Blizzcon 2009 Pics Are Up

Okay... these aren't the best pictures in the world. In fact, some of them are pretty dang blurry. The camera was actually the only thing I had forgotten when I left for work with all my stuff for Blizzcon on Thursday morning. And being that I was staying at a friend's house that it slightly closer to Anaheim, I didn't get a chance to go pick it up. I did, however, have a loving mother that loaned me her old camera.

Her old camera is great for stills, but was a challenge for action (e.g. screenshots). Plus, it takes forever to actually take a picture. She warned me about all of this beforehand. I'm not complaining; at least I had a camera. (There were also thoughts of "renting" a camera from Circuit City Best Buy, but I figured the restocking fees probably weren't worth it. Not to mention the fact that that's slightly dishonest.)

So enjoy. I only had time to sort through and get rid of some of the super blurry ones, so didn't have a chance to add captions yet. I'll do that this weekend. And for those on RSS feeds... you'll have to come to the site to see the pictures. Don't worry... they'll probably be up for about a year like last year's Blizzcon pictures were. :)

Report on Blizzcon 2009

I'll get the pictures up soon. I'll state that right up front. Hopefully tonight. I took quite a few screen shot pictures, so not sure how well some of them turned out. At any rate... soon.

Once again, I was glad I went to Blizzcon. It was a lot of fun. I got to meet a few new people by randomly talking to people in lines, and also at the Twisted Nether Podcast party. I played Starcraft 2 (shaping up to look like a really, really great, detailed game) and the new races of Wow Cataclysm. And of course, sat around for lots of panels too.

If you missed any of the announcements of everything they're going to do.. well... go check out Wow.com. They did a great job covering it (as I was sure they would), and there's just too many changes.

The one that I will mention is that of everything they're going to be changing about guilds. The funny thing is though: I was talking to a guildie on Friday about how it should mean more to be in a guild (which is a belief I've had for years), and on Saturday, Blizzard talks about the changes to guilds. Leveling up your guild, items bound to guilds, guild only recipes, and even a guild talent tree! Worgen and goblins are cool, but this is the kind of stuff that will be for everyone's mains.

Again... if you need more information about this one, read the article over on wow.com.

Important Item for Blizzcon

Okay, for all those last minute packers, I need to add one more item to your list of things to pack. I'm sure you've seen a dozen different sites of what to bring to Blizzcon. But I'm not sure I've seen the most important thing on any of those lists.

Seriously, folks... do yourself a favor. Stop by any local drug store or whatever and pick up a set of earplugs. Last year Lvl 80 Elite Tauren Cheiftan was loud. I'm sure Ozzy Osborne will be even louder. You only get one set of ear drums. Please attend Blizzcon responsibly and protect those ears.

(I realize I'm getting older, but if you get good seats for the closing show, you'll thank me if you picked up earplugs.) You'll be able to feel Ozzy's sweat (or whatever) and still be able to hear your friends afterwards as well.

Blizzcon, ToC, and Correction

Okay, first off, I'm alive. Work has been busier as of late, and I just don't take the time to post at night. Working through lunches and breaks and whatnot leave me little to no time to blog. Not to mention that I've been figuring out upgrades for my Shaman, Mage, and my wife's Priest. heh.

But this week is Blizzcon for those that haven't paid attention. And I will be there. Then again, for those of you that haven't paid attention, you probably don't care that I'll be there.

As previously mentioned, I've promised to make an appearance over at Tangerine for the Twisted Nether Meetup on Friday night. I shouldn't be hard to spot... if you're that interested in meeting me, just check out my pictures from last Blizzcon; I'm the one with the Panderan Brewmaster. I'm also the one standing at the entrance of the Anaheim Convention Center. (Note to self: update blog pictures with this year's Blizzcon pictures.)

Now, on to actual Wow related information.

I previously wrote that the new 5-man Trial of the Champion on heroic mode dropped Champion's Seals only if you were already a champion with at least one faction. This is incorrect. My wife, who isn't exactly excited about any quest you need to repeat over and over again, isn't even close to being a champion with any race, and she too got the Seals from the Heroic instance.

