Here’s some more stuff from Blizzcon the weekend before last:

Oxhorn Blizzcon Pix & Fan Art

Oxhorn Drinks–For Lordaeron!

Oxhorn in Epic Blue Time!

I appear at 11:30

Cures Interviews Oxhorn

I show up at 1:18

Oxhorn as Thrall

I do some really bad voice acting with Clint Hackleman, Jesse Cox and WoWCrendor.

See you at the show this Thursday for the contest results!

-Ox

Oxhorn’s review of Pandaren & Pandaria from Blizzcon 2011

Well. It’s official. We get pandas.

Pandaria

I played the Pandaren expansion for over two hours. I finished 30+ quests and explored the whole continent. I have a fairly good grasp of the new expansion so far, and I have to say, its a pretty typical WoW expansion. It was fun. The quests were cute, the art was lush, the new Monk class is fun, the idea of an island on the back of a turtle was great, the oriental culture was cool—yeah, I liked it.

Pandaren

What I hated was the pandas. That is my one and only complaint. How will this affect my machinima? Not much. I hate elves, and that’s  not a world-ender. I’ll probably make a lot of movies picking on the Pandaren. No big.

But how does this affect World of Warcraft? I’m scared to think about it. Look, Blizzard needed to announce something amazing this weekend. Let’s face it, Cataclysm was cool–but it was no Wrath of the Lich King. Adding giant, talking pandas to World of Warcraft makes Blizzard that much closer to being the next Disney.

Now, I understand that many of you like the pandas. That’s fine, I’m glad you’ll enjoy the next expansion. I just don’t feel like pandas–as a major part of the game–fit with World of Warcraft. Yes, I realize that they were in Warcraft III, but they didn’t have a major role. They were as important as a step in a minor quest; nothing to create an entire continent and playable race around.

You will get some fans excited over this. Maybe lots of fans. But if the people I met at Blizzcon are a good enough sample, the majority won’t take this expansion seriously, solely because of the pandas. I know this may not be fair due to the greatness of the rest of the expansion (aside from the Pokemon…but that’s another angry blog post). But I think it will be reality, for no one wants to play a game about clowns–especially giant, fuzzy, black and white clowns.

I don’t say this as just another disgruntled fan. I say this as the marketing manager of a multi million dollar company. Having Pandaren as the big, new, primary cherry at the top of this expansion sundae is just bad business. Blizzard needs to choose a new race that everyone thinks is awesome. They can’t afford half, a third, or even a fourth or their fans to be apathetic about it.

Everyone knows about my elf hatred and how angry I was when the Horde got Blood Elves, but I never wrote a blog like this about them, and I never thought Blizzard had made a poor business choice with the Blood Elves, because, as much as I hate them, most people like tall, lanky, sexy Blood Elves. It was good business. But if what I heard at Blizzcon is any indication, pandas are not. During the closing ceremony, the host said, “…and we revealed the Mists of Pandaria!” The crowd booed. Thousands of hardcore Blizzard fans, many of whom traveled halfway around the world to visit Blizzcon, booed.

Here is a picture of the Mists of Pandaria gameplay center at Blizzcon.

There’s no one playing. Granted, this was during the Foo Fighter concert, but at the same time both the Diablo III and Starcraft II gameplay lines were wrapped around the convention. I played Pandaria because it was the only game I didn’t have to wait in an hour-long line for, and I got to stay for two hours because there was no demand. Either all WoW players are hardcore Foo Fighter fans and the other gamers not-so-much, or not very many people are excited about Pandaria.

As I played, Blizzcon attendees were hating on Pandaria in the local chat. I stopped counting the number of derogatory Kung-Fu Panda comparisons I saw; character names like “PandasSuck” and “LameBear”; people shouting in red: THE END OF WOW HAS COME; and so on. Has it always been like this with a new expansion? Not to this extreme, I think.

Who came up with this idea? If I was told to sit down and come up with a really silly expansion idea like, this–giant talking kung-fu pandas–is something I would come up with. This is the internet rumor that everyone laughs about because they know its a joke. But it’s not. It’s true. And it is the last thing Blizzard needs.

Warcraft is a fantasy universe. In a fantasy universe, I expect to see the archetypal fantasy characters (dwarves, orcs, elves, etc.) and I expect to see new, strange and wonderful monsters (draenei, trolls, etc.). I don’t want to see ANYTHING that jolts me and pops me out of this fantasy. The “suspension of disbelief” is what is necessary for your audience to buy into the world and love it. Any movie, game or book that nukes a fridge or leaps over a shark, jolts their audience out of their suspension of disbelieve and ruins it for them.

