Richard's Ramblings

Just because sometimes my mind overflows its brainpan. Figured this would make as good of an outlet to catch those overflows as any. No set theme, topic, or schedule, just whatever and whenever. :)

Author: RJCox

0745: Good morning all. I swear I just laid down like 5 minutes ago, stupid time differences. Anyway, lets see what's on the schedule for today... Turbine, NetDevil, NCSoft and the Jeff & Paul show for WAR. At least that's the plan, we'll see how well that goes though.

So yeah, they're starting to evacuate back home. Gustav is looking like it could get bad. Cat 3 currently and projected to be at least a Cat 4 once he hits the gulf. Still projected to hit closer to New Orleans than us, not that they really need another storm, but still. Not quite sure how likely it is going to be to be able to fly INTO an area that they're evacuating people OUT of, but I guess I'll find out Mon morning...

Anyway, back on topic, sorry, the storm's just on my mind a lot currently. Anyway, so yeah, those are the things above we have scheduled in, and we have free time around those, so I'll prolly hit some other stuff along the way as well. Definitely wanna get some more time in playing Aion. Beyond that your guess is as good as mine and we'll just see what comes out of it all...

As always, updates when I can break away and find the net. :)

1600: Ok, sorry for the lack of updates today, and really I don't have much to update right now. I've actually spent most of the day on the phone coordinating the evacuation of my family from halfway across the country. Nothing makes evacuating from a hurricane worse, unless your trying to get your family out and you're not there to directly take control and make sure everything happens as it should and everyone is safe and taken care of. I would have already left to fly back early but my local airport is already cancelling flights, and being stuck in an airport somewhere is no more helpful to my family than being here in Seattle where I already have a hotel room. As for the show itself all I've really gotten to do today between all the dealing with Mr Gustav was a little handson time with Champions Online. Nothing new to really report there, same build as I played at GenCon, still a blast to play. That and both the Cryptic folks and the CCP folks have been great about helping me keep my mind off of the hurricane and everything back home. Thanks to everyone here who has been sending me and my family well wishes and such.

Woot! Here I am, in Seattle, finally. Seattle is one of those towns that I absolutely love, but absolutely hate traveling to. I have to set aside a whole day travel time each way to get here. It isn't NEARLY as bad as when I was living in Virginia, geez those east to west coast flights sucked, but being in Texas it is still a HUGE pain. So yeah, I landed at about 1:07am this morning, got settled into my hotel at about 2am and up and ready to work by 7.

Well, let me be completely honest about that last bit. I was up at 7 because a friend back home called me. He works with the Coast Guard and apparently they're already throwing around words like "state of emergency" and "general evacuation" in regards to Mr Gustav out there hammering on Jamaica currently. Yes, I live in hurricane alley, prolly 30 minutes or so from the gulf coast. Crappy weekend to be out of town I guess, I'm sure the wife is cursing me up, down left and right about now, since she has to deal with the 3 kids (one of which is only 2 months old) and 2 dogs in the new house all alone. Plus it sucks because I know damn well Gustav isn't going to be gone by time Sunday night rolls around and I'm ready to fly back home... Knowing my luck he'll be JUST starting to pound on the gulf coast which means I'll get stuck in some airport somewhere for days on end. That's just how my luck tends to roll.

Anyway, back to PAX, lets see what's on the schedule today...

Today's lineup seems to be NCSoft (where I'll be getting one of the first ever handson sessions with Aion in NA, well, ok, maybe a slight exaggeration there, but there definitely haven't been many!) and we'll check in on all the rest of the games in their lineup. We'll also be swinging by the Mythic Entertainment booth to see how the Gold to Launch process is going. We also have Flying Lab penciled in for some Piratey goodness and then to cap it all off Cryptic is throwing a huge Champions Online party tonite. I'm sure we'll squeeze other stuff in between all that as well, we purposefully left gaps in there just for that reason, so stay tuned!

I'll be making updates here as I can throughout the day, it will all depend on how accessible the net is in the convention hall.

1000: So I'm here at the convention hall, got my badge, got my swag bag, nothing all that impressive in it, but there rarely is at these kinda shows, mostly just promo cards for the various exhibitors and such. The real swag comes from the booths. Early access for the press is supposed to start at noon, but there appears to be some issues with that, so we'll see. As for Turbine, I'll see what I can do but I can almost guarantee *IF* there are any such plans they will absolutely not admit or talk about them this early. At best I think I can hope for a canned "It's definitely something we've considered and will continue to consider down the road." They'd be silly to say anything else, since they won't admit to something that may or may not happen nor will they completely write off the franchise and any chances of doing it down the road...

