Cyrus

SEOUL--Crowds of fans and press file continuously into the Olympic Gymnastic Stadium in the Gangnam province of Seoul, South Korea to await the announcement of Blizzard's new game title. The big-screen monitors onstage, which previously showed looped footage of tournaments held at last year's Blizzard Worldwide Invitational, now show only the logo for this year's event, which takes place today and tomorrow. The anticipation and excitement in the air from the crowds of fans and international press are palpable.

 

The announcement session is underway, and the lights are up. The Korean emcees are making announcements about the tournaments and music concerts that will also be held at the event. Blizzard Korea managing director Jungwan Han has taken the stage to deliver the opening remarks, greeting and thanking Blizzard fans worldwide for their support. He takes his seat, and the emcees briefly introduce Blizzard's top brass, including Mike Morhaime, Rob Pardo, and Chris Metzen.

 

Next up are the introductions for the professional gamers, who are greeted with great fanfare by the audience as they're announced individually and step onstage. First are the Starcraft players, introduced by their name, faction played (protoss, zerg, or terran), and country of origin. These are followed by the Warcraft III professional players, also introduced by their name, played faction (humans, orcs, undead, or night elves), and country of origin. After the players are brought onstage, they are brought forward individually to take an "oath" of fair play.

 

Press from around the world arrives at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational event.

 

Once the players are ushered away, Blizzard president Mike Morhaime takes the stage to make the big announcement, noting first that this year's event will host more tournaments than any previous event (including competitions for Starcraft, Warcraft III, and World of Warcraft), then introducing a video montage with footage from Blizzard's previous games (such as the original Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft) and previous tournament events. Morhaime is finally getting closer to the announcement...the crowd cheers in anticipation. Says Morhaime, "When it came time to make this announcement, it was easy to decide where it should take place." The president praises the enthusiasm and support of Korean game players, then introduces a video trailer for the new game.

 

The pro gamers took the stage to tremendous fanfare.

 

The trailer begins with a spaceship, lowering a coffinlike object. The camera cuts to a chamber, then to a gigantic metal gate that cranks open, and finally cuts to a man with a cigar in his mouth, wearing shackles on his ankles. The man steps into mechanical restraints that lock around his ankles and the platform around him rises. The cofflinlike object sprouts metal pincers that brace his wrists while the champers reveal whirring turbines that sprout metallic drills and rivets which fit metallic armor on his body. The figure is a Terran soldier, and the camera pans up his body, cutting to scenes of Protoss and Zerg warriors rushing to battle. The new game, as rumored, is Starcraft II.

 

Morhaime then introduces the lead designer of the project to discuss it--none other than former EALA designer Dustin Browder (who worked previously on The Battle for Middle-earth and Command & Conquer series). The video screen cuts to a demonstration that shows a fleet of Protoss ships that disembark several zealot infantry units, then cuts to a scene showing Terran transports touching down and becoming base structures, spouting infantry and vehicle units. Browder points out that this demonstration is in a very early stage of code. As we see in the demonstration, the new game will add abilities to existing units--the Protoss zealot, for instance, will now be able to charge into battle to quickly close the distance against Terran gunners. The Terrans retaliate by bringing in siege tanks to shell the Protoss from a distance. The Protoss respond by commissioning "Immortals"--heavy-duty tanks with powerful energy shields.

 

Blizzard's Mike Morhaime can't help but grin as Starcraft II is revealed.

 

The Terrans then commission reapers, medium infantry with jetpacks that can jump barriers to raid enemy bases more effectively. The reapers leap into action against the Protoss base to attack the pylons, but have a new series of structures that help the Protoss be much more resilient when attacked at their base, such as phase prisms, which let you quickly move units from place to place. The Protoss stalker unit has a "blink" ability that lets them jump anywhere they can see, and makes them excellent pursuers.

