World Wide Invitational - Paris 2008

[Sophina]

http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/logo.jpg

Heya all,

As you know I represented our Nightfall crew in Paris over the weekend, and it was a riot. I will try and give you a taste of the event over the next couple of posts as to bring the worldwide invitational to you :], so without further a do, while I try to keep my eyes open, WWI Paris 2008:

Sat 28th June 2008

The gates open at 8am today and Im not 100% sure what to expect. We really have 3 sterotypes of gamer geeks; the first being those that get out and about quite regularly, these are usually tanned, quite trim and tend to be the ones smiling more; the second being the tall thin lanky geek that rarely eats, sleeps, leaves the shadows/house and giggles when he sees a girl "hehehehe boobies"; and finally the overweight gamers that rarely get up before midday, but roll out of bed and are straight on their game. Ofc, there are many other types, and i like to feel that the "gamers" I know, and myself, dont really fall into those categories. I decided there would be a mixture of all 3 and some "normal"...ish....people there too.

Well, ofc, black was the colour coordination of choice, and as you can see by the illustration below the queue was quite long when I joined it at 10 mins before opening. By 8am the queue stretched further than I could see and curled accross the road and down around the next expo hall (eek wouldnt want to have been them). I scouted the hall location the day before so knew where I was going ;)

http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/queue-one.jpg

http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/queue-two.jpg

Ofc, being on my own kinda made it a unique experience. Decided hell, we're all here for the same reason, lets talk to some people around me. The usual starting conversations kinda went "hiya, nick, class, race, guild, realm" only the order of who asked what first really changed. Got talking to some yanks behind me, untill we ... oh god ... even remembering it brings me to rocking. The only way I can descibe it is to dialogue the event:

*talking away genually about classes and travels here, etc*
*wind change*
me: "omg ewwww"
yank1: "what?"
me: "you cant..." *cut out mid sentance*
yank2: "omg i know...omg"
yank1: "wtf dude?"
yank2: "hold ur breath! for the love of your nostils hold your breath!"

I sware, the smell was like no other, the temp was pretty warm for 8am, about 22 degrees c, and I think we had a few ppl that were alergic to washing in the queue. I kid you not, the 45mins it took us to get through the hall was a mixture of different nasty smells the further you moved down the queue and the more the wind changed. So I make this public service announcement:

Fellow geeks. Please. I know it sounds like swearing. But. If going into the outdoors, venturing to meet people, into a crowded area. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WASH!!!! AND DEODERISE PLS!!!! ktnxbai

Yes, be glad websites are unable to provide scratch and sniff, believe I took one for the team there! This rant will probably be a recurring theme over my write up, so appologies in advance, but, unless you were there, your nose cannot know the horror :X

Anyways, they started making fun of the fact they would prefer to be smelly a damp crack den, and then laughing at the people sweating from just walking up the hill and I figured, hmm, thats not really nice. Luckily my queue'ing was reaching its end......well....entrance queue'ing. But hey, Im a brit, we love queue'ing....aparently...0.o

I show my barcode and passport and get my ticket *hears cheering* I modified it with "Sophina <Nightfall>" on it. Well, I'd spoken to Lane a couple of days before going, showed him where the hotel was I was staying at...but realised...didnt actually agree to meet anywhere, my phone didnt work out there anyways so had no-way of contacting them.

"If everyone could make their way inside, instead of queue'ing for your goodie bag, you will get a chance to get one later"

Well, there were 4 ppl infront of me, like hell was I waiting till later ;]

*img - pic of goodie bag and contents - labelled*

I then made a sign for my bag:

"Sophina <Nightfall> Bloodhoof EU We're recruiting see www.eternalnightfall.net for more information" Figured, well, Lav and that might see my back and not my neck badge, and hell, why not recruit while there ;]

Unfortunately, nobody over the weekend stopped me, so hey, someone might have seen it.

