Blizzcon 08 Press Release

This morning, Blizzard announced that they will start selling tickets to Blizzcon 08 on August 11th. The tickets will go for $100 (do not forget to include airfare, hotels, rental car, etc). Also, if you cannot make the event and you have DirectTV, you will be able to purchase a pay-per-view event that has 8 hours of Blizzcon 08 footage. I might just get that if the price is right. At the moment, there is no price set on the pay-per-view event. Here's the press release:


IRVINE, Calif. – July 29, 2008 – Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that tickets for its third BlizzCon^™ gaming convention will go on sale August 11 and that live coverage of the event will be available as an exclusive DIRECTV pay per view event. BlizzCon is a celebration of the global player communities surrounding Blizzard Entertainment^®'s Warcraft^®, Diablo^®, and StarCraft^® game universes. The event will take place at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on October 10 and 11.

"Meeting and interacting with our players at BlizzCon is always a great experience for us," stated Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We're also pleased to be working with DIRECTV this year to bring the show, for the first time, to those players who are unable to attend."

In addition to serving as a gathering place for the different Blizzard Entertainment gaming communities, BlizzCon will offer an array of activities, including discussion panels, hands-on playtime with upcoming games, tournaments, contests, and more. Tickets to the convention will be priced at $100 USD each, and will be available for purchase directly from the official BlizzCon website at www.blizzcon.com.

The pay per view event will deliver a minimum of eight hours of live HD coverage from the show floor on each day of the convention, including exclusive interviews, demos, and more. Beginning in August, DIRECTV will run a promotion offering the BlizzCon pay per view event free to new DIRECTV subscribers. Pricing for existing DIRECTV customers and programming details will be available in the coming weeks from Blizzard Entertainment and DIRECTV.

"BlizzCon is one of the most highly anticipated gaming conventions of the year, and we are excited to partner with Blizzard Entertainment to deliver coverage of the show to gamers nationwide," said Steven Roberts, senior vice president, new media and business development, DIRECTV. "With our BlizzCon pay per view package, members of Blizzard's gaming communities who are not attending the event can now experience it in crystal-clear HD."

More Changes

You can blame the lack of updates on me. I've been busy and when I'm not busy, I'm lazy and tired. Here's some more Paladin changes on the way:

Paladin
Holy

• The amount of health point healed by Holy Shock has been increased by 66%. (eg. Rank 7 now heals for 2401-2599 instead of 1431-1549)
• Infusion of Light now reduces the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by 1.3/2.5 secs instead of 1.25/2.5 secs.

Protection

• Holy Shield will now give you 6 charges instead of 4.
• Avenger's Shield mana cost reduced by 70%, damage has been reduced. (eg. Rank 3 now deals 494-602 damage for 780 mana instead of 705-861 for 1745 mana)
• Guarded by the Light now reduces the mana cost of your Consecration, Holy Wrath and Avenger's Shield by 15/30% (Old version : Whenever your parry or dodge an attack you have a 10% chance to reduce the mana cost of your next Consecration, Holy Wrath, or Avenger's Shield spell by 25%/50%)

Retribution

• Improved Blessing of Might now increases the attack power bonus of your Blessing of Might by 10/20/30/40/50% instead of 4/8/12/16/20%
• Vindication now has a chance to reduce the target's attributes by 10/20% for 15 seconds. (Old version : 5/10% reduction)
• Pursuit of Justice is now a 2 rank talents (was 3), reducing the change to be hit by spells by 1/2% and mounted movement speed by 9/15% (Old version : 1/2/3% hit and 5/10/15% mounted speed)
• Repentance now costs 395 mana instead of 9% of base mana.

I like the Holy Shock buff :-).

Crazy Paladin Changes When We Go North

The Wrath Betal is here! And boy, Blizzard wasn't kidding when they said they were taking a second look at how the Paladin works. Our talents were finally put in the right places. The Holy Tree looks amazing! This will most likely be my talent build for L80. This would be my normal Spellwarrior / Healing build. Might not be for everybody but I like the solo healing stuff. You can also reset the build and make your own build too.

Due to the LARGE changes and that I really do not have time to devour it all, I'll let my favorite WoW Insider writer, Zach Yonzon, explain it all to you.

