Here’s the transcript of Amatera’s liveblog coverage from the Opening Ceremony of BlizzCon 2010.
11:13 Whew, time to catch up!
11:14 Where to start? New, official custom maps for Starcraft II! SC DotA? KooPA’s going to have an aneurism
11:14 They’ll be released for free (of course) over the coming months.
11:16 Also, a new premium in-game pet for WoW: some Moonkin thinger. Mention of some proceeds going to charity once again.
11:18 Besides that, a lot of stats for various things that I didn’t quite catch and now a retrospective on what’s happened in the past year.
11:20 Well, now that *I’m* up and running, there goes the free stream of the Opening Ceremony.
11:21 This is Amatera, by the way. How are you doing this morning (afternoon)?
11:23 And it looks like I’m not the only one with streaming problems. Starting to look a lot like last year…
11:25 *taps foot, Sonic-style* OH there we go, it’s back! Metzen’s on stage now.
11:25 I wonder if I can see KooPA in the crowd. He’s the one that should be bloggin’ this!
11:26 Metzen wants to play word games. He’s going to say some words and we have to say what first comes to our mind.
11:26 HORDE!
11:26 DIABLO!
11:26 Apparently the response is just cheering instead of actually yelling out words.
11:26 ALLIANCE!
11:27 STARCRAFT!
11:27 well, that is technically one word
11:27 Looks like Metzen could use a glass of water…
11:28 OH, there goes the stream again. Metzen usually has something pertinent to say once he’s doing hyping up the fanboys, so this is a fantastic time to freeze up.
11:28 We’re back… another word?
11:28 WHAT IS IT?!
11:29 GEEK…..?
11:29 Tell us something we don’t know.
11:30 Metzen says this word is our word, it has POWAR.
11:30 Now we’re going to get some slides that Metzen thinks defines this word.
11:30 Geek is…. Transformers G1!
11:31 Geek is…. critting on a natural 20!
11:31 Geek is… CONAHN DE BAHBAHRIAN.
11:31 Geek is… Captain America!
11:32 Geek is… Haohmaru from Samurai Showdown!!
11:32 Geek is… THUNDERCATS HOOOOOOOO!!!
11:32 Please tell me this means a Thundercats MMO….
11:32 Geek is… Luke Skywalker in an X-Wing (shoulda been Porkins).
11:33 Geek is… jousting on dragons!
11:33 Geek is… action figures with a kung-fu grip!
11:33 Geek is… THE BATMAN.
11:33 Geek is… Keanu? In the Matrix.
11:33 There is no spoon… but is there an announcement here?
11:34 Geek is… MACROSS.
11:34 Geek is… Spider-man!
11:34 Geek is…. DOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
11:35 Geek is…. Ripley!
11:35 Geek is…. THOR!
11:35 Apparently this is why Thrall has a hammer…
11:35 Geek is…. Battlestar Galactica!
11:36 Geek is… EVERQUEST,,,?!
11:36 Well, true, we wouldn’t have WoW without it.
11:36 Geek is… King effin’ Leonidas!
11:36 Geek is… a Night Elf?!
11:37 I mean, the Na’vi. :P
11:37 Geek is…. Locutus (and the best captain ever)!
11:37 Geek is… Dungeon Master Screens!
11:37 Of course it will always come back to D&D.
11:38 Annnnnnd Lord of the Rings.
11:38 So we’ve gone back to the beginning, in a sense. What about the future?
11:38 Geek is… STAR WARS. Nothing buuuut Staaaar Waaars.
11:39 Geek is… Superman!
11:39 Or, as Metzen says, “Believing!”
11:39 Stream’s breaking up a bit, crossing my fingers here.
11:40 On to Phase 2 (still choppy).
11:40 When people are building MMOs, it can feel like big business, but here (in the convention center), it is about you.
11:41 Welcome to BlizzCon! It only took 41 minutes….
11:41 But, hey sweet thing, it’s down to business! Sounds like Diablo time!
11:42 New class? Final class!
11:42 A bunch of bodies around what looks like a runic circle written in blood…
11:43 Character comes by, picks a tooth out of one of the corpses, and says that “someone survived.”
11:43 But who?!
11:44 She chases down a girl by a campfire.