I had a nose downstairs, saw frostmourne, starcraft II demos, didnt go to the shop..looooong queue, sponsor stalls & demos and stage 1.

http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/frostmourne.jpg

Upstairs I found the main stage, the auction area, another shop, WotLK demos, stage 2 and a meeting stone. Now, before you ask yes, yes I tired summoning you. However, no-one clicked on the portal. So not my fault.

http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/mstone.jpg

SO I sent you a postcard instead:

http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/postbox.jpg

hehe, watched the opening ceremony, didnt think much of the female presenter (china i think her name was) but she ot better as the event went on.

Blizzard used Paris to introduce their newest game under developement. The video below was taken later on in the next day, and people were VERY annoying infront! But I hope it comes out ok....so introducing....Diablo III:

Diablo III linking (http://eu.blizzard.com/diablo3/index.xml) - found their site for it, has much better vids - no ppl popping their heads up in the middle ;]

Tbh, it looks good, Id really like to give the witch doctor a try....Diablo III division of Nightfall 0;] anyone?

I see a link to a thread here somewhere about the discussion panels, so I wont go into much detail of what the Q and A sessions said apart from the following that seemed to be the biggest answers:

No release date for WotLK
No new content before WotLK
No plans to change druid skins...except Dire Bear and eventually Dire cat will look different to Bear and cat form.
No plans for druid epic transport form (land)
Death Knights will be mainly for tanking casters (personally, really wanna see that).
Plans to introduce the use of CC abilities into WotLK dungeons, to make them not so much just for PvP.
Inscription looks set to use herbalism for its gathering skill
Prot Warrior damage will be buffed and they will be looking to make it so a warrior can talent for dps/prot viable for OT'ing and moderate dps.
Rogues Dagger'ing will be better in WotLK
Totems to be made a raid buff (not just party) for all those "in-range"
Warlock "demon-form" in WotLK, will not make it so a warlock can also tank, but they'd love to see them try

There were more, but more importantly:

audience member: "why are there no gnomes in intro vids?"
panel member: "they are! but they are too short and cant get into shot!"

Oh, and Stormwind is getting a harbour, tho how thats going to work will be interesting 0.o

[Sophina]

Then there came the dance & costume comps:

Costume comp - Huuuuge file (http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/costume.MP4) (so huuge pls only download once, will make it smaller eventually cause it is that big)
Dude that comes on with the Flying Mount was 3rd, MURLOC (zomg u'll hear the cheer he got) came second and the Tauren came 1st, amazing costumes all 3 of them tbh.

Dance:
Female Orc (http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/dance-female-orc.MP4)
Female Gnome (http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/dance-femalegnome.MP4)
Female Belf (http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/dance-fembelf.MP4) (tbh tho, poor performance)
Male Drean (http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/dance-maledrean.MP4)
Male Dwarf (http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/dance-maledwarf.MP4) (3rd)
Male Human (http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/dance-malehuman.MP4) (older guy 2nd :( tho he was really good, had facial expressions too - and they focussed more on the kids :()
Male Nefl (http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/dance-maleNelf.MP4)
Male Orc (http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/dance-maleorc.MP4) (one in white tshirt 1st)
Female Nelf (http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/dance-nelf-fem.MP4) (sorry guys, disappointing for fem nelf dance imho)
Female Trolls (http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/dance-trolls.MP4)

I intend to video edit to point out winners, but will put raw video's up untill I get a chance to. Will also try to make them smaller. WTB video embedding ;] hint hint ;]

---end of day 1---

well, I bought some bits in the shop too, but not like you want to hear about that ;) Forgot to mention also watching Nihilum raid live was cool, KillJaeden won, but the fights looked awesome

http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/nihilium.JPG

Oh, and this was the queue for bags for the majority of the rest of the day (so glad I got mine early)

http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/bagqueue.JPG

[Sophina]

Sunday 29th June 2008

Day 2 of WWI starts a little later \o/ woooo got to sleep in....till 8 *hears sad ppl going awwwwww soph* ty /hugs

Day started with no-queueing though, didnt check passports today, if you had a neck badge barcode you could come in. I watched the detailed discussion of Starcraft 2, tbh, also looking good, but not as good as what came next...

