Dana: Woe and Defeat!

A ping-pong master, I shall not be. The final 32 man tournament for the modified XBOX 360 simply didn’t go my way. I knew I was in trouble when my opponent told me he owned the game. When he started doing trick shots, I knew my improbable run had come to an end. I lost 11-0, 11-2. Oh dear.

So, to sooth my bruised ego, I headed next-door to try the PvP demo for Pirates of the Burning Sea. Turns out, I faced a cheating Lead Designer! Taylor Daynes used his “hot bar” to shoot better and sail faster en route to sinking my beloved pirate ship. Curse the British! My first mate, an unnamed animator, didn’t tell me about the powers of this hot-bar until it was much too late. It was a spirited battle – we closed in quickly rather than squirming about in a giant circle – but one cannot compete against unsavory tactics.

Two losses in two tries, it simply was not my day!

Saturday night was spent at the Turbine Entertainment party. Held in the same place, the party drew a slightly different group of gamers. The crowd was roughly the same size for both companies. Oddly, I managed to end up in the beer line with the same people from the Pirates party. The entire affair was a good time. We got a group demo presentation from Nik Davidson, the Lead Systems Designer, and some drinks. As typically happens at these events, the night wound down with a group of press types squirreled off in the corner. Thanks to both Turbine and Flying Lab for the fun evenings.

The finale of the show was straightforward enough. We snuck in early to meet with Turbine. Carolyn saw Dungeons and Dragons Online, while I saw Lord of the Rings Online (articles forthcoming!). Then, I escorted Carolyn’s brother Gary around as he took photographs of the floor (photographs coming!). Our last two appointments were Warhammer Online and Pirates of the Burning Sea. I did the later, and aside from getting belted by Taylor, I also got a lot of juicy exclusive information on the avatar combat system they just announced.

Then, it was time to leave. As usual, I met a few new people and got to see a lot of familiar faces. PAX draws a different crowd (more gamers and community folks, less press and developers), so it was definitely an interesting shift to a show’s dynamics.

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