Início
BlizzCon first started in October 2005, held at the Anaheim Convention Center where it has been held since. Some features included the announcements of release of new content for their franchises, previews of content for upcoming games, and Blizzard developer Q&A sessions.
For this years Blizzcon Guru3D was represented by David Gunning, who yo all know from our PC Buyers guide's.
This was Blizzard's 4th annual Blizzcon, held August 21-22 in sunny Anaheim, California at the Anaheim Convention Center. For those of you who may not know, Blizzard is responsible for the wildly popular Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft franchises. Blizzard is so big they hold their own seperate convention and this year it was packed with over 26,000 fans, press and exhibitors. The tickets are highly coveted and sold out almost immediately this year.
The place is packed across 4 halls and here you see a mob waiting to try out the latest class for Diablo III, the Monk. Head on to the next page to see what Blizzcon 2009 held in store for fans! First of all, World of Warcraft.
The biggest news out of the convention this year was the announcement of Blizzard's 3rd expansion to their wildly popular MMO. A lot of big changes. First of all two new races, Goblins for the Horde and Worgen (think werewolves) for the Alliance. A bigger surprise was that both races' starting zones were playable at Blizzcon, although you started at level 6 as Blizzard wanted to hide some of the story unveiled in the level 1-5 experience.
As a Goblin you find yourself dead and being jumper cabled back to life on the Lost Isles, very reminiscent of the jungle coast of Stranglethorn Vale. Your first quest is to save goblins from rescue pods in the water, here you can see some of the graphical improvements of Cataclysm, the water effects are much better then they are now. Goblins have some very interesting racial bonuses such as a rocket boots that can be used to leap forward (think of the reverse of a hunter's disengage), a rocket belt that can damage enemies, maximum gold discounts regardless of faction and a bank that can be summoned every 30 minutes. Goblins will be a very popular race choice for the Horde I suspect.
As a Worgen you start out in stocks in Gilneas, with two humans debating whether you are to be spared or be killed. The Worgen starting zone has a dark, dreary feeling like that of Silverpine Forest. You quickly set out to find ingredients for a potion to keep your animal side in check. Worgen can shapeshift at will and but doing so imparts no bonuses, entering combat automatically forces you into your werewolf form. Their racial abilities are a bit underwhelming, a dash like (speed boost) ability and a skinning bonus, I suspect their racials will be changed before Cataclysm launches.
The expansion will also bring a complete revamp of the starting 1-60 zones (60 was the original level cap in WoW). The name Cataclysm alludes to this. As the black dragon Deathwing erupts into Azeroth, whole zones will be radically altered. Desolace, once a desolate wasteland transforms into a lush jungle zone. The Barrens has been split in two (see the picture below). Higher level zones like Azshara become low level zones. Flying mounts will finally be allowed in the "old world." This completely changes the leveling experience for World of Warcraft, an excellent idea for Blizzard to keep existing players and attract new ones in the face of fresh MMO's coming to the market next year. Blizzard also is promising all the quests and quest flow have been streamlined to improve leveling and travel (so no more running across the continents for a single quest) New race/class combinations will be allowed as well (Tauren paladins, holy cow!).
Along with the zone revamp, major changes to all the classes are coming as well, with Blizzard's "stat simplification." Believing some stats were becoming too "mathy" (the developers' words not mine), a large number of stats are going away including: mana per 5 seconds, attack power, spell power, armor penetration and defense. Simplification extends to classes as well. Warlocks will no longer have to collect soul shards, instead they will get a mechanism inspired by the Death Knight's runes (3 soul shards per fight) and hunters will no longer use mana.
Also as expected for the expansion the level cap has been raised, this time to 85. With it comes new 7 new zones and new dungeons (including at least one underwater one), along with some familiar faces, such as Ragnaros. Prepare to journey into the elemental planes!
Lot's more was announced, such as a new secondary profession Archeology that allows your character to improve once you reach level 85 by following a Path of the Titans. And Mastery, which gives you passive bonuses as you progress in a particular talent tree. And reforging, which will allow certain crafters to alter stat allocation on items. Guilds will be able to level up and gain their own talent trees, allowing guilds to gain perks like reduced repair bills. Again lot's of information, way more then could fit into an article like this!
This year Blizzard unveiled the Monk class, which was playable at Blizzcon. I had a chance to play the demo and once I got the hang of it, the monk was a blast to play, wading in to large groups of enemies and watching them explode in pools of blood. You can never have enough enemies explode! The monk is an up close melee fighter but with a few tricks. My favorite was his Seven Sided Strike that allowed the monk to teleport around the screen striking foes.
The Monk's key ability (and in fact the default key bound to the left button of the mouse) was his Exploding Palm. It is a 3 hit combo, the first two hits do nothing but increase damage, but the third hit places a damage over time effect on them, that if killed with the effect on them, cause them to explode and damage every enemy in the area. This can cause some rather spectacular chain reaction of exploding enemies... I'm not cleaning up that mess.
The Monk also has a number of defensive abilities such as Crippling Wave that blinds surrounding foes and Impenetrable Defenses, that grants him 100% dodge for a short time.
