BlizzCon 07 from Cair's PoV

[Cairenn]

So, here I am finally home. As those of you who read my “report” from last BlizzCon already know, I’ve never called myself a reporter or any such, so you aren’t getting a “news” coverage of the convention from me. Beladona has already very nicely posted a lot of the “news” type stuff (thanks for taking care of that for me Bela) that you can read here.

Okay, before I get started, I have to give a couple shout-outs.

First – to the staff of the House of Blues in Downtown Disney, Disneyland, Anaheim CA. Thank you so VERY much. Your treatment of us was absolutely phenomenal and you can bet that we will be booking with you guys again next time! (Details of what they did for us in the full write up)

Second – to Julian B. Your grandma, Dorothy N., absolutely freakin’ ROCKS! You need to introduce her to WoW, I think she’d have a blast. Dorothy, thank you so much for making my flight from LA to NY a lot more enjoyable. :)

Yeah yeah, I know – “Blah blah blah, get on with it already Cairenn, sheesh!”

More

[Cairenn]

This is my week and a half away. Actually, I take that back. This isn’t just my week and a half away, since my trip started long before I ever got on an airplane. It started for me when you guys, the community, discovered I wasn’t going to be able to attend and put together the fund-raiser to get me there. At that point I went from helping around the edges to jumping in with both feet and getting stuff organized for the UI community at the ‘con. Let the fun and games begin!

Start with trying to organize stuff for groups ranging from 10 – 25 people at any given moment. Throw in coordinating flight times, cell phone numbers, hotels and a silly little thing that interferes with our time together called BlizzCon. Then try to get people to agree on what restaurant they want to eat at on the different nights. Meh, not too bad so far, except when everyone (myself included) appears to have suddenly been struck blind:

Yes, it’s a funny story now, but I was ready to absolutely cry at the time. I’ve got a bunch of authors looking at the Downtown Disney website with me, deciding which restaurants we want to go to on which nights. Call to make the reservations on Tuesday before I fly out on Wednesday. Absolutely can NOT get hold of one of the restaurants we wanted, but got through to the second and was able to make the reservation there no problem for the Friday night. Great. Mention the problem with the second restaurant in the IRC channel and Cogwheel very kindly offered to take care of getting hold of the other restaurant on Wednesday while I was on my flight down. Good, everything will be fine. I log on to IRC Wednesday morning long enough to let folks know that I’m getting ready to go catch my flight and that I’ll see everyone either later that day or on Thursday. Cogwheel pings me – “Umm, Cairenn? We seem to have a little problem here.” Oh no, what’s wrong now? “Well, you know that reservation we have for Friday night? ….. it’s in Florida” Yeah, you heard me – we’ve had like 15 of us all looking at the website off and on deciding on where we wanted to eat, and not one of us realized that the page we were looking at was for Florida’s Downtown Disney, not California’s. DOH! And I’m about to get on a plane and can do NOTHING about it! My only consolation in all this is the fact that it wasn’t just me that missed the fact we were looking at Disneyworld’s page, not Disneyland’s. Yup, some of the best and brightest mod authors you guys know and respect, and they all missed it too!

Thankfully, Cogwheel was able to get it all straightened out for us and secure reservations for our groups for both nights, in California. Unfortunately, our restaurant adventures didn’t end there. More later.

Wed, 1 Aug: The trip out to LA!

I flew out of Ottawa ON bright and early on Wed, 1 Aug. Short hop down to Newark NJ, then a quick stop and plane change in Newark NJ then a direct flight (yay!) to Orange County CA.

