lizzcon!  The first annual (if all goes well) Blizzcon was held at the Anaheim Convention Center in late October, 2005. Going into the event, no one really knew what to expect. Blizzard is one of the leading game designers in the world, and with Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo they have three of the most popular game worlds anywhere... but did that mean fans were willing to travel to LA and pay the outrageous $120 fee for just two days gaming? Did Blizzard have enough entertainment to keep the attendees happy, or was it just a glorified LAN party with longer lines?

I've not seen any surveys of how much people enjoyed it, but most of the crowd seemed pretty satisfied with things while I was there on the first day, and while not every offering was hugely popular, at least there were a lot of different lines to wait in.

Personally, I was pretty underwhelmed by Blizzcon, but since the event was primarily for fans of World of Warcraft, and I'm not playing that game, that was to be expected. I only went because I was a little curious, but mostly since my parents live in San Diego, just down the coast from Anaheim, and it gave me an excuse to swing by my old hometown for a few days. That and Elly and Rush got me a ticket because they wanted someone from the D2/WoW Network to be there, and they weren't flying over from the UK just for this.

Ironically, just before the event Blizzard Europe decided they wanted more media coverage, and flew Rush and a bunch of other European webmasters over. With my presence thus made irrelevant by his attendance, at least from a gaming info POV, I spent my time there wandering around, taking photos, and making cell phone calls from the lobby, as I tried to arrange a dinner meeting with an old family friend. (We did have a nice meal, eventually, even though I had to suffer LA traffic all the way north to Santa Barbara for it.)

Rush's coverage can be seen here, and his write up of the event is certainly more informative than my long delayed one, from a gaming info stand point. I was more interested in the spectacle of things and the overall flavor of the event, and that's what you'll find in the photos and captions on this page.

Anaheim Convention Center and "the line"

I'd never been there before, and it's nice. Very near Disneyland and hundreds of crappy hotels, and much smaller than the LACC where E3 is usually held, but sort of charming.

I arrived around 10:30am the first day, an hour or so after the gates opened, and like everyone else, expressed my shock and horror at the line. This is a view from near the entrance, looking along the side of the building. The line doesn't end here, though.

Here's a shot from the corner, as the line turns and continues on around the next side of the convention center.

And here's a shot from the next corner, and it just keeps on going. Everyone eventually got in, since when I went back outside around 3pm, there wasn't any line at all. Finding a way to more quickly process the thousands of fans obviously has to be Blizzard's top priority for next year.

Here's where the bottleneck formed. Those four little kiosks to the rear of the shot are the only places to pick up your pre-registered pass. There looked to be about six people working there, and when each person came up one of the six had to take their name and then hunt through an enormous card catalogue of pre-printed nametags. It was pretty much like every disorganized, "pick up your yearbook here" event I remembered from high school.

The non-existent line to the right, within the red ropes?  That's the media badge line, and no, it doesn't continue off to the left. There were 4 people working in that booth, and they found my badge in about 5 seconds.  In other words, if you want to attend Blizzcon next year, start up a gaming website now. You'll save 2 or 3 hours of waiting in line time next October, though you'll still have to pay for your own ticket.

Fan Costumes

Before the event, my intention was to take a ton of photos of the fans in their outfits. Once I got there though, I realized that most people were saving their costumes for Day Two, since the costume contest was that night. Since I was there for the first day, and I got lazy, you won't find much here. Fortunately, this is the Internet, which means your entertainment choices are not limited. Check out Gamespy, Warbucket, and Blizzard for tons of cosplay shots.

This was one of the few D2 costumes I saw. The lad's a Necromancer and his parents are someone or other from Wow. And they were a family together, I saw them in line and then walking around in a group later on.

This is a teenaged boy of about 14 or so. The wig was the most noticeable thing about his costume, but the gloves and wand and cape are nice touches too.

I have no idea who this is supposed to be, but I thought it was funny that he had a baseball cap on underneath his costume head. The guy to the right is supposed to be a Necromancer, I think. I have no idea what his spine ridges are made from; it looked a bit like fat silly string.

This guy is a wizard, (front view of him here) but I thought this shot was funny for the dominatrix behind him. I didn't even notice her at the time, in the low light, and it wasn't until I was readying this photo that I said, "Hey!" You know yours is a wild costume when photographers don't even notice the panty-wearing, whip-wielding Asian girl beside you.

Miss Lingerie was actually attending the green-faced Orc Mage thing in the shot below this one, or at least they were walking around together every time I saw them. 

Here's the female Orc Mage whatever, alogn with a guy in dwarf gear. I like that he's in front of the dwarf statue, which shows that he got his colors pretty much right, at least.

