Project Innervate Special - World of Warcraft Live Blogging - Blizzcon 2011 - Day 1

Pre-Show Coverage (1:30 pm-2:00pm)

• First thing we notice is the word choices. "Diablo 3 is Open Beta for the fans is scheduled for an early 2012 release and will be the first new release of Blizzard 2012". This means the Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm will not be released in quarter 4 2011 like we thought it might be. So we now have a little longer to wait for our expansion. Kat also said that "units can be removed". Is this a hint!?
• Twitter is telling me that Blizzard have Demos available for the next expansion at Blizzcon. This is really cool that they got a Demo developed and into the venue and no one has any idea what it is.
• Healing debuffs for WoW Arena tournament matches that last longer than 15 minutes. So no drama next year.
• Reiterating "Titan" won't be talked about this year.

Opening Ceremony (2:00pm-3:00pm)

• And... it's starting!
• Opening cinematic brought tears to my eyes. It's awesome to see gamers be so passionate.
• Blizzard DOTA!!!!
• Blizzard asked Red Shirt Guy to come back!
• Diablo 3 box art looks stunning as per usual with Blizzard products.
• Diablo Collecters Edition
• Diablo Skull Soulstone USB that holds Diablo 2
• Art book
• Soundtrack
• Behind the Scenes
• WoW Ingame Pet, SC2 Portrait, Ingame Diablo 3 products
• Diablo 3 is free to World of Warcraft subscribers! You have to subscribe for a 12 month contract to World of Warcraft. You also get into the next World of Warcraft Open Beta when it goes live. And Tyreal's Charger Mount! Battle.net and WorldofWarcraft.com are already broken.
• I'm pretty sure that Chris Metzen introduced himself and he's wearing his Alliance sweater.
• Chris Metzen guarantees our expansion announcement!
• Blizzard DOTA is for real!
• New Pandaren Race, New Monk Class, New Continent Pandaria, Level cap 90, Challenge Mode Dungeons, Pet Battle System, New Talent System

I was actually sitting here before the Blizzcon event started thinking "hey, with all of the Diablo 3 information going on this year, will I be able to pay for WoW Expansion, SC2 Expansion and Diablo 3 expansions all in 1 year?" So I for sure updated my account so that I got Diablo 3 for free. I'm also extremely excited about the WoW mount as well as the Beta Key for Mists of Pandaria.

Chris Metzen Interview

• Pandaren were going to be in Burning Crusade as the Alliance race.
• Will the Pandaren teach us that maybe there's someone pulling the strings that's making Alliance and Horde to fight each other?
• Still no updated models.
• Monk always was going to be the new class. But other possibilities like Brewmaster may be Specs (maybe the healing one!)
• Horde and Alliance may be able to talk to each other through Pandarens holding the same language.

World of Warcraft: Intro to Mists of Pandaria (3:30pm-5:00pm)

• Mists of Pandaria is going to focus on new things to do at Endgame.
• Want to get people out of the Faction Major Cities at max. level
• New end game leveling.
• More World Raid bosses.
• Quests can give out Valor Points so you can progress your character without raiding.
• Power point shows when you hit levels like 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90, you can pick one of 3 attacks to learn so you can mix and match of all 3 trees with no more talent systems. More to come from the Talent panel.
• The Continent of Pandaria
• 5 new zones.
• Single, unified continent like BC and WotLK leveling.
• AH and Bank in the new continent city.
• No flying in the zone until you hit 90.
• Names of Zones in Pandaria: Townlong Steppes, Kun-Lai Summit, The Jade Forest, Vale of Eternal Blossoms, Valley of the Four Winds
• New Starting Zone: The Wandering Isle is the back of a giant turtle. It left the Pandaren continent 10,000 years ago and grew. Pandarens that wanted to see the world got on the turtles back.
• Cross factions, you choose your faction at level 10.
• Concept art is absolutely stunning.
• Lol, Pandaren and a Monkey dueling in the concept video.

