Blizzcon 2017 - Day 0, Earnings Call, Before the Storm, Sylvanas Statue, Blue Posts

[chaud]

Virtual Ticket Giveaway & New Diablo Fans Community Manager

Sylvanas Statue Now On Sale, BlizzCon 2017 Charity Auction has Begun

Blizzcon 2017 - Day 0
BlizzCon is less than a day away and in-game goodies are out! If you haven't already grabbed them, be sure to pick up a Virtual Ticket to see the whole event and get some in-game goodies. If you aren't planning on watching with the Virtual Ticket, we will be providing live updates throughout the day.

Note: all times are converted to the timezone your computer is currently in.

Activision Blizzard Earnings Call
The quarterly Activision Blizzard earnings call was today:

• Activision Blizzard had 384 million Monthly Active Users in this quarter.
• Blizzard had the biggest third quarter online player community in its history, with a record 42 million Monthly Active Users.
• Overwatch and Hearthstone Monthly Active Users grew year-over-year.
• The Overwatch community rose to over 35 million registered players.
• The company achieved a new milestone with players spending over 50 minutes per day in Activision Blizzard games.
• Hearthstone: Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion led to double-digit percentage growth in time spent year-over-year for the franchise.
• World of Warcraft released a new content update in the quarter, leading to stable Monthly Active Users for the franchise quarter-over-quarter and continued participation in value added services.
• Activision Blizzard delivered a Q3 record of over $1 billion of in-game revenues, with record performance year-to-date.

Christie Golden's Before the Storm Sample Chapter
The first chapter of the upcoming World of Warcraft Novel Before the Storm by Christie Golden was included in the Blizzcon 2017 Goody Bag as a surprise treat. Below you will find photos of the entire prologue. Be aware that this preview includes spoilers!

New Sylvanas Sculpture Available from Blizzard Gear Store

New Store Item: Bring the Banshee Queen Home Today!
We’ve added a new World of Warcraft item to the Blizzard Gear Store! Bring the Banshee Queen home today.

New Sculpture: Bring the Banshee Queen Home
Known by many names–Ranger-General, Banshee Queen, Warchief–you can call this new collectable sculpture of Sylvanas Windrunner–yours.
“I've walked the realms of the dead. I have seen the infinite dark. Nothing you say. Or do. Could possibly frighten me."
Standing 18 inches tall and made of polyresin, this hand-painted sculpture of Sylvanas Windrunner will make the perfect addition to your collection.

Supplies of this highly detailed sculpture are limited — so head over to the Blizzard Gear Store to get yours before it’s too late! Each statue is hand painted which may result in slight variances in the final item.

Faithfully crafted by:

• Brian Fay (Sculpt, Mold & Cast)
  
• Alvaro Buendia (Sculpt)
  
• Jason Huang (Digital Model)
  
• Sandra Shaffer (Paint)
  
• Laurel Austin (Art Direction- Paintmaster)
  
• Justin Thavirat (Art Direction)
  
• Chris Robinson (Art Direction)
  
• Jimmy Lo (Art Direction)
  
• Blizzard Animation
  
• World of Warcraft Development Team

But Wait! There’s More!
We’ve got more of the World of Warcraft items you’re looking for in the Gear Store including:

World of Warcraft Backpack and World of Warcraft Ugly Sweater

World of Warcraft Elekk Plushie and World of Warcraft Raptor Plushie

World of Warcraft Sargeras Shirt–Women's and World of Warcraft Sargeras Shirt–Men's

All this and more are on the Gear Store. Check it out now!

GET THE GEAR!

All orders will be shipped from the United States; not all countries may be eligible to participate, and international shipping rates and other fees may apply. For more information, including how to find out if the Gear Store ships to your region, see the Blizzard Gear Store Shipping article on our support site.

Blizzcon 2017 Charity Auction

The BlizzCon® 2017 Charity Auction Has Begun!
We’re auctioning off a variety of original pieces from the talented artists at Blizzard including some truly iconic World of Warcraft items.

For over 50 years, CHOC Children’s has been steadfastly committed to providing the highest quality medical care to children. This BlizzCon, members of the global Blizzard community will have the opportunity to bid on an array of unique Blizzard artwork and collectible memorabilia to benefit CHOC through the online Blizzard 2017 Charity Auction, taking place Thursday, November 2 through Tuesday, November 7. You’ll have the opportunity to add some legendary items World of Warcraft items (and more!) to your collection, and Blizzard will donate the proceeds to benefit CHOC Children’s.

