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What's your best BlizzCon memory?
Did you manage to get your tickets? I'm sure there will be plenty of folks who are returning to BlizzCon. I wasn't able to go but I followed WoW Insider's coverage of the event from the opening ceremonies to the final concert. It was an awesome time for fans to get insight on some of the behind the scenes aspects of WoW, including an art gallery, a sound panel, and an introduction to Ghostcrawler.I have to admit that even with the massive amount of information on classes and mechanics, my favorite part was the goofy fan stuff. I love how some people really get into their costumes and dances. I think I missed out most by missing the WoW Insider meet up. It's amazing that real people get so into our favorite game franchises.For those of you who went last year, or even were following along with me, what's the best BlizzCon memory that you carry with you?BlizzCon 2009 is coming up on August 21st and 22nd! We've got all the latest news and information. At BlizzCon you can play the latest games, meet your guildmates, and ask the developers your questions. Plus, there's some great looking costumes.
Everything about BlizzCon from WoW Insider
In the flurry of excitement about BlizzCon that's taken place, I couldn't blame you if you missed a post or two somewhere. But we're here to help! Hopefully, this convenient round-up of our BlizzCon coverage will let you feel like you made the trek out to the convention yourself!Galleries: WoW Insider's Thursday night Meet & Greet A first look inside BlizzCon WotLK screenshots WotLK concept art More pictures from the convention floor Costumes gallery from WoW Insider Costumes gallery from Joystiq Video: Character sound-alike contest Dance contest (partial) from WoW Insider Dance contest (partial) from Joystiq L70ETC live from WoW Insider L70ETC live (with audio of Jay Mohr and Video Games Live) from Joystiq WoW Radio got some excellent video coverage of the event Liveblogs: Opening ceremonyWrath of the Lich King live demo Friday class panel Dungeons & raids panel Professions & items panel The Legendary Pictures movie panel Not-quite-liveblogged, but some detailed notes from Saturday's press conference World of Warcraft PvP panel Saturday class panel Lore & quests panel Hands on: Elizabeth's WotLK demo Barb's Zul'Aman impressions Mike's WotLK demo Amanda's Zul'Aman demo Elizabeth plays the TCG Kevin's WotLK demo Interviews: Amanda interviews Myndflame Xfire did some great chats with players and Blizzard employees during BlizzCon Kevin interviews Cory Doctorow Kevin interviews Alice Taylor Final thoughts: What we learned at BlizzCon Mike's final impressions Elizabeth's final impressions Thanks for BlizzCon! BlizzCon then and now
BlizzCon then and now
If you were one of the lucky few who happened to attend both this BlizzCon and the one in 2005, you would have noticed, as I did, the subtle changes that separated the two. Some of the changes were physical and others were harder to catch. In 2005 when we arrived at the arena, the sense of excitement was not only palpable, it was visible. For the first time since it's release, WoW fans were able to stand IRL and expound upon their favorite aspects of the game. I know personally, as someone who was at the time fairly new to the game, it was an amazing sight to see so many people who loved the game as I did. When I stood in line to get my tickets this year, however, it felt as if I were surrounded by a different crowd of gamers, a quieter one.
Elizabeth's final BlizzCon impressions
Nearly a week after the big event and I think we've managed to run out of photos and information to post about it. (Okay... I admit, I still have a pile of photos, but haven't had the time to resize them all yet.) So what's left to say about BlizzCon 2007? Just our final impressions of the event (you can also read up on Mike's final impressions), so here I go:Most enjoyable: Playing the WoW TCG in a beginner's tournament! Even though I had to leave after two rounds of play to make the L70ETC concert, I had a blast, and have spent time since BlizzCon tinkering with different deck setups and talking friends into playing with me. And besides the game being just fun, the tournament was a very social event. We were all seated at long tables, and before rounds and between rounds we all got to chat about our favorite classes and what realms we played on. BlizzCon overall was a bit anti-social, with many events being held in dark rooms where the focus is purely on the Blizzard folks who are hosting the presentation -- there wasn't much opportunity or encouragement to meet or socialize with people you played with. For this same reason, I also really enjoyed our Meet and Greet on Thursday night, where we got to hang out and chat with some of our readers. Of the official Blizzard events (the panels were incredibly interesting, but I'm not sure about fun), I've got to say that my favorite was the L70ETC concert. It's not every day that you get to sit with a crowd of 8,000 of your fellow players cheering on a World of Warcraft-themed rock band singing nothing but in-jokes for the gamers in the audience.More after the jump!
