sprinting wolfmen, explosive monks, and a queen of blades (blizzcon '09)

Blizzcon this year was, as anti-climatic as this sounds, the same as last year. I'm not sure why I'm always expecting something amazing to appear out of the blue, but the internet has pretty much denied any possibility of such a dream. Even though I had to work the morning of, I pretty much went to MMO Champion and Blizzard's website and viewed all of the information that was released. The luster of it all has vanished, but I did indeed enjoy myself, seeing the grandness of it all. Even after all these years, I still gape in awe at the sheer amount of people, un-ashamed of their roots, coming to this annual event and showing their unsuppressed love and passion.

Kerrigan statue. This thing has been around, but I never get tired of it.

Let me first start out by saying FUCK YOU ANAHEIM CONVENTION CENTER. That's right. Making us pay for parking while all we were doing was picking up our tickets is all sorts of bullshit. Now that I have that out of the way, I think I'm gonna go ahead and talk about what I thought about some of the new games and changes.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

Most of us had guessed it already. Nothing escapes the whispers in the wind. Several weeks ago, people were already talking about Worgens and Goblins, and now that it is finally upon us, we sat in anticipation for the most important aspect of all WoW expansions: changes to the game. Simplification of stats? Good shit. Multi-levelling in crafting professions? Fuck yea. Taking mana away from some classes? Let's see where this goes.

Wang Wei's new Deathwing art is wickedly awesome.

I for one think that Blizzard kinda messed up on WoW. They cater to the pros, then they cater to the noobs, then they have to cater to the PvPers, then they have to watch out about how that will affect PvE, and vice versa. In the end we have a hodge-podge of classes that can do just about anything and everything. RNG has pretty much destroyed the professional WoW PvP scene and the redundancy of PvE tank and spanking has really yanked the sparkles out of this game. Cataclysm presents a lot of great new ideas, but most of them are lore-related. Long lost speculations of the Greymane Wall, Gilneas, Furion, Uldum, Grim Batol, and Deathwing have all finally resurfaced - and I'm glad. This alone is enough to pull me towards the expansion, but will it satisfy those who have already been fumbling through five years of grinding? The best way to re-invigorate WoW, IMO, is to give the whole game a face lift. Upgraded textures on a flat breasplate still means you're wearing a flat breastplate. Otherwise, Blizzard has been polishing a game that loses depth by the patch.

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

Now here's something I didn't think I would be so excited about. They talked about the campaign being extremely grand, but I didn't expect this level of quality. Okay, maybe I did. The in-game cut scenes are literally of MGS quality and the voice acting is superb. They even got that chick from Battlestar Galactica to voice Kerrigan! I am hella rooting for this game now.

Yea I know this picture is old, but it's awesome.

It just sucks that the beta for the game got delayed. I was hoping to get in on that by this Winter, but it seems like the Battle.Net team dropped the ball on this one. We probably won't see Starcraft II launched till mid to late next year.

Diablo III: Monk Class

Fuck yes. When I heard about this, all sorts of stuff popped into my head. Monk as in healer? Or monk as in melee combat, fist guy? NEITHER. Monk as in badass fucking, explode your heart, shinning glyphs, holy warrior with AKUMA BEADS. While somewhat fragile in terms of his lifepool, the monk can dish out tons of damage and at the same time use powerful defensive abilities to escape dire situations. I really had a blast playing this guy, and if the final class isn't something wickedly amazing, I will probably be choosing between the monk or witch doctor.

Talk about badass.

I even bought a Diablo III poster and a Butcher t-shirt. If you didn't know, the Diablo franchise is probably my favorite of all time. Not only was it the first real Blizzard game I owned, but the cornerstone of my adolescent gaming.

On a final note, I can't believe this costume didn't even get an honorable mention. She could have totally beat out the paladin and Kel'Thuzad that got 4th and 5th place. You had to see it in person, it was fucking awesome and extremely true to the in-game armor.

Night Elf Priest wearing tier 8.

Before I close out this blog, I'd like to throw out a big thanks to Sean Wang and Mike Schwan. You guys fucking rock and made my Blizzcon experience possible.

And finally, a little taste of what's to come...

It's been a busy week, and it's only going to get busier. As school moves forward and work is piling up from MEDL, I will be able to see less and less sunlight, and far fewer hours doing the things I like to do. I do however, still want to paint another Berserk kit before I fully turn away from modelling, so keep an eye out for that!