Blizzcon ‘08
Posted: October 12, 2008
Blizzard’s showcase of their three gaming series this year was nothing short of amazing. The Anaheim Convention center could barely restrain the amount of excitement that 15,000 people experienced during the entirety of this event. Considering most attendees were World of Warcraft players, the exposition focused primarily on Diablo 3, with StarCraft 2 and World of Warcraft following thereafter.
Immediately upon badge pick-up late Thursday night, I was greeted with a loot bag full of swag. Among various pages of advertisements, this bag included a blow-up Frostmourne, a blow-up hearthing paladin beach ball, paper Horde Halloween masks, a Blizzcon-styled Blizzard Authenticator, a Pandaren beer cozy, Diablo Sinamints, QQNoob tissues, a starter pack for the Trading Card Game, a Diablo stress reliever, StarCraft 2 wrist sweatbands, a container of Zerg creep, a scratch-off card for a polar bear mount and mysterious unknown Beta key, and various Blizzard key chains and pins. Apparently the polar bear mount was also made available to subscribers of the DirectTV broadcast of Blizzcon. This upset many Blizzcon attendees, so much so that they heckled the viewers any chance they were given.
Stepping into the fully-decorated convention center early Friday morning could put even the least geeky gamers in awe. The low, cave-like lighting was every gamer’s dream environment for playing. Banners and projection screens everywhere reminded you exactly where you were: the place where Blizzard dreams come true. The main stage had seating for a huge audience, and was filled for nearly every show and panel that presented there. Even if you could not see the stage, there were rows of projection screens throughout that gave a clear view of everything that was going on. The screens throughout the other two convention halls also would play footage from the main hall whilst panels were going on so you never had to miss a moment.
On Friday, I managed to pick-up from the Blizzard store additional loot to accompany my swag bag; including a Blizzcon ’08 shirt, a StarCraft 2 shirt, The Sunwell Trilogy Ultimate Edition, a “I <3 StarCraft” bumper magnet, the Year of Fear page-a-day calendar featuring World of Warcraft bosses, and a StarCraft puzzle. I dared not to venture near the Jinx booth as the masses gathered around the vendor’s station for hours on end to get their hands on a talking stuffed murloc doll. This, I did not understand, as the murloc was not exclusive to Blizzcon and will be made available online in the near future.
Diablo 3
The epitome of overwhelming enthusiasm in Anaheim this weekend was from none other than Diablo 3. It was so huge that its “big announcement” was made during the opening ceremony: the new playable wizard class. Claimed to be different than the sorceress from Diablo 2, the wizard supposedly favors a more arcane or temporal kind of magic, rather than magic from the elements. As examples, the developers showed-off electric-based spells, a time-slowing bubble, and face-melting abilities.
I managed to play Diablo 3 twice during Blizzcon; once as a witchdoctor, and the second time as the wizard. Running around the single available dungeon with a party simply feels epic. As much fun as Diablo 2 was, playing it did not feel as satisfactorily amazing or powerful as the Diablo 3 demo. In Diablo 2, many encounters required the player to constantly pop potions, and make sure to have a teleport ready to go back to town incase anything started going horribly wrong. In the bit of demo available for the new game, there was not a single instance where a potion was even thought of. Perhaps that was due to the ease of the dungeon, the new enemy-dropped orbs that restore health and mana, or our overpowered characters; what ever it was made downtime nonexistent and the action nonstop.
The new action bar that allows for skills to be used instead of potions does make the game feel a little bit more like World of Warcraft, but it is so much more fun than only being allowed to use the left and right mouse buttons for skills. Less hassle, more killing. The skill tree system had also been revamped, and the panelists went through some of their failed ideas before describing the current system. We were also made aware that the build available to play did not necessarily contain the final skill tree system. The system in place was a tier-like system that would require you to be of a certain level to gain access to a more advanced tier section, but you no longer have to place skill points in certain skills to obtain lower skills. Instead, the team stated they want players to put skill points into the spells they actually want to use. They also claimed to have plans in the works for allowing players to respec.
There is also a new rune system to add extra flavor to spells. Various types of runes drop while running dungeons and killing monsters, including power and multi-striking runes. A single rune can be placed within each individual spell, and it will enhance that skill based on the type of rune. For example, power runes will make spells do more damage; where as multi-striking runes will cause the spell to strike multiple targets. Some of these runes can even make non-damage dealing spells hurt enemies.
The witchdoctor can deal astonishing amounts of damage from a ranged standpoint. Not only does he have zombie dogs and walls, but his spells can affect one another. This is most prominent with regards to the summonable zombie dogs. Once they are out, the witchdoctor can throw a flaming skull onto the dogs to turn them into fire zombie dogs. This functionality looks to be very promising, and hopefully there will be many more similar discoveries to follow.
My problem with playing as a sorceress previously was that I ran out of mana all of the time. With the new mana regeneration mechanics in Diablo 3, I hoped that this would not be an issue. Unfortunately, mana was still expelled rather quickly while playing as the wizard, even from the simplest of spells, but if after exhausting mana you pause for a moment, you will regain it back just as quickly. Besides mana issues, the wizard spells lacked in the punch that the earlier-played video promised. Wizard gameplay felt underpowered and non-epic as a whole.
StarCraft 2
StarCraft 2 had its own big announcement as well, which was presented during the StarCraft 2 gameplay panel. Instead of making just one StarCraft 2 with a short campaign for each race, the team had decided to make it a trilogy of full-game campaigns, one for each race. This should allow for so much more race-specific lore development; perhaps this will be for a future World of Starcraft? Hopefully the extended campaigns will assist lesser StarCraft players in becoming better and more strategic as well. It was also revealed that the scratch-off card for the polar bear mount also includes a Beta key for StarCraft 2. Hopefully that will include at least some of the Terran campaign missions.
