Posts with tag opening-ceremony

The opening ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. Pacific and we will be liveblogging it right here. Currently, something is concealed in Hall C, typical of game or expansion announcements. In the past, once the announcement has been made, the black curtains are removed. No doubt, today's opening ceremony will contain something exciting.

Updates will be in reverse-chronological order, with newest updates at the top of the page. If you only want the latest update, you can stay near the top. If you missed the beginning of the panel, scroll to the bottom.

We'll be live blogging the opening ceremony at BlizzCon 2011. The start times for this liveblog is as follows:

Pacific Time zone: 11:00 a.m.
Mountain Time zone: 12:00 p.m.
Central Time zone: 1:00 p.m.
Eastern Time zone: 2:00 p.m.

We're expecting a lot from this BlizzCon opening ceremony, including the Mists of Pandaria expansion, some StarCraft expansion announcement, and potentially an announcement concerning the Diablo 3 release date.

Stay tuned! We'll start liveblogging soon.

10:42 a.m. - Patch 5.0 will introduce a new talent system.

10:42 a.m. - Initial reports are that the expansion will be playable at BlizzCon today.

The rest of the liveblog after the break!

Ready for the thrilling beginning of BlizzCon 2010? If you're as excited as we are, you'll want up-to-the-minute coverage of the announcements, speeches, and general awesome news at the BlizzCon 2010 opening ceremonies. Check out Joystiq, our sister site, for the BlizzCon 2010 Opening Ceremeonies liveblog.

If you're not sure what time the keynote takes place in your time zone, don't worry. We've got you covered. You can find the time zone best representing your location, and check out the time on the chart below.

08:00AM - Hawaii
11:00AM - Pacific
12:00PM - Mountain
01:00PM - Central
02:00PM - Eastern
07:00PM - London
08:00PM - Paris
10:00PM - Moscow
03:00AM - Tokyo (October 23)

Once again, you can find the opening ceremonies liveblog by clicking here.

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BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!

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For all those of you out there who don't have the time to slog through the 100+ articles we published on BlizzCon 2009, we've condensed the events of the past few days into the most important things you need to know:

• THE END OF WRATH: Developers gave some pretty revealing information on what we can expect to see in patch 3.2.2 (the revamped Onyxia raid) and in patch 3.3, where we'll finally stare down Arthas himself.
  
• THE NEXT EXPANSION: Blizzard's own loremaster Chris Metzen debuted the first trailer for the next expansion, titled World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and that sound you hear is millions of players who can't believe Blizzard would ever pull a stunt this big. Cataclysm's basic storyline features the return of Deathwing and the re-sundering of the world in his wake, forever altering Azeroth's classic landscape and sending players to previously unseen parts of the world like the Lost Isles, Hyjal, Gilneas, Uldum, and Grim Batol.
  
• FEATURES OF CATACLYSM: The most important features of the next expansion include two new races (Goblins for the Horde and Worgen for the Alliance), new class possibilities for existing races, a new secondary skill, character stat simplification, cross-server instances, the ability to level and "talent" your guild, new means of character advancement through the Path of the Titans, Mastery, and the revamping of the talent system, and rated battlegrounds.
• LIVEBLOGS: We blogged and liveblogged the convention from start to finish: the Opening Ceremony, the WoW Preview panel, the WoW Art panel, The Guild's panel, the first and second WoW Class, Items, and Professions Panels, the general WoW Q&A, the Breaking Into the Industry panel, the Game Systems panel, and the Raids and Dungeons panel.
• FUN AND GAMES: Even in the middle of all the craziness, we still found time for our third annual Reader Meetup (we expected maybe 300 people and got 1200+) with the cast of The Guild present, Premonition's live raid, the Costume contest, and the Dance and Soundalike contests.

If you'd like a more thorough look at how BlizzCon 2009 went, visit our round-ups on Day One and Day Two of the con for a more complete guide to our articles, galleries, and videos.

Tickets are sold out for the day, and most of us are probably a little angry, but don't forget! There's another day of ticket sales on the 30th! If you haven't made your decision on whether you want to go or not yet, you're running out of time and it's probably a good time to look back on the BlizzCon that was. BlizzCon 2008 lacked any major World of Warcraft announcements, Blizzard's other franchises stole the spotlight last year, but that doesn't mean WoW wasn't there in spades. Let's take a moment to look back on that, shall we?

