May 5

Direct quote from http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/090505.html

BLIZZCON^®2009 TICKETS ON SALE MAY 16

Exclusive coverage of Blizzard Entertainment^®’s gaming convention available through DIRECTV^®satellite TV service and Internet stream

IRVINE, Calif. – May 5, 2009 – Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that tickets for its fourth BlizzCon^®gaming convention will go on sale May 16. Live coverage of the event will be available as a DIRECTV^®Pay Per View event and, for the first time, as an Internet stream. 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 August 21 and 22.

“BlizzCon always offers us a great chance to meet players and celebrate our shared passion for gaming,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We look forward to delivering another entertaining and memorable experience to all attendees and to those joining us from home.”

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 $125 USD each and will be available for purchase from the official BlizzCon website at www.blizzcon.com beginning May 16. For those unable to purchase tickets on that date, a second block of tickets will go on sale May 30.

To streamline the ticket-purchase process this year, the company has made upgrades to the Blizzard Store, including a first-come, first-served queue system and a fixed time limit for completing purchases. Also, those interested in attending BlizzCon can simplify the purchase process by registering a Battle.net account at www.battle.net before ticket sales begin.

Due to its popularity last year, the DIRECTV^® BlizzCon Pay Per View event will return in 2009, available to existing DIRECTV customers for $39.95 USD. The event will again 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. In addition, gamers around the world who are unable to attend BlizzCon will for the first time be able to purchase the Pay Per View event as an Internet stream, also priced at $39.95 USD (pricing may vary by region). DIRECTV customers who order the televised event will receive this Internet stream at no extra charge, allowing them to watch in the format of their choice. Anyone who orders the event will also receive this year’s BlizzCon-exclusive World of Warcraft^® in-game item — to be revealed at a later date.

In addition, in the weeks ahead DIRECTV will offer a BlizzCon promotion for those interested in signing up for the DIRECTV television service. New subscribers through this promotion will receive the DIRECTV BlizzCon Pay Per View event, the Internet stream, and the BlizzCon 2009 World of Warcraft in-game item for the price of becoming a new DIRECTV customer.

To keep pace with the continued growth of World of Warcraft as well as development on other Blizzard Entertainment games, the company is currently hiring for numerous open positions. More information on available career opportunities can be found at www.blizzard.com/jobs.

As BlizzCon draws closer, further details about the show, including ordering and programming information for the DIRECTV BlizzCon Pay Per View event and Internet stream, will be announced at www.blizzcon.com.

About Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.
Best known for blockbuster hits including World of Warcraft^® and the Warcraft^®, StarCraft^®, and Diablo^® series, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (www.blizzard.com), a division of Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment software renowned for creating some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed games. Blizzard Entertainment’s track record includes eleven #1-selling games and multiple Game of the Year awards. The company’s online-gaming service, Battle.net^®, is one of the largest in the world, with millions of active users.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements: Information in this press release that involves Blizzard Entertainment’s expectations, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future are forward-looking statements that are not facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Blizzard Entertainment generally uses words such as “outlook,” “will,” “could,” “would,” “might,” “remains,” “to be,” “plans,” “believes,” “may,” “expects,” “intends,” “anticipates,” “estimate,” future,” “plan,” “positioned,” “potential,” “project,” “remain,” “scheduled,” “set to,” “subject to,” “upcoming,” and similar expressions to help identify forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause Blizzard Entertainment’s actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements set forth in this release include, but are not limited to, sales of Blizzard Entertainment’s titles, shifts in consumer spending trends, the seasonal and cyclical nature of the interactive game market, Blizzard Entertainment’s ability to predict consumer preferences among competing hardware platforms (including next-generation hardware), declines in software pricing, product returns and price protection, product delays, retail acceptance of Blizzard Entertainment’s products, adoption rate and availability of new hardware and related software, industry competition, rapid changes in technology and industry standards, protection of proprietary rights, litigation against Blizzard Entertainment, maintenance of relationships with key personnel, customers, vendors and third-party developers, domestic and international economic, financial and political conditions and policies, foreign exchange rates, integration of recent acquisitions and the identification of suitable future acquisition opportunities, Activision Blizzard’s success in integrating the operations of Activision Publishing and Vivendi Games in a timely manner, or at all, and the combined company’s ability to realize the anticipated benefits and synergies of the transaction to the extent, or in the timeframe, anticipated. Other such factors include additional risk factors identified in Activision Blizzard’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking statements in this release are based upon information available to Blizzard Entertainment and Activision Blizzard as of the date of this release, and neither Blizzard Entertainment nor Activision Blizzard assumes any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements believed to be true when made may ultimately prove to be incorrect. These statements are not guarantees of the future performance of Blizzard Entertainment or Activision Blizzard and are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors, some of which are beyond its control and may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations.

