VIDEO GAMES: Blizzard isn't messing around.

This is a big year for Blizzard. Diablo III is set to release (hopefully soon) and World of Warcraft has more competition than it's ever faced in its nearly 10 year existence with the Mists of Pandaria expansion slated to hit shelves this year. Well, in order to focus more of their efforts on making those games great and making sure they actually release this year, Blizzard has opted out of hosting Blizzcon this year. It kind of sucks because I was looking forward to visiting the convention once again after going this year, but I'm glad they realize that putting out a better product is more important than a convention. Also, they are going to focus plenty of attention on the 2012 Battle.net World Championships which go on in Asia. So no Blizzcon this year, but hopefully an incredible Diablo III!

For the full article head over to Gameinformer HERE!

BLIZZCON: My day at Blizzcon!

Today was the second and final day of Blizzard Entertainment's convention Blizzcon in Anaheim, California. I was lucky enough to score a ticket and attend the festivities and although yesterday was when all the big announcements were made, there was still plenty of cool stuff for me to check out today! Here's some of the highlights from my day in what will probably be the nerdiest article I have ever posted on here.

My day started with being able to sit down and play a bit of the newly announced WoW expansion, Mists of Pandaria. The demo let you play through the starting area of the new race, the Pandaren for 15 minutes. Thankfully, we were some of the first people there and since the lines were still short they let us play for almost a half hour! I got my Pandaren Monk to level 6 in the process and was actually able to see a fair amount of the game. The Pandaren starting area is gorgeous. Set in a classic Asian setting, the scenery and music blended perfectly and presented a style unlike anything we've yet experienced in WoW. The Pandaren race was interesting but I'm not sure how epic the cuddly panda bears will really be. Also, I am not a fan of melee combat in WoW and that is what the Monk is all about. For people who enjoy melee combat it should be a ton of fun but I prefer nuking from a distance (Mage, Hunter, etc.). Mists of Pandaria sounds like it will be bringing quite a few changes to WoW whether or not people want them but I can say that the new setting and race are certainly intriguing enough to make the game worth checking out.

After my time with "Monkey" as I so brilliantly named my Monk (yea I'm that lame), I headed over to an art panel for WoW. It was a painful reminder of how truly untalented I am as this panel of about 10 artists showed us what they have been working on over the past 4-5 months. We got to see tons of concept art for the upcoming expansion and we saw a little bit of the process of developing the environment from the landscape all the way down to the props. I think sometimes when we play games we lose sight of how much "stuff" is actually on the screen at any given time and it's insane how much time these people put into things that most players will never even notice.

From the art panel I headed over to the main stage where I watched about two hours of Q&A time with the developers of WoW. As the socially awkward nerds trembled into the microphone (something that I couldn't ever work up the courage to do) the Blizzard head honchos answered almost every question that was thrown at them. More interesting than the answers were the questions themselves. It was cool to see what matters most to people who play the game as they brought up issues that I had never thought of (sometimes to thunderous applause from the audience and sometimes to a rain of boos).

After that I bought some swag and headed to my last stop of the day. The finals of the WoW arena tournament. These kids are nuts. Sitting in front of thousands of people, with $75,000 on the line...they played a video game. For anyone who doesn't know, arenas in WoW pit a certain number of players against other players in combat. In this tournament the teams were 3v3. Personally I had never actually sat down to watch people play video games like this before but apparently everyone else in the auditorium had as it sounded like the roof was going to blow off the building as these guys battled. Eventually the South Koreans defeated the Americans (much to my dismay) and that was it for my day at Blizzcon. Quickly after that I spent some time at the Nvidia booth and played a little WoW in 3D on their gorgeous monitors before departing.

All in all it was a pretty fun day at the Anaheim Convention Center. It was my first gaming convention ever and it was fun to just completely nerd out for a day with thousands of other nerds. I'm hoping to get tickets to the upcoming WonderCon which will be taking place in Anaheim this year and I look forward to hopefully visiting Blizzcon again next year! Ok...time for some much needed sleep! Night kiddos!

BLIZZCON: Mists of Pandaria Panel

Hot on the heels of the announcement of the next World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria, a panel was held at Blizzcon to give a more in depth look at the new Panda race, Monk class, Horde/Alliance conflict and more! Here's some of the highlights!