WoW Moviewatch: Associate Professor Evil Kills All Gold Farmers
We're back today with another winner from Blizzard's BlizzCon machinima contest! Today we have Associate Professor Evil Kills All Gold Farmers, an entry from Oxhorn which landed 2nd place in the Action/Adventure category. And if you don't follow Oxhorn's machinima, like we do, you may miss that this is the sequel to the also excellent Associate Professor Evil Kills All Beggars. For more of all things Oxhorn, including an interesting write-up of his experiences at BlizzCon, you should check his blog.Previously on Moviewatch...
WoW Moviewatch: The Grind Halloween Special
This entry in the 2007 BlizzCon machinima contest won the Comedy category. It's the latest episode in the series by Oblivious Films, The Grind. You know, squirrels can be deadly when cornered, especially on Friendship Day.
Playing the WoW TCG at BlizzCon
I've never really had an opportunity to play Upper Deck's World of Warcraft-based TCG. Sure, I own some cards, I've skimmed the rulebook, and shuffled through them admiring the artwork. But my friends all play World of Warcraft -- not the TCG, which means I've never really had an opportunity to play the game. But with our BlizzCon goody bags we received a free Heroes of Azeroth starter pack and an invitation to bring our sealed pack of cards to their beginners' tournaments -- so Saturday afternoon, after getting a game demo from one of the members of the Upper Deck team, I signed up to see what gameplay was really like.So if you're curious for a beginner's look at the game and how it plays -- keep reading!
Video coverage of BlizzCon from WoW Radio
While a name like WoW Radio doesn't inspire thoughts of video, but I'm here to tell you that they did an excellent job of getting us video of the major happenings of BlizzCon 2007. So if you didn't get a chance to attend, I highly recommend taking a look at their BlizzCon page, which features video of: The opening ceremony StarCraft II gameplay footage The Wrath of the Lich King panel The careers in gaming panel The StarCraft II live demo The UI panel The WoW lore panel The Legendary Pictures movie panel The professions & items panel The raids & dungeons panel The StarCraft II lore panel And audio coverage of: The raids & dungeons panel The WoW music panel Of course, if watching hours of panels is too much, you might want to check our liveblog coverage from day 1 and day 2!
Bloggers at BlizzCon: Cory Doctorow and Alice Taylor
Those wacky kids over at Joystiq have managed to snag a couple of very interesting interviews with high-profile bloggers attending this years' BlizzCon, and both of them provide an interesting persperctive on the event. First up, the opinions of Cory Doctorow, blogger, journalist, and science-fiction author. When asked what he thought about BlizzCon, he replied:Well, it was awfully commercial. I'd envisioned a lot more of the social stuff -- guild stuff, "friends" who'd never met f2f getting together. But that was pretty thin on the ground -- it was so damned dark, you could hardly spot your friends even if they were there.Then there's Alice Taylor, whom you may know from the excellent game blog Wonderland (StarCraft origami wars ftw!). Asked about her experiences at BlizzCon, she told Joystiq:It was okay. It was expensive, and sparse on content, really. Lots of showy stuff from Blizzard, and some from sponsors, and very little from the players, considering, and they're a very important part of the whole thing!In both interviews, comments are made about the lighting in the convention center. I can vouch for the interior being extremely dark (I'm sure they had a couple of lights on, but at least half of my photos only show dark shadows of people), especially when coming in from bright, sunny southern California!
WoW Moviewatch: The Dead Rain
Not everyone who entered a film in the BlizzCon machinima contest could win, but there were certainly some great nominees this year. This piece was a 2007 nominee in the Drama category. When I first saw Dead Rain, I admit I was freaked at a couple of points during the film, but then again I am a big ol' whimp when it comes to zombie flicks. Check it out.Previously on Moviewatch...