One of the competitions I did catch during my time at Blizzcon was a semi-finalist round of StarCraft. It was the last game before the finalist was chosen. Each player had one win and one loss; whoever won the next game would move on to the championship game. One competitor selected the Terran, Protoss for the other, and the game began. The screens above their individual soundproof booths displayed what they each saw, and the screen in the middle was reserved for the game commentators. The competitor screens moved at lightning speeds, and it was difficult to keep up as they built up massive buildings and armies. Despite the Protoss map advantage, the Terran player was able to overcome the Protoss units with in-base mines and siege tanks, and move on to potentially win the competition’s grand prize.
The length of the line to play was in between that of Diablo 3 and Wrath of the Lich King, meaning it was not terribly long of a wait. I opted to play single player to refrain from bruising any egos on the multiplayer side of the StarCraft 2 demo area, and selected the Protoss as my race of choice. Most of the units are new or drastic redesigns of previous units, and any unit groups you create are now listed on a small toolbar in the bottom section of the interface.
Because the World of Warcraft: China versus Global Competitor tournament was over in about 10 minutes, they decided to show a StarCraft 2 battle for those of us sitting in the audience. Despite having to learn of the new units quickly, the competitors were very skilled and built up their combatants and buildings with ease, and then brutally came after one another. This was but the second time I had witnessed a professional StarCraft battle, and it was quite impressive.
World of Warcraft
What big announcements could Blizzard possibly have for World of Warcraft when the next expansion is due out in a month? None whatsoever. There were little bits and pieces here and there, mentions of slight game changes, such as dual specs confirmation, mounts will be able to swim, and the possible Pandaren introduction. The class discussion panel was all but worthless, as the speakers had a quick blurb for each class containing already-available information. The Q&A part specifically involved no-brainer questions in which people would complain about how bad their class sucks. It seemed as though the presenters had plenty more to say than they did, but would not offer up information unless it was specifically asked during a Q&A session.
The dungeons and raids panel made up for most of what the class panel lacked. The presenters ran us through three of the dungeons available in the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion. This included the Halls of Lightning, Ahn’kahet, and the Eye of Eternity; all of which are level 80-accessible only. Each were emphasized for their lore impact on the game; the Halls for their link with the creators of the world, Ahn’kahet for its connection to Naxxramas and the Old Gods, and the Eye as the final lair of the Blue Aspect, Malygos.
Halls of Lightning |
Ahn'kahet |
Eye of Eternity |
|---|---|---|
Because of most everyone’s Beta involvement, the line to play Wrath of the Lich King remained short for nearly the entire duration of the convention. Even for people who do not currently have Beta access, the game is going to be out in a month and time spent at that station would have been better enjoyed elsewhere.
Outside of the Games
The gamer-famous webshow cast from The Guild also appeared at the convention. They had a booth at which they sold their DVD of season one and signed autographs, and they had their very own panel in the upstairs presentation room during which they held a Q&A and screened the first episode of season two. They pulled a rather large crowd, and I am surprised the event coordinators allowed us to pile in as many people into the room as we did. As it turned out, more than half of the cast does play World of Warcraft, but perhaps not as intensely as their character personas do.
Friday night’s geekfest hosted by Jay Mohr was the best of the not-directly-gaming-related events; featuring costume, /silly, and dance contests. There were also awards distributed for the top original musical scores and machinima (short films), but they did not play these in their entirety, so it was not nearly as exciting as originally believed to be. Also unfortunately, I was only able to watch this show from the back of the hall on projectors, but it was still the highlight of the evening.
There were a multitude of costume entries that were absolutely amazing, and a handful of relative failures. Some of the less exciting: a death knight, Valor-wearing warrior, several succubi, and even more priests of varying races. On the other hand, the well-done costumes were incredible: an Alliance, a Horde pair, a talbuk with a carrot on a stick, Tyrael, Thrall, a raven lord mount, a pirate, the best of all the priests, High Inquisitor Whitemane and Scarlet Commander Mograine, and a draenei on a turtle mount. A few costumers seen throughout the convention did not participate in the contest, including a full-Dragonstalker Troll Hunter, a presumably-druid Tauren, and many, many, many Night and Blood Elves. Many of the women in costume were honestly very brave; not only were most of them showing off a good deal of skin, but Blizzard lowered the thermostat to a chilly 40 below.
Costume Contest Clip #1
Costume Contest Clip #2
The /silly one-liners were not the best, and I am surprised that there were no Chuck Norris references. This was a new contest they had decided to add this year. Its lack of success will hopefully remove it from the next convention’s running.
Considering the number of entrants for the dance contest, most competitors all did the same dances: night elf female, blood elf female, orc female, and draenei female. Do people really enjoy the Britney Spears mash-up that much? The more unique dances included the tauren female done poorly, the tree of life that was lacking in liveliness, a belly dancing troll, a strip-ogre dance (the best of the night), and the unfortunate winner: the undead female. As if that dance is interesting at all. Still, in its entirety the dance competition was hilarious, and it definitely takes a dedicated player to go up there and make a fool out of himself.
The Blizzcon experience is one no one will forget, and one that every Blizzard gamer should participate in. Undoubtedly, there will be another Blizzcon event next year to present the further progress that has been made on Diablo 3, and perhaps the unannounced MMO title. Take the time off, and go experience it all.
