Prospective attendees of Blizzard Entertainment's annual BlizzCon show should make haste to the BlizzCon official website, which offers numerous details pertaining to this year's event. Taking place over October 10 and 11 in Anaheim, California, BlizzCon will feature extensive World of WarCraft, StarCraft II and Diablo III information. Tickets for the event go on sale August 11.Thus far, the website offers instructions for fans looking to buy tickets, as well as information on a few of the developer panels, tournaments and contests that will be held at the show. The newest post provides details regarding what attendees might find in their goodie bags upon their arrival to the Blizzard Entertainment extravaganza....

During a recent interview with World of WarCraft designer Jeff Kaplan, MTV's multiplayer blog writer Tracey John learned that achievements will be integrated into Blizzard Entertainment's upcoming StarCraft II and Diablo III titles.Recently announced for the upcoming World of WarCraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack, Kaplan confirmed that achievements will be included in all Blizzard games released in the future. "As we graduate to [a] Blizzard Account system ... it will switch over to a Blizzard Level," said Kaplan.Achievements earned in games such as Wrath of the Lich King will be encapsulated and accumulated in your Blizzard score, which will be a part of each player's account. Similar to an Xbox Live gamerscore, other players will be able to view statistics such as your score and the achievements you have and have not attained....

It's been a little while since we have heard any news on Blizzcon 2008, the somewhat-annual event held by Blizzard to celebrate their game franchises like Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo. Today Blizzard issued a press release announcing that tickets for the event will go on sale on August 11 for $100 at the official Blizzcon web site. Tickets usually sell out extremely quickly but Blizzard is expected to offer free tickets via contests as they have done for previous Blizzcon events.The event, which will be held Oct 10-11 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California, will also be broadcast as a pay-per-view event exclusively on the DirecTV satellite TV service with at least eight hours of live HD programming per day. In August new subscribers to DirecTV will get a promotion offering free access to the Blizzcon pay-per-view. Pricing for existing subscribers has yet to be annouced....

Blizzard continues to tease and taunt us with new screenshots from their long awaited RTS sequel Starcraft II. This time the shots concentrate not on a unit but a location, specifically from the planet Mar Sara, a Terran settled world that was first featured in the original Starcraft game.As you can see from the shots, Mar Sara looks an awful lot like the American West complete with some retro-style buildings. There's no word yet no how the planet will be used in Starcraft II. Come to think of it we don't have a lot of info on Starcraft II period, including when the game will be released. Darn you, Blizzards with your screenshot teases....

MCV magazine recently spoke with Activision Blizzard CFO Thomas Tippl on the recent merger between Activision and Vivendi that resulted in the largest gaming conglomerate in existence.Due to the high number of popular franchises developed by Activision and Blizzard individually, MCV was curious as to which titles might be considered high priority in terms of the new juggernaut's future plans. Not surprisingly, Tippl was quick to herald Guitar Hero, which he stated has "sold more than any video game in the history of the industry," and the continued focus on Call of Duty.On Blizzard's side of the equation is the ever-popular World of WarCraft, which now boasts more than 11 million worldwide subscribers, making it the leading subscription-based MMO. Coupled with last year's StarCraft II announcement and the more recent unveiling of Diablo III, Tippl didn't have to work hard to convince MCV (or anyone else in the gaming world) that Blizzard's line-up will be as strong as ever through the next several years.Specifics regarding stock shares were also discussed. When asked if Vivendi's 52 per cent holding classified the merger as more of an acquisition of Activision than a partnership, Tippl discussed the company's recently announced self-tender, " which will last for 20 business days. During that period of time, shareholders who want to sell up can do so at a price of $27.50."The full interview is available at MCVUK.com....

