World of Warcraft : blizzcon

BlizzCon 2010: Las Vegas, Nevada - July 30th to the 31st

Kody — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:37:55 GMT

It looks like Blizzard will be moving BlizzCon from the Anaheim Convention Center (maybe I don't have to switch from AT&T to Verizon to actually have a signal now) to Las Vegas, Nevada at the Las Vegas Convention Center from July 30th to July 31st, 2010! I've pasted a screenshot of this in the event it's removed (but it probably won't be).

Blizzard mentioned that the crowds visiting the Anaheim Convention Center were growing too large -- to the point where the fire department didn't allow anyone into the convention hall once the Ozzy concert started -- so this move makes sense. I can only imagine what the after-parties will be like with the shift to Vegas. Viva Las Vegas, I say!

Human to Worgen Transformation Video

Kody — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:37:29 GMT

We talked briefly about the worgen in our initial details and also put together an in-depth worgen hands-on impressions article over on World of Raids, but this is by far the "money shot" if you ask me. A video showing off the transformation from human to worgen when using Two Forms -- one of the worgen racials!

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Cataclysm Zone Change Tour Video

Kody — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:49:20 GMT

A lot went on at BlizzCon with the announcement of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Players everywhere reveled at being able to fly in all of Azeroth, the thought of facing Deathwing -- one of the game's most storied characters -- and of course the chance to visit areas that have been highly anticipated.

This video, 4:32 in length, shows off some of the major changes coming to zones in Cataclysm as well as a look at the new starting areas for both the goblins and worgen.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

BlizzCon 2008 Ticket Drawing Sold Out

Zyuu — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:48:21 GMT

From the official World of Warcraft website:

All of the tickets available in the BlizzCon 2008 Ticket Drawing are now sold out. Ticketholders should keep an eye on the official BlizzCon site for the latest information on panels, contests, and other events at the show, which takes place Friday, October 10 and Saturday, October 11 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California.

WotLK Blue Posts, BlizzCon 08, Blizzard Authenticators

Zyuu — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:29:10 GMT

WotLK Beta - Blue Posts

Plans for more debuff slots (src)
We would like to increase the number of debuff slots, yes, and we most likely will. Unfortunately, this is very complicated to do tech wise. It greatly increases the amount of bandwidth for the server, for example, and also for the client (you). When designing new talents, we try very hard to not add more debuff slots, though with the addition of a brand new class it's sort of unavoidable. In a nutshell, yes we realize the debuff slot stuff is an issue now and will be in the future and we're working on it.

Mages Warlock DPS (src)

Warlocks got to crazy land with the % modifiers to their damage output (specifically with Demonic Sacrafice), that's been toned down. Warlocks should never be able to out DPS a Mage with no pet out. Alike a Hunter, their pet should factor into their total damage output. Warlocks that sacrifice pretty much all utility talents should come very close to Mage DPS, but those who invest in group/raid utility should be lower.

Retroactive Dungeon Raid Achievements

Ok, for everything 25-person and above, we added the full loot table checks on BoP items: Gruul, Mag, Vashj, Kae, Illidan, Archimonde, Kil'Jaeden, Onyxia, Ragnaros, Nefarian, C'Thun. Dungeon bosses and anything that requires less than 25 people will check any quests but no items.We can not check the Heroic Daily Quests or Dungeon Daily Quests as they are repeatable and not tracked accurately by our system. (src)
Also, you have to have the items in your inventory or bank. If you deleted them you will not get credit and the GM's will not restore items for achievements. (src)

Tier items bought from BoP tokens are counted. You will get the achievements. (src)
The Quel'Serrar quest counts for Onyxia. You don't even need the sword. The quest is good enough. (src)

No Food/Water vendors in Zul'Drak (src)

This is an issue that should be resolved in our next content update. The Innkeepers should be offering food and drink as normal once the update takes place.

Music of Warcraft (src)
We use as much live orchestra as we can as well as a live choir. Some of the recordings have even been done in places such as a church in order to get just the right sound.

Druid
Lifebloom changes - part 2 (src)

Whenever we change abilities we always consider the outcomes for all aspects of the game, very rarely will we change an ability that will reduce it's effectiveness in PvE or PvP for the sake of the other. And if we do, it's intended.

In the case of Lifebloom, it's too good in both aspects of the game. Again, it's not our intention to merely just reduce the effectiveness of Lifebloom, but to also introduce new healing mechanics (Flourish, Nourish, talents like Living Seed and the improvements to Tree of Life) to compensate.

HoTs are intended to be effective in HPS and efficient, but have the drawback of requiring time to heal. The issue today is that you'll HoT a player who got hit by a big AOE, and some other class will use a downrank direct heal and cause you HoT to be ineffective. This is being addressed through downrank penalties. We want other classes to say "Hey, I could heal that guy back up who just got hit by that AOE, but I'll let the Druid do it instead and preserve my mana." Note that I'm not saying random AOE damage is not what HoTs are only intended to be for, I'm just using that as an example.

