Blizzcon Streaming Day 2

Random Comments

An interview that Direct TV did yesterday revealed that an Alliance counterpart to the Lament of the Highborne will be put in the game for Cataclysm. It has something to do with night elves. I can’t wait to hear it – that was such a haunting and beautiful song, and it felt unfair that the Alliance didn’t have something similar.

Cataclysm Cinematic

I love the Cataclysm cinematic, so I was excited to see behind the scenes.

Apparently they originally thought about showing various races fleeing from the destruction, but they didn’t want it to look like “a 70′s disaster movie”, and they wanted to keep it fair and balanced so that no one race got the spotlight. In the end they decided that the Cinematic was all about Deathwing and his story – “Deathwing vs. the World”. They were able to produce fantastic cinematics for the Worgen and Goblins as well, but in-game instead of rendered.

They showed how they designed Deathwing, as well as other structures throughout the cinematic. They use simulations to create realistic looking fluids, smoke, fire, etc. It was pretty neat to see the process.

Then the world premiere of the the Worgen cinematic was shown, which of course was incredible. It made me shiver a little bit – they really captured the spooky, dangerous, and gloomy vibe of the worgen quite well.

Classes Q&A

I honestly just couldn’t keep up with the questions. Here’s a link to the MMO-Champion live-blogged version. It was certainly interesting to watch, but I didn’t feel very passionate about any of the subjects that were brought up. I did enjoy seeing Ghostcrawler in action. It was also amusing to see how many serious geeks there are at Blizzcon. Some of the questions aren’t great… they’ve already been answered or fixed in Cataclysm. It’s a lot like the developer Twitter chats.

WOW Open Q&A

Here’s the MMO Champion live-blog link.

One of the more interesting questions was someone asking for female characters that don’t look like they stepped out of a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. The developers of course gave a rather flippant answer, “which catalogue would you like them to step out of?” I understand their answer, but I’m sure that the woman who asked the question is probably a little pissed. It’s  a very tough topic, and one that has been covered many times by the blogosphere. Personally, I prefer my fantasy world to have idealized avatars – it is an escape from reality. I like looking at pretty things in the game. I would rather they spend more effort on keeping their female characters strong and interesting in personality (oh Jaina, what have they done to you?)

They also said that an incarnation of the Emerald Dream/Nightmare will definitely occur in the future, it’s just a matter of when.

They had hoped to get in a vanity item closet for Cataclysm, but they haven’t resolved the data storage issues necessary for it yet. I hope this can come in a patch during this expansion – my banks are filled to the brim. They also wanted to include a drop down for tabards, but they have yet to figure out how to deal with tabards that have an on-use effect.

The Insane in the Membrane feat of strength will NOT be achievable in Cataclysm, due to changes to many of the factions such as the Bloodsail Buccaneers. If there is a huge outcry for it, they will put a similarly painful achievement in for the future.

They are not planning on adding any more character slots. This was very disappointing to hear.

Wrap-up

I have to run to a halloween/mystery dinner party, so I’ll miss the rest of the evening’s festivities, although I might go back and watch the Tenacious D concert. Blizzcon was fantastic, and I can only imagine how great it would be to be actually physically present. Being surrounded by so many people who share a common interest is always a very energizing experience. I hope everyone that went had a wonderful time!

The livestream this year was certainly improved from last year, although there were still some lag/stuttering issues that seemed to be on Direct Tv’s end instead of our end. I definitely consider it worth the purchase, especially given the included “Deathy” murloc/deathwing  in-game pet. We got many hours of entertainment out of the stream, and it got us very excited for Cataclysm, and about the game in general.