Blizzard, this is your nuked fridge. You’ve officially jumped the shark. Talking pandas are something I’d expect from a kid’s night-time storybook. There is a reason Kung Fu Panda was aimed at kids–because pandas are silly, and kids and girls (and furries) like them.

Pandas belong in the company of other cute fuzzy animals, like bunnies, squirrels and kitty-cats. Who, when thinking of an anthropomorphic monster to play and defeat enemies with, says “panda“? Aside from, again, furries. Pandas belong to Disney, Dreamworks and other children’s cartoons–not World of Warcraft.

Maybe I’m just getting old. Or maybe WoW has always been geared for kids and I’m just now realizing it. The Tauren, which some have accused of being furry-fodder, are pretty epic–after all, they are designed after the Minotaur, a monster from Greek myth whose origin is anything but family friendly. Just Google “Minotaur”, “white ox” and “labyrinth” to see for yourself. But giant fuzzy panda bears that you can dress up and do Kung Fu with? Ox is sad.

I’m fine with jokes in the game. If you want to have a brewmaster panda pet, that’s cool. But the moment you take that bit of silliness and turn it into an entire race, continent, class combo, well, I’m afraid you’re either caving in to furry fandom or you’re lazy. I mean, seriously, Panda-ren? Panda-ria?

Well. So this is WoW. We have pandas and wolf-men. More and more people are showing up in furry costumes and wearing fox-tails. I guess I am going to have to get used to it. Or find a new hobby.

Baby Hipporia

Hey everybody, it’s time to design the next expansion! I’ve got a great idea that is sure to make everyone happy.

• New Race: Baby Hipporen
• New Continent: Baby Hipporia
• New Class: Shallow Water Wader

Baby hippos are the cutest things in the world! Let’s make a race out of them. They’ll be so portly and cute. Their racials can be steamy-snout-snorts, where they blow water at their enemies in such a cute way.

And we can dress them up in little costumes! What stereotypical race of man can we ascribe to the baby hippos? Pandas have The Orient, Dwarves have Germans/Scottish, Draenei have Russians, Tauren have Native Americans, Trolls have Tribal/Jamaicans and so on. I know! Let’s make them a bunch of fish-eating Swedes! Can’t you imagine a baby hippo with a Swedish accent? So cute!

Am I out of line here? Leave a comment below and tell me just how right or wrong I am.

Costumes Cosplay Blizzcon

Blizzard Artwork

Friends & Fans

Oxhorn’s Blizzcon Adventure – Recap

Blizzcon Day 1 – Thursday

I left Seattle with my brother Brian (Beanstalk) and my fiancé Jodi (Nova) for Anaheim. The flight was quick and we soon found ourselves checked in to the Hilton Anaheim with time to kill. So we killed it in line waiting for our badges.

Now, this is the fifth year of Blizzcon. I’d expect them to have gotten the badge-pickup process streamlined by now. But they haven’t. We stood in line for over three hours waiting to get our badges. There was a huge mix-up, which I think happened to the majority of attendees due to the length of the “solutions” line. My brother’s badge was printed in my name, Jodi’s was duplicated and two of the badges were scanned as having already been picked up. It was a nightmare. Every Blizzard employee we met was very friendly and helpful, but the process itself was trying for all attendees and all employees. There has got to be a better way to do this. After three hours in line, we finally got our badges, but we were exhausted, just when we were supposed to go to a party. We went anyway.

WoW Insider Party at Blizzcon 2011

The party was a blast! I was interviewed a few times and I met many great fans. Michael Gray got my brother and I some free drinks and it was a fun experience all around. I met up with Clint from Myndflame and Jesse Cox, and after the party, we found a nice place and smoked some stogies while sipping gentlemanly beverages until the day ended.

Blizzcon Day 2 – Friday

Day 2 saw the start of the actual convention. This was when I heard the dreaded news about Pandaren and Pandaria (see this rant of mine to learn all about it). But the con was cool as always and we saw lots of costumes, artwork, videos and friends. Bean did his own thing most of the day, and Nova and I walked around until our feet were about to fall off, meeting fans and having a great time.

