Are you ready for BlizzCon? Well, you might have read the survival guide, but there is one other thing you might want to take note of.

Medievaldragon of Blizzplanet was kind enough to supply an album of pictures of the people who are going to be there. Of course, they're not the participants, but the Blizzard bigwigs and employees (*cough* own your soul *cough*) and the other guests. For what you say? Well, to eradicate the chances of you wandering at the Anaheim Convention Center and not know that you just bumped into Nethaera.

The compilation of pictures include the Blizzard heads (Mike Morhaime, Cris Metzen, Rob Pardo, and Paul Sams), devs (Tigole or Jeff Kaplan, Dustin Browder, Shane Dabiri, Chris Sigaty, and Tom Chilton), and the World of Warcraft Forum CMs (Eyonix, Nethaera, Coreiel, and Drysc). The special guests include various artists and writers. Included in the list are Christie Golden, who wrote Rise of the Horde, and Richard A. Knaak, who wrote War of the Ancients. The compilation also includes Michael Gough who voiced Tassadar in StarCraft, plus Jim Lee, Lodi Lullabi, Walter Simonson, Samwise Didier, and Rene Koiter.

Anyway, click on the Read link to check out their mugshots and take a good look. Once you do, you might not mind Coreiel closing your threads on the WoW Forums anymore. Enjoy!

World of Warcraft players have been waiting for a number of things since the game went live. Things like guild housing and guild banks for example. Shane Dabiri, Blizzard lead producer, gave us something to hope for in an interview with Games for Windows Magazine.

Players over at the WoW Forums are buzzing with questions regarding the two future-slash-potential additions to the already huge MMORPG. Neske offered some suggestions for the guild housing. He suggested that these havens for guilds feature things like a sparring room, trophy room, practice room, and maybe a poster board. He also said that the Guild house would be a perfect place in which to place the guild banker NPC.

It would really be cool to have these things in place, though we all know people find different ways to exploit certain things. Anyway, Blizzard poster Nethaera indicated that guild housing "is something that is a possibility for the future but there are no specific plans I could share with you at this point in time" as an answer to whether guild housing and banks are really on the dev's drawing board.

Guess we'll have to wait for a more solid confirmation than that. Keep it here for more World of Warcraft news and info.

The news is out and a new expansion for Blizzard's World of Warcraft is already in the works. Lead producer Shane Dabiri has already confirmed this in a recent Games For Windows Magazine interview. Sadly, Blizzard poster Nethaera has said on the forums that they have decided to keep mum on the details of the game.

Quite a few ideas have been circulating around such as the inclusion of water mounts. In terms of territories, most players are expecting to find the Maelstrom and Northrend in the new expansion. However, we were pleasantly surprised to find that a lot of people are rooting for a cow level. we can see it now, an instance populated by nothing but packs and packs of Taurens. Well, people can dream right?

This expansion is said to have started development from as early as the start of this year, though we can't confirm that. Hopefully, they will add fixes to some of the more glaring problems in the game as well as properly balance-out the characters without over-nerfing them.

   

For the World of Warcraft players who read our recent report on the guild banks and VoIP chat to be added after Patch 2.1 goes live, here's an update. We have some scans of the article in question, reports, and some players' reactions to the additions.

According to Blizzard's Shane Dabiri, the said additions will occur after patch 2.1 goes live. The Guild Bank addition will probably prove to be very useful for players who need the extra space for items and gold. On the other hand, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) chat is getting some attention from the players.

Over at the WoW Forums, Schoolgirl of Blackwing Lair started a thread entitled "VOIP: The End of Girls in WoW". He/she (you never know) was concerned that the existence of men pretending to be girls would be in trouble.

Speaking as a girl gamer, it's pretty hard to function properly when you're being bombarded by questions like "Are you really a girl? Or some bald guy in your mother's basement?" Trying to convince guys can prove to be something very futile indeed.

So what do you think? Are you concerned about VoIP chat? While you're turning that over in your mind, check out the scans of Games for Windows Magazine featuring the Guild Banks, VoIP chat, and the new arena called the Ruins of Lordaeron.

It looks like Ventrillo and TeamSpeak are on the way out of Azeroth, as Blizzard is reportedly gearing up to add VoIP directly to World of Warcraft. According to Curse Gaming, this is one of the tidbits that World of Warcraft lead producer Shane Dabiri will reveal in an interview in the June 2007 issue of Games for Windows magazine.

In the WoW VoIP, a player's name will reportedly be highlighted when they are talking, so other players will be able to click on the talker's name to select them and give them their buff or heal. The in-game voice chat will apparently be available only to Parties and Raids at first, but will probably be expanded to include custom channels in the future.

Players will also reportedly have the option of separating the in-game voice chat from the game's other sounds (music, etc.) and setting it to a different sound channel. In theory, this will let players have the game's background sound and music piped through their regular speakers while the voice chat goes only to their headsets.

Another new feature that will reportedly be implemented after patch 2.1 goes live is the Guild Bank. This will let guild members use the money put in the bank, like a sort of community chest. The Guild Bank will also have hundreds of slots for items and such. Transactions will also reportedly be monitored and documented by Blizzard to prevent abuse.

Ever wonder how player comments and feedback really affect the World of Warcraft? Blizzard lead producer Shane Dabiri answers this question among others as play.tm's Paul Newcombe was  able to score an interview.

According to Dabiri, WoW's success "really pushes (them) to keep delivering great content." Of course the follow up question is the current state of the MMO industry - that it can literally be MASSIVE. Dabiri said that they play other MMOs to see what else is out there. Is it possible to grab a big piece of the pie - big enough to be really considered a competitor? "If the games are enjoyable enough and well-designed, I'm sure they'll receive player support."

Here are some excerpts that caught this writer's attention:

Has the game evolved in ways that you didn't expect when it was first released?

In some ways it has, but the great advantage of working on an online game is that we can sometimes make some pretty broad changes as needed. One example that comes to mind was the original PvP Honor System. We thought players would enjoy the challenge and accomplishment of achieving the highest rank, but after receiving good feedback from the community we decided to change the system to better fit the play style of our customers. Today, great rewards are within reach of casual players via the revamped Honor System, and we've created an entirely new PvP mechanic with the Arena System, which caters to more hardcore players looking to show off their skills.

How much does player feedback and requests influence future design?

We're very attentive to feedback, as it tells us what kinds of content are popular with players and whether design elements are working as we'd intended them to. The evolution of World of Warcraft, like any MMO, is really driven by the players. That said, players don't always have access to some of the details that we have when it comes to game balance, and there are many factors we have to weigh in addition to player feedback before making design decisions.

Player feedback does matter. (We're not sure if these include nerf and new server threads.) Anyway, the interview also covers the new content that came with The Burning Crusade. In conclusion, Dabiri said that he still finds time to play WoW. "There's no better way to get a feel for how the game is working," he adds. You can check out the entire interview by clicking the Read link below.

Europe lead producer">Shane Dabiri, lead producer for WoW Europe, has got some things to say over at their forums, particularly expressing thanks to the European audience for their continued support of the games in its two years of existence.

Dabiri then reminds all that the first season of the Arena tournament will commence on February 16th. So, if you guys want to find out more details about it, you better stay tuned to the community website. He also says that they will continue to employ both free and paid character transfers, apart from opening new realms depending upon the need.

Then he goes on to talk about the community, raving about the fan site program, which now includes over 40 fan sites in more than 15 languages. Plus, they also have recently opened the Community Events forums "making it even easier to keep track of the huge amount of weekly events organized by players and fan sites."

If you wanna check out the full post from Shane Dabiri, just click on our Read link below.