Vol’jin bust: Original polyurethane resin sculpture by artist Ehren Bienert

Chieftain Blackhand Makes War on the Ogre:Framed original pencil sketch by Alex Horley

One Grunt is All It Takes!: Framed original sketch by Sam “Samwise” Didier

Stormrage framed fine art print signed by Laurel Austin

BlizzCon 10th Anniversary Poster and Collectible Pins, Including the original ETC Pin Mold

Bloom of Ashenvale framed original ink and marker drawing by Brittany Drew

Beyond the Dark Portal framed fine art print signed by Peter Lee, matting signed by the World of Warcraft development team

Grommash Hellscream Statue, Preproduction Prototype Polyurethane Casting signed by artists Brian Fay, Laurel Austin, Chris Robinson, and Jon McConnell

Battle of Hillsbrad Foothills framed fine art print signed by Wei Wang

Visit the Auction Site now to see all the available items and place your bid!

To participate in this year’s auction, you’ll need to set up an eBay account. Head to www.ebay.com now to get started. If you already have an account, check that your contact and payment information before bidding.

Blue Posts

Did the Convergence of Fates 'rebalance' reduce the PPM or just the trinket base agi/str and CDR values?
Convergence of Fates’ proc rate is unchanged in 7.3.2. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Since levelling up my Champions on Argus the Pet Charm missions seem not existent, intended?
We hotfixed an issue with the mission "Another Rat Problem" about an hour ago. Thank you for the feedback! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

[amythist]

wow literally nothing on the schedule for Diablo, that's rough to see, even more so with there being a panel for "Blizzard Social - What's Next"

[Indigenously Abled]

STORMWIND

/10char

[Corroc]

45M monthly users, atmost overwatch has 35M of those users, but not all are active. Considering all the smurf accounts in overwatch I would say ovewatch most likely has something like 15-20M monthly users? Hots has been dying for quite some time afaik. Hearhstone has 70M registered accounts but every account made counts as 3 accounts since the whole region thing. So 23M real account maybe 10-15M players? If you consider all these numbers it seems wow is doing pretty decent, around 5-8M mark?

Just speculation.

Edit. Also what it says about wows stable monthly users means that there hasn't been subcripstion drops in this patch. Guess the steady pace of patches work.

[Ophenia]

Oh well, I thought Illidan was my Christmas gift, looks like Blizzard wants me to spend some more money for (finally) this Sylvanas statue

503 Service Unaivalable though !
Edit : That works now. Why the hell is the shipping to Europe 80$ while Illidan, who I believe is bigger than Sylvanas, was only 9$ ?

[Zilano]

All aboard the hype train. CHOO CHOO.

[Elim Garak]

45M monthly users, atmost overwatch has 35M of those users, but not all are active. Considering all the smurf accounts in overwatch I would say ovewatch most likely has something like 15-20M monthly users? Hots has been dying for quite some time afaik. Hearhstone has 70M registered accounts but every account made counts as 3 accounts since the whole region thing. So 23M real account maybe 10-15M players? If you consider all these numbers it seems wow is doing pretty decent, around 5-8M mark?

Just speculation.

Edit. Also what it says about wows stable monthly users means that there hasn't been subcripstion drops in this patch. Guess the steady pace of patches work.

Now do the magic reductions on those 5-8m for wow. Like you did for others. You know like 50% of those are starters. So it makes 2-3m subscribers for WoW.

Stable means it's not dropping, as in stabilized. Reached the bottom. You don't brag about it when it stops growing, you know.

[Corroc]

Now do the magic reductions on those 5-8m for wow. Like you did for others. You know like 50% of those are starters. So it makes 2-3m subscribers for WoW.

Stable means it's not dropping, as in stabilized. Reached the bottom. You don't brag about it when it stops growing, you know.

You know its impossible to speculate how many users wow has because we have no data from them, not active or inactive. 5-8M is what gets left when you take out the speculated amount of players in overwatch,diablo,hearthstone,hots and starcraft. Its extremely unlikely that wow has less than 5M users because of the numbers we are given.

[grexly75]

Now do the magic reductions on those 5-8m for wow. Like you did for others. You know like 50% of those are starters. So it makes 2-3m subscribers for WoW.