More updates later as I learn when I can get into the actual hall and start seeing stuffz! :)

1200: Spent about an hour hanging out at the NCSoft booth playing Aion and chatting with the producer, assistant producer and others. Got lots of great information and absolutely loved my time playing the game so expect a great write-up on this as soon as I get time to sit and rework my notes into something that makes a remote amount of sense to anyone other than myself.

1330: MmMMMmMMMmmm... Fallout 3 goodness... Prolly my most anticipated non-MMO title of the show, or well period, and I got to play. *drool*

1400: Wandered around the show for a while seeing various things. Played some Starcraft 2, everything you'd expect it to be. Swung by the WAR booth, lots more familiar faces at this show than there were at GenCon. Visited the Left 4 Dead booth but the line was too long to get in on the zombie slaughtering goodness.

1500: Went by Flying Labs Software and interviewed them. Got some great community based information, which will come in a write-up, again as soon as I can compose the notes into something understandable.

1600: The crepe place outside the hall keeps calling my name... Smells so yummy... Getting so hungry... Also trying to decide between the Cryptic and Turbine parties tonight. Tough call... Will have to see how close together they are and if hopping back and forth is an option... Done with the scheduled stuff for the day, anything else I get will be spur of the moment booth drivebys, so we'll see what's left to update after the day is done.

0300: So yeah, I guess this would technically be day two, but since I haven't slept yet, it's still day one in my world. :P Hit both the Cryptic and the Turbine parties. Got a little lost on the way to the Cryptic party since it was a bit away from the convention center... Discovered a couple things on our scenic foot tour through downtown Seattle: 1) They grow their pigeons pretty damn big hear, we got chickens back home that ain't got nothing on some of these things. Huge I tell ya! 2) VERY dog friendly town, people walking their pooches everywhere, insides shops, in the convention hall, all over the place. 3) This must be the mohawk capital of the world, I swear every other person I see is sporting the do, even saw more than one homeless person with mohawks... just odd. Anyway, I digress, the Cryptic party was a blast, as always. Big props to Nat and all the folks over at Reverb who handle the PR/Marketing type stuff for Champions, they know how to throw a bash. Turbine party was also a great time, always enjoy when I get to hang out with that crew. And now I go to sleep so I can wake up in 4 hours and start all over again! See the sacrifices I make to bring you guys all the great coverage? ;) I kid, I kid, I'm damn lucky and I know it. Oh, and just for you Sam, no incidents with the nipple rings thus far. ;)

Good morning all! No (semi)-live blogging today, just one brief one since I'll only be at the show for a couple hours before I go catch my flight home. We don't have anything scheduled for the day work wise so it will pretty much just be shopping time for me.

But just so you didn't think we have been completely slacking since my last update yesterday afternoon, I also wanted to fill in a bit on what all we did since that update and on into the night.

From 1400 until about 1630 I wandered around getting play time on as many of the various MMOs as I could; DDO, LotRO, WAR, Champions Online, PotBS, AC1, a couple odd MMO/RTS and MMO slash collectible RTS things...

At 1730 we had our scheduled interview with Jack Emmert of Cryptic Studios where we mostly talked about Star Trek Online, but managed to slip in a couple Champions Online questions as well. I should have my written teaser/overview article of that up shortly after I get back. After that Szark went over to cover a panel discussion Jack was giving about Star Trek Online in a conference room at one of the nearby hotels.

For dinner we attended a party for RA Salvatore, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Drizzt, which makes me feel REALLY old now... It was a GREAT time, a huge thanks to Wizard of the Coast for hosting it and the Salvatores for getting us in!

After that we went to the CCP & White Wolf party. Those guys are tops when it comes to throwing a fan appreciation party. If you are ever at a convention or anything where they have a booth, I highly recommend you find out when and where the afterparty is and be there. Much fun was had by all in attendance. Big big thanks to you CCP folks for the invites and the whole party in general.

Wasn't much after that, wandered back to my room at about 4am, awake and ready to go at 8am, gotta love conventions. :) So again, thanks for suffering through these slowly updated semi-live blogs for the past 4 days, hope you enjoyed them. I'm off to the con for a couple hours of mingling, hanging out and shopping before I head to what I have to assume is an insanely overcrowded airport.

Getting a little late of a start this morning, but we have nothing scheduled early and it's going to be a very late night tonight. CCP's after-party is tonight and we'll definitely be attending as no one throws a party like CCP does. :)

1345: I also now have my own quest. I seem to have lost one News Editor by the name of Szark. If anyone stumbles upon him please send him my way. Off to continue my hunt, more updates later!

