style="width: 429px; height: 239px;" alt=""
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/90907">

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 href="http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/characters/demonhunter.xml"
  target="_blank">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 href="http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/systems/pvp.xml"
  target="_blank">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; href="http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/994843#blog"
  target="_blank">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 href="http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcon/tournaments/"
  target="_blank">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 href="http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcon/contests/index.xml"
  target="_blank">winners of each of the contests
  are as follows:

style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">

style="width: 429px; height: 239px;" alt=""
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/90907"> 

Day Two

• Think your games are
  intense? Well they are nothing compared to the intensity found at the
  grand finals of the World of Warcraft, Warcraft III, and StarCraft II
  tournaments. Dreams were built and shattered, tempers flared, and even
  those with the calmest nerves threatened to crack. After some long and
  hard game play the winners finally began to emerge. Visit the href="http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcon/tournaments/index.xml"
  target="_blank">BlizzCon tournament page to
  view the various brackets for each game and the winners for each.

• At the Diablo III Crafting
  Sanctuary panel players discovered that in Diablo III instead of seeing
  the dreaded wall of text instructing you on what to
  do, Blizzard will be trying to enforce a more “Play,
  Don’t Tell” policy. Instead of a screen filled with
  text when players encounter a quest giver the NPC will instead follow
  the player until they arrive at the quest objective. Once there the NPC
  will impart only needed information upon the player, while the action
  continues. If this bit of news wasn’t exciting enough players
  will be pleased to discover that almost any and all ridiculously long
  storytelling that can be found in the game will be totally optional.
  Less talking and more killing? Yeah that sounds good no matter which
  way you look at it.

• Also at the Diablo III
  Crafting Sanctuary panel the role of artisans was finally revealed. The
  three artisans are the mystic, jeweler, and blacksmith. Players who are
  familiar with World of Warcraft will find that these artisans are a bit
  like all WoW professions combined. The mystic can craft items of the
  magic sort and enchant and identify items, the blacksmith can add gem
  sockets, repair, and create armor and weapons, while the jeweler
  combines gems, de-sockets gems from items, and crafts rings and
  amulets.

• At the StarCraft II Art
  panel the audience had the pleasure of viewing 70 plus pieces of art
  both silly and serious, including some pieces that will be found in
  Blizzard’s upcoming custom maps for Starcraft. Visit the href="http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/994848" target="_blank">
  StarCraft II Art Panel page to
  see some examples of the art displayed. As a final treat several pieces
  of concept art from StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm were revealed
  leaving those of us not lucky enough to attend green with envy.

• Not tobe outdone, the World
  of Warcraft Dungeons and Raids Panel also provided us with some
  exciting news. The days of searching endlessly for that one elusive
  dungeon quest are over. All key dungeon quest givers will now be found
  inside the dungeon’s entrance, making the lives of players
  everywhere just a little bit easier.

• Those who attended the World
  of Warcraft Dungeons and Raids Panel also got several other treats
  including being permitted to have the first look at the all new raid
  coming in patch 4.1; the Firelands. Building on the storyline to save
  Hyjal players will be asked to adventure into the elemental plane of
  fire and take out seven bosses including Ragnaros who has apparently
  finally made it out of forgotten exile in the Molten Core. Also
  (finally) coming in 4.1 are enhanced dungeon and raid maps showing
  information for each boss in a zone, including 3D portraits, lore,
  loot, and boss abilities. No more will players who haven’t
  done their homework be franticly  trying to find boss
  information on the web. Instead they will be able to just view the
  needed information on their handy dandy map.

• The last panel of the day
  was the BlizzCon Sound Panel, however, it was far from the least
  exciting. Those that stuck around for this event were presented
  with exclusive music directly from World of Warcraft:
  Cataclysm. Also Alfred Music Publishing proudly announced several new
  product lines that would be based on Blizzard music leaving no doubt
  that the composers involved in creating the music for Blizzard games
  are true artists indeed. 

• While the two days of
  BlizzCon would be difficult to top it certainly ended with a bang. At
  the closing concert Tenacious D took the stage and brought to a close
  what was an epic weekend leaving those in attendance to excitedly
  anticipate BlizzCon 2011.