Blizzcon 2008 - Day 2 !

[Boubouille]

Important announcements today

• Raids & Dungeons - The Dual-Talent spec feature will let you switch between your two specs without having to go back to town. You can perfectly do it between fights in a raid, however it won't be possible to switch specs in the middle of an Arena Match. Your keybinds and glyphs will be saved and automatically switched as you change your spec.
• Raids & Dungeons - 10-Man and 25-Man sets will be part of the same set, you can complete your set bonuses with any part of each set. (Updated set stats below)
• PvP - They also want players to be able to level up in battlegrounds through XP rewards in addition of honor. Daily quests will also be added.
• PvP - They want to bring back competition into Battlegrounds, they're working on a new rating system to help with that and are also working on a way to let guilds compete in battlegrounds.
• PvP - In the future, players will be able to queue in Arenas and Battlegrounds from anywhere in the world.
• PvP - The first big news is Strand of the Ancients getting changed from 10vs10 to 15vs15. The amount of Vehicles is also being doubled.

Blizzcon - Day 2
Today is the 2nd day of the Blizzcon, we should see a bunch of very interesting panels (see schedule) and maybe get a few announcements from them. More recaps and pictures on the way today ! And before you ask, the Murloc Plush Toy is from J!NX.

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

Schedule - Saturday October 11th (PST Time)
10:30 AM - 11:30 AM - PvP Panel
12:00 PM - 01:00 PM - Raids & Dungeons Panel
01:30 PM - 02:30 PM - World of Warcraft Q&A
03:00 PM - 04:00 PM - World of Warcraft Classes Panel #2

WoW Tournament
We're not doing a coverage of the tournament on the frontpage, but Gotfrag does !

• WoW Tournament Live Stream
• RTS Tournament Live Stream
  

PvP Panel

Future of PvP / New Announcements

• Strand of the Ancients is getting changed from 10vs10 to 15vs15. The amount of Vehicles is also being doubled.
• They also want players to be able to level up in battlegrounds through XP rewards in addition of honor. Daily quests will also be added.
• In the future, players will be able to queue in Arenas and Battlegrounds from anywhere in the world.
• They want to bring back competition into Battlegrounds, they're working on a new rating system to help with that and are also working on a way to let guilds compete in battlegrounds.

Ring of Valor - Orgrimmar Arena

• This arena has always been in Orgrimmar but just wasn't used. They like to keep the Arenas in the "real world" instead of having a portal just like a regular instance.
• The main features of this instance are the animated platforms moving up and down at non-random intervals. (Developpers don't want anything random in Arenas)
• There are also walls of fires going on and off periodically, going through them will give you a 10% damage DoT. Getting crowd controlled in the fire won't get you killed, the fire DoT effect will be restricted to 3 ticks in this case.
• The other important point with this Arena is the starting location, teams start very close to each other and enter the Arena through elevators slowly going up before the match begins.

Dalaran Sewers Arena

• The main feature of the Sewers is a huge pillar of water at the center of the main platform of the arena. The water is activated periodically and will knockback anyone in its way. As long as it's on you will be able to fight very close to it but you will get knockbacked again as soon as you touch it.
• Players starts in pipes above the level of the room, to prevent people from staying in these pipes without being reachable there is a mechanic pushing them out of the pipes at the beginning of the match.

Strand of the Ancients Battleground

• Strand of the Ancients was created to provide players with an attack/defend PvP map. Developers also wanted to take advantage of the new destructible buildings technology.
• When your team is attacking, the time required to take the enemy's fort will be the time given to the defending team on the next round to capture your fort. Attacking faster will make it harder for the other team to win the round once they're on the attacking side.
• Currently, Strand of the Ancients is a 10vs10 battleground. In a few days it will be changed to a 15vs15 battleground and the amount of vehicle available here will be doubled.

