World of Starcraft still a possibility

The Blizzard World Wide Invitational 2008 is over and as we all know Diablo 3 was announced. Although, slightly disappointing for those of us who had hoped to hear an announcement about the secret MMO project on which Blizzards “Team 3” has been working for a while now. But there were indeed tiny bits of information. You only had to listen carefully:

• Rob Pardo, Executive Vice President of Game Design at Blizzard: He confirms in an interview at the WWI in Paris, that Diablo 3 isn’t the secret MMO: “..Diablo 3 isn’t an MMO,” Pardo says, “So we have another development team.” (Editor’s Note: that should be Team 3)

• Paul Sams, Blizzard’s Chief Operating Officer: Confirmed in an interview with Gamasutra that no new IPs are coming soon. “Are we ever going to release a new [franchise]?” Sams says, “I would absolutely say we will at some point. I just don’t know when that day will be quite yet.”

So let’s recap the current situation with Blizzards major franchises keeping in mind that no new Blizzard IP is to be expected anytime soon:

• World of Warcraft: the game is still doing well and Blizzard has projected the lifespan for WoW to be approximately 10 years. That would put a sequel quite far away.

• Diablo: The non MMO successor has just been announced. But even IF Blizzard had a Diablo MMO in the works it would probably cannibalize on the WoW subscriber base due to the relatively similar background.

• Starcraft: Starcraft 2 has been announced on last year’s WWI and similar to Diablo 3, the title has strong multiplayer capabilities but is definitely not an MMO. The difference is that unlike with a Diablo MMO, a Starcraft MMO would not interfere with the WoW subscribers but instead would open a MMO market for Blizzard without any real competition except maybe for Anarchy Online.

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Tags: Blizzard, Diablo, Team 3, World of Starcraft, World of Warcraft

More Rumors pointing to Starcraft Online

An article published at TradingMarkets.com points to the chinese Caijing Magazine that claims that an “industry insider” was quoted as saying that China’s leading online game operator Netease.com will be responsible for Blizzard’s next big MMO project *drumroll* Starcraft Online.

Netease CEO Ding Lei didn’t confirm the market saying, adding that the company is observing many online games and has not signed any formal license contract.
On an industry meeting earlier this month, Ding disclosed that Netease will strive to provide more game products by being licensed foreign games and co-developing games with foreign partners.

Source

Tags: Blizzard, Rumor, Starcraft Online, World of Starcraft

WoW: Sunwell Loot?

Mmo-champion posted an image showing some items they dugg out from the depth of the World of Warcraft Client Data files. The items in question are supposed to be related to the coming Patch 2.4, which will also introduce a new 25-Man Raid instance “Sunwell Plateau”. Be warned though. Although the folks at mmo-champion are 95% certain that these items are not fake, the items could still be changed or removed before the patch hits the live servers.

Summary:

• Items seems to be ilvl 154~155
• At least one of them is ilvl 164 (Apolyon, the Soul-render), we can assume it’s a loot from Kil’jaeden. I didn’t try to get the ilvl for all items, maybe there are more loots from KJ.
• Even if they’re legit, these stats are probably from early beta servers and could be changed/removed once the 2.4 patch is released on PTR.
• The feral staff is with the caster weapons, I know, I’m not redoing the screenshot just because of that. :/
• Nothing is confirmed by Blizzard, trust it at your own risks.
• (Bonus) It seems that the Arena Season 4 sets will be named “Brutal Gladiator”. This one is still fairly unconfirmed though.

Related story.

Tags: Blizzard, Sunwell Isle, World of Warcraft

BlizzCast kicking off

The official Blizzard Podcast “BlizzCast” has launched. In the first installment talks Community Manager ‚Karune’ with Blizzard Art Director Samwise Didier about various topics from Warcraft to Starcraft, followed by CM Drysc interviewing Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan about the upcoming Patch 2.4 which introduces the new zone ‘Sunwell Isle’ - home to the two new instances ‘Sunwell Plateau’ and ‘Magister’s Terace’.

Head over here to tune in.

Tags: Blizzard, BlizzCast, Podcast, Sunwell Isle, Sunwell Plateau

Death Knight: Condemned to Tank?

Blizzard Community Manager “Tyren” has posted on the official boards a quick description of the role of the the upcoming “Death Knight” hero class:

“The death knight will be a tank/dps class. Currently there is an under-representation of tank classes, so the decision was made add a tank class to balance the class representation.

A great quote that the dev team mentions is that the Death Knight is “epic but equal,” meaning the experience is meant to be epic, but the death knight will be the equal of other classes. Otherwise there would be an over-representation of tanks and not enough healers and dps in the world.

I’m sure Kalgan or Tigole would explain that much more eloquently, but I hope that makes it clearer. “

Tags: Blizzard, Death Knight, Tank, World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King

Blizzard announces monthly podcasts

Blizzard has decided to use some of its gold reserves to create a monthly podcast for you.

The first show is expected sometime this week and will feature Sam Didier talking about art in Warcraft and StarCraft, as well as lead designer Jeff Kaplan detailing World of Warcraft patch 2.4 and giving highlights of Sunwell Plateau.

Source

Tags: Blizzard, Podcast

WoW: 3-Man Molten Core

Take a Tier6 prot warrior (and his Kara-geared hunter alt), a Tier6 holy priest, a Tier4-ish feral druid (and her blue-geared mage alt). Toss into Molten Core. Shake well, ignoring the occasional cries of “ow, ow, bad firelord”.

Boredom was what led us to Molten Core, really. That, and curiosity. “I wonder how far we could get if we tried to three-man MC? Turns out the answer is “Quite a lot further than we thought possible”.

For Molten Core Veterans an undertaking like this - even at Level 70 with Tier 6 Equipment - does not sound like a walk in the park. But against all odds those three players not just killed a few trashpacks, but cleared the entire instance up to and including the final Boss Ragnaros (former title Firelord - now Firewuss).

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Tags: Blizzard, Molten Core, Raids, World of Warcraft

WoW: Sunwell Plateau - Brutalicus Screenshot

Following the first batch of information about the new 25-Man Raid Dungeon dubbed “Sunwell Plateau” (supposedly coming in patch 2.4), MMO-Champion took the time to sift through the WoW Client files searching for art and model-files related to the new dungeon and low and behold – they’ve found something. The model of one of the Sunwell Bosses is already present in the current client files. The name of this lovely fellow is “Brutalicus”:

Tags: Blizzard, Brutalicus, Sunwell Plateau, World of Warcraft

BioWare likes WoW but wants to improve it

In a recent Interview with GameInformer, BioWare’s President Greg Zeschuk and CEO Ray Muzyka admitted to be avid WoW Players and fans of the game but they also stated that they find some aspects of the game too tedious and time consuming and hope that BioWare can do better.

“it’s almost like having another job.” They said they are thinking about ways to make the genre more accessible and easier to “pick up and play and have fun.”

BioWare is currently working on an unannounced MMO which many believe to be set in the Star Wars KoTOR universe.

Tags: BioWare, Blizzard, KotOR MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic, World of Warcraft

Blizzard’s next-gen MMO(s) might appear on consoles

Blizzard’s latest MMO job opening (this time for a physics programmer) requires would-be applicants to have “programming experience on both console and PC titles.” This suggests that Blizzard is either making an MMO that will be released for both the PC and one or more consoles.

[Story]

Tags: Blizzard, Consoles, Game

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