It's early morning in Sanctuary, the birds are chirping and the pitter-patter of locals pumping water from the village well outside sounds like an elephant is stampeding through your head. The rising sun illuminates your quaint village on the edge of Tristram but all you can think about is how your mouth is dryer then that witch doctor you came home with last night.

You don't remember the moments that pass between when you got out of bed and when the coffee hit your palate, but you're thankful it's black with two sugars. As you sit at your sad excuse for a kitchen table, trying to piece together the blotchy events of the previous night, you're forced to take notice of a scuffle taking place just outside your crib.

The plywood board that you call your door swings open as each step you take is arduous and methodical. Before you can lift your axe above your head, the action is over. Nearly ten Fallen Imps lay mangled on the ground and all you saw was a cloud of dust and a few bright flashes. Out of that cloud emerges this rather tall, bald dude with a long scraggly beard who says, “just another day in the life of a Monk in Diablo III.”

OK, so maybe that isn't exactly the story Blizzard told in their cinematic announcement at BlizzCon '09, but it has a similar theme: the Monk is bad ass. I had a chance to get my hands on Diablo III while I was out in Anaheim, and after the jump I'll share the juicy details with you.

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Almost everyone in World of Warcraft has been part of a guild at some stage in their journey.  Whether it be a small group of friends, a levelling guild, social, casual, hardcore or otherwise, guilds and what goes on inside them are an integral part of WoW life.  Some seem to flourish and stand the test of time, succeeding over whatever the game throws at them, while others tend to fail after only a short distance.  So what makes the successful guilds last?  If you ask me, a lot of it is to do with how the players (particularly the leaders) act and mesh with each other.  It makes sense that in order to be able to work together to conquer whatever it is that you're up against, a leader needs to be able to sustain a nurturing and positive environment full of like-minded individuals (and perhaps a naked gnome or two). 

Last night, my guild was lucky enough to inherit five new people who had all come from the same guild, and I expect more to follow.  This is great news for me, as I have spent the last few weeks getting to know them and I am confident that they will slot in to our current guild environment with ease, and in a double stroke of luck they will be padding out our raiding ranks nicely.  But what happened in their old guild to make them leave?  After talking to them all, there was one common complaint that stood out among them: the guild was stagnating.  The atmosphere of their guild had changed, no longer as enthusiastic, active or fun as it had been when they first started out.  So I sat down and asked myself - what are some things that I can do, as the leader of Requiém, to make sure that the same doesn't happen to my guild? 

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Thursday afternoon, while we were still on our World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Blizzcon announcement high, I got the chance to sit down with WoW Quest Designer Alex Afrasiabi.  The result was the interview above, where Alex dropped a couple nuggets of lore gold and hinted at godly boss battles to come.  Again we here that Cataclysm is a reforging of Azeroth, and to a largest extent the entire game of WoW.

As I said yesterday, the Monk is a frail yet powerful character who is difficult to play with. Should you survive, you'll be rewarded with a very satisfying feeling. Should you be destoryed -- over and over and over again -- you'll probably find yourself cursing at your monitor. Whatever the outcome, there's no denying that the Monk looks impressive in battle. See for yourself, below. Part 2 is after the jump.

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I was looking back at how very depressed I was during the Opening Ceremonies at last year's Blizzcon, and smiling to myself as I rewatched the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm trailer.  Where last year us WoW lovers received hardly a handshake and a how do you do from Blizzard, this year the floodgates opened and once again I felt like Blizzcon was ours.  

Cataclysm represents much about what we've been wanting in the game as fans, players, and lovers of the MMO genre.  It makes sense that Blizzard is stepping up to the plate and reinventing their game, especially with the stiff competition that Star Wars: The Old Republic promises them coming in 2010.  Watch this trailer with me again, will you?  I dare you to try and not jump out of your seat at the end.  I know I did.

 

 

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Yes, that's the Monk in 4 places at once, punching everything in sight.

Last year at BlizzCon '08, I beat the Diablo III demo without dying, while playing as the Wizard. The spell casting, ranged attacks assured that I was usually far away from danger while basically torching every foe I encountered. This year I beat the Diablo III demo playing as the Monk, but not before biting the big one at least a dozen, maybe two dozen times. Needless to say, there were many moments of frustration, but they were far outweighed by the level of satisfaction I felt once I stepped away from the computer victorious. The Monk might be difficult to play with, but it makes winning all the more rewarding.

Hit the jump to watch the impressive footage shown at BlizzCon during the Monk's announcement.

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Unable to attend Blizzcon this year (and every year) due to location and lack of coin, I was forced to hear about all the new World of Warcraft: Cataclysm announcements second hand as they came through in floods of tweets and blog posts.  Not that I am complaining, its still exciting to hear any news of the upcoming expansion and changes to current content even from afar.  For some the changes prove to be an instigator of drama, though, and as I re-typed out the news from twitter into guild chat there were plenty of complaints mixed in with the excited "oohs" and "ahhs".  From the angry hunters not wanting to be rid of their mana, to tanks freaking out at the loss of defense rating, to self-professed lore nerds expressing their disappointment at the inclusion of the new races, there seemed to be a definite air of displeasure hanging around the release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm for some.  However these were all initial reactions from people who didn't yet know all the mechanics or reasoning behind the changes - now that we've all had a bit of time to do some research and let them sink in, perhaps our gut reactions might have changed.

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Yesterday while I was in the middle of interviewing a Blizzard dev (video to follow), the WoW class panel blew everyone's mind with how class balance and mechanics will change when World of Warcraft: Cataclysm hits.  The news, when I got to it, melted my brain for a good twenty minutes, and when I scooped my gray matter off the floor and stuffed it back in my ear I knew I had to share it with you.

It seems to me that the theme of Cataclysm can be stated as such: We're fixing what was wrong with the original game.  They editing lens that they are focusing on the leveling zones in Kalimdor is also burning its way through the class system as well.  Perhaps with the luxury of not adding a new hero class this time around the boys in the class department had a chance to apply the Cataclysm theme in their own way. Certainly they are reforging how we play classes in WoW much like the map of Azeroth is being reforged.

 

So, as we just covered in our Liveblog of the Blizzcon 2009 Opening Ceremonies, Blizzard just confirmed that their new expansion for World of Warcaft will be entitled World of Warcraft:Cataclysm.  Some new bits that weren't leaked came through, such as the Path of the Titans new levelling content, whatever that means, and guild leveling and achievements.  The trailer is already up on the WoW website, and we'll have it posted here in a few moments.  I will need a little bit of time to detail everything in the announcement -- the trick about liveblogging is that I spend more time typing and less time watching the screen. 

We are live from the Cataclysm panel, and we'll give you as much information as we get.

 

We're live from Blizzcon 2009, sitting here waiting for the Opening Ceremonies to begin.  The room is full of excitedly quiet people, since everyone thinks they already know what is coming.  Well until it's official, we don't.  We'll keep you all updated as the information comes in.  For now, we wait.

 

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