...Diablo III information, tbh....gief....I'd beta that anyday. *hears chants of Warcraft so moves quickly on*

WoW PVP in WotLK....O.M.G. So gonna be improving Soph's PvP gear, this stuff looks amazing. We all know by now about the distructable buildings and the siege vehicles, but this went into slightly more depth, including arena layouts of the 2 new arena areas being launched, and the new battleground.

Firstly, Wintergrasp...area devoted to pvp. Its basically a frozen lake, with 3 bridges. Bridges are fully destructable and will have visable % of health left, they have been made tall so attacking players will be able to see from a distance if the bridge is still usable.

Attacking and defensive teams, basically if your team "won" the area last time, you are defending the keep this time. Winning gives your faction a buff in that zone, and is likend to the spirit shards and towers of Auch atm. The buff will be timed, and provide the capture of wintergrasps versions of spirit shards, and rewards will be decent but not uber.

In an effort to help players where their realms are vastly un-proportioned faction numbers/pvp'ers to aid the outnumbered faction, everytime you loose in succession an extra buff/more supplies, etc will be given to the attacking team.

Where the details of how players will beable to get a seige weapon are in flux (i.e. they dont know if players will have to have so many kills per siege weapon, or collect bits like in AV for certain ones, it is set to be a riot. The idea is to get the attacking team to the keep to knock it down and get inside. Ofc, defensive team will have canons and controls its own siege weapons to try and stop the attack.

Its been designed very well, with a steer towards tactical gaming, something that PvP sometimes lacks, i.e. zerg to drek and pwn tactics wont work.

Similarly the new battleground is a lot similar but introduces a 2 phased battleground. Instead of rushing to capture bases, or defending your keep, or trying to capture flags this offers a new twist.

Its 2 phased, when you join, you will either be attacking or defending an island.

Defending: you spawn in the middle of the map/island and control near enough everything, all the graveyards etc. Aim is simple, stop attacking side getting to an object/location/person. Pluses are that you control near enough everything, including the majority of graveyards, have huuge walls and ... oh wait... whats that on the hoizon...

Attacking: you spawn....on a ship...yaaarrrrggggggg ;] pirates aye...but with siege weapons and a vast army at your control. Your mission, to get to whatever the other faction are protecting. As you make your way up the beach you use the siege wepons on the walls, while the defenders try to stop you.

Its set to be a 10 or 15 man battleground, exctly how many is yet to be decided.

Seige weapons: (will label asap)
http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/seigeweapons.JPG

Wintersgrasp Map:
http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/wintersgrasp.JPG

New arena's look cool too. They tool the points made by arena players and are putting them into practice. The two major complaints being, ppl staying in the starting zone and tippy-toeing around, if leaving there at all, and being too far away at the start to find out the team you are playing.

1. Sewers of Dalaran
awesome. you start in pipes and after the minute prep...you get flushed out. Platform in the center, only 2 sets of stairs up to it. This is also where they introduced their dynamic LoS principles and ideas. In the centre of the room there is a pipe in the ceiling, and randomly a wall of water will flush down it, creating LoS issues.

2. Orgrimmar
zomg. you start on a lift underground, just 10yds away from the other team, after the minute you are raised, can see the other team so close but cant move for 10(ish) seconds there are spikes around the lift face. You are released, 2 platforms, they move up and down, as do spikes on the floor. They are intended to be operaterable by players, as you press a gear or touch something on an edge (no finalised details) a platform is raise, one is lowered and similarly spikes are lowered and raised. Platforms change LoS and the spikes deal damage, even if you are just jumping through them.

Spectators, orc ncps, are intended to be around the edge, and are inteding to be reactive to events happening in the match.

Tbh, dont think my explanations do them justice, but Ill be doing them :thumb

Wintergrasp planned to be playable by small teams or large.
CC wont be changing - deal with it.

