blizzard-hq
Latest
Bringing holiday cheer, Blizzard-style
We know that Blizzard celebrates the holiday season in-game with plenty of decorations and tacky sweaters, and as it turns out their real-world celebrations aren't that different. For this holiday season, the famed orc statue in front of Blizzard HQ has gotten its own special holiday makeover -- and, yes, it now sports its very own tacky sweater. On the plus side, the orc and his wolf mount both look like they're better suited to brave the cold months of (California) winter... and they've managed to be festive while still supporting their faction with horde-logo holiday gear. Of course, this begs the question: what can we do to get our own tasteful winter gear? (And does it involve learning to crochet?)
WoW Insider Show Episode 60: Inside Blizzard HQ
The WoW Insider Show landed at its new home, our new Ustream channel, last Saturday, and things went pretty darn well. We had a nice turnout of listeners from all over, and we had Adam Holisky and Turpster on, along with our guest Patrick Beja (of Azeroth.fr, How I WoW, and all of the other podcasts and features at his site Frenchspin). We had a few contests (one of which is still ongoing for you non-live listeners, so make sure to listen for the details if you haven't heard them yet), and we took some of the new features over at Ustream for a spin, including some fun polls.I'm told our new iTunes feed isn't quite up and running yet, but in the future you'll see an iTunes link here as well. Show notes are after the break.[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show in iTunes.[Ustream] Listen to the unedited recording in Ustream.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Or listen to Episode 60 right here:
Blizzard HQ temporarily evacuated due to earthquake
Blizzard headquarters in Irvine, California were temporarily evacuated today when a 5.4 magnitude earthquake struck the Chino Hills area in southern California. Chino Hills is about 30 miles from Irvine.According to the information on the login screen, in-game and phone support were momentarily unavailable, however everything is now back to business as usual. No servers or other game services have been affected by the earthquake. All the technology is operating smoothly.Our own Dan O'Halloran was in private chat with us all when the earthquake struck. He reported that while it was a good shaking, it was "nothing to go home about." Perhaps if we're lucky the earthquake shook a few more Beta keys out of Blizzard. We can only hope.Take a look after the break for the full in-game news released by Blizzard.
The Guild visits Blizzard HQ
The cast and crew of The Guild got invited by Blizzard to come take a tour of the new facilities the other week, and they have a writeup on their website right now (written by Jeff Lewis, who plays Vork on the show) of their trip. Sounds like a lot of fun -- they got to tour the place, obviously, checking out the Hall of Fame, the gym and cafeteria (including the official "Blizzard Trays" area -- that sign makes me laugh), and the main offices. They also got to sit down and each lunch with Mike Morhaime, and then got to play both Starcraft 2 and some Rock Band with the staff. No Wrath?Blizzard sent them home with lots of swag, too. I was under the impression, especially given the comments on our last Guild post, that we weren't really sure that the game these guys were playing was World of Warcraft -- they've never said the name, as far as I know, and we've never seen any character shots. But Blizzard disagrees, apparently -- they've very sure The Guild is playing WoW, and they gave them a super nice tour for being a part of the game and the community.
A peek at Blizzard's pimpin' new pad
Over at OCRegister, a news website for Orange County, there's an interesting little glimpse at Blizzard Entertainment's new HQ. While we don't get a full tour of the place, we do get a number of photos and some fun details.The most interesting thing to me was their personal museum, which will include things such as the Emmy award that the South Park episode "Make Love Not Warcraft" won, and a bottle of Chardonnay from the debut night of Warcraft III. I'm sure that in no time at all, this museum is going to be packed full of cool things.