Mage

Fingers of Frost - We'll be addressing this by allowing it to work on your next 2 or so spells, instead of just one. (src)

Priest

Empowered Healing - Empowered Healing wasn't intended to have been buffed or nerfed, just be converted over to the new spell power system. We still have yet to do a big pass over all the talents that work similarly in other classes. Sounds to me the change to Empowered Healing wasn't done correctly, it will get fixed. (src)
Serendipity - Serendipity is fixed in the next build. (src)

New Penance ranks - New ranks are also in for the next build. (src)

Inner Fire changes (src)
It will be changed to spell power, so that it's useful to Shadow Priests too. Regarding the charges, they're likely to stay. The spell is dirt cheap because of the charges. If we removed them, we'd have to up the mana cost. A Warrior who keeps his shout up in fights is usually regarded as better than those who don't, similar to a Priest who keeps his Inner Fire up vs those who don't.

Unlikely also that it will be made undispellable, we're not even sure if we like the Mage/Warlock armors being undispellable. The dispel system in general (junk buffs, RNG resists) is something we'd also like to address as a whole.

Warlock

Imp and Destructive Reach - The Destructive Reach talent is now affecting your Imp's casting range. (src)

Death Knight
Frost and PvP (src)
We didn't touch Chilblains yet because we don't want all PvP DKs to have to go deep Frost. We're considering moving it way up in Frost (though the top of Frost is kinda nice as it is) or doing something else entirely.

One change we did make is to let the slow portion of Chains of Ice be a separate debuff that is physical and therefore not-dispellable. That isn't intended to be the single massive change that fixes any potential DK PvP problems, but I did want to mention it.

Improved Icy Touch (src)

Base Icy Touch: 15% debuff
Improved Icy Touch: 1/2/3% more debuff
Icy Talons: 4/8/12/16/20% melee haste
Improved Icy Talons: 20% melee haste for the raid

I know these things change quickly. It will all settle down. :)

Dk talent trees changes and the 4 diseases (src)

There are 4 death knight diseases: Blood Plague, Frost Fever, Crypt Fever / Ebon Plague, and Unholy Blight. At most you can get a 4 disease multiplier on Blood Strike and similar abilities, but the abilities are scaled for that. Blood and Frost do more damage in other ways to make up for Unholy's extra diseases.

I think the new talent calculator did catch us midway through some Unholy revisions. We fixed up Blood first and Frost second just because that's what you see left to right .:) There is a great new Unholy talent with some nice Unholy Blight synergy.

We have only just begun evaluating the raid stacking issues so it would be premature to comment on all of that. Best guess is that Blood, Frost and Unholy will each bring an awesome raid buff or debuff, but no single benefit that is so good that *every* raid needs one of each. The catch is that the same holds true of every tree of every class. Don't assume that every raid has to have Windfury just out of tradition. Don't assume that an Enhancement shaman is mandatory at all. I'll detail more when the process is farther along. :)

I think they had trouble with the last build but hopefully there will be a new one out soon. (src)
--------------------------------------- I mentioned the only 4 diseases that the death knight gets. All those others have gone away. (Sad face.)

The class was too chaotic, we were using too many debuff slots, and Blood Strike was either going to be terrible with few diseases or insane with tons of diseases. A refinement was in order.

So 4.

Improved Corpse Explosion was cut in favor of more interesting talents. The Frostfever rune was replaced with something like the old Frozen Rune Weapon, now called Razorice. Death and Decay has no disease, which actually lets its damage come up higher (and it has a nice threat multiplier too). Don't worry -- Icy Touch and a single Pestilence can disease almost everyone. The whole thing just clicks better now. You only have to worry about keeping up 2 diseases most of the time, since Crypt Fever / Ebon Plague applies automatically. That just leaves Unholy Blight (see below).

The web team that puts up the talent calculators has done awesome in the face of very rapidly changing trees, but some stuff gets caught mid-change. Improved Icy Talons for example is 20% haste -- same as talented Windfury. Abomination's Might is 10% attack power, same as Unleashed Rage.

Unholy Blight counts as a disease while it lasts. It also causes Blood Plague. So in essence it causes two diseases for purposes of things like Blood Strike, Death Strike, Obliterate and Blood Boil that scale off diseases. If you have Crypt Fever or Ebon Plague, that disease appears automatically so you end up with 3 diseases from Unholy Blight. (src)

Dancing Rune Weapon Unholy Blight and Blood Plague (src)
I believe the Dancing Rune Weapon can refresh your Blood Plague, but it can't apply another stack.

I think I answered Unholy Blight in another thread or two, but it is counted as a disease and it applies Blood Plague. So that's two for one spell, three if you have Crypt Fever. A lot of what we wanted to do with the tree overhaul was apply synergy wherever possible. So Unholy Blight is a great lead-in for Blood Boil, and it works well with Death and Decay (here, cower in my Blight) or the new talent which does something similar (but in a very cool way, at least once we get real art).

BlizzCon 2008 Website Launched

Quote from: Blizzard (Source)

We just released the official BlizzCon 2008 website. You can now find new information about this year's panels, contests, and tournaments, and you can also learn more about DIRECTV's special BlizzCon promotion. Make sure to check back regularly as the site will be updated with new event information such as event schedules, floor plans, store info, and much, much more.

