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08-07-07, 02:24 PM | #1 |
Blizzcon 2007 Wrapup
Many of us from the UI Community went to this year's Blizzcon. I can't remember the last time I had that much fun, and it was absolutely wonderful to meet many of the people I have gotten to know through the years in IRC and in the forums. As you can imagine, there was a lot of information given to us during the panels and various activities at Blizzcon. The following is a schedule of the activities we participates in or took notes on while at the 'con. Click on a heading to visit a specific entry , or click here to read the entire report from Blizzcon.
I kept this thread focused mostly on Blizzcon and what was said during the panels and various announcements. Cairenn has a thread dedicated more to the personal side of the trip focused more on what we did as a group and how much fun we had. I encourage you to read her thread here as well. While I enjoyed Blizzcon greatly, I don't think it would have been nearly as enjoyable without all of the people that shared the time with us. Day 1 (August 3rd)
Day 2 (August 4th)
Last edited by Beladona : 08-12-07 at 03:39 PM. |
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08-08-07, 12:10 PM | #2 |
Day 1: Opening Ceremony
We began our day by heading into the convention center early. Iriel and I met at the front of the entrance to the main hall so that we could procure spots for the rest of our party. We spent some time chatting together as well as with a couple of people in line with us. We were joined shortly by Esamyn and MentalPower.
Once the doors opened it was a mad rush to the booths and surrounding attractions. Massive lines formed at the two demo spots for Starcraft 2 and the next World of Warcraft Expansion. I slipped into the multiplayer line at the Starcraft 2 demo first while others of our groups went to various other areas. The opening ceremony introduced the president and co-founder of Blizzard who shared with us the success of Blizzcon and their gratitude for our participation in the games and communities that have formed around their games. Since the first Blizzcon they have seen the population of ‘World of Warcraft’ double to 9 million active subscribers. South Park dedicated an entire episode to the game and has since been nominated for an Emmy award for that episode. Their first expansion broke the record for the fastest selling PC Game of all time, selling 2.4 million copies in the first 24 hours. This is more than most games sell in a month. And this Blizzcon saw tickets being sold out in 3 days. Obviously as most of you well know by now, the biggest announcement to come during the opening ceremony was the next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Oriented around the continent of Northrend and the story of Arthas becoming the new Lich King, this news was met with HUGE applause from the audience. Features include:
Link to the YouTube video can be found here. Last edited by Beladona : 08-08-07 at 03:31 PM. |
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08-08-07, 12:16 PM | #3 |
Day 1: World of Warcraft Panel
This discussion was primarily about the upcoming expansion and what we can expect to see from it. They discussed the basic look and feel of Northrend as well as what types of inhabitants we will probably see there. Having learned from the previous expansion they have decided to add two points of entry into Northrend so as to lessen the number of players coming into a single area. Some of the points of interest are as follows:
Death knights were discussed in some detail. They will be a plate wearing dps class with the ability to fill some tanking roles as well. They can use two handed and dual wielding weapons but cannot equip shields. Rather than having mana or rage to deal with they will use a new system of carved runes that go on their weapon and determine what powers and level of skills they can use. They will focus on the powers of Blood, Frost, and Unholy abilities and will resemble the old Warcraft versions fairly closely. Expect to see undead summoning and Unholy area affect attacks being their bread and butter. Using a skill will activate a rune of that type and an associated cooldown. The more runes you have of a given power the more of that power you can use before waiting for cooldowns. Some more powerful skills will use multiple runes while others may use a combination of rune types. Hero classes will be a way for Blizzard to introduce new classes slowly and as part of a larger story. It also allows them to bring many of the classes they originally wanted to see in the game such as Blademasters and Demon Hunters. Heroes will also be able to be created at a higher level so as to allow veteran players the ability to start new characters without going through the low level grind currently associated with new characters. These hero classes will be unlocked with high level quest chains only accessible to players who have leveled their current characters up to the maximum level. Some of the other features discussed were the inclusion of destructible buildings and siege weapons into the PVP game. This will allow for much more dynamic game play in PVP scenarios, and may even open up PVE encounters that make use of siege weaponry. World zones will also be added that make use of siege weapons and PVP objectives similar to Halaa in Nagrand, but on a larger scale. After the presentation the audience was given the opportunity to ask questions. Some of these are outlined below:
Link to the YouTube video can be found here. Last edited by Beladona : 08-08-07 at 02:28 PM. |
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08-08-07, 12:26 PM | #4 |
Day 1: Class Discussion
Class discussion opened with an introduction of what a hero class means to World of Warcraft. When the original game was being designed they had planned on having hero classes, but they got cut in order to make things simpler for players and for balancing purposes. Many classes were originally planned such as Blademasters and other hero character types from previous Warcraft games, and even other RPG games. They instead opted for fewer classes with more customization and deviation via talents. More classes are not always better for the game.
