Tag Archives: BlizzCon 2010

The funnest part of building a sandcastle? Knocking it down.

With World of Warcraft’s Cataclysm expansion, Blizzard appears to be taking that philosophy to a whole new level. After letting players frolic about in its multi-million dollar sandcastle for nearly six years, the developer’s decided to shatter Azeroth into tiny little pieces and then put it back together again. The result? Suddenly, old is new, up is down, and Stranglethorn Vale doesn’t royally suck anymore. Needless to say, it’s an exciting time to be a WoW player.

Perhaps even more exciting, however, is being a WoW developer. To see years-upon-years’ worth of blood, sweat, and tears finally manifest into a complete experience has to be immensely satisfying, and speaking with lead world designer Alex Afrasiabi during BlizzCon, that was more than evident. It was kind of amazing, if we’re being honest, to see a developer so fired up over his own game – a game that’s been around for more than half a decade, no less.

Click past the break to hear Afrasiabi’s thoughts on the future of WoW expansions, why Cataclysm doesn’t have its own Hero Class, why MMOs and consoles don’t mix, why Cryptic’s wrong to call MMO content “mediocre,” moving the MMO genre forward, and tons more.

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

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StarCraft II finally dropped into the hands of more than three million eager fans this summer, and Heart of the Swarm probably won’t see the light of day until long after we’ve locked horns with an actual race of hiveminded aliens. So, in the meantime, why even bring the game to BlizzCon? What’s left to talk about?

Tons, as it turns out. This year, Blizzard took the wraps off four brand new games it’s developing within StarCraft II – each of which look equal parts excellent and bizarre. Oh, and let’s not forget the “waves and waves” of free content that will continue to zerg rush the game until Heart of the Swarm finally comes out. Also, cheating! That’s always fun to deal with. And what about the fallout from the forum tweak that was heard around the world, Real ID?

We sat down with game director Kaeo Milker to discuss all of the above topics and more. Also puns, briefly. Read the full thing after the break!

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

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BlizzCon has come to a close. We came, we saw, we conquered.

OK, no we didn’t. We actually spent the whole time playing Diablo III. But then, the game’s mix of hack ‘n’ slash demon-dicing and subtle strategy is already – near as we can tell – polished to perfection – even though Blizzard’s still keeping any sort of release schedule so tightly under wraps that we wouldn’t be surprised if there were exploding collars involved. And of course, let’s not forget the Demon Hunter and PVP arenas. Both made incredibly strong debuts at this year’s show, putting new and disturbingly addictive twists on the classic Diablo formula.

Put simply, Blizzard’s Diablo team’s still got it, so we took a couple of its members hostage and demanded a pre-release copy of the gam- er, we mean, we sat down for a nice, polite chat with senior designer Jason Bender and art director Christian Lichtner, and there was no duct tape involved. Read on for their thoughts on why Diablo III still has no release date, the origins of the Demon Hunter, what it’s like to balance a game where each class has 97 billion potential builds, female characters in games, why Diablo III isn’t on consoles, and more.

[Interview by Nathan Grayson]

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Look, consoles, it’s not you. It’s Blizzard.

Well, ok, it’s also kinda you.

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Another BlizzCon, another year without a concrete date for Diablo III.

But hey, here’s the next best thing.

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We played Blizzard DOTA. It’s hilarious and fun and delightful. We rarely use the word delightful. This is a Big Deal.

So we were both saddened and excited when Blizzard talked about the StarCraft II spin-off during its StarCraft II and Battle.net press conference earlier today.

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StarCraft II’s done and dusted. Time to settle in for a long, cold 18-month winter before Heart of the Swarm, right?

Wrong.

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We’re live at Tenacious-D-and-Chris-Metzen-Con 2010, and hey, they have videogames here too.

This is one of them.

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The first round of BlizzCon tickets went up for sale last night, and sold out within 30-minutes.

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According to a listing picked up by WoW.com, Blizzcon 2010 will be taking place at the Anaheim Convention Center in California in late October.

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BlizzCon 2010 may be held in Las Vegas, if the Las Vegas Convention Center is correct.

According to the website, and a spokesperson for the center, the event takes place July 30-31.

If so, it looks like there will be loads of folks going home with empty pockets.

Blizzard has yet to confirm this, but we’ll send a mail off just in case.

Thanks, WoW.com.