Blizzcon on Friday, Raid Videos, Loot Update, Blue Posts, Fan Arts

[Boubouille]

Blizzcon 2010 Starts Tomorrow!
Blizzcon 2010 starts tomorrow! As usual you can expect a full coverage on MMO-Champion, including a live blog this year (if everything works as planned!). Apparently blue posters will be more active during the convention and you can probably expect a couple of exciting updates in the next few days!

• Blizzcon Live Stream

Friday, October 22 Opening Ceremony - 11:00AM - 11:30AM Dungeons & Raids Panel - 01:30PM - 02:30PM Quests & Lore Panel - 03:00PM - 04:00PM Live Raid - 04:30PM - 05:30PM Tournament - From 12:00PM to 08:30PM

Saturday, October 23 Cinematics: Cataclysm - 10:30AM - 11:30AM World of Warcraft Class Q&A - 12:00PM - 01:00PM World of Warcraft Open Q&A - 01:30PM - 02:30PM World of Warcraft Art - 03:00PM - 04:00PM Tournament - From 10:00AM to 04:30PM

Cataclysm Raid Videos - Atramedes, Maloriak, Ascendant Council
More bosses have been tested on beta realms, today we have videos of Atramedes, Maloriak, and the Ascendant Council!

Cataclysm Raid Loot Update #3
More testing, more loot! I think we have a good idea of what to expect in the first tier of Cataclysm raid instance.

ilvl	Type	Spec	Slot	Item
359	Bow	Phys.DPS	Ranged	Themios the Darkbringer
359	Mace	Melee	One-Hand	Mace of Acrid Death
359	Off-Hand	Spell Spirit	Off-hand	Scepter of Ice
359	Shield	Heal	Off Hand	Kingdom's Heart
359	Plate	Heal	Hands	Flash Freeze Gauntlets
359	Plate	Heal	Head	Glaciated Helm
359	Plate	Melee	Chest	Battleplate of Ancient Kings
359	Plate	Melee	Hands	Gravitational Pull
359	Plate	Melee	Head	Dragon Bone Warhelm
359	Plate	Melee	Waist	Belt of Absolute Zero
359	Plate	Tank	Legs	Legguards of the Unseeing
359	Mail	Phys.DPS	Chest	Tunic of Failed Experiments
359	Mail	Phys.DPS	Feet	Boots of Vertigo
359	Mail	Spell	Feet	Treads of Flawless Creation
359	Mail	Spell	Hands	Gloves of Cacophony
359	Leather	Phys.DPS	Chest	Sark of the Unwatched
359	Leather	Phys.DPS	Legs	Aberration's Leggings
359	Leather	Phys.DPS	Waist	Dispersing Belt
359	Leather	Spell	Hands	Hydrolance Gloves
359	Leather	Spell	Head	Helm of the Blind Seer
359	Leather	Spell	Legs	Leggings of Consuming Flames
359	Cloth	Heal	Chest	Shadowforge's Lightbound Smock
359	Cloth	Heal	Feet	Treads of Liquid Ice
359	Cloth	Heal	Legs	Legwraps of the Greatest Son
359	Cloth	Heal	Wrist	Bracers of the Burningeye
359	Cloth	Spell DPS	Shoulder	Mantle of Roaring Flames
359	Cloth	Spell DPS	Waist	Belt of Arcane Storms
359	Cloak	Phys.DPS	Back	Cloak of Biting Chill
359	Neck	Melee	Neck	Ironstar Amulet
359	Trinket	Heal	Trinket	Jar of Ancient Remedies
359	Trinket	Melee	Trinket	Crushing Weight
359	Trinket	Spell DPS	Trinket	Bell of Enraging Resonance

BlizzCon 2010: Blues Among You

For the past few years, you may have noticed Community Team members moderating the various BlizzCon panels. This year, things are a little bit different. Instead of moderating panels, we’ll be providing BlizzCon updates on the forums, Facebook, and Twitter as well as mingling with attendees around the convention center. That’s right, this year we will be among you and look forward to getting meet and talk with you during the convention. If you see one of us, feel free to stop us and say, “Hi”.

Blue Posts

AQ Scepter Quest Line Feat of Strength
We don't feel just completing this quest line should give you something permanently unique. The feat of strength is a nod to this epic quest line and for those who worked all the way through it. It isn't as awesome as a title or a legendary and it isn't meant to be.

Also, I guess I'm just a little weird as I often compare feats of strength as I feel those matter more than achievements. (Source)

Talent trees too easy?
I'm not convinced these posts aren't exaggerations popping out in the wake of major change. I've tried choosing specializations for several different classes and had tough, but fun choices to make in every case. There are at least a few talents in each tree which will provide extra flavor or utility according to your play style.

