Blizzcon 2008 - Day 1 !

[Boubouille]

IRC
Come and discuss the Blizzcon on

[url="irc://irc.quakenet.org/mmo-champion"][b]#mmo-champion on irc.quakenet.org[/b][/url]

Audio Stream
The best thing we can get to follow panels is the audio stream on WoW Radio

Update
03:00 PM - Class panel is now available.
12:30 PM - The Diablo 3 Official Site has been updated with the Wizard Page and the Wizard Trailer
12:05 PM - The WoW Video Stream now works.
12:00 PM - Blizzard's "secret project" confirmed to be a new MMO with a brand new universe, but we won't hear anything about it before a while.
12:00 PM - Blizzard is already manufacturing discs and putting the final touches to WotLK
12:00 PM - There isn't any plan for a Blizzcon on the East Coast USA for the moment
12:00 PM - There are big plans for the Single Player SC2 Story but we will be covering more of that later, with a big announcement about it to come.
12:00 PM - WoW Movie is still something they're working on, and they DO have a draft of the script for the movie.
12:00 PM - It seems that Ozzy Osbourne will be doing the next WoW what do you play commercial.
11:50 AM - Diablo 3 Wizard Gameplay Video now available on youtube.
11:30 AM - The biggest announcement of the Opening Ceremony was the new Diablo 3 Class - The Wizard (Youthful and headstrong, the upstart Wizard manipulates the primal forces of the universe to vanquish foes.), nothing really new for WoW and we'll have to wait for the panels.

Class Panel

Dual-Spec system

• The dual-spec system will be introduced in a content patch. The goal is to let you switch specs very easily in raid, even between fights ! However it won't be possible to switch specs in the middle of an arena match.
• With dual-spec introduced in the game, there are also discussions about an Itemrack-like mod being introduced to the default UI

Group Flexibility

• There are 30 specs but only 25 spots in a raid. The class choice should be very flexible and the buff/debuff system overhaul was done to help with that. Cancelling a buff because a class wasn't available (like Shamans for Bloodlust) was not desirable.
• Most buffs now affect the whole raid and multiple classes can give them, however none of them will stack. You should get more types of buffs by bringing a fewer number of players and will be able to optimize them by bringing the right spec but it definitely won't be as necessary as it was in TBC. (Note : See Raidcomp !)

Tanking

• All the tanking classes are now suitable as a main tank and their threat has been greatly increased to make fights more fun, fights are now more about skills than dying because of a random aggro.

Death Knight (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9061))

• The original idea behind the rune system was a totally customizable rune pool (like, 6 Unholy runes) but "it sucked". They changed it to what is it today (2 Runes of each type)
• Death Knights shouldn't be played like a metronome and is intended to be an interactive and reactive class.
• As a death knight, your talent trees are a good way to define "your style, but not your role". Devs want to bring this philosophy to other classes.

Druid (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9061))

• Balance druids have been greatly improved and you shouldn't see a lot of OOMkins anymore. Their DPS is now on par with other DPS classes.
• Balance DPS looks pretty good now but developpers are keeping an eye on the survavibility
• Entangling roots was allowed indoor to give druids more crowd control ability in instances.
• Restoration were stuck in the HoT niche and were very limited in 5-mans or raids. Nourish is new flash heal-like spell added to solve this problem on single targets and Wild Growth was added to give them an AOE Heal.
• Druids were also given an OOC resurrection spell.
• Feral druids were decent at tanking and DPSing, but couldn't master any of these fields. In WotLK you can take all the bear talents to become a very good main tank, or all the cat talents to have a very high DPS.
• Feral mana is a known issue, and developpers don't want intellect on feral gear. This is being looked at

Hunter (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9061))

• The hunter pet system was overhauled because it was "clumsy for new players".
• The shot rataion has been cleaned to make things easier for hunters and make them less reliant on mods or macros.
• Freezing shot was introduced to make pulls faster without having to deploy your traps on the ground each time.

Mage (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9061))

• Frostfire Bolt is a way to achieve an elemental tree with mages, they should be able to deal both fire and frost damage
• Mage DPS looks pretty good now, there are still a few mana issues getting fixed very soon
• Living Bomb base damage will most likely be increased and the spell mechanics might be modified slightly. Overall, the 51-points talent weren't meant to be spammed and developpers want them to be situational
• Frost and Fire looks pretty balanced now, but Arcane needs a few more tweaks. Arcane needs to be more "mobile"

Paladin (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9061))

• Paladins were decent off-tanks but not great main tanks, this is fixed in WotLK. Paladins should focus on protection gear instead of spell power.
• Holy Paladins were good healers but couldn't do much in encounters where players are required to move a lot, however they definitely don't want them as a HoT class.
• Retribution paladins are supposed to deal a decent amount of DPS without running out of mana.
• Retributions paladins have to be in control of their damage and shouldn't have to rely on lucky critical strikes to deal most of their damage

Priest (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9061))

• The goal with Shadowpriest is to make them a DPS class, not just a mana battery.
• Discipline priests should be viable raid healer.
• Mind sear was introduced to give priests another viable DPS ability.
• Class-specific racial abilities were cool, but the idea became got "old" with time. That's why racials have been revamped

Rogue (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9061))

• AoE DPS was really needed and Fan of Knives was added to the game.
• Purchasable poisons and the buff of the dagger spec should help "reintroducing" them to the game.
• The goal is to have end-boss less immune to poisons and rogues less dependant of Windfury

Shaman (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9061))

• Totems are now physical and harder to dispell, have more life and last longer.
• Hex was added to give Shamans more crowd control ability, Riptide to improve their healing, and Lava Burst their spell DPS.

