Diablo2 as Diablo 2 was over Diablo. They're also going out of their way to make multiplayer more appealing. While Diablo 3 won't support offline LAN parties (which, they say, was decision based on keeping the game secure), it will encourage more cooperative play over Battle.net. As we discussed earlier, players in the same game will see different drops, leading to less loot drama and more sharing. They've mentioned the possibility of doing something to monetize Battle.net, but made very clear that they aren't ready to discuss pricing internally, much less publicly. And, they've said that they don't want Diablo 3 to be subscription based. As Rob Pardo stated, it would most likely involve extra services, as has been done for World of Warcraft. The concerns about the art direction were effectively laid to rest in my mind. The game looks great, and it stays true to previous themes.

Starcraft 2:

By now you've probably heard the biggest news about Starcraft 2 at Blizzcon: The game will be divided into a trilogy. When plotting out their ideas for the game, the developers found they had three stories to tell. As they fleshed the stories out, they realized that there was more content than they could reasonably fit in one game. They faced three options; delay the game significantly, cut vast portions of the story, or expand one game into three. Given their commitment to quality over all else, they chose the third option. The games will be divided by campaign: Terran: Wings of Liberty, Zerg: Heart of the Swarm, and Protoss: Legacy of the Void.

Part of the reason for the trilogy was that they wanted to build branching campaigns with multiple paths to an ending. Completing a mission at one planet may open up missions at several other planets. You'll be able to play the same campaign in different ways, but the designers were clear that you'd end in the same place. Each part of the trilogy will have definite ending; there won't be cliffhangers. They also wanted to develop deep story arcs with lots of dialogue and cinematics. Each game will have specially designed environments, maps, and mission hubs. With the increased number of missions, they put a great deal of effort into making them unique and interesting. Most of the missions will have their own "gimmick," and you'll see special units in the campaigns that you won't see in multiplayer. Speaking of which, the multiplayer will be fully developed and balanced for all three races from the start. Blizzard will be doing everything they can to foster competitive and cooperative gaming in Starcraft 2, assisted by the revamped Battle.net.

The Terran campaign will focus on Jim Raynor, a freedom fighter who has seen better times. Starcraft 2 takes places four years after the events of the original game, and it starts on Mar Sara, the same planet that kicked off Starcraft. We were shown a cinematic in which Raynor is approached by Tychus Findlay, the guy who suits up in the cinematic released last year when Starcraft 2 was announced. Findlay and Raynor have a history of fighting together, and Findlay has a business proposition for Raynor. The two characters interact inside a bar, which Blizzard has designed as an interactive environment for between missions. You're able to click on the characters for small cinematics which explain their back story. A jukebox in the corner will play different songs you choose. A television plays news reports, providing further information about missions. A bulletin board has Wanted posters and can contain optional missions players can take. Other environments like these also exist, and they're filled with nice little touches. When the characters end up on a ship later in the game, you can see they've taken the jukebox and nailed it to the ceiling, indispensable piece of hardware that it is. You're also able to look out the main viewscreen at whatever may be there.

The other big Starcraft 2 news was that Kerrigan would be returning as the focus on the Zerg campaign. A cinematic in which she is dimly seen through the fire and smoke of a Zerg invasion of Mar Sara drew a huge round of applause from the crowd. The first Terran mission has Raynor and Findlay holding out against the invasion long enough for Raynor's ship to come rescue him. As it turns out, he's doing better than it seemed. The Protoss campaign will involve Zeratul; another cinematic showed him fighting off hydralisks and briefly encountering Kerrigan. The developers said their intentions were to make the story deep and immersive, much more so than even Warcraft 3.

Running missions will earn you credits, which you can then use to upgrade your technology. You'll be able to customize your fighting force to suit whichever playstyle you like. For example, you can upgrade your bunkers to hold more marines if you like playing defensively. There will be a star map for mission selection; planets will glow when a missions is available there. Some will be from distress calls, and you can choose whether or not to answer them. There will even be some Easter egg missions. My time with the Starcraft 2 demo was brief, but the multiplayer map felt very complete, and very much like a new and improved version of Starcraft.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

There was a great deal of discussion about Wrath of the Lich King at Blizzcon, though little of it was new, thanks to the extensive coverage of the beta. A few interesting tidbits were announced, though, such as the fact that the expansion is largely done, and is already being sent to DVD production. At one of the Q&A sessions, Jeffrey Kaplan revealed that mounts would be able to swim after the first content patch. Also included in that patch will be a raid dungeon that hasn't been revealed yet. They also confirmed that the 3.02 patch to prepare for the expansion would be going live today. Patch notes are available at the World of Warcraft site. The last big bit of news was that a dual-spec system was coming at some point after the expansion goes live. Players will be able to swap between two specs in order to facilitate their participation in both PvE and PvP. Glyphs and action bars will most likely be tied to this swap system, so players don't need to spend time and money flipping between specs. A built-in gear swapping interface may also come about. Beyond that, they gave some in-depth previews of various dungeons and arenas, and explained their goals and reasoning for class and gameplay changes.

The PvP panel broke news that the new battleground, Strand of the Ancients, would increase the number of players per side to 15 (from 10), and feature more vehicles than previous iterations. It's a unique battleground in that each side is assigned either defense or offense at the beginning, and plays that side until the game ends. Attackers try to knock down the destructible walls of the fort to get inside. The developers also demonstrated the two new arenas. The Ring of Valor brings new gameplay elements to the arena; moving platforms that periodically interrupt line-of-sight, and fire that will deal damage to anyone who touches it. Teams also start off very close to each other, which facilitates faster battles and quick thinking. The Dalaran Sewer arena contains water spouts that will knock back anyone who touches them. They also spent time talking about Wintergrasp, the open PvP zone that has battles between Alliance and Horde every 2.5 hours, with the battles lasting 30-40 minutes. To prevent the most populous side from having an unfair advantage, a buff will be given to the faction with fewer players. Blizzard wants to diversify the options for PvP and take the focus off arenas. They also want to develop more and more PvP content and create some sort of mechanism for players to gain experience in battlegrounds.