Lake Wintergrasp

• Lake Wintergrasp was created with the goal to have a popular non-instanced PvP Zone, developers want hundred of players fighting here and a lot of work was done to make sure that zones won't crash when it happens.
• Just like SOTA, Wintergrasp will feature an attack/defend gameplay where the attacking team attacks and capture a fort at the north of the zone by breaking fortifications with siege weapons.
• You will have to gain ranks to be able to use siege vehicles from factories (also capturable) in the zone, these ranks are earned by killing enemy players and they were added to make sure that all players are participating in the match. Right now it only takes 2 kills to get the first rank.
• The current timer for Lake Wintergrasp is 2 hours 30 minutes between matches and a match shouldn't last more than 30 or 40 minutes.
• The faction controlling the fort will get a free portal to teleport to Dalaran (and also one in Dalaran to teleport to Wintergrasp), an access to The Vault of Archevon featuring a new raid boss dropping both PvE and PvP gear (1 day reset timer), and all bosses in instances will drop spirit shards used to buy rewards from vendors in the fort. (Mounts, patterns, etc ..)

Raids & Dungeons Panel

5 Man Dungeons
Halls of Lightning

• Just like all the dungeons built by the Titans the Halls of Lightning had to feel huge while restricting the gameplay space to make sure that players don't have to run around too much.
• Players aren't really able to fight titans because they're obviously way too big and way too powerful to be fought, that's why designers had to come up with new ideas of creatures to let people experience this part of the lore.
• The first boss roams between multiple platforms and you can decide where you will fight him, the 2nd boss is visible as soon as you enter the first room and is located on a platform above to make players want to go up here and figure out who this guy is.
• There are plenty of Titan themed arts like statues shaped as constellations, astral maps, etc ...
• The 3rd boss is an air elemental with a custom model, developers want to use more of that to make bosses feel more "unique" and would like to stop using so many "trash" models for bosses.
• The last boss, Loken, is a messenger of the titan and his fight also feature a fairly long storyline.

Ahn'kahet

• Ahn'kahet is the 2nd part of the Azjol-nerub dungeon, as you go deeper into the ground more influence from the Old Gods can be seen. (Temples, etc ...)
• This is also the first time you will encounter Faceless Ones in World of Warcraft.
• New technology has been added to make this underground dungeon feels like a very huge cavern, it actually mix up outdoor and indoor elements to achieve this.
• Ahn'kahet looks pretty big when you enter the instance, but you only get to travel through a very small part of it. (As most of the elements are here to make the cave feel bigger and nicer)
• There are plenty of new unique abilities used by the bosses here, and the instance uses a bunch of a new mechanics to make the fights funnier.
• The last boss is a Faceless One and rely heavily on the new phasing technology. Each player is phased into a world where his own teammates will attack him, once he managed to defeat them he will be switched back to the normal world to help his teammates.

Raid & Dungeons
Obsidian Sanctum

• The Obsidian Sanctum was made with scalability in mind. TBC entry raids (Magtheridon) were far too difficult at the release.
• Players here will fight Sartharion and 3 adds, they can choose to kills these adds before killing Sartharion or keep them alive instead to get more items.
• As the fight get more difficult, the players are rewarded with better rewards in case of success, the best reward being the Reins of the Black Drake for the 10 man version and the Reins of the Twilight Drake for the 25 man version)

In it's current state on beta servers, the encounter goes as follow :

• 1 Add alive (10 Players) : Extra ilvl 200 Item
• 2 Adds alive (10 Players) : Extra ilvl 213 item
• 3 Adds alive (10 Players) : Reins of the Black Drake

Pretty much the same with 25 players, but with slightly better gear.

• 1 Add alive (25 Players) : Extra ilvl 213 item
• 2 Adds alive (25 Players) : Extra ilvl 226 item
• 3 Adds alive (25 Players) : Reins of the Twilight Drake

The Eye of Eternity

• Malygos is a huge lore figure and this dungeon had to feel special. As you enter it you will just see a floating platform and the script relies a lot on scripting to make it as interesting as possible.
• To enter this dungeon at least one player in your party needs the key to start the encounter, you will have to kill Sapphiron in Naxxramas to complete this questline.
• This dungeon also features the Red Dragonflight, as developpers didn't want such a strong lore figure to be killable by players alone.

