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BlizzCon 2013 Impressions: CCed in the BlizzCon experience
The woman who approached our lunch table seemed friendly but slightly uncomfortable. "Excuse me, but do you work for Blizzard?" she asked with a tentative smile. Her brother, she went on to explain, had once known somebody who supposedly went on to the work there, but she didn't know the first thing about the game and had no idea if that was true or what he did there. We exchanged a quick glance -– incoming story about someone who once tested a Blizzard game, am I right? -– and continued to munch on our salads while nodding and making polite noises. "So what's your friend's name?" inquired the ever-personable Michael Gray. "Chris Metzen," she replied almost apologetically. "Is he ... somebody?" Our friendly local storyteller (who preferred to remain anonymous –- but my report here on the BlizzCon experience wouldn't be complete if I didn't share her story with you) went on to share a tale of growing up across the street from the Metzen family here in Southern California, where her brother played T-ball with the pint-sized future rock star of Blizzard. The thing she remembered most about "little Chris," as she called him, was the game in which he executed his task as catcher so enthusiastically that he found himself caught in the netting behind the plate -– CCed so completely, in fact, that the team's parents had to come cut him out with scissors. Everybody all together now: Awwww ... (/grin) All these years later, we find ourselves happily CCed in the net cast by Little Chris himself, the World of Warcraft of his imagination. And back at BlizzCon, our lunchtime encounter with a friendly SoCal native encapsulates the spirit of the BlizzCon weekend -- people brought together by Blizzard's games. You won't find any reveals about the expansion in this BlizzCon roundup, but if you're interested in some of the faces and places seen around the convention all weekend, read on!
WoW Moviewatch: Stoney Baby
We're still in the grips of Winter Veil hysteria here, with the occasional shout-out to real-life Christmas. Today's video parody is titled Stoney Baby. It's an obvious parody of Santa Baby, aimed right down the barrel at Rich Maloy of Big Crits. Written and performed by Erin Campbell, Stoney Baby has plenty of puns and jokes to mark the time. I enjoyed the animation in the video, especially, because it looks like it was created nearly entirely from in-game footage. That's rare enough nowadays that it almost feels unique to see videos based on the game itself. So for this holiday season, Stoney Baby has a little bit of it all: a fun song, great voice, and in-game animation. Check it out and let us know what you think. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.
Big Crits web series season 3 is live
Friend of WoW Insider and longtime enhancement shaman guru Rich Maloy runs the raiding guild <Big Crits>, and he documents their comings and goings in video format as a web series. Coming strong off of its sophomore season, Big Crits shows no signs of stopping -- season 3 has just started, offering longer episodes than last season. Big Crits is unscripted, getting its drama from the natural excitement that facing and downing raid content as a guild provides, so if you're looking for a series based around real raiders (as opposed to the other kind), check out its third season.
Rich Maloy's Big Crits web series makes its debut
WoW.com enhancement shaman columnist Rich Maloy (also known as Stoneybaby of Bighitbox) has been hard at work for months producing Big Crits, an unscripted web series that chronicles a new guild as they work through end-game raiding content. In Rich's own words: "I'm producing a new web series that will be the Real World (of Warcraft). The guild and the show are called Big Crits. It's a reality series about the interaction of people in an end-game raiding guild. The tagline is: Real people conquering a virtual world. The vision is simple: show how people from all walks of life work together to accomplish great things online." And now, at last, Big Crits has just released its premiere episode, with a second following closely behind later this week. Those who wish to follow the exploits of the Big Crits crew can check out the first episode above or on bigcrits.com, where new episodes should appear once a week.
Big Crits, a new WoW reality series
At the end of the summer last year I had this crazy idea: to make a TV show about a raiding guild. I was inspired by the relationships and interactions in my current guild and how much they impacted me personally -- both good and bad. I fleshed out the idea over beers (many beers) with some friends. We talked about logistics, equipment, participation, but most importantly, the goal. I wanted the show to be about the people, to be about the interaction between the raiders. And I don't mean ninja-looting drama-mama QQing. I wanted to explore the things that go on in a group of people trying to work together online to accomplish something great. There's more to raiding than drama. Things like, as I'm fond of saying, "the soul crushing 1% wipes and the absolute exhilaration of taking down a new boss for the first time." I worked on a pitch and reached out to friends & family in "the biz" but I spent most of my time trying to explain concepts such as a "raid" or a "boss" or that when I said "guild" I meant a group of MMO gamers and not an actor's or writer's union -- which made for some very confusing conversations at first. Frustrated, I wasn't sure I'd ever convince anyone this was an idea worth doing. But I knew it was.