EU - Blizzard Authenticators will soon be available

Quote from: Blizzard (Source)

Due to the high demand for the Blizzard Authenticators, they are currently sold out in the Online Store. We expect to get new stock in mid August, and will restock regularly as demand for the Authenticators continues. Thank you for your patience.

WWI: Best Part About Gaming Conventions

Zyuu — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:41:29 GMT

Kody, resident Content and Community Manager here at Curse, recently posted a recap from WWI 2008 and a few hours ago he made a blog entry where he go over what's the best thing about Gaming Conventions.

primarily learned that there's a huge misconception with gaming events. Many people steer clear of them simply because they have this idea that it's a "gathering of nerds" or whatever. That couldn't be farther from the truth, and it annoys me to no end to see people trash something they've never actually bothered exploring.

This is very true. Going to a Gaming Convention, such as WWI or Games Convention, is an outstanding experience. You get to know a lot of great people and its so much more than just gaming and "nerds".

Kody continues and I can't have said it better myself:

The best part about the conventions isn't even the convention itself -- it's what happens afterward during the nightly parties while the convention is still running. Getting together with a bunch of gamers you know and having a good time is what these things are all about, and seeing Blizzard Entertainment getting involved, enjoying themselves, and generally being more rowdy than the gamers are is absolutely awe inspiring. I won't recount specifics other than to say that Monday morning at around 5:30AM, myself and around 8 or 9 WoW Arena players who were invited to WWI were sitting in the lobby of their hotel after a long night of sleepless partying and general mayhem, only to hear music come from the nearby piano.

Have you attended to a Gaming Convention before, or do you plan to? Well, if you're still thinking about it, hopefully this gave you some more to take into account. It's an absolute blast and the silly misconceptions that exist can't be further from the truth. You just have to experience it and get your own impression. Blizzcon and Games Convention is coming up, check them out! Furthermore, who knows, maybe we will see you there?

Read the full blog post by Kody, don't forget to share your thoughts in the comments below!

Whorecraft Starlet Suspended from WoW

Kody — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 04:36:34 GMT

Kotaku is reporting about a Whorecraft star being suspended due to someone else's actions in-game. Now, I'm not entirely interested in the whole real life porn meets video games idea, but to suspend someone over something that wasn't even their fault is ludicrous.

Kotaku wrote:

Mia Rose, hardcore gamer and pornstar, who appeared in several episodes of World of Whorecraft, told Kotaku that she was banned from the World of Warcraft over the weekend after a fan recognized her and mentioned her webiste in a public chat channel.

This leads me to something interesting that happened while we were at BlizzCon interviewing some of the costume contest entrants. It turns out that two of the "night elf druids" were actually women from World of Whorecraft. This of course led to some obvious video edits, since they advertised their new website in the interview as well - which we can't really show on Curse - but it was a good interview none the less.

We interviewed quite a few of the entrants and even some exhibitors who play WoW, so we'll try to get those interviews done soon.

Whorecraft Girls @ Blizzcon

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Nimloth took time today to write a recap in his blog about the interview as well.

Just to note, I don't believe the person suspended was at BlizzCon; the two females there commented that their characters were fairly low level.

Now on to my question; why did World of Warcraft become so accessible to porn? You've had modifications to client files in games in the past, but how many games can truly be credited with having live-action pornography created, centered around the game? I surmise that it's simply the sheer number of people playing the game; you're bound to find someone from every walk of life playing.

That said, I really hope Miarose gets her account status fixed, because it's incredibly silly to suspend someone like she was.

BlizzCon 2007 PvP Panel Video

Kody — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 22:50:48 GMT

To go along with our BlizzCon 2007 PvP panel articles - BlizzCon PvP Panel: Battlegrounds and BlizzCon PvP Panel: World PvP and Arenas - we have a full video of the PvP panel in which Tom Chilton and Jeff Kaplan went over the history of PvP in World of Warcraft and what we can expect in the future - both in patches in the coming months and in Wrath of the Lich King.

PvP Panel @ Blizzcon 2007 w/ Tom Chilton

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You can of course check out all of the BlizzCon 2007 coverage on our BlizzCon Portal.

BizzCon Video: Warcraft - The Movie Panel

Kody — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:32:51 GMT

We have a video up now of the entire panel for the upcoming motion picture by Legendary Pictures - Warcraft: The Movie.

The panel included Chris Metzen and Paul Sams from Blizzard, as well as CEO Thomas Tull and Chief Creative Officer John Jashni from Legendary Pictures.

Warcraft the Movie Panel @ Blizzcon 2007

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BlizzCon PvP Panel: World PvP and Arenas

Kody — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 04:54:38 GMT

World PvP

After some great news about upcoming changes to the battlegrounds, Tom Chilton was back in the spotlight to go over world PvP and its place in World of Warcraft.