The UI Panel had some interesting information as well. The very simple threat monitoring system is final as it stands in the beta. The developers don't want it to become too complicated for the average player, and mods already exist to monitor threat in greater detail. They've also made changes to threat generation by tanks in order to shift the focus from whether or not players should attack to how they should attack. Backpack size won't be changing, but mounts and certain currencies have been moved from the inventory to their own UI element. A focus frame will be added to the default UI.

The Raids and Dungeons panel took us through several Wrath of the Lich King instances. First was Halls of Lightning, a 5-man dungeon themed on the Titans. It exists within a vast space, though only a fraction of that space is explorable by players. Blizzard wanted to give the dungeons an epic feel. Similarly, they provide views of the outside in order to make the instance seem integrated with the rest of the game world. The instance contains unique art, including statues made of constellations and boss models that the developers had to restrain themselves from re-using elsewhere. The last boss has cinematics before and after the fight. They moved on to Ahn'Kahet, an underground city that's influenced by the Old Gods. They said the city was intended to be what Naxxramas was based on in the game's lore, and the artistic style reflects that. It's another huge, epic space, and the end boss is a Faceless One. He makes use of newly developed phasing technology that allows players to fight clones of their own groupmates. When those are defeated, the player is shunted into another player's phase to help with that player's clones.

The developers emphasized how pleased they were with the decision to include 10-man and 25-man versions of each raid instance. They showed us an introductory-level raid called Chamber of the Aspects, which they said was much better tuned than The Burning Crusade's introductory raids, Gruul's Lair and Magtheridon's Lair. Chamber of the Aspects contains a main boss, Sartharion, and three drake sub-bosses. The sub-bosses are easy fights on their own, and don't drop much in terms of loot. As an alternative to killing them, however, you can leave them alive when you fight Sartharion, and they will join in to fight against you. You can effectively choose your own difficulty by leaving zero, one, two, or all three drakes alive. The more drakes you leave alive when you kill Sartharion, the better loot drops you receive. The other raid they showed us was the Eye of Eternity, in which you fight Malygos, an aspect of magic. Since it's an iconic battle in Warcraft lore, they went all-out in designing the models, special effects, and phases of the fight. The raid will make use of vehicles, see the destructible building technology at work, and get some timely help from the Red Dragonflight. The Eye of Eternity is also the only raid that will require any sort of key or attunement. A drop from Sapphiron, the second to last boss in Naxxramas, will be required to start the Malygos fight, but only one person in the raid needs the item.

They went on to talk about itemization, and said the progression from dungeon to heroic to raid would be much smoother in Wrath of the Lich King than in previous versions of the game. Heroic dungeons will have their own unique itemization, and it will be a clear step up from regular dungeons. There will be two new versions of The Burning Crusade's Badge of Justice. Emblems of Heroism will drop from heroic dungeons and the 10-man version of Naxxramas. Emblems of Valor will drop from every other raid. The developers also told us that certain raid dungeon set pieces will be purchasable through Emblems. Gears sets will differ between the 10-man and 25-man versions of the dungeons, but they will count toward each other's set bonuses, similar to the way PvP sets work. They also mentioned that it's about time for another caster/healer legendary item, and that it would almost certainly come through a quest, rather than a random drop.

A few other interesting tidbits came out of the Raid panel; Deathwing is something they're "working on," and we will see him at some point. Raids won't be designed with the dual-spec system in mind. You may switch specs between fights, but you certainly won't be required to. There will definitely be a difficulty progression for raids, but we probably won't see anything as difficult as Sunwell. They want to keep thing challenging and fun. Bosses will drop more loot over all, and the Ashbringer story will continue.

The Class panel focused on the directions the developers wanted to go with each of the classes, the Death Knight in particular. They said they wanted to help the shortage of tanks by creating another class that could fill the role. Warriors, Paladins, and Druids also received some modifications to their tanking specs to make it more fun and less of a hassle. Another major goal was to get each talent tree for each class a specific playstyle, even if it was just another method of dealing damage. As a part of that, they revamped the buff and debuff system so give guilds more of an opportunity to bring the people they wanted rather than the people they needed to maximize their chance for success. Blizzard considered revamping the dispel system too — they aren't satisfied with the current implementation — but said they didn't want to introduce another huge set of changes at this time. In addition, they talked about their decision to unify several itemization stats in order to make it easier on some classes to switch roles, and to reduce the number of items required to support all possible specs.

Blizzard had plenty to talk about this year, and they made the most of their time in the spotlight. The demos for Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 looked excellent, and had the expected "Blizzard polish" even at this early stage of development. Blizzcon attendees were told that they would receive invites to the Starcraft 2 beta, although it hasn't reached that stage yet, and Diablo 3 is even further away. Wrath of the Lich King will be hitting store shelves in a month, though, and will undoubtedly further World of Warcraft's dominance of the MMO market. As you may recall, we asked you for interview questions for various Blizzard employees; stay tuned, their answers will be up soon.

Mini-Geek and many others tipped news that Blizzard has announced the release date for Wrath of the Lich King , World of Warcraft's second expansion. It will be in stores on November 13th in the US and Europe. They've also released details about the contents of the Collector's Edition. Wrath will be preceded by a large content patch, which will expand the talent trees and include many of the gameplay changes set for the expansion (including the consolidation of spell damage and healing into 'spellpower,' achievements, and a new profession). The patch was installed on the public test realm yesterday, and the current patch notes are available.