Curse Gaming Party at Blizzcon 2011

That night was the Curse Gaming party, which the fine fellows over at Curse were nice enough to invite us to. Free drinks are always a plus in my book! After watching semi-drunk geeks dance for an hour, we moseyed on down to the Hilton bar, where I met up with Clint Hackleman, Jesse Cox, Ian Beckman, Trade Chat and more to meet fans, drink scotch and have a grand old time.

Blizzcon Day 3 – Saturday

The final day of Blizzcon found Bean, Nova and I enjoying the events on the con floor. We played Starcraft II – Heart of the Swarm, and the new expansion for World of Warcraft, The Mists of Pandaria (you can read my criticism of the expansion here). I met with many fans, posed for dozens of photos and really enjoyed myself. I have to say, of all the fans out there, my fans are the best fans. There is little better than having some kid run up and give you a big hug and seeing on his face that you’ve really made his day.

That night was the big Foo Fighters concert, which was a blast. The Foo really kept the entire crowd energized and did some amazing numbers. Nova and I stayed for a few hours before heading back to the hotel. The music was so loud and my poor ears can only take so much! Nova went up to bed, Bean wandered around with some scotch and I hung out with the fellows at the back of the Hilton Bar. At about 1:00 am, a tiny asian girl invaded our table space, slammed her head on our table and vomited all over the floor. It would be surprising if this wan’t typical for the final day of Blizzcon. Fans wish it would last longer and want to have a final “hurrah” before heading home. We moved away from the vomit and continued to chat machinima, hiding our rum bottles from the Hilton sentinels who were determined to force us to buy their booze instead of drink our own.

When three o’clock hit, we ventured outside for a smoke. I got some great pics of me, Jesse Cox, Ian Beckman and Clint Hackleman smoking some stogies, which has become the machinima tradition at Blizzcon. We were joined by a number of other fans and friends and had a grand old time until it was finally time for bed. I slept heavily that night and tried not to dream about pandas.

Blizzcon Day 4 – Sunday

On the final day I awoke early to hop on a bus. Blizzard was cool enough to invite us out on a boat ride, to meet Blizzard employees and shmooze. We boarded the tiki boat around noon. They had an open bar and free food! We sailed around Newport Beach on a three hour tour, chatting about WoW, machinima and everything Blizzard. Kudos to you, Blizzard, for giving your community such awesome attention.

I got back to the Hilton at 4:00 and Blizzard handed out some signed artwork which was really sweet. I’ll show you all what it looks like during my show on Thursday! We raced to the airport and here I sit, writing up this blog post while waiting for my plane to take me back home to Seattle. Work starts early for me tomorrow morning, but it was well worth it.

I’ll see you Thursday at 7:00 PM Pacific, when Bean and I will go over the whole con for you and show you what was in our goodie bags. See you then!

Happy Monday every peeps! The week has been grand with happenings and occurrences. Speaking of occurrences, we have an occurrence of fan art. And here it is:

Oxhorn’s Warcraft Fan Art

Oxhorn’s Warcraft Podcast – Scotch & Smoke Rings

We had a surprise guest, all the way from Alaska! Watch the episode for more details.

Oxhorn’s Pumpkin Carving Contest!

Announcing yet again, Oxhorn’s Pumpkin Carving Contest!  The last contest I hosted on this site was back in 2009, when Scotch & Smoke Rings was only 11 weeks old, and I think it is time for a new one. The details of this contest are simple; carve a pumpkin that makes a reference to any of my movies, songs or characters. Take a nice, large and clear picture of your pumpkin, upload it to image shack or some other image sharing site and send me the link using the contact form on this page. That’s it!

Prizes

First Place: $50 gift card for Jinx.com OR ThinkGeek.com ORAmazon.com OR any two items from my Cafepress Shop (items must be under $25 in value).

Second Place: $25 gift card for Jinx.com OR ThinkGeek.com ORAmazon.com OR any item from my Cafepress Shop (item must be under $25 in value).

Third Place: $15 gift card for Jinx.com OR ThinkGeek.com ORAmazon.com OR any item from my Cafepress Shop (item must be under $15 in value).

You have all month to get a’carvin’. I can’t wait to see your pumpkins! You can see the pumpkins that were submitted last time in the fan art image gallery.

-Ox

This week we have a special guest, direct from the Alaskan wilderness!

World of Warcraft Brewfest Movie – We Three Dwarves

Download the song here from iTunes: We Three Dwarves of Ironforge

Oxhorn Warcraft Fanart

Thank you all SO much for your fanart!

