Crave

Pretty much exactly as predicted, Blizzard Entertainment announced the next expansion for World of Warcraft Friday afternoon during the opening ceremonies for its annual Blizzcon convention in Anaheim, Calif.

(Credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

Called Cataclysm, the next expansion will, among other features, raise the character level cap to 85, introduce two new playable character races, and involve a wholesale refresh of Azeroth, the setting for the original World of Warcraft game released back in 2004.

Specifics were hard to come by during the opening ceremony. As is customary, no release date or pricing for Cataclysm was mentioned. Blizzard did detail the new player races (goblins for the horde, the werewolf-like worgen for the alliance) and listed a few new race and class combinations that weren't allowed previously. And of course players can expect new dungeons of varying sizes to explore. You can read GameSpot's live blog of the official presentation, which includes more details about Cataclysm as well as Blizzard's forthcoming Diablo III. Blizzard will also be hosting numerous panel discussions as Blizzcon proceeds throughout the weekend, and we expect more information will emerge.

We'll let GameSpot do what they do best and handle the nitty-gritty details of Cataclysm, Diablo III, and Blizzard's other in-development game, Starcraft II as they're revealed, especially since, unlike us, they're actually at the event. We'll keep an eye on the big picture stuff, and report back accordingly.

StarCraft II is now officially a 2010 title.

(Credit: GameSpot)

Even though StarCraft II never had an official 2009 release date, Blizzard squashed any hope that its best-selling sci-fi strategy game might come out this year with an announcement Wednesday. Saying "it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game," Blizzard expects StarCraft II will now come out sometime in the first half of 2010.

Battle.net, Blizzard's home-brew service for matching online players, has been in use since the days of the first Diablo in 1997. Blizzard hasn't outlined what changes it has in store for Battle.net, but it has hinted at a major overhaul to the free service to coincide with StarCraft II's release.

Update: Blizzard informs us that if you'd like to a chance to be selected for the StarCraft II beta, this FAQ on Starcraft2.com has all the details.

Blizzard Entertainment sent out an e-mail this weekend imploring media members to set up an account with Battle.net, Blizzard's multiplayer service, in anticipation of the Starcraft II beta program. StarCraft II, of course, is the sequel to StarCraft, the wildly successful, still-popular 1998 sci-fi strategy game for the PC. Blizzard has set a Q4 2009 release window for the upcoming sequel, and a summer beta program would seem to be on track with that time frame.

StarCraft II beta program opening up soon.

(Credit: GameSpot)

Blizzard's e-mail had no date for when the beta was going to hit, nor, sadly, did it mention anything about how the general gaming public might participate. At least Blizzard is placing no restrictions on reporting on the beta experience once it does go live. You can expect a flood of details and new media from the game as soon as the beta doors open.

(Credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

Wassup StarCraft fans?!! That was my Brian Tong impression. Spot on, no? Anyway, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that StarCraft II is shaping up to be a much more ambitious product than Blizzard Entertainment had originally conceived, and the company is going to be forced to delay parts of the game.

The good news is that instead of waiting until everything in the game is complete, Blizzard is splitting the game into a trilogy--each focusing on a different StarCraft race.

The first game in the series--Wings of Liberty--will focus on the Terrans. The second game, Heart of the Swarm, will focus on the Zerg, while the final game, Legacy of the Void, will be devoted to the Protoss.

According to Blizzard, each release will be a fully fledged campaign, featuring 26 to 30 missions apiece with a branching storyline that will change depending on players' choices. Each release in the trilogy will also feature the multiplayer portion, with all three races playable and balanced, according to Blizzard.

Although Activision claims the game will be released in 2009, like all Blizzard Entertainment games expect it "when it's done." Which conceivably could be 2010.

Behold the power of 10-year-old PC graphics!

(Credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

This week, Eric and Dong discuss why they're so stretched, and it has everything to do with the cold-blooded qualities of Jasmine France, Donald Bell, and Lieutenant Barkley Robert Vamosi.

Tired of that annoying firewall that bogs down your system and won't let you play Crysis higher than 60fps? Dong has some insight into why you may not need it.

Also, Dong recounts his first days at CNET and why Starcraft looked so stupid to him.

To subscribe to this podcast, visit us at our main page and click the link on the right. Don't forget to leave us a voice mail at 1-800-947-6399 or e-mail us at insidecnetlabs@cnet.com.

This error page from the Blizzcon ticket store has been nicknamed "Failoc" by fans.

(Credit: Blizzard)

As a big World of Warcraft fan, I was extremely excited that Blizzard was once again having its annual Blizzcon convention in Anaheim, Calif., this October. Blizzcon is a two-day event and celebration of all of Blizzard's properties, which include Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo. It typically contains Q&A panels, social events for players and developers, and hands-on gameplay of the latest Blizzard games. Think of it as a mini-E3 just for Blizzard fanatics.

