blizzcon-tickets
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Reminder: Second batch of BlizzCon tickets go on sale at 10AM Pacific today, May 30
Don't have a ticket to BlizzCon 2009 and still want to go? Best lock and load, because the second batch of entry passes go on sale today at 10AM Pacific on the Blizzard site. The first set sold out in less than 30 minutes, so if you're not there at precisely the appointed hour when the golden passes go on sale ... seriously, just don't bother.The tickets cost $125 apiece and there's always the option to "attend" though DirectTV's $40 pay-per-view. But just imagine all the sights, sounds and smells you'd be missing. Best of luck to the faithful (and forsaken) warriors attempting to grab a ticket.[Via Big Download, WoW]
Wowhead wants to send you to BlizzCon
The second and final round of BlizzCon tickets go on sale this Saturday, May 30, and I'm pretty sure they'll go fast - the first round sold out in half an hour. However, if you miss out on a ticket (or if you think they're just too expensive), you may have a chance to go anyway. Wowhead, along with APC (makers of UPSes and such), is running a contest over the next few weeks, with a drawing every day until June 18th. June 17th is the last day to enter; all you need to do is fill in your contact details on the contest page, and you're automatically entered for every drawing. Sadly, this contest is only open to US residents age 18 and older ("we know it sucks," Wowhead says). Oh right, the prizes. There is one grand prize, consisting of two tickets to BlizzCon, along with air fare and accommodations, an APC UPS, and a dinner with the Wowhead folks. Three lucky first-prize winners will get their choice of a Wii, a PS3, or an Xbox 360, as well as an APC surge protector. And every day that those prizes aren't given out, someone will win a Wowhead t-shirt and an APC surge protector. One of these last winners will be randomly chosen to win a Blizzcon ticket as well, at the end of the contest.
Armory temporarily disabled to cut server load
Today being BlizzCon ticket sales day, Blizzard is anxious to keep everything running as smoothly as possible. In an attempt to lessen load on their web servers, they've temporarily disabled the Armory. In fact, this has been the case since last night, when I went to check out our main tank's armory after the raid (he had just gotten Shieldwall of the Breaker and I wanted to see what he was upgrading from). This is going to be inconvenient for those of you attempting to form PuGs, especially PuG raids. Hopefully BlizzCon tickets will sell out relatively quickly, and this madness will be over, and our beloved gear-checking, snobbery-enabling service returned to us. How will you be vetting players in the mean time?
The Daily Grind: Are you going to BlizzCon?
With BlizzCon tickets going on sale later this morning, this Daily Grind is probably going to be one of the more obvious and occasionally repeated. But as it is topical, I shall ask straight off before going into my customary anecdote. Are you going to BlizzCon? Will you be queuing for tickets all day today? Why exactly do you want to go? Is it Grunty, the promise of new announcements or rather for an IRL catch up with guildies?I admit, until last year I never went to fan events and then the WWI was announced for Paris. Well, living across the pond in Blighty, I couldn't not go, could I? Granted I spent 98% of my time in a near pitch black press room squinting at my laptop, it was still amazing to sit in a bus headed for the convention centre, watching thousands of people standing in a queue which must have gone on for at least four blocks. It only hit me when I found myself in the front row of the press area, mere inches from Mike Morhaime as he announced Diablo III. I don't cosplay and I'm usually working but very mention of a fan event makes me want to squee like a fan girl. I'm not even sure if I'm going to this year's BlizzCon yet, but if I don't, I will certainly be getting the DirectTV stream. What about you?
Blizz doesn't know what time BlizzCon tickets will go on sale
BlizzCon tickets go on sale in two days, this Saturday, May 16th. One question we at WoW Insider have received several times is: "when on Saturday do the tickets go on sale?" So far, Blizzard has been silent on this issue. Turns out there's a good reason for that - they don't know themselves. Bornakk puts it as follows: "we don't have an exact time on when they will be up but our web engineers will need to be here to properly start and monitor the system when it goes live so we don't plan to be doing that in the middle of the night." In response to a poster's conjecture that since the billing department is going to be open from 9 AM to 6 PM this Saturday (they're not usually open on weekends), tickets will be sold during that time as well, Bornakk calls it a "solid line of thought." So that's the best information we have so far: not in the middle of the night, and probably sometime between 9 AM and 6 PM PDT. If we hear any more, we'll keep you posted. 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.