Now that that's out of the way, I actually like what they did with this 5-man. For a pure gear-reset / farming instance, it serves it's purpose well. It's not too difficult, but slightly so if you still need the gear. It goes quick and drops lots of purples. At first, I really wished there was a way to get rid of all the talking and introduction of the first 3 champions, but now I simply use that as down time to do RL stuff. ("Okay, gonna start the event and go afk for bio, get a drink, and solve world hunger. I'll be back when they're ready to joust.)

Is it simple? Yep. But it was almost too simple. Like Blizzard is getting lazy. I was hoping that it was simply the fact that they were so focused on the next instance. But now that they're going to revamp Onyxia in 3.2.2, I think I'm going back to Blizzard just being lazy. /sigh

Oh well... at least some people will get to see some of these instances/encounters that were in the game before they started playing. It's just that I'm not one of those people.

Going to BlizzCon 2009

By the way... I did secure a ticket last Saturday to go to Blizzcon 2009. I think I'd like to be a bit more social this year than I was last year, so if anybody would like to hook up, I'd love to meet a few of you. But just a few. lol.

BlizzCon Day 2 Thoughts

First thing: I posted my gallery of photos just to the upper right. You can also see them here. You can see all the pictures I took on Saturday.

Looking back at BlizzCon, I'm really glad I went. It was a lot of fun. I got to play some StarCraft II, got to talk about World of Warcraft a lot, and even played a session of Diablo 3 (not really my cup of tea, but sorta fun nonetheless).

There's not a lot of new WoW things from BlizzCon. A little bits of information here and there. The new raids will be fun. Sounds like they will continue to do something like ZA, where there's insentive to go back to master "easy" dungeons with either faster times (like ZA) or taking on more parts of it at once. There's some neat technology that will go on behind the scenes for that as well.

The one major thing that I heard (and can now remember) about Saturday was that "soon", mounts won't dismount in water. Finally! Horses that can get wet. Thank the developers there, folks.

But, I have to say that Saturday was a pretty big dissappointment. Friday night with Jay Mohr MC'ing was pure comedy. Saturday night was pretty much a disaster. The two comedians that they had were "meh" at best. Kyle Kinane was the first guy. And he was admitedly 31 years old, he looked like he was 45 or so. His whole routine was basically how much of a waste his life is. Umm... ok. And then Patton Oswalt's routine was basically his highlights on how he's not very popular, and then a bunch of geek jokes.

Ok, I don't get it. Does Blizzard think that little of the attendees that they thought they could all relate to these two geeks? While I may not be the "typical" BlizzCon atendee, I consider myself a professional at what I do, and not a "waste of life" as these two guys seemed to profess. Furthermore, looking around at a lot of the people there, there were some other very successful people, that certainly couldn't relate either. WoW is pretty main stream... you might not want to put down your "typical" player as a geek. Just a thought, Blizzard.

My other "favorite" part was when Patton decided that he should start bashing Bush and McCain. What in the world does politics have to do with World of Warcraft anyway? And he admitted that he doesn't even play video games anymore because after 6 hours of Sonic, he couldn't get up to answer the phone. Sorry buddy, but even though you've had some successes in your life, those stories can all be labeled as a big, giant "L" for loser. And shame on Blizzard for thinking that was a good idea.

Moving on in the night. We had pretty good seats since 2 of our group (not me) sat up close for the Diablo 3 Lore and Art. So, we didn't want to abandon the seats. I think we were all interested to see the Video Games Live, which was an amazing show. And as dorky as it sounds, it was neat to see the songs performed live. A full orchestra of some of the music that I've listened to for the past few years... it was just cool. But to get to that part in the show, we had to suffer through Level 70 Elite Tauren Cheiftan. /sigh.

Maybe I'm just getting too old. Maybe I actually care about my hearing and what may become of it. But it was just too loud. Even with my ears plugged, it was still plenty loud, and I could feel the bass throughout my entire body. I'm sure the effect is worsened because I'm not a fan of the music. I like the lyrics, but the heavy metal has just become unpleasant. There are so many great songs that could be performed at BlizzCon (Big Blue Dress, NPC, Hazzyrd and Moonxtal, to name a few songs and bands), but instead all the Blizzard Boys get to prance around on stage.

