• Official BlizzCon Website and Twitter.
• BlizzCon Survival Guide.

Post BlizzCon

BlizzCon is now over, feel free to peruse the complete coverage of everything SC2/Mapping/BDotA below. In addition, check out zelda's very thorough Blizzard DOTA Information write-up/article.

Cya next year everyone, :).

• Just something to note that I got from the Lore panel... Izsha used to be Amanda Hailey.

Live Updates Saturday

HotS Art & Technology

- Gallery http://imgur.com/a/zful4

- Official Blizzard write-up

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Multiplayer Unit:

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Environment & Engine:

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DotA Environment & Character Design:

Arcade & Mod Tools

- Gallery: http://imgur.com/a/RWHDv

- Official Blizzard write-up

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DotA Mechanics:

• Map Marketplace renamed to Map Arcade and given a much better location in the UI
• New ratings and custom game system (based on UI)
• Uber improved debugging tool that includes adding breakpoints, checking script calls, and much more. It is essentially, a full blown debugger.
• New UI Editor is coming, including a WYSIWYG Editor in-game and a previewer
• New Cutscene editor
  • High quality cut scenes with no new assets
  • Time/frame based Editor, similar to Windows Movie Makes
  • Ability to adjust lighting, cameras, pathing, footprints, etc
• Star Tools is being released
  • Create and import custom models
  • 3ds Max tool that links directly to the Editor
• More documentation and example files/maps

Blizzard DOTA

• 4 class types:
  • Tank: beefy AoE frontliner
  • DPS: squishy, high burst damage ganker
  • Support: low damage, team oriented utility healer
  • Siege: long range tower buster
• 12 (of 16 characters; more planned by release):
  • Tank: Muradin | Stitches | Arthas
  • DPS: Nova | Kerrigan | Zeratul
  • Support: Uther | Tassadar | Thrall
  • Siege: Za'Gara | Warfield | Witch
• VERY team-oriented gameplay:
  • K/D/A scoreboard removed in favor of team gold total scores; kills and assists replaced with takedowns that split gold evenly amongst all allies who contributed to the kill
  • Killing jungle units drop soul tokens that can be used to summon yeti minions at allied towers. Great for assisting suppressed lanes or covering an empty lane
• Reduced unnecessary gameplay complexity:
  • Fewer items split between passive bonuses (minority) and click-activated items with a cooldown (majority)
  • Stats replaced with permanent stacking items (+10% health | +10% damage/healing/shielding | +10% cooldown reduction and mana)
  • Jungle groups have difficulty tags and recommended number of players above them; Level 8 Solo vs Level 12 Group
• Increased game activity by removing passive elements:
  • Last hits and creep denies removed; some minions drop health/mana orbs that can be picked up to reward aggressive players
  • Towers have slowly regenerating ammo that cause the tower to power down when depleted if you hug the tower forever
  • Baron/Kongor equivalent doesn't provide a buff when killed; fights for the team that kills it
  • Capturable mercenary camps in the jungle that buff lane minions while controlled
  • Boot items have been replaced with a mount system that increases your speed while activated; if you are damaged while mounted you are stunned and dismounted
• Variety of maps:
  • variable lane count
  • jungle groups change locations/types
  • boss unit "might" change each map
  • specific themes from each universe (Diablo, StarCraft and Warcraft)

Live Updates Friday

Alan Dabiri Interview & Fansite Group Interview

Myself (Sixen), Ryan Winzen, and ProzaicMuze were able to get a short interview with Alan Dabiri, lead software engineer on StarCraft 2. We were unable to record the interview, but here are some quick notes. In addition, we attended an hour long fansite group interview that our buddies over at SCLegacy will be posting the audio for Soon(TM).

• Map Marketplace was renamed to Map Arcade
• Water mechanics and 256x256 maps are on the list still, but not high enough priority.
• Map protection is being worked on in time for the Arcade
• Bank files being stored server-side is something they're talking about as a long-term plan.
• HotS will be backwards compatible with WoL. Maps including WoL dependencies will be playable on HotS, but not vice versa. So, maps with HotS dependencies cannot be played via WoL. If players rip the assets from HotS and put them in custom dependencies for WoL, the maps will be banned.
• Star Tools will be released Soon(TM).
• Lots of Custom Game Systems changes coming with HotS that will be touched more on at tomorrow's panel. Reviewing, Rating, filtering, better searching, and much more.

Official Blizzard DOTA Info (click here)

Blizzard DOTA FAQs

Quote from Blizzard:

What is Blizzard DOTA™?

Blizzard DOTA™ is a new official custom game for StarCraft® II, inspired by the Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) custom map for Warcraft® III. Much like other DOTA-style games, Blizzard DOTA is a team-based competitive game in which each player controls a powerful hero with unique abilities, and works with his or her team to invade and destroy the enemy team's base. We're taking a fun approach to Blizzard DOTA and hope that players enjoy battling each other with heroes from across the various Blizzard universes.

Over the course of a match, waves of computer-controlled creatures for each team advance automatically across the map along different pathways. Players fight alongside these creatures to advance the battlefront, destroy enemy towers, and eventually push into the enemy base. Other points of interest are guarded by neutral hostile creatures; capturing and controlling these points grants bonuses to your team.

As your team kills computer-controlled creatures and other players, your hero will gain experience and levels to strengthen his or her special abilities. You'll also earn gold which you can use to purchase upgrades and items to customize and improve your hero over the course of a match.

What makes Blizzard DOTA stand apart from other DOTA-style games?

We've always enjoyed the original DOTA and other DOTA-style games, as they're known for deep and compelling team-based gameplay. One thing they're also known for, however, is a demanding learning curve. We're excited to do our own take on the genre, with the goal of applying Blizzard’s "easy-to-learn, difficult-to-master" philosophy to the overall design. We're also adding gameplay elements to encourage more aggressive, fast-paced gameplay, as well as team fights all over the map.

