Blizzcon 2010
Well, where do I start? It was a pretty epic weekend, full of friends, WoW news, endless walking, and lots of laughs. Thinking back now and peeling back the layers of jetlag that are caked on my memories, I absolutely had a blast out there and cannot wait for next year–provided I have the opportunity to go again.
The icing on the cake was, of course, meeting some of my guildmates for the first time. I’d already met Cendra and Ildara before, but this was my first time seeing Anafielle, Gandy, Sheepindeath, Palehoof, Katmandu, and Amulgur. All great folks and they totally made the weekend for me.
From left to right: Ildara, Cendra, Sheepindeath, Gandy, myself, Anafielle. (Not pictured: Pale, Kat, and Amulgur, who were off doing their own crazy thing.)
I’ll spare you all a play-by-play of all four days I was out there, but there were some key moments I am compelled to share. Like on Thursday, I was following the progress of the badge pickup line through Twitter with some trepidation hearing of multiple hours spent in line. However our delay in getting over there (because we were waiting for Cendra and Ildara to fly in and drop off their stuff at the hotel) ended up rewarding us. When we finally got to the B hall to grab our badges, the place was nigh-deserted.
I can’t even fathom the unmitigated hell that must have been standing in that awful line for a long as so many must have.
Once we had gathered up our badges and our guildees, we trudged down the road to the Anabella hotel for the WoW Insider party. It was a lower key event than I thought it would be, with huge crowds stacked around the podcast table and whoever was yelling into a microphone. The bar lines were long but the drinks weren’t too expensive. I managed to sate myself on multiple G&Ts over the course of the night. Had a good time overall, since I prefer low key things.
Towards the end before the party ended, there was a huge commotion at the patio. Apparently Ghostcrawler had arrived and was immediately swarmed.
Ana managed to pull a conversation with the guy, and despite my best efforts wouldn’t act as a partisan in my quixotic quest to get a gap closer for Prot. Instead the two chatted briefly about Maintankadin while I stood 30 feet away and shouted over the din, “LONG ARM OF THE LAW FOR PROT!”
But not really.
The next morning I did my best to get everyone up and moving early so we could get in line pronto for the opening ceremony. Unfortunately, everyone afk’d for my ready check. After docking the raid’s DKP, I was able to motivate them to get into gear. On the walk down to the convention center, half the group split off to go get breakfast at some overpriced joint in Downtown Disney while the rest of us continued to the line. Once we had our spot near the fountain, we then proceeded to stand there for two hours, unaware that the line behind was extending to unholy lengths.
After about two hours of uncomfortable weight shifting, some dope dressed up as Risk Astley and poorly rickrolling the crowd with his iPod dock, various innuendo from Gandy, a parade of cosplayers whose shtick consisted of “I’m blond, scantily clad, and wearing blood elf ears!”, and all other kinds of craziness, the doors opened and the line started moving. We quickly got inside and grabbed some okay seats for the opening.
As you know, not much was announced for WoW aside a new charity pet from the online store. And they replayed the opening cinematic. Woo.
I then proceeded to spend most of the day in that hall, watching the various panels. Most of which were really interesting. As the day progressed and each panel ended, we moved closer and closer to the front of the room to the point where we were in the second clump of chairs from the stage, slightly to the left of center stage, in time for the live raid and costume contest/other contests.
The dance contest in particular was fantastic, and I say this as someone with a genetically predisposed lack of rhythm. The kid who did the gnome male dance was great, the trio who did the goblin female dance put on quite the show, only one of the male orc dancers was actually good, and the woman who did the female gnome dance made me all the more terrified of that benighted race. And, of course, the male undead dance. Poor guy, I was mortified for him.
Biggest disappointment of the costume contest: not watching a Draenei or Illidan cosplayer face plant on a ramp. Best costume: the “T4 warrior lfm for Kara”, that one took me back! (Except for the warrior part.)
That night we went to Bubba Gump’s for dinner and I briefly popped in to the meetup at the bar to say hi (once I had stuffed myself with a shrimp-based dinner), but by then a lot of people had already left. However, I did get to meet Ophelie of Bossy Pally, which was pretty cool.
