BlizzCon Approaches
The full schedule for this year’s BlizzCon has finally been released and it is packed with panels, tournaments and contests. Immediately after the opening ceremony concludes on Friday, the World of Warcraft Arena Global Invitational will begin and run for a majority of the two day con. The first Warcraft panel will be World of Warcraft: What’s Next in which key developers on the design team will preview upcoming content and features undoubtedly associated with the next, yet to be announced, expansion. Later, the World of Warcraft: The Adventures Continue panel will host a discussion about Warcraft’s story and lore. The last Warcraft panel of the day will be The Art of World of Warcraft where the art team shares the process of creating the look and feel of the world from environments and props to weapons and creatures.
Additionally, two more panels with some ties to World of Warcraft will also be taking place on the first day - Hearthstone: Fireside Chat and Heroes of the Storm Overview. The Hearthstone panel will feature a discussion with the developers about the creation and evolution of Blizzards new free-to-play digital card game based in the Warcraft universe. The Heroes of the Storm panel will introduce the concepts and mechanics of this new free-to-play MOBA that Blizzard has been working on for several years (formally known as Blizzard DOTA, then Blizzard All-Stars and now Heroes of the Storm). It is expected that many of the playable heroes in this new game will be from the Warcraft universe as well.
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Day two has even more in store for Warcraft fans. At the top of the day are two panels running simultaneously, The World of Warcraft Live Raid and The Evolving Sound of Warcraft. The Live Raid will feature two high-level guilds racing against each other to be the first to complete the Siege of Orgrimmar, Warcraft’s latest raid. The Evolving Sound of Warcraft panel will discuss the music, sound effects and voice acting of both Warcraft and Hearthstone.
Next up is the World of Warcraft Raids, Gameplay, Questing, and More panel where developers will preview and discuss upcoming content, again most likely for the yet to be announced expansion. Later in the day there will be a World of Warcraft Q+A About Almost Everything where developers will answer questions from the crowds but this year, thankfully, they will not be taking questions regarding classes. I can’t tell you how much valuable Q+A time is consumed by petty class questions and/or complaints.
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Finally, and this is a big one, is the Warcraft Movie Presentation. This one hour panel will feature the film’s director, Duncan Jones as well as Chris Metzen, Senior VP of Story and Franchise Development, and Rob Pardo, Chief Creative Officer. Many guessed that such a panel would be at this year’s BlizzCon and it’s good to finally have confirmation. What exactly we’ll see is still a mystery but my money is on a first look at unreleased concept art, storyboards, animatics or test footage and some casting announcements. We could very well be introduced to a few of the film’s stars live on stage. We’ll see how far Blizzard will go to give the fans some juicy details under their own roof. At the very least I’d love to see the test footage that was shown at Comic-Con earlier this year.
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For the full BlizzCon 2013 schedule and show floor map, click here.
What panels are you most excited to see? Let us know in the comments below!
This week’s throwback item: Hammer of RIghteous Might
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Reza Lackey / Reza is a giant nerd who loves video games, board games, film and way too many other things. Works in the film industry, on some startups and thinks science is cool. Also launches rockets.
