Blizzcon 2016

Blizzcon is over! I spent two glorious days planted on my couch while watching things on some of my favorite games. You know what, being a couch potato is a lot more difficult than you would think; I'm so achy! Anyway, the only thing I have left to watch is the final Heroes of the Storm match. Then I am completely done. As always, I was surprised and excited over some of the announcements while others left me wanting just a little more. Here I will touch on what I'm excited for in some of my favorite Blizzard games. This is the only time of the year that I really discuss anything other than Warcraft here, so it's always a treat. This is kind of a long one, so I put it under a cut so it won't clutter up my front page.

Post Blizzcon Thoughts

It's been a few days since Blizzcon, and I believe I've caught up with almost everything that I was interested in. This may be a bit of a longer blog post, and not just about WoW since I'm excited for a few other things coming to other Blizzard titles.

I've been purchasing the virtual ticket every year that it was available to do so. It's just not feasible for me to go to Blizzcon, nor do I do well in that kind of packed environment. The virtual ticket is just an overall better experience for me all around. However, this was the first year that we were able to purchase the Blizzon goody bag as well. I received mine the morning of Blizzon, so it made the virtual ticket experience that much more special even though I was enjoying it from my couch.

To be honest, I was nervous. After all the excitement I felt last Blizzcon for Warlords followed by the disappointment of the expansion, I didn't know what to expect. I also was pretty bummed at the lack of Diablo III time scheduled out. That didn't give me much hope. The long awaited Warcraft movie trailer also danced through my mind. Was I even excited to see it anymore? I felt like marketing for it has just been one entire drawn out process gone completely wrong. To my surprise, Blizzard delivered everything I wanted to hear and more.

The Legion Hype

I know it's been a while since Blizzard released the news of Legion, and I still have not gotten off the hype train yet! I know a lot of people have there reservations on the new expansion, and can you really blame them after the flop of Warlords? But I'm not going to waste any more time talking about that. Instead, we're going to focus on what is hopefully coming up!

I had watched previous Blizzcons with the virtual ticket and chatted with people on Twitter and Battle.net, but this was a whole different experience. I was watching it with a few online friends, and it felt like everyone in the community was buzzing. I think people just wanted hope for the next thing to be better than what we have now. I won't lie, I was nervous and excited. Even after reading all the different expansion speculations, I wasn't sure what to expect. All I know is that after Gul'dan placed his hand on that fel prison, I lost it.

As the crystal pulses green: "That can't be Illidan, can it?"
Seeing the outline of the horns and hearing the music: "... OMG IT'S ILLIDAN!"

Then everyone lost it. I was on board with anything after that! I have to say that I am most excited to explore the new zones and check out the class halls. I also love the idea of artifact weapons. Finally, as if everything else didn't have my mind buzzing - demon hunters! Yes. I immediately saved two names that I'm contemplating using, and of course the RP lover in me is already working on a bit of a backstory for them. Of course I'm also excited to fully immerse my warlock into this expansion as well.

So far things are looking really good, and I cannot wait to see more about the expansion at Blizzcon. As always, I purchased a virtual ticket and a goody bag this year. I'm really thankful for Blizzard allowing home viewers the opportunity to get the bags since I probably will never be able to attend the con itself. I'm perfectly fine watching from my couch and chatting with everyone.

I won't lie, I am a bit nervous that this is going to be quite a hefty expansion with a lot of things to cover. I'm just hoping everything makes it and things aren't cut and left with lose ends. I'm going to try to remain optimistic about everything and hope that Blizzard will steer us into the right direction with this one.

Blizzcon 2014 and Waiting for Warlords

So this past weekend was Blizzcon. I watched it comfortably from my couch at home. Sadly there wasn't much to talk about in the WoW department, but I was definitely excited to see some of the pictures from the movie. I'm also still a little disappointed that people with the virtual ticket weren't allowed to view the "clips upstairs" everyone kept hyping. Each faction had their own movie site (fightforthehorde.com and fightforthealliance.com) where you could sign up and receive an image pack that had a few avatars and different sizes of what I'm assuming will be the official movie posters. I totally will need to get each one for my gaming room!

Of course, Blizzcon couldn't be complete without some snacks and drinks. I ended up making a green drink to mimic the Blood of Mannoroth. It was non-alcoholic, but I'm sure you could throw in some of your favorite liquor to give it more of a kick. I might make myself another one of these for the release night of Warlords.

