Blizzcon 2010 - A Holy Wrapup

This year's Blizzcon has come and gone. Gone... Like a fart in the wind. But it's more like one of those lingering farts. You know, the ones that you still kinda smell even though you've left the room? And even when you walk down the hall, you're kinda like "Man... Was that broccoli?" Blizzcon is a special place for gamers, especially for us here at the Report. For you see, we have all been to at least one of the Blizzcons in the past years. And all of us are big Blizzard fans(If you haven't noticed.) I think all of us like AT LEAST two of the three Blizzard games. I say that because I'm not a fan of Diablo. But that's for another post. This year, unfortunately, I could only afford to purchase the livestream version. The whole being stuck on a tiny island in the pacific with minimal disposable income played a small factor. Bew hew. Tiny violins aside, I'm still glad I was able to watch it.

As always, Blizzard has put their signature franchises out on display. It's a time for Blizzard teams to /flex their creative muscle, and generate buzz about their crazy going ons. Blizzcon also gives the public a chance to feel like they're more connected to Blizzard and getting to see many of the faces behind the games. To be a part of the experience that is Blizzard Entertainment. But for the most part it's a chance for nerds of all facets to do the following:

1. See hawt women dressed in Blizzard Cosplay.
2. Ask dumb questions to the development team.
3. Convince themselves that they're not as big of a loser as the guy sitting next to them.
4. Try to lay in their best World of Warcraft pickup lines at random women.
5. Drink heavily with other nerds that you would normally yell at over ventrilo.
6.  Eating main hall kiosk ice cream while intoxicated.

Alright alright, not everyone does that. But come on now, there's a lot of people that did. Number 6 was both hilarious and fun. Heh heh heh. There's always something for someone at Blizzcon. For us at the Holynub Report, it was mainly the panels. What's next for our beloved Blizzard games? Ohhh the suspense!



Diablo 3

Final Class - Demon Hunter

For all you clik clik Diablo fans out there, the wait is finally over... For the playable classes anyway. During the opening ceremonies Blizzard announced the final class available to players is.... The Demon Hunter.

Hmmmm... I'd hit that... Wait wut? Oh. Hai there.

From what has been anounced, here's what we know.

• The Demon hunter is a ranged class.(Orly? I didn't think the trailer told us that.)
•  It is the only class that can dual wield crossbow pistols
•  Many aspects stem from the assassin class from Diablo 2(Traps and gadgets)
•  Also has aspects of the amazon class from Diablo 2(Multishot)
•  Has some demonic aspects(mainly the eyes)

PVP Arenas

Taking a page from the World of Warcraft book, Diablo will now have organized PVP in the form of Arena matches. All matches will be(at the moment) 3v3. The arenas will have obstacles such as LOS pillars. With the shear number of builds and character customization that they're implementing in the game, many PVP builds will be possible. As far as how pvp gameplay is done, it's looking like a counter based system. Meaning, one group comp/build will be a counter for another etc. etc. etc. I was never a big PVPer in Diablo 2. It was a little crazy clik clik hectic back then. MAYBE it'll be different.

Character Customization

Diablo will be straying from the now "traditional" skill tree way of customizing your character. Instead a new UI is going to be implemented to allow players to customize their stats in a "new" way. There's skill customization as well. Players are given access to skill runes that alter the functionality of many abilities. Honestly, I have no fucking clue what it looks like. I didn't really give a shit enough to care. Yeah this is me Diablo hating.

Talisman

If anyone remembers charms from Diablo 2, they're making a reappearance in Diablo 3. However, rather than wasting bag space holding charms, Blizzard is giving players a "Talisman." The talisman has a set number of slots that increases as your character levels. This allows you to equip more and more Talismans as you level up. However, it will still force you to make decisions on which charms to equip. It kinda reminds me of the keyring from World of Warcraft... Wat? I'm just sayin. It's still a really good idea. Beats the hell out of running around with 3/4 of your inventory full of charms of "+ everything possible in the game".

for more info and a site where people actually give a shit about Diablo, check out Diablofans.com

Starcraft 2

Custom Blizzard Mods for Starcraft 2!

Blizzard, being those sneaky bastards that they are, have been developing in house mods and maps for Starcraft 2. As usual, they're going to be doing it in their own unique Blizzard style. From what I saw, it looks pretty cool.

Blizzard DOTA

Based on Warcraft 3's Defense of the Ancients(DOTA), which was influenced by Starcraft 1's Aeon of Strife, the Blizzard team is creating their own version of DOTA. Blizzard DOTA will incorporate Blizzard characters from all of their franchises. So, not only will there be the starcraft favorites like Jim Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan, but you'll see Warcraft's Muradin Bronzebeard and Sylvanas Windrunner as well as appearances by L80ETC and Grunty(couldn't find anyone from the Diablo series)! This should be fairly interesting. For those of you that aren't familiar about what DOTA is, it's a hero centric game where you beat up the other guys. Yes it's more complex than that, but the general idea is you have heroes, you beat up other guys, you win. Here's an interesting predicament. A few weeks before Blizzcon, Valve(The half-life guys) has announced that their next game will be DOTA 2. Taking developers from the original Warcraft 3 DOTA design team, Valve has this new mini-studio working on their next game. Valve also trademarked the word "DOTA." Which Blizzard wasn't really happy with. But hey, dems de breaks.

