BlizzCon: Geek Heaven
What a weekend it has been.
I was trying to be one of the crowd at the Irvine, California campus of Blizzard Entertainment as they held their annual Blizzard Convention or BlizzCon.
Seriously, what’s with all these nice conventions overseas that we rarely get a taste of? BlizzCon is one of the biggest gaming and geek conventions where you can wear a tin foil hat or dress up as a Tauren and nobody will laugh at you and instead want to take pictures with you. Next to E3, BlizzCon has that clout when it comes to gaming news, which isn’t totally new considering they have the most lucrative game in World of Warcraft.
But, Blizzard is more than just World of Warcraft. And the 2014 edition of BlizzCon proved just that.
Overwatch announcement
Blizzard is delving to a first-person shooter massive multiplayer online game with its new baby, Overwatch. It seems to be driven from Valve’s still-popular 2007 shooter, Team Fortress 2. By the way, it has a plethora of female characters you can choose from since Chris Metzen got apparently worked up by his kid. Anyway, that’s beside the point. The femme fatales of Overwatch just move so cool. And yeah, you can bet your house I’m going with the tank class they have rolled out for the 6 vs 6 shooter. Prepare for another easy-to-play but hard-to-master gameplay.
Here’s the trailer for you to feast on:
Warcraft is coming to life
The much-talked about Warcraft movie that gathered steam late in 2013 has been confirmed to be underway. Blizzard revealed the plot it will take and which of the massive lore characters will be making an appearance. Mayhap, I tell you, brace yourselves for the next words I am about to type:
Llane Wrynn. Garona. Anduin Lothar. Durotan. Medivh. Orgrimm Doomhammer. Blackhand. Gul’dan. Yes fellow geeks. We are getting the people that started this entire Horde versus Alliance goodness we have had the past decade or so. And with that, you may have figured out what the plot will be: Warcraft I.
Travis Fimmel from the Vikings series and Toby Kebbell from Planet of the Apes will be playing Lothar and Durotan, respectively. Also, Ben Foster will be playing the powerful Guardian, Medivh. And did you catch a glimpse of Doomhammer? Shivers up my spine fellas.
Can you still keep yourself from shrieking and howling in delight?
Diablo will not go MMO
Contrary to rumors that Diablo might go to the MMO platform, Blizzard said no. In a BlizzCon interview, lead content designer Kevin Martens said that while it is tantalizing for Diablo to move up to a MMO platform, they are focused elsewhere.
While all it takes for Diablo to become a full-fledged MMO is the tag itself, we might yet still be on a single-player dungeon-crawling experience.
Legacy of the Void
For years we were tortured by Star Craft. When will we ever get to continue this epic journey through the cosmos and finally discover what the Xel’Naga really is, or what their goals are?
And, sweet baby Jesus, is that hulking abomination that looks like a bad mix between a Zerg and a Protoss a Xel’Naga?! And why is Artanis wielding a Dark Templar psionic blade? Please don’t tell me my favorite Star Craft unit, the mighty Zeratul, is on the verge of...death (if that is what Artanis’ weapons foreshadow)? Why is Kerrigan down to one arm?
Anyway, I’ll let you in the speculation game with this trailer:
MY. LIFE. FOR. AIUR!