Watched the starcraft and arena finals, very nice :thumb great fun.

Then came the closing ceremony, all too soon if you ask me. Though, kinda been sat there for 5hours now...probably time to move...yeh, butt was numb, time to move.

Closing ceremony featured lvl 70 etc, that dinged throughout the set so became lvl80etc \o/ great fun, link below was to their first set, would have recorded it all, but got caught up and really wanted to enjoy it.

lvl 70/80 etc Vid (huuuuuuge) (http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/lvl70etc.MP4)

I am Murloc though was cool \o/ JE SUIS MURLOC \o/ Wish I could have gotten Rogues do it from Behind as well as I am Murloc taped, but camera battery was running out and I wanted to get VGL too :(.

Video games live were also very good, tho one of the speakers was a bit dodgy at times.

first vgl vid (huuuuuuge) (http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/videogameslive-one.MP4)
vgl vid :( batteries ran out tho (http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/videogameslive.MP4)

[Sophina]

Okies, posts didnt spill over so heres a quick final fun post.

To give you an idea of how big the event hall was, this is the main stage; it took up less than half...of the TOP floor, yus two floors ;) Doesnt give a full representation because there were 5-10 rows of people behind the seats, but I am sat in the back row there, also, smell ofc followed inside :X
How Big vid (http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/howbig.MP4)

The entrance as you walked in:

http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/entrance.JPG

and .. possibly more scarey, in the Louvre the Friday before I found homage to taurens :eek::

http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/cow.JPG

and a stone carving of the original Hogger: (and yes, my sis looked at me soooo wierd at this point and actually told me to get a life! hehe, funny though!

http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/hogger.JPG

[Sophina]

Okies, other than images and video links I guess I am done.

Sorry, quite tired and may think of stuff that I meant to include after I catch some ZZZzzz's but probably wont be much.

I didnt get chance to have a play with WotLK, with the amount of queue'ing Id done that weekend, wasnt doing anymore tbh. But I watched some others playing, and tbh, looks very nice...very very nice :thumb

And for all that you are waiting for, come on, I know you are...the pet :thumb

Well, :/ am, dunno yet. Went to enter the code, and the skin hasnt been patched into the game yet, so still dont know. Also not 100% what the beta is yet, but I will update when I know.

Hope you enjoy the read, tried to avoid putting too much random me in there but if you have any questions ask :)

Time to log in weeeeeee
/me rocks from wow widthdrawral ;]

[Sophina]

Ooooo and Plod, saw a t-shirt just for you:

"Save the raid! Hug a tree" :thumb

and there was also: "This is my alt"

[Balinor]

Thanks for an excellent post! All the images are gone tho.. Maybe its my browser...? Anyway - an outstanding job:thumb Soph for president!!!

/uses deodorant

B.

[Carawn]

Fantastic, Sophina :)

Wish I'd been there - although maybe not in the queue at the start - lol

One question. You said that Deathknights will be for tanking casters. Did you mean casters will become tanks, or that these guys will be able to get close to a caster and mash them down despite their 2-shot kill/sheep/whatever else damn spell they have ability?

[Dalfryth]

cant believe i had to work... had my ticket and everything... this makes missing it a lot more bearable in most cases...
as an old Diablo II player looking forward to D III :P

[dkvoltron]

weeeeeeeeeeeeeee soph :)))

[Sophina]

First off, no, its not ur browser, im popping into work today for my ftp details so I can upload the images and vids to link to them, but wanted to do the write up before I forgot about some of it :)

Will be popping into work about midday (hoping MRM is finished then, even if it isnt sure they wont mind me using their bandwidth to upload a few images ;)) Diablo III vid is loooonnnnnggg tho so where I will be putting the ability to watch the vids from my site eventually, atm, they will just be download links.

One question. You said that Deathknights will be for tanking casters. Did you mean casters will become tanks, or that these guys will be able to get close to a caster and mash them down despite their 2-shot kill/sheep/whatever else damn spell they have ability?

