Today Blizzard announced  the dates for the next installment of BlizzCon. Below is the press release with details:

PressRelease

BLIZZCON® 2009 ANNOUNCED

Blizzard Entertainment® gaming celebration to return to Anaheim Convention Center on August 21-22 

PARIS, France — February 17th, 2009 – Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced plans for its fourth BlizzCon® gaming convention, to be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on Friday, August 21 and Saturday, August 22. BlizzCon is a celebration of the global player communities surrounding Blizzard Entertainment®’s Warcraft®, StarCraft®, and Diablo® universes. In response to the festival’s increasing popularity, this year’s event has been expanded from three convention halls to four.

“We’ve been amazed by the incredible response to each of our previous BlizzCon events,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re pleased to be bringing the convention back to Anaheim this year, and we look forward to this new opportunity to meet Blizzard gamers from around the world.”

BlizzCon will offer a wide variety of activities throughout the two-day event. In addition to serving as a gathering place for Blizzard Entertainment gaming communities, attendees will be able to enjoy:

• Hands-on play time with upcoming Blizzard Entertainment games


• Discussion panels with Blizzard Entertainment developers


• Competitive and casual tournaments for players to showcase their talents


• Community contests with great prizes


• Commemorative merchandise based on Blizzard Entertainment’s game universes


• A silent auction


• More exciting activities and attractions to be announced

 

Further details, including ticket availability and pricing, will be announced on the official BlizzCon website, www.blizzcon.com, as the event draws closer.

To keep pace with the continued growth of World of Warcraft as well as development on other Blizzard Entertainment games, the company is currently hiring for numerous open positions. More information on available career opportunities can be found at http://eu.blizzard.com/en/jobs/.

So what will be this years big news? More Diablo 3 (release date?), More WoW? (next expansion?), SC3?, Next MMO? Next MMO? Oh yeah, btw, Jeffrey Kaplan also announced this week that he was leaving his position on the WoW team to help the top secret MMO that Blizzard is creating:

Tigole
I wanted to take a moment to let the community know that I’ve switched roles here at Blizzard to work on our upcoming, unannounced MMO. World of Warcraft has been such a central part of my life these past six and a half years, and it’s success would not have been possible without the tremendous community around it, so I wanted to say thank you to all our players who’ve shared this amazing experience with us so far. Also, while I have served as the spokesperson and Game Director for World of Warcraft on Wrath of the Lich King, by no means would WoW be where it is today without the dedicated team that we have in place. The WoW development team is comprised of some of the most talented and experienced game developers in the world, and it was an absolute honor to serve amongst them, and they will continue to make WoW better than ever. I still plan to be very involved with the future course of World of Warcraft, but will leave the day to day operations of World of Warcraft to my partners in crime, Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack.

When all is said and done, WoW is still my favorite game. I play it every day. None of that passion is gone. If anything, it fuels the challenge of making our next MMO even better. We know we have some big shoes to fill. So thank you to everyone who has been so supportive over the years, and likewise, thanks to those who have given us pointed feedback on all areas of the game. Without all of the feedback and participation, WoW would not be the game that it has grown to be. Azeroth truly belongs to you and we’re lucky to have shared in your journey. And as always, I’ll still be lurking on the forums and in the game.
Mostly, I just wanted to say thanks. It has been an absolute honor.

Jeffrey Kaplan

And last, but not least, who else besides me got completely robbed of their Fool For Love title because of those elusive bags of candies? Bornakk today may have given a small glimmer of hope:

Bornakk
We appreciate your feedback on this and will look into making changes in the future. For clarification this is no guarantee of any retroactive changes but simply that we hope this event goes smoother next year and beyond.


Well, if ,just as an example, changes don’t come until 2010, then I will give you the title “the Love Fool” a year ahead of several people.

Overall we want events, like all aspects of the game, to offer various levels of challenge but also be fun. If we feel things aren’t fun we will look into changing them. Straight nerfs aren’t always the answer but we will evaluate the situation and go from there.