World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

Day One

• World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will be released December 7 2010, however that’s not the exciting news. Instead players will be pleased to discover that for the first time ever they will be able to pre-order the expansion directly from the Blizzard store, download much of the DVD content in advance, which equates to being able to play the second, or if you are truly hardcore, the millisecond that the servers go live.

• Thanks largely in part to the stunning success of the Pandaren Monk which helped to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Blizzard will be offering up a new charity pet; the Moonkin Hatchling. Expected to make its debut in November this new pet will allow players to add another awesome addition to their pet collection while feeling good about themselves at the same time.

• Finally the suspense is over and Blizzard has announced the Fifth and final playable class for Diablo III,  the Demon Hunter, which seems to be vaguely reminiscent of the Amazon, except much darker and with the potential to be much cooler. Also unveiled was the game’s player vs. player combat system which is more advanced than anything seen in any Diablo game before.

• To say that StarCraft II has been embraced by Blizzard’s fan base is an understatement to say the least, with more than 91 million StarCraft ranked matches having taken place on Battle.net since release. Perhaps to thank StarCraft fans everywhere for their continued enthusiasm the StarCraft development team has been hard at work creating four new custom games including; StaJeweled, Aiur Chef, Left 2 Die, and Blizzard DOTA.These new games are scheduled to be released for free sometime in the not so distant future.\

• At possibly the most anticipated StarCraft II exhibition match of the day SlayerS_BoxeR took on Fruit Dealer. Both considered legends  in their own right, the Starcraft battle that would ensue was really anyone’s game. The showdown was a spectacular sight and no player seemed able to keep the upper hand. Evemtually one of these amazing players had to fall with Fruit Dealer emerging as the victor. To see replays of all the amazing Tournaments at BlizzCon visit the tournaments page on Blizzard’s website.

• The first exciting day of BlizzCon wrapped up as Jay Mohr appeared to host the contest stage show. 25,000 in prizes were given away in five separate contents (Fan Art, Original Song, Movie, Dance, and Costume). Although there was tough competition this year several of the entries stood out above the rest. The winners of each of the contests are as follows: