Mike Morhaime takes the stage after an introduction that asks show attendees to respect each other and not act like a bunch of tchotchke hungry douche bags.

Mike talks about how awesome Blizzard is, before taking a brief pause to resume talking about how awesome Blizzard is.

He talks about how this years tickets sold out in less than one minute — less time than it takes Ret pallys to storm the forums after a nerf.

Thanks go out to the service men and women around the world.

Mike now talks about what has happened since last years Blizz Con. The first thing mentioned is Wrath’s sale records. He now shows a video clip from last years Blizz Con and the WoW LtlK midnight launch.

Video concludes and Mike makes a joke about long lines at midnight release that bombs (yawn). He then transfers into changes Blizzard has made including faction change (and the crowd boos). Mike talks about the Mobile Warcraft Armory and segways into the 5 year anniversary plans for WoW including a revamp of Onixia.

He talks about Battle.net and Sam Rami signing on to make the WoW movie.

Mike now explains the layout and availability of games on the floor during Blizzcon 09. The crowd cheers.

He now talks about the exclusive collectible in our goodie bags that will never be reproduced. He calls the nube and “instant collectible” that we can save or put on Ebay for the price of a small car.

MC Front Alot and Jay Mohr will be on hand to entertain the show attendees. On the musical side of things, level 80 elite Tauren chief is back, along with…the Prince of Darkness Ozzy (crowd goes wild).

Thanks everyone for their support of the show and asks us all to give ourselves a “/cheer”. (my god the nerd level just shot through the roof). Mike’s segment concludes.

Chris Metzen takes the stage…

Whats up Blizzcon! Chris talks about how the company prides themselves about not putting games out until they are “done”. (pshhhhh my ass). Thanks crowd for support, understanding, and enthusiasm. Asks them to clap for themselves. Shows the crowd the shirt that Blizz employees will be wearing and urges the show attendees to mug them whenever possible (I’m going to guess Chris will be hiding during the show).

Chris asks “where’s the ALLIANCE AT??!!” (crowd erupts). Then he asks “Where’s the HORDE!!!??!” (crowd erupts just a little louder). He then says that with a roar like that the Lich King is going to pee his frozen panties. He then asks “where are the Diablo players in the house?” Crowd erupts again.

He tells the audience sarcastically that they have been working on a small internal project in secret called “Diablo 3″.

Chris introduces new Diablo 3 playable class…THE MUNK. Video rolls. A staff wielding character with a long brown beard and beaded necklace approaches a sand filled city escorted by an ominous character covered in cloth from head to toe — face concealed. He battles enemies after being locked in and survives only to confront the mysterious figure that led him there afterwords, demanding that the deceiver “reveal himself. He does and a battle ensues.

View ends and the crowd cheers. He then shows an actual gameplay sequence so people can see how the Munk plays. It looks pretty standard for what players would expect from Diablo. Fans clap (so it must be good).

Chris now segways into WoW. He talks briefly about rumors around the internet. Touching on new races, possible expansions. He then says, Blizzcon, the wait is over. In just a second he promises a glimpse at a trailer showing the first Blizzcon Expansion set. (crowd erupts).

WORLD OF WARCRAFT CATACLYSM!!! Video rolls. As the war against the lich king continues, the fight for peace goes on, but there can be no peace. Kalimdore and the eastern kingdoms have been transformed. Destruction of the world is shown.

Shows goblins as a new horde faction. Worgens are alliance faction. Flying mounts are now allowed in Azeroth.  New monsters revealed. Some look like mutant turtles and rock beasts. Some new dungeons and changes to Azeroth. Rated teams in battlegrounds, new level cap (I think it said 85). Heroic Shadowfang keep. Guild leveling system. Gnome priests. There will be new race class combinations along with new achievements. Archaeology will be a new secondary profession (on the same level as cooking and first aid).

Logo hits screen…crowd goes wild.

WOW Panel will be coming up soon. I will be there as well. As for now, this concludes the opening ceremony live blog. Thanks for reading. I have to go find something to eat and try not to get stomped on by the freaks.

Blizzard has some big plans in store for Warcraft lore lovers. The company has announced their intent to tie Wrath of the Lich King dungeons in with the World of Warcraft lore.

New dungeons will be connected to quests lines in an effort to further embellish the backstory behind Northrend, Arthas, the Titans, and others.

