In the beginning, there was Blizzard...

I would like to start off by saying thank you to the Outlaw and the Elitist for letting me guest post for a little while. Who knows, maybe this will become a regular occurrence. In the meantime, I'll be the unofficial Blizzard writer. Why? Because it's Blizzard. And they're a big deal. For those of you who don't know, I'm going to give you a brief overview of Blizzard's main game franchises. Then I'll give you some expectations of me in future posts.

Warcraft. Starcraft. Diablo. Three of the most well-known and loved franchises in all of PC gaming. And right now there are a lot of monumental moments going on in those gaming worlds.

Starting with Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, the Warcraft series quickly became one of the best-selling Real-Time Strategy games on the market. A year later, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (followed by the expansion Beyond the Dark Portal) followed in its footsteps and expanded on every detail. Many of you may have heard of the next release in the series: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and the expansion The Frozen Throne. I was introduced to the series with Warcraft II, but did not play it much myself until Warcraft III. Mind you, I would go back and play the earlier versions for the sake of comparison and progression, but we all know how much it would hurt to play those older games. So alas, I shall not. Essentially, the Warcraft series has been the story of its namesake, the battle between Orcs and Humans. As the story progressed, more races were added to the mix, including the Night Elves and the Undead. But it wasn't until the release of World of Warcraft that the series truly exploded.

World of Warcraft, or WoW as us nerds (intellectual badasses) call it, is one of the leading MMO games on the market. And rightfully so. While it started off a little rough around the edges, Blizzard has made it a much more casual game for the everyday player (to the dismay of many hardcore gamers, I am sure). However, that does not mean there are not plenty of aspects available for hardcore gamers. After spending some time raiding with one of the top guilds on my main server, Sargeras, I know firsthand that there are many hardcore gamers still very much involved with WoW. But I won't get too in-depth into that. For now. But Cataclysm is coming. So you can expect some Warcraft posts before then. And many more after.

The second of Blizzard's series (although these are not in any order of importance) is Starcraft. Definitely one of the premiere RTS games of its time, it has now been overturned by its sequel: Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. This is the first of a "trilogy" of games, in this case featuring the hardy Terran. Again, I won't go into too much detail about these games right now. But the basic premise is the battle between three races: the Terran, Zerg, and Protoss. Each race is very unique and has various advantages and disadvantages to the other races. I started playing Starcraft II as Protoss, however I have recently changed to the underplayed Zerg. In the future, you can expect tips, builds, etc from me regarding Starcraft II gameplay. And if all goes well, you will soon be able to enjoy the sultry sound of my voice as I begin to commentate some games as well.

And finally, we come to Diablo. While I have yet to play any games in the Diablo series (I have Diablo II installing as I type: less than 2 minutes remaining), I have only heard good things about them. I have been brushing up on the storyline, and I will have to dedicate an entire post (at least one) to the lore of that series. However, the basic premise is the story of the three prime evils in the world of Sanctuary: Mephisto, Lord of Hatred; Baal, Lord of Destruction; and Diablo, Lord of Terror. If that doesn't sound badass, I don't know what does. I will update y'all soon with my thoughts on Diablo II, and I'll be looking forward to the release of Diablo III in the coming months. Hopefully.

So that was Blizzard in a nutshell. I will soon have hands-on experience in each of these three series; and I will give reviews, previews, updates, and random tidbits of each as time goes on, as well as covering news releases from Blizzard. And anything else I deem pertinent. This is going to be fun.