Blizzcon-2009 posts (Subscribe to this feed)
Blizzard interview: J. Allen Brack on World of Warcraft
by Kevin Kelly 
{ Sep 4th 2009 at 8:45PM } 
J. Allen Brack is the lead producer on World of Warcraft, and he's not just a guy working at a job -- he's a hardcore fanboy as well. If you need proof, check out his open letter to the Star Wars Galaxies community, back when he was a producer on that game. In it he mentions that he's getting married in a Star Wars-themed wedding. That's hardcore.
He joined Blizzard in 2005 to work on WoW and its expansions. We sat down with him at BlizzCon to talk about the new World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm, and to find out how much life the title has in it. Read on after the break for the full interview, and to find out some of what's going on in WoW's biggest expansion to date.
He joined Blizzard in 2005 to work on WoW and its expansions. We sat down with him at BlizzCon to talk about the new World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm, and to find out how much life the title has in it. Read on after the break for the full interview, and to find out some of what's going on in WoW's biggest expansion to date.
Interview: Blizzard's Greg Canessa on Battle.Net
by Kevin Kelly { Sep 4th 2009 at 5:30PM }
In recent years, Greg Canessa has bounced from Xbox Live to PopCap Games and now onto Blizzard, where he's heading up the Battle.Net team. Version 2.0 of the service is an ambitious undertaking, and we spoke with Greg during BlizzCon about its pending launch and many of the new features. Head past the break for the full interview!
Gallery: Battle.Net (BlizzCon 2009)
Blizzard interview: Leo Boyarsky and Kevin Martens on Diablo 3
by Kevin Kelly { Aug 31st 2009 at 9:30PM }
Read on through for the full interview, and imagine what it'll be like if Martens gets his dream wish and they stick a Sideshow Collectibles Barbarian statue inside the Collector's Edition of the game. The chances of that actually happening are pretty much zero, but still ... we can dream.
Gallery: BlizzCon 2009: Diablo 3
Blizzard interview: Samwise Didier talks Starcraft 2
by Kevin Kelly { Aug 31st 2009 at 6:40PM }
These days Samwise Didier is better known as the lead singer for Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, but he's been a Blizzard employee since 1991, and has been churning out artwork (like the above Starcraft logos) for years. He also has the dubious title of the creator of the Pandaren race.
You can check out a huge chunk of his artwork in the gallery on the Sons of the Storm website. He has a massive head of metal hair, apparently never wears pants, and is overseeing the artwork on Starcraft 2. We sat down with him at BlizzCon not long before L80ETC opened for Ozzy Osbourne, and chatted him up about his job. Read on for the full interview.
You can check out a huge chunk of his artwork in the gallery on the Sons of the Storm website. He has a massive head of metal hair, apparently never wears pants, and is overseeing the artwork on Starcraft 2. We sat down with him at BlizzCon not long before L80ETC opened for Ozzy Osbourne, and chatted him up about his job. Read on for the full interview.
BlizzCon 2009: A hoard of Diablo 3 info
by Kevin Kelly { Aug 27th 2009 at 9:10PM }
Also, last year's area included a lot more dialogue, and had moodier lighting. This time we were smack dab in the middle of a giant desert, which didn't offer many chances to encounter spooky, candlelit chambers. There were a couple of dungeons you could drop down into this year, via swirling sands, but for the most part you were hoofing it around under the bright sun.
Gallery: BlizzCon 2009: Diablo 3
BlizzCon 2009: Martial arts secrets of Diablo 3's Monk
by Kevin Kelly { Aug 27th 2009 at 5:30PM }
Gallery: BlizzCon 2009: Diablo 3
The best of WoW.com: August 18-26, 2009
by Mike Schramm { Aug 27th 2009 at 2:00AM }
What a week it has been in the World of Warcraft. Last weekend in Anaheim, Blizzard held BlizzCon, a convention of over 20,000 people, and announced the third expansion of the world's biggest MMO: Cataclysm. New races, new levels, new systems and instances, and oh yeah: the entire world will explode thanks to the return of a very evil and very angry dragon.
