Big News Of The Week
Blizzcon All Over Your Face!!
Unless you were under a rock the last few days, you know exactly what we and everyone else are talking about right now – Blizzcon. No other individual game company has the uniform fanbase to justify something like this. It’s Blizzard’s big show, it’s the fourth year that they’ve put on Blizzcon, and this one was the biggest they’ve ever produced.
Linkage:
The fan art and movie contest winners, links to replays from the Starcraft 2 and Warcraft 3 tournaments, and because we know you’re going to ask if we don’t, links to all three of the winning original songs.
Song – “The Queen of Blades” by Saher Behrooznia
Song – “Requiem for Arthas” by Hao-Wei Huang
Song – “For the Swarm” by Nicholas Stephen Tomassetti
Rapid Fire Rumors And Scuttlebutt!
We have a new Worgen cinematic!
We have a new login screen!
For that matter, we haven’t talked about the new Cataclysm commercial, yet.
Additional show content provided by Darrell the Tipgiver, Steve “Buxley” Pietrowicz, James “Acuzod” Jefferies and the outstanding Instance Community.
Special thanks to DogHouse Systems, GoDaddy, and TypeFrag for sponsoring this episode.
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207 baby!
I thought this was going to be the episode where they announce the Winners of the Stine contest… oh well
Great interviews Randy! Was there anyone you wanted to interview but didn’t get to?
@Gore~ I think results were supposed to be posted on the blog somewhere before 207 was posted.
When did Blizzard become Randy’s Sugar Daddy? Maybe Randy should work in Vegas .. probably make more money working the street.
Who was the sponsor of the show this episode? They sounded like a great spot to shop for a Mac!
Great episode, in some ways more interesting than the con itself. I’m a little disappointed in the Ghostcrawler interview. I’m glad you didn’t bombard him with annoying “Why did you nerf this?” questions like the ubernerds do; however, I would have liked to hear some more questions related to his job at Blizzard. Maybe something along the lines of “When designing class changes for a new expansion, do you look at the lore and base the new abilities on that or solely on what will work vs what is cool?” or “Looking back at when this whole thing started 6 years ago, what class do you think is most changed not just in abilities but in the feel of how it is played, and which class do you believe has remained the most true to it’s original design concept?”
BTW Deathwing coming from NY explains soooo much. No wonder he’s so grumpy.
I was very disappointed in the “Randy Blows Blizzard” episode. I was one of those players that cant get all the way to the West Coast and felt Scott was right now with this years Blizzcon a somewhat let down for the WOW players overall. Most of the time I can handle Randy and his Pro Blizz side, but I really think he was off base on this episode. Hey maybe he just got hired by Blizz..
Bottleguy –
The Sponsor was MegaMacs.com. They are a great spot to shop for a Mac, and any software you might need for the Mac.
23 minutes into the show and boy… This is the most boring episode I’ve ever heard. Let’s talk about WoW! Talking about the motivation behind Blizzcon philosophy is just about the most stale topic you could have picked.
Hey, just some constructive criticism…
Can you post the drawing he did, would love to see it.
@Mike: What about WoW would you have us discuss? There was hardly any news, out of blizzcon or otherwise. Besides, we always do a BCon wrap up every year, and it’s not meant to be the normal wow show when we do that. It’s just that usually, there was more info about wow coming out of the show than we got this year.
Hey, just some constructive replying.
There seems to be an issue with the episode on the website and for the Zune feed. The website says file not found for me and the Zune feed can’t get it either.
I don’t think there’s any need to give Scott and Randy grief about their approach with Blizzard. Why wouldn’t Randy be Pro-Blizzard at THEIR convention? You don’t take opportunities like that as a chance to rag on or complain about the product you play, at a convention the company is hosting. I think it’s been obvious in past shows that Scott and Randy have expressed discontent the same way anyone else has.
Where did you get that version of Arthas, My Son? I have the WoW albums and I don’t recognise that version.
