AbleGamers was not able to attend Blizzcon this year due to a few missed promises and a lack of funding. Nonetheless, I was undeterred by not being physically there; instead, I decided to rent Blizzcon out of my own pocket. (No word on whether Mark or Blizzard are going to reimburse me :P)

There are two main reasons to go to any Blizzcon event; information and costumes. The costumes as usual were unique; they even had a Tyreal in the real copper plated armor. However, I'm sure you want to hear about the games, am I right?

World of Warcraft

Lich King ships to stores November 13 2008 but at least half of the content was placed into the game Tuesday, October 14, 2008. Now it's no secret that I not only write for AbleGamers but I also play WoW, which gives me a unique viewpoint of being able to not only report what they say is happening but also what actually is happening.

Lich King will allow characters to advance to level 80 in the new area known as Northrend. Additionally, LK introduces the new class of Death Knight. The new expansion looks incredibly interesting for those of us who are tired of completing the same raids we have been doing for a year.

The content patch went in relatively smoothly, all realms were available for play by nine o'clock Eastern. After logging into the game, it was readily apparent that things had changed forever. Our new skill trees were available for use as well as completely wiped. We all must learn how to play our favorite characters in a new way. Not that this is necessarily bad, most people seem to be relatively receptive to the new changes but there are a few people who will miss the old ways.

Additionally, Inscription is the newest crafting craze. Scribes can create items called Glyphs, which enhance the way your characters perform. Each character is allowed to have up to three major and three minor glyphs at 80.

Some of the other additions to the game include achievements, lowering exp requirements, and a barbershop. The achievements are simply markers for showing off just what you have done in game, there are points assigned to everything you complete but no word on whether this will allow you to purchase reward items eventually with said points. The lower exp requirements are an effort to get people motivated to raise their level to the current cap of 70, in the hopes that you will buy the expansion to get to 80. Finally, barbershops are a fancy way of allowing you to adjust the characteristics such as hair color and style after your character has already been created, for a price.

There are too many changes to list individually in one article, so I encourage you to read up on the patch notes for more information. However, there is one subject, which is near and dear to my heart. When I first logged into the new content patch I immediately noticed that the speed of my mouse had been lowered considerably to the point where it would barely move by my standards.

Now I would like to preface this information with saying these steps worked for me and I had this problem, your mileage may vary. For some unknown reason the configuration file which can be used to set variables permanently in the user interface is not saving properly. You can edit the file but the changes you make will not save once you enter the game. The temporary solution I have found is to enter the following code after entering the game:

/console mouseSpeed 25

That command will inform the game that you want the mouse speed to be increased beyond the level that the slider will allow. For those of us with mobility impairments, being able to move the mouse quickly is very important.

Starcraft II

The biggest news to come out of Blizzcon about Starcraft 2 is that it will be released in a series of three installments, a trilogy, each with its own campaign for the main three races: Terran: Wings of Liberty, Zerg: Heart of the Swarm, and Protoss: Legacy of the Void.

They have stated that there will be multiplayer feature that will include all three races, which will be balanced to the fullest extent before release. The multiplayer will include the ability to play it over Battle.net just as in every other Blizzard RTS game. However, there are few details that have yet to be released.

It is not known yet if purchasing all three of the campaigns will be mandatory or optional. Additionally, the business model for Battle.net is still not known. There are some rumors that the basic connection will be free but that you'll be able to purchase additional items or benefits if you choose to do so. However, I believe there will be some sort of catch. When AbleGamers spoke to Blizzard, the developers and public relations representative were very reluctant to go into details about Battle.net. From the gist of the conversation, I can tell you that it is my personal belief that there will be some sort of fee attached to playing this game online. The developers both on the phone with us and at Blizzcon were extremely skittish when talking about the subject of online multiplay. Most likely, when all is said and done, it will probably cost around $100 to own all the disks and play online, this is assuming it is a one-time fee.

Diablo III

The third installment in the series of Diablo will be released sometime after Starcraft II. In the meantime, we were enlightened by the development team of the third of five classes, which will be introduced when the game launches. Wizards have been added to the witch doctor and barbarian classes, leaving only two more to be chosen.

The wizard will be much like the sorceress in Diablo two. Although, the wizard will be much more about direct damage, such as Magic missile and arcane orbs, those who enjoyed the sorceress should have no problem playing this class.

As was revealed to AbleGamers in our Diablo 3 interview, the days of chugging health potions are long gone. This should alleviate the stress of keeping yourself alive during intense combat. Another interesting tidbit was announced that checkpoints would be found in every area and dungeon so that upon death you will be sent back to the most recent checkpoint. That is good news for those of us who did not enjoy running through an entire area to get their body back.

Skill trees are entirely different from the way they were in Diablo 2. They actually model more of a World of Warcraft kind of feel. In order to get to a lower tier you must place X amount of points in the skill above it. Originally, only one point was necessary to open up a lower tiered skill. Now multiple points will be required to move on to a higher level spell. Fortunately, also unlike Diablo 2, there will be a way to re-spec after placing your points in the skill trees. The ability to re-spec encourages people to try different builds depending on level and itemization.

From what I could see from the coverage, while not actually playing it, the game looks amazingly fun. They will be adding bags instead of the grid like inventory system. Additionally, runes will affect character skills much as inscription does in WoW. For example, placing a damage spell effect on top of a damage spell would cause a unique effect, placing the ability to bounce damage between targets on a ranged castable spell would create a chain lightning type spell.

Final thoughts

Whether or not Blizzard talks to us or if we get to visit the fancy conventions, we will not let it affect our coverage of these excellent games. Our mission is to show you the accessibility of various games to the best of our ability. As it stands now, Blizzard games are some of most handicapped accessible around. Between the ability to window almost every game so that on-screen keyboards or other assistive technology have the ability to work and important in-game cues as being both audio and visual in nature, it allows for more people to be able to play.

Blizzard is not perfect. There are things that they need to change and you can count on AbleGamers to continue to nag at them until everyone who wants to play can. In the meantime, keep your eyes on the games that are launched by Blizzard, as chances are whatever your disability there will be options so that you can play them.