Here's our most popular posts from the past seven days to catch you up.
Here's our most popular posts from the past seven days to catch you up.
News
- BlizzCon 2009: Opening Ceremony liveblog
Straight from the convention floor, here's the announcement in all of its live glory. - World of Warcraft: Cataclysm announced
After all of the leaks and speculation, it's official. The game is getting another expansion. - BlizzCon 2009: Archaeology and Path of the Titans
A new secondary profession, and a brand new way for characters to grow even beyond the new level cap of 85. - Patch 3.2.0a being deployed today
Right in the midst of BlizzCon madness, Blizzard dropped a bugfix patch on the live servers. - BlizzCon 2009: Guild leveling and talents
Guilds will earn points for ingame success, and be able to spend those points on all kinds of fun rewards.
Features
- BlizzCon 2009: The costumes
What is a convention without fans crazy enough to dress up (or dress down) as their favorite characters? Feast your eyes on these. - BlizzCon 2009: Worgen animation
Here's what the change everyone wants to see looks like. - Know Your Lore: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Worgen
A special KYL for the new Alliance race. - BlizzCon 2009: Cataclysm, the story so far
What we know about the story behind the new expansion. - BlizzCon 2009: Stats vastly simplified
It's all back to core stats when Deathwing takes over.
BlizzCon 2009: The new Battle.Net
by Kevin Kelly { Aug 25th 2009 at 6:28PM }
Everything shown was modeled from inside of Starcraft 2, which Blizzard is calling the Battle.Net 2.0 launch title. The developer will be working to expand it to older titles, possibly including legacy games like the original Starcraft and Warcraft. It's also safe to say that Blizzard must be working on a client-only version of Battle.Net, so you don't have to be inside a game to see when your friends are on.
Check out the gallery below, and you can read about all the new details of what Blizzard wants to be the "premiere matchmaking service out there," after the break.
Gallery: Battle.Net (BlizzCon 2009)
BlizzCon 2009: The soundalike contest
by Kevin Kelly { Aug 23rd 2009 at 9:30PM }
The slightly NSFW video after the break capsulizes that experience ... and captures some surprisingly decent comedy. The guy with the 1-900 sex number bit initially looked like he'd cause groans, but he wasn't bad. Plus, is it just us or does the demon hunter impersonator share some buddy-comedy chops with Jay Mohr? There might be a straight-to USA Network movie in the making here.
But enough yakkin'. Head beyond the break to see for yourselves.
Round-up: The Cataclysmic changes coming to World of Warcraft
by Griffin McElroy { Aug 23rd 2009 at 6:30PM }
The recent announcement of World of Warcraft's next expansion, Cataclysm, brought with it a whole slew of drastic changes to the game. You're probably familiar with them all by now -- but if you stopped paying attention to BlizzCon 2009 coverage after the welcome ceremony, you may have missed out on a ton of additional changes that will make their way into the almighty MMO around the time Cataclysm launches.
We've done our best to round these changes up into a single post -- as always, however, we have to defer to the experts over at Joystiq's Azeroth-obsessed sister site, WoW.com, for the super in-depth coverage. You'll find a bunch of links to their BlizzCon coverage embedded in our post after the jump -- curious parties are just one click away from total Cataclysmic enlightenment.
We've done our best to round these changes up into a single post -- as always, however, we have to defer to the experts over at Joystiq's Azeroth-obsessed sister site, WoW.com, for the super in-depth coverage. You'll find a bunch of links to their BlizzCon coverage embedded in our post after the jump -- curious parties are just one click away from total Cataclysmic enlightenment.
