Tomorrow morning I will board a plane bound for the City of Angels.

Destination — the Anaheim Convention Center for Blizzard’s sporadic convention celebrating all things them: Blizzcon.

This is only the second Blizzcon. I desperately wanted to go to the first, but the logistics of getting to LA from Northern Virginia are somewhat daunting.

Not only is there a high cost involved with airfare and lodging, but there’s also the harder to come-by vacation time to scrounge up.

So what kind of fun do I get to have at Blizzcon? Aside from watching people dress up as blood elves, succubi, and orcs, there’s also numerous panels on all things Warcraft & Starcraft.

On top of that are the gameplay booths. I don’t know how these work or how much time you get, but I should get a few minutes to try out Starcraft II and the mysterious “new WoW content.”

Rumors abound that Blizzard may be announcing a new WoW expansion this Friday morning. I hope they do, as I’d love to be one of the first in the world to know about it!

And what do I get to take away with me? My very own Murloc suit to dress up in-game. I haven’t decided which of my characters gets the honor of donning the Murloc suit yet.

Also, I get a key to a future Blizzard beta. They don’t say for which game so it could be for Starcraft II or a new WoW expansion, or something else entirely. I can’t really lose either way.

So, the blog may actually go on a week long hiatus as I hit Blizzcon and then San Diego. I may blog when I care to, showing off pictures of the wacky people at Blizzcon and the animals of San Diego.

Vacations are good.

I’ve mentioned the Armory before in a previous post.

Check out this widget that sucks Armory data into an iframe for posting anywhere:

Now that’s cool.

I’m going to take a break from my regularly scheduled blogging today to talk about Warcraft. I do it on occasion, and I usually see a dip in interest from my core readership. Oh well.

This weekend I got my hands on Gorehowl, the epic axe of Grom Hellscream. He’s an uber dude from Warcraft lore, so his axe is pretty uber too.

As a matter of fact, his axe is one of the best weapons that a Retribution Paladin can get pre-25man raids — especially if said Ret Pally is not a blacksmith.

I was elated to get my hands on it, as it gets me one step closer to being a viable Ret Pally.

For those who don’t know, Ret Pallies are the laughing stock of WoW. Although lots of gear can bring decent damage, they are woefully behind the curve on being true DPSers.

After getting Gorehowl, I immediately changed from the respected Holy Spec to the shunned Retribution Spec. Afterall, I had the axe of frickin’ Grom Hellscream in my hands — how could I not destroy everything in my path?

There’s no denying that Gorehowl made a difference. It adds a whopping 98 attack power, plus an additional 70 from the Savagery enchant I put on it (it makes the axe drip blood — how cool is that?).

But was it a big enough difference? That remains to be seen, but even if it is I expect that I’ll still have trouble bringing the pain that my rogue, hunter, mage, and warlock allies can bring.

The gear requirements for a Ret Pally are just insane compared to other classes and specs. I don’t have enough time on my hands to become as awesome as I would like to.

I’m stuck with the question of whether I should stick to Ret because its fun, or Holy because its effective.

It’s a tough call.

Although Holy is all about healing and thus not a lot of fun, it’s extremely effective. The fun part comes in that I feel powerful, while with Ret I feel on the verge of powerful.

Note to Blizzard: Fix Ret Pallies. kthxbye.

While most people spend their 4th of July basking in the glow of warm fireworks, I spent my 4th of July basking in the cold glow of a wide-screen LCD. That’s right, it was 4th of July in Azeroth and there was fun to be had all around!

For those who aren’t hip on the in-game holiday, alcohol is served up which causes all of the guards in a neutral city to fall asleep in a drunken stupor.

On a PVP server like Eredar, that means there’s now nothing to stop one from ganking all day long in such cities.

And that brings us to Booty Bay, where a handful of Synergy members got together to claim Booty Bay in the name of the guild.

It started with our young (but esteemed) resto Druid, Flowerpot, causing a stir all by himself. Enough beckoning and I headed out, though I had little mind to fight. I’m considered a carebear among my fellow guildmates.

Instead, I donned my Black Swashbuckler’s Shirt and some revealing pants and headed out with mug in hand to do some Blood Elf dancing in Booty Bay.

For a little while, the Alliance just kinda stared at me. Occasionally someone would shoot an arrow or I’d get a DoT placed on me, but they could all see I was unarmed and in a party mood so they let me be… for a little while.

Then one by one they got brave and decided to kill the fun-loving Blood Elf dancer. Flowerpot played along, and kept me alive through heals for a remarkable amount of time before I finally fell into that endless abyss of death.

Not really that endless, I rezzed and immediately resumed by dancing, hoping that they would get the hint. They didn’t.

Time to bring in the big dogs — Synergy heavy hitters, Poderoso, Worf, Sadrith (and I’m sure others I’m forgetting) decided to make an appearance and that’s when it was all over.

For a while I followed them around, still in my party clothes, crying at the atrocities they committed and dancing with the ones that took too long to kill.

Then I met Haydn, a human priest who decided she’d try to mind control and drown me. I’m forgiving for a good arrow in the back, or dagger to the throat — but drowning? That’s just not cool.

I decided to bring out my modest weapon and join my fellow Synergy members to rid Booty Bay of Alliance once and for all.

They put up a good fight. In the end, I was probably the least effective of the team, mostly just trying to have fun. I caused a few Alliance to repent, tossed out a few heals, a lot of cleansing, and a few bonks to the head of some Alliance.

In the end, Synergy claimed Booty Bay as its own. The Alliance flightmaster was slaughtered multiple times, as was every Alliance player that wanted to see the fireworks in Booty Bay.

Long live Synergy!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about gaming or World of Warcraft stuff. That’s mainly because only 1 person in my readership (to my knowledge) plays WoW and that’s only because she’s my wife and I practically make her.

One of the interesting things about these MMORPGs is that they maintain a perpetual world. Just because you log off doesn’t mean the world stops. There are always dungeons being beaten, guild politics going on, and arena battles being won. A single person can’t play a game 24/7 (believe me I’ve tried), so what does one do to keep up?

Blizzard has tried to keep players enthralled away from the game by introducing The Armory. It’s actually a pretty impressive feat of a website that brings the game to the player wherever they can snag some web access.

From The Armory, you can view any character in the game, their skills, their reputations, their gear, and even their talent trees. You can search for any item in the game and find out where it drops, what its drop percentage is and what classes usually want that sort of thing. You can even view guild statistics of any guild in the game, as well as statistics about PvP arena teams.

I hope Blizzard keeps adding to the project. It seems the first step would be to add the ability to see in my bags, see what patterns I know in my professions, and see what’s overflowing my bank.

After that, I’d like some more interactive features. I’m ok with logging in if it means I can check out the auction house, make bids, and check my mail. It would also be nice to be able to respec your talents or train your new skills.

Blurring the line between MMORPG and real life is inevitable, and ways to reach into the game world from anywhere on a nominal basis will only serve to increase the hold that such games have on their players. But dang, it’s fun!