I thought this was some sort of Super Mario Bros joke, like she was riding a Kuppa or whatever those things are called, but apparently she's supposed to be a gnome, on some sort of WoW flying bird mount.

This girl was only too happy to pose for photos, even as her purple body paint began to look rather smudged.

A close up, and I hope she put some yellow stuff on her teeth for the costume.

This guy was pretty funny. He was standing outside the convention center early on, shouting nonstop through his megaphone about how Blizzard was oppressing and enslaving Murlocs, and how his people should be freed, etc. His URL is www.craftingworlds.com/savemurlocs and he's got more photos and movies and everything.

He'd drawn a fair-sized crowd, but you should also realize that he's standing in the area everyone was using for their smoke break. People enjoyed his particular brand of lunacy though, and were bantering back and forth with him.

Guy in suit: "Save the Murlocs!"
Guy in crowd: "Murloc soup!"

Views from the Inside

It was hard to take photos from inside, since the lights were very low and flashes were useless for long views. I went with night mode on my camera and no flash and turned up the brightness of the shots in Photoshop. They turned out grainy, but you can get an idea of things, at least. If you'd like to simulate the experience, turn out your lights, put WoW on your computer, and wait 45 minutes to start playing it.

This was the sight right inside the doors. A huge open area, with banners hanging everywhere. The goodie bags could be had to the left, and a long, long line snaked away from there all day. To the right was a half acre of chairs and computers set up for the WoW Expansion area, and further back into the hundreds of meters of space were huge set ups for more WoW PVP stuff, SC Ghost, the tournament area, and more.

• The line to play in the big PvP Battlegrounds area was huge, but at least they had a big screen hanging from the ceiling to watch while they waited.

A shot of the WoW Expansion area. It went on and on.

The girl in the white t-shirt on the left is the same one on the right of the upper shot. Put the shots together and you've got a view of the whole WoW Expansion area, though you can't really tell how deep it went. Hundreds and hundreds of machines networked, at any rate.

Looking over the program, I saw a "ping pong area." Curious, I walked over and yep, it was a ping pong area. Hard to play in the low lighting, but some people were getting their game on.

This intestinal-looking thing is an inflatable climbing wall. It was located in the very back corner, behind the never-full SC Ghost region, and seemed to be pretty hard to climb, judging by the people I saw hanging onto the lower steps. The inflated nature was the tricky part, since it wobbled and sagged under your weight, I think. There were four guys working at it, holding the safety ropes you had to wear to climb up, and yes, the ground was inflated, as was the back guard rail. They weren't risking any lawsuits. 

I was going to try it, until Rush called and I headed to the front to meet him.

The only area that wasn't crowded was this one, for table top gaming. I walked through here half a dozen times and never saw anyone gaming, though people who tried to use the chairs to chill for a minute were hustled along by the old and older convention center staff.

The World off Warcraft silk-screened truck. Why? Good question.

• Side view.
• The Mage vs. Undead hood.

It's hard to make them out here, but click the shot to see a larger view. you can check out the guys in the left rear, fighting with padded sticks.  To the left, behind the WoW:Ex gamers, are two guys up on pedestals, battling with padded sticks.  I wanted to try that too, but never got back there to get into line.

• Or just look at at someone else's shot to see it clearly.

Near the table top area were some merchandise booths, including this one for famous gaming site/comic Penny Arcade. And no, Gabe and Tycho (from left to right) don't look anything like their comic strip alter egos. They were doing a brisk business every time I walked by, selling t-shirts and artwork and such, and signing it and talking to the fans.

One big difference between Anaheim and the LACC was the availability of food. There were food and drink stands all through the hall, right there beside the games and exhibits, including booze, as you can see here. They've got them around the sides of the enormous halls at the LACC, but not out in the middle, and the main cafeteria, infamous for their $10 hot dogs and $6 bottles of water, is outside in the lobby.

In a huge hall parallel to the gaming one was this cavernous place, where Blizzard employees and others were giving talks. As you can see, there is no shortage of seating. I never stayed for any talks, but I walked through one for the upcoming OS from Microsoft, and another time when some Bliz guys were giving a talk about the back history and mythology of World of Warcraft, and where the plot of the Expansion fit in.

There was media there too. Here's some lady from Mtv doing a quick interview as she takes up a spot at the WoW:Ex area. She knew nothing from video games, judging by her nervous laughter and, "I touch the mouse and do what with it?" comments to the Bliz PR person helping her along.

And in case you were wondering what you missed of the merch, here's a shot of the menu. Many of the sales items were in our goodie bags already, happily enough. The key chain, playing cards, a WoW and Blizzcon t-shirt, one of the silicone bracelets, etc. Unfortunately, they didn't have anything else I wanted. No action figures or games or convention-only t-shirts, etc.  The cinematic posters were pretty cool, though, and I might have gotten the D2 one, if it had been anything other than Baal's smirking face.

