blizzcon posts

A few months ago there were strong indicators that the 2010 edition of BlizzCon would be held in Las Vegas. Those reports were pretty quickly proven to be incorrect. Now our sister site WoW.com has posted up word that Blizzard's (sort of) annual fan event may have a final date and location.

According to a post at the Anaheim (CA) Convention Center web site (that has since been removed after WoW.com's first story) BlizzCon 2010 now has a date of October 22-23. Of course the convention center has been the home of BlizzCon since its start. Blizzard has yet to officially confirm the dates and location for BlizzCon. Last year the event had 26,000 fans attend (ticket sold out almost immediately) who got to play new builds of StarCraft II and Diablo III. What's in store for this year's show? Stay tuned.

Blizzard fans who had hoped to be rolling sevens and pulling on some one armed bandits in Las Vegas next year during BlizzCon can now hold off. Our sister site Wow.com is now reporting that their previous story of BlizzCon 2010 being held in Vegas in late July isn't happening after all.

The Las Vegas Convention Center's web site did indeed show that Blizzard's annual fan event was booked for their venue for July 30 and 31. However the venue's reps have now admitted that due to human error, they had listed the convention on the site when in fact no such confirmation had been made.

Interestingly the convention center rep did say they had one conversation with Blizzard about having BlizzCon come to their venue which may indicate that Blizzard might still move BlizzCon away from Anaheim, California to a new location for the 2010 event. Of course we will post up any BlizzCon news when it happens.

Last August at BlizzCon, Blizzard VP Paul Sams hinted that they might be changing the venue for future versions of their (sort of) annual fan convention. Since its start the event has been held at the Anaheim Convention Center (close to Blizzard's own headquarters) but the 2009 edition made it clear that the venue was close to its limits in terms of holding its over 26,000 attendees.

Now our sister site WoW.com has learned that the Las Vegas Convention Center has a new listing on their calendar . . . for BlizzCon 2010. According to them the show will be held at their venue in Vegas on July 30 and 31. So far Blizzard has yet to admit that they have made such a change, telling WoW.com that they are asking people to refrain from making any travel plans. However if it turns out to be true (and that's likely) it looks like Blizzard will be able to allow even more people to attend than in the past. The Las Vegas Convention Center is the home to tons of conventions every year including the largest trade show in the US, the Consumer Electronics Show, which has well over 100,000 attendees.

Update: WoW.com has updated their story with word that Blizzard is now flat out denying that BlizzCon 2010 will be held in Las Vegas even as the Las Vegas Convention Center's web site continues to show otherwise.

During out BlizzCon 2009 coverage last week we checked out the Pocket Books booth where they were showing off their previous and upcoming novels based on Blizzard's games. Among the books featured was StarCraft: Heaven's Devils, an upcoming hardcover prose novel from author William C Dietz.

Now Pocket Books has posted up an except from that novel on its web site. Designed to be a prequel to StarCraft II, the novel will be tell the story of the first meeting between Jim Raynor (hero of the first StarCraft game) and Tychus Findlay (the space marine that's the subject of the first StarCraft II CGI trailer). The novel is due in stores in mid-December.

Well, BlizzCon 2009 is winding down for this year and Big Download has been very impressed with how Blizzard has handled the event. Having 26,000 Blizzard fans gather in one place but everything seemed to run like clockwork. All the panels and events started on time, the lines were full to play the new and upcoming games from the company and lots of unique stuff was sold at the Blizzard story, with lots of sell-outs of items

We have some pictures we took from today's events at BlizzCon to show you and that will in fact be our concluding port directly from the event. Make sure you check out WoW.com's continuing coverage of BlizzCon 2009 (including photos from Sharon Osbourne's husband's concert).

Many folks thought that Blizzard might reveal the details about their next MMO at BlizzCon 2009. Unfortunately, Blizzard "only" announced the next World of Warcraft expansion pack. However Blizzard's Rob Pardo gave some tiny hints about their process for making their next MMO in chatting today on the DirectTV BlizzCon pay-per-view broadcast.

