Project Lore

After a roughly two-and-a-half month wait, BlizzCast 13 has finally been released. This episode (running time 52:09) is split up into two major parts, covering a little bit of everything:  

• Starcraft II Beta Special featuring: Rob Simpson (eSports), Dustin Browder (game director – StarCraft II), Chris Sigaty (production director -- StarCraft II)
• World of Warcraft and Diablo III Q & A featuring: Zarhym (World of Warcraft Community Manager), Bashiok (Diablo Community Manager)

Where Starcraft II is concerned, the team covers everything from how the beta helps them tune and balance the different races to Battle.net features and when we might first get our hands on the Galaxy Map Editor (hint: not until near the end of the testing phase).

Needless to say, the second half is of slightly more interest to regular Project Lore readers, as Zarhym and Bashiok cover a number of different questions culled from the community.

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Gosh. It feels like I've been talking a heckuva lot about Blues today, what with two special events planned for tomorrow and the Community Team mugging for a photo op with a pair of giant plushies.

Ryuzaaki clearly hadn't had his fill, calling an impromptu Q & A session on the official forums so that we could all learn a little bit more about our favorite Blizzard posters. His original post follows, with responses from several CMs after the break:

As a community many of us are familiar with those oh so elusive Community Managers who patrol these forums posting whenever they feel the urge. However, for many people not many know much more about them other than the blue name. The idea of this thread is to allow CM's to talk about themselves or allow the community to ask specific questions. 

So to get this started I'll ask a few of my own questions here: 

1. To many of us its known that Bornakk and Zarhym are actually close friends *and that they work right next to each other*. So to continue on that, when did you both first meet, and what were your first impressions that caused you to become such good friends? 

2. Where has Neth been? We miss you = (. 

The next few are in general towards any CM's. 

3. Many kids have the desire of working in a gaming field as they age, but did any of you truly expect to actually achieve such a career? If not what was your dream job as a child. 

4. As CM's you all maintain your own characters in game that you have played as fairly as everyone else. What has been your most humorous situation to happen in game? In regards to the fact that people may be rude to you and be completely oblivious that you are in fact the CM's on the forums? 

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Ever held a grudge against a Blizzard employee? Resented a class change? Sick and tired of lag? Been spurned by a Blue on the forums? 

Well, now you finally have a chance to enact revenge! If you can beat them at their own game, that is...

Sign up for the PTR, transfer a character or two, and download the latest build of Patch 3.3.3 for your chance to lock swords with members of the development team. The primary purpose of this special outing (available only on U.S. realms at the moment) seems to be testing out the new Random Battleground function. 

You may recall that the Blues conducted several similar sessions when testing the Dungeon Finder function for 3.3, which means that if you can't make it tomorrow (Friday, the 26th), there may be others in the near future. At the same time, this patch isn't nearly as large and will likely not have as long of a testing phase.

Either way, hit the jump for scheduling and the rest of the deets.

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I bet you read that expecting naked photos of Blizzard employees, didn't you? While I won't judge anybody out there who might actually have a fetish for that sort of thing (Ghostcrawler is sooooooooo dreamy!), I promise you that there is no scandal afoot. 

The U.S. Community Team just thought it would be a good idea to take a group photo at their home base (presumably somewhere in the dark halls of Blizzard HQ) and post it on the internet, under the pretense that they actually love us and adore dealing with all the crap we fans give them on the official forums on a daily basis.

Normally, this is where I'd post a complimentary photo to go along with the article, but since it's the main attraction here, I'm going to toss it in after the break, with some National Enquirer-quality analysis to boot (nothing too harsh I promise)!

Update: Several more photos of the Community Team playing around with the giant stuffed animals can be found on Warcraft's Facebook page.

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Boy, these things have been a bit of a crapshoot, haven't they? The first was plagued by terrible questions and neither has provided a wellspring of significant new information for us to chew on. This one appears to be no different, reported to focus on Icecrown Citadel and "other Fall of the Lich King content" (which is code for no Cataclysm, but maybe the upcoming minor content patches).

Instead, they tend to play out like an extended-form Q & A session with the absolute dregs of the official forum providing the inqueries (and considering all answers are posted there, as opposed to Twitter, it makes you wonder why they even bother in the first place).

And yet, they've proven sufficiently popular and it does provide an easy and convenient way for those members of the development team that don't spend their every waking moment dealing with trolls to get in touch with the community. Well, at least Cory Stockton. I'm pretty sure Ghostcrawler, who's slated to make an appearance, lives and breaths off the class forums like it was a symbiotic leech.