The Daily Quest: Monkeeing around
We here at WoW Insider are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.Sometimes Monkeeing around is not the right thing to do. Obvious things you should not do while applying to a new guild at Diaries of a Marksman Hunter Rawrbitchrawr goes Backpacking around Azeroth World of Ming asks is there a reason to raid anymore for arenas? BlizzPlanet will be having a BlizzCon ticket give-away next week Click here to submit a link to TDQ
BlizzCon ticket FAQ
For those of you worried about the return of Failoc, or just interested in how the BlizzCon ticket process is going to work this time around, Blizzard has posted a FAQ on buying tickets on their BlizzCon site. Interesting information includes: You should make a Battle.net account ahead of time, and make sure the payment information on it is up-to-date. If there are enough people on the site trying to buy tickets (and trust me, there will be), there will be a queue to join. Once in the queue, you'll get an ETA for how long until you can get your tickets. Do not close or refresh the window. If tickets sell out before you get to the front of the line, they'll let you know. When you get to the front of the queue, you have 15 minutes to buy your tickets before you get booted and have to join the queue again. You don't need to give attendee information until after finishing the ticket purchase. They also note that this queue system will remain in place for future Blizzard items "whenever a certain number of people are making purchases simultaneously," so get used to it - you'll almost certainly be seeing it when StarCraft II and Diablo III come out.
BlizzCon 2009 tickets on sale May 16 for $125
Blizzard just announced that tickets for BlizzCon 2009, the third fourth installment of their phenomenally successful Blizzard-themed convention, will go on sale on Saturday, May 16, for $125 each. That's a week from this Saturday, friends. Additional tickets will be sold on Saturday, May 30. Edit: You'll be able to buy tickets at blizzcon.com at the appointed times. BlizzCon 2009 will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center on August 21 and 22. For those unable to make it, DirecTV is once again selling a pay-per-view package of the event for $40, which seems a bit steep for a two-day video feed, but will include exclusive video and this year's in-game item. This will also be available as an internet stream, presumably for those not subscribed to DirecTV. Last year's BlizzCon ticket sales were marked by a figure affectionately known as the Failoc, which was displayed when Blizzard servers utterly failed to respond to crushing demand. This year, they think they're prepared: "the company has made upgrades to the Blizzard Store, including a first-come, first-served queue system and a fixed time limit for completing purchases," according to their press release. Check out Blizzard's FAQ for details on the new queue system.
Zarhym promises BlizzCon ticket sales will be better
BlizzCon 2009 tickets will likely go on sale soon, and before then, Zarhym is here to reassure you: Blizzard is doing what they can to make sure things will not go the way they did last year. Unfortunately, he doesn't go into detail on exactly what that means. We'd have to think that they wouldn't just open up the floodgates on a site that wasn't ready again, but while most thought that the lottery that ended last year's ticket sales worked pretty well, it looks like that may not be the plan just yet. Whatever they plan to do, we hope it works out in a fair way and with a minimum of fuss for those who do try to go. Anything without the Failoc or the FailSCV is a plus in our book.Zarhym also says that they will be giving us advance notice before the tickets actually start selling, so people will have time to make travel arrangements if necessary (and/or ask the wife or parents for the money to go if need be). And he says that a pay-per-view type of event, as they did last year, or even a live stream of some of the events online, is not beyond the realm of possibility.Of course, even if you don't make it for whatever reason, you can be sure that WoW Insider will be there and covering everything that happens, from the awesome costumes to the possibly blogger-threatening danger. Stay tuned for more info soon.
Sunday Morning Funnies: Majestic belly fat
This week we have a strong selection of humor, from BlizzCon jokes to hypnotic dancing. If you're not opposed to the disrobing of blood elves, night elves and male dwarves alike, then read on!Humor Castle Vid-Cons drew a response to the BlizzCon ticket debacle. In fact, there's been a fair amount of creativity surrounding the event, including a mini-game. GU Comics has a suggestion for a new "Achievement." 1500 Gamerpoints. NoObz examines a player's thought process after they've needed on an epic item. On The Adventures of Disgraph T. Dwarf, Disgraph reveals his Majestic Belly Fat. Humor on a storyline On LFG, Richard will get things done. From the Mouths of Babes is where the druids on the Road to BlizzCon are getting their new disguise. Kissybear returns to the Horde, and the gang gets him back into the spirit of it all. X32A is unleashed and IT Pwns Cities.
WoW Insider Show live this afternoon
Yes, the WoW Insider Show is returning to the virtual airwaves of WoW Radio this afternoon, and after our 50th episode last week, we're ready to stop celebrating and get back to work. Amanda Dean from this very blog will join Turpster and I, and we'll chat about all the biggest stories in the World of Warcraft this past week, including the whole BlizzCon fiasco (and Morhaime's apology), the big downranking change, and all of the other big news coming out of the Wrath beta (which I finally got invited to, by the way).Plus, you can expect to hear me brag that I was right about potion sickness, and Amanda is apparently going through a tough Arena breakup, so listen for that as well. We'll also be reading your emails as usual -- feel free to drop us a note at theshow@wow.com, and as usual, we'll be in the IRC channel during the show, at irc.mmoirc.com in the #wowradio channel.It all kicks off at 3:30pm Eastern (8:30pm GMT) in just a few hours from now -- definitely join us over at WoW Radio and listen in, it should be fun.
