Blizzard Entertainment is proud to announce the 2012 Battle.net World Championship, a major global eSports event featuring some of the best pro-gaming competition in the world. Slated to take place in Asia toward the end of 2012, the Battle.net World Championship will host this year’s StarCraft II and World of Warcraft Arena World Championship tournaments. Blizzard gamers and eSports fans from around the world will be invited to attend and witness some of the most skilled pro players on the planet battle it out for cash 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.

More details about the 2012 Battle.net World Championship and BlizzCon 2013, including specific dates and locations, will be coming in the months ahead.

BlizzCon presents an incentive for real-life tailors and engineers to take up their needle and thread and their cardboard and spray paint, in order to fashion amazingly realistic recreations of their favorite Blizzard characters and creatures. After this year’s costume contest, we invited the winners to write articles on the art of costume-craft for us to share with the community. Here’s the third entry in the series, written by Justin, who won third place for his take on Deathwing.

Pain!...

Agony!...

My name is Justin Floyd, and I am Deathwing. Rather, I was Deathwing. This costume started at the insistence of my wife, who decided I would fit the character of the deranged former Earth Warder quite well, which I’m not sure is a compliment. Without her help, this costume would not have been possible (mainly because my artistic ability is confined to stick figures and shadow puppets).

Let me start off by saying that I have a deep fondness for the Blizzard community. I met my wife at BlizzCon 2005 and many guildies at other BlizzCons along the way, some of whom I consider close friends. I’ve played Blizzard games since Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness was released, and it is the community and storytelling that always brings me back. Getting to be a Warcraft character for a day was awesome and the support from fellow BlizzCon attendees was amazing.

We started planning and working on the costume in April and literally finished it an hour before I had to be backstage. Of course this means I missed a lot of the cosplay meet-ups, but considering some of the mishaps we had, we’re lucky we got it finished!

The costume was constructed from a variety of materials including green Styrofoam, papier mâché, paper clay, leather, Wonderflex (a thermoplastic — just heat and bend!), fabric, and foam rubber mats (interlocking squares usually used for the garage or kids’ playrooms).

Styrofoam was carved and covered in paper clay for the shoulders and various spikes. Foam rubber mats were used for the bracers, boots, and chest. Leather was used in a variety of areas, including the chest and loincloth. The legplates and belt were created with Wonderflex, which is truly wonderful!

Question: How did I keep everything on?

Answer: Lots of Velcro.

Walking around in costume is harder than it looks. To start, I didn’t realize I needed a spotter until I walked straight into a fire hydrant and dented one of my boot spikes. This wasn’t a big deal, since we packed some extra black paint. While waiting for my wife to get the paint from our room, I was striking a few poses for several nice people who wanted a picture. Apparently, range of motion is very limited when you’re wearing two feet of badassery on your shoulders, and to my horror, I felt my pauldrons slipping off! I went to grab for one but it was too late and the other shoulder crashed to the sidewalk. A few of the foam/paper spikes broke off. We had to trek all the way back to the hotel room, glue everything back together, and march… well, waddle back to the Anaheim Convention Center.

After my initial walk across the stage during the costume contest, I was ready to exit the area and try my hand as a fuzzy, lovable Pandaren. Needless to say, I was completely dumbfounded when I was pulled aside and asked to “wait right here.” It was a little nerve-wracking going on stage a second time, but it made for a good YouTube video to show the family. All in all, I learned more about costume construction than I bargained for, but I also learned how fun it can be. I’ll never forget the experience — and how could I, when I now have a huge mace that lights up hanging on my wall?

In case you were wondering, I did go to Disneyland.

Okay, maybe I didn’t go dressed as Deathwing, but I was able to treat my guild to an unforgettable day at the park after winning third place. Two of my guildies had never been to California, let alone Disneyland, so it was nice to be able to do something special for them after BlizzCon.

P.S. FOR THE ALLIANCE!

