the net raiders

The Net Raiders editors offer their thoughts as to what they expect to see at this years Blizzcon.

Ryan Yockey

This will be my very first Blizzcon. As such I expect to see mass nerd pandemonium from the minute I get there, including myself. It always seems fun when you go to an event which usually has a basket full of special announcements. I’m interested in seeing a few of the WoW panels. Hopefully we can get some more information about the newest expansion release and possibly some new character classes.

I am extremely eager to get some hands on time with Starcraft 2 and possibly Diablo III. Both of those games look amazingly addicting to play. I plan to give some sort of review of the games when we get back or at best a better look at what they are planning to offer.

Of course we’ll see the cosplay crowd in full effect. The final day’s closing ceremonies will be excellent with the show by Ozzy Osbourne. I plan on covering everything I can for the event, so I know according to the panel schedule will be a full day from morning until closing ceremonies. Make sure you check back on our feature page for our latest updates.

Tim O’Connell

Well hey everyone how you doin? Well my little man-cation started off with a brutal night of drinking which left me hung over as Jeremy and I drove ourselves down to Blizzcon from San Francisco. You live and you learn. So we made it alright, no thanks to L.A.’s traffic. And when we finally got to our hotel, about 1 block away from the convention center, it wasn’t hard spotting the people there for Disney Land and the ones there for Blizzcon. Jeremy and actually had dinner and watched the table across from us have a guild meeting. Pretty wild.

Getting our Blizzcon passes was pretty funny actually. We were advised before we left the hotel to do a little trick… mainly to not say we had our confirmations Blizzard explicitly asked everyone to print out. Sure enough, when we got there, line 4 was for people with the print out… and completely filled with people. Easily an hour wait. For those who were waiting in line, there was a guy trying to figure out if the people passing were Alliance or Horde. “Horde!” I shouted as I threw up the metal hands. Everyone got a bit of a chuckle out of it. Doesn’t matter, we are all here to nerd out. Those who didn’t have the print outs was a teeny tiny line 3. Boom, out in 15 minutes flat. Funny how that works out. =D  So now I am sporting my Blizzcon badge. And everyone will know that Exodeus walks among them.

So I got the schwag bag, and ran back to the hotel. It honestly felt like Christmas as we opened them up. First and foremost is the Jim Raynor vinyl toy is pretty cool. I won’t lie I opened him up and started playing with him. Toys are meant to be played with. I also got a Blizzard Authenticator. I still have no idea what they do, I am ashamed to say. But I’ll figure it out soon enough. The rest of it, I am sad to say, wasn’t very impressive. I looked feverishly for some sort beta key, but alas there was none. This really bummed me out. We got some Blizzcon hand sanitizer; I couldn’t help but laugh. It makes total sense. I mean there are 24,000 people that are going to be touching those keyboards. I got the murloc pet, but I don’t really play WoW as much as I used to. So poor little merky might have a date with Ebay. One last thing, they [Blizzard] are using this time to launch the World of Warcraft magazine. More on that later.

Okay so Pre-Blizzcon. I am looking at the schedule right now and it looks like depending on the opening ceremonies, I might be sitting in on the WoW discussions. Cataclysm is pretty much happening at this point. And some how Blizzard has managed to peak my interest on another one of their expansions. Given it hasn’t been announced yet. So we wait with baited breath. As far as Diablo III, tomorrow kicks off with a discussion on the heroes. Could it be an announcement of another character class? I think so. I am putting some money on an archer class. Or a tank. Both of which are lacking from the Diablo III team. For StarCraft II I am honestly expecting a release date. I am not sure how much more they can share with us.

It’s pretty hard to focus, I am pretty jazzed right now for Blizzcon. The nerds are a-buzz in Anaheim. Time to go join them.

Blizzcon 2009 Coverage