The next day I resolved to not spend the entire day in that one room, so the goal was to just hit up the Class Q&A and then do some wandering and see everything I missed the previous day. So we skipped the cinematics panel at the beginning of the day, got some breakfast at Denny’s (in all its greasy glory), and then headed over to grab seats for the Q&A. The room was pretty full by the time we got there, but we snagged a row of seats in view of one of the giant monitors off to the side. Meanwhile, Ana ran off to get in the Q&A line before it was too late.
(If you can’t tell by now, she’s definitely the more social of the two of us!)
There were some really good questions and some amazingly terrible ones. As much as I hated the “lolpaladins” attitude present (and I’m sure I made a spectacle of myself clapping like a cymbal monkey any time someone asked a Pally question), the crowd was pretty well behaved. And when it wasn’t, it was primarily in response to the abject stupidity of some questions–like the first guy who had a raft of bizarre hunter complaints, or the DK that wanted to be buffed because nobody liked him in LFD.
The third question in or so was a really good one done by this fellow, asking about Grand Crusader and how worthless it is right now. Unfortunately, the devs side stepped the question, saying they’d buff the talent if need be. That’s all well and good, but they totally missed the point that the root problem is the rotation we have right now is so rigid there’s only one spot where Grand Crusader can feasibly go. As such, I’m suspecting their happy to keep 3-second CS where it is for some time, rather than fixing the rotation, which is pretty disheartening.
Another question got the devs to spill that in the near future we’ll have a talent that will make Divine Plea generate 3 Holy Power, giving us a full ShoR ready to go at the pull. That was great news!
Towards the end of the Q&A, Ana finally got her turn to ask her question. She stood up and asked the following:
Hey guys, this is Anafielle from the paladin blog, Righteous Defense, and I have a question about tanks in general. I was wondering if you were happy with the current implementation of Vengeance? Right now, … the way it’s working, you can run into an avoidance streak and you won’t get enough stacks; and it also punishes survival gearing to an extent because when you’re gearing for survival you’ll have less stacks of Vengeance. I was wondering if you were happy with the way that is?
It was a bit obvious at the time she got up there that Ana was a little nervous. Let’s be serious though, who wouldn’t be? I echo Antigen’s sentiment that “I would’ve been so nervous I would probably just said “Hi!” and excused myself.”
Personally, I don’t have anywhere near the cojones to get up in front of all those people and put myself at the mercy of what could be a very merciless crowd. I did my part by holding back the compulsion to sympathy-stress-vomit all over the Mullet in front of me.
The rest of the con was hardly as exciting. I spent the rest of our time there checking out the booths from afar (no thanks, lines!), the art gallery, hitting up the store, grabbing lunch, and doing some more wandering. At around 5:30 we ducked outside for the official Lightninghoof photo, only to find out they rescheduled the photo for an hour early and had already taken it. So, we took one of our own. Palehoof even paid the kid who took the photo with a loot card.
From there we broke off and went back to the hotel to drink beer, eat pizza, and shoot the shit. After a while, Ana and Gandy got wanderlust so they headed off for the after party. Apparently they didn’t make it back until 5 am the next morning and we had to retrace Gandy’s steps with a receipt from Denny’s time-stamped at 4:15 am. In any case, was relieved to learn after the fact that Palehoof was there to keep Gandy from trying to drunkenly Tricks someone, IRL.
And then of course yesterday we all bid our farewells to one another, wished safe travels, and scattered to the four winds, back to our respective homes and varying states of jet laggedness.
The plan is to roll with an even bigger crew next year. I hope that happens, Blizzcon was way too much fun to share with just 9 people from our guild. Can’t wait til next time.
Armory Feed
@hazmacewillraid
25 October 2010 at 12:47 pm #
Someone has their eyes closed in that first picture… what a class act, that Rhidach guy!
@Rhidach
25 October 2010 at 12:52 pm #
I have an involuntary condition–my eye muscles contract shut when I smile. Er, yeah! Thanks for rubbing it in, jerkface.