Below are some bulleted highlights from the Dungeons and Raids Panel, followed by detailed boss encounter information, and several clips from the panel itself.

Dungeon and Raid Panel Highlights:

• Huge scale environment and epic creatures with unique abilities.
• The developers emphasized that players do not fight the Titans right away but they do become more and more present as players progress through Northrend.
• Focusing on a shorter Dungeon model.
• Big scope but able to walk through without difficulty.
• Boss encounters with choices as to where and how a group fights them.
• CUSTOM CREATURE MODELS! Less recycling of creature models.
• 10 and 25 man dungeons for ALL of the raids instances.
• A push for players to experience raids no matter how large of social groups they are in.
• More rewards for 25 man instances.
• Certain boss fights they want to go all out with boss experiences.
• Destructible buildings during boss fights.
• Higher quality loot from heroics. A Tier better than normal dungeons.
• Players can earn badges: Emblem of Heroism(heroics) and Emblem of Valor(25 mans).
• Players can complete tier sets with badges.

Cool Boss Encounters:
The second boss in Ahn’kahet is a vampire. At different times during the encounter, the boss attacks a random member of the group, attempting to suck their blood. Players have to beat back the boss to prevent him from killing their party-mate. Surprisingly, the boss has an eerie resemblance to Tom Cruise.

The other highlighted boss encounter was the final boss in Chamber of Aspects. The developers spoke about two different ways to fight the boss. An easy way, and a more difficult way.

The boss is surrounded by three Twilight drakes. The easy route for taking the boss down is killing the Twilight drakes first, and then moving on to the boss resulting in a normal loot table. The more difficult method is to not kill the drakes beforehand, but to kill them during the boss fight. Doing this will drop a Twilight Drake mount that you can show off to your friends, better yet — your enemy’s.

Last but not least is news that will surely make Hunters happy. Due to the changes involving Hunter pets, specifically granting them access to a “tanking” talent tree, a Hunter’s pet will now be viable off-tanks in instances. Sorry to all the off-tanks out there … you’re going to be replaced by an overgrown turtle.

Featured Dungeons, Itemization, and Q&A Video:

The Halls of Lightening

Ahn’kahet:The Old Kingdom

Chamber of Aspects (raid)

Eyes of Eternity

Itemization

Q&A Session

Any World of Warcraft player that has ever tried to carefully hurdle a pesky stream with their land mount, only to miss, get dismounted, and have to mount back up again, will be happy to know that Blizzard has heard your frustrated cry for help.

We just got word that the first patch to be released, after the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, will allow mounts to swim beneath you as you make your way through water.

Day one of BlizzCon 08 wrapped up with a dance contest hosted by comedian Jay Mohr, and while there were no shortage of contestants, the gentleman below was our hands-down favorite “funny” dancer of the night.

Anyone who has seen the SNL Chippendales skit featuring Patrick Swayze and the late Chris Farley will really appreciate the moves and music exhibited during the clips opening routine. However, those who play the World of Warcraft game know the dance better as that of the Boomkin.

If funny is not your cup of tea, hang around for the final dance. Jamie and her “undead female” routine will have you wishing for a gaming geek themed strip club. Hit the jump.

BlizzCon 08 had no shortage of special guest appearances. In addition to the truck loads of draenei and night elves, the outskirts of the event are being patrolled by none other than Thrall.

Check out the mighty Horde Warchief in action after the jump.

Word from BlizzCon 08 is that the new StarCraft II single player game is being split into three separate campaigns. According to Blizzard, the game was becoming so large that they felt it would be best to split it into three separate products — each with their own respective ending.

Each of the products is listed out below followed up by its focus.

Wings of Liberty: Terrans
Heart of the Swarm: Zerg
Legacy of the Void: Protoss

I am guessing that your jaw is somewhere near your feet right now, and frankly, I don’t blame you. Those who played the original StarCraft who that it too contained three seperate campaigns, however they were all enclosed in one pretty little box.

It seems that the merger of Activision and Blizzard is already seeking out new ways to make even more money — as if the gobs and gobs they already have aren’t enough.

The news regarding the game doesn’t end there, as our own Donne Ingalls just finished spending some quality time with the build on hand. His comments can be found below:

I was unimpressed with the sinlge player gameplay of Starcraft II. It seems very slow at this point, and I found myself constantly waiting around for my drones to gather resources.

I was also able to play a multi-player match against another writer, during which he grabbed Terran and I took on the role of Protoss. The result — I destroyed him with little effort.

