BlizzConline 2021 Recap
We learned about Shadowlands Patch 9.1: Chains of Domination, Burning Crusade Classic, Forged in the Barrens Hearthstone Expansion, Rogues coming to Diablo IV, Diablo II: Resurrected, and more!

World of Warcraft


Shadowlands Patch 9.1: Chains of Domination
  • Korthia - New section of the Maw with a new art kit, mounts, pets, and more.
  • Sanctum of Domination - New raid with Eye of the Jailer, Tarragrue, Kel'Thuzad, and Sylvanas
  • Tazavesh, the Veiled Market - New eight-boss Mythic mega-dungeon
  • Torghast - New wing, floors, enemies, powers, and art
  • Flying - Unlock flying by completing covenant activities and campaign chapters, earning your Covenant mount
  • Covenant Cosmetic Armor Sets
  • Shadowlands Season 2 - New Mythic+ Affix, Honor Talent refresh, PvP rewards, and more

Burning Crusade Classic
  • Release in 2021 with Beta soon
  • Spell batching is removed
  • Draenei and Blood Elves in pre-patch
  • Current Classic Servers become Progression Servers
  • Choose on a character by character basis to progress with the server or move the character to an Classic Era server.
  • Paid option to make a copy of your character so you can keep it in Classic and move on to Burning Crusade.
  • One paid Level 58 boost per account including a mount, dungeon blues, and limited to Classic races.

World of Warcraft Q&A Panel
  • The faction imbalance has become a social issue that will likely require a social solution and it is a top priority for the team.
  • You cannot fly directly from zone to zone in Shadowlands. You will still need to use the a flight path to enter a zone.
  • Your name will be saved for both server options in Burning Crusade Classic. If there are server connections they will likely play out like in modern WoW having names with servers appended.
  • The team wants to address faction imbalance in BC Classic with small changes such as Paladin seals being available to both factions.
  • There are no plans right now to add more race/class combinations in Shadowlands, but never say never.


Diablo II, Diablo IV, and Diablo Immortal


Diablo IV: What's Next?
  • Rogues can use Swords/Daggers, and Bows/Crossbows
  • Three Specializations - Shadow Realm, Combo Points, Exploit Weakness
  • Rogues can imbue their attacks with different elements like poison or frost
  • More classes will come in the future
  • There are optional PvP areas called Fields of Hatred

Diablo II: Resurrected Deep Dive
  • On PC & consoles with cross-play & cross-progression
  • All cinematics modernized and recreated shot for shot
  • The game will be playable in its original 2D form, like Starcraft Remastered.
  • 8-Player multiplayer

Diablo Immortal: Alpha & Beyond
  • A large variety of ways to progress your character gives players things to do each time they log in
  • The new Paragon system is less linear than in Diablo III, and allows for specialization which can be expanded upon over time
  • Controller support is the most requested thing coming out of Technical Alpha
  • The level cap of Technical Alpha was 45, but release is planned to be 60

BlizzConline Diablo Q&A
  • Resurrected is remaking all cinematics shot-for-shot.
  • For Immortal, they are focusing on the content updates. There is no intention to reset progress like in Diablo III seasons.
  • There will be controller support for D2 on PC.
  • Immortal is focused on the span on time between Diablo II and Diablo III as far as lore goes
  • The level cap of Technical Alpha was 45, but release is planned to be 60


Hearthstone
You can see all of the new Forged in the Barrens cards that have been revealed so far here.


Hearthstone Deep Dive
  • Forged in the Barrens Expansion
  • Spells now have schools
  • Ranked spells grow with you through the game, having different effects on below 5 mana, above 5 mana and at 10 mana
  • New Keyword: Frenzy, first time your minion takes damage and survives, it triggers this effect
  • Core set - 235 cards. Buffed, revived and revolutionized cards as well as new ones. Get the Core set by leveling all your classes to level 10
  • Hearthstone Mercenaries - Tactical RPG and Roguelike type game mode. Single Player progression.

Hearthstone Q&A
  • They would love to do a Murloc Expansion, like they did Dragons. They would have to increase the range of Murloc sizes
  • Core Set is great for new and returning players, due to better quality of the set compared to Basic and Classic and the unlock requirements are low
  • Quests are something they love. They learned a lot from the previous editions. If they do it again it will be with a twist and not the same.
  • They want to do Random Hero Skin and Random Coin, like they have the Random Card back, but don't have a fixed point yet when that is coming, but it IS coming


Overwatch



Behind the Scenes of Overwatch 2
  • New Maps - Rome and New York City
  • Hero Missions - PvE Co-Op Missions
  • Progression - Level up your heroes as you play Hero missions and fill out skill trees
  • More Story
  • Updated Hero appearances


Blizzard Arcade Collection
Blizzard announced the Blizzard Arcade Collection today, a collection of three older games.


