Since at least a few of you are WoW fans, I thought it would be nice if i shared my experience at blizzcon with all of you. Sadly, there will be no picture due to me acting like a jackass for a graphics card, have the camera fall out of my pocket and break on the ground, and then have my friend next to me win the damn thing... a 500$ GX295 graphics card.
Anyways, after arriving to the hotel through traffic, and signing in, we got our swag bag and left to our rooms. The swag bag included a n00bz Jim Raynor figureen (which i plan to sell for the price of a small car), authenticator, an in game murlock marine pet, and general advertisements. My friends said that the last years swag bag was better, but this being my first year in NerdCon '09, I was content.
The next day, my two friends went and waited in line at 5AM -7AM, after which I and another friend of mine took the second shift from 7AM-9AM. At 9AM, we all gathered together because the doors open at 10AM (and security was getting tight). At this point, the live television crews tried to rial up the crowds by sweeping cameras nearby and by throwing free shirts. shortly before the doors opened, the previously mentioned graphics card incident happened. After a short security check (since WoW nerds can be hardcore terrorists if properly provoked), I was greeted with the dark convention hall with WoW, Star craft II, and Diablo III posters plastering the area. At this point I wanted to get a SCII messenger back so I started jogging to the store (since lines are a pain). While jogging, I noticed other people sprinting in the same direction, which I promptly followed suit. There is something magical about a bunch of nerds in dead sprint, in a dark hall filled with fake fog, all running to buy swag to prove their e-worth. Anyways, it worked and I had to wait about 5 minutes before buying my ludicrously overpriced 60$ SCII messenger bag and 15$ Diablo III poster.
After the opening ceremony with all the announcements, I quickly went to get my stuff signed, play the SCII and Diablo III demos, and have a good time. I did enjoy the atmosphere, the people in costumes, fandom, and people acting like jackasses for free swag. Now for the game reviews.
SCII: If you are used to the old SC graphics, you will nearly crap yourselves in amazement. The graphics are great, and the game play is also very well done. Everything is still very well balanced and forces the player to take into account the races strategies. The demo was short so finishing any of the campaign missions were impossible.
Diablo III: unlike diablo II, they now implemented a combo system (especially with the new monk) where it becomes necessary to think of what order you want to put your attacks. The game play is very fluid and fun with several people. The visuals are great, but sometimes can get a little cluttered (with several enemies exploding in a shower of blood, others with stunned icons, all the while shock waves are abundant). The navigation also needs a little work for we kept getting lost. Overall it was very good.
WoW cataclysm: Now, they did some balancing (which would be better to read from the WoW site) and introduced two new raced, the Worgen for alliance, and goblins for horde. The furry jokes for the Worgen were abundant and the goblins appeared to be the crowd favorite. Honestly, I don't care much for WoW, so I'll leave it at that.
The second day was also great, but somewhat similar. The main thing that happened to me was that the bag I bought a day earlier turned out to be sold out, so I was offered 100$ for mine, which I agreed to. Within five minutes, I bought another SCII bag for 70$. Capitalism at it's finest.
I'm not sure what happened, but for whatever reason the lines got longer the second day (I assume the panels were less attractive) and I had to wait much longer to get my bag resigned. That day I watched the SCII lore panel which featured the voice actors, which I later got 1 signature from, and Diablo II Q&A. All was good. I did watch as well a part of the StarCraft tournament. The tournament players can be described as having a controlled seizure. The event was ending with Elite level 80 chieften Torrens playing (utterly horrible) and later Ozzy Osbourne. I did not watch either bands for they did not appealed to me and instead played SCII and Diablo III with my friends.
That's it.
You may be interested to know that my diet while at blizzcon consisted of baja fresh and soda.
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Subject: Blizzcon '09 (blog!) 
Tue Aug 25, 2009 7:10 am
