Currently Blogging To: You Are The One by Shiny Toy Guns, Tristram from the Diablo II OST and an MP3 of the WWI Video Games Live Concert.I’m on the train home to Dereham, full of a head cold and feeling awful after a week in gay Paris. Falling squarely into the realm of a working holiday, I was covering the WWI for Kotaku and interviewing Obata Takeshi-san, the artist behind Death Note, for NEO.
I caught a cold on Monday, thanks in part to overworking the weekend and it’s been held off solely because my body understands that when I work, I need to look and project healthy, eager journalist. So around ten minutes after I finished my interview and was standing on the Avenue de l’Opera, I started sneezing and the cold finally hit my head properly.
So, first to the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational: it was fantastic, albeit a slight letdown in terms of announcements. Yes, Diablo III, woo hoo, huzzah, but where was the rest? Where was the Wrath release date? Where was the StarCraft II release date? Where was the announcement re that undisclosed MMO? BlizzCon, that’s where. Yes, once again, it’s all about the Americans. We should be lucky we got Diablo, which is paraphrasing what one Blizzard PR actually said to me! All the good stuff is being saved for October …. /sigh
That aside I have to sing Blizzard’s praises for a second, while information was a little scare and often conflicting, overall they did a fantastic job. Despite being a British journo working for some British magazines, the major – from their point of view – coverage I’d be providing was for the gaming blog Kotaku so it was in their interest to be as helpful as possible. So they sorted out a room on the twenty fourth floor of the Corcorde La Fayette hotel (nice hotel, shit wi fi), arranged for me to bring an assistant with me and provided her with a press pass and – this is their crowning achievement – reserved seats for me right at the front of the press section of the main stage, less than two metres from the main stage (and that evil broken speaker). As press I also got shuttled to and from the event, I was able to queue jump for the gaming areas and enjoy the dimly lit press room and on-site wi fi.
Score.
Over forty eight hours, I did around ten features looking at everything from Diablo III to the Blizzard Museum, I also live-blogged the opening ceremony which was fun as I actually had an audience! Shocking I know! It was a great event though, well worth attending, but I can't help feeling a little jaded.
Looking over the forums, it seems a lot of attendees were a bit disappointed: there were two places to buy food and drink (both of which sold out of food way to quickly), the Blizzard shop had little by way of truely limited edition merchandise (although it was still limited edition just not in a good way; the shop had sold out of the good stuff by noon on Saturday), the Wrath demo area was down for much of the first morning but it's the prime complaint that I cannot agree with: the press (and Blizzard employees) got the best seating in the house. Sorry, attendees, but it's a perk of being the Fourth Estate, live with it. If it makes you feel better, Blizzard staff took over the first like fifteen rows of the middle aisle - the best seats in the house - and you lot did get to come into the press section for the closing ceremony.
I'd definitely go again, if only for the goodie bag and the chance to meet up with friends though. I just wish I was going to BlizzCon ....
I caught a cold on Monday, thanks in part to overworking the weekend and it’s been held off solely because my body understands that when I work, I need to look and project healthy, eager journalist. So around ten minutes after I finished my interview and was standing on the Avenue de l’Opera, I started sneezing and the cold finally hit my head properly.
So, first to the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational: it was fantastic, albeit a slight letdown in terms of announcements. Yes, Diablo III, woo hoo, huzzah, but where was the rest? Where was the Wrath release date? Where was the StarCraft II release date? Where was the announcement re that undisclosed MMO? BlizzCon, that’s where. Yes, once again, it’s all about the Americans. We should be lucky we got Diablo, which is paraphrasing what one Blizzard PR actually said to me! All the good stuff is being saved for October …. /sigh
That aside I have to sing Blizzard’s praises for a second, while information was a little scare and often conflicting, overall they did a fantastic job. Despite being a British journo working for some British magazines, the major – from their point of view – coverage I’d be providing was for the gaming blog Kotaku so it was in their interest to be as helpful as possible. So they sorted out a room on the twenty fourth floor of the Corcorde La Fayette hotel (nice hotel, shit wi fi), arranged for me to bring an assistant with me and provided her with a press pass and – this is their crowning achievement – reserved seats for me right at the front of the press section of the main stage, less than two metres from the main stage (and that evil broken speaker). As press I also got shuttled to and from the event, I was able to queue jump for the gaming areas and enjoy the dimly lit press room and on-site wi fi.
Score.
Over forty eight hours, I did around ten features looking at everything from Diablo III to the Blizzard Museum, I also live-blogged the opening ceremony which was fun as I actually had an audience! Shocking I know! It was a great event though, well worth attending, but I can't help feeling a little jaded.
Looking over the forums, it seems a lot of attendees were a bit disappointed: there were two places to buy food and drink (both of which sold out of food way to quickly), the Blizzard shop had little by way of truely limited edition merchandise (although it was still limited edition just not in a good way; the shop had sold out of the good stuff by noon on Saturday), the Wrath demo area was down for much of the first morning but it's the prime complaint that I cannot agree with: the press (and Blizzard employees) got the best seating in the house. Sorry, attendees, but it's a perk of being the Fourth Estate, live with it. If it makes you feel better, Blizzard staff took over the first like fifteen rows of the middle aisle - the best seats in the house - and you lot did get to come into the press section for the closing ceremony.
I'd definitely go again, if only for the goodie bag and the chance to meet up with friends though. I just wish I was going to BlizzCon ....
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