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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It's been about four months since the last one, but the latest edition of the Blizzcast, Blizzard Entertainment's official podcast, has finally arrived! The good news (at least for our readers) is that it focuses exclusively on the World of Warcraft, namely the events of Patch 3.2. The bad news? It's all stuff that we've more or less heard before (and it's a bit on the short side to boot, clocking in around 22 1/2 minutes). Nevertheless, it doesn't hurt to expand upon your knowledge of all the new content. Remember, knowledge is half the battle! Episode 10 is hosted by WoW Community Team member Zarhym and his guests are Lead Encounter Designer Scott Mercer and Senior Game Designer Dave Maldonado. Topics covered include the new 5-man instance and raid zones, dailies associated with the Argent Tournament, the questionable mortality of the Black Knight, and even the new Battleground, Isle of Conquest. Likewise, they go out of their way to show you how all of the 3.2-related gameplay elements are incorporated into the lore. It's all capped off with some brief talk about how pumped up they are to be attending Blizzcon. Unfortunately, there are no specific details about what they will or will not be showing beyond the fact that they are pants-wettingly excited to unveil something (to quote Mercer: "We’re of course showing off a lot of really, really, REALLY cool stuff"). It certainly wouldn't be Blizzcon without some really cool WoW-related stuff, now would it? If you care to listen to or download Episode 10, head on over to the official page of the Blizzcast. A full transcription is also available for those who would rather just skim the contents. Once you're done listening, come on back here and discuss! Any interesting points you'd like to comment on? Did you learn something? Or was it just boring? Would it be better if they had teased us with forthcoming content or a more extensive Blizzcon preview? Chime in below.

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Initially, I was going to discuss the purported patch notes for Wrath of the Lich King's first content patch.  As it turns out, the "leaked" Patch 3.1 notes that began floating around this weekend are fakes according to most sources.  How fake?  That remains to be seen, but it is likely that the creator - Aurelius of Forlorn Legacy on Windrunner-US according to WoWInsider - got some changes close to correct. Thankfully there was another interesting topic to crop up late last week, BlizzCast Edition Seven.  The latest podcast of all things Blizzard focused on one universe for the first time since the developer began the series, Rock N' Roll Racing World of Warcraft.  The episode was designed as a wrap-up to Wrath's release with J. Allen Brack, Jeff Kaplan and lore master Chris Metzen, all stopping by to give their thoughts. The first part of the cast featured JAB and Kaplan discussing Northrend's creative process, things learned from the previous expansion, the hard choices and how they turned out.

• Northrend was one of the first lands to be prototyped for the MMORPG, during the development of The Frozen Throne.
• Northrend & Outland were both in the running for the first expansion.
• A group of five people, lead by Metzen took care of the awesome quests.
• Implement multiple starting zones for expansions.
• Throw the antagonist in everyone's face at all times, in as diverse a fashion as possible.
• Moving to 10- and 25-man raiding was validated as a solid decision in the first month.

Perhaps one of the most interesting things to be revealed in this section of the BlizzCast was the amount of Hero classes that were in the works.  Blizzard narrowed down the choices to 29 separate classes before beating that number down to just three.  None of which were the long-rumored Arch Druid.

• Rune Master - Melee archetype like a rogue or monk (Pandaren ftw!).
• Necromancer - Ranged caster with "a lot of corpse explode."  Many ideas incorporated into the Death Knight.
• Death Knight - Umm, well, I hope you know what this class does by now...

The second half of the Q&A has Cygil questioning Blizzard's Senior Vice President of Creative Development, Chris Metzen.  Being the creative mind that he is, Metzen's answers are incredibly long and descriptive.  Cygil leads the discussion in all sorts of directions and storylines, covering Illidan's demise, the distracted Dragonflights, Medivh and even the newly introduced Order of the Ebon Blade.  For the lore lovers out there, the second half of the podcast is incredibly interesting with future plot points being danced around by Metzen. If you haven't checked it out already, Episode 7 can be read, downloaded or streamed at the official BlizzCast site.  The total runtime is just under 40 minutes.

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