 

The Zerg have arrived, sending Zerglings to overwhelm the Protoss stalkers--a huge swarm of them charges the Protoss. Browder points out that Starcraft II will still be a game about large armies against large armies. The Zerg then run into a few Protoss colossus--gigantic walkers with cutting lasers that specialize in liquifying Zerglings. The Zerg have mutated into a new kind of suicide unit that explodes in a burst of acid. The colossus also uses inverse kinematic animation to walk up and down cliffs. The colossus unit is vulnerable to air attacks, such as mutalisks, which slaughter it. In response, the Protoss have a new unit, the phoenix, which can "overload" to eliminate squads of nearby airborne enemies but leave them helpless and immobile briefly afterwards. The new game will also have new texture work and deep space background environments. The phoenix can't hold its own against Terran battlecruisers, which crush them--in response, the Protoss commission the "warpray," a laser-firing ship that deals more damage the longer it focuses its fire on an enemy.

 

Browder caps the demonstration with one last new unit, the Protoss mothership, the ultimate weapon in the Protoss army. It's an incredibly expensive unit with a "time bomb" ability that distorts time within an energy field, making enemy fire too slow to actually reach and hit the mothership. Once the time field collapses, enemy shells clatter uselessly to the ground. The mothership also possesses the "planet cracker," a stream of multiple lasers that devastate anything beneath it. Finally, the mothership can create a black hole--an extremely damaging ability that wrecks flying enemies. The glowing black hole simply sucks in the Terran warships, which warp in appearance before disappearing utterly into oblivion.

 

 

Blizzard's presentation literally turned heads.

The demonstration ends with a battle between the Protoss and the Terrans, who wail on each other mercilessly. As you might expect from the successor to Starcraft, it seems clear that the key to success in the sequel will be combined force of arms, as both armies pummel each other to a standstill, racking up casualties on each side as they grind away at each other. The battle ends with an orbital strike that wipes out both sides utterly, so that both sides are left with only one infantry unit. Both get mobbed by Zerg units that crawl out of the ground and butcher them, then mutate into their new form and crawl into formation to spell out the letters "GG" (an abbreviation many online players use to say "good game").

 

After the Starcraft II demonsration, another video montage is shown, this time featuring a series of concept art drawings that gives way to another gameplay demo that highlights various units new and old, such s the Protoss colossus, the Zergling, and others, ending with two portraits that appear to be Jim Raynor and Kerrigan.

 

That's it for the presentation. Be sure to check back soon for more coverage of Starcraft II.

Damn, we are major geeks. If you find yourself traveling across half the world to attend a gamer convention, you are a serious game-geek. And the two of us are off on a jaunt to Korea to attend Blizzard's World Wide Invitational.

 

So far, so good. It's a long day of travel, but so far, things are going pretty smoothly. We were driven to the airport by an irate Armenian man, who was surprisingly adept at maneuvering the shuttle van in and out of traffic in a way that can only be described as “agile”. And by agile, I of course mean “scary as hell.”

 

Los Angeles International Airport (affectionately known as LAX) is, in our reasonably well-traveled opinion, among the most unpleasant airports in the world. This is because of the four-step process we like to call “The LAX Experience”. The LAX Experience begins well before you actually arrive at LAX; the first step is actually your efforts to get to the airport. You see, city planners placed LAX right in the middle of the biggest traffic snarl in the entire city. The airport is surrounded by a zone of impenetrable traffic approximately 10 miles thick. There are no shortcuts, or workarounds, or tricks to get you there any faster. You will be sitting in the gigantic near-parking lot we like to call Los Angeles , creeping slowly toward your goal, for hours on end.

 

By the way, have I mentioned that Los Angeles is already the city deemed “most severely impacted by traffic” in nearly every study over the past decade? It's true. The whole city is basically a parking lot, with LAX situated right in the middle of the most congested, slowest moving parts of that lot. It's bad. There is no description that I can offer that can ever really ever capture how ugly the traffic is. Ugly, as in “badly congested” and ugly, as in “the person driving next to you is an unwashed mutant with a face like a hyena”.