Warning, apparently little ol’ me can be pretty daunting when I’m flying with a migraine. (Any wonder I had a migraine? Read above!) The flight from Ottawa to Newark didn’t bother me too much because I knew it was only an hour flight so I just took some light-weight meds to get me through until I could get on the flight from Newark to LA when I could take something stronger and hopefully sleep away the worst of the migraine before I landed. Unfortunately, I get on the plane to discover I’m in a center seat. That’s not too bad, because I can just recline the seat and sleep, right? Wrong. I find that I’m in a row that the seats don’t recline. This just isn’t going to work. So I’m looking around the plane, trying to find any available seat that I can switch to, even if it’s a center seat, as long as it reclines. So I see a window seat that is empty a couple rows ahead of me. Keep an eye on it and wait until I think everyone is on the flight. It’s still empty. Yay! Get up, walk up the aisle and check with the folks sitting in the other two seats. Sure enough, no one has claimed it. Joy oh bliss, I’m going to be able to sleep! The two folks in the row start to get up to let me in, when I hear this voice behind me “That’s not your seat”. /sigh. “No, it isn’t, but it looked like everyone was on the flight and the seat was still empty so I was going to switch to it. Sorry.” Start to go back to my original seat, when I hear the Flight Attendant talking with the person: “Excuse me sir, what seems to be the delay with you getting seated? Oh, I see this isn’t your seat, your seat is back there *point*.” The guy says, “Well, I wanted a window seat and no one is sitting here so I thought I’d take this one.” Oh really, thinks me? I don’t THINK so! So I stand up and go “Excuse me? As you well know, I had already asked the other people in the row if that seat was taken, when you came up behind me and made it sound like this was your seat, and now I’m hearing that it isn’t, and you just wanted a window seat? Well, I’m very sorry, but that isn’t your seat and I laid claim to it already, so you can just go sit in your original seat because I am taking that one.” The flight attendant is all like, “I don’t care who sits there, you two sort it out.” I storm my way up the aisle and all but elbow him aside to get the seat. I really just don’t care at this point, my head hurts way too much. So, plunk myself down in this lovely window seat that also reclines, pop my heavy-duty migraine meds (which include a sedative) and settle in to doze my way to LA. Yeah, okay, so what’s the big deal about all this, you’re thinking. Well, you have to understand, I stand a whole 5’2” and weigh in about 110lbs soaking wet. I got a good look at the guy as we’re getting off the plane in LA and my migraine is mostly gone. He had to have stood 6’3” and been at least 220lbs of solid muscle and was just flat out scary looking! Not a chance I would have stood up to him under normal circumstances. Little tiny me made this guy back down! Eep!

Anyway, safely on the ground in LA, Slouken picked me up at the airport and whisked me off to the hotel where I get to meet Beladona face to face for the first time. Bella and I wander around Anaheim a bit while I show him where the ‘con is in relation to our hotel and try to find some food. Back to the hotel and try to get some sleep (yeah, right, like I could sleep? Too excited!)

Thurs, 2 Aug: I get to meet everyone!

Bela and I meet up and go meet Iriel and Esamynn. Iriel and I then ditch Es and Bela after we’and head over to Blizzard for lunch with Slouken and some members of the Blizz UI team (Eric Dodds, Michael Schweitzer, Irena Pereira, Tom Thompson and Pat Magruder). After lunch they asked Iriel and I to come back to the offices and be a “test audience” for them for the UI panel. Had a lot of fun laughing with them about problems that had already cropped up for the UI panel (including, but not limited to, Blizz’s web team mis-spelling Slouken’s name on the website) and about some of the things they are considering if things go wrong during the panel. You guys lost out, since everything went well. Rislyn (who is as hot as she is smart) considered doing some of the presentation in the sexy Russian female Draenei voice and/or perhaps doing the female human dance if the various technologies didn’t cooperate. Iriel and I got to point out a few minor things that they might want to tweak the wording of and threw a bunch of possible questions at them so they could consider how they might like to answer them if they came up. Then back to the convention center to meet up with others.

Mid-afternoon we get together with a bunch more of the UI community and hang out for the afternoon. At this point the crew includes Beladona, Iriel, Esamynn, Cladhaire, Jim, Qzot and his daughter, Cogwheel and his wife, AnduinLothar, MentalPower, Kaelten and his wife, and myself. I also found Sargeras (a friend of Kudane, Dolby and I) and his guildmate Dan during that time, both of whom spent a fair amount of the ‘con hanging out with us as well. Lots and lots of hugs all around! Spent a lot of time hanging out in front of the Anaheim Convention Center while everyone worked their way through the line-ups for their badges to get into the convention, then off for an impromptu supper at Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen in Downtown Disney. Back to our respective hotels to get some sleep before the big day, the opening of BlizzCon 2007.