Mike Morhaime apologizes, offers 3000 more BlizzCon tickets
If you haven't heard by now, there were some problems with Blizzcon tickets. A lot of problems. However, it looks like even Blizzard now realizes that they could have done a lot better during those 2 days of Fail Murloc agony. Blizzard President Mike Morhaime has just posted a personal apology for all the trouble with tickets on the official BlizzCon site. In addition, he's announced that they've rearranged their convention hall space and will be able to offer 3,000 additional tickets. In order to avoid the problems of the last batch, they will be sold by a lottery system, and only sold to those with an active Blizzard account as of August 12th, 9 PM PDT, the time when the last batch of tickets was officially sold out. Further details on the lottery will be posted when they finalize their plans. Of course, There's probably far more than 3,000 customers who were put out by the problems, but this is probably as much of an olive branch as we can expect, given that they can't overpack the convention halls and it's likely too late to find or create a new, larger venue. Hopefully though, Blizzard is serious when they say that they will do what it takes to prevent this from happening in the future. We'll look forward to buying our tickets for BlizzCon 2009 without the presence of the Fail Murloc.
How Blizzard mishandled the BlizzCon ticket situation
As you may or may not know, we here at WoW Insider are not an official Blizzard fansite. There are a few different reasons for that, but one of them is that within the Fansite Program Code of Conduct, there is a clause that states, "fansites should present content that is supportive of World of Warcraft and Blizzard Entertainment." We don't disagree with that clause -- fansites are run by fans, and they should support Blizzard. But our status as an unofficial site leaves us completely free to talk indepth about situations where Blizzard has messed up big time. And as many players already know, the BlizzCon ticket sales process that took place earlier this week is definitely one of those situations.Blizzard is, of course, a game company. No one expects them to put on events like WWI and BlizzCon -- they do so to serve the community that's grown up around their games (and, let's be fair, market and advertise their products to the core of their fanbase). And the community loves those events, both hearing about and attending them. Which is why it was a surprise to no one (except maybe Blizzard themselves) that when the ticket sales kicked off Monday morning, it was a nightmare -- the site was hammered by fans trying desperately to buy tickets, the Failoc was a familiar sight, and within a few hours, even Blizzard.com's main site was down.Everyone could have predicted that there'd be problems like that -- when a fanbase of 11 million tries to buy 12,000 tickets, of course you're going to have technical problems. But Blizzard's mishandling of the situation didn't happen on Monday morning -- anyone can suffer from server outages. It happened over the next two days, days full of frustration, endless page refreshing, and a lack of useful communication from Blizzard about just what was happening.
BlizzCon tickets listed as sold out [UPDATED]
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/BlizzCon_tickets_reported_sold_out'; Most of those who wanted to buy a BlizzCon ticket have just been through two horribly rocky days marked by constant refreshing, stylesheet errors, and the dreaded Fail Murloc. For better or worse, it looks like that wait is at an end, as the multiple sources are reporting that BlizzCon Tickets are sold out. This is probably something Blizzard's going to see some backlash on one way or another. Whether it was poor planning, poor servers, an expected deluge of customers, or a combination of all 3 and more, the experience of trying to buy a BlizzCon ticket for most has been anywhere from 12-36 hours of pure agony marked by small 5-20 minutes windows where handfuls of lucky customers made off with the precious tickets. Of course, all hope may not be lost for those who failed to capture a ticket, as this may simply be yet another CSS error. In addition, Blizzard did sell the Worldwide Invitational tickets in waves as well. They may need to do the same for Blizzcon here, if only to give a fair shake to everyone who could never get past the CSS errors and the cold unforgiving face of the Murloc. EDIT: A commenter on the official BlizzCon forums says that a Blizzard phone rep told him they are not sold out. EDIT 2: The ticket page appears to be working again and not showing the tickets as Sold Out. The Fail Murlocs and XML errors continue apace, however. Edit 3: The saga continues. as of 4:40 PST EDT, some sources are reporting the dreaded sold out notice again -- or are having the ticket mysteriously disappear from their cart once they make it to checkout. Edit 4: Nethaera has just posted to say that most BlizzCon tickets are now sold out. However, they will be selling a small reserve starting tonight at 8 PM PDT.
