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**FrostyBoy** · October 10, 2008, 22:16

New MMO? That isn't any of their current franchises? Should be interesting.

WoW movie will be awesome, I imagine the scenery shots will be drool-worthy. I'm especially looking forward to seeing Taurens in action.

It's about time they used the word Wizard. It's a much cooler word than Mage. From the looks of that youtube video he looks like an Arabian Wizard?

I might just have to skip the barbarian and ranger (if there is one) and go for the Wizard.

**DarkCloud** · October 10, 2008, 23:30

I wonder if the WOW movie will track the adventures of the Orc that was supposed to be the star of the old WOW adventure game.

**Zero** · October 10, 2008, 23:39

Originally posted by FrostyBoy

It's about time they used the word Wizard. It's a much cooler word than Mage. From the looks of that youtube video he looks like an Arabian Wizard?

looks more far east asians on this site.

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/characters/wizard.xml

they're foreigners that's for sure.

Owing to my lack of tolerance for those who would use magic towards their own nefarious ends, many have assumed that I am averse to the practice of the magical arts on a philosophical level. Nothing could be farther from the truth. My quarrel is with those sorcerers who dismiss the ancient traditions and teachings – teachings that have been honed over millennia in order to preserve respect for authority and the rule of law.

Recently the youth of Caldeum have fallen prey to the overblown stories of just such a delinquent wizard. That is correct: I used the uncouth term wizard, not sorcerer. It seems that even the title of a civilized magic wielder is too restrictive for this young upstart. Through my contacts at the Yshari Sanctum of the mage clans, I am one of the few who actually know the truth behind the rumors now sweeping our streets regarding this hellion who flaunts her magic irresponsibly.

This wizard was sent here to spend her formative years under the tutelage of the best mages in the world. Well, it seems they neglected to teach our wizard manners on her native island of Xiansai, for she was a rude and uncooperative student from the very beginning. Originally under the guidance of the Zann Esu mage clan, she was eventually handed over to the Vizjerei in the hopes that their strict and unbending discipline would break her anarchic spirit. Yet even the esteemed Vizjerei instructors were unable to rein her in. She was continually being caught seeking out dangerous and forbidden magics, heedless of the consequences to herself or anyone around her.

**Zero** · October 10, 2008, 23:47

council of mages lost if anyone is into pvp. They were really disappointing. I was looking forward to some RMP rpage from them...

Now instead of watching 2 same ol composition, its down to 1 same ol team comp.

**Asher** · October 11, 2008, 00:43

Are you drunk?

**DrSpike** · October 11, 2008, 06:31

I'm cautiously optimistic about D3.

**FrostyBoy** · October 11, 2008, 10:50

Originally posted by Zero

looks more far east asians on this site.

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/characters/wizard.xml

they're foreigners that's for sure.

Owing to my lack of tolerance for those who would use magic towards their own nefarious ends, many have assumed that I am averse to the practice of the magical arts on a philosophical level. Nothing could be farther from the truth. My quarrel is with those sorcerers who dismiss the ancient traditions and teachings – teachings that have been honed over millennia in order to preserve respect for authority and the rule of law.

Recently the youth of Caldeum have fallen prey to the overblown stories of just such a delinquent wizard. That is correct: I used the uncouth term wizard, not sorcerer. It seems that even the title of a civilized magic wielder is too restrictive for this young upstart. Through my contacts at the Yshari Sanctum of the mage clans, I am one of the few who actually know the truth behind the rumors now sweeping our streets regarding this hellion who flaunts her magic irresponsibly.

This wizard was sent here to spend her formative years under the tutelage of the best mages in the world. Well, it seems they neglected to teach our wizard manners on her native island of Xiansai, for she was a rude and uncooperative student from the very beginning. Originally under the guidance of the Zann Esu mage clan, she was eventually handed over to the Vizjerei in the hopes that their strict and unbending discipline would break her anarchic spirit. Yet even the esteemed Vizjerei instructors were unable to rein her in. She was continually being caught seeking out dangerous and forbidden magics, heedless of the consequences to herself or anyone around her.

ahh, an Asian character, cool.

and yes, female Wizard from asia would be the most fitting. Good decision by Blizzard there.

Her Slow Time attack is cool, but also kinda useless?

edit: ok checked out her other video, which you all should look at, the slow time attack can be accompanied with other attacks that really help.

**Zero** · October 11, 2008, 13:56

not alot of crazy aoe for wizard yet. i hope they get to that at later levels.

alot of starcraft 2 was revealed yesterday. And its looking great. Both in SP and MP side.

**The Emperor Fabulous** · October 12, 2008, 02:18

Um...biggest StarCraft II news? The fact that is is three stand alone games. ~$180 to play StarCraft? Count me in the "no thanks" category.

Blizzcon 08: StarCraft II Split Into Three Games
Blizzard drops bombshell and says real-time strategy sequel is now a trilogy. We talk to Blizzard's Rob Pardo for answers.
by Eduardo Vasconcellos and Jason Ocampo

October 10, 2008 - ANAHEIM--Blizzard dropped a bombshell at the 2008 Blizzcon today by announcing that StarCraft II, the highly-awaited sequel to the smash hit 1998 real-time strategy game, StarCraft, has been split into three. The company said that StarCraft II now consists of three different stand-alone titles--one for each faction campaign. The first of the StarCraft II trilogy will be StarCraft II Terrans: Wings of Liberty. The second will be StarCraft II Zerg: Heart of the Swarm, with the third and final installment of the main trilogy being StarCraft II Protoss: Legacy of the Void.