Hands on with Zul'Aman
During my time at BlizzCon I was able to take a couple of moments to experience some of the upcoming content we are going to see in the future. Initially I was very excited to get my chance to see Wrath of the Lich King, but as I was wandering around Howling Fjord I noticed a helpful looking NPC in one of the villages, and when I spoke to him he offered to transport me to Zul'Aman. I am never one to pass up the opportunity to check out new content, and so I allowed him to port me to the front steps of the instance.I'm going to give you my experiences with the instance after the jump, since it's very much spoiler territory there, and if you are the kind of person that likes to be surprised I don't want to take that away from you. Those looking for more info on the instance, read on.
L70ETC live at BlizzCon
Oh sure. Blizzard may have announced Wrath of the Lich King, showed off demos of StarCraft II, and given us loads of exclusive time with the developers at BlizzCon... but all of that pales in comparison to the real reason we all had to attend BlizzCon: to see the Blizzard-band Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain perform! And for those of you who didn't make it out to California for BlizzCon this year, I offer this video as some small recompense. Enjoy!
Interview with Myndflame: Where's Illegal Danish 2?
While wandering the BlizzCon floor on Saturday I ran into the Myndflame team. Clint Hackleman was kind enough to spend a couple of minutes to speak with me about "Escape from Orgrimmar," the much-anticipated sequel to Illegal Danish. I was very eager to speak with him considering that those of us who attended the first BlizzCon were promised Illegal Danish 2 would be released the first day of BlizzCon 2007. Here's what he had to say.When asked about the delay in releasing the film, Clint said that they considered the film not ready yet, and much like Blizzard don't want to release an inferior product. Myndflame was showing an updated trailer of the machinima on the show floor, and when I asked if I could get a copy to show the readers, Clint let me know they were only showing it at BlizzCon. So I asked the ugly question: Why was the film not ready yet? What happened? The answer is the World Series of Video Games happened. Myndflame was invited to set up a booth at the WSVG, and with that a potential partnership looking towards good things to come. Good news for both sides, but bad news for the fans waiting for another Illegal Danish piece. But take heart, Clint says that the film will only be two weeks behind, and then we will finally be able to see the next chapter in the story.I also was interested in how they make films. Clint mentioned that Myndflame has been a professionally sponsored machinima studio for a year now, so he and his brother D.W. focus only on turning out movies for us to enjoy. A piece normally takes about 9 months to make, 6 months of writing and composing and 3 months of actual production. This seems like a long time, but their goal is to create a piece that is about 24 minutes in length, so there is a lot that goes into such a long movie. All in all, I was very pleased with the info I received talking to Clint. I know if I got an invitation to visit the WSVG I would probably be a bit behind on my projects as well. Good luck guys in finishing up the film, and we'll keep an eye out for it when it hits the presses.
BlizzCon Costume Contest
Last night's costume contest was immensely impressive. There were a total of 98 entries and all of them obviously took a lot of time -- and some of them clearly took a lot of creativity. I still think my personal favorite was the fellow who dressed up in a costume like the in-game Murloc costume -- he even ran across the stage just like the Murloc suit animation! However, with all of the great entries, he didn't take the top spot. Props for creativity have to go to the fellow who came to the contest dressed in a blue-and-white checkered box (if you don't realize, the checkered box is what the game shows when it doesn't have a model for something). We've got quite a few contest photos in our gallery, but sadly many of the contestants moved very quickly from one side of the stage to the other, resulting in a lot of blurry images. But there's a decent shot of the four winners, including a Human Rogue, a Moonkin (he even did a Moonkin dance for us!), a Tarran Ghost from StarCraft, and a Warlock in their amazing tier 6 armor set (she had the helmet as well, though it's not in this shot).However, enjoy the ones we've got, and we'll be adding more costumes to it as we see them on the show floor today!Update: Joystiqer Kevin Kelly is out on the show floor as well, and it looks like he got a much better view of the stage than we did -- so be sure to check out Joystiq's excellent gallery.%Gallery-5529%
BlizzCon Machinima Contest
You may recall that there were a few contests going on at BlizzCon, one of them being a machinima contest (and the machinima that comes out of major contests like this is always incredible!). Well, in last night's contests session, we found out who won and saw the premieres of the three winning videos, and now they're available online for all to enjoy! Drama winner: Interlude by Slashdance Comedy winner: The Grind: Halloween Special by Oblivious Films Action/Adventure winner and Best in Show: Snacky's Journal, Episode 3: Freaked Out Over Fishing by Stone Falcon Productions And if that's not enough entertainment for you, there's also a few runners up you can check out at the AT&T Blue Room.