One example of how Blizzard DOTA handles things differently is how towers work. The towers in the lanes are powerful entities that can quickly decimate enemy heroes that wander into their range. But unlike many other DOTA-style games, the towers in Blizzard DOTA have a limited amount of energy that slowly recharges over time. This means that a team making a concerted push against a tower can force that tower to run out of ammo, making it easier to overrun the position. This encourages more team-based aggression and reduces the amount of defensive, tower-hugging play in the early-mid game.

The "jungle" (the neutral area between lanes) is also handled a little differently in Blizzard DOTA. Many traditional DOTA-style games offer neutral creep camps that confer individual bonuses to players that clear out these camps. In Blizzard DOTA, the primary features of the jungle are power nodes, guarded by neutral creeps. Teams that take control of these nodes will add strength to their team's creatures in the lanes. This means that gaining control of the jungle will push the battlefront in the lanes into your team's favor, thus making the jungle nodes key points of interest on the map, ripe for team fights.

While those are just a couple features of Blizzard DOTA that we hope will encourage more aggressive gameplay and more team-based play styles, we also have an eye to making the learning curve easier. We don't think players should feel compelled to spend an inordinate amount of time researching game guides and item builds before they're even comfortable trying a different hero. Primarily, we're interested in adding clarity by eliminating redundancies in hero abilities and items, and we think players will find this reflected in the design of the heroes and in-game item shop.

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MapCraft special #1

Our first blizzcon recap is finished. If you missed it, you can watch the recording here. If you missed it, you can still catch then next few shows. Check out the schedule here

HotS Multiplayer panel

- Gallery http://imgur.com/a/FHX5I

- Official Blizzard write-up

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HotS campaign panel

- Gallery http://imgur.com/a/NQDtM

- Blizzard write-up as well as new concept art

Hots Trailer

Blizzard Dota Trailer

- Diablo 3 Cinematic trailer revealed. WoW Mist of Pandaria trailer revealed

- Diablo 3 Box Art annouced. Collector Edition annouced. WoW Annual Pass with free D3 access announced

- Opening ceremony has started. You can watch it for free with a free bnet account

- Opening ceremony is starting soon. However multiplayer units for HotS has been leaked as they're shown on the convention floors. Check it out in this posts

Full coverage

That's right! Sc2mapster is the place to be for blizzcon 2011. While Sixen is at Blizzcon, we're going to be giving you live updates as they happen, in-depth articles, video coverage, and even live discussions each day to recap the highlights. If you're interested in Blizzcon 2011, make sure to stay with us during October 21st and 22nd this weekend!

You can check out this thread for all the glorious details.

For exclusive information about Diablo 3 and WoW, you can check out other Curse sister site DiabloFans and MMO-Champion

Blizzcon StarCraft II Portrait Teaser

s1fizik on Squidoo.com got the Blizzard Goodie Bag early (if you want to see the rest of the content you can clicky here), and we get a small teaser at the StarCraft II portrait Blizzcon goers and viewers will get.
What is it? Blizzard's Opening Ceremony will tell.

HotS Silhouette Unit Teasers

BlizzCon 2011 Mobile App

If you haven't seen it already, check out the iPhone/Android BlizzCon 2011 app to help plan your stay at the event! The schedule is not yet up on the BlizzCon site, but as we said the other day, there's the Blizzard DotA & Modding Tools panel that we'll have full coverage of, as well as the Multiplayer Battle.net panel.

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Headed to BlizzCon 2011? Bring a guide along with you! The free BlizzCon 2011 Guide mobile app, available now for Android™, iPhone®, and iPod touch®, is part calendar and part event planner. This convenient app is designed to help you make the most of your BlizzCon experience - you can browse for times and locations of developer panels and tournaments, set reminders to make sure you don’t miss out on a single event, and find your way through the exhibit halls with an interactive floor map.

Read more on the BlizzCon 2011 Guide page, or download the app for free now through iTunes or Android Market.

Source

Virtual Tickets - On Sale

You can purchase the Virtual Ticket whenever you want from here. It's only $39.95 and you can watch the Convention from the comfort of your house!

BlizzCon Tickets, Second Batch - Sold Out

ALl normal tickets are now gone gone and gone! however, there will be a $500 ticket sale going on, but otherwise thats it! You may also purchase the DirecTV stream at a later date as well.

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BlizzCon 2011 tickets are now sold out!

If you were unable to purchase tickets, a limited number of tickets to an exclusive pre-BlizzCon dinner to benefit Children's Hospital of Orange County will go on sale Saturday, May 28 at 10 a.m. PT (BlizzCon admission included). For those unable to attend the show, in-depth coverage of BlizzCon will also be available through the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket, which is offered as a multi-channel Internet stream and also via DIRECTV in the United States.

BlizzCon 2011 will take place October 21 and 22 at the Anaheim Convention Center. Tickets to the BlizzCon Benefit Dinner cost $500 USD each and include BlizzCon admission. For further information, check out the official BlizzCon site.

BlizzCon Tickets First Batch - Sold Out

As of 10:25 AM PST, the first round of tickets are sold out.

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The initial allotment of tickets for BlizzCon 2011 has now been sold out. If you weren't able to get tickets this time, you'll have another chance on Thursday, 26 May at 04:00 CEST, when a second batch goes on sale. In addition, tickets to special pre-BlizzCon dinner to benefit Children's Hospital of Orange County will go on sale Saturday, 28 May 28 at 19:00 CEST. In-depth coverage of BlizzCon will also be available through the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket, which is offered as a multi-channel Internet stream and also via DIRECTV in the United States. Keep an eye on BlizzCon site for more details in the near future.