blizz con update: turbo999

turbo999

blizz con update

Aug 05, 2007 18:30

When I arrived at Blizz Con I got there probably around 8:30amish. I noticed there was not as many people there compared to AX. Which was very cool since this was a lot more an exclusive event. After all they only made a certain number of tickets available. It's kind of scary to think how many people might have showed up if they had no cap.

Registration
The first thing I noticed was it was A LOT better organized. They had a section for VIP/Press and the rest of the masses. They had several booths for general attendance but what they did different then AX was all badges were pre-made. They where printed on something like a credit card plastic. Each booth was assigned part of the alphabet so it was a simple matter of just walking up to the correct both. Since there was no line I was out pretty quick with my shawg bag and badge. Inside the bag had some special offers for computer parts, a sealed deck of the WoW CCG game. You could bring that to the CCG tourny and enter free. There was also some buttons, magnets and a small bottle of hand lotion to clean your hands from playing the games. Very smart!

I went to the hotel and of course the room was not ready. So I walked back to the convention center and walked around. Even though it did not start until 11am they still opened it up so people could buy stuff and play either Starcraft 2 or the new WoW expansion. The line for SC was insane so I walked around a bit and sat down for the opening ceremony. Pretty much Blizz Con was the dealers room at AX when they had both sides opened up. One room was room A the other side was Room B. Room A had this cool statue, developers corner (you can get stuff signed), jousting, the Blizz Store and the panel room. They really needed a huge chunk of that for the panel room. In going from Room A to B they had a store that sold WoW type shirts, Tokopop, some toy company and a few other corporate type booths. There was a bull bronking type machine. A semi trailer and lots of computers so you can test out these new gaming computers. Some artwork, There was a huge section set aside for people to play the new new WoW expansion, SC 2, CCG gaming, the Blizz Store 2PVP tourny area and a large section was set aside for the WoW, Warcraft III and SC tournaments. What surprised me was they had a few booths set aside for alcohol!

There was three other rooms up on the 2nd floor. Two were for guild meetings and the other was for additional programming.

I went to OP, bought some stuff at the Blizz Store sat through some panels and then finally got my hotel room at around 2:30pm. After dropping my stuff off went back to the convention center and watched some 2PVP and the semi finals for Warcraft III and SC. The SC matches where awesome! In between all of that I also played a little Star Craft 2. The game totally rocks! I'm so going to get that on the day it comes out and I may need to take a couple days off so I can play. The only thing that sucked is they had nothing to show for the Zerg. It's just not ready to show yet. But what they did show looked extremely polished. This is going to be a great game.

About 9:30pm I finally head back to the hotel, get food and crash. The convention center closed at 10pm so there was nothing else going on.

Saturday
I went back to the convention center, sat through some more panels and watched more tournaments. I wish I could have stayed longer but I had to leave at 2:30pm to catch my flight back home.

Star Craft 2 notes
This game is going to be THE RTS game when it comes out. This got a bigger pop then the WoW expansion but More people where sitting through that panel. At least from what I could tell. But more people were watching the SC finals then Warcraft III finals.

Anyways from what I could tell Protos is going to have the most powerful unit in the game. The mother ship. Someone asked if Terrans or Zerg are going to have something equally as powerful and the answer was no. Every race will have their own unique army. Terrans got a lot of love since the last time we saw them. They received a radar that can detect invisible units, several transforming units like the transforming ships to ground units and there was something that looked like a base that transformed into a robot. It kicked ass. The Ghost marine units were awesome, especially when they snipped and called down the drop ships. I can not wait until they show what's going to happen with the Zerg.

They promised to keep the game elements the same. Meaning they want to keep in the things that people loved. The style of game play, the speed of the game etc. They are just adding new units, advancing the storyline and making it look pretty. And does it ever look pretty!

Overall I had more fun then I thought I was. I will try to go back next year and stay longer.

Here are some pics I took at the con. I didn't take that many because it was way too dark inside.

2PVP