Blizzcon '08

[Niafix04]

Originally Posted by Kodylan

Anyone arriving tomorrow and want to grab a drink near the convention center? Can probably do something later Thursday night (busy until 7:30PM) too.

Shoot me a PM if interested and we can figure out a place.

kody from lanys right? i think rudger and i are going to be in on thursday night, although i'm not sure what time.

[Malakie Torsade]

Originally Posted by Kodylan

Anyone arriving tomorrow and want to grab a drink near the convention center? Can probably do something later Thursday night (busy until 7:30PM) too.

Shoot me a PM if interested and we can figure out a place.

I'm going to be flying in around 6 but I have to catch the shuttle, check in to the room, meet up with at least one person, and pick up the Blizzcon tickets. I'll PM my info.

Dokomo, if you are reading this, check your PM's!

[Cuppycake]

I may be going on Saturday - I'll let you guys know. Would be down for meeting up and saying hi.

[Kodylan]

Well, that was fun. Wizard is a damn cool class in Diablo III.

[GuardianX]

Man that blizzcon was a really big letdown, I expected a little more.

This years blizzcon was really 2007 rehashed with Diablo 3 playable (when I say playable, I mean a single dungeon that takes about 5 minutes to grind through) and all the old stuff from last years blizzcon.

Even video games live was rehashed from last years music.

No new info on release dates, no new product launch info...shit they should have just made the convention 1000 PC's for diablo 3 and 100 PC's split for SC2 and WOTLK. No one was ever in line for those two games, it was a walk through the empty line queue and play instantly thing.

The panels were a joke, everything they talked about and questions people asked were already answered online either through MMO Champion or directly on blizzards own forums.

Add on to the horrible content inside, scalpers were outside trying to sell SC2 betas and badges for 300 (for the beta) and 150 (for the badge).

All in all, my feelings as I left the con was that I paid 100 dollars for a beta I will likely ebay for 300 - 600 dollars, fuck SC2...fuck it so hard.

As for next year...I think I'll be purchasing as many tickets as my ass can get a hold of...Diablo 3 beta passes should put a pretty big dent in my School loans.

[Menion]

The line to get into the convention center the first day was crazy. It wrapped around the entire convention center then went out into the parking lot into a snake pattern.

The layout of the convention could have been a lot better. There were lines on top of lines all over the convention center with no clear indication of whether you were standing in a line to buy tacos, play Diablo III or to buy a Murlock. Some people on the Blizzcon forums said that they waited in line for the Blizzstore for 5 hours. WTF!?

Overall I had a good time and if I can get tickets next year I will definitely be going back.

[Flinch]

Originally Posted by Menion

The line to get into the convention center the first day was crazy. It wrapped around the entire convention center then went out into the parking lot into a snake pattern.

The layout of the convention could have been a lot better. There were lines on top of lines all over the convention center with no clear indication of whether you were standing in a line to buy tacos, play Diablo III or to buy a Murlock. Some people on the Blizzcon forums said that they waited in line for the Blizzstore for 5 hours. WTF!?

Overall I had a good time and if I can get tickets next year I will definitely be going back.

Yeah, I laughed when I saw people standing in line for the fucking store.

You pay $100 to Blizzard for the privilege of standing in line to pay them some more money.

What a racket.

Had fun at this Blizzcon, was nice to check out SC2 and Diablo 3 and thought that things were more or less nicely handled. Would've hated to have had to stand in line for everything though.

EDIT: It'd be nice if Blizz could either spread out the panels a bit more or have some duplicate panels on different days or something. Maybe this would require a third day or something, but it's not something I'd necessarily be opposed to.

[Malakie Torsade]

I had a lot of fun and will definitely go again. I even got on TV a time or 2 as well as squeezing one question in on one of the WoW panels.

Got a chance to play Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 twice each. They both look fantastic graphically and the animations are very well done and detailed. For example, when the drones are gathering crystals, you can see them breaking them into small bits and, apparently, eating them. Breaking shit in Diablo 3 is also well done.

