Project Lore

After all of the panels, all of our surprise and not-so-surprise announcements, all the shopping and meeting other players, and of course all the demo playing that we could squeeze in, Blizzard still had one hell of a closing ceremony in for BlizzCon ticket holders. The closing ceremony began with Blizzard Chief Operating Officer Paul Sams recapping the overall feel of the convention and announcing that 1,000 BlizzCon-goers and watchers on Direct TV would receive guaranteed beta slots for Starcraft II. Take a look to see the closing ceremony remarks and a video Blizzard put together highlighting the events of the weekend: Next up on stage, we had the band Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftans. Excuse me, now that the level cap is getting raised to 85, they’ll be The Artists Formerly Known as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftans. The band rocked out to songs including "Power of the Horde" (for the Horde!) and "I Am Murloc." Here’s a clip from their first song of the night, "Rogues Do It from Behind" (yes we do, thank you very much.) These guys know how to rock hard, and as you probably tell from the audio in this video, the bass was pumping so hard that I could feel it reverberating in my chest. Awesome. The most anticipated performer of the night had a drawn-out entrance. After L80ETC (TAFKAL80ETC) finished their set, the Direct TV broadcast came on the screens around stage, as the audience (including me and Juggy) grew antsy. Ropes that designated aisles and a mosh pit area were taken away, and the audience brave enough to be right up front crowded in toward the stage. Finally, the Prince of Darkness made his appearance with some shouts to the audience and introductory music accompanied with glowing red lights throughout the room. The audience grew so loud that I couldn’t even hear myself as a I screamed along. Ozzy played almost a full setlist of 10 tracks, including classics such as "War Pigs," "Iron Man" and "Crazy Train" (with special accompaniment by 9-year-old guitar prodigy Yuto Miyazawa). And at several points mid-show while singing, he doused the audience up front with buckets and hose streams of foam. The concert was an epic ending to an epic event. Wish you all could have been there rocking along with us! Here, Ozzy opens up the show with "Bark at the Moon." This one contains some NSFW language! That's it for now, but keep checking back at Project Lore for more videos from BlizzCon. Coming up in the next couple of days we'll have more footage of live gameplay of the new races as well as more sights and sounds from the event. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!

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The biggest news in recent memory is WoW.com's hat eating guarantee over the next expansion's details.  According to sources for the lucky domain squatters, the third expansion is indeed called WoW: Cataclysm, and the previously rumored Goblins and the Worgen are the upcoming playable classes.  The news, that was likely going to be one of BlizzCon's big reveals, has overshadowed all else the past few days, but I am here to put an end to that. Below you will find stories that were lost in the shuffle, abandoned to the fates, and pushed down the stairs.  Some are gems, others are mix-ups, but they were all passed over thanks to the assertions of Cataclysm and our excitement around it.

• Ozzy Ozzborne at BlizzCon - The Ozzy @ BlizzCon 2009 rumor has been around the block.  It first appeared in early July, and I didn't really take it that seriously then.  Sure, he was in a (damn fine) commercial for WoW, but that doesn't mean he's going to perform.  Well, with VideoGamesLive out of the picture this year it does!  Blizzard has confirmed that the junior "Prince of  F&*^ing Darkness" (since 1979) will be rocking out Anaheim in just over a week.  The concert will also be viewable as part of the DirecTV package.  What are the odds that Ozzy actually plays?
• Icecrown to have 31 bosses - "Promising" 31 bosses in a raid for a PvE content junky like myself is more than a pony, Ghostcrawler.  Everyone knows the ratio of boss fights to ponies is 10:1, and here you promise 31:0.  How dare you sir!  And how dare you quip later on that you were joking...maybe.  Damn your brain teasers!  Who do you think you are J.J. Abrams?  /shakesfist
• Battle.net v2.0 news - StarCraft II was "delayed" to 2010 earlier this month, and you can at least partially blame Blizzard's matchmaking, login and purchasing platform known as Battle.net for that.  According to the bigwigs at Activision Blizzard the service is still in the infant stages of re-development with "social networking features, cross-game communication, unified account management" and more being added to the service.  Bobby Kotick stated that the service would be "similar to Xbox Live".  Hopefully the term was used for that service's perceived quality, and not the monetary fee associated with it.  Either way, it appears that BNet 2.0 will be just another gaming service to keep track of.  Sigh.
• Collegehumor WoW video - My friend turned me on to this World of Warcraft-based video last night, and it is absolutely hilarious.  He claims that "that's what it will be like in five years" and although I wish it were true, I just don't believe it.  Thankfully, the laughs it gets are on purpose.  The video is safe for work.

Nothing earth shattering, but interesting nonetheless.  Hope you enjoyed the little recap of the last week or so.  If I missed anything major feel free to leave a comment with the details and the source.

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There is only a month and a week to go before a swarm of nerds infest Anaheim, and likely Disneyland.  Initially I planned on putting this post up next week, for the nice round month figure, but some BlizzCon news was broke early morning.  That makes today's maintenance hours a far more fitting time.  According to an Internet sleuth named SeanbaJuice, comedian Jay Mohr will be MCing BlizzCon for the second year in a row.  Blizzard's PR, which is likely still sleeping as of this writing, has yet to answer calls for confirmation.  Rob Pardo should have never given me his cell number. I've been to numerous game conventions before, E3, NYCC, VGXPO, but never one dedicated to a single company.  Oh, I've tried.  When id Software was still the king of FPS (not to mention independent) I almost ventured out to Texas for the free QuakeCon.  Those aspirations were dashed, twice.  I wasn't about to let that happen to BlizzCon this year.  Since the quasi-annual conference was announced for 2009 I have been plotting my attendance.  I ferreted away large wads of Washingtons for the plane ride, located multiple forms of identification, squirreled away some Lincolns for the tickets, and turned in my change for spend money.  Finances in order, I awaited that faithful day.  By the grace of the greater Internet I scored a pair of tickets and officially marked my calendar. Even if I wasn't a fan of Jay Mohr there is still plenty to get excited about.  I won't be partaking in any of the contests, original song, fan art, costume, movie, sound-alike, dance or otherwise, but I will take a gander at them, time permitting.  Instead I will be focusing my attention on the as-yet-detailed panels for all things Blizzard Entertainment.  Being a fan of all of the company's franchises it will be hard to play favorites. Who am I kidding, the reveal of WoW's third expansion will have be backflipping over turtle mounts and prancing around cosplay nutjobs.  But we all know the real reasons I am attending, Grunty and the rest of the goody bag. The silent auction may be of interest.  Perhaps we should start a donation page to put whatever-it-may-be in PL's studio?  Is anyone else getting pumped yet?  Tickets ready, bags packed and Game Fuel acquired?  Could Cataclysm really be the next expansion?  Is this going to be anyone else's first BlizzCon.  Anyone been to them all so far? BlizzCon 2009 will be held in the Anaheim Convention Center on August 21 and 22.  Tickets are sold out, and beware of scalpers! What's this I hear, Ozzy Osbourne at BlizzCon?!  Interesting...

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