Blizzard and KeSPA Court Case Settled

Blizzard announced on the 17th that their court battle between KeSPA, OnGameNet, and MBC Plus Media is over and will allow them to host and broadcast Starcraft eSports in Korea.

“We are glad to work with partners who have contributed fostering Korean eSports industry. It would be the first step toward long term and positive relationship, and we are looking forward to providing exciting eSports entertainment with new partners.” – Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment

The 2 year license contract will see Blizzard receiving an Annual Fee and their Logo on all content generated in return for OnGameNet and MBC Plus Media being able to broadcast Starcraft officially.

More Information can be found over at TeamLiquid.

Source: TeamLiquid

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World of Warcraft Experiences Subscription Drop

Cataclysm might have sold 4.7 million copies within the first month of its release, but during yesterdays Investor Conference Call, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime announced that the game had fallen from the 12 million active subscriptions down to 11.4 million active subscriptions, a loss of 600,000 players.

Although these numbers might be due to the game being out for just over 5 months and the content has been consumed by a good portion of the player base, or that the players who have left could have been lured away by new games such as RIFT.

Either way 600,000 subscribers isn’t really going to hurt Blizzard in the long run, especially with Patch 4.2 coming out shortly which will be adding new daily quests and raid content, plus the recently released 4.1 patch which saw the Zalandri dungeons return as 5-man heroics.

Source: Activision Blizzard

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Diablo 3 External Beta Coming

During Activision Blizzards quarterly earnings call today, Blizzard CEO, Mike Morhaime said that the company had begun internal company-wide testing of Diablo 3 last week.

“We began internal company-wide testing last week. The game looks great, and we’re currently targeting a Q3 launch for external beta testing.” – Mike Morhaime

Morhaime didn’t mention if the game would see a 2011 or 2012 release but seeing that they are going to be doing external beta testing chances are we will see Diablo 3 in the very tail end of 2011 or the start of 2012 at the earliest.

Source: Game Rant

Activision Blizzard – Q1 2011 Results

Activision Blizzard released their First Quarter 2011 Financial Results today, announcing that it had made $1.4 billion in revenue, an increase of $100 million from the year before that. The net income for Activision Blizzard also saw an increase going from $381 million in Q1 2010 to $503 million in Q1 2011.

During the first quarter of 2011 Activision Blizzard held three of the top-10 PC titles, with Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, and Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Activision Blizzard also mentions that Call of Duty: Black Ops had a increase of more than 33% unique gamers playing online within the first five months than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and since the release of the First Strike DLC back in February 1 the average time a player spends online playing per day has risen to an average 58 minutes – more than the 55 minutes an average user spends on Facebook per day.

Source: Activision Blizzard

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StarCraft 2 Patch 1.3.2 Released

Blizzard have released an update for StarCraft II that addresses some bugs that were present both in the Game and the StarCraft II Editor.

Patch 1.3.2 Bug Fixes

General

• Fixed an issue where maps would not appear in the Single Player vs. AI screen (China only).
• Fixed an issue where the Leagues & Ladders Friends page would stop displaying information if a player had more than 100 ranked friends.
• Fixed a crash that would sometimes occur when players received an alert in-game while 3D portraits were turned on.

StarCraft II Editor

• Fixed a crash that could occur on Editor startup if players had improperly configured variables.
• Fixed an issue where the Editor would display incorrect cliff height on ramps facing directly N, S, E or W; this issue prevented proper unit vision in game.
• Fixed an issue where the pathing visualizer in the Terrain Editor would sometimes display incorrect pathing.

The patch comes in at just under 400 MB and is available to grab it off the 3FL Mirror for both PC and Mac.

Source: StarCraft II Blog

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BlizzCon 2011 Tickets

Blizzard Entertainment have announced that tickets to the 6th BlizzCon event will be going on sale in two batches, the first being sold on May 21st and the second being sold on May 25th.