Okies, one of the major whinges from fans there was that the MT role of the warrior seemed to be lessoning cause of the druid tanks and pally tanks doing so well. They intend to fix this whinge in WotLK, giving each class a sort of balance, but making sure they can each tank well, but excell at tanking a specific type of fight.

Atm, you can see where each tank excells. Pallys with multimob pulling/tanking, Druid tanking where high damage is expected, but no crushing blows with maybe one on one or two on one tanking and Warrior for crushing blow type fights which are normally one-on-one.

We keep saying how great druids are in ZA, its cause there is high damage big bleed effects but no crushing blows. Their High armor and huuuge health pool makes them simply awesome for tanking in such encounters. Where you would normally have a warrior on Prince, who can dish out shed loads of damage, but can be shield blocked, parried, etc to help the fight (obviously not too much as Prince will run off and grab someone else). I find the Pally tank just spiffy in fights like the air phase of nightbane, a quick consecration and the skellies are all on him (or her), making it easier for dps to burn them down quickly one at a time.

That being said, one of the questions put to the WoW panel was "Where the warrior is currently being pushed out of MT roles in many major situations, dont you think the introduction of a Death Knight that can both DPS and tank is going to cause the Warrior to be pushed back further?" (the wording there isnt exactly what the young man asked, but hey, was 3days ago now and my memory...she fades ;))

They explained the different roles of tanks, but that in WotLK any tanking spec will be able to easily tank 5man dungeons, and OT 10 & 25man dungeons. However, the choice of MT will change throughout the instance in raids, where you wont have to change the MT it would benefit the raid to do so.

They quickly touched that with Warriors the plan is to up the amount of damage they will be able to do with heroic strike, revenge and a couple of others and provide them with an OT spec option, where they can put talents in dps and prot and beable to tank and dps quite resonably (obviously not in MT role tho).

The Death Knight was then revealed primarily as a caster tank. What this means that if a boss is a caster mob 9 times out of 10 a DK will be a more appropriate tanking choice. They will be primarily be able to tank from a distance, though exactly what distance wasnt specified, or if they were able to tank up close wasnt specified either. In relation to a any crowd control placed on him, wasnt mentioned either, however Id imagine there would have to be something in place to avoid it, either having the boss only CC the second person on the aggro list or something.

As for casters becomming tanks, with warlocks new talent for deamon form, they said it would be interesting to see them tank. Tho I imagine they would need to be high up the gear chain.

[Espylacopa]

meaning im obsolete sigh

walks over and packs bags

not gone venture to the north i gues ill stay in old place


nice post thou:)

[Emzi]

Wicked Post Soph :thumb Wish I was there :(

[chemo]

ain't moonkin a good caster tank choice? and they are immune to polymorphism.

[Plodders]

amen chemo

did you get a pick of that tshirt

[Sophina]

did you get a pick of that tshirt

sorry, felt rude just walking up to ppl "awesome, my mate would love that shirt, *pic*"

was:

Save the Raid!
pic of a tree dancing
Hug a tree!

btw, sorry, am uploading photos and vids - but vids are eating my connection, ill warn for the larger ones ;]

[Sophina]

and Silf, u are never obselete <3 Silf for President.

[Sophina]

cant believe i had to work... had my ticket and everything... this makes missing it a lot more bearable in most cases...
as an old Diablo II player looking forward to D III :P

:( If it helps Dalf, I did try picking up your goodie bag, but they werent having any of it :(

I wish you were there too, if only to avoid the looks on the hotel staff as two girls turned up..."double room? you do know its only one bed when u make reservation!?!" would have saved the dodgy looks we got the whole time we spent at the hotel; turning up for breakfast and being pointed at was semi amusing tho.

The company would have been nice in the hall too :P would have taken away from the "yay - another queue" feeling hehe :thumb

Think they could tell it was a big success - can see it being annually tbh :)

Also, sorry if the photos are a bit pants, had to buy a camera at the airport, and the zoom on it is terrible!

[Dagger]

soph?!!?!?!
Where are the Tits?!