 

The second part of The LAX Experience is when you finally arrive at the airport itself. It's basically a mini-game in which you (the player) are expected to figure out which parking structure to park your car in. You are aided by signs that are placed so that you can view them only after you've already passed each parking structure. This precedes the third phase of The LAX Experience, which is called the “luggage drag”. After you give up trying to beat the mini-game in phase two and just park your car anywhere, you get to drag your overstuffed luggage most of the way across the airport to your terminal. This is made more difficult by the fact that the terminals are arranged in nothing resembling a logical, cogent, or reasonable order. We van-pooled with a woman flying Midwest Airlines. We were flying out on Korean Air. Our gates are practically adjacent.

 

Because of our incredible cleverness (and because we've played this suck-ass game before) we tried to skip phase 2 and 3 of The LAX Experience. This is where hiring the van came in, and our plan worked. The angry Armenian simply bobbed and weaved his way dangerously through traffic, pulled up to the Midwest Airlines gate, kicked the nice blond lady out, drove another 25 feet, kicked both of us out, and that was it. No phase 2 or 3 for us, thank you very much.

 

Phase 4, the final phase of The LAX Experience, was also surprisingly easy. We found our ticket counter, talked to the nice lady, shoved our bag though the x-ray machine, then went to security. The two missionaries in front of us (nice people, but slooooooow) held up the whole line because, it seemed, they'd never taken off their shoes in public before. But that was the worst of it. Really. After that we were through, and a short while later we were on the plane.

 

This is, I feel the need to say, the best experience I've ever had at this hateful airport. I'm usually dragging my luggage all over the darn place, having various non-English speaking people bark orders at me or tell me I'm in the wrong place, and most of the time I'm getting on some unbelievably long line. All the while, I'm generally subjected to all the sights and smells of an open-air Tungukistani bazaar. But not today. Today, thanks largely to our willingness to shell out $90 for a round-trip van jostle to and from LAX, we missed most of the normal adventure. Nice.

 

Flying on Korea Air is very nice. The stewardi are all cute and sweet, the food is good, etc. We've flown on a number of other foreign-based airlines in the past (Aer Lingus, Luftansa, KLM, etc) and it's been our experience that about half the people on the plane were Americans, while the other half were of the same nationality as the airline. Not this time. With the exception of one other couple, and a doppelganger for the guy that took our wedding pictures (he looks so much like him it's scary), we are the only Americans on this plane. Everyone else – no lie, every single other person – is either Japanese or Korean.

 

Other tidbits: Before we ever even left the ground, I learned why certain Asian game companies (like Square Enix) feature so many androgynous male characters in their games. It's because young Japanese men – teens to twenty-somethings – are extremely hip, fashion conscious, and what Westerners might call metrosexual . They generally stay very thin, and wear expensive, very fashionable clothes. There is a lot of colorful embroidery, and there's a lot of bling. Practically every guy is wearing a necklace or two, along with multiple rings. A lot of them accompanied this ensemble with a vest, or a baseball cap worn sideways (you know, hip hop style). They have coifed, dyed hair, and they wear shoes with gold trim or other haute couture frills.

 

I'm not implying that these guys are gay – they are not – nor am I implying that they behave in an unmasculine manner. None of that would be true. Every single one of them, however, is more hip and trendy than, say, Ryan Seacrest or Robby Williams. You could take any one of them, teach him to dance, and drop him into a contemporary boy band and he'd fit right in. No change in wardrobe required. I can very frankly and honestly assert that I have the most boring haircut – a normal slickback – of any guy I've met today. The reason that Square Enix and similar companies have so many young male metrosexual characters in their games is actually quite simple: it's a reflection of their culture, and of their target audience.

 

Upon arrival we were whisked off to our hotel where we met the Blizzard PR people, Julia and Christian. We got into our room, busted out the press packet, learned how the WWI works, when the major announcement (you know, Blizzard's new game!) would be made, when press events would be held, etc.

 

Blizz dumped some nice schwag in our room. Primarily, this included a couple of computer bags. They're probably trying to generate some positive sentiment, so that we give the event good, glowing press coverage. Elvyra has a thing for computer bags. We went shopping for a new one just yesterday. So with this little gift, Blizz scored big points with her. Sure, it's an old PR trick. Was it working? You bet.

