General Discussion

I know what you're thinking right now as you drink your first or second or third pot of coffee this morning.  You're thinking, she didn't blog for us yesterday!  It's day TWO of E3 not day ONE!  Ok, you're right, it's actually day two but since I'm not AT E3 yet it's technically only been one day for me.  Do you see the logic?  Go with me here folks it was a long day yesterday.  Let me explain how long.  (I know that's what you're here for anyway.)

The morning started with rousing everyone from bed to get them moving.  'Everyone included my husband (Rayvan) and Sean "Ashen Temper" Dahlberg.  Ok, so Sean was up already actually.  Being a couple of hours ahead of us he was awake and chilling on TV when I finally wandered into the living room.

We headed off to breakfast around 8a.m. at the local IHOP and I can tell you they really know how to treat someone right.  Ok, well not really but they were giving out free carnations and I have a weakness for their tempting spicey smell.

After getting sufficient protein in our bodies we made the drive down to E3 and started the quest for parking.  Let me tell you, seeing $40.00 to park close to the convention center does not give me the slightest bit of thrill.  We ended up paying a whopping 30 but were only a block and a couple scary alleys away.  It's not hard to find your way to E3 no matter how much you try to get lost.  Seriously.  The geeks migrate to it and being one of the herd you can spot your own a mile away.

Outside the convention center were protestrs.  What kind of protestors you ask?  At first they looked like anti-war protesters.  They had cute little signs all done up that said "Make Love Not War" written on the front of them.  But... when they turned around you could learn that it was an advertisement for the game The Naughty American on the back. You see, the powers that be at E3 decided they really didn't need the game to be shown there. I'm sort of torn on it and don't have too much of an opinion other than to each their own.

Inside we were able to quickly make our way up to the media registration and with a deft flick of the wrist and a presentation of masses of information (thanks to Dana here at MMORPG.com) and a brief glimpse at our IDs we were shuffled into the back end computers to type in our information and submit it so we could get our actual badges.  I need to point out that this is the first time that I have received a lanyard that was not ultimately a stretchy piece of string with a piece of metal attached.  I normally have had to arrive at the show for the last day at best and that was it.  This year I have three (count them now) 1,2,3 days at E3.  What does this mean for all of you?  It means you're going to most likely have to deal with my insanely book length blogs about all there was to see and do at E3.

Our first appointment for the morning was with Dark and Light.  I was told to meet them at the top of the stairs at the west hall.  I kept thinking perhaps they had a meeting room, but no.  I later learned we were merely to 'meet up'.  Well after wandering aimlessly we were five minutes late getting back to the suppossed meet up point.  We wandered around, poked a few badges and stared at people like we could be their newest stalker and in the end never actually ran into them.  I don't know what to think of Dark and Light other than it's been awhile.  The last time I really saw anything was two years ago at E3 and even then there wasn't alot to see but there were the usual well intentioned possibilities and hopes we've all come to know and love.  When will they release?  Well according to their site May 30th 2006.  It doesn't bring me much to report to you as to their state to release and I can only conjecture a few things.  I'm a bit concerned that a game that is set to launch does not have a booth or even a small meeting room reserved to show something off to media.  This doesn't normally bode well for a game.  Marketing any game to make it successful is crucial and things so quiet doesn't make a game anticipated or expected on the shelves.  A game that has been in development for awhile also is not going to leap off the shelves at people even if it's the best game that could ever have been made to date.  I'd like to say their future looks bright but I can't.  If we don't get to see anything and don't get to report on anything then I'm going to guess that most people aren't really going to expect anything either. After waiting around for about 15-20 minutes harrassing people and doing body searches (kidding folks) we wandered on. 

I had a personal appointment at 1:15 but at this point it was only about 11:30 so we were able to take the time to visit the community manager of Eve Online, Kieron.  He's quite the game pusher I can tell you.  He's been sending me subliminal messages hidden in posts and emails about playing Eve Online and I felt I should meet my tormentor in person.  He's probably one of the nicest people you can meet really and the Eve booth is amazing.  It's in probably one of the best spots you could get at E3 and sits in a corner but that's not the best part about the booth.  The best part was what they had upstairs.  It was open bar and a nice seating area for the weary to rest their toes and get sloshed should they choose.  I did not imbibe however.  I know what you're saying "But you passed up free booze!"  It's ok really.  For me it's about the margarita and I have to be in the right mood for it.  I had some water and a coke and that was great.  The best part was getting off of my feet.  People will be excited to know that Eve Online intends to allow users to have access to their banks and such within the game via remote device.  According to Kieron it's still in beta and there is no set launch for it but it's something I know personally to have been on the list of "I wants" by many MMO players.  Who wouldn't want to do the menial tasks of handling your bank vault and shopping from anywhere when bored or waiting somewhere or when you just couldn't be at your computer to do it?