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The Opening Ceremonies BlizzCon 2008 kicked off with the opening ceremonies, hosted by Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime. Morhaime delivered many facts and figures about the World of Warcraft at the time (if WoW were a country, it would be the 75th largest in the world), and announced a new class for Diablo III: The Wizard.

Our good friends at the Orange County Register were lucky enough to be let into BlizzCon yesterday (we'll be on the floor in just a few hours here), and they've got a preview gallery of what it's like in there up on their site right now. There's nothing super revealing in there, but there are lots of pictures of vendors setting up, and the various stages they'll have at the event. The Illidan statue from last year is making a re-appearance, and he's joined by someone Starcraft fans will want to see.

We can't wait to get in there -- Diablo 3 will be playable, and of course we'll have coverage from all the panels, tournaments, and booths inside the convention center all day today and tomorrow. The Opening Ceremony starts at 11am PST, so stay tuned here to watch our coverage as it goes down live.

Happy Monday morning everyone! If you're a fan of World of Warcraft, chances are you heard about the big old shindig Blizzard threw in Paris this week. If you didn't a chance to get to Paris this year or catch any of the news over the weekend, you'll want to keep reading. We had a crack team on the convention floor, and more of us watching the live feeds all weekend, all working hard to deliver up to date reports and analysis. What that means for you is that this is the perfect place to catch up on all the WoW news from Paris. This handy list will direct you to exactly where you want to go to get the information you need.

Liveblogs and other event reporting:

• Opening Ceremony liveblog: If you haven't heard yet, there was a pretty big announcement at this one.
• Developer's Class Panel: There's a little something for every class in here. Find out what's coming for your favorite character!
• Q&A Grab Bag Panel: See what WWI attendees had on their minds, and how the developers answered.
• Dungeons and raids panel: See what's next in the Caverns of Time, Ulduar, and more. Don't forget to check out parts two, three, and four for the whole scoop.
• PvP panel: Find out about Lake Winterspring, siege engines, Arenas, Battlegrounds, and pretty much everything except class balance. Includes pictures! Be sure to check parts two, three, and four as well.
• Arena Tournament, day 1: Amanda Dean breaks down the results.
• Notes from the costume contest: See how creative your fellow fans are -- includes pictures!
• The goodie bag: Even in real life, we like our epic loot. Let us show you the swag.

Of course, if the flood of liveblog information makes your head spin, no worries, we have analysis on every angle and every little tidbit discussed during the Invitational. Check them out after the break.

We had bloggers onsite for Day 1 at the Worldwide Invitational 2008 in Paris. Elizabeth Harper, Turpster, and Jennie Lees were all in France to provide in-depth coverage with liveblogging, pictures, and videos, and our entire staff was back here in the US to break out the analysis and coverage of the live streams. Here's a roundup of all the posts from Day 1.

Liveblogging

• Opening ceremony
• Developer's panel
• Q&A with Developer's Panel

Analysis by Class

• Death Knight
• Druid
• Hunter
• Mage
• Paladin
• Priest
• Rogue
• Shaman
• Warlock
• Warrior

Analysis by Topic

• Diablo 3 Announcement
• Gear resets
• High expectations
• Linux
• Raid buffs
• Talent trees

Media

• WoW Insider podcast
• Gallery: Diablo 3
  
• Gallery: Splash screen speculation
  
• Gallery: A first look at the WWI digs
  
• Movie: Turpster talks to people waiting in line for WWI
  
• Movie: Turpster amok in Paris

UPDATE: A round up of our entire weekend of coverage can be found here!

Blizzard has posted the official WWI schedule on their page, and there aren't a lot of surprises -- lots of tournaments, a few developer panels, and of course the requisite costume and dance contests (no soundalike contest this time around?). The opening ceremony starts everything off Saturday morning at 11:45 (that's Paris time, of course, which is 5:45am EST), and that's when we'll hear about whatever announcements Blizz plans to give us, whether they be new Wrath information, a new Diablo game (cross your fingers!) or a completely brand new IP.

One interesting thing is that the Nihilum live raid is an officially sponsored event -- for some reason I thought that, like their other events, it was an unofficial look at the high-end content, but it's right there on Blizzard's official schedule, and will likely be on their stage as well. That's an interesting connection between some of the game's best players and the actual developer.

It's almost here! Stay tuned for Worldwide Invitational news right here on WoW Insider all weekend, of course -- we'll have people live on the scene, and anything we know all weekend long, you'll know too. More details on our coverage are coming up soon -- it looks to be a terrific event in Paris, and we can't wait to see what Blizzard's got planned for us this time.