 

Korean culture is amazing. I feel fully qualified to comment on it, since I've been in-country for eight hours as of this writing. They are a very gaming-oriented culture. They are tech oriented in general, as they have a lot of gadgets. Cell phones, MP3 players, PDAs, and other electronics are everywhere. Computers are everywhere, too. Desktops and laptops abound around every corner.

 

And the bang phenomenon is very real. “Bangs”, if you don't already know, are simply internet cafes. Unlike internet cafes we've seen elsewhere, however, there is a gaming emphasis in Korean cafés. Yes, you can check your email in a bang, but you'll be doing it next to a handful of teenage boys playing Starcraft or some other real-time strategy (RTS) game.

 

We didn't get to see the venue where the WWI is being held; it's all secured until tomorrow. We tried to think of a way to get some insight into the upcoming announcement, but to no avail. Every other press person in the vicinity is trying the same thing. We're all getting no where. Blizz security on this one has been rock-solid.

 

Having said that, this is all we have to report for now. Today was just the pre-event shenanigans. The event itself doesn't start until tomorrow morning, and it's looking like we don't have any juicy news until then.

Ok, kiddies, we're now at the show. We are scratching out this part of our report about two hours before Blizzard announces their new game. The final portion of the report will be typed up the moment we hear what the new game is going to be.

 

Blizzard's WWI tournament is far, far bigger than we imagined it to be – it's positively huge. There's a hot air balloon here, emblazoned with a World of Warcraft blood elf hottie. Stadium-sized rooms are filled with Blizzard paraphernalia. The entire convention center grounds are covered with arches, banners, and other whatnot that gives the area a medieval feel. I know these are all just props and whatnot, but this is freakin' impressive whatnot, to be sure.

 

Blizz has kept a very tight lid on what the new game will be. There is absolutely no scuttlebutt – none – among our fellow press types. Nobody knows for sure. I've heard the following speculations, any of which may be valid:

 

* World of Warcraft for the Xbox 360

* Starcraft: Ghost, somehow reborn

* World of Starcraft (i.e., some type of starcraft MMO)

* Starcraft II

* A World of Warcraft expansion

* And a few holdouts keep pulling for Diablo III

 

Again, at this juncture we don't know anything. Blizz is leaking absolutely nothing. However, allow us lend you a couple of insights. These are things we'd never have learned if we hadn't come to Seoul ourselves.

 

The South Korean Gaming Culture

 

First of all, gaming is huuuuuge here. It's like nothing I've seen in the U.S. , or in Europe . Gaming is a hobby in the U.S. Here, it's sport.

 

* Professional gamers earn big money. I've heard it's six figures or better, and they get endorsements. At the WWI, they are treated like professional athletes – there is play-by-play and color commentary, close ups of their faces as they play, etc. E-gaming is big, in a way I'd never before imagined.

 

* PC bangs – “bang” is just a term for a cyber café – are the nicest, most plush cyber café's I've ever seen. They are set up for gaming with plush chairs, big monitors, and nice peripherals. People are in them 24/7, playing a variety of different games. There are refreshments, and the attendants are more than anxious to make sure you are having a good time there. Oh, and there's a bang on every block. Actually, that's not true. There are often multiple bangs on every block.

 

* Blizzard posters and paraphernalia are everywhere at the bangs. While many games are played at the bangs, it seems that Blizzard titles are favorites. The South Koreans love themselves some Starcraft and WoW, that is for sure. Oddly absent are any references to Warcraft III, but we're not sure if that means anything.

 

* We saw a TV show last night on gaming. It was comparing and contrasting two games, both of which seemed to be some sort of RTS games with RPG elements. Or maybe they were RPG games with RTS elements. And they each had an online component. So, in modern gaming jargon (where everyone constantly makes up new acronyms) these were RTSRPGOs. Oh, never mind. Anyway, this stuck us as unusual in that these were prime time TV shows, and that the show wasn't some sort of criticism or commentary or review of the games. The show was showing the actual gameplay, ad nauseum. It seems that if you're not gaming in SoKor, you're watching TV where other people are gaming.

