Blizzard showcasing Heart of the Swarm, Pandaria at this year's Gamescom
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
Publisher will show off WOW expansion pack at upcoming public games convention in Cologne, Germany; Heart of the Swarm and Diablo III will also be featured.
Blizzard has revealed that it will be showing off the latest World of Warcraft expansion pack, Mists of Pandaria, at this year's Gamescom in Cologne, Germany.
The publisher announced its plans for the August 15-19 public gaming convention this week, revealing it will present the world premiere of Mists of Pandaria's opening cinematic. The cinematic will play on screens at the Blizzard booth during the first public day of Gamescom (Thursday, August 16).
Blizzard will also be showcasing Diablo III and Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, as part of its Gamescom 2012 lineup. Show attendees will be able to meet members of the development teams at Blizzard's booth during the show, as well as participate in the publisher's yearly dance and costume competitions.
Mists of Pandaria is WOW's fourth expansion. It follows Burning Crusade (2007), Wrath of the Lich King (2008), and Cataclysm (2010). The add-on is set on the new continent of Pandaria and focuses on the Pandaren, as well as the monk player class. The expansion pack, which does not have a release date, will also increase the player level cap to 90.
The second instalment in the Starcraft II three-part series, Heart of the Swarm will follow 2010's Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty and precede the final entry, Legacy of the Void. Last month, Blizzard revealed that Heart of the Swarm is 99 percent finished.
As part of Activision Blizzard's February financial results call, the company revealed it was not expecting to ship both Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria in 2012.
Gamescom will run from August 15-19 in Cologne, Germany.
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
Laura Parker is the Associate Editor of GameSpot Australia. She loves adventure games, sparkly stuff, Trivial Pursuit, cake, Master Chief, earthworms, and rhetorical questions. She once stole a sandwich from Peter Molyneux.
53 comments
I hope Blizzard will not make the same mistake with Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm as they did with Diablo III.
7 Like Sorry Blizzard. Totally wont be supporting your company anymore. Thank you for the many great years of Gaming from a decade ago....I just can't support you anymore because of the Diablo 3 BS. (They are giving Korea refunds for the game because of all the things they didn't like about it....but wont give Americans or anyone else a refund even though the players from those regions showed the same views of dislike that Korea showed) WoW is a joke now and was dumbed downed extremely just to make a dollar and they lie about the number of people who actually play the game. They tell you WoW has 12 million some subs....but fail to tell you how many of them are actually active or if one or more accounts belong to one person. Starcraft 2 was garbage.
Sorry Blizzard....I'm just done.
2 Like "publisher revealed it was not expecting to ship both Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria in 2012."
I hope they release HotS first!
WoW is all but dead, it's playerbase is dwindling in NA, and only the opening of the Chinese market has kept it going strong. Blizz is just milking it for all it's worth now before it fades away to make space for the next gen of MMO's. And after the D3 debacle it is very unlikely I'm going to spend any money on HoTS. Especially since Blizz's idea of strategy hasn't moved on from the era of SC1 and C&C. I would much rather just wait out Rome Total War 2, or more of Sins of a Solar Empire.
1 Like i bet the only thing blizz is gonna show about D3 is the PVP. it's waaay to early forn an exp.
@DonGibon and i was w8ing to release an expansion every week or at list every month dmt :S OP post m8 change your name to captain obvious
Wish they would contemplate on an update to Northrend and Outland stories. They are a little behind and make running through them for 20 levels a bit of a yawn.
@richarrj I'm hoping he joins the rank of elite stars tha promote the game. Chuck Norris, Ozzy, Mr. T......and now....introducing.......JACK BLACK! How awesome would that be for the people who say it isn't Kung fu panda?!
2 Like It's pretty asinine that we aren't getting HoTS in 2012.
It's clearly not 99% done if that's the case. If > 4 months constitutes 1% then the game would have had a 33 year development cycle.
@Richardthe3rd That's assuming that all parts of the development process are equal in completion time, which is a pretty asinine way of looking at it.
1 Like Blizzard... if you still need more than six months to polish a game before release, then it's not "99% complete"... At this absurd rate, we'll see Legacy of the Void by around 2017, and no news of a WarCraft IV until 2022.
Look, I love your games, but you guys really need to step things up a bit in terms of speed, efficiency and productivity. I'd like to play your so-called "Titan" before I turn 50, if that's not too much to ask.
@DragonRift I'd prefer them taking their times instead of rushing it like some companies...
