World of Warcraft Wednesday: Blizzcon ‘09 Part 1
This is the first part of my Blog from Blizzcon. Thanks to the lovely internet service at the Anaheim Convention Center being overloaded for the entirety of the convention, and my computer for dying immediately after I got back, I wasn’t really able to blog any of this during Blizzcon.
Day 1:
But I’m going to do it now, and I’m going to do it in three parts over the next three weeks. Because I love you.
Here’s the Anaheim Convention Center. It’s lovely.
My hotel said it was three blocks away from Disneyland. The Disney Grounds started three blocks away from my hotel, yes. But…No.
You see, the Disneyland resort area is huge. Acres and acres of land. The actual walk to the Disneyland gates was about twenty minutes. I did go though. Jet lagged and on two hours of sleep. I’m glad I went but…Yeah. Probably shouldn’t have done that.
Here’s an outside look at Disney California Adventure:
The Tower of Terror is pretty much the only thing in there worth seeing. Here’s the lobby. I think it sets the mood right, and the actors were terrific. I don’t think the ride itself was quite as good as the one in Florida, but whatever.
Here’s the Monster’s Inc Ride. This generation’s “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.” I didn’t get the appeal, but it’s a kid’s ride so…whatever. Cool fountain though.
I was a little disappointed by the fact that the Muppet 3D movie was exactly the same as the one I saw 15 years ago.
The Disney Castle also didn’t impress. Sorry, guys.
The Matterhorn. I actually didn’t get to ride it, and there weren’t Fast Pass tickets for it. Not that the Fast Pass really works. I went to get a Fast Pass for Space Mountain at 2 p.m. and it was for 9 p.m. Yeah.
Here’s my lunch. The whole restaurant was full, so I had to take my tray and pizza outside on the street. Pizza? Nothing special. But that Rice Krispie thing was delicious.
Here’s the Alice in Wonderland clockwork thing. I was more impressed by this than the Cinderella castle.
The line for the Blizzcon goodie bags. It was huge, and this was a day before the convention started. Met some cool people in line though. Hi, Tony and Dina!
Here’s the Blizzcon Marquee:
Anyway, here’s the Goodie Bag:
Here’s the play by play report:
This is a contest entry form, to win a free WoW Stein. I didn’t turn it in.
Another contest entry form. I didn’t win anything, but my friend won a mouse.
The coupon for a free program. They actually had more than enough and I ended up with two. The programs were fantastic. You couldn’t get one before the show started because they had the Diablo and Cataclysm announcements in the books.
Here’s a key. I didn’t win anything from this either.
Here’s another add. Noticing a lack of real content here?
Here’s the Jinx ad. They had a bean bag throw.
A coupon for a WoW Art Show.
Here’s an order form for the new Warcraft Magazine. If you bought both Murloc Plushies and ordered the magazine, then you got a third plushy. I didn’t, so I didn’t. That would be like $200.
This bookmark had a “quest” from Brady Games. They told you exactly where to go, so it wasn’t much of a quest, really. At the end you won fun things. Like a poster. Or a different poster. They only made 10,000 of quest guides. 5,000 for each day. There were 30,000 people there, so I’m not sure what they were thinking.
Finally. The meat. This is the Blizzcon Marked Authenticator. The Authenticator produces a random 6 digit code that you type in at login, and this one has the Blizzcon logo on it. I like how secure it makes my account. I hate having to get a new code every time I get logged out. It’s worth about $6, though, and I was going to buy one anyway.
Here’s the Blizzcon Purell. Because meeting a bunch of smelly, sweaty nerds is bad enough that they have to give you Purell. Apparently, last year, they gave you two, so this was kind of lame.
Here’s the badge. Again, I guess they made plastic ones last year, but there were a lot more people this time around. Still, it’s pretty cool.
Here’s the much ballyhooed, Blizzcon Exclusive Nubz figure. The thing they spent so much on that they didn’t really give you anything else in the bag.
I guess it’s cool, but I don’t have any idea what I’m going to do with the damn thing.
That’s it for my day one pictures. I ended up back at Disney, but I forgot my camera in my hotel room, so I didn’t really get any pictures of Indiana Jones, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, or the time I almost fell asleep in the line for Space Mountain.
I’ll be back next week with pictures from the show floor.