Arena PvP on the BlizzCon floor
While the WoW Insiders out here in Anaheim haven't been following the ongoing Arena tournament too closely, I can tell you the action is getting pretty exciting. Power Trip, professional gamers with Team Pandemic, was swept out of the tournament in the first round with a 3-0 loss to Warders of the Melee. And this coming off a sweep of the World Series of Video games! (If you're wondering why such an obviously strong team got taken out so quickly, you don't have to wonder long -- two of Power Trip's Priests had been disqualified from the competition, however, leaving them light on healing.) We've got two more rounds of competition today, and we'll get back to you with the final results of competition out here when we have it! However, if you're looking for a more detailed roundup of the action, GotFrag has some detailed impressions of the first round of play as well as a rundown of Power Trip's loss.
BlizzCon Dance Contest
Editor's Note: The video has been removed. This video is (sadly!) just a partial representation of the dance contest entries. After a hard afternoon on the conference floor, the video camera decided to run dead after about ten minutes of footage. But you'll get a feel for what the contest was like, and all without having to watch 47 different people do the Blood Elf female dance. (There probably weren't really 47 of them, but it really felt like it.) In the end, the winners were all Blood Elves: two females (one of which is in this video, the first Blood Elf female of the lot) and a male. And while the male Blood Elf was excellent (he was wearing a "VOTE FOR KAEL'THAS" shirt), I wish some of the other excellent dances were represented in the finalists. There was at least one very successful attempt at the Troll male dance (complete with the upside down on one hand bit) as well as a great Troll female dance, both seen in our video clip.
BlizzCon Character Sound-alike Contest
The first day of BlizzCon wrapped up with a series of contests -- and we were on the scene grabbing some video. So here we have the first of the evening's contests, the Character Sound-Alike Contest, lasting around 30 minutes in all. Yes, that's 30 minutes of players doing everything from "Zug Zug!" to "You are not prepared!" While there were a great variety of voices, covering all major Blizzard games (though the majority were from World of Warcraft), I'm surprised at how many Orcs there were. Zug zug indeed! (And, yes, it's hand-held video, so the footage is varying degrees of shaky -- next time I'll know we need a tripod for this stuff.)
The costumes of BlizzCon
Yeah, yeah. It's nice to come to the convention and attend developer panels about how they develop the classes and how they build the dungeons. And sure, it's fun to play brand new, cutting edge, not even close to being released yet content. But the real reason to come to a nerd convention like this is to see all of these crazy people and the incredible costumes they put together.So we've saved you the trip-- here's a gallery of the best costumes we've seen around BlizzCon 2007. This gallery will also be updated throughout the day, so keep checking back to see the latest pictures of people who put a ton of work into bring Blizzard to life (some for the better, like the awesome Rogue above, and some...not so much).%Gallery-5529%
Wrath of the Lich King hands-on demo from BlizzCon
As you may already know if you've been following my Twitter updates from the BlizzCon floor, I've spent the last several hours standing in line to play the latest World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. And while I want nothing more than to tell you just how incredible this expansion is going to be, this demo was very limited and didn't show off any of the exciting new stuff that I'm eager to get my hands on. My impression is that the demo is a very early draft of the coming expansion, and the interesting stuff just isn't ready for us to play with yet. Curious to see what I thought of the new demo content? Keep reading!