Left 2 Die

Soooo.... The next mod is a play on everyone's favorite zombie horror survival game Left 4 Dead. Which was made by Valve... Who is also making DOTA 2... Ok that aside, it's really just a name. This map is a variation on the SC2 Wings of Liberty campaign map "Outbreak". Basically it's a swing map where you shift from offense to defense depending on the time of day. During the day, the zerg are dormant and your units can go out to try and destroy them to reduce their numbers. At night the roles are flipped. The zerg becomes active and assaults your base in unstoppable waves of zombie, er.. zerg, survival. Blizzard is looking to improve on this map giving players different options and expanding the unit list from the regular campaign and possibly giving player abilities.

Aiur Chef

Oh Blizzard. The clever things you do. Once again, the name is a play on everyone's favorite Japanese Cooking show "Iron Chef." Players will assume the roll of a zealot that must cook for the chairman Executor. The zealot must battle his way against other chefs to obtain the ingredients necessary for his dish. They also get cool chef hats and aprons. Quite a hilarious concept. At first I thought it was going to be some kind of deranged Cooking Mama knock off. I'm really looking forward to this one. Test my culinary micro. Heh heh.

Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm

Not much was said about story/units/anything. Looks like we're going to have to wait a bit more before any other details are released. For you mappy people check out SC2Mapster.com for more map and mod details. Till then, check out this cool concept unit.

World of Warcraft

Cataclysm Countdown

Sooo we've seen the full trailer for Cataclysm. We've had patch 4.0.1 launch. And Blizzard has basically told us everything we need to know about what's going to be happening in.. About a month. So there wasn't exactly a lot for the WoW team to show off. The Cinematics panel showed off the worgen opening sequence for the first time. Also, if you're planning on pre-ordering Cataclysm, you now have an option with Blizzard(Finally). For those uninterested in the sexy collectors edition(Because we are all slaves to blizzard), you can pre-order a digital download directly from the Blizzard store(Pre-order here lawl!). It will let you download and install the expansion before the actual release date. Once December 7th(00:01 AM PST) hits, you can fire it up and log in. No standing in line at Gamestop/Bestbuy/Walmart with a bunch of sweaty nerds spouting nonsense. Hey, I find that kind of fun. Maybe it's because I'm FUCKING WEIRD.

Q&A Panels

Delightful Panel images from Cracked.com

This was the one part of Blizzcon I looked forward to. The Q&A panels. Time for players to stand up and speak out to the Devs in person. I have yet to watch the Q&A on the Quests and Lore, but that's not really my realm. But the Class mechanics Q&A. OH BOY! Watching (mostly) clueless individuals go up and make complete asses of themselves infront of the development panel. Wooh! It's like watching people drive in a third world country. You're always waiting for someone to get into a horrible accident. I perticularly love some of the reactions from some of the developers. That "Oh god, this guy's retarded." look that they're trying to hide behind a false smile. Even better are some of the crowd reactions to the stupid questions. But every now and then, you'll get some very good questions. One that make you sit there and say "Yes, indeed. Good question." I had to make a decision on "Should I point them out and rip on them?" Le Sigh, I can't bring myself to be that big of an asshole. But let me just say, BOY I REALLY WANTED TOO.

Live Raid

This year's live Raid was brought to us by Paragon. Blizzard stepped up their game this year. They setup a complete scenario called Defense of Orgrimmar. I think maybe it was a combination of people still getting used to the new build and Blizzard severely overpowering the bosses, but Paragon struggled against the crazy bosses thrown at them. Wave one consisted of a bunch of our friends from Molten Core(Shazzrah, Magmadar, Gehennas, and Barron Geddon). But they've all been adjusted for health and damage to match lvl 80 content. It was pretty brutal. Just the combination of all those abilities going on at the same time just crippled people. Living Bombs, teleport Arcane Explosion on raid, fear, fire patches on the ground, Hellfire, raid wide reduced healing curse, AOE Shadowbolt volley, Rain of fire. All going on at around the same time? Yeah I'll pass. It was overall pretty fun to watch. They did a few more waves after it. It was a much more polished event compared to last year. But I kinda liked the randomness of the first Live raid more than this one. Still, great effort from Paragon and the raid was enjoyable.

For a more complete information checkout mmo-champion. They were actually there. The bastards.

And That's A Wrap

Well, that's all for Blizzcon 2010. Something for everyone(Except you FPS people.) We at the report will keep our ears open for anymore crazy Blizzard news. Till next time, try to stay out of trouble you crazy kids.

Link Roundup:
MMO-Champion
SC2Mapster
Diablo Fans
Blizzard store(Cataclysm Pre-Order)