Stable means it's not dropping, as in stabilized. Reached the bottom. You don't brag about it when it stops growing, you know.

Who knew that they would count non paying trial accounts into the sub numbers.. /sarcasm

[TheDestinatus]

Jokes on anyone that buys those paintings. They look good, but there were no Death Knights at the battle for hillsbrad and they used WoW Khadgar instead of bearded Khadgar in the BC one.

[Nevcairiel]

wow literally nothing on the schedule for Diablo, that's rough to see, even more so with there being a panel for "Blizzard Social - What's Next"

There is one Diablo panel on Friday (which for some reason MMO-C just skipped in the listing in the news?) and a second one on Saturday. But nevertheless, they already announced that there will be nothing to announce for Diablo, so its presence is quite limited.

[sociald1077]

wow literally nothing on the schedule for Diablo, that's rough to see, even more so with there being a panel for "Blizzard Social - What's Next"

They said last month that Blizzcon would have no Diablo announcements or any real activity. Said they were corking on stuff, but nothing to present at Blizzcon.

Edit - Sniped!

[JohnnyMccrum]

It's not that I want Blizzard to do badly, but their revenue calls are written in such a really horrible lawyer-like fashion. They are deliberately hiding things and making numbers seem better than they realistically are. I suppose their main intention is for investors, but still.

They kinda slipped up by using the "stable" comment though in regards to WoW, "stable" is the best word they can use for WoW, that implies that without the new content the player numbers were in freefall, which means they're likely in freefall right now. which means they're going to be in freefall all the way until the release of the next expansion.

I wonder how much lower WoW numbers can go, seeing as in the Legion Earnings call they said something along the lines of: "Not as bad as the Previous expansion drops" signalling there was still a massive drop, considering WoD was the largest drop in the games history.

[sociald1077]

There is one Diablo panel on Friday (which for some reason MMO-C just skipped in the listing in the news?) and a second one on Saturday. But nevertheless, they already announced that there will be nothing to announce for Diablo, so its presence is quite limited.

Friday its a panel about the visuals of the Necro and Saturday its about the Diablo Community. Nothing worth highlighting for the news section

[glowpipe]

So where would a potensial wow expansion fit in here ? in the warcraft - whats next panel ? only an hour. Short time aint it ?

[Nevcairiel]

So where would a potensial wow expansion fit in here ? in the warcraft - whats next panel ? only an hour. Short time aint it ?

Basically, in all the WoW panel. Reveal in the Opening Ceremony, first overview in "Whats Next", more details in "Gameplay and Systems Deep Dive", Art and Q&A on Saturday. Everything will be about the expansion, what else would they talk about?

[Deleted]

Stormwind will burn!

Finally some good news. Gnomes should help Sylvanas.

[JohnnyMccrum]

So where would a potensial wow expansion fit in here ? in the warcraft - whats next panel ? only an hour. Short time aint it ?

I'd say they're going to make the WoW expansion the "big reveal" at the end of the opening ceremony. (Which is ironic, as it gets the least screen time and WoW is clearly not the priority at the moment) it's also a cash grab move so people choose to buy virtual tickets when they realise that they can't see what's going on with WoW without one...anyway...

So since that's likely true, 30 or so minutes from the opening ceremony itself, maybe even less than that. then straight into the the What's Next panel, which is an hour long, then the Q&A later on, so yeah, around 2-3 hours on the new expansion, expect 2.

[off3nc3]

wow literally nothing on the schedule for Diablo, that's rough to see, even more so with there being a panel for "Blizzard Social - What's Next"

Diablo is dead and with the upcoming MU Legends in like a week you can put a cross over it's tomb.

[Nevcairiel]

I'd say they're going to make the WoW expansion the "big reveal" at the end of the opening ceremony. (Which is ironic, as it gets the least screen time and WoW is clearly not the priority at the moment) it's also a cash grab move so people choose to buy virtual tickets when they realise that they can't see what's going on with WoW without one...anyway...

The opening ceremony never offers up big details. They have like an hour for all their games, realistically every game gets like a trailer and a few minutes of talking. The opening has never given in-depth details of anything, thats what the actual panels are for.

Its not like the info is hidden after the BlizzCon, you can always read MMO-C news without a virtual ticket, which will repeat any announcements and details provided.