World PvP's focus should be for spontaneous PvP where fights can break out on a whim between two, three, or even sixty players. It also needs to be objective based much like its counterpart, battlegrounds. Most importantly though, is that it needs to reward participation in the form of tokens and the like, as well as having an impact on the game world. A great example was the Bone Wastes objectives giving access to Spirit Shards.

Lessons learned from World PvP thus far:

Silithus ("sandlol") - this is what the screen display said, so you get the idea that Blizzard realized pretty fast the Silithus PvP model wasn't a very popular one.
Eastern Plaguelands proved that rewards need meaning. You can't just plop down towers in the zone and have them there for no reason.
Hellfire Peninsula tought them that pacing is important in PvP. These locations change hands far too often and give players the feel of something that doesn't persist.
Zangarmarsh offered a realization that clarity is important. Its objectives were fairly confusing to some players and was probably the primary cause for the low activity in taking the graveyard outside of Coilfang Reservoir.
Bone Wastes was great for Blizzard - its objective design showed that persistence is very important in World PvP, even if only for a couple hours at a time it's a far better mechanic than one that can change hands instantly.
Nagrand shoed that map integration offers amazing gameplay potential in World PvP and will no doubt be used in the future - especially in Wrath of the Lich King.

Future of World PvP

Lake Wintergrasp is being added with Wrath of the Lich King. This is a non-instanced area entirely devoted to World PvP. Not only is it an outdoor area in the game world, but it's also contested territory on PvE servers - meaning that if you enter Lake Wintergrasp, you better be ready for a fight no matter what server ruleset you're on. Controlling the area will have an impact on the entirety of Northrend, so players will no doubt vie for control continually.

Arenas

Arenas are built primarily for competition and are designed to reward skill versus time spent playing them. With that in mind a rating system is used to separate teams from one another. The rating system offers steady progress toward your goals by converting the rating directly into points.

Another crucial element of Arena gameplay is to keep the maps small and simple. You won't see any sprawling complexes for vast mountain ranges plopped down in Arena maps.

Random map selection - something Blizzard learned was important due to watching battlegrounds - also helps to improve the experience in Arenas, as does the fact that there's no discrimination between Horde and Alliance.

Lessons learned from Arenas:

Balance across the formats is very difficult, especially when some classes are stronger in certain formats while not so much in the rest. Warlocks and Rogues both came to mind as classes that could use changes but the wrong thing done will affect them in the brackets they excell at too.
Avoid map gimmicks for the future. Blizzard realized that map gimmicks aren't needed - PvP in Arenas is enough just with players, there's no need to put in extra annoyances.
Point saving and buying weapons is a major issue. This is going to be addressed in the future.

Things to come

Chilton told the crowd that for Arena Season 3, weapons will require a certain rating to purchase them. He hinted at a rating of around 1900, but it's not entirely set in stone as of yet.
Chilton wants to improve Rogue utility in 5v5 Arenas and mobility in general - especially against Warriors and Hamstring.
Blizzard is looking at addressing Warlock power in 2v2 and 3v3 because they realize it's a major issue, but won't do something that damages their 5v5 desirability.
There may be a special 2h weapon added specifically for Hunters so that they don't have to spend so many points gearing up in the Arena system.
Season 3 Paladin Retribution gear will have Resilience added. Chilton stated he doesn't want to add it to current gear because Paladins that purchased it went into it knowing it lacked it, and adding it means detracting from other areas of the items.
Season 1 Arena gear is going to become available through the Honor system when Season 3 starts.
PvP Daily Quests are coming soon.

BlizzCon PvP Panel: Battlegrounds

Kody — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 04:16:08 GMT

The PvP panel saw both Jeff Kaplan and Tom Chilton provide insight into the history of PvP design in World of Warcraft, as well as some things we can expect to see in the future - both on new and old battlegrounds.

It started off with Tom Chilton giving a brief overview of battlegrounds and their place in the World of Warcraft.

Battlegrounds

Should be the destination for rewarding, objective-based team PvP.
Should always reinforce the Horde vs Alliance theme.
BG's must compliment the existing gameworld.
BG's are natural extensions of the game.

From there he handed it off to Jeff Kaplan so he could go more in-depth with the design behind each battleground and what they've learned over the course of developing and seeing it played.

Alterac Valley

Alterac Valley - AV for short - was originally going to be a non-instanced, persistent zone with quests and NPC's there for content to suppliment off-peak PvP hours. While the idea was great, Blizzard quickly realized that at the time the demand was far too high to support this style of AV and turned it into an instanced battleground.

Lessons Blizzard has learned from AV:

Map differences in terrain and base design can be very cool, but at the same time can be a nightmare for balancing.
Players will go AFK to farm honor. This is something Blizzard is adamant about fixing.
Honor liberally awarded for simply being there doesn't always work out. Blizzard wants to shift the focus on winning AV, as right now even losing can be more rewarding honor than winning another battleground.
NPC's intermixed into PvP can be interesting, but also quirky. There are flaws obvious to Blizzard that they want to fix so that AV can be an enjoyable experience for everyone.