Paladin patch notes from the Wrath Beta:

• All Auras now affect all party and raid members within the area of effect.
• Anticipation (Protection) moved to tier 1, now increases chance to dodge by 1/2/3/4/5%.
• Avenger's Shield (Protection) cast time reduced to .5 seconds, duration increased to 10 seconds.
• Avenging Wrath no longer causes Forebearance, damage increase reduced to 20%, now increases healing done by 20%.
• Blessing of Freedom renamed Hand of Freedom. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. Now costs 6% of base mana.
• Blessing of Light and Greater Blessing of Light removed. Their effects have been folded into all relevant abilities.
• Blessing of Protection renamed Hand of Protection. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. All ranks now cost 6% of base mana.
• Blessing of Sacrifice renamed Hand of Sacrifice, is now only 1 rank and transfers 20% of the damage taken to the caster, duration reduced to 12 seconds, cooldown increased to 2 minutes. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. Now costs 6% of base mana.
• Blessing of Salvation renamed Hand of Salvation, now reduces total threat on the target by 2% per second for 10 seconds while also reducing all damage and healing done by 10%. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. Now costs 6% of base mana.
• Conviction (Retribution) now increases critical chance with all spells and melee attacks.
• Divine Intellect (Holy) moved to tier 2, increases total Intellect by 3/6/9/12/15%.
• Divine Intervention cooldown reduced to 20 minutes.
• Divine Protection and Divine Shield now cost 3% of base mana.
• Divine Purpose (Retribution) now reduces chance to be hit by spells and ranged attacks by 1/2/3%.
• Divine Strength (Holy) moved to tier 1 in the Protection tree.
• Greater Blessing of Salvation removed.
• Hammer of Justice now costs 3% of base mana.
• Hammer of Wrath is now considered a Retribution spell, moved from Holy, mana cost reduced, missile speed increased, now usable on targets below 35% health.
• Healing Light (Holy) moved to tier 2.
• Holy Shield (Protection) cooldown reduced to 8 seconds.
• Holy Shock (Holy) range changed to 20/40 yards when used on enemies/friends respectively, cooldown reduced to 6 seconds.
• Holy Wrath is now instant cast, causes a 3 second stun, cooldown reduced to 30 seconds, radius reduced to 10 yards.
• Illumination (Holy) moved to tier 3.
• Improved Concentration Aura (Protection) moved to the Holy tree.
• Improved Concentration Aura moved from the Protection tree to tier 4 in the Holy tree.
• Improved Devotion Aura (Protection) moved to tier 4, reduced to 3 ranks, now increases armor of Devotion Aura by 17/34/50% and increases all healing done to units affected by Devotion Aura by 1/2/3%.
• Improved Hammer of Justice (Protection) now reduces cooldwon by 10/20/30 secs.
• Improved Righteous Fury (Protection) threat bonus folded into base spell, talent still reduces all damage taken by 2/4/6%.
• Improved Sanctity Aura (Retribution) renamed Sanctified Retribution, now causes all units affected by Retribution Aura to cause 2% more damage.
• Improved Seal of Righteousness (Holy) moved to tier 1, renamed XXX, now affects Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption.
• Improved Seal of the Crusader (Retribution) renamed Heart of the Crusader and the effects now apply to all Judgement spells.
• Judgement of Justice will no longer prevent Fear effects, only prevent NPCs from fleeing (e.g. at low health).
• Lay on Hands no longer drains all mana, cooldown reduced to 20 minutes.
• Pure of Heart (Holy) reduced to 2 ranks, now reduces duration of Curse and Disease effects by 25/50%.
• Redoubt (Protection) moved to tier 2.
• Repentance (Retribution) mana cost changed to 9% of base, duration increased to 1 minute (10 second PvP duration), now usable against Demons, Dragonkin, Giants, Humanoids and Undead.
• Retribution Aura damage increased and now gains damage based on Holy spell power.
• Righteous Fury now increases threat caused by Holy damage by 90%.
• Sanctified Light (Holy) now also increases the critical chance of Holy Shock.
• Sanctity Aura (Retribution) removed.
• Seal of Justice/Judgement reduced to 1 rank with all the effects of the previous rank 2, the Judgement effect no longer prevents Fear.
• Seal of the Crusader has been removed. The effects of Judgement of the Crusader have been folded into all relevant abilities.
• Seal of Vengeance damage over time effect duration increased to 18 seconds.
• Spiritual Focus (Holy) moved to tier 1.
• Stoicism (Protection) moved to tier 2, now reduces duration of Stun effects by 10/20/30% and reduces chance your spells will be resisted by 10/20/30%.
• Toughness (Protection) moved to tier 3.
• Turn Undead (ranks 1 and 2) removed. Turn Evil now granted at level 24, mana cost changed to 9% of base.
• Unyielding Faith (Holy) moved to tier 2.

