After further inspection of the splash screen image, we are now able to confirm its something related to the diablo universe. If you look close enough you will notice that there are 2 rune images, one on the right and one on the left. On the right, we have the Hel rune from diablo 2 and on the left we now have the Shael rune.

For the web savvy, they have hidden clues within the CSS file for the splash page. For those that don’t know, CSS stands for cascading style sheet and with it you are able to define the style for everything within your webpage (images, fonts, colors, etc). Each day they seem to be adding a commented out image to the css and naming the classes tundra and cavern so far. You can see the images they are linking to here:

http://us.media.blizzard.com/232309/_images/04.jpg
http://us.media.blizzard.com/232309/_images/15.jpg

More updates as they become available!

The Blizzard World Wide Invitational event is being held this weekend in Paris so many are expecting a new game announcement by this Saturday if not earlier. Personally, I think we are finally going to see our new Diablo game announcement. What do you think it means?

We currently have no plans to add a 40-player dungeon into Wrath of the Lich King. We fully anticipate making the 10 and 25-player dungeons and raids challenging as a part of their progression.

You can say what you like about whether or not a 10-player dungeon is truly challenging if you wish, but they take coordination and require each player to play their role to their best ability to succeed.

When it comes to whether or not Arthas will be epic enough, we are working to maintain the epic feel of the encounter and have been discussing ways of doing this that should be appropriate. One idea that has been talked about was whether or not it would require a 25-player group to defeat Arthas before it ever opens up to 10-player groups.

What we end up with is yet to be decided.

I think it would suck to have to wait until a 25 raid beat the encounter before those of us who can only field 10 even get a chance to see it. But after being part of an uberguild I can see where they are coming from, having 10 people walk up and kill arthas doesn’t seem too epic. What do you think about limiting the 10 player raids in WOTLK?

“Whenever we’ve been able to meet and interact with Blizzard gamers from around the world, it’s been a great experience for us,” stated Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re looking forward to seeing even more of our players at this year’s BlizzCon and delivering another entertaining and informative event for them.”

BlizzCon will offer a wide variety of activities to help all attendees get the most out of the two-day event. In addition to serving as a gathering place for the different Blizzard Entertainment gaming communities, attendees will be able to enjoy:

* Hands-on play time with upcoming Blizzard Entertainment releases
* Discussion panels with Blizzard Entertainment developers
* Competitive and casual tournaments for players to showcase their talents
* Areas and activities devoted to licensed products such as the World of Warcraft® Trading Card Game
* Costume, machinima, and character sound-alike contests with great prizes
* Commemorative merchandise based on the Blizzard Entertainment franchises
* A silent auction
* More exciting activities to be announced

Tickets for BlizzCon will go on sale in the next few weeks at a price of $100 USD per person. As the event draws closer, further details will be announced on the official BlizzCon website: www.blizzcon.com.

WotLK Preview - Info Summary

The following is a compilation of information from Curse , Gamespy and Eurogamer using the patch notes layout, for a better readability.

General

• Players will unlock their flying mounts at level 77
• You can use your Outland flying mount, and Blizzard will have new flying mounts for players to get as well
• The Northrend in Wrath of the Lich King is considerably larger than Outland, the area explored by players in Burning Crusade. That means not only are there larger numbers of zones to explore, many of them are so large that they’ve been divided into “sub-zones,” much like Terrokar Forest and the Auchindon Waste in Outland.
• The new “vehicle” system will enable characters to “drive” an object around. One example Blizzard gave them: Players will fly over a human settlement being overrun with the Scourge, lowering a ladder down to pull up and rescue civilians. In one dungeon instance, players will be able to “liberate” some blue dragons that they can mount up and fly around, fighting their way up a massive tower.

Old Azeroth contents used in Northrend
• There are quests and content relating to the Worgen and the sons of Arugal (from Silverpine Forest) and everyone’s favorite religious fanatics, the Scarlet Crusade (called the Scarlet Onslaught in Northrend).
• They’re also advancing the Forsaken storyline, adding in uniquely Forsaken building architecture and giving the player more chances to help in their Wile E. Coyote-like quest to kill every living thing on Azeroth.

Factions

• The Argent Dawn faction returns in Zul’Drak.
• In Sholazar Basin, players will take part in a faction-reputation war between the Wolvar (sentient wolves) and Oracles (”the next evolution of the Murlocs”). A much lighter take on reputation gaming is promised here, with players actively encouraged to defect to the other side at will.

