The doors have closed on BlizzCon 2011 and we’ve learned a lot about World of Warcraft, Diablo III, and StarCraft 2. A lot of neat things were revealed, including the D3 cinematic, the new WoW expansion, the D3 collector’s edition, and so much more that my head is spinning just thinking about it all. Let’s take a look at the key points made during the last two days.

World of Warcraft

The big thing was Mists of Pandaria. The next expansion was announced and boy does it contain some cool features. We’re going to see a new class, the Monk, a new race the Pandaren, a companion battle system, a new talent revamp, challenge modes, and even scenarios. There is literally ten tons of new content coming to WoW in the near future.

An interesting addon is if you agree to a 12 month contract you’ll get Diablo III free along with a new mount, the Tyrael’s Charger, which looks pretty cool. If you stay in the program for the full 12 months then you’ll get to keep copy of D3 at no additional charge. As an added bonus, you’ll get a guaranteed spot in the Mists of Pandaria beta that is coming up soon. That’s definitely something to look into for long term WoW fans.

During the Mists of Pandaria Preview Panel we found out the basics of the new expansion, including the new dungeons, how the Scarlet Monastery and Scholomance will be making a return, and a walkthrough of the new dungeons. See our look at the WoW Preview Panel for more details.

During the Class Talent Systems Panel we discovered that the talent system is being revamped completely. The way you gain spells and talents will drastically change in WoW 5.0 and the system might actually work for the better too. It gives your playstyle a lot more focus, more so than your number crunching ability, which is a win/win for everyone. Take a look at our Class Talent Systems Panel overview for more details.

During Dungeons and Raids we found out a ton of new info on dungeons. They’ll be leaner, easier to get into, and have a harder roof to break. So you’ll be able to jump straight into heroics at level 90 but you’re not going to struggle nearly as much as in Cataclysm. This drastic change will bring much needed relief to the scores of both casual and hardcore players who disliked the drastic difficulty of Cataclysm heroics.  You can read more about the Dungeons & Raids Panel here.

The Art Panel was full of gorgeous shots of the new graphics in the game.  Including how detailed the new Pandaren models will be. Blizzard has even made its own new language for the Pandarens! You can find more details about the Art Panel here.

There were three total Q&A Panels, the Classes, Items, and Professions Panel, the Open Q&A Panel, and the Lore and Story Q&A Panel. All three panels were full of new information about the game, the expansion, and even somehow showing a snake to Chris Metzen!

Diablo III & StarCraft II

While we haven’t given them as much love as they deserve, some new news came out about these fantastic games. Diablo III has its opening cinematic now live and StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is introducing a lot of awesome new units available. The D3 collector’s edition is full of epic loot while the new Blizzard DOTA mode in SC2 looks amazing.

This year’s BlizzCon was full of excitement and wonder and it brings a lot of hope to a lot of disenfranchised fans who didn’t’ like the changes coming into Cataclysm. Can Blizzard deliver on the plethora of promises they made or will we see them all go to the wayside? Only the future can tell, but keep your eyes stuck here to Ten Ton Hammer for continuing coverage of BlizzCon (there is more to come from our team on the ground!) and World of Warcraft in general!