Good Times in the Palace of the Awakened

I couldn't tell you how many runs I've done in POA. 10? 100? Who knows! It's always the same thing though. You see, I'm a healer, and often the lone healer when I do these runs, so most of the time I have my head down paying attention to what I'm doing and following the tank around completely at the mercy of the group leader and whatever their goals are.

Wow, that was a long sentence!

Anyways, I almost invariably end up doing the same run for some quest (probably swords of destiny, sad thing is I really don't know why I am helping people on most runs because I haven't even tried to attempt these epic quests myself) which always takes me to the same spot, we kill the same guy and the group breaks up, or goes to some other instance.

Last night, I found a dragon I never killed before in there, and I was getting discovery xp like it was going out of style! I ended up getting an achievement point and am just a few blue bubbles away from another.

So, here I am not paying attention to healing as the tank pulls.

Coast to Coast AM

I'm sure at least a few of you listen to Coast to Coast AM with George Norry (sp?) from time to time.

Last night I heard a classic caller, which would only be funny to avid game players.

They had an open line thing going on where people were talking about strange occurances and coincidences and the like... When someone named Gordon called from his secret lab talking about someone he and his colleagues call the G-Man who they see periodically around the lab from time to time, but he always disappears. He was described as a mysterious looking older gentleman in a suit with a briefcase and piercing green eyes.

I nearly died laughing when I heard this, because the description was so deadpan serious! If you know how the show goes, they pretty much hear out any wierdo's story, so this was the same case as George tried to find out about what they were working on in their lab and what not.

The clip ended with him mentioning that he would like to hear updates from Gordon about the G-Man in his secret lab.

hahahaah

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.

SOE Fan Faire 2007

It's 2AM, and I don't know why I'm still up after being at Fan Faire for the past few days. I guess I'm pumped up in a way, so glad to see that the fruits of our labor are starting to be revealed to people.

There is nothing more energizing than meeting enthusiastic people who love your work.

This year went pretty well, especially for the panels, which I was pretty happy with. Normally our panels are pretty much just Q&A sessions, but this year Gallenite asked all of us to come up with a mini presentation each that we could speak about when we started each panel.

I had some ideas in mind for what I wanted to say, but I actually just winged it for the most part, because I roll like that.

I'll probably take the time and write out something more extensive than this little post, but I just wanted to take a moment and thank all of the players of games that SOE makes, especially my EverQuest II friends. Every year I am reminded how great our players are, and how fun everyone is. I just can't get over how friendly everyone is to me. I just can't help but feel so grateful and fortunate to work on such a great game and have such great players. I don't know what I did right, but I wish I could bottle it and put it up for sale. It just feels awesome to feel this appreciated.