  • The Collection includes The Lost Vikings, Rock N Roll Racing, and Blackthorne.
  • The Blizzard Arcade Collection is included as part of The Celebration Collection on PC.
  • Consoles will also be able to play the collection.
  • Players that didn't purchase the Celebration Collection can purchase the Arcade Collection for $20.
  • The games in the Blizzard Arcade Collection come in their Original Editions and also upgraded Definitive Editions, with each version featuring custom key mapping and the ability to rewind up to 10 seconds.
  • The Original Editions of The Lost Vikings and Blackthorne also include “watch mode,” which lets players watch a playthrough of the game and jump in to take control at any point.
  • The ability to save progress anywhere is also included in all versions of each game, with the exception of the Definitive Edition of Rock N Roll Racing.
  • An array of bonus materials rounds out the Blizzard Arcade Collection, including game art, development assets, unused content, lore, interviews, and more


Blizzard Gear Store
Blizzard has put up some new BlizzConline merchandise on the Blizzard Gear Store, all with free shipping. When you purchase through our link it helps support the site. Some interesting items:


This article was originally published in forum thread: BlizzConline 2021 - Day 1 Recap started by chaud View original post
Comments 78 Comments
  1. ryanmahaffe's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Queendom View Post
    Both W3R and D2R are published and being sold by Blizzard, no matter what are the names of actual developers.

    I'm not expecting D4 to come out soon, I expect that it will never be released.

    OW received less content recently than the "officially" abandoned HotS, seems pretty abandoned to me.
    Point 1 is irrelevant. The publisher can fuck up by rushing a release or not giving adequate recourses, but there is no reason to believe D2R will have the same obvious development struggle reforged did, false equivalences.

    Point 2 is just....100% unrealistic lmao.

    It is clearly in Limbo with the team working on OW2, whether that is a good decision or not is up for debate.
  1. Gratlim's Avatar
    2021 release basically mean Q4 release in PR so december probably. Yet i am happy for D2 so i cba about the rest.

    We are still in the middle of a pandemic and mostly nothing is back to normal yet. Patience
  1. Puri's Avatar
    Not that I am not looking for some of those titles, but when half of the announcments are about remastering old games (and those get the most hype) they might want to reconsider their development strategy before they run out of rehashable content.
  1. btorz's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Puri View Post
    Not that I am not looking for some of those titles, but when half of the announcments are about remastering old games (and those get the most hype) they might want to reconsider their development strategy before they run out of rehashable content.
    yeah blizz needs to step up, when the only hype you get is from people more interested to play a remastered 20 year old game (D2), and a 14 year old expansion (BC) then you have a design problem with your current games.
  1. scubi666stacy's Avatar
    Though TBC is still one of my favorite expansions so far, I will not be playing TBC Classic. Classic WoW lost me before I got to level 20, because it was utterly pointless for me to replay content I already did before. I remember the content of TBC quite well, have done most of it, and will not have the time nor the motivation to replay all this. I would not even want to replay Legion with my beloved Mage Tower feature once more, because I will not have the time for gearing up a legion of alts anymore. I wish they would give us a personal server-client kit for every past expansion with the option to copy your live characters into it as some kind of a 3D museum.

    Also, Shadowlands is quite good in my opinion. Granted, I play very casually this time, because of RL issues, but still. Torghast is a great improvement compared to IE and I have plenty of things to do in my limited gaming time. Also if we get flying easier, this is a bonus for me. For the first time in many years I am still not done with Loremaster.
  1. Pacster's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by btorz View Post
    yeah blizz needs to step up, when the only hype you get is from people more interested to play a remastered 20 year old game (D2), and a 14 year old expansion (BC) then you have a design problem with your current games.
    Possibly one of the reasons why we didn't see WoW:Classic earlier. Either it fails...or it is a success. But if it is a success it is competition for your own game...and questions a decade of development. The sweet spot there is very, very small...
  1. MrFawlty's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by ryanmahaffe View Post
    Point 1 is irrelevant. The publisher can fuck up by rushing a release or not giving adequate recourses, but there is no reason to believe D2R will have the same obvious development struggle reforged did, false equivalences.
    The point is however that Blizzard did release Warcraft 3 in a suspect state so their quality control isn’t what it once was. The advice to not go throwing money at the screen is therefore valid.
  1. javierdsv's Avatar
    Given Ion's past failures its clear they're budget limiting wow now.
    It's a very sad thing to see. Even more when you know they could save millions by just replacing Ion with a more capable individual.
  1. lolmmofuture's Avatar
    the overwatch stuff was i n s a n e
  1. gnomemonster's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by hulkgor View Post
    My overall opinion about this Blizzcon* (Everyone should keep in mind this wasn't a typical, big blizzcon, but more of an online reveal of some info with some limitations).

    It was bad. WoW dive was horrible and awkward, but the Diablo one was actually interesting and fun. The Q&A is, as always, overly safe and controlled with all the typical questions we get every year. And the 'extra panels' like Thrall, Voices and Cooking were all absolutely pointless, even bad on some cases.

    As for the reveals, the Diablo 2 : Resurrected alone, was enough to make me happy as a big reveal, and having given up on lots of their franchises (no info on Starcraft for example) makes me sad.