BlizzCon 2009: Ozzy Osbourne closes show down, injures no bats
by Kevin Kelly { Aug 23rd 2009 at 4:30PM }
Blizzard fittingly chose Ozzy Osbourne to close down BlizzCon last night, since he's been in a fairly funny World of Warcraft commercial arguing about who is the true Prince of Darkness. He put on a fairly deafening, rocktastic show -- some of his setlist was appropriately composed of tracks off his 1980 "Blizzard of Ozz" album -- though he did stumble a bit through the words to "Iron Man." However, he made up for that by maniacally turning a hose on the audience, and I kid you not -- some women actually threw their panties on stage.
Opening up for him was Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, although they've now changed their name in protest over their own name changes to a familiar Prince-esque symbol, or The Artists Formerly Known As Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain (TAFKAL80ETC). They put on a good show as well, although they really need to write some new songs.
Browse the Ozzrific gallery below, and you can also check out one of Ozzy's classics below without the need for earplugs and a raincoat. Even though the show is over, we'll have more BlizzCon news soon. All aboard!
Opening up for him was Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, although they've now changed their name in protest over their own name changes to a familiar Prince-esque symbol, or The Artists Formerly Known As Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain (TAFKAL80ETC). They put on a good show as well, although they really need to write some new songs.
Browse the Ozzrific gallery below, and you can also check out one of Ozzy's classics below without the need for earplugs and a raincoat. Even though the show is over, we'll have more BlizzCon news soon. All aboard!
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm targeted for 2010 release
by Griffin McElroy { Aug 23rd 2009 at 3:30PM }
Here's the two observations we can cull from that ambiguous launch announcement -- first, it's not coming out this year. Second, it's not coming out in two years. It's coming out somewhere between January 1 and December 31 of next year, it seems. That is, unless it takes Blizzard longer to develop than Morhaime initially thought, in which case, we'll hastily revoke our second observation.
BlizzCon 2009: Chris Metzen talks about casting Tricia Helfer
by Kevin Kelly { Aug 23rd 2009 at 2:30PM }
Metzen himself has done a couple of voices as well, including the "Battlecruiser operational" line from the original Starcraft, and as Thrall in several Warcraft games. Listen to the rest of the audio interview right below, where he talks more about Helfer, and obliges us by doing some of the voices.
BlizzCon 2009: StarCraft Ghost lives on (in spirit)
by Kevin Kelly { Aug 22nd 2009 at 9:00PM }
During the StarCraft 2 gameplay panel at BlizzCon, Dustin Browder spent much of the time talking abut the upcoming map editor that ships with SC2. If he's to be believed, it's the most powerful piece of software on the planet. Which might be a slight exaggeration. Those developers all have bias running in their veins.
However, we were fairly impressed when they showed us that the editor allows first-person game creation. What?! Yes, that even includes details as far down as UI manipulation and an inventory system. That's a lot more than you'd expect from a simple "map editor." One employee-created game was an FPS featuring a very familiar, bouncing-ponytailed Ghost that was created in just a few days.
Blizzard officially put StarCraft: Ghost on indefinite hold back in 2006, and they've been telling us here that it's still the case. Although some enterprising modder/mapper out there might just want create their own version.
However, we were fairly impressed when they showed us that the editor allows first-person game creation. What?! Yes, that even includes details as far down as UI manipulation and an inventory system. That's a lot more than you'd expect from a simple "map editor." One employee-created game was an FPS featuring a very familiar, bouncing-ponytailed Ghost that was created in just a few days.
Blizzard officially put StarCraft: Ghost on indefinite hold back in 2006, and they've been telling us here that it's still the case. Although some enterprising modder/mapper out there might just want create their own version.
BlizzCon 2009: BSG's Tricia Helfer to voice StarCraft 2's Kerrigan
by Ben Gilbert { Aug 22nd 2009 at 6:16PM } 
It seems as though the BSG star is getting her fair share of video game voice over work these days, as she'll also be voicing a character named Dare in Halo 3: ODST. We're thinking if she gets to talking with gaming's every man Nolan North and they work out a monopoly, we'll have a serious issue on our hands.
