blizzcon-2009 posts

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.

BlizzCon 2009 held an open Q&A panel with a ton of Blizzard's team members from Diablo III answering questions about the next game in the action-RPG series. Here are some of the highlights:

• While the team is not talking about Player Vs Player gameplay in Diablo III at the moment they did say they want to avoid the "go hostile at any time" type of gameplay that was a part of the first two games in the series. The feeling is that kind of gameplay ruins the co-op modes.
• The new Battle.net system will allow for a more sophisticated matchmaking system for Diablo III.
• The designers do have plans for more variety in quests in the new game.
• The dev team have some long term plans for the Diablo universe's Paladins but they would not go into details (sorry, no word if it will be a playable character)
• They also want to support players who play the game "hardcore"
• There are no plans to support user interface add-ons.
• The gold system in Diablo III is planned to be improved and changed compared to Diablo III in terms of their use to buy items.
• Randomly generated items are at the heart of the Diablo universe, according to the dev team. Unique items may have some different properties in Diablo III but will still be prominent.

Check out even more info after the jump:

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:

BlizzCon 2009 held their official costume content on Friday night but the truth is that you didn't need to attend the event to see some of the folks wearing the elaborate fashion creations they have made specifically for BlizzCon. We managed to take a few pictures of just some of the folks who decided to be brave enough to be decked out in their favorite characters.

Again if you want to check out the BlizzCon costume contest head over to WoW.com to check out photos from that event at Wow.com. We will update this gallery with any new folks in cool outfits that we encounter during the rest of BlizzCon.

Yesterday, Blizzard officially announced World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, at BlizzCon 2009. The upcoming expansion to the MMO promises to change the game world forever. That's not just talk, since Cataclysm will literally reshape the landscape. Some of the new features the expansion will bring include two new races, a new profession (Archeology) and flying mounts in Azeroth. This trailer kicks it all off.

Download HD World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Announcement Trailer (101 MB)
Check out all World of Warcraft: Cataclysm downloads

Big Download has been concentrating our BlizzCon 2009 coverage on StarCraft II and Diablo III, naturally, but our sister site WoW.com has a whole team working the show and covering all aspects of the just announced third expansion pack World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

The site has info on the plot of Cataclysm along with coverage of BlizzCon's first Cataclysm panel where more info on the new two playable races was revealed. They also have coverage of last night's BlizzCon costume contest where there were even a few Diablo III and StarCraft II entries. Another sister site Joystiq is over at BlizzCon as well and among other stories they have posted word that Blizzard just might bring the Diablo series to consoles. Of course you can still check out out site for continuing BlizzCon coverage today and tomorrow.

Because we had never been to a BlizzCon before we thought that our first chance to go hands-on with StarCraft II would come with the game's multiplayer beta test. And then Blizzard decided to push the game's release back into 2010. That gave us the chance to head to this year's BlizzCon and finally go hands-on with the title.

The press room at BlizzCon allowed us the chance to sample part of the single player campaign along with its skirmish mode. Naturally we started our (time limited) demo with the single player campaign. It began with a cinematic sequence where Jim Raynor, the hero of the first StarCraft game, is on board a Terran ship under attack by Zerg. The ship manages to get away but news reports from all over show that the Zerg are attacking lots of Terran planets.

In this part of the single player campaign you navigate not with a simple UI interface but with more of a adventure-game look. You actually move around parts of the ship as Jim Raynor (bridge, armor, lab, etc) and that's how you gain access to your mission's weapons, extra technology and even what missions to take. In our demo we had our choice of two different missions. We decided to take on an escort mission to protect and some Terran scientists from an attack from the Zerg.

Click on the jump for more info:

Today, Blizzard announced that the Monk will be the newest class addition for Diablo III. This gameplay presentation shown at BlizzCon 2009 shows the Monk in action as he uses fast moves chained together for devastating combos. One should also not that although the Monk is a melee character, it won't have the same toughness as a Barbarian, so the players who love fast paced combat will really want to give the Monk a try.

Download HD BlizzCon 2009 Diablo III Monk Gameplay Footage (354 MB)
Check out all Diablo III downloads

Blizzard fans got excited when Blizzard president Mike Morhaime stated last May, ""This summer we will be opening up external beta testing," for StarCraft II. With the recent delay of the release of the sci-fi RTS game from fall 2009 to sometime in 2010, we wondered if StarCraft II would still make a summer beta multiplayer launch.

Alas, that is not to be the case. In a brief chat with Big Download at BlizzCon, StarCraft II design director Dustin Browder told us, "We won't make summer" for the beta. He told us that there were a number of reasons for the beta delay including finishing up the single player campaign, getting Battle.net up and running and more.

However Morhaime, chatting on the DirecTV pay-per-view telecast of BlizzCon, stated, "I'm confident the beta will start this year" He would not be more specific on a date.

This gameplay footage being shown at BlizzCon 2009 does a fly-through of some of the new zones that will be introduced in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. It's a pretty relaxing video, and would make great video wallpaper, so give it a download.

Download HD BlizzCon 2009 World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Footage (128 MB)