From the WotLK Information Wiki:

• Seal of Corruption - Fills the Paladin with holy power, granting each melee attack additional Holy damage over $53742d. This effect can stack up to $53742u times. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time. Lasts $d.
• Blessed Hands (Requires 20 points in Holy) - Reduces the mana cost and increases the resistance to Dispel effects of all Hand spells by 15/30%
• Infusion of Light (Requires 35 points in Holy) - Your Holy Shock critical hits reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by 1.25/2.5 secs.
• Sacred Cleansing (Requires 40 points in Holy) - Your Cleanse spell has a 10/20/30% chance to increase the target's resistance to Disease, Magic and Poison by 30% for 10 sec.
• Enlightened Judgements (Requires 40 points in Holy) - Increases the range of your Judgement spells by 10/20 yards.
• Judgements of the Pure (Requires 45 points in Holy) - Your Judgement spells increase your casting and melee haste by 2/4/6/8/10% for 30 secs.
• Beacon of Light (Requires 50 points in Holy) - The target becomes a Beacon of Light, healing all party or raid members within 10 yards for 2000 over 15 sec. (Rank 5, Level 80, 2330 mana, 1.5 sec Cast)
• Divine Guardian (Requires 15 points in Protection) - While Divine Shield is active 15/30% of all damage taken by party or raid members within 30 yards is redirected to the Paladin.
• Touched by the Light (Requires 40 points in Protection) - Increases your spell power by an amount equal to 10/20/30% of your Stamina and increases the amount healed by your critical heals by 10/20/30%.
• Guarded by the Light (Requires 40 points in Protection) - Whenever you parry or dodge an attack you have a 10/20% chance to reduce the mana cost of your next Consecration, Holy Wrath or Avenger's Shield spell by 25/50%.
• Shield of the Templar (Requires 45 points in Protection) - Increases the damage and reduces the mana cost of your Holy Shield, Avenger's Shield and Shield of Righteousness spells by 5/10/15%.
• Judgements of the Just (Requires 45 points in Protection) - Your Judgement spells also reduce the melee attack speed of the target by 10/20%.
• Hammer of the Righteous (Requires 50 points in Protection) - Hammer the current target and up to 2 additional nearby targets, causing $s1% of weapon damage as Holy damage. This ability causes high threat.
• Heart of the Crusader (Requires 5 points in Retribution) - In addition to the normal effect, your Judgement spells will also increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made against that target by 1/2/3/4/5%.
• Sanctified Retribution (Requires 20 points in Retribution) - Damage caused by targets affected by Retribution Aura is increased by 2%.
• Sheath of Light (Requires 20 points in Retribution) - Increases your spell power by an amount equal to 10/20/30% of your attack power and your critical healing spells heal the target for 20/40/60% of the healed amount over 12 seconds.
• Sanctified Wrath (Requires 35 points in Retribution) - Increases the critical strike chance of Hammer of Wrath by 25/50%, reduces the cooldown of Avenging Wrath by 30/60 secs and while affected by Avenging Wrath 25/50% of all damage caused bypasses damage reduction effects.
• Swift Retribution (Requires 40 points in Retribution) - Your Retribution Aura also increases casting, ranged and melee attack speeds by 1/2/3%.
• The Art of War (Requires 40 points in Retribution) - Your damaging Crusader Strikes have a 5/10/15% chance to cause your next Judgement spell to cause double damage.
• Righteous Vengeance (Requires 40 points in Retribution) - Increases critical damage bonus of all attacks by 3/6/9/12/15%
• Divine Storm (Requires 50 points in Retribution) - An instant weapon attack that causes Holy damage to up to ${$i-1} enemies within $a1 yards. The Divine Storm heals up to 3 party or raid members totalling $s2% of the damage caused.