Itemization

• Some parts of armor sets will be buyable with tokens dropping from bosses to make the completion of sets less random.
• 10-Man and 25-Man sets will be part of the same set, you can complete your set bonuses with any part of each set. Sets are already on beta servers and you can see the supposedly-final version here :

Death Knight
Scourgeborne's Battlegear (10)
Scourgeborne's Battlegear (25)
Scourgeborne's Plate (10)
Scourgeborne's Plate (25)

Druid
Dreamwalker's Battlegear (10)
Dreamwalker's Battlegear (25)
Dreamwalker's Garb (10)
Dreamwalker's Garb (25)
Dreamwalker's Regalia (10)
Dreamwalker's Regalia (25)

Hunter
Cryptstalker's Battlegear (10)
Cryptstalker's Battlegear (25)

Mage
Frostfire Garb (10)
Frostfire Garb (25)

Paladin
Redemption's Battlegear (10)
Redemption's Battlegear (25)
Redemption's Plate (10)
Redemption's Plate (25)
Redemption's Regalia (10)
Redemption's Regalia (25)

Priest
Garb of Faith (10)
Garb of Faith (25)
Regalia of Faith (10)
Regalia of Faith (25)

Rogue
Bonescythe's Battlegear (10)
Bonescythe's Battlegear (25)

Shaman
Earthshatter's Battlegear (10)
Earthshatter's Battlegear (25)
Earthshatter's Garb (10)
Earthshatter's Garb (25)
Earthshatter's Regalia (10)
Earthshatter's Regalia (25)

Warlock
Plagueheart Garb (10)
Plagueheart Garb (25)

Warrior
Dreadnaught's Battlegear (10)
Dreadnaught's Battlegear (25)
Dreadnaught's Plate (10)
Dreadnaught's Plate (25)

Developer's Q&A

• A feature might be added to "kick" AFK players in raid without having to wait 30 minutes until they disconnect
• They're still thinking about how 10/25-man legendaries are going to work and feel that new caster/healer legendary items are needed. They would also like to bring back atiesh-like legendaries with a long questline instead of random drops.
• Uldum is still on the table, but definitely no ETA for it.
• The amount of items dropping should be fairly balanced between casters and melee weapons.
• There won't be many level 80 attunements, the only attunement right now is the one for Malygos and it only requires one person in the raid to kill Sapphiron in Naxxramas
• Hunters should be able to off-tank with a defense-speced pet but aren't meant to main tank anything with it.
• Sunwell was way too hard, developers want content to be challenging but you shouldn't have to do 500 try on bosses like M'uru to kill them.
• The goal in WotLK is to have a smoother progression between the different types of dungeons (Normal > Heroic > Raid). In TBC some heroic dungeons were way too hard and some of them way too easy.
• Devs would like to add more portals between wings of the same instance (a bit like Dire Maul) to let people decide if they want to keep going in the dungeons, or just stop here.
• The Ashbringer storyline will continue, and you've only got a few days left to complete Atiesh from the old Nax. (= Patch 3.0.2 this week)
• A lot of improvements are on the way for the LFG tool

Developers Q&A
Important info - In Patch 3.1, ground mounts will no longer dismount in water but will swim instead.

Q: One of the cool things about classes is the art styles. will pallys and druids ever see their relic have some graphic?
A: We'd love to have some physical representation, but we don't have any plans currently. it's something we'll definitely consider.

Q: There's a lot of rumors on speculation about DK's when the next patch hits, we will be able to create DK's so we can get them started before wrath hits and lock those in?
A: DK is a class that comes with WoTLK expansion. it's not coming before wotlk.

