Posts with tag Dragon*Con

Let's take a poll. If you consider yourself "casual" raise your hand. Yes, even you in the back-and you thought that webcam was off (and put some clothes on for God's sake).

Ok, that's quite a bit of you. Now, if you play more than 20 hours a week keep your hands up.

That's what I thought.

At the last two Dragon*Cons I've asked that same question on my panels. The numbers come out like this: 90% of the room raised their hands at the first question and 80% of them kept their hands up for the second.

You are not a casual gamer if you fall into that spectrum. Since I am laughably a games journalist, I am eminently qualified to use the word the industry uses to define "casual gamers": Peggle. We also have a word to describe people who play Peggle too much, but since AOL owns us I probably can't use it here.

When you wonder why Blizzard doesn't do enough for the casual player, or why they focus their attention on the hardcore raider, the answer is simple: Blizzard doesn't have a clear delineation between the two groups any more than you do. It used to be that casual players refused to put in the time to get ahead, while the hardcore raiders were a bunch of catassers who had no lives. WarCraft has drastically blurred those lines. Robin Torres wrote an excellent piece on the differences between casual and raiders here. Let me say I agree with her, but she was a tad too polite.

This year, Elizabeth and I headed off to Atlanta, GA to cover Dragon*Con. In its 20th year, Dragon*Con is the United States' largest Pop Culture themed 4-day geek-fest, to put it mildly. While you won't get official numbers from the organizers past 20,000 participants, we heard whispers of numbers well over 40k in attendance if you counted each membership separately as opposed to combining the single-day passes like they do.

For our first year, we primarily set out to spread the WoW Insider love and get to know the community. That said, the reception and excitement we got from the Dragon*Con community at seeing us there overwhelmed both Elizabeth and I. It has ensured that we'll both be back in 2008 to cover all the myriad World of Warcraft goings on for WoW Insider! (As well as ensuring that we'll be back to help run the First Annual Dragon*Con MMO Costume Contest, slated for 2008!)

To check out a condensed recap of this year's various events, as well as the two (enormous) photo galleries chock full of various sights from D*C 2007, join me after the jump!

We're packing up the last of the swag (which took up a whole suitcase of its own!) and prepping for the road. But before we head out, I thought it best to go over some of the last details for Dragon*Con. Additionally, for those headed there, we've got the scoop on some last-minute track changes that we've heard about, and some great information culled from various Dragon*Con sources for all your convention needs.

For those of you who won't be able to make it, but are curious to read more about WoW Insider's inaugural trek (no pun intended) to Dragon*Con, I've also added some information that will help you find all the latest and greatest straight from us on the convention floor.

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that aside from being a writer here, I'm also a devoted WoW Insider reader. So when all the news from Blizzcon came out, I was glued to it from here in my own office. However, as I also knew Dragon*Con was just around the corner, I was scouring the writing of my co-workers for tips for Dragon*Con. This led to a reminder by Robin that I needed to get business cards, as well as a mention of something called "Moo cards."

Being a great big fan of things with completely silly and incongruous names, I clicked on the link and found the most interesting little culture had sprung up around these wee tiny little Moo cards. There are people leaving art Moos for others to find, Moo swaps where you mail your Moo card(s) in trade for other people's Moos, and even an around-the-world Moo. But as I was going to Dragon*Con, it struck me as a perfect time to check into these Moo cards and get some for myself!

Over the course of planning, I linked the cards to Elizabeth H., who also ordered some for Dragon*Con. Almost as soon as I received my cards, the folks over on the Wonderland Blog posted pictures of a booklet of the coolest Moo stickers made entirely with WoW in-game icons. Thus the WoW Moo-vement began around here.

While not as serious-looking as the official Weblogs, Inc. business card is, I really must admit, I love my WoW MOO cards. To me, they fit the overall spirit of WoW Insider (fun!) as well as finally giving me a use for the gigs of WoW screen-shots I have on my computer. I'd be willing to bet as Elizabeth and I hand them out at Dragon*Con to other folks we meet, our tiny World of Warcraft Moo cards won't soon be forgotten!

One week from Today, Elizabeth H. and I will land in Atlanta, GA for Dragon*Con 2007. As anyone who has ever been to Dragon*Con can tell you, one of the most important things to do is to find out where the panels you are interested in are early. That way you can plan out your weekend and make sure you have more than enough time still open for con parties and catching up with all the other cool folks there!

As such, we thought it would be best to help those of you planning to head to Dragon*Con (or still on the fence about going) with a listing of some of the events and panels that Elizabeth and I will either be featured speakers at, or covering for the site. For those of you stuck at home, think of it as a sneak-preview of some things we're looking to cover over the weekend...

Following an amazing level of success with Blizzcon, Elizabeth Harper and I are headed for Dragon*Con in a little over two weeks. For what? To host this year's Dragon*Con World of Warcraft Meet & Greet! For those who have never experienced a Dragon*Con, it is billed as "America's largest, multi-media, popular arts convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film." Speaking from the experience of having attended last year's Dragon*Con along with over 40,000 other geeks of all flavors, I can vouch for just how utterly packed full of awesome sights and sounds Dragon*Con is.

As part of this year's WoW Meet & Greet, (and with many thanks to Grim and the MMO/Gaming track for helping us organize this) we will be hosting a World of Warcraft costume contest. So for those headed there, be sure to pack the Rogue costume and your Boomkin suit. You definitely don't want to miss a chance at winning some great prizes! Outside of that, we'll be doing some trivia, talking more about the great goings on at Dragon*Con, as well as random giveaways featuring all manner of goodies from J!NX gear to TCG booster packs! (Maybe you'll pull out one of the rare cards that will net you some in-game goodies.) If you were on the fence about going to Dragon*Con, there are still memberships available.

A map of the location for the Meet & Greet at the Con, and more details are behind the jump!