The demo was set in the now very familiar desert and while it was very pretty graphically (it seemed to have a slightly stylized touch to it), I would like to see a more exotic locale. Now on to the next page and Starcraft 2!
Some of the biggest news at Blizzcon regarding Starcraft 2 was their big changes coming to Battle.net and how this would integrate into the game. They have drawn inspiration from World of Warcraft and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
This log in screen will look very familiar to World of Warcraft players.
Once logged in you'll be greeted with this Battle.net screen. In the top right corner you can see your player, and other players in your party if you join one (similar to the World of Warcraft mechanic).
This is your profile screen, where you can view your achievements, match history and more.
Match making will be improved as well, so that you can be sure you are playing against players of equal skill.
This is the real big news. Real ID means that you have one name across all Battle.net games. That means your friends can see and communicate with you regardless of what Blizzard game you're playing. So while you're playing World of Warcraft, you can see and speak to your friend playing Starcraft 2. For you WoW players, this also means you don't have to remember all your friend's character names, they will all be tied to one name, their Real ID and you can talk to them, cross-server and cross-faction. Your achievements will accumulate across all Blizzard games as well. Earning achievements will unlock decals and icons that you can use for your profile and in games (units will display your decal in Starcraft 2 for example). Also mentioned during the panel is the move to cloud storage; your game progress will be saved on Battle.net, not your computer. So if you were to play Starcraft 2 at work (and I know you won't!) and then come home and play, you can pick up right where you left off.
At Blizzcon they also had a demo available, although it had a strict 20 minute time limit. A bit disadvantageous for me as I never played the original Starcraft. It starts up with an in-engine cutscene of a rescue from the Zerg. You find yourself aboard a starship free to choose a mission or wander the ship. You can talk to the various characters, go to the armory and purchase upgrades with the cash you've aquired or go to the lab for information on research you can do for bonuses for your units. When you're ready for a mission, you'll be given a choice, typically a more benevolent mission or a mercenary mission. The missions will offer different rewards (the mercenary missions). I was given the choice between evacuating some colonists, which rewarded a Firebat or mining a planet, which rewarded a Marauder as well as a bit more cash (mercenaries don't work for cheap!).
I chose the benevolent route and chose to rescue the colonists, but didn't get too far before my time limit expired. Had some fun burning some Zerg with my Firebats though!
The Closing Ceremony
Ozzy Osbourne wrapped up Blizzcon this year, here's a couple pictures of his concert, glad I remembered my earplugs, think my bones are still vibrating though.
Well I hope you enjoyed this peek at Blizzcon 2009, where yes there is indeed a cow level!
Fonte: Guru3D
For this years Blizzcon Guru3D was represented by David Gunning, who yo all know from our PC Buyers guide's.
This was Blizzard's 4th annual Blizzcon, held August 21-22 in sunny Anaheim, California at the Anaheim Convention Center. For those of you who may not know, Blizzard is responsible for the wildly popular Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft franchises. Blizzard is so big they hold their own seperate convention and this year it was packed with over 26,000 fans, press and exhibitors. The tickets are highly coveted and sold out almost immediately this year.
The place is packed across 4 halls and here you see a mob waiting to try out the latest class for Diablo III, the Monk. Head on to the next page to see what Blizzcon 2009 held in store for fans! First of all, World of Warcraft.
The biggest news out of the convention this year was the announcement of Blizzard's 3rd expansion to their wildly popular MMO. A lot of big changes. First of all two new races, Goblins for the Horde and Worgen (think werewolves) for the Alliance. A bigger surprise was that both races' starting zones were playable at Blizzcon, although you started at level 6 as Blizzard wanted to hide some of the story unveiled in the level 1-5 experience.
As a Goblin you find yourself dead and being jumper cabled back to life on the Lost Isles, very reminiscent of the jungle coast of Stranglethorn Vale. Your first quest is to save goblins from rescue pods in the water, here you can see some of the graphical improvements of Cataclysm, the water effects are much better then they are now. Goblins have some very interesting racial bonuses such as a rocket boots that can be used to leap forward (think of the reverse of a hunter's disengage), a rocket belt that can damage enemies, maximum gold discounts regardless of faction and a bank that can be summoned every 30 minutes. Goblins will be a very popular race choice for the Horde I suspect.
As a Worgen you start out in stocks in Gilneas, with two humans debating whether you are to be spared or be killed. The Worgen starting zone has a dark, dreary feeling like that of Silverpine Forest. You quickly set out to find ingredients for a potion to keep your animal side in check. Worgen can shapeshift at will and but doing so imparts no bonuses, entering combat automatically forces you into your werewolf form. Their racial abilities are a bit underwhelming, a dash like (speed boost) ability and a skinning bonus, I suspect their racials will be changed before Cataclysm launches.