So I woke up early Monday morning to purchase tickets for the show, which were set to go on sale August 11 via the Blizzard Store. The log-in page loaded like molasses, and when it finally loaded, I found out I had to create an account before I could buy tickets. Which I then tried to do, but it kept giving me errors and kept pushing me back to the first page. I finally gave up in frustration and left to go to the office.

It turns out, I wasn't the only one to suffer from Blizzcon ticket snafu. Comments from Wowinsider as well as Blizzard's General Discussion forums indicate that Blizzard had been suffering from ticket store problems all morning. Even after they took the store down for maintenance in the afternoon and placed it back up, site errors and traffic problems continued to plague the ticket store. The murloc on the Error Page has even gained a nickname, dubbed "Failoc", perhaps in reference to the Twitter "Fail Whale." From comments and forum posts, it seems like only a handful of people managed to buy tickets Monday.

With its own Blizzcon convention coming up in just a month, we weren't surprised that Blizzard didn't make any big announcements at E3. We did learn a little, though.

The new 10-man Zul'aman dungeon, coming soon to World of Warcraft.

(Credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

For you World of Warcraft fans, you can look forward to built-in voice chat, guild banks, and the new 10-man Zul'aman instance dungeon. Expect voice chat and guild banks first, and it sounded like Blizzard was set to provide more details of those features at its own show. It did tell us that the voice chat will automatically lower the game volume when someone starts talking, and that it will also indicate the current speaker in your group with an icon over his or her character's head.

Zul'aman looks like a semicasual departure for raiding WoWers. Blizzard hopes to make the new instance doable in one night or a few hours, rather than Karazhan, the current high-level 10 man dungeon that can require a more significant time investment. Zul'aman will be an outdoor instance (like Zul'gurub), with six bosses in total. It will have quests attached to it, but it won't require any prerequisite quests to get in, nor will it involve boosting your character's reputation with one of the game's many factions. Accessibility is the key.

Finally, in keeping with our interest in forthcoming games, DirectX 10, and Games for Windows Live, we found out that Starcraft 2 does not currently have any DirectX 10 content. Those longer shaders and optimized pathways could find themselves added to content as development continues, but citing timeliness and, again, accessibility, Blizzard's development team isn't too focused on pushing Starcraft 2's graphics into the so-called "next-gen. Also, as you'd imagine, it will be sticking with Blizzard's own Battle.net player matching software, so don't expect a major push toward Games for Windows Live on this title, either.

(Credit: World Cyber Games)

Do you think you're good at video games? Compared to these guys, you probably aren't.

The World Cyber Games is the world's largest professional gaming league, and it's kicking off its U.S. Open tournament series this weekend in New York. Pros from all across gamerdom are competing in this weekend's tournament for over $20,000 in cash and prices and a berth in the USA National Final tournament. Among the competitors in the U.S. Open are professional Starcraft gamer "Red_ScorpiO" (Ralph Geunhwa), professional Dead or Alive 4 gamer "Master" (Emannuel Rodriguez), professional Counter Strike players Team Pandemic, professional Gears of War players Team MoB Hot n Mild, and others.

The tournament is being held at the Samsung Store in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, and will be open to spectators. Even complete newbies will be able to participate in a Tony Hawk's Project 8 tournament for a wild card slot in the World Cyber Games USA National final. If you think you have what it takes, head up to Columbus Circle tomorrow and Sunday and give it a try.

In the interest of full disclosure, "Master" Rodriguez is indeed very, very good at Dead or Alive 4. I didn't win a single fight against him, out of half a dozen rounds. Never let him play Ryu.

(Credit: GameSpot)

The wait is over. No more speculation and no more rumors. Just a few hours ago, Blizzard announced Starcraft 2 at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Seoul. This will be the first sequel to one of the most popular PC strategy games ever. The Terrans, Protoss, and Zerg are all coming back, each with their own unique style of play. The game's trailer was already up on Youtube by midnight and got almost 27,000 views in just over four hours.

Starcraft 2's release date hasn't yet been announced, but it won't be alone when it hits stores. Supreme Commander and Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars have been out for a few months already, and both are very hot strategy games in their own rights. By the time Starcraft 2 comes around, these other two games might be getting stale, or they might be getting even more popular, perhaps with new expansions. Considering how long the original Starcraft stayed at the top of the charts, I wouldn't discount either option. Blizzard has a lot of work to do if it wants to reclaim the title as king of the real-time strategy game. We'll just have to watch what happens as the screenshots and preview videos come pouring in.