Mini-Geek and many others tipped news that Blizzard has announced the release date for Wrath of the Lich King , World of Warcraft's second expansion. It will be in stores on November 13th in the US and Europe. They've also released details about the contents of the Collector's Edition. Wrath will be preceded by a large content patch, which will expand the talent trees and include many of the gameplay changes set for the expansion (including the consolidation of spell damage and healing into 'spellpower,' achievements, and a new profession). The patch was installed on the public test realm yesterday, and the current patch notes are available.

Today at the Leipzig Games Convention, Blizzard released the opening cinematic for the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion to World of Warcraft. The cinematic is available on the official site via streaming video or the Blizzard downloader. There's a mirror over at 1Up. As with all Blizzard cinematics, it looks fantastic.

Blizzard has officially announced that World of Warcraft Patch 2.3 will be dropped onto live servers next Tuesday. It's a huge update to the behemoth of Massively Mutiplayer games, including elements like a new raid zone called Zul'Aman, significant class changes, new questing content in the Dustwallow Marsh zone, and an increase in leveling speeds between 20-60. The full patch notes are available on the official site. "Elsewhere Guild Banks let you keep track of and organize your stocks much more efficiently, the Auction House has been revamped so it is easier to use, and you will be able to pick up daily quests so you have something to keep you from falling asleep as you go back to the same dungeons or battlegrounds again and again. The old 40-man Alterac Valley battleground has been fiddled with, too, so it should now have extra added fun, and those of you around the mid-level mark should head to Dustwallow Marsh for new quests and speedy leveling."

An anonymous reader writes "Wrath of the Lich King is official! BlizzCon is in full swing, and celebrants there are already enjoying the Northrend-themed imagery. For a look at what's going on, Joystiq has a liveblog of the opening ceremony up. Games For Windows magazine, meanwhile, will feature WLK its next cover. The post on the 1up site has a number of details on the next expansion, including the introduction of the Death Knight, the first new class since WOW's launch 'World of WarCraft's first Hero Class is a plate-wearing tank/DPS hybrid that works a little something like this: When players hit level 80, they'll be able to embark on a quest (similar in difficulty to the Warlock's epic mount quest, back before the level cap was raised to 70) that unlocks the ability to create a Death Knight character. The Death Knight starts at a high level (somewhere around 60 or 70, though Blizzard isn't certain yet), so you won't have to grind your way back up all over again. It's intended as an alternative, advanced class for end-game use only.'."

DaphneDiane writes "Blizzard announced that they are suing one of the heavily spamming gold sellers, Peons4hire. Peons4hire had recently been spamming players in World of Warcraft with multi-line messages advertising their power leveling and gold selling business. With the advent of the recently released 2.1.0 patch Blizzard made it easier to report and block these spammers. I've noticed a large decrease in spam while playing since the patch. It used to be that I would get nearly a dozen spams a night but I barely have seen any since."

An anonymous reader writes "In the overlooked case between Blizzard and MDY Industries, the creator of the WoWGlider bot, Blizzard is arguing that using any programs in conjunction with the World of Warcraft constitutes copyright violation. Apparently accessing the copy of the game client in RAM using another program infringes upon their rights. Under that logic, users do not even have the right to use anti-virus software in the event that the game becomes infected. Furthermore, Blizzard's legal filings downplay the role of their Warden software, which actively scans users' RAM, CPU, and storage devices (and potentially sensitive data) and sends information back to Blizzard to be processed."

SlashRating^© 70 slashdottit! ^tm A blue post on the WoW forums shows that blizzard's official stance on player aversion to the Armory will be addressed by adding a new item, the Tinfoil Hat. "While the Tinfoil Hat provides the wearer with added protection against mind control and other befuddlements, the hat's most interesting and truly unique property is that it completely removes the wearer's character profile from the Armory website and provides enhanced privacy for its wearer!"

SlashRating^© 70 slashdottit! ^tm A blue post on the WoW forums shows that blizzard's official stance on player aversion to the Armory will be addressed by adding a new item, the Tinfoil Hat. "While the Tinfoil Hat provides the wearer with added protection against mind control and other befuddlements, the hat's most interesting and truly unique property is that it completely removes the wearer's character profile from the Armory website and provides enhanced privacy for its wearer!"

SlashRating^© 70 slashdottit! ^tm A blue post on the WoW forums shows that blizzard's official stance on player aversion to the Armory will be addressed by adding a new item, the Tinfoil Hat. "While the Tinfoil Hat provides the wearer with added protection against mind control and other befuddlements, the hat's most interesting and truly unique property is that it completely removes the wearer's character profile from the Armory website and provides enhanced privacy for its wearer!"

Gavin Scott writes "Blizzard has introduced a new web site called the Armory which lets you get information on any World of Warcraft character, extracted from their live databases, in near real-time. This exposes a great deal of information that was not previously obtainable including profession choices, skill levels for all skills, and the character's complete talent specification and all faction reputation data, along with all gear currently equipped. The complete roster of any guild or arena team is also available. Some players are upset about this, such as arena PvP teams who now have all their gear and talent choices exposed to the world, or players with non-standard or less-popular talent choices who fear they will have difficulty getting into pickup groups now that people can instantly find out everything about them. Are these complaints fair? Blizzard claims to own all the data and the characters, but at what point does this data represent personal choices and information about their players which would be covered by their own privacy policy? In a virtual society, should people be able to present a view of themselves that differs from (virtual) reality, or should all details be exposed?"

scdeimos writes "WoW servers are currently displaying the following Welcome message:

Breaking News
All realms will be offline for scheduled maintenance.
* Date: January 2nd 2007
* Time: 5:00am — 11:00am PST

For more information, please check our realm status page.
Thank you,
Blizzard Entertainment.

