The Blizzard Worldwide Invitational was held in Paris, France during the weekend. I missed the opening ceremony of the event on Saturday thinking that our ISP would be too sucky for live streaming. I decided to give it a shot later in the evening for the heck of it. Apparently I was to download a 3rd party software to stream. It worked out very well actually with very minimal lag despite our connections being shit these couple of weeks.
Thanks to them providing this option, I did not feel bad about not being able to be there in person. It was on this day that Diablo 3 was announced! AMAGAD! DIABLO 3! It has been about a decade since Diablo 2 came out. Back then I did not really understood the whole story and lore behind Diablo and just played it as a hack and slash game. I was 14, come on. Thanks to the internet and emergence of many new features which make information finding a breeze I am now up to speed with what is happening in the world of Diablo, which is actually called Sanctuary.
Blizzard started off last Monday by showing a splash page on all their websites which changed every 24 hours to slowly reveal what was underneath. Forums were going crazy where people were discussing, debating, arguing over the theories of what it could have possibly be. It started out as something icy which definitely threw people off because on the 6th day, which was the beginning of the WWI, it suddenly turned red and showed the Diablo 3 logo. I was so shocked with amazement despite many people nonchalantly predicting that it would have indeed be Diablo 3. I am sure worldwide everywhere people were pleasantly overwhelmed of that news.
Anyways, the first day of convention was the usual stuff where they had game tournaments as well as some keynotes on what is to come in their future games, namely Wrath of the Lich King, Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3. Nothing that you cannot already find online by all the hardworking blizzard gaming fans. I also got to see Tom Chilton's face for the first time on video. He is the lead developer of World of Warcraft and is infamous for allowing so many changes in the game that was not for the better. A lot of WoW players hate him to the very core for allowing changes that upset whatever was left of balance in the game in terms of player vs player content.
The highlight of the first day was the costume and dance competition where we got to see people dressed up as various characters from the World of Warcraft. Some of them were pretty awful in terms of physical qualifications for the characters they were supposedly cosplaying. The dance competition was pretty mediocre which allowed the above average dancers to really shine. Regardless it was worth watching. Slept at 3am.
The following day I resumed watching. It was more of tournament finals on Sunday. Needless to say the Koreans won first and second places in all the games. Surprised? To end the event there was a live concert performance started off by the now L80ETC (Level 80 Tauren Elite Chieftains). They used to be L10ETC when Warcraft 3 was out. They then progressed to become L60ETC when World of Warcraft came out. They proceeded to be called L70ETC when the Burning Crusade was released. I guess they leveled themselves up to 80 for the Wrath of the Lich King. I was surprised to learn that the lead singer of the band was none other than Samwise Didier who is also the artist for Blizzard.
The biggest wow of the night was the performance by the orchestra Video Games Live. Where they performed famous themes and songs from the Blizzard games like Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo and World of Warcraft. They even had a guest performer. I forgot his name but he was the lead guitarist in Paul McCartney's old band Wings. I wish I could have been there for the orchestral performance. I slept at 3am on Monday morning. Was freaking tired for the rest of the day at work but it was worth it. I think it beats staying up to watch people running around kicking balls.
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