As in Starcraft 1, little has changed as far as tactics. As Protoss, I built four Carriers, waltzed into his base, and proceeded to watch the carnage unfold.

In terms of pure aesthetics, the game does look much better, and I must add that the game is still in its early states of development in terms of balance between factions.

There is little doubt in my mind that once complete, StarCraft II will eventually corner the Strategy RPG market.

Interesting yes, but I’m not so sure I’ll be rushing out to reserve this game (make that three games) anytime soon.

Afterthought: What say you? Are you impressed or taken back by what you have been hearing/seeing in terms of Diablo 3 thus far?

The Ripten BlizzCon 08 team got their hands on Diablo 3 not long ago, and spent a decent chunk of time checking out the new Wizard class.

One of the first things that they dove into was the talent tree. It should probably be noted that video cameras and photographs were strictly prohibited for both Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2. Just like WOW, there are 3 areas to spec into.

Hit the jump for a brief overview of the Wizard tree.

1:Storm Tree

• Tornado and Blizzard are a few of the end talents for this tree, both are AOE type spells.

2:Arcane Tree

• Magic Missile is similar to a Mages Arcane Missiles in WOW
• Slow Time and Warp Space allow you to bend the space/time continuum, slowing mobs down substantially.
• Arcane Orb is an AOE nuke type talent.

3:Conjuring:

• Mirror Image creates exactly what you would expect it to create — a mirror image of the wizard
• Meteor Storm is an AOE similar to meteor in Diablo 2.
• Acid Cloud is a nature based AOE
• Health and Mana can also be conjured up here

Feel free to post in the comments section if you have questions. We will be reporting back later tonight with more detailed information as well as responding to any questions you may have.

The Ripten BlizzCon 08 team wrapped up the Class Discussion panel and shot me over the following highlights broken down by class. By far, the most interesting piece of news that came out of the panel would have to be the announcement of duel specs.

Hit the jump for a full list and make sure to check back later for video footage of each class discussed in the panel.

The following notes were taken by Santo Parker:

Deathknights:

• Have different presences for tanking/DPS.
• Are able to tank or DPS in any of the 3 trees.
• Their zone progresses with the player and ties in well with existing and new lore.

Priests:

• Discipline will now have raid heal viability.
• Priests will also have an easier time DPSing (mind sear) racials shouldn’t matter anymore according to blizz devs.

Hunters:

• Freezing shot for faster traps and better CC functionality.

Mage:

• Frostfire bolts, mirror image, a possible new talent tree! (elemental mage anyone?)

Balance Druid:

• Blizzard intends on giving them real cc&DPS abilities.

Resto Druid:

• Nourish is similar to a flash heal, wild growth an AE heal.

Shamans:

• May see some totem consolidation along with lava burst, riptide, and Hex.

Rogues:

• Get an AE called fan of knives, more sap targets, and a return of daggers and poisons.

Prot Warriors:

• Get more toys, fewer mitigation abilities

Arms Warriors:

• Get Bladestorm and Sudden death

Fury Warriors:

• Gets Titans Grip

Warlocks:

• Greater pet diversity (Blizzard apparently doesn’t want guilds threatening to Gkick locks for summoning certain pets :P )
• More interesting spell rotations
• Demonic circle
• Metamorphosis

Paladins:

• Seals and judgements are getting overhauled.
• Prot needs to care about tanking gear.
• Holy needs heals that can be used in fights that require a lot of movement and group heals.
• Ret will get more DPS, mana and replenishment abilities.

Gear:

• Gear consolidation with spell power

Dual specs are coming (yes that means no having to port to IF to respec frost for bloodboil!)

Blizzard wasted no time in updating their official site with a brand new trailer showcasing the newly announced Diablo III Wizard class. We will be hitting you with some talent tree info on this class shortly, so stay tuned for more of our BlizzCon 08 coverage. In the mean time, hit the jump for the new Wizard trailer.

Source: Blizzard.com

Ripten’s official main tank, Robert Hernandez (aka Battlerob), prepares to aggro a giant statue of Illidan on display at BlizzCon 08. Sorry loot whores — it appears that a crafty rogue has already pick pocketed the Warglaves.

Find out exactly what Blizzard has crammed into this years BlizzCon 08 swag bag, as Ripten’s Donne Ingalls gives you a first hand account of all the goodies inside.