So much for Blizzard implementing Live Maintenance in WoW to bring an end to Patch Tuesdays! The WoW Realm Status forums page has nothing further to add at this time."

scdeimos writes "WoW servers are currently displaying the following Welcome message:

Breaking News
All realms will be offline for scheduled maintenance.
* Date: January 2nd 2007
* Time: 5:00am — 11:00am PST

For more information, please check our realm status page.
Thank you,
Blizzard Entertainment.

So much for Blizzard implementing Live Maintenance in WoW to bring an end to Patch Tuesdays! The WoW Realm Status forums page has nothing further to add at this time."

lmd writes "The first episode of South Park Season 10 is this Wednesday, October 4, at 10:00 PM Eastern/Pacific Time on Comedy Central. It will be called "Make Love, Not Warcraft". A sneak peek in Quicktime and DivX is available." Flash version of the blurb courtesy of Kotaku.

smartidiotaz writes "Blizzard has finally released more information about the talent trees after leaks broke out over the internet. " As typical, every class thinks every other class got a better deal, but the Pallies get to mean it ;)

realjordanna writes "Clearly the bar for what is deemed as a security threat has had to be lowered — but should it be this low? When a rather embarrassed passenger loses his iPod in the lavatory — even admits to the crew his mistake, the plane is diverted to Ottawa and a bomb squad is brought in to investigate. Read the iPod owner's story and take one lesson from this kid's plight — clearly the iPod is not flushable."

Via 1up, information from Producer Shane Dabiri on the future of the World of Warcraft service. He offers up details on the new server setups, new server sites, and the much-anticipated character transfer service. From the article: "Scheduled to go live this summer, this feature will allow players to move their characters, within certain restrictions, to a realm of their choosing. This means that player's will now be able to join their friends on other realms without the need to wait for a pre-set mass realm transfer. In addition, this will also contribute to a balancing of the player load from realm to realm, which again is a specific way for us to reduce realm queues and lag. We know that many player's are eager for this service to be implemented, so we'll share further details as soon as more information becomes available. "

The upcoming World of Warcraft expansion has a number of mysteries associated with it, and one of the most often discussed is 'what will the new Alliance race be'? Blizzard has finally unveiled their plans: The new race is the ethereal wisp. Additionally, community mod Caydiem is back on the official forums and has official details on the upcoming 1.11 patch. From those notes: "- Each player will only be allowed to pick up one flag per game in Warsong Gulch. While this decision is slightly restrictive, we do feel the value of teamwork it will teach by allowing each player more opportunity to shine outweighs any negative side-effect. - New Level 1 only Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin bracket available! - If a match-up begins and drops everyone due to lack a lack of players, Horde automatically wins."

The upcoming World of Warcraft expansion has a number of mysteries associated with it, and one of the most often discussed is 'what will the new Alliance race be'? Blizzard has finally unveiled their plans: The new race is the ethereal wisp. Additionally, community mod Caydiem is back on the official forums and has official details on the upcoming 1.11 patch. From those notes: "- Each player will only be allowed to pick up one flag per game in Warsong Gulch. While this decision is slightly restrictive, we do feel the value of teamwork it will teach by allowing each player more opportunity to shine outweighs any negative side-effect. - New Level 1 only Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin bracket available! - If a match-up begins and drops everyone due to lack a lack of players, Horde automatically wins."

vjmurphy writes "Connectivity to the massively-multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft servers and web site appears to have had some difficulties over the past week. Their hosting is provided by AT&T." That includes my raid's dying twice in MC due to 4000 latency, and also a soft reset of MC. Good work, AT&T.

Xehn writes "The much-anticipated 1.9 patch has been released and can be downloaded via the Blizzard Downloader." Among many new features the Patch includes a complete revamp of the Paladin class, and the inclusion of the first unlockable 'World Event': The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. From the patch notes: "Players will now be able to buy and sell goods with greater effectiveness using the Linked Auction House system. Auction Houses in Orgrimmar, Undercity, and Thunder Bluff will now share the same pool of Horde player-created auctions, and Alliance players will find the same to be true when visiting Ironforge, Stormwind City, and Darnassus Auction Houses. This system has been expanded to support the neutral Auction Houses as well."

Holidays are always interesting times of the year in MMOGs, as development teams gear up for live events that change the face of the typical worlds we play in. Everquest 2's Holiday is in full swing, with the Frostfell event. Aggro me has a review for the curious. Planetside is featuring Holiday headgear, and Ultima Online offers up goodie packs with trees and presents. Azeroth's Feast of the Winter Veil has snowballs, lost reindeer, and once again has players selling cookies for outrageous prices on the Auction House. Ahh...the holiday spirit. City of Heroes/City of Villains is going all out this year (possibly to make up for the lack of a Halloween event this year). Heroes and Villains both have their own version of the event, with a mysterious Gamester entering the arena for some general holiday mischief. Finally, Final Fantasy XI not only has the Traditional Starlight Celebration, thanks to the Moogles, but just had a massive patch that's (as always) causing some stir in the player community. Happy New Year to all, be you Carebears, Gankers, or Forum Trolls! Update: 12/27 20:31 GMT by Z : Some users pointed out that I neglected to mention Red Moon Rising, Eve's new expansion, and the Guild Wars Holiday event. I promise, folks, it has nothing to do with malice. Some game events just catch my eye more readily than others, so thanks for keeping things Holiday cheery!

Gamespot reports that Blizzard has banned 18,000 accounts from their popular World of Warcraft MMOG. From official site: " A majority of these accounts were found to be using third-party programs to farm gold and items. Such actions can severely impact the economy of a realm and the overall game enjoyment for all players. We will continue to actively monitor all World of Warcraft realms in order to protect the service and its players from the negative effects of cheating. Please note that selling World of Warcraft content, such as gold, items, and characters, can result in the permanent removal of the involved accounts from World of Warcraft. "

This past weekend I braved the tangled web of deceit and lies that is commercial air travel to haul myself out to Anaheim, CA for Blizzard Entertainment's first attempt at a convention, "Blizzcon". Like any con there were good times and bad times but considering they had turnout on par with other major conventions and the fact that this was their first pass at a solo con, the result was nothing less than the level of excellence that we have come to expect from Blizzard.