[Cairenn]

Fri, 3 Aug: Near death experiences at BlizzCon!

I got to the convention center about 10am. Met up with some of the others to sit together for the opening ceremony. Much cheering throughout. (Please note that from here on out it gets pretty confusing for me, and likely boring for you, since I spent as much time running in and out of various panels and stuff answering my cell phone and helping everyone keep track of each other as I did anything else.) Discovered during this time that the Blizzard Souvenir Program and BlizzCon Map both have the schedule mixed up. Point out to Slouken the error (since it says that the UI panel is supposed to be on Saturday according to the Program and Map) and he dashes off to find out what’s going on. Some people got the Revised Schedule of Events leaflet that they had printed up, but they weren’t being passed out very well. Luckily, they are announcing over the speakers the names of the panels as they were happening, so it wasn’t too bad.

After the Opening Ceremony folks wandered around a bit, got some food, checked out the line-ups for things, etc. A few of us ran out to snag lunch at IHOP (funnel cakes!) then it was back to the ‘con for the WoW Expansion II Demo. I know that has been covered extensively elsewhere, so I’ll just move on to my subsequent attempt at death.

Being the smart little chickie that I am, I decided that I was over heated and really needed something to cool down, but didn’t want just another drink. Oh! They have a Dippin’ Dots stand here! I’ve never tried it before, so I buy myself a little bowl of [chocolate] and wander around a bit to watch some of the WC3 Quarterfinals while I’m waiting for the Blizzard Sound/Music panel at 2:30. Hmmm, this is pretty neat ice cream, for all that I’ve only had a spoonful so far, but my tongue feels really weird. No, wait, it doesn’t feel weird at all. In fact, it doesn’t feel anything. And hey, hang on a sec here, it’s starting to get rather hard to breathe. Back to the booth and ask the lady there what it is made with. She has absolutely no clue at all. “All I know is they bring these big bags of the stuff and we pour it into the containers and dish it out”. Great, this isn’t helpful lady, and my throat is really swelling at this point. Over to the info booth and find out where the first aid station is. Get escorted to the first aid station and ask the nice nurse there if they happen to have any Benadryl. Thank goodness, they do. Force one down my rapidly closing throat and sit there and shake hoping that it’ll kick-in in time, to avoid a trip to the hospital (or worse). Yup, my allergy has definitely gotten worse since the last time I accidentally ingested some aspartame. Time to talk to my doc about an epi-pen. So, just for info folks – if you have an allergy to aspartame, make darn sure that the Dippin’ Dots you just got is in fact their chocolate and not their “No sugar added fat free Fudge”. You can bet your bottom dollar that I'm going to be writing to them and telling them just how happy I was about this lovely little adventure.

Okay, so, I’ve just spent the last hour or so sitting in the first aid office with the nurse, making sure that I’m going to be okay. Finally we’re both reassured enough that I’m willing to leave, although I’ve got another Benadryl in my purse now just in case. Time to go find everyone again and get back to having fun. Just really bummed that I missed the Music panel. Ah well, off to the Dungeons & Raids panel. Again, it’s covered well elsewhere so I’ll just move right along.

On to the one we really cared about, the UI panel! Beladona covered a lot of it here already along with a link to the YouTube video of it, here, but here's some more. The members of the Blizzard UI team that were giving the presentation included: Derek (Horkin) Sakamoto, UI Programmer and Designer, weird fish thing avatar; Iriena (Rislyn) Pereira, UI Programmer and Designer, ninja lady; Tom Thompson, UI programmer and Designer; Eric Dodds, Game Designer in charge of UI, sad panda with no avatar; and of course Sam (Slouken) Lantinga, Lead Software Engineer, pirate.

They started the panel with a discussion of what their philosophy of the UI is.

They like to “Keep it Simple and Clean”. So easy that “Gramma can use it”. It has to be “fun and easy, but extensible” so that you can get more in-depth information and functionality (example the default raid UI) as needed. And of course, “If you want more complexity … make an AddOn.” From there they went on to the discussion about how to create a simple addon, introducing people to the three base files (.toc, .xml and .lua) and how they work together, using the “ShowMeTheMoney” tutorial that is included in the UI Extraction tool, found here.

