Probably Not How Any Real Blizzard Meetings Work

Morhaime: Okay everybody, we’re good to go with the WoW Annual Pass. The web team has assured us that we’ll be good to go for Blizzcon so we’re still on track to announce it there. We’re definitely gonna do the free copy of Diablo but we need a few more perks for our subscribers who might not care about D3. So let’s start brainstorming. Who’s got some ideas?

Stockton: What about an exclusive pet? I mean, we’re doing the whole pet battle thing so maybe that would be a nice way to…

Chilton: No, no, no. We agreed that the pet battle thing is gonna be pretty controversial for the more hardcore crowd. This would just be more fuel for their fire. We need to do something different with this.

Street: How about an extra talent point for every…

Metzen: Shut up, Greg. Sorry I’m late everybody, just had to fire our valet guy. He was about to get mud all over my carpeting. Did I miss anything?

Morhaime: Hey Chris. No, we’re just getting started. Cory, I really like that idea but I agree with Tom. We don’t want to do a pet overload.

Stockton: Okay, how about a mount then? It’s cosmetic but we could still make it cool enough that people will want it.

Chilton: I could get behind that. It would definitely have to be appealing enough to sway people who might be on the fence.

Street: Ooh, I know. We could make it a giant crab that walks sideways and it has a…

Metzen: Shut up, Greg.

Morhaime: Guys, guys. Blizzcon is only a month away. There’s no way the art team is going to be able to get a mount ready that quickly.

Metzen: So? We just recycle somethink they’re already working on. Can we just take something from D3? I mean, yeah, we still have to animate it into WoW but who says we have to have it ready at Blizzcon? Just throw up a picture and tell them they’ll get it in the next patch. Done.

Stockton: That’s actually not a bad idea. Maybe some sort of monstrous creature from D3’s bestiary would work.

Morhaime: Well let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. We’ll get with the art teams and see what they have and if we can get that going quickly enough then we go with a mount. Otherwise, we nix it. I’ll write it up on the board here for now.

Street: Don’t forget to write down the crab thing, too.

Metzen: Shut up, Greg.

Morhaime: Okay what else? That’s good but it’s still not enough.

Metzen: Not enough? It’s a damn mount. They love that shit, they don’t need anything else.

Morhaime. But what if the mounts don’t work out, Chris? Come on. Let’s get serious here. We need more. Tom? Cory? Any ideas?

Chilton: I don’t know. This is really tough. I want to give them a lot of cool things but we can’t really do anything game-breaking or anything where people absolutely have to have the pass.

Stockton: I was thinking some sort of priority registration or something for Blizzcon next year.

Metzen: Oh, I can’t do Blizzcon next year. I’ve got a thing.

Morhaime: Okay, let me just make a quick note here… cancel… blizzcon… okay got it.

Stockton: You know what? That actually made me think of something. What if we gave them priority something else? Like they can get Mists before everyone else or something?

Chilton: That wouldn’t really be fair, you’d still be forcing people to get the annual pass if they want realm first or anything like that. Races for achievements would be completely broken.

Street: We could remove achievements.

Metzen: YES!

Morhaime: Wait what? You’re agreeing with that?

Metzen: Oh sorry, I just beat my high score on Bejeweled.

Street: So does that mean we’re removing achievements? I’ll start writing a dev watercooler about it.

All: Shut up, Greg.

Metzen: Alright, so you need something that lets people be feel like they’re important and first but doesn’t actually mean shit? Beta access. Done.

Chilton: Hmm…

Morhaime: Actually, I like that a lot. Tom? Cory? Thoughts?

Stockton: No objections from me.

Chilton: That actually might be a good way to find more bugs in the beta. To really flood it with people but still make them feel like they’re getting something special. I like it.

Street: Whoa whoa whoa whoa whaaaaaaat? You guys that’s crazy. No way the beta servers are gonna be able to accommodate that many people.

Metzen: Seriously, why do we keep inviting this guy to meetings?