@katmandu
25 October 2010 at 1:09 pm #
We had a blast in the topic forums – everything from professions recommendations to RP issues. Apparently we were also in the Denny’s with Gandy – I vaguely remember a bowl of grits, but I may have already been asleep by then.
@Rhidach
25 October 2010 at 1:17 pm #
The discussion forums did sound like a lot of fun. I wish I hit up the guild leadership one with you guys, that would have been really interesting to participate in.
@katmandu
25 October 2010 at 1:19 pm #
Unfortunately, a lot of the guild leadership meeting was taken up with some trolling. The rest of the conversation centered on how responsible certain guilds feel they are for ensuring that their members have gems, enchants, etc.
I could not imagine a guild tricking out an entire raiding team in gems. That’s just crazy to me.
@Anafielle
25 October 2010 at 1:09 pm #
Now I have to post… just to put some more pictures up. I love that you yourself chose 1) a picture of you with your eyes closed, silly! and 2) a picture of the side of my face. This is what happens when guys pick photos. :) The picture of you with the question mark over your head is totally going up on the blog. Just you wait.
Just kidding, Rhi! Great post!! I knew I could trust you to summarize the awesome that was this weekend!
Re: Class Q&A and my big moment in the sun. All credit goes to Meloree with whom I exchanged a bunch of PMs so as to prevent sounding like a complete idiot up there. I needed some relatively articulate words and he provided.
I really can’t believe the devs are happy with Vengeance. I expected a little bit more detail from them considering it is a very important tank mechanic right now and it’s a little bit…. I wouldn’t say broken, but working somewhat oddly. I was so shocked that they completely sidestepped my question and honestly couldn’t think of a good followup. So I just said thanks & bye.
Yes, I was nervous. :x
Anyways…. what a totally incredible weekend!!!!!
Anafielle’s last blog ..anafielle- RT @rhidach- New post at RD! Blizzcon 2010 http-googl-fb-8mAKK
@Rhidach
25 October 2010 at 1:19 pm #
Yeah I wasn’t a fan of many (or most) of their answers in that panel. The two conclusions to each question seemed to be “working as intended” or “we’ll fix if needed”. Bah.
At least you had the class to move on and let more people get behind you ask questions. How many other questioners can say that!
First, great question about Vengeance. I think you made your point clear enough, and I think their side-stepping of your questions is more indicative of the fact that Vengeance is a brand new mechanic which they hopefully are planning to “wait and see” how it performs at level 85 in raids before making any concrete decisions or changes.
Second, grats on the one-on-one discussion with the crab – so what’s his take on maintankadin (assuming he or someone from Blizz reads it)? How much weight do they put in player-based theorycraft compared with their own internal numbers?
I got to feel like I contributed!
It really is a shame they dodged your question, I think it’s something a lot of tanks (not just paladins) are concerned about.
@Rhidach
26 October 2010 at 1:33 pm #
Personally, I enjoyed sitting sitting in Denny’s that morning and helping Ana choose and rehearse the best way to phrase her question. She really wanted to do us all (and especially you and Theck) justice.
The definitely dodged the answer (though not as badly as the GC/rotation one).
I have to go with you guys next year. Sounds like it was a lot of fun, and I wish work wasn’t so chaotic when the tickets went on sale so I was unable to ensure I could go. Plus this will give Rhi a good pic to make his Vili dartboard.
@Rhidach
26 October 2010 at 9:00 am #
If you don’t come next year, there’ll be hell to pay!
Sounds like an awesome time – I was unfortunately stuck with the live feed. Hopefully I can stop by and say hi to you guys next year!
saif’s last blog ..Woah!
@Rhidach
26 October 2010 at 9:01 am #
Definitely man, you better!
I did not know this blog a week ago and now seems like a pretty interesting site, I am a player of the Spanish kingdoms, a European server called Uldum, and well my English is not good enough. Just say I’m glad you enjoyed it and you have to know that there is a place where we can discuss and protection paladins have our doubts and give advice. A greeting from a Spanish player!
Interesting fact: I was watching the Class Q&A–I actually alt tabbed out of a random heroic on my hunter when I heard “Anafielle” and “Righteous Defense”–and directly after Ana’s question this blog went down for about 20 minutes. Hopefully you snagged some readership!