One thing I wasn't crazy about in SC2 was, as Zerg, when I select my hatchery and hit "S" to select all the larva and then hit the next key to select the unit I want made, it only triggered a transformation in the first larva instead of all of them. So, if you wanted 3 hydras, you need to select the hatchery, hit "S," and then "H" 3 times. As far as I could see, there was no way to bypass this; ie, hitting ctrl or shift + the key. I'd imagine this will change at some point.

You get 2 gas geysers in each base, but what's odd is sometimes one will go inactive, so you need to switch to the other. I'm not quite sure why they did this other than to add another level of micromanagement.

From what I played and from what the developers said, Diablo 3 isn't close to finished at all. If we see it before 2010 I'll be very surprised. The graphics and animations for what is there, however, are fantastic.

First I played the Wizard. This class definitely needs work. If there was a lot enemies, I'd end up running around waiting for my mana to regen during the fight. The only spells I had were Magic Missile, Static Charge, and a short range, frontal AE spell that did (I assume) physical damage. Static Charge seemed very assy. I could blow all my mana using it on just a few creatures and it wouldn't kill many/any of them. Magic Missile is... well, magic missile. The frontal AE will be nice if you get several weaker enemies in your face. Overall, I wasn't crazy about the Wizard due to mana issues.

Next I played Witch Doctor. The only spells I could figure out how to use were the Zombie Dog summons, summon frogs, and the flaming skull. You can actually set your own dogs on fire with the flaming skull spell, though it was so chaotic I'm not sure what bonuses that gave. The frog spell... not really sure what the point of it is honestly. Seems like any time you could use that you'd be better off using the skulls.

Witch Doctor also has an AE spell which does small damage but gives back mana. This was great as, when I ran out of mana, I could simply run in, AE a few times, and get back to casting while the Wizard just had to run around waiting for mana to refill.

The spells are currently set up so that to switch to another "click" spell (Static Charge, Fireball, whatever) you mouse-wheel or Tab. At the bottom right of the screen, you can see both your current "click" spell as well as the one you will switch to if you mousewheel or tab. You also have a hotbar for spells that you won't use as much, such as summoning spells, buffs, etc.

Anyway, I'll get a bunch of pictures up at some point for those interested.

Originally Posted by Menion

The layout of the convention could have been a lot better. There were lines on top of lines all over the convention center with no clear indication of whether you were standing in a line to buy tacos, play Diablo III or to buy a Murlock. Some people on the Blizzcon forums said that they waited in line for the Blizzstore for 5 hours. WTF!?

Yeah, this happened a lot. Lines were going all over and you had no clue what they were for. The Blizzard and Jinx store lines were absolutely insane. Someone had told me they stood in line one day for like 3-4 hours. Brutal.

Originally Posted by GuardianX

they should have just made the convention 1000 PC's for diablo 3 and 100 PC's split for SC2 and WOTLK. No one was ever in line for those two games, it was a walk through the empty line queue and play instantly thing.

I agree that there should have been a ton less PC's set up for Wrath. Seriously, why bother when you've invited half your player base into the beta anyway? Even aside from that, release is a month away. They could easily have used 50% of the computers they used on WoW for D3 instead.

That said, Starcraft 2 had lines as well, but they just didn't get as big as the D3 ones. I think a big part of that is that people felt the game would be too complicated for someone who has little to no RTS experience to pick up, play, and enjoy in a 10 minute time span.

[possible]

One thing I wasn't crazy about in SC2 was, as Zerg, when I select my hatchery and hit "S" to select all the larva and then hit the next key to select the unit I want made, it only triggered a transformation in the first larva instead of all of them. So, if you wanted 3 hydras, you need to select the hatchery, hit "S," and then "H" 3 times. As far as I could see, there was no way to bypass this; ie, hitting ctrl or shift + the key. I'd imagine this will change at some point.

This is actually part of their easymode MBS changes. For example, if you have all your Hatcheries selected and hotkeyed to 0, you can now go: 0, s, h, h, h, h, h, m, m, m, u, u, u, u, z, z, z, z, z. You've now built 5 Hydras, 3 Mutalisks, 4 Ultralisks and 10 Zerglings (if it's still 2 per larva?), which is pretty ridiculous...