It is very obvious that the developers have been working overtime to bring a TON of new features to World of Warcraft and Starcraft Ghost. I was impressed by the amount of care and attention to detail with so many of the new features. It is quite obvious that the developers have been listening to the general population and life is good.

Starcraft Ghost players were in the definite minority when it came to pure obsession but it should be no less exciting to fans of Blizzard games and console games in particular. Amidst the sea of Xbox consoles that they had set up for players to use I managed to find a seat (briefly, after all, without WoW every couple of hours I get the shakes) and kill a few space marines. The main thing to be noted about Ghost is the aiming interface (or lack thereof). This seemed to be the most talked about aspect of the game after the excitement of playable zerg wore off. Yes, don't let that be too much of a side note, there are playable zerg in all of their infinite sexiness. My corrupted space marine killed more than a few of his previous brethren. The aiming interface, however, made me feel like I was playing with oven mitts on, a fact that the developers also commented on. The promise is that this particular piece of functionality is nowhere near where it will be before they release and seems to be one of the main things that they are working on. The only other complaint that I heard among a sea of praise was that the Terran faction seemed to be horribly "under balanced". At first I couldn't help but agree with this assessment. My FPS skills, especially on the console, are about as bad as Jonathan Wendell's are good. Even with my lack of skill I seemed to be able to dominate over the Terrans most of the first day of the con. However, coming back the second day this was certainly not the case. The Terran faction is a much more "cerebral" gaming experience, you have to learn how to aim, drive vehicles, protect your assets, and work together. Once you are able to master these facets however the Terrans become a horribly lethal race. Definitely keep an eye out for this title as I'm sure it will provide countless hours of entertainment through both a solid single player campaign and a running tally of turning your friends into pixelated giblets.

The World of Warcraft expansion "The Burning Crusade" made its debut this weekend and promises a new race for each faction which was actually a point of quite a bit of resentment from alliance players. The horde's new race, Bloodelves were an incredibly polished race with a promising future in the overall WoW universe while the alliance were left with empty speculation as to what their race would be. The press room seemed to be an endless stream of people trying to squeeze even the smallest piece of information out of the developers about the alliance race to no avail. Do not despair alliance, you may have met disappointment in your new race but patch 1.9 will be your salvation. The rest of the expansion also promised raising the level cap to 70, the opening of the Dark Portal revealing the continent of "Outland", flying mounts, several new instances, Jewelcrafting (the newest profession on the block), socketed items, and quite a bit more. I feel like I am back in the days before beta, waiting on the edge of my seat for any news and counting the days until release.

The upcoming patch also offered quite a bit of excitement for the future of Warcraft. Paladins, who many have considered the longest running joke in World of Warcraft appear to be getting a breath of fresh air. (CT: /dance) The announcement was made and it was as if a million angry shaman cried out in terror and then went silent. The class discussion panel actually spent about 2/3 of the alloted time talking about and answering questions regarding the paladin. The highlight of the new paladin abilities seem to be a greater separation and enhancement of the three talent trees allowing paladins to further specialize into their role as a healer, a tanker (aggro management abilities ala taunt were promised!), or a damage dealing machine. The one announcement that drew more cheers and applause than any other during the weekend was the news that Paladin's would be receiving new blessings that would last 15 minutes in duration. This news alone was enough to draw the complete adoration of every alliance player in the room but when the noise quieted down the developer on the stage was able to further clarify that these 15 minute blessings would be castable by class over the entire raid! This means that if a paladin casts this "group blessing" of might on a rogue, every rogue in the group would get that same buff for 15 minutes. After this the crowd seemed to disintegrate into a gibbering mass of disbelief and excitement seeing nothing but stars for the next few seconds or days, it was hard to tell. The only other thing that could rival this news in terms of excitement was the promise of linked auction houses in every major city. It is very clear to me that a lot of overtime and TLC has been worked into the upcoming additions to the World of Warcraft universe and I cannot wait to see what else they have in store.

Each panel seemed to be custom tailored to fit one or several of the developers consuming obsessions so the level of "exciting news" in each panel really helped to drive the convention at the same frenzied pitch the whole weekend. The "Items and Professions" panel was certainly no different. Some of the more exciting news was that both Tailoring and Alchemy will be getting specialization trees akin to the Blacksmith/Weaponsmith/Armorsmith setup. Word on the street is that Alchemy will get three choices (Elixers, Potions, and Transmutations) but still no word on what tailors will get. There was a shouted suggestion from the back of the room for "Shadoweave Tailoring" followed by a great pause from the presenter and a mumbled "duly noted" which elicited quite a laugh from the crowd. More news on the items and professions front was that epic items will now disenchant into "nexium crystals" for the new high level enchants, new caster items will have a "proc on cast" ability, spell penetration vs spell resistance will be much more pronounced, new tier two graphics (no more placeholders!), enchanters will be getting a new UI for sorting their recipes (thank god), and the new dungeons will offer upgrades to existing spells based on your items. The only other major news to come out of this panel was the unveiling of their new profession "Jewelcrafting" which will have the ability to make necklaces, rings, crowns, and mystic gems that you can place into the new socketed items. The amount of customization and variation that the new items being worked into the game offer is quite exciting and seem to promise that World of Warcraft will remain (at least in the near future) a very dynamic experience for everyone from the casual player to the seasoned power gamer.