• Lore of Pandaria
• Magically hidden since the Sundering, the Alliance and Horde find this place after a large navel battle ensues, ships are destroyed and they wash up on shore.
• Creatures of Pandaria
• Jinyu - Fish like creatures, the wise man of the island.
• Hozu - Monkey like creatures, pranksters, look a lot like troggs
• Verming - the new Kobold, look like mice with bunny ears
• Mantid - going to be in raids/dungeons, the bad guys, live behind a giant wall, look like praying mantis, humanoids (can wear cloths)
• Mogu - look like Orcs
• Sha - manifestation of negative energy on Pandaria, possible raid bosses
• The Jade Forest
• The level 85 leveling zone. Horde land in the North, Alliance land in the South, they will meet in the middle.
• Lots of rain forests and trees, you will meet the Hozu and the Jinyu. Alliance and Horde try to make the two fight against each other, which makes The Sha.
• Temple of the Jade Serpent: level 85-86 starting dungeon. Taken over by the Sha that the Horde and Alliance created. We have to cleanse it.
• Valley of the Four Winds
• The level 86 leveling zone. Two different zones, the Pandaren farmlands or the Coastal Jungle, you can go to North or South side.
• Stormstout Brewery: level 86-87 dungeon, boarders the Wall, first see the Mantid.
• New Features
• Greg Street!
• Pandaren Race. I have yet to see a female Pandaren (that's because they haven't made them yet).
• Pandaren can be Hunters, Mages, Monks, Priests, Rogues or Shamans.
• Pandaren can not be Death Knights, Druids, Paladins or Warlocks.
• Pandaren Racials
• Epicurean - Increase the stat benefits from food by 100%.
• Gourmand - +15 skills to Cooking
• Inner Peace - Your rested experience bonus lasts twice as long
• Bouncy - 50% less fall damage
• Quaking Palm - You touch a secret point on the body of an enemy, putting it to sleep for 3 seconds.
• Monk 
• Brewmaster - Tank
• Mistweaver - Healer
• A healer that can stand with melee. He said Tank healer!
• Windwalker - Melee DPS
• Not a hero class - Starts at level 1
• Monks can be Draenei, Dwarf, Gnome, Human, Night Elf, Pandaren for Alliance
• Monks can be Blood Elf, Orc, Tauren, Troll, Pandaren, Undead for Horde
• Need weapons for some finishers
• Staves, One-Handed Axes, Maces, Swords and Fist Weapons
• Leather armor (Agility and Intellect
• Will use Chi which will be used for Jab and Roll
• Jab generates Light and Dark Force
• No Auto Attacks
• Very Death Knight like for Light/Dark Force recourse bar.
• Spin Kick AoE!
• Talent System 2.0
• Class Abilities
• You get Warrior Abilities
• Spec Abilites
• More than one special abilities
• Choose your spec at level 10, spec abilities at level 10, get additional spec abilities later
• They give you abilities they think you NEED instead.
• No talent points or ranks.
• One talent tree per class.
• Earn talents every 15 levels.
• You choose 1 of 3 talents.
• No mandatory talents.
• Change talents similar to glyphs. Making changing between bosses much easier.
• Ardent Defender is now in the Holy Paladin tree. Possible tank cooldown!?
• Talent Panel to show every classes spec choices. Druids only here.
• New Feature: PvE Scenarios
• Short instances for a few players. Can be 3 players or 10-20 players.
• Staged Experience, scripted
• Example
• Stage One: Kill 25 Kobolds
• Stage Two: Escort
• Final Stage: Boss
• "PvE Battlegrounds"
• Example
• Stage One: Slay 50 Horde Foot Soldiers
• Stage 2: Destroy 6 Towers
• Stage 3: Defeat General Drake
• Said to make it so you can do PvP things without PvPing... what?
• Possible replace group quests.
• Queue and go, like the Dungeon Finder
• No role requirements = short queues (crowd claps).
