Gerbera Tetra:  So the red robot and the cat girl go to Blizzcon.

The convention center is right across from Disneyland. Two mistakes were made by the team. We didn’t get in line as soon as possible and the in got in line later instead of just waiting until the line went in. The line was amazing, Quite seriously the longest line I’d ever been in. By the time we got in all I wanted was to drain my oil pan.

The view once inside was dark, loud and roiling. All good for a hip video game convention. I managed to catch the Opening ceremonies, the WoW class panel, the costume and dance contests. and I’m so exhausted I can’t type anymore..

Ok, it’s Sunday and I’ve recovered from Blizzcon somewhat and can tell you what I saw.

First the Goodie bag! I got a card giving me not only the Polar Bear mount but a beta key. At opening they said it was for Starcraft 2 but past beta keys have been good for other games, if you saved them.

Opening ceremonies: The big deal here- Live Diablo and Starcraft playable gaming. They also annouced the new class for D3: The Wizard.

Costume Contest- The bad news I didn’t get close enought to get good pics of any of it. The good news almost everyone in the contest was more than happy to wander the floor before and after to get pic taken of themselves. There we also lots of fun costumes that didn’t get into the contest wandering the floor. The Other Bad news, my connection in the hotel is spotty so uploading to Photobucket is really, really slow. So the folder for Blizzcon there will fill really slowly.

Dance Contest; Really good. A lot of lame attempts at the dances but the winners had two things in common- they did dances No one else even tried and hte did a really good job. Winners- Undead Female [surprisingly hot], Troll Male [head gear required] and Ogre!! [he even had a rip of shit and pants so he could go Ogre-loincloth style!]. All very breave and very funny. Some Others were really really good but.. thye did ones every one did.

They did announce the winners of the video contests; both music and Machinima. The bad part, they didn’t show any of them anywhere .. as far as I know. Snippets or sound bites but not enough to give you an idea why these won; if you hadn’t seen it already.

Class Panel; we finally get to meet Ghostcrawler [blue forum guy]. The first part of the panel was dedicated to explaining their philosophy for each class. I actually attended/watched both of these in a vain attempt to ask a question. The highlights; Dual Specs are coming but no idea on how soon. You will be able to switch in progress of a raid/playing but not in combat. Promises made were made to enhance flametounge and remove windfury’s cool down.  Chilton doesn’t consider Arcane Blast to be broken *ugh*

Second day Wow Q&A covered much hte same ground; Highlights- First post-Wrath patch will have mounts swimming on water. Someone did ask what was next after Northrend to paraphrase “Its not always about continents. Unbelievable Boldness is next” I have no idea what that could mean.

A view of the merch available was… well difficult. The lines were really really long. Some friends of ours spent 5 hours trying to get some blizzard merch. I spent an hour and a half on the second day. Getting two tote bags and a shirt and sweater, The line for Jinx was just as bad; they had a talking plush Murlock ^_^. Upper Deck had demos of both the existing card game and their new Minatures game. The card game failed to impress me; really kind eh. The minis game on the other hand was great. It’s light fun and quick. There’s some potential depth of strategy but it’s really something you can get people to play who would normally balk at minis. You only really need two to play; but larger games are supported to some extent. It’s meant to simulate 2v2 arena play.

Some computer and keyboard companies were there as well, nothing out of the ordinary.

Figure Prints was there and had some awesome looking figures on display. The only issue I have with tee things is there process creates a dusty faded looking product. It’s not something they can escape at he moment. I hope they can soon because the forming is quite nice. Wow Halloween masks were also on display, I forget who makes them but they are all really good. Fantasy Flight also had games. Their Wow board game has been joined by a Starcraft game that seems to play like Twilight Imperium except the planets were the focus not space. Didn’t get to play either but the yboth look good.

On to the Games:

I got to play about 20 min of both Diablo 3 and Wrath of the Lich King. I’d played some of hte Wrath-isms on the public test realm. But the areas of northrend I did get to see were really well done. The whole continent feels different while being much more familiar than Outland felt. The Death Knight seems to play a whole lot different that what I’m used to but frankly that may just be a result of getting a levle 80 toon and not knowing what anything did. Diablo 3 is well.. Diablo if you played the original or any of its pale imitations you know how this works. There are some changes to make inventory less of a pain [no potions] and made the gameplay quicker [enemies drop health/mana globes and both mana and health regen much quicker]. The sound design and graphics set a new bar for the genre, again! I don’t have any idea what I’m going to do with my spare time.

I should mention at this point I did attend the Diablo panel. The multiplayer came up a lot. In Diablo 2 this was a big deal. I never really played the online mulitplayer much and gave it up completely when I got ganked at random. The good news is all of these things and much more are on the minds of the dev team and will be fixed or tweaked to make it more open for player to decied what kind of and what level of interactivity happens.

I also attended the Dungeons Panel on the second day. A lot of good info about how the new material is going to be more accessible and varied. My favotie was one encounter that you can make more or less difficult for yourself and in doing so vary your rewards. It works like this; A large area dungeon has One big boss dragon and three little boss dragons. You can defeat one, two or three of the little ones before defeating the big one. Any not defeated before attacking the big one will add to the main boss fight. The more dragons in the final fight the better the loot gets. each combination gets its own loot table, so there is a lot of incentive to try this run over and over and choose your toughness level. Not new news but big news; all raids have 10 and 25 man versions. 2 different types of badges drop that are tied to different levels of gear. Woot.

Other notes- Blizzard had a retro arcade. Lots of old school fun with the Lost Vikings and others. Art show was awesome!! The food was not awesome.. especially for the price! Starcraft was available to play but I never got around to it. Lots of tournaments and contests for the gamers too, about 200k in prize money flew out the door for those guys.

I may add more details as my brain storps hurting but enjoy the photos!