After they went through the tutorial, they told us about a couple new things that are coming. The first was the introduction of the new UI tool they have released, the EditingUI Mod. It too is available on the Blizzard UI page, here.

This tool allows new and experienced authors to load it up, in game, and have:

Frame Explorer. This works sort of like Windows explorer, allowing you to see the entire tree of parent and child frames. The left side menu has all the parent frames and the right side shows you all the children of each frame. You can drill down through it selecting any frame and see all of its textures, all of its font strings and select them. That leads into the next part;

Live Positioning and Sizing. Once you have a part selected, you can use the arrows to move the various parts around on the screen. Along the bottom you can see the Anchor points for the item and change them manually, allowing you to set real time placement and sizing. Finally, that leads to the last part of the EditingUI mod;

Helper Functions. Things like a converter that changes Photoshop colour values to WoW colour values, get texture coordinates out of photoshop, the ability to copy your setpoints from one frame to another, the ability to copy the xml output for use in your (out of game) editor, and other such little things that help ease some of the tedium involved in UI creation and a reload button which allows;

The ability to do real-time reloads of your ui as you make changes to your code, instead of having to log all the way out of the game and back in. It is live now and is fully compatible with Patch 2.2 (which isn’t live yet) and mostly compatible with 2.13. The only thing it isn’t compatible with in 2.1.3 is key bindings, but it will be in 2.2, you’ll be able to go in and set keybindings to reload your ui and hiding and showing it the program itself.

Next they went on to discuss the new Combat Log that is coming in an upcoming patch (2.4, they hope) and finished off with a Q&A, both of which Beladona has already covered in his earlier post, so I’ll not bother to repeat that information.

After the UI panel, people got out those terrible things that I hate so very very much and subjected me to them for a while, then we all trouped downstairs to spend a bit more time watching stuff, buying swag, standing in line-ups, etc before we had to head to Disney for supper. Some of us watched/listened to the Sound-alike contest, the Dance contest and the beginnings of the Costume contest.

Then it was off to the Rainforest Café for dinner. Slouken, Iriel, Esamynn, Qzot, Cladhaire, Tom, ForTheTribes, AnduinLothar and his girlfriend (sorry, I don’t recall her name at this point), MentalPower, Kaelten, Kristy, Beladona, Cogwheel, Mikina, Alex and I had a very pleasant meal and probably scared the heck out of everyone around us, wondering what this strange language was that we were speaking (code, of course, what else?). We were there until some late hour (I really don’t know just how long we were there, we were all too busy having fun to pay attention to the time) then it was back to our hotels to sleep and get ready for Saturday.

[Cairenn]

Sat, 4 Aug: Day 2 (or was that 3 or 7 or 14 or something?!?!)

Started the day off earlier than Friday, since Iriel and I had a breakfast meeting with some of the good folks from TerraNova at IHOP (more yummy funnel cakes! Yes, I was spoiling myself.). Had a good time debating a lot of things concerning MMOs from an academic point of view, but of course we ended up being rather later getting to the convention itself than we had originally intended.

Once we arrived at the ‘con we managed to find Slouken and took him off for lunch, then took over a table in Hall B where we had members of the community coming and going off and on for the afternoon as folks just kind of fanned out going to the various panels, exhibits and line-ups as they felt like, then wandering back to see what everyone else was up to, etc. I know that I sat in on the WoW TCG panel and the Lore & Quests panel, but I really don’t remember what else I was at that day. Spent a good portion of the afternoon just coordinating people, getting our reservation for supper pushed back a bit and mostly just hanging out talking to everyone and enjoying their company. I was in my element completely. I so loved the chance to just get to spend time with everyone from the community that was there.

I ducked out of the Lore & Quests panel (as the last one of the day on Sat) once to finally go get souvenirs of my own to bring home (no line ups for the store was a nice thing ) and a bunch of times to answer my cell phone as everyone tried to get hooked back up for the concert.