As usual, these things tend to be announced only a day or two before they actually happen, which makes tomorrow (Friday, the 26th, at 5:00 PM PST) the date to mark on your calendar.

For further details on how you can get in on the action, as well as a link to the previous Twitter developer chat, hit the jump. 

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I'll admit it, Icecrown Citadel is already starting to wear a little thin. No, my guild hasn't conquered it yet. And we haven't even started Hard Modes (which seem to be a mixed bag in terms of difficulty themselves), but we're sort of at that point where everything is on farm except for one or two fights that we continually butt our heads against week after week.

Progress, at this point, is being made at a snail's pace. So, with little else to do when I log on and we aren't raiding, I've been turning my eye towards earning old world achievements once again. At the top of my priority list have been those associated with faction reputation (like Timbermaw Hold or the Argent Dawn) and the notoriously frustrating Loremaster title.

For those of you not in pursuit of such goals, finding and completing every quest can be quite maddening. You can't always depend on quest hubs, as some start as drops from random creatures, or can only be found in the farthest corners of a given zone. The hunt only gets worse the more that you complete, since the remaining ones are all that much harder to discover.

But if there's one thing that makes this journey far more annoying than it needs to be, it's all the absolutely useless junk that finds its way into your bags! Isn't there an easy way to solve this problem?

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Making the trek to Ahune should be a lot easier this year.A new version of Patch 3.3.3 hit the PTR today. To be completely honest, there's not a whole lot in this build that we haven't already tipped you off to. From the new holiday boss mechanics to the class changes hinted on Facebook last night, it's all there. 

But if you still need a quick run-down of what's been modified in 11599, here are some highlights:

• Holiday bosses can now only be fought by queuing up through the Dungeon Finder system or special NPCs (likely to be found in major cities). As a result, the previous requirements for summoning these bosses has been removed.
• Death Knights' Chains of Ice now automatically inflicts Frost Fever.
• Druids' Nature's Grasp spell now has 3 charges.
• Hunters' Ferocious Inspiration is now an aura.
• Warriors' Vitality talent now buffs Stamina by 3/6/9%.

The rest of the details, including more class changes, can be found after the jump!

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Totally pulling a Heartbourne and putting this on the left side of the page.But, really, when are they ever? Balance, as always, is a bit of a chameleon, constantly shifting to meet the demands of a new environment (in this case, the ways in which a player and the game interact).

News of forthcoming class changes comes from a bit of an odd source this time, though -- Blizzard's own World of Warcraft Facebook fan page:

Death knights, druids, hunters, mages, rogues, warlocks, warriors, oh my! For those participating in our public testing of the upcoming minor content patch 3.3.3, look out this week for a host of fascinating new adjustments to these classes. Chains of Ice innately does what? Nature's Grasp has how many charges? Vitality boosts stamina by how much? Stay tuned to find out the answer to these and more questions!

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Long-time readers will know that I'm not a big fan of tabards. Most are bright, ugly, and cover up all that neat armor that you spent so much time earning in dungeons. Not to mention, there are ostensibly better ways of showing your guild pride (such as regaling the denizens of Trade Chat with tales of your l33tness or posting embarrassing videos of your raid leader yelling to Youtube).

So tabards suck. But what about sexy, fashionable overcloaks? Now, that's an idea worth backing!

What little we know about these new vanity items (data-mined by MMO-Champion from the latest build of 3.3.3) indicates that they're currently attached to Pre-Cataclysm events. Specifically, those that we already know something about, like the reclamation of Gnomeregan and the Echo Isles.

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Blizzard's always been known for adding in little easter eggs for their fans to find, from the iconic soundbites of over-clicking a unit to the Secret Cow Level in the Diablo series to cleverly-named cheat codes (Operation CWAL holds a very special place in my heart).

It's this sort of attention to personality and fun that allows you to do the Macarena in front of the Lich King -- Azeroth's most fearsome villain to date -- as he idly waits for your raid to engage him. Indeed, if there's one thing more fun than playing World of Warcraft, it's /dancing in the process. You can do it next to the fountain in Dalaran, you can do it in in the depths of Molten Core, you can do it while in Bear Form, and even in the middle of a war! No corner of the world is safe from random, wanton hip-shaking!

It was only logical, then, that Blizzard continue this trend by slipping it into every game they produce from here on out. One enterprising tester in the Starcraft 2 Beta found out that you could open up the chat box and type in everybody's favorite emote. This is what happened next...

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