Starcraft 2 Launch Event Near Blizz Headquarters!

[Edaris]

Heya guys.

Just in case anyone may be interested, I'd like to share my experiences with an event I went to earlier.

I know we're WoW players, but I'm sure you are all at least somewhat familiar with Blizz's other huge franchise, Starcraft =). Well, since I live in Los Angeles, I live near (about 1 hour away, perhaps less if traffic emits -- LOL @ LA Traffic though >.< ) Irvine, CA where Blizzard is headquartered (in fact, I even used to live IN Irvine for 4-ish years). Due to this, I was able to attend Blizz's official Launch Event for the Midnight Release of SC2 which came out today, the 27th. The funny thing is, I'm not really a SC fan at all, but my friends wanted to go so I went with them for the experience.

I was kind of paranoid to bring my D-SLR to the event, so I'm sorry but ghetto phone-cam pics will have to suffice for the moment =). Now I have quite a few pics, and to keep this thread not so pic-heavy, I tried my best to sort through the pictures and am displaying ones I find interesting.

Stage while lined up.

This is the stage where videos were shown, Blizzard's In-house bands played live, Q&As were held, tournaments were held, as well as other announcements and the final countdown until midnight.

Q&A

This is a Q&A session that was held; the guy currently speaking is Samwise, who is an Art Director and is known for his creation/influence of the Pandaren in WoW as well as the lead singer for that Elite Chieftan (I forget the band's full name) Blizz-band that made that heavy-metal Murloc song =D, for example.

24 sec to release.

This is a screen showing the countdown until release!

Now, once the game was released, participants were allowed to buy a copy and have it signed by about 40 of the devs! I got a Collector's Edition, sealed (unopened =D) signed.

(oh wow only 3 attachments allowed , please see next post).

[Edaris]

Here is a hopefully decent picture of the CE box with the signatures =). If you can see it, the subtitle to the game is "Wings of Liberty." One of the dev's I talked to was being a smartass and decided to change the "Wings of Liberty" to "Wangs of Liberty" if you can see it in the picture LOL.

CE Box Signed.

I also got random free stuff such as a Zerg keychain, an "I <3 SC" magnet (about the size of a bumper sticker), and even a SC2 dual-sided poster.

Zerg Keychain--front side of it (rear says "Zerg")

I hope you enjoyed! If you have any questions for whatever reason about the event, midnight launch, etc., let me know. Though note I am not very SC-savy, but my friends are! =P

SC Magnet

Thank you for your time =D.

[Millavanilla]

NICE dude. thats frickin sweet. I'M JEALOUS!!

[Chelseabeth]

eBay that! ASAP!

[Fistantilus]

Well I *am* a big fan of the SC franchise (actually like SC better than Warcraft to be honest....but then WoW came out)...

I am also a huge fan of the east coast versus the west coast....in most cases....EXCEPT one area where I do get jealous of you west coasters is stuff like this (and the fact that right now there are at least 4 IT jobs posted on Blizz's website that I'm well qualified for but they are 3,000 miles from me -- how cool would it be to work at Blizz HQ though?)....

Anyway that's awesome that you went there...I also got the CE though its not signed or anything...

Anyone even remotely interested in SCII -- I'll push you over the fence...GET IT. ITS AWESOME!

I got my collectors addition wristled back from the grasp of an asian guy who decided he would buy 8 of them. ALL OF the stock that bestbuy had.

Lucky for me I had already got a reciept saying it was paid for.