The first thing looked at when working with classes is Balance. Ever class should be able to solo from level 1 all the way to maximum level if they wish to do so. Every class should also have a role and be viable for 5 man encounters, in raids, and in PVP. Finally, every class should be enjoyable and fun to play for most players. Talents are also very important for the class structure of the game. The original talent system was inspired by and designed with Diablo 2 in mind. They wanted to have a limited pool of points with a large number of skills to allow players to differentiate themselves from others of the same class. The majority of skills should be passive, with few active skills available in each tree. Balancing each spec against another in a given class is another issue looked at when evaluating classes. It is important to them that they make sure each spec has proper itemization in order to support that spec. They also try to make sure that hybrid specs are still viable. New spells or skills should be more effective than their earlier counterparts in all situations. This hasn’t always been perfect and things are still being looked at, such as making certain classes more viable in pvp such as protection warriors. They have to be careful no matter what they do as major changes could be a shock to the system, the players, or both.
The future of classes for this game will most likely be Hero Classes. As we go forward more hero classes can be introduced using the unlocking mechanism. Other things we can expect to see for classes include more talents from 70-80, and the new inscription profession that will provide enhancements for your skills and spells, much like enchants provide enhancements to armor and weapons. Think of things like adding a knockback effect to your Mage Fireball… With very little time left, the floor was opened up for the audience to ask questions:
Link to the YouTube video can be found here. Last edited by Beladona : 08-08-07 at 02:44 PM. |
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08-08-07, 01:07 PM | #5 |
Day 1: WoW Dungeons & Raids Panel
The panel was started by covering what goes into designing dungeons and raids for World of Warcraft. Many factors are part of the development process, and deungeons or raids would be created for various reasons.
When designing raids and dungeons they always plan more than they can build. This is a philosophy they use almost everywhere with the understanding that there will be changes and reductions in what they can put in before the content goes live. It is better to have more planned than what they can actually get into the game, that way they never run out of content to put in a particular location. They also plan dungeons and raids around the idea that it needs to be balanced for both the level of the players going in, the gear that those players would have when going, and the difficulty of the encounters in that location. At this point the floor was opened up for questions:
During the questions they got onto the topic of features that we might see included in the game to help us during raids and dungeons. Some of the things hinted at were itemrack functionality in the default UI, as well as threat meters, cooldown timers across raids, and consolidated bag space. These could be subject to change, but it sounds interesting to say the least. Link to the YouTube video can be found here. Last edited by Beladona : 08-08-07 at 03:03 PM. |
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08-08-07, 03:19 PM | #6 |
Day 1: WoW UI & Mods Panel
I was looking forward to this panel quite a bit for obvious reasons. By the end of the discussion I felt as though I was not dissapointed. The discussion began with a tutorial on how to write an addon, based on the ShowMeTheMoney tutorial included with the UI Extraction tool. Most of us had the background already from writing addons ourselves, but we felt as thought it was a ncie touch to lead any new people in the audience into the process involved in making a simple addon.
After the tutorial they began talking about things we will be seeing in upcoming patches. This started with the introduction of an addon authors dream, the Frame Inspector. This tool is an addon that can be used to inspect frames for theri existing parent, and attachment points, as well as other information about that frame. Think of it as a task manager for UI Frames. You can find it here. They also introduced the new Combat Log that will be added to the game soon. This will replace the existing system of verbose chat messages with an in-depth and responsive combat log. The data provided by this log will then be queryable with various flags, such as filtering data for only things happening to you, your group, your raid, or those in your sphere of influence. Think of it as an advanced statistical analysis tool for combat. Obviously this will be something that can be expanded upon and used by addons such as CombatStats and others that analyze combat data. The audience was allowed to ask questions, and some of the questions posed were as follows:
Last edited by Cairenn : 08-11-07 at 11:15 AM. |
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