• One way to earn Valor Points
• New Feature: Challenge Mode Dungeons
• Make a dungeon harder like Amani War Bear
• Finish a dungeon in X amount of minutes
• You can't over gear the instance. Gear will scale down the more gear you get.
• Rewards: Awesome looking gear with no stats and Valor Points
• PvE competition, realm leaderboards
• New Feature: Pet Battle System
• Collect, level and battle with companion pets. (Creep Crate OP!)
• Works with almost every pet in the game.
• Customize your companion pets (name them, abilities)
• Wild Companion Pets
• Find them out in the world
• Engage them with your companion pets and capture them.
• Some pets might only spawn in winter, when its raining, at night etc
• Pet Journal
• Most pets will become tradable
• A way to make money on the AH.
• Account wide companion pets
• Location on UI will show you where you can find a pet you don't have in the world.
• Leveling
• Win battles to earn exp
• Learn new abilities
• Create builds using abilities
• Pet can have 6 attacks, only uses 3 in battle
• Level multiple pets to build your team.
• Battle
• PvE & PvP battles
• Wild pets and other peoples pets
• Turn based combat
• Simple combat system.
• Queueing system
• Customize
• Name your pets
• Items
• Possible gems/enchats
• Builds & Teams
• Masters and Master Abilities
• Gym Leaders in Pokemon
• Mists of Pandaria Dungeons
• 9 new dungeons
• 6 dungeons in Pandaria
• Heroic versions for classic dungeons
• Scholomance
• Scarlet Monastery, Wings 1 and 2
• 3 new Raids
• Mogu and Mantid in the new raids
• Raid Finder, Normal and Heroic difficulties
• World Raid Bosses Return
• Mists of Pandaria Questing
• Blizzard wants to focus on end game content as their focus this time around.
• Multiple Daily Quest Hubs
• Incentives for Dungeoners/Raider
• If you do the dailies, then que for a dungeon, you will get a buff then get a chance to roll for extra loot only people with that buff can roll on.
• Faction Improvements
• Groups of factions, not just one like Tol Barad
• Mists of Pandaria PvP
• New Battlegrounds
• Stranglethorn Diamond Mines
• Goblin mine in northern STV
• Escort mine cars to deports
• Multiple tracks
• First to X resources wins
• Valley of Power
• Located in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms
• Holding the object earns points
• Multiple point zones
• Object does damage to holder
• Staying in the center gives more points
• Azshara Crater
• No information given
• New Arena
• Tol'vir Proving Grounds
• Layout based on Nagrand arena
• Sense of place in the world.
• Square, 4 pillars
• Mists of Pandaria Achievements
• Account Wide Achievements
• New Achievements: Get all Professions maxxed.
• Major Class Changes
• Resilience
• You get Resilience as you level as a base stat so you still have a chance when entering.
• Ranged Weapons
• Hunter Minimum range - Gone
• Hunter Melee weapon - Gone
• Ranged slot for all other classes - Gone
• Relics - Gone
• Rogue and Warrior will just throw their main hands
• Wands become main hand weapons
• Warlocks
• Unique resource for each spec
• Affliction - Soul Shards
• Demonology - Demonic Fury (Metamorphasis when you get full DF)
• Destruction - Infernal Embers (build up fire, catch on fire, Conflag hits hard)
• Shaman (hey, Lodur!)
• Buff totems are gone.
• New Totem expamples
• Earthgrab - Roots things in place
• Repulsion - Pushes people away from the Shaman
• Bulwark - Puts a protective bubble on the Shaman
• Druids
• Always felt like they had 4 specs now they do
• Feral - Cat (melee dps)
• Guardian - Bear (tanking)
• All Classes
• Spell books cleaned up
• Rotations improved
• Automatically learn spells