11:44 So the last class is a Hunter? Dual crossbows? HAWT.
11:45 Character in the cinematic actually reminds me of Sylvanas a bit, and if the cinematic is anything to co by, she probably has tracking skills.
11:45 “You have a choice, HUNTED or HUNTER?”
11:45 Formal name for the class is “Demon Hunter.”
11:46 Will be playable on the show floor, but that’s not all for Diablo fans!
11:46 PvP Battle Arenas!
11:46 I remember nascent forms of PvP (or rather griefing) way back in my Diablo multiplayer days. Curious as to how it works out now.
11:47 I guess it works like you would expect it to…
11:47 Class-based combat, team battles…
11:47 Who will lose their ear?!
11:48 The professional WoW Arena scene has been kind of dying off lately, so I’m questioning how far this will go…
11:48 Fun, I’m sure, but will it make its mark?
11:48 Wrap up time… didn’t catch that last bit, Warcraft fans?
11:49 OK, well, they’re replaying the Cataclysm intro, but apparently this one is sound-remixed a bit.
11:50 I guess they’re going to assault the crowd with a deeper audio experience (close your eyes, open your ears). Can’t say it does much for this of us at home.
11:50 those*
11:51 Well, and the fact that it was revealed earlier this week takes some of the impact out of it, as well.
11:52 While that’s running, how about that Demon Hunter, huh? It actually looked pretty badass. I think I know what I’m playing!
11:53 I mean, it puts WoW Hunters to shame.
11:54 Well, people are getting up and leaving. Guess that’s about it. Some custom map stuff for SC II, final class/PvP for Diablo III, reshowing of the Cataclysm cinematic intro, and a whole buttload of geekery.
11:55 Keighly’s talking now, should be a Diablo III preview panel coming up next, but I imagine that’s where the free stream is going to cut off. So, the ball’s kind of in my colleagues’ court.
11:55 I’ll keep with this as long as I can, Keighly is sitting down with Metzen yet, maybe he can squeeze a few more details out.
11:56 Running joke in the dev team “Well, what’s the real problem here? All the damn demons running around!”
11:56 From there, a Demon Hunter seemed logical.
11:56 Did I mention this stream’s been stuttering for at least the past 15 minutes? I don’t think I’ve missed anything big, but I apologize if I have.
11:57 Metzen’s talking more about geekery. I certainly appreciate the sentiment, as a geek myself, but I do kind of wish the whole presentation on stage had been spun into some kind of surprise announcement.
11:58 I think someone asked if there were anymore surprises to come… I feel like Metzen’s trying to spin it somehow, but I couldn’t tell you in what way.
11:59 He admits there weren’t going to be many surprise announcements, but rather a core focus on the games they have. “It’s not an extension of some PR campaign.”
11:59 While I agree with the sentiment, it does make you wonder what justifies bumping the price of tickets up again this year…
12:00 He was also asked if they considered not having BlizzCon this year, and it was something they talked about, but I do think it’s something that they (Blizzard employees) get a real kick out of.
12:01 Lack of new news aside, it is kind of nice to just have a weekend to hang out with a bunch of fellow geeks, isn’t it?
12:01 As for the WoW Movie, they’re still just waiting for things to fall into place. Doesn’t give me a lot of hope when Sam Raimi keeps starting up other projects.
12:02 I’m literally only catching every other few words of this conversation. I believe Metzen is talking about Christie Golden’s recent novel work, adding another dimension to the story of Cataclysm.
12:03 It was time to take the character of Thrall to the next level, he says.
12:04 Potentially the most important character in the WoW universe?
12:04 Metzen’s favorite character? Nawwwww!
12:05 He’s pulling out some voices again as per a Twitter request. Diablo III panel coming up soon…
12:06 It is the Diablo III: Gameplay panel, just to clarify. With Jay Wilson, Kevin Martens, Christian Lichtner, Julian Love, Wyatt Cheng, Leonard Boyarsky, and Paul Warzecha.
12:06 Probably not very familiar names to our World of Warcraft-lovin’ ears.
12:07 Well, the free stream hasn’t cut off yet, but I imagine it will quite soon. Either way, that pretty much wraps it up for all things Opening Ceremony.
12:07 Thanks for watching!
12:07 Amatera out!