Direct from the floor of the Anaheim Convention Center, Quest! brings you live coverage of tbe BlizzCon 2010 Opening Ceremony.  We're counting down the minutes until things start, and wanted to make sure you knew where to check in to see our liveblog.  Keep your F5 button handy, and refresh this page often, because we'll be updating this post as new info emerges. 

So far, the attendees are quiet, I assume we can attribute that to the rainy weather outside.  We managed to get second row seating in the Press section, close enough to see Ghostcrawler sweat, so I've gotten a good look at the stage.  The stage design appears to be sci-fi alien inspired, but something different from StarCraft II motifs.  Could this indicate that the new IP is a Sci-fi MMO?&nb

Not the best of days for World of Warcraft news, this, with the announcement of the game's stagnant userbase followed by a revelation most new WoW players barely scratch at Azeroth's surface.

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said earlier today that 70% of people playing on a WoW trial account (which I'd imagine would be most new players) fail to progress past level 10 in the game. Considering you can advance your character all the way up to level 80, that's not very far, indicating that most WoW players either hang around doing nothing or, as seems more likely, don't stick around too long.

And that suggests the game has a fairly high turnover rate at the moment, perhaps explaining why WoW's subscriber base hasn't moved past 11.5 million in over a year.

If Blizzard can't address that in the game's upcoming expansion pack, Cataclysm, we really could - finally - be looking at the game's tipping point in terms of popularity. Not its end, of course...just the point where the end is closer

Blizzard headquarters in Taiwan has been relocated recently, now every room was elaborately decorated, They added 2 new rooms as a  Reception Room and a Recreation Room, Also, all the offices have been widened .

Additionally, Blizzard Taiwan is going to start their recruitment.

In order to triggle the staffs' inspiration, They added a new room  called 'Brainstorming room' to help  them to exert their imagination.

The new entrance of Blizzard Taiwan headquarters:

They embellished the corridor with game artworks.

 

The meeting room is decorated with Starcraft II.

 

 

 

The door of the meeting room

 

Recreation Room:

 

 

 

 

You can play video games when you have free time.

 

The brainstorm room:

Blizzard's Morhaime On Overcoming 'Myth' With WoW

Think every aspect of your game play has to be customized for regionalplayers? Blizzard disagrees, and in his keynote for the Austin GDC,president Mike Morhaime discussed this and other lessons learnedthroughout the company's release history.

Morhaime's keynote speech focused on the ten lessons Blizzard haslearned in globalizing its IP, and started with a brief rundown of thecompany history, starting with him and his 2 recent UCLA graduatefriends in 1991, and the $10,000 each they got as graduation presentsor borrowed from their grandmothers.

Blizzard: The Beginning

Cutting their teeth and learning about game development by doing Amigaand Mac conversions of PC games and moving to 16 bit console titles,the decline of the console market focused the company on PC games,where it began with Warcraft.

World of Warcraft, said Morhaime, has "really transformed thecompany in ways we couldn’t possibly have imagined at the time, butthrough that process and all these years, we've really stayed committedto the same core philosophies that we were committed to at thebeginning."

First and foremost was "gameplay first," "one of our mantras," saidMorhaime

Our trip to the World of Warcraft Forums today made us realize that vanity is by no means confined to real life, it hangs to over to the virtual worlds as well - Azeroth, Outland, and in the future, Northrend too.T

Around this time two years ago, a strange phenomenon struck the virtual inhabitants of World of Warcraft. A disease designed to be limited to areas accessed by high-level characters managed to make it back to the cities

Connection problems plaguing New York City-area World of Warcraft subscribers using Time Warner Cable's Road Runner Internet service will be resolved "as soon as possible," Time Warner spokesperson Alex Dudley told Shack

Speculation continues over the announcement that BlizzCon attendees will receive a beta key in their swag bags, and now Blizzard has finally opened attendee registration for the event. Tickets are $100, but those interested should note that includes nothing related to travel and lodging.

However, past BlizzCons have proven that that the swag items, such as the Murloc pet and World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade beta key sold for hundreds of dollars in Internet auctions -- a way for gamers to possibly recover expenditures.

If you're interested in going to BlizzCon, the event takes place in Anaheim, CA on August 3rd and 4th. Ticket registration can be found on the official site of Blizzard.

In todays episode of the 1UP Show at gamevideos.com, some of the masterminds behind World of Warcraft spill the beans on their Guitar Hero and Viva Pinata experiences, what it's like playing World of Warcraft anonymously and being treated by n00bs by raid guilds, Onyxia's Deep Breath, and the games that inspired them to create the most successful MMORPG ever made.

Forgive the random advertisment in the middle of the show, but luckily it's for yet another kick-ass NCSoft game so no worries.

Just a quick reminder folks, the big announcement from Blizzard is due within 12 hours or so. As you can see from their website, they started all the way back with Warcraft and then every day or so, changed the splash screen to a later game. Well, now we are at the end of the released games, so what wil be the next big title? World of Starcraft? Diablo 3? Warcraft IV?

Blizzard website