Starcraft II: HotS Campaign/Lore Q&A (5pm-6pm)

• You had to go get a Hotdog, go back and watch the first 3-4 minutes.
• Mission: War of the Brood
• Run around collecting unhatched eggs
• They turn into Banelings
• Takes back the Zerg Broods
• Mission: Silence Their Cries
• Zerg kill native creatures to survive the Flash freeze of the planet
• Mutations
• This will be how you upgrade your units like the Terran armory in WoL
• Genetic Splits
• Zergling: Raptor Split will evolve wings to go up and down cliffs like Reapers
• Zergling: Swarmling Split 
• 1 second growths, 3 zerglings instead of 2
• Destruction of Worlds
• Destroying each world gives your swarm a new ability like more efficient mining.

World of Warcraft: Talent System (5:15pm-6:00pm)

• Druid Talent Points
• Level 15
• Talent One: Feline Swiftness - Increased Movement
• Talent Two: Displacer Beast - Teleports 20 yards in a random direction, removes DoTs
• Talent Three: Tireless Pursuit - Removes all roots and snares, increased Movement speed
• Level 30
• Talent One: Nature's Swiftness - Next spell becomes instant, free and castable in all forms, healing and duration increased by 50%.
• Talent Two: Renewal - Instantly heals the druid for 30% of his maximum health
• Talent Three: Cenarion Ward - Protects a friendly target, causing any damage taken to heal the target every 2 seconds for 6 seconds.
• Level 45
• Talent One: Faerie Swarm - Decreases armor by 12% and reduces movement speed for 15 seconds.
• Talent Two: Mass Entanglement - Roots all enemies within 12 yards for 8 seconds
• Talent Three: Typhoon - Knocks targets back and dazes for 6 seconds. 
• Level 60
• Talent One: Wild Charge - Different for each form
• Healers - Fly to an ally's position and your next healing spell costs no mana
• Bear - Charge an enemy, immobilizes them and gives you haste
• Moonkin - Jump backwards and gain Lunar/Solar Energy
• Talent Two: Incarnation
• Feral: King of the Jungle - Improved Cat form that allows all abilities that required Prowl to no longer and allows use of Prowl while in combat.
• Restoration: Tree of Life - 120% increased armor and enhances spells
• Talent Three: Force of Nature - Summons 3 Treants
• Level 75
• Talent One: Demoralizing Roar - Disorienting all enemies within 10 yards
• Talent Two: Ursol's Vortex - Pulls all enemies within 15 yards to you
• Talent Three: Bear Hug - Melee attack that stuns the target and deals 30% of the druids health over 3 seconds
• Level 90
• Talent One: Heart of the Wild 
• Balance: Healing spells give Lunar or Solar energy, 50% of Intellect is converted to Agility, 100% of hit becomes expertise, 95% increased armor
• Feral: 50% of Agility becomes Intellect, 100% hit and Increases Armor by 95%, Regenerates 2% max mana every 5 seconds
• Talent Two: Master Shapeshifter - Improves the druids effectiveness when switching between forms.
• Talent Three: Disentanglement - Shapeshifitng now removes roots, shifting forms heals you for 20% of your maximum health, only can occur every 30 seconds.

Starcraft II: Multiplayer (6:15pm-7:15pm)

• They took a look at match up statistics as well as tournament results
• Global Balance
• TvZ - Even
• TvP - Even
• PvZ - Even
• Masters Balance
• TvZ - Even
• PvZ - Zerg Dominance in Europe
• TvP - Terran Dominance in Korea
• Tournaments
• GSL - Code S
• Terran OP
• GSL - Code A
• Even
• IEM Guangzhou
• Even
• IEM New York
• Zerg OP
• IPL
• Protoss UP
• MLG
• Even
• Pro-gaming Protoss complained they could not compete with Terran 1/1/1
• Conclusions
• 1/1/1 is too strong
• EMP may be too strong
• 1.4 Immortal Buff Conclusion
• Pro gamers and Community giving good feedback
• Improved Tournament results with MLG (HuK and MC getting First and Second)
• Ratings - Still Unsure if Protoss is balanced again
• They want to reduce the EMP Radius
• Reduce upgrade costs for Protoss
• Heart of the Swarm
• Terran
• Weakness
• Thor - Really big, large costs, can't make a lot of Thors at one time
• Late Game Zealot
• Lot of Options
• Hellion
• New Transformation - Move slower, do more damage, end game fighter, the pre-released silhouettes are actually the Hellion transformation form. 
• Warhound
• New Mech Unit
• Smaller, Faster
• Anti-Mech Unit
• Have 7 range
• Shredder
• Radiation Robot
• Cheap Map Control
• Ball of Death - Killing forcefeilds, cannot have your own units in the forcefeild
• Zerg
• Weakness
• Siege Challenges
• Missed Opportunities
• Ultralisk
• Size is too large, gets stuck on Units
• End of Game Splash getting a buff
• Burrow Charge - goes under ground, pops up infront of the army
• Viper
• New full spell caster
• Overseer cut
• Choke Breaker - Anyone in the attack reduces range to 1, makes units like Marines come to you
• Death Grips!
• Swarm Host
• Zerg Artillery
• Burrows, shoots out free locusts, like infested terrans, 90 hit points
• Protoss
• Tempest
• New Capital Ship
• Removing Carrier
• AoE Anti-Air
• Attacks both ground and air units
• Replicant
• Oracle
• Raiding Caster
• Worker Friendly
• Ball of Death
• Mothership is gone
• Other
• Reaper Regenerates Health Out of Combat
• Battlecruiser Speed Boost
• Baneling Burrowed Movement
• Hydralisk Speed Increased
• Corrupters can take minerals from buildings
• Nexus Recall Ability - Recall entire armies if you think you're going to lose

World of Warcraft: Dungeons and Raids (6:30pm-7:30pm)