    So yea, i would have hated it if not for the D2:R and TBC confirmations, but those made it 'nice'.
    Overall this con just felt weak and lacking. I feel like there were way too few details about ANYTHING mentioned. With the remasters (TBC, D2R) staying "true" to themselves, there wasn't much to actually talk about. It was surprising that they didn't go into more details with WoW Shadowlands futures besides story spoilers. D4 still has so little gameplay and mechanics shown, feels like the slowest drip of information which makes me think that there isn't much or it is not that far at all. Their panels were not engaging and I found myself tuning out a lot because I just wanted to see gameplay and screenshots, not 4 folks talking and answering basic questions where we end up of a list of 5 things we know about D2R, D4, DI, TBC, etc.
  1. Huggykaze's Avatar
    Ugh... So we're doing Arthas all over again? It's outright pathetic... A team with no ideas how to progress their story even after butchering all existing lore in order to progress the story... It's sad to see this, honestly. And suddenly Sylvanas is feeling remorseful? I'm feeling bad for her. She used to be an awesome character, but then got turned into an idiot Mary Sue... Is this how they plan on FINALLY showing her "moral grayness"? It's beyond me how bad has this franchise become...
  1. xdunpealx's Avatar
    This WOW story is whack. They keep making males the "bad guys" and now Sylvanas, a badass imo, is now having second thoughts in trailer? All the "top" dogs in Shadowlands are female, but the big bad is another guy. It is literally boiling down to men bad women fight and will be our saviors. Anduin? I dont know what training he got during MOP or after, but for someone that is supposed to be groomed to be a king he is a soyboy. Thats what I am seeing in this Blizzcon trailer.

    As other said, if you have to bring back or rehash your older titles, that means no one is getting creative. Maybe they should stop hiring college kids, where the older generations we HAD to be bring imagination while playing. I am not saying all kids, but really what has Blizzard really introduced that is creative besides Overwatch? Diablo 2 remastered -- absolutely looks great and I will purchase it. Diablo 4 I am hoping shapes up to be great in its own right. Poor HOTS i play the game still, but I am waiting for them to just pull the plug on the servers. SC was iconic and eventually had to end, which I am perfectly fine with.

    So again, whats coming? D2, D4, Diablo Immortal, OW2, WoW patch. They said titles they have not revealed, and come on, we all know they are working with TENANET to get those mobile games out.

    I would love to see a story driven game along the lines lets say Witcher or something that can bring that RPG back where graphics/mechanics are top notch, but we played 100+hours for story and side quests.
  1. Appelgren's Avatar
    Looking forward to D2 and D4.
    Im also curious how we will progress with Sylvanas. (Kill her? She escapes to another patch/expansion? Do we forgive her? etc etc)
    The rest of the announcements is irrelevant and could be scrapped for all i care.
  1. maulofamerica's Avatar
    No macOS version for D2:Rez? What a load of BS. There was a Mac version of the original D2 and D2:LOD that I played so much, my CD drive cracked the Lord of Destruction CD from constant use. Thanks Blizzard for marginalizing macOS users. It won't be forgotten.
  1. Asaliah's Avatar
    I've maybe missed it but will we be able to skip the maw intro with our alts during 9.0.5 or 9.1 please?
  1. Eggroll's Avatar
    I'm just so glad I didn't spend a significant amount of time in the Maw. I focused more on mount farming in earlier xpacs. :-)

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Asaliah View Post
    I've maybe missed it but will we be able to skip the maw intro with our alts during 9.0.5 or 9.1 please?
    Indeed, that would be great. Like the skip in earlier xpacs... the "I've head this tale before..." skip.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by neik View Post
    I enjoyed the day one, Overwatch 2 news was really the highlight of the night for me. Also, the shit that really got my feels is when she got stabbed in a heart. So fucking sad, I really admired her, some rebirth would be nice.
    She survived

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Appelgren View Post
    Looking forward to D2 and D4.
    Im also curious how we will progress with Sylvanas. (Kill her? She escapes to another patch/expansion? Do we forgive her? etc etc)
    The rest of the announcements is irrelevant and could be scrapped for all i care.
    I hope Tyrande finishes her off - after she tortures her and she dies in excrutiating pain.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by ryanmahaffe View Post
    Point 1 is irrelevant. The publisher can fuck up by rushing a release or not giving adequate recourses, but there is no reason to believe D2R will have the same obvious development struggle reforged did, false equivalences.
    Especially since they replaced the team that screwed up WC3R with a team that has a track record of bringing old games back to life successfully.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by btorz View Post
    yeah blizz needs to step up, when the only hype you get is from people more interested to play a remastered 20 year old game (D2), and a 14 year old expansion (BC) then you have a design problem with your current games.
    I think the WoW team really has to get in shape since Riot is developing an MMO based on the LoL Moba - and Ghostcrawler is leading the developement. This could indeed become the WoW killer, given the huge amount of LoL players.
  1. Appelgren's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Eggroll View Post
    I hope Tyrande finishes her off - after she tortures her and she dies in excrutiating pain.
    You ok dude? God damn...
  1. Eggroll's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Appelgren View Post
    You ok dude? God damn...
    Well, at least the way Varian died. The devs had fun rubbing this in for Alliance.

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