BlizzCon 2007: Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremony was handled in a very simple, elegant manner. Mike Morhaime was introduced very quickly, and took the stage. He then gave an opening speech, in which he covered some of the accomplishments of Blizzard titles. One that stood out: The Burning Crusade sold 2.4 million copies in 24 hours. No game had ever sold that many copies in their first month.

Mike also made a few jokes (most of which were funny) and discussed many of the events that were to take place at the con. A couple of highlights: Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftan's upcoming concert, which received a particularly rousing set of applause. The upcoming WoW film also received a very enthusiastic reception.

A video of the recent WWI convention (we were there, and it was epic) highlights was also shown. It was fun reliving some of those events � the Korean announcers yelling �Good Game!� at the end of the competitive events, the various hip hop bands that played there (it was very over the top), the indoor fireworks (no, not kidding), and the unbelievably enthusiastic response of the Korean gamers was featured.

The cinematic trailer for Starcraft II was also shown. This was the first time we saw it in English. :) Blizzard sure knows how to make a cool intro film. A big question remains unanswered. How the hell does that Starcraft marine dude smoke a cigar inside a space helmet? Wouldn't he just catch fire, with the crazy oxygen content and all? (As usual, I digress...)

Then Mike got to the meat of his announcement. He introduced Frank Pierce (another Blizzard co-founder), to discuss Blizzard's new title announcement. Frank began to talk about WoW exclusively. He mentioned voice chat, made a couple of jokes about it (�that hot night elf chick on the other end of the line is actually a dude�), and then discussed the introduction of guild banks, as well as the new Zul'Aman instance.
Some guy shouted out, �For the Horde!�. Another shouted out, �We love you, Frank!� Frank then introduced the Wrath of the Lich King as the next WoW expansion.

Northrend will be the primary territory of the expansion.
Arthas is the Lich King mentioned in the title.
The expansion is very story-driven.
The level cap is now going up to 80.
New abilities, talents and items are being introduced.
New PvP arenas, new battlegrounds, and seige weapons, along with fortifications that can be destroyed by those seige weapons.
There is a new profession, Inscription. Inscribers can improve weapons and spells with their skills.
New dances and hairstyles can be added to your character.
There's a new character class, the Death Knight. It's a hero class. He didn't elaborate on what, exactly, that means.
It appears, from the introduction film, that the Death Knight can summon. It was the only ability we were able to see.
Howling Fjord and a 5-man dungeon are available for demo at BlizzCon.

Prior to TWotLC, Blizz will be introducing:

IVC (Integrated Voice Chat) which according to Frank is working beautifully. He made a joke about the disadvantages of IVC ("that hot night elf chick on the other end of the line is actually a dude")
Guild Bank; it keeps track of who puts stuff in, who takes stuff out, and controls who has access to what
Zul'Aman - a 10 man instance, populated by forest trolls
Frank joked at one point about the orcs get a size increase to their shoulders

TWotLC will itself have the following features:

Northrend, featuring nearly a dozen zones.
In case any of you were wondering, Arthas is the Lich King mentioned in the title.
New level cap of 80
New Abilities (no specifics were given)
New Talents (again, no specifics)
New plans for PvP (New Arenas, New BG's, seige weapons, and buildings that can be destroyed by them)
New Zones
New Dungeons and Instances
New Raid Zones(10 and 25 man)
New Character Customization: this appears to be primarily hairstyles and dances.
Did I mention there would be NEW DANCES!!!!!! (sorry, I got excited)
There's a new profession, Inscription. Inscribers can improve both weapons, and spells, with their abilitity. We'd love to give you more information, but that's all we know at this point.

Among the most exciting introductions is the Death Knight hero class. What we know so far:

Death Knights appear to be plate-wearers.
The video which introduced them appeared to indicate that characters may "fall" and become death knights (this is a whole lot of speculation at the moment).
Gnomes, humans, and tauren can become Death Knights. Other races probably can, but that's what we know at the moment.
The video appeared to show the DKs summoning undead to fight for them.

And with that, Frank quickly brought the opening ceremony to a close. I appreciated the way this whole thing was handled � it was all very straightforward and to the point. Of course, there will be more throughout the day and we learn more about the new expansion. Stay tuned, kiddies! Full video of the opening ceremony will be posted to the site shortly.
Enjoy! We'll keep the info flowing.

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