It’s a rare occasion when we’re able to mark the 15-year anniversary of not only a game, but an entire universe. In 1996, the original Diablo® introduced gamers to the cursed town of Tristram… and the twisted, ancient evil that dwelled beneath it. Diablo II and its expansion, Lord of Destruction®, transformed a claustrophobic dungeon-crawler into a sprawling adventure that drew players into the wider world of Sanctuary. Today, with Diablo III on the horizon, we’d like to celebrate all of the memorable moments that have marked the last decade and a half of Diablo history.

Please join us in celebrating Diablo’s 15-year anniversary -- and we invite you to share your own Diablo memories with us by using the Twitter hashtag #Diablo15.

The costumes featured at the BlizzCon 2011 Costume Contest were absolutely spectacular, and it was incredibly difficult for our judges to narrow down all the stunning entries to just three winners. So, we gave 20 contestants who we weren’t able to recognize at BlizzCon a second chance at sartorial glory by offering the community a chance to vote on their favorites.

The voting was close, but the contest is now over. The winners were selected by tallying the votes we received as of November 18 from both NA and EU, and we’re ready to announce the results!

Please join us in congratulating our 10 winners, listed in order of placement:

1. Mary Booth, “Maiev Shadowsong” — 2426 votes

2. Kathleen Elliott, “Sister Benedron” (Priest in Avatar set) — 2311 votes

3. Lyz Brickley, “Mylune” — 2292 votes

4. Jojo Chen, “Tyrael's Secret” — 1828 votes

5. Tony Malcolm, “StarCraft II Marine” — 1244 votes

6. Rebecca Hamilton, “Malis Vitterfolk, Shaman in Volcanic set” — 824 votes

7. Christina Estrada, “Paladin in Regalia of Immolation” — 727 votes

8. Joseph Grasso, “Paladin in Judgment set” — 671 votes

9. Asher Augenstine, “Death Knight” — 500 votes

10. Martha Robertson, “Gnome Spy in-a-mailbox” — 382 votes

The top three costumes have earned their creators cash prizes of $1,000 USD, $750 USD, and $500 USD. Fourth, fifth, and sixth place will each receive a SteelSeries prize package that includes 5H V2 Headphones, a 7G Keyboard, and an Ikari Optical Mouse. Runners-up beginning with seventh place will each earn a World of Warcraft virtual pet package that includes Lil' Ragnaros, Moonkin Hatchling, Lil' K.T., Pandaren Monk, and Lil' XT.

Congratulations again to all of our BlizzCon costume contestants. You all did fantastic work, and we thank you for sharing your creations with the community!

BlizzCon presents an incentive for real-life tailors and engineers to take up their needle and thread and their cardboard and spray paint, in order to fashion amazingly realistic recreations of their favorite Blizzard characters and creatures. After this year’s costume contest, we invited the winners to write articles on the art of costume-craft for us to share with the community. Here’s the second entry in the series, written by Avery, who won first place for her unique and creative take on the StarCraft II adjutant.

My name is Avery Faeth and I’m the creator of the StarCraft II Confederate adjutant costume from BlizzCon 2011. I’m glad to have had the opportunity to share my creative experience with other gamers and cosplayers. Compared to most in this community, I’m a relative newcomer. I’ve always had an interest in fashion and design, forsaking store-bought styles and Halloween costumes for something I had to make myself.

When I went to BlizzCon 2009, fueled by my enthusiasm for my recently level-capped troll shaman, I decided to undertake my first official cosplay and go as her. The next year, I raised the bar for my personal achievement and donned a Lady Deathwhisper costume.

I knew I could challenge myself more; and fresh off a sixteen-hour StarCraft II marathon, the idea for the adjutant was born. Anyone who’s played any iteration of a StarCraft terran campaign is familiar with the adjutant and its casual way of warning you of your impending doom, but it also lacks the notoriety and coverage that girls like Kerrigan and Nova have earned — the perfect mix of obscurity and nostalgia for my tastes. Through the development of these costumes, I’ve established three cardinal rules for my cosplay –