Q: How viable will a holy priest be able to heal as well as other healing classes if disc and shadow can heal just as well?
A: Should holy priests be worried? circle of healing is a deep holy talent that is a powerful healing spell that the other specs can't match that. all the healers can do more dps and all the dps can do more healing. the shadow priests should be doing damage, not healing because they're shadow. what allows good dps'ers to survive is they have a few talents so they aren't super fragile but holy priests are still doing fine in all our testing.

Q: Why do i have to turn into a guy when i switch into bear or cat form as a druid? i get teased a lot! have you seen the bear dance? i realize the glyphs will make us be polar bears, but will there be a difference?
A: Are you asking if genitalia will be added? we're a teen rated game so... androgynous bears man. we've had a lot of druid form questions and its something we've been talking about for a while, but it's just a matter of time.

Q: I'm a big fan of members in a raid playing a role so how will you keep people interacting in the encounters without recycling content?
A: Wait, so we have to be more creative? we've said this before and it starts to sound cliche. we have no shortage of ideas. we jsut have shortage of time and man power when it comes to awesome boss encounters. the malygos encounter is completely unique then you have the chamber of aspects. you have different modes to complete the fight like killing all the dragons first or not. we're working on the ulduar raid and we're going to be doing things you've never seen before like seige weapons and destructible buildings.

Q: You mentioned hybridity in classes and you don't want them to smash rogues, but DK is a tank but he tanks through his druid like a druid. where you do you want damaging DK to stand?
A: A tanking DK trying to damage will feel like a prot warrior or prot paladin. a tanking DK who is damaging must sacrifice some damage to try to do damage when they're not tanking. ultimately the design is that they won't be ont he top of the meters.

Q: What's the next Hero Class ?
A: We announced that. it's the bard. april fool's!

Q: We're taking over northrend in this expansion, what about the next?
A: Something else! starcraft 2! not what you expect in a very good way. it's not about comments, but i guess it kind of is but boldness is next! unbelievable boldness.

Q: What are the plans for sacred cleansing?
A: I don't have an answer to that. it's something on the white board list, but i don't have a big unveil for it yet.

Q: Will hunter aspects ever be taken off the global cooldown and be more fluid?
A: Tricky, hunters want everything off the GCD. i wouldn't rule it out completely.

Q: When it comes to dailies, they're very repetitive. will there be a key ring later on for daily quest items like bombs?
A: Dailies feel repetitive after a while. something we want to pursue we want to randomize dailies like cooking and fishing. in wotlk, we have randomized cooking and JC quests to make them less repetitive. on our to-do-list is the quest UI as a whole and we want to revamp it. we have a great quest interface and we want to make the usuability more clear to players.

Q: Now that you've made more rogue talents for daggers, how can you bring that back around for swords?
A: We've made great lengths to improve the combat tree and found it was falling behind the assassination tree. we've buffed up a lot of the talents and the tree like increasing vitality. our suspicision is the combat tree will scale better than the others so we're testing it.

Q: Achievement points - will we get t9 epics for these at some point?
A: No. Achievement points will never be for anything in game. all the rewards are purely cosmetic at this point like mounts and titles. it's to recognize your acomplishements, not create new ones.

Q: we loved the kael'thas fight, but around again we hated that time for him to stop talking. are you going to have more fights where we have to wait for the boss to stop talking?
A: We weren't going too but we will now. we have bronzebeard in wotlk, and he has some great speech where he pushes the storyline forward. internally we realized we needed to give a fast forward button

Q: With spellpower and dual specs, as it becomes easier to become a hybrid, how do you protect the classes who can't respec to tank or heal?
A: That's a totally valid concern. we knew goign into this, that makeing the hybrids more viable we took some of the hybrids buffs away which is threatening to some classes. we're trying to buff their utility so they are bringing something and we can't allow their damage to fall down so they can still compete. its important that those four classes are still doing a lot of damage as long as they're not doing 30-40% more damage than everyone else. the best mage or rogue should be at the top of the meter. it shouldn't be just the class.

