Blizzard | Dragon*Con MMO

Hey everyone! Krystalle from Massively.com here. I hope you all made it home safe and sound and are enjoying being back at home with your gaming computers, in your comfy chairs/beds. I know I’ve missed my beloved office! (That’s an old picture of it above. Much more filled with geekstuff now.)

I’d like to take a moment to thank all our awesome sponsors and contributors, as well as the many guests who came to lend their own brand of awesome to our track this year:

Track sponsors:

Guests / Panelists:

Battle & Brew
Brandon M. “Oxhorn” Dennis (who wrote up a great post about his adventure!)
Brian “Psychochild” Green
Cartoon Network
CCP / EVE Online
CK Knight / Curse.com
Hi-Rez Studios / Global Agenda
Jeff Lewis
Kingdom of Loathing
Lessons in Lore / Chad and Megan Tindale
Sandeep Parikh
Sean Becker
Seraphina Brennan / Massively.com
Shawn Schuster / Massively.com & GuildCast
Star Wars Combine
Romily Rilynn, our mistress of Machinima

And those who, while unable to make it, contributed prizes for us to give away!

Without our above sponsors and guests, we wouldn’t have been able to pull off the epic win of this year’s MMO track. Many thanks, everyone!

Also, I wanted to take a moment to post some of the information from my panels, since some people did not grab the handouts I’d made. You can find it all after the break!

Probably the biggest news in the MMO world today is the release of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. Published by Blizzard, Starcraft was first released in 1998 after a major overhauling due to a poor showing at E3 in 1996. Blizzard made the right move, as Starcraft has sold over 11 million copies from 1998 till 2009. Now enter Startcraft II, the long awaited sequel. It again will follow the story of Terran (outcast human) Jim Raynor on his quest to survive Zergs, Protoss, and well, other Terran. If you don’t want to go the storyline route you can play any of the three races to try and dominate the galaxy. And now, for your viewing pleasure, Starcraft II: Wings of LIberty.
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty trailer

Though the date isn’t set, Cataclysm beta testing will begin soon. Possibly the end of the month. To sign up for a chance to participate, go to your battle.net accounts and look for the ‘beta profile settings’ link. This will send your system specifications to Blizzard and put you in the drawing. Good luck!

The box looks like it'll stand up to a Zerg rush...

It’s a rare day when $99.99 doesn’t seem like a stupid amount of money to pay for a video game. Steel Battalion, with it’s “you’re going to need a bigger boat lap” controller was one of the earliest titles to hit the century mark. Blizzard seems to have found a way to justify separating us from a C-note with the Collector’s Edition of StarCraft II, even though there’s no release date set yet. For those of you who haven’t seen the trailer yet, Dani posted about it here.

In addition to the sequel of the wildly-popular original, a Duke Nukem-esque ten years in development, there are a whole passel of goodies tucked into that big honking box:

THE ART OF STARCRAFT II: WINGS OF LIBERTY – 176 pages of concepts and 3d renderings

JIM RAYNOR “DOG TAG” USB DRIVE – Replica of Jim Raynor’s in-game dog tag is a 2GB USB thumb drive, pre-loaded with the original StarCraft and Brood War Expansion

BEHIND THE SCENES DVD – Dev interviews, all the cut-scene animations (with director commentary), and discussion of the original SC’s place in gaming lore

STARCRAFT COMIC ISSUE #0

GAME SOUNDTRACK – 14 tracks from the game itself, plus a couple of bonus tunes. I’m a sucker for game soundtracks – they make the daily commute suck less, that’s for sure.

WORLD OF WARCRAFT IN-GAME PET – Maybe you’ll want Baby Thor as a companion to your shenanigans in Azeroth

BATTLE-NET DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT – Unlockable goodies, including in-game army icons, unique avatar portraits, and an exclusive version of the in-game Thor unit

This is where I make everyone’s head explode by admitting I never played the original StarCraft (I was a Command & Conquer guy), but this list of goodies does make my wallet itch, just a little.

If you want the full details… CLICK ME

The highlights:

New Expansion coming, called Cataclysm
New races for Horde (Goblin) and Alliance (Worgen)
Level Cap raised to 85
Skill caps raised another 75 points
Lots of new zones in Azeroth, and mega changes to existing zones. (example, The Barrens will now be two zones)
Goblin Racial: Rocket Jump / +1% to casting/attack speed / 15 to Alchemy / Personal Hobgoblin servant
Worgen Racial: Don’t need a skinning knife to get leather / Sprint / Worgen Form / Reduced duration diseases and curses
Goblin Classes: All but Paladin and Druid
Worgen Classes: All but Shaman and Paladin
Following Item Stats are gone: MP5, Spellpower, Defense, Attack Power, Armor Penetration
Major Changes to: Haste and Block
Reforging allows crafters to change stats on gear
Big changes to Fishing
No more spell ranks. Spell power increases as you level.
Warlock shards no longer stored in bags
New race/class combos… Say hi to the Dwarf Mage (back from Beta!)

There are some more bits of information here, but don’t take my word for it… See for yourself.

Oh, and they unveiled the Monk class for Diablo 3, but this is an MMO site, and I’m sure none of you are interested in that.

D*C 2010 wrap/track info from Krystalle

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

Cataclysm Beta Coming Soon!

StarCraft II Collector’s Edition: Yes Prz!

Quick and dirty summary of BlizzCon – Day 1