Honestly, I found Randy’s endless tirade against the people that are simply fans of the game and are taking their one opportunity to talk to Ghostcrawler about it really mean.
These people are asking him questions because they’re fans. By and large, they love the game and care enough to ask some esoteric questions. Ghostcrawler is a big celebrity because of them. Furthermore, those people are this podcast’s bread and butter.
After ragging on them for being nerds, you ask Ghostcrawler not only a bunch of questions completely irrelevant to Blizzcon or WoW, but made no sense. The awkwardness of that situation really shone through in GC’s attempt to answer the number questions.
If Randy didn’t want to probe GC with deep gameplay questions, couldn’t he have asked more about his job in generally, or maybe about his past and who he is as a person? Ultimately, that interview felt like a waste of GC’s time and the listener’s time (and no, it wasn’t funny).
@Scott: My comment sounded a little crass… I apologize. In any case, I’ve been away from the show for a while (listened to #206), so maybe it’s already been covered, but I’d love to hear anything and everything expansion related!
Awesome episode! I agree with Scott that Blizzcon was a little lackluster this year, but still some awesome things came out of it. Especially the SC2 tourny. And can anyone tell me what the song is at the very end, after Abba?
I have to agree with Jack. The contempt in Mr Johnson’s voice, insulting people over and over again really soured me on this episode of the Instance.
The “Geek” slideshow claimed that people didn’t have to feel ostracized for their passion anymore, yet Mr Johnson, who operates on podcasts dedicated to videogames and “genre” movies, felt he was far superior to those many fans ( who, granted take sometimes their passion a bit too far but in no way deserve such scorn).
I really hope the next episode of the Instance will be more enjoyable.
Guys, please stop it. If you’re looking for hardcore WoW news, The Instance is not the place to find it. The Instance is a podcast for casual players, who would rather listen to a Blizzard employee be interviewed in a fun way than some boring banter about the nit-picks of class balance. I’m not a casual player, I’m pretty dedicated and I’m a progression raider, I listen to The Instance for fun, but I’m the minority.
The more hardcore fans go to Blizzcon, and just watching on directv showed me that yeah, there were so many sweaty, gross nerds. It’s a stereotype, and it’s just harmless fun laughing at them, the thing that pissed Scott off is that they’re asking class balance questions at unrelated panels, like Lore or Sound or whatever.
And Jack, I do agree that I wish Ghostcrawler was asked about his job in some way, I mean, everyone in the WoW world wants to hear what he has to say. Maybe not asking “OMFG FIX PALLIES”, but something more like “What do you think is the most exciting spec coming up in Cataclysm?” or “Are there any particular specs or classes that were particularly difficult to balance?”. I’d love to hear answers to some of those questions.
I’d like Scott to put up the 20mb text file of a listing of his iTunes library, out of curiosity.
The interview with Sam-wise was epic! great job Randy! I can’t believe he was drawing the whole time lol
Sorry, I’ve posted this on the boards too, not realizing I could do so directly here but it seems more appropriate. I too was very disappointed by Blizzcon 2010 and was quite perplexed by the verbal pretzel twists that Randy effused during episode 207. The jist being that Blizzard doesn’t hold Blizzcon to make marquee announcements and the fan community shouldn’t expect that etc., citing the release of the Cataclysm cinematic before the event yet oddly not mentioning the release of the final character class for Diablo III which was saved for the event. Hmmm. It’s not a solid argument but one I’ll take at face value.
Anyway, after listening to ep. 207 I came to the boards, for the first time, to see if any others felt the same way I did about Blizzcon and to read reaction by others to Randy’s coverage.
Beginning with the latter, I think it’s fair to say that Randy’s Blizzcon experience was, by all accounts, way above average by simple virtue of his proximity and access to key developers. Engaging in one-on-one, on-the-record and off-the-record, conversations with these collaborative artists is pretty heady stuff. No apologies necessary either, but this, more than anything, is why I give Randy a pass on his exuberence. I would have been jazzed too! However, the average attendee, virtually and in-person, certainly didn’t enjoy this kind of access or insight.