Q: Why do i put 13 points into discipline as a priest?
A: I feel we've gone too far sometimes that a spec puts all their points into one tree. we like the idea of cross specing between the trees. we think its pretty cool for classes to do that so its not mandatory for classes to do. its also why we've been changing the raid buff system. if other classes bring that buff then you don't have to worry about it. players who run out of mana quickly are not necessarily good players. we don't want you to run out right away, but as we look at feedback, we'll make decisions about how close to the mark we are.

Q: The sound for HoR is so annoying and needs to be changed. as far as taunting, the 3 target taunt is great until you're trying to taunt one thing and is there any chance the 11 point talent would be a single target taunt.
A: It wouldn't be a 11 point talent. it'd be pretty lame to have to spec down into that. there's a glyph to make it single target but it comes down to how similar do the classes have to be? we had to change the DK because it was too much like warriors and druids.

Q: About holy pallies, the relationship between classes and talent specs. the classes provide a framework and the trees allow you to specialize around that framework. the holy tree keeps pallys away from melee as much as possible, but are there plans to keep them with that paladin ideal?
A: We wanted to make tanking more fun and the next thing to look at ont he list will be healing. we did add death grip to DK to keep the holyp ally in melee range.

Q: WoW movie by legendary pictures?
A: Well you phrased it well. we're working on it. we're working hard on it. the story we have cooking is really cool and if i say more i'll be shot and that will be bad for me. patience. good things coming.

Q: Professions are a big part of the game for me and towards the end of bc, much of the gear i could make was obsolete. i knwo there are plans for sockets, but what other plans are there to combat obselence?
A: We don't want to repeat your example of frozen shadoweave because it ended up being a problem for us later on. w/ that being said we want to make an effort to examine slots that you can create gear for and we want to provide plans for each tier that you can have access too.

Q: about arms warriors, will there be a possibility to group all weapon specs?
A: Weapon specs are jsut one of those things that fit the kit when specing. in our experience, we haven't felt that you change out your weapons so often where the respecing becomes a burden. specing is a burden for other reasons right now. we're comfortable with how the specializations are ironing out.

Q: When are you going to make omen of clarity non-dispellable?
A: We're not entirely happy with the dispel system right now. there's the whoel strategy of junk buffs. we changed a lot to see how things would work out and the balance would stand. if we say omen cant' be dispelled, then we have to look at what else can't be dispelled.

Q: About warlock's fel domination, will there be a mechanic to switch pets out?
A: We want warlocks to use more types of pets, but b/c you're actually shifting to another instead of brining out another because one is dead. we're not sure how we want to handle that, but we're talking about it.

Q: I pvp as a holy pally and i was wondering with cyclone and mind control. pallys have no great offensive pvp ability so will we get something?
A: It's a valid concern and we're keeping our eye on other healers. they have a lot of offensive abilities and we're going to keep our eye on pallys and try to help them out.

Q: The 11 point talent has always been defining, pallys have kings but it was moved. we don't have that class defining talent anymore now that RF has no mitigation.
A: Warriors got a lot of what pallies can do, and now pallies can do what warriors do. we'll definitely end up giving pallies something else, but we need to see where protection tanking takes us.

Q: Why is arcane blast something in wotlk something that no arcane mages want to touch?
A: I don't agree with that. i've used arcane blast as my main damage spell. we're trying to tune it so that it's not the only spell arcane mages are using. we saw mages were using 1 button and that's not what we want to have happen. we're trying to design it so you balance between arcane blast and arcane missles or barrage.

Q: will you ever make the 10 man loot look different from the 25?
A: We would like to. we would like all our armor sets to look different. but its a matter of what we have time for.

Q: Damaging siege weapons as a priest is really hard, is there any plan to fix this ?
A: Priest is one of the classes we've been actively tuning. one of the big reasons we gave them mind sear is so they'd be viable in the aoe situation. we've been doing a lot of testing lately and we definietly want to bump up spriests.