The general con floor offered many other distractions once I was able to tear myself away from the individual shiny bits that could have held me enthralled for several days. The vendor area was relatively small compared to most cons (especially for the amount of potential consumers) but Microsoft was in attendance and bought popularity through a live DJ, comfortable couches, and a fully stocked snack bar complete with what can only be called a butler-esque attendant. Intel, Creative, and NewEgg all had booths with computers allowing you to playtest their hardware with the new expansion which was one of the best kept secrets of the con by the players who didn't want to wait in the 3 hour expansion line. NVidia had a green screen where you could get your picture taken with your friends in one of six locations around Azeroth. Western Digital had a few shiny boxes to catch your eye, a coupon to tempt your wallet, and a flashing bouncy ball that you could annoy your hotel roommates with until the wee hours of the morning. The Penny Arcade crew was there in force with enough t-shirts for an army and indeed many of the con denizens were sporting "Rogues do it from behind" or "/spit" shirts after the first few hours of the con. Unfortunately (or fortunately I suppose) for the Penny Arcade guys, Blizzcon came equipped with TWO armies and they were pretty much sold out long before the con ended.

My last panel of the weekend was the combined Penny Arcade, PVP, and GU Comics event. The guys jumped right into questions, handling the crowd with an ease born of time in the webculture limelight. The quick wit and topical humor held the audience enthralled and laughing right up until Caydiem (one of the Blizzard moderators) called for the last question. The questions that they fielded covered a wide range of aspects but most people seemed to want to know where each of the artists drew their inspiration from. After the third or fourth rephrasing of this question Mike "Gabe" Krahulik chimed in that when looking for inspiration on a comic about a dinosaur raping someone he generally looked to Charles Shultz. Krahulik's usual deadpan delivery drew a hearty laugh from the audience and pretty much laid that particular line of questioning to rest. These panelists proved once again that they continue to keep their thumb on the pulse of the gaming community and are rewarded with the respect and adoration of many.

Regardless of how you felt about the convention itself the wrap-up concert on Saturday really helped the con go out with a bang. The act started out a little slow with an in-house act called "Level 60 Elite Tauren Chieftain" (say that 10 times fast) who seemed to be an old axel rose impersonator turned death-metal band. I admit it wasn't exactly up my alley but they made a good showing as a garage band in their first ever live performance. What a way to start, too, playing as an opening act for The Offspring and getting to use some of their cool toys. The second act was comedian Christian Finnegan who seemed content to perch himself firmly on the fence between insulting the crowd and identifying with growing up as a geek. He drew quite a few laughs but proved to be a poor segue between two pretty intense acts. This was something he commented on when he mentioned that Blizzard had put a heavy metal band on the stage to whip the crowd into a frenzy and then tossed the "worlds biggest pussy" in front of them. I am glad that he put the crowd in a generally good mood because we were forced to wait almost an hour with no explanation before The Offspring were able to take the stage. Once they took the stage, however, it was pure showmanship and excitement until the end. Approaching this concert from a geek perspective there was one thing that I couldn't help but notice, the lighting was fantastic. Now, many people may laugh at this observation but in addition to a great performance by The Offspring their lighting tech looked more like an artist painting his masterpiece than some random roadie who was just along to make the band look good. He freehanded almost as much as did with cues and it was tough to decide what to watch, the main stage or the tech stage as they were equally impressive.

Blizzcon was a great experience and a hell of a "first try" for a convention. One of the real strengths of this con was the ability for the core of Blizzard (the developers and upper management) to really make themselves available to the common man. I even noticed the president and lead developers wandering the showroom floor and stopping to talk to J. Random Citizen. This meeting of the "old guard" of Blizzard also made something that has been rather intangible in the past very clear. While the core of Blizzard that has weathered so many storms together is still just as strong as ever their "public face" is really struggling to keep up. I remember the days of beta and even early launch when the in game GM's were helpful, courteous, and knowledgeable. I even sent several glowing letters of review to their superiors because it was such a welcome change from the Sony mafioso in Star Wars Galaxies that I had just come from. A prime example of how the public relations folk are really struggling was the press/vip line during con check-in. A regular con badge could be accessed and retrieved in a matter of seconds due to a neat little database check-in program written by one of their technophiles. A press/vip pass however could only be found by thumbing through each and every pass, they didn't even have a list of who was authorized. This led to the "loss" of my badge and if it hadn't been for the use of my wife's badge (general admission) I would have missed the unveiling of the expansion, waiting until noon before they could figure things out.

We all need to remember that Blizzard is still the new kid on the MMO block and in many ways is still trying to "find themselves." The public relations department is working overtime to try and catch up to the overwhelming demand that WoW has generated and they are not doing a bad job. However, the problem comes in the fact that due to their inexperience they are trying to emulate other companies that have had some measure of success on the MMO scene, this is the worst thing that they could do. Blizzard gained a large degree of success from not doing things the same old tired way that other companies had already tried. It is my hope that Blizzard came away from this con with just as much learned as their fans did. If, in true Blizzard fashion, they were able to come up with a public relations solution that is all their own and no one else's their fans would love them for it.

I imagine that next year their organization will certainly be much more adept and they will be able to shorten their lines and wait time for many of the different attractions. Given the overwhelming attendance and success of this con I foresee many different vendors trying to get on board possibly leading to a separate vendor hall entirely which I think would help to alleviate some of the lines along with bringing more money into the con. Blizzard may be playing to a very limited audience in terms of scope, but sheer numbers and overwhelming loyalty seem to be more than enough to ensure that Blizzcon will continue to be a successful con for years to come.

Halloween is a great nerd holiday, and it extends into Massively Multiplayer Game space. Everquest Live is offering up a series of events from the Kithicor Forest to the Hafling village of Rivervale. EQ2 has trick or treating in the two major cities, as well as smaller quests elsewhere. World of Warcraft players can also trick or treat with Innkeepers to honor the holiday of Hallow's End. Fashion seems to be the primary motivator in Anarchy Online's holiday event, which allows you the chance to snag Halloween themed t-shirts. Guild Wars has the winners from a Halloween art contest, as well as some theming in-game. Finally, Final Fantasy XI's always terrific seasonal events continue with The Harvest Festival. FFXI and World of Warcraft specifically allows you the opportunity to dress your character as various monsters and characters. My priest made a great pirate. Arr!

