Starcraft 2 Armory - Unofficial Starcraft 2 Fansite

If you don't know by now, on Monday I was invited to Blizzard HQ for a private press event to showcase us some major announcement. The event was supposed to be private but some site blabbed and the public found out and on top of that the information Blizzard wanted to showcase was not ready, so the event itself was postponed. BUT since many fansites and press sites already had plane tickets and their plans ready, Blizzard still allowed people to come out, and instead of the announcement we did the following.

Upon arriving at HQ, we signed some NDAs stating that we were not allowed to talk about anything we see or hear at Blizzard without their consent. After signing the NDAs, we waited out front in front of the Raider statue. Once everyone was ready, we went into a press room and then watched David Kim and Matt Cooper battle it live (as I stated on my twitter). They played 3 games total, all while Dustin and Rob narrated it for us. After the games were over, Dustin showed us the new replay and observer features, which were badass (more info later on).

After that we went off to lunch at Blizzards very own cafeteria. Once everyone was finished eating, we headed off an a tour of their 3 new buildings. We visited many areas including the wow dev team, wow art team, wow production team, marketing and business areas, cafeteria, gym, library, volleyball courts, the web and server team and lastly the Starcraft 2 development area. It pretty much looked the same as every area, except with Starcraft 2 crap everywhere. We really didn't see anything new in that room. And finally when we were done with the tour, we got to play Starcraft 2 for like the next 4+ hours, haha.

The game is amazing, and the art is coming out beautifully. I got to play and test every race multiple times and I still enjoy Terran the best. Once everyone played the game for a good hour, we started a 2v2 tournament between the fansites. Me and my friend (who is a horrible RTS player, lol) lost the first game against SC2GG, then won 2 games against another fansite, and finally lost again to Team Liquid. I was able to destroy one of the TLers main base, but later got overwhelmed because my teammate sucked, lol. During the tournament, we took a quick break and sat down with Dustin Browder and bombarded him with questions. I asked like 75% of the questions, simply because it got too quiet because no one had any questions! Once the Q&A was up, I played a little bit more then headed home, because I was starving. All in all I had a fun time, and thank Blizzard for every moment of it!

About the NDA
As everyone knows, we had to sign an NDA so that we couldn't post any information. Before the event was postponed, we were told that we can talk about the event and any info that day, so everyone still assumed we could. After the live battle reports were over, Blizzard mentioned that they decided we cant say anything, so we had to delete any posts/tweets we made. But I talked to Karune and was allowed to mention the live BRs and that we were playing the game. The only reason we weren't allowed to mention anything again till Monday, was simply because they gave us a week to return home, write the articles and get ready to update our sites. NOT BECAUSE OF BETA, lol.

Sounds like you had a fun day, lol. Especially the part about playing SC2 for 4+ hours.

Thanks Gear for sharing all the info! It so interesting to read all about blizz HQ. Wish I worked there.. You're doing a great job for the community!

Waiting for full details of ur gameplay experience plus the q&a u had with browder:(

I don't know if you can do this, Gear. But it would be extremely nice to have a typed up impressions about each of the races. Specifically, I would really like to hear about the Zerg.

Damn wheres my "switch bodies with Gearvosh" machine!!!!

You know gearv0sh, I'm not sure if you had a audio recorder on you, but if you did you would be able to type up the Q&A soooo much faster and answer most of the questions we had, even if some of them already had answers to them. heh heh. Anyway, hope you got like 15-30 questions for us to read though. I'm looking forward to it.

Remember, post up the Q&A for us "when it's ready". lol

Is the vid that starts with the Vortex Field from that day too ??

The vid was just awesome man.. I really think we saw pretty much of almost final versions of the abilities here and there.. And like the newest designs too, but didn't see the new Infestor in action at all :((.. LOL

K man - we w8t and look forward for the Q&A to be posted..

Oh the things I would do to be in your shoes that day. (hope you don't have athlete's foot). xp

Yes a post about the Q & A would be great. Details, details, details.

So, how was the food at the cafeteria? Hopefully better than at my school... XD Did they serve you Zergling mystery meat or something?

You are one lucky guy, and you must had a fun day.

must have been one helluva day man xD I'm glad you got there so now you can share us your experience

Quote by Death-Con 5

Damn wheres my "switch bodies with Gearvosh" machine!!!!

I believe you lent it to Captain Ginyu

lucky you, i hope you tell us some stuff man, JK, but cool, its great you played it man, too bad you didnt win!

Dud can't wait to play that game, I love it hope you give us some info from the Blizzard Event, hope you had a good time dud...