Will people determine the best min/max builds and spread them to the masses? Sure. That happened before patch 4.0.1 anyway. Prior to 4.0.1 you sure did have more talents and more points to spend, but the illusion of choice isn't the same thing as true choice. So many of the choices you had were between rather boring passive talents, and the choice was usually very clear. You usually chose the obvious power-increasing talents to improve your performance. Now your choices are a little more flavorful, and the best route to take is a little more subjective. You also have a greater choice of utility and power in your glyphs, and on your gear via Reforging.

Try taking another look at your old talent trees and let me know if there were truly a lot of very compelling talents that made choosing really hard, or if there were just a bunch more branches to throw points in. Look at the trees today and let me know if there are truly no choices for you to make that might enhance the enjoyment of playing your class. (Source)

Low Level Class Balance
We are going to spend some effort adjusting numbers for 1-80. It's not as big a priority as 85 because frankly, more players care about balance at 85 than they do lower level balance. As some folks have pointed out, inexperienced players almost by definition, don't place a premium on balance, and experienced players tend to not worry about balance much until they're at max level since things are changing so quickly.

Rather than adjusting everything independently, we tend to focus on max level and then work backwards from there. It doesn't help to nerf say rogue damage by 5% from level 1-60 if we then find we also need to nerf it at level 85 and then buff the 1-60 numbers to compensate.

There is some goofy stuff going on at lower level, but we'll get it all straightened out. After spending so much effort revamping the old zones and quests, we don't want the leveling experience to be an odd one. (Source)

Fan Arts
The Blizzard Fan Art Section has been updated with 3 new pieces of artwork.

[Busta]

blizzcon tomorrow woott!!!

[Odexy]

A little early to post, Boub. It's still Wednesday here and in many places... Though, I hope it isn't actually 2:25am for you..

[Pumps]

Damn, for a moment there I thought he was using american time - I was thinking WHAT it starts on a Thursday? Glad to see he wasn't

[Cattleya]

Technically tomorrow for parts of the world i suppose, though for many people it's still two doses of sleep until Blizzcon :P
And finally, a look at a healing trinket. Glad it's not continuing the t10 trend of healing procs.

[garylisk]

Except that it's not tomorrow.

[sdkphoenix]

Blizzcon starts in 2 days still... Still wednesday here in California, and that's the time we are working off of. Still excited for it though! Definately gonna have a blast seeing all the stuff there and having fun with all the cool WoW people.

Edit: oooh, sneaky Boub, changing the post on me...

[sadistic]

Update - Changed from "Tomorrow" to "Friday" to make all the timezones happy. The last thing I want is half of the world against me and I'd hate to be wrong if Friday never happens there!

*Wipes brow* whew.... had me scared there. I got a bunch of work to do tomorrow so i was like, THURSDAY!?!?!? NOOO!

[darkspiel]

Question: what about those who buy tickets from different timezones - would we have to stay up until 1am to watch blizzcon streams? Or can we replay them at a more convenient time. I don't seem to see this question answered in any kind of FAQ

[Xpace]

At level 58 (Subtlety Rogue) I am currently two-shotting (ShS->Ambush->Evis or Premed->Ambush->Evis) level 60 mobs in Outland. Heirloom weapons, heirloom chest and shoulders, the rest are Of The Bandit/Tiger, Carrot on a Stick, no enchants whatsoever. I'm also one-shotting equal-level plate wearers (DKs especially).

Recount/dummy tests put me at 1127 DPS while Find Weakness is active (average).

I'd never thought I'd see the day I actually enjoyed leveling.

[turlyonlost to tirion wtf]

Captain planet and fire lots of it.

[halmotors]

Is it bad that I'd nail the dryad?

[turlyonlost to tirion wtf]

Is it bad that I'd nail the dryad?

Lols no.

[Direknyte]

Hmmm noticing a severe lack of swords again this expansion. this makes me sad.

[YankeePhan1234]

Which guild is doing the live raid on friday?

[Lemons]

Ummmmm, how the hell did that Goblin picture make it into the fan art section? I've seen him in another imagine that was clearly work commissioned by Blizzard (this imagine: http://us.media.blizzard.com/c_1256-..._1024x0768.jpg). Whoever submitted that just stole him from there and put some pretty lights swirling around...not what I'd consider original art. That things is a forum avatar at best.

[Shamslam]

That flame ability in the last phase of Council looks quite unforgiving...

[Charblaze]

Hahahaha there's a healing shield called "Kingdom's Heart"

yeahhhh

[turlyonlost to tirion wtf]

That flame ability in the last phase of Council looks quite unforgiving...

Did you see the flame in that dragon boss lols.

[towelliee]

My 10 man video coming up for Council with How to and awesome Captain Planet theme

http://www.youtube.com/consolecrusader