The official site for the first World of Warcraft expansion: The Burning Crusade has been launched as BlizzCon kicks off. There you'll find screens, movies, and information about the upcoming expansion to one of the most popular MMOGs on the market. The site confirms several of the rumours currently on the internet about the game, including the fact that the Horde will be gaining the Blood Elves as a playable race. The new Alliance race is still up in the air. From the FAQ: "Q: What does the title of the World of Warcraft expansion refer to? A: "The Burning Crusade" refers to the Burning Legion's ongoing efforts to destroy life on Azeroth. To date, the Burning Legion's exploits have been documented in Warcraft III and in our War of the Ancients novel trilogy. As part of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, players will now be able to travel through the Dark Portal to confront the Legion on otherworldly battlefields." ScuttleMonkey is on the ground at Blizzcon, and should have some firsthand info for us this weekend about the happenings in California. Update: 10/28 20:44 GMT by Z : IGN has a rundown on the features and screens. Good stuff.

The official site for the first World of Warcraft expansion: The Burning Crusade has been launched as BlizzCon kicks off. There you'll find screens, movies, and information about the upcoming expansion to one of the most popular MMOGs on the market. The site confirms several of the rumours currently on the internet about the game, including the fact that the Horde will be gaining the Blood Elves as a playable race. The new Alliance race is still up in the air. From the FAQ: "Q: What does the title of the World of Warcraft expansion refer to? A: "The Burning Crusade" refers to the Burning Legion's ongoing efforts to destroy life on Azeroth. To date, the Burning Legion's exploits have been documented in Warcraft III and in our War of the Ancients novel trilogy. As part of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, players will now be able to travel through the Dark Portal to confront the Legion on otherworldly battlefields." ScuttleMonkey is on the ground at Blizzcon, and should have some firsthand info for us this weekend about the happenings in California. Update: 10/28 20:44 GMT by Z : IGN has a rundown on the features and screens. Good stuff.

Trounce writes "Game Guides Online has a lengthy article exploring how farmers work in World of Warcraft, including their daily quotas, techniques, schedules, and how they hide their gold surplus from employers and possibly thieving partners. It has a section on how players can benefit from shift changes and score items at low prices (which can then be re-listed at a profit). From the article: 'Of course, farmers who stay on past the ends of their shifts, while their boss and/or partner breathe impatiently down there necks, are even more amenable to agreeing to ridiculously under-market offers; so keep looking for bargains after 6:00 as well.'"

-pms-mistletoe writes "Hot on the heels of World of Warcraft's breaking the 4 million subscriber mark, Guild Wars has also reached a big milestone with over 1 million users. The differences and similarities between the two games are marked, especially given Guild Wars' lack of traditional sharding and no monthly fee. Are these large numbers of players signals that the popularity of MMORPGs is growing? Or are the same people playing both games?"

ringbarer writes "News is coming in that the lands of Azeroth have become infected with a deadly plague which the developers never intended to spread. Originating from the new Zul'Gurub instance, the plague has spread from player to player via town NPCs. Entire cities are being wiped out, yet players are finding this surprise content entertaining!" From the article: " Some servers have gotten so bad that you can't go into the major cities without getting the plague (and anyone less than like level 50 nearly immediately die). GM's even tried quarantining players in certain areas, but the players kept escaping the quarantine and infect other players." Commentary on Terra Nova.

ringbarer writes "News is coming in that the lands of Azeroth have become infected with a deadly plague which the developers never intended to spread. Originating from the new Zul'Gurub instance, the plague has spread from player to player via town NPCs. Entire cities are being wiped out, yet players are finding this surprise content entertaining!" From the article: " Some servers have gotten so bad that you can't go into the major cities without getting the plague (and anyone less than like level 50 nearly immediately die). GM's even tried quarantining players in certain areas, but the players kept escaping the quarantine and infect other players." Commentary on Terra Nova.

More movement on the massive scale. WoW Players should be aware that Patch 1.7 was released today. It's a big one, with a new raid instance, Hunter changes, and the inclusion of a new type of server (Roleplaying PVP) available. Get downloading. City of Heroes has seen Issue 5's Release, with a new zone, new power sets, and a big tweak to the Blaster archetype. Late last week a whole bunch of new City of Villains Beta invites went out, and Gamespot has a rundown on the upcoming stand-alone sequel. Major changes are afoot in Everquest II's Producer Letter, with changes to combat, classes, items, NPCs, buffs, crafting, and grouping. Is it even the same game? On a final non-commercial note, CNet has news that the Second Life virtual world is now free to enter, with the Linden Dollars economy expected to prop up the costs associated with running it. Interesting. From that article: "Currently, Rosedale said, "Second Life" has 45,000 members and is growing at about 10 percent a month. There are now more than 16,000 acres of owned land in the virtual world, and new land sells for about $129. Users must pay a fee of about $25 a month to maintain their land. Thus, Linden Lab is earning about $400,000 a month without ever factoring in membership fees." Update: 09/14 05:50 GMT by Z : Cutriss rightly points out that I overlooked the interesting Ballista Royale update to FFXI. Additionally, a new patch for Dark Age of Camelot was released today, and the main site revamped for the upcoming expansion.

The world will get a taste of the first World of Warcraft expansion at BlizzCon, according to Gamespot. From the article: "In the second World of Warcraft Battleplan, which went up today, a Blizzard employee named 'Drake' confirmed the first WoW expansion will make its debut at BlizzCon, Blizzard Entertainment's annual expo. 'I'm very happy to announce that we'll have the first public showing of the expansion for World of Warcraft at BlizzCon,' wrote Drake. 'Attendees will be able to view the work that is going into the project and hear some of the eagerly awaited details.'"