Highlights include a “bind on equip” Blizzard Authenticator to protect your account, trading cards, a Paladin bubble, Horde mask, QQ tissue box, and a Blizzard branded beer can sleeve for the drunken dwarf in us all.

Hit the jump for a virtual rummage through a mountain of swag.

BlizzCon 08’s opening ceremony revealed the third of five Diablo 3 classes — the Wizard. Get a first glimpse of the sultry female as she hurls lighting, fire, and icy gobs of destruction at her would be enemies.

Ripten is so prepared!

Our swag is in hand, and we just got done watching the opening ceremonies here at the Anaheim Convention Center. The game plan was to live blog it all, but it was essentially over before we knew it.

The BlizzCon 08 opening ceremony was short, and to the point. A Diablo 3 Wizard class was revealed, and a brief demonstration was given. Lightning bolts took over the stage, and the crowd erupted with an overwhelmingly positive response.

“A wielder of the elements and a master manipulator of time, the wizard can hurl environment-shattering lightning bolts, channel explosive arcane energies, and create pockets of space outside the normal temporal flow.”

Blizzard founder, Michael Morhaime, closed out the ceremony by instructing everyone to “have fun”, and we plan to do just that. Step into our consecration and hang out for a while. We’ll be bringing you news as it happens throughout the day.

Blizzcon 08 is about to open its doors to the world, and that has many of us discussing our favorite MMO moments, both in game and out. A hands-down personal favorite of mine is the World of Warcraft South Park episode from 2006.

In the event you’ve been strapped to a pipe in a strange basement for the past two years, broke free, stumbled onto a Blizzcon 08 ticket, and decided to go, you may have missed the following South Park episode. Everyone else has no excuse, but you’re free to watch it anyway.

Hit the jump for the classic South Park World of Warcraft episode, and witness Cartman stack sunder armor as only he can.

If the above video doesn’t work, you can always hit up South Park Studios and watch the full episode there.

Blizzard fans have zerg-rushed the Blizzard website into submission over tickets to BlizzCon 08, so Blizzard has come up with a solution to sell the tickets in waves.

Did you ever play “Red light / Green light” as a kid, where you can only run forward when the “it” person says go? Seems that’s the game Blizzard is playing with its BlizzCon 08 registration.

As we reported earlier, Blizzard reinstated the ticket sales at 3:50 p.m. ET, after problems caused ticket sales to be put on hold earlier this week.

Within 30 minutes, however, the tickets were listed on the Blizzard store as sold out. Tough luck chumps.

Oh wait, GREEN LIGHT.

Tickets were back up.

RED LIGHT. Sold out, suckers.

Turns out this process is going to continue, as the overwhelming response has forced Blizzard to switch between sold out and available until the tickets are actually all gone.

And for those who don’t have the time/patience to play Blizzard’s little game, there is hope that the company will offer a second chance like they did with their World Wide Invitational.

Many BlizzFans mounted up and rode towards the portal that is Blizzard’s BlizzCon 08 ticket purchase page yesterday only to be turned away. After what one can only assume were several attempts to resolve the issue, Blizzard eventually pulled the site offline and issued the following statement:

Update: 9:40 PM PDT – We have appreciated everyone’s patience as we’ve worked to address issues with the BlizzCon ticket sales today. To avoid having people stay up into the early hours attempting to make ticket purchases, we will take ticket sales down and continue implementing optimizations through tonight and tomorrow morning.

There are still plenty of tickets available, so if you weren’t able to purchase tickets today, please check back tomorrow. We’ll continue to provide updates on the World of Warcraft forums here.

Tomorrow is now today, and while everything should be up and running, I went over to the site to test out the link a few moments ago only to be greeted by a “The site is down for maintenance” page. If you are determined to raid this years convention, you will likely get your tickets soon — but don’t flask up just yet.

Update: As of 10:30 AM PDT, Blizzard issued the following statement:

Update: 10:30 AM PDT – We’ve made significant progress throughout the morning on implementing optimizations for the BlizzCon ticket website to better handle the load of purchase requests. We’re continuing to work on these updates, and we currently estimate that tickets will be available for purchase again after 12:00PM PDT today.

Further details regarding ticket availability will be posted on the World of Warcraft forums, and we’ll post another update here when tickets are up for sale again.

While I still wouldn’t flask, you may want to sharpen your blade and get your 100 gold ready. It appears that you will be able to loot your tickets in about an hour.