Oh well... at least the rest of it was good.

BlizzCon Day 1 Thoughts

It was a really long, fun day at Blizzcon. (Wow... how's that for the worst opening sentence ever?) There were a ton of people. I got to avoid most of the crowds because I didn't care to purchase over-priced T-shirts and Steins. I'm just not that much of a memorabilia person. Then again, the customized figures (Figure Prints) are freakin' awesome in person.

They had 3 groups of computers (maybe a couple hundred each) where you could play Diablo III, Starcraft II, or the Wrath Beta. Wasn't too concerned about the Wrath Beta since I can play that from my own home. We played Diablo III once. It was okay. It's a hack and slash. While I own the other two, I'm not really a huge fan. Very cool graphics. Some cool spells. Just too... demonic for me. If you're interested, the "big announcement" from BlizzCon 2008 is the new Wizard class for Diablo III. Also kind of neat that you can play a male or female or each class. (No more having to be stuck with the female Amazon.)

Starcraft II didn't have much of a line, so we did that a number of times between panels. They've done a great job with updating the game. It's the great same game, just updated from 1998. And for attending BlizzCon, that means I get beta access to SCII, woo-hoo! There's not really much breaking news there except the game itself is pretty much done. It's just Blizzard working on maps and stories now. I'll let Elinor beat up a couple more times today as we play a bit more. :)

Also, I'll get some more pictures of some freaks... err... people today. :)

Main Hall

This was the main hall where the more popular panels were held (also the contests and whatnot). We tried to sit up front for the first one, but then decided that the big screens were good enough, and sitting in the back allowed us to escape easily (beat the crowds) after it was over. We'll probably sit in the back again today.

One of Many Preists

Here's one of the very cool costumes that we saw. Maybe I'll have to put together an actual gallery if I get too many pictures to post. We'll see.

Crash Course in Mobile Blogging: Blogger

So, my last message was completely from my phone. I learned a couple of things.

1. When taking pictures for BlizzCon this weekend, I can't turn the camera/phone on it's side or else I get funny-looking pictures.
2. Blogger's "Blogger Mobile" kind of sucks.

The first point is kind of obvious. I should have thought about that when I was taking the picture. Today's second post (this one) has everything to do with the second point.

There is a help article here that explains how to use Blogger Mobile. Sounds kind of simple, huh? Well, for somebody that didn't grow up texting, it was a bit more of a challenge. First, I had to figure out how to include something other than numbers in the text message To: box. (There's probably another way, but I just added an e-mail address on a contact, and then I could add the address.) But I didn't figure that out at first. So, at the bottom of that page, they say you can send the keyword HELP to BLOGGER (256447), to which I did. And got this response:

Welcome to Blogger Mobile! Text a post to BLOGGER (256447) then claim your blog at go.blogger.com. To cancel mobile bloggging, text STOP. Other charges may apply.

Great! I tried that, hoping to get a claim token that I can enter here. Nothing. So, I work on trying to figure out the go@blogger.com bit on my phone, to which I did. And so I got this response:

You have not yet registered. Send the word REGISTER in an MMS or email to go@blogger.com. By sending REGISTER you are agreeing to the Blogger TOS (www.blogger.com/tos).

I think the link is humorous because you get an Error 404, Page Not Found. Oh, and I didn't mention that these were the successful messages. Meanwhile, I was getting multiple bounce backs from Postgateway@blogger.com. The final message I get is this:

By registering your device, you have agreed to the Blogger TOS (www.blogger.com/tos).

(Again with the bad address.) So, great! I'm registered! But where's my token? I started searching around on the Internet and found this page. The third and final post is what I ended up doing. Basically... blog by e-mail. Which is something I started doing almost a year ago when I couldn't get to my blog directly anyway. So... while I am grateful for all that Blogger does. Fix your links and text messaging capabilities. Or at least fix the page that explains how to do it.