Warlock (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9061))

• Warlocks pets have been made more useful.
• The warlock rotation shouldn't be restricted to a shadowbolt spam, that's why Chaos Bolt was added.
• Affliction Tree is still too complicated and developpers are working on it. Developers definitely want it back as a raiding spec
• Pets should be easier to summon/switch and use.

Warrior (Skills List / Talent Calc. (9061))

• Protection spec has been revamped to make it cooler to play, mitigation talents now take a lot less points and will let you invest in a few other nice tools.
• In TBC, Arms was PvP and Fury the PvE spec, this will change in WotLK : Battle Stance, Overpower, and Rend have been improved. New fun abilities have been introduced like Bladestorm and Sudden Death, Fury obviously have Titan's Grip.

UI Panel
Nothing really interesting here, but a few things answered during the Q&A. If you're really interested in everything check the transcript on WoWInsider.

• There were plans to make the backpack bigger, but the currency and pet changes in WotLK freed enough space and there isn't any plan to do it anymore. Still possible for the future though.
• There is going to be a dual-spec interface introduced in a content patch after the expansion. The talent spec process will be revisited at the same time. (Confirmation boxes to prevent misplaced talents, etc ...)
• The compatibility of TBC addons in WotLK shouldn't be too bad at the beginning. There wasn't any huge LUA change or anything like that.
• There isn't any plan to add class-specific elements like PallyPower in the default UI. Sometimes very popular addons might be integrated to the base UI but only when they fit general needs.
• There are no current plans to change the bag UI and make it just one large bag.
• A /castrandom command for the new Mounts/Minipets UI might be added to the game.
• Itemrack and ingame boss mods are still planned, but there is no ETA on them.
• The current implementation of the threat UI (% of threat of the main tank) in the beta is the final one. The point of the default UI is to be simple and very visual, for more detailed stats you'll have to rely on specific mods like Omen.

The pictures below are early beta of the achievement UI, and a few explanations on how things works during development.

Opening Ceremony Pictures

Pre-Opening Ceremony Pictures

[kieli]

Some very interesting things, i would LOVE to hear more about them putting pally power into default ui. It would make my life easier on my alt

[LavaDuck]

I want video streams :<

[Panoramixe]

Well the wow arena tournament is on live stream, the rest costs a lot though.

[HolgerDK]

Fuck its annoying that they made the interesting streams pay-per-view :-(

[fuhtian]

There are some (but not many) video streams at blizzcon.com

[Dakkon]

Anyone know if it is possible to get the stream into a larger window?

[Panoramixe]

I do understand it from Blizzard's point of view though. Last time it was a huge mess with octoshape. It probably cost them quite a bit, it didn't work very well and people weren't too pleased.
This option is perhaps not ideal but at least Blizzard can't be blamed for being amateuristic like a lot of people did last time.

[Shadowkaji]

yeah can blame em this time and the WWI stream was really annoying getting it to work and u had to fight for a spot to watch

i like listening to it since i can just listen and play WoW

[LavaDuck]

Looking forward to read more stuff tomorrow when I eventually get out of bed

[Rockeroad]

Cannot bring up pictures of Current classes 1-5. Says HTTP 404 not found. Might wanna check the adress guys.

[Nuronv]

GC is one sexy lady

[Dawn Falcon]

"Freezing shot was introduced to make pulls faster without having to deploy your traps on the ground each time."

Great idea except for a few things. Like cooldowns, wanting to remove mobs from AoE zones, wanting to build agro on mobs before trapping so they chase us rather than healers between traps and the fact we now have a guaranteed pulling shot. It's simply too situational to be worth the slot :/

[Malathar]

Not a big deal at all, but in the Class panel section above I believe that what was said is.

Cancelling a raid because a buff wasn't available (like Shamans for Bloodlust) was not desirable.

[LavaDuck]

Cancelling a buff because a class wasn't available

Makes no sense the way its written there.

[Spl4sh3r]

"The shot rataion has been cleaned to make things easier for hunters and make them less reliant on mods or macros."

Was kinda fun reading....**rotation ^^

[sdkphoenix]

I found on the PTR that /castrandom already works for mounts and pets. It works wonderfully.

Also, the achievement window looks different than on the PTR.

[GT4]

Nothing about Elemental still doing way subpar DPS at the class panels

[Dawn Falcon]

Makes no sense the way its written there.

Canceling a raid because <class> wasn't avaliable.

And sure, they've fixed it for 25 mans. For 10 mans? It's considerably worse than before because there's only a few ways to correctly stack them.

[Elementium]

Wish I was there

I wanna hear more about this new MMO.. "a new Universe"? hmmm....