You may have already heard of Blizzard's most recent title. World of Warcraft was released in November of last year to high critical praise and a favourable player reaction. While technical issues were a problem for the first few months of retail service, prompt patching and additional world servers have left the game in excellent shape. World of Warcraft has since gone on to become not only the largest MMORPG in the United States, but also the world, with 3.5 million subscribers as of July 21st. Given all this, the likelihood that Slashdot readers would be interested in asking the development team some questions seemed pretty high. The team has kindly offered to take some time out of their extremely busy schedules to answer questions. So, feel free to ask whatever question is burning in your heart. Please stick to World of Warcraft related topics, and only ask one question per comment. We'll take the best of the lot and pass them on to the Team. Their answers will be posted when we've gotten them back.

This summer it seems like Massive games are the only good news going, and this week has been busy. R. Spencer writes "1UP explores MMO addiction and, in true confessional style, opens the floor to heavy users and recovered junkies. It's especially interesting how much the mechanisms of MMO addiction have in common with other forms of addiction. The primary source of addiction nowadays seems to be World of Warcraft. If you're jonesing right now, you might want to check out this Guide to the Creation of the Scarlet Monastery on the official site. Additionally, Mogg writes "For new players, GamerGod has a up part one of a guide to the game World of Warcraft." This is Tobold's first writerly foray at the new site. Luck to him. For something a little different, 1up explores the world of Sociolotron...a Sex MMOG. Speaking of sex, SOE has been busy lately. The end to the Quest for Antonia search is almost here. They've put up new details on future EQ2 content, and announced a dramatic downsizing of The Matrix Online. See, when no one plays, you don't need as many servers. The new content mob is rearing his head all over with Secrets of the Syren in the works on Star Wars Galaxies, CoH Issue 5 coming up soon, and screenshots from the next Guild Wars update available. MMORPG.com continues to put out interesting editorials, with a look at the stories in Massive Games. Finally, the highly respectable Nick Yee has published a new edition of The Daedalus Project. The seminal source of MMOG statistics on the web has articles on participation in games at the level cap, introductions to the genre, and the stress of loot. As always, participation in the survey helps ensure future issues have good data.

You want quickies, I want to tell you about MMOGs. The Star Trek Online MMOG is moving forward with a new site for the Paramount online world. So far it is light on the details, but they assure us they'll have more in the near future. I probably don't need to tell you, but World of Warcraft rolled out a new patch earlier this week, adding in a high level raid dungeon and making it easier to get into the Battlegrounds. My guildies were having trouble getting past the first room in Blackwing's Lair last night, so my assumption is that Blizz has really come up with something special here. Speaking of fantasy MMOGs, the Everquest II Desert of Flames expansion pack is fast approaching, and both IGN and Gamespot have news and movies from the sandy, hot, new area. City of Villains will be opening up into Beta later this year, and to whet your appetite Voodoo Extreme has a bevy of CoV screens. Finally, Final Fantasy XI is adding in some interesting new stuff in the next couple of patches. A title selector, a summonable buddy, and changes to experience acquisition are all in the pipeline for the popular MMOG.

If you're an American abroad or just don't get out much, virtual spaces still have something to offer you to get you in the spirit of July 4th. The Guardian Gamesblog has commentary living abroad as a game players, and specifically on a Second Life area entitled Americana. Star Wars Galaxies, being a generally very American game, is celebrating Empire Day today. World of Warcraft isn't doing anything July 4th specific, but this week or next should see the introduction of the Darkmoon Faire, a traveling summer carnival. From the Gamesblog post: "There are only two times of the year when I get homesick for the country of my upbringing: Thanksgiving and 4th of July. Well, the latter is upon us and while the Yanks have their annual fireworks festival (in warm weather, thank you - none of this November nonsense), we're celebrating the beginning of July down here in the south of England with some uncharacteristic sun."

Kwirl asks: "While the computer and console gaming industry is growing at a remarkable pace, the focus is usually on better graphics as opposed to stronger gameplay and plot development/story arc. I personally have several titles (Sims2, Half-Life2, Doom 3, MSFS2004, Unreal 2004) sitting on my shelf that were amazing games, but just couldn't hold my interest for long enough to really be considered a worthwhile investment. In the last couple of years I had thought that the answer to my gaming needs would come in the form of MMORPG's. I have purchased and played many of them, but all seem to come to a stagnant point where I recognize that only addiction would drive me deeper into the game, and not better gameplay (Dark Age of Camelot, World of Warcraft, City of Heroes, Everquest II). In truth, I have found myself spending more time playing old MUD's (TorilMud, Medievia) again, or even amusing web-based games ( KingdomofLoathing, PimpWar, NeoPets). I am curious to know how many other people here find themselves walking intentionally backwards along the technological timeline of games for your personal expenditure of free time? What games/sites do you feel give you the best return of satisfaction versus time spent playing the game over the long haul?"

Several of the larger commercial MMOGs are gearing up for updates in the next few weeks. The Everquest 2 Producer's Letter details more quests and PvP news, SWG's Patch 19 has smuggler updates and animation fixes, and World of Warcraft lead producer Shane Dabiri offers up a Battleplan for your perusal. (N3rfed has some leaked patch notes, if you're so inclined.) From the WoW Battleplan: "Some of our upcoming plans have already been mentioned on our community site. For example, in our next major update, we will be releasing Blackwing Lair, a 40-person raid dungeon, where you will be able to battle against the epic dragon Nefarian and his minions. We are also working on a 20-person dungeon called Zul'Gurub, and the mysterious lands of Ahn'Qiraj in Silithus. Outside of dungeons, we want to continue adding new world events, such as a carnival that will take place in Mulgore and Elwynn forest."