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At this morning's Austin Game Developer's Conference keynote, J. Allen Brack and Frank Pearce of Blizzard took the stage to talk about the inner workings of Blizzard. Most of what they covered was stats and trvia. Did you know the Blizzard bug team is currently tracking over 179,484 bugs? Now you do. There are 7,650 quests in WoW since Wrath of the Lich King! Consider yourself informed.

Some of the trivia was actually pretty interesting, like the fact that when Blizzard releases a patch, almost half of that data is audio. Pearce also mentioned that BlizzCon is operated "at a substantial loss for Blizzard," but the value is that it's a huge marketing/PR opportunity for them. Considering how many tickets they sell (in only eight minutes), that's around $3.5 million that's written off. Plus whatever Blizzard spends above and beyond that. No wonder Blizzard employees have to buy their own tickets.

However, the most interesting part of the keynote was when they briefly spoke about Nomad, the canceled squad-based sci-fi game. Ten years ago, Blizzard put a lot of work in on the game, but eventually looked at it and said "Is this really the game we want to be working on right now? The answer ended up being "no," and the team went on to start work on World of Warcraft. Here we are ten years later with WoW going strong, and no Nomad in sight.

They'd mentioned this canceled game, along with a slew of others, at last year's DICE summit, but without any other information. Sadly, the only thing they had to show were pieces of concept art, including some by "The Bourbon Cowboy," Chris Metzen. The art itself isn't that exciting (the best one is above and there's a couple more in the gallery below), but the words "squad-based sci-fi RPG" are exciting. Could this be Blizzard's next game? Possibly mutated into MMO form? Who knows when we'll find out, since one of the stats they flashed onscreen this morning was "Number of Unannounced MMOs: 1."

We know that we've been fire-hosing Diablo 3 information on you, but keep those raincoats zipped because there's more incoming. In fact, we sat down with Leon Boyasrsky, lead world designer, and Kevin Martens, lead content artist, at BlizzCon. While they didn't drop any deafening secrets on us like ZOMG what the final class will be, they did go into further detail about the game.

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.

Blizzard's playable Diablo 3 demo at this year's BlizzCon felt like a step backwards from last year's, mostly because the Rune system was removed completely. It'll be in the final game, but since Blizzard is still working on the Skills that the Runes enhance / rely on, the company said it didn't make sense to have the Runes in this time around. Bummer. It makes sense, but we still missed the bouncing, flaming skulls the Witch Doctor once issued.

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.

When you think hardcore-fantasy, swords-and-sorcery killing machine, you think "monk," right? At BlizzCon, Diablo 3's new character class, the Monk, was unlocked, supposedly having been inspired by pen-and-paper RPGs. According to Jay Wilson, almost all of Blizzard's characters are meant to hearken back to the "golden age of RPG gaming." The Monk is designed to be a fragile, melee-based character that performs some amazingly agile moves. With skills like the "Seven-Sided Strike" and "Way of the Hundred Fists," we'd say he's stripped from a different golden age -- from the reels of 1960s and '70s Kung Fu serials. The only detail that's missing are the Bruce Lee yips.

Blizzard finally unveiled the much-hyped new version of Battle.Net at BlizzCon and, as expected, it's a huge leap forward from the service that was first introduced with Diablo in 1996. Although, in typical Blizzard fashion, this is still a work in progress and could change by the time it eventually comes out. In 2013. (We kid, we kid.)

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.

Update: This contest is now closed, dearest readers. Winners will be contact via email within the next 48 hours (or thereabouts), so check those inboxes. We'll see you again next week!

With BlizzCon wrapping up today as well as GamesCom, it's a heavy news weekend here on the Stiq. Thusly, we're bringing you this week's Swag Saturday a bit late in the day, but we're throwing in a real gem to make up for it. We have one copy of Capcom's critically acclaimed Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure for the Nintendo Wii.

In honor of Blizzard's annual soiree, we want your best ideas for a new MMO for the WoW developer to create. There is but one stipulation: the game must be made for the Nintendo Wii. Putting aside Wii's online concerns and the relative inability to communicate, how does the game work with the console? How does Blizzard make its next MMO for the Nintendo Wii? Good luck!

• Leave a comment telling us your best ideas for a new MMO made by Blizzard for the Nintendo Wii.
  
• You must be 18 years or older and a resident of the US or Canada, excluding Quebec.(Nous sommes désolés, Québecois!)
  
• Limit 1 entry per person.
• This entry period ends at 3:31 pm ET on Sunday, August 23. We'll randomly select one at that time to receive: one copy of Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure (ARV $70).
• For a list of complete rules, click here

During a StarCraft 2 lore panel taking place at BlizzCon this weekend, Blizzard vice president of creative development Chris Metzen revealed the voice replacement for Sarah Kerrigan. Battlestar Galactica star Tricia Helfer will replace Glynnis Talken as voice over actress in the upcoming sequel(s).

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.

The news coming from BlizzCon has been fast and furious -- and we can hardly blame you if you haven't been able to keep up with the announcements coming from Anaheim so far.

• WORLD OF WARCRAFT: A little expansion by the name of Cataclysm was officially announced, with a world of pain now on its way to classic Azeroth and two new races. So what's new in Azeroth? Two new races, Goblins and Worgen (Horde and Alliance respectively), the reordering and rezoning of much of Azeroth, an array of new race/class possibilities, a brand-new secondary skill, and some shake-ups in class mechanics and character/guild advancement.
• DIABLO 3: Meet the Monk, the game's latest class and -- so the trailer suggests -- a kick-ass martial artist. Also, surprise surprise, the game may still be coming to a console near you.
• BATTLE.NET: Battle.net will gain new features in the expansion, including an Xbox-Livesque ability to see what your friends are playing and which servers they're on, in addition to sending messages to them.
  
• PICTURES: Here's a map of the reordered post-Cataclysm Azeroth, a gallery of the art display at BlizzCon (containing some Cataclysm art, employee-decorated noobz, and StarCraft and Diablo universe pieces), a dedicated gallery for Cataclysm concept art, and a gallery of the costumes at BlizzCon.
  
• VIDEOS: We have video for you of the Cataclysm trailer, what Azeroth zones will look like post-Cataclysm, and the animation for Human-to-Worgen transformation.
• THE GUILD: The entire cast showed up and brought the funny at their live panel and at our reader meet-up. Gallery here!

[Update 2:59PM – Blizzard VP Chris Metzen just confirmed the Monk during BlizzCon's opening ceremony. They've got a cinematic – surprise! – that we'll nab for you as soon as it's available. This looks like in-game footage though; it's not the normal Blizzard-quality cinematic.]

While the opening BlizzCon ceremony is just minutes away, one potential secret has already been spoiled ... by Blizzard itself. The mega-developer's own Korean site revealed the above image, showing off all the way to the right ... a new Diablo 3 class. Judging by that nifty saffron-colored robe, we're guessing this is the long-rumored Monk class. More info as we gather it.

(To find the screen for yourself, go to this Diablo 3 site and change the language to Korean. Voila!)

[Via WoW.com]