We actually managed to all find each other in time to go into the concert as a group and secured a row and a half of seats together in the arena. The concert was, as you’ve all no doubt heard, absolutely wonderful! L70ETC were rocking the place hard and Jay Mohr had the audience in stitches laughing so hard. As for Video Games Live … If you EVER get the chance to go see VGL, do it. You won’t regret it. People say gamers have no class. You wouldn’t have known it from the 8k people screaming their heads off and applauding their hands raw for this full symphony orchestra and choir. It, both the concert itself and the audience’s response to it, simply blew me away. I really REALLY hope that Blizzard and VGL are going to release the taping of it they made, I will most definitely purchase it and I know I’m not the only one that will. Blizzard? VGL? You guys listening? We want copies of the concert!

The only “problem” with the concert, for us, was that it ran over time, as is frequently the case with things like this. In and of itself, that wouldn’t have been a problem, except that it was supposed to end by 9:30pm and we had reservations for dinner at 10:00. This led to the shout out I posted at the very beginning of this write up.

So, as previously mentioned, Cogwheel had very kindly gotten hold of the good folks at the House of Blues and secured reservations for our group of 22 or so people for Saturday night after the concert. However, he had originally booked us for 9:00 pm. After I got in town and met up with Cog on Thursday he told me of his success and the time planned. Discussing it with everyone and getting a look at the schedule, we realized that 9:00 just wasn’t going to work, since the concert was scheduled to go until 9:30. I got on the phone through to them and (after many tranfers of my call) got to speak to the manager of the restaurant and explained to him our problem, and asked if we could push our reservation back an hour, to 10:00 pm. He said that yes, they were willing to do that, however we needed to be aware that at 9:00 they went from a full restaurant menu to a reduced “bar” menu. We said that was fine, we just wanted to be able to get something to eat, as a group, since it was the last night together for the full group. So that’s all fine and dandy, we’re all set. Except, as just explained above, the concert went late. Very late. VGL didn’t take the stage until around 9 pm. So, we’re all sitting there going “Okay, what are we going to do? We have two choices – we can either miss the concert and keep our reservation, or we can stay for the concert and take our chances on them canceling our reservation.” The question went down the rows, so everyone would have a chance to have their say, and the answer came back up again, “We don’t really care where we eat, just so long as we can eat together, so let’s just stay, we don’t want to miss the concert, we’ll be able to come up with *somewhere* to eat if they cancel our reservation.” So, we stayed for the concert (for which I am grateful, I would really have been disappointed to miss it. But, I would have been more disappointed to spoil someone else’s evening, which is why I wanted to make sure everyone got a chance to have their say). Luckily for us, not everyone was at the concert. Cladhaire and Tom had had other plans that precluded their going to the concert, but they were planning on meeting us after for the dinner. Between being able to text them, and the fact that Cogwheel and his wife decided to skip the latter part of the concert and thus headed out to the restaurant themselves, we were able to get people in touch with the folks over at the House of Blues and tell them what was happening. Well, this is where it gets absolutely fantastic. Not only did the folks at House of Blues keep our reservation until we finally showed up at 11:00 pm, but they kept their kitchen open late for us. Normally their kitchen closes at 10 or 10:30, from what I understood talking with them. And, not only did they keep the kitchen open waiting for us, but they also gave us their full menu to choose from, not just their reduced bar menu! Talk about service! The food was excellent, the portions were a good size and the prices were definitely reasonable. It was actually one of the better meals I had during my entire trip, and I hadn’t been disappointed with any of the other ones. They didn’t make us feel rushed or like we’d put them out at all, they were friendly and cheerful, laughing and bantering with us. You can believe that I will most definitely be reserving with them again next time! So, again, to the wonderful staff at the House of Blues: Thank you. Your treatment of us was simply outstanding and you really helped top off a great weekend for us in fantastic style.

The “final” night concert and supper saw Iriel, Sargeras, Dan, Guillotine, Thunder-child, Taco-man (moderator on EQ2Interface), Mentalpower, Esamynn, Cladhaire, Tom, ForTheTribes, Anduinlothar, Beladona, Alex, Kaelten, Kristy, Cogwheel, Mikina, Kirkburn, Kaydeethree, MatthewS, Overmind and myself in attendance.