Michael Dorn Loves Oxhorn

Thank you Patrika for making Michael Dorn who plays Worf on Startrek say “hi” to me!

Diablo 3 Beta

Since I got the Diablo 3 Beta, I have been broadcasting msyelf playing Diablo III live. So far, I have played the Barbarian and the Demon Hunter. You can watch my (really long) broadcasts here:

Diablo 3 Barbarian – Part 1

Diablo III Barbarian – Part 2

Diablo 3 Demon Hunter

Be sure to watch my live show this week for epic classiness. I have more movies and awesomness coming up! Stay tuned gents and gentesses!

-Ox

It was so good, we ROTFLAMOd. Yes, I spelled that right.

A bacon ship with the Ox gang dressed in pilgrim costumes baking pecan pie while riding a bacon grease sea with sardines leaping out of the water being pulled by chocolate meese on the way to attack Darnassus. Yep.

First off, if you posed for a pic with me at Dragon Con, send it to me using my contact form and I will post it here!

For the second year in a row, I was graciously invited to Dragon*Con by the fine folks at the MMO track, this time for their 25th anniversary (you can find last year’s gallery of cosplay and costume photos here). This year they had 50 thousand people show up–10 thousand more than last year! I brought the lovely @NovaDomina with me, who had never been to a con like this before. Needless to say, we both had  a blast.

Day 1 – Travel to Dragon Con 2011

I managed to get two days off from work, thanks to my awesome boss. Friday found Nova and I traveling from Seattle to Atlanta. Our flight left at 5:15 in the AM, so we wolfed down our bacon wrapped pancakes and sped to the Seattle airport just in time to catch our flight. Since I booked our tickets the DAY before the flight (never transfer money between bank accounts if you need any of it for three days, ugh) we didn’t get to pick our seats beforehand, so fate found me asking the nice people around us if they wouldn’t mind swapping seats so we could sit together. Thankfully, the fates were kind and we sat together for both flights–Seattle to Pheonix, Pheonix to Atlanta.

Arriving in Atlanta was a shock to my poor Seattle senses. I came from coolness and landed in hotness. I melt at these temperatures, so we hopped in our rental car as soon as we could and cranked the AC. Our hotel was thankfully right next to the airport so our travel was over soon. The drawback to finding a hotel close to the airport, however, is that airplanes roar over your room every night, all night, something I didn’t think about until it was too late. I don’t mean airplanes way up in the sky making those lovely white trails; no, the runway was less than a mile from our hotel, so the planes were coming in so close to us that we could see people peering out from the windows. After four days of this, I’ll never make the same mistake again.

Anyway, the hotel had a pool and after a nice relaxing dip, we sawed some serious logs.

Day 2 – DragonCon 2011 Images of the WoW Costume Contest

We woke late, missed our continental breakfast of hotel waffles (coasters) and hotel muffins (missiles), jumped in the rental and raced to downtown Atlanta. I had only been here once before (last year) and Nova once when she was a kid, but I strangely remembered my way around fairly well. It might have had something to do with the magical GPS thingy on my phone, but I’ll chalk it up to an awesome memory–a side effect of drinking good scotch.

We first arrived at the Marriott Marquis and started taking pictures like crazy, many of which you can see in the gallery below. The hotel lobby was wall-to-wall humanity and it took us a while to orient ourselves. Many of the costumes were amazingly creative and very well done. Some of them were very unclassy. Now, I understand the temptation of wanting to be accurate and ‘true-to-the-character’. But ladies, those pencil-waist big busted anime babes were designed by horny men, not to practically exist in this world but titillate. Therefore, you’re forgiven if your jumblies aren’t exactly as voluminous as a couple of beach-balls, or if your skirt ends at your knees instead of your crotch. After all, you don’t expect yourself to lift the two-ton solid-iron sword that your favorite heel-wearing super heroine wields, do you? So ladies, as lovely as your bits and pieces are, keep their value by sharing them in the bedroom only and not in a hotel lobby. The harder your goods are to see, the more spectacular the sight. Everyone has seen moonbeams, but few have seen earthbeams.

Sadly, Nova and I saw way too much flesh–sightly and unsightly, saggy and droopy, cankles and muffin tops, stretch marks and scars, acne and sores–from guys and gals alike. As Nova said to me after seeing a woman walk by with nothing on but body-paint, “This is a straight guy’s paradise”. Straight un-classy guys, that is.