Warsong Gulch

WSG for short, Warsong was the second battleground developed by Blizzard. WSG spent a lot more time in the prototype stages than Alterac Valley did, which allowed Blizzard to really hammer out the gameplay and make it as solid as possible, even when they were playing on a completely flat surface due to the terrain not being finished yet.

The Capture The Flag(CTF) format was chosen early on in the prototyping and using previous game design experience - the designer who created the bases for WSG made sure they were symmetrical and had a very FPS CTF feel to them.

The Birth of Arenas: Gurubashi Catacombs

Not often talked about, this was going to be a 5v5, single elimination deathmatch battleground. Sounds familiar, right? Exactly - it's what Arenas are today; this battleground was actually the third worked on by Blizzard, but during its prototype development, they realized the Arena deathmatch idea and battleground gameplay didn't mix, so they scrapped it.

Lessons learned during the Gurubashi design:

Objectives are key to the core gameplay of battlegrounds.
Arena idea was cool, but battlegrounds play differently.
Arena maps need to be small which Gurubashi was not.

Warcraft III meets Battlefield 1942: Arathi Basin

The inspiration behind Arathi Basin was due in part to the popular games in the office at the time: Warcraft III and Battlefield 1942 - played rabidly by many of the WoW developers. So the idea was simple, design a battleground for their game that meshed some things from both titles. A few of the key things AB brings to the table is that it's still very accessible, even though it's designed for a large number of players. Its simple design allows for players to understand what needs to be done at a glimpse.

The design was also intended to spread people out - taking control of multiple points would be challenging for players, and really gave a great BF1942 feel to capturing points on the map. Points of interest also followed in the footsteps of simple design; everything had simple names - "go to the farm" really meant, go to the farm. There was no need for special names for locations as they all had basic names.

One of the most important learning experiences from AB was that you don't just reward the winners. No one enjoys sitting around in a battleground for 30 minutes for no reward. They continued with this concept in the next battleground they designed, and will no doubt continue it into the future.

Making of Eye of the Storm

Originally Eye of the Storm was going to be a battleground set in Hellfire Peninsula, but while designing the prototype for it, Blizzard was also creating Netherstorm and felt that its concepts fit in a lot more there. The goal of EotS was to put a spin on tried and true battleground gameplay, by merging several core aspects of previous battlegrounds and shaking them up ever so slightly.

An early design of the objectives in the battleground saw a floating island that moved around the map the entire fight; this island is what contained the flag, and while Blizzard liked the idea of it, it didn't play well once they actually started testing the zone. Eventually they settled on the flag being on a strip of land in the middle of the map with a chokepoint on each side.

What the Future Holds

Alterac Valley will be seeing some major changes to its gameplay:

Players will only respawn in their safe tunnels if there are no other respawn points in the zone. Otherwise players will respawn at the graveyard nearest to their death.
Anti-afk measures are being put in.
- Players will be able to report someone that is AFK by right clicking on their name on the map.
- If enough players report someone, the reported player receives a countdown debuff.
- If the player doesn't enter combat before the countdown debuff fades, another debuff is applied.
- While the second debuff is active, honor gain for that player is halted completely. The only way to remove this debuff is by entering combat.
Honor distribution and balance improvements will be made. A bulk of the honor is going to be shifted to the later portions of the battleground to encourage players to win the battleground.
Queueing as a group is going to return to AV.

General battleground improvements:

The queue system is going to be improved upon to help hopefully alleviate any possible delays in queue times.
Guild battleground queueing is coming. This will allow guilds to queue for a battleground as their guild. A rating system will be used similar to the Arena rating system, and there will be unique rewards offered to those who participate.
Chilton wants to change the way the queue system matches you with a battleground because right now Blizzard is limited in the number of battlegrounds that can be added, as it will spread players too thin.
- You'll queue up for a battleground size - say 15 players, or 10 players - and then be placed into a random battleground of that size with other players in the queue.
Siege weapons and destroyable buildings are being added with the expansion. Chilton would also like to explore the possibility of adding them to existing battlegrounds, like Alterac Valley.

BlizzCon Professions & Items Panel Information

Kody — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 00:48:59 GMT

The Professions and Items panel provided an incredible amount of information both on the philosophies behind creating them and what we can expect in the future.

A quick consumable introduction showed us that there are now more than 1900 recipes, 945 pieces of armor, 289 consumables and 137 weapons in the game that can be made by players.

The creation of a recipe is a 4 step process that includes questions like "What do we make?", the materials the recipe uses, the skills it requires, and how the recipe will be obtained.

Things that the professions team wants to do more of in the future:

More "Best In Slot" gear like Blacksmithing weapons, Engineering helms, etc.
- Alchemist-only potions will be added.
Create great leveling gear that is competitive with quest rewards, similar to the TBC crafted armor.
Provide what's missing which fills in itemization gaps whether intentional or not.

