// KOTAKU — GAMING
World Of Warcraft Pizza Is A Perfect Reminder Of What Makes BlizzCon Special
I just spent the weekend at Blizzcon, the once-annual convention dedicated to all things Blizzard. There, I interviewed a number of different people about their respective projects—World of Warcraft, Warcraft 3, Diablo, and Overwatch—and I’ll be running those interviews in the next day and change, so you can read them here on Kotaku as they come out.
But I also got hands-on time with two things. One was World of Warcraft: Forever. The other was pizza. Night Elf Pizza and Orc Pizza, to be precise
Despite being a long-time World of Warcraft fan and a dabbler in most of Blizzard’s other games, I’ve never managed to attend Blizzcon before. I’ve wanted to, for a long time. I used to be a very avid WoW player, but back then I couldn’t afford the trip all the way to Anaheim. As I got older and grew more financially stable, I’ve just become too busy. Year after year I’ve watched from afar as dozens of guildmates and friends attended, cosplayed, played games, and made memories. I’ve played WoW less as adulthood has caused my free time to steadily dwindle and Blizzard’s propensity for piling content into the game has only grown. But with anticipation for exciting announcements in my game of choice at an all-time high, this year was my year. Blizzcon!
And that anticipation paid off! What a show! But it also meant I spent most of the show upstairs, in the media rooms, working. I only managed to get onto the show floor for a few hours, near the end of each day. By the time I made it down, all the lines for activities were closed, and the merch booth was cleaned out. I had just enough time to take some pictures of the cool set pieces, do one little arts and crafts project (look at my “amulet” everyone!), and stand for a bit alone on the show floor watching groups of friends, guilds, and little communities love their respective games all around me.
I encountered the Night Elf Pizza, along with its counterparts the Orc Pizza and the WoW Pizza, as I walked out of Blizzcon last night. I was with two members of my World of Warcraft guild: one of whom (our team’s evoker healer) I knew before I ever played WoW with him and am close friends with, and another of whom (a mage) I was meeting in person for the first time.
I love my guild. I love our Saturday nights spent together walking a careful tightrope between taking the art of killing bosses quite seriously and goofing the heck off. I love our little inside jokes, how someone’s always Leap of Faithing me all over the map or when the other shaman and I trade off casting Skyfury on the raid to make a big “woosh” noise or how someone’s always making a terrible pun. And I love when we finally accomplish our big goal in each tier, when the game lags a little bit and everyone’s Ahead of the Curve achievements pop together and we all cheer.
I had been really nervous to meet our mage, but I hadn’t said that. He’ll probably find out from this article if at all. This is the first time I’ve met someone I only knew through the guild in person, so there’s that. And I’ve been a bit distant from my guild lately. Life has been busy. I’ve missed a lot of raid nights. It’s made me a little touchy and sensitive when I am there. Everyone has been so patient with me though, and kind. Still, I thought, maybe I’m annoying to be around! Maybe this mage who I have spent a lot of Saturdays with won’t like me very much, and maybe I’m going to make things totally awkward!
The three of us found each other. I didn’t make it awkward, I don’t think. For a little bit, we stood in the halls together, just another little WoW community laughing and chatting about the show. A small part of Blizzcon.
But, the pizza! We were debating where to go and eat dinner together and had just managed to decide we would leave the convention center area for some falafel, when we passed this sign:
All three of us stopped in our tracks together. We were all thinking the same thing: Night Elf Pizza? What? Like, made out of Night Elves? Or pi