Models, Decorations, and Artwork

There wasn't much in the way of decoration at the event, probably since people who have stolen or ruined it. Two statues of game characters, lots of huge overhead banners, and some other signage on the walls. There was a nice little room with a sort of art gallery, but while walking the halls you didn't see much to make Martha Stewart proud.

This dwarf statue was near the main entrance.

• Head on view.
• Rear view.

Behind the dwarf statue were these huge hanging tapestries that I liked very much. They weren't very wide, but looked quite authentic, and had to be 7 or 8 meters tall.

Another form of decoration were the official models. I saw these two from WoW, and there was a Starcraft Ghost model as well. Shots of her are found further down the page.

I never saw any Diablo models, but apparently there was one there in a somewhat amateur looking Sorceress outfit. There were no Diablo models, and no men in official costume. Just semi-hot chicks who did a pretty good job smiling and posing with people, while keeping their disgust and sore feet from showing on their faces.

One of the coolest things there was the art gallery, which had poster-sized images of lots of original Blizzard concept artwork, along with blown up cinematic shots and lots of fan art too.  Here's a collection of WoW concept and cinematic art.

Human hottie concepts, from WoW.

Here's some WoW monster, and it was a popular costume for fans too. I saw several guys walking around (3rd shot down) with double swords and weird, snarling, lipless mouths, though I would probably have guessed cenobite before Wow monster.

Other artwork:

• Dragon concept shot with human for scale.
• WoW cinematic shots.
• Diablo cinematic and concept shots.

Starcraft Ghost

You've got to give Blizzard credit. They keep plugging along with the Starcraft Ghost stuff, despite the fact that no one cares, they're still working on it, even though it's gone through 2 different development companies, turned over almost the entire Blizzard design team, and is already like 2 years late. They were plugging the hell out of it at Blizzcon though, and besides the huge play area, they had an awesome statue and even a live model walking around in a gray leotard.

Here's a set of shots from the art museum display. Yes, her ass features in most of the promotional literature and artwork. Check out the back cover of the Blizzcon program, for instance.

This shot should be clicked, to see it full sized. Apparently there were two available missions in the SC Ghost playable demo. Each had a huge sign board made up for it, and they stood near the SC Ghost Xbox region. You can't read it in this thumbnail, but the actual signs were literally a meter or taller.

A look up at the SC Ghost statue. Her name is "Nova" apparently, and yes, children and grown men were utterly-captivated by the view up into her life-like crotch. Note the nifty blue-glowing armor.

More unnecessary photos of this statue:

• Full view including pedestal.
• Side view with glowing armor.
• The awed crowd at her feet.

They did a pretty good job on the statue's face. It's scary and not very lifelike, but that's how she's supposed to look, I guess. She compares well to the cinematic version of herself, anyway.

I didn't know there was a model dressed like her, and was surprised to see this view later in the day. It's like she's come to life!

• Rear view.
• Her admiring audience.

Yes, I had to get a self-portrait. I'm wearing a D2X shirt, of course, and apparently readying myself to defend against a free kick.  One minute after Rush took this photo with my camera I thought, "Why the hell didn't I have her point the gun at me?" but by then it was too late. It would have been a much better shot though, eh?

Diablo

Diablo II was pretty much nonexistent at Blizzcon. Then again, there wasn't much from Starcraft or Warcraft II or anything else they did earlier than about 2003. The only live play was WoW and SC Ghost, and while Warcraft III and Starcraft were represented in the tournament, that was about it for those titles too.

This shot of Baal was also used on the cinematic poster they were selling, and it hung on the sign above the information booth right by the entrance. You couldn't help but see it on the way in.

This poster of D2 artwork was in the art gallery, but seriously, this is about it for anything to do with the Diablo world. Whether the neglect was due to D2X being 5 years old, or Blizzard North disintegrating, or Diablo III being horribly delayed, or simple neglect, a non-Blizzard fan at the show would likely have left without ever having any idea they'd ever done a game called Diablo, much less a sequel.

Apparently there was an official model in a Sorceress outfit, but I didn't see her in person, and only know of her from a one, two shots posted on Warbucket.

I didn't expect a huge Diablo display, but I figured they would at least have a few tables with Diablo figures and some machines set up with D2X running on them. Maybe next year they'll finally be far enough along on D3 to feature it?

If you want more game-centric coverage of Blizzcon, and photos too, check out Blizzard's official Blizzcon site and these other links.

• GameSpy
• GameSpot
• GameSpot 2
• IGN
• 1UP
• 1UP
• GamePro
• Warbucket

All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007.