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Developers signing autographs

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Opening ceremony

Goodie Bag

I'll try to get some individual pics later, but here is a layout of most of the stuff (without the ads) in the goodie bag. The Blizzcon card near the top middle has a murloc suit code and a Beta Key for a to be announced software release. Interestingly we also got a card to turn in tomorrow to get our programs. The woman who gave me my goodie bag said that they were reprinting programs because the original ones printed the name of " a produce we haven't announced yet." Interesting!

Kudos to Blizz

Well, due to a number of real-life situations, we got started about 4 hours later than we planned. I knew it would be tight to get there by 11:00 for the badge tonight. As we got close, it became clear we would miss 11:00 by a few minutes. Sure enough, we got there about 11:05. I decided to try for the passes anyway and I ran (which was, I'm sure, a spectacle to behold as I'm not exactly in marathon shape.) After going all the way to the other side of the building (of course), I made it inside at about 11:10. I was afraid they would tell me to come back in the morning, but a very nice young lady gave me my passes and goodie bags and I was thrilled. Thanks, Blizz, for not locking the doors at 11:00 and giving a little extra time for those of us who were a little late.

Instance Fans Meeting

Popped in to The Instance forums and saw Patrick's post about a Blizzcon meet for Instance fans. Another thing to look forward to!

Finally a schedule.

I've been checking the Blizzcon site for the last week and a half and no schedule until yesterday! Finally an Official Blizzcon schedule. Looks like a lot of good discussion panels. I'm trying to work out my schedule a little as Blizzard suggested in their Survival Guide. We'll be driving down from the Bay Area tomorrow. Mapquest says it's about a 6 hour drive, but on the deadly boring, straight as an arrow I-5, we'll probably need a couple of breaks. Hopefully we'll have no problems getting there by 11:00 p.m. to pick up our tickets on Thursday and avoid the Friday lines.

Tickets Ordered!

Well, before I left the house this morning, I decided to start up WoW and do an auctioneer scan. The launcher started, and there it was, a notice that Blizzcon tickets were on sale!

Remembering back to the Burning Crusade Collector's Edition pre-sales (I was sure that you'd be able to order them for at least a few weeks, not a few days) I decided to go ahead and buy the tickets today. I only paused a moment because they are non-transferrable, non-refundable. That always makes me a little nervous because I'm always worried something will come up, and although I can afford the $100 apiece, it's not money I would just throw around.

Blizzard is really going out of its way, it seems, to make sure these tickets aren't up on EBay for $200 apiece after they sell out. In the order form, you have to list the names of the people who will be using the tickets, and, as I said before, they are non-transferrable. In fact, Blizz is not even sending the tickets to people. You have to present the credit card you bought the tickets with to pick them up at Blizzcon.

The form also had a lot of optional information you could give like your character name and realm and your battlegroup. It'll be interesting to see if Blizzard is just collecting that info or whether they will use it in some way.


I was glad to get the tickets ordered, though. Maybe they'll have lots of tickets on sale for a long time, but I didn't want to miss my chance.