Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBlizzCon 2009: The treasure-fishing quest
by Robin Torres 
Aug 26th 2009 at 11:00AM
Just in case there weren't enough to do at BlizzCon this year, our goody bags included a quest:
Marcia Chase seeks your help. She has left instructions with a local merchant -- Brady Mercantile. She needs heroes to collect a set of 5 mysterious treasure-fishing lures. Brady Mercantile can be found in the Merchant's Quarter.Brady Games provided a "Lure Bag" and a map of the locations of the lures, which were other vendors located in all of the halls. Obtaining the lures involved standing in line with your map and bag at the various vendor booths and then being handed a slimy lure. The sliminess did lend an authenticity to the procedure, while being mildly unpleasant.
In order to receive your quest reward, you needed to return with your completed map to the Brady Games booth between 4PM and 7PM on the second day of the con. A designated person was assigned to "feel your sack", another stamping the map as completed and another with a bag of stones from which to choose. The stones were green, blue and purple -- representing loot quality. Green included a poster, Blue was a Blizzard keychain or the WoW Manga and Purple included the WoW mouse.
The lines moved quickly and participants got to keep all of the quest pieces as well as the reward. Even though it is an obvious ploy to get attendees to visit vendor booths, it was a fun activity that I will do again if offered at the next BlizzCon.
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
HunterTure Aug 26th 2009 12:12PM
How much more are you guys going to rub into the wounds of those who didn't get to go the nifty things you were offered. The people who went know what was available, those who couldn't go, are getting annoyed with all the stuff we will never have access to except on eBay for much more money than it would have cost us to try and go to Blizzcon.
Lucasman Aug 26th 2009 12:19PM
Really? You're complaining? Granted yes many of us couldn't make it down to blizzcon either through lack of funds or tickets being sold out, but I for one like hearing what went on and what was available. Maybe I'm in the minority on this one, but I hand it to Wow Insider for their coverage of Blizzcon, including what was given out. I think it gives us an idea that yes, Blizzard cares about their customers and are willing to do fun stuff like this.
Aurix Aug 26th 2009 12:23PM
We're getting annoyed? Wow mate, speak for yourself. Wow.com is trying to bring the Blizzcon experience to people who couldn't go. They're not out to irritate you. In fact, there's an easy way to save yourself the annoyance of having read more Blizzcon stories. See the tag that says "Blizzcon" at the bottom of the article? Yeah, if you scroll down before you read the article, you can save yourself some frustration.
As for me, keep it up Wow.com. I'm still anxiously waiting for Schramm's favorite article out of the 'Con.
JPN Aug 26th 2009 12:45PM
Speak for yourself...I love all this coverage...
Kajira Aug 26th 2009 1:02PM
"The people who went know what was available"
Actually, I went and while I knew about the quest, I did other parts of the con and didn't know how the quest was done or what the prizes were. I wish I had done it now, and I am happy to hear that something that neat happened.
Pern Aug 26th 2009 9:45PM
That line ticked me off. They ran out of bags on Friday so I had to do it Saturday and thanks to the turn in line being in the same hall as the live raid that thing moved at a snail's pace. (Over 45 minutes to get through.) I missed out on playing D3 for a stupid comic and some cards that did even have loot. I was ticked. I love Blizzard and know I'm lucky as hell to be able to go the con but there was just too many people with too many things to do crammed into to small a time frame.
phaedra Aug 26th 2009 12:53PM
I agree with you on the grossness of the lures Robin -- they were slimy!
However, while I was able to quickly complete my quest on the first day, I wasn't interested in waiting hours to turn it in.
Off topic -- I am sad that I barely got to talk to you at Blizzcon Robin! I (very) briefly got a chance to talk to you when the doors opened on the first day. I mentioned knitting to you, you said you had left yours in the hotel room, and then the doors opened and I was inside.
Ringo Flinthammer Aug 26th 2009 1:09PM
They've done this every year since 2005 (no lines back then, though, on the "quest"). I would expect it at Blizzcon 2010 as well.
xloop Aug 26th 2009 1:43PM
Looks just like the Cheese Weasel event from Gen Con. Bt at Gen Con they gave away over $12,000 in prizes to 3 winners. Much better then 1 shirt.
Mike Aug 26th 2009 2:04PM
I found the bookmark on Thursday and thought it was a reference to an in-game daily quest of some sort and didn't think much about it.
It wasn't until Friday evening that I found out that this was an in-con quest.
Our group got in line at 7:45 am on Saturday just so we could get to their booth early enough to get a map & bag for this thing.
Each one of the 5 stations had long lines. Some longer than others, but fortunately they didn't take too terribly long.
However, a lot of people decided to turn in their bag on Saturday, so the line to turn in the lures was nearly 2 hours long.
My wife and I got a giant mouse pad and book out of it.
It was a little more engaging than the lock & key thing at Steel Series, but lots of waiting...
Cowy Aug 26th 2009 2:34PM
Awh jeeze something else that wasn't mentioned on the Directv stream. I'm very happy for you guys getting to do this quest, I wish I could have had the chance to watch someone go through it instead of that silly top 20 blizzard game's countdown (what was the point of THAT?)
I gotta say I was a teeny bit disapointed with the Directv stream this year.
It was very fun, true, don't get me wrong, but wow... so much action going on and DirecTV failed to cover a lot of it. :(
We didn't get to see the Machinima Contest, and only got to see parts of some of the other contests. Some of the Dev panels were going on at the same time (I think?) so we missed some of those, and also there wasn't any Arena coverage. Who knows what else wasn't covered that I don't even know about.
I really hope next year Blizz learns from that, and divides up the feed a bit into multiple channels for multiple events going on at the same time. (so we can choose what we want to see!) Sort of a choose your own Blizzcon adventure... type... thing.
Or maybe I'll just get off my duff and go to the blizzcon next year, I'm only a state away...
(But I have a phobia of flying... So maybe I'll drive. *sigh*)
kuri Aug 26th 2009 3:03PM
Fun for some perhaps, but if you were at Blizzcon and saw the lines to do these events (especially on the final day... it wrapped from Hall A to Hall C, then wrapped back, just to "feel sacks", stamp maps, and get pebbles) you'd have balked at everything. Even after a year of doing this and anticipating more people at the con, they still haven't found a way for this to not suck up 4 hours or more of your weekend.
I just couldn't justify the lines, so I stuffed the quest in my bag and ignored it. Kudos to those of you who stuck it out and hopefully got something for your efforts.
BradyGames, for all that's good and holy, figure out a better queue system.
Wowie Aug 26th 2009 3:06PM
> A designated person was assigned to "feel your sack"
Sounds like a Hodir quest!
grump-e Aug 26th 2009 7:41PM
I have always wanted to do a quest in real life.
It was must have been a magical experience, this must become a new blizzcon tradition.