1330: It appears that I have become a quest item for the convention. Many of the other press and community folks have taken it upon themselves to track me down and stick swag in my backpack. Not that I'm complaining at all, it makes my swag hunting far less easier, so by all means, please, deliver swag to me so I don't have to go track it down. Although, I believe their ultimate goal is to weigh my backpack down as much as possible and tip me over.

1200: Spent about 30 minutes playing around on Champions Online. I must say I absolutely love the graphics of this game, it captures the superhero/comic feel more perfectly than I could have ever imagined possible. The combat was fast paced and fun, and didn't feel 'gimmicky' at all. They had XBox 360 controllers plugged in to use, and I tried it for a bit, but I preferred the keyboard and mouse setup by far. But that is probably more due to personal preference than anything, I watched several people using the 360 controllers and they looked very comfortable with them. After spending the time I did playing, this game has risen quite a bit in my 'most anticipated games' list. I enjoyed the 'Cities of...' games a lot, but Champions definitely looks like it's going to be a great game.

1100: Spent some time talking to Jeremy Dale of Mythic Entertainment about WAR. Great guy, always liked working with him when I was with Mythic. You can really tell that he absolutely loves what he's doing and the game. Also spent some time playing the game. It has DEFINITELY come a VERY long way since I last played while working for Mythic. Although, like most of you I'm sure, I'm very saddened by the cuts that were made recently but I also understand why it was done and can see the positive sides of it as well. I played a Swordmaster for about 15-20 minutes and it was very fun. The class seems very straight forward and well done. The area I was running around in was new to me as most of the elf content was still in the early stages when I was with the company.

1000: Awake, breakfasted and con bound. Not a lot on the agenda today, one interview left, that's with Jack at Cryptic. There are a couple panels/seminars we're going to try to catch, almost all of which are also being done by Cryptic. And I'm planning to get some extensive hands on time with Champions Online and maybe a couple others. Updates on tidbits from previous days' entries and other random tidbits: Back of the nipple ring still lost. Xbox 360 still broke. I still hate cabs. I'm still amazed by how many people IGN Vault brought to this event. TTH surprised me by how few they brought. No NCSoft or Blizzard makes me sad.

Good morning all! Sorry I didn't get to make a final update on yesterday's entry. After hitting up the SOE/FLS and Cryptic fan gatherings I ran into some old friends and long story short, there was drinking, there was dancing and there was a very early morning trip to Steak & Shake. So anyway, on to today's events.

1645: Wrapped up with interviews for the day and spending some time seeing the show before it closes. Yes, Bioware has a presence here, but they're only talking about Dragon Age, so unfortunately no chance of getting any info about their MMO. Couple more after parties to attend tonite. We'll be crashing Turbine's player gathering and Cryptic is hosting another event we'll be making a presence at. Also SOE/FLS's event was such a hit last night they've decided to have an impromtu followup tonight so we'll try to make an appearance there as well.

1600: Interview with Flying Lab Studio's CEO Rusty Williams. Great amount of info here about Pirates of the Burning Sea from someone who obviously loves what he does and the product he's working on. As with everything else we'll have a short article leading into the video interview being posted.

1500: Interview with Cryptic's Lead Designer of Champions Online Randy Mosiondz. There will be a short teaser article followed by the video interview.

1100: First interview of the day is with WAR's Community Relations Director Robert Mull. You can expect some great video from this one, definitely the longest interview of the show, primarily covering community aspects of the game.

0900: Awake, breakfasted and convention hall bound. Today we hope to squeeze in interviews with Cryptic, FLS and WAR. We'll see how that turns out though. Oh, and I'm on the hunt for more swag, my swag collection so far for this con is abnormally low. :(

Here we go, off to the races on day one of GenCon. Like I said, this will be updated at some point through the day, just not sure offhand when or how often, so just check back throughout the day.

1700: Pretty much done for the day as far as interviews and such go. Szark is currently attending a Cryptic panel/seminar about how they design their games while I'm updating this and sending content off to Stradden. After this we're going to be heading over to the SOE/FLS and Cryptic afterparties.

1645: Interviewed a couple of the CCP guys about EVE. Got some good video on that one, expect it soonish, along with a written teaser article for it.

1545: Went back to the WAR booth to chat with them some more. Just as surreal this time as the first. Oh well. Chatted with The Hickman a bit, unfortunately he's leaving the con early so he can get out to Leipzig and won't be able to participate in our interview with them. But we should be able to get some good info regardless. Will prolly be tomorrow when we sit down with them, so stay tuned! :)

1400: Ran into RA Salvatore, who I've known for years now. Spent about an hour and a half hanging out and chatting, tried to fish out some info on 38 Studios' MMO but no such luck. :( Always good to see Bob though, one of the greatest people I know to just hang out and chat with. Yeah, I know I'm name dropping a little here, but it was work related, I really did try to get any info I could about the game.