• Trial and error. Have a back-up plan for every effect you want to incorporate into your costume. I’ve learned most of my costuming skills from messing up what I thought would be a fairly simple procedure. Think beyond the prescribed way of doing things. Allow room, time, and materials for your mistakes, so you don’t waste precious resources. And try not to let your setbacks get you down!
• Balance creativity and costume loyalty. There is room in every costume for thinking outside the box and adding your own personal touch; but bear in mind that the more liberties a costume takes, the more open it is to misinterpretation. I like my costumes to look like the character stepped from animation or fantasy into the real world — more like a magic mirror than a screenshot. You also want to choose a character you know will be recognized, but not blend into the crowd.
• Plan and prepare. Research, recruit, and reach out! Most of the new techniques I learned and materials distributors I found were from simple searches or recommendations. Do a test run of your costume to allow for all contingencies. If at all possible, get a friend to help at the convention with emergency supplies, necessities, and general “handling.”

I spent a good amount of time simply brainstorming, sketching, and rehashing ideas on how to pull off the right look for the adjutant. Since the robotic effect is dependent on the illusion of an incomplete body, I decided to base all the individual pieces in black and attach the robotics to them, defining the body parts with an armor-like chassis and festooning the exposed areas with wires and circuitry to disguise my real limbs. The top is a spandex/lycra dance unitard and hood, decorated with a variety of materials including actual wires and cables from deconstructed computers and televisions, Rexlace (flat plastic tubing), and tubular crinoline (woven expandable tubing). The bottom is a modified hoop skirt with a flat front panel, made from theatrical backdrop fabric. The skirt is covered in what essentially amounts to junk — phone faceplates, television monitors, telephone wires, and copious amounts of tubular crinoline and foam caulk saver.

For the adjutant’s “body,” I created my very first set of cosplay armor. I still have a lot to learn in this field, but I was able to roll with the mistakes I made on this set and work it into my design. The chest piece, shoulder pieces, abdomen piece, and hip- and rib-covers were made from a foam form and covered in Wonderflex, then gel-painted, gessoed, sanded, painted, and finally detailed. The plug on my back, labeled the “power pack,” is the leftover casing from a television/radio I scrapped for decorating the skirt. It is all secured with backpack strapping and buckles. To hide my arms, I created long, close-ended sleeves and covered them in similar wires-and-tubes designs. For the headpiece, I gutted a cheap pair of headphones, repainted them, and attached the wires and tubes to them.

The adjutant’s face presented one of the biggest challenges, since its anatomy is not strictly human. I knew that the mobile parts of the face would be easy enough, as the adjutant is basically a “girl in grey.” I created the effect of the extended, plate-like forehead by cutting and shaping a plastic mask and painting it to match the armor. I ran color tests on the makeup beforehand to ensure a match, and secured the mask with prosthetic glue to both my face and the headpiece. All of the lights in the costume were individually powered, a choice I knew would be inefficient and time-consuming but ultimately gave the look I wanted. I used fiber optic hair clips, individual magnetic LEDs, battery-powered EL wire, and re-appropriated hazard lights.

The original seed of an idea for this costume was planted on July 27, 2010, and the final touches were placed on October 20, 2011. Of course I managed to squeeze about 175 of the 200 hours I cumulated working on this costume into the last month before BlizzCon — most costume success stories contain at least a touch of procrastination! My costumes have grown considerably from year to year; but every time I show up at BlizzCon and see all the other amazing costumes out there, I push myself to do bigger and better next time.

This costume took me from Google image searches to the cosplay community for counsel, from Home Depot (where I bought out weekly shipments of foam tubing) to a specialty fabric wholesaler (where I opened my first business account in the name of costuming). There’s nothing to compare to the feeling of seeing all the little pieces come together off your studio table, or living room floor, or dressform into a manifestation of something near and dear to you. Well, nothing like being in it.

I want to say thank you to fantastic community that Blizzard games have introduced me to. The gamers and con attendees who are just as enthusiastic about the stories and characters as I am make me feel confident and at home, even in a crazy costume and looking nothing like myself. I couldn't have completed this costume without the help of all the friendly and thoughtful people in the cosplay community, or without the support and encouragement of my friends and family. I hope to see all of you — and the costumes you dream up — at next year's BlizzCon!