BlizzCon Attendees

I haven't mentioned much about BlizzCon since I got my tickets for two reasons. The first is simply because there's not much to write about. I got tickets. I'm going. There's not much more to say about it.

The second reason is probably more the reason though. The original plan was to go with my best friend, his brother (who's basically my brother), and my best friend's brother's wife (along with her brother and dad). Well, with all the commotion and the fiasco that was the sale of BlizzCon tickets this year, I got tickets, but I understood that none of my other friends did. It made me pretty sad. Especially since I don't get to see my best friend all that much (another state) and he was the one that got us all hooked, and he's been playing since the original beta.

Long story short. My brother's wife was relentless in her assault of the Blizzard Store, and she got tickets that Tuesday night. Then my best friend won the drawing. So they're all going. Yeah!

Who else is going? I don't even know if it's possible at all, but I'd like to meet any of my readers, and especially some of the other bloggers. So, post if you're going, and we'll figure out details from there.

Mobile Blogging at BlizzCon?

So I was reading Tatia's post over at Mystic Chicanery about going to BlizzCon, and I started thinking about Mobile Blogging. I know it's already in Blogger so I'd have to do minimal work to actually set it up. Was just wondering if anyone would be interested in seeing pictures from BlizzCon when I go. Thoughts? I'll post a poll here shortly.

I think it will cost me like 60 cents per picture. Shh... don't tell my wife. lol.

Playing F5

If you've been trying to get Blizzcon tickets, or you've been following other blogs, you may know that there's been a bit of a fiasco trying to get Blizzcon tickets this year. Last year, tickets sold out in 3 days. This year, they increased the space for Blizzcon by 50%. Ever since they went on sale yesterday morning, there's been issues on their web site with the amount of traffic they've had. Store was up, store was down, and then then took it down for maintenance for all of the night, promising to bring it back up this morning.

Well, at 12:50, it went back up. At first, it appeared that they were sold out. And my heart just dropped. I was really excited to go, but then I realized that it wasn't the end of the world, and maybe it was okay that I wasn't going. But, I logged in (just in case it was somehow saved in my shopping cart from yesterday), and then navigated to the page again. And this time, it was avaialbe for purchase. So, I quickly ordered my ticket, and then called a few friends.

They got the Sold Out messages. Now I have tickets and they don't. Kinda bummed about that. Was really hoping to spend the days with some friends. Don't get me wrong, it will still be very cool to see everything, but would really like to see it with people I know.

There's no "official" post that they're sold out, so hopefully they're selling them in waves or something. I'll still be checking the site to see if they become available, but come on, Blizz? Shouldn't you have maybe thought about these traffic issues before Monday? Oh well... guess they're human as well.

But bottom line, Yes, Virginia, I'm going to Blizzcon.

Going to Blizzcon

I can't believe I forgot to mention this to all my loyal, loving fans. For those that don't know, I live in Southern California. In fact, I grew up in and live in Orange County, which is the same county that Anaheim is in, which is the city where Blizzcon will be this year (and every year so far).

At any rate, I've kind of shunned going to Blizzcon for the past years. I don't know... I just couldn't justify spending the money to go. And who knows who else would actually go that I know anyway?

Well the seed for going this time was probably first planted by Sirsha (who lives in UT, btw) last year or so. Sirsha used to work with my best friend, Elinor; and the three of us, along with Justicar (Dadguy and another co-worker) and Dargus (Elinor's brother) pretty much leveled up to 60 together, so we all go way back. At any rate, Sirsha planted the seed by saying that him and his brother (another good friend) would come down for the next Blizzcon.

Now, it looks like Elinor will be coming down for the convention. And Dargus and his wife, that now plays, will be going as well. And for my birthday, my wife's present was to watch the kids while I go off and "play" at Blizzcon for two days. The "certificate" said something like (I don't have it hear, so I can't quote it), "Go have fun talking strategy with all your fellow dorks."

So, for anyone that's going, we'll probably have to figure out how to hook up somehow. And if you're my close friends, you've probably got my cell phone number anyway. lol. But come hang out with a fellow dork.

Oh, and Anadori? I love you. Thanks for the awesome present.