Today Blizzard announced that they plan to hold a new major eSports event: the 2012 Battle.net World Championship Event. It is slated to take place in late 2012 in Asia and will feature some of the top pro-gamers in the world. eSport enthusiasts and players plus Blizzard gamers will be invited to attend this event and watch some of the top players compete for prizes and glory.

“We’re excited to be showcasing Blizzard eSports on a truly global stage this year. We’re also heavily focused on getting Diablo III, Mists of Pandaria, and Heart of the Swarm into players’ hands as soon as possible. In light of our jam-packed schedule, we’ve decided to hold the next BlizzCon in 2013.”

Yep you read correctly, the next Blizzcon will not be held this year but will instead happen in 2013. I do think that a major eSports event run by Blizzard is a great step in advancing eSports more. But I do know that there will definitely be some fans who will be sad Blizzcon isn’t happening this year.

More news regarding details for the Battle.net World Championship as well as Blizzcon 2013 is said to be coming in the months ahead!

Download the file here!

Please leave us positive feedback on iTunes! You can also leave us a voicemail at (209) 874-6555, and email us at weeklyroundup@gamingangels.com.

You start off in the starting zone and move through quests that follow a very martial arts feel to them. You have to fight training dummies, apprentices, and then a master before being sent to help protect a village and save supplies. The world itself is absolutely stunning in appearance and the new mobs look fantastic. You can tell that they’ve put a lot of work into this just for Blizzcon, so I can only see good things for when they have more time and can really sit and focus on expanding the art style and improving the look and feel of the game.

Now as for the new race themselves, that has been getting the most mixed reviews. Some players don’t like it since it seems too cutsey while others are actually pretty happy that they can get to play pandas. Not surprisingly only the male pandaren were available to play and had concept art shown. We were even told that this is not the final model for male pandaren and that it will see several tweaks done to it up until the release of the game. With all of the time they took to make over, for example, the Worgen before Cataclysm and the design changels that happened with the models shows that they will work up until close to launch to make sure that the models look good and will make the majority of the community happy.

As for how the Monk plays, the biggest thing for me was not being used to seeing an auto attack. Other than that the resource bar and management was actually pretty well done and pretty easy to pick up on. Once I got the hang of how to use the attacks, it’s actually a pretty fluid class to play in the beginning stages. It made me interested to see how the class would play once you get past level 10 and begin to focus on your talents and what spec you will go into. Based on what was talked about during the WoW Q&A, I’m super interested to check out how healing on a Monk since they will apparently be more mobile and have some interesting abilities, like setting down statues that will help to heal party members that they’re near as the Monk DPSes.

All in all I don’t mind how the male pandaren look right now. I wouldn’t mind if they could turn out more rugged as I think it would be more ideal, but for a start it’s not that bad. I also don’t mind that things are brighter and not as dark as they have been the past couple of expansions. I think this change along with the fact that we’re going back to Alliance and Horde fighting against each other will make for a good next expansion. I look forward to all of the updates that are going to eventually come out regarding MoP, and of course the eventual beta invite that I know I will get with my WoW Annual Pass!

Now this was definitely some information overload, but thanks to our partners over at GKick, they put together a detailed list with screencaps of each of the new trees. You can read up in detail over here on Gkick.net!

Gkick.net is part of the Gaming Angels network and have been helping with our coverage of Blizzcon 2011.

I did have a chance to play as a Pandarian Monk yesterday, and overall I did enjoy the experience. My full write up will be up on Gaming Angels soon!

Gkick.net is part of the Gaming Angels network and have been helping with our coverage of Blizzcon 2011.

The other tidbit we got was an awesome new trailer for Diablo III. Blizzard’s cinematics department knocked it out of the park again on this and it was fantasitc. Now there was no new information regarding gameplay, and Blizzard is keeping it on strict lockdown since they’re trying to keep any spoilers away from the public. It honestly makes it more maddening, but it means I’ll be even more excited to play the full game!

The game will have 20 new campaign missions, new gameplay mechanics and even some new multiplayer units! In-game and pre-rendered cinematics will make a return this time as well. There will also be some new Battle.net features which will help with custom-game searching as well as new tools for map authors.

There are new things to play here at Blizzcon this year, but sadly I have yet to be able to check them out myself. Once I have a chance to play through it a bit you will have a full report on my throughts for Heart of the Swarm!

If you missed the trailer, you can check it out below.

Q: What is Blizzard DOTA™?

A: 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.

 

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

A: 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.

 

Q: How many heroes are included in Blizzard DOTA, and what roles do they play?

A: The version we’re showing at BlizzCon includes 12 different heroes that fall into one of four different class types: tank, damage-dealer, support, and siege. Tanks function as advertised — they tend to be heavily armored and are designed to soak up damage as they initiate battle and try to control fights. Damage-dealers are the hardest-hitting heroes, but they tend to be more fragile — teams will need to keep them protected. Support heroes have abilities that can do a wide range of different functions in team fights such as healing, stuns, and other methods of crowd control. Siege heroes have a unique role. They can attack from long range, making them ideal for destroying enemy towers. They also tend to have abilities that affect a wide area, making them useful for controlling space in team fights.

We plan to add more heroes before we officially release Blizzard DOTA. One thing to keep in mind is that we want to ensure every hero and ability feels truly unique — we want quality over quantity. One of the pillars of our design philosophy with Blizzard DOTA is that the heroes should fit their roles very strongly and contribute from a team perspective. Not every hero needs to be a high-damage killing machine to be valuable to the team, and our game design is informed by that philosophy.

 

Q: What kind of achievements and rewards will be included?

A: When Blizzard DOTA launches, you’ll get access to a small group of heroes to start with. As you play matches, more heroes will unlock. When you’ve earned all of the heroes, you can begin unlocking cosmetic “prestige” items by winning games with specific heroes. Prestige items can include alternate weapons, crowns, and other accessories.