Blizzard says it made the change to make each story that much more epic and to flesh out the StarCraft universe. By splitting the game, the company says that players will access more story content, more characters, and more customization. Rob Pardo, executive vice president of game design, said that each game would be approximate in size to the original StarCraft. Each game will be a stand-alone installment – not an expansion.

We had a chance to catch up to Pardo shortly after the announcement, and we asked him to explain the decision to split the game. "We really wanted to emphasize player choice a lot more," he said. "We really wanted to tackle more of a branching storyline, [a] branching campaign; allow players to choose things like their own technology. And as we kind of developed [the game], we had to figure out how all there? How many missions do we actually need to tell an interesting story and what's the player's critical path to it? We have to make all of these tough design decisions about how this was going to work for us?"

"What we realized that whenever we put in the similar amount of content that we put in our previous games--as far as missions, characters, cinematics, things like that--it never really felt like the player had enough choice; it wasn't really living up to what our hopes and dreams were at first. That's when we realized we're kind of at this fork in the road. We really have to make a choice. Do we want to back away from those philosophies? Or do we maybe just delay the game a lot and kind of do a little bit more? Or do we go for it?"

The original StarCraft, according to Pardo, had 32 missions; 12 for the Terrans, and 10 each for the Zerg and the Protoss. According to Blizzard, each of these StarCraft II games will consist of more than 30 missions.

Pardo explained that the multiplayer remains relatively unchanged; each StarCraft II game will have a fully functioning multiplayer suite with all three races playable. "[In] the shipping product, all three races will be fully featured and balanced in gameplay and also in content," he said. We asked whether that meant the multiplayer suite in each game would be exactly the same, and he said, "More than likely, the successive products will add multiplayer content; we haven't decided right now what that is." That brought up the question as to how multiplayer would work if some players only buy the first game while others only buy the second or third games. He said that they haven't made any determinations yet as to how that would work.

We asked when did Blizzard come to the realization that it would need to do something drastic? "We probably started talking seriously about this a year ago, so it wasn't that early in the process. The thing about how we develop RTSes is we generally develop the multiplayer first. We certainly talk about the single-player early on, and we talk about the big ideas about what we want the single-player to be, but we didn't get serious about single-player development until a lot of the technology and artwork from multiplayer was in the game."

The decision to split into three happened after the team discussed many ideas. One that was eliminated early was episodic online content. "We never really considered that one seriously. We tried that a little bit at the end of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne; we actually did the orc campaign episodically through downloads. It was cool, but I think the only way that that's going to work is if you can really keep the episodic nature going on and on and on, where you can actually support it like a TV show. I don't know if you can do that with games, at least not the kind of games that we're making."

When asked what state the game was in, Pardo said that one campaign was far closer to completion to the others. "We've only got a serious amount of content done on the Terran campaign. We haven't really done much with the Zerg or the Protoss yet; we have some paper design on the next two campaigns. We certainly have ideas for how some of the metamechanics are going to work; we have a few mission ideas for both campaigns, but almost all the real production work is entirely on the Terran campaign right now."

That answer might give credence to a rumor earlier this year that Diablo III would ship before StarCraft II, even though it was announced a year after the RTS game. Pardo, who oversees both games, gave us a clear answer. "It's going to ship before Diablo III for sure; Diablo III is further out."

We asked about the timeline for the three StarCraft II games, using Valve's original prediction of shipping all three episodes of the Half-Life 2 episodes within a single year, but reality is that it will take more than more like three years. Pardo thought that was a great example and said, "It's a little bit similar to that in that it would be great if we could have them follow one year from one another; I think that's going to be our target, but certainly that's not a promise in any way. But I think that's going to be around the realm that we're going to be hoping for."

**Asher** · October 12, 2008, 02:49

Who cares about single-player?

Multiplayer is where SC is at.

**Jon Miller** · October 12, 2008, 03:48

Thats to play 3 large SP campaigns.

And the SP campaign was good Asher.

But it is also true, SC is amazing multiplayer(which is more important than the SP, even if the SP is as good as SC).

And you only need to pay for one game to play SC2 multiplayer.

I personally am glad they made this decision. It means I will get to play SC2 earlier.

JM

**DrSpike** · October 12, 2008, 06:51

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Thats to play 3 large SP campaigns.

And the SP campaign was good Asher.

But it is also true, SC is amazing multiplayer(which is more important than the SP, even if the SP is as good as SC).

And you only need to pay for one game to play SC2 multiplayer.

I personally am glad they made this decision. It means I will get to play SC2 earlier.

JM

QFT on all 5 points.

**vee4473** · October 12, 2008, 14:22

Re: Blizzcon 2008

Originally posted by Zero
Alot of unsurprising news.

New MMO
is not starcraft/worldcraft/diablo apparently. Some new franchise.

What makes you think it won't be a world of stracraft? Did they say such?

What they are doing by splitting starcraft 2 into 3 separate games to "flesh out" the universe seems very much a foreshadowing of where they hope to go in 3 or 4 years time with this new mmo after all 3 sides have their own game released with large backstories done.

maybe it's just me.

**Zero** · October 13, 2008, 22:26

Re: Re: Blizzcon 2008

Originally posted by vee4473

What makes you think it won't be a world of stracraft? Did they say such?

One of the CM on wow forums clearly stated it wont be existing franchise. Also at Blizzcon this statement was said again.

Also regarding Starcraft SP, This is no ordinary RTS campaign, where its just series of RTS games with preloaded units and building with minimum scripted events.

If you watch the blizzcon video, the game is alot reminiscent of wing commander, and missions are very non linear. You can also make decisions during the game that customizes your army in a unique way throughout the campaign.

Yeah I am an MP guy, but I am stoked about SC2 SP after the panel discussion. woot.

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