First: this year's swag made up for its lack of quantity with quality: we got a collectible Jim Raynor Noobz (n00bz?) action figure which apparently will not be available anywhere except for Blizzcon...and, of course, eBay.
Second: Everyone and their grandmother is talking about Cataclysm so I might as well join in.
I'll be honest: When I first heard the rumors about the new expansion I thought that a lot of it sounded really stupid. Azeroth changed forever? That wasn't so bad, but the new class and race combinations sounded a little off to me. Troll druids? Night elf mages? Holy cows? (I'm sure that joke is very original and has never been used at all before this moment. You saw it here first!) And the addition of goblins and worgen made me /eyeroll. BUT THEN. Then they announced it at BlizzCon and let me just say this, Blizzard is REALLY good at selling stuff. Seriously. Halfway through the gameplay trailer they completely had me.
We got to try out the starting areas for the two new races.
SPOILERS, OKAY?: When you load in as a worgen, your character is stuck in a pillory. You're in this gloomy, foggy village that feels vaguely like the setting of a horror movie, and are currently under siege by the Forsaken. Worgen get a sprint on a three-minute cooldown and can turn into a human form (for cosmetic purposes only, since you pop right back into worgen form when you get into combat).
When you load into the goblin starting zone, you're floating unconscious on a raft while a doctor tries to jumper-cable your ass back into the world of the living. The zone is the polar opposite of the worgen zone: it's colorful, lush, and tropical and it feels like you should be knocking back a couple of mai tais here instead of rescuing your comrades from the wreckage of your ship.
I want my Alliance puppy dog, but man goblin racials are sick. Anything that allows you to shoot rockets at people or rocket jump is nothing short of amazing. (So this means that all the current races are going to get improved racials, right? Please? I would like to stop being scoffed at for rolling a blood elf instead of an undead priest!)
The costume contest was amazing, as always. There were some really awesome ones this year. I do believe that Ms. First Place, the Diablo Mistress of Pain, was well deserved. I drool over that costume so. Much.
I like to think about what I would cosplay as when I go to BlizzCon, but because I procrastinate/am always broke I never actually come up with anything. But next year, I would REALLY love to go as this beauty:
I am still trying to collect my thoughts, which are jumping all over the place...so! More on BlizzCon later!
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