Q: With the new BoA items that scale, are you looking at doing something similar with legendary items? will we be able to upgrade them?
A: Getting a TF is more dicey than getting a BoA item. if i want to gear out my alt, i need to do MC till i get a TF. while we do like to give legendaries a special effect that makes them more meaningful, as far as all things like an item with power, they have to go to the wayside at some point.

Q: Our raid gear to do brutallus, we had to get s4 gear but if pvp gear drops in a pve raid instance, the pvp gear gets disenchanted. will you put pvp gear in raid instances?
A: If you do the same raid as a pvper, you have the same chance to get those weapons. if you turn in the tokens, then you can get the gear. the weapons from pvp can give you a head start in pve. you shouldn't feel compelled to pvp though.

Q: I was wondering about personalization like moves that could be changed in the dressign room. dragonball z style fireball cast or something like that?
A: It's not currently planned, but its something we've discussed. with our animation system, we have the ability to add more as we go along and it's something we'll look into.

Q: Do you have any plans to extend the championing system so that we will still be able to get titles?
A: We want to see how players like them first before we go ahead with more. we need to look at the old reputations that are difficult to grind out. we have some places where you can fix your ravenholdt rep if you're interestd in fixing something like this.

Q: Will there be pve arenas?
A: All the geometry of the boss area is important and a small arena wouldn't have the same feel. would they drop the same items as the boss would normally? both of these complexities make it difficult, but it's something to think about.

Q: What other spells are going to be useable indoors? mounts?
A: We have one great update. Blizzcon exclusive! In the 1st content patch that follows wotlk, all of your ground mounts will no longer dismount in water. they'll swim now.

Q: It's really frustrating when you spend all this time getting t4, t5, t6 gear and walking into a bg and getting wrecked because you don't have resilience. will you plan on adding resilience to pve gear?
A: We offer the ability to turn in pve tokens to pvp pieces so its a foot in the door. we encourage the cross over of gear and we support that as much as possible

Q: Why are the pandaren the only race not to be in wow yet?
A: We ran into some issues with china and what their perception of the panda is. china is an important part of our game. i can't say it'll never happen, but its not ont he horizon right now. the rumor mill has it that we might have some fiction around them, an action figure at some point. we want to keep the hope alive.

Q: With SWP, you added a lot of cool daily quests and goals, are you planning on something like that for arthas?
A: We're planning on making arthas accessible to everyone. people who have been in the beta know that you interact w/ arthas all the way up. the game will be full on daily quests. they came with the 1st content patch after BC. we want solo players to have access to big name characters like arthas. we're talking about having some 5 man arthas interaction at some point.

Q: Will we ever find out what happened with alleria and tyrion and deathwing?
A: Working on it and yes.

Q: What will blacksmithing get? will we be able to repair our own armor? enchanting, alchemy, and JC are the only endgame professions.
A: With wotlk, we're trying to make all the professions applicable to end game. bs can socket gloves and belt. glove sockets are for your self only. theres going to be end game viability that everyone can use. it will stack with enchanting.

Q: As a 2k holy paladin, when I do a heroic its sort of hard its hard for me to heal the whole group in the dungeon when there's a boss that does aoe dmg since pallies are a single target healer.
A: Beacon of light is really supposed to be the spell that covers that role. there are talents that will help with flash of heals but your big aoe is beacon of light.

Q: Why do you think that perception is such a better racial than other ones in the arena?
A: its one of the racials we see swinging the fights. it was very hard for players to compete if they weren't human rogues. its one of those racials that's only really good in a very narrow area of the game and we never wanted it to be so specific. we wanted it to be more broad in the arena case.

Class Panel #2

The dual-spec system will interface with the UI.

• Action bars will flip when you switch your spec so you don't have to re-do all your keys.
• It will likely also tie into Glyphs so you don't have to re-do Glyphs whenever you switch specs.

Q: Ghostcrawler, do you plan to be as active on the live forums after Beta is over?
A: That is his plan. He'll have to see how crazy things get.

Q: Thanks for the new Hunter Pet system. Any new info on the Hunter 45-point survival talent?
A: They want Trap Mastery to be useful. It could be a lot sexier than it is now. It's not a change they can make right away.