I was supposed to be judging a World of Warcraft costume contest soon, so we had to find the right room. We raced in just in time and got set up. The fine fellows of the MMO Track had the whole thing organised and a little spot saved for me with my name on it. I had the pleasure of meeting my fellow co-judges; ckknight, the famed coder extraordinaire, and Robin Thorsen and Amy Okuda, cast of the very funny The Guild series.

We saw 20 contestants, all of them excellent, and at our judging pow-wow we all agreed pretty quickly which ones should win. The judges’ votes only counted for half; the MMO Track staff had the other half. When all was said and done, we had a fine selection of very talented costume creators with awesome prizes supplied by Guild Launch. I’m happy to say that no elf won the top four prizes.

After the contest, Nova, SheDevil, her man Bryan and I went for some steak then made it back in time to attend the World of Warcraft ‘Darkmoon Faire’ that was going on at the Sheraton. We met some great people, had some of Kevin’s  infamous ’pie’ (which was delicious by the way), chatted with some fans and played some games. I punted some gnomes, and actually got one through the goal on the second try.

After the Faire was the big MMO party, with lots of music, dancing, booze and people. The MMO Track fellows managed to leave all sorts of sweet swag on the tables for the fans–it was a great time! We stayed for an hour or so, made some new friends and then headed back to the hotel for the night. I. Was. BEAT.

Day 3 – Oxhorn’s DragonCon 2011 Video Presentation

Another night, another late morning. Washed, brushed, ate, drove, paid for parking; back at the con. My talk was at 4:00 in the Sheraton. It took us so long to get up and ready after a late night of hanging out with awesome MMO geeks that we didn’t arrive to the Sheraton until around 3:00. Thankfully, the staff had everything under control. They managed to shoo out stragglers from the previous panel and they hooked me up with some high-speed internet so that I was able to record the video below. They didn’t have an HDMI hookup so I was unable to show you all the videos I played during the panel, but at least you can see my mighty beard throughout the thing.  Watch the replay of my panel below: Making Money Making Machinima.

Making Money Making Machinima – Oxhorn at Dragon*Con 2011

I always love giving presentations like this and meeting the fans, face to face. It was a blast seeing so many sweet people! I took a lot of great questions and afterwards, stayed for photos, autographs and handshakes.

After the presentation, Nova, SheDevil, Ryan and I explored some of the shops in the Marriott, where I bought Nova a small derby. If you come to Blizzcon this year, you’ll see her in it! We then went to Gibney’s Irish Pub, where SheDevil and I tied in a smoke ring competition (we couldn’t get past 11 each–rarg!).

Food, Guinness, parking, hotel, tired, sleep–out by midnight.

Day 3 – Labor Day Photos at Dragon*Con 2011

We decided to do whatever we wanted. With no Oxhorn stuff keeping us to a schedule, I left my derby at the hotel room and we wandered around the con for fun. I got a few more pictures, we explored a lot of sweet shops and managed to find Nova a Halo t-shirt, since Halo is her favorite game ever. We explored until the shops all closed and then drove to a cigar bar that everyone on Twitter and Facebook kept urging me to visit; Highland Cigar Co.. I have to tell you, the place was amazing. Big black leather chairs, heavy ashtrays, a lovely walk-in humidor with every kind of cigar you could possibly imagine, and the friendliest barkeeper around. I selected a hand-rolled A Fuente Gran Reserva, ordered some 10 year-old single malt Laphroaig scotch and did what I’m unable to enjoy by law in Seattle; I smoked a cigar in a pub. Nova had some Guinness and we enjoyed a relaxing hour in the coziest cigar bar I’ve ever visited.

Labor Day was an easy day with not much to report, although it did pour hot rain the whole day. Food, cigars, scotch, a relaxing evening and a bit of writing: the end to a perfect Labor Day.

Day 4 – The Return Flight from Dragon*Con 2011

I include this day for the sake of completeness, but there’s nothing  much to report. Our flight was delayed twice causing us to miss our connecting flight; we got bumped to a different airline and were threatened with missing it also, but all ended up ok and we made it back to Seattle on time. I even had a chance to publish this post during the five-hour flight from the plane’s $10 wi-fi. Enjoy the photos from DragonCon, and be sure to vote for me in about.me’s contest!

Nova and myself sharing a kiss while riding a bacon truck named Lardon while slaying Night Elves on either side while standing in the heart of Hurricane Irene, our classiness, by the way, being in the process of destroying it. L33t.