Bible of Dreams

Oh Hai Deathy!

My little Blizzcon friend arrived today. He sounds a lot like DarthMurloc. And he seems to be on fire, seeting with molten rage.

This must make him the most adorably evil murloc, ever, yes?

I promise to love him. And pet him. And squeeze him. And call him Deathypoo.

My Week in WoW

Last week's WoW time was somewhat curtailed by the livestream of Blizzcon taking up most of my attention (and it rocked to share thoughts and reactions to the panels real-time via twitter; not as good as being there but still pretty darn fun.). But I made up for it this week:

• My Alliance warlock, seen here watching the circling bats at Telredor, dinged 66 today. I am a terribly slow leveler, so her progress over the past 2 weeks has been phenomenal.
• My bank alt gave in and bought her 4th guild bank slot. Now, I have to do a sweep and make sure I am not hanging on to much in the way of pre-Cata Azeroth quest items. Somehow I don't think I am going to need those red, green, yellow and blue Un'Goro crystals again...
• The purchase of the slot was due in part to the mass creation of Jewelcrafting items for the lock as she moves towards 450 JC (she's presently at 328 jewelcrafting.)
• I've not managed to obtain the Headless Horseman's Mount on my Horde Shadow Priest, despite her daily attempt at it. This is fair and all, since my 3 Alliance ladies got it, mind you. I am also awash in hallowed helms and sinsiter squashlings on some toons. WTB BOA hoiday pets!
• I didn't follow-up on trying to attain my goal of guesting on a podcast, but I did do some audience-sitting for a few post-Blizzcon podcast recordings. 
• I was thoroughly charmed by the Blood Elf Druid song,  (from the Plants vs. Zombies composer who brought us the new sunflower pet's voice.)

Blogs You Should Read

Although it wasn't an incredibly busy week around the blogosphere, there were some good reads:

• Twisted Faith wrote a post that debunks the offhand Blizzcon comment that so riled me up: "Shadow priests have been known to be bursty" (hint: no we haven't and no we're not.)
• Cynwise posted a A Pre-Cataclysm Warlock Guide, but hurry as this manual will self-destruct in 5 weeks.
• Twitter was abuzz with Blizzcon pickup lines, and Tastes Like Battle Chicken compiled some of her favorites.
• This is a bit more than a week old but it's so handy I had to share it: Windsoar's list of buffs and debuffs by class.

 

Updated: Blizz Con @Home: Livestream

Despite my best refresh and clicking efforts, we did not get lucky enough to purchase tickets to Blizzcon. As a condolence prize, we ordered the livestream of the event, and are watching it (well, the pre-show right now) on the 27” iMac in glorious HD.

I am bummed to not be in Anaheim, getting to meet the many tweeps and bloggers I enjoy chatting with online. But I am happy to be sitting at home with the kitties, wearing comfy clothes, and still getting to participate virtually.

There have been some hiccups with the stream, right now probably due in large part to the opening ceremonies and pre show being viewable for free to everyone.  I’m not going to be liveblogging everything word-for-word, but I do plan to make some regular updates here with highlights of what I see/hear.

cheers!

Opening Ceremony Update

Not at all comprehensive, but these were the highlights from my POV:

• Mike Morhaime announced the Moonkin Hatchling will be this year's charity pet! Available for sale from the Blizzard store in November.
• Last year's Pandaren Monk pet raised $1.1 million in proceeds for Make-A-Wish.
• Arthas has been slain ~489,000 times.

Chris Metzen

Getting all the fan love. Which makes sense. How often do CEOs get fan love? Other than Steve Jobs I can’t think of any others off the top of my head. Today's word? GEEK. The power of the word.

And MAN he does a great Arnold Conan the Barbarian impersonation.

The Geek is segment got a little long but Metzen did a nice job of getting the crowd engaged and excited. Cute how he got a little choked up over the idea of his kids watching and absorbing Star Wars for the first time.

Big announcement? The 5th and final Diablo 3 class -- demon hunter. Nice bonus that she was a fully-clothed, bad ass chick.

Also, Cataclysm will be available for download digitally as of midnight on release day, December 7. (Personally, I am OK with my release day delivery from Amazon.) Will be interesting to see if folks will be able to pre-order and download it all in advance and thus actually start playing on December 7, or if that's when downloads can start. UPDATED: later in the event they said one could start playing at midnight.

Between Sessions

Cryptozoic is going to be releasing the World Breaker WoW TCG expansion close to Cataclysm's launch. Nice to see the card game finally synching up more closely to what's happening in WoW.

Dungeons and Raids Panel

When doing the Cataclysm dungeons preview, I liked their inspired tagline for Abyssal Maw: "It's nothing like Occulus." Heh. So, not a ton of news in this panel but still a number of nice little chinks of good to hear information:

• As previously announced, you now get your dungeon quests inside the dungeons. No more zoning in and realizing that awesome blue quest reward item requires you to have done a 7-stage quest chain on the opposite continent.
• Long dungeons are being trimmed down (removing excess trash or extraneous wings that are not necessary to clear to complete the instance
• Complex dungeons such as BRD that can't be cut in half (like Mauradon will be) will have teleporters to help get from section to section
• Graveyards will be within a 30sec run back from the dungeons so no more extra long death march through Serpent Lake!
• Improved 2D maps for all dungeons (existing and new) in Cataclysm
  • These dungeon maps -- basically incorporating what Atlas Loot used to do (great maps with boss loot details) plus details on the boss's background and abilities

 

There Go My Blizzcon Dreams...

 

This year, Blizzcon falls during my sabbatical. Which meant attending Blizzcon was finally possible (we are usually really busy at work during Blizzcon) and would have been a great excuse to visit friends in Southern California to boot.

But it was not meant to be.

Wednesday night, I was 4250 or so in queue, and got the sold out page when I hit the 500 mark in line. Today? 8500 or so in queue.

*sniffle*

I was looking forward to having a chance to meet up with some of my favorite WoW tweeps and bloggers. And to participate in a celebration of the game that I love and have been playing for 4 1/2 years now (!) Oh well. At least we gave it a good try.

Tempting to head down there that weekend anyhow, since it would be a great chance to meet folks, but not sure it would be super fun to hear about what a great time everyone else had at the Con when I couldn't actually attend, ya know? Might try to see if folks are coming out a few days before and plan a meetup then. Or something.

Also, I hope those eBay scalpers enjoy being reported by my more vigilante tweeps!

Now, back to leveling the DK's mining! She's almost to 300 now (in a late burst of speed the iMac made it back to me last night). I refuse to take her to Outland until she can mine the Fel Iron. RAWR!