 

We’ve added 220 new photos to our BlizzCon 2011 media gallery, showcasing the opening and closing ceremonies and everything in between. You can head to the gallery now to click through some fantastic fan and professional-captured shots of the costume contests, developer panels, head-to-head competitive gaming, the closing concert, and more!

 

Enjoy this ground-floor look at BlizzCon 2011 -- our best and biggest BlizzCon yet!

Miss out on picking up that special piece of commemorative BlizzCon loot? Beginning Friday, November 11 (rescheduled from the originally announced date of November 4), we’re making select items from the BlizzCon 2011 store available once more to those who joined us for the show in person or via the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket.

Beginning November 11 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time (7 p.m. CET) through November 18 at 10 a.m. PDT (7 p.m. CET), BlizzCon 2011 ticket holders*, Virtual Ticket buyers, and DIRECTV viewers who ordered the BlizzCon 2011 Pay Per View event will be able to purchase select BlizzCon 2011 store merchandise online (while supplies last). To participate, simply log in to the online US Blizzard Store using the Battle.net account associated with your BlizzCon ticket or Virtual Ticket during the sale times listed above. DIRECTV viewers can use the Battle.net account on which you redeemed your BlizzCon Virtual Ticket code.

*Please note: For those who attended BlizzCon in person, only the Battle.net account associated with the ticket purchased will have access to BlizzCon 2011 merchandise during this online sale. You can view this information in the ticket buyer’s Order History.

We’ve updated our BlizzCon Media section with the BlizzCon 2011 Wallpaper! This key art, created by Glenn Rane for BlizzCon 2011, features a trio of Blizzard notables: Thrall, Diablo, and Sarah Kerrigan, in addition to the peering eyes of the pandaren.

We understand that picking out the appropriate desktop wallpaper to fit your tastes and complement your décor can be an arduous task. To that end, we’ll be offering you help regularly by featuring a new downloadable Diablo III, StarCraft II or World of Warcraft wallpaper image on our community sites.

 

The costumes featured at the BlizzCon 2011 Costume Contest were absolutely spectacular. It was incredibly difficult for our judges to narrow down all the entries to just three winners from a field of such stunning contestants. If you missed that truly impressive display of cosplaying talent, don’t fret — the contest isn’t over yet!

We’re giving 20 contestants we weren’t able to recognize at BlizzCon a second chance at sartorial glory, by offering you a chance to vote on your favorites. We’ve added images of each contestant to a brand-new Costume Contest Voting Gallery. Each contestant’s picture is marked with a number. That’s where you come in; just make note of the number belonging to your favorite costume, then head over to our poll to cast your vote.

The costumes that earn the most votes will earn a chance at some impressive loot, including cash prizes of $1,000, $750, and $500. Runners-up will receive a SteelSeries prize package that includes 5H V2 Headphones, a 7G Keyboard, and an Ikari Optical Mouse or a World of Warcraft virtual pet package that includes Lil' Ragnaros, Moonkin Hatchling, Lil' K.T., Pandaren Monk, and Lil' XT.

Voting ends on November 18 so cast your vote soon! Please be sure to read the contest rules for details.

Costume Contestant Voting Gallery

 

Vote for your favorite BlizzCon 2011 Costume Contestant By Number!

Matt Morris and Brian Kindregan from the StarCraft II development team took the stage today along with Chris Metzen, senior vice president of story and franchise development, to unveil the latest developments in the upcoming expansion.

The panel kicked off with a brief overview of Wings of Liberty, discussing the story and where it left off: Raynor and Sarah reunited, with Mengsk crawling back to the shadows, his plan temporarily thwarted. We know Kerrigan is once again on the warpath in Heart of the Swarm, attempting to reassemble her brood, but "why?" is to remain a mystery until the game is released.

While many of the Heart of the Swarm campaign mechanics were originally announced back in May, much of the panel today focused on where the game has progressed since those details were unveiled. The time since the initial announcement has been spent crafting new and unique mission mechanics with even more impressive, interactive, and mind-boggling features in the planned 20+ missions.