Professions

Inscription
• Inscribers will create glyphs that allow players to modify their spells and abilities.
• The first recipe is going to requires Peacebloom, thus they’ll rely on the herbalist gathering profession.
• Every player will get a new spell book page to which they can add six glyphs - currently, four major and two minor.
• Major glyphs will be effective in combat - adding damage over time or stun to a physical attack, for example - while minor glyphs will give convenient or cosmetic improvements, removing the need for some spell reagents.

Dungeons & Raids

• Similar to World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, all 5-person dungeons will have a Heroic mode, and the loot tables for the 2 modes will be totally separate. Heroic dungeons will have their own “Tier” of armor completely unique to that level dungeon.
• The regular five-man instances take around one hour or less to beat (this probably won’t be the case for the heroic versions)
• Zero raid bosses have been designed at this point

New “two-tier” raiding system
• All raid dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King will have both 25-person and 10-person versions
- 25-person raiding progression is not dependent on 10-person raiding; players will not have to obtain keys or attunements in 10-person raids to participate in 25-person raids
- 10- and 25-person raids both have their own, independent progression paths
• Players will receive more, higher level rewards for completing the 25-person raid dungeons over the 10-person version

Dragonblight
• Players will interact with Arthas for the first time at a relatively low level, around 71-74 in Dragonblight - the final encounter with him won’t be until the final patch of the Lich King cycle, some time after release.
• The Chamber of Aspects in Dragonblight will offer a series of different single-encounter short raids with dragon bosses.

Coldara
• Coldara (a sub-zone of Borean Tundra) is a three-wing dungeon for 70s, 80s and a short Onyxia-style raid against Malygos himself.
• Coldara is structurally a broken tower with rotating rings surrounding a column of blue energy.
• During some of the boss encounters, players will actually free drakes to fly around the ring. Using the game’s new vehicle technology, players will be able to engage in free flight around the dungeon and use some of the drake’s abilities to take on some of the dungeon’s challenges.

A quick description of some of the spells:
• Death Coil — Depletes all Runic Power, dealing 600 damage to a non-Undead target, or healing 900 damage on a friendly target.
• Death Grip — This is the Death Knight’s “taunt” ability. It also pulls the target to the Death Knight, forcing them to attack the Death Knight for a short amount of time. Yes, I said pulls the target; Blizzard is going to allow players to move mobs in the expansion both with Death Grip, and other knockback/pull abilities. This works on players too, so PvP balance ahoy!
• Chains of Ice — Roots the target in place. When the spell fades, it places a snare on the target that reduces in potency as the duration runs out.
• Raise Dead — Raises a nearby corpse to fight for the Death Knight for 2 minutes. If used on a player corpse, the player has the option to play as the ghoul for the duration — gaining access to the ghoul’s abilities.
- The ghoul has the ability to do the following:
– Leap to the target
– Rend for decent damage-over-time
– Stun target, and of course more
• Death Pact — Sacrifices the raised ghouls to heal the Death Knight.
• Death and Decay — Targeted, AoE Damage-over-time which pulses similar to the Paladin spell Consecration. Anyone affected by Death and Decay has a chance to be feared.
• Frost Presence — Increases Armor by 45% and allows the Death Knight to generate 25% more threat. Only one presence can be active at any time.
• Unholy Presence — Increases Attack Speed and Movement speed by 15%. Only one presence can be active at any time. This was described by Tom Chilton as the “PvP” presence.
• Anti-magic Shield — Reduces the damage of the next magical spell cast on the Death Knight by 75%. It also converts the damage reduced into Runic Power.
• Strangulate — Depletes all Runic Power, dealing minor damage and silencing the target for up to 5 seconds.
• Summon Deathcharger — Allows the Death Knight to summon a Deathcharger mount. This mount is acquired through quests, similar to the Paladin and Warlock land mounts.

A quick recap of the information they were told about the Death Knight:
• Death knights will be available to all players with level 55 characters
• Players can create one death knight per realm, per account
• Death knights can be any of the races
• Once created, death knights can undertake a series of quests to introduce the player to the new class and its associated lore
• Death knights utilize a rune system as their resource mechanic
- Three different rune types are available: Unholy, Frost, and Blood
- These runes allow death knights to cast spells and abilities; spells can cost any combination of these runes
- Spent runes automatically refresh after a set period of time, similar to a rogue’s energy bar
- The death knight will have the ability to customize which array of six runes is currently available
• As rune abilities are used, the death knight also generates another resource called Runic Power
- The death knight will have several abilities that cost all available Runic Power, with varying levels of effectiveness based on total Runic Power spent
- Runic Power decays over time if it’s not spent, similar to a warrior’s rage bar
• The death knight has three different presences to use: Blood, Frost, and Unholy; each presence grants the death knight a unique buff that will allow him or her to fulfill different roles in combat
• The death knight can serve either as a tank or as a melee-based damage-dealing class
• Death knights are designed to be highly viable tanking, magic-using characters
• Death knights will have the ability to summon undead guardians to fight by their side
• Death knights will have the ability to summon a Deathcharger mount.

