So anyway, BlizzCon!  It was awesome.  My brother and I arrived in Orange County bright and early on Friday morning, picked up our passes, dropped off our luggage at the hotel, and made our way into the Anaheim Convention Center to see what Blizzard had in store for us.

The entire convention center was dark, illuminated only by multicolored lights and spotlights shining the Blizzard logo on the ground.  Various islands of booths, displays, and photo areas were placed around the floor, and much larger areas were sectioned off to house many rows of computers set up for people to try out all of Blizzard’s latest and greatest (Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and Wrath of the Lich King).

In the convention center’s largest room, a massive hall of chairs had been set up for the opening and closing ceremonies, and for other announcements and forums where the audience size was expected to be large.  At the opposite end of the center, a smaller stage had been set up, as a special place for awards to be handed out to tournament players, as well as an alternate viewing area to the live events happening in the main hall.

Various other areas included a small elevated platform with a desk on the top, at which a few commentators would sit and deliver their take on the event as it rolled on (for pay-per-view viewers), two merchandise stores, a retrospective on past Blizzard games, a collection of concept art, a TCG / adventure game store and play area, information booths, and small bars, where drinks of all sorts could be obtained.  An upstairs room was also reserved for other segments of the conference, and huge screens were set up all over the convention center so that no matter what one was doing, the important stuff would not be missed.

You can view a map of the event here.

After a quick breakfast at the Rainforest Cafe (the only restaurant that was open at the time) in Down Town Disney, we arrived at BlizzCon.  My brother (Spencer) and I wandered around for a while just taking in the various sights and sounds.  We leaned over the low barrier to watch fans trying out Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 for the first time.  We gaped at the seemingly endless lines to get into the Blizzard stores.  And we checked out the display set up for Blizzard’s past endeavors in gaming, which included the Lost Vikings games, an isometric racing game, and of course, Warcraft.

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Soon my brother and I will be packing up and getting ready for what will hopefully be a fun two days down in Anaheim, as we attend BlizzCon 2008!

I’ve been so busy with work and other things over the last few days, I haven’t really had time to even think about it, but now that we’re a day before the event I’m getting very excited about going.  After only a short flight and a quick ride, we’ll be heading over to the Anaheim Convention Center and getting an early start on the long days Blizzard has planned.

I don’t have much more to say for now, other than I’m getting more excited as the event draws closer.  If you’re interested in seeing BlizzCon but weren’t able to get tickets, Blizzard’s apparently struck a deal with DirectTV for a live PPV broadcast, so you might be interested in that.  Either way, with upcoming games like StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3, it should be a great show, and I will be back to say more about everything when I can!

Monday mornings are usually a pretty groggy affair for me.  After spending all weekend doing what I want, staying up late, and sleeping in for long hours, getting up suddenly at the crack of dawn leaves me a tried wreck for the rest of the day.

Not so for this most recent Monday, however.  I woke up at 6:15 AM, bounced right out of bed, and making a break from my normal routine, landed straight in front of my computer.  BlizzCon tickets went on sale on Monday, and I had promised my brother I’d get us tickets for his birthday.  Neither of us have ever been, but we are both fans of many Blizzard games, so it seemed like a good idea.  I found my way onto the BlizzCon website, and from there clicked through into the Blizzard Store.

I logged into the Blizzard Store, navigated to the tickets, got a few errors on the way, but eventually made my way to the final checkout page.  I clicked ‘Purchase’ and watched the little Firefox wheel of dots start spinning -  I was mere seconds away from my tickets.

Or so I thought.

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Blizzard has announced that Diablo 3 is on the way!

And from the looks of it, this is going to be one of the most visually rich dungeon runs you’ve ever been on!

One of my buddies mentioned this to me last night on World of Warcraft, but I had not gotten an opportunity to check out the official site until this morning.  If you’re a fan of the Diablo series, I’d definitely recommend giving the website a look - Blizzard has released a large collection of screenshots (which I’ve got hosted here as well, in a gallery at the end of the post), as well as some wallpapers, concept art, lore, and a lot more.  It’s a great way to kick off what looks to be another triple-A title.

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