As you control Kerrigan and rebuild her brood, it will be up to you to decide how to evolve your fighting force. While standard army mutations (upgrades like those in Wings of Liberty) will unlock at key points throughout the game, you’ll also be presented with evolution choices that will take you to remote locations to obtain the genetic code needed to advance.

In one example, the zergling is given a choice to evolve one of two ways. In your first choice, you go to attack indigenous leaping creatures and harvest their DNA. By integrating the DNA of the indigenous leaping creature, you can modify your zerglings to grow wings and leap as well. For your second choice, you're contacted by a queen on a remote world who wishes to join your brood. She’s evolved her zerglings to hatch rapidly and spawn three zerglings per cocoon, and believes her strain would be of use to you.

Each of these approximately 14 skirmishes will be a short mission that will only take a few minutes to complete, and will present both evolution choices through gameplay, allowing you to test their strengths and ultimately help you pick which genetic code you wish to splice into your own brood.

While you'll be tending to key strategic missions with Kerrigan, the swarm will be rampaging across the sector, and they'll need your guidance. Throughout the campaign your brood mothers will contact you for advice on tactical decisions as they carry out your orders on distant planets. These decisions will also determine how you’ll achieve success, providing you with bonuses to your arsenal and abilities. You’ll also have choices at key points to engage in the ‘Destruction of Worlds’ mechanic, adding a planet’s resources to your own as your swarm pours over its surface.

How will you consume the galaxy?

The StarCraft II — Blizzard DOTA & Mod Tools panel served to redefine the future for the ongoing development of custom mapmaking tools and features as well as shine a light on the possibilities for the future of creating top-quality mods. The panelists delved into the Arcade (formerly known as the Marketplace), the new tools that will be available to mod creators, and showed off the power of these robust tools with insight into the development of Blizzard DOTA.  

Highlights from the panel included: 

Arcade

• Arcade will serve as a hub for both free and premium games created by the community, for the community.
• The commerce elements will come later on, but the changes made to the interface will serve as a foundation for custom games on Battle.net going forward.
• Allowing custom game makers to charge for their games will incentivize higher quality custom games, benefiting players and game creators.

 Goals:

• Easy to locate quality games
• Play the games you want to play
• Prepare a place for selling games

Games will be easier to find right within the new Arcade button, while the single-player and multiplayer buttons will become merged into one. The Arcade interface will redefine and refine the organization of custom maps and mods making it easier than before to find what you're looking for. Mods will be categorized as follows: 

• What's Hot
• Up & Coming
• New & Noteworthy
• Featured Games

You’ll be able to rate games or find games using a five-star rating system. Getting into the game you want will be easier than ever.To help players find and play less popular games, we’ll be adding a queuing system in which lobbies that have been open the longest will be filled first out of the pool of waiting “Fun or Not” players. 

The Arcade will have something for everyone and select games will be available for Starter Edition, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, and StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm accounts. 

Tools and Editor Improvements

The Editor will be getting even better with improved debugging tools, UI Editing within the editor, a cutscene editor, and more. 

• Trigger Debugging Improvements: Improved performance analysis and added a code debugger that includes breakpoints, code stepping, callstack, and variable watch.
• UI Editor: Inspect, edit, and even move UI elements in-game. View in XML within the editor to refine UI elements and take design to the next level.
• Cutscene Editor:A new tool will be added allowing artists and designers to create their own high-quality cutscenes using existing game assets.
  • Control objects, lighting cameras, and define the timeline for events.
  • Preview the scene as you design.
  • Use triggers to modify the cutscene during playback to match game state.

Art Tools

Powerful new art tools will be added to the Editor to empower game creators to take their creations even further than before.  

• Create custom art and models.
• Model exporter plug-in for quick and easy model creation and editing.
• Live link from the exporter to the Editor.
• Fewer bugs to find and eradicate (unless they're killer tomatolings.) 
• In addition, documentation, tutorials, and example files to educate and inspire game creators or budding game creators to take on their own projects. 

Blizzard DOTA

So what do you do with all these new tools? You make something like Blizzard DOTA, our example of what a premier custom game can be.