Blood of Mannoroth Drink

1-3 scoops lime sherbet

1 part ginger ale

1 part lemon/lime soda

Place the scoops of lime sherbet into the bottom of the glass, and pour the ginger ale and soda on top. As the sherbet melts into the liquids, it will create a sickly green hue in the glass. Enjoy! (Note: May cause a demon craze or blood lust... drink at your own risk!)

Since I've pretty much accomplished most things I wanted to do before Warlords releases, I will just be leveling up my alt mage and pet battling most of this week. Me and Grommloc can't wait to take over Draenor! See you on the other side of the Dark Portal!

Blizzcon 2013

"When past and present collide, the fate of all worlds hangs in the balance." - Prophet Velen

So now that Blizzcon is over and we know what the next expansion will be (R.I.P. Dark Below), I couldn't be more excited. I decided to touch on the things that I am extremely looking forward to for Warlords of Draenor. Note: Most pictures were taken from MMO Champion. They have an extremely good source of everything that was shown!

Shadowmoon Valley

First off, the zones that were shown off at Blizzcon looked amazing and breathtaking (Shadowmoon Valley *swoon*). I love the fact that we will get to see places such as Black Temple when it was the Temple of Karabor along with many other places that we saw as ruins in Outlands. Finally, in order to get to Draenor we will have to walk through a time twisted red Dark Portal... yes please!

A tier 3 garrison

There wasn't much mini pet news, but it didn't matter because I was extremely thrilled on the announcement of Garrisons. I love the idea of being able to build it up, chose what to place and where, and of course... gaining followers. I know a lot of people joke that Pet Battles is Pokemon for WoW, but it didn't occur to me until my boyfriend brought it up that this is almost Animal Crossing for WoW. I know Corey Stockton was playing a ton of New Leaf when it came out, so the idea may have came from there.

via Twitter

I know it may be a bit of a stretch, but I'm happy! I can only hope to be able to add a few of my favorites mounts to the stables, transmogs on some mannequins in my house, and some mini pets in a barn. However, the only thing I'm concerned with is the currency shown at the bottom. No one asked about it and it wasn't touched upon. Any ideas? I'm almost thinking maybe resources to allow followers to do things, but I'm not entirely sure.

Undead male update. Love the look of the bones sticking out!

This next one confused me when I saw quite a few people were upset with it - new character models. I don't think most people are upset because they are getting redone, I think they were mad at the fact that Blizzard put resources into this instead of offering us a new race/class for WoD. I personally don't think they really ever need a new class or race. People still can't figure out how to play the available classes that we have nor can Blizzard ever really balance them out evenly. Regardless, I'm glad the decision was to work on player models because it's something that is definitely showing its age in a place like Pandaria. There was a sneak peek at the male undead, and I can only hope the females look just as good!

This announcement was wonderful... a hoarder's dream! Heirlooms, toys, and possibly tabards will be getting their own collections! I don't have many heirlooms, but I do have a ton of goodies from holidays, archaeology, and questing. I'm hoping this tab will be account bound also since I had no choice but to get rid of some things on my main. As far as the tabards, I'm hoping this too will be implemented. My entire main bank is just tabards that are rare, no longer obtainable, or I just don't want to regrind the currency for them. Please, please, please make it happen!

I love the look of this female Orc!

I would love to talk about the gear changes and how I can't wait for D3: Reaper of Souls, but that would be a bit boring, so I will quickly touch on the final thing I found really exciting - the ability to level a character to 90 instantly! This upset a ton of people also, but I'm not sure if people understand ONE CHARACTER. Not two, not five, one. This is wonderful for someone who either hasn't played in a long time and wants to get back into the game, someone who wants to make an entirely new character, or even someone (like me) who left an alt to rot in old content. While I am going to be working on leveling up that alts in the next few months, I think I will go with the second option. I always wanted to level up a Shaman and this makes for the perfect opportunity. Now the real questions... Orc or Dwarf?

Old annual pass from 2011 Blizzcon.

One thing I am shocked that they didn't announce was a new Annual Pass. I thought for sure they would offer one with the Hearthsteed as the mount, free D3:Reaper of Souls, and WoD Beta access. I would have signed up for that in an instant since I did it last time and really enjoyed it.

Rise of the Horde by Christie Golden. Buy it HERE!

With that being said, I really don't know much of the lore of this time period. I of course recognized Grommash from the teaser trailer and the only other clan I could name was Frostwolf. I was excited to see that my boyfriend has Rise of the Horde on his bookshelf. This will be my nightly reading material. I'm hoping to learn more about this savage time in Warcraft history.