Blizzcon Day 1

So obviously I haven’t been playing WoW as much as I used to, but I’m still a big Blizzard fan. I hop into WoW from time to time, I’m on my 4th SC2 playthrough and I’m awaiting Diablo 3. So yes, I got virtual Blizzcon.

I must say the interface has been vastly cleaned up this year over last. Last year they used an ‘enhanced RayV Player’. If enhanced you mean ‘prone to buffering’ it was the most enhanced media player since RealPlayer. This year we have a simple FlashPlayer and I had no problem whatsoever.

The big news is of course the announcement of WoW’s next expansion, Mist of Panderia. It’s funny I remember the rumor a couple months ago. Blizzard denied and it seemed to go away, now of course it’s been confirmed. I’m a little excited to see a lighter tone as, let’s face it, Azeroth can be downright depressing what with the zombie invasion and death dragon destroying everything. Now we get kung-fu pandas and beer! Yay!

The other big announcement was Diablo 3 being free with a 1-year commitment to WoW. You also get a new mount that appears to be a reskinned star pony. It looks fairly badass, like a flying pally mount really. Also according to the FAW if you also shell out for the collectors edition you get 4 months game time. I’ll most likely do this as I had every intention of not canceling WoW anyway.

A couple of minor notes:

• Blizzard DOTA includes Stitches!
• The Diablo 3 big bad from the trailer, Azmodan(sp?), looks kinda lame. Still, the Diablo design is so classic, where do you go?
• The Panderia preview panel had a screen shot that made me laugh. While in all likelihood a placeholder and not final, a quest being turned in had for rewards ‘30 Valor points, 10xp and 2 copper’
• Speaking of, Valor points were mention several times as rewards. At this point you may get Valor points for logging in
• In general it sounds like quest design is being scaled back towards a BC modeland away from the Cataclysm hand holding. Great, I think that was once of my biggest turnoffs to Cataclysm
• Monks, playable by all races except Worgen and Goblin, are leather wearing tank/healer/DPS hybrids… monk/druids FIGHT!
• Challenge mode dungeons initially made me groan feeling Blizzard had officially endorsed the ‘gogogo’ assholes.
• The Pet Battle System reminds me of another game. Or was it a TV show? Or a movie? I seem to recall a yellow lightning mouse with rosy red cheeks. During the presentation I kept waiting with each slide change for the devs to shout ‘Just kidding!’. And then it went on for another 10 minutes. It’s October, not April right?
• Talents are getting another major revamp. Hopefully it’ll go better than lasttime when it destroyed my groove with Space*
• 2 of my 3 picks in the costume contest won – yay!

Alright, GSL final starts in minutes. I’m out after the rant.

*Pallys have 3 interrupts now? WTF. Back in my day if a paladin wanted to interrupt something more than once a minute he brought a rogue along. Or healed through it. Or bubbled. Damn homogenization, stop crowding my action bar and give me back consecration.