 

* The EU press (our group) covering the WWI numbered about 30 people, maybe a little more. The US press seemed to be about the same number. The South Korean press line – yes, they waited in a line to get into the WWI – wound around the building . It's kind of hard to give this enough emphasis. There are so many SoKor press people here we originally thought they were fans waiting to get in. That's how big e-gaming is here.

 

* The tournament itself – competitive match-ups of players competing while playing Starcraft or Warcraft III – is held in a stadium . People come here to watch other people play computer games. It's like watching a soccer match, except all the action takes place on gigantic computer screens.

 

Does this lend any light on what will be announced? It's possible. The love of Starcraft, and the love of RTS gaming, is at the core of the South Korean gaming culture. Sure, they'll respond well to any Blizz game – they love WoW, and they play shooters and other games – but a Starcraft RTS will send these folks just through the roof.

 

That's all the insight we can offer right now; we'll take our leave until the announcement itself. The anticipation for this is actually quite palpable; people are excited. Our fellow pundits are engaged in all manner of nervous activity.

 

 

 

The Announcement

 

Ok, we're back. A couple hours have passed, and we're waiting for the announcement. There's been a number of announcements about the tournament, and they are really dragging out the announcement of the new game.

 

Finally, Blizzard President and overall High Warlord Mike Morhaime has just taken the podium, and people are cheering him like he's a rock star. He's saying a few introductory words. He's dropping lots of hints about how important RTS gaming is to Blizzard, and how he loves Korean enthusiasm for RTS games. And….he's announcing Blizzard's next new game, which will be: Starcraft II.

 

Yep, there it is. I suppose it really shouldn't be any big surprise. Ever since we set foot on the ground here, I must say that SCII was the odds-on favorite. It just seems so natural that Blizz would announce that title, here, where both the RTS genre, and that particular game, are so beloved, and such an inherent part of the culture.

 

The details are what you'd expect – it's going to be a next gen RTS, the graphics are enhanced, there are new abilities – it doesn't sound like it's a hugely innovative title, but instead an evolutionary one. That's to be expected, and is what Blizzard excels at doing.

 

Some quick notes on Starcraft II:

 

* New units: The Protoss Colossal, which is like a walker from War of the Worlds, as well as the Protoss Mothership, which can slow time and assault ground units with a massive lightning attack. It also has an impressive Black Hole ability. It can distort, suck in, and swallow enemy units. It was probably the most impressive part of the demo. There are also Protoss immortals, which have a powerful shield ability.

 

* A new ability called “Phase prisms” were used by the Protoss. (Can you tell that the Protoss were the primary race used in the demo?).

 

* The Phoenix fighter has a new overload ability, to wipe out numerous enemies quickly, but leaving it very vulnerable afterward.

 

* A number of new units have enhanced abilities: charging, teleporting, walking up cliffs. Movement is clearly being heavily emphasized.

 

* The 3D graphics are quite nice. The textures are impressive, and the units are more three dimensional, with shadow effects.

 

* The essential game play of Starcraft is unchanged. It's still an RTS.

 

* The units still have a rock-paper-scissors quality to them. Unit 1 beats Unit 2, but Unit 3 beats unit 1.

 

We'll have more details in a little while, including more pics. Stay tuned, kids!

3:50 - Blizzard has not yet announced a release date for StarCraft 2.

 

3:44 - Had to run out of conference room to plug in laptop - there's an hour long information session starting in about 30 minutes - don't know if there's an internet connection there so I might not be able to update until i get back. As for initial StarCraft 2 impressions - the game looked very similar to SC1 - nearly identical user interface - graphic styles and unit proportions nearly the same - more flashy lighting effects but it seems like Blizzard didn't want to mess with SC's underlying formula very much. The screens they showed the video on didn't display the video very clearly, unfortunately, but the game still looked pretty with some nice animations. We'll have to wait to bring you any updates on what kind of story elements are in SC2 - hopefully they're in the panel discussion. Anyway, gotta run - thanks for reading and we'll update as soon as possible.

 

3:31 - Announcements are over - transitioning into a musical act - hopefully it's not as bad as the music they were playing before the ceremony.

