This is a guest post by AMP 2-11 Guardian of all things LOUD! Defender of everything with blinky lights! Champion of full frontal nerdity! Zombie by day, Rockstar by night AMP 2-11 loves taco carts, anything featuring David Grohl and long walks on the beach. You can catch more of his nerdalicious work (and free swag!) at TheTNTShow.com
Still buzzing from my band’s win at yesterday’s talent competition I hardly slept a wink last night, like a kid the night before Christmas. Despite that fact (or perhaps because of it) my eyes flew open early this morning. My body was tired but my heart and soul were fired up to get back to the convention center.
After such an incredible experience the day before I was a little apprehensive about how today would be. I felt a little bit nervous that things couldn’t possibly get better or, even worse, that they might seem a bit dull in contrast.
As mentioned in my bio I work on a web series called The TNT Show, a weekly show (Warning: Blatant Plug Follows:) about games, comics, and movies, and that also gives away a ton of swag to it’s subscribers. You should check it out at TheTNTShow.com (Don’t say I didn’t warn you about the plug!)
The plan for the day was to conduct interviews for use in the show, which gave me the great opportunity to interact and chat with a lot of fans from the Blizzard community. And what an awesome community it is. Blizzard works very hard to foster a strong and positive community, and it shows.
I’m going to honestly say that Blizzard fans are some of the most loyal and welcoming in the gaming community (not perfect, but probably about as close as you can get). I’m going to toss out the theory that this is because even though a huge portion of Blizzard games are built around player competition, a huge and central part of them are based on cooperating together to achieve your objectives/victory.
We met people from all over the world who had come here just for this. We discussed their passion for the Blizzard universe, what their favorite games and experiences were, what part of Blizzcon they enjoyed the most, and other eclectic topics such as what kind of sauce they would eat with fried Zergling.
Through the process of meeting and talking with my fellow Blizzard fans I realized something: that today was pound for pound, minute for minute every bit as amazing as yesterday had been (only not so nerve-racking). Yesterday we had sent our enthusiasm and passion out from the stage into a crowd. Today, on a more personal level, player by player, fan by fan, the crowd was sending its enthusiasm and passion back to me. It was an awesome thing.
There were a few flattering moments when people recognized us as members of the band and would greet us with an enthusiastic Moo! For me the highlight of recognition came when a girl named Katie recognized not me, but The TNT Show logo on the shirt I was wearing. I was sure she had it mistaken with something else, but no, our fledgling show was apparently part of the video rotation at the gaming store where she works. (More Gratuitous Plugs follow: special props to Level Up Gaming, Facebook.com/LevelUpGamingOceanside on their immaculate taste in programming!). Not only did Katie recognize the show but she genuinely liked it! Which I’m pretty sure makes her the first person besides my mother to do so.
After chatting with her and her friends, I quickly texted my friends who host the show to share the story, I was so proud of their work.
In between interviews we did make time to take in some of the great action going on including the first ever Heroes of the Storm world championship, the Starcraft II Championship match and, of course, the finale — Linkin Park rocking out on the very stage where we had stood the night before.
Thank you again to Blizzard and the entire Blizzard community. You are the best in the world!