Druid
- Lifebloom: the healing coefficient has been reduced. This spell will no longer cause error messages when interacting with Spellsteal or while the Druid is under the effects of a Mind Control.
- Nurturing Instinct increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 10/20% while in Cat form.

Mage
- Improved Blink: This talent no longer reduces the mana cost of Blink. Instead, it increases the chance for all attacks to miss the Mage by 25% for 2/4 sec after Blink is cast.
- Icy Veins no longer stacks with Bloodlust, Heroism, or Power Infusion.
- Mana Shield: This spell will now get a percentage of the Mage’s bonus to spell damage as an additional effect.

Priest
- Power Infusion: Infuses the target with power, increasing their spell haste by 20% and reducing the mana cost of all spells by 20%. Lasts for 15 seconds.This will not stack with other haste effects, such as Heroism, Bloodlust, or Icy Veins.

Shaman
- Flametongue Weapon damage effects for rank 3 and above now also reduce healing done to the target by 50% and lasts 5 seconds.
- Flametongue Totem damage effects now also reduce healing done to the target by 50% and lasts 5 seconds.
- Ghost Wolf: Cast time reduced to 2 seconds, down from 3.
- The Global Cooldown of all Totems has been reduced to 1 seconds, down from 1.5 seconds.
- Healing Grace: This talent now reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.The resistance to being dispelled modifier from this talent now applies correctly to Water Breathing.
- Nature’s Swiftness and Elemental Mastery now share a 10 second cooldown. (removed)
- Rockbiter Weapon: Tooltip and error messages have been adjusted slightly.
- Shamanistic Rage is now a Physical ability instead of a Magic spell, and thus is no longer dispellable. It now reduces all damage taken by 30% and gives your successful melee attacks a chance to regenerate mana equal to 30% of your attack power. This lasts for 15 seconds with a 2 minute cooldown.
- Toughness will now also reduce the duration of movement impairing effects on you by 10/20/30/40/50%.

Warlocks
- Emberstorm now also reduces the cast time of your incinerate spell by 2/4/6/8/10%.
- Life Tap: This spell now has only 3 ranks. Each now costs a fixed percentage of maximum health to cast, and grants the same fixed percentage of maximum mana: Rank 1 is 5%, Rank 2 is 12%, and Rank 3 is 20%.

PvP
Arenas
- Matchmaking: If a queued player has a personal rating higher than their team rating, the matchmaking system will now use the highest personal rating of a queued member of that team for matchmaking purposes, instead of the team rating. In addition, when making a calculation for rating gains and losses at the end of a match, the calculation will use the higher of the personal or team ratings on the opposing team.
- The benefits of drinking out of combat have been delayed while in the Arena. It will now take four seconds before the full benefit of the mana regeneration will come into effect.

Battlegrounds
- Battleground Rune Buffs:Speed, Restoration, and Berserking buffs received from battleground runes will no longer cause Stealth or Prowl to break.

Dungeons and Raids
Caverns of Time: Old Hillsbrad
- Durnholde Lookouts no longer spawn in the Heroic version of the instance. The placement of creatures around Durnholde Keep in Heroic mode is now identical to that of Normal mode.

Karazhan
- Players will no longer need the Master’s Key to enter Karazhan. The gates to Karazhan will still require the Master’s Key to be unlocked.

Items
- Deathwing Brood Cloak: These cloaks are now bound on equip instead of bound on pickup.
- PvP Relics: The bonus resilience from Idols, Librams, and Totems is no longer stackable by swapping between multiple relics.
- Shaman PvP Boots: The pre-Burning Crusade bonus to increase Ghost Wolf speed no longer works for players over level 60.
- Shattrath Flasks now work inside the Sunwell Plateau raid instance.
- Skull of Gul’dan: This item now shares its cooldown with other similar trinkets.

World Environment
- Elites in Blade’s Edge Plateau Regions: These creatures now have an increased chance to drop rare depleted items.