MMO Weekly - 22/08/08

22 Aug 2008 at 12:47:41 by Jeff Hollis

As usual, the past week (or so) was an interesting one, at least in the land of virtual existence. I'm not trying to say that real life isn't interesting – at least occasionally – I'm just saying that neither stories about a guy who swims fast, nor stories about a border skirmish between the Russians and Georgians really intrigue me. I'd much rather hear about the Age of Conan player who cyber-sexed a GM, then posted screenshots of the whole affair. Now THAT's an interesting story. On to this week's news...

The biggest news this past week has to be the BlizzCon debacle. For those that have been living under a large, hollowed out bolder for the past several years, BlizzCon is Blizzard's very own convention. It's a moderately-sized affair, and the show is popular enough that tickets typically sell out in a matter of days. WoW players typically make up about 75% of the attendees.

This year, two threads of fate conspired to p** off WoW geeks and Blizzard fanbois (and fangurls) everywhere. First, the number of people that want to attend BlizzCon larger this year than in previous years. These folks were seemingly aware that tickets sell out quickly and made arrangements to buy them as soon as they became available. Second, there were technical problems galore involving the BlizzCon ticket-sales website. The events unfolded in a series of comedic steps:

1. It's announced that ticket sales will begin on August 11th.
2. The Blizzard sales site immediately breaks under the strain. Depending on the rumors you chose to listen to, either no tickets were sold, or all of them were, immediately (if not sooner).
3. Blizzard works feverishly to fix the ticket site. They also announced that some tickets were sold, but many more remained. No one needed to worry.
4. The site remained offline much of the day, despite Blizzard's reassurances. Folks gave up and went to bed, confident they'd be able to buy tickets the following day.
5. The sales site finally comes up again during the wee hours of the morning.
6. Tickets sold out so fast (despite the hour) that Jaina Proudmore herself reportedly woke up screaming about “gnomish ticket scalpers”.
7. Herds of angry WoW geeks post a lot of really, really angry things on the Blizzard forums. “Aye hait U blizzerd!” and “Ur such noobz, stoopid Blizkawn” were among the more common concerns, though it was reported that some players used proper grammar and genuine, English spelling and punctuation.

In an unprecedented move, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime himself got involved in the situation. He apologised to everyone that had been affected, and he stated that 3,000 more tickets would be put up for sale. The details of how this will work out hasn't yet been determined, but ol' Mike reassured everyone that, this time, it would be fair, just, and bring a sense of happiness to Blizz fans everywhere (Ed: The ticket saga has now been resolved. If you want to know how to get your hands on some click here).

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