As I mentioned previously, BlizzConline, the virtual replacement for last year’s cancelled BlizzCon, is coming this month, kicking off on Friday, February 19th.
BlizzCon Online is the way I always attend anyway
With that date rapidly approaching, Blizz has started giving us details about what to expect over the two day virtual event. There is even a trailer.
The event will be free to watch live on the Blizzard site as well as replays. There will also be support for a dozen languages for live stream or video replay. Blizz has even done some interviews about how they reworked BlizzCon into an online only event.
The two days are set to play out as:
- Day 1 will kick off at 2 p.m. PST on Friday, February 19, with an opening segment that includes a first look at some of the latest game content the development teams have been working on. Then for the next three-plus hours, you’ll have the option to tune in to one of the six different themed channels, so you can decide whether you want to sample a little bit of everything or dig deeper into the games you’re interested in most.
. - Day 2 will pick back up at 12 p.m. PST on Saturday, February 20, with multiple channels once again, until the fun wraps up at later that afternoon. Throughout this second day, we’ll be shining a spotlight on the global Blizzard community, including the winners and outstanding entries in the Community Showcase contests and exhibitions.
All of the streams will be available to rewatch if you miss anything.
Meanwhile, Blizzard is also celebrating the 30th anniversary of their founding, back when Mike Morhaime borrows money from his grandmother to help start the company then known as Silicon & Synapse.
Blizzard – A long way from 1991
Blizzard plans to celebrate this anniversary by selling you a bunch of expensive cosmetic items. Commemorate 30 years of gaming by giving Blizzard some more money. Seriously, I was tempted to append “cash grab” to the end of the title of this post, but I was starting to feel excessively cynical, even for me.
There are three different celebration bundles you can purchase.
- Essentials Pack – $20 includes
- Moon-Touched Netherwhelp pet for World of Warcraft®
- Tracer’s OSV-03 Rogue mount with Tracer Hero in Heroes of the Storm®
- 30th Anniversary Overwatch® player icon and spray (coming soon) plus 5 Loot Boxes
- A set of StarCraft® II and StarCraft: Remastered portraits commemorating three decades of Blizzard (coming soon)
- 10 Madness at the Darkmoon Faire
card packs for Hearthstone® - A pet and portrait for Diablo® III (coming soon)
- Heroic Pack – $40 adds
- Snowstorm mount for World of Warcraft
- Raynhardt (legendary) in Overwatch (coming soon)
- Random Madness at the Darkmoon Faire Legendary card in Hearthstone
- Diablo III wings (coming soon)
- Epic Pack – $60 adds
- 30 days of World of Warcraft game time
- 5 Golden Madness at the Darkmoon Faire card packs in Hearthstone
- 3 Golden Loot Boxes for Overwatch
- Diablo III Helm Transmog Items (coming soon)
There are bits and pieces in each for all of the current Blizzard titles, but if you only play one title regularly like I do, then the pricing might seem a bit dear. As a WoW player the packs get me:
- Essentials Pack – pet
- Heroic Pack – pet and mount
- Epic Pack – pet and mount and 30 days of game time
So, even if I was a dedicated collector of such things… and I can be… the heroic pack would be the limit to my needs. Why would I pay $20 more to get $15 worth of game time?
So there it is. We can start speculating as to what we might hear about come the 19th and whether or not any of this cosmetic fluff is worth the price Blizz is asking.
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