Danielle "Panser" Mackey is an internet personality and YouTuber who primarily focuses on Blizzard games. With weekly content being uploaded to her channel, Panser has established herself as one of the most recognizable personalities in the industry. Since starting out, Panser has also began working as a content manager for Wowhead, one of the biggest websites for the top MMORPG, World of Warcraft. Novalas catches up with her at BlizzCon 2016 to discuss her experiences and her adventures thus far.

How're you enjoying Blizzcon so far?

Panser: Oh Blizzcon is a blast! I think they went so above and beyond, being their tenth anniversary and I'm so excited about the Necromancer, I knew there was going to be a big Diablo announcement, everybody said I was crazy, so I feel very validated right now.

You spent a lot of time on Thursday hosting the Wowhead party. How was that?

Panser: This was my second year hosting the Wowhead party and this year we had an amazing party planning team and we had such a blast, I think we gave away something like 800 or 900 prizes throughout the night, the crowd was always going insane and there was so much energy and I'm just so excited that I get to be a part of all this and the World of Warcraft community and Blizzard community is so amazing, especially when you compare it to some other games. Not to be biased, but it's such a friendly community and i feel so lucky to be a part of it!

How many Blizzcons have you gone to so far?

Panser: This is my, (oh gosh), I went to 2010, there was no 2011, 2012, 2013, missed 2014, went to 2015, so this is my fifth (sorry, math's hard!)

Wasn't 2011 the year where everyone was saying Blizzard was dying because there was no Blizzcon?

Panser: Yeah, it was funny because I made a video that was like, "how can they not have a Blizzon, the end is near", just completely flipping out, and the next year I got invited to the Blizzard campus, and all the developers were all tongue in cheek like "oh I loved your video about Blizzcon" and I was so horrified and so embarassed because that was one of my most raw and crass videos I had ever made, it was very angry like "ugh, I can't believe they're not doing Blizzcon, this is ridiculous they hate their fans" it was so over-dramatic, so it was embarassing for me but what was funny was a lot of the developers were like "we kinda felt the same way too you know, we all enjoy Blizzcon too and it's such a big thing for us here. Even though we work here, we enjoy it just as much as you guys do", so, even though i was embarassed, a lot of people were like "no I really did like it because I understood those feels".

Today and Tomorrow, you're spending a lot of time at the Darkmoon fair right? How is that going for you? Today you've spent a lot of time doing pin trading I believe?

Panser: Yeah, so, its absolutely insane! This year for the series three of the Blizzard pinsets they actually made a pin of me! I have no idea how that happened, I've tricked them into thinking I'm far more relevant than I really am, so me and the other girl from Wowhead Perculia we've had a couple dedicated chunks of time to trade off our pins to people and everybody's really excited about it because they're very limited, there's only like 2000 of each which is as rare as the Horde and Alliance Murlocs and I have no idea how this happened, It's so exciting and everybody's been so positive and so supportive and again I feel so lucky to be a part of this community.

Going back to communities of other games, a while back you were a part of the League of Legends community, but now on your Twitter bio it says "Blizzard Entertainment gamer", so are you completely shifting focus?

Panser: Yeah, to be fair (I'm gonna get heavy here for a minute), I didn't stop playing League of Legends or stop making League of Legends videos because of that community, I was actually astounded of how supportive everyone was of me in that community, I was expecting the big stereotype of toxicity, but the fans of [League of Legends] that are outside of the game are so excited about it, they want to be involved in content creation so I always had such a great community of people behind me, Surrenderat20 was always so great to me, but, (here we go super heavy), my dad actually died, and when that all happened I shut myself off and played nothing but League for like three months, and then when i started healing from all that playing League reminded me of those feelings, so it had nothing to do with League it was a very personal thing.

I've played a little bit here and there, but once you take a year or two break, so much has changed, the map is different, I used to main jungle and theres different monsters and different buffs and I have no idea what's going on, so maybe one day I'll be able to really focus and get some time back into it, but I do not want to misconstrue anything, It was not the community they were amazing and I met some amazing people while I did stuff for League of Legends and I wouldn't have traded that experience for the world. Like I said, the community was nothing but kind and supportive to me.