 

3:26 - Showing another video of "things to come." concept art for SC2 - zerg landscapes - ruined terran structures - freen filds - SC2 looks, at least visually, strikingly similar to SC1 - both in unit and map designs. Now showing a giant rush of zerglings - probably over 100 of them, swarming with no slowdown - mroe character art - finishes with the StarCraft II logo.

 

3:23 - now showing terran and protoss fight - marines and zealots clashing on the ground - mothership and battle crusers in the air - framerate seems relatively stable as more units stream in - hard to tell - about 100 units on screen right now - a few of the new protoss units just came in - nuclear launch detected warning - every unit on screen destroyed - three nukes were launched at once - then zergs rush in and spell "GG" while turning into suicidal bombs.

 

3:18 - warprey also very effective against structures - very vulnerable to small unit fire - shws warpreys getting wiped out by terran marines. Physics system lets debris from warpreys roll down a ramp. Showing one more unit - warped in in a serious of cubes - giant floating base - called a protoss mothership - can only have 1 at a time - cost big resources - special abilities include timebomb that slows all enemy missiles inside - shows terran missle launcher shooting in projectiles that stop in the field before they reach the ship - when field ends missiles drop the ground - planet cracker attack - giant lasers stream from ship to ground - ship can be moved around while planet cracker laser is active - the ship looks like a metallic, triangular sand dollar - mothership can create a black hole anywhere it wannts to - creates distortion that actually sucks ships in and destroys them - in the demo the black hole destroyed four terran battle cruisers in about ten seconds.

 

3:16 - showing space platform environment, land mass floating over planets / nebulae. Showing phoenix units failing to destroy terran battle cruisers - new protoss unit - Warprey - flying unit that does increased damage the longer it hits a target with it's continuous blue laser.

 

3:15 - Zerglings can mutate into suicidal bomb things thar roll across the ground - very powerful explosions. Colossus using new IK system to move across differences in terraing height. Colossus extremley weak against air strike - New unit for protoss - Pheonix - can overcharge guns for multiple projectile blast - but after blast the ship is rendered inert for a short period.

 

3:14 - Protoss colossus - huge unit that can blast out dual lasers and use long legs to traverse differences in terrain height - in the demo two of them obliterate about fifty or so zerglings.

 

3:10 - Terran reapers - can hop across unever terrain with jump packs - two types of small pistols that don't activate immortals. Protoss now have the ability to create shields whereever they want. Protoss can now warp in units from manufacturing facilities anything within pylon range. New protoss unit - stalker - can teleport - quadripedal thing - can keep blinking forward - seems to be a shot cooldown on the ability. Zerg start coming in, giant worms pop out of ground unleasing zerglings. Protoss can use phase fields and teleporting abilities to create an army anywhere on the battlefield, according to Blizzard.

 

3:09 - controlling protoss zealots - still has psi blades and personal shield - new charge ability that let him quickly close range on enemies. Siege tanks shown - still the same type of behavior where they can lock down - take out zealots really quickly - new protoss unit - called immortals - have special shield that only activates upon being powerfully attacked - siege tanks could barely do any damage to them.

 

3:07 - Showing gameplay footage - Looks like protoss ships - floating over asteroid/ base structure - entering protoss ase - similar looking buildings - vespene gas still in the game - character pane shows up on right side - some protoss guy - shifts to terran bases floating on rockets over same type of territory - sill collecting crystals as resources - marines load out. Dustin is actually playing the game - nothing in the game is final.

 

3:05 - Morheim says everyone eager to see actual game - going to show actual gameplay - bringing up SC2 lead designer. Dustin Browder.

 

3:00 - FMV sequence in a spaceship - looks Terran - zooming in on a metal door - door opening - reveals a guy with a cigar in chains - prisoner - door shuts behind him - there's so much bass the room is shaking - guy steps into some kind of metallic devicce - legs are strapped in - guy rising toward ceiling - Korean text on screen got people very excited - another part of the machine is dropping metal arms on him - machine whirring - applying armor to his torso - extremly detailed visuals here - now guy is strapping on gloves - armor is molding together - seems like a Terran marine - rockets turn on - zerg now onscreen - Marine delivers a line - StarCraft 2 officially announced.

