Anaheim Holiday Day #4 - MOAR BLIZZCON!

Whilst yesterday was an information overload day, today was more of a spectator and test pilot day.  The Live raid of heroic Siege of Orgrimmar was the first course of the day, with the top Horde and Alliance guilds in the world (Method and Midwinter) going head to head to see who would finish 5 bosses first.

It was exciting!  Method ran with 6 healers, Midwinter with 5.  The first boss was Sha of Pride, which both teams finished just about the same time.  It was amazing watching a raid running flawlessly with people going where they were supposed to at the right time, like a well oiled machine.

The next boss was Dark Shaman.  I cringed, as this fight is messy on normal, but trying to imagine heroic! Midwinter went straight into the pull deciding to take a risky move by tanking both bosses together to maximise DPS, whereas Method was slower off the mark as they organised their raid - one boss was tanked INSIDE Garrosh's hold, and the other was kited around outside.  It turned out that the gamble didn't pay off because Midwinter wiped 3 times and Method one shot Dark Shaman before moving onto the next boss which was Malkorok.

One of the different things on heroic were these black bubbles which appeared everywhere which if popped, totally negated your shield.  Another one shot and they moved onto Siegecrafter Blackfuse, which also looked rather hectic as space became a premium commodity with fires everywhere, but that too was a one shot and they moved onto Garrosh.

Method wiped twice on Garrosh, one early (a called wipe when a few people died) and then later in Phase 3 at about 10% or so.  It didn't matter, as Midwinter had a lot of catching up to do.

Midwinter's ballsy approach was also evident on the way they did Malkorok.  For the Blood Rage where most people stack up, they let the tank take it on his own.  It paid off but it sounded scary!

Midwinter did get to pull Garrosh before Method downed him, so that was ok!  But a big grats to Method for being able to pull all that off in one hour!

After that I went to bum around in arena for an hour or so.  I actually only like listening to Azael, Vhell and Hoodrych casting, those guys make it sound SOOO exciting.  I did wish that Shab or Sev were there, so we could talk amongst ourselves about what they were doing - I did notice that our classes were featured a lot in the teams.

I managed to meet up with Katherinne of WoW in the Details at the meeting stone, and she expressed her disappointment with Warlords of Draenor, as she wasn't a big fan of alternate time lines.  But other than that we had a lovely chat and some big hugs and I was very pleased that we had managed to catch up as I had missed her on Friday.

I didn't actually attend many things that day - I spent the day watching e-sports (WoW Arena and Starcraft) and also played a little bit of Warlords of Draenor with Xarek, Pel, Lush and Hyad.  I also had bid on one of the charity auctions (but turned out I was outbid and had reached my limit) as well as do some shopping at the Blizzcon store and at Jinx.  Here are some pics of me playing the game, and taking pics of the level 100 talents.


Beruthiel also had made a time for us to meet and I was at the meeting stone at the designated time (after watching a few matches of MIR vs PvPLive) and I turned up at the meeting stone and it was PACKED.  I saw Fimlys, Ril and Zabine and I asked them if they had seen Beru.  I checked my Twitter and she told me what she was wearing and I finally found her!  Big hugs were exchanged and she was so friendly and she even watched Starcraft!  She told me I should watch the WCS and I assured her that I already was.  I enquired about her health and she said she was going ok, and we talked a bit more about how she had moved away and how I deleted my toon in Monolith as she wasn't there anymore.  After our lovely meetup I ran back to Arena to find that PvPLive had gone down to MiR and that Skill Capped was playing against LG-IM, a Korean team who had an epic game against Bleached Bones yesterday, fighting back from being down 2-1 to winning 3-2 to move into the semi finals (unfortunately I can't make my virtual ticket work so I haven't been able to watch the match :( I'll have to wait for VOD so I can go watch it).  They lost however, but they did manage to beat Skill Capped ONCE which was better than any other team in the arena!  This meant that Skill Capped and MiR were facing each other AGAIN in the final!  I was wondering if MiR were going to exact some revenge.

I went to the main stage by then to watch the Starcraft WCS final - SOS vs JaeDong.  One game was played before I had to go back and watch the finals for Arena.  I went back to see Skill Capped beating MiR again 3-0 to victory and walking away with the $105k prize money!

I was so pumped, and I checked my auction and placed my final and maximum bid before I stood at the Nvidia stand to see if I'd won a prize, and watched WCS on the big screens whilst I was waiting around in the crowd.  I saw the last deciding match where SOS beat JaeDong and the crowd was going absolutely crazy!  It was fantastic!


Went out for dinner with Arv, Chewy, Xarek, Pel, Lushnek and Hyad and we ate at Ruth's Chris steakhouse which was a rather upmarket steakhouse!  I felt a bit underdressed...

I stayed a little bit for the closing ceremony but we left not long after.  I listened to the first few songs sung by Blnk182 but after that we went to play more WoD.  Hyad picked up a random guy sitting next to us and we tackled the first dungeon again. No addons = hard!!!

After dinner I dragged everyone to the Hilton so I could meet up with Wowmartiean and Hestiah, but everyone eventually left except Lushnek so we waited around.  I managed to see Kaleri and Jasyla again and said goodbye to them both.  I even saw Vhell and Rob Pardo as well but I didn't manage to get the courage to say anything to them.  I met Sha of Happiness, who looked rather tired and then finally found Hestiah! LOL, she is feisty and much like she is on twitter, she was very strong on her views about females in the expansion (I think Apple Cider Mage had a similar stance).  Draynee was at Blizzcon (I swear I did not know this till that night) but I didn't manage to catch up with her.  Elunamakata had also eludded me, and I waited for Martiean to show up, and eventually after a looooong Twitter "where are you" we found each other (but it was mostly thanks to Hestiah who had seen him and told him to stay put).

However, there was one person that I managed to grab - and that was because Lushnek saw him standing behind me!  I was just talking to Hestiah and Lush poked me and gestured to the guy standing behind me in a Skill Capped jacket - it was Sodah.  OMG!  I built up some courage to talk to him, and I had nothing on me worth signing (and I wanted to find something for him to sign for Shab but I really didn't have anything!).  But I managed to sneak a word in, shake his hand and congratulate him on his win.  I asked him what he was going to do with the money and he said he would sit on it.  I asked him if I could take his picture and he said yes, so I did, and he thanked me for watching him play.  OMG, that was totally unexpected!  I was so stoked I rang Shab (even though it cost me waaaay too much!) to tell him what I had done and squeeeee about it.

By then I was tired.  I turned in for the night, as we had another day of adventure planned for the next day - Universal Studios!

Comments

  1. Blizzcon has always been on my bucket list, and reading about your experiences makes me want to go even more! I was out for dinner when you rang, and I was getting alot of strange looks from around the table when you told me you you got a photo with Sodah. I may have gotten a little over-excited. Good job HK for spotting him!

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    1. I really wish I had something for him to sign to give to you! :( I was fumbling in my bag but couldn't find anything. I will show you the pic when I get home!

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  2. OMG! You met Sodah!

    Idk how you are finding time for these long posts!

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    Replies
    1. Late nights and being lazy at replying blog posts and not reading any other stuff... and not logging into WoW!

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