Me, Yorga and Twaerl are back home in Holland again after our weekend at the WWI 008 Paris.
First of all, it was lots of fun
Here a report of the trip and some pics!We left fridaynight at 4.00 at night for the appr. 4 hour ride to Paris. Just before we hit the city, we decided to make a toilet stop. A German woman came out and warned me for wet feet....and soI learned, french toilets are literally holes in the floor that you have to "squat" over, and aim for the hole, and with regular intervals a whole lot of water gets thrown over the floor -- hence the wet shoes. Thank good for good bladder control, because jumping up in fright at all the water while you are peeing above a hole....might have ruined my set of clothes for the weekend
Anyway, we arrive at the centre..the queue goes around a corner...and another corner...and the other....and yes, the other. So the queue was around the whole, huge, Porte de Versailles centre. Luckily the wait was shorter then expected.
Upon entering, we did a quick walk around on the two floors and went straight to the WOTLK game area. After a long wait, we got behind a computer. And we stayed behind that computer for a whole 2.5 hours! Unfortunately, not playing, but looking at this screen:
The server in America was down...Jay the big lead producer came up though, introduced himself. "Hi. I'm here to come and talk to you about the game. Great game. It doesn't work though!"
So... we could just about see the screens to see the opening ceremony. The guy was quite funny, but the woman, some kind of MTV chick named China, was just obscenely annoying, loud and totally 100% ignorant about the game. To me she came over quite condescending, saying things wrong multiple times, and then shrugging it off with some comment like "whatever you people do/call that". Anyway, the opening ceremony wasn't great, especially not while you are behind a computer with a WotlK account on it, that doesn't work
After 2.5 hours, we were all send away. Well, everyone was send away, but nobody said anything to me, Twaerl and Yorga. So we played it dumb and stayed. Two rows of computers were filled with press in the meanwhile. I walked up to a staff member and after a bit of "I has a sad", we got three computers with the press. And we were seated next to a dutch journalist of a game magazine we always read! So we had a nice chat about the game and such while waiting another half an hour. My game and Twaerls game worked for 5 minutes, and then we were all send away, incl. press. It was really fun to meet him and Jay in person though and at least get 5 minutes of playing time. It was really disseapointing though, that Blizzard was not willing to arrange anything for the gamers stuck in the booth for 3 hours. We all had to join the huge queues later.
So, after we 'were released' we were very tired and hungry, so we went out to get a bite to eat. There I saw Butterhorn walking by! *waves at butters*. I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to talk to you longer then, with us going out and you going in. I kept my eyes out for you all weekend, I would've loved a chance to talk to you again, and meet Wither. Did you have a nice weekend? And let me know when you are going to Den Haag!
After lunch we then checked some arena tournements and the last half hour of the Nihilum raid. That was fun to watch!
We missed the first and biggest part of the raid, because we didn't have a programme (they were available only after the ceremony, and we were stuck at the WotlK area). Below a rl-screenshot of the Nihilum players present at a signing. They seemed really nice.
We had a good meal at a cheap, fast but great italian restaurant, and came back just in time for the dance and costume contest. That for me was the highlight of the entire weekend. The crowd was very lively, screaming and cheering and clapping for their favorite dancers and costumes. The costumes were great, especially an amazingly funny Murloc costume made everyone go totally crazy! But one as Kaelthas, on a chicken mount, was absolutely crazy funny too.
The Murloc caused absolute havoc in the crowd everytime he came on or was on screen.
One of the dancers yelled "FOR THE HORDE" after his little interview, and the crowd immediatly yelled HORDE back with lots of cheering. It was soooo loud, the presenter looked very very confused and stunned for a few seconds
This happened a few times, it seemed there was a lot of horde there, and the alliance protest was very weak
moohaa!We also got our goody bag (later in the day when the rediculous queues were gone) and some t-shirts and badges with buffs
So. Then. To the hotel. The hotel that was just 2 kilometers away. The hotel we would walk to. THE HOTEL WE COULDN'T FIND TO SAVE OUR LIVES. After walking through half Paris, Twaerl walked back to Porte de Versailles, got the car equipped with TomTom. The TomTom could find the hotel. It was about 3 minutes from where we had walked to, walked back from, where we sat down in desperation, asked a few people who also didn't know it was around the next corner....The hotel I reserved, confirmed, and already booked 20 euro's to. The hotel that said they were full and didn't have any rooms free, and the guy that looked at my confirmation emails and bill with a friendly smile. Luckily, he arranged a room in a hotel very nearby, for the same price minus the 20 euros. Quite nice, specially for the price, and we had a gooooooood sleep
Today we took the time to walk around all the stands, make cheesy pictures with props and peoples in costumes, see the 'museum', watched some arena tournaments.
I have some nice pics, f.e. of Twaerl on an Arthas iceberg throne with helmet, but I don't think I can post those without permission
I also went to a presentation about WotlK. Some things I thought were cool and I remember
(you might already know, I dunno)- all the raid dungeons will be available as both 10 and 25, but the 25m will drop loot a whole tier higher then the 10 man.
- there will be a dungeon with free roaming air fighting. You will be able to get on a dragon with tanking, healing or dpsing abilities and fight in the air. The dungeon consists of several different rings floating on top of each other, you can fly to where you like and do the dungeon in any order.
- Heroics will be somewhat easier and shorter.
- You won't need rep for entering heroics.
- Gaining reputation with factions will change. You know the tabards each faction has? Well, if you want to gain f.e. reputation for Cenarion, you can equip that tabard, go do any heroic you like, f.e. SH, and you will gain reputation or both CE and Thrallmar. If you equip the CE tabard and do Coilfang, you will get bonus rep.
- Quests will be more integrated with the dungeons. No moar "kill end boss of dungeon x"
- Dungeons will be less linear. No more trash a boss a trash b boss b. Also, more scripted things, interactive things will be implemented.
- They want to get rid of the specific class setup dungeons need. You should be able to do the dungeons with any setup. Not requiring a specific setup or specced people, and even doable without a prot spec warrior. To give every class an equal chance of getting groups, instead of mage, priest, warrior and random random.
- COT will get stratholme. You will enter there just before s--- happens. It will be scripted somewhat like Old Hillsbrad, but still non-lineair, and we will fight together with Arthas before he goes all Lich King.
- Items are going to be more general. No more "retri pala item" "elem. shaman item" "fire mage item". But items several classes might take an interest in.
- The new outdoor non-instanced pvp area will control whether or not you receive spirit shards in all the dungeons for unique items.
That's all I can remember now
anyway, it might pop up somewhere on the forums.Later in the afternoon we queued up once again for WotlK. When we got in, none of us had an account with a Deathknight, so we didn't get to play one
But the mage and warlock playtime I got was great Especially turning in some kind of demon with the warlock.Then we watched the first part of the arena tournament finals. But it was best of 5, so it took a very very long time. We decided to go home about 16.00. Twaerl has work tomorrow early and I have an interview for a master I want to get into, and we weren't particularly interested in the closing ceremony (concerts of LVL70 etc)
It was a very very tiring weekend, but lots of fun. I'm curious what beta key and what pet we received. We'll get the pet probably in the next patch, and I'm not sure yet about the beta....but I'll cry sweet tears if it's for Diablo or Starcraft
So, I'm going to sleepy do, give my back, brains and legs some rest!
See you later online!
