Blizzcon Day 1

Day 1 of Blizzcon is done.  The movie trailer is out. We attended several panels but didn't walk the show floor very much.  Today we'll remedy that as I want to demo a few of the games and Onyx wants a few more trinkets from the Darkmoon Faire area.

I am here as a former hardcore Wow raider. Currently, I dabble in Hearthstone.  I play Diablo3 in spurts, but actually haven't messed with it in awhile. I poke WoW with a stick but cant call myself active. I am rubbish at RTS and didn't buy the last StarCraft expac and probably won't buy the upcoming one.

I am interested in where they take WoW. It's far too late for big risky innovation on that title, and they'll continue to milk it for cash while they can. That's not me being bitter, that's just where the title is in its lifespan.  I actually liked what I heard in some of the talk - in particular wow is getting GW2 style dynamic level scaling for the new continent.  Monsters and quests will scale to you and you can just go play where you want without ever worrying about getting off track. I like dynamic stuff, and I really like this.

The D3 presence here was small, and the one panel on it we missed. We did walk past it and it was PACKED. Like, all chairs full and people standing 5 deep all around the perimeter, call the fire Marshall PACKED. I was happy to see so much interest in D3. I hope Blizzard was watching.

The big focus is on esports (bleh) and Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch in particular. Next year will be a big year for Blizzard on this front, they recognize it and I wish them well, but my days of being halfway decent at fast paced shooters and clicky games are long over.

The last time we were here was 2008. They say the crowd is about the same size at 25,000, but I don't believe it. It feels much much larger than it did before. The venue is the same but there are more stages and more vendors and people just absolutely everywhere.

We are having a good time. Blizzards management of the crowd has been superb. There are so many flat panel screens around that as you walk or wait on a line your not really missing anything. As I mentioned, my gig was EVE Vegas and this was Onyx's.  But I'm finding things to check out and get excited about and that's why we come.