• Sorry, the first 25 minutes of the panel wasn't being aired on the Live Stream, it was being duplicated by the Starcraft 2 Multiplayer panel until they realized they didn't switch cameras.
• Goals for Mists of Pandaria
• Felt like some Heroics were a bit too long. Keep the experiences short and focused so you can do more things.
• Make encounters understandable so that they don't set up groups to fail.
• From what I could gather from snippets of Twitter is that
• 3 Raids - 12ish bosses in 5.0
• They gave a preview of Heroic Scholomance.
• Really Good Question: "You pick your Legendaries Randomly at the moment, couldn't you give the option to have Guilds hand out their Legendaries to their best raiders?"
• Answer: Pretty much we think that would be boring and we couldn't customize the quest lines if we allowed a Legendary to be handed out to anyone.
• I think that question is a really good thought though.
• Abyssal Maw will never happen. :(
• Will people who go only for hit/expertise caps go below when they drop the ilvl in Challenge mode?
• We're workin on it.

Diablo III: Gameplay & Auction House ( 7:45pm-8:45pm)

• Achievements
• How To Earn
• Play-Through Progression
• Extreme Behavior
• Absurd Shenaigans
• Player Banner
• Visual Representations of what you've done in the game
• Crest (PvP)
• Ribbon (Achievements)
• Bannercloth, sigil, Accents
• Base (Hardcore)
• Can teleport to your friends using their banners
• Stone of Recall
• WoWs Hearthstone
• Leaves a portal behind you so you can return to where you Hearthed from
• Cauldron of Jordon
• Sell junk in your inventory
• Cube of the Nephalem
• Turn junk in your inventory into crafting materials
• Crafting
• The Mystic
• Enhance Items to make them better for gold at random
• The Jeweler
• Combines gems to make extra powerful gems
• Adds extra sockets to items
• Can remove gems from items
• Jeweler levels up to give better gems
• The Blacksmith
• Can craft Legendary and Unique set items
• Item System
• Salvage items to get crafting materials
• AH them
• PvP
• Team Death Match
• When you die, you rez in 3 seconds
• 10 minute matches, 2 teams
• Most kills wins
• 4v4
• Auction House
• Items drop at random
• Low % of all items
• Smart Search
• Advanced Search
• Final Game Tuning
• Making the Passives better
• Don't want the Passives to overlap each other
• Barbaian Tuning
• Overall in Good Place
• Fury Generation some adjustment
• Survivability: Dying a tad too much in the late game. 
• Wizard Tuning
• Overall in Good Place
• Lots of Tuning Adjusments
• Weapon-Based Skill Damage
• Cast speed is based on attack speed on weapons
• Witch Doctor Tuning
• Mana seems to be unlimited, tuning it down
• Passives, Runes and Gear give mana regen
• You can choose to go full mana regen everything but you won't hit as hard
• This mana gameplay won't show up until later stages in the beta
• Passive
• Circle of Life - When something dies, you have a chance to summon a Zombie Dog
• Monk Tuning
• Improved Survivability
• Mantra
• Demon Hunter
• Hatred/Discipline
• Hatred Generators
• Hatred Spenders
• Snares
• Strengthened them to keep them at ranged.
• Crank Up The Awesome
• Making spells and abilities look more awesome.
• Difficulty Levels
• Normal
• Act 1 is the Tutorial
• Monster shave Low awareness
• Low Attack Rates
• Limited Abilities
• Each Act Gives more challenges
• Nightmare
• Hell
• Inferno

Thanks to everyone who took the time to read this! Make sure to go to the following sites!

http://us.media.blizzard.com/wow/promotion/wap/en-us.html - This is where you can subscribe to 12 months of World of Warcraft and get your Diablo 3 Expansion, Tyrael Mount in World of Warcraft and MoP Beta Access for free. It is no extra cost and you don't have to put in your credit card information. Just have to say that you will pay for WoW for 12 months. I already updated mine!

http://us.battle.net/blizzcon/en/virtual-ticket/ - This is where you can buy your virtual ticket. If you missed out on today's action but want to see whats in store for tomorrow. You can go and buy your ticket, and watch the VoDs of whatever you want to see and have the HD Livestreams up and running for tomorrow. The Opening Ceremony and World of Warcraft Arena/Starcraft 2 Tournament VoDs are all free.

You can also follow me @CQElaina on Twitter where I will post new articles as well as post random gaming things!