Things they want to improve:

Transmutes
- Blizzard is looking at making the cooldown a daily reset similar to raid and heroic instance resets where it occurs at a set time, so you can log on at any time of the day and do your transmute.
Discoveries will be looked at to be improved, as Blizzard feels this is a great mechanic to introduce cool recipes.
Vendor Recipes
- It's not fun at all to have to camp a vendor for a recipe and Blizzard knows this. They're going to do away with rare spawn and limited quantity recipes as best they can.
- Vendors in the future will have large lists of rare and epic items so that finding something on a vendor can be as cool as finding it in the rest of the game world.

Inscription

Inscription is not like Alchemy or Enchanting. Players will create a tradeable scroll that other players can then use to enhance their spells or abilities.
Inscription's main purpose is to inscribe spells and abilities with additional power. Some examples given were:
- Backstab could be enhanced to crit more often.
- Shadowbolt could be enhanced to do additional damage.
- Fireball could be enhanced to also cause a knockback effect. (This was a player idea that they felt was cool but probably not likely to happen.)
Inscription will also allow the player to create completely new items, but this part of the profession isn't fleshed out enough for Blizzard to talk about just yet.

Coming soon:

Profession Daily Quests for Cooking initially in 2.3 and others will follow suit.
- Players will receive a crate that has a chance to drop rare food recipes, including:
  - +Melee hit food, +Spell crit food and Storm Chops. Storm Chops will cause you to do additional nature damage to your target as well as doing damage to your attackers.
New crafter-only gear including Alchemist-only potions and Jewelcrafter-only gems as well as upgrades to current crafter-only gear.
Smoothing out the progression from 275-300 for all professions. The progression was intended to be challenging when 300 was the cap, but since this isn't the case anymore it's being changed.
Enchant: Executioner will be added with the Zul'Aman patch. This enchant is an Armor Penetration proc, and is promised to have a glow at least as cool as Mongoose. Its proc allows your attacks to ignore 840 of your target's armor.
Steady Talasite recipe is being added to Halaa in 2.2 for a cost of 4 Research Tokens.

After that we had a chance to listen to the design philosophy behind item creation and itemization, as well as being given some details on upcoming items and changes.

TBC doubled the number of uncommon, rare, and epic items in the game.
PvP shouldn't require raiding, and raiding shouldn't require PvP. Players should be able to focus on what they like, with both choices offering equal but different progression.
Resilience was added with the purpose of introducing a new defensive mod that worked against everyone and everything, primarily because crit strings and being insta gibbed aren't fun.
The token system will continue on in Wrath of the Lich King, and some improvements to it will be made.
- The system made them realize, Hybrid does not mean healer, which then allowed them to introduce different armor sets without penalizing other classes.
- Tokens allow them to create set bonuses not possible before, including talent-specific bonuses.

Things to come:

Free spell damage for healers.
Legendary ranged weapon in the next 25-person raid dungeon.
Zul'Aman
- Each class is going to have a full compliment of epics available in the dungeon, some especially tailored for off-spec talent choices.

Q&A Session

Blizzard answered a number of questions about professions and items:

They're talking about going to an item-based enchanting system with all but the most powerful enchants, allowing enchanters to create an item that is then useable by other players.
There are no plans to add armor dyes.
There are no plans to upgrade older Legendary items through quests or any other means.
They're looking into reworking Spirit for the expansion, possibly by adding in a secondary effect to make it desirable by all classes, not just Priests.
More Engineering recipes are coming that allow engineers to make items for other players.

BlizzCon Class Panel Information

Kody — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 00:09:28 GMT

The class panel started with Rob Pardo giving a brief history of the World of Warcraft classes, stating that they were designed with both traditional RPG roots and Warcraft III Heroes in mind. There were some classes that didn't make the final cut of the game either like the Necromancer and Blademaster.

The team's design philosophy is one of 'concentrated coolness' - a small number of classes - each as unique as possible with their own unique spells and abilities.

Their balance goals when designing a class must meet several criteria - the class must be able to solo to max level, have a role in groups and an importance in raids, be competitive in PvP, and most importantly be fun.

The class philosophy for Blizzard is one where a player can raid, solo, group, or PvP to their liking, and do it successfully. That doesn't mean that all talent specs will be strong in every aspect of the game, but the goal is to make each spec at least viable.

Blizzard has taken a stance of being very cautious when making class changes to avoid a "shock to the system" as Chilton put it; damaging a players' experience is not something they want to do. That said, balance in the game is ever-changing, and will continue to be so as long as the game is updated with live patches and expansions.

We were then given a brief overview of the talent system's design from start to finish. Initially the system was simply a stat-enhancing system in which you allocated points into statistics to improve them. From there it was moved into a hybrid statistic-passive talent system, and finally into what we have today.

The system was inspired by the Diablo II system, and was created with a limited number of points to select talents with, so that characters could become differentiated based on the talent spec they chose. Talents as they're designed are focused on mostly passive talents, with a handful of activated or "gold medal" talents - as Tom Chilton described.

Alternate talent and gear specs have been focused on more of late to make them viable in all aspects of the game. This was achieved though better itemization support for off-spec talent choices.

In the future, especially with Wrath of the Lich King, you can expect the Death Knight class to be added - further shaking up the balance of classes in all aspects of the game - as well as new spells and abilities for all classes and extended talent trees. Even the Death Knight will have unique talent trees available to them.