Pardo, the head of Blizzard's game design, stated that they started their process on the next MMO by having meetings on what ideas the team might have for the game. He admitted that they discussed ideas like StarCraft-like MMO or a Diablo-like MMO as well as ideas like an MMO RTS game or an MMO FPS game. Eventually Pardo said that as a result of these meetings they leaned toward ideas that everyone involved agreed would be best for their next MMO. Pardo said that they are now past the technology and art stage and are now developing actual game prototypes for the MMO. Naturally there's no word on when Blizzard will reveal any concrete details for the game, much less a release date.

As we reported earlier, today's BlizzCon's so-called "StarCraft II Lore panel" was actually a StarCraft II voice actor panel, where it was revealed that Tricia Helfer will voice Sarah Kerrigan in the sequel. Robert Clotworthy was also on the panel talking about returning to the role of Jim Raynor after voicing the role in the original StarCraft over 10 years ago. Chris Metzen, Blizzard's VP of creative development, moderated the panel.

Other actors on the panel include Fred Tatasciore, a veteran voice actor who plays two roles in StarCraft II (Zeratul and Swann). Next on the voice actor panel was Neil Kaplan, the gravely voice behind Tychus Findlay in the game. Dave Fennoy was up next; he plays the new character role of Gabriel Tosh. Finally James Harper, a veteran of the original game, returns for StarCraft II in the role of Arcturus Meigsk. As we previously reported, well known Warner Bros. Animation voice director Andrea Romano has those duties for StarCraft II

Check out the jump for more on the panel

Blizzard has said that 26,000 people bought tickets for BlizzCon 2009. That means that the show, at $125 per ticket, generate $3.25 million in revenue. That's not counting the 50,000 people in 100 countries that Blizzard said bought the pay-per-view coverage on either DirecTV on via the BlizzCon's web streaming service. That means more revenue to the tune of nearly $2 million from the broadcast (at $39.99 per person).

The Anaheim Convention Center is pretty much packed to capacity for the event this year even though Blizzard limited the number of tickets sold for the event. During the BlizzCon DirecTV broadcast Blizzard' VP Paul Sams said that the reason they picked Anaheim as the location was that it was near to Blizzard''s home base of Irvine CA. As such moving such a huge event to another location would be a big task. However, Sams did say that if BlizzCon continues to grow they would have to seriously consider moving to a larger convention center.

The BlizzCon 2009 panel on "StarCraft II Lore" was in fact a sneaky way to introduce the main voice cast for Blizzard's upcoming sci-fi RTS game. Members of the voice cast were introduced and brought up to the panel one at a time but it was the last reveal that will certainly get the fanboys talking. Battlestar Galactica's Tricia Helfer (yep, Number Six herself) will be portraying the key role of Sarah Kerrigan in the game.

As previously announced, Robert Clotworthy will return to voice the role of Jim Raynor in StarCraft II. In addition, the voice work is being directed by Andrea Romano. She is best known for the work she has done directing the voice cast for a ton of Warner Bros. animated TV shows and movies including Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League and the recent DC Comics direct-to-DVD movies. Stay tuned for more info on the panel later today.

When it was revealed that the Monk would be the new playable character class for Diablo III, our minds went to thinking about one of our favorite TV shows: Kung Fu. Yes, we had the idea that we would be playing Blizzard's version of Caine, the Eastern monk who prowled the Wild West that preached peace but pretty much could kick everyone who tried to cross him

As it turns out, that's pretty much what the Monk is like when we actually got hands-on with a new build of Diablo III at BlizzCon 2009. His character look is both buff and also more serene than the Barbarian class. But he can also handle himself quite well with his various attack and combo moves.

We played the Monk in a desert setting in the game surrounded by monsters that wandered around above ground and, in one cash, below the sand as a lizard-like creature burrows around before jumping out to escape. The Monk is pretty powerful just on its own with its melee attacks. With swinging moves, fast fists and circular combos its clear that Blizzard has achieved its goal of making the Monk more of a fighting game character than we have seen before in a Diablo game.

Check out more info after the jump: