Blizzcon 2010: The greatest show for Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft fans has opened in California - and the news is already breaking!
Mike Morhaime and Chris Metzen of Blizzard Entertainment have opened BlizzCon for 2010. BlizzCon is upon us once again and Atomic is in amongst it, this year's convention promises to be bigger and better - at least if the crowds are anything to go by. To quote one of the dance contestants... "Man. That's a lot of people". While there haven't been any big announcments on par with last year's Cataclysm information the developers have released a couple of choice tidbits to keep gamers interested over the coming months. Keep an eye on the site for more details as we chat with the devs about where Diablo, World of Warcraft and StarCraft are heading.
The Demon Hunter for DiabloBlizzard has announced The Demon Hunter as the fifth and final playable class for Diablo III. This ranged class rounds out the player options - and isn't really surprising given the other melee and spell-based ranged classes previously announced. Although the devs remain tight-lipped about any future release dates for the third installment of the franchise we have learned that arena-style PvP will be available and found some more details on the seemingly huge iterations of character customisation options through the use of the Rune system and the Talisman charm-management system
Losing those patch day bluesIn his opening keynote address to fans Mike Morhaime announced that, with the release of the next World of Warcraft expansion Cataclysm, players will be able to download the game directly from Blizzard and be up and running as soon as the servers are live after the launch. This is pretty exciting news for anyone who is unable or just unwilling to get their hands on physical copies of the expansion at launch and will hopefully make the process of installing and patching far more streamlined.
In the Dungeons and Raid panel Corey Stockton and Scott Mercer describe the process of trimming and and improving old world content like the original dungeons to better the player experience and how this ties in to the overall changes heralded for the game itself.
Mad Mods and MapsWe may still be waiting for release date hints for StarCraft II: Heart of The Swarm, but the Map Editor panel showed how Blizzard is responding to player made content and where they think map making and modding will be going in the future. With games like Aiur Chef on the horizon as well as Blizzard DOTA there seems to be enough coming out of the SC engine to make the wait bearable. The four free games plugged by Blizzard will be built into the map editor so you can look forward to such gems as Left 2 Die, DoTA, StarJewelled as well as Aiur Chef.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012