Morhaime: Greg. Don’t be stupid. With that many people, nobody’s going to expect to be able to play all at once. The betas are there to help us test stuff out. People know that and they know that crashing the servers isn’t gonna let us test anything.

Street: So… queue times to get onto the servers?

All: *groan*

Stockton: I really think we need to get him some help. Like, I’m not even joking here. Greg might have some sort of serious problem. Did he seriously just suggest going back to LK-era queue times to get onto servers? That shit completely blew up in our face. I don’t want to go back to that, even if it is just for the beta.

Chilton: You guys already know how I feel about this guy. I’m not even gonna waste my breath repeating it.

Metzen: So are we done here? D3, Mount, Beta. We good?

Chilton: Oh, you know what? Let’s just make sure the legal team works with the web team to make sure we word all this stuff correctly. Mount in the next patch, D3 when it releases, beta when it’s available. Otherwise the crazier ones are gonna whine all over the forums about how they didn’t get this stuff instantly.

Stockton: Oh my god, you’re right. You know, it’s funny… as long as we’ve been doing this, I never remember that we have to plan this stuff out for the lowest common denominator of our fanbase. Could you just imagine people on the forums going apeshit about the beta not being available for them yet?

Metzen: Wait, are you kidding me? We gotta deal with bullshit like that? It’s ready when it’s ready. Tough titties.

Morhaime: Yeah, but some people just don’t get that. We’ll make sure to add that into the legalese. Good catch, Tom. We really dodged a bullet there.

Metzen: Who wants to hear some Thrall lines?

All: *cheer*

I don't know where I found this picture but it's a pretty good cap for this post. The end.

Blizzcon 2012 Cancelled, Boozecon Reigns Supreme!

That’s right! In a stunning victory for “the little guy,” the assholes at Blizzard have finally given up the Anaheim Convention Center for the far more popular Boozecon!

As you may recall, Boozecon 2011 was CANCELLED last year because those dicks wanted to tell us about pandas or some shit. And so I was BUMPED from the Anaheim Convention Center in favor of those twats. I vowed that this would never happen again.

And it fucking won’t.

How you like me now, Blizz?!?!?! Huh? Whatchoo gonna do when the big drunk chicken pukes alcohol all over you?!?!

They sure are, Aldous. They sure are.

I am proud to announce that Boozecon 2012 will be held October 19-20 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA.

And for those of you that are wondering if Anthony Hopkins will be returning for this year’s event, he has unfortunately been out of contact since last year’s cancellation. But don’t worry, we’ve been in talks with some other pretty big celebrities and we’ll release that information when available.

I can go ahead and announce that we will be having a live musical performance from Level 90 Elite Tauren Chieftain because they don’t do shit else during the year and performing once a year in October is the only way they can feed their families. I can be a nice guy sometimes.

Stay tuned for more information regarding special guests and ticketing information.

Blizzcon 2011: My Favorite Costumes

Blizzcon 2011 was quite a blast, but unfortunately it’s all over.  We can reminisce about the fun times we had and of course we can look back at all the photos we took and relive the experiences.  And the best part of doing that is trying to determine what your favorite costumes were.  Remember, memories are temporary but costumes are forever.  Here are some of the greatest costumes I found at Blizzcon this year, as well as my own 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place picks.

I’ve also added captions to all of the pictures for those of you who aren’t familiar enough with Blizzard games to know who they’re dressing up as.

Blizzcon 2011 Live: Impressions From the Pre-Alpha

Yesterday we got a chance to play the pre-alpha version of Mists of Pandaria. No screenshots were able to be taken of course, so I spent about 16 hours going over every detail just so that I could make sure to give you the most accurate information.

The first thing you notice on the character select screen is that Blizzard has apparently decided to add a new race to the game. Not sure why we haven’t heard much of this from other sources, but this new race looks like an unusually larger scale version of the existing Pandaren Monk model (having trouble linking here, but you can search my older post regarding these tiny Pandaren).