Yeah... that's a lot. I'll have my opinions on Thursday (unless something else comes up more interesting before then).

Rutt-Roo Raggy: Someone Made A Boo Boo

I have the internet back! I finally got some time yesterday to dig another trench through my yard and running a telephone wire to my place. Besides the new patch, I really haven't read anything that has happened in the last 2 weeks.

This popped up this morning on WoW Insider which made me chuckle and feel sorry that one poor guy at Blizzard that would be getting a rip from his boss and made the butt of all jokes by his staff-mates. I think this was one of those days where he probably thinks that he shouldn't have gotten out of bed today. A Death Knight page popped up this morning in the Classes page. Someone pushed a button they shouldn't have. It shows the Warrior character (and the Warrior title) but the description is of the Death Knight. (Click the image for a bigger version that you can read).

Update 2: Found The Problem

I'm blogging from a phone! It's pretty neat. My friend has the whole iPhone online thing. As said the other day, my internet and phone line is down. Something happened here at my summer home so that the phone line connecting the two family campers died. AT&T came down and said it was the wire we put in between the campers. Because we did it, he couldn't fix it. Sometime, we will need to run another wire between the two campers to get internet back. Hopefully in the next few days.

Changin' For The Better

Zach Yonzon of WoWInsider is reporting that, 'Yes. Paladin changes are coming.'

I don't need to repeat the article here so I'll be brief. We do not know much about what exactly is going to happen but we do know that change in coming. As we all know, the Paladin isn't the easiest class to balance. As with all hybrid classes, there are a lot of aspects to mold. From what the article is saying, it seems like Blizzard is looking at the Paladin class with the Death Knight mindset. What I mean is: the DK can tank and DPS with one spec. Almost like the Paladin's Spellwarrior build of 40/11/10. Hopefully, they'll give us the gear now to build on more of a DPS and a touch of healing or even DPS via tanking.

They also confirmed they wanted to make the Paladin tank for viable in 5 mans and even full raids. The reason we don't have much info yet about spells and talents is because they're still looking at how they want the future Paladins to work. We'll see what happens but expect major changes in the coming months.

Update

I have no internet at my house. AT&T said it could take until Friday to fix it. I'm typing this up quickly at work. I'll have a post ready when the net comes back.

Time For A Rant

Ihmhi on the Diabloiii.net (new name) forums posted an amazing analysis on the first 9 minutes of the gameplay video. He compares the game to WoW a lot which I think is unfair. Every game copies another. There wasn't a need to mention WoW 7 times...

*talking about D3's buffing system* "I can see they are making the game VERY different from WoW by having it completely on the opposite side of the screen. d:"

"WoW-style cooldown"

"the inventory seems to be more like WoW now"

"the player swap out his axes for some fancier ones. Again, some ideas taken from WoW and similar MMOs."

"Apparantly they've taken some tips from WoW's AuctioneerAdvanced addon (and similar addons)."

What really made me cross was when he was talking about the Elixers. "Will we have stat-boosting potions (like WoW's alchemy) in Diablo III?" Maybe he never played the original Diablo but they had Elixers which boosted up stats.

"Small Bag. So it looks like bags (like WoW) will serve some sort of function in Diablo III."

I'm not trying to beat on the guy. He made great points. I just do not see the need to compare it to just WoW.

http://forums.diii.net/showthread.php?p=6581118

Another controversy surrounded Diablo 3 is that the environments look too bright. Diablo is supposed to be a dark world and yet they're making it look more colorful.

First and foremost, my opinion on the matter? IT'S A LOAD OF BOLLOCKS! After all these years, you would think that the Blizzard Devs know what their doing. 10 Million Subscribers to World Of Warcraft and TWO video games (10 and 7/8 years old) being played by thousands of people daily (Diablo II and Starcraft). Video games that are being played DAILY after almost a decade. Not to mention that Diablo II is now selling at the Top of the Amazon.com carts and when Starcraft II was announced, it too jumped to the top. Now, after all these months since the Starcraft II announcement, it's at #18. Come on. Give it up already.