[Sophina]

how about:

http://www.caz-world.com/nf/wwi/tits.jpg

Other than the ones in art, I am afraid I saw only my own, and we've covered this before, no, you are not having pics of my boobs.

[Dagger]

ok thanks. close enough :(

[blahaims]

Tits :-

http://www.sciencedaily.com/images/2008/02/080205191210-large.jpg

[Carawn]

how about:



Other than the ones in art, I am afraid I saw only my own, and we've covered this before, no, you are not having pics of my boobs.

Fair enough... how about your sister's? ;)

[Genuivere]

That sounds like a really WOW-weekend. Must have been impressive, so many people together for a game :-)

[Espylacopa]

exelent pair of tits aims:D prolly not the ones dagger wanted

[Lavraen]

Sorry Sophina, we've been looking for you and even dabbled for a while to get a sign above our head "LFM Sophina - Priest" but alas. Would have been nice meeting you :(

I just got back last night and will do a more indepth thing later. Had some nice chats with Bliz guys and even got a some great arena tips from the korean arena team.

I really loved the event although the female presenter annoyed the crap out o me and there were some arrogant french there who needed to STFU. I got a ingame pet in my TCG game (The lil gorilla baby) <3

The goodie bag was pure love though

As for demonform, tanking is not really possible yet
I gave it a swing and it looks really nice and sexy, Illidan in shadowform. BUt It wasn't working really properly yet, but for a start it looked really good.

[Lavraen]

BTW also very important fact..
The rep grind will be two folded now, this is done to stop the eternal grind of some factions and the complaints that have been received. Esp now in TBC there are 3 factions one needs to grind with in certain end game phases. But they have a way to solve that.

Example:
You are gonna do SHattered Halls, during the run you will earn HH rep like usual. However if you during the run wear a Tabard from the Sha'tar you will receive for that faction as well.

THat way to get some rep you are not subjected to do some instances on a grind but can do every instance and get rep. wearing the HH tabard in SH will cause your rep gaining to increase a bit as well.

Also as far as instances go.. you don't need a specific spec to shine there. They want people to stop waiting for hours to get that holy healer or that prot tanky. So a different set up for a group might be very well work-able.

Also the entry requirements for heroics concerning gear and talents will be less strict. An often heard complaint is that people who don't do kara have a hard time getting into heroics. They want to change that so that everyone has a shot at it.

[Sophina]

yeah, think I missed the instance panel ^^ Lane was just telling me on IRC.

All looks good, vids should all be up now, just finished the last one :) Will try my hand at editing them later in the week :)

[Daefaroth]

does wotlk look good?

[lanerios]

dae, wotlk is awesome.

I can't say much since we had 2x 20 minutes to test it, but so far looks great

DK is fun
hunter is OP
warrior is odd (always was for me)

etc :-)

[Plodders]

What Is Epic Win Tree Likes!!!!

What Is Epic Win Feral Likes!!!!

[lanerios]

didnt really look at treeform, but from what I saw other players do, at 70 the HOT's seem more.. they just seem stronger

[Sophina]

Sorry Plods, they decided Druids were an OP utility class, so have nerfed them, no more tree form..../cry

I jest, but by the research ur looking atm, looks as tho they set to be more epic win :)

[Plodders]

win win win and utility weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! :D

anc cat beocmes more viable and bear and weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[Lavraen]

As far as sightseeing only two areas were live ingame, the rest of the new areas are WIP and were not accesible. As soon as you passed the "treshold" you were ported back to the start of the first area.

[lanerios]

As far as sightseeing only two areas were live ingame, the rest of the new areas are WIP and were not accesible. As soon as you passed the "treshold" you were ported back to the start of the first area.

Which disproves the fact that according to the WWI it was "The alpha." In the original Alpha a lot more areas are available. That kinda sucked since I really wanted to see Dragonblight :-(

[Lavraen]

But hey at least the pet kicks ass
http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/07/03/the-archangel-tyrael-pet-revealed/