Q: Any feedback on the current state of Elemental Shaman?
A: Class balance is so reactive. Each class type reacts to changes of other classes differently. Elemental Shamans, like Hunters, fight the GCD quite a bit, and Devs have tried to give them some help in that regard. Changing totems to the physical school may help. They have to wait and see how it all plays out.

Q: Hunters. How do you maintain a balance between Arena and Raid DPS?
A: Hunters have always been top sustained Raid DPS. That has continued in Wrath. They are keeping an eye on the PvP balance of it.

Q: Rogue Combat tree. Daggers and poisons were fixed, but will Combat Raid utility be improved?
A: The buff/debuff system has been entirely overhauled, ands that effects poisons and other Rogue abilities. Devs definitely want to get Combat up equal to other DPS specs. There have eben a lot of recent big changes to Combat in particular.

Q: DKs starting at level 55 is great. Will any other classes ever start at higher levels? (Lots of applause.)
A: They currently have no plans to change other classes. They did things like Refer a Friend bonuses to help leveling, but they want players to experience low level content. However, they know old content is not of the same quality as the new stuff.

Q: Devs have said they want more Raid utility for Discipline priests, but that's not obvious in beta. Penance is good but using Greater Heal, you still have mana issues.
A: That's good feedback. People always ask for more mana in feedback and it's hard for devs to know when they really need it. They want to play up distinctive healing styles, but large, slow heals will never go away.

Q: Shadow Priests and Warlocks. Will DoTs ever tag a mob for kill credit?
A: That is on the list of things to do, for sure. It's just a question of when.

Q: Amplify Curses was completely changed to a haste increase for curses. How is this useful and will it be changed?
A: When the talent was designed, it was meant for for PvP and Arenas where you have to reapply curses more often than in PvE.

Q: Endgame 10-man raiding is great, but it also means if you lose a player or two it can be difficult since less people are in the party. Could another class perhaps get a Battle Rez?
A: What class did you have in mind? (Audience jeering and yelling out suggestions.) Death Knights have a self Battle Rez!

Q: Death Knight tanking. Devs have said that Rune Strike was redesigned to help give back threat that is lost to parries and dodges. With recent change to Rune cooldowns when parries and dodges happen, will all that extra threat still be necessary?
A: In an ideal world, you would get more threat from overall damage than one single ability. They are monitoring it.

Q: Will there be resistance-based fights in Wrath?
A: Devs always have trouble deciding. Resistance fights bring a lot of flavor, but is it worth it? (Corwd shouts "No!") A lot of mobs and bosses get affected by diseases and poisons now, and that's something they need to keep an eye on.

Q: Class homogenization issues, especially Paladins. Pally tanking skills keep being given to other classes.
A: It's a big concern for Devs to make sure all classes have the tools they need without having them all be the same. Do Paladins have to have a single-target taunt? Do all classes have to have a Battle Rez, or is it good for just Druids? They don't want Paladins to be the only tanks people take. They are still trying to balance this.

Q: Tanks in PvP. Any ideas for "defender" type abilities in PvP?
A: Protection Warriors have a lot more PvP utility. Devs do not know if they will ever add in something like a PvP taunt, but they would love to make tanking specs more PvP viable whenever they can. The respec thing is a band-aid for this as well, but they want to do more to help those specs.

Q: Will Elemental Shamans ever get a Talent that boost spell power with spirit like other casters have?
A: If they need it. Devs are to the point where spirit is no longer the mana regen stat, it's more of a boost for spell power. They don't feel everyone needs a Talent like this, but if it's needed, it will be added.

Q: Do you forsee Battle stance being more viable in PvP?
A: Devs are keeping an eye on Battle Stance skills. Devs think Stance dancing isn't that hard. They may make more changes to Stances in the future.