After stopping by Kieron's we headed to the Funcom booth to take a brief glance at Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures.  I didn't get to get hands on with it or talk to anyone as of yet but hope to at least get an update on it from my own perspective in order to compare to what I saw last year.  The fact that they had it up and out in the open versus appointment only means they are making good progress and from what I could see it looked pretty good.  They DID have booth babes there which were the first I had actually seen that were in costume rather than dressed in T-Shirts and slacks/pants like at some of the other booths.  The line of drooling personages that wanted pictures of them wasn't exactly short either.  At one point during the day the line wrapped around the side of the booth.  I don't know if it was the idea of getting the free blow-up sword, the sitting in a throne or the taking the picture with two blonde babes that had people lining up really.  Maybe it was the combination of all three and what guy could really resist the allure of a free blow-up sword that could be later used as a bludgeon to get through the crowds?

For some reason I can't access the MMORPG.com FTP so rather than a nice clicky image I'll just stick one in here for you for now.  Here's the line for the booth babe, King for a moment pictures.

Here's another of the side of the throne and the girls.

I will say that at least they had everything covered and the idea fit in well with the idea of Conan. 

From here it became a bit of a blur as we made our way over toward South Hall a bit to see what we could see there.  This was the blaringly loud section of E3.  E3 is normally loud there is no doubt.  I think it wasn't quite as blatantly loud as last year but it was still loud.  When we walked in we found ourselves drawn to the EA booth.  I'll explain why.  It was big, it was loud and it had a massive 360 degree theater in the round so to speak in which you could watch the promos they had running for the upcoming games.  Excuse me while I wipe up a little drool here.  Their lineup included Battlefield 2142, Crysis, Madden 07 and many more but the one I was most interested in seeing was Spore.  You know the game.  Yeah it's not an MMO but I'm going to gush about it anyway.  Then again, maybe it's a hybrid MMO or an almost MMO... like an AMMO.  Ooh, AMMO, I like it.  We stood to find out how we could get in on Will Wright doing his demo and then at that point we decided to head back toward where my appointment was and vowed to come back afterward so that we could stand in line and get in on the 20 minute demo.

While I'm sure you'd like to know what my appointment was, I'm not telling.  I'll just say it went well and you can be happy in the knowledge. ;)

Afterward we hightailed it back to the Spore line.  Sean was already waiting for us in line so after a few body checks to get through to him we managed to skim under the rope and stand with him.  I'm sure people behind us were a bit disgruntled but hey, we had a spot saver!  It was about a 35 minute wait by the time the one group in front of us went and came out and then we got our chance to go in.

I'm sorry, I'm drooling again here as I think about it.  Let me put it like this, I think this could be one of the most fun sandboxes people could want.  You can create your own creatures with an extremely simple interface and design system.  If you want to spend hours designing your creatures have at it.  If you don't want to a couple clicks will probably bring you some satisfaction.  As your character advances, so can you advance the species by using points to get upgrades thus evolving it.  Eventually you can mate your creatures, build cities and nations and eventually colonize other planets.  How many planets will there be?  Millions.  That's right folks, Will Wright figures there will be millions of planets that people will have created and colonized and control. 

What makes Spore an AMMO? It's that you don't interact live with other players but are in fact connected to other players and their created content.  You can explore their worlds and they can explore yours.  The difference being, you don't get to interact with their actual worlds as they are playing it, but as YOU are playing it.  It's an odd creature this aMMO. The levels of 'cool' are many with this game.  As you gain content from the database you essentually collect what look like Game Cards complete with statistical information.  You will be able to trade other players these and collect them here there and everywhere.  Could I explain how ultimately cool this game is in one blog in a couple of paragraphs?  Heck no.  I am not even going to try other than to say that essentially this is MY most anticipated game of this year.