Your Youtube channel recently broke 400,000 subscribers, you're putting out a lot of content and you're the Video Content manager for Wowhead. How do you find time to juggle between those two?

Panser: I don't. I am a famous person for burning the candle at both ends and kind of working myself a little too hard. It's hard for me to sit back and relax and take a break because I feel like "I could be getting this productive thing done instead" but I've been trying in the last couple of months to pace myself a little better and to set my expectations of myself not necessarily lower but more realistic because sometimes I act like I'm a ten person crew and I'm not. I'm actually very dissapointed because I miscalculated my time this morning and I really wanted to make a video right after the opening ceremony and there was just no way that was happening with the obligations I had today so maybe as soon as I get home, I don't know, I still have reherseals for the Q&A tomorrow and soundchecks so I dont know that I'll have time to do that before I leave so it might be a Monday thing which breaks my heart because I would really like to have something up now, but beggars can't be choosers I guess!

Image courtesy of instagram.com/TradeChat

You mentioned that you were really excited for the Necromancers, what else really caught your eye seeing as Blizzard didnt really announce as much as expected?

Panser: I don't know what people's expectations were but I didn't expect a huge [World of Warcraft] announcement because of all the content that we've got recently and all the new stuff that's come out recently and to see a remastering of Diablo 1, to see a Necromancer in Diablo 3 and a whole new expansion in Hearthstone, and maybe it's because I'm a little bit on the nerdy end of the spectrum (I majored in chemistry and Biology in college) I was very excited to hear Blizzard partnering up with this crazy A.I. company to teach A.I. to be smarter, although its also sort of terrifying, they made a whole game about A.I. taking over the world and starting a war and now they're participating in helping A.I. to learn more strategy, so I don't know maybe I take that back but, I thought there was a lot of exciting stuff that came out this morning and I'm just always excited to be here, whether they were announcing anything or not. Everybody here is just so amazing and it's so great to be among people that are like-minded and have the same interests, so i guess all of it? (Can I answer that? Is that cheating?)

What are your realistic expectations for 2017?

Panser: My goal is, this year I'd like to be producing content three times a week on top of my obligations with Wowhead, which is the podcast and I also do some video stuff for them as well and I'm excited for our big St Jude play live event this year, so far my team is up to 187,000 dollars raised for St Jude and I would love to get up to 250,000 total this year so hopefully we can get that done, but it's funny I keep setting these big goals for myself and then having to set new goals, like one of my big goals was to get featured by a major gaming outlet and I was featured by Kotaku twice now recently which is insane, and I had another goal to hit 250,000 subscribers, obviously that happened a couple of years ago and one of my big goals recently was to host something at Blizzcon and im hosting the World of Warcraft Q&A on the main stage this year so I keep finding myself needing new goals which is the best problem in the entire world to have.

Do you have anything you might be able to share with fans?

Panser: Ooo, well I guess the only thing I really, I dont have any insider information (I wish I did that would be amazing), but if you have maybe thought about playing World of Warcraft and you're new to it or coming back then Legion is a great time to get into the game, I believe it's at it's peak right now, I think the content that is out right now is better than any previous expansion and I think you'll have a great time and If you need help learning about it I, uh, I could reccomend a youtube channel to you, it's not bad I guess.

Do you have anything that you're working on that you want to share with fans?

Panser: I don't have anything super new coming up, but like I said, I'm gearing up for this year's (well I haven't even finished last years St Jude play live) but this years St Jude play live is gonna be our biggest event ever and I'll have a whole new team of streamers and if you're a new streamer thats maybe trying to get into Twitch this is a great oppurtunity to get noticed because you'll have a lot of big streamers willing to host you and promote you because you're doing something for a great cause. So definetely check out our charity events in the future because I think they're the thing that is most worthwhile promoting.

Finally, do you have any shoutouts that you want to make?

Panser: Shoutout to my little sister who started playing [World of Warcraft] recently and it makes me so happy but now she plays Alliance so that's kind of lame, but still. Also thank you so much to everybody over the years who has supported me, all of my subscribers and my followers and all that, and thank you so so much to Blizzard for giving me all of these oppurtunities that have blown my mind I'm so grateful that I can't even express anymore.