Considering some of the comments people were giving on the Xfire chat (I’m poor, okay? University student…) I’m actually surprised you didn’t have to do a bunch of comment deleting when you got home, though. Apparently uncouth internet trolls like Anafielle on TV.
@Anafielle
25 October 2010 at 5:06 pm #
Ahahahahahahaha …. Ahaha…. haha….. *shiver* I’m glad I had bodyguards all weekend.
I haven’t even looked at the youtube comments because I know some of them are unpleasant, even the complimentary ones. I am no Ferraro as a paladin “blogger” (and I use that term loosely) – I absolutely don’t like playing off my female-ness at all. But I guess I was asking for it when I got up on TV in a sliced up tanky t shirt and showed off the fact that I don’t weigh 500 pounds or have a neckbeard.
I guess, if people visit Maintankadin because I had the T shirt on, or the blog because they remembered me from TV, I guess that can only be a plus.
But I feel bad thinking that. I don’t like playing off it, at all. It makes me really uncomfortable. It can be a good thing, I guess, but I don’t know… it’s weird. I have gotten a few disturbing emails.
@Rhidach
25 October 2010 at 5:14 pm #
Your comment doesn’t have nearly enough neckbeard.
@Anafielle
25 October 2010 at 5:22 pm #
I know, right? Next time I’ll make sure to sharpie on a neckbeard when I get up for the Q&A.
Actually, screw that. Next year I will totally just wear this hoodie:
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=29746&start=15#p616009
Identity secure.
I have a good curiosity can get those sweatshirts or shirts if you live outside the U.S.? Because I’m from Spain and here there is a different currency and do not know if it might be possible, well aver if you can answer the question me a greeting.
@Rhidach
26 October 2010 at 9:02 am #
Guisado, you should email the people that run the site and ask them if they’ll ship internationally. I can’t see why they wouldn’t.
Thanks rhidach!
Forgive me for laughing at your misfortune, but I really do find it hilarious. If it makes you feel any better, I totally don’t think you flaunted your femaleness at all–you actually just seemed nervous as hell, not that I blame you. It’s the nature of internet trolls to make something of everything, so I’d say just crank up your spam filter a bit and hope to god it pulls in at least a few useful contributors here or at MT.
Neckbeard would definitely help tone down the internet creep factor, though.
Maybe I would have come to see you guys if I knew more about when you were meeting up and other events, I kinda spent the entire con by myself.
@Rhidach
26 October 2010 at 9:05 am #
Hey, Ana asked if you wanted to meet up.
Anafielle – I don’t think you really flaunted femaleness at all any more so than the act of simply being female =) Its the nature of being an attractive female playing a massive online game, it would seem.
Perhaps consider going on a strict diet of donuts for a year or more, absolutely no exercise, and also completely stop washing your hair. Then don’t draw any attention to yourself.
That might tone things down a bit =)
On another note, you guys and gals should post up your arrangements for things like this so that interested readers can arrange to see you! You’re celebrities in your own right and while I didn’t go to Blizzcon this year I normally do!
Unless of course being tracked down by readers doesn’t appeal to you, which I can understand why it might not given the reaction to Anafielle.
@Rhidach
26 October 2010 at 9:06 am #
Next year I’ll definitely be a lot more social, and I’m sure in turn Anafielle will turn into a giant wallflower. We’ll definitely keep readers posted next year where we are and have an opportunity for a quick RD meet up!
Rhidach: I was hoping to get an opportunity to meet you at some point. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance :(. You’ve got a great group of people there with you! Perhaps next year, I’ll be able to run into you!
Matticus’s last blog ..Owl Returns With Special Delivery For You
should probably stick to meeting him, Matticus. Running into people can be dangerous and also exhausting.
@Rhidach
27 October 2010 at 10:45 am #
Hopefully, man! I’ll do my best to find you next year.
I think besides myself I only saw like 2 other people besides Ana with a maintankadin shirt on. When you were asking your question you seemed so nervous your cheeks were quivering me gf was like awwwwwwwww.
[Note to Rhi] You are not cool enough to use the term “Roll with…crew”….[/note to Rhi]