GenCon 2007

I'm back at work after a day's worth of rest from being at GenCon in Indianapolis for 5 days.

GenCon is an enormous gaming convention of all types, so if you are into video games, TCG games, board games, roleplaying games, ect.

I've never been to an event quite like this. I've gone to probably a dozen Comicon events here in San Diego which is a huge event for art, gaming and comics, but the sheer breadth of gaming that was represented at GenCon was overwhelming for a first timer.

I was quite unprepared to participate in GenCon on any level other than that of a game developer on EverQuest 2, so I a basically had a crashcourse in how the whole event is setup and how to find the kind of stuff I was interested in.

It's really hard to describe how big it is. Its huge. Games everywhere. Gamers everywhere. My mind was literally reeling from the size of the TCG gaming rooms. There were so many people in those rooms playing away, and we are talking about my 2AM visits to the game rooms! It was pretty crazy.

Most of you read my blog to hear about EQ2, so here is how it fit in at GenCon. I was showing the Rise of Kunark expansion at an SOE booth at the show. I got to show the game off for about 8 hours a day, with little breaks here and there to check out the goods at other booths. I normally am a guy who sits at a desk and makes game content, not show it off at tradeshows, but I felt pretty comfortable showing off my work there. I had a steady stream of EQ2 players, new and old stop by to check out the new playable race in Rise of Kunark, the Sarnak. I was also showing off the starting zone that they live in called Timorous Deep, a zone I personally worked on.

It's really crazy how diverse our players are. I talked to a kid who was 8 years old who plays our game, and a lady who has to at least be 75 years old with two level 70 characters. I got to meet alot of nice people and kicked back with a bunch of them at our get together at Jillians on Friday night.

I've all but totally lost my voice from talking my head off, so I hope I recover it soon, because I'm supposed to record the SOE podcast tomorrow.

For your info, yes I did end up spending alot of money there. Mostly on A Game of Thrones cards, and some presents for my wife, suchs as some shirts and some Harry Potter pins for us to wear (yeah im a dork, sue me!). When I wasn't manning the booth at the SOE kiosk, I spent my time looking around and watching people play miniature games and other cool stuff. I used to play Warhammer 40k back in the day, and I have to admit I'm feeling the bug again for miniature gaming after seeing all of the amazing minature displays and gaming going on.

Let's see, what else.... I got to see the new WoW expansion. The area I got to see looked alot like the dwarf starting area to me, I don't know if they had any new features showing off. I got to check out a bit of Starcraft 2 as well which looks pretty good. I saw Age of Conan a bit, and saw some gameplay from the new Warhammer MMO which looks like it might wrench a dollar or two out of my pocket come release.

I have pictures of GenCon over on my Flickr account.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/triptogn/sets/72157601571488458/

Yeah, I have a lot of pictures of the Pirate girl from Pirates of the Burning Sea, which looks awesome btw... She was a pretty funny girl, and happened to be standing next to me almost the entire show, so I figured she made a pretty good subject for my shots. I made the big mistake of lending her my camera however, and she got some crazy shots of the SOE crew and gamers as they were cruising by that you can check out.