BlizzCon panels announced News

Blizzard has posted a preliminary line-up of the developer panels it will be running at this year's sold out BlizzCon fan convention in Los Angeles in October.

As attendees of previous BlizzCons and June's Paris Worldwide Invitational will know, the developer panels are when the secretive developer opens up and showers its fans in new information, as well as insights into its game design processes.

A panel on Diablo III class design hints that classes beyond the Witch Doctor and Barbarian will be revealed with an invitation to "see if any other champions emerge to defend the mortal world".

Meanwhile, a Diablo III game design panel will look into "new and exciting features" - including, we'll bet, some of the "really big surprises" lead designer Jay Wilson has been promising to anyone who'll listen since Paris.

There will be a StarCraft II live gameplay demonstration, and, naturally, a whole brace of World of Warcraft discussion sessions, including an opportunity to see unreleased future dungeons in the WOW dungeons and raids panel.

Blizzard's cinematics team will also be hosting a panel, and we'll bet they'll be premiering the final Wrath of the Lich King trailer at the event - just you see if they don't.

Here's the full list revealed so far:

• Diablo III Class Design
• Diablo III Game Design
• Diablo III - Lore and Art
• StarCraft II Gameplay
• StarCraft Lore
• StarCraft II Art
• World of Warcraft Class Design
• World of Warcraft PVP
• World of Warcraft Art
• World of Warcraft Dungeons & Raids
• World of Warcraft UI and Mods
• Blizzard Cinematics
• Blizzard Sound and Music