Project Lore

It's only an hour away! Stay tuned to this space for all the details! 10:48: Heartbourne: The live stream was up for a few minutes talking about the Warcraft III coverage, then they cut to a "behind the scenes" something or another. That camera crashed, and they cut back to the WC3 people, who didn't know they were on and muttered something about "is this the reveal for the new game" before getting cut off. Hmm... 10:59: Heartbourne: Live stream is up! Stay tuned! 11:06: Heartbourne: About 25 minutes to the opening ceremonies. Lots of commentary on speculation and the recent WoW leaks. 11:10: Heartbourne: Lots of behind the scenes stuff. Awesome displays of some of their setups that monitor their servers. Hilarious story of the WoW launch and how a tornado hit one of their data centers and they went down there to dry them with hairdryers. One of the devs said he had to get back because he has a "Wrath of the Lich King expansion to ship", so either this is very old or there really is a new expansion. 11:13: Heartbourne: More commentary on the WoW 3v3 tournament. I'm calling SKgaming as the champions. I'm most excited about the WC3 tournament; lots of big names here. I'm cheering for Grubby. No Undead players in the WC3 tournament, only 1 human player. Lyn is the returning champion. 11:21: Heartbourne: Wow.com says that there are two WoW signs draped in a black cloth. Ceremony in about 15 minutes. 11:31: Amatera: Alright, I'm taking over for now. We're on the main stage, awaiting the ceremony to begin. 11:32: Amatera: Gary Platner is detailing the top Blizzcon pet peeves, including people wanting to fight you in real life for not being Horde. 11:34: Amatera: Platner's leaving. CEO Mike Morhaime is taking the stage, ready to wow us with some awesome! 11:35: Amatera: Morhaime: "Everyone's waiting for something 'cataclysmic' to happen!" 11:38: Amatera: On speed of BlizzCon ticket sales: "That's faster than a Ret Paladin can post on the forums after a nerf." Ouch! 11:40: Amatera: Morhaime muses about the launch of Wrath. Now we're being taken back to some of those moments last year, as well as some from the midnight launch of the expansion, itself. 11:44 : Amatera: A mention of phasing technology, equip manager, dual specs.... expansion announcement certainly incoming. 11:45: Amatera: "Looking forward..." "The first encounter with [Onyxia] was merely a setback." Next year, SC2 will ship with the new Battle.net interface. Details on that at the Battle.net panel. 11:46: Amatera: "Does the name Sam Raimi mean anything to you?" WoW Movie talk now. They met Raimi at last year's BlizzCon and learned of his love for the game. Bruce Campbell will not be playing Leeroy Jenkins (but according to Morhaime "it's not a bad idea"). 11:48: Amatera: Even Warcraft 2 will be playable on the show floor! E-sports talk now. We'll likely get an expansion trailer at the end of the ceremony that will segue right into the Preview Panel. 11:50: Amatera: Noob figures in the goody bags are 100% exclusive, never to be reproduced. "Could be sold on eBay for the amount of a small car." Oh, Morhaime. You're a funny guy! 11:51: Amatera: Level 80 ETC will once again be playing the show. And, of course, they couldn't get away without a mention of Ozzy Osbourne. 11:52: Amatera: Showing some fan appreciation. "Give yourselves a /cheer, like you mean it!" Chris Metzen taking the stage. Announcement certainly incoming! 11:55: Amatera: "Where's the Alliance?" "Where's the Horde?" Horde totally got the bigger pop! 11:58: Amatera: Hold your horses! If you haven't heard it yet, the Monk is the new Diablo 3 class. Trailer for that playing now. 11:59: Amatera: The Monk looks like a sweet class. He fights with a staff. Looks to be modeled roughly on Shaolin monks. 12:01: Amatera: That was a cinematic. Now a gameplay trailer for the Monk. He has a reflective shield it looks like, and he can make enemies explode from the inside. Specifics coming later. 12:05: Amatera: Gameplay trailer for WoW coming up! "It's a doozy!" Preview Panel at 12:30, which Project Lore will be covering that, too. 12:05: Amatera: WoW: Cataclysm is official. Metzen's words claim all to be true. 12:07: Amatera: HUGE scars down multiple zones, filled with magma. Zone terrain upturned. Life returns to The Barrens. Ashenvale has had many of its resources taken. Goblins are shown, and they are indeed joining the Horde. 12:10: Amatera: Gilneas now. The Forsaken apparently are attacking Gilneas. The Night Elves bring them into the Alliance. New classes confirmed. Sketches of new monsters shown. Some dungeon/raid areas are shown, but they aren't named. 85 Level Cap. New Profession: Archaeology. New Heroic instances: Deadmines and SFK. Guild leveling and achievement system. Flying mounts in Azeroth. New character progression: Path of the Titans. Deathwing returns. Oddly enough... no mention of Azshara or flooding. 12:13: Looks like most of the leaked information is true, though a few things were curiously missing. The Maelstrom was touched on briefly, but magma, not water, seemed to be the focus of the trailer. And though Deathwing was mentioned, little was said of Azshara. Rest assured, the changes made to the existing zones look extensive. That's it for the Opening Ceremony, though. Check the Project Lore main page for WoW Preview Panel coverage. Thanks for tuning in!

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It's been an up-and-down sort of day for those trying to plan out their visit to the Anaheim Convention Center this weekend. Blizzard supplied a preliminary schedule for their marquee event earlier today before retracting it and replacing it with a brand new one. Why the switcheroo? No idea. The Blues ain't tellin'. Conspiracy theories aside, the simplest answer is that, after some internal deliberation, they probably decided that a few of the panels and events needed to be shuffled around. As far as WoW is concerned, a new World of Warcraft Preview panel has been slotted immediately following the Opening Ceremony. There's certainly a lot to talk about where Blizzard is concerned these days, so it may be the case that we don't get a bulk of our expansion info until the panel, itself. Either way, it's nice to set aside an extra hour or so to discuss specifically what is coming up instead of having to share space with the company's other properties during the Opening Ceremony (though I fully expect it to be "revealed" during that time). The PvP panel is gone, but I'm sure its content will be shared amongst the others. It's unlikely we'll see much beyond the next season or two of Arena for Wrath, and it might be too early to talk about specifics where the expansion is concerned. If you've got questions to ask during the Open Q&A (10-11 AM on Saturday) or during one of the Classes/Items/Professions panels (5-6 PM on Friday, 2:30-3:30 PM on Saturday). Likewise, if you're a fan of The Guild, you no longer have to miss out on any other WoW happenings (besides some tournament play) to check them out on Friday (3:30-4:30 PM). There's lots to see and do on the show floor, so make sure to start plotting your itenerary now (and get to the panels early for a good seat!). Hopefully this is the last change we'll see to the official schedule. *Here's a link to the BlizzCon map for your convenience.

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