The Hero class vision is one where Warcraft III Heroes are made playable and have an epic feel. Blizzard had lots of ideas for implementing the Hero class into the game including a forking class or additional talent trees, multi-classing, and class morphing where the players' class would change completely from current to Hero class. This obviously presented problems in each aspect, so Blizzard decided to go the route they're taking with WotLK.

Quick overview of the classes discussed:

Druids have been moved toward a true hybrid role.
Hunters received in-combat traps so Feign Death could be used for its intended use - an aggro wipe.
Mages are the AoE DPS kings.
Paladins have some Retribution itemization fixes incoming, as well as some Ret raid DPS love in 2.3.
Rogues are the single-target DPS kings, and there continues to be an ongoing balance between swords and daggers.
Priests are going to be looked at to make both Holy and Discipline useful in raids, and Blizzard also wants to find a true focus for the Discipline tree.
Shaman are going to see scaling problems addressed; the team realizes Shaman lose a lot of their "oomph" at higher levels.
Warlocks are the best dueling class, and this really presents a challenge in 2v2 and 3v3 arenas. That said, the reliance on fear is a never-ending balance struggle.
Warriors are the "best at what they do" class, but it comes with quite a cost(mostly in terms of respec costs). Blizzard realizes both the "rogue in plate" and rage mechanic problems and will continue to tweak.

Next 25-man instace: The Sunwell

Guillotine — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 05:21:45 GMT

During the Dungeons & Raids panel, Tigole mistakenly reveals the next 25-man instance (and the last to appear before the nex expansion. It supposedly connects the lore between Outlands and Northrend. It consists of 6 bosses and contains loot better than the Black Temple or Mount Hyjal. It is unknown as of now whether a tier 7 will appear or if the loot should simply be individual pieces.

Wrath of the Lich King FAQ

Kody — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 02:07:53 GMT

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

Features

Q: What are the features of the new expansion?
A: Wrath of the Lich King builds on the rich foundation established in World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade, providing a wealth of new content for players to explore. The harsh, forbidding continent of Northrend, home of the Lich King and his undead minions, will be uncovered on the world map, and to contend with the new challenges found there, players will be able to advance to level 80, acquiring potent new abilities and talents along the way.

In addition, Wrath of the Lich King will introduce the death knight hero class to World of Warcraft. Once certain criteria are met, players will be able to create a new death knight character, which will start at a high level. Furthermore, player-vs.-player battles will reach a new level of intensity with the addition of siege weapons and destructible buildings, not to mention a new battleground. There will also be an abundance of new quests, dungeons, monsters, items, and recipes -- as well as a new profession, inscription -- for players to try out. The expansion will include some additional character-customization options for players as well. We’ll be going into more detail on all of these features in the months ahead.

Q: How will the death knight class fit into the game?
A: The death knight combines martial prowess with dark, necromantic energies. Players might be familiar with the death knight from previously released Warcraft games -- most recently, in the campaigns for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and the Frozen Throne expansion, the former paladin Arthas became a death knight and wreaked havoc across Azeroth and Northrend before fusing with the spirit of Ner’zhul to become the Lich King. The death knight is the first hero class in World of Warcraft; once certain criteria are met, players will unlock the ability to create a new death knight character, which will begin play at a high experience level. We’re currently exploring various options for how the death knight will play and the types of abilities at its disposal, and we’ll be revealing more information about this new class as we get further along in development.

Q: Will the death knight have any abilities from previously released Warcraft games?
A: The way we portrayed death knights in past Warcraft games is certainly a source of inspiration, but we are still determining how best to capture that feel within the mechanics of World of Warcraft, and haven’t made any final determinations on specific abilities.

Q: What role will the death knight play in groups and raids?
A: In general terms, the death knight can be considered a type of class that combines damage dealing and tanking, but naturally it will have an array of unique abilities as well.

Q: What races will be allowed to play death knights?
A: We haven’t yet made a final determination about which races can be death knights. However, the class will be available to both the Alliance and the Horde.

Q: Will there be additional hero classes in the future?
A: Yes, we do intend to add more hero classes in the future, but right now our focus is on the current expansion.

Q: What is the story background of the expansion?
A: Players last visited Northrend in the Warcraft III expansion, when Arthas Menethil fused with the spirit of Ner’zhul to become the Lich King, one of the most powerful entities in the Warcraft universe. He now broods atop the Frozen Throne deep in Icecrown Citadel, clutching the rune blade Frostmourne and marshaling the undead armies of the Scourge. In Wrath of the Lich King, the greatest champions of the Alliance and the Horde will do battle with the Scourge amid Northrend’s howling winds and fields of jagged ice, and ultimately face the Lich King himself.

Q: Will players actually get to encounter Arthas himself?
A: Players will be skirmishing with the minions of Arthas from the moment they set foot on Northrend. He will be a constant presence as players progress through the expansion content -- which will culminate in a showdown with the dread Lich King himself.