The plain fact is that, for me, Blizzcon 2010 was a monumental disappointment and the Blizzard apologists on this board do not change that one iota. From the poorly prepared and executed opening ceremonies to the frankly off-putting and derisive treatment of some questioners by panelists, (deserved or not they are paying customers), to the inane and simply horrible closing remarks of Paul Sams. Ugh, what a steaming pile.
Blizzcon 2010 is a “jump-the-shark” moment for me. Circling back on Randy’s assertion on what Blizzcon is “not”… based on this and the 2010 edition, all I can say is that I will not be ordering a virtual ticket again – that is for certain. Any passing interest to actually attend the event is completely gone for me too. I expect Cataclysm to deliver on the gaming front, as SCII has, but beyond that it seems clearly evident that Blizzard is drinking their own kool-aid just a bit too heavily these days.
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what is the name of the song that led into/out of the greg street interview??
Whiteknight: It’s Queen of Blades by Galt Aureus, the 1st prize winner at the 2010 Blizzcon Song Contest.
MP3: http://us.media.blizzard.com/blizzcon/2010-Song-Contest/1stplace.mp3
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrnfXUeFFZo
As to all the butthurt idiots here complaining that Randy didn’t ask about “their passion” or that Scott insulted “their passion” – there’s a difference between being a geek and being a tactless twat.
Half the questions at Blizzcon were an absolute waste of everyone’s time. I WANT A CASTER LEGENDARY ZOMG is not a question you ask anyone, let alone Metzen and Afrasiabi at the Quests and Lore panel. It’s petulant whining, not passion.
Although WoW thankfully didn’t take the prize for Biggest Assclown Question, that honor was for the Starcraft 2 panel where some guy actually asked “Hey I got like 200 points for winning one game, why is that?”. I mean seriously, you’ve got the ear of the developers of the entire game and you ask a fucking tech support question about a random bug?
As to the interviews, they were pretty good. If you’re interested in class balance discussion, read GC’s blue posts. If you’re interested in how his team works or what he works on, read GC’s blue posts. Randy asked him questions he doesn’t usually get asked, letting us get more of a handle on his personality. A great use of the very brief time he was given. OK, I felt the “numbers” thing fell kinda flat, but I understand that it was meant to be a quirky question with a sort of implied threat of “pointed question incoming” that was never meant to be realized.
Imagine you have exactly 2 minutes with Ghostcrawler and you have to make that worth your while. Unless you’re one of those entitled and oblivious morons Scott was berating, you’re not gonna ask about your own pet peeve. And you can’t really ask him to reveal anything that Blizzard doesn’t want revealed (because he won’t do it). You could ask him about some generality everyone else has asked him, in which case you’ll get a few sentences of well-worn boilerplate that’s accessible to anyone who’s ever read or listened to an interview with him.
Or you could try to get something unique out of the experience. And I think the story about the rocks with nerf/buff requests on them is pretty unique and interesting.
“What do you think is the most exciting spec coming up in Cataclysm?”
Greg Street is not dumb enough, or angry enough with the CM team on the forums, to even consider answering that.
Those kinds of questions aren’t bad of course, but this is not a half-hour sit-down interview. This is “OK you get 2 minutes with Ghostcrawler”.
Try to make your interview count. The way to do that is to get information that you can’t get just by going to Bluetracker. The way to do that is to ask unexpected questions that aren’t likely to be things he’s asked, and then answers, every single day in interviews and forums.
i would also like to know where the end song can be obtained as it is a awesome song and my wife has been riding me to find it for her please heel me get the Wife Monkey off my back! lol
Except Randy asked those number questions. Tell me how that fits your criteria? Were GC’s awkward, confused responses exactly the kind of thing you can’t get off Bluetracker? That’s what you’ve been waiting for? Please. It was a terrible interview.