 - A new talent system and character builds. They want you to be able to progress your character no matter what you are doing.
 - Five new level-up zones on one single, unified continent which is obviously influenced by Asian landscapes. The continent is shaped in a circle with four zones on the outside and one zone in the middle. Each about the size of the Twilight Highlands.

 - No flying on the new continent until you reach level 90. Say hello to level 90's flying in to gank anyone who hasn't hit the cap yet!
 - The new zone is actually one giant turtle. Sounds like Avatar: The Last Airbender!
 - Pandaren are the first neutral race ever. You pick either Horde or Alliance at level 10.
 - Pandaren can be everything except Paladin, Death Knight, Druid and Warlock.
 - Racials include: Epicurean (Increased stat bonuses for food), Gormond (15% cooking skill), Bouncy (50% less falling damage), Inner Peace (Rested XP lasts longer), Quaking Palm (Active crowd control).
 - Monk class! Three different talent trees for specs. First is Brewmaster (Tank). Next is Mistweaver (Healer/fighter). Third is Windwalker (Melee dps).
 - Any race but Goblin and Worgen can be Monks.

 - Talent system will now have a choice between Class Abilities, Spec Abilities and Talents.
 - No longer talent points or ranks. You earn a talent every 15 levels and you have three choices for each talent. So you'll get 6 talents and each is a huge upgrade.
 - Something similar to PVE battlegrounds is happening. Something like killing waves of enemies.
 - Challenge mode dungeons will be timed trial runs of dungeons. Much like the old 45 minute bear run. There are bronze, silver and gold medals for finishing in a certain amount of time. Your reward is gear with no stats which you can use the transmogrifier for to make how you want.

 - Pet battles! Now allow you to collect, level and battle your pets. So it's basically Pokemon in the game haha! Accessible to everyone regardless of your level. You can name your pets and now wild pets can appear at any time in the wilderness. Pets can even be tradable...so yea it's exactly like Pokemon. Wow, even turn based combat!
 - 9 new dungeons in the expansion, 6 of which will be on Pandaria.
 - 3 new raids! They will feature 2 new races the Mogu and Mantid. World and raid bosses will return.
 - More quest choices rather than a linear progression to follow.
 - New battlegrounds are not final yet but so far include: Stranglethorn Diamond Mines (Payload style gameplay), Valley of Power (Murderball), Azshara Crater (DOTA), and a new arena Tol'Vir Proving Grounds.

 - Resilience will become a base stat that increases every time you level.
 - No more minimum range for hunters but also no more melee attack for hunters.
 - Warriors and rogues can now throw their melee weapons.
 - No basic ranged attack for all classes.
 - Shaman totems will no longer offer buffs but will all serve utilities i.e. absorbing, rooting, etc.
 - 4 specs for druids.
 - Spells are automatically learned, no more going to your trainer.
 - New spell at lvl 87 and new talent point at 90.

There was a ton of other information too and if you want to check out each and every detail head over to MMO-Champion HERE!

BLIZZCON: Mists of Pandaria debut trailer.

Yup, here it is. What do you think?

BLIZZCON: Enter the mists...if you dare.

As was expected, Blizzard has revealed what will be the next expansion for World of Warcraft. Mists of Pandaria will be the fourth expansion in the game that never ends. The new expansion will focus on the battle between alliance and horde as it seems the war between the factions is going to leap to the next level. There will be a new playable race in the Pandaren, a new playable class dubbed Monk, a level cap of 90 up from the current cap of 85, a pet battle system and a new talent system. Obviously more details should be revealed over the course of today and tomorrow so I'll be sure to post any notable news. ALSO, Blizzard will be offering year long subscriptions to WoW which will get you Diablo III for free as well as the Mists of Pandaria. Not a bad deal if you're looking to play both the expansion and D3.

For more on the story jump over to 1UP HERE!

BLIZZCON: When will Diablo III come out?

It's definitely one of the questions that people were hoping would be answered this weekend at Blizzcon. The two day convention devoted entirely to the games by Blizzard Entertainment. Much to many peoples' dismay no release date was announced for Diablo III. After playing the beta I can tell you this much, however long they delay it, it will be worth it. The game is incredible and if they need to take more time to make sure it's exactly how they want it then so be it. They did however reveal the box art for the game as well as the collector's edition and they both look pretty intense. Stay tuned for more news from Blizzcon!