Your daily wrap-up of the hottest stories in PC gaming over the holiday weekend BigCast iTunes and RSS feeds updated and online!After ironing out a few kinks we're happy to report that the iTunes and RSS feeds for the BigCast are officially up and running! Going into our third episode, the BigCast is the official podcast for Big Download that covers everyting in the world of PC gaming. Diablo III: Co-op focus means no on-the-fly PK toggle, PvP to be includedWhen Diablo III was finally announced earlier this month, hardcore fans of the series were displeased by the level of color found in the gameplay footage for the sequel. Now, new comments made on the World of Warcraft forums by Blizzard poster Bashiok are expected to have naysayers up in arms once again. Freeware Friday: rRootagerRootage is, as stated in the introductory paragraph, one of Kenta Cho's freeware shooters. Unlike his other shooters, though, rRootage is not about a unique concept or wild innovation and refinement of a current formula. No, rRootage is all about practice. Practicing what, you say? The styles of 4 different kinds of shooters. Strap yourselves in, because it's a long ride to completion once you start this beautiful and challenging game. New Starcraft II screenshots reveal new hero unitIt's been a week since the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational but Blizzard doesn't take any time off when it comes to its info on its upcoming games. The web site for the long awaited RTS sci-fi sequel Starcraft 2 just posted up some new in-game screenshots along with a look at one of the game's hero units, Zeratul. Will Fallout 3 be banned in Australia?The game isn't scheduled for release this fall but there's a rumor going around that Bethesda Softworks' post apocalypse themed RPG Fallout 3 may be banned in Australia. That country's version of Gamespot has posted up word from an unnamed poster on their message boards which claims the game will be refused to be rated by Australia's Office of Film and Literature Classification due to the use of drugs in the game. That move will effectively ban the game from being sold. We'll trade you a Heavy for two Demomen . . . The recently launched official Team Fortress 2 web site looks like it's going to be something a bit different than the normal marketing for a game title. The web site is giving folks a back door into the development process and one of the ways is showing off some unused artwork made for Valve's first person shooter. ...

It's been a week since the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational but Blizzard doesn't take any time off when it comes to its info on its upcoming games. The web site for the long awaited RTS sci-fi sequel Starcraft 2 just posted up some new in-game screenshots along with a look at one of the game's hero units, Zeratul.As we reported last month, there were rumors of Starcraft II's release late in 2008 but those hopes were dashed by Blizzard reps during the Worldwide Invitational. Hopefully the game will make a (kind of) appearance at E3 later in July; we are hoping the Activision press conference during E3 will include properties from Blizzard since the two publishers should be merged into Activision-Blizzard by that time....

It was an incredibly busy weekend for Blizzard Entertainment and PC games in general as the annual Blizzard Worldwide Invitational event in Paris, France had the official announcement of Diablo III as well as more info and hands-on time with World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and Starcraft II.While Big Download wasn't there personally to check out all of the action, our sister sites Joystiq and WoWInsider were both there reporting on the event. Joystiq has collected all the info they gathered from the event and WoWInsider certainly has the most comphehesive info from WWI concerning World of Warcraft. Check them both out, why don't you?...

Blizzard is not ignoring its upcoming sci-fi RTS game Starcraft II during its Worldwide Invitational event. The publisher has released new screenshots from the highly anticipated game, showing off more action from the sequel that was announced more than a year ago.As we previously reported, it looks like we won't get a release for the game until sometime in 2009 at the earliest but we are still holding out hope that some kind of multiplayer beta release will be coming out before the end of this year. In the meantime, the new screenshots should keep you busy....

A number of days ago, some gaming web sites jumped to report that Starcraft 2 might be coming out on December 3. Why? Because they saw that release date on the web sites of several retailers. The problem is those sites are pretty nortorious for their inaccurate release dates. Today we got a reminder as to why they should not be trusted.A report on the Internode Games Network reports that Blizzard head mad Rob Pardo has nixed the idea that the sci-fi RTS game sequel will be out in 2008, saying in an interview at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitation only that they are currently a third of the way through the game's campaign. Looks like Blizzard is sticking with its formula of perhaps announcing a game a bit too early. In the meantime Joystiq has a report from the Invitational on the Starcraft II panel...