Feb 27

There are plenty of folks talking about the bosses on the PTR, the change to the hearthstone (link to blue post here ’cause it’s funny), dual-talent specs, and so forth, but today BRK posted a picture that piqued my interest, and not because of the numbers in the center of the screen, but rather the little box at the top:

Now that’s what I’m talking about! A way to know that you’re going to be saved to a raid or heroic before it actually happens–and you even get a “Leave Instance” button so you don’t have to make a mad dash for the exit! This is quite possibly my favorite 3.1 change so far.

Feb 17

Blizzard has released a quick preview of Ulduar, the new raid dungeon coming in 3.1. Though the article is short, it does help shed some insight to the thinking behind this dungeon’s design, and also gives away a neat spoiler or two (Yogg-Saron, here we come). Check it out on WoW Europe’s site (I can’t find a link to a US version!).

Jan 28

Someone over at MMO Champion has been digging through the data files and has found the current implementations for the tier 8 armor sets for several classes, and has created a nice high-def video on YouTube (is it just me or is using “high-def” and “YouTube” together strange?)

Jan 9

A fan-made version of the WoW Model Viewer was posted on the WoW Model Viewer homepage today. It works with version 3.x of WoW, and also contains an improved interface.

Jan 8

Late breaking news from Ghostcrawler:

The two-handed Blacksmithing tanking weapons are not going to be implemented.

Indeed, we did not want to stick DKs with these weapons forever, nor did we want to start itemizing 2H tanking weapons forever. DKs were designed to tank with 2H dps weapons.

The new sigil and runeforge enchant should help players with low defense.

I don’t think it will be a huge problem, but I am sad to see these weapons go. Now I have to go and edit my death knight article before they post!

Jan 8

NVIDIA has come out with an active 3D display that you wear, making your gaming experience even more immersive. What’s more? The technology already works with World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. Check out the article by CNET, and be sure to watch the video!

Jan 7

This was reported by MMO Champion, and I’m reporting it here as well in hopes that it will help people recognize scammers, and inform them of this important change.

In patch 3.0.8, a new interface will be used to chat with game masters. Check out the post on MMO Champion for the details!

Jan 7

Patch 3.0.8 is bring a lot of bug fixes and balancing to the expansion. The patch notes have not officially been updated, but there is a post on the forums that list them all. Without focusing on class-specific changes (excepting Raise Dead, as it could potentially affect everyone!), here are some of the highlights (at least in my opinion):

General Changes

• Players may now create death knights on any realm once they reach level 55.
• Tapping: All player spells which cause a creature to become aggressive to you will now also immediately cause the creature to be tapped.
• The Darkmoon Faire vendors have new items now that trade routes into Northrend have been better established.

Death Knight

• Raise Dead has now been split into two spells:
  • Raise Dead now raises a ghoul or pet ghoul (if talented). Requires corpse dust if no humanoid corpse is nearby.
  • Raise Ally now raises a fallen party member as a ghoul and has no reagent. Available at level 72. This should now last for 4 minutes.

Alchemy

• All flasks no longer require an alchemy lab to create.
• The Cooldown on Transmute: Titanium has been reduced to 1 day, and the materials required have been simplified.
• Reduced the cooldown on Northrend Alchemy Research from 7 days to 3 days.

Mining

• Mining veins and deposits no longer require multiple hits to receive all the ore. Players will receive around the same amount of ore, stone, and gems they would have received from multiple hits.

Quests

• The daily quest, “Shoot ‘Em Up” now only requires 15 Jotunheim Proto-Drakes to be shot down, down from 20. As well, the harpoon now only costs 5 energy to shoot, (down from 10.)

User Interface

• Chat frames can now be made “Noninteractive”. When in this state, they will ignore all clicks.
• Various filters can now be applied to Achievements.
• A special UI for chatting with GMs has been added.

Dec 11

As you may have guess from the title of this post, PTR 3.0.8 is now live. All the changes that have been disucssed since Wrath launched that were to come out “in a patch before the Ulduar content patch” are in here. Some notable changes:

General

• Racial restrictions on mounts have now been lifted. Night elves on mechanostrider? Tauren on raptor? You’re not seeing things.
• Tapping: All player spells which cause a creature to become aggressive to you will now also immediately cause the creature to be tapped.

Druids

• Feral Attack Power: All weapons now have the potential to grant feral attack power based on their dps (as compared to the best superior-quality weapons available at level 60).  Players will see their existing feral weapons grant roughly the same attack power as they did before (+/- 2 or so), but many new weapons will be options for the feral druid.  Some feral weapons have had strength converted to attack power to be more appealing to other classes able to equip them.  All druids will see the amount of feral attack power granted by an item in the item tooltip, if it grants any, but other players will not see that information.

Warlock

• Ritual of Summoning: Will now create a summoning portal object which can be re-used for multiple summons for 5 minutes.

Warrior

• Fury: Titan’s Grip: The hit chance penalty has been removed.

These are just a few of a large number of enhancements, bug fixes, and other additions (including new achievements and associated rewards). MMO Champion has the full scoop.