 

Q: Will there be stat-tracking of any kind, such as ladders, skill ratings, and so on?

A: Initially Blizzard DOTA will include an automated matchmaker based on skill, similar to the regular StarCraft II ladder. We’ll also track various stats such as number of player takedowns, towers destroyed, and average gold and experience gained per match.

 

Q: Will it cost money to play? Will Wings of Liberty™ or Heart of the Swarm™ be required?

A: Currently we plan to offer a way to play Blizzard DOTA for free, possibly by including it as part of the StarCraft II: Starter Edition. However, we have not yet determined what type of content restrictions would be placed on those playing for free. We’re also discussing the possibility of offering exclusive content to players, such as special heroes for owners of Wings of Liberty™ and Heart of the Swarm™ (in regions with standard box business models, just for example), but this is also still to be determined. We’ll announce more details once those decisions have been finalized.

 

Q: What kind of post-launch support is planned? Will there be additional skins and heroes available for purchase or unlocked in some other way?

A: We haven’t made any decisions at this time about what types of content and updates we will provide post-launch or how those would be made available. Right now we’re focusing on creating the best game we possibly can, and we’re looking forward to seeing what players think.

 

Q: Will there be a beta test? When will it start? How can I apply for the beta?

A: Yes, we do intend to run a beta test for Blizzard DOTA sometime within the next few months. We’ll announce more details about how to participate at a later date.

 

Q: When will Blizzard DOTA be released?

A: We don’t have a release date we can share at this time. We’ll have a better idea for a release window after we start beta testing.

Did you miss the trailer? You can check it out below! So far it looks like it could be something quite fun! I’m actually really looking forward to playing as some of these heroes in a DOTA setting.

When you sign up for the 12-month Annual Pass plan (and you can do that right here), you not only get a free copy of Diablo III, but you also get an awesome mount based on Diablo III‘s Tyrael’s Charger as well as guaranteed access to the beta of Mists of Pandaria, the fifth expansion of World of Warcraft.

The mount features some pretty awesome wings, right? And I can’t even pretend that it’s the big deal anymore. The free copy of Diablo III is. And it’s apparently a limited-time deal, probably only because the new game is launching early next year.

We still don’t have timing for Diablo III‘s release, or even that of the Pandaria beta, but…it’s Blizzard Time. “Soon” is sufficient, right?

The Annual Pass can either be billed at $14.99 a month, or on your billing plan of choice. Keep in mind that this offer isn’t available to new accounts — you have to have registered a full copy of World of Warcraft before October 18, 2011.

Blizzard’s provided a full FAQ here. One item of note: If you don’t complete your full year of WoW, it looks like you don’t get to keep the copy of Diablo. So…just in case you were thinking about ditching the subscription…yeah, don’t.

I’ve already upgraded my subscription — it was pretty easy, and it really only involved switching my current subscription to another type. If you’re going to play for another year, you may as well switch, too. Free stuff!

Alliance warships prowl the seas. Horde armies thunder across Kalimdor. Tensions between these factions edge closer to erupting in a savage war that threatens to consume all of Azeroth. Against this backdrop of impending conflict, an uncharted island mysteriously appears…

Shrouded in fog since the world was sundered more than ten thousand years ago, the ancient realm of Pandaria has remained unspoiled by war. Its lush forests and cloud-ringed mountains are home to a complex ecosystem of indigenous races and exotic creatures. Will the mists of Pandaria part to reveal the world’s salvation… or will the battle to control this breathtaking new land push the Alliance and the Horde over the brink into total annihilation?

Blizzard Entertainment’s Mists of Pandaria™, the fourth expansion for World of Warcraft^®, unveils an entirely new continent for players to explore and reintroduces the enigmatic pandaren as a playable race. All but the bravest pandaren explorers have been hidden from the world for thousands of years. Now, in the aftermath of the Cataclysm, Pandaria’s heroes are stepping forward to declare their allegiance to either the Alliance or the Horde.

The Pandaren will be available to play on both the Alliance side as well as the Horde and you will be able to choose this after playing through the starting zone. But there are many many other key features that will be in the next expansion:

• New Playable Race — Pandaren: Adventure through Azeroth as World of Warcraft‘s first neutral race and decide whether to side with the Alliance or the Horde.
• New Playable Class — Monk: Unlock the secrets of pandaren martial arts and do battle as a damage dealer, healer, or tank.
• Level Cap Increased to 90: Learn potent new spells and abilities while exploring uncharted zones and taking on challenging new content.
• New Zones: Explore the lush Jade Forest, treacherous Kun-Lai Summit, and other exotic areas of Pandaria designed for high-level characters, and uncover the mystery of the Wandering Isle.
• Scenarios: Join up with some friends to achieve a common goal, such as mounting a defense against invading monsters, in a flexible new type of PvE challenge.
• Dungeon “Challenge” Modes: Master the ultimate five-player time trial and earn prestige rewards in a new dungeon mode that will put your resolve and coordination to the test.
• Pet Battles: Challenge other players’ companion pets with your own critter collection in a new tactical mini-game, and find out who’s king or queen of the pint-sized battlefield.
• New Talent System: Customize your character to suit your play style with the newly improved talent system.

Not going to lie, but I’m kinda jazzed up over the idea of Pet Battles and Dungeon Challenges. Metzen mentioned on the DirecTV broadcast that they’re making this expansion a lot more light hearted and less dark than the past few expansions, and I think this will be a welcome change.

All of these features plus a new class is also interesting since it looks like they’re realizing that they have some contenders on the field when it comes to MMOs and they seem to be wanting to catch up and make sure that they can stay the top contender.

More information will come as Blizzcon continues!