The Anaheim Ducks were playing the Florida Panthers on Wednesday and it was a pretty good game. It was kind of weird seeing so many former ex-Canucks on both teams. The Anaheim Ducks had Ryan Kesler, Kevin Bieksa, and Mike Santorelli, while the Panthers had Roberto Luongo in net. Both teams played fairly well, the first Panther goal came off a real bad giveaway from a Ducks defender. The Ducks tied it up when Chris Stewart shot an amazing shot from an impossible angle (he was below the red faceoff circle near the boards, absolutely sniped it). The Panthers retook the lead when Gudbranson scored from the point (Fredrik Andersen, the Ducks goalie, should have stopped it). The Ducks appeared to be heading towards another loss when there was a late penalty given to the Panthers in the 3rd period. With the goalie pulled, Corey Perry scored with 5 seconds left to tie the game up (his first goal of the season? lol really?). In overtime, Andersen made some quality saves to bring the game into shootout where the Ducks eventually won in the fourth round. Final score: Ducks 3, Panthers 2. Some Anaheim Ducks who played well were Andersen and Kesler. Perry wasn't very noticeable for most of the game (I guess he was missing Ryan Getzlaf, who wasn't playing that game). Florida Panthers star player was definitely Roberto Luongo, who was solid all game but not in the shootout.
On Thursday, it was time to pick up my BlizzCon badge. I headed towards the convention center at about 8:45am since the doors were going to open at 9. I didn't think the lineup was going to be very long because last year when I went to BlizzCon, there wasn't really a big lineup at all. This year's lineup was much longer. The badge pickup wasn't too bad but because the Blizzard store was open, I lined up for that and that lineup was super long. I ended up buying a BlizzCon magnet (which I always get at BlizzCon), a Hearthstone wallet and a Demonic Tyrael figure, which is probably my favorite swag item from BlizzCon. When I was finally finished with the BlizzCon store, it was already noon time. I was planning to go to Disneyland after my badge pickup but since it took super long to get my BlizzCon gear, I decided not to go to Disneyland and just walk around Anaheim for most of the afternoon.
On Friday, I think I left to go to BlizzCon at around 7:30am and by the time I got to the convention center, there was already a big lineup. I managed to about the base of the fountain, which is not too bad (I normally get to about around the fountain in previous BlizzCons). I knew everyone was going to Hall D for the opening ceremony so I decided to take a different approach this time (which I am real thankful for). I headed towards Hall A when BlizzCon opened and did so stuff around the Darkmoon Faire area. One of my favorite areas is always the Jinx clothing store but when I got there, the Jinx store wasn't selling any t-shirts this year :(. Instead they had a photo booth setup and if you got your picture taken, you got a free t-shirt (limited qualities). Since I got there before anyone else, I managed to get my photo taken and got a free t-shirt too.
Since the opening ceremony wasn't until 11:00am, I had a bunch of time to see other areas. Diablo had a setup at the Slaughter Calf Inn and I went there. There were many Diablo dev team people to talk to and I managed to talk to many members of that team (which was sooo cool). I got my Diablo poster and got some signatures. I headed back to panel stage in Hall A to watch the opening ceremony from 11:00 to 12:00. The opening ceremony was pretty cool, they showed the Warcraft movie trailer (more on that later), new Heartstone adventure, new Overwatch news and characters, new heroes and new game mode for Heroes of the Storm, more Legion info for Warcraft, and Legacy of the Void for Starcraft (Diablo noticeably absent wtf Blizzard). After the opening ceremony, I went back to the Slaughter Calf Inn, played the demo for Diablo (which was pretty cool), talked to more Diablo dev team people, and watched a mini-panel (it was about treasure goblins). I met Neinball from the Westmarch Workshop after the mini-panel and talked to him for a bit. After that, I went around the BlizzCon getting posters from various other games. I went over to the Hearthstone area first, played the adventure mode with the shaman. After that, I got a signature from Ben Brode (woooo!) on my Hearthstone poster. I also got posters from Overwatch and Starcraft (the Starcraft poster is super huge). The Heroes of the Storm had a small poster as well. I lined up for the Warcraft signing area but the lineup was too long, so I kind of skipped it. At 3:30pm, there was the one and only Diablo 3 panel, which I didn't want to miss. The Diablo 3 panel was very good, lots of info on the new patch 2.4 and it looks like there are going to be more patches after that. After the Diablo 3 panel, I went to dinner and ate at the California Pizza Kitchen. I went back to the convention center after eating dinner and I wanted to see the contest and cosplay show. I wanted to see it in Hall D but when I got there, it was already pretty full so I went back to Hall A and watched the contest and cosplay show from there. After the show, I walked over to the Hearthstone arena but they were already finishing up so that was it for Day 1.
On Day 2, I really didn't know what to do. I wanted to go back to the Slaughter Calf Inn but I decided to go see the Hearthstone semi-finals instead. It took a while before the semi-final games began but the semi-final games were pretty good. First, it was Ostkaka vs Thijs. Both were playing very control oriented decks and it was a very good matchup. Ostkaka ended up winning but Thijs could have won it too. Their freezing mage vs freezing mage matchup was very boring to watch but still it was pretty entertaining. The next semi-final matchup was between Hotform and Kno. I was cheering for Hotform because he was from Canada, although it was pretty cool seeing a Japanese player in Kno. Hotform won the matchup and it was pretty obvious to me who was going to win the Hearthstone finals. Whenever you see a control oriented deck vs a mid range deck, the control oriented deck usually ends up winning. So either Ostkaka or Thijs was going to have a major advantage in the final over Hotform or Kno. After watching the semis, I went for lunch at about 3:00pm. I wanted to eat from the food trucks outside the convention and I had very nice burger and curly fries (yum!). After lunch, I wanted to go see the Blizzard trailers so I went to the ballroom level 3 and watched the Warcraft trailer again (hopefully I will make another blog post about this later). After watching the trailers, I went back to the Slaughter Calf Inn, watched a mini-panel hosted by John Wang. They were having a Diablo raffle at 5:15pm and they were giving lots of Diablo items away. Unfortunately I didn't win anything but I was happy for the other people who did manage to win something. After the raffle, I saw Leviathan and Neinball from the Westmarch Workshop and went to talk with them (I also met Lala, Monstrous and Dreadsythe). It was cool talking with the Westmarch Workshop guys since I am huge fan of their podcast. After that, the closing ceremony was about to begin, but since I am not a huge Linkin Park fan, I decided go play Heroes of the Storm instead. I ended playing the new arena mode for Heroes, which was pretty cool. I am not a very good Heroes of the Storm player but I managed to win with my team 2-0. After that, I went over to the Warcraft play area and played with the Demon Hunter. It was a pretty cool demo, though it dragged on a bit too long. After Warcraft, I went back to Hearthstone and played one final game with the rogue. And that finished my BlizzCon experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment