Blizzcon - WoW Recap, Art Panel, Closing Ceremony

[Boubouille]

Blizzcon - WoW Recap
The Blizzcon came to an end yesterday, and even if obviously it wasn't as interesting as the previous one where WotLK was announced, we did hear a few new things about the upcoming expansion.
Wrath of the Lich King

• Blizzard is already manufacturing discs and putting the final touches to WotLK

Upcoming Patches

• Patch 3.1 will be the first content patch of the expansion and is already done. It will include Ulduar raid instance (10 and 25 Man)
• Patch 3.2 will add a new and still unknown raid instance to the game.
• Patch 3.3 will introduce Icecrown Citadel and should also resolve the storyline of Ashbringer.

Upcoming changes

• In Patch 3.1, ground mounts will no longer dismount in water but will swim instead.
• 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 available in the Raids & Dungeons Panel post)

Upcoming features

• 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. An itemrack-like mod might also be added to the game to make switching even easier.
• New dances will be added in a content patch, one of the objective with the dance studio isn't to just add new dances but also let players combine moves to create their own dance.
• Guild ratings might be added in the future, guilds could receive a rating based on their PvE and PvP accomplishments. Achievements based on guild accomplishments could be added to the game as well.

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.
• 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.
• In the future, players will be able to queue in Arenas and Battlegrounds from anywhere in the world.
• Strand of the Ancients is getting changed from 10vs10 to 15vs15. The amount of Vehicles is also being doubled.

Misc.

• It seems that Ozzy Osbourne will be doing the next WoW what do you play commercial.
• There isn't any plan for a Blizzcon on the USA East Coast for the moment

World of Warcraft Movie

• WoW Movie is still something they're working on, and they DO have a draft of the script for the movie.

Secret Project

• Blizzard's "secret project" is confirmed to be a new MMO with a brand new universe, but we won't hear anything about it before a while.

Detailed Panels

• Blizzcon - Day 1 - Class Panel, Interface Panel, Opening Ceremony.
• Blizzcon - Day 2 - PvP Panel, Raids & Dungeons Panel, Developers Q&A, Class Panel #2.

Blizzcon - Closing Ceremony
Just like any Blizzard event, the Blizzcon ended with a concert of L80ETC ! A few pictures below ...

Blizzcon - Art Panel Pictures
We didn't report this one because we didn't any important announcement from it, if you're really interested in something else than pictures you can always check the writeup at WoWInsider. (And I know you're going to hate me for posting over 100 thumbnails on the frontpage, but I actually did some optimization on all of them to make the front page lighter)

[nemesisevil]

meh

[Nubs]

The art development process was actually kinda detailed, too bad they didn't seem to focus more around the technical aspect, but rather the developers and creation (idea) process towards the end.

[skojten]

hehe the dungeon team has only 1 female onboard, well atleast what i can see. one of the last pics.
great upload during the con

[Panoramixe]

That diablo 3 picture with rainbows and unicorns is just wrong, soon they'll tell us the next new class will be the carebear who summons rainbows and rides a unicorn -.-.

[skojten]

aslong as the carebears are evul and shoot rainbows out there arse

[Tradix]

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.
• 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.
• In the future, players will be able to queue in Arenas and Battlegrounds from anywhere in the world.
• Strand of the Ancients is getting changed from 10vs10 to 15vs15. The amount of Vehicles is also being doubled.

Now Blizzard tries to imitate Warhammer Online :P

[Panoramixe]

World of Warcraft set a standard for mmo's, all mmo's use a lot of blizzard's ideas. They all have very similar systems for levelling, questing, talents and the like.
So of course Blizzard will use ideas other games have worked out too, saves them a lot of time and money just common sense.

[Legionn]

I do believe someone else already stated that WOW has already used pvp to help to gain exp well before warhammer was even thought of, so get over it already.

[LavaDuck]

That's alot of pics

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...lo3concert.jpg

My favourite !

[Daniri]

Is the 'secret project' different from the 'Untitled MMO/Next-Gen MMO'?

[stupid11]

Now Blizzard tries to imitate Warhammer Online :P

War did not invent attack and defend, or siege weapons/vehicles.

And they definitely didn't invent competitive large scale PVP (Battlegrounds).

[Hardalor]

Is the 'secret project' different from the 'Untitled MMO/Next-Gen MMO'?

From the looks of it, no, that's exactly what that project is. AND it's gonna be a 4th Blizzard universe.

I do believe someone else already stated that WOW has already used pvp to help to gain exp well before warhammer was even thought of, so get over it already.

You and that person are right. For a long time, you could turn in 3 BG marks for exp. That's how I got a lot of my main's exp from 10 to 29, then 40-49. Which is why I have so many quests to do in Azeroth still...

[gagarin]

@Boubou
could u post somewhere video of the concert that happened in the end? :P

[eRAZOR]

Is the 'secret project' different from the 'Untitled MMO/Next-Gen MMO'?

Probably not. A while ago everyone was under the impression that that Project "Hydro" was the secret MMO project until some slides revealed that Hydra was actually D3.

[Lesane]

For the people who didn't figure it out yet... the Diablo 3 logo in carebear style is probably because of the drama from a while ago regarding fans being pissed off that D3 was looking too bright and all which resulted in the main art guy on D3 flaming down 'darker' suggestion made by the fanbase. Sometimes even Blizzard likes to make fun of the whiners (tinfoil hat go!).

[aikouka]

For the people who didn't figure it out yet... the Diablo 3 logo in carebear style is probably because of the drama from a while ago regarding fans being pissed off that D3 was looking too bright and all which resulted in the main art guy on D3 flaming down 'darker' suggestion made by the fanbase. Sometimes even Blizzard likes to make fun of the whiners (tinfoil hat go!).

Yeah, it started with the singer from Level 80 Tauren Chieftain saying something along the lines of, "Who played Diablo 3 earlier?" *cheers from the crowd* "Did you see the rainbow?" and then it went on a bit and they introduced the "new" Diablo 3 logo (which was just a joke of course).

I still wish they had a "I'm rerolling Death Knight" shirt at Blizzcon .

[Robby]

That Diablo III picture rly fits. O.o

[VeeVee]

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/.../391013200.jpg

Whats up with that? Dalaran before Archimonde?

[stupid11]

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/.../391013200.jpg

Whats up with that? Dalaran before Archimonde?

Looks like Warhammer, but better.

http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war/...ionKeep-01.jpg

:P