Blizzard DOTA is more than a showpiece for StarCraft II's custom game tools. The designers have carefully considered what they want out of the DOTA experience. They've approached the creation of Blizzard DOTA with an eye to improving gameplay by challenging many of the assumptions about what DOTA-style games should be. 

• Fixing the Fantasy

The first step is "fixing the fantasy." As one example, in many DOTA-style games it takes new players some time to learn that aggression is often penalized, particularly in the early phases of a match. Camping underneath a tower and defensively last-hitting incoming creeps isn't necessarily intuitive, nor does it feel heroic. Blizzard DOTA's design is geared toward more aggressive gameplay from the get-go in a number of ways, one being the design of mana towers. Blizzard DOTA's mana towers have limited, slowly regenerating ammo, which means they can be exhausted and go inactive under a determined team-push. This design tweak rewards team-based aggression and feels more heroic.

In Blizzard DOTA, heroes don’t walk into battle… they charge in! Your hero will be riding in style on his or her mount, which allows you to quickly rejoin the fight, or move quickly from lane to lane.

• Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master

In any DOTA-style game, every second counts and understanding stats and itemization can make the difference between a decisive victory or an untimely death. But it takes time to learn and absorb how stats work or what the best possible items are, which means players are often compelled to read and study guides before they even get started playing. This sort of minutiae is fine for RPGs where you're immersed for hours in a character, but in DOTA-style games, having this level of complexity can make getting in and getting on your feet difficult. Blizzard DOTA matches are even more fast-paced than similar games and the time it takes to learn what you need to know is similarly shorter.

Blizzard DOTA will change the landscape of learning by:

• Simplifying stats into Damage, Health, and Mastery
• Concentrating item choices into simplified categories — Stat Boosts, Consumables, Items, and Artifacts
• Intuitive abilities that are quick to understand without complex math

With the burden of memorizing long item lists or recipes removed, you can more easily get your head around which items will improve your hero. And in turn, you can spend more time in-game focused on exciting team-fights, and pushing your team to victory.

• Epic Hero Roles

Blizzard DOTA will offer iconic Blizzard heroes that can take on one of four different role types:

• Tank
• Support
• DPS
• Siege

Each role has an opportunity to shine in its own right, even if it’s not the one delivering the killing blow. Tanks include Arthas, Stitches, and Muradin, with all having the ability to soak up damage and initiate fights. Support heroes like Uther, Tassadar, and Thrall are designed to help in team fights through healing and crowd control. DPS classes like Nova, Kerrigan, and Zeratul are hero-killing assassins. Newer in concept is the Siege role, which can outrange towers and do devastating damage from afar. These heroes include the Witch Doctor, Za'gara, and General Warfield in his siege tank.

These are just a sampling of the heroes which will be included in Blizzard DOTA, but a huge focus with the game is ensuring that every hero and ability is truly unique. It’s about concentrated coolness and letting each role shine in its own way.

Create a More Exciting Metagame

So what do you do when faced with pushing gameplay to the next level? You add variety to spice things up.

• Territory control and merc camps — Find and control map locations to gain merc support and send them out to strengthen your creep waves and push lanes.
• More exciting map bonuses like the new Stone Zealot — Conquer this behemoth and he’ll join you in destroying all that gets in its path.
• Multiple maps — It’s not the same old map anymore; things are changing and so will the map choices with a change in terrain and new ways to approach the enemy. The possibilities are endless.

Reduce Social Tension

There is an inherent social tension to DOTA-style games, which can be an impediment to those who want to be able to join in and do their part. Blizzard DOTA sets out to reduce that social tension and get more players in on the action.

• Shorter, more intense games — Get in on the action and make your mark right from the start.
• Hardcore team concept — The team is the thing and all roles can do their part to contribute to victory. Takedowns count for all members within range rather than damage or last hit.
• Reward unselfish play — Even support heroes benefit simply by playing their role in battle and not just focusing on damage.

Blizzard DOTA will provide a truly epic experience for all those who take part, and the potential for new and up-and-coming mod authors and mapmakers is limitless with the new and improved tools that will be introduced in the coming future. Look for a Blizzard DOTA beta test in the coming months, and the new Arcade features coming at or around the time Heart of the Swarm launches.