We remained at the restaurant for quite some time, since a lot of people had to head home on Sunday so no one wanted to say good bye. Unfortunately, the time came and we really needed to head out. A lot more hugs all around for me, then everyone starts heading off to their respective hotels.

Sun, 5 Aug: Disneyland!

Well, it was supposed to be a semi-large gathering, but one thing and another, the numbers got rather reduced. The morning started out with Esamynn, Mentalpower, Kaelten, Kristy and I heading off to Disneyland. Only went on a couple rides in the morning, we were all moving rather slowly at that point, just ambling along, relaxing after a crazy weekend.

At lunch time, we wandered out to Downtown Disney, met up with Kudane, Lance (a friend of Kudane and mine’s), Beladona and a friend of Kaelten & Kristy for lunch at the Rainforest Café. After lunch, Kaelten and Kristy and their friend had to go, and Kudane and Lance couldn’t stay either, but Bela joined Esamynn and Mentalpower and I for the afternoon.

Back into Disneyland and off for some more rollercoaster fun. Somewhere out there is a picture of me absolutely drenched after the guys made sure I was in the very front seat of the flume ride, big meanies that they are! Stuck around to see the end of the day show, Fantasmic! and the fireworks, then wandered our way out of the park and up to a nearby Tony Roma’s for some truly delicious ribs for supper, then a final good bye and back to our hotels to get ready for our trips out on Monday.

Mon, 6 Aug – Fri, 10 Aug: Time to go

Slept in some on Monday (yay, sleep!) until it was time to check out of my hotel and get picked up by Slouken. Off for a quick lunch with him and Rislyn, then he dropped me off at the airport for my flight to NYC. Flew to NYC where I had a visit with friends until I flew home on Friday. Got a chance to meet Art3mis on Wednesday while I was in town and bring him some reminders of home, since he’s another Canadian stuck living in the US. Flew home late Friday evening and spent the next 3 days trying to recover from the trip.


I had an absolutely wonderful time! It was so incredible getting to meet so many of you face to face for the first time, and I hope it won’t be the last time we all get together. Looking forward to the next one! Thank you all so very very much for getting me out there and giving me the opportunity to meet so many of you.

[Cairenn]

Okay, thread now open.

[THUNDER_CHILD]

From left to right

Irel, Slouken, Cairenn

Stay tuned, more to come.

[Cogwheel]

Posted this on the WoW forums last week... It's a picture of a bunch of us immediately after the UI panel.

http://ctscreens.net/8381

Cladhaire and Esamynn are flagged 'cause they had to drag Cairenn kicking and screaming from behind those glass panels :P

[Beladona]

I love the "flagging" thing! LOL

[Sargeras]

It was great to see you, Kudane, Iriel, and Slouken again Cairenn, and to meet new faces for the first time!

The pictures I took (which weren't as many as I hoped ) are on my gallery. Dan has a ton and I'll get a link as soon as he uploads them.

[Cairenn]

Thanks for the link Sarg. It was great to hang out with you again, just wish we'd had more time. *HUG!*

[Caeryn]

I took some pictures of Cairenn but apparantly she didn't know who I was, so she was a bit miffed about it.

At once point she tried to /ignore me
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tierrie...7601245280162/

Anyway here's the start of the photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tierrie...7601245280162/

[Cairenn]

I was only "miffed" because I knew that you were someone from the community, but I didn't know who, and never got a chance to have you hang out with us.

So come on guys, I know that there were a ton more pictures taken of the UI community at BlizzCon, let's see 'em!* You're welcome to host them here on the site, just put them as attachments to your posts.




* I don't think we really need any more of my @$$ though!

[JoshBorke]

Originally Posted by Cairenn <snip> * I don't think we really need any more of my @$$ though!

yes we do.

[Dreadlorde]

WTB 12.5"x15" glossy prints.. j/k.

But if you really want to cairenn..

[Cairenn]

A bunch more photos have been uploaded here.