48 Hour Geek Explosion
Back in June, The Mrs and I attended Blizzard’s Worldwide Invitational event in Paris. (Blizzard, for those who didn’t read my old blog, is the maker of World of Warcraft, a computer game which has ever-so-slightly taken over our lives from time to time over the last three and a half years). The Invitational is focused largely around the tournament play of Blizzard’s family of games, and they gave away tens of thousands of dollars in prize money to the winners.
This weekend was BlizzCon, the US event that is pretty much the centrepiece of their calendar. Developers, designers, executives, all gathered to meet, greet and interact with their rabid loyal players and talk about upcoming developments in their franchises.
Blizzcon banner on Anaheim Convention Center
The saga of the ticket sales is something I didn’t get into at the time, but this news article doesn’t begin to describe the towering rage over the shocking incompetence of the sale process that so many of us felt at the time. Nevertheless, tickets were obtained, flights and hotels booked, and we finally got there on Thursday evening. The event is HUGE. Paris felt massive; Anaheim felt monstrous.
It’s very geeky. No big news regarding game releases or other excitements, but lots of chances to try out upcoming games and listen to the designers talking about how they design gameplay, which is actually very interesting.
Highlight, as in Paris, was the costume competition, with the very much deserved prize going to a woman who had constructed a huge mechanical tortoise on which she was riding (you had to be there for it to make sense, but it was nevertheless bloody impressive). I didn’t take as many photos as I intended to, but this one speaks volumes. Those huge skulls? Yeah, they’re shoulder pads…
Man in costume with huge skulls
October 15th, 2008 at 3:24 am
I confess that I have never played WoW. In fact my gaming has been limited to the Nintendo DS (which I love) largely due to the fact that I know what I am like around consoles and would basically become a complete couch potato.
I fully understand the appeal and do dearly love gaming but I feel somewhat like a recovering meth addict so try to limit myself to playing other peoples machines.
However, have you seen the episode of South Park that features WoW? It is very funny indeed and should be sought out and viewed if you haven’t yet seen it.