BlizzCon 2013 Pt I: Why you should be excited about Warcraft

This is going to be part one of a short series of posts I have dedicated to the exciting two days that was Blizzcon this year. After taking last year off, the 2013 Blizzcon came at us all with monumental force. The excitement and anticipation was contagious and even from the live-stream I could feel the passion from Blizzard fans and employees alike.

One topic that has always been on everyone’s mind but never an official panel (until this year) is:

The World of Warcraft Movie

As expected, this panel was really just an overall discussion about how ABSOLUTELY NERDY the guys working on this movie actually are. You could hear the collective sigh of relief as everyone involved gushed about their Warcraft characters and how excited they were to work on the film. Just knowing Chris Metzen is on board satisfies the little elitist nerd within, but a large part of me is satisfied that Duncan Jones is directing everything. (Here’s hoping he is the Christie Golden of Warcraft films)

Duncan DID sneak out a few little details about the film…

– The story will include Durotan and Anduin Lothar as two main characters, so we know the movie will take place around the corruption of the Orcs.

– The movie MAY POSSIBLY be filmed in Vancouver.

It seemed poor Duncan released all the information he possibly could (thank you Duncan), but if you are still grasping for more about the movie take a peek at some of the concept art. (Dalaran is BREATHTAKING)

Click the thumbnails to see the image full size, in all it’s glory.

 The other major news that involved World of Warcraft was the new expansion;

Warlords of Draenor

Aside from everyone-and-their-mother trying to be the new ‘Red Shirt Guy’ at Blizzcon, this new expansion seems to be consistent. The exciting thing about going back to the opening of the Dark Portal is players get to experience a version of it in-game, players get to shape the outcome (you have no idea how many times I screamed at the Orcs while reading the novels) and the immense anticipation for both Thrall and Garrosh to meet their fathers. The clash between the former and former-former Warchief’s perception of their fathers vs the reality is going to be intense (as Metzen put it… were these Orcs honourable because they truly were, or just because the situation called for it).

Its pretty obvious, but level cap is being raised to 100, and the way players quest is changing too (no… not like Cataclysm). The quests from 90 to 100 will be far less of a grind as Blizzard has finally realized players want to experience the story, not live/breathe/eat/sleep the quest lore for a solid two weeks. That’s exhausting and daunting if you have regularly played alts. Each account will also get a free upgrade to level 90 that will either gear up your current 90 character for an effortless expansion transition or bump up an alt you never got around to maxing out (we all have one, but if you don’t it would be a consequence-free way of playing around on Moon Guard as a high level character *wink wink*).

There will be no new class or race this expansion because the LONG OVERDUE character model upgrades are finally becoming a reality (excluding Worgen, Goblins and Pandaren).  Below are some of the visual upgrades.

Click the thumbnail to see the full size image, and prepare to tremble with joy.

You can also take a gander at what the new character animations look like on this YouTube video because, let’s face it, that last image doesn’t do it justice.

During the Q&A portion A LOT of people couldn’t quite get their heads around the whole going back in time thing (they used a rather uncreative Dr. Who reference I refuse to even type) and I don’t blame them. According to the lore we are NOT going back in time but at the same time we ARE going back in time. This seems to be the pre-mature way of explaining how an entire world could go back in time hacking and slashing without insane repercussions on the present day. I’m still awaiting some rational lore on this one (*ahem* Chris Metzen… are you listening?).

Another question that was asked was in regards to making servers that featured the expansions ‘as they were’. The answer “No you don’t. You really, really, REALLY don’t” left many people unsatisfied. Personally, I found this hilarious because a few questions later the topic of only getting one piece of loot per lockout was brought up. The same people who wanted to go back in time to older expansions were semi-hating on an expansion BASED on going back in time, and were complaining that only having 1 or 2 pieces of loot drop per raid run was incredibly unfair.

What? Am I the only person who remembers what it was like to run an entire raid back in the day and have NOTHING drop for you? Or, even worse, be in a guild operating on DKP and not being able to buy any of the gear that did drop for your class?  I hate to say it, but WoW players need to be less sensitive… it’s not making sense anymore.

Overall, the World of Warcraft content at this years Blizzcon was a major win. Whatever they did last year during their time off clearly worked in their favour, and I’m totally kicking myself for not being able to physically attend.

Oh, one more thing – if you were watching online and missed it, one of my tweets made it on-screen during one of the main stage panels. (Of course it had to be the one about the t-shirts.)

What were your favourite World of Warcraft moments at Blizzcon 2013? Anything piss you off or excite you beyond belief? Let me know in the comments!