1 Like @Rayzakk first time you see that? I hope youre not still playing n paying for that outdated piece of crap of WoW cause anyone who still does is some late a** that shouldve been there when the game was worth playing
3 Like @GamerOuTLaWz Who said I play WoW? I do not, but wow you've got a lot of hate for other's taste in games. Seems you know more about WoW than I do.
2 Like @GamerOuTLaWz Yeah, because current-gen MMOs have been so much more enticing, right? Outdated or not, I still think it's hilarious that MMOs are still considered a needed genre given that even major releases like The Old Republic have ended up getting kicked in the nuts, while WoW stays on top.
Yes, we all know WoW has had declining numbers since 2010, but I really don't think it's just because of WoW. People are tired of paying monthly for a video game, period. I mean, nearly $200 a year for any MMO, new or old, is rather absurd. So if you're going to start insulting people for playing something outdated, at least they're playing something that's been completely stable for eight straight years.
Until companies are able to create an MMO that DOESN'T borrow or blatantly copy elements from WoW, Blizzard's behemoth is going to keep chugging, whether we want it to or not.
2 Like @mlcarter815 I sure hope you don't make a habit of making yourself look like an idiot like this in real life.
all these complaints (which, to a certain extent, are justifiable) and HoTS will still sell like hotcakes.....or some other type of cake. I don't know what the young people are eating these days XD
@giort08 Only in South Korea. I know maybe everyone can argue about whether or not the gov should regulate who can play games and what time of day again. After that everyone can fight about religion, hate on COD, and then complain about one of the big 3 systems or casual gaming. The topics on gamespot have gotten really few as of late.
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4 Like @GamerOuTLaWz "Sc2 is garbage that requires no skill, no micro and its boring as **** massing while doing nothing,"
ROFL
Wait... you were serious?
Blizzard's done. HotS will probably sell less than Starcraft, no one's going to buy their Kungfu Panda expansion, And then Blizzard will die like they should have awhile ago since Starcraft was nothing more than an Aliens vs Predator rip-off and Warcraft was a Warhammer rip-off
2 Like I'm happy to say that I was NOT one of those idiots that bought in to all that Diablo hype. The power of hype is enough to make millions make the same mistakes = giving them your money
Blizzard could have saved themselves with a 'new' product in the form of the Starcraft MMORPG - scrapping that means that they have essentially been peddling the same three games for something like 7 years (closer to 12 if you exclude WoW). Gaming experiences can only be refined so far through expansion packs and remakes. At a certain point you need to change the entire game mechanic (i.e. from RTS to MMORPG - which WoW did very nicely) or start an entirely new game universe which will disguise old mechanics.
1 Like @ljbcraigie god lord... they have 3 games.. but those 3 games make them rich... why a company needs 100 games ? with those 3 they are okay...oh and titan
2 Like @ljbcraigie fuck no, warcraft was at it's best when it was RTS. And by starcraft becoming a MMO it will become even worse.
hopefully Blizz realized that, whatever this Titan is, its not any of the 3(diablo/star/warcraft)
2 Like I have many great memories from WOW. It seems to be destined to remain that way... just memories.
2 Like sorry Blizz, Diablo 3 was the last rip-off I paid for.
You lost a loyal customer since 1995's Warcraft 2.
3 Like Yawn. Pandaria looks like a disaster of an expansion, but I think it just happens to coincide with people not caring about WoW anymore in favor of other MMOs, or they're suffering from MMO boredom itself regardless of what the next expansion has.
Heart of the Swarm... I mean who's going to buy the game again? The concept of 3 games still doesn't make any sense. If you have SC2, what's the point of getting this one? The campaign wasn't that interesting, hardcore SC2 players are even less likely to care about the campaign since all they play is online, and who's had a passing interest in SC2 enough to -not- get the first one and then grab Heart of the Swarm? If they don't release this at a marked down price, they're asking for it. SC2 is still full price, it would be cool if they dropped it in price and offered Heart of the Swarm at the same dropped price.
For me, Blizzard hasn't had anything really interesting on offer since The Burning Crusade from 2007. I found SC2 to be not nearly as fun as the first game, but that's possibly due to me not being into those kinds of games anymore(and to contradict myself I just spent 8 hours playing Civ V today so there you go). When people are doing over 300 actions per minute and other stupid nonsense like that, it's like why bother? Diablo 3 is just laughable in 2012, it's far too late for what it offers. If they somehow released it in 2006 it wouldn't seem as bad.
@jinzo9988 yeah no one is interested in wow now:
http://heroicallyrandom.com/2012/04/11/wow-pink-panda-parade/wowscrnshot_033112_194320/
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