Q: Can you discuss some of the new talents and abilities that will be available from level 70 to level 80?
A: As with character advancement up to level 70, players will gain access to an array of potent and exciting new abilities and talents as they make their way from level 70 to level 80. However, it’s still too early to get into specifics on these.

Q: How long will it take to advance from level 70 to level 80?
A: We were pleased with the pacing from level 60 to level 70 in The Burning Crusade, and we intend to take a similar approach to pacing character advancement in Wrath of the Lich King. However, the specific amount of time that it will take players to reach level 80 will vary widely based on play style.

Q: What can you reveal about Northrend?
A: The first area of Northrend we’re showcasing is the Howling Fjord, a region of grasslands overlooking massive cliffs at the southeastern edge of the continent. This, along with the Borean Tundra, is the front line of the war against Arthas, and players will come face to face with his minions as soon as they set foot on Northrend. Eventually, as players progress further, they will explore the Grizzly Hills, Dragonblight, and more. We’ll be showing off some of these new areas in the months ahead.

Q: What’s the level requirement to enter Northrend?
A: Players of any level who have purchased the expansion can visit Northrend. However, all of the content is designed for players level 68 and up.

Q: How many new dungeons will be in the expansion?
A: The first dungeon players will enter is Utgarde Keep, which is intended for five players around level 70. Utgarde is inhabited by the Vrykul, a Viking-like race bent on proving their strength to the Lich King, who will raise the most worthy of their warriors to serve him beyond the grave. We intend to provide a variety of dungeons comparable to that in The Burning Crusade and will be revealing more details about some of these in the months ahead.

Q: Do you plan to continue with the 25-player model for raids?
A: Yes. We’ve been pleased with the tactics, intensity, and variety of the 25-player raid model, and plan to continue with it.

Q: Will the new dungeons have heroic versions?
A: Yes. We feel that the heroic versions of dungeons are a great way to add another level of challenge and reward for experienced players, and we intend to continue creating these variants.

Q: In what ways will players be able to further customize their characters in the expansion?
A: In addition to the numerous new character-customization options that will be available with all of the new weapons and armor added by the expansion, we’ll be offering some fun ways to alter both existing and new characters with regard to dances and hairstyles, but we’re not ready to go into more detail just yet.

Q: What can you reveal about the new profession coming with the expansion?
A: The Inscription profession will allow players to permanently enhance their own spells and abilities and those of other players. We’ll provide more specific details on the mechanics of this new profession in the months ahead.

Q: What can players expect with regard to player-vs.-player combat in the expansion?
A: Players will be able to take control of siege weapons and use them to destroy opposing buildings, adding a new layer of complexity to PvP battles. Naturally, we’ll be providing some fun places to put these new tools to good use, and we’ll be revealing more information about them in the months ahead, in addition to the new battleground content being added.

Q: Can you give a sneak peek at the new recipes and items in the expansion?
A: There will be hundreds of new recipes and thousands of new items available, but we’re not ready to discuss specific examples just yet.

Q: Will there be any graphical enhancements?
A: Yes. We’re currently working on some technical enhancements to the game’s graphics, and we’ll be discussing these further in the months ahead.

Q: How many zones will be in the expansion?
A: Northrend will be roughly equivalent to Outland in terms of size and scope.

Q: Will there be any new cinematic scenes?
A: Yes, our cinematics department is hard at work preparing a new intro movie for the expansion.

Release/Availability

Q: Do you need to own the expansion to play with friends who have it?
A: There will be many aspects of the expansion that will be available to all players. However, in order to experience certain content, such as Northrend, or be able to play as a death knight, players must purchase the expansion.

Q: Will there be an open beta test of the expansion?
A: We have not yet determined whether the expansion will require an open beta test. If we do decide to conduct a beta test, details will be posted on the official World of Warcraft website once we’ve gotten further along in the development process.

Q: When will the expansion be released? How much will it cost?
A: We have not yet announced a release date for the expansion set. However, we expect to announce further details, including the release date and price, on our community website in the months ahead. Please stay tuned to www.WorldofWarcraft.com for more information.

Q: Will there be a collector’s edition?
A: We have not yet made any determination about whether there will be a collector’s edition of Wrath of the Lich King. We’ll be announcing details such as this closer to release.

Q: Will a Mac version be available simultaneously with the PC version?
A: Yes. As with all of our games, Wrath of the Lich King will be compatible with and optimized for both the Windows and Macintosh platforms.

Q: What are the system requirements?
A: We’ll continue to ensure that the game is playable on a wide range of hardware. However, we have not made a final determination on the system requirements as yet.

Q: Will the expansion be released globally at the same time?
A: We recognize that players throughout the world will be eager to experience all of the new content being added with Wrath of the Lich King, and we will make every effort to release the expansion simultaneously worldwide. However, there’s always the possibility that unforeseen circumstances could delay the launch in any given region. We’ll share the launch timing with players in each region as soon as the plans have been finalized.

Q: What is the ESRB rating for the expansion?
A: The expansion has not yet been rated by the ESRB. However, we anticipate that it will receive the same rating that the original World of Warcraft received -- “Teen.”