Being close to the Vivendi booth and of course Blizzard we went by to take a brief look at the new Alliance expansion.  We mostly got to say "hi" to the folks at Blizzard briefly who were hopping and answering questions left, right and sideways for folks.  The booth (which wasn't particularly small) was hopping and above everyone's heads was the trailer playing and showing off the pretty we've come to know from WoW.  I would have sat down at a machine to take a look at the new areas but every machine was taken and there were crowds surrounding each one all waiting for their turn.  Perhaps I'll get a chance to get a hands on to see what it's really like today or tommorrow.

We also stopped by the Webzen booth to say hello to our old friend Chris "Vosx" Mancil and take a brief look at what they had going on there.  I have an actual interview with him on Friday so I'll be able to get into a few things like the much anticipated SUN and Huxley then.

We had a meeting with the folks at Akella who we got a chance to sit down briefly with to find out some more information on what they've been up to.  Akella is a Russian company and is the Eastern European publisher for Pirates of the Burning Sea and will distributing all over through Russian, Ukraine and more.  They are looking to become the heavy hitters on that end of the world and have put alot of their own work into making PotBS something that we all can look forward to.  They are responsible for much of the ship art as well as other artwork in the game and have fantastic experience in Naval Battle based games.  You can see their listing here.  My real regrets about the interview is that I didn't take the time to finish learning Russian and thus can't speak but a couple of words and Andrey's English was just slightly better than my Russian.  They have a couple of their own titles Age of Pirates and Captain Blood that Playlogic is presenting as well as their worldwide publisher.  Let me say that I watched them both briefly in the demo in their booth and both are bloody and include some decapitations and flying sprays of blood spatter.  I don't know how it's going to get rated but I'm thinking there are alot of pirate wannabes looking for fun and it looks like Akella is helping that come to fruition.

Let me tell you folks.  As you can see from this blog, it was a very long day.  I'm not sure you'd call it all that productive but you never know what people will think.

At the end of the day I finally hooked up with Dana and the gang at the Mythic Booth.  They were throwing a little party and when I say little I don't mean the amount of people; I mean the space.  It was a sardine party and we were the sardines.  That said, I was able to meet up with Sanya from Mythic Entertainment who I hadn't seen in a couple of years and ran into Nicole "Awenyddion" Hamlet from Ten Ton Hammer.  Apparently she could have died the other night from dinner.  At least that's what her chef told her when she tried her first bite of Sashimi.  Apparently the story goes that she contemplated before trying it and then said, "What's the worst that could happen?"  To which the chef responded, "You could die."  It became their catch phrase for the rest of the time and I think it's a darn good one.

The day ended up with an almost party and then a late dinner at the Outback Steakhouse.  We hit the sack at 11:00 last night and before you wonder why, I'll tell you why, because it was a long day and we still had two more long days to go.

I'll be headed back to E3 for day two in just a few but thought I'd jot this down for you and plan to see alot more goodies today as well as have a sitdown with Turbine to talk about their DDO expansion as well as Lord of the Rings Online.

For now I'll leave you two more images of a piece of street art that was being done right in the middle of the convention center floor.  The artist is Kurt Wenner and it will blow your mind.

I apologize in advance for posting here but I wasn't sure how one might get a hold of the people who are covering the E3 expo and ask them to got to the SOE / LA booth and ask some very hard hitting question in public regarding SWG and how they have lied and treated their customers. If  you need ideas for question feel free to let me know.

Thanks,

Tauceti

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We ended up paying a whopping 30 but were only a block and a couple scary alleys away. It's not hard to find your way to E3 no matter how much you try to get lost. Seriously. The geeks migrate to it and being one of the herd you can spot your own a mile away.

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Like Wildebeest. Watch out for the lions, the tech salesmen, don't appear weak too. They're like wolves, they separate you first. When you're away from the herd they hit you with $495.00 3D Glasses, the new ASUS Extreme N7800GT Dual or even worse the New AMD Opteron 170. You must remain strong!

It's a shame Dark and Light is going the way it is. I was really excited about the title back in 2004. During the WoW release I would talk to my Guild about it, about all the technical aspects that the Dark and Light developers were implementing. Regardless of this I hope the game comes through with the implementations they touted.

Continue to have a great time at E³. Maybe the waiting line to take photos of the AoC throne won't be so long today.