Friday morning I sat down at the helm of ©StompRot Studios and dialed in through the interwebs to follow the DirectTV stream of Blizzcon ’09. With twitter at the ready, I eeked with anticipation as the stream aimlessly looped through old cinamatics and commercials trying to sell me the stream that I had obviously already paid for.
Then, at 10am, PST, on cue, right when I was ready to fall out of my seat with eagerness, we are welcomed by some dude who is leading the charge, Kat Hunter, and some Asian chick – who, by some miracle is able to pronounce all of the tournament player’s names. Imagine that.
What’s that? Suddenly the stream breaks… the first of many… And, we then see Dude, Kat and the Asian chick getting their hair and make-up done and talking about how they look.
Then we are taken to the “Field Reporter”. The only reason that this chick earned the title of “Field Reporter” is because she obviously plays the field; Jo “I-had-to-blow-someone-for-this-gig” Garcia. BJ must have been the WORST correspondent I have ever seen. DTV would have been better off giving the mic to the kid in the gruntling costume.
So, we push forward. As we are set to begin the panels MMO-Champion reports the DTV schedule before it is published on the stream. Once again, MMO-Champion gets the jump on news. Alas, they are showing the StarCraft Panel on Friday instead of The Guild panel!
Let me get this straight – they have camera set up and recording ALL of the panels for replay later EXCEPT the The Guild. If DTV is so advance and taking full advantage of high-quality streaming video, why not make it interactive and let me CHOOSE which panel I want to view since ALL of the panels overlap?
Opening Ceremony
Twitter is a fluster with anticipation as Mike Morheime takes the stage and starts dropping Cataclysm innuendo and reliving the previous year’s achievements. And, @Rawrcast takes off out of the gates as Kenny D and I begin Live-Reporting and posting screen shots of the proceedings as they happen.
Preview Panel
Metzen and a few other developers take the stage and drop the bombshell. YES, the next expansion is World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. YES, the new races are Goblins and Worgen. And, YES, this expansion will change the face of Azeroth as we know it. Deathwing will awaken from his slumber and rip Azeroth a new one as he is unleashed from the bowls of the earth.
So, all of those weeks that everyone was calling Inquisitor a crack-pot for his informed speculation were completely unfounded. In a humorous fashion, Metzen jokes that this is new information that no one has ever heard before divulging that the rumors, leaks and informed speculation were all true.
Blizzard is doing something with Cataclysm that no other MMO has ever done. They are completely reworking the existing content for everyone, introducing phased terrain, all while advancing the story of the World of Warcraft.
More to come soon on the story of Deathwing, and all of the other developments surrounding Cataclysm in the coming months.
In a segment between panels, Morheime explained that there are two major releases planned for Blizzard between now and the next Blizzcon, in addition to elaborating on the fact that Blizzcon has outgrown the Anaheim Convention Center. It seems that Blizzard is already making plans to expand the capacity of the convention for next year!
Class Discussion
Ghostcrawler (Greg Street) scrambled up to the stage and dropped a huge bombshell on the flock of fans. No more Mp5, spell power, attack power, defense, armor penetration, haste, or block. Thank God they are realizing that min/maxers have overwhelmed the game, and they have finally decided to take some of the math out of my fun.
It seems that they are taking stats back to the simplified base stats of old and putting more weight into a players ability to actually play the game, as less into their ability to number crunch.
GC also shared the new legendary 2-handed axe slated to arrive in Icecrown, Shadomourne. And, the masses cheered…
Of course there were loads of other updates shared in the Class panel, most of which will simplify the game and are contributing to the overarching theme of Blizzcon – Blizzard wants for all of their games to get back to what made them fun to begin with, and start taking out much of the clutter.
Speaking of clutter, DirectTV did a GREAT job finding the dorkiest idiot in the crowd and cutting to him multiple times during this panel. Way to perpetuate the image that we are all idiots in our parent’s basement who only AFK to go to Taco Bell or buy more Mountain Dew. Eat me, DirectTV.
More to come on the Class Discussion and Itemization changes in the coming weeks.
Who thinks that Jay Mohr is funny anymore?
Friday night closed with one very obviously stoned Jay Mohr onstage hosting the costume, sound alike and dance contest. I find it funny that the only people who find Jay Mohr funny are people with the name Jay who happen to have the last name of Mohr. Granted, Blizzard spared
no expense when bringing in Ozzy for the closing concert, but they should have saved the money they spent on Jay Mohr and paid some corny wedding DJ to to the same job that Mr. “High-as-a-kite” Mohr did Friday night.
Regardless, the costume contest entries were amazing, cute, inventive, and rather funny. I was glad to see that the right person won, and it was a costume that peaked my interest into the freaky kinky factor evident in Diablo.
Shared Experiences through Twitter
The best part of the day was getting t
witter updates and pictures from LOADS of fans at Blizzcon. Both Thursday and Friday night I wrangled two giveaways via Twitter which prompted to pretty funny responses to various questions. Congratulations to the winners @Osys and @SirDoctor, both of whom picked up a Spectral Sandbox Tiger Loot Card!
Also, we were all sharing our Blizzard experience with Brutaliz at Blizzcon. I couldn’t be happier when I received word that he was able to meet-up with Travis (@CultofRazer) from Razer, and that he was able to test drive some of Razer’s latest products. We are looking forward to having Travis back on soon to chat about his Blizzcon experience as a vendor, and the hot new products that are sure to help us play like a pro.
That’s all for Friday… I will follow up with Saturday’s recap soon!
Make sure to check @Rawrcast for a full recap of all of the screen shots, RTs and up to the minute opinion of the changes announced at this weekend’s Blizzcon.