In addition to the two batches of tickets that will go on sale there will also be a Pre-BlizzCon Dinner Benefit for The Children’s Hospital of Orange County, along with entry to BlizzCon 2011 that will go on sale May 28th.

If you are unable to attend BlizzCon Blizzard Entertainment will once again be teaming up with DirecTV to deliver live HD coverage of the event over the internet.

“BlizzCon will feature an array of activities, including discussion panels, hands-on playtime with current and upcoming Blizzard Entertainment games, professional and casual tournaments, contests, and much more.”

BlizzCon Costs:

• BlizzCon Tickets: $175 USD Each
• Pre-BlizzCon Dinner: $500 USD Each
• BlizzCon Virtual Ticket: $39.99 USD

Source: BlizzCon

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Video Retrospective: 20 Years of Blizzard Entertainment

Beginning of last month I posted that Blizzard Entertainment were celebrating their 20th Anniversary and that they would be releasing Videos, Interviews, Photos and a Timeline of Blizzard Entertainments History.

Today they released a Retrospective of the company over the past 20 years, with discussions on how they came together, the name changes the company went through and every game Blizzard Entertainment has released from Rock n’ Roll Racing to StarCraft II.

The video runs for approx. 48 minutes and is only available to Stream (Approx. 600MB) from Blizzards website at the moment.

Source: Destructoid

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StarCraft II: Patch 1.3.0 Available On The PTR

I missed this the other day when Blizzard originally announced it, but the StarCraft 2 Patch 1.3.0 Public Test Realms are now available for testing.

Upcoming Features:

• Grandmaster League: Consisting of the top 200 players for each region.
• Several Improvements have been made to the Join Custom Game section.
• There are new panels now available in 1v1 observer and replay modes.
• Hard and Brutal achievements now show what missions you have completed.
• Gameplay: New scrolling options have been added to the game.

And as with most patches – there is a heap of gameplay balance fixes which are coming out with Patch 1.3.0′s release.

For a complete list of changes coming in Patch 1.3.0 head over to the Official StarCraft 2 PTR Blog.

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World of Warcraft Patch 4.1 PTR Available

Blizzard are currently hard at work preparing the first content patch for World of Warcraft since Cataclysm was launched on December 7th, and they have now opened up the Public Test Realms to players to test the new dungeons, class changes and other features.

For me, the biggest announcement was that Zul’Aman, and Zul’Gurub will be returning as Level 85 Heroic Dungeons with a Item Level of 346 required to enter the dungeons.

The Gurubashi Tribe Persists

Originally a 20-player dungeon released in patch 1.7, Zul’Gurub will once again open its gates, featuring updated lore, all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot! Zul’Gurub is now a level-85 five-player Heroic difficulty dungeon. To provide a new tier above the current Cataclysm dungeons, players can expect to find epic-quality item level 353 loot. The minimum average item level to enter this Heroic dungeon is 346.

The Return of Zul’Aman

Ever a player favorite, the level-70 ten-player dungeon of Zul’Aman is being reintroduced as a level-85 Heroic five-player dungeon. Zul’Aman will join Zul’Gurub in a new Dungeon Finder tier of Heroic dungeons, providing epic-quality item level 353 loot. The minimum average item level to enter this Heroic dungeon is also 346. While Zul’Aman will be more of a throwback to the original dungeon featuring many of the same encounters, players can expect to find some updated gameplay mechanics, as well as new environment textures and lighting.

Check out the Official Patch 4.1 PTR Blog Entry for more information regarding the latest content patch.

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StarCraft II Patch 1.2.1 Released

Last night Blizzard released Patch 1.2.1 for their hit game StarCraft 2 and to steal what I wrote in an earlier post;

The patch contains several bug fixes, a sneak preview at the new ladder maps, and a look at the improved matchmaking system which will better match pre-made teams in 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 brackets.

StarCraft 2 Patch 1.2.1 is now available to download locally from the 3FL Mirror for PC and Mac.

Full list of bug fixes and changes can be found via the Official StarCraft II Blog.

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