BlizzCon ticket fiasco sparks fan-created game
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/BlizzCon_ticket_fiasco_sparks_fanmade_game'; If you've been one of the many frustrated players attempting to purchase BlizzCon tickets online since yesterday, then you'll really get a kick out of BlizzCon 08, a mini-game created by Belneiros of Moon Guard (or Toneslice of Exodar). It's extremely simple to learn how to play, and follows a classic arcade pattern. The premise is that, as a Failbot aka Blizzard employee, you arrive at work only to learn that (gasp) Blizzard forgot that the BlizzCon tickets are going on sale that day! In order to save face, you're going to have to start shooting as many down as possible. After all, there's no superior diversionary tactic. Armed with your gun, you must do everything possible to prevent the sale of BlizzCon tickets. The more customers that get tickets, the closer you are to death. It's actually a fun little pass-time that doesn't use much processing power at all. It's a quick play, and its inspiration came from the same refreshing, Failoc ordeal that we've all had to endure. If you sift through our live coverage yesterday, you'll notice that Belneiros wasn't the only bored player that got creative!Stay tuned to our live blog today for news on ticket sales and our luck (or lack thereof) with acquiring some of the elusive tickets.
SwagDog and Blizzard team up to offer custom t-shirts with guild and toon info
The BlizzCon tickets are slowly (and unsurely) being sold, and the first few lucky buyers have been linked to a "BlizzCon Exclusive" from SwagDog.com -- apparently they've teamed up with Blizzard to offer real-life versions of your guild tabard on a t-shirt, and folks who attend BlizzCon will get their pick of the first shirts off the presses.Note to Blizzard and SwagDog: feel free to send the royalty checks over to me whenever you want. The bad news is that they've eschewed the idea of "t-shirt as tabard", and instead it looks like they're making a custom-printed shirt for everyone, so it'll have not just your tabard on their shirt, but your guild's name, and your character's name and realm, race, class and faction as well.As neat as these are, I think I'd like something a little more subtle -- all that text and the icons muddy it up a bit. But otherwise, definitely seems like (assuming the prices and shirt quality are respectable) a fun way to show off a little guild and toon pride.
WoW Insider BlizzCon ticket giveaway winners!
If you recall, last week we had three BlizzCon tickets to give away. And they've each been handed out to lucky commenters. For those of you who happen to be less lucky, I'm sorry -- but to our winners, congratulations! These fine WoW Insider readers are all getting into BlizzCon 2007: Nicole Eric Rachel Grats, everyone! I look forward to seeing you, and some of our other readers, at BlizzCon this year!
Blizzcon ticket giveaway! [Updated]
It's Friday -- yay! The weekend is rapidly approaching which means we all get a chance to abandon work for play. But today we're going to make your Friday a bit brighter by giving you one last chance to win a ticket to BlizzCon 2007! To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment in response to this post -- and only one, please! Anyone found trying to stuff the ballot in their favor will be disqualified. At 2:00 PM EST tomorrow, we'll pick a winner at random. Now, this is only the ticket to BlizzCon -- travel arrangements are on you. We'll be passing your name on to Blizzard to reserve the ticket (and they will be checking your ID when you pick up your ticket), so, no, you aren't going to be able to sell these on eBay or anything else. To be eligible to win, you need to be a US resident of age 18+. (I'm sorry, but legal restrictions prevent us from opening contests up further than this.) For full rules and regulations, be sure to check out our official rules page. But if all of this sounds good to you, then what are you waiting for? Leave a comment for your chance to win!Update: I'm afraid this contest is now over -- check back next week to find out who our winners were!
Who's got BlizzCon tickets? We've got BlizzCon tickets!
Yes, if you're going to BlizzCon, you can expect to see plenty of WoW Insider staff on-hand to cover all the excitement. And if you aren't at BlizzCon, we'll be posting every last scrap of interesting information we find there on the site, so you'll see everything we see! But, no, I'm not making this post just to mock the poor folks who didn't have a chance to purchase tickets because they sold out. I'm making this post to let all of you know that we have some BlizzCon 2007 tickets to give away! So for those of you who were hoping to go to BlizzCon, don't give up yet. We'll be giving away our tickets by random drawing next week -- so stay tuned!
BlizzCon tickets sold out!
Remember that yesterday we reported that BlizzCon tickets were going fast? Well, today they're all gone. Yep, BlizzCon tickets have completely sold out after just shy of three days of sales. So if you haven't gotten your tickets yet -- I'm sorry, because it doesn't look like you'll have an opportunity to go. However, there's still the opportunity to win tickets -- the WSVG is giving away tickets at random to one of the 3v3 teams participating in their event in Dallas this July.So -- if you've got your tickets, congrats!