There's a petition going around which is against Blizzard's art direction. (I will not post a link to the petition). They are saying that it look too "cartoon'ish" (mind you, they repeated that it looked too much like WoW's cartoony style way too many times). They also want the light radius back.

Pesonally, it looks fine. If I want to walk around in a dark dungeon, I'll go lock myself in a closet or walk around my house with the blinds shut at 3AM in the morning. A game should be pleasing. It doesn't mean it has too be "cartoon'ish"; it just doesn't have to be black, dark red and grey. It's an art style and by the look of all Blizzards games (including Starcraft), they all have the "cartoon'ish" look. It's Blizzard's art style. Don't like it? Get out.

/end rant

Diablo 3 Gameplay Video / The Classes

Gameplay Part 1


Gameplay Part 2

Today, I want to talk about the TWENTY MINUTE gameplay video for Diablo 3. Yes, 2 0 minutes! I thought we'd only get to see a cinematic but this just added frosting, sprinkles, roses, balloons, gummy bears, nerds, strawberries, and that cookie stuff in the middle to the ice cream cake. Yes, it's that good.

It starts off by showing a Barbarian class, wearing hardly any armor, fighting some zombies. The zombies enter the area by climbing up the walls! There were a lot of them too. Picture Dynasty Warriors meets Diablo. Not saying it's a bad thing but it sure is different.

They show off some crazy skills including a new version of Leap Attack. Finally, they implemented some good uses to that fun skill. They've added a dashing attack, a sonic wave attack, a Hammer of the Gods spell, and everyone's favorite: Whirlwind! Whirlwind looks wicked.

They rigged the game to show off some weapons and armor. The weapons are nice and detailed and now instead of turning blue for cold, yellow for lightning, they actually have the "WoW Enchantment effect" to them. Instead of slowing enemies, cold attacks freeze and a stun effect was added to lightning. The armor set on the barbarian looked demonic.

We were then met by none other than Deckard Cain. A mini dialog conversation began where the Barbarian was also talking with Cain. That would make a fun aspect to story mode.

On our way out of the dungeon, we were introduced to one of Diablo 3's new character classes: The Witch-Doctor (okay, you all can take 5 seconds to start singing that stupid witch-doctor song. Don't lie. I know you all started thinking about that song when you heard about the class :D). He showed off some summons like the mongrel who seem to work like the Skeletons and Wolves of Diablo 2. He could also make their bodies explode and do damage to nearby enemies (like a Necromancer's corpse explosion only limited to destroying your own pets). There was also a locus swarm attack which ate away at nearby enemies. If the zombie was close to another zombie, the swarm moved to that one; eating both zombies. There was also a Wall Of Zombies spell which worked like a Bone Wall only with attacking zombies.

Some may like this new class and the hate may flow my way by saying this but, I don't like the Witch-Doctor. He's too much like the Necromancer. I don't see why they couldn't have just stuck with the Necromancer and give him a boost of powers. They gave the barbarian a dash attack - why not give the Necromancer Disease instead of Bone? People cried for a Necromancer class in WoW. People loved the new Necromancer class (after patch 1.10). Why not give the people the old man we all know and love?

Any way, we are then met by 2 other characters. FEMALE VERSIONS OF THE CLASSES! I don't know why they couldn't have done this in Diablo 2. We can finally choose to make a Male Barbarian or a Female Barbarian (and with all the other classes).

The final boss fills up half the screen. Literally. It looked tough but the four fighters defeated him. The female Witch-Doctor died and the Barbarian was decapitated. Yes. Decapitated. The monster picked him up and bit his head off. And by bit, I mean tear it off. Well, both really. He bit down and then pulled it off... The Barbarian screaming makes the whole scene a bit disturbing >_>... This is never getting a Teen Rating lol.

The graphics are outstanding and the colors fit. The lighting is good and the physics are great.

Till tomorrow... ting tang walla walla bing bang.

PS: Happy Canadian Day!