Q: Why is Stoneclaw the protective totem for PvP when it prevents the use of other Earth PvP totems? Any plans for a flat totem health increase?
A: We will double it! (Laughter.) No, we felt Stoneclaw was the right totem to use. It felt right. Players should have to make a choice between the snare, the fear warding, and the totem strengthening.

Q: There is a Glyph that lets Excorcism have a spell interupt. Will this spell be usable on non-Undead targets to make it more useful in PvP?
A: It's an idea! Maybe.

Q: Shadow Priest's Dispersion is lackluster. Any chance for some buffs?
A: Probably not. The Devs are happy with the way it is. It's a partial shield that does not root you. Yeah it's not terribly useful for high-end PvE, but it is beneficial in other way and 51-Point talents are often very situational.

[Elsye]

Omg that murloc is adorable. Anyone know where I can buy Blizzcon items (not just the murloc) online or on location if im not *at* Blizzcon.

[LavaDuck]

Cute murloc, wtb !

[Genesys]

lmao, i wonder if hes squeezable!

[Phresh]

And I quote:

"And before you ask, the Murloc Plush Toy is from J!NX."

[218over]

Hope the class panel will be better today....

[Genesys]

wonder if theres gonna be more talk about ret paladins. One interesting question to clarify the ppl who are confused from what the prts show on s4 vendors is if the pr rating is going to stay 2200 for shoulders and that its a bug currently in the ptr which shows 2k, weapons 1850.

[Wymorence]

Omg that murloc is adorable. Anyone know where I can buy Blizzcon items (not just the murloc) online or on location if im not *at* Blizzcon.

Well, I know I saw two auctions for Blizzcon 2008 items in the swag bag on ebay yesterday, god knows there'll be more later this week...


On another note, I am SO buying that Murloc when J!nx gets it on their page...

[Efedorus]

even if they reduce the pr...it's only less of a month for lich king...

[Adlian]

Schedule - Saturday October 11th (PST Time)
10:30 AM - 11:30 AM - PvP Panel
12:00 PM - 01:00 PM - Raids & Dungeons Panel
01:30 PM - 02:30 PM - World of Warcraft Q&A
03:00 PM - 04:00 PM - World of Warcraft Classes Panel #2

??? in EU time this mean ??? ???

[phoenixia]

??? in EU time this mean ??? ???

This mean the pvp panel (first one) is right now

[LavaDuck]

CEST is 9 hours ahead

[Adlian]

CEST is 9 hours ahead

ty

[bbr]

strand of the ancients should perhaps be 20vs20.

10vs10 certainly was too few.

[Kenark]

11:12 AM - They also want players to be able to level up in battlegrounds through XP rewards in addition of honor. Daily quests will also be added.
11:10 AM - In the future, players will be able to queue in Arenas and Battlegrounds from anywhere in the world.

Direct rip-off from Warhammer Online perhaps? :P

Not that i'm complaining, but its interesting that the announcement that they want these changes to the game, comes shortly after WAR was released.

nah, in the old times there was already xp for bgs.
and the queueing thing is probably another casual friedly thing so that people don't need to actually plan to do a bg and make a trip to the city.

but i'm excited about both changes ^^

[Genesys]

LMAO, the days of twinking has come to an end.

[Thijak]

Updates
11:12 AM - They also want players to be able to level up in battlegrounds through XP rewards in addition of honor. Daily quests will also be added.
11:10 AM - In the future, players will be able to queue in Arenas and Battlegrounds from anywhere in the world.

World of Not Coming Up With Own Innovations So We Steal Them From Warhammer Online Craft ftw

[Raikaga]

11:12 AM - They also want players to be able to level up in battlegrounds through XP rewards in addition of honor. Daily quests will also be added.
11:10 AM - In the future, players will be able to queue in Arenas and Battlegrounds from anywhere in the world.

Direct rip-off from Warhammer Online perhaps? :P

Complete rip-off.

[Octopus]

Lol at the Warhammer rip-off. They have no shame.

[Teli]

Ohnoes, rip-off.. Who cares? As long as it's good, add it.