The annual Blizzcon convention celebrating all things Blizzard starts up today in Anahem. Legions of Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo fans (and hopefully a few scattered Rock 'N' Roll Racing diehards) will descend upon the convention center like a latex and foam weapon clad wave.
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Every Blizzcon has this tingling sense of pomp and circumstance, but this year's convention feels particularly poised to break huge. This is the 10th anniversary of World of Warcraft's launch, too, so you know they're pulling out all the stops. There is just so much coming down the road in the near future for one of the world's most popular companies.
There will be many things this weekend: tournaments in every game, cosplay contests, developer panels, hands-on demos, a premiere of a new documentary celebrating a decade of WoW and who knows what else.
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Here are the five things we are most keen to learn about this weekend:
5. Eye Of Azshara - Blizzard trademarked the name several days ago, no doubt in anticipation of this weekend. Azshara is a zone in World of Warcraft currently under Goblin control. Now, some rumors are claiming that this will be an early announcement of the next WoW expansion. What is more likely, however, is that Eye of Azshara is the second expansion for Hearthstone. The current card back reward for November is inspired by Goblins and Blizzard has stated they want to roll out new content more quickly for their up and coming CCG.
Whichever it ends up being, we all win.
4. Legacy of the Void - the third and final chapter in the single-player Starcraft II campaign, Void will follow the Protoss portion of the tale. SC II was released back in 2010 and the second chapter, Heart of the Swarm, in 2013. Blizzard is known for its slow development process, but they have had years to tinker with the trilogy capper. I love the Starcraft universe and desperately need to know what happens next. Thus far, in the past four years we've only ever been given the title of the game. There is no better time than now to let us in on something, anything.
3. Heroes of the Storm - Blizzard has become one of the worldwide leaders in RTS, MMO, CCG and Hack 'n' Slash games. No other company can boast such a claim. One thing they have not dominated at this time is the MOBA. Currently, League of Legends and Dota 2 sit atop the throne of the genre. Blizzard has announced Heroes of the Storm, which brings characters from all its franchises into a single arena. By that description alone, it's the greatest game ever. A release date or more details should be swift in coming. The whole world is watching. The game is currently in Beta.
2. The next Diablo expansion - Reaper of Souls was released earlier this year and given Blizzard's history, it's safe to say we won't be getting another major content add-on until at least 2016. But we can still hope for a few nuggets of information. RoS managed to revive a the failing hack 'n' slash title, and its release onto consoles breathed new life into the game. Give us more!
1. Warcraft movie trailer - the Duncan Jones-helmed, big screen adaptation of the Wacraft universe wrapped several months ago and even released a small teaser of the title graphic at San Diego. The movie has been in post ever since then; more than enough time to cut together a pretty bad ass trailer. Blizzard is very, very good at making promotional materials. Imagine sitting down for the 10th Anniversary documentary of Warcraft and then afterwards, as a special treat, they show the teaser to the movie? California would lose its mind.
Blizzcon kicks off at 11 a.m. Pacific today (that's 2 p.m. for us East Coasters). So, what do you want to see happen at this year's convention? Tell us below in the comments!