Anyways, I started up the pre-alpha and in order to give you the most accurate update on all the changes, I chose to play a Tauren Druid. Since that is the class I’m most familiar with, it would give me a great chance to keep you informed on every single detail that has changed.

I’m very disappointed to say that so far, Druids are seeing little to no change in this version of the game. I replayed the starting zone over and over and over just to make sure I wasn’t missing something, each time with more and more tears welled up in my eyes. This is how a heart breaks.

All the exciting new talents we’ve heard about for 5.0? None, no new talents for us. All the crazy screenshots we’ve seen of the new Pandarian environments? Nope, we still start in Thunder Bluff. Exciting new features we’ve heard about in 5.0 like the raid finder and transmogrification? Druids appear to have no access to these amazing gameplay changes.

Please Blizzard, don’t let us lag behind all of the other classes. We deserve these new features as much as everyone else!

Blizzcon 2011 Live: Player Housing Will Be Time-Shares

Blizzcon has just revealed that it’s releasing a feature many players have been asking for: player housing.

Due to system limitations, this feature will be implemented with a “time share” system in mind.

Lead Systems Designer Tom Chilton went into more detail:

To begin with, players will share a housing unit with 6 other players and they’ll be able to decorate however they like. We’re really excited to be able to add in this feature and we have many plans to add methods where players can collect objects to furnish their homes with.

Chilton went on to detail the system by explaining that each player will have access to the housing unit on one day of the week. This will be randomized each week so players won’t get stuck with the same day each time.

They also want to try and get more community relationships going. Each pairing will be completely randomized and groups will have to work together to ensure that they have a well-functioning household.

I’ll post more exciting news from Blizzcon as soon as it arrives. The information is flying at us here and I’m typing as fast as I can while also holding a flask.

Blizzcon 2011 Live: Expansion Revealed

Sorry if there’s bad syntax here folks, wanted to get this info out ASAP. I’m live here at Blizzcon and they’ve just announced the new expansion at the opening ceremonies here.

World of Warcraft: Tides Of War

Lots of interesting stuff going on in this expansion. It seems to definitely be centered around the Alliance this time. It starts with Jaina going overseas to find her family. Chris Metzen said:

We’ve been building up to this for a long while now. It’s time to put Jaina in the spotlight and the best way to do that is to return her too her roots.

With Jaina out searching, Varian takes the opportunity to start a campaign to retake some of their lost land.

But Sylvanas has plans of her own…. With the lack of leadership in Stormwind, the Forsaken easily take the city and leave Lordaeron, completely destroying their former city and leaving no trace behind.

Jaina finds her brother and together they begin to rebuild Lordaeron.

This expansion really seems to be centered around shifts in leadership.

The Goblins overthrow Gallywix and move into Gnomeregan using their superior technology to cleanse the area.

Gallywix finds solace in flooding Dalaran Crater and building an island casino in the center. (Looks like the insider info I tweeted during the line earlier was accurate!)

But like I said, this is expansion is more Alliance based. We get lots of deep introspection from Tyrande where we see her troubled by these changes. She forms the Cenarion Reclamation to try and enter the Emerald Dream.

The dwarf leader (I don’t remember his name, I’ve already finished one flask of whiskey) begins using the resources of Ironforge to attempt to reawaken the Titans.

The Tauren and Trolls don’t like either of these plans so they form the Bloodtotems to try and take Teldrassil.

Meanwhile, the Horde is having an internal power struggle. Thrall returns and wants to retake leadership. Garrosh doesn’t want to give it up so Thrall starts a campaign asking Garrosh “Where’s the birth certificate?”

Worgen find a cure and turn into humans.

Draenei get tired of being dicked around all the time so they move back to Outlands and take over Shattrath.

The Blood Elves are cool with this, it was kinda weird out there. The leader of the blood elves (again, don’t remember who) throws his hat into the race for Orgrimmar.

Sounds really exciting overall, looks like we were all wrong about Mists of Pandaria. Can’t wait for Tides Of War! Stay tuned for more gameplay info as the day continues.