Blizzard tends to post up teaser images on their web site a few days before a major announcement. Well, guess what? Blizzard's web site has posted a splash page that looks like a teaser image. The image is labeled "ice1" and . . . well, we don't really know what it is supposed to represent at this stage.We believe that this teaser image is just the first of many this week as Blizzard builds up to their big announcement which will likely be revealed on Saturday, the first day of their Worldwide Invitational tournament which is being held this year in Paris, France. Last year the tournament revealed plans for Starcraft II. Is this new teaser a build up to the long awaited Diablo III? Stay tuned . . ....

If you just can't get enough of those super-cute Zerg, then let us direct your attention towards the newest Blizzcast where lead designer Dustin Browder gets chatted up on everyone's favorite carapace menace. Specifically this discussion starts out being all about the Zerg Queen unit and how when playing with her it feels a lot like a game of cat and mouse. Dustin goes on to say that you can think of her as a classic science fiction monster.Then the discussion moved onto the Ultralisk unit, which is still in a state of flux. It seems like the dev team hasn't quite figured out just what they want the unit to play like and that's to be expected for a late-game unit that doesn't see as much playtime as the rest of the Zerg. There's quite a bit more beyond even that, so if you're a diehard Starcraft II junkie we'll just point you to the page so you can listen in for yourself....

Continuing their long line of Q&A sessions, the developers over at Blizzard have revealed some more information concerning the map-making and modding capabilities of the Starcraft 2 editor. Before answering the questions, they came right out and said "anything you can do in Warcraft 3's editor, you can do in Starcraft 2's editor". With that disclaimer, let's take a look at all the new features! You can blend attributes of races, such as making Terrans regenerate or Zerg have shields Custom races will be able to be loaded in melee as long as the mod that runs them is currently on. In other words, you will no longer have to join a team or choose at the start of the round through an in-game selection to obtain a custom race in a map. You can do it in the lobby! Elements from third-party editors will be added to the official editor Custom data files will be completely supported All database files will be completely available for modders and map-makers to utilize This is some awesome stuff, especially since Warcraft 3 has a such a large modding community. Check out the Q&A on the official forums....

The other day, Spanish gaming magazine Micromania leaked what it believed to be official minimum and recommended system specs for Blizzard's highly anticipated StarCraft II.The specs called for a Pentium 4 or better processor, 2 GB of system memory, and a GeForce 7/8 or Radeon 1000/2000 series video card with at least 256 MB of video memory. Those specs were arguably steep for a Blizzard game; traditionally the company has kept the entry level very low for its products, so as many people as possible could buy and enjoy them.Blizzard has since contacted various media outlets and denied that the specs are official, saying: "Blizzard has not released final, official system requirements for StarCraft II. The numbers you're seeing are a result of independent speculation from a Spanish game magazine." This should come as a relief in particular to Blizzard enthusiasts who are gaming on low-end or mid-range laptops....

We were wondering if Blizzard would be holding a Blizzcon event this year (they did skip 2006) but today the official word is out. Blizzcon 2008 is a go for October 10-11 and it will be held once again at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. This year's dates thankfully don't interfere with any other major US gaming convention (last's year's BlizzCon was held the same weekend as QuakeCon and Sony Online's Fan Faire events) in the first week of August). Blizzard's press release states that this year's event will be held in three of the convention center's halls rather than just two halls to accommodate more fans.As usual, Blizzard fans who purchase the $100 ticket to attend will get to participate in evens like panels, tournaments for all of Blizzard's game, costume contests, silent auction and of course the chance to play some upcoming Blizzard titles. There were no specifics but of course you have to think both Starcraft II and the next World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King will be available. But will there be a major new game announcement made, perhaps one that starts with a "D" and ends in a "iablo 3"? We will have more info on the event as it drawn near....