The expansion will also bring a complete revamp of the starting 1-60 zones (60 was the original level cap in WoW). The name Cataclysm alludes to this. As the black dragon Deathwing erupts into Azeroth, whole zones will be radically altered. Desolace, once a desolate wasteland transforms into a lush jungle zone. The Barrens has been split in two (see the picture below). Higher level zones like Azshara become low level zones. Flying mounts will finally be allowed in the "old world." This completely changes the leveling experience for World of Warcraft, an excellent idea for Blizzard to keep existing players and attract new ones in the face of fresh MMO's coming to the market next year. Blizzard also is promising all the quests and quest flow have been streamlined to improve leveling and travel (so no more running across the continents for a single quest) New race/class combinations will be allowed as well (Tauren paladins, holy cow!).
Along with the zone revamp, major changes to all the classes are coming as well, with Blizzard's "stat simplification." Believing some stats were becoming too "mathy" (the developers' words not mine), a large number of stats are going away including: mana per 5 seconds, attack power, spell power, armor penetration and defense. Simplification extends to classes as well. Warlocks will no longer have to collect soul shards, instead they will get a mechanism inspired by the Death Knight's runes (3 soul shards per fight) and hunters will no longer use mana.
Also as expected for the expansion the level cap has been raised, this time to 85. With it comes new 7 new zones and new dungeons (including at least one underwater one), along with some familiar faces, such as Ragnaros. Prepare to journey into the elemental planes!
Lot's more was announced, such as a new secondary profession Archeology that allows your character to improve once you reach level 85 by following a Path of the Titans. And Mastery, which gives you passive bonuses as you progress in a particular talent tree. And reforging, which will allow certain crafters to alter stat allocation on items. Guilds will be able to level up and gain their own talent trees, allowing guilds to gain perks like reduced repair bills. Again lot's of information, way more then could fit into an article like this!
This year Blizzard unveiled the Monk class, which was playable at Blizzcon. I had a chance to play the demo and once I got the hang of it, the monk was a blast to play, wading in to large groups of enemies and watching them explode in pools of blood. You can never have enough enemies explode! The monk is an up close melee fighter but with a few tricks. My favorite was his Seven Sided Strike that allowed the monk to teleport around the screen striking foes.
The Monk's key ability (and in fact the default key bound to the left button of the mouse) was his Exploding Palm. It is a 3 hit combo, the first two hits do nothing but increase damage, but the third hit places a damage over time effect on them, that if killed with the effect on them, cause them to explode and damage every enemy in the area. This can cause some rather spectacular chain reaction of exploding enemies... I'm not cleaning up that mess.
The Monk also has a number of defensive abilities such as Crippling Wave that blinds surrounding foes and Impenetrable Defenses, that grants him 100% dodge for a short time.
The demo was set in the now very familiar desert and while it was very pretty graphically (it seemed to have a slightly stylized touch to it), I would like to see a more exotic locale. Now on to the next page and Starcraft 2!
Some of the biggest news at Blizzcon regarding Starcraft 2 was their big changes coming to Battle.net and how this would integrate into the game. They have drawn inspiration from World of Warcraft and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
This log in screen will look very familiar to World of Warcraft players.
Once logged in you'll be greeted with this Battle.net screen. In the top right corner you can see your player, and other players in your party if you join one (similar to the World of Warcraft mechanic).
This is your profile screen, where you can view your achievements, match history and more.
Match making will be improved as well, so that you can be sure you are playing against players of equal skill.
This is the real big news. Real ID means that you have one name across all Battle.net games. That means your friends can see and communicate with you regardless of what Blizzard game you're playing. So while you're playing World of Warcraft, you can see and speak to your friend playing Starcraft 2. For you WoW players, this also means you don't have to remember all your friend's character names, they will all be tied to one name, their Real ID and you can talk to them, cross-server and cross-faction. Your achievements will accumulate across all Blizzard games as well. Earning achievements will unlock decals and icons that you can use for your profile and in games (units will display your decal in Starcraft 2 for example). Also mentioned during the panel is the move to cloud storage; your game progress will be saved on Battle.net, not your computer. So if you were to play Starcraft 2 at work (and I know you won't!) and then come home and play, you can pick up right where you left off.
At Blizzcon they also had a demo available, although it had a strict 20 minute time limit. A bit disadvantageous for me as I never played the original Starcraft. It starts up with an in-engine cutscene of a rescue from the Zerg. You find yourself aboard a starship free to choose a mission or wander the ship. You can talk to the various characters, go to the armory and purchase upgrades with the cash you've aquired or go to the lab for information on research you can do for bonuses for your units. When you're ready for a mission, you'll be given a choice, typically a more benevolent mission or a mercenary mission. The missions will offer different rewards (the mercenary missions). I was given the choice between evacuating some colonists, which rewarded a Firebat or mining a planet, which rewarded a Marauder as well as a bit more cash (mercenaries don't work for cheap!).
I chose the benevolent route and chose to rescue the colonists, but didn't get too far before my time limit expired. Had some fun burning some Zerg with my Firebats though!
The Closing Ceremony
Ozzy Osbourne wrapped up Blizzcon this year, here's a couple pictures of his concert, glad I remembered my earplugs, think my bones are still vibrating though.
Well I hope you enjoyed this peek at Blizzcon 2009, where yes there is indeed a cow level!
Fonte: Guru3D