 

2:57 - Showing another movie, presumably of game footage.

 

2:56 - Video over - Morhaime about to make announcement.

 

2:55 - Now showing WoW footage - more cheers from crowd.

 

2:52 - Showing WC3 footage. When they showed Diablo footage the Deckard Cain "stay a while an listen" line got a cheer from the crowd.

 

2:51 - About to show a video now of previous Blizzard titles and WWI's from years past. Morhaime still rambling on with politically correct thanks to the gaming community. Here goes the video for past Blizzard stuff. Nothing exciting yet.

 

2:50 - Talking about how this is the largest WWI they've had yet - there'll be WoW tourneys as well.

 

2:49 - Mike Morhaime takes stage to make announcement.

 

2:47 - Here we go, they're going to announce something.

 

2:45 - Now they're taking the oath saying they'll play for "for the races of each title" and their home country whom they're representing.

 

2:42 - The WC3 player pulls it together and delivers a solid address to the crowd, intoducing himself and saying he's glad to be here.

 

2:41 - Interviewing a WC3 player. Female MC and size of crowd is making him nervous. Another joke in Korean. Now the female MC is complimenting his smile, he's visibly squirming.

 

2:40 - One of the MCs just tried to explain the joke in English and failed.

 

2:38 - Now the WC 3 and StarCraft players are taking some sort of "oath." Apparently in the spirit of fair play during the WWI. This is all being said in Korean, but one of the players just made the whole crowd laugh.

 

2:37 - Shrill screams of adoration are erupting randomly from the stands at the back of the arena.

 

2:36 - Here come the WarCraft 3 guys. One guy from USA. They're announcing names as well as which race they play in competition.

 

2:35 - These guys are from all over the world, from Taiwan to Poland. Wearing some kind of hybrid NASCAR / track jackets with advertisements all over them.

 

2:34 - Now they're introducing the professional gamers who'll be participating in the StarCraft and WarCraft 3 tourneys. More fireworks. No fatalities.

 

2:31 - Mike Morhaim - president and cofounder of Blizzard introduced. Continuing to introduce people in attendance, they're just sitting in the crowd, though, not approaching the stage. Chris Metzen introduced.

 

2:30 - Ok, fireworks just went off. Nobody is dead...yet.

 

2:29 - He's continuing the trend of talking about why WWI is awesome.

 

2:27 - Jungwon Hahn, managing director of Blizzard's Korean office speaking now.

 

2:26 - Still blabbing about why WWI is awesome.

 

2:24 - Just showing crowd on screens, welcoming everyone to WWI - lots of screaming for musical guests to perform later on. Includes Ivy.

 

2:20 - MCs start presentation. Delivering lengthy speech in Korean - waiting for English translation.

 

2:19 - Starting. Video playing on screen showing blizzard logo.

 

2:18 - They appear to just be shaking hands, presentation hasn't started yet and another atrocious melody is on the speakers.

 

2:15 - Blizzard employees currently mounting the stage, lights come on, crowd starts applauding / cheering.

 

2:14 - Just made an annoucement saying "the program is being delayed a little." Announcer says it'll start shortly.

 

2:13 - Korean press in center of floor seating is yelling and doing the wave.

 

2:12 PM - Still hasn't started. Some video guy in front of me is actually dancing to the abominable jazz they're pumping in here. Now he's tapping his feet.

 

2:08 PM - Another horrible song starting. Large video banks behind announcement stage are displaying Blizzard's WWI logo. People with video cameras are running around everywhere. Gah, this music is bad, awful jazz sax.

 

2:06 PM - Guitar riffs still aggravatingly cheesy. Crowds continuing to fill seating. Ceremony has yet to start.

 

Update 2:02 PM - Announced presentation will begin shortly. Really cheesy guitar riffs playing over the speakers. The staduim seating is filling up, must be several thousand in attendance so far.

 

Update 1:59 PM - Announcing itinerary for the rest of the event over the next two days.