1315: Ok, back to the floor for me. More updates as I find more time to sneak away and steal someone's net connection. ;) Upcoming interviews include CCP/White Wolf this afternoon at 4 so stay tuned! :)

1300: Just got off the phone with my wife... It seems she dropped my 360... On a positive note, it seems to at least somewhat still work... If it's upside down... Much sadness now. :(

1215: Finished with Turbine, expect some great video and written coverage to come soon!

1130: First interview of the day is with Turbine, good times. :)

1100: Wandered around the hall for a while, visited the MMO related booths and set up interviews for the coming days. Visiting the WAR booth was a little surreal for me.

1000: So after some wandering around and confusion we found the press registration area and got our badges and everything squared away. Yay we're allowed in now!

0800: Awake, breakfasted and on the way over to the convention. First appointment of the day is Turbine plus whatever we just happen to stumble upon. :) Random side note of interest for the morning, I seem to have lost the backing to one of my nipple rings. This makes me sad. :(

So yeah, I'll be covering GenCon for the site and figured I'd run one of these nifty ongoing semi-live blogs. Today is just travel though, the con doesn't start until tomorrow, but I'm sure you want the WHOLE trip experience right? ;) Ok, prolly not, in which case just start reading tomorrow instead. :P

 2200: Wow, so dinner was interesting. Decided not to go to The Ram, since we'll prolly be going there tomorrow night. Just went across the road to Damon's Grill. Not great but not bad. Well, other than the karaoke... I've been in places that had karaoke before, naturally, who hasn't at one point or another right? But god the number of absolutely horrid songs that were sung in the course of our mean was mind boggling... So anyway, back at the hotel now, advil taken for the karaoke induced headache and nothing more to report for today, so keep your eyes peeled to this spot tomorrow for the Day 1 festivities. :)

2000: Szark made it in, after some initial technical difficulties with the computers were all set up and ready for some good GenCon coverage tomorrow. I have little interest in dragging my laptop around the con all day so that's why I called this "semi-live" as I'll take notes during the day and pop in when I can to add entries. Will definitely be fun times, Cryptic, Turbine, Mythic, SOE etc all present and we'll be harassing them for any and all info we can scrounge up. Now to figure out what's for dinner, I'm thinking steak and beer at The Ram. :)

1700: So I took a short nap, wandered around town for a bit. Szark should be landing soon so headed back to the hotel to meet up with him. Random Notes not associated with the timeline: I love being in a convention town during a big con like GenCon or Comic Con. It's just so funny watching all the people who are obviously intown for the con interacting with all the natives. On my flight from Houston to Indy there were some obvious ones... The guy with the top hat and the dragon-headed cane... The lady with the black pith helmet with the wedding viel attached to it. (I'm assuming those 2 were traveling together.) There were SEVERAL people wearing those oldschool dragon shirts. I know you know which ones I mean, the ones with the all over print of a dragon(s) that you used to could get at Spencers in the mall... I can't count the number of people I've seen walking around town and/or the hotel here in Indy so far carrying their copies of 'Axies & Allies' and various other games. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying any of this to make fun of anyone, I'm part of that crowd, even if I don't wear it as bravely for the whole world to see, I'm there. I say it because it's so interesting to sit back and watch, as someone who falls in the middle somewhere, the 2 groups of people interact. The con-goers going about their business in town, obviously hear from all parts of the country/world for the convention, extremely excited about it and proud of who they are... And then all the other people who just have no clue what to make of it all... It's good times.

1215: Woot, Arby's for lunch. :P It was either that or Subway, and I think they're serving crack with the sandwiches in Subway, never in my life have I seen so many people lined up waiting to get a Subway sammich... :P

1200: Ever been in one of those cab rides where you just KNOW the driver is driving circles around the town and taking the longest possible route to where you're going? I didn't know Indy was so big, heck, I was starting to think we weren't even in Indiana anymore. :P

1045: Landed in Indianapolis. As anyone who knows me with attest to, I'm a HUGE Colts fan, but I've never had the chance to visit Indy, so this will be fun, above and beyond the fun of the convention itself.

0600: Land in Houston, have about an hour layover before my next flight boards, which would normally be JUST enough time to make it from one terminal to the other and if you're lucky, hit the restroom and grab something to drink enroute. However, as fortune would have it, the plane I flew in on will be the plane I fly out on, same gate and everything.

0500: At the airport, better safe than sorry I guess, hate to have gotten stuck in traffic or something and missed my flight.

0415: Ok, I'm completely ready to walk out the door, but my flight isn't until 0545, why the hell did I wake up so early again?

0400: Woke up. Indeed an ungodly hour to wake up after not going to bed until like almost 1am.